Barbarians at the Gates (44 page)

“The Blackshirts?” Marius stared at him.

“It seems to be a common feature of every internal security unit that they wear black uniforms,” Professor Kratman said, irony heavy in his tone. “I wonder if they know that they’re merely the latest in a long line of repressive organizations. Humans have been forming secret police groups ever since we discovered fire.” He frowned. “Incidentally, be careful how much encryption you use, even on Federation Navy channels. They’re hacking into some communications and could consider the heavy use of encryption to be a sign of disloyalty.”

“Disloyalty,” Marius repeated. The whole concept was absurd. “I couldn’t think of anything more likely to make people disloyal, Professor.”

“No,” Professor Kratman agreed. “I can’t either. But the Senate is scared, and scared people do stupid things. I think you’ll probably wind up with political officers on your ships watching your every move. I’d be surprised if you didn’t already have a spy or two beside you, keeping an eye on you. As I’ve said before, watch your back.”

His eyes narrowed. “There are some of us who believe that the Senate intends to move into a complete lockdown on the entire Federation once the war ends...and that will really blow up any hope of a stable Federation. There will be a thousand rebellions, if that happens, and the Federation Navy will schism. Again. It will destroy us. Win the war quickly, admiral.”

“I’ll try, sir,” Marius said, and nodded. For a moment, they were captain and lieutenant again. “Thank you.”

“You’ll need this,” Professor Kratman said, pulling a small box out of his pocket and passing it to Marius.

Marius opened the box. It held a simple silver ring, like the one Arunika had worn when they’d first met.

“I suggest that you keep it somewhere very secure and
don’t
let anyone else wear it. It will kill anyone but you.” Kratman smiled at Marius’s expression. “We take our security seriously, as I told you. Anyone who has a ring and refuses to put it on at request is probably a ringer. You have been warned.”

He stood up and slapped Marius on the shoulder. “Go and get married, young man. You deserve a break before you go back to the war.” His voice lowered. “And by then, we might know what we can do to help you with Governor Hartkopf.”

“Thank you,” Marius said. He pocketed the ring and held out a hand. The Professor took it and they shook firmly. “Can I invite you to the wedding?”

“I’m only a mere professor these days,” Kratman said dryly. “Don’t you think it would attract attention?”

As a High Society marriage is more about the politics than the young couple, it isn’t unknown for the wedding to be a place for private deal-making and political planning.

-
An Irreverent Guide to the Federation,
4000 A.D.

Earth, Sol System, 4095

“You must be Marius,” the girl said. She sounded oddly reluctant to talk. “I am Tiffany.”

“Yes,” Marius said. His mouth felt dry. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It would have been nicer if Daddy Dearest had given me more than a day’s warning,” she said, eyes flashing. “I could probably have bypassed the lock-outs and escaped to the Rim before you reached Earth.”

Marius found himself, again, at a loss for words.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said seriously. “You didn’t choose me and I didn’t choose you.” She stepped back and gave him a frank inspection. “At least you’re not as ugly as Senator Montgomery. Seventy years old if he’s a day, and he looks five hundred. He needs to spend more money on improving his appearance.”

“I think it’s part of his charm,” Marius said, and snorted.

Senator Montgomery was thrifty and utterly impossible to shift from the Senate, mainly because he knew where all of the bodies were buried. It took a very special person to make the Conservative Faction look like a bunch of raving progressives, but Montgomery managed it, somehow. Any change at all was anathema to him and his enemies had been heard to joke that the only reason he wasn’t richer was because he was determined not to change his finances.

His wife-to-be snorted too. “What charm?”

“Precisely my point,” Marius said. “Look, I didn’t ask for this...”

“I know.” Tiffany winked at him. “I’m sure you would have chosen someone much prettier if you had a free choice.”

She made a show of spinning around in front of him. Marius had to admire her, for there was nothing artificial about her looks. She
was
young. He knew that it wasn’t uncommon for Senators to have vast age differences between them and their brides, but Tiffany was nearly sixty years younger than him. Her long red hair set off her white dress nicely, while the dress itself pinched her body in all the right places. If they’d met while he’d been on leave, without his responsibilities to worry about, he might have tried to pick her up.

“You’re beautiful,” he said truthfully. Her face wasn’t as inhumanly perfect as some of the joy-girls he’d known as a younger officer, but the few defects added character. Tiffany might grow up into a very strong woman if her family didn’t cut her down first, or High Society show its traditional resentment of anyone trying to rise above their station, but he didn’t know how to say that to her. “I think...we might do well after all.”

He cringed, feeling like a young officer again.
That
had sounded lame.

Tiffany sobered quickly.

“I know that this wasn’t your choice,” she said, holding out a hand. “Let’s make the best of it, shall we?”

“Why not?” Marius took her hand.

He felt strange, holding the hand of his arranged bride, yet he also felt oddly comfortable in her presence. She was showing a remarkable amount of calm. If he’d been told that he had to marry a complete stranger—and a stranger so much older than himself—he would have been throwing himself at the walls.

“Just know that I’ll do my best for you,” Marius said, not sure why he cared all of a sudden. “But—if you want children—”

“I think,” Tiffany said cynically, “that they don’t really care about your performance in the bedchamber.” Her face fell for a second. “If you have someone...special...already in your life, I won’t complain if you spend time with her instead of me.”

“I don’t,” Marius said. That thought hadn’t crossed his mind. “And do you have someone special?”

“Not at the moment,” Tiffany admitted. “I thought that there would be enough time to find someone. Instead...” She shrugged expressively. “I’ll do my duty, admiral, and as long as you do yours, your superiors will be happy.”

There was something in her voice that broke Marius’s heart.

“I’ve never been a husband before,” he said, “but I’ll do my best.”

“I saw that in your file.” Tiffany smiled. “You never chose to marry before now?”

“My first serious lover didn’t want to spend her life following a young officer around the Rim, while the second didn’t want to leave Mars or spend long months apart from her husband,” Marius admitted. “After that, I gave up and decided to focus on my career. The Navy was my bride.”

“I think you’d have difficulty taking a superdreadnaught to bed,” Tiffany said archly. “Which missile tube would you use...”

Marius found himself chuckling as she giggled.

There was a knock at the door. It opened without waiting for any answer. Granny Sampson, one of Tiffany’s oldest relations through a complex network of family ties Marius hadn’t been able to fathom, bustled through the door and winked at them. Unlike most of the older members of High Society, she didn’t bother to hide her age and grey hair topped her very aristocratic head. Marius had only met her briefly, but he’d seen enough to discern that she was very influential behind the scenes and was most likely one of the people who had helped arrange his marriage. He had wondered, at first, what she got out of it, before realizing that the old woman wanted nothing more than influence and the chance to shape the future.

“Not very active, are you?” she asked, as she closed the door behind her. “Good heavens; when I was a girl, the entire world was shocked to discover the happy couple pressed against the wall, getting a sneak preview of the honeymoon. Mind you, everyone was shocked because they hadn’t thought the guy had it in him. He was a bit of a weed and a wet, and no one even thought he could get it up in a joy-house with nine joy-girls devoting themselves to his pleasure...”

“
Granny
,” Tiffany protested, blushing furiously. “What are you doing here?”

Granny Sampson made a show of checking her watch.

“Why, the ceremony is about to start, my dear,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to be late for your first wedding. First times are always special...”

“She’s been married to nine husbands and outlived them all,” Tiffany explained to Marius.

“Cheeky brat,” Granny Sampson said. She didn’t sound offended in the slightest. “I haven’t forgotten the shocking story of a man who showed up late to his wedding because he was too busy getting it on with the best man. Everyone in High Society will be talking about this wedding—I mean, you actually met
before
the wedding. That’s no good, is it? You might have run away in horror.”

She gave Marius a wink. “Don’t worry about a thing,” she assured him. “The ceremony itself is very simple, afterward you just have to endure the reception and then you can rush off and enjoy yourself.”

Tiffany let go of his hand—Marius had somehow never realized that she was still holding onto him—and rolled her eyes when Granny Sampson looked away.

“All you young folk are all the same,” Granny Sampson said without turning back. “You think of tradition as an impediment. It wasn’t like that in my day.”

“When dinosaurs ruled the Earth?” Tiffany asked sweetly. “I’ll see you at the reception, Granny.”

She gave Marius a wink and walked out the door, followed rapidly by Granny Sampson. Marius consulted his internal chronometer and sighed. The wedding was about to begin, which meant...in an hour, he would be a husband. He shook his head. He’d never imagined, in his worst nightmares, that his own wedding would be such a farce.

* * *

The Great Hall was large enough to accommodate thousands of people, enough to allow all of High Society to attend without crowding. As Marius and his best man—chosen from among the bride’s family, a distant cousin of his wife—walked up to the altar, he was acutely aware of the gazes fixed on him. He’d chosen to wear his dress uniform—though it had been the only choice he’d been allowed to make—and he could sense the collective shock and astonishment running through High Society. Marius found it hard to care. If they’d arranged the marriage to bind him to them, they might at least know what they were clasping to their collective bosom.

He had to admit, despite himself, that the Great Hall was impressive. The first Federation President had been inaugurated within its walls and all successive presidents, no matter how weak the office had become, had followed in his footsteps. It was lit by the glow of thousands of candles and decorated in a fashion that harkened back to the days of old, long before mankind had mastered space travel and gone out to create the Federation. He caught sight of the statues lining the walls and smiled grimly. Each of the statues represented an alien race that had been brought—willingly or otherwise—into the Federation. A couple of the statues had outlasted the races they were supposed to represent.

There were no live aliens at the wedding, of course. Aliens were banned from Earth and most of the Core Worlds, although there were some very small alien communities on a handful of them. It wasn’t unknown for some aliens to be allowed to travel without supervision, although they tended to have a hard time at customs. The crowd was all human—at least for a certain value of human—and High Society. Marius hadn’t been allowed to invite any of his family, even the ones living on Mars, let alone his friends. The cluster of admirals and generals at the rear of the room were all from High Society.

He sucked in his breath as the music began to play.
Courage
, he told himself.
You’ve endured a thousand battles with humans and aliens. You can endure your own wedding
.

Yes
, his thoughts rattled on,
but you’re not allowed to blow up your own wedding, are you? Regulations can be such a nuisance
...

His best man caught his arm as Tiffany advanced into the chamber wearing a long, white dress and carrying a bunch of flowers. She looked as if she was trying hard to be demure, but Marius could tell that she was nervous. Her bridesmaids, suitable young woman chosen from among her family, seemed to be laughing at her. Marius wondered, with a sudden flash of anger he refused to show on his face, if they were married themselves. Or, perhaps, if they knew that
they
wouldn’t be married off to a complete stranger. He wondered, just for a moment, how many deals had been struck behind the scenes to arrange his marriage.

Tiffany stopped beside him, her head bowed, and didn’t look up.

“Dearly beloved,” the Speaker said, “we are gathered here today to bind together two of our children, who have chosen to give their lives to one another in matrimony.”