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something that hasn't ever changed over the past years! Maris having at one
time been a slave girl on my estate who had seduced Sanda's own husband,
although I don't think he'd loved the golden haired slave girl except maybe
just as a "plaything".
"Maris is well aware of the `consequences' of such actions," I pointed
out. I was aware of the "friendship" between Darlanis and Maris, but even so
Darlanis would not tolerate "losing" Orgon to Dularn, regardless of who was
"responsible" for the loss here! And to her any "vote" to do so too would be
"rigged" in her eyes!
"There are a lot of people in the northern half of Orgon who feel more
`Dularnian' than `Californian'," Sharon commented then. I suspected too now
that they preferred Dularn's lower tax rates. Dularn being more "libertarian"
a society too than is the Empire. The "role" of government in people's lives
being much less too.
"Maybe I'd better have a talk with Darlanis," I smiled back. Fly up with
Sharon to Sarn, and see what Darlanis thought here...
"You should start letting `others' take these `risks' for you," Jon said
to me as he saw my latest collection of "scars" as we got undressed for bed.
In this time I'd been gone for three days, not the couple weeks I'd spent
there in the 24th Century.
"I'll still be around to bounce my grandchildren on my knee," I smiled
back, slipping down my strap so that I was naked. I do have a fairly good
figure, rather slim and muscular, but I'm rather badly scarred due to the
"adventures" I've had here in the past five years, scars that bring back
memories of so many adven- tures I've had both here on Earth and there too on
the planet Mars. The marks of Sisa's claws, the scar from the laser burn I
took when Aurora made her "revolution", those from various sword blades that I
didn't quite parry in time, all mark me as "what" I am. A woman who has become
a "living legend" in her own time...
"I'll never have another wife like you," Jon smiled back.
"I should hope not," I laughed back, kissing him then.
Chapter Nineteen
"Telegraph isn't `working' again," the operator said to me. Nineteenth
Century "technology" was just a bit too "advanced" for my people, I mused to
myself, well "aware" that there could be a break anywhere in the line between
Trella and Sarn. This was a much more "modern" design than the system of
"stations" I'd set up some years before, but it was vulnerable to broken wires
too. No doubt a thunderstorm had caused a branch to fall over a wire! My only
other means of "communications" was express riders, which traveled only about
a hundred miles a day over the forest paths.
"Contact the most distant station you can reach, have them send out a
repair party," I answered, holding my voice level. It being obvious to me that
even these people, sons and daughters of the caste of Builders, had little
comprehension of what I needed! "And in the future there will be hourly checks
on this line from one end to the other so repairs can be made more soon," I
spoke.
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"The fastest, most reliable communications is still a good ship," my
husband smiled as he stood there watching all this now! "On a good day you can
put two hundred miles or better under your keel," my handsome dark haired
husband pointed out as I nodded...
"Find Sharon, tell her to prepare for a flight to Dularn," I smiled
back, seeing him nod. I'd have a talk with Maris herself!
"Keep an `eye' on things while I'm gone," I said, taking Amethysta's
hands in mine, the thought going through my mind that Sanda would have her
hands full trying to do some of the "politi- cal tricks" with Amethysta as
Queen that she did with me. Sanda at times almost behaving as if she wore the
crown of Trelandar instead of me. That "deal" she'd made with Maris Marn there
in 2567 having been just an example of what I'm referring to here... Sanda
also tended to be a bit too "democratic" for my liking at times, almost as if
she was a good ward heeling Democrat from the 20th Century! A very
intelligent, competent, capable woman, San- da was also the sort of a Prime
Minister any Queen had to watch! Her political party, the Trelandarian
Revolutionary Party, having controlled the Assembly ever since we'd kicked the
Empire out... An even more "radical" group, the Democratic Party of Trelandar
having now held "minority status" since the last election. This last group,
controlled by a rabble rouser by the name of Les Haw- kins, wanted to actually
make Trelandar into a "socialist state"! There were of course "conservatives",
who yet "favored" Darlanis.
"I'll see that Lady Sanda `stays out of trouble'," she prom- ised, her
eyes, a vivid blue, glowing into mine as I nodded back. I wasn't too "worried"
about Les Hawkins, who I planned to pub- licly debate sometime when I got
around to it, the "concept" of "socialism" being "refuted" by the "history" of
the 20th Century. By the "writings" of Janet Rogers herself, who most people
still yet honored even if she had not "been" what most believed of her.
"You are afraid of what the future may hold?" Sharon said to me as I
flew north, the steady drone of the engine a comfort now. The clouds just
above us drifting by as we now flew towards Sarn. The Pacific a mile below
gleaming like rippled glass in the sun. Sharon's golden hair, her facial
molding reminded me of Darlanis.
"Darlanis `lost' a lot when she gave up Trelandar to me," I answered.
There had been those who had questioned her "motives". Who had said that she
was no longer the "leader" she had been... It had been Sharon as Imperial
Princess who had "turned things around" for Darlanis, Sharon as the Queen of
Orgon who had saved the Empire from breaking up. And now Maris was up to her
old tricks again, stirring up trouble like Les Hawkins back in Trella was
doing to me. The thought now going through my mind then was it "possible" that
Les Hawkins was really an "agent" of Dularn?
"And Darlanis can't `afford' to give up Orgon to Dularn...," the young
Queen of that politically torn country added as I "nod- ded". Already the
Dularnian Federation controlled the "territo- ries" to the north of Orgon,
what had been Washington back in my own time. And Maris' alliance with Queen
Freydis now gave her access to the resources and lands stretching north all
the way to the arctic even if some of it was now only uninhabitable waste-
land due to the six anti-matter missiles the Priestesses had used last year to
prevent the EVIL ONE from entering our own "plane of existence". With Queen
Valeris and her Free Women now only a "memory", Dularn had become a "match"
for the Empire, something everyone knew too! Was Maris "planning" another war
against us?
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"Like Vietnam," I breathed, and just as "winless" for us!
"They didn't have `you'," Sharon spoke, looking at me.
"I'm just a woman `good with a sword'," I grinned back.
"I sure wish I'd known..." Darlanis smiled in a warm greet- ing, taking
my hands in hers as Sharon stood watching, the waves there in the bay of Sarn
rocking Black Lady a bit there at the dock behind us. The gold of her attire
seemingly "fitting" here. She is, I sometimes believe, a woman who believes in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]