Flag In Exile

The car pulled up at the foot of the platform work crews had erected before Yountz Pavilion. The facing temporary bleachers were crowded to the bursting point, and Honor climbed out into the tumult of music and shouting voices while picked guardsmen snapped to attention in a double row. Her cheeks heated as the waves of sound rolled over her. Even now, she found it hard to accept that she was these people's direct, personal ruler, and she fought the urge to explain that they'd mistaken her for someone truly important.

She set Nimitz on her shoulder as Howard Clinkscales stepped forward to greet her. Her burly, white-haired regent leaned on his silver-headed staff of office as he bowed deeply, then extended his arm to her and escorted her between the lines of guardsmen to the platform's stairs. The band reached the end of the Steadholder's Anthem with perfect timing as they stepped out onto the platform, and the cheers faded into silence as Honor released Clinkscales' arm and crossed to the flag-draped podium.

Another white-haired man, this one frail with pre-prolong age and dressed all in black, relieved only by the white of an antique clerical collar, waited there for her. She dropped one of her newly mastered curtsies to him, and the Reverend Julius Hanks, spiritual head of the Church of Humanity Unchained, extended his hand to her with a smile, then turned to face the crowd and cleared his throat as she took her place at his side.

"Let us pray, Brothers and Sisters," he said simply, and the crowd fell instantly silent as his amplified voice floated over them. "Oh God, Father and Tester of Mankind, we thank You for this day and for the bounty with which You have rewarded us in this, the fruits of our labor. We beseech Your blessing on us always as we face the Great Test of life. Strengthen us as we rise to its challenges, and help us to know and to do Your will always, that we may come to You at the end of all labor with the sweat of Your work upon our brows and Your love in our hearts. And we most humbly beseech You to bestow Your wisdom always upon our leaders, and especially upon this Steadholder, that her people may prosper under her rule and walk always in the sunshine of Your favor. In the Name of the Tester, the Intercessor, and the Comforter, Amen."

A deep, reverberating "amen" echoed from the crowd, and Honor joined it. She hadn't converted to the Church of Humanity, that was one of the things which most infuriated the street preachers, yet she respected both the Church and the personal faith of people like Reverend Hanks. She was uncomfortable with some elements of Church doctrine, yet for all its lingering sexism, the Church was a vital, living organism, a central part of Grayson life, and its beliefs were far less rigid and fixed than some.

Honors interest in military history meant she knew only too well how often the intolerance of religious bigotry had exacted its price in blood and atrocity, how seldom a single faith had enjoyed universal acceptance without becoming an instrument of repression. And she knew how fanatical the original Church of Humanity had been when it shook the dust of Old Earth from its sandals to found its own perfect society on this beautiful, deadly planet. Yet somehow the Church had avoided repression here. There had been times, in its past, when that was not true. She knew that, too, for she'd applied herself to the study of Grayson history with even more intensity than she had to that of Manticore. She had to, for she must learn to know and understand the people accident had called her to rule. So, yes, she knew of the periods when the Church had ossified, when doctrine had hardened into dogma. But those periods seldom lasted, which was all the more surprising in such a deeply traditional people as those of Grayson.

Perhaps it was because the Church had learned from the horrors of Grayson's Civil War, when over half the planet's total population had perished. Surely that terrible lesson had cut deep, yet she thought it was only half the answer, and that the very world on which they lived was the other half.

Grayson was its own peoples worst enemy, the invisible threat perpetually waiting to destroy the unwary. That wasn't unique to Yeltsin's Star, of course: Any orbital habitat offered its inhabitants countless ways to do themselves in, and many another planet was equally, if less insidiously, dangerous. But most people in such environments either became slaves to the traditions they knew spelled survival or else developed an almost automatic, instinctive rejection of tradition in eternal search for better ways to survive. What made the Graysons different was that; somehow, they'd done both. They did cling to the traditions they'd tested and found good, yet they were simultaneously willing to consider the new in ways even Manticorans were not, for the Manticore System's three inhabited worlds were friendly to Man.

She raised her head as the silence of prayer eased into the rustle and stir of bodies, and once again she felt the dynamism which imbued these strange, determined people who had become hers. The balance of tradition and its sense of identity set against the need to conquer their environment and the drive to experiment that created. It was an oddly heady brew, one she envied, and as she turned to face her subjects and a fresh ovation rolled up to meet her, she wondered yet again how her own infusion into it would ultimately affect it.

She gazed out over the faces. Thousands of intent, expectant faces, all turned towards her, and spoke sternly to the butterflies in her middle. The soft, almost chirping sound of amusement Nimitz made in her ear helped, and she smiled out at the enormous crowd.

"Thank you for that kind, if somewhat overwhelming, welcome." The sound system carried her soprano clearly, and a ripple of laughter greeted her wry tone. "There are a few more of you than I'm used to speaking to at one time," she went on, "and I'm afraid I'm still a bit new at making speeches, so I'll keep this simple. And..." she waved at the heavily laden tables dotted across the grass "since I see the caterers are waiting, I'll keep it short, as well."

That woke fresh laughter and a spatter of applause, and her smile became a grin.

"I suppose that shows me your priorities," she teased, and shook her head. "Well, since you're all so hungry, let's not waste any more time.

"We're here," she went on more seriously, "to dedicate the city dome. This is a new steading, and, for the moment, at least, a poor one. You all know how stretched our fiscal structure is right now, and you know, even better than I, how expensive it is to build a new steading from the unreclaimed ground up. You know how hard you've worked, how much each or you, and all the people still out on the projects, who can't join us here today, have sweated and labored to create this beautiful city." She waved at the park around them, the buildings looming beyond its trees, and the sparkling, half-invisible dome above them and let her voice fall silent for a moment, then cleared her throat.

"Yes, you all know that," she said quietly. "But what you may not know is how proud of each and every one of you I am. How deeply honored I am that you chose to give up places in older, established steadings to come here, to this place where there was nothing, and create such beauty for us all. Yours is an ancient world, one to which I am a newcomer, but surely none of your ancestors have done more, or done it better, and I thank you all."

A pleased, embarrassed hush answered her quiet sincerity, and she turned to beckon for a young man to join her from among the other dignitaries on the platform. Adam Gerrick still looked as if he felt out of costume in his formal attire, but the crowd recognized him and applauded loudly as the chief engineer of Grayson Sky Domes, Ltd., stepped up beside his Steadholder.