Yvan Dragomilov - The Premier's Hand

"Zakh!"

Nodding with satisfaction, Trezlinya-Silvertou watched an emotional reunion between Tris and Yvan Dragomilov. Unable to avoid melodrama, she rushed to his arms and afterward made fussing noises over his bandages. In his own way, the young man was no less moved. Their undisguised joy at finding one another confirmed everything the Executor-General had suspected of the pair. Having established what would doubtless prove useful leverage, he left them to their embraces, pulled a chair around the desk, and gathered his wits as he had been unable to before. At last, he steepled his fingers and cleared his throat.

"Now, where were we?" Employing the distraction to its fullest advantage, he pressed his former line with Yvan Dragomilov as if it had not been rejected. He believed all men desire power, the noblest only seeking means by which to justify the craving. With analogy and historic example, he amiably countered each of Yvan Dragomilov's protests, invariably to the effect that someone will always be needed to rule. "You must not judge others by standards you set, Captain. Ordinary folk must be governed. It might be stifling to you. To them, it is vital, as their need for food, clothing, and shelter, Evil it might bey, as you insist. It is the archetypal example of necessary evil."

Now that Tris was restored to him, Yvan Dragomilov was willing to look away from his beloved only briefly. Nevertheless, accustomed to thinking on his feet, to giving orders and making plans in the heat of battle or the teeth of storms, he was less defenseless than the Executor-General thought. He let Tris go, took a breath, stepped forward, and framed an answer.

"What is this phrase, 'necessary evil.' You don't suggest that a person may coexist with cancer---simply to name another widely acknowledged evil. Whatever the quality of the rhetoric supporting it. Nor can he long endure 'a little bit' of cancer, believing it somehow consumes his capacity for illness and defends him from all other diseases." He looked from Trezlinya-Silvertou to Bogdan-Kryukov, from one power wielder to another. "Nor would any but the venalest quack regard it as a 'necessary' evil."

The ambassador sniffed. "What do you offer as a substitute?"

"What does any diligent doctor offer as a substitute for cancer but its total annihilation?"

Trezlinya-Silvertou frowned. "The aptness of your analogy, Captain...."

He was interrupted by a pounding on the door. "Sir," cried a messenger who followed it into the room, "word from the starport brigadier! An armada---Dzendayn, he says, sir---has arrived in stationary orbit off Genrich!"

"The Premier you say! How many, how armed, and how disposed?"

"Thousands, sir, heavily armed. 3, 4-deckers, starships-of-the-line, titans, arrayed in almost a solid ring and signaling each other by---I recollect the word was 'radio.'"

"Radio?"

Despite an implied breach of courtesy, Trezlinya-Silvertou glanced at the ambassador who spread his palms, displaying innocence. Himself a student of ancient technology, Yvan Dragomilov supplied, "Electromagnetic communication, short-ranged and lightspeed. Highly effective within limits."

The messenger nodded. "Almost the brigadier's words, sir, now I hear them again. Electromagnetic impulses, some being relayed to what appears a thousand vessels more, hove to somewhere in the Deep beyond sensor range of the planet! In orbit, sir, they caught our minimal..."

"---and complacent?"

Not bothering with Yvan Dragomilov's wry suggestion, the Executor General waved a hand to silence him. "Our minimal what?"

"Deckwatches, sir. Caught off guard, they did. Boarded half our ships. They've issued an ultimatum to the rest: surrender or perish."

Trezlinya-Silvertou examined the messenger, Bogdan-Kryukov, and, with an odd look, the young ship-robber beside his niece, one good arm about her shoulders. "Dzendayn, did you say?"

The messenger gulped. "By the look of them, sir, yes."

Trezlinya-Silvertou leaned back, put his steepled fingers to his lips, regarded those about him shrewdly, and leaned forward. "Quite a coincidence. I wonder what Yvan Dragomilov would---never mind, I know what I shall do." He pointed a finger. "Seize me that man and have him bladed on the spot! Have his body sent to the armada in answer to their ultimatum!" He pointed at Bogdan-Kryukov. The two Cossacks who had dragged in Yvan Dragomilov burst through the doorway past the messenger, spilling him onto the floor. One took the ambassador by his arms. The other placed its quickblade at his temple.

"What's that?" For a moment they were all distracted as a roar buffeted the windows, and, heavily curtained as they were, the glare of flames became visible. Tris swept the drapes to one side. Fire had broken out in Novgorod and seemed to be consuming the whole shabby settlement.

"Pay no attention to it," her uncle ordered as a chorus of screams added to the fire's roar, "it is a matter for others. We have our own matters at hand. I am sincerely sorry, Peter, but I am also sure you understand---now what?" Even as the Dzendayn Premier's man prepared to breath his last--of air or any other gas---certain actions, high aloft in stationary orbit, had manifested themselves in a noisy crackling within the Black Usurper's desk.

"Pardon, Executor-General, I think that's for me." His face lit by the flames outside, Yvan Dragomilov approached a desk, glancing over his shoulder at the Cossacks holding a thrashing, cussing Bogdan-Kryukov. "Pray do not let me interrupt your duties, gentlebeings." Leaning over the desk, he pressed a hidden button, waited as the hidden cabine raised itself through the surface, and removed the strange, glowing object he knew he'd find within. Without hesitation, he laid a hand upon the Scon communicale. "I am listening, Mr. Putin."

"YES, SIR!'"

The young desperado jerked away with a yelp. Putin's words, he was away, were audible only within his mind, received by the same sort of sleemov virus which had sent them. He was surprised, given their perceived intensity, that the whole planet, let alone those in the room about him, had not heard them. "Easy! this is not another demonstration for our enemies of Scon prowess and ineffability. Just an ordinary talk!"

35,000 versts overhead, Putin stood on the quarterdeck of the Scopa, making noises of embarrassment as he hastily requested that the signal gain be reduced by one of the flatzniks---sleemov---and the virus in its circulatory system. "Sorry I am, sir, to have forgotten it! You'll be happy to learn, to a ship and a being, the Romanovans have meekly allowed themselves to be boarded. They're greatly surprised, rather than the Dzennik cutthroats they expected, that we're squads from Yvan Dragomilov's guerilla fleet!"

Yvan Dragomilov chuckled. In his mind's eye he saw hordes of hardened men and women, dangerous children, aliens of many species, swarming aboard vessels of the flotilla, claiming them under Putin's command. He relayed what he knew to the others in the room. Even with a city burning just beyond the windows, the Executor-General must've seen them, too. With a gestured, he released Bogdan-Kryukov who, glaring about him as he straightened his clothing with brisk, furious motions, looked from Trezlinya-Silvertou to Yvan Dragomilov.

"My dear Flownx, would be presumptuous to suggest that you seize the genuine culprit? Dismaying odds aloft to the contrary, arrest of their leader would stop what is happening in orbit."

Sliding a hand into a trouser pocket, Yvan Dragomilov wrapped it about the comforting, familiar shape of the tokarev-weapon which, despite their passionate greeting, Tris had thought to pass him. Firelight gleamed along its polished sides. The Cossacks tensed. He discouraged any sanguine ideas on their part by giving the mysterious (if not very potent) weapon a gentle wave in their direction. Before they made matters worse, Trezlinya-Silvertou called them off with an absent shake of his head, all the time thinking as fast as he could. A glance at Tris, who looked defiance back at him, confirmed where the weapon had come from. He looked back as if to say, well struck, my dear, and I deserved it.

Meanwhile, Yvan Dragomilov prudently equipped himself with a quickblade from one of the guards. "I fear, Ambassador, my arrest would affect nothing. My crewbeings serve me by serving their own interest." He handed the tokarev back to Tris, turning to Trezlinya-Silvertou. "Each one would have had to be arrested in order to stop this, an advantage they enjoy over those who believe in the supremacy---or indispensability---of authority."

"Why," the Executor-General asked, one eye upon the window and hundreds of refugees beginning to stream out of Novgorod, "do I doubt, despite your formidable reputation, that you control thousands of heavily armed three- and four-deckers, starships-of-the-line, titans, et cetera?"

"You are right to doubt it," replied Yvan Dragomilov. "Ours is a little fleet, augmented, to be sure, by the armed craft of various, friendly capitalissars, and by numbers of unbeinged inflatable drones which I recently had fabricated in the Tzitzeron-Ovidu system."

Trezlinya-Silvertou nodded, resigned. It was annoying the way his niece gazed on this dangerous puppy with such awe. "A fleet which has been feigning these arcane communications with a greater fleet which does not, in fact, exist?"

"Nonetheless," Yvan Dragomilov told him,"it produced the desired effect. With or without your Premier's leave, by ancient usage as well as my more recent practice, I now command the planet which was always mine by right!"236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuntVrpu2Gj
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Hearing dried leaves crackle beneath his feet, Zaytsteva was suddenly aware he had not been outdoors and afoot for thirty years!

In one hand he held the device, delivered by the same everyday means as the commuincale, which had privately dubbed his "persuadible," disdaining to bear another weapon in the belief that this was the duty of a servant. At the moment his daughter performed that humble service, walking beside him, adding to the racket. "Creeping" might have been a better word, he thought, for their slow, blind progress through the forest edge about the Holdings.

Uppermost in mind was a dire need for transport to the base Veronica had named for her dead husband, then a starship of any size, the intent being to employ alien technology not just to take command of the intruding force or recapture the estate, but a whole planet. The device had only just arrived, its first test interrupted by invasion. Yet in their desperate estimate, it might allow them to reverse the deteriorating situation.

Meanwhile, a Cossack contingent and increasing numbers of desperados were turning over every leaf in their pursuit and had to be avoided. At long last---when their clothing had been dew-soaked to the hips, and they were cold, hungry, and exhausted----they found what they had been looking for.

One of Trezlinya-Silvertou's flyers lay in a clearing in sight of the Holdings, backlit in orange-red by what could not yet be the dawn, even had the direction been right. Novgorod must be set afire. Dzendayn shook off the distraction. It was a transport, not remarkably different from the droilodka which had brought them here, save for nacelles holding projectibles or quickblades (whatever they were called when this size, he thought) giving in the appearance of a huge monster sleeping with its legs beneath it. It still hovered lines above the ground, even in this somnolent state. More to the point, the crewbeings and soldiers it had carried were nowhere to be seen. It was guarded by two Cossacks, for whom he held effective treatment in his hand.

He arose from the soggy grass where they had been hiding. Veronica's teeth were chattering, her hairdo had collapsed, and, in the light thrown by a fire at the stern of the transport, her lips appeared blue. "Stay here, until I have made sure of those soldiers," he told her.

Striding across three dozen measure separating him from the campfire, he stood some distance from the Cossacks, raised the artifact, and squeezed its lever, bathing them in eerie light. To his immense satisfaction, they stayed where they were, hunkered behind the flames, their eyes expressionless as usual. "Do not move or make a sound!" he ordered. "Veronica!"

"Here, Father!" Her harsh whisper had come from close behind him. She had hurried to catch up. He turned and saw that her color was getting better.

"Follow me aboard but have a care. We might find more of the creatures inboard. If not, we should have a clear run ahead, and the rigorous military training of my youth should serve me well in..."

Looking over his shoulder, Veronica's eyes had widened. Before he could turn, he felt a rough hand on his face, another on his arm, stretching his body as if it were bread dough. The palm over his mouth kept him from echoing his daughter as she screamed. The other Coassack had taken her. It had never occurred to her to use the quickblade she wore. Zaytsteva twisted to face his captor, raised the alien device and brought it down on the warrior's head, shattering both cylinders, releasing their contents in glowing wisps, but doing his adversary no discernable damage. He struck again and again until the soldier tired of the annoyance and broke his arm.

"Father!" The other Cossack threw Veronica to the ground, spread her legs, and, one hand upon her chest to keep her, knelt between her knees. Zaytsteva knew real horror w hen his own assailant spread him the same way.236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDWV4Tgs3tO
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Having no better occupation and deprived of a planet to ravage and burn freely, the Cossacks had set fire to Novgorod, which fulfilled their fondest wishes by sending forth a screaming deluge of refugees and flames a hundred measures into the sky. By dawn the broad plain before the Holdings would be empty again of all but ashes and the decaying skeleton that was all burnt metalloid leaves behind. Before a year passed, two at most, the meadow would be green and filled with flowers.236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡze5uW4VC3s

In the wood, Maria searched with infinite patience for a group of Cossacks forming ranks for departure and reassignment elsewhere on Genrich, just as she had searched for Adam when he had failed to make a promised visit to the tower. She looked down at his limp, bloodied body and was shocked that she felt nothing. Maybe she would in days---or years---to come.

The moment came. Using the best command voice that she could muster, taught her in a hard and thorough school to which a very important man---who did not know that she knew who her father was---had ordered his daughter sent, she strode from the wood into the garish firelight, for the moment leaving Adam where he lay.236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7oAxDAR58a

"Field Agent Petrovka." She spoke the syllables, harsh but low, to a non-human warrior which attempted to take her, as it and its fellow monsters had taken hundreds, maybe thousands, this night, only to withdraw a broken wrist. "Priority Code Premier's Hand."236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp2b2PkJ1iK

Ignoring its injury, it snapped to attention, reflections of the city flames flickering along its battle harness. Of a rare new breed of Cossack officer, recently being tried in the elite corps, it was a hybrid, lacking the speed and strength of an ordinary Cossack, the initiative or compunction which might have made it human, unable to boast of any third quality compensating for either deficiency. "Your orders, Premier's Hand?"236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa6iYuekqOQ

"You will find a body in that patch of woods yonder, still alive."

"Yes, Premier's Hand!" It sent two of its creatures to retrieve Adam, groaning his way back to consciousness as they dragged him to one of the transports. He should begin screaming soon and should be suffering pain, as well. Considerable pain that would surely keep him awake.

Premier's Hand, indeed, she thought. She looked down at her hand, which had often done the Premier's work and would again in the future. Tonight it had done its own work, with another of its little homemade knives, another esoteric skill she had been taught, castrating Adam Sorokin.

"I shall need transport to the landing stars immediately---no, not in that vehicle, some other---and afterward offplanet as fast as possible. And Captain?"

"Yes, Premier's Hand?"

"I want you to see to it personally that this thing stays alive while you use it, as my gift to you, for as long a time as possible, until you have eaten every bit of it."

"Thank you, Premier's Hand!"

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The Premier's Hand

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