“Yes,” the anonymized voice of the avatar said.
“Good.”
“OK, so all we got on this guy is Governor Feick’s people found him with this transmitter that can send commands to premium health nanites to kill their host, and he’s got six VR IDs,” Wood said. “One of them ties him to the Mantzaris family in Athens Sector. The main honcho is Nikos Mantzaris. We want to know who this guy is, where he’s from, who gave him his orders, who paid him, how he was paid, all that sort of thing. You need anything else?”
“No,” Caldwell answered. “That’ll do.”
“And you’ll get a call from the Co-Consul, who’ll feed questions to you after you get through whatever you’ve got.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I get the impression he’ll be getting fed the questions himself. From someone unnamed who wants to stay that way.”
“OK. Whatever you say.”
Hector Dimas started to come to, but it was a struggle. He was in some place dim, sitting up. He tried to think of the last thing he could remember. He had been at work in the governor’s residence. There had been a dog, somehow. He couldn’t put that together. The governor didn’t have a pet and she didn’t allow dogs in the residence.
Dimas grew dimly aware of a man talking. A soft, mellow voice. Friendly. He realized the man was asking someone questions, and the other person was answering them.
Then Dimas realized with horror it was he answering the questions.
Q: What is your real name?
A: Hector Dimas.
Q: Where are you from?
A: The planet Delphi, in Athens Sector.
Q: That’s the sector capital, isn’t it?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you serve in the Imperial Police?
A: Yes.
Q: How long were you in the Imperial Police?
A: Seven years.
Q: That’s seven years after the Academy?
A: Yes.
Q: Is the Imperial Police where you got the capability to have multiple VR IDs?
A: Yes.
Q: Did anyone tell you to go to the Imperial Police Academy?
A: Yes.
Q: Who told you to go to the Imperial Police Academy?
A: My cousin Nikos.
Q: That’s Nikos Mantzaris?
A: Yes.
Q: Nikos Mantzaris is your first cousin?
A: My father’s second cousin.
Q: He told you to go to the Imperial Police Academy?
A: He told my father.
Q: Then your father told you?
A: Yes.
Q: Why did you leave the Imperial Police?
A: I got a message it was time to leave.
Q: Who sent you that message?
A: I don’t know.
Q: You don’t know who sent you the message?
A: Barry Lincoln sent it.
Q: Barry Lincoln sent you the message?
A: That was the address on the message, but he isn’t real.
Q: Barry Lincoln isn’t real?
A: No.
Q: But the account of Barry Lincoln sent you the message?
A: Yes.
Q: And you assumed it was from Nikos Mantzaris?
A: Yes.
Q: But you don’t know, do you?
A: No.
Q: What did you do after you left the Imperial Police?
A: I went to work for Hellenic Exports.
Q: What was your job there?
A: Is.
Q: What is your job there?
A: Security Consultant.
Q: Did you apply for that job?
A: No.
Q: How did you get that job?
A: It was known I had left Imperial Police. I got an offer.
Q: So you got an offer to work at Hellenic Exports?
A: Yes.
Q: What was your first assignment?
A: Odessa.
Q: Odessa was your first assignment?
A: Yes.
Q: What were you to do on Odessa?
A: Get a job with the governor’s office.
Q: Your first assignment was to get a job in Governor Feick’s office?
A: Governor Shubin.
Q: Your first assignment was to get a job in Governor Shubin’s office?
A: Yes.
Q: And you were twenty-nine years old then?
A: I was just thirty.
Q: You were thirty years old when you got a job in Piotr Shubin’s office?
A: Yes.
Q: How long have you been in the governor’s office?
A: Eighteen years.
Q: You’ve been getting paid by Hellenic Exports for eighteen years?
A: Yes.
Q: Have you been getting paid by anyone else?
A: Yes.
Q: Who else has been paying you?
A: The governor’s office.
Q: Has anyone been paying you besides Hellenic Exports and the governor’s office?
A: Yes.
Q: Who else has been paying you?
A: Barry Lincoln.
Q: Do these payments all come to Hector Dimas?
A: No.
Q: Who does the governor’s office pay?
A: Viktor Zima.
Q: Who does Barry Lincoln pay?
A: Victoria Beaman.
Q: Hector Dimas, Viktor Zima, and Victoria Beaman are all you though, aren’t they?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you know the purpose of the transmitter box that was found in your room at the governor’s office?
A: Yes.
Q: What is its purpose?
A: Murder.
Q: How does it murder?
A: It tells the nanites to kill someone.
Q: Who did you get the box from?
A: I don’t know.
Q: You don’t know who gave you the box?
A: It was a shipment.
Q: The transmitter box came in a shipment, but you don’t know who sent it?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you ever ordered to kill anyone with it?
A: No.
Q: If you had been ordered to kill someone with it, would you have done it?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know someone named Dr. Igor Scharansky?
A: Yes.
Q: How do you know Dr. Scharansky?
A: I talked to him on the phone.
Q: Did you tell him if he kept his mouth shut about what he’d found out about the nanites, things would go well for him?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you tell him if he didn’t, things would go badly for him?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you murder his daughter’s friend, Betsy Guryev?
A: No.
Q: Did you have any involvement with the murder of Betsy Guryev?
A: Yes.
Q: What involvement did you have with the murder of Betsy Guryev.
A: I arranged it.
Q: You arranged the murder of Betsy Guryev?
A: I arranged they kill someone with the daughter.
Q: Someone with the daughter of Igor Scharansky?
A: Yes.
Q: But you didn’t know it would be Betsy Guryev?
A: No. I didn’t care who it was.
Q: Did you then call Dr. Scharansky back?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he accept your proposal to keep his mouth shut on that second call?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what your efforts on behalf of Hellenic Exports and Barry Lincoln are in support of?
A: Yes.
Q: What are your efforts in support of?
A: Toppling the Empire.
Q: Why do you want to topple the Empire?
A: It’s a tyranny.
Q: What would you rather have?
A: A democracy.
Q: Like the Democracy of Planets?
A: Yes.
“Any more questions?” Diener asked the avatar of Donahue.
“No.”
The interrogator nodded to the doctor sitting in the chair behind Hector Dimas. The doctor gave Dimas the final injection.
Hector Dimas, who had watched the interrogation through the fog in his head, without being able to stop answering, faded back into unconsciousness and died.
Dr. Igor Scharansky, Vice President of Research for NanoHealth, received a VR call at home that night.
“Dr. Scharansky?”
“Yes.”
“We met last month on that little camping trip.”
“Oh. Oh, yes.”
“I thought I would let you know the person responsible for the murder of Betsy Guryev was found, arrested, and executed for his crimes.”
“How wonderful. Thank you for letting me know.”
Donahue broke the connection.
He had owed Scharansky that, and he always repaid a favor.
Always.
“Well now we know,” Burke said.
“Yes,” Ardmore said. “The stated goal is to topple the Empire and everyone in the conspiracy knows it.”
“Everyone within the plutocrat families, anyway. We don’t know what the goals of the sector governors are.”
“That’s fair. I think toppling the Empire is the goal of both the plutocrats and the former Alliance royal families. The sector governors is another thing altogether. I’m not sure what their motivation for being a part of all this is.”
“What did you think of the tyranny bit?” Burke asked.
“Well, he’s right, for one thing. The Empire is a tyranny. Always has been. The things that make it different are the non-hereditary nature of the Throne and the Pledge of the Emperor.”
“But with the wrong person in charge, it could be a nightmare.”
“Of course,” Ardmore said. “All through history, that’s always been true. Put the wrong person in charge, and it’s a nightmare, no matter how he’s selected. There needs to be inertia in the system, so change can only happen so fast.”
“Are we over-speeding how fast change can and should occur?”
“Perhaps. The thing is, though, we’re reducing demands on the people writ large, not increasing them. That’s not usually a problem.”
“He wanted democracy, he said,” Burke said.
“Yes, like in the Democracy of Planets. Which wasn’t a democracy at all. What it was, was his family and their buddies running the place, with no accountability at all. For the people it was miserable. The penetration of VR in the population of the old DP was less than in some of the absolute monarchies of the Alliance, and much, much less than in the Empire. At least the monarchies had some accountability. You could see the people in charge. Know who they were.”
Burke nodded.
“Like in the Empire.”
“Like in the Empire,” Ardmore said. “The big difference being that exceptional people, like Trajan the Great, are, like everyone else, a product of both their genetics and their experiences, not their genetics alone. The children of such a one might be outstanding people, but are unlikely to get the correct experiences in the palace to forge such an exceptional person.”
“Which is why the Empire is not hereditary.”
“Correct. Among other reasons.”
“OK, Jimmy, thanks,” Burke said. “I guess I just wanted to poke at that a bit. What gives you or me the right to be the absolute ruler of humanity? That’s the question the interrogation raised for me.”
“We don’t have any such right. But the Throne does, because it’s been the one greatest force for the betterment of the lot of everyone. We’re the current officeholders, selected by the previous one, as we will select the next. If there were a better organization – if there had ever been a better one, over the long haul – then, by our oaths, we should install it.”
“But there hasn’t been a better one, in all history?”
“No, not over such a long period. Seven hundred years now. Freedom, continuity, stability. The closest rival is maybe three, four hundred years. That’s it.”
“Well, that makes me feel better.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lina Schneider said.
“We now have sufficient cause to scrape and track the financial records of the head of family of all the descendants of the one hundred and eleven persons executed by Emperor Trajan in 10 GE, as well as those of any company in which they have a controlling interest. Add that to your map.”
“Yes, Sire.”
Greta Feick also got a call request with an Imperial header.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Governor Feick, I need you to do me a little favor.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“When questioned about the agent on your staff, Governor Feick, I wonder if you could say he was shot, leaving out the tranquilizer gun part of it. And when they ask you if he died, you can just say Yes. Both of those statements are true, of course, as he was executed after questioning.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“We are trying to obscure the fact we were able to question one of their agents. Thanks to your excellent work, Governor Feick, we were able to question one, but we don’t need to let the people who placed these agents know that.”
“I understand, Sire. I’ll be happy to.”
“Thank you Governor Feick.”
Ardmore cut the connection.
Arrival
The Emperor Trajan cut her acceleration to 0.3 g for a moment and dropped out of hyperspace. She immediately went back to one g of acceleration. Travis Geary and Nathan Benton were watching the feed from the bow cameras in VR.
“There it is. Center,” Benton said.
“What’s that huge lighted splotch?” Geary asked.
“That, my friend, is Imperial City. It’s almost midnight there. We won’t actually get there until tomorrow. We should probably get some sleep.”
“I don’t think I can sleep after seeing that.”
“I’ll sing you a lullaby,” Benton said with sarcasm. “C’mon.”
“All right, all right.”
A big brunch in the business-class dining room the next morning was their last meal on board the Emperor Trajan. Their next meal was likely in the cafeteria of their dormitory that evening, so both guys hit the brunch tables hard.
“I am so going to miss the food on board,” Benton said.
“Not me,” Geary said. “It’s all I can do to work it off between meals.”
“Yeah, but you’ve hardened up a bit. Put on more muscle mass. That’s good.”
“Well, it’s not like I haven’t worked at it.”
After brunch they went back to their cabin to await the call for the shuttle down to the planet. Here on Center, they would be using the big passenger shuttles of a sector capital, and all the current passengers and crew of the Emperor Trajan would debark here and the ship would be serviced before its next run.
It was about two hours after brunch, just after noon ship time, when they got the call in VR to report to the shuttle. Ship time had been gradually shifted over the three weeks in transit to match with the local time in Imperial City, so there would be no time dislocation when they went down to the planet.
They each took their little suitcase to the queue at the designated shuttle port. There were no passengers coming up to the ship, just maintenance and servicing crews, so they had little wait before they boarded the shuttle.
“And no zero-g again, right?” Geary asked.
“Nope. Gravity all the way,” Benton said.
“Good. That brunch is happy right where it is.”
Benton laughed.
Geary watched the outside camera views in VR all the way down. When he had a panoramic view of Imperial City, he could see the six-mile by five-mile rectangle of Imperial Park in the middle of the city. Low-rise buildings – relatively, anyway, at twenty to twenty-five stories – trees, lawns, and plantings. He even caught a glimpse of the Imperial
Palace, flanked by the Imperial Administration and Imperial Research buildings, facing down the two-mile-long sward of the Palace Mall.
The epoxycrete towers surrounding Imperial Park hadn’t changed much over the centuries. Epoxycrete lasted a long time, and a hundred-fifty to two hundred stories tall was about the limit for workable building heights. With no going up, they had moved out, and the crowd of massive towers around Imperial Park had spread outward.
Then they were down on a shuttle pad on the sprawling expanse of Imperial City Spaceport. Using the outside camera views, Geary could see nothing but occasional other shuttles for miles all around.
“Well, here we are, in the middle of nothing. Now what?” he asked.
“Wait for it,” Benton said.
The shuttle sat on the pad waiting for the epoxycrete pavement to cool from the wash of the engines while landing. It was twenty minutes or so before they opened the cabin doors to begin passenger debarking. Geary and Benton had their little suitcases with them, as the soft-side bags were small enough, with a little cramming, to fit in the cabinets under their seats. They pulled out the shoulder straps and wore them as backpacks.
Geary continued to monitor the outside cameras as they waited in queue to exit the shuttle. As he watched, a section of the epoxycrete rose straight up out of the pavement near the shuttle pad to become an elevator and escalator lobby.
“OK, now that’s a nice piece of engineering.”
“Told ya,” Benton said.
They exited the shuttle and took the escalator down to a level where there was a slidewalk. They got on the slidewalk with all the other passengers. It merged with several other slidewalks, and just got bigger as it headed toward the terminal building.
They came out into the terminal arrival lobby. Acres of enclosed space, with people criss-crossing everywhere. Geary just stopped and took it all in.
“This way,” Benton said.
Benton led Geary to the center of the space, to escalators under large signs saying ‘TO TRAINS.’ They took a long down escalator to the trains level.
The format of the trains had been completely reworked. Now instead of long trains that made multiple stops, there were individually powered cars that were express to their destination. You needed high traffic volume to support that sort of system, and the Imperial City Spaceport had it. Individual cars waited, diagonally to the main tracks, each marked with its destination. Geary saw ‘Imperial Park West,’ ‘Imperial Park East,’ ‘Downtown,’ ‘East Suburbs,’ and ‘Local Stops.’
EMPIRE: Resistance Page 18
