PREVIEW

Henry Martyn, L. Neil Smith

Each day, within the glittering ‘drooms and council-chambers of many imperia-conglomerate (according to elaborate and stringent protocol), the most brilliantly conceived, carefully polished, sarcastically pointed pleasantries were exchanged between limp-wristed, expensively perfumed, richly overdressed diplomats and ministers plenipotentiary, in every respect (he admitted with the wry honesty which the privacy of his thoughts afforded him) like himself.

He withdrew his hand, and the object it had sought, from his pocket. Almost to the man, each availed himself of one or more perforate-ended inhalers which had originated aboard early starships where smoking with an open flame might prove disastrous. Handsomely hand-wrought, exquisitely embellished, containing a broad spectrum of aromatics—stimulants and stimulus-barriers— according to the tastes of their diverse and various owners, they were the 31st Century equivalent (he was aware from his own historical studies which had provided an example for Loreanna’s) of 18th Century snuffboxes. Daimler-Wilkinson raised his own engraved inhaler to his nostrils, breathing the narco-stimulant he preferred. His mind cleared (or he had the impression it did) and he went ahead with his thoughts.

These tokens of conspicuous sophistication were often tucked into lace-ruffled sleeves beside diminutive, elegant, but quite deadly thrustibles. This, he thought, told the tale for an era entire. He himself had soldiered with distinction (and a murderous reputation which still served him) as a youth in the Ceo’s wars.

Thus, at one end of a long, complicated chain of events powered, perfumed, and polished politicians promulgated protocol and policy. At the other, in the unutterable blackness of the Deep, starfleets clashed under the iron-spined command of lace-uniformed and lisping officers, reformed and clashed again. Controlled by the same sort of men—soft at the most superficial level, brutal at the most fundamental—slave-armies clawed and blasted one another for tee-simple ownership of the known galaxy. Oplytes, dreaded devourers, dismembered devastators, marauded across the screaming faces of entire worlds, raping men, women, and children alike, feeding upon their violated bodies, looting whole civilizations for their mincing masters, destroying whatever remained, leaving nothing behind but cinders. And—even Daimler-Wilkinson was astonished to think it—regardless of the particular styles in vogue, it had been this way ten centuries, a dozen lifetimes, fifty generations, a hundred decades, a thousand years. Possibly it had been this way from the beginning of human history.

Henry Martyn is due out in August, 1989 from TOR/St. Martin’s Press in hardback.