EMPIRE: Resistance

by Richard F. Weyand

  “OK. Never had ‘em, and I’m afraid I’d fall off.”

  “Why? How many times do you fall out of bed normally?”

  Benton grunted.

  “Good point. Still, I’d just as soon you took the top.”

  “Sure.”

  They went back out to the sitting room and sat down.

  “So now what?” Geary asked.

  “The ship will come around and go through the hypergate, then we just sit around till we get to Center.”

  “Food?”

  “This ship is big enough to have a separate business-class dining room,” Benton said. “It won’t be like the first-class dining room, but it will still be pretty good.”

  “So how do we stay in shape?”

  Geary was a little concerned about his physical condition. Benton had been working out for months, knowing he wanted to go into the Imperial Marines. Geary’s late decision meant he had done nothing to prepare.

  “Should be a gym for business-class. Let me check. Yeah, the ship’s VR index lists a gym we can use.”

  “Good,” Geary said. “I need your help, though. I don’t know what I’m doing with that stuff.”

  “Sure. You’re not in bad shape, though. You do other stuff. But I can help you with weight training.”

  “Good. I appreciate it. Because if I just sit for three weeks and eat, when we get there I’ll be a potato.”

  Emperor Trajan made its long slow turn and made way for the big provincial hypergate. Geary watched the hypergate get closer in the VR channel of the ship’s forward camera. They spaced right through the center of the rotating wheel-like structure. There was a blue flash and the stars disappeared, to be replaced by hyperspace, sort of a gray oatmeal being stirred from underneath.

  “That’s it?” Geary asked.

  “I guess so,” Benton said.

  They were on their way.

  Double-Cross

  Paul Bowdoin was losing patience. The hereditary king of Phalia, distant descendant of Queen Anne III, who gave up her throne – and his claim to it – to annex to Sintar. Better that than forced annexation by the Democracy of Planets. Bowdoin understood that. But within two years the DP itself was gone, rolled up into the Empire as well. Now, three hundred years later, they were still stuck in the Empire as the result of a safety play that had been necessary for a mere two years.

  Bowdoin had thought the long wait might finally be over. That all the scheming and planning and waiting of the last three centuries would finally be coming to an end. Would come to an end in his own lifetime. But he would turn sixty years old next month, and the new Emperor and Empress were putting a final resolution further and further off.

  Damn Augustus VI! Why couldn’t he have left the Throne to one of his soft-headed sons? They could have dealt with that. But these two! Not only were they smart – the best Augustus VI could find – but they were young. One or the other of them could rule for seventy years. It had been a month since the coronation and the botched assassination attempt, and there had been no action since.

  Bowdoin had pushed on Weibel, and the industrialist had assured the frustrated wanna-be king they were moving as fast as the situation allowed. That it wasn’t worth putting everything at risk by being too hasty. Hasty? Three hundred years? Hasty? Bowdoin had given Weibel a piece of his mind. He would probably regret some of the things he’d said later, but this was a snail’s pace, dammit.

  Bowdoin was so upset he suddenly began to feel ill. Then a terrible possibility occurred to him. He tried to get up, to get to the desk where he kept a personal VR suppressor. He tried and failed, falling back into the chair. Too late. Too late.

  Bowdoin looked up to the ceiling, up toward space.

  “You bastard!” he shouted.

  Then he died.

  Peter Hillier knocked on the study door, then opened it and stuck his head in.

  “Your Highness?” he asked.

  Getting no answer he walked into the room and looked around. He saw Bowdoin slumped in the chair.

  “Your Highness!”

  Hillier walked over and took Bowdoin’s pulse. Nothing. He looked around, then went over to the desk. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, opened the desk drawer, and withdrew a personal VR suppressor. He turned it on and put it in Bowdoin’s shirt pocket. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket, then walked over to the desk and picked up the phone.

  “Yes. Cologne Police Department? I need to report a death. No, I don’t know the cause of death. Paul Bowdoin. In Queen Anne’s Palace. I’m his aide, and just discovered the body. No pulse. Yes, I’ll wait here.”

  Thomas Pitney got a VR call request marked Urgent. It was nine in the evening in the Mondari Alps, but urgent was urgent.

  “Whidley.”

  “Hey, boss. Dickens here. On Phalia.”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  “I monitor the police radio here in the capital with the decryption radio rig. And something unusual just came across. His aide just found Paul Bowdoin dead. Cologne police are going out to investigate.”

  “Paul Bowdoin?”

  “Yeah. The nth-great-grandson of Queen Anne, who annexed Phalia to Sintar. Goes around pretending to be king and shit. Lives in the old palace. Does that play into anything going on?”

  “It might. Thanks for the heads up.”

  “Sure.”

  It was three in the morning when Ardmore got a call request marked Urgent. The Palace would only put through calls to him at such an hour if it was a special case, or, as in this case, from a very small group of addresses.

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry about the hour, Your Majesty. Pitney here.”

  Hearing that, Ardmore woke up fast.

  “That’s all right. Go ahead.”

  “Yes, Sire. I just got word from a friend on Phalia the distant heir of the last Queen of Phalia was found dead in the palace by an aide. No cause of death specified. The police are going out to investigate.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pitney.”

  “What is it, Jimmy?” Burke asked.

  “We may have a crack in the opposition.”

  Ardmore held up a finger to her to wait. Not wanting to work through channels, he placed a call to the Sector Director of Imperial Police on Phalia. He marked it Urgent.

  When Imperial Police Sector Director Ralph Godwin got a call request with an Imperial header and marked Urgent, he of course took it immediately. He found himself talking directly with the Emperor for the first time in his long career.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Director Godwin, Paul Bowdoin, the heir to the defunct throne of Phalia, has just been found dead in the palace by an aide. I want you to take over this investigation. Seal the palace and its grounds. Take VR IDs of everyone there and hold them there. Then search the palace. Every room. You are looking for a transmitter – a box about the size of a small box of cigars. Start with the aide’s rooms. I want an autopsy, by Imperial Police doctors. They should coordinate with Dr. Henry Clay here at the Imperial Palace. He can tell them what they’re looking for.”

  “What’s going on, Your Majesty?”

  “I think it’s murder, Director Godwin, and I want the perpetrator. Now get on it.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  Ardmore cut the connection and turned to Burke, next to him in bed.

  “The putative heir to the throne of Phalia was just found dead in the palace on Phalia. He was fifty-nine years old.”

  “A nanite murder, you think?”

  “Yes. I think our enemies have had a falling out with each other.”

  “At last, maybe we’ll have a starting point.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Because the Imperial Police were in a hurry and the Cologne PD was treating this as a routine death investigation, the IP almost beat the locals to the scene despite the roundabout communications path the news had had to travel. They drove into the grounds of Queen Anne’s Palace right behind the squad car.

/>   But where the Cologne PD had assigned a single junior investigator, the Imperial Police had shown up with a senior detective, a forensic team and their van, and a van of patrolmen. Two more vans of patrolmen showed up as the patrolmen in the first were fanning out across the grounds.

  The Imperial Police investigator walked up to the startled Cologne detective as he got out of his car. He pulled his badge out and showed it to the junior man.

  “Senior Inspector Morton Grinsby, Imperial Police. We’ll be handling this. This is an Imperial matter. You’re free to hang around so you can make your report as long as you don’t get in the way.”

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  Grinsby nodded once sharply and then went up to the door, where a liveried man stood with the door open. Grinsby showed his badge again.

  “Imperial Police. Show me where the body is.”

  “Yes, sir. This way, please.”

  Grinsby signaled the head of the forensics team and they followed him into the palace. The liveried man showed them down a hallway, around a corner, through a pair of double doors, down another hallway to a door. He motioned Grinsby ahead.

  “In here, sir. I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Grinsby motioned the forensics team ahead. They started scanning at the doorway, not moving into the room until the scanning had moved forward. Grinsby turned to the liveried man.

  “Did you discover the body?”

  “No, sir. That would be Mr. Hillier. Peter Hillier, His Highness’s aide.”

  “Is he here?”

  “He was just a moment ago, sir.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m the butler, sir. Higgins. James Higgins.”

  Grinsby nodded. He sent a VR message to the Imperial Police patrolmen on the grounds.

  We may have a runner.

  Don’t let anybody out.

  Lethal force authorized.

  “Anybody new in the palace? New staff, visitors today, anything like that?”

  “No, sir. We have the normal tours of the Throne Room and such, but those are in the morning and they were done for the day. All the tour visitors were accounted for.”

  “Any other doors into this room? Dumbwaiter? Secret passage? Anything like that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grinsby waited in the hallway while the forensic team worked the room. No sense getting in their way or mucking up the evidence. Let them do their job first. He could always look around once they were done. The team lead came out to him after about fifteen minutes.

  “Not much here, Inspector. One male, approximately sixty years old, deceased. Time of death was approximately ninety minutes ago. No evidence of gun powder debris on the floor anywhere. No visible wounds on the body. Facial expression of the deceased looks angry more than frightened or in pain. Operational VR suppressor in his shirt pocket. It was turned on and still working. Almost a full charge, in fact. No trace chemicals in the air or on his breath. We’ve taken blood samples from the corpse. It’s pretty clean. Looks like natural causes so far.”

  Grinsby grunted.

  “I’m told the suspicion is murder, and we’ll keep treating it as a murder investigation. We’re going to have Dr. Braun do the autopsy.”

  That got a raised eyebrow from the forensics team lead. Gerhard Braun was the top forensic pathologist on Phalia.

  “Hey, when Director Godwin calls me direct and says do a number-one job, that’s what I do.”

  “Fair enough, Inspector. You’re OK to go in and look around. Then they’ll transport the body. Meantime, we’re going to start looking for that transmitter.”

  “Thanks.”

  Grinsby walked in and looked around. Body slumped there in the chair. Yeah, he looked pissed. Other than that, there was nothing out of place, no signs of violence, no marks on the body other than the forensic blood draw. He walked over and looked at the windows. All the ones that opened were locked on the inside. All the windows were intact. No holes or missing pieces in the glass.

  There was shouting outside, then a single gunshot. The message came over VR.

  Runner. He wouldn’t stop.

  We weren’t in a position to tackle him.

  Grinsby shook his head. Some guys just gotta try it.

  VR ID him right away.

  Probably that Hillier guy. Grinsby hoped so. He didn’t want to have to tell Godwin the butler did it.

  He signaled a couple of the forensic guys waiting there he was done looking around, and they moved forward to bag the body of Paul Bowdoin for transport to the morgue.

  Gerhard Braun prepared to do the autopsy on Paul Bowdoin. He had been in contact with Dr. Henry Clay in the Imperial Palace already. It was early evening in Cologne on Phalia, but it was the beginning of the work day in Imperial City on Center, and he had caught Dr. Clay before he got busy with something else.

  A lot of people considered themselves expert in their field. They would often be loathe to consult anyone else. Not so for Braun. He considered himself not an expert, but a lifelong student of forensic pathology. He was willing to listen to and learn from anyone. That was why he was considered the top forensic pathologist on Phalia. In Phalia Sector, for that matter.

  The Imperial Palace could hire the best people. Just the fact Clay was the head of the Imperial Palace clinic charged with the health of the Emperor and Empress meant he was no slouch. He had told Braun what to look for if this was a nanite murder. Micro-hemorrhaging in multiple organs. Liver, kidneys, lungs, brain. It was a signature of the method, a tell-tale, and unknown in any other cause of death.

  Braun opened up the body and took tissue samples, going immediately to the microscope in the lab. If he found the tell-tale, the job was done, and that was the suspicion, so let’s check that first. He prepped the samples on slides and slid them into the feed queue of the machine. All the manipulation of the sample from that point was under computer control, by micro-motors, while the imaging was with high-resolution, multiple-bandwidth cameras and visible in VR.

  There it was, in each sample. Micro-hemorrhages of a kind Braun had not seen before. He told the analysis program to evaluate the images, and it told the same story, blowing up and tagging a sample of the tissue injuries for each sample. ‘Cause: Unknown’ the legend read.

  Well, that was fast. Time to write up his report. He attached copies of the micro-imaging from the microscope-analyzer.

  Grinsby read Braun’s preliminary report with interest. Nanite murder. That was a new one on him. He couldn’t refute Braun’s findings though. The micro-injuries were very apparent in the photographs.

  So how did this work? For a nanite murder, from what little he could find from the news reports of last month’s attempt on the Empress, you needed a transmitter, because a VR system would not pass on the special command. The search team from the forensic department had found a transmitter hidden in Peter Hillier’s apartment in the Palace. Check.

  The target had to have premium nanites. Paul Bowdoin was part of the erstwhile royal family. They had the resources to purchase the premium nanites, particularly for the family heir. Braun had also analyzed the nanite debris in Bowdoin’s bloodstream and found multiple samples of the premium nanite package from one of the big manufacturers, BioNano. Check.

  The target had to be open to VR reception. Troublesome, because Bowdoin was wearing a personal VR suppressor, and it was turned on. However, death had occurred about one-thirty in the afternoon, and the suppressor had nearly a full charge. That was not consistent with someone who had been wearing a suppressor all day. It should have been about a third down in charge. No other personal suppressor was found in the study. So the suppressor was likely put on the body after death. Check.

  Who could have put the suppressor on the body? The one person to have sole access to the body after death was Peter Hillier, the person who discovered the deceased. It was a simple matter
to look in on Bowdoin after sending the transmission from his apartment nearby in the Palace, find the body, then put Bowdoin’s personal VR suppressor – which Bowdoin had apparently eschewed wearing – on the body before calling the police. Check.

  Hillier had died of the rifle wound he had suffered at the hands of the Imperial Police on the palace grounds. Why had he run? Why did he not have a better escape planned? What had surprised him?

  Grinsby hypothesized Hillier had expected a routine death investigation by the local police. When the Imperial Police showed up, he knew or guessed they were suspicious of a nanite murder. So he made himself scarce – the butler had said he had been there just a minute ago – and thought he might be able to escape the scene before the palace was sealed off. That didn’t work out, and he had persisted in running because an Imperial Police investigation would have uncovered the truth behind whatever his connections were and he would have been executed anyway for capital murder. Check.

  When the Imperial Police had scanned for his VR ID, the device had actually picked up four different VR IDs. Peter Hillier. Dieter Geller. Kiefer Elder. Even a woman’s name, Freda Keller. That was not a standard issue VR nanite package. In fact, it was an Imperial Police package.

  Grinsby ran all the VR IDs through the Imperial Police access to the Imperial Records computer in Imperial City, and there he was. The one VR ID with a complete history was Dieter Geller, from Mantua Sector in the old DP. He had indeed been in the Imperial Police. He had attended the Imperial Police Academy on Mantua and been in the Imperial Police for ten years before moving on as a private investigator. That was not an unusual move – to learn Imperial Police methods and then move to the private sector for more money. Geller had done that and worked for one of the big interstellar outfits for a while as internal security.

  It all fit together except for whatever Geller’s connections had been, but Sector Director Godwin was screaming for his draft report as quickly as possible. Given that it was a nanite murder, and the assassination attempt on the Empress by the same method a month ago, Grinsby suspected the investigation – and the suspicion it was a nanite murder – was being pushed out of Imperial City, either Imperial Police Headquarters or the Imperial Palace itself. In either case, the rest of the investigation of Geller could be better handled by them. They had more resources for one thing, and they could assign further work to the Mantua Sector Imperial Police as well.