large part of the total."
"There'll be more people here soon. Military and civilian both."
"Oh?"
"We're relocating the Templar Academy here. The first class of approximately a hundred cadets is due to start arriving in less than a standard month."
"That's news." The general seemed strongly interested. She supposed that any change, especially one that promised more people at the Radiant, must be interesting to him. He asked her: "Where are you going to put them all? Lots of room, as you say, but not that much of it under atmosphere and in good repair."
"We're looking for sections, preferably buildings near the base, that will be easy to repair and refurbish. And perhaps areas for training, out on the outer surface of the shell. I may request that you give me another tour some day—I gather you have been emulating Doctor Sabel, in your enthusiasm for exploration, at least."
"I'm at your service when you want to go." He shook his head. "It really is exploration. Reconstruction would be difficult out there. Out in the desert places—no demons to report as yet." He looked at her as if he wasn't sure she would get the allusion; well, she really hadn't, but at least she realized that it was one. Demons. She would look up the word.
She said: "With the influx of cadets we may be in crowded quarters for a while, but it shouldn't be that hard to expand. As soon as the first group of trainees learn some basic elements of space survival, we'll make it part of the next phase of their training to refurbish some of the old facilities. Where did the good Doctor Sabel find his berserker, by the way?"
"He came upon it in one of the remoter corridors. A long way even from the areas where I usually poke around. A long, long way, even then, from the inhabited portions of the Fortress."
After the Sabel debacle, she knew, the more remote corridors had been rather thoroughly searched for any more machines that might become active. Of course the damned machines could be good at concealment, at playing dead, as they were good at many other things; and to this day it was not completely certain that all the active units had been found. There might even, possibly, be more of them out there somewhere, frozen into the slag of ancient battle as the object of Sabel's efforts was supposed to have been when he discovered it.
Then the commander wondered suddenly if that might be what the general was really after in his exploration—one more metallic dragon-monster. Not, of course, that Harivarman would be one to play the perverted games of goodlife. But, to find a foe still dangerous, to re-enact the combat glories of the days not long ago when Prince Harivarman had been a hero to everyone on the Eight Worlds—and incidentally to show up the Templars, for having been in control of this place so long and still having left one of the enemy functional and deadly dangerous—yes, she could see how that might be attractive to him.
At her request the general let her out of his car just at the main gate of the base, very near the spot where he had picked her up. She saw to it that their goodbyes were brief, because she had a lot of work to do. A pity. She would have liked to talk to him longer.
She would probably, she thought, soon take him up on his offer of another tour now that they had begun, as she felt, to understand each other.
As she walked through the gate and into the base, briskly returning the guards' salutes, she was wondering what his wife, or former wife, might be like.
Chapter 3
Like most citizens of most worlds with Earth-descended populations, Chen Shizuoka had never traveled outside the atmosphere of the planet on which he had been born. In human society there were a few jobs that required space travel; otherwise it was for the most part an activity of the wealthy or powerful. Chen, a poor student from a poor family, was and had always been a long way from either of those categories.
Of course he had—again like most
"There'll be more people here soon. Military and civilian both."
"Oh?"
"We're relocating the Templar Academy here. The first class of approximately a hundred cadets is due to start arriving in less than a standard month."
"That's news." The general seemed strongly interested. She supposed that any change, especially one that promised more people at the Radiant, must be interesting to him. He asked her: "Where are you going to put them all? Lots of room, as you say, but not that much of it under atmosphere and in good repair."
"We're looking for sections, preferably buildings near the base, that will be easy to repair and refurbish. And perhaps areas for training, out on the outer surface of the shell. I may request that you give me another tour some day—I gather you have been emulating Doctor Sabel, in your enthusiasm for exploration, at least."
"I'm at your service when you want to go." He shook his head. "It really is exploration. Reconstruction would be difficult out there. Out in the desert places—no demons to report as yet." He looked at her as if he wasn't sure she would get the allusion; well, she really hadn't, but at least she realized that it was one. Demons. She would look up the word.
She said: "With the influx of cadets we may be in crowded quarters for a while, but it shouldn't be that hard to expand. As soon as the first group of trainees learn some basic elements of space survival, we'll make it part of the next phase of their training to refurbish some of the old facilities. Where did the good Doctor Sabel find his berserker, by the way?"
"He came upon it in one of the remoter corridors. A long way even from the areas where I usually poke around. A long, long way, even then, from the inhabited portions of the Fortress."
After the Sabel debacle, she knew, the more remote corridors had been rather thoroughly searched for any more machines that might become active. Of course the damned machines could be good at concealment, at playing dead, as they were good at many other things; and to this day it was not completely certain that all the active units had been found. There might even, possibly, be more of them out there somewhere, frozen into the slag of ancient battle as the object of Sabel's efforts was supposed to have been when he discovered it.
Then the commander wondered suddenly if that might be what the general was really after in his exploration—one more metallic dragon-monster. Not, of course, that Harivarman would be one to play the perverted games of goodlife. But, to find a foe still dangerous, to re-enact the combat glories of the days not long ago when Prince Harivarman had been a hero to everyone on the Eight Worlds—and incidentally to show up the Templars, for having been in control of this place so long and still having left one of the enemy functional and deadly dangerous—yes, she could see how that might be attractive to him.
At her request the general let her out of his car just at the main gate of the base, very near the spot where he had picked her up. She saw to it that their goodbyes were brief, because she had a lot of work to do. A pity. She would have liked to talk to him longer.
She would probably, she thought, soon take him up on his offer of another tour now that they had begun, as she felt, to understand each other.
As she walked through the gate and into the base, briskly returning the guards' salutes, she was wondering what his wife, or former wife, might be like.
Chapter 3
Like most citizens of most worlds with Earth-descended populations, Chen Shizuoka had never traveled outside the atmosphere of the planet on which he had been born. In human society there were a few jobs that required space travel; otherwise it was for the most part an activity of the wealthy or powerful. Chen, a poor student from a poor family, was and had always been a long way from either of those categories.
Of course he had—again like most
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