The man who’d come to him as a messenger, pacing St. Colin and Amber as they followed Pepys from the audience hall to the private diplomacy chambers. The man reached up, touched St. Colin briefly on the shoulder—nothing more menacing or deadly than a clasp.
And yet he had air-needled a clot into the man’s bloodstream with that touch. Jack licked his parched upper lip, thinking. He had to have. It was the only way Jack could think of to have had a stroke come on so quickly. This was the third time he’d been over the recording. He knew this was the man who, hurrying away, had bumped him in the corridor.
Sheer luck. Five corridors leading away from the action, and Jack had been in the corridor chosen as an escape route.
It would not clear all suspicion from Amber, but it would help. He tapped out a request to have these frames duplicated, adding them to the tape he’d already had made of the corridor where he’d run into the man.
Sensors had already told him that this man, like himself, carried no ID chip implant.
The world, it seemed, was full of unidentifiable rogues.
He wondered if the assassin had any connection to Winton.
Jack stretched and then looked about the small WP viewing room. He got up and flexed his shoulders, working out the kink between his shoulder blades. The room was littered with disposal cups, reeked of old coffee, and yet held nothing. All printouts were carefully secured away. All tapes. All sensor readings. The room was not the casual lounge someone wanted it to appear. And because it was not, Jack wondered if it held some of the answers he so desperately wanted. He strode across to a bank of footlockers.
He also wondered if Pepys knew what a tenuous hold he had on his own World Police Department. The department ran like a finely tuned machine, had no doubt run like that for Emperor Regis before him, and would for whichever emperor followed.
“Captain Storm? No, don’t turn around. If you do, I’ll be forced to kill you on the spot, and that will do neither of us any good.”
Jack froze. The tense spot between his shoulders tightened further as if it could sense the target focus there. “What do you want?” He stared into the beige plastic door in front of him, eyeing a reflection that showed him only that another man stood behind him.
“I have a warning for you. The Green Shirts think it’s time to remind you that you should be dead, that your job is to be a soldier in Pepys’ hire, and nothing more. And if you think that you know all there is to know, think on this: do you remember the man Stash?”
“Do I?” Jack coughed out a bitter laugh. “He nearly killed me in Lasertown.” And Stash had destroyed the artifact site just outside the mines that both Thraks and Walkers desired so much.
“If you had access to WP files, you would find out that Stash had been a WP officer.”
Jack felt an itch to move, and dared not. The itch grew maddening as he said, “Who sent him to Lasertown? Who did he cross?”
“No one. Pepys was not lying when he said he had an agent in Lasertown. He only lied when he said it was you.”
“And I have your word on this.”
“The Green Shirts have found out they have been manipulated.”
“Welcome to the real world,” Jack said. “What makes you think I’m going to believe you any more than I’d believe anyone else? I’m a Knight, sworn to protect and defend the emperor.”
“Once, the Knights were sworn to the Dominion. Which allegiance do you think is more trustworthy?”
“Get to the point. If you have anything else to tell me, spit it out. Give me something I can use or leave me alone.”
“Then one last bit of information. Claron was burned because a man named Winton ordered it, after hearing that a lost Knight was recuperating there. But there was a second reason. A Thrakian sand nest was growing, hidden, on one of the smaller continents. He got official permission to act as he did.”
Jack clenched his teeth on anger so swift to boil up in him it sickened him. “Give me proof!” he said, and his voice husked in rage.
“You’ll find the proof on Bythia if you can gain permission to go there. We owe you nothing now. Now we are back to square one, and you are merely a soldier between us and our target. Guard him well.”
“Who are you?”
Silence behind him. Jack waited another hair twitching second, then pivoted swiftly.
The room was empty.
He looked up. The camera eye swept across him and he knew their whole conversation had been recorded. He could do nothing about it—could not reach it to destroy it.
Others would know what he’d just been told. Ultimately, the emperor himself would. And what, Jack wondered, would be the consequences of that?
Amber sat. Her muscles had long ago frozen into numbness. When she moved, it would be with agonizing stiffness and pricks of feeling returning. If she moved. She sat, her thoughts turned inward, examining herself, recoiling from what she found, and wondering if she had become a murderer.
Like some tall sentinel standing in the corner, the white battle armor hung from its equipment rack. Jack was gone, examining records at WP. In his absence, the armor appeared to watch over her meditation.
She had thought and thought and thought until it felt as though her eyeballs bled. She could find nothing within her that she hadn’t put there through her life’s experience, nothing that could have been Rolf instead of her. But she knew it had to be there. Knew it did! She’d been programmed to kill.
*Kill, boss? Do we fight today?*
Amber snapped her chin up. Her eyes watered and she moved to rub them, first one and then the other, and looked about. There was an undefinable shimmering about the armor in the corner. A chill ran down her spine. It was almost close enough to touch. Amber thought about the warrior spirit that resided within the armor, the spirit growing into an infestation which would kill to live, so that it might live to kill.
She shivered and ducked her head back down. Bogie was dead. Or if not dead, dormant. With a deep breath, Amber went back into her meditations, searching for the truth, even if it destroyed her.
The right gauntlet twitched. It moved toward her, palm down, in silent benediction.
Bogie strained toward the radiant warmth of the being sitting in front of him. He liked Amber, though Jack was Boss. He bathed in the psychic energy shining about him, tortured though its frequency was.
He was awake once more.
Winton moved quickly through the hallways, taking hidden doors that few knew about, putting as much ground between himself and the security room as he could. He wiped a sheen of perspiration off his upper lip. He could have killed the man and been rid of him… but this way was better. Now he might well be rid of both Jack and Pepys. Once Jack acted on his instincts and the monitoring tapes were made public.
He smiled coldly and pushed forward into the bowels of the palace where his own kingdom might be found. He’d given Jack a push that Pepys would never be able to divert.
Chapter Sixteen
Colin lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, a little unnerved by the resounding silence of his quarters, especially now that Biggie was gone. He gripped an exercise tool in his right hand and worked on pinching it shut to bring back the strength that had been there only days ago. Open and shut. Shut and open. Despite the fact he was working only the one hand, a sheen of sweat covered his entire body, dampening his robes and the bedsheets. When he relaxed, he did so with a gasp of gratefulness.
The overhead screen upon which he fixed his gaze with an almost religious fervency spoke. “That is very good, sir. You have almost regained complete tensor strength. Are you done?”
Aching in every fiber, Colin licked his lips and tasted the sweat dripping down. “Yes,” he said softly. “For now.”
“Very good, sir.” The screen darkened as the therapist signed off.
Colin undid the collar of fabric and sensors binding his right arm and shrugged the cuff off the bed. He was too tired to do more, and he lay back, staring at the dar
k screen.
“St. Colin?”
Wearily, he keyed open the com lines. “Yes? What is it, Margaret?”
His second in command, Reverend Margaret, smiled at him. The monitor screen was not flattering to her strong, squared off face, nor her years, but, he reflected, she presented as honest an image as anyone. “I’m almost done interviewing candidates for your secretary. Will you be well enough tomorrow to conduct final interviews?”
“I’d damned well better be,” Colin answered. “I’m falling too far behind in my work as it is. I still don’t understand why you won’t send the girl out. Amber knows what she’s doing even if she isn’t a Walker.”
Margaret’s lips tightened. “Sir? She’s the one who attacked you.”
Colin waved his hand, weakened though it was. “Ridiculous. I know her too well.”
“Perhaps.” The visage wavered slightly as Margaret touched a hand nervously to her brunette hair. “I let in a visitor downstairs a moment ago, he should be there… he insisted.”
“All right,” Colin grumbled. He cut the call off, and then recognized a sound from the shadowed corner of his room, a shifting of weight. Fear gripped his aged heart for a second then, the same kind of fear he’d felt when his thoughts had exploded in a blinding headache at the palace, his body had crabbed in a spasm of pain, and he’d fallen to the floor. He took a deep breath and pushed the panic away. “Who is it?” he called out sharply.
“Don’t be afraid, old friend. It’s me.”
Colin coughed. “I’m not afraid, Pepys, and I don’t have many old friends who skulk around in corners. What are you doing here? Taking time off from the palace?”
Pepys laughed, too shallowly and too quickly, and moved forward, sitting down on a hassock near the bed. “The scathing wit’s not been damaged.”
“No.” said Colin, finally. He punched a button to bring himself upright, and stared at the emperor. “Nor much else.”
“Good. I wanted to come sooner, but your Margaret’s a better guard than most of my Knights, and at least as formidable.”
Colin eyed his friend. The emperor did not look good this night. The freckles liberally sprinkling his pasty skin looked warty and troublesome. The fine, frizzy hair drooped as though all its electricity had completely discharged. There were purplish sags under the cat-green eyes. He decided that Pepys had not been sleeping well. “You can relax,” he said. “The percentages are that the attack was directed at me, not you.”
Pepys’ pupils widened, then contracted. “I said nothing…”
“You didn’t have to. But there has been ample opportunity to go after you, if you were the assassin’s target. No… he aimed for me and he got me.”
“Or she.”
The saint shook his head. “No. No, in spite of what you may wish to think, the girl had nothing to do with it. She may even have helped me. I hemorrhaged very little in spite of the damage. I don’t think that was meant to be.”
“Do you think she has some latent ability as a healer?”
Colin snorted, then answered, “No! I think she got my head elevated and my blood pressure steadied as quickly as any medic could. For God’s sake, Pepys. Are you still looking for a miracle worker?”
The emperor leveled his stare at Colin. “No,” he answered finally. “I think I’ve found him.” He stood abruptly. “I’ve had the charges dropped against Amber. There’s been contradiction in the evidence, and we’ve no real case against her. You’ll need all your talents and then some to go into Bythia.”
“What? You’re giving us permission?”
“I gave it to Biggie just before he was struck down. But I’ll tell you now what I cannot say at the palace. If you want to go in and investigate, you’ll have to take your army in with you to do it. Don’t petition my permission; I can’t give it. Just take your fighters as well as your cleric philosophers and go.”
“Why—”
“Because it’s the only way we’ll keep Bythia from the Thraks. I’m sending in a small force as well, but you might as well know what I’ve gone to great lengths to keep from you and your intelligence. They’re savages and they’re tearing each other apart and in the middle of it is a Messiah mythos that should make even you happy.”
“What?” Colin’s sweat had chilled, and he shivered at his friend’s clipped tones. “Is that why the place is so important to you?”
“No. It’s important because it’s on a warp curve and anyone going through that region has got to pull out, renavigate, and go back in. If you’re going to pull out of warp drive, you might as well stop and visit, do a little trading, and make it worth your while, eh? But because of the curvature, navigation has to be realigned, there’s no choice. Space doesn’t ‘fold’ evenly there.”
“And that’s why the Thraks want it, too.”
Pepys ran a hand through his hair. “God only knows why the Thraks want it, too. They’re even more acquisitive than I am. The blasted planet can hardly be farther from where they’ve done the most damage to the Dominion and I’ll be damned if I can figure out a motive.”
Colin grasped a corner of his sheets and wiped his face though most of the sweat had already cooled to a clammy coating. He looked back. “What do you want of me?”
“I want your assurance that we won’t, in the end, be two kingdoms fighting against each other.”
“I have no kingdom but the Kingdom of God.”
Pepys swore explosively, then pinched his lips shut tightly. When he spoke again, it was in a strangled tone. “I judge you by myself, I have no choice, but I tell you this—I will not hesitate to choose myself over you if I have to, saint or not.”
Without breaking the stare, Colin returned, “And I have already chosen God over you.”
The emperor stood tensely another second or two, then turned away. He had nearly reached the doorway when he turned back. “See you on Bythia,” he said.
Colin nodded. “Good-bye, old friend. And try to get some sleep.”
Winton, sitting in front of his console, swore. The old fox had outmaneuvered him again. But at least he had advance notice that the Knights were going to be sent out with the Walkers. Storm might yet play into his hands… yes, every cloud had a silver lining. He reached out and keyed on his com line and waited for the impersonal features of the other to focus.
“Yes, sir?”
“Are my slides ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Penetrate the staging area. The Knights are preparing to ship out. Take care of their armor.”
“It will be done.”
Winton terminated the com. His grim smile grew wider. An old nemesis of the Knights was about to rear its ugly head once again. He would leave nothing to chance this time.
Last time, the wrong man had become emperor.
PART II
Bythia
Chapter Seventeen
He came out of cold sleep swearing, words slurred, but their time-honored slang unmistakable nonetheless, and the nurse attending him frowned and put her warm hand on his still cold forehead and shushed him into quiet. He lay under her hand and trembled uncontrollably, unable to turn away from her gaze, locked into it as though it were a homing beam and she was bringing him back to life.
Not that he had been dead, no, though he’d rather have been dead than locked into cold sleep dreams.
Jack blinked and with that movement, the nurse seemed to sense her duties were done. She removed her hand and walked to the next bay. He could hear her quiet murmuring to one of its occupants, and then her footsteps moving onward. His chilled down body continued to warm under the netting and somewhere in the crèche where he couldn’t see it, he knew the dialysis lines were cleansing and gently warming his blood. He stared up at the coffinlike lid the nurse had released and felt the thrum of the orbiting ship vibrating.
His eyes blurred. No fever or reaction this time, and for that he was grateful. Down the line of the transport, he could hear a man retching, and his own
insides ached in sympathy. There was a sharp sting at the back of his right knee… the dialysis shunt being removed and the incision being swabbed. The restraints crawled back and he could sit up, if he wished.
Short term cold sleep transports were like meat wagons. His crèche was not a single bay; there were four of them packed shoulder to shoulder, although Jack seemed to be the first to revive. He sat up and threw his legs over the ledge, fierce pins and needles lancing his calves as he did so and unbidden tears springing to his eyes.
Pretending it was still the cloudiness of sleep, Jack fisted them away. He took a deep breath and stretched, feeling the same pins and needles cramp across his back muscles, then prickle away, a sensation much like having an outbreak of hives. The sheet fell off him as he sat motionless, his mind still half caught by cold-sleep dreams.
He could still see Pepys in his mind’s eye, standing over them before they marched to the prep labs, giving them a talk about the duty ahead of them.
“For Rikor,” he’d said, and Jack’s diaphragm had contracted then with emotions for a dead planet whose name he hadn’t heard in two decades. Rikor had been the first planet to fall to the Thraks, its colony and history gone to sand now. “For Rikor and New America, Calafia, and Milos. For Dorman’s Stand and Blue Cluster I and Opus. We must convince the young Bythians of the dangers of courting the Thraks and of fighting among themselves. I am sending you, my Bodyguard, to guard them from themselves as you would guard me from harm.”
“Hot shit,” a recruit had mumbled at Jack’s side. “We get to go to war!”
Indeed. Now Jack wondered only if he would be fighting Bythians or Thraks.
And if it became an out and out war, would the Knights be abandoned once again?
The ship shifted. Jack braced himself on the bay’s ledge, then stood. He reached up among the overhead lockers to the one marked with his name and insignia and pulled out fresh clothing. His fingers were still slightly cold and even the stored clothing felt warm to his touch as he held the dark Blues between his hands for a moment. Then he dressed quickly and made a reservation at the gym for a workout. The sooner he got cold sleep out of his system, the better.
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