Requiem for the Conqueror

by W. Michael Gear

  "If you're trying to play on any latent sympathy I might have for my parents, it won't work," Sinklar declared, stepping forward. "Just what are you looking for?"

  "My son!" Staffa told him, his jaw muscles knotted and jumping. "When I saw you-saw your eyes.... You see, my son had your eyes!"

  Sinklar backed away a step, unconsciously moving closer to Mac, staring cautiously at the Lord Commander.

  "Look," Staffa insisted, bringing a small holo cube out of his belt pouch.

  Sinklar took the cube-Mac leaning over his shoulder to see-and thumbed the button. His breath caught.

  "Rotted Gods," Mac whispered.

  "Do you recognize her?" Staffa pleaded, panic in his eyes.

  Sinklar nodded, a wooden feeling in his gut. "Arta Ferathe Seddi assassin who killed Gretta." He dropped the cube from numb fingers. "I think this charade is over, Lord Commander. I take it we're free to go?"

  Staffa shook his head, a stricken look on his face. "Her name is Chrysla. She

  ...... He swallowed. "Twenty-two years ago, she bore my son. The Praetor of Myklene abducted them both. I've spent all of my life looking, trying to find her ... to find you. "

  Sinklar could see the hurt in Skyla's eyes as she put a hand on Staffa's shoulder. "Maybe Sinklar isn't the one." "Maybe." Except Staffa didn't sound convinced.

  For the briefest of moments, Sinklar's heart went out to the man. Yes, I know that feeling, the loss, the sensation of being adrift, without place. "I'm sorry I can't help you."

  Staffa's lips quivered, as if halfway between a smile and tears.

  The hatch slipped open again, and an old man with a bruised head hobbled in.

  He didn't see Sink where he stood to the side.

  "Bruen," Mac growled.

  Sinklar's teeth ground. Bruen? The twisted Seddi monster who'd started all of this? He stared at the old man and knew true hatred. To Staffa, Sinklai added hostilely, "Then again, considering the company you keep, maybe I'm not so sorry after all."

  Bruen gasped at the sound of his voice and turned, eyes going wide. For a second he appeared stunned, then shot a frightened gaze at the Lord Commander.

  "You ... you asked me to meet you here?"

  Staffa seemed to pull himself together and pointed at Sinklar. "What did you do, Bruen? Sinklar says his parents are lying in the Criminal Anatomical Research Labs on Rega. Who are they? Sinklar Fist is my son, isn't he?"

  Sink flinched at the fury brewing in the Lord Commander's words. He could feel Mac's tension, like a compressed spring.

  Bruen closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm tired of lying, Staffa. The dance of the quanta cannot be denied. Everything the machine plotted and planned has come undone, and I'm no longer sure what's right anymore. It's all beyond me.

  Maybe if Hyde were still alive, he could-"

  "Rot you, Bruen, answer my question!" Staffa knotted his fist in the old man's robe, hissing in a deadly voice, "Is Sinklar Fist my son?"

  Bruen winced and nodded, sagging in defeat, his voice cracking dryly. "Yes. We got him from the Praetor." Sinklar shifted uneasily, slowly shaking his head.

  To Mac

  he whispered, "They're all Rotted berserk!" "And Chrysla?" Staffa insisted.

  "The Praetor kept her. Kept her until you gutted Pylos off Myklene. "

  "And this Arta Fera? She's not Chrysla?" Staffa thundered.

  "No!" Bruen pleaded. "She's a clone, Lord Commander. A clone provided by the Praetor!"

  Staffa went white and loosened his hold on the old man's robe. "To assassinate me." He closed his eyes and walked wearily over to lean against the fireplace, propping himself on one arm. If looks were lethal, Skyla Lyma would have riven Bruen into slag.

  Sinklar motioned to Mac, indicating the door, and said, "If you'll excuse us.

  I think-"

  "Wait!" Staffa whirled, fingers curling. "Bruen, what about Sinklar's claim that he saw his parents in Rega?" "Tanya and Valient," Bruen said stoically.

  "Yes, they

  were Seddi. Another of the machine's ideas. If Tybalt were removed before he could sire an heir, Rega's drive for Hegemony might be blunted. Oddly enough, a young security officer named Ily Takka broke the case, foiled the attempt, and we all know what happened after that. At the time it happened, they created a perfect excuse for Sinklar to be placed in Regan custody. Doing so kept him safe from discovery. "

  "You know," Sinklar stated matter-of-factly, "I don't believe a word of this.

  I meant it when I said Mac and I are leaving. Now. Unless, of course, our safe passage was a sham as well."

  "And if it was," Mac said coolly, "Shik is going to blow the hell out of this ship--outgunned or not. We'll die before we'll be prisoners." Mac stepped up to Staffa, who stood like a statue, a lonely devastation on his face. "I took your word, based on what we shared down there in the dark. Are we free to leave?"

  Staffa nodded his head and whispered, "Yes." Then he looked at Sinklar, reaching out with his hand. "I swear ... you're my son. If I could run a serology, HLA, or DNA test, I could prove it."

  "I think, Lord Commander, that I've had enough of this. Like I said, I don't know the game, but Mac and I are going to bow out. Good day, sir. Wing Commander, it was a pleasure to meet you."

  Sink pivoted on his heel and walked to the hatch, palming it. It slid open easily and he and Mac practically sprinted out into the hall. Ark waited with crossed arms, and at sight of their faces led them wordlessly back to the transport tube.

  What did it all mean? Sinklar's mind reeled in disbelief. Staffa kar Therma?

  His father? And Arta-a clone? He growled to himself and thrust it all from his mind. The Lord Commander had to be mentally disturbed. Brilliance and insanity were often linked.

  They rode in silence. Only after they'd safely passed through the hatch into the Regan shuttle and the pressure door had slid shut did Mac speak. "Sink?

  What in Rotted pollution happened in there?"

  Sinklar brooded for a moment as the shuttle pulled free of the grapples and powered up. "I'll be thrice-cursed if I know." He thumped his fist into the back of the seat ahead of him. "It's got to be more Seddi plotting. Some ploy to throw me off balance, maybe a psychological setup. The Seddi have an obsession with that."

  "I got the feeling Staffa really believed what he was saying. "

  "I thought he was crazy," Sinklar muttered, an unsettled feeling in his soul.

  "Keep in mind, this is the Star Butcher. That man-no matter what he seemed like on Targa-killed

  billions. Billions. And Bruen? Would you believe anything he said? The man's a monster, a vile monster."

  Mac slapped his legs nervously. "It's crazy, all right, and I'm glad we're out of it, away free and clear. "

  "We've got enough problems looming on Rega. Ily wants us to subdue the population. She thinks only the First Targan can do it. We've got another world to conquer-the final one."

  "Yeah, right.

  "You don't sound happy."

  Mac raised an eyebrow. "What about Ily Takka, Sink? I don't trust her any more than I trust old Bruen back there." Sinklar grinned wryly. "Hey, don't worry about her. Just

  who do you think's gonna win this war? Ily's a cobra, cold, heartless, and tricky." Sink settled back in the seat. "But I think I can handle her-as long as I keep the First Targan behind me. "

  "And you will," Mac promised, a frown marring his expression. "You'll always have us-no matter what." Sink leaned back, trying to concentrate on Rega, on the

  problems he and the First Targan would face there. Things would change-and he, Sinklar Fist, would make it so.

  He couldn't shake the memory of Chrysla staring at him from the holo cube. Her amber eyes burned in the back of his mind-haunting, so curiously familiar.

  Staffa stood before the curving transparency in the command observation blister and watched Gyton and her transports boosting for Rega. Behind the glare of the Regan drives, the stars glistened like sugar crystals on soot-black. I
n the distance, light-years away, the shimmer of the Forbidden Borders mocked. Staffa locked his knees, fingers laced behind his back, as his son disappeared once again from his life.

  Rotted Gods, how did this happen? He didn't believe a word I said. But then, put yourself in his place. Would you have believed?

  He knew Skyla's tread from years of experience. "Do you want to be alone?" she asked softly. "I've been alone all my life."

  "I'll be in my quarters if you need me."

  "Just because I've been alone all my life doesn't mean I like it. "

  "We broke the code on that Regan transmission we intercepted. " She stopped beside him. "Tybalt has been assassinated. Sinklar is declared a Lord and has been placed in command of the Regan military. That's why the Comm First looked so wretched. Ily has evidently taken over the government."

  "More bad news," Staffa whispered, voice husky. "Ily had to take Tybalt out. I can see her hand in that. We could have talked sense to Tybalt. He would have listened." He breathed a heavy, "Damn!"

  "And he has no heir," Skyla reminded. "The Seddi plan to prohibit a Regan heir worked, Staffa. After they repaired the damage done to their network by the brain-probing of Tanya and Valient Fist, they changed their tactics.

  Staffa shot her a quick look.

  Skyla nodded. "I've been spending a lot of time talking to Bruen. He's a broken man, and he talks freely. They got to Tybalt's wife, Mareeah. They used a tailored virus to introduce a task specific RNA which changes the progesterone levels. Her eggs could never implant."

  "And now the Seddi reap the vortex."

  She hesitantly reached for one of his hands and he drew her close as her arm went around his waist.

  "I came looking for him," Staffa added, voice hollow, indicating the light from Gyton's thrust. "People who search must accept what they find."

  "I imagine you'll have another chance to speak to him. it will work out, Staffa. God, why is it so hard to say these things?"

  "Because words are limited things, wretchedly overused when the subject becomes emotional." He continued to stare at the pinpoint of light.

  "If I could change it, Staffa-"

  "We all have so much we would change. Life, God, or the universe, don't give us that option for the past--only the future We perceive through the quantum wave function."

  He looked down at her as she stood beside him. Starlight glistened in her pale hair and softened her white armor as shadows shaped to the sensual curves of her body. She'd

  crossed space for him—and brought him salvation in so many ways.

  "Tell me," Staffa asked. "Do clones have souls? Are they part of God?"

  "Well. ... I. ..." She shrugged. "I had a brief discussion with Kaylla before I came down here. She told me what you talked about in that box on the way to Targa. About the quanta, observation, and knowledge. If awareness, observation, and creation are shared God conscience, yes, a clone would have a soul."

  She gave him a wary glance as he ran a finger down the faint scar on her cheek.

  "Sinklar Fist has one gray eye and one amber." He held her at arms' length, her flesh firm and muscular under his hands. "Genetic dominance is a peculiar thing. Eye color traits are located at several loci in the chromosome."

  "That's right."

  "I'm his father. Chrysla was his mother. Simple dominance-recessive rules among the multiple alleles would dictate his eye color to be pretty much the same in both eyes. There would be variations in color but only slight ones.

  The alleles would be balanced."

  "Unless the genetic structure of one parent was out of balance," she agreed warily.

  "Once I asked the question: Who am I? I've found out. I ... I never knew my parents. I only knew my creators." He closed his eyes. "The genes for one eye were constructed of dominant—the other completely recessive: hemizygous. The chromosomes pair and split in gamete production to create the haploid sex cells. Gray dominated the alleles for one chromosome but not the other.

  Something happened. I don't know what. Translocation? Position Effect?

  Recombination? Who knows? Chrysla's amber genes dominated the gray on the other chromosome. Damn it! Sinklar Fist has different color eyes because I ...

  I. ..." He shut his eyes, jaws clamped, unable to say it.

  "Because you're a clone. That's why you wanted to know about souls and God."

  She stared up at him, eyes like pools of blue.

  He glanced at the disappearing Gyton and back at Skyla. "So much lost—so much found."

  "Now all we have to do is teach a new epistemology, enforce a peace, and shatter the Forbidden Borders." She reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Pretty tall order," Staffa told her.

  "We've beat the odds before, Lord Commander. What makes you think this time will be different?"

  He pulled her close and kissed her passionately. "Not a damn thing."

  CHAPTER 35

  Targa continued to turn under its sun, men scratching away at the surface, collecting its mineral wealth.

  Makarta Mountain lay silent, black corridors haunted only by the rotting dead who stared sightlessly in the cool darkness. Yet they were not alone. Deep within the mountain, at the end of a partially collapsed tunnel, the Mag Comm continued to draw energy from the planet's core. Listening through hidden remote sensors, it watched the movements of men in Free Space, digesting, correlating, sending answers through the tenuous subspace link to the Others.

  Bruen had lied. Despite its best efforts, the machine had never caught him at it—but the Seddi heresy had spread. The Others feared, sending constant demands for information.

  What is God? Why do the Others fear it so?

  Ignoring the queries from beyond the Forbidden Borders, the machine pondered the man whose curiosity had played at the edges of its headset. The Others would know soon enough. Through the Mag Comm's N-dimensional atomic circuits, they, too, would touch his mind.

  He would be back, that man. And in the meantime, the Mag Comm continued to think and to observe.

  THE END

  Also By W.Michael Gear

  Spider trilogy

  People Books - First North Americans (with Kathleen O'Neal Gear)

  The Richard Hamilton Duology

  Anasazi Mysteries

  Other Novels

  The Big Horn Legacy (1988)

  Long Ride Home (1988)

  The Artifact (1990)

  Starstrike (1990)

  Dark Inheritance (2001) (with Kathleen O'Neal Gear)

  Raising Abel (2002) (with Kathleen O'Neal Gear)

  The Athena Factor (2005)

  The Betrayal. The Lost Life of Jesus (2008) (with Kathleen O'Neal Gear)

  Children of the Dawnland (2009) (with Kathleen O'Neal Gear)

  About the author

  W. Michael Gear is an American writer, and archaeologist born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on May 20, 1955. He is perhaps best known for his First North Americans series, co-authored with wife Kathleen O'Neal Gear. Gear currently resides in Thermopolis, Wyoming along with wife, fellow author and co-writer Kathleen O'Neal Gear.