Requiem for the Conqueror

by W. Michael Gear

  He cataloged each of the men and women who had shared his predicament. A surprising number had been sacrificial sheep. So very very few had survived.

  Would he?

  A plan began to surface in his mind.

  His Hoiness Sassa , The Divine Illumination, didn't look pleased. Neither did Admiral Jakre. None of which boded well for Myles Roma.

  His Holiness' room measured over one hundred paces in length with high ceilings that sparkled with the honeyed tones of the Sassan sun which were carried to the room through a fiber optic system that rainbowed the light.

  Pearlescent walls shimmered in the glow, and the solid gold trim had been done in filigreed patterns that burned. A thick Nesian rug covered the floor and rippled in scarlet waves.

  "The Lord Commander wouldn't even see you?" His Holiness asked, raising a hairless eyebrow. Sassa II looked like a poor excuse for a God. The man was a mountain of flesh—and not much of it muscle. Sassa never went anywhere unless it was on antigrav. For one thing, his heart couldn't have taken the strain.

  For another, his legs would only hold him up long enough to get from one antigrav to another, or into and out of his bath.

  "Divine One, I have no explanation. Wait ... I can see it in your eyes. It's not me Lord. Staffa wouldn't see Ily Takka either."

  Sassa cocked his hairless head, the sparling overhead light gleaming off his pale scalp. His colorless eyes, set deep in the heavy flesh of his face, evaluated Myles dispassionately—much the way Holy Sassa might look at a slab of meat while he decided whether he'd eat it or throw it away. Then he placed his fat palms together, gemencrusted fingers scintillating in the light.

  "Didn't it occur to you that you might have been duped? That Ily's reaction might have been a sham, a diversion?"

  Myles licked his fat lips and shook his head. Ily's angry eyes still bued in his memory. "No, Divine One. I swear, something is very wrong. Call it ... well, a feeling. I can tell you, Ily Takka was enraged—not making a cunning scene, but enraged. The Wing Commander looked worried, tense. Why would Skyla Lyma act like that when she was simply telling us the Companions wouldn't accept contract? She had no reason on our account."

  "Skyla wouldn't worry if the hounds of hell came after her," Jakre added from the side. "Divine One, My intelligence units tell me that something happened after Staffa talked to the Praetor. He acted very peculiarly when he killed the Myklenian leader—pulled the man's head off his body. Such a display of emotion is unlike the Lord Commander. I'm also bothered by the amount of remuneration he paid."

  "Surely you can't complain! By the Divine, he paid a planet's ransom." Myles wrung his hands nervously.

  "Exactly," Jakre agreed soberly. "Considering his smashing success at Myklene, would you have pressed Staffa over such a triviality as killing the Praetor?

  No, it's as if ... as if he's punishing himself."

  His Holiness Sassa II grunted irritably. "You may be pleased Admiral. I am not. The Companions acted before we were ready. Their action belittled the role of our elite shock troops in the Myklenian campaign. When we finally arrived, it was to find a broken world."

  Jakre shot Myles an uneasy look.

  "However," Sassa continued, "I am willing to forget an affront every now and then. Magnanimity is one of the blessings of the Divine, mercy a virtue. In the meantime, Myles, I want you to coordinate our intelligence services. We know that Rega currently has problems of its own with Targa. Revolt brews there like a Divine wind. Monitor the events. And find out why Staffa declined contract!"

  * * *

  Locating the pilot of the CV proved no problem when Skyla arrived in orbit over Etaria. Using false documents, she placed her vessel in parking orbit and shuttled to the main terminal. As was the case with any spaceport, scuttle-butt in the bars gave her all the information she needed to find the hapless CV pilot. She found him in a packed, and loud, bar off the main shipping docks.

  "I don't know," the pilot told Skyla and gestured in futility. He bent over his half-empty whiskey and shook his head. "One minute I was docked at Itreata. Next thing I know, I'm docked at Etaria! I've got a schedule that's suddenly Rot-chewed and I'm on suspension for mental investigation by the Imperial transport board. My license is revoked until they can get here and ship me home to see what's wrong." His speech slurred from the Mytol she'd slipped into his drink.

  Skyla nodded, sipping her own drink before she looked around the crowded bar.

  "Sounds unusual."

  "Yeah," the pilot turned his drug-glassy gaze on her again. His thoughts changed as his eyes stared into hers. "Uh, you got anything happening? I'd like to buy you dinner. Maybe you'd be interested in a show? Later we could. . . ."

  She gave him her best look of regret. "My husband is waiting for me. He's trying to negotiate a contract with the Temple and suggested that I meet him.

  I really can't stay."

  The CV pilot nodded. "Even my luck with beautiful women is shot."

  Skyla stood and smiled. She'patted him on the shoulder and walked out of the noisy bar toward the shuttle loading bay.

  Staffa had been very clever. She shuffled into the milling crowd, waiting her turn to board. Her white swirling gossamer gown shimmered in the light, accenting her blonde hair and her cerulean-blue eyes.

  She found a seat and buckled in, leaning back, eyes closed as she concentrated on the pilot's story. With any of the Regan travel documents the Companions possessed, Staffa could have gone anywhere. He might even have bought passage to another world without setting foot on Etaria—but she couldn't leave and take the chance that he might be on the planet below. Warning lights flashed as the shuttle disembarked.

  n spite of himself, Staffa kar Therma would leave a trail. It would take no more than two days at the most to learn if he'd landed at Etarus. After that, she'd make her way to Targa-his ultimate destination if he were to find his son.

  She couldn't help but smile as she thought of him. Her imagination filled itself with the line of his haughty jaw, and those keen gray eyes. Indeed, just from his bearingarrogant and commanding-he would be remembered. At the same time, cunning Staffa would be watching his back trail, checking to see who followed in the wake of his plasma. One whiff of her questioning after him and he wouldn't take time to see who it was, but would disappear like atmosphere from an open lock.

  Therefore, I must find him in an equally cunning manner. People would remember her in her finery. The clothing she wore would cost most Etarians three years' wages.

  As the shuttle rolled to a stop before the main starport terminal outside Etarus, she ducked quickly into the toilet as people shuffled to deshuttle.

  Skyla locked the door and turned to her carry bag. She slipped out of the gleaming whites and stared at her battle armor. Grimacing, she stripped it off and folded it into the shoulder pack she carried. Then she pulled a buff-brown standard robe from among her possessions. Around her naked waist she strapped the heavy weapons belt, the fabric weave cool on her smooth skin. She slipped the tan robe over her head and tied the rope tightly under her breasts, creating an empire waist to hide the bulge of the belt. Pulling her braid loose, she bound her wealth of hair in a Riparian mosquito scarf and zipped her pack closed.

  A typical Regan tourist, she stepped from the toilet to the tail end of the dwindling crowd.

  At liberty in the streets, she immediately located a used clothing store and purchased the grubbiest attire she could find. When she left through the rear, no one would have recognized Skyla Lyma, Wing Commander of the Companions.

  Instead, she looked like just another of the Etarian lower caste.

  Struggling along under the weight of her pack-trading ribald jests with street merchants, and turning down propositions from the pimps and drug dealers-her soul soared, curiously free.

  Is there so little overlay from the last thirty-five years? She felt at home here, the rhythm of the street filling her bones.

  An earthy truth boiled up with the dust unde
r her feet: Here lay the roots of humanity. The street hadn't changed. The baseline of human passion and reality surrounded hertruth intermingled with the hawkers and struggling merchants peddling cabbages and wybald and cloth and spices.

  "Hey, gorgeous!" A burly man with a thick black mustache matched her pace.

  "You been turned lately? I'll see your sweet meat filled for a starburst of pleasure!" He winked and blew her a kiss, his mustache curling.

  "What?" she chided familiarly. "You think I'd let your rotted cock within a meter of my sweet honey trap? Your maggot dripping mind is the only thing to be turned around here." How easily the old ways fell about her like a protective veil.

  He chuckled. "If you come to your Blessed Senses, sweet hot meat, see me. They call me Nyklos."

  "I'll see if I can't put your name at the end of the list," she gave him a teasing smile. "Only it's so long I hope I remember. But say, you might know where a dandy Nab wanting to stay low would end up?"

  "Might, for a kiss." "Fess, putrid."

  "Temple block," he told her and bent to receive his kiss. She pecked him on'the lips, catching garlic and mint on his breath. As she turned to go, she added. "See you around, Nyklos. If I score, there might be a tip in it. "

  "Trust you, sweet meat!" And he angled off into a doorway.

  The street remained the same, she reflected. Here, she would know the ways of men. Here she would find her way to Staffa.

  A soft mist dropped with the evening inversion and settled on Kaspa, wrapping around the buildings, leaving the street lights haloed in the wisps. Thick and damp it covered the sleeping city, filled the low places, and clung to the darkest of alleys.

  In an older section of the city, water dripped from the dew glistening roofs and ran down through spouts to puddle among the cobbles. The old brick buildings had survived the maelstrom of time and war, and here, the passages wound their meandering way between closely packed walls.

  In the deeper blackness of a narrow alley, a door slammed followed by the patter of running footsteps.

  The door slammed again, punctuated by a curse. "Arta!" a deep voice called, and heavier steps pounded down the narrow way.

  No more than a shadow in the foggy dampness, Arta Pera emerged from the alley and onto the sinuous street. Frantically, she ducked to one side, crouching down next to a refuse bin, blending with the night.

  Butla Ret but from the narrow opening, glancing back and forth, head cocked for any sound of flight. "Arta? Come back!" he bellowed into the night. "We've got to talk. I have to explain!"

  Frantic, he hissed angrily to himself, turned to the right, and raced away into the mist.

  As the sound of his mad dash diminished, Arta Fera staggered to her feet and fled in the opposite direction. In a shattered voice, she repeated, "Can't . . . love . . . can't. . . . Blessed Gods, what's the matter with me? Can't love . . . Butla . . . can't. . . ."

  As she disappeared into the night mist, only the sound of choked sobbing echoed behind her.

  CHAPTER 13

  Private Kyros shivered, feet starting to cramp in the cold Kaspan night. He moved, shifting slightly in the chilling damp. The dark streets of Kaspa, marvelous though they might be to see, made him nervous. Corporal Xicks might slap him on the back and wink, but Kaspa threatened him with a danger Kyros didn't understand—a danger of people.

  Kaspa—the largest city Kyros Epos had ever laid eyes on—dazled and frightened the lowly private. From the moment the Second Division had landed, he'd been awed by the sights and sounds. The draft, far from the horror he'd first considered it, had taken him into a universe of wonder.

  True, his Group mates considered him a stupid hick. So what if he couldn't read? Nither could a lot of privates. So what if he'd never been anywhere but the swamps of Riparious? Corporal Xicks hadn't cared. He'd taken Kyros under his wing and showed him the way both the military and the worlds of humans worked.

  When the draft notice arrived, Pap had gone white, a stricken expression crossing his craggy face. He'd slumped at the table—an action that had frightened Kyros half to death. His father, scared? And just because Kyros got drafted by the Regan military?

  "You be good, son. You keep the ways of the Blessed Gods, you hear?" His father's gravelly voice still echoed in Kyros' mind and left him feeling terribly uneasy. Pap wouldn't approve of what he now did for Corporal Xicks.

  Sure, keep the ways! Fat chance! Why just on his puny ten-day share of the profits Xicks gave him, he'd made more money in Kaspa than Pap made in a year trapping shimmer skins in the swamp. Why he'd send enough money home in the next post to buy Pap and Mam a new house!

  Like Xicks told him—slaving could be considered just another form of trapping.

  A haunting shiver of doubt ran its feather touch across Kyros' conscience. Pap would have been horrified. But rotted corruption, this paid good!

  Behind him in the dark, water dripped off the sooty brick of the alley, plopping loudly in a fetid black pool. Kyros shuddered. Why had Xicks picked this ratty part of town to hunt in? Lone Regan soldiers still died in the outskirts of the city.

  Kyros slid along the rough gritty brick to look out into the shadowed street.

  Wouldn't be more than a couple decants until morning now.

  The street stretched empty before him. Dark windows— some smashed—gaped threateningly above. Kyros could feel strange eyes on him, watching, eating at his ebbing confidence. The brick street glistened in the fog-dulled light of widely spaced floors. Here and there, pools reflected " from black water in potholes. The signs had a dreary effect where they hung above closed and boarded businesses. What kind of place had Kaspa been before the war? Now it appeared blue-black in the night, dank, wet, and laden i with secrets and sorrow.

  [ He saw the figure coming, walking head down, posture ]

  somehow pathetic, preoccupied. Kyros licked his lips. From the sway of the hips and the narrow shoulders, he definitely spied on a woman. To his learning eye, she stepped youthfully, her body slim. A good one! They'd take Xicks back a good one!

  He suffered a momentary hesitation and wondered why she was out so late. Pale Eyes' quick signal from behind an overturned crate brought his mind back to the job at hand. The girl's feet tapped softly on the irregular cobbles as she passed, head still down. Moving silently—like he did when sneaking up on a sleeping shimmer skin along Money River—Kyros saw Pale Eyes and Shil step out ahead of the woman.

  Her reaction startled him. Instead of turning and running into his arms, she crouched in a threatening manner. By instinct, Kyros jabbed the stun rod into her back. He caught her as she stiffened and fell into his arms.

  "Good job!" Praise hung in Shil's voice. "Xicks picked this neighborhood good, eh?" He ran quick hands over the limp form in Kyros'

  arms. "Pus rot me, a woman!" A thin light appeared in his hand as he studied the captive. "Young and ..." the voice turned oily, "pretty!"

  Pale Eyes slipped the binding fibers around her wrists and ankles with practiced hands. Shil gagged her with sure movements. Among the three of them, they picked the limp woman up and started down the mist-enshrouded street at a trot.

  Within several blocks the stun wore off and she began to squirm violently.

  Muscular, Kyros thought before he touched the stun to her again.

  "You can hear me," he whispered. "So long as you don't struggle, we don't stun, huh?" No more struggles.

  In the middle of a commercial block, they took a dark stairway down to the basement. Pale Eyes knocked the code. The door swung open and they hauled her into a poorly lit room. The place smelled of dust and mold sweetened by the bacca Xicks constantly smoked. The lamp cast patterned shadows over the grimy brick walls. Cobwebs strung gossamer fabric between the low beams that hung down from the roof. The flooring grated underfoot.

  Corporal Xicks and another soldier looked up from a table burdened by a bottle of liquor and several stacks of Imperial credits piled high around a tapa game.

&n
bsp; "Good hunting," Shil called, eyes bright.

  "Let's see what we got," Pale Eyes added, triumph and expectation in his voice. They dropped the girl on a stained sleeping pallet. Kyros felt his pulse quickening. Would Xicks let him be first this time? He was the one who'd made the tag.

  Kyros looked down into the most striking amber eyes he'd ever seen. She struggled unsuccessfully to sit up. Fear had glazed her expression—but then, he'd become used to that in the slave business.

  "My, my Corporal, we got us a beauty this time!" Pale Eyes announced, a quaver in his voice.

  Kyros watched the woman try to swallow. Hell, she wasn't much older than he.

  Shining auburn hair spilled loose from under the cowl, a glistening wealth in the light.

  Xicks, in his corporal's armor, stood up from the table and walked over.

  "Rotted Gods, you did at that! She'll

  bring a shining credit in the market! I'll wager she's worth at least five hundred ICs." The corporal leaned down and tilted her resisting chin up, eyes appraising. "Maybe six."

  Kyros felt himself quicken as he looked at her. "Never seen such a pretty woman." His heart started to race.

  The others nodded, eyes glinting in the dim light. Kyros shot a quick look to see smiles widening as they studied her. A shiver of fear ran down her arms and her jaw trembled.

  "Who's first?" Pale Eyes asked. "I caught her. It's only fair that I—"

  Kyros started. "But I—"

  The corporal waved them both down and grinned. "Rank hath its privileges—and I'm the one with the connections." He slapped Pale Eyes on the shoulder.

  "Later, pa. You boys know the drill."

  Kyros bit off his protest and bent down to grab an ankle while the corporal stripped out of his battle armor. Damn Xicks anyway.

  She screamed into her gag as the corporal's rough hands pulled her robe aside, exposing her. the others pinned and bound her to the pallet while Xicks stripped her, cloth ripping amidst her gasps and Xicks' heavy breathing.