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An Oblique Approach
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
EPILOGUE
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An Oblique Approach
ALIEN MINDS BATTLE
FOR BYZANTIUM
In northern India the Malwa have created an empire
of unexampled evil. Guided or possessed by an intelligence from beyond
time, with new weapons, old treachery, and an implacable will to power,
the Malwa will sweep over the whole Earth. Only three things stand between
the Malwa and their plan of eternal domination: the empire of Rome in the
East, Byzantium; a crystal with vision; and a man named Belisarius, the
greatest commander Earth has ever know. .
Cover art by Keith Parkinson
Paperback
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and
events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real
people or incidents is purely coincidental.
First printing, March 1998
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 0-671-878654
Copyright © 1998 by David Drake & Eric Flint
All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com
Typeset by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH
Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com
TO LUCILLE
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Contents
The first facet was purpose.
It was the only facet. And because it was the only facet, purpose had neither meaning nor content. It simply was. Was. Nothing more.
purpose. Alone, and unknowing.
Yet, that thing which purpose would become had not come to be haphazardly. purpose, that first and isolated facet, had been drawn into existence by the nature of the man who squatted in the cave, staring at it.
Another man—almost any other man—would have gasped, or drawn back, or fled, or seized a futile weapon. Some men—some few rare men—would have tried to comprehend what they were seeing. But the man in the cave simply stared.
He did not try to comprehend purpose, for he despised comprehension. But it can be said that he considered what he was seeing; and considered it, moreover, with a focused concentration that was quite beyond the capacity of almost any other man in the world.
purpose had come to be, in that cave, at that time, because the man who sat there, considering purpose, had stripped himself, over long years, of everything except his own overriding, urgent, all-consuming sense of purpose.
* * *
His name was Michael of Macedonia. He was a Stylite monk, one of those holy men who pursued their faith through isolation and contemplation, perched atop pillars or nestled within caves.
Michael of Macedonia, fearless in the certainty of his faith, stretched forth a withered arm and laid a bony finger on purpose.
For purpose, the touch of the monk's finger opened facet after facet after facet, in an explosive growth of crystalline knowledge which, had purpose truly been a self-illuminated jewel, would have blinded the man who touched it.
