“Purpose?” Sakamoto pushed out a mouthful of air in a breathy grunt of angry amazement. “We are the Draconis Combine, and you ask about purpose? Our purpose should be clear.”

Not cowed in the slightest. Bhatia gave the warlord an appraising look. Sakamoto was big, taller than Kurita by a half meter, with the squashed face and hefty physique of a barrel-chested wrestler going to seed. His bulbous nose trembled with suppressed rage, and a pulsing network of spidery, bloodred capillaries spoke of a man with earthy appetites who took his pleasure in the conquest of women and one too many late-night bottles of plum wine. A drunk and a womanizer, he brays the loudest of the three and makes the Peacock look like a fuzzy dowager decked out in her Sunday best.

Kurita was speaking. “Tai-shu Sakamoto, our purpose lies in the security of the Combine, nothing more or less. We have enough to occupy us. There is no need to expose our people to potential privation and bloodshed.”

“Privation,” Sakamoto grated. “What do they know of that, of anything but their own comforts?”

“And are you so very different, Tai-shu? Yes, true, we’ve only known three decades of true peace after the second war with Clan Ghost Bear, and if memory serves, we defended ourselves. We did not set out to conquer. Since 3102 our armies have been”—Kurita paused—“culled. Of course, we still know how to wage small-unit actions, but do you or any of your troops really know how to wage a full-scale, multiworld operation? What, pray tell, do you know of that kind of war?” Again, Kurita’s tone was mild, and although Bhatia despised Kurita’s pretentiousness—the royal we–he had to admit that the insult was as pointed as the kissaki of a well-honed blade.

Sakamoto opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, and Bhatia put a hand to his mouth to hide a smile. The man looked like a beached fish that had swum too close to shore and been tossed on the sand.

But it was a man to Kurita’s right who spoke next. His face was square, the skin tanned and leathery from sun, and the features heavier, like the work-coarsened face of a day laborer. But he had the frosted-blue eyes of the Kuritas, and the same broad forehead, though his hair was a lion’s mane of lush black streaked with comets’ tails of silver. “That may be true, Tono, but even you know that a largely unblooded army may be formidable nonetheless. And we’re not talking about an enemy with the resources to mount any serious resistance.”

“Listen to your son, Tono.” An almost silken purr from Toranaga. “Theodore Kurita speaks true.”

“Really?” said Kurita, with a hint of dryness. “And does he speak for you, Tai-shu?”

Toranaga blinked, but before he could reply, Theodore leaned forward. “Father, the Combine is vast. The Republic doesn’t have the will to conquer, nor to defend itself. With the HPGs gone, The Republic will almost certainly fall, the prefectures toppling one after the other like dominoes; we all know that.”

Well played. Bhatia approved. Theodore Kurita might not have the intellectual nimbleness or fiery spirit of his namesake, but he was a prudent, clear-sighted man. A pity he has no heirs, else he might be an acceptable replacement for the Peacock. It was a well-known secret that Theodore’s Chomie was infertile. After four miscarriages there were mutterings about adoption, or else the Combine faced the unthinkable: a less than pure Kurita as substitute. Why Theodore refused to take a lover mystified Bhatia. Well, perhaps Theodore loved his wife—and that particular display of sentimentality Bhatia considered a fateful flaw. A true ruler never let little things like matrimonial vows and fidelity interfere with the smooth running of the machinery of state.

Sakamoto seized on the brief silence. “Your son is right, Tono. The Republic will not fight, or if they do, they will not do it well and the fight will be brief. Their forces are negligible, and what men they do have are untried and untrained, as soft as ripe peaches.”

Theodore opened his mouth, but Kurita held up a single finger without glancing at his son, and Theodore subsided. “That may be true,” said Kurita, his placid eyes never wavering from Sakamoto’s face, “but we have not given you permission to taste the fruit of that particular tree.”

“And why not?” Sakamoto demanded, belligerent as a mule. “Surely you don’t regard that Vega fiasco last year as a setback? There’s not a shred of evidence The Republic had anything to do with it, and even if they had, why should we let that deter us? If anything, our failure to take Vega should impel us to erase the dishonor! You don’t see The Republic standing in Katana Tormark’s way!”

“Her course is her own affair and will not dictate how we navigate ours, and we say it is not yet our time.”

“Then when? What, are you waiting for a sign to drop from the heavens? An auspicious omen? Every day we do not act is another day the Clans muster the will; every moment that passes is opportunity for the Capellans to launch a new campaign. What better moment than right now, while The Republic’s besieged on different fronts?”

“We have tried.” And now Kurita’s gaze fell on Bhatia. “We have failed. Vega was a sign that we are not as strong as we would like to believe.”

Ouch. Not as caustic a rebuke as other, more paranoid coordinators would have made; Takashi sprang to mind. Still, the barb stung, and Bhatia knew that he couldn’t let the moment pass without an attempt at defense, and most particularly not when this little drama was being played under the watchful eyes of the warlords. “Yes, Tono, we were sabotaged. But we have reason to believe that we were compromised through the misdeed of one particular malcontent, someone with an ax to grind against the Combine, and we are seeking for ways to bring him to swift and certain justice.” (A little piece of flummery and pure fiction, but appearances, appearances: Bhatia was certain they could dredge up some anonymous soul to put to an ignominious death.) “Our intelligence apparatus has been”—and Bhatia chose the word with exquisite care—“hampered by the HPG outage, nothing more.”

“Oh, don’t play at words, Bhatia,” Sakamoto said, his tone just the near side of a sneer. “You and your ISF haven’t the teeth anymore; you’re as ineffective as a toothless old grandmother, and you know it.”

Bhatia heard someone suck in a horrified, melodramatic gasp—Saito, probably, the worm—but Bhatia paid no attention. Instead, he leaned forward, snagged Sakamoto’s gaze with his own, and said, “Take care, Tai-shu, else you might discover that I have no need for anyone to feed me soft, sweet rice just yet.”

The menace was clear, and Bhatia saw by the nervous click of Sakamoto’s eyes away then back that the warning had struck its mark. “I… apologize, Director,” said Sakamoto, though he said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I meant no disrespect. I let the heat of the moment go to my head.”

“Indeed,” said Bhatia, and he did not smile. “Someday you may discover that, much to your regret, your head lacks a tongue to wag.” He saw the struggle in Sakamoto’s eyes; could practically hear the ticking in the man’s brain as he calculated just how aggressively—and if—he should respond. Oh, Bhatia’s threat was real enough. The ISF might’ve been scaled down by the original Theodore’s reforms, and those of his son Hohiro. Yet even those mighty rulers had known this truism: One cannot prick a tiger too sharply or often, and expect to live very long.

“Indeed,” Sakamoto finally managed, though his tone was less brutish. His face had drained of color like water trickling through a sieve, and the tremor Bhatia saw twitch at the man’s mouth was not rage but fear.