Advance & Retreat by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Alternate History
Published: 2011-01-09T03:16:01.281000+00:00

would.

Colonel Andy knocked on George's door, which was open. When George waved for him to come in, he said, "Sir, there's a scryer here who wants to talk with you. Do you want to talk with him?"

Scryers, lately, had brought little but bad news. Even so, George shrugged and nodded. "I'd better, don't you think?"

"Who knows?" Andy turned away and spoke to a man in the antechamber: "Go ahead, but don't you waste the general's time."

"I won't, sir." The scryer, a captain, wore a gray mage's robe, his epaulets of rank, a sorcerer's badge, and a gold—in fact, probably polished brass—crystal ball to show his specialization. He shut the door on Andy after he came inside. Doubting George's adjutant let out a squawk, but the scryer ignored him. To George, he said, "This is for your ears alone."

The commanding general reached up and tugged at one of the organs in question. "Seems to be in tolerable working order," he observed. "Say your say, Captain—?"

"I'm called Bartram, sir. Bartram the Traveler." Bartram was somewhere in his thirties, with a long, lean, mournful face and sad, clever, hound-dog eyes. He gave off a feeling of reliability. Some people did.

Some of those people also let you down, as George was painfully well aware. The scryer coughed a couple of times, then said, "My hobby, sir, is looking for ways to read crystal balls that ought to be out of range."

"Some people grow roses. Some people raise snakes. You never can tell," George said.

"Er—well—yes," Captain Bartram said. "But I wouldn't be here now if I did those things."

"I suppose not. You'd probably be happier if you weren't, too," Doubting George said, though he wondered whether Bartram could be happy anywhere. His face denied the possibility. The commanding general went on, "Since you are here, suppose you go ahead and tell me why."

"Yes, sir. I'm here because of some of the things I heard when I was fooling around with my crystal ball late last night. They stretch farther then. I don't know why, but they do."

"And what you heard was—?" George tried to project an air of expectant waiting.

"Sir, what I heard was orders for Baron Logan the Black to hop on a glideway carpet and head east to take command of this army. And what I heard was Marshal Bart saying he'd come east, too, to take charge of Logan."

"Did you, now?" George said slowly, as if he came from the Sapphire Isle. Now he tried not to show the anger he felt. Logan the Black wasn't a regular at all. Hesmucet had declined to let him keep command of a wing when he took it over after James the Bird's Eye was killed outside Marthasville. And now Marshal Bart wanted to hand him command of a whole army? Of this whole army? If that wasn't an insult, Doubting George had never run into one.

"What will you do, sir?" Bartram the Traveler asked. "I thought you ought to know."

"I will do just what I am doing," George replied.

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