Crown of Empire

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Admiral Sclerida tightened his grip on the boy. “Shut up.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Wiley said.

  “Wiley!” Tira cried out.

  “Does it bother you, Tira, seeing him like this? I found him under a pile of dead and dying Guards. It seemed they were trying to save him.” His chuckle was unbearable. “I kept him from being crushed. Didn’t I?”

  Wiley did not answer.

  “So, for you and”—he smiled again—“for all those watching this, here are my terms. You are to recognize me as the official guardian of the late High Secretary’s two minor children, that is, Tira and Wiley here, and give me full discretionary powers in all Pact matters. Or you can kill all of us and the Pact will go into chaos. One or the other. Your choice.”

  Ver stood back from the console. “Four minutes ago, you say?”

  “Closer to eight now,” said the console technician.

  Jessine stood behind Ver, her hand to her mouth. “Stop him. Stop him.”

  Chapter 19

  Chaney was proud to have Tira beside him as he faced his father across the littered floor. His Meinhauser was pointed toward the floor but he held onto it with determination.

  The Navy soldiers had been ordered back to the door, and they gathered there now, staring in at the confrontation.

  “You’d better kill me,” said Wiley quietly. “You can stop him if you kill me. He won’t have anything to—”

  “No,” said Tira.

  “No,” Chaney agreed. “That isn’t the answer.”

  “It’s for the Pact,” protested Wiley. “If he gets his hands on it, he’ll run it into the ground.”

  Admiral Sclerida laughed. “I had no idea you cared so much for the Pact.”

  “Neither did I,” said Wiley quietly. “But I won’t let it fall to you.”

  “Then your sister will have to kill you. Or my son will have to kill me. And then, naturally, my men would be forced to open fire. So you see, you really have no choice.” The Admiral was very pleased with himself and smug in his triumph.

  Tira half-raised her weapon, then faltered.

  “Of course, you, Tira, could shoot me and Yon could shoot your brother. It might be easier that way.” Admiral Sclerida beamed at Chaney. “Do you think she’ll do it, son?”

  “Don’t call me that,” said Chaney.

  “If I am—shall we call it regent? Yes, let’s. If I am regent, then you will advance very high in the world. You will not have to be a Lieutenant any more. You can command whole battalions, for all I care, and become a Commodore before I die.”

  “I’m not interested,” said Chaney.

  “Why don’t you kill us, then?” asked Tira. “Get it over with?”

  “First, because I am enjoying myself. Second, I happen to need you. You are pawns, but very necessary pawns. Once I am established, that will be another situation, and it may be that you will hamper me. But both of you are young and well-born, and should be worth something at the bargaining table. No doubt I can use one of you to sweeten a truce with a marriage?” He laughed again, and spoke to Chaney. “That would bother you, wouldn’t it, Yon?”

  “If you’re trying to goad me into shooting you, you’re doing a good job,” said Chaney tightly.

  Admiral Sclerida saw the anger in his son’s eyes. “I think it would be a good idea for you to put your gun down now. You’re getting over the shock of seeing me. Put it down. Or I will injure this boy very badly.” This time there was merry anticipation in his smile. “Or shoot me.”

  Chaney ground his teeth. His arm rose once and he tried to aim the Meinhauser at Admiral Sclerida. But he could not force himself to shoot his father, and he damned himself for his weakness. The pistol slid from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

  “That was sensible of you,” approved Admiral Sclerida. “You don’t believe it now, but in time you’ll see you’ve done the right thing.”

  Half-turning to Tira, Chaney whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, and raised her own gun.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” warned Admiral Sclerida, the aim of his Campriani shifting from Wiley to Chaney. “He may not be able to shoot me, but I have no such hesitation to kill him. Put your gun down, or you can watch both of these men die.”

  Reluctantly, Tira shifted her grip on the pistol to the end of the butt and let it down easily to the floor. “Don’t hurt either of them.”

  “Not if it isn’t necessary,” said Admiral Sclerida. He made a dismissing gesture. He signaled his remaining troops. There were only nine of them still alive and unwounded, and they responded to his summons with alacrity, then weapons up and ready.

  “We must make arrangements for you. Now that you are orphans, it is the least that I can do.” He released Wiley, pushing him away. “Go to your sister. And you, son, come here.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Chaney as he drew Wiley between him and Tira.

  What Admiral Sclerida might have answered to this defiance none of them ever learned. Like Nemesis herself, Cousin Helga burst out of the closet, Tira’s Samtoepoe A7mark923 clutched in her hands like a two-handed sword of God.

  “You killed him. He was a saint and you murdered him!” she shrieked as she cut the Admiral and his men in half with the intensity of her firing. “You will not be permitted to live!”

  Her fingers were still locked around the trigger when Tira at last pried the empty gun out of her hands.

  Epilogue

  The recently restored Grand Reception Hall of the Secretarial Palace was filled to capacity with representatives from throughout the Pact. The activities had begun a week before with the inauguration of Yon and Tira Bouriere-Chaney as joint High Secretaries. This afternoon had seen the ratification of the new terms of the Pact alliance. Tonight’s gala was—almost—purely social.

  “I’m glad you’re the one taking the job,” Wiley admitted to his sister as they wandered through the crowd. “I know I don’t have the temperament to handle it.” He looked older now than he had just three months ago; there was a graveness about him he had lacked before.

  They smiled as the one surviving Daphnean of Rainbow Dawn approached. Hanley, a former Under Appointments Clerk, supported himself with a cane and there was a welt of half-healed scar across his forehead. He nodded to Tira. “Good evening,” he said. “It is splendid to see everyone here tonight.” He nodded at the medley of beings surrounding them. “This week has been a promising beginning. I hope that we can continue this way.”

  “With the devotion shown by those of Rainbow Dawn, I’m sure we can,” responded Tira.

  Hanley smiled. “Thank you, Madame.”

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider staying on Earth?” asked Tira. “Truly, your experience and insights would be most valuable to us. To the Pact.”

  Hanley shook his head. “Thank you, Madame, but I think it’s time I retired. I look forward to sitting in my garden with my grandchildren. With you and your husband in the Palace, I feel safe in leaving such matters in younger hands.”

  Tira blushed a little. “Thank you, sir. I hope that your grandchildren will enjoy your company, for they are depriving us.”

  “You are most gracious.” Hanley gave a half-bow and another smile, then turned away. Someone had called his name. “Good evening, Madame, Sir.”

  Damien Ver approached as Hanley disappeared into the crowd.

  Tira smiled at him and found herself wondering how she could ever have thought him cold and uncaring. “How are you managing in this mob?”

  “The same as I have for the last week,” he replied. “I review the holographic tapes at the end of the day and check the delegates’ registry to make sure I know who’s who.” His smile was quick and amused. “Have you seen my wife anywhere in the last half-hour?”

  “She’s talking with the Peomer delegation, over by the beverage table. They seem to believe that because she is now Advisor to the High Secretaries, she must be courted.” Tira lin
ked arms with her brother and . . . what was he? Her stepfather-in-law? Her friend.

  Wiley could not enter into the amusement. “I don’t envy any of you,” he said with feeling. “You have decisions to make that I could never—”

  Ver cut him short. “You have other decisions you’re willing to make. Undertaking to be the Pact’s Inspector-General is quite a job in itself. You know that some of those old-fashioned leaders aren’t going to give up their hegemony without a struggle. If you want to keep the Pact honest, you’re going to tangle with some real villains. I’ll back you all the way, but I don’t want your job.”

  A small band was set up in an alcove and it was blaring away with Pact Victorious followed by Glorious Heritage. In that part of the Reception Hall the din of conversation was at shouting level to be heard over the band.

  “Cleaning up after the Haiken Maru is going to be the beginning,” said Wiley with the first show of enthusiasm. “Once that’s settled, then we can show real reforms. There are so many obligations we have left unfulfilled.”

  “But you don’t have to do it all yourself,” said Tira, trying to ease the burden her brother had taken on.

  “Yes,” he countered her. “Yes, I do. I owe it to Nika and all those dying Cernians and my own Guards, every one of them. I will never forget any of them. They died to keep me alive, and I have to merit that. I don’t now, but maybe in time, I will, a little.” He smiled tentatively. “At least this way I’ll have a chance.”

  Tira relented and laid her hand over her brother’s. “If you must, you must.”

  Wiley gave Ver a slightly embarrassed look, then broke away from his sister. “I’ll join you for the ceremony, but I want to talk to Anson Merikur.” He moved away, threading through the bustling crowd with surprising speed.

  “What do you think?” Ver asked of Tira when a few seconds had gone. “Do you think he’s going to do it?”

  “Whatever it is?” Tira said. “Yes, I think he will. But who would have thought that Wiley would be the one to devote his life to the service of Pact justice?”

  “It doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to me,” Ver remarked, then leaned toward her. “And I notice that Chaney is on the balcony watching us.”

  Tira looked up at once, and grinned at Chaney as their eyes met. “It’s almost time.”

  They started toward the dais. Tira rubbed absentmindedly at the two thin scars on the back of her hand, left by shattered glastic.

  “Only two weeks, and everything changed,” she mused.

  “For the better, let us hope,” said Ver. He exchanged polite greetings with Anson Merikur’s second-in-command and was pleased to see that Lieutenant Nkomo was with him.

  “We’re counting on you and Jessine to make sure of that,” said Tira. “The non-human council begins its congress next week. Everything we’ve assessed this week is supposed to be used then. It hardly sounds like much, but it’s a start.”

  “Never forget that it is only a start,” Ver advised, and then his expression changed as Jessine, in a glorious confection of seagreen silkeen with gold beading came through the crowd toward him, leaving the Peomers to devour the last of the scallop steaks, eyes fixed on Ver.

  Watching the silent exchange, Tira said to Ver, “Please, tell me Chaney and I are not as bad as you two.”

  “The style is different,” Ver said, “but the content is the same.”

  At that Tira laughed aloud and attracted the attention of a great many of the huge gathering. She was about to dismiss their interest when she decided that this might be the best time, better than the formal ceremonies planned for the conclusion of the evening banquet. This was the right time to call them all together, she decided, and so she made her way to the dais, motioning to her husband and brother to join her there. Ver took Jessine’s hand and joined them.

  “Members of the Pact,” she said, and waited while the band fell silent and conversation faded to a faint buzz. “Members of the Pact, we are about to begin a new phase in our community of peoples. For the first time, the promise of the Pact will be a promise given to all member-species of reason.”

  Tira’s family was gathered around her now, and the delegates flocked toward them.

  “We have all seen the terrible cost we pay for inequality in the Pact. No one who values the Pact can wish to see this continue. Therefore, after long thought and the advice of countless human and non-human Pact members, we are inaugurating a writ of equality applicable to all sentient species within the Pact. From this day forward, all sentient species will enjoy equal status and equal rights, with all the protections and responsibilities accruing thereto.”

  Now Chaney was beside her. “We have pledged,” he said, taking up her thoughts, “to enforce laws uniformly throughout the Pact, and have taken it as a mandate to reform the exploitations and hardships which have existed previously. For there will be equality within the Pact or there will be no Pact at all.”

  The cheer began raggedly but grew until the Reception Hall rang with it, and it faded slowly, leaving an expectant hush behind.

  “There will be other crises, and other dangers, ones that we cannot anticipate now,” said Tira, pausing to make sure she had the full attention of every delegate in the Reception Hall. “But this I promise you. We all promise you. The danger of inequality will never be tolerated again, so long as the Pact endures.”

  Chaney held up his right hand. “The Pact!” he called out as if leading the entire glittering crowd into battle. He took his wife’s right hand.

  “The Pact!” she echoed with deep emotion.

  Wiley laid his right hand above theirs. “The Pact!” he declared with a fervor that would have moved their father had he heard it.

  Jessine and Ver offered their hands as well, with the same victorious cry.

  Gradually, the delegates pressed forward, reaching to add their hands to the knot, shouting again and again as if with one voice, “The Pact! The Pact! The Pact!”