In Fury Born (3 of 5 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
In Fury Born by David Weber. Copyright 2006 by David Weber.
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Prologue (CONT�'D)



"I know she is," he repeated, his distinctive slate-gray eyes unwontedly serious. "In fact that's what's worrying me. I'd almost prefer for it to be an adolescent fascination with the idea that combat can be 'glorious' and exciting."

"Would you, now?" Sebastian gazed at him thoughtfully.

Sebastian was more than merely fond of his son-in-law. Collum DeVries was probably one of the most brilliant men he'd ever met, and he was also a very good man. Sebastian suspected that it was rare for any father to believe any man could really be worthy of his daughter, and he admitted that there'd been an additional edge of concern in his own case when Fiona brought Collum home for the first time. Those gray eyes, with their oddly feline cast, coupled with his height and fair hair, had been impossible to miss. The Ujvári mutation's combination of physical traits was as well advertised as its mental traits, and Sebastian had braced himself for the inevitable confrontation. But that confrontation had never occurred, and over the years, Collum had amply demonstrated that he was, indeed, worthy of Sebastian O'Shaughnessy's only daughter.

Which didn't necessarily mean they saw eye-to-eye on every issue, of course.

"Alley--unfortunately, I sometimes think," Collum continued "--is exactly like both of her parents. She's smart--God, is she smart! And stubborn. And the sort who insists on making up her own mind."

"I agree," Sebastian said, when the younger man paused. "But this is a bad thing in exactly what way?"

"It's a bad thing, from my perspective at least, because I can't get away with telling her 'because I'm your father, that's why!' Or, at least, because I'm smart enough myself to know better than to try."

"Ah." Sebastian nodded. "A problem I had a time or two with her mother, now that you mention it."

"Somehow I don't doubt that for a moment." Collum grinned, his face momentarily losing its unusual expression of concern. But the grin was fleeting.

"Oh," he went on, waving one hand, "if I tell her not to do something, she won't. And I've never been afraid she'd sneak around behind my back to do something she knew Fiona or I would disapprove of, even now that the hormones have kicked in with a vengeance. But she'll make up her own mind, and if she thinks I'm wrong, she's not shy about letting me know. And when the time comes that she decides it's right for her to make a decision, she will make it--and act on it--even if she knows it's one I'd strongly oppose."

"Every child does that, Collum," Sebastian said gently. "At least, every child who's going to grow up into a worthwhile human being."

"You're right, of course. But that doesn't keep me from worrying about one of those decisions I don't want her to make."

He met his father-in-law's eyes--the same green eyes he saw when he looked at his wife or his older daughter--very levelly.

"It's a decision we all have to make, one way or the other, even if we do it only by default," Sebastian said after a moment.

"Sure it is," Collum agreed. "But I'm afraid of how quickly she's going to make it. I want her to take time to really think about it. To consider all of her options, all of the things she might be giving up."

"Of course you do," Sebastian said, but Collum's eyes flickered at the ever so slight edge he allowed into his voice.

"I'm genuinely not trying to pussyfoot around the issue, Sebastian," his son-in-law said. "And I think you know how much respect I have for the military in general and you in particular. I know exactly what you did to win the Banner, and I know how few other people could have done it. I think it's unfortunate that we still need the Marine Corps and the Fleet, but I'm fully aware that we do. And that we'll go on needing both of them--and thanking God we have them--at least until the Second Coming. If anyone knows that, those of us who work for the Foreign Ministry do."

And that, Sebastian reflected, was nothing but simple truth, despite the fact that Collum DeVries was an Ujvári, with all of the ingrained personal distaste for violent confrontation which went with it. No one would ever confuse Collum with a weakling, but like the vast majority of Ujváris, his entire worldview and mental processes were oriented towards consensus and pragmatic compromise. As one prominent geneticist had put it, the Ujváris suffered from an excess of sanity, compared to the rest of the human race, and Sebastian had always thought that summed it up quite well.

They did have their detractors, of course. Some people saw their bone-deep--actually, gene-deep--aversion to confrontation as cowardice, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Personally, Sebastian had always viewed their attitude as more than a little unrealistic, but he was prepared to admit that that could have been his own prejudices talking. And whether it was unrealistic as a personal philosophy or not, it was definitely one of the things which made them so effective in the diplomatic service, or as analysts and policymakers, capable of standing back from personal, adversarial approaches to policy debates. And it was also the reason why, despite their intellectual prowess, Ujváris as a group had a well-earned reputation for looking down their philosophical noses at other people who were readier to embrace . . . direct action solutions to problems.
And at the people, like the citizens of New Dublin, where the tradition of service to the House of Murphy ran bone-deep, who were called upon to implement those direct actions at the command of the Emperor.

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