“What have you been up to?”
“That’s the same sort of question.” He smiled. “Your mother sent me to remind you it is Jack’s birthday soon. We’re celebrating at the beach camp.”
Anneke smiled. With the exception of Gabrielle, the beach camp had seen all Peter’s family conceived, even his grandson. “Are we expecting any new arrivals?”
“Not unless Jack turns up with someone.” She saw a definite twinkle in Peter’s eyes. “All he needs is some latent telepath who can become a near immortal in time, like the rest of us. Have you noticed any around?”
“We already know how hard they are to find.” The memory of Jesse came and went with less pain now.
“All the more reason to keep alert.” He smiled. “You’ve done a good job here. It was a pity about the fisherman, but he died gently in the end and the men who did it will never kill again, so he achieved something worthwhile. It’s time to join Dael.” He held out his hand and led her through the portal to the beach camp.
* * * *
Helene moved awkwardly, the final month of her pregnancy seeming to take forever, but she had duties that wouldn’t wait. Her new hospital took its first patients today and she must be there. Kamran had accepted her word their child would not be arriving for at least a week and was off on one of his tours of inspection, using the Federation-supplied flyer. Beyorn, the Westlander, now Federation ambassador, joined her at the hospital.
She wasn’t Queen Helene, they lived in a Commonwealth, not a kingdom, and her High Born bloodline meant nothing now. Not that there were many High Born left. The peasants had hung them before Kamran’s iron-disciplined troops could intervene, in most cases. The new courts had tried and executed the others. She’d faced trial too and only Kamran’s quoting of an old military custom had saved her from the noose.
His swift march to Valentia had been pointless. The news had preceded him and the peasants hung Fleur d’Gracay and her brother-in-law, the former High Sheriff from the battlements of the Keep, along with every other High Born they found. The pattern repeated itself endlessly until all the principalities were his, and he sent his levy men back to their farms and began to build a standing army of volunteers.
When the Federation signed the treaty, Kamran’s army became road builders as well as soldiers and law men, extending the benefits as rapidly as he could to consolidate his gains. Helene’s work with the sick, aided by Federation doctors and medicines, began to bear fruit and she built her first hospital, opening it ten days before their wedding. They’d planned a quiet affair, but word got around and the country celebrated for three days—a measure of their popularity.
Today’s opening raised the number of her hospitals to ten.
Beyorn had company when they met at the hospital entrance, a tall man with an interesting face and commanding appearance. “Helene, this is Peter. He sent me to the Federation with the proposal to support Kamran.”
“You’re with the Federation?” She liked him instinctively.
“Not quite.” He seemed amused. “I do business with them occasionally.”
“Where do you come from?” This was an off-worlder.
“My world has no official name, beyond a jumble of letters and numbers defining its location, so I think of it as home, my personal Xanadu.”
The name triggered a memory. “Does it have a pleasure dome?”
“You’re thinking of the planet in the Albion sector. The scout ship commander who explored there had a penchant for the poems of ancient Earth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge in this case. In Xanadu, did Kublai Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree, is the quotation.” Peter smiled. “It’s written over the entrance of Xanadu’s most famous brothel. The man, or woman, who can describe or perform a sex act they don’t provide, has its services free for a year. Every freebooter, pirate, and mercenary in the galaxy visits Xanadu. Even the Federation has shares there.”
“Kamran has been there?” Helene felt amused. Her husband was in for an uncomfortable time when he returned, all in fun of course. He gave her few opportunities to tease.
“You have a new patient.” Beyorn looked at a figure stumbling drunkenly toward the hospital. “He looks in a bad way.” He talked to empty air, because Helene ran toward the newcomer. Peter passed her and reached the man as he fell.
Peter knelt, supporting his head, while Helene examined him. “He’s come a long way.” Peter’s voice sounded mild. “The style of his jacket is from the other side of the ocean.”
“Kamran,” the man muttered. “I must see Kamran.”
“I am Helene. My husband is away.”
“The High Born follow. They have a fleet. I was sent ahead to warn him.”
“Where will they land?” Beyorn had joined them.
“Here. They know this is his capital.” The man had gathered strength from some deep well, for Helene could see he was dying. “Warn him. My people wait for liberation. When he comes, they will rise.”
“The flyer has a radio. I’ll let him know.” Beyorn was already running. “He can reconnoiter the fleet on his way back. It’s got the range.” He saw the solid figure of Dirk, Kamran’s 2IC on the ramparts. “To arms, Dirk. Sound the Levy bell. Close the water gate.”
Peter looked up from the dying man. “I see Beyorn’s loyalties are settled.” He smiled. The man in his arms stirred and he looked down again and his voice sounded gentle. “You can let go, friend. Your job is done.”
A moment later, he closed the dead man’s eyes and lowered him to the ground. “So too is mine. Tell Beyorn I said goodbye.”
Helene nodded and watched him stride away until he disappeared into the forest. Only then did she turn and make her way awkwardly back to her hospital. It would have patients soon.
Chapter Seven
Rachael
Jack stood in the sunlight, walking the gold token across the backs of his fingers in an unconscious display of manual dexterity. There were a dozen similar tokens in the ship, all giving him access to one particular attendant, a Federation agent in deep cover with no reason to love the Alliance. Out of the habit of rushing blindly into the lion’s den, he felt a strange reluctance to take the next step. He’d done his sixty operations. Calling him back for this one wasn’t fair. Yet, Peter wasn’t in the habit of making mistakes, and his instructions had been unequivocal.
“Hah!” Only someone who knew him well would have recognized the sound as laughter. His grandfather gave him no choice, so hesitation was pointless. He flipped the token high in the air, caught it, and started forward. The time for doubts was past. After a final check to assure his mind shields were in place, he was at the Temple entrance.
“What do you want, spacer?” The gatekeeper’s question sounded surly.
Jack showed him the golden token. “I won this in a game of chance. What does it get me?” He kept his surface thoughts simple. One never knew who was listening.
“A session with a temple maiden.” He saw envy in the man’s eyes.
“Any one?” Jack played his part. “Do I get to choose?”
“No. Each maiden has her own tokens.” The man examined the ornate disc. “That’s one of Lorelei’s. She’s of the inner circle. You’ve done well.”
Jack closed his mind to the memory of the Lorelei luring men to their death on the Rhine and nodded. “What happens next?”
“You eat and bathe while she prepares herself. One of the inner circle priests will come when she’s ready.”
He nodded again, disciplining his mind into his cover personality. The Pontiff could be scanning.
The gatekeeper signaled a small boy lounging on a stone bench and gave him the token. “Take this guest to the preparation chamber and the token to the Registrar.”
The child took the token and spun it high in the air, a glittering orb in the sunlight, and Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. He shuffled his feet in the pretence of wiping his boot soles clean, an excuse to look away from the display, for the spinning
token was a fine focal point for hypnosis.
“Come, sir. Follow me.” The boy’s voice had broken early. They must mature early on this planet.
He led the way through a zigzag corridor designed to hide the secrets of the temple compound from the outside world, and Jack followed, holding his thoughts to simple curiosity. They were safe. He must be the spacer he appeared at every level.
The crash of the portal slamming behind him should have been a shock, but he’d sensed the tripping of the latch and it gave him time to react normally. They were keeping it simple. These were probably routine tests and no more.
“A bit dramatic,” he said to the boy. “I haven’t got what I came for yet.” They would expect a touch of bravado.
“Don’t usually do that,” the child lied.
“Long as they get it open by the morning.” Jack allowed a touch of nervousness to color his tone.
“They’re just testing. They do it all the time.” Jack could sense the boy’s amusement at the hidden truth. This was no simple pawn.
“You being smart, son?” The suspicion was within character, the next stage after bravado. “A clip under the ear still cures jackass kids.” Jack stepped closer, as if intending to carry out his threat.
It achieved its purpose. The priest stepped out of his hidden niche. “Run along, child. I will conduct our guest to the chamber.”
“Yes, Father.” The child’s voice had reverted to its normal pitch.
“What’s going on?” Jack made it a challenge.
“The token you won was stolen.”
“Not by me.” It was the truth and therefore safe.
“So it would seem.” The man in the robes was not the danger. Like Jack, he was playing a role, following instructions. “We will honor it. Please follow me.” He turned and Jack followed him into the sunlight of the inner compound.
* * * *
The Pontiff relaxed. The spacer was just what he seemed; a little smarter than most, but no threat, just a local boy made good as a spacer and small-time smuggler. The Federation agent’s usefulness continued. She was the honey pot drawing every dissident into his web and still useful for small tasks—reasons to let her live a little longer.
“Holy Father,” said one of his sons, another of his countless failures, “we still have the problem on Trygon. He’s causing trouble again.”
“Send a schooner to invite him to the capital. It’s time we put an end to him.”
“What if he doesn’t accept?”
The Pontiff sighed. “I was being sarcastic. Have them bring him by whatever means necessary.” Making his sons into cardinals was as futile as trying to create silk purses from sow’s ears. There wasn’t one of them with anything of value between his ears. He’d give anything for one of them to be as cunning as the Federation agent in the temple. She amused him. A smile broke out on the Pontiff’s face as he sensed what she was doing in her chamber.
“Ask Lorelei to attend me before she meets her guest.”
The change of subject confused his son, and he stared blankly, his lower lip sagging a little.
“Ask Lorelei to attend me, now.” The Pontiff simplified his request.
“Of course, Holy Father. Of course.” The red-robed figure backed away and fled.
* * * *
Rachael received the summons in the midst of her final transformation to Lorelei, the black wig of a temple maiden in her hands. “I’ll finish dressing.” Her tone brooked no argument. She needed every advantage in dealing with the Pontiff.
“But...” The Cardinal had delivered the summons in person.
“I’ll finish dressing,” Rachael repeated. “It will do proper honor to the Holy Father.” She took pride in the calmness of her tone. Inside, her mind screamed its terror.
She allowed herself five minutes and forced herself to walk sedately toward the Pontiff’s palace, ignoring the twittering Cardinal and pausing twice to admire the floral displays in the garden.
“Your Holiness.” She bowed low. “I came as soon as I could.”
“I know, my child. Your appearance does me proper honor.”
She knew he mocked her and had to still a shudder at the efficiency of his surveillance. He must have listening devices planted everywhere, all fueling the myth he could read minds. “As it should,” she said. “We are but the reflections of your greatness.”
His smile had a whisper of mischief. “I have a task befitting your talents. Come closer, child. The walls are reputed to have ears.”
Rachael stilled another shudder. These tasks were a reminder he knew her secret and her life hung on his whim. “Yes, Holy Father.”
The Pontiff smiled fondly. “Your little venture should go ahead. It will serve my purpose, but I want you to add a small refinement.” He beckoned her forward until his mouth was inches from her ear and revealed how much he knew and what he wanted done. “The spacer will serve a greater purpose,” he ended. “Can it be done?”
She nodded.
“Good, my child. Don’t keep him waiting any longer.”
Rachael bowed low and backed away.
* * * *
They came for him as he finished his second drink, a robed priest and two guards carrying ancient pikes. “Lorelei awaits your pleasure,” the priest said, bowing low.
Jack allowed himself a smile, coloring it with a touch of lust. “I hope she’s as beautiful as her namesake, but a little less fatal.” The priest’s blank look rewarded the attempt at gallows humor, and Jack shrugged. The drinks were stronger than he realized, making him careless, but spacers often quoted off-world customs inappropriately and his mistaken erudition should go unnoticed. He must be more careful.
“Please follow.” The priest turned and led the way, the two pike men waiting for Jack to follow and falling in behind him as they walked out into the sunlight.
The Inner Circle was a physical fact, a ring of smaller buildings surrounding the papal palace, and their destination was halfway around the ring—a long way from the entrance. He stored the fact for later study. It could mean she was under suspicion, or it could mean nothing.
She waited in the shaded doorway, the revealing temple robes still swaying a little as if she had just arrived. “Greetings, guest,” she said, her voice full of unspoken promises.
“Greetings, Lorelei,” he replied, bowing low. “Thank you for granting me your company.” It was the agreed recognition phrase, close enough to normal to go unremarked.
“The pleasure is mine.” She dipped in a small curtsey, the robes billowing to give him a glimpse of rouged nipples. Her skin color suggested she was a redhead beneath the wig, a light dusting of freckles not quite concealed by her cosmetics. “You have come a long way.” She completed the recognition sequence.
“I would have come further, had I known the reward.” He added his own comment. This was a very beautiful woman. She rewarded him with a deeper curtsey and a roguish smile with only a touch of artifice.
“Then enter and enjoy it.” She turned and led the way.
The priest and the guards fell back and he followed her, admiring the sway of the long skirts as she walked.
“A drink?” She’d reached the inner room and was standing at a laden buffet, looking back over her shoulder in a deliberately provocative pose.
“Later.” He held up his hand for silence, every sense alert, and took off his pilot’s insignia, triggering a hidden switch. The diamond crest flickered and then dulled. There were no listening devices active. That left only the Pontiff, and he was occupied elsewhere, something to do with his sons. “Go ahead. You requested a pilot.”
Her mouth tightened at his brusqueness, but she got down to business. “I have a delivery for you to make on your next run.”
“Details?”
She told him, specifying weights, volumes, coordinates, and recognition signals. Jack nodded, committing them to memory as she went.
“Do you understand what we want?”
Jack laughed.
“Just the usual miracles.” He was deliberately flippant
“There’s far too many of those already.” Rachael removed the black wig and shook free her hair. “The Pontiff’s people believe this rubbish. I don’t.”
“They’re not all illusions.” He knew Rachael was a dedicated skeptic, questioning everything. She had to be to survive undercover.
“They’re very clever.” It was a concession rather than an admission. He smiled, deciding he liked her.
“What’s special about this cargo? Trygon has never been a customer before.” She’d expect him to be suspicious. He was supposed to be a small time smuggler, working freelance.
“They’re specials. It’s a new area for us, and we want to know more about it.”
“So everything in the cargo has an implant to transmit data to your satellite. How long before they’re detected?” He wouldn’t want the job of explaining to his customers if he was the local boy they supposed.
“Probably never. These people are technologically backward.”
“The Pontiff’s people aren’t.”
“You’re not selling to them.”
He shook his head. “Sooner or later, one will fall into their hands, he’ll have a prima facie case to take to the courts, and the Federation will lose its concession.”
“Not your problem. You’re being paid to get the stuff out there.” The undercover work was getting to her. She didn’t like opposition and Jack could sympathize with her.
There’d be no show trial if she were caught, just an extended interrogation until she welcomed death as a friend. The Papacy played for keeps. All the local despots did. The Diaspora saw to that.
Humanity had destroyed its home planet, not with a bang, but with the whimper of a world polluted beyond redemption. Belatedly realizing there was no going back, the Federation had dispatched a wave of scout ships to find new homes for Earth’s teeming multitudes, and populated vast colony ships with the best available stock to follow in their wake whilst Earth choked itself into oblivion. Limited to sub-light speed through a physical universe, the voyages had taken thousands of years to reach habitable planets, with history amended to make the destruction of Earth the fault of a wandering black hole rather than rapacious humanity. Sixty millennia later, humankind had colonized every habitable planet in this sector, a credible achievement, considering the primitive technology of the first thirty millennia.
The Alliance Page 10
