x
Zakh bit his lip. “Better a whipped glob than a dead one.”
The three still squatted over the down-powered purge-rider, Zaytseva's appeal from the Holdings all but ignored. Adam agreed with what he could only anticipate of Zakh's plan. It was, he thought, and only differing in detail, the very notion that had excited him moments before.
"You must...." Thinking better of it, and with a new idea forming, Zakh began again. Neither of his brothers ever learned which he had intended by the word you. "Whichever of us is chosen, by whatever means, he must accept the risk of Zaytseva's amnesty, surrendering against the likelihood of yet another treachery, with the idea of getting back into the graces of what passes in these evil times for law on the planet Genrich."
Adam made a noise of shrewd consideration at the back of his throat. "I feel---and believe I can persuade you to my point of view---that less risk may be involved in this course than might first seem to be the case." Both brothers looked at him as he ticked off points upon his upraised fingers. "In the first instance, did not our father keep the peace here for thirty long years, never threatened by the force of weaponry alone, but through an agreement which all concerned felt was bound by love?"
"Yes," Zakh answered.
"Yes," his eldest brother agreed.
Indeed they all believed the Bargain to be more than political. Eugene "the" Sorokin---Old Eugene as he was now called, even in their own minds---had been wont to refer to peace between Romanovans and Genrichian woodsjacks as "kept by ties of ties of veined blood, not spilt blood." Terrible Yvan had used the phrase, as well.
"In the second instance," Adam continued, "Zaytseva must face, is already facing, the severest difficulties consolidating his rule of our birth planet, as he has had no part in the history which all upon it share."
"The speculation," Eugene agreed, for once following a chain of political reasoning, with the most urgent incentive, and fascinated by it, "is likely." Zakh remained silent, having accomplished what he intended. His brothers were making his argument for him, and with a measure of eloquence.
"In aid of consolidation," Adam suggested, "the apparent assent, even of one Sorokin brother, would be received with gratitude, would it not?" It was clear Eugene had not considered this possibility. A look of amazement---and renewed hope---came over him. He began to nod his head with considerable vigor. "This agreed upon, Adam rushed on, not giving Eugene time to interrupt in a first blush of new and unaccustomed insight, "with one of us at the Holdings, another must remain in hiding, his purpose being to rally those faithful retainers who have fled, and recruit woodsjacks from among our mother's old friends---our father's old enemies---who would assist us in prevailing against this black usurper."
"Yes," Eugene answered, "I agree."
"Now, brothers," Adam prepared to make his last point, "while none of our family possessed---indeed ever sought---close acquaintance with political intrigue, eschewing involvement in the peril-laden intricacies of the Premier's Droom, our father was a genuine, much-admired hero of the Thousand Years' War. In addition, as the three of us know well, he was a man graced with an open, winning way." Zakh suppressed a sudden urge to tears at the remembrance of his father. His eldest brother gulped in a similar effort. Adam, however, was still moved by practical need. "Moreover, even did our father not really have friends, it is an ancient, essential fact of politics, appreciated by the most naive observer---present company excepted---that, for every party in predominance, at least one (and, in common practice, more than one) displaced and malcontented faction considers its subordinate position no more than a galling temporary circumstance, a merely ephemeral obstacle to inevitable victory, vindication, and revenge."
"In arts of warfare, politics, or love," Eugene stared past them into empty space, quoting the sweetheart who now seemed lost to him forever, "nothing is ever settled or to be taken for granted."
Adam blinked. "Well said, brother! You have unplumbed depths I had not anticipated." Eugene gave him a look of irritation but offered not another word. "In consequence, we surviving Sorokins cannot be without influence of our own, at least potentially, inside the Comospolity."
The discussion continued a long while. For the most part the brothers agreed---Zakh sitting quiet, keeping counsel with himself as long as the conversation flowed in the direction he thought wisest---that aid were likeliest enlisted among many of their recent visitors, wedding guests now embarking, it was assumed, for the capital and other worlds.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhKN5Q6yhrS
"Therefore," Adam concluded, having run out of fingers to make points on, "with one of us surrendered at the Holdings and one in hiding with the woodsjacks, the 3rd must somehow seek a swift and surreptitious way aboard one of the starships still in orbit awaiting propitious circumstances---" Time was a factor, as well as ever-changing subatomic currents. "---for departure from the vicinity of Genrich. None of us being destined to sail the Deep, we were never schooled in the relevant observations and calculations More than a possibility exists that whoever undertakes this task will find himself at---at Elizavetaburg too late to accomplish his mission. Nonetheless, I, for one, believe it worth a try."
"You mean--stow away?" Eugene demanded.
"All the way to Romanova?" Zakh finished for him.
"On the contrary," Adam replied. "Whoever the unlucky soul may be, he would not attempt to reach the capital himself, but seek converse with those powerful individuals who still hold our family in esteem..."
"Or," Zakh interrupted, still a boy despite his precocity and no longer able to resist displaying his powers of reasoning, "and this may be more to the point, individuals representing interests in the Droom at odds with those to which the Black Usurper is allied."
Adam chuckled, whether at his younger brother's broadening enlightenment or his elder's density he could not have attested. A period of silence followed.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ64neKcksCD
"Good enough," Eugene vowed at least, determining filling his voice. "Nothing can restore our father. Yet maybe we can begin unmaking some small portion of the many injustices Zaytseva has wrought."
"Done," his middle brother answered him.
"And done," Zahk confirmed.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRJeGO7hqWE
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4aBSjL1gKY
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBmp29pdNtk
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPiMJGReaDU
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHwXsostUb
And so it came to pass that the three brothers cast lots. With solemnity revealing not the slightest trace of his accustomed sarcasm, Adam took it upon himself to arise from where they sat and snap three twigs of different lengths from the bush that hid them and the purge-field rider whose transceiver they had been listening to when the conversation first started.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7RIWP1hWua
All else was quickly decided among them. The longest of the three twigs would determine which of the brothers would surrender himself to Zaytseva. The middle-sized twig would be drawn by him who would stay fugitive and counter-revolutionary. Who drew the shortest twig would make his way south to the landing star---Adam's reference to "Elizavetaburg" had earned him nasty looks---and an attempt to gain audience with potential friends and allies?
Adam held up both grubby fists, having arranged the twigs in such a manner that no difference could be perceived among them. He rolled his palms against each other, saying not even he should be able to declare which twig was which. At his brother's impatient insistence, he closed one hand while the other drew out the first twig for himself.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZodiYEuzhI
It was longest. Adam would return to possible torture and execution, but also the hope of deceiving their foe. Despite the risk, this suited him, as it did his younger brother. Both felt---and explained by turns to Eugene---Adam to be the most sophisticated of the three, the closest match for Zaytseva's treacherous talent, and (Zakh meant no insult by it, even Adam had to agree) better equipped for the required dissimulation.
His younger brother's judgment suited Adam for another reason, one he kept to himself, for he had come to realize during this brief fugitive period that at heart he was a bit like Zaytseva himself. Without realizing it fully before now, he had always been envious, with some justification, of the advantages he felt the other two had over him. A middle brother always got the worst of everything. Now, among the myriad possible outcomes he saw before him, a goodly number pointed towards his someday becoming "the" Sorokin under circumstances which no observer could afterward claim to be his fault.
He held his fist up. Eugene drew the middle twig. He would stay in hiding. This, too, his brothers asserted, was right, as if blind chance were acting to confirm their judgment. Now himself become, however reluctantly, head of the family Sorokin---and in a universe more just than this one appeared at present, rightful heir to the Genrichian Oligarchies----who among them was likelier to win allegiances they needed to fight the evil Zaytseva?
Only Eugene harbored doubt of this blithe estimate. For his own reasons, although they would be obvious to anyone who thought about them, he had hoped to draw the long twig. He no longer recalled the exact words, shouted overshoulder in panic, haste, and flight, but knew what he had meant by them at the time. He had promised Maria he would return for her. He entertained no question in his otherwise troubled mind that she had misunderstood.
Adam and Zakh---little Zakh!---were mistaken. The eldest and heir was most valuable to Zaytseva and belonged at the Holdings. In a sense, he had less to lose than they, for already he felt himself half tortured to death by uncertainty. However, and more like his middle brother than himself in this, he hid his disappointment at the outcome of the draw. It was less difficult, under the circumstances, than it might have been. A thousand hideous probabilities assailed hm but any unbound Romanovan employee, and upon this account either more or less than a family retainer, Maria was more immune to official persecution, or less. Eugene could (dare) not calculate which.
Maria he knew well. Until persuaded she was dead, she would wait where he had seen her last while they both grew old and died, unless they dragged her from the planet. He ached to place himself beside her, touch her, feel her lips upon his, and to assure himself of her safety. Whereas his hereditary duty----and the foul luck of the draw---had now determined for him otherwise.
Lost in despair, it was some time before the eldest of the brothers Sorokin realized that, by elimination, the shortest twig, the final task, the long, dangerous journey to the equator, had fallen upon Zakh.
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIN10wIXMUZ
215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡur8NxlBIzd
