"Friedman,.C.S.-.In.Conquest.Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

His Mistress leads him into one of the many guest rooms of the Braxana wing and there leaves him. Awaiting him is a woman whose beauty once seduced him to repeat the mistake of his ancestors. But in this case, had not the old fears been proven unfounded? K'siva was Zarvati, like himself, yet the union had proven fruitful. If the child had shown any promise of the physical or mental handicaps that might come of such inbreeding it would have been put to death immediately, and Vinir would have been informed-if he was told anything at all-of its stillbirth. A pure Zarvati child! How magnificant it might be, how great it might become! And a man's only son should be outstanding.
"Lady," he says softly. Braxana are rarely gentle; this is one of those times. "There aren't words, even in our language, which can express my joy-or my gratitude."
She smiles, parting the bundle in her arms until a tiny face is visible. "Perfect in all things," she promises. And then she holds the child out to him. "Your son, Kaim'era."
Awkwardly, he takes the tiny body from her. Then instinct takes over and he knows how to hold it, just so. He forces himself to look up from the tiny face for a moment. "Ask what you will," he offers. "My House will supply it. Ask even to be kept and it will be done."
"I have my own House," she answers, smiling, indicating by her refusal of the second offer that she will accept the first. But later, after thought. A promise made at a birthgiving will be kept.
With a nod that serves both to thank and dismiss her, Vinir carries the tiny bundle that is his son outdoors, to the wide terrace which marks the outer boundary of his private wing. There in the starlit night he tries to come to terms with the miracle that this birth represents. Overhead the stars shine brightly through the dark Void that Braxi has conquered. The moon, Zhene, has just risen, and it glows with the sun's reflected glory: a protective forcefield glistens about it and its airlocks are silver circles against the whiteness. Beyond it, beyond sight, lies the vastness of Braxi's territory. And directly overhead at this time of night is the greatest battleground known to humankind.
"I give you this," he whispers, overcome by new and strange emotions. "When you're old enough to demand it, it'll be yours. As much power as a single man can wield, in the greatest multistellar territory man has ever known. I can't give you more. . . ."
He is suddenly aware of the emptiness above him. Peace reigns in the darkness where there should be war. "I'm sorry you were born in peacetime," he says quietly. "A bad omen. If I had known you would be here . . ." What? Could he have convinced the Kaim'eri to break the treaty in celebration of a single birth? Among a people where war was so valued and children so priceless, anything was possible. "It wouldn't do to name you now," he muses. "Not in peacetime." What, then? Would the Kaim'eri agree to break a treaty so that his son might be named? His laughter rings out in the darkness. Why not? Many of them would welcome such an excuse. And the timing! Azea would never anticipate such a move. Yes. . . .
"I'll give you war for your birth-celebration and Azean blood to seal your two names-one for your Braxana soul and one for the world, so that all will know in addressing you that they can never reach beyond the surface. Except for women, sometimes." A faint smile plays across his lips. "You'll learn that soon enough."
His barbaric ancestors had presented their newborn infants to the stars, offering their souls to the powers which lit the sky. He stands beneath those same stars and holds his son tightly in his arms. He is too civilized to make the ancient offering, but too primitive to ignore its call entirely. A moment of silence serves in place of invocation. But contemplation of the night makes him all too aware of the peace which reigns overhead-peace which insults the traditions of his people and casts gloom over even a purebred birthgiving. Peace which has to end. Soon.
With a last scornful glance at the overly tranquil sky, Vinir carries his newborn son indoors.

* * *

The Emperor is aghast.
"What did they say?"
Patiently, the messenger repeats himself. "Braxin forces have taken the Azean colony on Lees," he recites slowly. "This constitutes open defiance of the" (he consults his notes) "nine hundred and eighty-fifth Comprehensive Peace Treaty between Braxi and Azea."
"Yes, yes, I know all that. What were their grounds-tell me that again."
The messenger reads it verbatim. "Kaim'era Vinir, son of Lanat and Kir'la, wishes to give his son the public name of Zatar. Therefore the Kaim'erate considers the current peace treaty invalid and without binding force."
Slowly the Emperor leans back in his throne. "Yes. That's what I thought you said."


2



It is an undebated fact that the planet Azea is in all ways hostile to human life. Not openly forbidding, as are those planets lacking an atmosphere or having a surface temperature near absolute zero, but nonetheless hostile to that life-form which fate has chosen to place upon its surface. The poisons which lace its air are subtle; they arrive with the swirling winds and depart with equal invisibility, leaving death as the only witness to their passing. The native vegetation is mildly toxic to the human system; the native fauna, weaned on uncertain air and parasite-laden water, cannot be tamed or (unless specially prepared) eaten.
The people living on this planet have learned to adapt. They have had to. They have mastered that science which determines the patterns of heredity and they have turned this mastery, not to the purposes of biological conflict, but upon themselves.
Envision them: a people marked forever by a desire to survive on their own terms. Another race would have stressed agriculture and reached to the stars for plants that would thrive in the hostile Azean soil. This race designed a digestive system capable of expelling the local toxins and programmed it into their descendants. Another people would have built domes and lived eternally under their protection, always fearful that some disaster would break open the life-giving shells and admit the native air. These people designed lungs that would not constrict in agony and introduced them into the anatomy of their descendants. The solution was long in coming, for Azean genetics was only in its birth-pangs when the planet made its first harsh demands. Many died while waiting. But as a statement of success or failure there is ultimately only this: Azea is inhabited.
They are a golden people, homogeneous and unified. They take their mates from their own race and enjoy moderate, monogamous pleasures. All this is programmed into them. Birth defects are a thing of the past, as are hereditary weaknesses and inherited disease tendencies. Azeans live longer than any other Scattered Race, an ironic compensation for the death which plagued their early ancestors.
As for genetics, that science must work hard to find unconquered horizons. The stellar reaches are spotted with government-financed Institutes whose goal is to speed up the process of evolution-as Azea defines it. Scientists sift through piles of data to isolate those genetic codes which determine telepathy, longevity-any desirable trait which might otherwise be lost in a sea of dominant normalcy. Once they have isolated the proper genetic sequence they can program it into each new member of the race, saving (they believe) millennia of otherwise slower development.
Darmel Iyu Tukone and Suan Iir Aseirin are typical of their kind. They have richly golden skin because some scientist once thought it would be an aesthetic ideal; they have white hair because dark hair marks their enemies, the Braxins. Their first child has been conceived and now, with the celebrating concluded, the pair obediently proceeds to the nearest Center for Analysis and Adjustment to have it tested. Whatever might be wrong with the child, this couple knows Azean science can easily remedy it long before it leaves the womb.
If Azea is willing.
In a science where almost nothing goes wrong, something has gone wrong. There is agitation in departments which have previously known only efficient calm; messages flash to and from the Capital Planet, and at last to the couple themselves.
The child is not Azean.
That is lay language: the child, of course, is predominantly Azean. But patterns of heredity have surfaced which do not fit the Azean mold-genetic sequences which indicate that the child's founding line has not been so purely golden as its parents would wish to believe.
The image of a young girl is flashed across analytic screens. Slight of build, she stands as a female of another race would- shorter than the male. Her mother, who like all Azean women is as tall as her man, shudders. The child's skin is white, colorlessly Braxin in appearance. Her father, a Security officer, turns away from the image. Hair like blood, deep red and shining, pours unnaturally down over her shoulders. Other subtle differences are recorded below the image, and they all add up to one thing: the race responsible for the child's appearance is unknown, found nowhere in Azean genetic files or even in the lore of Azea's part of the galaxy. Yet once in each line of descent it infiltrated perfect Azean stock, to leave its recessive mark for future generations to discover. And now that mark has surfaced,
Mother and father are investigated.
Darmel Iyu Tukone is an Imperial Servant with the highest Security clearance. He is a transcultural scholar with a specialty in Braxin/Azean exchange; there are less than half a dozen in the Empire who have mastered such studies. Called the Grand Interrogator by a war-conscious public, he specializes in applying Braxin psychology to Braxin prisoners in order to drag forth information from a people stubborn enough to resist physical torture. He is also the last known descendent-through-firstbirth of the revered hopechild Hasha, in token of which he bears the subname Iyu, or "birth" in the Oldtongue, as did his firstborn ancestors and as will his own first child. His line alone among Azean ancestries has a record of every pairbond since the Founding. And there is no alien within them.
Suan is high in Security as were her parents before her, and theirs again for many generations back. It is not impossible that one of them mated with a non-Azean in secret. Nothing is impossible. But it is very unlikely, given the prejudices of such people.
Be rid of the child, they are counseled, and start again.
They rebel.
Peace comes but once a decade to Azea and such a couple must procreate when they can. There isn't time in the midst of war to savor the mysteries of birth, or to share in the first moments of a child's life. They have waited years and they are not willing to do so again.
The child will not be Azean, they are warned.
She is ours, they respond. That is enough.
The Council of Justice meets on the matter. A people whose definition of citizenship is based on genetic conformity must have a way to judge issues arising from deviation; thus the case falls to the Council.
The child will not be, can never be a citizen of the Empire.
Her parents pale, but they persist.
The child can never have the most basic Security clearance.
This is a blow to those who have made War service their lives. But it is too late to back out now. Men and women who are weak of will may fall to the Braxins, and these two have proven their mettle by that standard. The child will be born, they insist.