The murmur that went through the crowd was slow and thoughtful, and Marian nodded-much better pleased with that, he guessed, than with the earlier cheers. Cofflin went back to the podium.

"Most of the prisoners aren't really Tartessians," he said. "They're from tribes the Tartessians have conquered. They're also trained fighting men, and fairly well equipped. Our military doesn't want them but they'd be very useful to our allies in the Middle East, and most of them seem to be ready to volunteer."

As Marian said, they were mercenaries-and the Republic's gold was as good as Isketerol's.

"The rest will be sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on Long Island, where they can grow their own food and meditate on their sins. Except for some who've requested political asylum in the Republic; the councilor for foreign affairs"-by radio-"strongly recommends that it be granted. Any objections?"

The meeting churned on. Cofflin sighed to himself; he might have far greater powers to act alone during wartime, but he still wanted to have a solid vote behind him. The Town Meeting system could drive him nuts at times, but when the Sovereign People finally made up their minds, nearly everyone got behind what had to be done.

He needed that, because there were going to be some very unpleasant necessities in the next few years. It was time to deal with Walker, before he dealt with them.

"I keep my promises, Sam," William Walker said.

The black ex-cadet nodded, blinking in the bright sun that reflected off the nearby ocean. On the docks of Neayoruk, two tall men stood face-to-face; McAndrews about the same height as the Montanan, with the same broad-shouldered, slim-hipped build, perhaps a little more heavily muscled. By now he wore katana and pistol as naturally as any; he'd been one of Walker's troubleshooters for years, commanding troops and helping out Cuddy and others on the organizational side.

And he doesn't approve of me at all, Walker thought. He never had, and leaving behind that girl of his in Alba, in the middle of a probably fatal childbirth, had cemented it.

Walker indicated the ship tied up to the stone pier. It was the type he'd started building in his second year in Greece, a copy of a gullet, two-masted, about a hundred and fifty tons burden, with a smooth oval outline and curved-cheek bows. The design was eighteenth-nineteenth-century Levantine, and they were handy little ships. This one carried eight guns and was loaded with weapons, powder, tools, books-none of them the very best Mycenae had to offer (the rifles were all muzzle-loaders, for instance) but a priceless load nevertheless.

The Egyptian in a linen robe standing nearby certainly thought so; he was nearly jiggling from foot to foot in his eagerness to be off, like a kid waiting for the washroom.

"Tell Pharaoh that Mycenae is anxious for alliance," Walker said, dropping back into Achaean… which, unlike English, the Egyptian envoy did speak.

McAndrews nodded again. Walker hid a grin. Meeting actual ancient Egyptians had been a shock for poor McAndrews. As anyone not besotted with radical Afrocentric horseshit would have known, they looked very much like Egyptians in the twentieth, except a little paler on average because three thousand years of Nubian and Sudanese genes hadn't arrived yet via the slave trade south down the Nile from above Aswan. Meri-Sekhmet, the emissary of Ramses II, was a sort of light toast color, with straight features and brown eyes. His body slave, on the other hand, was unambiguously black, which had been another shock to McAndrews.

I think he figures, now, that he can pass the technology on to the Egyptians and then through them to the Nubians. Good luck, you dumb bastard.

McAndrews shook hands, a bit reluctantly, then walked up the gangplank to oversee the crew, which included a number of specialists Walker had let him recruit-again, not the best but passable.

Meri-Sekhmet bowed and exchanged the usual endless pleasantries in atrocious Achaean Greek before he followed. The gangplank swung back and the ropes cast off; the twenty slaves in the tug grunted as they bent to their oars, sweat glistening on their naked, whip-scarred backs. Walker watched in silence as they towed the ship out beyond the stone breakwaters, out into the endless blue of the Laconian Gulf.

Helmut Mittler spoke, his voice still bearing the rough vowels of a North German. "I still say we should have liquidated him, sir."

Walker shook his head. "Remember Machiavelli."

"Sir?"

"Or Frederick the Great, for Christ's sake," Walker said, a little impatient. Typical Kraut, he thought. All "how " and no "why. " No wonder they got beat twice running.

"Ah." Mittler's face cleared. "A prince should only break his word when it's greatly to his advantage-and to do that, he must haff a reputation for great probity."

"Exactly," Walker laughed. "McAndrews will tell Pharaoh that I'm a bastard, but an honest bastard, which will come in useful someday. So will Egypt, I think… if the damned Nantucketers succeed in linking up with the Hittites. And if the Egyptians are modernized enough to be a significant factor…"

"But not enough to be a threat," Mittler said, obviously running over the limitations of the cargo that McAndrews carried.

"Exactly," Walker chuckled.

May-August, Year 10 A.E.

(May, Year 10 A.E.)

Swindapa smiled as she stepped ashore at Pentagon Base, with the spring wind whipping her hair about her ears. She bent, touching her fingertips to the dust of the White Isle, then to lips, heart, and groin in the gesture of reverence.

It isn't home, not anymore, she thought. Home was the red-brick house on Main, the sea, her daughters, and Marian. Tears prickled behind her eyelids, unshed, and she smiled with a sad joy. But it is the birthplace of my spirit. Though I may never return here whole-hearted, yet I cannot ever altogether leave either.

In the history that bore Marian she had died a captive of the Iraiina, and her folk had gone down into a starless dark, overrun by the Sun People and remade in their image.

We saved them from that. O Moon Woman, great is Your kindness to us. Smile on Your children; send us a fortunate star to guide our feet. There was confidence behind the prayer; hadn't Moon Woman twisted time itself to give the dwellers-on-Earth a chance to make a better path?

"When do we get to see Grandma again, Mom?" Heather whispered up to her.

Swindapa stroked her head. "In a day or two, my child," she replied in Fiernan. Her daughters spoke it well; how not, when she'd sung to them in their cradles? "She's at the Great Wisdom, or coming to meet us."

There was the ritual of disembarking to go through, salutes, greetings. She looked curiously about her at the base; it had been nearly two years since she'd seen it, and it had grown like a lusty infant, seeming to change every time she turned around. The five-sided, earth-and-timber fort from when this was the Islander base for the war against Walker and the Sun People was still there, cannon snouting out from its ramparts. Two flags flew there, the Stars and Stripes and the crescent Moon on green that the Earth Folk had chosen.

Sprawling around it was the town that had grown up under its walls. Some called it Westhaven, some Bristol for the name of the place in the other future the Eagle People had come from.

It roared and bustled around them, full of excitement over the Islander fleet that had sailed in out of the dawn. The town had swallowed up the little Earth Folk hamlet that had stood here, but Pelana-torn son of Kaddapal stood there to greet them, grayer but still hale and looking stout and prosperous. His sister Endewarten spoke for Moon Woman here now, since their mother, Kaddapal, had taken the swan's road beyond the Moon-died, as the short-spoken English tongue put it. Four or five thousand others dwelt here now; mostly her birth-people, but perhaps one in four were Islanders, and there were hundreds of others from anywhere on this side of the water within reach of Islander ships.