by John Dalmas
No, he'd stay away until he had evidence to offer that it hadn't been he who'd released the cube—evidence that at least pointed elsewhere. Or, lacking that, until the temperature of the House had dropped a few degrees.
Finally he called Elder Dosu himself. It was desirable that the Elder's message to the Pastorate not go out yet. It would be impolitic to have the pastors begin their campaign until this particular fire was out. It would look as if the two were coordinated, and tend to discredit the Pastorate's campaign.
* * *
Before he went to bed at midnight, he'd had a report from the Justice Minister. The chief archivist at the Library of the Sreegana had been questioned under instrumentation, and had sworn he'd had a call from the Kalif, telling him to release a copy of the cube to the Imperial Broadcasting Network. Yes, the call had been on visual, and by hindsight, the visual had been unusual; usually the Kalif sat close to the pickup. This time he'd sat or stood several feet back from it, and the lighting had been poor.
No, he'd noticed nothing different about the Kalif's voice.
The investigator had then checked the computer for the time and origin of the call: it had been placed a little before noon, at 11:17 P.M. But not from a Kalifal office; from a conference room in the Sreegana administration building. There'd been nothing scheduled in the room at the time; anyone could have used it who had access to a staff security card.
Eleven-seventeen, the Kalif thought now. He recalled Elder Dosu's comment just before he'd left that noon: it had been eleven-fifteen. No doubt others of the Elders would remember it, too. And from there he'd walked them to the palace entrance. He couldn't have called from the Admin Building at eleven-seventeen. But to cite them as witnesses would bring up the question of why they were meeting with the Kalif.
For now he'd simply have to take the heat.
Fifty-two
Early the next morning, he informed Partiil and Jilsomo that he wanted no further appointments for the day, short of real emergencies. He wanted to be available for any calls from Justice. Then he handled the three petitioners already scheduled, and had turned his attention to the morning's backlog of communications, when a call from Jilsomo interrupted him.
"Your Reverence, there's someone in my office whom I think you'll want to see."
A note in the exarch's voice said even more than his words. "Bring him in," the Kalif answered, then sat back and waited. In half a minute they were there. The man who entered with Jilsomo was the Klestronu colonel.
"Your Reverence," Jilsomo said, "Colonel Thoglakaveera."
The Kalif regarded them for a moment, saying nothing, and when he answered, his voice was cool. "Colonel, please be seated."
The colonel sat. Jilsomo stepped to the Kalif's desk and handed him a cube. "I'll let the colonel tell you about this. I haven't seen it yet; he brought it to me only minutes ago."
The Kalif's eyes shifted to Veeri.
"Your Reverence," the colonel began uncomfortably, "a few days ago a man came to my apartment with an offer for me. Of 100,000 dromas and—an opportunity, as he put it, for revenge. Also a place to stay, with an assumed identity, until you were removed from office, which he implied would be soon." The colonel's mouth tightened for a moment. "He also offered what he called 'subsidiary benefits' that I won't elaborate. I found them insulting, but they made me curious.
"In return for these incentives, I was to answer questions, first privately, and later in front of a camera. I answered the questions. He already had the basic features of what had happened; that was obvious from the questions themselves. He wanted details he could use to write an interview script. An interview that I would star in."
He gestured at the cube on the Kalif's desk. "That's the result. He took what I'd told him and twisted it. Badly. We did the interview yesterday evening before a camera. I'd had the foresight to carry a concealed stunner with me; the man seemed like a criminal. When the interview was over, I stunned the interviewer, the cameraman, and the door guard; actually the door guard first. Then I took the cube from the camera and got out of there. Walked to a thoroughfare and caught a taxi.
"It was late, and it seemed unwise to return to my apartment, so I stayed in a hotel. And came here when I finished breakfast. The gate notified Alb Jilsomo for me." He gestured at the cube. "If you'll play that, you'll see what this is all about."
The Kalif inserted it into his terminal and keyed in an instruction. The wall screen took life and color. There was no lead-in material, of course; it was the raw interview. It opened on a comfortable living room with an interviewer and the colonel. The interviewer smiled at the camera and spoke.
"I have here with me Colonel Koora Thoglakaveera of the Klestronu marines. The colonel was on the Klestronu expedition to the Confederation, and it might be interesting to ask him some questions about it."
He turned to Veeri. "Colonel, what sort of fighting men were the Confederation troops?"
"The best term to describe them is—Well, it takes more than one term. They are skilled, they are savage, they are cunning, and they do not surrender. They fight to the death. Our casualties were remarkably high."
"Hmm. It sounds as if an invasion army might have its hands full. Is it possible that the Confederation troops might, in fact, defeat an invasion force?"
"If the invasion force was strong enough and well led, no. But they would definitely inflict heavy casualties."
The interviewer showed polish before the camera, but his face was not familiar to the Kalif. The colonel came across fairly natural, although his eyes moved repeatedly to a point just off camera, as if there was a prompter there, with his lines.
"Interesting," the interviewer said. "Earlier, I understand, it was you who captured the female enemy soldier who is now our kalifa. How did you happen to take her alive?"
"Actually it wasn't I who captured her. She'd apparently been knocked semi-conscious by a blow on the head, and was captured by a squad of marines who didn't kill her because they recognized her as a woman, and, well—A little later she was taken from them by an officer."
The interviewer's brows arched. "Those marines that had held her—I hope they were gentry."
"No, they were peasants. But presumably she was rescued before anything, uh, serious happened to her. They'd pulled off her clothing, but the officer said he'd gotten there in time. I didn't hear about her till the next morning, and because we were anxious for a live prisoner, I was there in minutes. To find her somewhat bruised and in a confused state of mind."
"Good god, Colonel! What a terrible experience that must have been for her! A squad of Klestronu marines! Then what?"
"I took her to headquarters base, where she was cleaned up and sent to the flagship for questioning. I never saw or heard of her again till our return to Klestron."
"I see. Why was she brought to Klestron? It was my understanding that she'd lost her memory in an interrogation accident. Surely they didn't expect to get any information from her after that."
"It was never clear to me why they took her with them."
"Can't you even think of a reason they might have taken this lovely female captive with them?"
"I prefer not to speculate."
"How did you come to encounter her again on Klestron?"
"That was pure chance. I discovered that she was being held prisoner by a group of intelligence agents."
"Held prisoner?! Were there any other prisoners?"
"None. They'd been keeping her in a room alone. In a small apartment, actually. Fairly comfortable but with no privacy whatsoever. She was watched constantly, day and night, by hidden cameras. It was quite scandalous, because over a period of days, what had begun as ordinary security monitoring had degenerated into voyeurism, if not something worse. She being such a remarkably attractive and vulnerable young woman.
"When I learned of the situation, I at once felt a certain responsibility for her safety. Because I was the one who'd transported her to headquarters in the first plac
e. So I had her removed, and my wife took her to her father's estate. Shortly after that, the Kalif had her brought here to Varatos."
"Where he apparently found her as attractive as all the others had. How did you avoid her attractions?"
"It wasn't easy."
"Were there a lot of these beautiful female soldiers on the Confederation world?"
"Actually she was as unusual there, in her beauty, as she is here. And I never saw or heard of any other female soldier there. Not one."
"Remarkable. Truly remarkable. Why just this one beautiful woman, I wonder.
"Now, Colonel, I have some more personal questions to ask you. Frankly, I've heard that there was a lapse of several days between the time you took the now kalifa from the room the intelligence agents were holding her in, and the time your wife took her away. Isn't that so?"
"That's not true!"
"And isn't it also true that your wife asked the Kalif for a writ of divorcement from you?"
"I refuse to answer that."
"Are you now married to your wife?"
"No. No, I'm not. She—thought I'd been unfaithful to her."
"Why would she think that?"
"She said—she said that Tain, now the kalifa, had told her I'd—taken advantage of her."
"But you hadn't?"
"I hadn't."
"Why would she have said that if it wasn't true? And why would the Kalif grant your wife a divorce? Adultery by the husband isn't grounds for divorce. Grounds for punishment, yes, for amends to the wife, and reparations to her family if they ask for them, but not divorce. Do you suppose a divorce could have been part of an agreement to keep your wife from making public what the kalifa told her about you?"
"I have no way of knowing. And anyway it wasn't a divorce. He granted her an annulment."
"An annulment?! On what grounds?!"
"You'll have to ask him. I refuse to say any more about it."
"Hmm." The interviewer turned again to the camera. "So now we know the true history of the kalifa, or some of it. A young woman victimized repeatedly, from her capture and—abuse by a squad of peasant marines to her arrival here on Varatos. But seemingly her hardships are over now. Because this lovely yellow-haired soldier, if that's what she actually was, and not something else, shares the kalifal palace with the Successor to The Prophet.
"Who seems to have made a seriously criminal agreement in order to get her into his bed. It also seems that he was not the first man to have her. He seems to have been preceded by an indeterminate number of peasant marines in a muddy field on a far off planet; an indeterminate number of fleet personnel on a bunk in a warship—and remember, that was a three-year voyage! And repeatedly by a crowd of lustful intelligence officers in a room on Klestron.
"That of course is just since we've known of her. What had her function been in the enemy army? This solitary young woman with such sexual magnetism. Surely she wasn't a soldier. The evidence is that the enemy had no female soldiers. The soldiers they did have didn't let themselves be taken alive, yet she surrendered—perhaps because surrendering was what she was used to doing.
"One may be forgiven for wondering if, in fact, the writer of The Kalif's—excuse me—The Sultan's Bride was more correct than we imagined.
"At least the sultan in the story performed no acts of criminal collusion in bedding his prisoner. Nor did he knowingly disregard Church Law and the specific command of The Prophet in marrying her. Nor did he murder a delegate to the House of Nobles who'd publicized the nature of his bride.
"I recommend that you resist the wishes of this immoral, this disgraceful Kalif, and do all in your power to have him deposed. I also urge you to copy this cube in quantities, if you have access to equipment, and give the copies to others.
"Perhaps we might put him and his bride on a small hyperspace ship and send them outward to the Confederation by themselves, keeping our young men home and alive, and the fruits of our labor here where we can have the use of them."
The speaker bowed, and the picture faded slowly to deep indigo, then black. For a minute no one spoke. Then the Kalif unclenched his jaw and turned to Veeri. "I presume you can lead us to the place where this was made?"
"Indeed I can, Your Reverence."
The Kalif sat staring at him, his hot gaze cooling, growing thoughtful. "Colonel, why did you bring me this cube? Surely you have no love for me."
"You're right, Your Reverence, I don't. But neither do I hate you, though perhaps I did once. The kalifa is a very beautiful young woman. Through no fault of her own. And she was indeed very vulnerable, again through no fault of her own. I speak from experience when I say I appreciate how a man can be smitten by her loveliness, and do what he would not ordinarily do.
"So I can understand how you might have done to me what you did. As for why I brought this here"—he gestured toward the terminal, and the cube in it—"instead of destroying it..." He paused, then continued. "I'm in favor of an invasion. I've seen a beautiful world scarcely used by the people there. I would like to go with the invasion force, take part in the conquests, be part of the occupation. I'd like to have a fief of my own there, a land fief. Not on Terfreya—not necessarily—but on some world there. So in my own interest, I would not sabotage either you or your invasion."
He sat back then, waiting.
"Ah. Well. A fief can be arranged." The Kalif spoke the words absently, as if his attention had gone to something else. "Colonel, the things you said in the interview, about Tain..."
"Sir, I am confident the intelligence agents hadn't abused her, although they might well have before long. The opportunity and temptation were there. I also doubt that anything happened to her aboard the flagship. She was undoubtedly in stasis most of the trip, and the commodore had a reputation as a hard, strict old man. His officers would have considered the prospect of being tried before him and jettisoned out a trash port. And if the marines had—used her on the battlefield, she'd have been more than 'bruised and confused.'
"Concerning her role with the enemy army—We know nothing of the Confederation's military practices away from the battlefield. There may well be administrative functions which women carry out, as they do in our own fleet. We do know that women carry out administrative functions in civil government there.
"And, sir..."
"Yes, Colonel?"
"Your Reverence—What is the kalifa like?" He rushed on then, as surprised and flustered by what he'd asked as that he'd asked it. "I mean—I never really came to know her. And I've wondered."
The Kalif's frown changed from incensed to thoughtful. "Her manners, Colonel, are noble. She is considerate, intelligent, affectionate. I could not have imagined a better wife, or one as good. Her soul matches her physical beauty."
The colonel's response was soft. "Thank you, Your Reverence," he said, "for your extraordinary courtesy."
It was Jilsomo who spoke next. "Your Reverence, do you have instructions for me? Or shall I go now and inform the Justice Ministry?"
"Call them, Jilsomo. Have a senior investigator sent here. We'll speak with him, the colonel and I.
"Meanwhile, Colonel, go with Alb Jilsomo. I have things to think about and do."
The two men left, but the Kalif didn't return at once to his work. Instead he sat and examined briefly a feeling that had struck him while he and the colonel talked. After watching the cube. It had been—It had been when the colonel said what he'd said about the planet Terfreya. And then about women in their government. And there was the savage energy of the defenders there, as if they fought for reasons beyond simple duty and orders.
He shook the thoughts away. He had work to do.
* * *
Fifty-three
Lord Rothka Kozkoraloku watched the scrub-clad hills of the Fashtar Military Reservation pass beneath his personal floater. His guts and chest were unconsciously tense. There was something uncanny about this trip. But it didn't occur to him to back away; this was what it had all been leading up to. H
e'd simply have to make it work out.
He hadn't intended to come here so soon; things weren't ready yet. But circumstances had pushed him. Roopal had called him in the predawn hours; the Klestronu colonel had carried a stunner, stunned all four of them, and fled with the cube. Liiroola and the outer door guard had died, Liiroola no doubt because of his bad heart.
It was aggravating that people couldn't handle situations competently. He'd had to arrange for disposal of the bodies himself, which was not only a nuisance, but involved a degree of risk, even with the baffles he'd worked behind.
But everything seemed to be under control now. Only Roopal knew who was behind the project, and Roopal was away free. Thus there was no way of connecting him to any of it; the Klestronu colonel didn't know—possibly hadn't even heard of—Lord Rothka Kozkoraloku.
Obviously the Klestronit hadn't run to the police. If he had, they'd have gone to the house and found Roopal and the other three lying unconscious or dead. And they'd have learned who was behind it. Even if Roopal had never said the name "Rothka," they'd have used standard questioning and instrument reads to narrow down the possibilities; they'd have found him out in minutes. And this act might well have broken the Kalif's reluctance to impale, even use the short stake.
A sobering thing to contemplate. Rothka admitted to himself that his interview project had been a questionable risk. But to have such an opportunity dropped in his lap...
