The white-haired technician almost smiled, but replaced the expression with a more appropriate frown as he began to attempt the indexing job, based on the fragmentary codes provided by the Intelligence Service.
The screen remained blank, but the energy levels indicated it was functioning.
Somehow, he did not know how, though he could have devised an equivalent method, the use of force had resulted in the entire data set being destroyed.
Outside of hard-copy reports, the Eye Service wasn’t about to find out much new about whatever the OER Foundation had done, or what it had been.
He did not voice his opinion, but, instead, continued to try all possible methods for discovering or recovering the dumped information, but, suspected, based on the codes already provided, that neither he nor the best from Eye Service would have much luck.
These conclusions, of course, he would reserve for the official reports, submitted after all efforts had failed.
The Intelligence officer continued to pace as the marines waited outside.
XLIV
“Lord Admiral, we do not have the resources to keep this up much longer.”
The silver-haired admiral silently studied the figures on the inset screen before him, his lips quirking.
“You realize that, ser?”
The silence resumed as the Service chief refused to comment.
Teeth chewing at his lower lip, the commodore glanced back at his own screen, wondering if the admiral was studying the same simple projections his own screen held, wondering why it took so long for the man to respond.
“What is interesting, Ambester, is what is not on the screen.”
“Ser?”
The admiral glared at the commodore, momentarily ignoring the other two more junior flag officers.
“We can provide the more detailed backup information, if you would like.”
“More data never solved any problem, Commodore. Hades few, anyway.” He paused, then inquired, “Has anyone investigated why there are more quarantines? With the relaxations on local armed monitors and greater local autonomy, one would expect fewer quarantines, not more. None of your information addresses that.”
“Political problems are followed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
“Have you contacted them?”
“No, ser.”
“Then I suggest you do. Your data is clear on one point. We cannot continue to enforce quarantines at this rate. It’s also clear on another. The conditions creating unrest and local political breakdowns are increasing. Any of you could see that.”
His hard gray eyes raked the three other officers.
“So why didn’t anyone ask the reasons? You all know the resource pressures on the Service.”
There was no answer.
“Last question. Does anyone else have this synthesis?”
All three heads nodded in the negative.
“I doubt that either, but maybe not very many people know yet. Now get me that information. We’ll probably need to get together with Internal Affairs.”
The admiral pushed back his swivel and stood. Nodding abruptly, he turned and left the small conference room.
XLV
As soon as the flitter touched down at the landing pad above the chalet, she jumped out, feeling twenty years younger, or more, in the cool, light mountain air.
The chalet was just as she had imagined, from the wide balconies that jutted from three sides, from the view overlooking Deep Loch to the crags both behind the chalet and across the loch on the far side of the valley.
Her steps felt lighter than they had in years, not surprisingly, considering the treatments she had received, and she smiled as her feet touched the wide wooden planks of the balcony.
After a long look down at the crystalline green of the loch, she took slow steps down to the rear portal of the chalet, which the land agent had opened for her.
Inside, the spaciousness was more than she had anticipated. The off-white rough finish of the walls, the light wood beams, and the expanse of lightly tinted armaglass all added to the openness while retaining a feeling of warmth.
In the main living area stood a stone hearth and fireplace with real wood to burn, and off from the fireplace was the study she had always coveted.
She stepped inside the study, and her mouth dropped in an amazement she was not sure she could have felt. Above the simple desk, which she admired in passing, was an original oil by Saincleer, one she had never seen, and one which probably cost more than the chalet itself.
Whoever had furnished the chalet, and she could guess but did not want to speculate, yet, had known her tastes.
Some of the pieces she might move slightly, and perhaps one or two she might not have chosen, but the overall effect was spectacular; exactly the sort of home she had wanted, but one which she had never spent the time to discover or to have built, had she been able to afford such a place, let alone in such a location.
“You approve?” The agent was a young local woman who had met her at the Vers D’Mont shuttle port and who had presented a card that had matched the directions included with her itinerary.
“Approve…approve? It’s magnificent!”
“There is a message.”
Lyr saw the envelope, sitting alone on the desk under the Saincleer
Lyr.
That was all that was on the outside, and she wondered if the script were his. She shook her head. To think after all the years that she had never seen his writing.
She did not open it immediately, but held the envelope in both hands.
There was so much she had not known, had not anticipated—from the impossibly expensive rejuve treatments reserved for her aboard the Empress to the star-class accommodations, to the flowers every night, and the personally tailored wardrobe.
She wondered if she dared to open it, or if she dared not to.
After her years of priding herself on being the type not to be overwhelmed, she asked herself whether the commander had set out to overwhelm her. First, the star-class passage on the Empress, then the identity as Baroness Meryon Von Lyr, with all the supporting documents, and the sizable credit balance with Vinnifin-Yill, and now a chalet retreat on Vers D’Mont that might be the envy of most commercial magnates of the Empire.
So why did she feel something was missing?
She took one deep breath, then another, and brought the envelope up to her eyes, not that she needed to now. Her eyesight had been restored to what it had been more than fifty years earlier, along with her figure, muscle tone, and hair.
After a time, she opened the envelope.
The single, plain cream-colored sheet was folded in half, and she unfolded it. His message was half-printed, half-scripted, looking more childish than she would have thought.
Again, she looked away, lowering the message without reading it, and stared without seeing at the loch glistening in the white gold of the early afternoon sunlight.
The faint cry of a circling soareagle roused her, and she looked back down at the black words.
Lyr—
As you may have guessed, Lyr D’Meryon no longer exists. She died in a tragic fire in her Murian Tower dwelling. Only the Baroness Von Lyr remains.
She brushed back a stray hair, a lock which, with all the others, had been restored to its original sandy blonde shade, and which, she had been told, would retain the natural color for at least another half century. Still holding the envelope in her right hand, she glanced out through the armaglass at the crags across the loch and then back inside, not wanting to examine the contents of the envelope.
She settled on the vidcube library, filled with cubes, and the antique built-in bookshelves, overflowing with neatly arranged volumes.
She blinked back a single tear, and looked down at the envelope, then at the land agent.
The other woman apparently understood.
“If there is anything you need, let me know. Your own flitter is hangared underneath. There is some food,
as well.”
Lyr swallowed hard before speaking.
“Has anyone…lived…”
“No. It has been kept for you. No one, not even the man in gray, has ever spent the night here. About that, he was quite adamant.”
Lyr could feel her eyes beginning to fill, turned away from the other, and sank into the corner of the long white couch that had been placed exactly where she would have placed it.
She still clutched the envelope.
Through the swirl of her feelings, she could hear the rear portal close as the other left, hear the whine as the flitter lifted, and the silence that dropped around her like a cushion.
After a time, she looked back down at the envelope. The top of the L was blurred where a tear had fallen on the black ink.
First, cold details. In addition to the Vinnifin-Yill account, you have an account with the local trust, Gerherd, Limited, and another account on Ydris with Flournoy Associates. Sundry other assets to match your background are listed in the console memory under your personal key.
The chalet is yours, fee simple outright in perpetuity, and there is a townhouse in New Mont’plier if you yearn for a more urban existence at times.
The Empire will fall, perhaps in your lifetime, which should be long, perhaps not. It is one reason for the diversity of your holdings. But stand clear of New Augusta.
By now, the Empire has seized the foundation and the remaining assets, although there is no data left to track, and has an alert out for me, both for crimes against the Emperor and other offenses. I intend to avoid the Empire for a time, until it will not matter.
I wish I could have told you more, or that I dared now. You trusted me, made my future dreams possible. I have given what I can, poor repayment. Knowing you, it is poor indeed.
Knowing me, it is for the best.
G
Lyr finally rose from the perfectly placed white couch, though she could not see through the cascade of tears, and walked toward the armaglass door that opened as she neared the balcony. Her shoulder brushed the casement as she stepped onto the wooden planks.
Though she shuddered with the weight of more tears than she could ever shed, her eyes cleared, and she clutched the letter in one hand and the smoothed wood of the rail with the other, and stood on the shaded balcony, with the breeze through her hair.
In the afternoon quiet, in the light and in the cool of the gentle wind, the shudders subsided, and so did Administrator Lyr.
As the breeze died, the Baroness Von Lyr wiped the last tear, the very last tear ever, from her eyes and turned back toward her perfect chalet.
She did not notice that the darkness behind her eyes matched what she had seen behind her commander’s eyes.
XLVI
Each man expects his day in the sun. Each god raised by a culture may expect not days, but centuries in the brilliance of adoration and worship.
On men and gods alike, in the end, night falls. For men, that darkness comes with merciful swiftness, but for gods and heroes, the idols of a race, the darkness may never come, as they hang suspended in the glow of an endless twilight, their believers dwindling, but unable to turn away, their accomplishments distorted or romanticized, and their characters slowly bleached into mere caricature.
Under some supreme irony, the greater the hero, the greater the power attributed to the god, the longer and more agonizing the twilight of belief, as if each moment of power and each great deed requires more than mere atonement…
Of Gods and Men
Carnall Grant
New Avalon
5173 N.E.C.
XLVII
“…Release all further interest in Ydrisian United Communications for other good and valuable considerations, as outlined in the addendum.”
The pilot paused and reread the lines on the data screen. Possibly not as legalistic as it should be, but the Empire would hesitate to take on the Ydrisians, and the release of his interests would deprive them of their strongest pretext. That was the best he could do. Had he been wise enough to divest himself of the residual ten percent interest in the network, the question would have been moot a century earlier.
His eyes blurred. The text was the last in the series, and the AI had already programmed the torp. He had earlier loaded the necessary physical documents.
Isbel’s granddaughter would be surprised to receive actual documents from the torp, but there was no helping it. The Empire was not about to try to intercept even a single incoming torp to the Ydrisian hub station, not with the outlying systems wanting their own pretexts.
“What is the girl’s name?” he mumbled, aware that his words were slurring from the mental effort of trying to wind up all the financial angles of his businesses.
“Inquiry imprecise.”
“Well aware my inquiry is imprecise…not directed at you. Directed at my own confused memories.”
Isbel—that was the old port captain, and her daughter was Fienn. But Fienn’s daughter?
That was the trouble with all his enterprises and all his contacts. After nearly three frantic centuries, the faces, the scents, and the names became harder and harder to separate. Not when he saw people face-to-face—that wasn’t the problem, because the reality sorted out the recollections—but when he was by himself trying to sort them out.
Fienn’s daughter?
Murra? Had that been it?
“Interrogative destination code, Ydrisian Hub, for Port Captain Murra Herris Relyea.”
“That is affirmative. Code on screen delta.”
The pilot sighed. “Stet. Torp two to destination code for Port Captain Murra Herris Relyea.”
He tapped the complete block for the material on his data screen, the message to Murra that would explain her obligation.
Simply put, in return for the ten percent interest she was receiving from him, she had to transmit the transactions and instructions packed into the message torp to their addresses—all various Gerswin enterprises. He had done his best to divest himself of such interests, if only to keep the Empire at bay. Some of those concerns would survive. Some would not, but most of the techniques they had brought into commercial acceptance would survive, along with the increased levels of biologic technology.
He wished he had left himself the time to conduct the last steps of divestiture himself, but he wasn’t about to try, not with three Imperial squadrons reputed as committed to find him.
Far safer to leave the remainder to the Ydrisians. They owed him, and they knew they owed him. And Ydrisians paid their debts. No matter what the cost. Always.
That brought up another question.
Debts.
“And have you paid yours?”
He did not bother to shake his head, knowing the answer. Like an insolvent institution, he had not rendered full repayment on each credit. Like a chronic gambler, he had bet more than he had, using other people when he could not cover his bets. Other people, like Lerwin, and Kiedra, like the poor altruistic Ydrisians, like Lyr. Especially like Lyr.
Her whole life had gone to the foundation, nothing more than a charade and a cover for his determination to reclaim Old Earth. She might guess, but would never know, could never know, how successful that real mission had been.
While he had given her back some of those lost years through the extensive medical therapy and rejuves he had arranged for her, he had led her on with promise after promise…and had never delivered.
“Will I see you there?” Those had been her last words, and he had not even answered them.
For a time, his eyes looked beyond the views on the screens before him, beyond the exterior view of the uninhabited system where he orbited while he completed his last Imperial-related business. He saw neither sun nor stars, recalling, instead, a sandy-haired woman, earnest and intense, and the warm wood of an exclusive private club.
How many trusting souls had he led on? How many had there been, particularly women, each thinking he had given them something, when he had no more than give
n them a glimpse?
Caroljoy…Faith…Kiedra…Allison…Lyr…
Those were the ones it had hurt for him to hurt. But had it stopped him?
And what of the others, the ones he had blazed past in hours or days, never turning back, his eyes on a future that might never come to pass?
“Interrogative dispatch instructions,” asked the AI, the cool tones of the disembodied intelligence cutting through his memories.
“Dispatch torp two.”
“Dispatching torp two.”
With another sigh, the pilot turned his attention to the controls, and to the jump-point plots.
“Time to jump point?”
“Two point five.”
He touched the controls and began to plot the coordinates and course line manually, rather than letting the AI do it, understanding that he did so not only to prove his abilities, but to avoid the memories that seemed ever more ready to spill out and to draw him into endless self-debate.
He frowned, pursing his lips, as he watched the plot, wondering how quickly the Empire would act, or whether it would bother, for all the rumors, for all the speculations reported so far.
There were arguments for every possibility.
He shrugged. One way or another, he was going home. Although it was no longer the home he had known, there was no other place that could or would claim him.
He sealed the course, leaning back in the couch.
After a time of keeping his thoughts blank, he dozed, trying to push too many shadowy figures back into his subconscious, half waiting for the time when the AI would sound the chime that signified that the jump point was approaching.
Cling!
“Jump point approaching.”
“Stet.”
He scanned the board, twice, then ran through the parameters…feeding in three possible post-jump courses, probably unnecessary, since the odds of an Imperial patrol being within an emkay of his reentry were minuscule. If the odds, however long, were wrong, he needed to be ready.
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