Lestrade squinted through the room's dim light at the dwarf. He pulled back for a second, then looked closely at his visitor again. Finally he settled back in his chair, an astonished smile spreading across his wide face. "My God, is it possible? I thought she died in the raid. Someone told me afterward that she'd been pregnant... I couldn't have cared before. .. ." The Duke looked at the plastic left hand he wore as a result of the Kurita raid twenty-four years before. "Afterward, I would have given my rightarm for her child. What was her name?"

Clovis threw back his long black hair with a proud shake of his head. "Danica. Her name is Danica Holstein. I am Clovis."

A chuckle began deep in Lestrade's barrel chest and grew to fill the room. "Clovis. That's a good name, a strong name. It means illustrious battler. Yes, yes . . . Clovis Lestrade." The Duke's eyes flashed with unadulterated joy. "Clovis Lestrade .. . That's as good a name as I would have chosen for you myself."

The dwarf rested his hands on his hips. "Now I have come for you."

Lestrade nodded enthusiastically. "Of course you have, my boy. You've come for what I can give you, what we can share. The Lyran Commonwealth is a ripe plum, just waiting to be plucked by someone with the courage and knowledge to take it." The Duke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Of course you broke through my computer's security—by the gods, you've got to be brilliant. Now my people will have someone to lead them when I have passed on."

Clovis smiled easily. "I have people as well, father."

The Duke heard his words, but placed different emphasis on them. "Father," he said, musing over the sound of the word. "How often have I been jealous of other men who have children? There I was, a strategist without equal, a political leader who is a god in his own realm, yet I had no heir, no future on which to build. I would look at some halfwit peasant toiling on an agro-combine, with a dozen wailing brats surrounding him like a pack of mongrels. I could not understand my fate because I knew God had chosen me for great things."

Lestrade smiled at his son. "Now I see that it makes sense. It does not surprise me that you have followers of your own. That would only be natural. I can see it in you, the Lestrade fire. You can speak passionately and make people listen. You can inflame them and direct them. How many are your followers? What is your power base?"

Clovis's dark eyes hardened. "It was a small community on Lyons. It was called New Freedom and it died when you ordered the Kell Hounds to abandon the world."

The Duke frowned for a moment as the pain in Clovis's voice confused him, but his dreams of empire carried him away again. "It was too bad about that. But the important thing is that you survived." The horror of losing the son he'd not known sent a tremor through him. "Do you have a son? Am I a grandfather?"

Clovis shook his head. "Not yet."

The Duke laughed aloud. "But you will, Clovis. You will. I will arrange for you a marriage that will strengthen our ties with the Tamar Pact. When your son assumes the throne, he will rule a realm a third the size of the Lyran Commonwealth."

Clovis shook his head. "I'm afraid you don't understand why I am here. Just as you killed your father, I will kill you. First, I wanted you to know who I am, and that your foul line ends with you."

The joy on Lestrade's face melted into outrage, then changed to calculated pity. With his right hand, the Duke tugged on his artificial left hand, bending it all the way back against his forearm. At his wrist, the barrel of a laser pistol popped out and pointed directly at Clovis.

The Duke shook his head. "I am not as stupid as my father. I am never without a weapon."

Clovis laughed at him. "As I told you before, I've been in this castle for two days. I learned about your little trick from the computer and I drained the battery cell last night after you removed the arm to sleep."

Lestrade stabbed the laser at Clovis, but no beam shot from it to impale him. The Duke levered himself out of the chair and raised the plastic and steel limb. "It does not matter! You are nothing! I will crush you!" He took one step toward the dwarf, then clutched at his chest. The Duke sank heavily to his knees before pitching forward onto his face.

Clovis approached him, pleased to see his father's breath moistening the cold marble floor. "I'm a Lestrade, father. I've been here two days and you never saw me. I would have remained here a week or a month or a year if I had to."

Clovis lifted the Duke's head just enough so the man could see the sideboard. "Were I acting just for myself, or the people you caused to be murdered at New Freedom, I would have killed you cleanly. But in your attempt to kill the Archon, you had my best friend's lover killed. You gave Daniel Allard untold pain—pain he does not deserve—and for that, I decided to break you. The only reason you saw me tonight, Father,is because you were moving to drink from the brandy I poisoned when I first got here. I just wanted to see your face when you realized that you would die a complete and utter failure."

Clovis laid the Duke's head back down on the cold floor, then walked away, leaving Aldo Lestrade to die very, very much alone.

48

Nusakan

Isle of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth

24 October 3029

Chu-saAkira Brahe left his company under the command of Jack Seaborg to pace his way through the Genyoshacolumn. Pulling parallel to his father's Warhammer,he keyed up a radio link. Sumimasen, Tai-sa Yorinaga.Please speak with me on our private channel."

His father's voice came after a moment's hesitation. "Hai."After a short buzz of static, Yorinaga Kurita's voice again filled Akira's neurohelmet. "As you asked for this conference by addressing me by rank, I shall assume we will speak only of military matters?"

Akira winced at the anxiety mixed with an uncharacteristic eagerness in his father's voice. What we are to face both worries and exhilarates him. The calm that seemed the core of his being erodes as he draws closer to his meeting with Morgan Kell.He drew in a deep breath in a weak attempt to allay his own anxiety. "Hai, sosen.My primary concern is military, but it does not smother all else that I feel. But the Way of the Sword enables me to put aside personal concerns to consider the military necessities of a situation."

Yorinaga's laughter brought a smile to Akira's lips as the Mech-Warrior stepped his Orionaround a wind-carved dolmen. "Well put, Chu-saBrahe. I am rebuked for placing my personal concerns ahead of military ones, though, in actuality, I have not done so."

Akira frowned. A desert wind swirled red dust up into a bloody dervish that coated both lead 'Mechs with a layer of ochre. He glanced at his heat monitor and noticed that because of the external temperature, his 'Mech's monitor lights were already creeping into the yellow cautionary zone.

"Forgive me, Tai-sa,if your statement confuses me. Ever since you learned that Palmer Conti—at loose ends because of the attack on Dromini VI—jumped his Fifth Sword of Light Regiment in here to destroy the Kell Hounds ahead of us, you have driven us hard in a race you knew we could not win. You've heard the reports of combat communications. You know they joined in battle twenty hours ago, and you know it will be over by the time we get there."