Veritas Morte: A Science Fiction Novella

by Michael Kingswood

  She lowered her eyes and cleared her throat, not reaching for the cup at first. “No less a fool than I. Lucien, I’m…” She paused, swallowed, then drew a quick breath. “I owe you an apology. I spoke out of turn, in a heated moment.” She half-chuckled and shook her head. “I have never been able to hold back my feelings very well. My father almost did not let me come on this trip because of that. He wanted to send my younger brother; I had to nearly beg to convince him.” Her eyes turned back up toward him. “I’m sorry. I should not have spoken to you that way.”

  That was almost convincing. Almost.

  “It was rather…unexpected.” Lucien lifted his cup and took a sip. He savored the flavor for a moment before swallowing, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. “Diplomats do not normally begin by insulting the other party’s upbringing and his home.”

  A bit of tension seemed to leave her as he swallowed. Only then did she pick up her own cup and drink from it. Of course, had he wished to poison her, the fact that their tea came from the same source mattered little. He could have simply applied the poison to the cup itself before the servant brought it out; that was a fairly common technique, actually. Had Hamberly considered that in his investigation? A thought for a later.

  Ophelia swallowed and made a rueful little grin. “Again, I apologize. You cannot help how you grew up.”

  Lucien blinked, surprised that she would go there again. The anger he had been concentrating on maintaining flared up on its own. “Again you speak as though I were raised ignorant of the universe. I’m not some backwater bumpkin, Princess. I had the finest tutors available, and travelled from one side of the Empire to the other before I was twelve.”

  “But never outside of it.”

  Her words caught him off-balance. “This is my first journey outside our borders, true. But that is our tradition; the Imperial children never leave the Empire before their eighteenth years.” Why did she think that so odd?

  Ophelia shook her head slowly. “That is why you cannot understand what is happening here.” She leaned forward, her gaze suddenly piercing. “You cannot know how the other nations truly view your Empire, Lucien. How they despise it.”

  “I think you made it abundantly clear how much you do,” he replied with aplomb, and took some pleasure in the way she flinched in response. She recovered quickly, though.

  “It goes beyond whatever feelings I may or may not have, Lucien. There is not a system outside of your sphere that does not feel the same way. Even some of your client states would just as soon you were gone the way of Tumon of Centaurus. Do you ever wonder why?”

  Lucien snorted, and waved a dismissive hand. “Success always spawns enemies, envious people who - “

  “You cannot really believe that.”

  Lucien raised an eyebrow at her. Why not? He had seen such reactions many times in people. Why not expect the same from nations as from individuals?

  Ophelia sighed and shook her head. “When over the course of many years, you see friends and allies subjugated one by one, you will naturally wish to see the one who destroyed them punished. That is not envy, Lucien.”

  Why had he earlier found it difficult to be angry with her? “We destroy no one, Princess. Systems who enter the Empire are built up, given the benefits of trade and Imperial protection, improved infrastructures, law and order… Not a one of them is worse off for having come into our fold.”

  “Better off, you say.” She stared hard into his eyes. “I know of no fewer than three rebellions in the last decade alone.”

  “Quick to start and just as quick to put down. You cannot claim you do not have your own malcontents.” This was quickly becoming tiresome. He set his teacup down on the table and leaned forward. “What do you want?”

  Ophelia cocked her head to the side for a moment as she considered him. Before speaking, she took another sip of her tea. “I want peace, Lucien. I came to implore your father to stop his aggression in Corellis, and let his neighbors live without interference.”

  She had a strange notion of aggression, if she thought Qora was the one who instigated hostilities with Corellis. But just then he realized he had neither desire nor patience to debate with her. “I see.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  He turned to leave. Normally he would have been the one to dismiss her, but he just wanted this encounter to end.

  “Lucien, wait.”

  He didn’t want to, but he found he could not deny her. The way she said that was…warm…full of need. It made his knees go all wobbly. He had to draw a deep breath to keep his voice level. “What?” He looked back over his shoulder at her. She gazed at him with wide eyes that seemed, for the first time, genuine.

  “Your father pursued a path of conquest, but you don’t have to. Now that he’s - “

  He rounded on her, clenching his fists at his sides to avoid lashing out with anything besides his tongue. “Don’t talk that way about him, Princess. He’s not dead!”

  “Yet.” She said it calmly, but not without warmth and compassion. “But how long can he last? I’m told he is in a deep coma, despite your doctors’ best efforts.”

  Lucien nodded.

  “And if he recovers, will he be the man he was?”

  He did not trust himself to speak at first. All the anger that he had been holding toward her faded beneath heartache as her words brought his father’s condition fully back into his mind. He had pushed it aside beneath thoughts of the investigation, the reinforcement of Neonovus…and his surety of her involvement in the assassination attempt. But she was correct; the doctors could not name the compound that had been used to fell his father. It was a toxin they had never encountered, but it attacked the nervous system, and it seemed to have severe degenerative effects. Even if the Emperor survived his ordeal, they were fairly sure he would lose most of his faculties.

  But Ophelia did not need to know that.

  “We shall see.”

  She smiled a sad little smile. “We shall.” She rose from her chair and stepped around the table to stand in front of Lucien, and once more her scent flooded into his nostrils. It was different this time, more musky. And all the more exciting for its difference. “One way or the other, you will rule your Empire soon, Lucien, and you can be better than the men who came before you. More just, to your own subjects as well as to your neighbors.”

  He swallowed, but did not reply. He found he had no words.

  She leaned a little closer, spoke more softly, in a near whisper. “Promise me you’ll think on my words.” He felt her breath on his cheek as she spoke, and it was like the heat of a furnace.

  And then she turned and swept out of the room, leaving Lucien to collapse back into the chair he had just vacated. He was completely and utterly spent, and could not figure out how he had so quickly gone from having the upper hand to being the one who had been vanquished.

  Master Chief Hamberly found him still in that chair twenty minutes later. The Head of Security bobbed into the room quickly and made just a quick little bow; he was practically bouncing from foot to foot, he had so much energy.

  “We found him, your Highness.”

  Suddenly, Lucien joined the bird-like man in being about ready to burst his seams. He sprang to his feet, his musing about the meeting with Princess Ophelia--and the troubling way her final words had impacted him--forgotten in his sudden excitement.

  “Where is he? I want to - “

  “The morgue, sire.”

  Lucien stopped abruptly, feeling as though the wind had been taken from his sails. It was good the man was dead, but… “Explain, Master Chief. We needed him alive.”

  Hamberly inclined his head. “Agreed, but fortunately, his death brought us more than enough information to move forward.” He gestured at a wall panel near the servants’ entrance. “May I?”

  Lucien nodded, and only just then realized that Hamberly was alone. None of his assistants had come, and he had not brought any of Lucien�
�s staff.

  Hamberly tapped the screen to life and looked back at Lucien. He must have seen the sudden wary confusion on the Prince’s face, because the Head of Security coughed softly into his hand. It sounded a very uncomfortable cough. “I have not shown this to anyone else, your Highness. The reason why will become abundantly clear in a moment.”

  That was intriguing. And it was not like Hamberly was going to make an attempt on his life. For one thing, Lucien was quite sure he could break the little man in half. For another, above and beyond the omnipresent guardian drones that lurked unobtrusively up near the ceiling, two Marine guards stood just outside the door--a pair of Marines had not left his side, or near enough, since the assassination attempt--and they would rush in at the first sign of trouble. For that matter, they would not have let Hamberly through without a thorough checking over in the first place, no matter his position on the ship. Abernathy’s orders had been quite specific on that point.

  Lucien gestured for him to proceed.

  “We found his body in a storeroom near the port side hangar deck. He had been dead for approximately ten hours when we found him.”

  “So whoever hired him disposed of him once the deed was done.”

  Hamberly nodded. “A not uncommon fate for assassins, sire. Once they have completed their mission, they become liabilities, and so…” He left the rest go unsaid, instead turning back to the wall panel and tapping out a few commands. “As you know, there are security cameras in all corridors aboard ship. Replaying the footage from that section revealed this.”

  An image appeared on the screen. The false servant, now dressed in the uniform of an ordinary crewman, walked hurriedly toward another man in a crewman’s uniform. The second man’s back was to the camera so Lucien could not make out his features. The two men met in front of a doorway and the assassin said something, then glanced over his shoulder. When he turned back to his accomplice, his eyes went wide and he made to move away. But the other man was too quick. He grabbed the assassin by the throat and struck him repeatedly in the belly.

  “A knife?” Lucien looked away from the screen as he asked the question.

  Hamberly nodded. “The man had half a dozen deep puncture wounds in his chest and abdomen. Death would have been painful, but relatively quick.”

  On the screen, the second man opened the door and dragged the assassin’s body inside, then came back out with some cleaning supplies--gleaned form the storeroom no doubt--and made quick work of any blood in the corridor. Then he replaced the supplies in the storeroom and strode away down the corridor.

  And during that entire time, he never once turned his face toward the camera. There was no way to tell who he was, except that he was of about average height, and fit.

  “Clearly he has intimate knowledge of the ship’s layout. That corridor is almost completely untravelled during that hour of night; a perfect location for his needs. And there are other cameras at intervals, but he managed to conceal his face in every single one.”

  Lucine scowled. “How does that help? I thought you said we had more than enough to move forward?”

  Hamberly smiled slyly and raised his index finger. “It helps because I know something he does not, your Highness. There have of late been a number of incidents of pilferage from this particular storeroom, so with the Captain’s approval I installed a hidden interior camera.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “The camera’s existence has not been widely advertised.”

  He tapped the panel again and the angle of the image changed to that of a camera looking down at the inside of the storeroom door from near the ceiling and back a ways. On the screen, the killer dragged the assassin’s body into the storeroom and shoved it to one side.

  And then looked directly up at the hidden camera.

  Lucien’s breath caught in his throat. His blood went to ice as he beheld the killer’s face, and then a towering fury obliterated that ice beneath its heat.

  “You see why I came to you first, your Highness. I cannot arrest one of his rank without approval.”

  “No,” Lucien breathed. “No you cannot. Where is he now?”

  “I believe he is in conference with his department heads at the moment.”

  Lucien nodded.

  Hamberly waited for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. Lucien pulled his eyes from the screen and looked fully at the Head of Security.

  “Shall I proceed with the arrest, sire?”

  Lucien headed for the door. “No,” he said, and Hamberly’s eyes went wide with surprise and confusion. “Have Abernathy meet us there,” Lucien said before the Master Chief could speak again. “I’m going to do it myself.”

  “You Highness, I do not think this is wise. Let me - ”

  Hamberly voiced his objection--again--from behind Lucien as he hurried through the ship’s corridors toward their quarry. The first time had been understandable. The second, annoying. This third time…

  “Speak again, Hamberly, and I’ll arrest you with him!”

  Lucien did not look back to see the expression on the Master Chief’s face, but at least he did not try to stop him again.

  In truth, it was understandable. He was the Head of Security, after all, and he must feel Lucien was stepping on his authority, perhaps even undermining it. But understandable as it was, Lucien was having none of it. The man behind his father’s attempted assassination was found, and he was going to see him brought to heel!

  They turned right and nearly ran into Abernathy, who entered the adjoining corridor from the other direction. The old man was breathing heavily--he must have run from his offices to make it here so quickly--and wore an expression of mixed concern and confusion.

  “My Prince, what is happening?” Abernathy asked, but Lucien did not answer, just gestured for him to follow along.

  There, the door was just ahead on the left. He picked up the pace, eagerness for the confrontation overriding his sense of decorum as he passed startled crew members, who pressed aside to give way.

  Behind him, he heard Abernathy speak. “What is going on?”

  “Lord Falroth,” Hamberly said, sounding almost frantic, “you must stop him! He’s going to - “

  Then Lucien was through the door and into the conference room beyond.

  The table was sized for a dozen men, and every chair was full except for the one at the head of the table nearest the door. All eyes turned toward him, registering varying degrees of surprise, as he burst in.

  Minister Ymmersen rose from his chair at the opposite head of the table, his eyes widening as well. “Prince Lucien. What can we do for - “

  Lucien stalked past Ymmersen’s underlings in their chairs, barely noticing them. He had only eyes for the man himself. “You almost got away with it.”

  Ymmersen’s eyes narrowed and he looked from Lucien to the men with him. “Your Highness, I don’t know - “

  “Enough! I know what you did, and I have proof.”

  Behind him, Abernathy and the Master Chief spoke at the same time.

  “My Prince, wait - “

  “Sire, no!”

  Lucien paid them no heed, pressing home his victory. “You worked to undermine the Correlis campaign from the start. You never wanted it to move forward, but you lost out. We were going ahead, with or without you. So you decided on another way. You hired a man to put poison into my father’s cup, and then when the job was done, you eliminated him.” He smiled, his fury at the man becoming an exultant sense of triumph as he laid it all out. “But you were sloppy, and we found out the truth.” Lucien drew a deep breath and said firmly, “Baron Horace Ymmersen, you are under arrest for Treason and Murder.” Speaking over his shoulder, he said, “Master Chief, take him into custody.”

  No one moved. No one said a word.

  Then, Ymmersen began to laugh.

  Lucien blinked. That wasn’t how he was supposed to react. He looked back at the Master Chief and Abernathy. Both wore similar expressions of chagrin. What was Hamberly waitin
g for?

  “Master Chief, I said take him into custody.”

  Hamberly’s expression turned sickly and he spread his hands helplessly, saying nothing.

  Ymmersen kept on laughing.

  Abernathy looked pained. “My Prince, you do not realize what you have done.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” Ymmersen said, pausing to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. “He was never very bright, or you were never a very good teacher. I could never decide which.” He shot a glare of contempt at Abernathy for a second before he turned that same glare onto Lucien. “Let me see if I can enlighten you, Prince Lucien. You are not a deputized officer of the law. You are a member of the Imperial Court. As am I. As is Lord Tutor back there, and several others at this table. You could have opted to let the law of the land handle it, but instead you chose to come as a Peer. Thus, it is a Court matter, and the Master Chief cannot intervene.” He drew himself up and sneered at the Prince. “Very well then. As a Peer, I say that your accusation is baseless slander. And seeing as I have several members of the Court who can act as witnesses to this affront, I demand the right of Veritas Morte.”

  Hamberly gasped.

  Veritas Morte. Truth through death. What did that old custom have to do with this?

  “Preposterous,” Lucien said. “I’m not fighting a duel with you.” He looked back at the Marines, who also had followed him into the room. “Corporal, seize him.”

  “You will do no such thing, Corporal,” Ymmersen said, pointing an index finger at the Marine as though that mere act could freeze the man in his tracks.

  It did.

  Ymmersen turned his gaze back on Lucien. “Even the Corporal understands, my Prince,” he said the honorific with utmost contempt. “Veritas Morte cannot be denied, except by the Emperor himself. And, sadly,” his lips turned up into a vicious grin, “he is indisposed at the moment.”