The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Local tactical on audio,” the AI repeated without inflection.

  A hissing began as the AI tried to raise the signals to audibility without the direct link to the facility antenna array.

  “Fareach two…negative on energy flows…”

  “…port, three zero. Vector two six zero…”

  “…Thunder three. Say again…three…”

  “…casualties estimated at three zero thousand…three zero thousand…”

  The man in the counterfeit Lidoran DomSec uniform tightened his lips, wiped his damp forehead, and touched the control keys once more, watching the screens to ensure that the departure gates were fully retracted and clear of obstructions.

  “Target contact, Beta class flitter, at ten kays, bearing zero eight zero,” the AI’s cool voice interjected, overriding the Lidoran transmissions momentarily.

  “Thanks.”

  Gerswin’s fingers touched the last key on the board prior to the liftoff sequence, and the whining that signified full power-up began to build.

  “Going to be a full power lift,” he remarked to no one in particular.

  “Acknowledging full power lift,” the AI answered his remark that needed no answering.

  The Caroljoy edged from the center of the hangar into position before the tunnel.

  Whhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

  The scout slipped up the tunnel and burst through the carefully maintained gap in the trees, a black streak screaming like lightning back toward the heavens from which it had struck.

  “…target at two six five. Target at two six five…tentatively identified as deep space craft.”

  “Gnasher two, cleared to attack. Cleared to attack.”

  Gerswin had already dismissed the flitters. Most atmospherics didn’t carry high acceleration missiles, nor missiles with any range. Even if the DomSec flitters had, unless they had launched those the moment they had acquired the Caroljoy on their screens, it would have been impossible for them to have caught any scout on a full power departure.

  The real problem would lie with orbit control, and whether there were system patrollers close at hand.

  His departure was programmed for atmospheric envelope exit on the opposite side of El Lido from orbit control. While DomSecs could speculate, they couldn’t be absolutely certain until he actually broke orbit.

  “Switch to orbit control frequencies.”

  “Orbit control on audio.”

  Gerswin continued to scan the screens, checking the ever increasing gap between the Caroljoy and the DomSec patrols, noting how the security flitters began to use their shorter range missiles on the recently vacated retreat.

  The Caroljoy’s auxiliary screen showed the energy concentrations around the facility as the DomSecs turned their thwarted fury on the concealed hangar-bunker already far behind and below.

  “Facility self-destruct has commenced,” the AI noted.

  Gerswin nodded at the announcement. Shortly, between the destruct thermals and the DomSec bombardment, there would be nothing left but fused and broken metal, stone, and ceramics, over which the DomSecs could pore to their hearts’ content.

  “Orbit control, this is Thunder three. Interrogative intercept on outbound target. Interrogative intercept.”

  Instinctively, Gerswin checked his position. The Caroljoy was almost clear of the envelope, and, as he had plotted, in position with the planet between him and orbit control.

  “Thunder three, outbound target screened from orbit control. Projected course beyond range of either orbit control or patrollers on station.”

  By now the rear screen showed an El Lido whose image was rapidly becoming a disc that would fill less than the entire rear screen.

  Monitoring the scout’s power status, Gerswin shook his head. Eighty percent, down twenty percent just for liftoff. No wonder he had gotten clear so quickly. But power was expensive, even on Aswan, if one considered the acquisition costs, and speed was paid in power terms.

  Then, everything about El Lido had been expensive, he reflected as he returned his attention to the representational screen, which now displayed the entire system, including El Lido and its orbit control.

  Two winking red dots along the general course line to system exit corridor one indicated the two on-station system patrollers.

  Gerswin had already sent the Caroljoy hurtling along a different course—the one to the less favored exit point. The second corridor, because the system’s irregular gas corona extended farther on one side of the system, required more travel time in-system before a ship could reach space clear enough for a jumpshift.

  He calculated, hands hovering above the console. Roughly, at his present screamingly uneconomical acceleration, he could have reached the jump point along corridor one in two hours.

  Worrying at his lip with his teeth, he checked the screens again.

  “Time to jump?”

  “Three hours, plus or minus point five.”

  The farscreens were clear, except for the distant patrollers, not surprisingly, since jumpship travel anywhere was scarce, and to El Lido, isolated as it was, even scarcer.

  The red lights of the patrollers, flashing against the darkness of the representational screen, seemed almost accusing.

  “Accusing about what?”

  “Inquiry imprecise. Please clarify,” requested the AI.

  “Disregard,” snapped the once-upon-a-time commodore.

  What had gone wrong? Or had anything?

  The biologics would continue to be produced, and Hamline would doubtless exert some effort to improve social conditions. And thirty thousand casualties represented…what? An initial payment?

  “Are you still asking too much of people?” he muttered, not letting his eyes leave the screens.

  “Question represents a value judgment. Without further data, no answer is possible.” The AI’s cool feminine tone was like ice down his spine.

  Whose values? Whose judgments? He had killed or injured thirty thousand people, some theoretically innocent, because he felt it necessary, because he felt his own creation had been perverted to serve an already too-repressive government. Did he have that right?

  “You took that right the day you decided to restore Old Earth.”

  Did that make him right?

  He shook his head. Right was a value judgment, as the AI had said so coldly.

  Had he been too hard on Rodire? Had he expected too much of the young idealist when he and his children had grown older? Did the children make that much difference?

  Corson, what would you have been like, had we shared a life? Would you have turned me, too? Turned me from fire and ice?

  He pushed that thought away from the trails down which it had led him too many times before.

  “Time to jump?”

  “Three hours, plus or minus point two.”

  Why did people let themselves be ruled so easily? Why did they let others enslave them? Why didn’t they fight?

  “Why didn’t they fight?”

  “Question imprecise. Please reformulate.”

  The businessman who was an idealist with a vision and who had been a commodore did not rephrase his question. Instead he stood up and turned away, pacing from the cramped control room into the equally small, but less cluttered, crew room.

  Finding the techniques to reclaim his home had proved difficult enough, and the refining and producing was even more difficult. Plus, refinement and production required resources and funding, and while obtaining both had been the technically easiest part, it had been by far the most time-consuming, and had created the most problems. But without the resources to bankroll the development and the field testing and the production, all the foundation’s research products would be worthless.

  Then, still unknown, was the question of the Empire. While it would certainly continue to passively oppose any wide-scale adoption of the techniques the foundation was developing, how soon would the forces marshaling against Gerswin be able to turn the Empire against hi
m.

  He had Lyr to thank, time and time again, for turning the inquiries and blunting the attacks, but Lyr and her allies could not hold back the tide forever.

  He shook his head. One thing in his favor was that his opponents did not know where they stood. Nor would they for years to come, though Gerswin could sense it now. And his own stupidity in using tacheads! Thirty thousand innocents because he hated tyranny and personal greed. Thirty thousand innocents because he had held others to his standards. He shook his head. Better to write off an enterprise, or to wait until no one suspected he could return. Brute force wasn’t the answer. Yet, knowing better, he had turned to it.

  He shook his head once more.

  “You’d better hope it’s considered an isolated case. You’d better hope.”

  He walked back toward the controls, thinking about Rodire, and about the man’s family.

  Corson, where are you? Beyond? Never? Martin…?

  But Martin he had not known, even briefly, only known about when there was nothing he could have done.

  He reseated himself at the control couch, tilted now into a standard seat, and tried to refocus his thoughts on his next operations.

  He couldn’t afford another mistake like El Lido. Not for himself, or Lyr, or Martin, or the people involved.

  Not ever.

  LXXII

  The gold starburst in the center of the console flared.

  The man known as Eye stared at the golden light, which remained burning brightly. Behind his shadow mask his mouth nearly dropped open.

  The Emperor’s call—but why?

  He frowned, wondering whether he should answer the almost mythical summons, still sitting before the console.

  Three red lights blipped into place on the screen readouts, and his eyes widened.

  He shook his head. Apparently the old procedures still held. All his defense screens were down.

  What was it that Thurson had said years ago? That the myths always triumphed in the end, whether a man believed in them or not?

  With a sigh, he stood, not that he had much choice as a squad of Corpus Corps assassins bracketed his private portal.

  “The Emperor awaits, you, ser.”

  While all gave him a wide berth, they seemed almost excited as they escorted him along the secret tunnels, tunnels he thought only known to the Eye and the two Eye Regents.

  “How did you know this was the way?” he asked the Corps squad leader.

  “The Emperor gave us the map, ser, after he dropped your screens, ser.”

  Eye said nothing further until the tunnel narrowed, a narrowing that reflected nearness to the palace.

  Opposite the portal that exited in his own guest quarters, assigned to him in his person as the Duke of Calendra, the Corps squad leader halted and touched a databloc against the inlaid tile of the Imperial seal that stood man-tall on the right side of the corridor.

  The seal swung back to reveal another tunnel, one that seemed to lead upward.

  With a shrug, Eye let himself be escorted away from his own quarters and toward whatever destination the Corpus Corps killers had in mind.

  Even with his age, he had no doubt that he could have dispatched at least two of the Corps troops. But there were eight, and he did not want to give them any excuse to kill him out of hand.

  He had reasoned with the Emperor before and occasionally gotten his point. Reason provided a better hope than attack.

  The squad halted at the liftshaft.

  “Go on, ser.” The squad leader gestured. “This is as far as we go.”

  “Alone?” Eye asked with mild sarcasm.

  “Alone, ser.”

  Eye shrugged and stepped into the shaft, letting himself be carried upward.

  The trip was but seconds long before he stepped out into a small room. A single Imperial Marine stood before another portal.

  “Lord Calendra, the Emperor will see you shortly. You may sit, if you wish.”

  Eye shivered. That the guard knew his real name even while he wore the privacy cloak and black shadow of Eye did not look promising.

  He studied the guard, debating whether he should take on the single impressive specimen who stood between him and the portal or whether he should still opt for his chances in reasoning with the Emperor.

  The almost unseen haze that stood between him and the marine decided him. That it was a screen of some sort was clear, but of what intensity was not. He decided to wait.

  Frowning to himself, Eye tried to determine how he might have failed the Empire, or displeased the Emperor.

  Could it have been the incident on Harkla? Or the uprising in Parella? The commercial war on El Lido? That had been messy. But a commercial war?

  He shook his head. Could the Ursans have sprung something new on the Fleet? Or was the Dismorph resurgence more of a threat than he had reported?

  “Lord Calendra, the Emperor awaits.”

  Eye stood, straightened his black cloak, and stepped evenly toward the portal as the Imperial Marine moved aside.

  Once through, he found himself in a small study, scarcely larger than the formal office of a small commercial magnate. Solid wooden shelves lined the sides of the room, while the Emperor sat behind an apparent antique writing desk, his back to a full window overlooking the formal Palace gardens.

  “Your pleasure, sire,” Eye stated evenly as he inclined his head and waited.

  “Have a seat, Calendra.”

  In private, His Imperial Majesty Ryrce N’Gaio Bartoleme VIII did not appear any more impressive than in public. His eyes were bulbous, bright green, and set too close together. His hair resembled plains grass scattered by the wind, and his fat cheeks gave him the air of a chipmunk. Only his deep bass voice was regal—that and the dark sadness behind the bright eyes.

  Eye settled himself into the small chair and waited.

  “This is something I would rather not do, you understand, Calendra, but it has been too long, and there have been too many Eyes, your predecessor among them, who seemed to feel that they represented another force in government besides the Emperor.”

  “I am not sure I understand, sire.”

  “I am not sure you do either, Calendra,” answered the deep voice, resonating as if separate from the almost comical figure behind the desk. “I am not sure you do either.”

  The Emperor pointed a surprisingly long finger at the head of the Intelligence Service. “Tell me. What is still the one weapon that the people of the Empire fear most?”

  “Nuclear weapons.”

  “And why? There are greater forces at man’s command.”

  Eye shivered, but forced himself to reply. “I suppose it must be because of what happened on Old Earth.”

  “Exactly! And during your tenure, twice have those weapons been used. And you have yet to discover how those weapons were removed from Imperial control or by whom.”

  Eye looked down, then raised his eyes to meet the green glitter of the Emperor’s gaze. “Neither has anyone else, sire.”

  “No. But they are not Eye. Nor are they specifically charged with insuring that such weapons do not enter private hands.” The Emperor paused. “Do you have any idea as to who might have obtained them?”

  “Ideas, yes. Facts to support them, no.” Eye smiled a grim smile. “At this point, would it make much difference?”

  “Not really, since we’re being candid.”

  “Then, since he has brought me down, he may as well bring you down as well, sire.”

  With a calmness he did not believe he possessed, Eye triggered his own internal nerve destruction, trying to look alert even as his thoughts began to blacken, as the toxins poured through his systems.

  Let the devilkid’s revenge be Eye’s as well.

  His mouth dropped open in chuckle that he never completed as the Emperor, His Imperial Majesty Ryrce N’Gaio Bartoleme VIII, shook his head sadly and pressed the console summons for the disposal squad.

  In Endless Twilight

  I<
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  The once-upon-a-time scoutship jumpshifted, and for a moment that was both instantaneous and endless, black light flooded the two small compartments, the one containing the pilot and the crew space that contained no one. That instant of shift seemed to last longer than normal, as it always did when the actual shift was near the limit.

  “Interrogative status,” asked the pilot, a man with tight-curled blond hair and hawk-yellow eyes that swept the range of displays on the screens before him.

  “No EDI traces. No mass indications within point one light. Destination estimated at four plus.” The impersonally feminine tone of the artificial intelligence would have chilled most listeners, but the pilot preferred the lack of warmth in the voice of the Caroljoy.

  In his rebuilding of the discarded and theoretically obsolete scout, the former Imperial commodore could have programmed warmth into the voice when he had added the AI, just as he could have opted for more comfort in the spartan quarters, rather than for the raw power and extensive defensive screens the beefed-up ex-Federation scout now enjoyed. The pilot had avoided warmth in both the ship and the AI.

  He leaned back in the control couch, trying to relax, as if he wanted to push away a particularly bad memory. He did, and as he often also did he whistled three or four notes in the odd double-toned style that was his alone.

  The AI did not acknowledge the music, since the notes represented neither observation nor inquiry.

  What was past was past. The two tacheads he had used on El Lido, along with the thirty thousand casualties, would certainly draw Imperial interest, but he doubted that they would call Impie attention back on him. Not yet. After all, one of the two targets had been CE, Limited, in which he, as Shaik Corso, had held the controlling interest.

  Now, Hamline Rodire had control, and the former commodore hoped that Rodire would use the influence that CE, Limited, represented for the benefit of all of El Lido.

  He shook his head. He had run through the arguments all too often to change his mind, or the past. What was past was past. Time to concentrate on the future, on running down the rest of the research leads that he and the foundation had neglected for too long. Time to refocus himself on the long range and eventual mission, on getting the technology he needed for the reclamation job on Old Earth, a job that was too big for the underfunded and ignored Recorps to complete.