Amaryllis Gage. The combination was mind-boggling. “What about Agnes, or Anastasia?” she said.
Myles stole a look at Gage. “I think they've both been asked. But I'll check with Powers.”
Shortly after he left, Carol arrived. A certain tension pervaded Stella's relations with her weapons officer after Gage's comments at the banquet.
“I'm sorry about what happened at dinner,” Carol said.
“It's all right.”
“No, it's not. Gage nailed me cold. The only thing is, I don't understand why I didn't see how I felt about George, especially since I served on a crew with him before.” She sighed, her small face puzzled. “What an obstinate, impossible man. I don't know why he gets inside me.”
“Maybe now that he knows, you can make it mutual.”
“Are you serious? Stella, you've got his heart locked in your pocket.” She glanced away in embarrassment. “Maybe that's why I'm so fricked.”
“Carol,” she said, “I don't want him.”
“Not at all?” Carol's eyes searched her own. “You don't even find his interest flattering?”
“I'm only human,” she allowed. “Any woman would feel pleased to have a man like George interested. But, no, I don't want him, at least not that way.”
Carol gave a shrug and touched Stella's hand. “Thanks. Unfortunately, he's not yours to give.”
As she left, Lee approached with a boyish smile. “I wanted to thank you,” he said. “For Tessa Farron and her son.”
“It seemed the right thing to do.”
“Yes.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “Commander, will you be able to tell the people here what you know? Will they even listen? Perhaps they'll just appoint a committee.”
She hardened her lips, and then shrugged.
Lee nodded. “Let me know if you need me,” he whispered.
As he left, Stella half-expected another officer to approach, but none did. She smiled at Thunderheart and returned her attention to the Emperor's approach. Lee was right. What if they kept her here and tied the matter up in bureaucracy, perhaps appointed a committee or two to study the enemy ship and her testimony? That could take months or years, and in the meantime Loran would fight his great battle and lose it, five thousand light-years away.
“Commander.”
She turned to see Gage. Lovejoy and another officer stood beside her, holding a softly glowing, green body-cuff in their hands.
“I'm sorry,” Gage said. “We've just briefed the Emperor and his advisors. Regent-Protector Malek ordered this precaution.”
“What?” She stared at the restraining device.
Stella's officers immediately pressed forward. “This is intolerable!” George said. “You've already taken away our weapons. You can't do this too!”
“I have my orders,” Gage said. “I was directed to do this.”
Carol, Lee, and Myles started shouting. Stella raised her hand for silence.
Then Thunderheart leapt forward, making Lovejoy and the other officer retreat. “Touch her and you're dead,” he said.
“No, Thunderheart, it's all right.” She motioned him back, not wanting to unleash a member of the Emperor's Arm here in the Control Center. Thunderheart obeyed, his eyes fastened like death on Gage's officers. One signal from her, Stella knew, and the two men would be killed, though it would cost Thunderheart his own life.
George's voice rose in outrage, his great body trembling as he pointed at the body-cuff. “Commander McMasters defeats the enemy, brings their ship here, and you do this to her?”
“Hopefully,” Gage said, “I'll be permitted to remove it soon.” She glanced at the device in apparent disgust, and then motioned to Lovejoy and the other officer.
Stella let them slip the glowing body-cuff around her and tune it as tight as they could so that her arms were pressed against her body. Lovejoy grinned slightly as he adjusted a seam.
The body-cuff was made for someone of more-than-superhuman strength. Despite her augmented abilities, Stella's arms felt sealed in cement. Even her legs were partially restricted by the device's lower extension.
“It's a special model,” Lovejoy said. “Nonflexible, electrically-generated superpolymer gryptite. I've been informed it's state of the art.”
Stella ignored him, turning to Gage. “One thing's for sure,” she said. “Your first name's not Angel.”
“I have my orders,” Gage repeated.
“Yes,” Stella said. “And we all know disobedience's a problem in the ranks these days, don't we?”
Gage turned to George, who stood glaring at her. “The Emperor's Regent-Protector issued another order. The pilot of the Spaceranger is to be disconnected immediately from all ship controls. Life-support, of course, will continue.”
George rubbed his thigh. “Am I supposed to restore his brain to his body?”
“No. His brain is to be disconnected from all attachments except the nutri-cell and left in place, exactly where it is.”
That means sensory deprivation, Stella thought. She imagined Jason trapped in the dark without any stimulation, and her heart twisted in anguish. “You can't be serious,” she told Gage. “It would not only be cruel, it could drive him insane.”
Gage didn't reply.
George moved forward like a man wading through a turgid stream. “Stella's right. It's worse than performing a lobotomy. The procedure is known to cause psychosis within eight to twelve hours because there's no sensory input.”
Gage locked her hands behind her. “Other comrades have managed to tolerate it. At the Academy, I once floated for thirty hours in an SD tank without any harmful effect.”
“It's not the same thing!” George spread his great arms as if to describe the size of the problem. “Even with an SD tank, there's minimal sensation. With Jason, there'll be none! While erasing the interface between a housed brain and a ship has never been done before, there are preliminary indications that its effects would be far more damaging than any SD experiment we've ever tried. We'll lose a perfectly good pilot for no reason at all.”
“I have my orders,” Gage repeated.
“Your orders stink!”
Lee stepped forward. “General Gage, may I ask you a question?”
Gage nodded. “Proceed.”
“Very well. In your opinion, is the latter order a good order or a bad one?”
Gage colored. “It's not my privilege to judge.”
“If the order were to blow up this base, would you obey it?”
Gage stiffened, and then nodded at the monitors. “Comrades, we have a docking procedure to perform. Permit us to do it, or you'll all be asked to leave the Control Center.”
An hour later, when the Imperium's enormous bulk slowly entered its designated berth, Stella could think only of Jason. George had left the Control Center fifty minutes ago accompanied by two of the base's medtechs, and by now they should have begun to detach Jason's brain from the ship. Or was the process completed? Was Jason already reduced to thoughts imprisoned in a void, confined in limbo? Jason's situation was far worse than hers. He would have no sensation whatsoever, would be unable to feel his metallic skin and multi-engine heart, the people in the corridors that were his arteries. What must it be like to be totally bound and circumscribed by your thoughts, to feel yourself already going mad?
Stella looked at Gage, who returned her stare with difficulty. She sensed that Gage hated her orders, yet as a soldier was compelled to obey them. But that didn't make Stella's anger any less intense. Grimly, she worked her muscles beneath her body-cuff and managed to achieve a millimeter of movement. Lovejoy took a step back, bumping into Colonel Powers, who seemed unable to take his eyes off her. Stella's officers, in turn, glanced alternately between the monitors and her, their expressions a mixture of rage and shame.
On the monitors, base personnel unrolled the plush purple carpet down which the Emperor would pass. Within minutes, Gage and most of her main officers arrived and stood in the foreground
, waiting to witness and greet the Imperial procession. As Stella watched, the electromagnetic grappling clamps closed on the Imperium's bow and the ship finally settled fully into its berth.
Minutes passed. Gage and her officers waited. In the Control Center, Stella and her crew waited, guarded by Powers and the personnel Gage had posted.
Then the Imperium's hatch sprang open, and realms of fantasy emerged.
First came beautiful dancing girls and boys clad in wispy, diaphanous veils that scattered flower petals, sequins, and white doves, the latter soaring up into the vaulted docking area above. Others led peacocks on jeweled leashes whose gaudy feathers vied for supremacy with the lithe, gleaming bodies of dancers. These Stella recognized as devotees of the ‘New Son’ sect which borrowed its tenets from ancient, contradictory religions and believed that the ninety-ninth incarnation of Jesus-Buddha was imminent. The last messiah would bring enlightenment, free the empire from alien infidels, and usher all true believers into Nirvana. To many, Kolanera himself was the savior, but judging from the dancers’ sensual movements and the pounding, orgiastic rhythm of harps, pipes, and drums, the Enlightened One's message pertained more to the body than the spirit.
At last, triumphant, came twelve-year-old Kolanera the Fifth, borne aloft in an elaborate sedan chair with rich, brocaded curtains parted to reveal his Magnificence. Stella was half-surprised he wasn't nibbling some delicacy like minced peacocks’ brains.
“What is this? What are they doing?”
Stella turned in her body-cuff. The incredulous outburst came from Thunderheart, staring at the idol to which he'd sworn and consecrated his honor. He looked like a man whose faith was shaken.
Stella swung back and inspected the boy whose curly, dark-haired face rose from his neck like a beautiful flower. Perhaps it was the angle, but at the moment it looked like a decadent, diseased one, and she felt her spirits sink. Turning, she stared at Colonel Powers until he finally managed to tear his gaze away and look at her.
“Tell me, Colonel Powers,” she said. “Who's going to clean up all the bird shit?”
* * * *
An hour later, Powers relayed a message: the Emperor wanted to see her.
Despite being treated as an enemy, Stella felt anticipation wash through her. A few months before, she had been a token supervisor on a third-rate world at the tag-end of a mediocre career. Now, through a series of fantastic events, she had been catapulted into an audience with the Emperor. Though she knew she was overreacting, her stride felt springy-body-cuff and all-as Powers and others led her and her crew to the royal chambers.
When she entered, the Imperial party knelt in deep meditation on a platform at the front of the room. Kolanera sat perched on a pile of satin cushions in a full lotus position. To his right, Malek, the Regent-Protector, emulated him, his neat goatee pointing down like a dagger at his hands. Others, the almost nude dance-singers Stella had seen before, clustered about them within an emerald triptych screen with an overarching canopy of splendid flowers. Incense filled the chamber, its scent so intense even Stella could smell it.
Before the Emperor, people lay prostrate on the synmarble floor. Gage, Lovejoy, and others were on their stomachs, outstretched hands cupped upward in the symbolic gesture of supplicants.
To her right, another door opened and George was escorted inside. His eyes found hers across the ten meters distance, and she suppressed an urge to shout out a question about Jason's welfare. A moment later, a guard indicated that George should prostrate himself like the others, and he obeyed. So too did Stella and her crew when Powers nodded downward. With Thunderheart's help, she lay down beside him, cursing the suit which neutralized her abilities. She couldn't even lie down by herself!
Time passed. A soft breeze stirred the air.
“You may rise,” a deep voice proclaimed.
Thunderheart assisted her to her feet, and she faced Malek, a tall, sharp-featured man who strode a few steps forward in a resplendent robe. With a grand, sweeping gesture he indicated those assembled. “Oh, Omniscient, behold the loyal faces of your subjects.”
“Where is General Gage?” the boy asked in a soft, beautiful voice. “I wish to see her again.”
The commanding officer of Loran Base stepped forward and bowed. “I am here, Enlightened One.”
Kolanera's eyes turned. “And that nice major. What's his name? The one who gave me the jeweled model of this base?”
“Major Lovejoy, Supreme Incarnation,” Malek supplied as Lovejoy bowed deeply.
The Emperor's eyes settled on Lovejoy. Kolanera smiled, raised a large, gleaming model of the base in both hands, and shook it. “We are most pleased, Major Lovejoy.”
Lovejoy bowed again. “I am joyful beyond words, Enlightened One.”
A toy, Stella thought. It's like the bauble Gage gave little Ulysses. Something for a child.
“I've saved the best for last,” Kolanera said. He craned his neck, looking about the room. “Where is this Scourge of the Scaleys,” he called, “the bold commander who has routed the enemy and captured their ship?”
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stella braced herself and bowed her head, aware that everyone in the large chamber was staring at her. “Oh, Omniscient, I stand here unworthy before you.”
“Unworthy!” the Emperor piped. He all but scrambled to his feet in eagerness before his beautiful features clouded. “Why are you bound? You are a hero of the realm, not a prisoner.”
Malek glided quickly toward him, dipping his head in obeisance. “You remember, Supreme Incarnation, the data transmission concerning her actions? This officer, Stella McMasters, not only managed to pilot an alien warship all by herself, but personally attacked this base. You decided, Son of God, with my humble counsel, that it would be wise to confine her in a body-cuff lest she do you harm.”
“If she had really attacked this base, it would be a gaping ruin.” Kolanera turned from Malek, who towered over him, and frowned at Stella, then swung back to Malek. For a moment he looked only like a little boy.
“May I speak with her?” he said.
You don't ask, Stella thought. If you truly are the Emperor, you tell. But of course he was only a twelve-year-old boy who would not legally escape Malek's control and assume his full powers until he reached nineteen.
Malek bowed deeply before he replied. “Your slightest wish is our command, Supreme One.”
Kolanera gathered his purple robe together and stepped off the dais. Stella started to kneel, but the Emperor stopped her, actually laid hands on her cheeks. She heard the room murmur in awe.
“Your face, Stella McMasters,” Kolanera said, “it feels a bit strange.”
Stella looked down at him, wanting to kneel. “I'm cyber-enhanced, Son of God. Nearly seventy percent of my body was destroyed in a fusion-reactor meltdown.”
“Oh yes, I recall. It's one of the reasons my Regent doesn't trust you.”
Stella glanced quickly at Malek, catching a fleeting look of embarrassment. She smiled.
“Omniscient, you have only to ask for my life and it's yours.”
Kolanera waved his hand. “Oh, but I want you to live! The Empire needs a great hero like you.”
More murmuring. Kolanera ran his eyes over her body. “My science advisors tell me that a few such as you are capable of great things.” Hero worship stirred in his eyes. “Can you really jump ten meters high in the air and crush men with your bare hands?”
He's just a little nip. If I could only get him away from Malek and the rest, he'd have a chance. “Yes, Supreme Incarnation.” She hesitated, and then made her decision. She had to try it now, for if she didn't, she might never get another chance.
“Enlightened One,” she said, “while I can perform such feats, there are more important matters to consider. Because of what my crew and I were privileged to accomplish, it now lies within your power to turn the tide against the enemy.”
&nb
sp; Malek instantly stepped forward. “There'll be none of that! The matter will be decided later in proper—”
Kolanera raised his hand, and Malek ceased. “This is true? We can actually win?”
“Yes.” She panned the chamber with her eyes. Everyone was watching her-Kolanera's retinue and Imperial and base guards, Thunderheart and her officers, Gage, Colonel Powers, and the detested Lovejoy. “Omniscient, may I be permitted to make a suggestion?”
Malek opened his mouth, and then closed it when Kolanera flicked his hand. “You may say anything,” he said.
Stella licked her lips. “Son of God, in our conflict with the enemy, I was granted an unprecedented advantage. My mind and that of the ‘Slug’ that guided the alien vessel merged. He didn't control or manipulate me in the slightest, but as a result of the interchange I was able not only to pilot his craft and employ its superior weaponry, but to improve quickly at both operations. I am now able to pilot and navigate the enemy's ship and use its weapons as well as he was.”
“You can?” Kolanera said. “Please continue!”
“I propose that we establish an immediate Priority-One program to study and harness what I know. Under your authority, Supreme One, we should have all experts here examine myself, the alien ship, and the enemy's tissue cultures. If we proceed quickly enough, there's an excellent chance we may be able to aid General Loran in his massive campaign just a few weeks away.”
“We can also give you the glory and attention you so obviously seek,” Malek sneered. “But the fact remains that you are deeply suspect. You're a cyborg-human who not only can pilot an enemy ship but who actually used it to attack this base. Isn't that so, Colonel Powers?”
Powers stiffened. “Yes, she did, but—”
“So you see,” Malek continued, “the Enlightened One is not about to be bedazzled by any high-sounding recommendation you make.” He straightened his crimson robe. “After the New Son and his servants have rested following their onerous visit to review General Loran's forces, we can establish judicious procedures for setting up a system of committees that will examine the evidence and make recommendations.”
Beyond Those Distant Stars Page 19
