Most of the audience burst out in wild applause. The foreign section did not. Some of its members were now at the edges of the
perator
’s retinue and being restrained by liveried guards.
The
perator
addressed them. “You must decide what is best for your own nations, of course,” he said. His voice was artificially amplified and carried over the shouts of objection and cheers of approval. “Return to your delegations. Call your homelands. Do what you feel you must. But trust me, simple acquiescence will be best. Tomorrow all nations will be one, and governed from this palace. You want to be governed as friends and
allies—not enemies of the state.” His pose dignified, he turned and headed toward one of the side exits, a portion of his retinue accompanying him.
Wedge glared at Tomer.
But the diplomat did not look at all abashed. “You can’t blame this on me,” he said. “He’s taken our suggestions about a world government and simply sliced them into his own ambitions for rule.”
Wedge’s anger didn’t waver. “But are you going to press him to abandon this plan if it leads to war?”
Tomer shook his head. “This is a strictly internal affair, General. The
perator
might be using our presence, our organizational needs, as a rationalization for this move. But we’re not involved, and we can’t become involved.”
“Cartann and its satellite nations, if I read things right, are powerful enough to conquer the nations most likely to resist,” Wedge said. “So they form a world government, and it’s what you’ve seen. A state where human life is only valuable when it’s harvested for personal honor. You think the New Republic will want it? You think it will have anything in common with the New Republic?”
Tomer nodded, his expression confident. “We’ll be able to work it out. Speaking of which—”
“More diversion for the attendees,” cried the announcer. “Cheriss ke Hanadi accepts a ground title challenge from Lord Pilot Thanaer ke Sekae.”
Wedge growled out something inarticulate. To Tomer, he said, “Later.” Then he turned and plunged into the crowd, heading toward the open area already forming.
He spotted and reached Cheriss before she entered the circle. If anything, she looked more tired, more lifeless than before. He glowered at the men and women surrounding her until they retreated a step or two. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked her.
She looked at him, a sidelong glance without emotion. “I told you already.”
“You lied,” he said. “I’ll tell
you
. You’re committing suicide.”
“No. I can beat him.” Yet there was no anger in her voice, no emotion of any kind.
“Probably. If you do, will you accept another challenge?”
“Yes.”
“And another?”
“Yes.”
“Until what?”
“Until there are no challenges left.”
“Or you’re defeated.” He leaned in closer. “You spurned the
perator
earlier today. You offered him the fate of your foe and then you chose the other way. Now, to avenge the insult and please the
perator
, anyone who defeats you will kill you. No one will offer you mercy ever again. Correct?”
She looked past him to where her opponent waited. Wedge caught a glimpse of him, a man of medium height, his dark tunic and beard tricked out with fringes of flowing red ribbons. “My opponent is waiting,” she said.
“He can wait.” Wedge drew a deep breath and tried to settle his thoughts. “Cheriss, I’m going to say some things to you now. They’re going to sound egotistical. You’re probably going to deny them. I don’t really care. I know I’m right.
“You care about me, and you know I care about someone else, and you’ve decided to die rather than live with that.”
She just looked at him.
“I’m waiting.” That was Cheriss’s opponent, standing alone in the ring.
Wedge didn’t even look at him. “You’ve waited this long,” he called out. “Another few minutes won’t make you any homelier.”
Members of the audience tittered. Wedge recognized Janson’s laugh among the others.
He returned his attention to Cheriss. “I just wish,” he said, “that in addition to caring about me, you had some respect for me.”
“How can you say that?” At last there was emotion in her voice, unrestrained anger. “If I did not respect—”
“You wouldn’t be pointlessly throwing your life away, in direct contradiction to everything I believe?” People surrounding them looked at him, and he struggled to lower his tone. “Cheriss, this is an act of dishonor.”
Her tone turned contemptuous. “You really believe that.”
“I can prove it to you. At least, I can prove to you that everything you think about me is wrong. What is it about me that you, and the other Adumari, think is so honorable?”
“Your success in killing the enemy—”
“No. That’s dishonorable.” He waited until her eyes widened, then he continued, “Or it would be, without the right intent. Why do I kill the enemy, Cheriss?”
“For—for the honor—”
“Circular thinking. I’m honorable because I kill the enemy, and I kill the enemy for the honor. There’s nothing there, Cheriss. Here’s the truth: I kill the enemy so someone, somewhere—probably someone I’ve never met and never will meet—will be happy.”
She looked confused. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does. I told you how I lost my parents. Nothing I ever do can make up for that loss. But if I put myself in the way of people just as bad as the ones who killed my family, if I burn them down, then someone else
they
would have hurt gets to stay happy. That’s the only honorable thing about my profession. It’s not the killing. It’s making the galaxy a little better.”
She shook her head, unbelieving.
“And now you’re here, thinking like an immature girl instead of a woman, anxious to throw away your life because you’re unhappy now. And because you’ve been
told all your life that there’s honor in doing something like this. Tell me, where’s the honor? Are you making Adumar a better place? Are you giving anyone a better life? Are you weeding bad men out of the court of Cartann, or are you just cutting them down randomly?”
“I … I …”
“Just stop doing this, Cheriss. Figure out how you’re going to live and be happy, not why you can’t. We’ll talk. You’ll learn how.”
Something settled in Cheriss’s expression, some pain behind her eyes. “Very well,” she said. “After this fight.”
“Refuse this challenge. It’s meaningless.”
“It’s meaningless … but I’ve already accepted it.” She drew her blastsword and examined the blade from guard to point. “I can’t withdraw my acceptance now. I’d be shamed forever.”
“Cheriss—”
“I can’t, General.” She moved past him to stand at the edge of the circle.
Wedge’s pilots and Tomer moved in beside him as the announcer went through the usual ritual commencing a duel.
“No good, huh?” Janson asked.
“Some good,” Wedge said. “If she survives.” He looked around, caught sight of Iella. She was standing once more beside her minister escort, her expression mimicking the appreciation of blood sports Wedge could see on countless faces around her … but she saw Wedge looking, and he glimpsed worry behind her act.
Then Cheriss and Thanaer moved against one another.
Their duel was much like the last one, for Thanaer’s blows were strong and lightning-fast … and it seemed to Wedge that Cheriss had slowed further. Nor had she the physical strength to beat her way past Thanaer’s defense; with dagger and blastsword he swept each of her thrusts aside. They drove against one another in a clinch, each
blastsword locked at its hilt against the other’s knife, and when they parted, she managed to blood his sword arm’s wrist with a sudden slash of her knife, but the wound did not slow him.
Then they came together, another furious exchange of thrusts and parries, and one of Thanaer’s blows, almost too fast to trace, flicked past her defense to strike her in the chest. There was a crack of released energy. Cheriss was thrown back and down to the floor by the blow.
She lay unmoving, her eyes closed, her breath coming fast and shallow. Moving with exaggerated slowness and care, Thanaer sheathed his dagger, reached down to switch off the power to Cheriss’s blastsword, and nudged that weapon away with the toe of his boot. Then he looked out into the crowd.
A lady at the edge of the crowd—blond, appealing, dressed in alternating shades of blue and violet, her features innocent and carefree—smiled at him and held out her hand. Palm down.
“So it is,” Thanaer said, and raised the point of his blastsword.
Wedge took a step forward, opened his mouth to speak—but he was a half second behind Janson, who shouted, a bellow that filled the chamber, “Challenge!”
Thanaer and the crowd turned to look. Janson stood, one hand in the air and feet apart in a mockery of a heroic pose, his expression merry. “That’s right, Ribbon-Beard. I challenge you.”
Thanaer blinked at him. “Title or non-title?”
“Oh, non-title, I think. I don’t want your title. Just some of that thin stuff you use for blood.”
The Cartann pilot smiled at him. “Very well. As soon as I dispose of this ground-bound rubbish, we can begin.”
Janson’s tone became mocking. “No, no, no. You kill her and I withdraw the challenge.”
A murmur rose in the crowd, a sound of surprise. Thanaer’s face darkened. “You insult me, Major.”
Tomer, behind Wedge and Janson, whispered, “You can’t do that. If you put conditions on the offering of challenge, it suggests that you have no interest in dueling him. Only in the conditions.”
Janson whispered back, “Thank you, Tomer. Now I understand.” He raised his voice. “Yes, Thanaer, I insult you.” The murmurs in the crowd grew louder. “You see, you’re just not good enough to face me in the air or on the ground. I have no interest in dueling you. I’ll do it for the girl’s sake. Spare her, I’ll give you this once-in-a-lifetime chance. Kill her and I’ll treat you like the nobody you are, and you’ll never get to face me. Is that simple enough for you to understand?” With his last few words, he took on the tone of a school lecturer who had neither affection nor respect for his students.
There were gasps from the crowd at his words. Thanaer straightened, stiffening, and looked down at Cheriss. His thinking was very clear to Wedge: Kill the girl, not just for the honor, but to offend Janson, or accept the challenge and gobble up all the honor he could.
He sheathed his sword. “I accept,” he said. “I will put your words on the tip of my blastsword and reinsert them in you.” He moved away from Cheriss to stand at the edge of the crowd.
Wedge and his pilots moved to kneel beside Cheriss. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and there was a grayness, a pallor to it. Steam rose from her wound.
“Upper left pectoral,” Tycho said. “Not too deep. Survivable. But she’s in shock. That can kill her.”
Wedge swore to himself. The dress uniforms they wore didn’t allow them to carry their headsets; the comlinks they carried were very small, short-range only. He said, “Tycho, get her to the plaza. Don’t waste time. Don’t let anybody stop you. Hobbie, relay a message via the X-wings to
Allegiance
. Have them scramble a medical team down to our arrival plaza in the shuttle. Then catch up to Tycho. Act as his wingman to the plaza.”
Tycho nodded and gathered Cheriss up in his arms. In seconds both pilots were gone.
Wedge and Janson straightened and turned to look at Thanaer. The Cartann pilot was executing the same lunge over and over again for the enjoyment of the crowd.
“You jumped out ahead of me,” Wedge said. “This was my fight.”
Janson smiled. “Notice that, did you?”
“You don’t think I can take him?”
“I know you can.” Janson’s smile changed from simple merriment to the cold, reptilian satisfaction he sometimes demonstrated when he finally got a target lock on a difficult opponent who richly deserved to become one with deep-space vacuum. “But there are three important reasons why I should take this fight and you shouldn’t.”
“Such as.”
“First, the professional reason. You’re the diplomat, the focus of what’s going on. Should something go wrong, you’re not expendable. I am. Second, a personal reason. You’d do this out of duty. Me, I’m going to enjoy it.” He took off his belt and shrugged his way out of the jacket, exposing bare arms and the vibroblade sheath strapped to his left forearm. He handed both garments to Wedge and picked up Cheriss’s blastsword.
“Third reason?”
“Also personal.” He glanced past Wedge into the crowd. “I’m not sure what all went on last night … but you can consider this an engagement present. Or whatever.” He turned from Wedge and stepped out into the circle, raising the blastsword high.
The audience roared.
“Before you die,” Thanaer said, “I’m going to teach you the consequences of insulting your betters.”
Janson smiled back at him. He gestured toward the woman who had pronounced the palm-down death
sentence on Cheriss. “Thanaer, I have to admit, your widow sure is pretty.”
The announcer interrupted their exchange. “We have a non-title ground challenge. Our new ground champion, Lord Pilot Thanaer ke Sekae, accepts the challenge of Major Wes Janson of the New Republic diplomatic envoy.”
There was little applause from the crowd this time. Wedge sensed a breathlessness to their expectation. He shared it.
He didn’t realize Tomer had joined him until the diplomat spoke. “Something of a no-win situation,” Tomer said.
“Explain that.”
“If Janson loses, obviously, your diplomatic party is reduced. Fewer pilots, fewer objects of admiration for the Adumari. The Imperials aren’t obliged to reduce the size of their party. If Janson wins, well, Thanaer is very well respected here. Very much beloved of the court of Cartann and the
perator
.”
Wedge shook his head. “Recalculate that, Tomer. If Janson loses, a man who does good things dies. If Thanaer loses, a man willing to gain some points at the cost of the life of a young woman dies. Are you capable of seeing the difference?”
Tomer sighed. “I think you and I speak very different dialects of Basic.”