Conquistador

by S. M. Stirling

Crack.

  “Idiota!” Giovanni snapped, as his hand slapped the young man’s face to one side. “Ricchiune scimunito!”

  Anthony’s face paled, save where the fingers had left red prints. Normally Giovanni Colletta spoke English, like everyone else except recent immigrants. It was a sign of extreme danger when he started cursing in the Sicilian dialect picked up from his father in infancy. From outside the charmed circle, being a member of the Families looked more important than being one of a collateral line. From the inside, particularly if you were a Colletta collateral, getting the Prime this angry with you could make life intolerable. And when the business you managed for the Prime was a capital crime by Commonwealth law…

  “Sir, we delivered the materials exactly as per the plans. It’s—”

  “You should have overseen the final distribution, so that news of it did not leak to the American police, and from them to Gate Security. As it was, we have only Gate Security to thank that the American authorities didn’t find the goods intact! And only blind luck to thank that Gate Security did not grab you.”

  “Sir, those people don’t appreciate having a seller look over their shoulders while they make their own deals. If you want me to oversee them more closely, then you must assign me more shooters. Otherwise they will kill me, and you will have to assign someone else to deal with the matter.”

  Good, the Colletta thought. He is no coward. And he dares to remind me that I cannot give him more gunmen.

  The Commission controlled Gate transit too closely; only adults of the Thirty Families could travel freely back and forth between the worlds, and even their travel was carefully watched. There were only a limited number of Family members with Gate access he could bring into this…

  Call it by its right name, he told himself. It is a conspiracy.

  “That was the last large shipment, in any case,” the Colletta said gracefully. “Perhaps the next meetings will be more carefully managed. You may stay; it is possible you may contribute. Say nothing unless I tell you.”

  Giovanni seated himself behind his desk, pressing a discreet control. A screen slid upward, and he pulled out a drawer and tapped at the controls as it lit. A surveillance camera at the main eastward gate of the hall’s gardens showed a convoy of vehicles approaching from the south, the long plume of their dust behind them. The Batyushkov home estate was much farther south, over the Santa Cruz Mountains and down into the northern edge of Monterey Bay. The earlier distributions nearer the Gate had gone to the American majority among the Thirty or to the English, German-Balt, Franco-Algerian and British-African creations. There had been quite a gap between the last of those and the time the Russian Batyushkovs and Afrikaner Versfelds were granted committee status in the 1990s. That meant that they were farther out, in the Parajo Valley and the Los Angeles basin respectively. That seemed to bother the Batyushkovs more than it did the Versfelds; they were also the only two Families whose Primes were still FirstSide born.

  Except for the Old Man, of course. Even he had been handing over more and more of his duties to his son Charles in the last two decades, although he seemed determined to make the century mark.

  Dimitri Batyushkov came in a small convoy, his own hardtopped six-wheeled Land Rover preceded and followed by open Hummers mounting machine guns. All of them had the double-headed eagle on their doors; the New Virginia Russians had adopted Czarist symbolism, Orthodox piety and Cossack customs with ostentatious zeal, for all that many of them had been KGB and presumably at least nominal Marxists before they met Commission recruiters looking for desperate men. There was a black-robed bearded priest in the Batyushkov’s car, for that matter.

  Perhaps there is something in the air of the Commonwealth of New Virginia which inclines us to pageantry, Giovanni Colletta thought, and smiled slightly as he spoke to the air.

  “Angelica, the refreshments.”

  It wouldn’t do to go down to the door and greet the Batyushkov; he wasn’t ready to imply that much equality of status, not quite yet. Nor would it do to insult him by showing himself less than prompt in offering hospitality.

  Besides, Russians don’t consider any business serious unless it’s accompanied by a drink, he thought.

  He watched his eldest son walk out the tall carved doors of the hall to greet the Batyushkov; Salvatore Colletta II was not in his father’s inner circle on this matter; the third-generation scion of the Collettas was too cautious to endorse a plan such as that his father had devised, preferring a quiet life. Giovanni was confident he’d go along when confronted with a fait accompli, and in the meantime greeting a distinguished guest with proper protocol was part of his duties as heir apparent.

  The cars came to a halt at the foot of the long stairway, and a servant sprang to open the main car’s door. A squad of troopers in sharp-pressed gray Commission Militia uniforms—their Family affiliation marked by Colletta shoulder flashes—brought rifles to present arms. The Batyushkov reviewed them gravely; when he had passed, their commander saluted his opposite number from the Russian’s escort and led them and the drivers off to appropriate entertainment. Father Sarducci greeted his Orthodox opposite number with the strained politeness of a cat forced to put up with a strange feline on its territory; doubtless they’d either exchange limping chitchat or end up pulling each other’s hair over the filioque clause to the Creed, the one Catholics and Orthodox had split on in 1054 amid a flurry of mutual anathemas and excommunications.

  Giovanni’s smile grew to a shark’s grin for an instant at that. His son conducted the Batyushkov and his immediate retainers—two bodyguards in black leather jackets and a technician with a briefcase—to the elevators.

  Meanwhile the Hall staff had bustled in, spreading linen tablecloths and laying out a buffet lunch around the long rosewood meeting table. There was thin-sliced cured wild-boar ham wrapped around ripe figs and melon, caviar in glistening mounds surrounded by artfully arranged sprays of crisp rye toast, prawns grilled with garlic and chili beside equally dainty skewers of spring lamb, colorful salads, oysters fresh in the shells or wrapped in strips of bacon and fried, sliced roast loin of pork stuffed with figs, almonds and olives, breads and cheeses and glistening pastries of kiwi and cream, fruits in glowing piles, wine bottles resting in silver coolers on gleaming shaved ice. It was a meal that could be eaten without servants present; his retired discreetly before the guests arrived.

  Another surveillance camera showed them walking up the curving staircase and into the long carpeted hallway outside the master’s office, with the Russian’s bodyguards and his circling each other like stiff-legged dogs. They settled down to mutual watchfulness, and the Batyushkov and his attendant came through the doors of ebony and silver.

  “Dimitri Ivanovich!” Giovanni cried, springing to his feet and walking forward with outstretched hand. “Welcome to my home, my friend. It has been far too long since we met.”

  The Batyushkov’s firm stride missed a half step as he raised his eyes and met those of the portrait behind Giovanni’s desk. Behind his affable mask, the Colletta bared his teeth again at the picture’s effect; even from his grave, Salvatore Colletta was still fighting for his blood. The two Family Primes shook hands, and kissed each other on the cheek.

  The Russian was a thickset man, a few inches shorter than Giovanni but broader, with a wide snub-nosed face and pale blue eyes and an air of straightforward bluntness that was a lie in itself.

  “Giovanni Salvatorovich, it has indeed been too long,” he said; his English was excellent, though thickly accented. “May I present my nephew, my brother’s son, Sergei Ilyanovich? He has met your young collateral, I believe, here and FirstSide.”

  Not just a technician, then. A tall, slender, sharp-featured man in his early thirties, dark of hair and eye. I’ve heard the name. Sergei was a real scientist, a rarity in the Commonwealth, orphaned when his father was killed fighting in Afghanistan, and raised by Dimitri and his wife.

  The younger Russian bowed deeply and kissed the Col
letta’s hand; Anthony Bosco followed suit with the Batyushkov, and then the juniors shook in the gesture of equals.

  “But come,” Giovanni said, indicating the table. “Drink; eat; honor my house by using it as your own.”

  The men seated themselves. Giovanni lifted a small frosted glass of chilled vodka, looked the Batyushkov straight in the eye and said: “Za nas!”

  He breathed out through his mouth and tossed the cold spirits back, a streak of chill fire down his gullet.

  The Russian drank his in the same manner and replied: “Za nas—to us, indeed!” Then, with an unfeigned smile: “Khorosha chertovka. Damned good drink!”

  “From FirstSide,” Giovanni said. “Stolichnaya—Dovgan.”

  “You were well-advised: an excellent brand.”

  The two men smiled at each other, neither under any illusions that they were bosom friends, but more relaxed; young Sergei opened his leather-covered instrument case and did a quick, discreet check of the office while the Primes conferred.

  All in the game, Giovanni thought, putting down the vodka glass and using chased-silver tongs to transfer some of the ham to his plate while the Russian scooped caviar onto rye toast.

  Batyushkov showed deference by coming to Colletta Hall and Giovanni’s office; Giovanni showed respect by closeting himself with the Batyushkov on equal terms, and taking the effort to learn Russian drinking rituals.

  Who knows, they may spread! If there is one thing in which Russians excel, it is drinking, after all.

  For that matter, making the Batyushkovs one of the Thirty Families, with a seat on the committee and a share in the Commission’s revenues, was itself a gesture by the established Family lines. Batyushkov had been helpful in recruitment, and in establishing contacts with post-Soviet Russia’s burgeoning commercial demimonde; that eased the perennial problem of laundering the Commonwealth’s minerals and gems on FirstSide. It had enabled the Commission to step up shipments quite substantially, more than compensating for one more minimum Family share of the take.

  Still, there had been no absolute necessity to put him on the committee.

  Yet there were several thousand Russians in the Commonwealth now, and they had been very useful in this land-rich, labor-starved economy. Inevitably they were still mostly at the bottom of the occupational pyramid, working in factories, mines, fishing boats, farms. Knowing that one of their own had been raised to the highest circles of power was likely to ease their adjustment to New Virginia’s unfamiliar society; and a Russian member in the Thirty Families could jump-start several hundred of his compatriots up the ladder of preferment and patronage.

  Or so the Rolfes and their allies thought, Giovanni mused. It had worked, all the other times the method was used. But this time, they have elevated a Prime with wider ambitions.

  Batyushkov glanced at his nephew; the young man nodded. That meant the Colletta’s office was clear of bugs planted by the Commission’s police, or any of the other Families, as far as he could tell.

  “So, Giovanni Salvatorovich, I find that I must apologize,” Dimitri said.

  He knocked back another glass of the icy vodka; strictly speaking, Giovanni should have matched him drink for drink, but he knew his capacity and the Russian’s, and contented himself with a sip of white wine instead. A minor breach of Slavic drinking etiquette and loss of face was preferable to losing his wits.

  “A blunder occurred,” Giovanni agreed tactfully. “There is blame enough to go around. As we grow closer to the time of action, the risks increase; they are proportionate to the stakes for which we play.”

  Dimitri nodded. “You understand, these people we deal with FirstSide may be my compatriots—my former countrymen—but they are not my subordinates. I—we—must persuade and convince them.” He sighed, and chewed meditatively for a moment. “That is not merely a matter of money. Money is very persuasive, but for hardheaded, realistic men—”

  Translation: a bunch of paranoid a’ pinna, Giovanni added to himself.

  “—to be persuaded of the reality of a Gate to another world, this is difficult.” A rumbling chuckle. “I did not believe it myself, until I stepped through. I thought that the wealthy Amis were, how do you say, putting one over on me.”

  The Russian spread his hands in a deprecatory gesture: “And we cannot, of course, show them directly—anyone who sees the Gate is stuck here in the Commonwealth. It is a system with a built-in fail-safe; Sergei here has been instrumental in convincing them. As of course have your animal specimens, even more than the pictures and videos. Videos can be faked; living animals which are extinct cannot. And, after all, they have sent us those personnel we requested. That is the key to our plan.”

  “If there are no more desertions from the Strike Force,” the Colletta said dryly. “If any of those, and the weapons they have stolen, are discovered…”

  The Russian winced slightly. “Yes, well, the speznatz discipline is hard for primitives. It will be better after Operation Downfall is complete and we need no longer rely upon them.”

  “If we get that far,” Giovanni Colletta said.

  If we can assemble a force strong enough to take the Gate by surprise. And if we can make it stick afterward… then we will be the rulers of the Commonwealth. Then there will be changes.

  He went on with a smile: “Which of course we will. The time to strike is near. We have only to get through these few months, and it will all be over.”

  Sergei leaned forward. “With your permission, Uncle Dimitri.” The Batyushkov nodded, and the young man went on: “Our… associates on FirstSide do, however, have one request. One additional request.”

  Giovanni smiled behind gritted teeth. If they wanted more money, he would simply tell them that that well was dry.

  “They wish to send through several scientists, suitably disguised. To study the Gate.”

  At that, the Colletta laughed and waved a hand. “By all means,” he said. “Let them study to their heart’s content.”

  The Gate was incomprehensible. That was well established.

  INTERLUDE

  July 15, 1971

  Rolfeston

  The Commonwealth of New Virginia

  “I think you know my associates,” John Rolfe said, his voice smooth and friendly. He raised a hand to right and left, toward the men who sat on either side of him behind the long polished table. “Solomon Pearlmutter and Salvatore Colletta.”

  Think of them as my good and bad angels, he didn’t say aloud; his mind threw up a vision of a miniature Sol in a white robe and a tiny red-suited Salvo with a pitchfork, standing on his shoulders and whispering into his ears.

  “Yes,” said Ralph Barnes, sometime professor of physics. “I think I met your kid at Stanford.” He nodded to Pearlmutter, and then turned to Colletta. “And your goons doped my drink and dragged me here.”

  He was a burly man in a tie-dyed shirt, jeans and moccasins, with long brown hair falling to his shoulders and a trimmed beard. Rolfe thought the whole ensemble looked ridiculous—something like a flaming pansy crossed with a Viking warrior—but apparently it was the fashion among the younger set back on FirstSide these days, and Barnes was in his mid-twenties.

  Young to be on the verge of fame, he thought. In any profession but physics. From what Sol had told him, most great physicists did their best groundbreaking work between twenty and thirty. And I suppose it doesn’t look much more ridiculous than what some of my Cavalier ancestors affected at court. The haircut was about what Charles I’s courtiers had worn, beard ditto, and at least Barnes wasn’t sporting high heels, lace and beauty patches.

  “Yes, I think I could come up with something to explain the phenomenon,” Barnes went on. “Now that I’ve had some time and equipment to study the Gate. Outta sight.”

  He closed his eyes, obviously deep in thought. Then he opened them again, staring across the room at John Rolfe. The master of the Commonwealth forced himself to relax.

  By God, to control the Gate! To know what i
t is, and how to make more! Vistas of fire and glory opened beyond the eyes of his mind, worlds for the taking—

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” the scientist went on. “Too bad I won’t see much of it.”

  Rolfe’s eyes narrowed, and he felt a stirring of unease; he hadn’t commanded men for thirty years without learning how to read them. The beard and hair emphasized the man’s massive foursquare build, the thick forearms, and the hands like a builder’s or farmer’s, spadelike and callused. Not at all what he’d thought of when the word “professor” came to mind, but Sol’s agents had been extremely careful. It wasn’t easy to find a young, brilliant researcher who wouldn’t be too badly missed, but Barnes had a reputation for eccentricity, as well as genius. For it wouldn’t be utterly out of character for him to… what was the phrase FirstSide? Drop out?

  “Real nice,” Barnes went on, nodding to the tall windows that let in a scent of sea and flowers on the warm summer air. “Pity I’m not going to see much of it. It’d be interesting.”

  “And why aren’t you going to be seeing more of it, Dr. Barnes?” Rolfe said in a soft, chill tone, leaning forward with hand over hand and his elbows braced on the polished rosewood of his desk.

  Without false modesty he knew that he was a strong-willed man, and a frightening one when he chose to be. He’d daunted brave men before this. Now his eyes found the younger man’s brown gaze, and saw no fear there at all, and a stubbornness to match his own. Pearlmutter sighed and put a hand to his forehead, muttering something like gevalt under his breath.

  “Because I’m not going to give a fascist bastard like you that sort of power, which means you’ll probably kill me,” Barnes said cheerfully. “Maybe I can’t do anything about you getting this world in your clutches, but I’m not going to give you an infinite series of them to play with.”

  “Infinite?” Rolfe said, raising a brow.

  “Of course. Now that I’ve seen the Gate, the only thing that makes sense is that the Big Bang was really a quantum fluctuation, the beginning of a universe in a series; in fact that explains the dark matter problem. A standing waveform drawing on zero energy to—Oh, you’re a tricky fascist bastard, aren’t you? Nearly got me going there.”