But the proper mood still eluded him. He kept thinking back to Anne Reynolt and to what Silipan had shown him. The Focused would see through his schemes; it was just a matter of time. Focus was a miracle. Pham Nuwen could have made the Qeng Ho a true empire—despite Sura's treachery—if only he'd had Focused tools. Yes, the price was high. Pham remembered the rows of zombies up in Hammerfest's Attic. He could see a dozen ways to make the system gentler, but in the end, to use Focused tools, there would have to be some sacrifice.
Was final success, a true Qeng Ho empire, worth that price? Could he pay it?
Yes and yes!
At this rate he'd never achieve access state. He backed off, began the whole relax cycle again. He let his imagination slide into memories. What had it been like in the beginning times? Sura Vinh had delivered theReprise and a still very naive Pham Nuwen to the megalopolis moons of Namqem... .
He had remained at Namqem for fifteen years. They were the happiest years of Pham Nuwen's life. Sura's cousins were in-system, too—and they fell in love with the schemes that Sura and her young barbarian proposed: a method of interstellar synchronization, the trading of technical tricks where their own buying and selling would not be affected, the prospect of a cohesive interstellar trading culture. (Pham learned not to talk about his goals beyond that.) Sura's cousins were back from some very profitable adventures, but they could see the limits of isolated trading. Left to themselves, they would make fortunes, even keep them for a time...but in the end they would be lost in time and the interstellar dark. They had a gut appreciation for many of Pham's goals.
In some ways, his time with Sura at Namqem was like their first days on theReprise. But this went on and on, the imaginings and the teaming ever richer. And there were wonders that his hard head with all its grandiose plans had never considered: children. He had never imagined how different a family could be from the one of his birth. Ratko, Butra, and Qo were their first little ones. He lived with them, taught them, played blinkertalk and evercatch with them, showed them the wonders of the Namqem world park. Pham loved them far more than himself, and almost as much as he loved Sura. He almost abandoned the Grand Schedule to stay with them. But there would be other times, and Sura forgave him. When he returned, thirty years later, Sura awaited, with news of other parts of the Plan well under way. But by then their first three children were themselves avoyaging, playing their own part in founding the new Qeng Ho.
Pham ended up with a fleet of three starships. There were setbacks and disasters. Treachery. Zamle Eng leaving him for dead in Kielle's comet cloud. Twenty years he was fleetless at Kielle, making himself a trillionaire from scratch, just to escape the place.
Sura flew with him on several missions, and they raised new families on half a dozen worlds. A century passed. Three. The mission protocols they had devised on the oldReprise served them well, and across the years there were reunions with children and children's children. Some were greater friends than Ratko or Butra or Qo, but he never loved them quite so much. Pham could see the new structure emerging. Now it was simply trade, sometimes leavened with family ties. It would be much more.
The hardest thing was the realization that they needed someone at the center, at least in the early centuries. More and more Sura stayed behind, coordinating what Pham and others undertook.
And yet they still had children. Sura had new sons and daughters while Pham was light-years away. He joked with her about the miracle, though in truth he was hurt at the thought she had other lovers. Sura had smiled gently and shook her head. "No, Pham, any child I call my own is also of you." Her smile turned mischievous. "Over the years, you have stuffed me with enough of yourself to birth an army. I can't use that gift all at once, but use it I will."
"No clones." Pham's word came out sharper than he intended.
"Lord, no." She looked away. "I...one of you is all I can handle."
Maybe she was just as superstitious as he was. Or maybe not: "No, I'm using you in natural zygotes. I'm not always the other donor, or the only other donor. Namqem medics are very good at this kind of thing." She turned back, and saw the look on his face. "I swear, Pham, every one of your children has a family. Every one is loved....We need them, Pham. We need families and Great Families. The Plan needs them." She jabbed at him playfully, trying to jolly the disapproval from his face. "Hey, Pham! Isn't this the wet dream of every conquering barbarian lord? Well, I'll tell you, you've outfathered the greatest of them."
