by Paul Collins
‘And you base this on?’
‘A hunch.’
Maximus snorted. ‘You go into a RIM trance just to come up with what I figured out after two minutes?’
Anneke smiled. ‘Well, we can’t all be huge geniuses, Brown. So who goes first?’
‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Please, after you.’ He bowed and politely waved her ahead of him.
An ancient gesture, Anneke suspected. She shrugged and stepped into the mouth of the cave. But just as the water could not enter, neither could she. And it wasn’t that she encountered a force field or a repelling property, she simply couldn’t move forward.
She tried again and again. Nothing happened.
Impatient, Maximus thrust her aside and strode into the cave mouth, but the same thing happened. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘The rock went through.’
‘Inanimate objects can enter?’
‘What about the water?’ Maximus realised with a start it was now above his knees.
‘Okay. The water has a higher energy level than the rock, less stable.’
‘I’ll buy that. So how do we get in there?’ he said.
Anneke had a sudden insight. ‘We hold hands.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you see? This whole thing has been engineered to bring us here at the same time. Even your pet alien conveniently disappeared just when you needed him.’
Maximus’ face showed deep concentration. Then that grin appeared once more and he held out his hand.
Anneke stared at it. With great repugnance, she grasped it. His skin felt smooth and cool, like a snake’s.
‘People will talk, you know,’ said Maximus.
‘With any luck you’ll never get to hear them.’
Anneke started forward, wondering what she was doing. She felt disloyalty – to herself, to her Uncle Viktus, to everything she’d worked for – for holding hands with Nathaniel Brown, for not doing everything in her power to kill him. Yet from the moment she’d entered the cave under the bluff, she’d experienced a strange … certainty … as if she knew that each action was the right one to take, while another part of her mind raged at the obsceneness of colluding with the enemy.
They faced the wall of darkness obscuring the cave mouth. Together they stepped through into an arched hallway made of stone and lit by flaming torches in brackets fixed to the walls. Anneke and Maximus blinked. They let go of each other’s hand. Electric lights flickered in small alcoves in the ceiling, but were unreliable enough to justify the torches, which reeked of sulfur and pitch, and threw torturous shadows up and down the passageway.
‘Listen,’ said Anneke. Maximus paused. Both heard a far-off commotion: shouting, confused voices, the tramp of boots. Anneke moved to the end of the corridor, peering round into another stretch of corridor. Without waiting to see whether Brown followed or not, she slipped around the corner, stopping at a slightly open heavy wooden door and peering through the crack.
On the other side she saw a large banquet hall, stripped of tables and recreational furniture, and filled with fighting men and women and the consumables of war: rations, canteens, medkits and the like. Weary-looking fighters were eating hungrily, sitting on the cold flagstones, squatting or standing alone or in small groups. They were battle-scarred and looked glazed from lack of sleep and that perennial, debilitating need to be ever ready, no matter how long the wait. Anneke knew that look like the back of her hand.
Maximus suddenly whispered in her ear. ‘Do you know where we are?’
She nodded. She’d seen a familiar crest on the wall over the great ornate fireplace at the far end of the banqueting hall, though its recognition made no sense to her.
‘We’re back on Se’atma Minor,’ she said. ‘In the Old Fortress.’
Maximus said nothing. Anneke supposed he was churning through myriad scenarios, trying to account for the unexpected and enormous spatial jump they had made. Anneke herself wondered at it. No known technology could transport an atom across dozens of parsecs of space. The feat was incredible.
Though the intent was more inexplicable …
Suddenly a knot of fighters broke off from the main group and headed their way at a fast dogtrot. Anneke straightened, staring about. ‘There!’ she hissed. Maximus was already moving towards the door, flinging it open before darting inside. Anneke followed just as the fighters hurried past.
When it was safe to talk, Maximus fixed her with a look. ‘Any ideas?’
Anneke ignored his peremptory tone. Once an arrogant megalomaniac, always an arrogant megalomaniac, she supposed.
‘Okay. The obvious first,’ she said. ‘The cave mouth was interfaced with a transportation device. That’s why we didn’t hear the rock hit the ground …’
‘Curious that there was no rock in the corridor.’
‘Yes, I wondered about that too. So either the rock went elsewhere or it was picked up by a cleaner, maybe.’
‘That presupposes this is where we were meant to come.’
‘I sense that to be the case.’
‘Yet it’s just as possible that this transportation device jumps people and objects to random locations throughout the galaxy. We just happened to get Se’atma Minor.’
‘I concede it’s a possibility,’ said Anneke, ‘but my gut says otherwise. I think this is where it meant to send us and this is where we are meant to be.’
Maximus snorted. ‘You sound like the Envoy.’
Anneke frowned. ‘Where do you think he went?’
‘If I could answer that, I could answer many puzzling things.’
‘He is involved with all this.’
‘Another gut feeling?’
‘Call it what you like, but he has played an ambivalent role in events to date.’
Maximus said nothing. Anneke read agreement in his eyes, though he tried to conceal it. So Brown isn’t quite sure of his pet, she thought. Interesting.
‘We need more intel,’ said Maximus.
‘I’m all for that,’ said Anneke, ‘as long as we don’t kill anyone to get it.’
Maximus smiled. ‘The fate of the galaxy may hang in the balance and you have qualms?’
‘Maybe the fate of the galaxy will hang on my qualms.’
Maximus continued to stare at her, scowling, as if her words irritated him. He made an ostentatious display of setting his blaster to ‘stun’.
‘Happy now?’
Anneke pointed her gun at his head.
‘Ah,’ he said.
Anneke backed away. ‘It’s probably healthier for me if I end our truce.’
‘I’m hurt.’
‘Rather you than me.’
‘So the next time we meet –?’
‘Anything goes.’
‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’ Maximus half turned, as if he’d heard a noise, but then lunged sideways into a corridor and was gone. He did not trust Anneke any more than she trusted him.
‘Fine with me,’ Anneke muttered to herself. She hurried away in the other direction, moving quietly, listening with more than her ears.
She hadn’t admitted to Brown how perplexed she was. To be brought halfway across the galaxy was one thing, to be brought to Se’atma Minor was another – the place that had figured hugely in galactic history. The rock from which the Fortress was fashioned seemed charged with portent and meaning.
Anneke padded down the corridor, took a left, another left, then a right. She knew the Fortress well and moved deftly, with silent purpose, making for the old Imperial Level. Only she suddenly came up sharp.
A wall blocked her way. A wall that hadn’t been there a few days ago when she had entered the Fortress to find Jeera Mosoon; indeed, she and Jeera had passed along this very corridor.
Anneke hesitated. Could she be mistaken? Had she unknowingly wandered into a duplicated wing? The builders of the Fortress had constructed identical sections, creating a sense of sameness to throw off invading enemies.
She added it to th
e list of questions that needed answering. She took a detour, forcing her to swing wide around the obstructing wall and bringing her perilously close to a guardroom. Her scanners indicated the room was lightly manned, with only three sleeping guards inside. This was odd, suggesting the inmates of the Fortress were overworked – or engaged in battle.
Anneke knew it was pointless to interrogate a lowly guard or trooper. She needed to find someone in the chain of command, as high up as possible.
Then she hit another roadblock: a corridor that she ‘knew’ swung to the east now swung to the north, taking her away from the maintenance nexus she wanted.
What the hell was going on?
A noise behind her sent her diving into a shadowed alcove where she crouched behind an ancient suit of armour as a squad of troopers marched past. They looked utterly fatigued and two wore blood-soaked bandages.
Behind them came two grizzled sergeants, conversing in low tones.
‘… they break through on the peninsula, they’ll lay siege, you mark my words.’ Anneke heard one say.
The other scowled. ‘You’re all doom and gloom, Taster. They’ll not break through, not on Demundala’s watch …’
Then the squad was gone. Yet even when the sound of their booted feet was out of earshot, Anneke did not move.
She was perplexed and unsettled.
The name Demundala. An odd name yet familiar. Where had she heard it? In what context? She racked her brain, but could come up with no answer, other than one that did not help: the name was wrong.
But why was it wrong?
And something else – the troopers’ leather harnesses had lacked field generators. If they had just been in battle why would they have left such basic items behind? Was the Fortress running short, so that they must be handed to those about to go into battle? And the bandages the wounded wore …
And who was fighting whom?
Anneke stood up. Time to get answers.
She made her way cautiously to the maintenance nexus and found an access hatch neither alarmed nor booby-trapped, which made her suspicious she had missed something. She climbed inside, dogged the hatch, and started climbing the shaft.
Like the hatch itself, the access shaft was not fitted with sensors. Either this was an older, more secure part of the Fortress or she had stumbled on the one shaft being refitted with more sophisticated hardware.
As if.
She climbed, scanning constantly for sensors, trip beams, pressure pads, subtle field emanations, the works.
She found nothing.
At least, not until she reached the Imperial Level, and there she encountered an old-fashioned padlock. She stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded, but then whistled softly. In this age of ultra-sophisticated locks and security fields, a padlock could cause a serious hitch. She must remember this.
Fortunately, her blaster melted the locking arm on the padlock and a moment later she was standing in a narrow corridor whose walls were decorated with rich floor-to-ceiling tapestries.
‘Guess I’m in the right place,’ she murmured to herself. She kept her blaster out, set on stun. And just as well.
A man appeared around the bend in front of her, moving as quietly as possible and listening for something. Anneke’s first impression was that he was an intruder like herself. In any case, she had him covered before he’d recovered from his surprise.
She motioned for him to stay silent, disarmed him, then gestured him back along the way he had come. Finding a small chamber that opened off a side corridor, she waved the man inside, making him sit on his hands on a lavishly brocaded couch. It was an undignified position, but kept both of them from trying to kill the other.
‘I gather you’re not here by invitation,’ said Anneke.
The man sighed heavily. He was short, stocky and ruggedly handsome; his firm features suggested strength and the ability to command.
‘No more are you,’ he said. His voice was deep and resonant, containing all the harmonics that suggesting trust and reliability.
‘Point taken,’ said Anneke. ‘So tell me. Who are you and what is going on here?’
He gave her a long appraising look, noted her blaster, and said, ‘I am Herik of Vane.’
MAXIMUS moved with utmost stealth.
Every nerve jangled, and he found himself holding his breath. The world was wrong, out of kilter, and it annoyed him that he could not put his finger on what it was. He stepped out into the corridor, and a man loomed at him from a side passage. Maximus jabbed instinctively, dropping him.
The man lay on the flagstones, gasping like a fish, clutching his solar plexus.
Maximus unceremoniously went through his pockets, finding nothing except odd-looking coins. He was about to discard them when he froze, his eyes widening. The profile stamped on one side was that of Rector III, the ‘Monster of Markum’, who had risen bloodily through the ranks of the Old Empire to become its cruellest emperor at the time of the Empire’s downfall – a thousand years ago.
Maximus stared at the coins, jangling them softly in the cup of his hand, as if weighing them – or their ghostly implication, a thought too far-fetched to entertain.
He checked the corridor in both directions, then dragged the man into a side room empty but for old furniture, and waited for him to recover. The man scrabbled backwards and leaned heavily against a wall, never taking his eyes off Maximus, which was just as well for him, though Maximus didn’t want to murder anyone right now.
He wanted information.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, when the man’s gasping had subsided to a steady wheeze.
The man licked his lips. He looked frightened.
‘Answer. I won’t harm you if you do as you’re told.’
‘Melit,’ said the man. ‘I’m called Melit, sir. I’m Assistant Master Turnkey, m’lord.’ He reflexively touched a bunch of metal keys that hung from his utility belt.
Maximus had to smile at the honorific. M’lord, indeed. The man was a bundle of habits.
‘This is, is it not, the Fortress of Kestre?’ The man nodded slowly. ‘And who is in charge here?’
‘Why, that would be Commander Quizko!’
Maximus started, feeling an icy chill crawl up his spine. He had to force himself to ask the next question. ‘What – what year is it?’
Melit appeared worried he’d been abducted by a madman. Maximus could empathise with the man’s feelings. He felt slightly mad.
‘The year is 36-2080, m’lord,’ said Melit.
Maximus sat down heavily on a chair.
Melit stared at him. ‘Are – are you all right, sir?’
‘The month, man, what month is it? What day?’
Melit looked confused. ‘April, sir. The fifteenth, as you must know.’
Maximus restrained himself from pointing out that if he knew, he wouldn’t have needed to ask. Yet he had known. From the moment he’d seen the coins, he’d known. His gut had told him, but he’d refused to listen, and yet it made a terrible sense, like seeing a picture whole when some of the parts were missing. The wholeness was inexplicably right.
But he didn’t want it to be.
‘Have you anything to drink?’ he asked suddenly.
Melit jumped at the harshness in Maximus’ voice and quickly fumbled a hip flask from his belt. He held it outstretched, his fingers trembling. Maximus took it, drank, and spluttered. The sharp whisky burned his throat, making his eyes water, and was most welcome.
He pocketed the flask, and a thought he’d had once before crept back into his mind: Was there another game being played here, one that dwarfed his own manoeuvrings, making them seem childish? Levels of order might be involved. A village feud seems everything to the villagers, but above their heads a galactic war might rage and they would never be the wiser. If this were so, the Sentinels had to be involved, unless there was something to the Envoy’s incessant ranting about Kadros … a galactic Fate that shaped the destinies of mortals.
Maximu
s shook his head. He needed to stay focused, he needed to calculate. Getting spooked by alien mysticism wouldn’t keep him alive.
‘April fifteenth, you say. So Herik’s forces, the League of Aligned Worlds, are at the gates of the city, but Quizko’s forces aren’t faring too well, correct?’ Melit nodded, saying nothing. ‘Good,’ said Maximus, more to himself. ‘Perhaps he can use some help.’
Maximus got to his feet. ‘Give me your keys.’ Melit handed them over. ‘Where’re the detention cells?’
Melit told him. They were close by.
Maximus pulled out his blaster. Melit gulped.
‘Fear not, man,’ said Maximus. ‘I’m setting this on stun. You’ll wake in twelve hours with a thunderous headache.’
‘Stun? No! You’re tricking me!’ His voice had risen.
‘Have it your way,’ said Maximus. ‘Sweet dreams.’
He pressed the trigger, watched the man slump, checked his vitals. He would live. Maximus always kept his promises – perhaps because so many had been broken in his childhood. Most of them were pledges or guarantees of death and destruction, which he was only too happy to deliver.
Maximus found only one guard on duty in the detention centre and quickly dispatched him to the same place he’d sent Melit. There was no point in antagonising his future employer any more than could be helped.
Moving down the main corridor, Maximus peered into each cell. At one point he stopped, arrested by what he saw: through the view-slot in the door he watched a strikingly beautiful girl on a bunk, braiding her hair. He felt his heart race and his face grew hot. He took several deep breaths, and stepped back from the door to steady his nerves. He was behaving like a lovesick teenager!
He peered through the slot again, and just as before his heart thumped against his ribs, and he felt dizzy. Then the girl, by some sixth sense, turned and stared straight at him.
‘Who’s there?’ she asked. Maximus jumped back as if stricken. Her voice pierced him, struck deep inside him, at an old long-buried part. It felt as if she were speaking to a ghost, to a part of him that had died. He jerked away as if scalded and leaned against the wall, panting.
Her voice came again and he clamped his hands over his ears and staggered blindly down the corridor, intent only on escaping.
