Read Online Exultant by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online

hard.
    Pirius had never heard a speech like this. Nobody talked about victory—not victory anytime soon, anyhow. The war wasn’t to be won, it was to be
endured.
Victory would come, but it was for future generations. The brass on the bench weren’t impressed by Nilis’s grandiose declarations either.
    And Nilis proceeded to make things a thousand times worse.
    “Sirs, once again I urge you to
think.
Rise above yourselves! Rise above your petty rivalries! Isn’t it true that soldiers of the Green Army habitually resent Strike Arm for the perceived luxury of their bases? Isn’t it true that Navy officers traditionally imagine that the Commission knows nothing of the pressures on warriors, even though the Commission plays such a significant role in running the war? And as for we of the Commission, are the Doctrines really so fragile that we fear their breaking even in such an extraordinary case—even in a case where a brave officer is simply overriding a pointless order for the sake of prosecuting his duty more effectively?”
    And so on. By the time Nilis was done insulting everybody, Pirius knew that any chance of the case going his way, if there had ever been one, was lost.
             
    The panel’s deliberation was brief. The president of the court took only a few seconds to announce its verdict.
    For his gross violation of orders, Pirius Blue was to be demoted, and transferred to a penal unit at the Front. Pirius Red knew, everybody knew, that such a posting was tantamount to a death penalty. It was scarcely more of a shock when the court announced that Pirius’s crew, Cohl and Tuta, would be transferred along with him for their “complicity” in his “crimes.”
    And, in an almost causal afterthought, the president announced that Pirius Red, the pilot’s younger version, would likewise be transferred to a penal Rock. There were reassignments, lesser punishments, for the younger versions of Cohl, Tuta, and Dans.
    By now Pirius understood the theory of temporal-paradox law. But he found this impossible to take in.
    Once the president was done speaking, Nilis was immediately on his feet again. He announced his intention to appeal the verdict. And he requested that in the interim he have both Pirius Red and Pirius Blue assigned to his personal retinue. He would act as guarantor of their behavior, and he would seek to make best use of their services in the betterment of mankind’s greater goals.
    The panel conferred again. It seemed some bargain was done. The judges did not dispute Nilis’s right to appeal. They would not allow Pirius Blue, as prime perpetrator of this anti-Doctrinal lapse, to escape the sentence passed down, but as a gesture of leniency they placed Pirius Red, the younger copy, in Nilis’s care.
    Nilis got up one more time, to make a final, angry denunciation of the court. “For the record let me say that this shameful charade is in microcosm a demonstration of why we will
never
win this war. I refer not only to your sclerotic decision-making processes, and the lethality of your interagency rivalry, but also to the simple truth of this case: that a man who defeated a Xeelee is not lauded as a hero but prosecuted and brought down. . . .”
    It was stirring stuff. But the automated monitor was the only witness; the court was already emptying.
    Pirius stood, bewildered. He saw faces turned to him, Torec, Captain Seath, even Pirius Blue, his older self, but they seemed remote, unreadable, as if they were blurred. So that was that, it seemed, Pirius’s life trashed and taken away from him in a summary judgment, for a “crime” he hadn’t even had the chance to commit.
    He shouted down at Pirius Blue, “This is all your fault.”
    Pirius Blue looked up from his lower tier and laughed bleakly. “Well, maybe so. But how do you think I feel? Do you know what’s the worst thing of all? That mission, my mission, is
never even going to happen.
”
    Then he was led away. Pirius Red didn’t