Bones of Empire

by William C. Dietz

  The Fonta Hotel had seen better days, but that was just as well given the need to keep expenses down. A creaky android came out to greet the couple and help with their luggage. The red uniform the machine wore was a bit threadbare but otherwise presentable.

  Cato paid the cabbie, took Alamy’s hand, and led her into a dark, shabbily furnished lobby. The woman behind the reception counter had multiple bod mods, including a forked tongue, which had been very much in style six years earlier. Alamy watched in fascination as it flicked in and out. “Good evening,” the clerk said pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”

  “We need a room,” Cato replied. “For one—maybe two nights.”

  “Excellent,” the woman responded. “And how would you like to pay? With a chip? Or cash in advance?”

  Cato had a credit chip embedded under the skin of his right wrist, but there was nothing in the account to draw upon. “That’ll be cash,” he said. “How large a deposit do you need?”

  “Ten Imperials should cover it,” the woman said as she eyed an ancient monitor. “Room 204 is available and looks out onto the street. I’ll print a keycard.”

  The couple were up in their room fifteen minutes later. It was worn, but reasonably clean, and was a welcome sanctuary after the assassination attempt. Cato took Alamy into his arms and kissed her. “The women in limo one told me what you did. That was very brave.”

  Alamy looked up at him. Her eyes were huge in the dim light. “I was scared.”

  “So was I,” Cato replied. “And we had every right to be.”

  “Who were they?” Alamy wanted to know. “And why did they want to kill Usurlus?”

  “The investigation will take time,” Cato predicted. “Five of the would-be assassins had nearly identical tattoos. All of them featured two snakes wrapped around a ring and facing each other at the top. Sound familiar?”

  The design was familiar and for good reason. As one of Procurator Nalomy’s kitchen slaves, Alamy had been required to serve the governor and her guests. In that role she had seen the family crest displayed on silverware, fancy china, and napkins. “The Nalomy family was behind it!” Alamy exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” Cato agreed. “Or so it appears, although I suspect that Senator Tego Nalomy and his staff will not only deny the connection but produce a fancy story to explain the tattoos. It makes sense, however—and Usurlus will have to be very careful indeed.”

  “What about you?” Alamy wanted to know. “You had a role in bringing Procurator Nalomy down as well.”

  “I’m small fry,” Cato replied dismissively. “I doubt the Senator even knows my name. No, you and I have a bigger problem to confront, and soon, too.”

  Alamy smiled. “What’s that?”

  “We need an apartment,” Cato replied, “and it’s going to be hard to find.”

  “That’s true,” Alamy allowed gently. “But that’s tomorrow—and this is tonight.”

  Cato kissed her, and a siren wailed outside somewhere, but neither one of them heard it.

  Slaves weren’t allowed in the dilapidated restaurant without their owners, so Alamy was waiting outside the door when Cato arrived. It was humiliating, but Cato seemed to be completely unaware of the problem as they entered the room together. Could he switch his talent off? Or was it on, and he just didn’t care? There was no way to know.

  After they had been seated, and ordered breakfast, Alamy placed two sheets of paper in front of Cato. Having requested a list of rentals in the Far Corner area from the desk clerk, and assured him that she was acting on Cato’s behalf, Alamy had gone through hundreds of listings looking for what she judged to be the sort of place he might like. And, having a pretty good idea of how much money her owner had to spend, which apartments were worth taking a look at.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” Cato said enthusiastically. “Once breakfast is out of the way, we’ll go in search of our new home. Something with running water, I hope!”

  The list was a good start, but six hours later they had inspected more than a dozen properties, and Cato was depressed. They were standing on a side street, next to the overcrowded apartment building they had just left, with nothing to show for a day’s worth of searching. So when a street tough spotted two people who clearly didn’t belong in the area and came sauntering over, Cato was in no mood for a clumsy shakedown. Though of medium height, the man was muscular and armed with a length of pipe decorated with fake gemstones. They glittered in the late-afternoon sun and would clearly inflict some very nasty wounds were the makeshift club to make contact with bare flesh. “Hey, citizens,” the thug said ominously, “you need a guide? You give me five Imperials, and I’ll show you how to get out of here alive.”

  “Tell you what,” Cato countered as he raised his left hand palm out. “You give me five Imperials, and I won’t send you to jail.”

  The badge that had been “printed” onto the surface of Cato’s skin glowed blue and was an unmistakable sign of authority. The street tough looked surprised, immediately began to back away, and turned to run.

  Cato glanced at Alamy and shook his head. “This isn’t Dantha,” he cautioned. “You’ll have to be careful here.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied dryly. “There’s one more place on our list. Shall we take a look?”

  They took a look, but the basement apartment was no better than all the rest, and Cato’s pocket com began to beep insistently as they returned to the street. Alamy watched him answer and saw a frown appear on his face as the person on the other end of the call did most of the talking. Finally, having uttered a series of “Yes, sirs,” and “No, sirs,” Cato ended the conversation with a terse acknowledgment. “Tomorrow morning, 0800 hours, yes, sir.”

  Then, having clicked the com closed, he said, “Damn it! Of all the rotten luck . . . There are thousands of officers in the Legions, and I get Tuso Inobo.”

  “Who is Tuso Inobo?” Alamy inquired cautiously. “And why don’t you like him?”

  “He’s a Primus Pilus, or senior Centurion,” Cato answered grimly. “And I don’t like him because he’s stupid, unimaginative, and ambitious. And that’s a bad mix of qualities for any senior officer to have.”

  Alamy was still in the process of learning all of the nittygritty details about the way in which the Legions and the subordinate Xeno Corps functioned, so she didn’t understand. “So you are going to report to this Inobo person? I thought you were part of the Legate’s staff.”

  “No,” Cato answered bitterly. “Usurlus has a hold on me but only until we get a chance to meet with the Emperor. That’s when the Legate plans to use me as part of an effort to tell Emor how dangerous the Sagathi shape shifters are—and request more funding for the Xeno Corps. Something my organization would be glad of. In the meantime, I’ll be on detached duty, reporting to the senior Xeno Corps officer in the city of Imperialus, and that’s Inobo.”

  Alamy was in love with Cato but understood his faults and sensed there was something about his relationship with Inobo that he hadn’t shared. “I understand why you don’t like Inobo,” she put in, “but how come he doesn’t like you?”

  Cato’s eyes flicked, then came back. “I shot him in the ass.”

  Alamy’s eyes opened wide. “You what?”

  “It was more than ten years ago. We were on a stakeout,” Cato explained. “Members of a rival gang arrived, broke into the warehouse we had under surveillance, and a gunfight erupted. We went in, and I was about to shoot one of the bad guys, when Inobo stepped in front of me. That’s when I shot him in the ass. He never forgave me.”

  Alamy felt a desire to laugh but managed to hold back. But Cato “sensed” her true emotion and produced a boyish grin. “You don’t feel sorry for me, do you?”

  “No,” Alamy admitted, as a smile claimed her face. “I don’t.”

  “Okay,” Cato allowed, “maybe the bastard does have a reason to dislike me. . . . Although it’s pretty stupid to step out in front of someone who’s about
to fire a gun. In any case, I have to report for duty in the morning, and we need a place to live.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” Alamy promised, as the two of them started downhill. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “I’d be grateful,” Cato replied, and Alamy hoped it was true.

  It was early morning, and a storm front was crossing over Imperialus. As Cato followed a steady stream of people up out of the subway station, he discovered that it was raining even more heavily than it had been twenty minutes earlier. Fortunately, the military base that took up all of District One, and was generally referred to as “Imperial Prime,” was mostly underground, where the Command Center was safe from anything short of a direct hit from a nuclear bomb.

  It had been a few years since his last visit, but there hadn’t been too many changes, so once Cato cleared security, he was able to make his way to the part of the complex that was home to the 3rd Legion’s staff officers, having made only a couple of wrong turns. From there it was a relatively simple matter to ferret out the office labeled XENO CORPS, CORIN, which, like the organization it served, was a relatively small affair.

  Being a good ten minutes early, Cato took advantage of the opportunity to visit the men’s room, where he ran a final check on his Class II uniform. Then, as he was unable to put the moment off any longer, it was time to confront Inobo in his bureaucratic lair. Hoping to get the unpleasantness over as quickly as possible, Cato crossed the hall and entered the office. A reception desk blocked the way. The noncom seated behind it looked up, and said, “Good morning, sir. . . . What can I do for you?”

  “I’m scheduled to see the Primus Pilus at 0800 hours,” Cato replied.

  The other legionnaire’s eyebrows rose incrementally—and a look of what might have been pity appeared in her green eyes. “Ah, yes,” she said as she glanced at the screen in front of her. “Centurion Cato. He’s expecting you. It’s the door on the right.”

  Cato thanked her, made his way around the fortresslike desk, and paused outside the door labeled PRIMUS PILUS INOBO. Then, having rapped on the frame three times, he waited for permission to enter. It came the way he expected it to, as a one-word command. “Enter!”

  Cato opened the door, took three paces forward, and crashed to attention. “Centurion Cato, reporting as ordered, sir!”

  Even though Cato’s eyes were on the picture of Inobo shaking hands with some dignitary or other that was hanging over the other officer’s head, he could see his old enemy well enough. Inobo’s relatively small head rested on a large muscular body. His skin was the same shade of brown as Cato’s, and his head had been shaved to show off a dozen lines of scar tissue that originated just above his forehead and ran back along the top of his skull. Cato knew that each “kill row” had begun as a carefully administered cut, which, having been infected with kaza dung, had been allowed to fester for weeks so as to produce the hard ridges that the variants born on Kenor were so proud of.

  Below Inobo’s smooth forehead, safe within bony caves, two coal black eyes could be seen, both of which were filled with undisguised malice. The officer’s nose had been pounded flat, his lips were pursed in an expression of eternal disapproval, and even though he hadn’t said anything yet, his jaw was already at work.

  “Well,” Inobo said deliberately as he flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his immaculate uniform. “Jak Cato, a Centurion now, who would have believed it? But shit floats, everyone knows that, so I guess it was only a matter of time before you bobbed to the surface. Not via the regular promotion process, of course, because that would be impossible given your record, but via a meritorious field commission granted by a Legate who never goes to war.”

  Inobo’s chair produced an audible sigh as he leaned back in it. “But who knows?” he asked rhetorically. “Maybe the next group of assassins will get lucky and polish Usurlus off! Where will you be then, Cato? Did you ever think of that? Back to Section Leader, that’s where. . . . If you’re lucky enough to keep your stripes.

  “Meanwhile, I’m supposed to put you to work,” Inobo added reflectively, “so you can wait in line to kiss the Emperor’s ass. Fortunately, I have the perfect job. . . . We lost Centurion Sispus three weeks ago. The silly bastard followed half a dozen Ur suspects down into the sewers under Freak Town and never came out. You’ll take his place. Any questions?”

  Cato, his eyes still focused on the photo, had one. “Sir, yes, sir. What squad?”

  Inobo had anticipated the question. He smiled evilly as he gave the one-word answer. “Bunko.”

  Cato felt his already depressed spirits plummet even further. Members of the Xeno Corps’ bunko squad were charged with pursuing alien con artists, who, owing to their unusual capabilities, were often hard if not impossible for the municipal police to track down. More than that, the bunko squad was often used as a bureaucratic dumping ground for police officers who were considered to be misfits, fuckups, or screw-balls. The assignment was clearly intended to punish Cato for past crimes, brand him a loser, and block the possibility of advancement.

  Cato felt the anger start to build, and because Inobo could “feel” it as well, the Primus nodded agreeably. “That sucks, doesn’t it, Cato? Maybe you’d like some of me. If so, come and get it.”

  That was what Inobo wanted more than anything else, Cato realized. A reason to court-martial him. So even though he wanted to accept the invitation, the Centurion managed to restrain himself.

  Inobo nodded knowingly. “Very good. . . . Maybe you have learned something over the years. That will be all, Centurion Cato. See Section Leader Shani. She’ll fill you in regarding the squad’s current caseload. Now, get the hell out of my office and stay out of trouble. I’ll have your ass for breakfast if you don’t.”

  Cato said, “Yes, sir,” and did a neat about-face. Four paces later, he was outside the office, having closed the door behind him. The receptionist looked over and grinned. “Welcome back, sir.”

  “Thanks, I think,” Cato replied. “I’m looking for Section Leader Shani. Where would I find her?”

  “In jail,” the noncom replied casually. “Where else?”

  THREE

  The city of Imperialus, on the planet Corin

  AS WAS HIS HABIT, USURLUS AWOKE ABOUT 10:00 AM He just lay there at first, luxuriating in the comfort of his own bed and the sound of Satha’s steady breathing. It felt good to be back on Corin. And not just because of the physical pleasures that were available on the Empire’s most important planet but also for the excitement of being at the center of things, where a nimble politician could make a difference.

  The thought was sufficient to make him want to get up. He was careful to slide out of bed without waking his favorite slave. On his way out of the bedroom, Usurlus paused to peer out of a porthole-sized window and saw that it was raining. Then he made his way into the bathroom and a shower large enough to accommodate a party of six, something it was called upon to do every once in a while.

  Then, after a hot shower and half an hour spent in front of a big mirror, it was time to don a robe and make his way into the dining room. The Legate’s staff knew he was up and knew what he wanted—a cup of hot caf, a poached egg, and a slice of dry toast. They were waiting as he sat down. A voice command was sufficient to activate the wall screen.

  Political junkie that he was, Usurlus spent most of his time watching the news channels. And he wasn’t surprised to see that all of them were busy rehashing the attempt on his life the day before. That was satisfying in a way since it served to let everyone know he was back and still worth assassinating.

  But some of the other news stories were somewhat disquieting. It seemed that the warlike Vords had taken control of a rim world called Therat, a planet which, though at the very edge of Imperial-controlled space, was populated by Umans. It was a test, a way to gauge the Empire’s temperament, and, therefore, important. That was the way Usurlus and many others saw it. But rather than send a fleet to confront the aliens, and force them to back dow
n, Emperor Emor had agreed to diplomatic talks!

  It was a shocking development that Emor’s traditional supporters disapproved of, and the so-called pragmatists like Senator Nalomy supported, thereby turning conventional alliances inside out. Still, Emor was a tricky bastard, so chances were that he had good reasons for talking to the Vords. Or so Usurlus hoped as he finished his breakfast, gave a voice command, and began to play the last twenty hours of com calls on the wall screen.

  Given the assassination attempt, there were lots of them, including requests for interviews from all of the major news organizations and expressions of concern from family, friends, and associates. That was to be expected.

  What wasn’t expected was the absence of any message from the Emperor, who was a cousin, after all, and the person for whom Usurlus had traveled to Dantha. Although there were expressions of concern from people Usurlus normally thought of as the opposition, including members of the so-called Combine, a group of powerful business interests. All of which was very confusing.

  Usurlus touched a button, and Livius appeared as if by magic. “Make all of the usual preparations. I’m going out.”

  Livius nodded. “Yes, sire. And your destination?”

  “The Senate.”

  “Yes, sire. The cars will be ready in thirty minutes.”

  The worst of the rain was over by the time Usurlus and his body double stepped out onto the carefully landscaped veranda forty minutes later. It was necessary to circle the roof-top swimming pool before the two of them could access the landing pad, where two identical air cars were waiting. One would carry the real Usurlus, and the other was for the android that looked like him, a strategy calculated to make the Legate that much harder to kill.