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

by Pam Uphoff

  And why should I care? He’s a job. That’s all. A job. She winced away from the not-caring. Because he’s a job? Or do I really not like scary, mysterious men.

  Or am I trying to avoid admitting I’m attracted? Attracted, intrigued, infuriated, baffled. I can call him a Halfer, and beneath me. Indulge my elitist prejudice.

  Nothing intrinsically wrong with caution. Or attraction. She heaved the weights back on the rest, and sat up. Scowling. Except . . . One; I’d always thought of myself as so egalitarian. And Two; that One bedamned man was too damned slippery to damn well be classified. "I haven’t got a clue what that damned man is."

  A chuckle focused her glare. Idlo. Ahba on his heels.

  "I don’t have to ask who’s got you talking to yourself.

  Rael rotated her shoulders, nodded. "He’s driving me to drink."

  Ahba sat on the rowing machine. "Who would want to harm the War Party?"

  Xiat strolled in and finished the group. "Everyone except the War Party’s highest members."

  Idlo drummed fingers on a weight. "Even in the party, this could be the start of a move by the next generation of leaders. Cut off the old dead wood . . . I picked up some rumors at the party last night."

  Rael smothered a growl. "I’ll try for more dream associations. Damn his shield. And he as good as took credit for disgracing those War Partiers by getting their wives pregnant. How the One damned overgrown . . . How about you, Idlo? Why don’t you take your buddy drinking and see if he’ll be less wary with a pal instead of a seductress."

  Idlo raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "I’ll give it a try."

  ***

  "I don't like this. The 'uncle' is a definite weak spot in our background."

  Este snorted. "At least he is background. Better than a blank, if they're investigating Endi."

  Deep glared. "A con man showing up out of thin air? Trying to get money out of Endi? I don't like the smell of it."

  Kail shook her head. "Things like that happen to the very powerful. I'm finding Endi's reports on the magic that they do very interesting. He says they know all about draining power cells—but they aren't actually very good at it. And a telepathy range of a kilometer? That's absurdly short. A teenage witch who's just grasped power can usually reach anyone in a ten mile radius. I wish he had an excuse to seriously test their magical battle spells." She set four ceramic vases down, frowned and shifted them around.

  Deep snorted. "At the rate he's seducing other men's wives, he'll get that opportunity any day now. How does that man attract so damn many women?"

  Heil looked over her shoulder. "Jealous? Is he the father of your daughter?"

  Glare. "No!"

  Kail stepped back to check the appearance of her display. "No fighting allowed in a ceramics shop. Do you think we can keep this up much longer? Maybe when Endi is out of the Presidential Palace, he can go lower key. Funds are getting low, we're going to have to sell gold again, if we stay much longer. I don't think we ought to sell more ID blanks."

  Deep snickered. "Maybe Endi can win enough in horse shows to support us."

  Kail smirked. "I'd love to hear what these people think about a full blown God Horse. Este, perhaps you need to hit a few sales, looking for a solid liver chestnut stallion."

  Este hunched his shoulders. "Old . . . One. I don't think I could find a horse that could be mistaken f'Pyrite, and 'Endi' is already attracting too much attention. Adding in a magic horse . . . Old Gods. I don't know if that man is t'most brilliant spy in t'history of spies, or if he's a disaster waiting t'happen."

  Deena shook her head. "For all my bitching, we're well past the need to collect information. Endi is testing strengths and weaknesses, and his mass seduction campaign has already ruined the careers of a number of important pro-war politicians. I suspect there will be a lot more War Party figures slinking off in disgrace before long. I hate to admit it, but he is a brilliant agent. However massively stupid his actions are for a spy."

  Kail nodded her head. "He's what the Oner's collective subconscious thinks a spy ought to be. And having watched their movies, that's really scary."

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Le Havre, European Region

  5 Qadah 1396 YP

  "Course they’re Space Aliens. Where else would people like them come from. You’re a Oner, Ydro, you know they aren’t Multitude, nor Natives. So when they stepped right out of nowhere, it was obvious."

  Ydro snickered. "They stepped out of nowhere? How drunk were you?"

  Anki looked indignant. "They did!"

  "Yeah, it couldn’t possibly have been an unnoticeable spell."

  Icku’s mouth flapped for a moment. "No, they stepped out, one by one, just like they were stepping out of an invisible flying saucer."

  Onni chimed in. "Yeah. They had an invisible flying saucer . . . " he paused and his forehead wrinkled. "It was a lot more believable when we were drunken sots."

  "What about that joy juice?" Icku smirked.

  "Ah ha!" Anki brightened. "There you go, Alien magic elixir. Cures anything. You tried it, youngster?"

  "Me? No, I don’t believe in magic elixirs, Alien or homebrewed."

  They chuckled, and reached for pocket flasks. Ha! All three of them. Not winos anymore my ass. But rather than the hard liquor he’d expected, Anki was carting around a flask of a very nice red wine. He took a tiny sip.

  They watched him hopefully.

  Shrugged. "Guess he’s not sick." Onni shook his head. "Never mind, lad. You ever get sick, just come and find us."

  Ydro nodded absentmindedly, his attention on a cute girl crossing the street half a block away. Maybe I should take a day off, I think I know that girl from the college, maybe she’d like to catch a movie.

  "And cats! Remember, the first time they pet one? Patted it like it was a dog, and got scratched. Este said the first one they saw was black and white and they thought it was a skunk!" Onni started laughing.

  Icku grinned. "I'll bet they had a fit thinking it was gonna spray. So, what place doesn't have cats, eh?"

  "I checked," Anki smirked. "There's cats on every colony and on the vid all the time. Space Aliens. No other possibility."

  Yid rolled his eyes and wandered off. He spotted the cute chick and was halfway down the block, trying to think of something clever to say, before he realized what an odd impulse he was in the middle of. I’m the Brain. The guy that girls think is yukky. What was in that wine? Joy Juice, indeed!

  ***

  Xiat accompanied Izzo home.

  "Curiosity, again. Right?" He turned toward his office. "I'll check and see if the Criminal Investigations Department has identified the mystery visitor."

  Xiat studied the report in his mail. "Umm. Yes. That's definitely the man in the security pictures. Odki Servaone Knysa Draken?"

  "Criminal record. Con man, eh? Here's his address, rented." Izzo was bring up other programs as he spoke. "That's outside the enclave, a very poor part of the world."

  "It's in the poisoned part of southern Africa." Xiat was busy as well.

  The Chinese had taken over the southern quarter of the continent after the nuclear war, and striped it of everything portable. Then the Islamic Federation had captured it in the early years of the Prophets. Successive overlords had taken what was left of the mineral wealth and left the detritus of nuclear war, of unsound mining practices, of unsafe industrial plants, and of abusive human treatment, behind. There were persistent rumors of radiation, poisons, cancer causing chemicals, mutagens. The Draken Clan was one of the most populous and least powerful, having intermarried with the Multitude for more generations than most other clans had sanctioned. Izzo had heard it said that there was little or no line between Oner and Multitude, just a gradual blend.

  "How did someone like Endi come out of there?" Izzo muttered. "Those delicate gentle expert healing spells."

  "Here's Odki's family, only kin listed niece and nephew, address unknown. Both seventeen. Could Endi actually be that young?" Xia
t tapped at her comp. "Ah. News article. Ondi Clostuone. A murder-suicide sixteen years ago, shortly after the birth of twin babies, who were institutionalized. No reason for the institutionalization given."

  "And we won't be able to find out, officially. Speak to Urfa, see if he'll send someone down to collect gossip and a DNA sample. Or maybe Interior should do this."

  Xiat nodded. "Not quite eighteen. Institutionalized since birth. I've noticed some glaring holes in his knowledge."

  "Which a lousy education in a hell hole, and escaping from same might explain." Izzo frowned. "But what about the mountains of knowledge in some fields? Where'd he learn all about horses and magic, eh?"

  She shook her head. "At eighteen? I think we're on the wrong track again."

  Izzo basked for a long moment in Xiat's relaxed, almost open glow. Blinked and tried to withdraw before he got himself beaten up. "Dinner?"

  She smiled slowly. "Maybe later." She leaned in and kissed him. And didn't disappear.

  "Umm, Colonial, I hope you have some appalling malapropos that will get me flouncing out of bed in a fury. I don't think I have enough energy to move, otherwise."

  "Colonial and stupid are not synonymous." Izzo kissed the skin over her shoulder blade and wondered if she could feel his grin. He snuggled down comfortably.

  "You're going to make me do it?"

  "I'm going to do my damnedest to stop you." He trailed fingers down her ribs.

  "I refuse to be ticklish. I refuse. Especially by an amateur. Don't think I didn't notice that virgin flash. Most likely the whole city block caught it." She was controlling her breathing well, but he could feel her abdominal muscles jerking.

  "That's your fault for glowing at me. I couldn't concentrate on being discreet." Now he checked and found his barriers were down. Down? Non-existent, more like.

  "Ha! That's some glow you've got yourself, you truant Colonial Priest. Eep!"

  "Ha, knew you were ticklish. Besides, you didn't seem much more clued in. Despite the excellent massage. See, if I really was a stupid colonial, I'd say something like 'How do they teach you to fumble around like that?' and you'd beat me up."

  That made her laugh, and wiggle around to face him. "I'd call you a Colonial again, but I swear everyone thinks princess school involves daily sex drills."

  "Instead of psychology, and emotional control and analysis?"

  "Oh, think you're smart do you?"

  "Martial Arts, mental combat training, weapons training, chemistry and biology, bomb making, dancing and protocol."

  "We do not use unsubtle, crude things like bombs."

  "Massage and probably lots of reading about sexual technique. Really? You didn't learn how to make bombs in princess school?"

  "Well, yes, but it's not a major subject, just a quick workshop, for familiarity."

  "Oh good. My faith was shaken for a moment, there."

  He managed to keep her there through a morning shower and quick breakfast. He skipped lunch, put his head down on his desk and napped. Smiling.

  Chapter Thirty

  Paris, European Region

  7 Qadah 1396 YP

  "One! It's worse than anything I could have imagined." Izzo looked from the list of women to Xiat. "What did Urfa have to say? Or the President, for that matter?"

  "That however spooky that they all got pregnant at once, it was unlikely that Endi could be responsible. The scandal, if any, will depend on the test outcomes. And what tests they requested. If they just wanted boy-girl and withione and number, no problem. Even a code might not be disastrous."

  "Damn it, he's a two ten, but he hasn't got a full set or a One gene. Endi can't have gotten them pregnant." Izzo fished for a toothpick and gnawed it.

  "Urfa swears there's no such thing as a fertility drug that can overcome the inferior power rejection, but he admitted to some ways around it, generally involving a long time dosing with this or that. I collected another sample from Endi – skin and blood this time. He pinched it in a buckle. I don't know how the first sample was taken, whether Endi could have sabotaged it." She proffered a baggie.

  "One! If he's a Oner – if he has the power gene – he still shouldn't have gotten all those women pregnant. Is he insane? Or did he do it on purpose? Has he got an anti-War Party agenda? Who's he working with?" Izzo eyed the baggie with alarm. He shoved out of the chair and headed for his office. "I ought to take this swab to the lab for a professional assessment. Sooner or later one of the husbands will check paternity and if he gets the wrong answer, they'll all check. Then what are they going to do?" He slid the hopper open and Xiat dropped the swab in.

  "Who knows? If they aren't careful, their reactions could undermine the whole War Party. We’ve already had a Councilman resign, although he’s not admitting to have set up that almost-suicide here." She hesitated. "Izzo . . . are we getting deep into something we aren't even seeing?"

  He met her eyes and nodded. "When I'm around Endi, he seems rock solid and dependable. When I look at the data, he's smoke. I need to track down his family. Our first guess was probably wrong."

  She nodded. "Urfa seemed confident he had him pinned down. But then he sicced Rael on him. When I was drained, he sent me a trickle of power."

  "About all he could do."

  "So why does he glow so powerfully in my memory?"

  Izzo shook his head, and turned his mind to an early dinner instead.

  The analyzer finished shortly after they’d finished eating.

  Xiat bit her lip as she looked at the results. "It says we had samples from two individuals. One is a two ten with no power gene."

  "Which was the official lab results we got on Endi."

  "The other is a two hundred ten Clostuone. Abnormal flag on the X chromosome, the power gene. Just like his sister. Except it says he has a priest gene as well."

  "Really? Why two so different results? Two power genes, and drop both of them, but just in some cells? Or damage to the power genes in some cells, and removal in others? That sounds like genetic engineering, again. A prototype virus that didn’t work completely. But was it adding or subtracting the One gene?" Izzo sighed. "We need a detailed analysis. I'm going to have to consult with an expert, however much I dislike throwing this data into the game."

  ***

  The geneticists found Endi interesting enough to call Izzo after hours. Izzo and Xiat stopped by on the way to another party at Government House.

  Dr. Etli scowled at the DNA scans. "You understand, that there are billions of cells, and while there are hundreds of mutations—everyone has a backlog, so to speak, of about four hundred—and new ones happen all the time. So every single cell in your body is not identical. But this dichotomy, these two sets are of the same individual, they differ only by a few SNPs - spelling errors, so to speak, but those differ from cell to cell, the sets overlap. No RIPs—Retrotransponson Insertion Polymorphisms—and the deliberate genetic engineering is the same. Everything I’d expect to see. Except for the X and Y genes. In my more detailed analysis, in the second sample, the X has a double set of power genes. But it's not a simple repeat. It's two different alleles, end to end. One is quite close to the Priest Gene. The other is so different, I doubt it is functional. The Y has another allele, not the same as the Priest Gene, but in that position. It's a very close allele of the One gene.

  "How the hell this happened? I haven't a clue."

  Izzo fished for a toothpick. Forced his hand out of the pocket. "I wondered about genetic engineering, something to remove the power genes. That didn’t do a complete job, didn't work right."

  The other doctor nodded. "I see where you are going. Skin, scalp, mucous membrane of the mouth, the parts of the body most exposed to the environment got a heavy dose and the genes removed. Other cells got a lower dose that . . . messed the genes up. An accidental release might produce a pattern like that. And those are where we get most of our DNA samples as well. Any ordinary test would say he was a Halfer with a surprising number of the Prophets' genes
. He has all twelve insertions, but with several dropped genes inside the insertions."

  Izzo exchanged looks with Xiat. "I've saved the swabs I got from a group associated with this individual. I think an in-depth analysis of all of them would be in order. This one wasn't at all what he appeared to be, at the limits of my machine. And the others most likely aren't either."

  Xiat nodded. "Three of the four were all lacking the three rape complexes."

  "And Endi's missing them as well, that's four out of five of them."

  Etli looked alarmed. "That sounds unlikely. Those drops are each rare, and occur on three different chromosomes. Less than one in a million chance of any Oner lacking all six. Four people all with the same drop on six chromosomes? That’s not chance. Possibly inbreeding, some Clans just aren’t careful enough. Or, again, a release from an underground genetics lab. Where are they from?"

  "Our first thought was Northern India, but . . ."

  "Hmph, I'd have said European and sub-Saharan, from his looks. He has so many of the Prophets’ non-insertion genes that there aren't any markers for pinning him down geographically. Well, no doubt an ancestor could have married out. Northern India isn't exactly a hotbed of domestic bioterrorists, but there have been some problems in the past. The multitude, you see? They think to remove the genes of the Prophets, in a bloodless revolution. Fools."

  The other doctor grimaced. "Something to remove those trouble-making genes also makes sense, as a goal for bioterrorists. But, removing the power genes, or altering them, apparently with random success, that’s frightening. I'll check the archives for any illegal labs twenty-five years ago or so, that might have had an undetected release."

  “Check Southern Africa, as well.” Izzo dipped fingers into a pocket, then snatched them away. ”We had a pointer toward Draken Clan.”