Pathspace: The Space of Paths (52 page)

When the muttering died down again,
she continued. “That's a great idea. Jeffrey, excuse me, I mean
your Excellency, you have the floor. Speak.”

Jeffrey has a haunted
look
, Aria thought.
But how would I look, if my father had just died and I was in
front of a room full of people howling for my blood?
She couldn't even guess the stress he must be
under.

Jeffrey looked around the room,
showing he wasn't afraid to meet anyone's eyes. When he spoke, it
was in a quiet voice that forced them to strain to hear him. Aria
almost smiled, recognizing the technique.

“
Most of you don't know me, and I don't know you,” he said.
“You want to know what I am thinking? Let's start with this. How
many of you have lost a parent? My father is dead. Now I know,” he
said, holding up a hand to forestall interruptions, “that he died
invading your country, and I can't blame anyone for defending
themselves, so let's move on. He tried to take you over, to make
you part of his Empire, and he paid the price for that. I'm not
here to claim any right of revenge. War is war, after all. But even
though we disagreed on a lot of things, he
was
my father and now I've lost him.
So bear with me if what I say seems a little disjointed. I don't
expect you to love him, but he was, in his own way, a great
man.”

She could see he was
barely holding it together. Aria's heart went out to him. How would
she have handled it? Maybe she was lucky the General died before
she was born. But then, he wasn't her father . . . just the man she
had been
told
was
her father. She turned to look at Xander, who was standing on the
other side of her mother's desk. If Xander had died out there on
that snowy street, would she be able to address these people as
calmly as Jeffrey?

Jeffrey looked across at Kristana.
“Madame Governor,” he said, “both you and my late father,” he
swallowed, “had similar dreams. You both wanted to end this sorry
state of affairs, this shattered land with countries fighting like
squabbling neighbors.

“
I won't speak ill of my father, but I want you to know that
although I was raised to rule my father's Empire I have never liked
the idea of expansion by conquest, or unification by
bloodshed.

“
We both know that Texas and Rado are the two most powerful
countries in this region. If we chose, we could both go on fighting
and weakening each other. But there is a better way.

“
Hundreds of years ago, thirteen colonies, thirteen separate
countries, in effect, occupied this land, with their own separate
governments, currencies, and militias. But instead of fighting it
out to see which would control it all, they came together for the
common good. One central government, made up of representatives
from each colony, formed for the purpose of settling disagreements,
regulating trade, and guaranteeing the rights of
citizens.

“
It all fell apart, of course, in the chaos of the Fall of the
civilization of the Ancients. But I have often thought, as did your
own General, that maybe we could put it together again. I know you
have been hoping to do just that for years now, but I also know
that no other country has taken you seriously about it, because no
one wanted to make themselves a target for my father's armies by
forming an alliance with you.”

He paused, as if gathering his
thoughts again.

“
I was hoping,” said Kristana, “that they might change their
minds if they saw Rado continuing to survive, despite his efforts.
But go on.”

“
I cannot betray Texas,” he said. “If I go back there and
announce that it's becoming part of Rado, I will just be killed,
and hostilities will continue. Just as your own citizens would rise
up against you, if you tried to tell them Rado was becoming a
vassal state to Texas.”

“
That's not going to happen.”

“
I know,” he said. “But what if we could tell our peoples that
instead of conquering or being conquered, we are both becoming part
of something bigger? What if I could tell Texans that they could
trade Texas beef for Rado gold? What if you could tell your
citizens that they would have the might of Texas defending
them?”

Kristana considered it. “This is all
very nice,” she said. “But how do we know that any alliance, any
union with Texas isn't just a ruse to buy you more time to prepare
a larger invasion? Trust is precious, your Excellency, and because
of that, it is slow to form. You're right in saying that while I
want to further my late husband's Dream, I can't do that by risking
the safety of the people of Colorado. I won't betray their trust to
try to gain yours. So how do we proceed?”

There was a moment of silence. Aria
ended it before the muttering could start up again.

“
I have an idea,” she said. “But you might not like
it.”

There was rejoicing in the Capitol,
but he did not rejoice. So many decisions had been made. Everyone
seemed to have gotten something. Jeffrey got to rule a country –
the new Honcho got to go back to his people unscathed. The Governor
got the beginning of a new Union. And Xander got the founding of
his new School. He hadn't decided on a name for it, as far as
Lester knew. But workers were already clearing out a couple of
floors near the top of the building, under Aria's gardens, and for
all he knew the old wizard would be off soon hoping to find some
promising youngsters to form their first class of student
wizards.

But what do I get,
Xander?
he grumbled mentally, as he
plodded his way back to the quarters he shared with the wizard. He
still could barely believe Aria had made the suggestion that had
started the consolidation.
How could she
do it?

Xander opened the door before Lester
could grasp the doorknob. “I thought you might need to talk,” he
said.

Lester threw himself on a chair. “How
can she do it? How can she marry that, that – “

“
That ruler of Texas?”

Lester collapsed. “Yes. She doesn't
want to be an empress! Sometimes I think she doesn't even want to
be Governor. So why would she marry him? She doesn't know him well
enough for it to be love.”

Outside, the column of six tanks were
still lined up across from them. Lester tried to imagine the
consternation the guards must have felt when he and Xander led the
vehicles up the street to where they were parked. It had not been
easy telling Jeffrey that his father was dead. It had been even
harder getting him to come to the Governor's building.

The tanks had provided the solution.
They were drawn up in an orderly line, but they had their orders.
If Jeffrey was not allowed to come out of the building by sunrise,
they were to assume he was dead and swivel their guns ninety
degrees and begin blasting the building.

This plan had accomplished two goals.
First, it had helped give Jeffrey the confidence to go into the
lioness's den. But even more importantly, it had effectively
immobilized the tanks while he was in there, preventing them from
going off to demolish more of the city, or at least the parts that
the Fall and the invasion had not yet toppled.

They were still waiting. Dawn was a
few hours away. There would still be enough time for the clauses to
be negotiated, and for the ink to dry on the new official
documents. And for the announcements of the engagement to be
prepared.

But what do I get?
“How can she do it?” he repeated.

Xander sat down across from him and
got out his pipe. “By thinking about her people,” he said, loading
the pipe. “In the old days, alliances were often sealed by
marriage.”

Lester didn't look at him. “I mean,
yes, the part about leaving the tanks here was clever. Without the
tanks, their fuel is useless and without the fuel, we can't use
them either. But why do they have to get married?”

Xander lit the pipe with a
touch of
tonespace
and took a couple of puffs before answering. “Either country
could still attack the old fashioned way. This will help put an end
to that. Their children will be heirs to both thrones.”

“
The Governor doesn't have a throne!”

“
No,” Xander agreed. “But you know what I mean. It's a good
deal for both countries, belonging to the new Union. They have more
farmland and a longer growing season. We have more
metals.”

“
And your school. Tell me something. Are you going to accept
students from Texas? The only reason we survived this invasion was
the fact that we had wizards and they didn't.”

“
Actually,” Xander pointed out, “they did have one.
Fortunately for us, he never mastered making swizzles, or they
might have shown up even sooner, before my tank pit was
ready.”

Lester scowled. “Ludlow. Because of
him, we nearly lost. I wish he hadn't gotten away the way he did,
once he saw the way things were going, when we showed up to talk to
Jeffrey.”

Xander nodded. “He'll never be the
wizard you are, but he did learn the invisibility weave. Just be
glad he didn't have more tricks up his sleeve.” Xander puffed
again. “You know,” he said, “I think he was planning to vanish, so
to speak, even if the invasion had succeeded. He would have been
eliminated the moment the Honcho didn't need him any more. He knew
Martinez didn't want a future depending on wizards. ”

“
Does anyone? I mean, I'm glad you're finally going to get the
school started and all, but will regular folk ever accept people
like us?”

Xander shrugged. “It may take a while.
But one thing I know is, they'll accept what we can give
them.”

Lester sighed. “How's
that?”

Xander blew a smoke ring. “The
Ancients had a powerful civilization, no question about that. But
it was like having a fireplace with no chimney. They factories,
their cars, their shops and planes all depended on burning fuels
and spewing the combustion products back into the atmosphere. You
can't do that forever, not without consequences. The atmosphere
isn't infinite. Sooner or later they would have choked on all the
poisons they were creating.”

“
But we still do that. Well, maybe not the factories and cars.
But everyone burns firewood to stay warm.”

“
Soon they won't. One of the things our School will do is turn
out things like everflames and give them away to families so they
can heat their homes without burning up trees and making smoke.”
Xander smiled. “Think about it. We can plug up the chimneys and
keep all the hot air inside the houses. And the same principle will
apply to the forges and so on. Soon we'll have factories again, but
this time they won't spew anything but products.”

Xander's eyes appeared to be gazing at
something far away. “And soon, when we're ready, we'll go out into
space again. We'll go looking for the Tourists, or for people on
worlds around other stars.”

Lester got up and went to the window.
Looking down, on the street, he saw a tiny figure that might have
been Jeffrey go out to talk to the tank commanders.

“
Looks like he's finally telling them peace has been
declared,” he remarked. “Do you really think we can trust him to
convince his officers that this Union is a good idea?”

“
Yes,” said Xander. “Because he knows something you don't
know.”

Lester turned and glared at him.
“Still keeping secrets from me?”

“
No, I'm telling you now because there wasn't a chance to
before.”

“
Telling me what?”

“
That we can refuel those tanks any time we want to. The old
Honcho's engineers weren't the only ones with access to old
manuals. Those tanks down there,” he gestured with his pipe at the
window, “are based on the Abrams M1A2 design. Their engines are gas
turbines with over sixteen hundred horsepower.”

None of this meant anything to Lester.
He tried to imagine hundreds of horses pulling a tank. “So what?”
He came back to his chair and sat down again.

“
The point is,” the wizard continued, “they still have most of
their ammunition and the engines are a 'multifuel' design, meaning
they can burn several kinds of fuel, not just diesel or gasoline.
From what I've read, we can probably fuel them up by fermenting
alcohol from spare crops and roll 'em into Texas if we ever need to
renegotiate.”

“
We don't have any spare crops,” Lester pointed
out.

“
Jeffrey doesn't know that. So yes, I think we can trust him
to cooperate.”

They sat in silence for awhile. “So
how did it feel?”

Lester looked up. “How did what
feel?”

“
Killing Brutus.”