The celebrations continued for days. Monks’ cells in the hollow of the walls of the great Temple lay empty as even the silent orders found release from their vows. Songs of triumph rose from the massive brooding walls to blend with the Te Deum sung in the Temple Sanctuary.

MacKinnie stood atop the highest Temple battlement and looked up into the night sky toward his home a dozen light-years away. A river of stars ran across the sky, so that it was difficult to locate the star that shone on his world.

The stars belonged to the Empire of Man, and looking up at the myriad of lights MacKinnie could appreciate the problems of the Imperial Navy. How could there be peace among all those and yet each have freedom? The legendary time when Prince Samual’s World was united and there were no wars was remembered as a golden age, yet unification had remained a dream and spawned a dozen wars; and that was only one world. The Empire had hundreds, perhaps thousands — he couldn’t know. More worlds than there were nations or city-states on Samual.

“Sir?”

He turned at Stark’s approach. “Yes, Hal?”

“I brought the shipmaster.”

MacKinnie once again marveled at the varieties of man. People on Prince Samual’s World were varied enough, but nothing like what he had seen on Makassar. There were the tall, fair men like Vanjynk, and the dark, swarthy men like Loholo; the Imperial Navy even had black men and women. On Samual “black men” were legendary monsters who lived in the hills and ate children …

Loholo stood respectfully and waited for MacKinnie to speak.

“Shipmaster, I must return to Jikar. When can we sail?” MacKinnie asked.

Loholo shrugged. “She is ready now. It will be no easy journey. Much of the time the wind will be in our faces. There is better trading to the east and south … and there will be storms.”

“Aye.” MacKinnie shuddered. Now that they were ashore he could admit that he’d been terrified. But there was no other way. Or was there? “Could we sail east to get there?”

“East?” You believe the tales that Makassar is round — but you would know, star man. You would know.” Loholo shrugged, jingling the golden ornaments he wore. His curved dagger bore new jewels on the hilt, and there were new rings on his fingers. “I have known of men who believed the world round and sailed east to reach the western shores,” he said. “But I never heard of one who arrived. Trader, there are shoals west of Jikar, and there are pirates throughout the islands. Subao is faster than they, but there are many pirates. Those are the western waters I know. What else may lay between here and there—” He shrugged again to a jingle of gold. “Only God knows.”

God and the Imperial Navy, MacKinnie thought. From the maps they had shown him there was a lot of open water to the east of the main continent. Loholo was probably right. “I had thought as much,” MacKinnie said. “So there’s nothing for it. We sail in five days.”

“So soon? You will hardly have time to buy a cargo. It would be much better to wait until next season.”

“No. I must reach Jikar in two hundred days,” MacKinnie said.

Loholo chuckled. “Then you will have an uncomfortable voyage. Two thousand klamaters in two hundred days.” The sea captain laughed again. “In this season. Well, Subao can withstand that — but can you? And why leave Batav at all? You rule here. The priestly star man is Ultimate Holiness, but he came to the throne on your pikes, and did not your pikemen hold the city the old council would elect a new Holiness inside three days.”

“And that’s a fact,” Stark said. “There’s some in the new council who’d support Casteliano, but you can’t expect all them old Archdeacons to take kindly to the Imperial missionaries movin’ in on ’em like that. Mister Loholo’s right, there’d be civil war if it wasn’t that our troops hold all the strong points.”

“Which means I can’t take the whole army across the plains,” MacKinnie said. “Or if I did, I’d have to take the Imperial missionaries with me—”

“They’re not likely to come,” Stark observed.

“Exactly. And they won’t continue helping us if we take them as prisoners.” MacKinnie glanced upward at the stars and thought again of the problems of empire. “So it’s by sea. Leave the pikemen here and hope the missionaries know what to do with them. Thank you, Mister Loholo. That will be all.”

“Trader?” Loholo made no move to leave.

“Yes?”

“Trader, you promised me Subao when we returned to Jikar.”

“She’ll be yours, Mister Loholo.”

“Aye. Then with your permission I’ll get back to her. There’s still work to be done. Bottom to be scraped, new water barrels, provisions — but if there’s a place by water on this world that you want to go to, I’ll take you, even if we pass every pirate in the shallows!” Loholo fingered the golden skull ornament at his left ear. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever seen, Trader. You’ve shown us how to make ships sail better than we ever knew. You trained an army of city rabble and took them out to whip the barbarians after the Temple people gave up. Now you’re in command of the Temple and all Batav, and you want to return to Jikar! Most men would rather stay here as king — andthere’d be no nonsense about it, either. You’ve only to say the word-”

“And you could be my High Admiral, Mister Loholo?”

“No, sir. Your star man Captain MacLean would have that post, and I’m not that ambitious. Subao’s enough for me, star man. A good ship and open sea’s all my father wanted for any of his children.”

Loholo began the long descent down the stone stairway to the street below, and MacKinnie turned away to lean on the ramparts. Batav was a blaze of lights, with bonfires in all the public squares. Every one of the city’s thirty thousand souls seemed to be reveling in the streets, their numbers swollen by another thirty thousand peasants who had sought refuge within the city walls. The peasants would soon go back to their fields, and the remnants of Batav’s great feudal families, all those who survived the futile charges against the maris before MacKinnie arrived, would return to their great halls and tournaments—

And then what? “Getting control of that damned library was easier than letting loose,” MacKinnie said. “I’m concerned about the missionaries. Can they hold on after we leave?”

“I doubt it. Not without a good commander who knows how you fight.”

“Could Brett hold the Temple?” MacKinnie asked.

Stark shrugged. “He’s maybe smart enough, but they’d never trust him. He was raised a mari, sure enough, and it shows. Nobody’s going to put him in command.

“Then who can do it?”

“You.”

“And no one else, Sergeant?”

“Not that I know of, Colonel. You built this army, and you know what it can do. The others don’t think like you.”

“And that worries you?” MacKinnie asked.

“Don’t get paid to worry,” Stark said automatically. “Except-”

He’s in a strange mood, MacKinnie thought. He really is worried. I haven’t seen him that way since—

“You know,” Stark said, “Mister Loholo’s got a point, Colonel. A year ago we was down to it, looking for a place fightin’ in some petty war on South Continent and wonderin’ how to pay the rent on a flophouse until we found something. We never expected to find anything as good as we’ve got now.”

“I gave Dougal my word, and I swore allegiance to King David,” MacKinnie reminded him.

“After Haven used the goddam Empire to bake half our Wolves, Colonel! They’d never have took Orleans without the Imperial Marines … and then they turned you out like an old dog! What do we really owe Haven, Colonel? What do we owe anybody?”

MacKinnie turned to his sergeant in surprise. “We’re soldiers, Hal. It’s all either of us has ever been-”