by David Winnie
Deep in the Keep, they arrived at a heavy wood door, strapped with silver bands and gold rivets. “Within is the greatest treasure of the Khalkha people, my son.” Tenzing’s tone was hushed, reverent.
The door opened smooth, silent. The room beyond was dark but as they entered, hidden illumination brightened. The walls were tall rectangles, each the size of a crypt. In fact, each rectangle was a crypt.
“My father, Moi,” Tenzing pointed, “my grandfather, Raaune, My great-grandfather Tsao…” On and on Tenzing went, naming five centuries of ancestors.
“Each was headsman of our tribe. All were leaders of our nation, Mongolia, in one fashion or another,” explained Tenzing. He indicated the last sepulcher. “Here is where I will wait for eternity.
“There will be no more headmen of the Khalkha buried here after me. I will be the last of that line.
“You and I will journey tomorrow to Ulaan Baatar. There, I will declare you headman of the Khalkha. Further, I will demand the restoration of the ancient title Khan, the God-King of Mongolia. I will retain the Earth Council. Perhaps together we will find a way that will allow some of our people to survive.”
“I must fetch my wife first, Father,” protested Angkor.
“No. It is not yet safe enough for her to return.” Tenzing clapped his son on the shoulder. “Take it from me, boy, after fifty years of marriage; enjoy the respite from your wives, as brief a time as it will be. I know I do.”
“I only have one wife,” said Angkor. “She is all I need.”
“Truly?” wondered Tenzing aloud. “How odd.”
The tribal leaders of the Kurultai Council protested the new Headman of the Khalkha. That he would claim the title of Khan was too much for many.
“Why are we resurrecting a title a thousand years past?” thundered an Oirat representative. “What are you trying to pull, Son of Moi? Are we going to dissolve the Kurultai also, so to feed your hubris?”
“I resurrect the title because it is time to bring back the title,” Tenzing roared back. “Brothers, Sisters! We all have seen the reports, and we all know what Earth faces. As leaders of the Union, it falls to us to lead! When the enemy inevitably strikes, we will be the ones humans will look to.”
“But with what will we lead?” came a question. “The fleet is in disrepair. We have only recently been able to get all the nations to join the Union and follow us. Our army has pretty uniforms but wouldn’t stand up to a strong breeze.”
“And you give us an ancient and useless title as though the enemy will shirk from that,” another scoffed.
Angkor stood, arms crossed, peering down his nose. “This Council is wise to have questioned the course my father has set,” he said, then raised his voice. “But you are being foolish. Yes, we are not ready for war with the Galactic Council. Not now. But we must start preparing right now, this very moment. The title Khan is ancient and honored not just amongst our people, but all the nations of Pan Asia and Europe. The mention of our ancestral Khans invoked terror and respect in our enemies. Today, we shall use that title to rally our people, then the whole of the Union.
“And if our enemies wait too long,” Angkor lowered his head, his brow furrowed, his eyes blazing, a cruel grin adorning his face. “Then they will learn why the ancient Khans were so feared.”
The vote was overwhelming. Minutes after his speech, Angkor son of Tenzing, became Angkor Khan of the New Mongolian Empire. Tenzing himself produced the furred, brimmed cap and crowned his son.
Exactly as he had planned.
The new Khan wasted no time in contacting the nations of Pan Asia and demanding a war Council to start the planning for the defense of their world. Representatives from Africa, Occident and Europe attended to observe the Khan and report to their governments.
What they all found was a quiet, studious man, used to carefully gleaning over data. He was everywhere in his palace in Ulaan Baatar where the War Council was taking place. He would quietly enter committee meetings, take copious notes and leave equally quiet. Soon, each committee would receive a missive from the Khan with observations, questions and demands that the committees move along and, for the god’s sake, make decisions!
General Dawlish Zoltan of the Army of Persia stood on the plaza of the Imperial Palace of Angkor Khan. Once known as the Governor’s House, it was an unpretentious building in spite of its lofty name, much like the Angkor Dawlish knew from the heady days of their youth in Delhi.
It was a low, three-story building, with a sandstone façade to mimic the rest of the city. The square building had narrow windows and a flat roof. Dawlish noted immediately the dozens of soldiers guarding the palace. His practiced eye also spied the concealed weapons and disguised shield generators around the square.
The guards showed proper respect as he approached, saluting sharply. There was no need to announce himself; the staff knew who Dawlish was and escorted him directly to the office of the Khan. It was what he would have expected of Angkor. A dozen secretaries outside the portal, busy entering data, checking records and speaking in low, hushed tones on comm’s.
The doors were already open, aides moving in and out with efficiency. Into the office through the left door, out through the right. The room itself was large, dominated by Angkor seated behind an oaken desk. Aides stood at attention before the Khan while he reviewed their reports. Dawlish noted Angkor reviewed each page a single time, then acted decisively. The report was either signed and approved or sent away for corrections.
His escort cleared his throat. “My Khan,” he announced, “General Zoltan, as you requested.”
“Friend Dawlish!” the Khan rose from his desk and wrapped his arms around his old friend. “I am so pleased to see you! Come, sit. Have some tea with me.” He led them to the setting outside the French doors behind his desk. The waiting aides left the office, closing the doors behind them.
Angkor poured the tea, adding sugar to Dawlish’s and a pat of butter to his own. Dawlish shuddered as his friend sipped from his cup. “Gah, Angkor, how do you stomach that?” he exclaimed.
The Khan smiled. “It is an acquired taste,” he admitted.
Dawlish settled back in the comfortable chair. “I should say you’ve done very well for yourself,” he said, “though I don’t know whether I should call you Angkor or my Khan.”
His friend snorted. “Angkor, please my old friend,” replied Angkor. “I swear, some days they all traipse in and out with my Khan this and my Khan that. It’s nice for someone to remember I have a name.”
“I take it Sophia hasn’t returned yet?”
“My father and I discussed that topic this morning,” Angkor said with regret. “Soon, he says. I can fetch her soon.
“My father. I asked you to come here today on his bequest. Dawlish, we are reorganizing the Union Army. The officers running the Army now are political appointees. Career officers, who know the right things to say and the right decisions for the good of their own careers. Not the officers we need to create our Army.”
“I know many of your officers,” Dawlish spoke carefully. “Fine officers, one and all.”
“Yes,” agreed Angkor. “Not a scoundrel among them.”
“No,” Dawlish admitted. “Why am I here, Angkor?”
“My father and I agree. We need you to organize the Army,” Angkor stated. “You will be the Chief of Staff.”
“What, not Field Marshall?” Dawlish asked mockingly.
“We both know you can get more done as Chief of Staff than as a uniformed peacock,” Angkor grinned. “What do you say?”
“I will have your ear?” Dawlish demanded. “I won’t do this if I have to answer to a damned committee or present a song and dance for a general who wants to flex his stars.”
“Only my father and me,” promised Angkor. “Anyone else will find themselves scrubbing vent ports on a garbage scow out on the Kuiper Belt.”
Dawlish smiled and raised his tea cup. “My Khan,” he said.
Chapter 1
4
September 3044 to August 3045 A.D.
In the early twenty-first century, all of Earth was charmed to see a dark feature, heart-shaped, on the first clear images of Pluto. Later analysis found the feature to be a frozen lake of nitrogen. A region so cold as to freeze nitrogen, mused Angkor, so cold, so dark. Just the sort of place Sophia would hate. As the shuttle approached the world named for the ancient lord of the underworld, Angkor smiled and sighed.
She was there. Waiting patiently for him. She had spent ten longsuffering months for him to come fetch her as he had promised.
Today was the day. His father had given him a long-range shuttle for the five-day journey. He slept little the entire journey. If only the ship were faster.
They swept over the frozen fields while they descended, revealing the details of the tiny world. Pluto Station, located near the equator, was the command center for both commercial operations and outer system defense. Out this far, there was little sunlight. Pluto Station relied on its plutonium reactor, a byproduct of nuclear weapons developed back in the twentieth century.
Angkor bounced on his toes, waiting for the docking portal to equalize. Sophia was only yards away, separated from him by a pair of airlock doors. A blue light flashed. The door slid open with a bang. Before he could step forward, the station door slid open with its own crash.
A vision in sea green, the day in the market a dozen years and a hundred million miles past. Her hands were clasped anxiously, her mouth opened in a slight “o”. Her brow relaxed when she saw him across the airlock. Even in the low gravity, her long blonde hair swept down her back. Her sparkling blue eyes flashed before she lowered her gaze, a faint smile blushed on her lips.
He raced across the chasm between them, sweeping her up in his arms. They clung to each other. “My wife,” Angkor breathed into the wisps that framed her beloved face, “I have come to fetch you home.”
“Yes, husband,” cooed Sophia. “I have been waiting here for so long.”
Into the station they ambled, hand in hand, their joy evident to every bystander. A line of officials was there to greet him, but he scarcely paid attention. Director So and So, Doctor Such and Such. Angkor nodded politely, shook the proffered hand and moved to the next official, while Sophia smiled regally, as if she had been a Khan’s wife for fifty years
The ordeal came to an end at the end of the line. “Ladies, gentlemen of Pluto Station, my thanks for your warm greeting and hospitality.” Angkor said. “But it has been a long journey and even longer months since I have seen my wife. We will see you this evening for supper. Until then.”
She led him to her rooms. A guard in an unfamiliar uniform straightened and saluted as the couple passed through the door. It closed and locked with an audible click.
Since he had first seen Sophia in a sari, Angkor had admired how the elegantly simple bolt of cloth, carefully wrapped about his wife, and enhanced her and her beauty without overly revealing much.
He also admired the way she would unwind the garment and reveal herself to him. Her breasts, firm and high in the lighter gravity. The gentle flare of her hips he had so admired years ago as she walked away on that magic day in the market. The hint of a swell that was her firm belly, her long graceful legs. Her head with its loosened cascade of gold seemed at once to grow too heavy for her slender neck, and threatened to follow sea green silk to the floor. “Husband?” she whispered.
Angkor gathered his wife and carried her to the bed chamber.
They nuzzled in the tangled bedsheets. “Whew, dear wife,” he gulped, “perhaps I should send you away more often if this is how I am to be greeted!”
She slapped him playfully. “Don’t you dare,” she scolded. “Ten months is far too long to be away from you. Especially in this place. I swear, Angkor, why is it we always seem to go to such cold places?”
“Because then we get to go to bed and warm each other up, my love.” He nibbled on her neck.
She giggled and cooed at his ministrations. “I should suppose so,” Sophia breathed, then sat up suddenly. “Angkor, stop. Look at the time. We have supper to attend to!”
“Let them wait,” he grumbled. “Surely they’ll understand. It has been ten months, Sophia.”
“And if you had your way, we’d make them wait ten more months,” she replied, leaping from the bed. “Hurry, hurry. We have time enough for a quick shower.”
“Oh?” Angkor sat up, “Together?”
Sophia let out an exasperated shout. “Stop thinking with your little head, Husband,” she called as she raced into the bathroom. “I’ll be a few minutes, then your turn.”
He heard the sonics running as his wife cleaned herself. She emerged minutes later, wiping herself with a large disposable towel, applying pleasant scent to her entire body. “Hurry, lazybones,” she chided. “I left a manly scent for you on the towel rack.” She began to brush the love tangles from her long, golden locks.
Grumbling, Angkor climbed out of bed.
The room exploded with applause as the Khan led his wife into the banquet. Angkor wore a tan, high collared suit. He had allowed Sophia to brush his hair back into what she called a civilized tail. He pointed out that, as a Khalkha warrior, he would not wear his hair bound so. She pointed out she was his wife and she would not allow him to appear in public like a barbarian.
She wore a flowing fuchsia sari with a filigreed white blouse, adorned luxuriously with gold necklaces and earrings. Angkor was bursting with pride with her on his arm. Wait until Father and all the ministers back home see my stunning wife.
The dinner was set under the main dome of Pluto Station, a mile in diameter and two hundred feet high. Because of the heat produced by the industries and laboratories in the station, the plastisteel remained clear, allowing stunning views of the star field outside the dwarf planet’s thin atmosphere.
White linen, fine silver and imported china, not what one would expect so far from the more civilized interior worlds. Yet, most of the residents were employed by Terran corporations, so it only stood to reason they would insist on their creature comforts.
Dozens of officials awaited introductions to the young Khan. Sated, Angkor paid closer attention now as Sophia introduced officials and officers of the station and various nearby outposts. “Husband, may I introduce Samson Beagoodfellow. Samson is the Union leader for the Kuiper Belt miners.”
Angkor shook the paw Beagoodfellow extended. He was a massive man, six and a half feet tall and nearly as wide at the shoulders. His obsidian eyes were only shades darker than his smooth shaved head. “Mister Beagoodfellow…” he began.
In a voice that sounded as though it came from the depths of a black hole, the miner replied, “Samson, please Doctor Angkor. Or is it Doctor Khan?”
“Samson. Then it should be Angkor, please,” He liked this giant and flashed a wide, brilliant smile and a musical laugh.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Angkor,” rumbled Samson. “Your wife has been a delight to all of us here on the frozen frontier. I should hope you journey this way again and you bring her with you.”
“It would be my pleasure, Samson,” responded Angkor. “Perhaps you’ll come visit us in Ulaan Baatar when you are earthside?”
Sophia was tugging on his arm. He nodded to Samson and followed his wife.
“Angkor, this is my special friend I wished for you to meet. Kassidy, this is Angkor. Angkor, Kassidy Jones, my closest friend.” Sophia made the introduction.
Kassidy extended a slender, dark hand. “Honored, sir,” she said in an Occident accent. The heavyset black woman was wearing an indistinct uniform without badges.
“Kassidy was assigned by our…friends to be my personal bodyguard,” explained Sophia, nearly whispering. “In the ten months I have been here, we have become fast friends.”
“Then the honor is mine, meeting my wife’s special friend.” Angkor gave Kassidy a slight bow.
He caught Sophia mouthing Kassidy a message. “Later.” Later, what?<
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The dinner was accompanied by several speeches. New to politics, Angkor nonetheless deduced the residents were currying favor of the future leader of the Terran Union. He listened politely, but anxiously. He wanted to return to their chamber and get a good night’s sleep before the two-day trip home. He begged off making a speech, pointing out it had been a long journey out to Pluto Station and they had to leave early in the morning. The couple returned to their quarters and disrobed.
Their sex was slow and gentle, the lovemaking of practiced lovers, each in tune with the body of the other. Afterwards they spooned, Angkor’s arms wrapped around his wife.
“Husband, I have been thinking,” Sophia whispered.
“Yes, of what, my love?”
“I have been small and petty,” she confessed. “I have used my affliction to bring harm to you. I am sorry, my husband.”
“What are you talking about, my love?” Angkor kissed her shoulder, “What affliction are you worried about? You have always been a perfect wife. The harm has been mine sending you away.”
“The separation has given me time to think,” She said, “My sterility has caused me sorrow, not being able to give you a child. Now you are leader of our people and there must be an heir.”
“We have discussed this already, my love,” he answered. “You cannot bear a child and I will not take a second wife. Especially just for an heir.”
Sophia rolled onto her back and kissed her husband. “You have no idea how much this pleases me, Husband,” she said. “My heart can hardly contain the joy these words give me.
Tell me, Angkor, what do you think of my friend, Kassidy Jones?”
“She is a nice woman, I suppose,” he replied. “She must have good sense, as you have taken to her so. Why do you ask?”
“She is a lesbian,” Sophia whispered conspiratorially. “She is not interested in having a family of her own right now. But she has incurred debt in her service and her company is threatening her if she cannot pay. She has agreed to carry our child as a surrogate if we would help her to eliminate her debt. Please, Angkor, you said you could combine my eggs with your seed, so the child would purely be ours.”
