Tale of the Spinward March: The Great Khan (Tales of the Spinward March Book 1)

by David Winnie

  “What has brought about this change, Sophia?” he asked. “A year ago this was unthinkable to you.”

  “A year ago, yes,” she told him. “A year ago, you were not Khan. And a year ago, I had not been separated from you. For you, I want to give you the heir you need. For myself,” she kissed him softly, “I will always have someone to remind me of you.”

  They spent weeks discussing their child. A boy, they decided, with Sophia’s blue eyes and Angkor’s dark hair. Sophia didn’t realize there was so much to discuss about their son, height, build, inherent talents. She wanted him to be honest, hardworking and artistic. He wanted intelligent, athletic and charismatic. In the end, Angkor was able to design the child they both wanted.

  Guide me, Master, he prayed quietly as he combined their egg and sperm, then spent two weeks rewriting the child’s DNA. He had done this a hundred times in his career. This was different. The child would be their gift to the future. In meditation, he studied the stone he was placing in his fountain. When it was perfect, he inserted the egg into growth medium. The cells divided, then divided again. He called Sophia and Kassidy to the clinic in the palace and five minutes later, Kassidy was pregnant.

  As Khan, Angkor was expected to live and work in Ulaan Baatar. The palace was certainly nice enough, having housed the leaders of Mongolia for two hundred years. Tenzing’s Keep was also nearby. But the winters would be cold and there was now painful memory for Angkor at the Keep. They both longed for their home in Indianola amongst the pines, on the shore of the Salish Sea.

  Whenever they could, Angkor commandeered a sub-orbital and made the three-hour trip to their home. Kassidy would join them; Sophia was convinced her son could feel the warm Te of their tiny home.

  The new Khan quickly became a popular leader, first in Pan Asia, through all of Earth, then among the citizens of the Terran Union. It was he, in a magnificent speech that suggested they change the name of the planet.

  “When we began,” he said before a crowd gathered in a stadium in Munich, “we were a single, small world in a magnificent universe. One by one, nation by nation, we stepped off our fragile world. We joined together in brotherly and harmonious missions and pushed outwards, to Luna, to Mars and beyond. We invented the Space Fold sleds and moved ourselves into the heavens. Centauri first, then Vespa and Tantalus. Today we are a dozen worlds around a dozen stars.

  We came from our common background, our beloved Earth. But today, we are more than just children of Earth. We are more than just humans. Our ancestors called our world Terra Firma. Today I say, we are children of Terra, Terrans one and all. And we live under the banner of our new state, the Union of Terra!”

  The Union Council held a pro forma debate. In the end, the decision was made by proclamation.

  As the new World leader, Tenzing leaned heavily on Angkor as his closest advisor. They talked daily for hours and met frequently to discuss plans, actions. The elder admired his son’s ability to go through data swiftly and accurately, then decide based on the data, not just his emotion.

  Their decision to appoint Dawlish as Chief of Staff, for instance. Angkor had fired many of the generals and officers in the Union Army when he arrived. He promoted hungry young officers eager to serve him and the Union. He scrapped useless contracts and held conferences to determine just what the mission of the Army was to be. Then he selected a youthful naval captain, Thomas Schurenburg, and promoted him to Admiral of the Terran Fleet. The old ships left over from the Solarian War were used extensively for training of the nascent new fleet. To be sure, there were a few new cutters and the call had gone out for a new fighter design.

  Tenzing and the Council demanded a new class of destroyer. Schurenburg and his officers huddled together and came up with designs for the new ships. The hull of the first, the Quarrel, was christened within the year.

  Late summer found Angkor suddenly summoned from Zurich back to the Keep. Kassidy Jones had gone into labor and Sophia demanded he come to witness their son’s arrival into the world.

  His wife refused to allow their son to be born in a yurt, as the child’s ancestors had. Angkor and the dozen of his friends - Khalkha, Oirats and Buryats he had known from his childhood - along with contemporaries he had met serving with the Kurultai, stood and sat on the open balcony outside the suite where his son was to be borne. They sipped on buttered tea and laughed as Angkor waited nervously for word.

  There was shouting from Kassidy’s room, then a tiny wail. The baby was dipped in ice cold water, then cleaned. Although he had designed the child, Angkor’s heart leaped when Qui, his mother, opened the door and cried out, “Angkor Khan, son of Tenzing, son of Moi. Come, meet your new son!”

  They had discretely wheeled Kassidy out of the room to a suite of her own. Sophia sat in a rocking chair holding the squalling child in her arms. “Husband,” she quoted the ritual, “I give you a new Khalkha warrior.”

  Angkor lifted his son and examined the noisy beast. How small, how wrinkled and…purple? But he had the thin wisp of dark hair and he certainly had the lungs of a warrior.

  “I greet you and welcome you to the world, young Buru, son of Angkor,” he whispered to his boy. He carried the babe to his friends gathered on the balcony. “My son!” he cried with delight.

  Two months later, a full moon had risen over the Hentiyn Nuruu Mountains to the west of the Keep, bathing the fortress and the valley outside Angkor’s balcony in an ethereal blue light. Angkor paused, admiring the sharp contrast; features exposed to the light of the moon were sharp, defined, while the shadows were long and hidden in the darkness. The Keep was quiet this time of the evening, though the odors from the evening meal hung lightly through the halls.

  Angkor and Tenzing were dressed casually for the evening, the day’s toils mostly forgotten. A carafe of honey wine sat on the low table between them.

  The tiny child, Buru, stared at his mustachioed grandfather. Tenzing clucked and cooed at the new scion of his line.

  “Father, I have been thinking,” Angkor said, staring into his goblet.

  Tenzing sighed. “Work this evening?” grumbled the old man. “You have a new son here. Relax, let’s enjoy the moment, shall we?”

  “It is because of my son that I am thinking,” Angkor said. “Along with our people and our small union, I am thinking about all of our future. I may have a plan.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. We currently have fifteen Space Fold sleds. Ten are used commercially, five held for the military. We have five more being built and another five are planned,” Angkor recited.

  “Using current technology, we can suspend a human for fifty years before we see signs of mental instability. After one hundred years, viability drops another fifty percent. On hundred years beyond that, we are not sure.

  “We have no artificial womb protocol that works for now. However, we can freeze human embryos for centuries. What I propose is, we send several Space Fold sleds Spinward and beyond. Through the galactic center and to the far reaches of our galaxy. Each ship will carry frozen embryos and suspended staff to care for them. As time passes, we reanimate members of the crew to give birth to their replacements, train them and die. When a habitable world is found, they can reanimate more staff to give birth. They will study the world and design the ultimate human to inhabit the world and eventually conquer it. The ship would then move on to find another world.”

  “What keeps them loyal to us? To Terra?”

  We program that deep into the DNA,” explained Angkor, “into the very base sequences. To adapt them to the environments they inhabit will change them into creatures we may scarcely recognize. But, we will have the advantage, their programmed loyalty. Indeed, we can imprint them to seek us out. Imagine, a ready-made Empire for us as we spread across the galaxy.”

  “Your plan is ambitious, my son,” stated Tenzing. “Perhaps too ambitious. Perhaps we should study it closer before committing to it.”

  “Of course, Father,” Angkor agreed. “We may
yet have time before the Galactic Council moves against us.”

  “And we have many enemies right here on Terra.” His father’s voice was flat. “I propose we address these enemies first, obliterating the enemy within before we address the enemy without.”

  “Of course, Father.”

  “You friend? The fat one? He will agree to our plan?” queried Tenzing.

  “Yes. I have carefully fed him the information to him.” explained Angkor. “I believe he will fit our needs nicely. And as I believe he will see profit for himself, he will be even easier to manipulate when we bring him in to discuss our plan. He may even have a tactic we haven’t considered.”

  “Very good. Summon him to Zurich. I wish to get the next phase underway as soon as possible.” He sniffed and handed his grandson to Angkor. “Buru needs to see his father,” he stated.

  “Thank you, Father.” Angkor took his fragrant son and held him at arm’s length while calling for the nursemaid.

  I have set this stone, he thought. Let’s hear how the fountain pour sounds for now.

  Chapter 15

  April 3055 A.D.

  Xaid Singh despised Zurich.

  If the truth were told, he hated walking anywhere on the surface of Terra. He had been raised in Calcutta, the steamy, seething pit of humanity teeming with the underclass and diseased. Father had insisted on demonstrating charity toward the lesser fortunate. Xaid would obey, but when they returned home from handing out envelopes of rupees and baskets of food he would go to the bathhouse and spend hours scrubbing their stink from every inch of his body.

  On one such trip, he had heard a curious buzzing noise aloft. A great airship floating placidly above the city. The significance was not lost on him. Up there, high above the city, beyond the sewer of populace. Freely passing through the clouds, up in the clean, fresh air.

  That would be his future, he determined then and there. High above the cesspit of the cities, looking down on the rubbish from a clean, sterile home.

  But business required, from time to time, that he descend from his citadel to the surface. He did so with the utmost reluctance and trepidation. He learned to be prepared, conduct as much negotiation as possible prior to arrival, and then conclude the deal as swiftly as could be done, so he could return to his refuge.

  Then home and hours cleaning the stink of the worms who lived on the surface.

  He had tried going into space once. The prepackaged air and close quarters of the ships, not to mention the stomach-churning motion sickness, left him fleeing back to Earth.

  And he hated Zurich. The air was thin, the city untidy, disorganized. The government quarter was built along Lake Lucerne. Poets had written couplets to the lake, lauding its beauty. Artists had wandered it shores and rendered it in every medium, trying to capture the alpine lake in its finery. Xaid saw none of this. The lake looked cold, its shoreline teeming with unexploited forests or haphazard construction.

  What bothered him most about this trip to Zurich was that his old college friend, Angkor, had summoned him to appear here before Tenzing’s Council. Summoned him. As if Xaid were a servant or of low caste. He considered ignoring or politely declining the order. No, his company, Akash Industiech, did too much business with the Union government. For him to ignore such a summons would surely have an adverse effect on his business. So he had graciously accepted, as though he had decided to attend at his own suffrage. A government air car (and not a new one, he noted) delivered him from the airport directly to government house.

  He was wearing an expensive white suit, to impress the government insects here of his wealth and importance. While not infirmed, he had taken up some years ago to carrying a cane. For two reasons. One, he felt it added an air of panache to his wealthy presence. The other was the small needle gun hidden in the cane.

  Unfortunately, the scanners in the government house were quite efficient. Polite guards in the new uniform of the Terran Army stopped him and relieved him of his cane. “Weapons are not permitted to visitors of Government House,” he was informed. He was handed a simple composite cane, quite efficient for someone who might need it. “Pah!” barked Xaid, throwing the plain stick back at the officer. He straightened his back and confidently followed his escort to the Council chamber.

  He was not announced. The tall double doors were opened and his escort beckoned him to enter. The room was smaller, less grand than he would have expected. Efficient was the word that came to mind. The opposite wall was a large series of windows overlooking Lake Lucerne. A curved, real-wood table dominated the room, a terminal and monitor at each position.

  A chair faced the raised table. It must be his - all the chairs behind the table were occupied. Tenzing, leader of the Terran Union, sat at the center. To his left were a dozen men in suits, although none as fine as Xaid’s. To his right sat another dozen men, these dressed in uniforms of the new Terran Army and Navy. Save one.

  Angkor. He sat at his father’s right, wearing a plain dark suit.

  One of the minions at Tenzing’s left stood. “Xaid Singh, you have been summoned to this informal Council at the behest of the Leader and his son, the Khan. While you may decline to answer any question, it is requested you answer honestly and completely. There will be no recording of this meeting nor any sanction for what is discussed or decided here. You are not liable for the decisions made today. Will you accept the invitation by this Council to this meeting?”

  “Certainly.”

  An officer stood. “You are President and owner of Akash Industiech, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your offices are located in Delhi, correct?”

  “Again, yes.”

  “At last accounting, you are the third wealthiest individual in the Terran Union.”

  “That is not correct,” Xaid responded. “As of the open of the markets this morning, my personal wealth, along with my holdings in my company, make me the fifth wealthiest being in the Union.”

  Another minion to his right stood. “Interesting. Would you inform us as to who are wealthier than you?”

  “That is fairly simple. The individuals who are wealthier than I am are the four oldest children of the late Alexis Shurkorov. When he tragically died five years ago, his fortune was divided amongst his twelve children. While all twelve-owned equal share after their father’s death, the four eldest had manipulated those shares into a powerful block which has made them extraordinarily rich.”

  “So the Shurkorov family is wealthier than you?” Another minion rose and asked.

  “No, that is not accurate,” explained Xaid, “The Shurkorov Corporation is the largest corporation in the Union. Its stock was initially held strictly by his children. Two years ago, the company went public. The way the individual members treated their shares increased or decreased their value accordingly. Shurkorov is an excellent investment; I hold several billion in shares myself.”

  Another officer to his left stood. “Please tell us, Sir, what would be the effect on the Shurkorov Corporation should an investor start short selling its stock?”

  “Why should anyone want to do that? As I said, they are an excellent investment,” Xaid stated.

  “Please, answer the question.”

  “It would sell quickly, without a doubt,” Xaid answered. “Although speculators would be curious as to the devalued sale. The market would get nervous and the general price of the stock would fall.”

  “And if another significant investor should suddenly sell at an even more depressed price?” the officer asked.

  Xaid stared at the woman for a minute. “It would add to the speculation of the value of the stock,” he predicted. “More stockholders would become nervous and perhaps start a downward trend on Shurkorov stock.”

  “Devaluing the company.”

  “Oh, most certainly.”

  “And a third short sale and subsequent devaluation?”

  Xaid sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “You want to bankrupt the
Shurkorov family,” he said.

  “No,” Xaid was surprised to hear Angkor speak, “we’re not concerned about their personal wealth in the least. What we want are their holdings.”

  “Their holdings?” asked Xaid.

  “Laboratories. Weapons and propulsion mostly,” recited Angkor. “Graving docks. Space stations. Industrial equipment.”

  Xaid stroked his chin. “An ambitious plan, to be sure. Very well, if I become your partner in this, what’s in it for me?”

  “Beyond the potential of becoming the wealthiest man in the Terran Union?” Angkor handed a stack of papers to the officer on his right, who delivered them to Xaid. “An exclusive manufacture contract with our government for the next five hundred years. The government will be responsible for research and development, Akash Industiech will do the mass production at a fair market value.”

  “And what of the dear, late lamented Shurkorov Industries?” Xaid asked.

  “We will retain seventy-five per cent.” Angkor said.

  Xaid straightened. “My partners and I will want forty percent.”

  Angkor’s eyes narrowed, “We will retain seventy-eight per cent.”

  Xaid shook his head. “You don’t understand, Angkor. You say seventy-five, I counter with forty. Now you come back with seventy and I come back with thirty-five. You lower what you will take and I lower what I want. That’s how it works.”

  Angkor chuckled. “You’re right, my old friend. Eighty.”

  “I can leave right now,” Xaid stood.

  “Yes, you can,” Angkor said, “And tomorrow, we start a run on your stock with the help of the Shurkorov family. Then you end up penniless and it will take us that much longer to achieve our goals of taking over their holdings. Now, what is your price to be?”

  “Fifteen per cent.”

  “Agreed.”

  Xaid was thrilled to get fifteen per cent. It was nearly double what the front man to the hostile takeover would receive.