Empress of Eternity

by L. E. Modesitt

  “What does Tauzn want?”

  “Power.”

  “Why can’t he just wait? Isn’t he likely to win the election for EA?”

  “He’s the most likely candidate, but that’s more than a year away, and matters could change. Right now, people are worried and concerned. If he can use his power to convince everyone, especially the returnists, that action against subversives is necessary, and that the restrictions against geo-engineering are foolhardy in a time of crisis, he’ll create the illusion of action when everyone else is seen as doing nothing, and that will insure his election.”

  “It will also insure the loss of civil freedoms…won’t it?”

  “Their curtailment at the least, and perhaps more. He’ll justify it by making the remaining lords the scapegoats.”

  “You’re the most visible…”

  “And that’s a sad commentary—a deputy assistant minister of science as the great opponent of change, who stands in the way of progress in a time of crisis.” He shook his head and turned, looking back at the station and then to the south. There was something…

  In the sky to the southeast, above the pines and the south, he caught sight of a long black shape with thin longitudinal red stripes and a black gondola snug on the bottom of the midsection. Behind it was another.

  “Maertyn?” Maarlyna turned and stared. “Maertyn!”

  “Ashauer didn’t know the half of it,” he said. “Those are Gaerda dirigibles, and there’s only one reason they could be heading this way.” He looked to Maarlyna. “Can you lock everything in the station against them?”

  “I could…but we can’t go anywhere. We can’t stay there forever.”

  “I’m hoping we won’t have to,” he replied. “I don’t think they can fly around here for days without someone noticing and looking into it. They think they can just walk into the station and take me away. They don’t know you can lock the station. In thousands of years no one’s been able to do that. But Shaenya and Svorak need to leave. Send them to the Reserve station, the one to the south on the coast. It’ll be hard going through the snow, but if they try to take the canal back to where the road leaves it, the Gaerda will catch them.”

  “Why would they hurt them?”

  “The Gaerda wouldn’t want any witnesses around. I do think they’d hesitate to wipe out a Reserve station as well, especially if they don’t know whose tracks are leading there. Now…get them out of here. I’m going to set the light house beacon on emergency.”

  Without another word, Maarlyna ran toward the station.

  Maertyn took several hurried steps, then pressed the numerical code into the light house lock. He opened the door and stepped inside, moving to the small control board, where he pressed the orange EMERGENCY stud.

  As he left the light house and re-locked the door, Maertyn could hear Maarlyna’s voice.

  “Svorak…Shaenya! You have to leave! Now! Just pull on your boots and jackets and go! Run for the Reserve station to the south. The black-shirts are coming. The guards are only three kays away. You’ll be safe there.”

  Maertyn hurried toward the station, looking to the southeast through the clear air, but the dirigibles were still a goodly distance away, perhaps even as much as twenty kays.

  Maarlyna was shifting her glance from the two airships to the station door and back to the airships when Maertyn joined her.

  “I told them to hurry.”

  “I heard you.”

  Svorak was the first to join them, running from the maintenance shed, his eyes also taking in the airships as he halted short of Maertyn. “Sir…you sure you won’t be wanting us here?”

  “The best thing you can do is get to the Reserve guards and tell them what’s happening. You can’t help here.”

  “Please…go,” added Maarlyna.

  “Lady?” asked Shaenya as she stepped out into the chill, struggling into a heavy gray jacket.

  “You need to go…and hurry. You need to get into the trees before they can see you.”

  The older couple hurried across the gray-blue of the canal wall and then began to follow tracks in the snow, doubtless made earlier by Svorak in checking the wind turbines. Before long they had reached the low pines and were out of sight.

  Maertyn studied the dirigibles. They looked to be slightly more than ten kays away. “We need to get inside. They may well have long-range weapons.” He took Maarlyna’s arm.

  “You think they’ll shoot at a distance.”

  “Probably not, but I’d rather not tempt them.” He reached out and pressed the stone, since the door had already closed. Once they were inside, and the stone was resealing itself, he turned to her again. “Can you lock all the doors and all the windows except the upper one on the south side? That way we can watch what happens.”

  “I think so…but then what?”

  “We’ll just have to see, but it will be obvious fairly soon what the Gaerda troopers have in mind. I think they intend to march in and take over the station. They’ll have some pretext for taking me. They’re sending two dirigibles so that they’ll have enough men to keep the Reserve guards from stopping them.”

  Maarlyna stepped up to the wall and held her hand there. Then she crossed the main chamber and did the same on the north side. “They’re both locked.”

  “Good. Now, let’s go up.”

  Maarlyna stepped away from the wall, then paused, looking down at a sprig of greenery. She bent and picked it up, slipping it into the small chest pocket on her jacket when she straightened.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mistletoe. Shaenya must have gathered some for the year-end.”

  “She is superstitious that way, but I suppose it’s harmless.”

  Maarlyna only smiled as she walked beside him.

  Maertyn had the feeling that she’d seen something he hadn’t…again.

  Once they were on the upper level by the open south window, after Maarlyna had locked the north window, they watched the black airships slowly descend as they neared the station.

  After a moment, he touched her shoulder. “I didn’t ask…you could have gone with Shaenya and Svorak.”

  “You didn’t have to ask. You can’t lock the station. How could I let them take you? They’d kill you and stage it so that you looked like you were trying to escape. After what you did to escape Tauzn’s agents before, who could dispute a story like that?”

  Maertyn had to admit that she was most likely right about that.

  “You never abandoned me. I should leave you?” she said gently. “And…somehow…it also feels wrong. This is the only place I’ve felt I belonged since…”

  “I know…I’ve known that from the time you walked in…even before, I think. I don’t know why, but it was important that we…you…have familiar furniture.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand.

  Shoulder-to-shoulder, they continued to watch as the first airship dropped to within yards of the stone of the canal wall less than a hundred yards to the east of the station. Black-jacketed troopers began to slide down lines into the snow bordering the stone of the canal. All of them bore rifles in slings.

  A deep voice boomed from a speaker on the dirigible. “This is a custodial mission. No one will be hurt. I say again. No one will be hurt. Under the emergency authority of the Unity, Protective Services is taking possession of this government facility. If you do not resist, no one will be harmed…”

  Despite the language, Maertyn couldn’t help but note that once the troopers landed, they immediately had their rifles at the ready as they moved toward the station.

  Maarlyna reached out and touched the stone, stepping back slightly as it slid from itself to re-form as a solid surface. “They didn’t look peaceful to me.”

  “They always start out with weapons ready,” Maertyn pointed out. “What bothers me is the number of troopers and dirigibles. If it’s a mere custodial issue, why does it take as many as hundreds of troopers to handle one lord, his wife, a l
ighthouse-keeper, and a staff woman?”

  “They were expecting you to resist, dear, because they know what they’re doing is wrong, and they know you’ll resist wrongdoing.” After a moment, she asked, “How long do you think we should wait before checking to see what they’re doing?”

  “I’m guessing at least a day. The light house is flashing on emergency and its transmitter is doing the same. The Reserve guards have a satellite comm-link, and they’ll report, especially after Svorak and Shaenya reach them.”

  “Why is the Council letting them do this?”

  “I don’t know…unless Tauzn has them all terrified that they’ll have some sort of fatal illness or accident. We might as well go down to the main level and have some tea…or something.”

  As they turned from the locked stone of the window, a figure appeared—the woman in scarlet. She stepped toward Maarlyna and spoke.

  “You are the key.”

  As the words came from her mouth, Maertyn could not hear them so much as see them in his mind. And…again…he had the sense of another figure. For just a moment, he thought he glimpsed a figure in silver…or was it silver-gray? He blinked, and the second figure vanished.

  “The key…?” murmured Maarlyna.

  “The key to what will be…and is…”

  “What about the black-shirts?” asked Maertyn, hoping the woman might offer more information, as she had at the tube-train station.

  “They are but one shadow of many, and the shadow you must oppose.”

  Exactly how? wondered Maertyn. “Who are you?”

  “You see but a construct of the past and the future.” The woman turned once more to Maarlyna. “Find the door and go through it.”

  “If I don’t…”

  The woman/construct vanished.

  Maertyn looked at his wife. “The door? There isn’t a single door in the station…”

  “There wasn’t…but there wasn’t anyone else but us here, either.

  We’re not doing anything else right now. We might as well start looking to see if there is a door.”

  “She’s been right about other things,” admitted Maertyn, although he could hear the doubt in his voice—and disliked it.

  “The assassin…and didn’t she say that we were linked?”

  “She did.” He smiled in the dim light. “Let’s see if we can find a door where there wasn’t one before.”

  They inspected their bedchamber and sitting room and the rest of the upper level, and then the main level. As they did so, Maertyn couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the Gaerda troopers were doing…and thinking.

  After discovering nothing, they stood at the top of the ramp to the lower level.

  “It must be down there.” Maarlyna started down the ramp.

  Maertyn followed, absently wondering what might happen if the troopers cut off the power from the turbines and battery banks. From the bottom of the ramp, he glanced toward the kitchen area, where Shaenya had hurriedly covered her preparations for dinner. He saw several more sprigs of the mistletoe in a glass vase filled two-thirds of the way with water.

  After inspecting the chambers on the west end, they moved eastward until they reached the small chamber off the largest lower room.

  “There!” Maarlyna pointed at the blank east wall.

  “Where?” Maertyn saw nothing.

  “Can’t you see, dear? There is a door here. It’s six-sided, but not hexagonal, and it’s open. It looks like there’s a long passageway beyond it.”

  For all of Maarlyna’s description, Maertyn could still see nothing. “Do we really want to go through it?”

  “Why not? We can stay here for days, perhaps weeks…” Maarlyna said. “But we’re like a turtle. It can’t go anywhere unless it sticks its neck out.”

  Maertyn had to admit that she was right about that.

  “Maertyn…dear…I needed to be a turtle for a time. I needed to recover and discover who I am. I’m not the Maarlyna you lost. At times, I’ve wished I were.” She smiled sadly. “But I’m me, not her.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?” Her voice was soft. “Take my hand, and close your eyes.”

  Maertyn couldn’t help but hesitate.

  “You asked me to do that for you. I did. Do the same for me. Please.” After a pause, she added, “I may not be the Maarlyna you lost, but I love you every bit as much as she must have.”

  Maertyn reached out and took her hand.

  Together they stepped forward……and blinding silver light swirled around them…

  You cannot see what you cannot comprehend.

  44

  From high in the sky, the city appeared as a giant hexagon. From orbit, its hexagonal shape remained clear, if greatly diminished in size amid the surrounding fields and forests of more conventional rectangular dimensions. The roadways radiated in straight lines, either from the points of the large hexagon, or at times from the smaller hexagonal cells that comprised the larger hexagon of the city proper.

  From the center of the city, in the middle of the hexagonal main square, a kay on a side, rose a golden structure, also hexagonal in shape, crowned by a shimmering golden dome, a perfectly rounded surface bearing no adornment whatsoever. Some of the adjoining hexagons contained buildings, and those were of close to uniform height, if varying in size and function, while others held parks or exercise fields or even occasional schools.

  Some few scattered clouds dotted the sky, but only a few, and that was why all those who had glanced into the blueness of the heavens paused, not to view the pale silvery trace of the Selene Ring, but because a rainbow arched across the sky from the arid south of sun and sand and was descending toward the golden hexagonal structure in the center of the city. While there might have been a trace of blue-gray in the distant south where the far end of the rainbow was anchored, neither clouds nor rain surrounded the colors of the heavenly bridge.

  In moments, the end of the rainbow caressed the third level of the golden-domed hexagonal building. Those in the central square watched, and the minidrones, whose surveillance had replaced that of the satellite facilities, scanned the bridge of light.

  Moments and then minutes passed.

  Abruptly, dust and haze billowed up from the central square, high enough to shroud the golden dome…and the rainbow shivered along the thousands of kays of its length…and vanished…

  Those others in the city and beyond gaped at the disappearance, and the plume of dust, then shook their heads and returned to their industrious businesses.

  45

  20 Siebmonat 3123, Vaniran Hegemony

  The blinding intrusive darkness flared and waned, waned and flared, until Duhyle had no idea whether he was blind in the presence of brilliant light or seeing nothing amid darkness. Slowly, he became aware of a coolness that became an icy chill. Was this death, the chill of Niflheim, the old and discredited idea of the depths of an after-world where even the flames of fire had no heat?

  Amid that darkness, he became aware of Helkyria, and a soft silver-golden light that radiated from her. He turned and opened his mouth to speak, but there was no sound. Yet there were words, as if upon a neuralnet of some sort. You’re silver-gold.

  So are you, came her calm reply.

  Where are we? Or when? Or if?

  We are…because we’re thinking. As for the other questions…

  Abruptly, the darkness vanished, and they stood in the chamber where they had activated the synchronizer. Yet it was not the same chamber, because banks of instruments lined the walls, each clad in a soft silver light, each displaying symbols that changed, and with each change, words ran through Duhyle’s mind. He didn’t understand the words.

  Do you know the language? he asked.

  I don’t, she replied. I’d judge it’s that of the builders.

  Builders? Someone had to have built the canal, but to think they might encounter them after millions of years? That was improbable, since time travel had long since been proven i
mpossible.

  Even before Helkyria’s words faded in Duhyle’s mind, a figure appeared before them, midway between them. At first, Duhyle thought that a man stood there, then a woman, but features and physique shifted. All that remained common was the fitted scarlet singlesuit.

  You keep shifting. What else could Duhyle have said that wouldn’t have revealed even greater ignorance? …no shifts…perception…

  Behind the figure, whose appearance continued to change, one image/figure/persona replacing another in flicker-fashion, the instruments also changed—at the same time as the figure did.

  Are we seeing all possible futures? Duhyle finally asked.

  I don’t think time works that way, replied Helkyria. There’s something else…

  Duhyle took a step forward, and everything swirled around him so violently that vertigo and nausea left him trembling. He was barely able to hold himself together. After a long moment, if they were where time existed, and he had his doubts about that, he straightened up slowly and carefully. Don’t move…very painful…disconcerting. So dizzy…vertigo…disorientation.

  Thank you. After a pause, she added, It was painful and disorienting to watch you. You seemed to fragment…but you didn’t.

  The figure in scarlet seemed to speak. …all event-points…all at once… Then he/she became an indistinct shifting shape.

  Duhyle thought he’d understood what it had said or projected. Did you get that—about all event-points at once?

  That could be a suggestion that sequence or causality exists independent of perception, replied Helkyria.

  Or? You don’t sound all that certain.

  There’s always been a debate about whether time exists in de pen dent of space. Most theorists say it doesn’t…or that it doesn’t exist at all. Rainbows, or something like them, flickered around Helkyria.

  How can time not exist at all? questioned Duhyle, slowly beginning to feel the last of the vertigo and nausea subside.

  More than a few people have asked—

  All the silver vanished, and the darkness returned.