Requiem for the Conqueror

by W. Michael Gear

  Shivers of ice danced up and down Ily's spine like frosty breath.

  "I gave you an order, Mhitshul," MacRuder's voice dropped.

  "Yes, sir!" Mhitshul cried, facial muscles jumping as he grounded his weapon, eyes forward. "You heard what she said, sir. About us ... about him."

  "I heard," MacRuder growled, tendons popping from the back of his fist where he gripped his olstered pulse pistol.

  "I apologie." Ily added—a feeling of gravel in her throat.

  The analytical portion of her mind noted the way they said, "him." Had they come to worship Sinklar Fist? Was "e even greater than she had hoped?

  MacRuder pointed with his other hand. "Minister, if you will take a chair at the table over there, we'll do our best to make you comfortable."

  "You're pressing your luck, MacRuder." Her voice went flat. "You expect me to sit at a portable table-in the middle of this ... this crowd? Enough of this, take me to Sinklar Fist. Now!"

  The ring of blasters clattered metallically.

  "Easy, people," MacRuder ordered, giving Ily an anxious glance. "Sink would be very upset if you blew the shit out of the Regan's diplomatic envoy. The First gave his orders. We don't question them."

  Ily walked to the table, brushed dust off the seat, and sat, knowing her black dress would look like five shades of hell. Her ring of--escorts?-backed off, never letting her out of their sight while they crouched, ever vigilant.

  Why didn't I listen to Rysta? So help me, Blessed Gods, get me out of this and I swear, I'll roast this planet into magma!

  Ily lasted an hour, her anger building to a fuming rage. Finally she handed her escutcheon to MacRuder. "This is my authority. Either I see Sinklar Fist

  ... or this is over. "

  MacRuder studied the jessant-de-lis and handed it back. "It's the Regan crest.

  So? It doesn't pass water down here." Ily stood, pacing her anger out. "You know, don't you,

  that with one order I could melt this damn planet to slag. You people don't seem to realize it, but your fate hangs by one thin little thread. I'm warning you, if you don't take me to Sinklar Fist now, I'm walking out of here and you can take the wrath of the Emperor."

  "Bring 'em on," MacRuder cried with a gesture. "We slapped the hell out of five of your best, lady. Let's see how the gawddam Emperor and the rest of his troops stand up to Sink! Let's see!"

  "You're dead," Ily replied coldly, starting for the door. Can I go? Will they let me?

  "There will be no more dying." The commanding voice rang out over the deepening silence in the room.

  Ily turned, anger still welling as she sought to turn her wrath on this new irritant. A man stepped through a small access door and closed it behind him.

  He didn't amount to much-a runt of a youth. He wore loose hanging combat armor that bore no adornment or

  insignia of rank. Unruly black hair stuck out from his head in a mussed thatch. His hollow cheeks gave his full jaw a bony look. The nose jutted straight and thin over wide lips. His forehead rose high and smooth, as if to advertise his intelligence.

  Then those eyes pinned her. One steel gray, the other tawny-yellow, they studied her and she could read a curious vulnerability mixed with a strange dominance. Though she could define no reason, he appeared remarkable, magneticas if an aura of competence and strength suffused him.

  What quality did he project which made him appear so familiar? Where had she seen him before?

  "Mac," his voice sounded kind and reproving. "Must you always allow your passions to get the best of you?" He smiled warmly at MacRuder, and Ily watched the man crumble. "And the same for the rest of you. Your hatred ill suits you. Now go on and leave us to find an end to Regan fighting Regan.

  Mhitshul, see if you can find two cups of stassa for the Minister and myself.

  We'll take them in the LC."

  The guards, so hostile to her, so deadly in their rage, slipped away, cowed by his simple words.

  Sinklar turned and cocked is head, odd eyes taking Ily's measure. He smiled timidly, almost shyly. "I'm sorry, Minister Takka. Please, don't blame them.

  Things have been difficult here. They need time to forget the dead. We have all been wounded ... one way or another." And she noted the pain, the bitter anger and grief straining under an iron control.

  Ily walked beside him as he turned his steps toward the LC. "And forgive me for being late. I went for a walk earlier, trying to put things in perspective. I needed time to think ... to remember.... Well, that doesn't matter. I guess I lost track of time."

  She couldn't help but note how the entire room had gone silent, men and women, soldiers and Targans, all had eyes only for Sinklar Fist. She could have been invisible for all they cared.

  She walked up the ramp of the LC, idly noting that it bore Second Targan Division markings. The inside looked just as battered and tacky as the outside. She followed him past rows of acceleration benches and ducked through a

  hatch in the forward bulkhead. A thin pallet supported a threadbare bedroll on an acceleration bench to one side while a fold-out mess table and plastic benches filled the opposite alcove.

  A sad light animated his incredible eyes. "Welcome to my quarters. This also serves as my office and command post. We had a nice headquarters—but I'm afraid your fleet redesigned it."

  IIy slipped down on the recessed plastic bench while Sinklar seated himself opposite her. Mhitshul came trotting up the aisle, two cups of stassa steaming in his hands. He ducked through the hatch and handed one to Ily—venom in his eyes—and settled Sinklar's carefully before him.

  // Mhitshul had a tail, he'd be wagging it! Ily reached into her pouch and pulled a monitor, sticking it into the stassa. She relaxed at a clean reading.

  Amusement tempered the pain in Fist's eyes. "Mhitshul might not like you Minister Takka, but he would never poison you. It would be detrimental to our cause."

  At the word poison, Mhitshul had stiffened, face white. He looked his loathing at Ily as if—by suggesting such a thing—she were as monstrous as a Cytean cobra. Whatever else these rebels of Fist's might be, they weren't deep, or steeped in high-stakes intrigue.

  "You will be quite safe," Sinklar continued. "I give you my word. You may go where you will on Targa. Any who molest you or harass you will deal with me—directly." He looked up. "Mhitshul, see to it that such information and clearance are disseminated."

  "Yes, sir. I'll attend to it as soon as the Minister leaves." Mhitshul replied woodenly.

  "Attend to it now, please."

  Mhitshul might have been ordered to jump from a tall building for all the enthusiasm he showed, but he turned on his heel and walked back toward the ramp.

  "I will accept your offer with reservations," Ily told him. "I can't say the greeting by your people was at all conducive to good will." She picked up the stassa and sipped.

  His stare went vacant. "We've been through a great deal. We have been betrayed

  . . . watched friends and loved ones die for no reason beyond politics in a faraway capital. Can

  you blame them for feeling alienated? They have survived, Minister Takka—despite all the odds."

  "I see."

  "I sincerely hope you do. The Minister of Internal Security would hardly be drinking stassa with a ... shall we say, rebel ... in a situation like this were it not for extraordinary circumstances."

  "What do I call you? Though you are officially a Sergeant, do I call you First Fist? Commander? What?"

  His face reddened with embarrassment. "Sinklar will be fine. I don't make pretensions about rank. That was for another era."

  "Another era?"

  He nodded, expression changing, knowledge and power in his bicolor stare. "ree Space changed when the First Targan Division didn't roll over and die. The last gasp of the old guard echoed in Hauws' blaster shots as he blew away Weebouw—and sealed the fate of the Third Ashtan Assault Division."

  He sighed, eyes weary as he looked at the stassa cup in his hands.
"Two decisions could have been made when we took Rysta's five Divisions. First, orbital bombardment might have been employed to destroy the threat we pose. I don't underrate what we haye become. Indeed, not even Targa's production would have been worth the risk of letting us loose. The other option, the second choice, brings you to me." He raised his eyes. "Very well Minister. I agree to most of your terms."

  "You haven't heard them yet," Ily blurted.

  "I don't need to." He cocked his head, frowning. "I should hate you, you know.

  But I can't. I fear Minister Takka, that you, like me, are no more than a tool of greater purposes."

  "Why do you say that?"

  Fist's voice carried a desperate note. "Because I believe you engineered the suffering my people have experienced. You were the political manipulator who left us to die, weren't you?"

  Ily straightened, fingers tensing on the stassa cup.

  "Oh, I wanted to find you at first," Sinklar continued, still lost in his thoughts. "I would have given anything to have put you against a wall and shot you dead. But then I

  aw the reality and realized that you—like me—had ceased to control events but must n tu be controlled by them. Were it otherwise, you wouldn't be here to see what your machinations had unexpectedly wrought. Like me, you, too, are curious and, perhaps, desperate?"

  "My curiosity increases by the moment, Sinklar."

  He settled back on the hard seat. "Tell me, did you goad the Seddi into this revolt? Why? What was your purpose? That's the ony thing I can't figure out."

  She narrowed her eyes and stared into the black stassa. "The Seddi? I've had no dealings with them. But I'd gve a planet's ransom to get my hands on one of their leaders."

  Sinklar frowned as he pulled up his knee and pursed his lips. "No dealings?

  Ever?"

  Ily shook her head. "None. Don't get me wrong. If I could find an advantage.

  ..."

  "We have a high ranking Seddi." He said it so bitterly.

  "Indeed? Could I see him?" Ily's heart raced. In the past, Seddi had always managed to kill themselves before she could get Mytol past their lips.

  Sinklar's jaw muscles jumped. "Better than that, you can watch her execution."

  "There is more to be gained from a live Seddi than from a corpse."

  "She dies."

  "Let me see her first." Ily caught the hardening around his mouth and switched the subject. "You said you'd accept most of my conditions?"

  Sinklar leaned his head back and sighed. "Yes, Minister. I will be your conqueror. I'll destroy the Companions for you and forge Free Space into a single empire."

  "You think you can take Staffa's Companions?" She raised an eyebrow. "You have a lot of faith in your wild children troops."

  Sinklar steepled his fingers, his head braced against the plate behind the booth. "I know this will sound arrogant, but the reality of the situation is that once I have transportation for my Divisions, nothing can stop me—unless the Star Butcher attacks before I can get to Rega. Give me four weeks to train my troops, and no one in space can stop me."

  "You do sound arrogant."

  He shook his head sadly. "No, only pragmatic. You see, I was a student once.

  That's really all I ever wanted to be. People thought I was brilliant, but the key to brilliance is to find the baseline assumptions upon which an idea or science is constructed. A long time ago, people thought war could be fought by rules, so they got together and adopted a military code. That code became ritualized until it embedded itself in our perception of reality. People don't generally question what they think is real, it leads to dangerous waters and shifting foundations."

  "But you did."

  "Perhaps that's a curse instead of blessing." Sinklar cocked his head to study her. "I have only one condition. I must break the Seddi first—find out why they did this to Targa."

  "I will give you the Seddi." She cocked her head. "If you will tell me why.

  Because of your parents? Is this some deep-seated drive to discover who you are? Who they were?"

  For a long moment he watched her, and her scalp crawled under the intensity of his hard stare. "A Seddi assassin killed the only woman I ever loved. The fact that my parents were Seddi has nothing to do with this case. What they did, they did for reasons of their own that I'm not familiar with. I must make my own assumptions—and currently, the Seddi don't fit any model I can devise.

  Their actions seem random, purposeless. Why did they send Arta after me? Whey did they continue the revolt when they'd lost? Why start it? I want to know!"

  "You fascinate me. You're so young ... so very, very young, and yet you have nothing of youth about you."

  He frowned as he stared down into his stassa. "Youth and dreams are codependent. When the dreams have all been murdered and only the odor of decay remains in the memories, youth must yield to a harsher reality."

  Ily took a deep breath as relief flooded her. "I think you and I will do very well together, Sinklar Fist."

  Ethics? Right and wrong? Such slippery concepts. Staffa rubbed his face, racking his brain as he recalled everything

  Kaylla had tod him about Seddi philosophy. For hours they had argued back and forth, playing devil's advocate. They didn't have anything else to do but wait—and stare at the gray syalon walls until they went mad. Instead, Staffa bad urged Kaylla to tell him about the Seddi.

  She sat across from him in the brown robe Tyklat had provided, the low angle of the light casting shadows over her square-boned face. Her shoulder-length brown hair glinted with threads of gold.

  "We share God Mind: awareness," Staffa said as he collected his thoughts. "If awareness is the same mind, and I cause you to suffer, then I am causing a part of myself to suffer."

  Kaylla nodded, glancing up as she felt the crate shift again—inertia playing games with stability. "All right, if you accept that, what happens if we change the initial conditions. What do you tink of a person who beats himself, scars his flesh to enjoy self-inflicted agony?"

  "He is mentaly ill," Staffa declared. "If he really enjoys making himself hurt, he is dysfunctional."

  "Is he ethically right or wrong? It's his flesh, his own bit of God Mind that he's causing to suffer. What difference does it make to you? How can you call him sick?"

  Staffa tried to stretch his kinked back. How long had he been cooped up in grayness? Any sense of time had long since vanished. Here, so deep in the hold, no sound or stimulus penetrated. He had nothing except energy bars, the generator, the oxygenator, and this constant foiling with Kaylla. Reality had been suspended.

  "He's wrong. Unethical," Staffa insisted. "The reason why is that he's changing reality—causing God Mind to hurt through his own distorted misuse of observation. And, to willingly increase discomfort demonstrates an observer making decisions for purposes alen—but possible through free will—to the nature of the universe. In a sense, he's reinforc ing misinformation rather than seeking knowledge."

  "Very good," Kaylla said, a silver of pride in her voice. "And what about a man who beats another man whom he considers his inferior? Ethical?"

  "Unethical," Staffa admitted, thckness in his voice. "Such a man is, by virtue of his shared God Mind, inflicting the same wrong as the masochist. In the end, though he

  may act in ignorance, his perceptions will harm the God Mind, and himself."

  "Correct." Kaylla pursed her lips. "You talked about your ife before Myklene, before the Praetor told you about your wife and son. When he stripped that superficial myt fif your identity away, you became aware Staff a. Do you see that now?"

  He lifted a shoulder, looking at his gray-clad knees.

  "The Praetor had provided you with a series of assumptions around which you built an entire episteroology. Once that artificial identity had been torn open, you looked through and found you were governed by epistemologies which proved every bit as mythical as your identity. What you have just successfully done was to investigate how you know what you k
now.

  "You see, in our particular culture we have a false epistemology of unilaterality—a very convenient and continuously reinforced theory of knowledge, to be sure. Sassa the Sec ond and Tybalt the Imperial Seventh are maintained by such flawed frameworks of understanding. We even go so far as to perceive unilaterality as the True nature of things—as you did before Myklene.

  It allowed you to make command decisions to exterminate entire planets."

  He took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, yes, but even if you'd sat down and told me differently, I wouldn't have listened. Power masks a person from morality."

  "That's because you have to become aware of the flawed epistemology. Even if you're on the bottom—like we were on Etaria—unilaterality still dominates us.

  The epistemoogy colors all our actions and behaviors. We look around n our misery and inhumanity and wonder how our society can be such a wretched pace.

  Then we curse Regans for being insensitive inflicters of pain. We consider them heartess human pollution that they should have so Httle respect tor the lives o ellow humans. We hate them. and, in so omg, fall prey to the unquestioned baeine assumptions which have spawned the epistemology in the first place. We lay the blame on the Empire and the monsters it breeds when the fallacious epistemology is at the heart of our mise • . . and theirs."

  "Try telling that to Tybalt. He's really a reasonable sort, more open to innovations and ideas, but I can tell you, he's not going to change the system that brought him to power."

  "Power is a myth, Staffa, just like the man you thought you were. At the same time, it is a very powerful mythone that most everyone in our system believes.

  The Seddi, however, think it to be epistemological lunacy."

  Staffa winced. "When you speak of it that way, it seems so clear. How come no one thought of this before?"

  A wry smile crossed her lips and she leaned her head back. "Oh, they have. Do you think any government in its right mind would help promote such a notion?

  To do so is to attack the very basis of our civilization. You know the heads of both Sassan and Regan political power. Which one do you think would run out and immediately begin to preach the dissolution of unilaterality?"