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flustered. “Yes, heneralissimo ,” he said; evidently the news of Raj’s demotion hadn’t reached the eastern marches yet. “That’s my estimate. How did you know?”
    “Logistics. If Ali’s planning on moving as far north as Sandoral, that’s the maximum number he can supply overland from the bridgehead. Our forts at the border can hold out for six months or more, even if the Colony put in a full attack—which they won’t or they couldn’t put that large a field army into action. They’ll have blockforces around the frontier strongpoints, but they can’t use river transport to supply Ali. So they moved north and crossed upstream of the forts.”
    Both the Colony and the Civil Government had put generations of effort into those defenses. The giant cast-steel rifles in the forts would smash anything that tried to steam past them on the river. That ruled out supply by riverboat.
    “Ali—Tewfik—must have built a railroad line to the east bank,” Raj said. “But on the western shore, it’ll be animal transport. Even with what they can forage, no more than fifty thousand men and riding dogs. They wouldn’t bring less, not for a full-scale invasion, and they couldn’t feed more.”
    Barholm shot Raj a considering look. “Go on,” he said to Heldeyz.
    The courier nodded. “I met—”
    observe, Center whispered in Raj’s mind:

    Heldeyz knelt before a throne. It was lightly built, of cast bronze fretwork, but inlaid with gold and gems in a pattern that flared out behind the seat like a peacock’s tail. A man in shimmering cloth-of-gold sat on it. Throne and man glittered when stray beams of light penetrated the lacework canopy that slaves held above it; a spray of peacock feathers sprang from the great ruby in the clasp at the front of his turban. Around the Settler stood generals and noblemen, a few Bedouin chiefs in goathair robes and ha’ik, mullahs in black, servants with flasks of iced sherbert, crouching clerks and accountants with paper and pen and abacus. None of them came within the ring of guardsmen, black slave-mamluks with great curved swords naked in their hands, or bell-mouthed riot guns at the ready.
    “Your master, the kaphar king, has offended me grievously,” Ali said, speaking fair Sponglish. “He has violated the terms of our treaty . . . and my father’s blood cries out for vengeance. No duty is more sacred. Yet Allah, the Merciful, the Lovingkind, enjoins us to peaceful deeds.”
    Ali’s face was heavy-featured but regular, the curved beak of the nose dominating, offset by full red lips and a forked beard. His eyes were large and brown, luminous and somehow disturbing. Apart from an occasional twitching tic of his right cheek, the expression was one of mild reason.
    An officer approached, going down on both knees and bowing until the point of his helmet-spike touched the glowing Al Kebir carpets that covered the ground before the Settler’s pavilion and campaign-throne.
    “ Amir el Mumineen , Commander of the Faithful, the infidel emissaries from the city of Gurnyca crave the honor of your presence.”
    Ali’s eyebrows rose slightly. He leaned back in the portable throne, and servants stepped forward to spray rosewater from crystal ewers through rubber bulbs. He sipped sherbert from a glass globe through a silver straw and waited.
    “By all means, let them enter,” he said gently.
    The delegates ignored Heldeyz, prone on the carpet before the Settler. There were half a dozen of them, mostly in the dress of wealthy merchants, one in Civil Government uniform. They threw themselves prostrate; a gesture that only the ruler of the Gubernio Civil was legally due. In fact, it was forbidden to any other on penalty of death, but the Governor was in East Residence, and Ali was very much present before their gates with fifty thousand men.
    “Sovereign lord,” the head of the delegation mumbled into the carpet; he was an elderly man, sweating in the heat, the wattles under his chin