Ryman grinned and stripped his uniform off. Ily ran her hands over his muscular flesh as he turned his attention to peeling her out of her gown. To her surprise he took his time, building her response, timing himself to her needs. Despite herself, she closed her eyes, letting his movements bring her to an unexpected climax.
Life was like that. Take bounty when it presented itself. To her amazement, another hour passed as Ark deftly continued to explore her body. Within another hour—practically exhausted—she managed to slip mytol into his scotch.
Weary and flushed, she sat up on the rumpled platform. "You have remarkable endurance Ark," she whispered,
pawing through her things, all the while aware her body felt loose-jointed and tender where she'd coupled too violently.
"Yes, Ily," he responded woodenly. Mytol did that to a man.
She set up what appeared to be a music system and turned on the audio.
Satisfied with the subtle tones of the Jakeid symphony—and also satisfied that it threw a privacy screen over the room that not even the best bugs could penetrate—she crawled next to him, snuggling close to his drugged body. Rotted Gods, even drugged he rose to her embrace again! Did the man ever tire?
Her mouth next to his ear she asked. "Where is the Lord Commander?"
"Gone," he answered muzzily.
"Where?"
"Don't know."
"Guess, dear Ryman. Tell me where you think."
"Fishing . . . and whoring . . . and tasting the pleasures of the many worlds."
"Is that a joke?"
"No, Staffa's on vacation."
"Seriously?"
"Uh-huh. Said to wait for a year. He'd be back and we'd go to war then. Make more money. Allow the empires to stabilize so we'd be guaranteed they didn't collapse economically and leave us high and dry."
"Do you believe that?"
"Yes."
"Do you think anyone could find him? Is there a special way to get in touch?"
"Skyla might. No other way to get in touch. Not through comm anyway. I'd know."
"Is Skyla his lover? Are they close?"
"No."
"Why did Staffa go away just now, Ryman?"
"Been upset."
"About what?" She frowned. What the hell did that mean?
"Something about when he killed the Praetor. Never the same since then.
Worried."
Slowly, with the skill of thousands of hours of interrogation, Ily pieced together a picture of the Lord Commander's
last trip home. "Thank you, dear Ryman. You sleep now. In the morning, you will remember none of this—only how much scotch we drank and how terrible your hangover is."
He immediately began to snore.
She lay there with a racing mind as she tried to correlate the different parts of Ryman's confessions. Skyla might be able to find Staffa? And just how did she manipulate Skyla? The Wing Commander wouldn't fall for any frolic in the zero-g with any man, no matter how good looking.
Ily got up and made her way to the bath, aware that everything had become turmoil. That Staffa would refuse a Contract was one option she never would have considered. But I'll find you Lord Commander—and you won't have your Companions around when I do.
Staffa kar Therma took one last glance at the monitor that displayed the Etarian docking station and settled the worry-cap on the pilot's head. The man remained in the grip of a drugged sleep. With the worry-cap interacting with the pilot's brain, the man's expression changed.
Staffa chuckled to himself, imagining the pilot's reaction when he awakened to fin himself ten light-years from Itreata and safely docked at Etaria.
From his bag, Staffa pulled a brown trader's toga over his gray armor and snapped his possessions closed. From a pouch he took a Regan unlimited travel passport.
Like a ghost, he moved to the lock, palmed the hatch, and stepped out into the main orbiting station over Etaria. A curious unease filled him. He swallowed hard and steeled himself. How long had it been since he walked alone through a crowd of strangers? Had he ever? Chiding himself for a fool, he drowned the fear with the arrogance that had carried him through the years and stepped into the crowd. Looking like any other Etarian supplicant, he shuffled through the long lines of entrants, got his voucher stamped, and boarded one of the massive shuttles.
What awaits me? What do I know of this reality of common men? He blinked his eyes and swallowed dryly, the sudden lurch of fear leaving his palms sweaty.
Easy, Staffa, it's a panic response. Emotion can be controlled.
What a strange feeling to be packed so close to so many people. They all seemed so ... oblivious to each other, as if they were totally secluded, locked away within themselves. The bald man next to him met his gaze. He appeared to be an inoffensive sort. A trader from the cut of this clothes.
"First time to Etaria?" the bald man asked mildly.
"No. I was here several years ago. Probably five by his planet's time."
"Not much has changed. You're here to go to the temple?"
Staff a nodded.
"Yeah, five years ago." The man licked his lips and shook his head. "That was when the Butcher showed up. Didn't need to do more. People panicked and the Priests capitulated to the Regans."
"The Butcher?" Staffa tensed.
"Yeah, you know, the Star Butcher, the baby burner, Staffa kar Therma, may the Rotted Gods eat his intestines by the slow inch!"
With iron control Staffa fought the desire to reach over and break this man's neck. "He unified Free Space between two governments where efore there had been chaos."
"Sure, at what cost?" The trader hesitated, looking at his suddenly shaking hands. His voice came in ragged spurts. "My—my family lived on Phillipia. I'm the only one who . . . lived. They even killed my children. And . . . and what they . . . they did to my ... my sister before they . . . before they. . . ."He shook his head, bowing his face down into his hands. "God, I hate him. If I could ever get the chance, I'd. . . ."
Staffa's anger turned and twisted. Be calm, he told himself. But to sit here and listen to this whining. . . . "Excuse me. I see an old friend." Staffa, teeth grinding, sought the rear of the shuttle and a different seat.
Such as you, human, have little right to question the actions of leaders. What is your family against the sprawl of human destiny in Free Space?
He barely heard the merchant from Vermilion who sat next to him babbling about the delights of the temple and wondering if the Etarian Priestesses were as beautiful as they claimed.
Face set, curious at the anger that still burned in his breast, Staffa waited stoically as the shuttle descended. The Praetor's words haunted him. "More than ten billion human beings have died at your hands. In places, men utter curses in your name. Among others you are reviled as a demon from their versions of hell."
What if they did? Who were these people he killed? Had they all been like that weakling trader? Then perhaps the species was better off without them.
He looked about him, suddenly conscious of the shuttle's vulnerability. How many craft like this one had died under his guns? How many had he seen fleeing a doomed planet before he gave his order to destroy it. How many had his weapons ripped open in explosive decompression—the corpses of men, women, and children frozen in horrid death, tumbling in an eerie and gruesome orbit.
He hardly felt the shuttle touch down. Senses reeling, he got to his feet and shuffled out with the crowd. His mind seemed stuck on the memories, the crowd but an abstraction out of time and place.
Someone tugged at his elbow. The bald trader, dry-eyed, looked up anxiously.
"I'm sorry. I must have upset you." He took a deep breath. "Look, it happened a long time ago. Only I can't let it die. If I did, what would it all mean?
There has to be more to life than mindless butchery, doesn't there?" With that, the man disappeared into the crowd.
Staffa took a step after him, anger pulsing, only to hesitate in sudden confusion at hearing his ow
n questions mimicked in the trader's voice. Sharp comments from surging passengers made him bide his anger and continue in the general direction of the flow—thinking . . . remembering.
Phillipia returned—an emerald world hanging against a backdrop of stars.
Tom-cotton clouds spun lazily across the shallow seas. Phillipia, an old world, had a heritage of art and science. Though it was once the pretender to the human space hegemony, Rega had outbid it for Staffa's services. He could remember the heavy batteries of his ships pouring a devastating fire into the planetary defenses. On the first pass they'd bombed the major cities, heavy radiation leaving the commercial centers standing amid thousands of scattered corpses, poisoned, burned, and dead where they had stood.
Only after the defenses had been neutralized, had they dropped like sleek Etarian hawks to capture the remaining provincial cities and break the militia defenses. And against the Companions, the Phillipians had had no adequate defense.
He remembered nightfall in an outlying town. Columns of yellow orange flames illuminated billowing smoke in the black night skies. A Companion, bending to one knee, settled his pulse rifle and easily potted the running child, exploding the terrified boy's head like a red melon. And how old had that red-haired girl been? Twelve? Thirteen? She'd been a slip of a thing, screaming first, then blubbering as man after man took her, caressing her barely-budded breasts before finally silencing her bloody, stained body with a merciful slash of a vibraknife. Could that have been the trader's sister?
Staffa shook his head and blinked the visions away. Didn't they understand the reality of war? To make change, men died. Humanity suffered for the betterment of the whole. That was social law.
He stepped out of the terminal and into the crowded streets. The dry air of Etaria desiccated his nostrils. The place smelled of dust, spices, and stale sweat. A cacophony assaulted his ears as people shoved past. Disturbed by his memories, he walked the streets, still searching for the elusive answer as night fell and his stomach began to remind him he was no more than flesh and blood, no matter how weighty the problems he pondered were. On occasion he heard curses in the Star Butcher's name. Down deep they irritated him, rankling on the edge of his mind. He stopped at the Young Virgin Inn and climbed the steps. The temple lay only three blocks away.
I am only here long enough to lose my trail to Targa, Staffa reminded himself.
And perhaps to ask an Etarian Priest about the nature of man and reality.
Inside, a boisterous group sang bawdily in one comer. Staffa took a table next to the bar and kicked his feet out. The bald trader's grief still nagged at him, and he couldn't help comparing it to his own feelings for his stolen Chrysla. An unsettling foreboding gripped him.
"Help you, sir?" The landlord bent over his shoulder. "Ashtan steak, medium rare, steamed ripa root and Myklenian brandy," he ordered. A sudden stillness filled the room.
"Right," the landlord chuckled. "Who do you think I am? The cock-rotted Star Butcher? We've got myka stew, amplar basted in butter, and if you're feeling real rich, Regan squid off the last transport-but it's a quartercredit. "
"Squid," Staffa said flatly. "And your best stout, or do you have any?"
"Aye, as good as you can get hereabouts. Brewery's down the street."
Men stared at him from the bar. A not so good-looking blonde woman leaned on a big man's arm and laughed at something one of them said. They looked suddenly hungry.
Staffa dismissed them from his mind. By the cock-rotted Star Butcher? Did everyone here curse in his name? At least the landlord didn't do it out of hate-or did he?
The food tasted of grease, the portion small, but again, compared to his larders of almost unlimited delicacies, maybe they had nothing better. He chugged the tepid stout and flipped a twenty credit gold piece on the table.
The landlord walked over and reached for it-stopping in mid-grasp. "By the Rotted Gods, 'tis gold!" he mumbled. "And I can't make change for that! You've a credit chip, good Lord?"
"That's the smallest I've got," Staffa told him coldly, aware the whole tavem had stopped to listen again.
"Yo, Phippet!" One of the men from the bar called. "Here, we pooled. We'll cover the good gentleman's meal if he'll come, stand to a round, and lift a toast to our health."
Staffa picked up his coin and nodded to the landlord as he stepped up to the bar. They greeted him with wolfish eyes. The blonde woman stared him up and down, a smugness in her eyes. When she smiled at him, gaps showed in her teeth. Brown robes splotched with grease and stains covered the men.
"My name is . . ." What in the name of the Forbidden Borders did he call himself? "Therma," he supplied. "Like the Star Butcher's last name?" The heavy blonde woman asked. "That must be a living curse. Good thing you got money to keep the criers off yer back. "
Staffa studied her curiously. "To your health, gentle peo-pie!" And he lifted his glass. Why am I so uneasy? I came here to socialize with common people. To do that, you must go among them, Staffa, learn them like you would the defenses of an impregnable planet.
Skyla's warning returned to haunt him. The landlord had retreated to the back of the bar, avoiding his eyes and shaking his head.
"Another drink for the gentleman! Come on," the tallest, Broddus was his name, said, "we'd be honored to take a man of your taste to a place that can accept his money— provided of course you buy the next round."
"I think I'll be leaving," Staffa said, and dropped the gold coin on the counter. "For your kindness."
"See you soon," the blonde woman promised.
Staffa made it out the door and into the street. Night had fallen and the lighting on the streets seemed oddly blurred.
Which way?
"Therma?"
Staffa turned, seeing Broddus steppng down from the tavern doorway.
"Sure we couldn't stand you to another drink?"
"I have to . . ." Staffa frowned. ". . . to go. Find a priest."
"I am a priestess," the buxom blonde told him as she wound her arms around him. "Isn't that why you came to Etaria?"
Staffa shook his head, thoughts going muzzy. No, not now. This wasn't the Praetor's work, was it? Some hidden. . . .
"Come. We'll take care of you Lord." Broddus got a shoulder under Staffa's arm, leading him away.
"Good care," the blonde woman promised as another man helped prop him up and keep him from falling.
"Let go," Staffa whispered, his tongue thick. "Don't touch me."
"Oh," the blonde whispered in his ear, "we're here to help you."
Panic burst loose in Staffa's brain. Instinctively, he lashed out. He couldn't duck the hissing silver tube that shot a vile smelling gas into his face. With his remaining strength, he laid into his assailant . . . hearing screams . . . feeling flesh
under his groping hands. He kicked, struck, and lost himself i a haze of fog that drew tight around his senses.
He didn't remember falling, but someone made a gurgling sound. Someone else screamed in agony.
Hands worried his body. "By the Star Butcher's bloody balls! A combat suit!"
"No wonder you didn't kill him!"
"Look at this! A fortune in gold!" Strip him. "Pakt's dead. Bastard killed him."
"Hurry, with all the screaming, bulls will be here soon."
Staff a tried to react through the haze, unable to find his body. The words were disjointed, faint. He felt himself turned, flopped, hands on his flesh.
Then there was the patter of running feet and the cool breeze on his skin as he dropped into the engulfing grayness. The final thing he remembered: the odor of vomit.
The Mag Comm filtered the limited data it received from the remote sensors scattered throughout Free Space. Something had gone wrong. Data began rerunning in the giant banks; one after another, predictive models had to be rejected out of hand. What could have thrown the carefully derived calculations into such flux? The data had been so precise, the Others so sure.
Where had the mistake been made?<
br />
The Mag Comm's activity increased. Who had made the mistake?
CHAPTER 9
Sinklar braced himself against the bed and stood. The two weeks he'd spent in the hospital would hold him for the rest of his life. Inflamed pink and red scar tissue mottled his left side in an irregular pattern. Experiencing a reverential awe, Sinklar ran his fingers over the tight surface of the angry flesh, marveling at the smooth texture he touched.
That's my body. Rebel blasters did that to me. Funny, during the running, I never knew I was so badly injured. It should have hurt. I should have been screaming from pain.
He took one last glance at the putrid green of the hospital walls and reached for his clothing. The undersmock rested gently on his skin as he pulled it over his head. Sinklar slipped into fresh new combat armor, unhappy with the stiffness in his arms and legs. The hospital unit they'd cocooned him in had also built more brawn on his thin lanky limbs. Electromagnetic cellular stimulation and increased vascularization of the striated muscle tissue occurred as a side effect of the healing process. He cocked his head, happy that the machine had finally tended to his ruptured ear. Even the ringing had disappeared.
He checked himself in the mirror. He looked fit as he strapped the weapons belt onto his lean hips. In the reflection, his long pensive face stared back the same as it always had: one eye gray, the other a tawny yellow. His wispy brown hair glinted with slight tints of red, his nose a bit knobby at the end.
He walked down the hall to the assignment desk and handed his card to the chunky woman who sat behind the desk. She wore the insignia of a First Physician.
"Private Fist, Sinklar, Company B, Second Section, First Targan Assault Division," the woman observed, pulling his records from the file. She glanced up with flat blue eyes.
"I'm marking your file as Al—fit for combat. They want to see you in Operations, Personnel section. I'm notifying comm you're on the way."
"Thank you, ma'am," Sinklar rapped out a salute and left, getting directions from a harried clerk-secretary in the hallway.
Requiem for the Conqueror Page 18
