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land.”
    Landro was smiling strangely at the doorway. The courtiers, those old enough to understand what was happening, looked uncomfortable. Landro opened the door and signalled for an officer. The hard-faced Vegan had gone.
    The officer presented himself before Landro and saluted. Torquas wondered why he had not come directly to him. Wasn’t he Galacton?
    Landro said, “Conduct the Lord Torquas to the Empire Tower so that he may see the Rhadan vessel land. Guard him well. The engineer of the tower will know where the view is best.”
    “The top, Mariana,” Torquas said excitedly. “The very top.”
    Mariana looked at Landro and smiled. “The top, Warleader,” she agreed.
    For some reason Torquas could not understand, Lady Constans began to weep. She put her arms about Torquas and held him, to his embarrassment. She looked at the Empress-Consort and said, “Oh, Queen--he’s not well, he’s ill--”
    Torquas drew away from her and said, “I am perfectly fit.” He lifted his chin and said to the Vegan warman, “Hurry. I do not want to miss it.”
    Mariana stood in silence as the boy and Landro’s war-men marched off down the gallery. She turned to look coldly at the courtiers, thinking contemptuously that not one of them except old Constans had raised a hand or even voiced a protest. “All of you,” she said, “leave us.”
    When they had gone, leaving her alone with Landro, she took the Instrument of Abdication from her gown and read the formal words written in the ancient Vykan language.
    Landro brushed the back of her neck with his knuckles gently, familiarly. “You have my admiration, Queen,” he said.
    Mariana broke into laughter. “Queen of the Universe, Landro,” she said.
    Landro giggled. The sound disturbed Mariana and irritated her. There was a streak of hysteria in the man, a tension that it seemed to her might one day bring him suddenly to disaster. Mariana mistrusted flawed tools, but for the moment there was only Landro at hand, and he must be steadied and used.
    She walked to the gallery and stood by the high, narrow windows looking at the gray sky through which the Rhadan starship must descend to Nyor.
    She thrust the document into her breast and turned. “I shall change into royal red,” she said, “the color of kings, to greet our warlike visitor, The Rebel of Rhada.”
     
     

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    --therefore the tactics of defense during landing operations of capital ships is dependent upon the expected response from enemy high-energy weapons. With meson screens fully extended, the deployment of infantry is limited by the metric-ton capacity of the standard Mark XVII Matter Transceiver: that is to say, units of battalion strength and 18.6 seconds. Starships equipped with the newer Mark XX Transceiver may deploy units of regimental size at inter-- Golden Age fragment found at Tel-Paris, Earth
    (believed to be part of an Imperial military field manual)
     
    On grounding after planetfall, the commander of warmen seeking to insure the safety of his holy vessel will order the portals opened only after his cavalry screen has been formed. The mounted warmen must then move with swiftness, establishing a perimeter and attacking any stone- or missile-throwing devices within range of the vessel. Meanwhile, the Navigator must be alert to danger, prepared instantly to lift the vessel to a height of no less than one hundred meters.
    Simultaneously, the crew must make ready to support the cavalry screen with heavy stones and fire spears from the keel bays.
    Prince Fernald, On Tactics, early Second Stellar Empire period
     
    Against the gray sky, the Rhadan starship made a thousand-meter ovoid of darkness. Its descent toward the East Coast of the northern continent was cautious, with many hovering halts. The forces that drove the ship so swiftly through space were held in check now, and the air around it glowed with a pale blue radiance, ionizing the cloud layers so that the moisture froze into rime ice on the