The Dance of Time

The problem lay elsewhere. It was becoming impossible to gauge the probabilities at all. The war was dissolving into a thing of sheer chaos, with all data hopelessly corrupted. A superhuman intelligence that could have assessed alternate courses of action and chosen among them based on lightning-quick calculations, simply spun in circles. Its phenomenal mind had no more traction than a wheel trapped in slick mud.

Dimly, and for the first time, a mentality never designed to do so understood that its great enemy had deliberately aimed for this result.

Bizarre. Link could understand the purpose, but slipped whenever it tried to penetrate the logic of the thing. How could any sane mind deliberately seek to undermine all probabilities? Deliberately strive to shatter all points of certainty? As if an intelligent being were a mindless shark, dissolving all logic into a fluid through which it might swim.

For the millionth time, Link examined the enormous records of the history of warfare that it possessed. And, finally, for the first time—dimly—began to realize that the ever-recurrent phrase "the art of war" was not simply a primitive fetish. Not simply the superstitious way that semi-savages would consider the science of armed conflict.

It almost managed something a human would have called resentment, then. Not at its great enemy, but at the new gods who had sent it here on its mission. And failed to prepare it properly.

But the moment was fleeting. Link was not designed to waste time considering impossibilities. The effort it had taken the new gods to transport Link and its accompanying machinery had almost exhausted them economically. Indeed, the energy expenditure had been so great that they had been forced to destroy a planet in the doing.

Their own. The centuries of preparation—most of it required by the erection of the power and transmission grids that had blanketed the surface—could not possibly have been done on any other planet. Not with the Great Ones moving between the star systems, watching everything.

The surviving new gods—the elite of that elite—had retreated to a heavily-fortified asteroid to await the new universe that Link would create for them. They could defend themselves against the Great Ones, from that fortress, but could not possibly mount another intervention into human history.

They had taken a great gamble on Link. An excellent gamble, with all the probability calculations falling within the same margin of near-certainty.

And now...

Nothing but chaos. How was Link to move in that utterly alien fluid?

* * *

"Your commands, Great Lady?"

Link's sheath looked up at the commander of the army. Incredibly, it hesitated.

Not long enough, of course, for the commander himself to notice. To a human, a thousandth of second was meaningless.

But Link knew. Incredibly, it almost said: "I'm not sure. What do you recommend?"

It did not, of course. Link was not designed to consider impossibilities.

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Framed

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Chapter 36

The Ganges plain, north of Mathura

As he'd hoped he would, Belisarius caught the Mathura garrison while it was still strung out in marching order.

"They're trying to form up squares," Abbu reported, "but if you move fast you'll get there before they can finish. They're coming up three roads and having trouble finding each other. The artillery's too far back, too." The old bedouin spat on the ground. "They're sorry soldiers."

"Garrison duty always makes soldiers sluggish, unless they train constantly." Ashot commented. "Even good ones."

The Armenian officer looked at Belisarius. "Your orders?"

"Our cataphracts are the only troops we've got who are really trained as mounted archers. Take all five hundred of them—use Abbu's bedouin as a screen—and charge them immediately. Bows only, you understand? Don't even think about lances and swords. Pass down the columns and rake them—but don't take any great risks. Stay away from the artillery. If they're already too far back, they'll never get up in position past a mass of milling infantrymen."

Ashot nodded. "You just want me to keep them confused, as long as I can."

"Exactly." Belisarius turned and looked at the huge column of Rajput cavalry following them. Using the term "column" loosely. Most of the cavalry were young men, eager for glory now that a real battle finally looked to be in the offing. Their ranks, never too precise at the best of times, were getting more ragged by the minute as the more eager ones pressed forward.

"I'm not going to be able to hold them, Ashot," Belisarius said. "That's all right—provided you can keep that Malwa army from forming solid musket-and-pike squares before I get there."

Seconds later, Ashot was mounted and leading his cataphracts forward.

Belisarius turned to the Rajput kings and top officers, who had gathered around him.

"You heard," he stated. "Just try to keep the charge from getting completely out of control."