Conquistador

by S. M. Stirling

  “And I order you not to die,” she whispered.

  The fighting seemed to be mostly out from the Gate complex, a U of combat noises and muzzle flashes ringing the buildings. That meant that the Collettas and Batyushkovs in the GSF had some sort of control of the Gate itself, or there would be more shooting from inside the building. Their men and the reinforcements were trying to hold a perimeter, staving off the growing weight of the Commission forces loyal to the Rolfes. Which meant…

  “They expect help through the Gate,” she muttered, unable to frame the thought without speaking it. “Oh joy, oh bliss, oh rapture. They could still pull this off. I’ll have to set the self-destruct mechanism going.”

  Let them get a firm control on the Gate and the area around it, and let the other Families and their Settlers realize that their contacts with FirstSide now depended on the Collettas, and support for the Rolfes might yet evaporate. At the very least, the Collettas and Batyushkovs might escape unpunished, the weight of opinion in the committee forcing amnesty to get the Gate back intact.

  She still had her pistol; she drew it and moved out cautiously through the parking lot, moving from one car to another. A dead Gate Security Force trooper lay beyond that, where the glass sliding doors she’d passed through so often lay shattered in a sparkle of fragments. Adrienne stooped beside him, closed the staring eyes and took up the G36. It had a C-mag in it, and a glance at the transparent rear face of the magazine showed it was full—a hundred rounds. She slid the sling over her head, in the assault position that put the muzzle forward and left the pistol grip by her right hand. It also made things easier on her injured left.

  Adrienne strode forward through the waiting rooms and into the final corridor that led to the personnel check-through station. A man looked up at her as she walked by; he was kneeling by a row of wounded. Then he did a double take and rose, opening his mouth.

  She turned and loosed a three-round burst at point-blank range. The medic toppled backward, and the wounded man he fell on moaned weakly. Apart from that everything was vacant until she turned into the Gate chamber itself.

  Someone had used an earthmoving machine to sweep a broad lane clear to the rippling silvery surface; a sense of wrongness caught at her, this chaos in the place she’d helped keep so orderly. And men were stepping out of the surface, moving in squads—not uniformed, beyond a rough practicality, but all armed. Something stuck its snout through, the muzzle of a vehicle-mounted cannon. Whatever the plot on FirstSide had been, it had worked—probably a lot better than the Commonwealth half.

  Everyone in the room was looking at the Gate; there weren’t more than a dozen or so men in the whole huge room, which was a sign of how desperately the conspirators’ forces were trying to hold their perimeter until this help arrived.

  Tsk, tsk, Giovanni—still operating on a shoestring and not leaving a margin for failure! Of course, the odds of her crashing inside the area the enemy were holding and surviving in shape to walk were pretty astronomical….

  Terminals were spotted all around the interior of the Gate chamber. She stepped over to one and punched her thumb down on the pad. The small screen lit, and she felt a wave of relief that almost overrode the pain in her head and hand. They had had to leave the local system up, or the Gate complex’s internal power and light wouldn’t be functioning.

  “Identify,” she said, and looked into the retina scanner. Her voice might be off enough not to match the files, but eye and thumb together were enough.

  “Identified: Rolfe, Adrienne.”

  “Code—” She rattled off a string of letters and numbers; ones known only to the two elder male Rolfes, until a scant few weeks ago.

  “Acknowledged. Query: Authority?”

  “Milady. Cardinal. State.”

  “Acknowledged. Query: Sequence?”

  “Hey, you there! What are you doing?”

  “Override B-1!” Adrienne said, as the man turned toward her. “Override B-1! Override B-1, Oasis!”

  That had been her idea—a personal link into the self-destruct sequence that would blow the charges in the floor—and send a wall of high-velocity concrete back through to the FirstSide end of the Gate, smashing her grandfather’s original shortwave set beyond hope of repair.

  She turned, finger clenching the trigger, two fingers and a thumb of her left hand on the forestock to keep the assault rifle from riding up. Cartridges fountained out of it, and the whole hundred rounds spat out in less than ten seconds.

  “Self-destruct sequence initiated,” the computer said in its flat idiot-savant voice. “Five minutes to detonation.”

  Then she threw the weapon aside and ran, down the corridor, dodging as bullets chipped tile out of the floor, hurdling a fallen row of waiting-room chairs, out into the night—

  Fire, and then peace.

  EPILOGUE

  Pajaro Valley—former Batyushkov Domain

  August-December 2009

  The Commonwealth of New Virginia

  “Cigarette?” Lieutenant Mordechai Pearlmutter said. He was a slender beak-nosed swarthy young man of medium height. “Blindfold?”

  “Get it over with!” Dimitri Batyushkov said; the only other sound beyond the gulls and the distant sea was the muttered prayers of the black-bearded, black-robed priest off near the entrance.

  The adobe courtyard was plain whitewash, but the wall behind him had a row of pockmarks across it at chest height, all new, and some splashes. The Prime drew himself up as the row of Pearlmutter militiamen filed in with their rifles sloped; he had asked only one thing, that he not be bound to the post.

  The officer—Batyushkov wearily thought a curse at the unseen sardonic face of the old man who had picked a damned Yid for this!—drew his .45 as he walked back to where the squad would stand; he would administer the coup with the pistol, one final shot behind the ear, if it was necessary. A noncom walked down the row of young men, most of them pale-faced and grim, one or two nervously excited. He took each rifle and loaded it with one cartridge, his back turned to the soldier so that none could see which held the one blank.

  “Ready!” the young Pearlmutter collateral said. The weapons came up to the present.

  “Aim!” And they went level, all but one or two steady. It would probably be quick.

  The air was sweet; he was not afraid, but it was a hard thing to leave a world so beautiful. Why was I not content with it? he asked himself. There was no answer.

  “Fire!”

  Colletta Hall

  Giovanni Colletta sat behind his desk, looking at the surveillance screens. The soldiers outside on this bright cool fall day had many shoulder flashes: the Rolfe lion, the Pearlmutter Seal of Solomon, even the Von Traupiz eagle. None wore his… and he suspected it would be a long time before the tommy gun appeared on an armed man’s shoulder flash.

  The door swung open. Well, I was wrong, the Colletta thought mordantly.

  “Major Mattei,” he said.

  The soldier saluted and then bowed. “Sir,” he said. “I have been ordered to bring you the decision of the Chairman.”

  “As if I didn’t know it,” the Colletta said; he could feel the eyes boring into his back, from the portrait above.

  Mattei silently drew the pistol at his side and laid it on the desk before his overlord. “Chairman Rolfe says that he allows this—and the survival of the Colletta domain—as a favor to his old friend, your father.”

  Giovanni felt the hot flush of anger on his cheeks. “He would spare my son anyway! There is nothing to tie him to my actions. Why should I make his political life easier?”

  Mattei sighed. “Sir, I am afraid that Chairman Emeritus Rolfe predicted that would be your answer.”

  Giovanni snorted, turning half away from the man who had commanded the domain’s troops. Mattei took up the pistol, and the Colletta had a brief moment of utter surprise as he saw it leveled.

  “Which is why he allowed me two rounds,” Mattei murmured, looking at the body sprawled back in
the rich leather of the chair. Was that a glint of amusement in the painted eyes in the portrait on the wall above?

  “Two rounds, so that I could perform this last service for you, sir. And for your House.”

  He raised the pistol to his own temple, then shook his head. Better to be safe, even if it was inelegant; if he had a private horror, it was to be a human vegetable hooked to machines. He sat at the feet of the chair—of the man he had followed for so long. Better that he be found so, to make it plain the Colletta had taken his own life, and his faithful retainer had followed him.

  The metal of the automatic tasted bitter and oily in his mouth, but not for long.

  Rolfe Manor

  “Most pleasures fade with age,” John Rolfe said quietly, obviously savoring the smoke of the cigarillo. “One of the few exceptions is power—not least because it enables one to punish one’s enemies and reward one’s friends.”

  Outside the elegant octagonal office, the rains of winter streaked down on the glass of the windows; a fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and a cat curled asleep on the rug before it. There was a hint of the pleasant odor of burning oak mingled with fine tobacco and the scent of a snifter of brandy nearby.

  And all ends well, Tom Christiansen thought, shifting his weight to spare the right leg. And just how ironic am I being, there?

  John Rolfe waved him to a seat. “I insist,” he said, then grinned, a charmingly wicked expression in the ancient seamed face. “Pains in the leg are something I’m thoroughly familiar with…. Mr. Christiansen, do you know what my favorite part of a Shakespearian drama always was?”

  “No, sir.”

  “The end, where the duke or prince comes out and plays deus ex machina.”

  Adrienne chuckled slightly beside Tom on the sofa. “And I’m the raccoon in the background, Grandfather?” she said.

  Well, you won’t be looking like a raccoon much longer, Tom thought stoutly. The reconstructive surgery was over, and the bruises that covered most of her face would fade. Her hand stole into his, and he gripped it gently. Her grandfather went on:

  “Now… Mr. Tully, I assume you and this young woman intend to marry?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tully said, taking Sandra Margolin’s hand as she sat nervously in her wheelchair; one leg was still in a cast, waiting for the last in a series of ceramic-and-titanium implants to bond with the bone.

  “The young heal quickly,” John Rolfe said. “In heart not least. And your marital intentions are very convenient. So much so that I would have had to insist….”

  The ancient eagle eyes turned on Salvatore Colletta II: “Young Salvo, we’re tying up loose ends right now, and this young lady is—albeit on the wrong side of the blanket—a cousin of yours. I presume you’re not going to be tiresome about a DNA test?”

  “No, sir,” the Colletta said. “Of course, I will have her enrolled among the collaterals of my House at once.”

  Since you’re on long-term probation and escaped execution only by virtue of your father’s extremely convenient suicide and extremely detailed documentation proving you were entirely in the dark, Tom thought mordantly. I am somehow not surprised.

  “Just so,” John Rolfe VI nodded. “It will do the Commonwealth good to have that group… diversified. And that will make you, Mr. Tully, a member of the Thirty. Hmmm. Of course, you and your bride will also be eligible for an estate of your own in the Colletta domain. I think the Colletta, all things considered, would find the Owens Valley and its attached silver mine a suitable endowment. Especially in view of the long delay in regularizing Ms. Margolin’s status.”

  “Of course, sir,” the second Salvatore said. He surprised them all with a smile. “It doesn’t have very positive associations for me, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, sir.”

  Rolfe smiled, a sly expression this time. “And the Tully family will have an Indian princess at its genealogical root, just like the Rolfes.”

  He trickled smoke through his nostrils. “Now, let me think…. I’ve given the Batyushkov domain to young Siegfried von Traupitz; it would be embarrassing for him to inherit from his father, after killing the man. Let his younger brother take the original domain and committee seat, when he reaches his majority.”

  “That was a good idea. And you should do something for Jim Simmons, Grandfather,” Adrienne Rolfe said.

  “Seeing as he’s dead and has no immediate family, what can I do besides a posthumous medal?”

  “Something for Kolomusnim’s family. Jim’s tracker. He’d want that.”

  “Ah.” The elder Rolfe closed his eyes, then sighed. “Very well. I’ll arrange for citizenship for the tracker’s children, and scholarships, and I’ll enjoin Charles to keep an eye on them in matters of patronage, according to their abilities…. I suppose you will too? Excellent. Loyalty must run both ways. And for you, Mr. Villers? What would you have of me? My House is in your debt, as well. Although I doubt, to be frank, your underlying devotion to its cause.”

  The black man met the leaf green eyes levelly. “Well, you gave Good Star a whole country down in Sonora,” he said. “You going to promote me to the Families as well?”

  The old man grinned like a shark. “I suspect that you wish me to do so, Mr. Villers, only in order that you may throw it back in my face.”

  Henry Villers’s own face fell a little. Tom smiled to himself; there were no flies on John Rolfe VI, even if he was slowing down a bit.

  I suspect this will be his last hurrah, though, after he’s tied up the ends, he thought. John Rolfe VI was enjoying himself, but he did look pretty tired. A fitting conclusion.

  “Well, Mr. Villers, what would you say to a job?” Villers looked startled. “You were a soldier, and a detective, and a very good one, I understand. You ferreted out our secret, after all. Now, what would you say to… mmm, shall we say a captain’s commission? Gate Security must be rebuilt, after all….”

  Tom nodded sympathetically as he saw temptation warring with impulse on the other man’s face. That wouldn’t only make Villers an important man; it would guarantee his children’s positions in the Commonwealth, too. Nepotism was an established mode of operation here. He’d have the power to push their careers forward as well, and he’d have a set of powerful patrons backing him while he did it.

  “Can I think about it?” he said, with small beads of sweat on the dark brown skin of his forehead. “Sir.”

  “By all means, Mr. Villers. By all means. Take as much time as you wish. Your father-in-law will need you to run his establishment for a time, in any case.”

  I wonder what that means? Tom thought.

  “And shall I find a reward for you, Mr. Christiansen?” John Rolfe said, after the others had kissed his hand and left.

  “You know better, sir,” Tom said, and helped Adrienne to her feet. What a pair of wrecks we are! “I’ve found my own.”

  “Excellent, young man. And now if you will excuse me? There are a few things I must attend to. One or two, before the baptism.”

  He laughed at Adrienne’s expression; Tom had to admit that it was sort of raccoon-like, with the rings of dark bruise around her eyes.

  “You thought I wouldn’t know? Reckless of you to begin so soon, but then we Rolfes never were much for caution.”

  They bowed over his hand. “Baciamo le mani,” Tom murmured.

  “Scary,” he said when they were outside, and winced a little as his foot caught on a rug.

  Adrienne’s hand closed on his arm. “Do you want to stay over?” she said. “It’s a bit of a drive back to Seven Oaks, in this weather.”

  “Weather?” he said, looking down at her and grinning. “You Californians call a bit of rain weather? Why, back in North Dakota we’d call this a balmy spring evening.”

  “Yah, you betcha,” she said. “And you walked through blizzards to get to school every day, with a rope tied to your waist and a St. Bernard following along behind.”

  “Skis,” Tom said. “That’s all we Norski need. Skis,
and an axe to beat off the wolves.” He looked up; Tully was waiting, standing behind Sandra’s chair. “Heck, Roy can drive. Roy! You want to crash at our place?”

  “Hell, yes, Kemosabe,” the smaller man said. “We can talk about what we’ll build out on our place… where we’re really out in the country.”

  “Sounds good,” Tom said. “Let’s go. I want to get home.” He caught Adrienne’s eye and laughed softly. “Nice-sounding word, after all the goddamned adventures, isn’t it?”

  “You said it.”

  Rolfeston: Gate Complex

  Sergei Lermontov was sweating slightly, despite the fact that the temperature inside the great metal room was barely fifty degrees. The wreckage had long since been cleared away and the damaged structures removed, but the echoing emptiness of what had been a bustling nexus for so long was a reproach in itself.

  Although not so much so as the armed guards, he thought. And the sentence of death with conditional stay of execution.

  Beside him, Ralph Barnes made a final adjustment to the control console. A stroke of luck there, that he was the one to interrogate me and take my offer of a new Gate to the Rolfe. Like most Americans, Barnes was sentimental about persons he’d come to know as persons.

  A metal framework outlined the area where the Gate had stood for so long; control cables ran to it, and to a cat’s cradle of leads all around it.

  “You must understand, sir,” he said. “The wave form—”

  “Mr. Lermontov,” John Rolfe VI said softly.

  He sat at his ease in a padded chair, comfortable in his alpaca greatcoat and ascot. The armed men behind him somehow looked entirely at one with his conservative elegance.

  “I find myself growing less patient as I grow older,” he said. “I’m also content to let you experts handle these matters. Leaders motivate their subordinates, and the subordinates act. A division of labor.”

  “Blackmailer,” Ralph Barnes growled, shooting him a glance from under shaggy brown brows.

  John Rolfe arched one of his. “Why, Mr. Barnes, you wrong me,” he said, with a slight sardonic smile. “Didn’t I shower you with rewards and praise? You are here entirely as a volunteer this time.”