Empire of the One (Wine of the Gods Book 14)

by Pam Uphoff

  "Target Forty-two."

  "I'm on the outside of that tangle, working Interior problems. But we dare not let them take another world from us. We should have evicted them quickly and decisively, but that would probably have set off the War. Are we ready? It could be disastrous with the wrong government in place. What will be the best way of handling that?"

  "Ah, we beat it around all the time. What's your opinion? We could use some fresh air."

  "I think we should fight them for Target Forty-two, then follow them home and show them how truly foolish it is to try and pressure us. Mind you, we ought to have done it immediately. Forty years after Granite Peak is pathetic." Izzo leaned down and walked his hands between his straddled legs and teetered, while his muscles slowly stretched. "Mind you, it also shows that Earth is reluctant to follow up and attack us straight on."

  "Indeed." The military type put in. "Come spar with me, Efge." He led the way to a lane in the middle of the room.

  One! That really is General Akja.

  Izzo got in a few more stretches and watched as the general and Efge warmed up with a few quick flurries. They fired up quickly, their perception so focused that time would slow for them. It was that capacity that was said to enable the trained magician to defeat the better swordsman. Although in practice Izzo was willing to bet that the magician had better have a good bit of fencing ability, or he was likely to get a lesson in how fast an expert fencer's trained reflexes were.

  He fastened the high necked quilted canvas jacket, and pulled on the tough gauntlets as he followed Uzga to the next lane and readied himself for humiliation.

  Uzga grinned. "Be glad you're not on my list of irritating subordinates. You probably won't be too badly bruised tonight."

  Izzo grinned back. "I have a nasty suspicion that depends on one's definition of 'Too badly.'" He dropped the helmet over his head. Stiff quilted canvas with a metal mesh mask covering the whole face while giving a good field of vision. And more important, allowing a fencer to breath. And pant without fogging a plastic faceplate.

  Duke—subminister Ydqe—had strolled down to watch Efge and Akja, but he laughed and turned to watch as Izzo and Uzga saluted each other.

  Izzo found himself down two touches and retreating before he found his focus and time slowed enough to let him see Uzga coming. He managed to get a touch in before Uzga chased him beyond the back limit. They faced off again and he kept his speed up and managed to pull off a seven to ten loss. By the third start he was feeling better and managed nine to ten. And felt pretty good. Sweating and hot, in the thick jacket, but looser, his mind settled into his center, ready to react reflexively, not stopping to think.

  "Warmed up, Izzo? Come try me." Efge picked up a sword and settled his helmet.

  Izzo faced off, saluted the Subdirector. I wonder how many of them are planning on testing me, tonight?

  But he was warmed up and at full speed. He managed to win one of three.

  Then Duke beat him three times but he scored enough to salvage some pride.

  General Akja found the limits of his speed, then used his greater reach to slaughter him.

  His legs were shaking with fatigue, and his head was starting to ache. Overdoing the Speed. He forced himself to stretch while cooling down. I'm going to have trouble getting out of bed tomorrow.

  They all changed and went their separate ways. Izzo didn't linger. He hadn't gotten any sense at all of the others' positions on the coming war with Earth, or the war over Target Forty-two. He slung his gear over his shoulder and tried not to limp as he headed for the tram stop. He was fairly sure his legs weren't trembling, but he was starting to feel chilled.

  "You boys get the testosterone out of the way?" Xiat ghosted up beside him.

  "Umm, I was thoroughly put in my place, but no one bothered to tell me just what it was and why they wanted me there. I do hope you weren't watching."

  He caught a flick of a grin. "You were obviously out of practice and out of shape, but still fired up enough to almost equal them. I think they will respect your abilities, if you don't slough off and go to pot."

  "Ouch." He hauled himself up onto the tram. "I really let myself tighten up these last months. Well. I'll just have to get back to work." He eyed her thoughtfully. "Are you escorting me home?"

  "Yep. I was curious over the DNA results."

  "Damn. I was hoping for love."

  "I'd hit you, but you'll be bruised enough already."

  "Pity's even worse than curiosity." He fished a bottle of mineral laden water out of his bag and drained it all.

  She chuckled and followed him all the way to the analyzer and no further. Too bad, he could have used some help scrubbing his back. When he dragged back out in casual pants and shirt, barefoot, she was still there.

  "I see you ran the in-depth version. And hit the jackpot."

  "Did I? I haven't actually seen it yet; I thought to add the two samples I'd collected before . . . oh, these three are missing the same things, aren't they? SI2394, SI4576 and IRC1273. Those are what they call the rape complexes, aren't they?"

  "Yes. I'll bet these three are closely related. And the third girl is a Withione, with a two-thirteen count. The purple girl, I'll bet. The girl with the abnormal power genes is a two hundred ten clostuone, which you knew already. The other girl's a Halfer, only one Oner gene, but one hundred eighty-five of the Prophets' genes. She and the man are missing more than just the rape pairs, but it is odd that three out of four lack any of the group. And the fourth—her second set is missing only those same three genes. Have you heard about the Horseboy's genes?" She sat back and contemplated the list.

  "Yes. He's a two ten with no One Gene. Rather than a Halfer, with that high a count he could be a mutant from a Oner family. Otherwise, he's missing only the three pairs of rape genes. Interesting that the sister has both One Xs, even with irregularities. If they actually are sister and brother. I don't know if this gets us any further. Although . . . " Izzo turned to his comp.

  Glue had jumped on the possibility of genetic abnormalities. Izzo called up his progress report. His search had turned up a boy with a dropped power gene and a missing sister, apparently untested. They were from a town in Northern India. "We're trying to identify Endi by looking for the rare genetic abnormality of a dropped One gene."

  Xiat was reading over his shoulder. "Fortunately rare."

  Izzo ran a quick search for schools in that area of India, for yearbook pictures, for pale blonde girls. One stood out like a beacon in a mostly darker crowd at the Himalaya clan school. "Is that her? It's five years old. Leaz Withione."

  "The cheekbones aren't quite right. The eyes . . . maybe. I don't know . . . Pity her hair is over her ears, but it's not like this is an ID photo." Xiat started scrolling through the pictures. "If we could get a positive ID . . . Urfa’s worried about an underground genetics lab. If that group can be pinned down geographically, we could concentrate our search."

  "Yeah, that got mentioned, and I ran a quick records search. No genetics labs that actually managed any non-random engineering for decades."

  "Surely they couldn’t do any such thing to an adult?"

  "A viral vector that got into every single cell and removed seven genes? I’ve never heard of such a thing working even in a cell culture, let alone a living person." Izzo rubbed his arms. "Unnerving thought, though."

  Xiat thumbed further through the yearbook pictures. "I really want to find out about these people. The three missing genes could be inbreeding and a family relation among all of them."

  They both fell silent for a long slow inspection of teenagers. No one familiar. Izzo braced himself. Time to take a chance.

  "Are you hungry? I've got steaks, how done would you like yours?"

  "Umm. Rare side of medium rare."

  He padded off grinning. This is good. She's letting me feed her, so there must be some degree of trust. He rubbed in his favorite spices, heated the gas grill and threw the steaks on, lowered the smoke hood
. He had packaged salad, threw together his favorite dressing, drew the cork on a bottle of zinfandel. Flipped the steaks, set the table.

  "Voila!"

  "One! A domesticated male. I'd be in shock if I weren't drooling so heavily." She sat and sliced off a bite and chewed it slowly. "Excellent. There are about five girls at the area schools that could be the Deep woman. But none that I'd bet much money on. No one that looks like either the monster or the horseboy. Or Este, for that matter."

  "Well, maybe Deep knew about her various cousins, incarcerated unfairly, and she and her purple friend decided to help them escape."

  "It's all speculation. And gets us nowhere with the forgeries."

  They ate in silence for a moment.

  "Unless the blanks are coming from India. I'll check geographical relationships, but I thought the forged IDs were all here in the Paris metro area." Izzo started making mental notes. No reason for the woman's presence to turn off his brain. Really.

  "They must have gotten the true ID of the people they've caught with counterfeits. Check for Indian contacts."

  Izzo nodded. Applied himself to the steak and searched his soul for bravery. I haven't a clue how to go about attracting a princess.

  "So, how many of these powerful Black Pointers I keep meeting are you related to?" He finally asked.

  "All of them, if you go back far enough. But for practical purposes, well, still most of them."

  "I met a couple of them, fencing tonight. I suppose it's all political posturing, but I really didn't like the . . . hungry attitude. They were after something."

  "Fresh blood?"

  "Felt more like fresh meat. Probably dripping blood."

  She smirked. "Paris politics. I don't really know the Interior Director, but his younger half brother is close enough that I call him Uncle. And General Akja is a first cousin to both of them. Umm, I'm a half niece and double second cousin to subminister of finance Axti the Ax. Were you around when he was demoted because his son turned out to be a Clostuone? Big Clan scandal. My dad wasn't on speaking terms with him, especially after he disgraced the Clan with a Clostuone son. I went through school with the kid; you'd think a more average and unnoticeable person has never been born, then he'll open his mouth and say something outrageous that you keep thinking about for weeks. Poppy, Uzga's current wife, and I were school chums. On the other side, Mother's grandmother married out to Budapest Clan, and then her daughter married back into Black Point. So it could be worse. How about you? How do you get along with your Alcairo relatives, after growing up on a colony world?"

  "Poorly." He shrugged. "I never did settle down into a place there. I lived there while I was attending law school. My parents kept me away for as long as they could. Father was a Third Son, allowed to live in the World rather than be recruited as a Priest. He . . . didn't register my birth. I did that myself on my twenty-fourth birthday."

  Xiat gawped at him. "The Registrar must have been livid. You'd have been much too old for, err . . . "

  "Exactly. Dad would turn green when he spoke of his brothers being taken away in turn. He said his next oldest tried to run. Didn't get far. When the One wants someone . . . I was pretty scared when I finally came across and set foot on the One World."

  She raised an eyebrow.

  "I was ignored, I am delighted to say."

  She nodded. "The Priest gene, they say it's very like the One power gene, just located on the Y chromosome."

  "Not an exact copy, though. It is so much like our One gene that they are considered alleles, slightly different versions of the same gene, not different genes. The Priest Gene collects power from a bit higher up into the electromagnetic spectrum. I suppose I ought to have taken advanced training, should have tried my hand at something that needed the higher abilities. Info team, maybe. But I liked police work, and now this analysis gig."

  Xiat nodded. "You can't take both forks in a road. Sometimes I wish I'd done things differently, but half the things I want, I can't have, no matter what. Children."

  Izzo nodded. "Sons. Unless I want to hide them somewhere for twenty-some years, or hand them to the Priests at ten years of age. To never see them again, to know that the first thing they'll do is castrate them."

  "Oh. I hadn't ever quite thought of it like that."

  "Yeah. And rather self destructive of the priesthood, as a whole, if it truly is dependent on that gene. They take over half the children. The . . . avoidance of male hormones is supposed to give a priest a huge boost of power. But it just doesn't seem like it could possibly be worth the psychological effect on the child. Not to mention missing the power boosts of puberty, loss of virginity, and parenthood."

  "The Priests are what hold the One together, at our deepest level."

  "The single center of all being. Most of us are just outlying bits, barely in contact. And the colonies are completely out of touch. Although there is some trace of, oh, a mental community, among the Oners there." He studied her. "But you've been to the center, haven't you, Princess?"

  She took the last bite of steak off her fork and chewed slowly. "Yes. And the princess school is close enough that the One’s presence is always there, in the back corner of your brain. It is beautiful, and wonderful, and terrifying and horrible." She got up and walked to stand looking out the window. "There are only about eight hundred people there. More priests than princesses. But they aren't really individuals anymore, only the bodies are separate. Even when they leave, the ones that have been there for a long time, you always get the sense that you're talking to three or four people stuck randomly into that particular head, that time. They are all there, you see. All the Prophets. All the priests that have ever been. I think that's another reason they take the children, less set in their personalities, easier to add to and mold to fit the more rigid adult personalities. I've wondered if the children's personalities fade, eventually."

  "I wrote to my Uncles. Never got anything back." Izzo dumped dishes in the washer. "I always wondered if they hated my father, because he was able to duck the honor. Or if they hated my grandfather because he couldn't protect them." He settled down on the couch. "Families are such complex and painful things."

  She looked at him and walked back to sit on the other half, one foot curled under her, facing him. Her shields were considerably softened, her glow bright enough to render him speechless. She shifted her weight onto her curled up leg, leaned over and kissed him. By the time he recovered, she was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Paris, European Region

  19 Jumada 1396 yp

  Idlo and Ahba were eavesdropping.

  Ahba was impressed. "I do not believe you’ve been putting bugs out."

  "Illegal, of course. Not that anyone would call the cops, this is obviously a game tactic. It’s much more important to know who’s sleeping with who, than to be doing the sleeping yourself. Not to mention the talking. Here we have, for instance, the wife of General Akja’s top aide blabbing every secret she’s overheard into the ears of this completely unknown fellow."

  "He must be an Isolationist Agent."

  "That’s the best bet, or he could be someone Urfa slipped in. Just because Urfa’s organization is small, doesn’t mean he might not have a few aces up his sleeve."

  Ahba shook his head at the small screen. "Her husband is an Army officer. They have three homes, in Radom, in Paris and a winter home in Rio. And he’s got a princess."

  "All the wives hate the princesses, then turn around and brag at how young their husband was when he was important enough to rank a princess. As if they were a perk of office, somehow." Idlo scowled at the remote pickup.

  "And they often outlast the wives. Possibly several wives, the way they all have these short term marriages."

  Idlo waved him quiet as the kissing stopped and the talking started again.

  "He just buries himself in work. I get so tired of hearing about the monetary cost of invading versus the political costs of not invading this Target Forty-two.
" Rich, bored, miserable. Whiny voice.

  "I wouldn't think any invasion would be cost effective." Dewulfe moved behind her, started a gentle shoulder massage.

  Idlo shook his head in disbelief. "So far I haven’t seen Endi actually have to have sex with any of them. It's all just kiss and tickle. And they keep coming back."

  "I mean, why invade a World with Natives? Surely Empty worlds, that have never been mined, are more valuable?"

  "But the Earth took it away from us. We can't be seen to be weak. And they brutalize the natives, even if they are inferior, apart from the One."

  "Well, if you must attack Earth, why attack this other world first? It'll tie up men and equipment, lengthen your supply line . . . "

  "Oh, but we need a buffer of at least one world between us and Earth, so they can't trace us home, attack us here. Anywhere on the world."

  "Hmm, still sounds like an empty world would work better." Endi replied. "Although anyway you look at it, I'll wind up drafted, and dying in some One forsaken hole, One knows where."

  "Oh, no, we'll get you an exemption. Trust me. The draft won't start until next year, anyway."

  "Shhh! I don't think you're supposed to talk about it."

  "Oh, you're silly. It's just them, Earth spies and the multitude that aren't supposed to know about it. Anyway, when the bill is introduced, next week, it'll be public knowledge."

  "Ah."

  A bit more kissing and fondling, then she reluctantly departed, to be home when her husband called.

  "Amazing that the husbands expect the wife to greet them at the door with a big kiss, eat a formal dinner with them, but like as not sleep separately."

  "It’s a recipe for disaster." Idlo grimaced. "All the neglected wives get to be experienced eavesdroppers, and generally listen in on their husband's phone calls. Very useful for a spy."