Natural Selection

by Michael A. Stackpole

The Prince smiled. "This is excellent news, and ties in with what I wanted to tell you, Galen."

  "Sir?"

  "Pack your bags, you're going to Arc-Royal." Victor kept the smile on his face. "I want you to represent me there with Katherine when the Kell Hounds bury their dead. I also want you to keep an eye on my sister for me." He saw Galen's expression begin to darken, but waved away any misgivings his friend might have. "Don't spy on her, Galen. Just make sure Ryan and his people don't try with her what they did with Ragnar. Consider it a vacation and your chance to get linked with my sister in the scandal vids."

  "A vacation? I guess I can handle that sort of temporary duty." The blond officer did not even try to hide his pleasure at being asked to accompany Katherine. "Thank you, Victor."

  "You've earned it, my friend." Victor waved him out of the office. "Go pack. You'll have to leave immediately to reach Arc-Royal by the time the Hounds return."

  Galen saluted, Victor returned it, then the man left the office.

  Curaitis's eyes sharpened. "What didn't you want him to hear?"

  The Prince nodded. "I hope you are even better than your remark suggests you are."

  "I am."

  "Good. The assassin has survived his fat embolis?"

  The security man nodded. "He will be fit enough to hang, though it is a waste of rope."

  "Waste not, want not." Victor folded his arms across his chest. "I want him taken to the old leprosarium on Poulsbo. I want him kept up to speed on anything and everything that would enhance his performance as an assassin. Give him nothing that truly works, but let him log all the computer simulation time he wants."

  Curaitis nodded stiffly. "It is a dangerous game you are playing. If word were to get out that you were 'keeping' the assassin who killed your mother. . . "

  "That's why you are acting as my agent in this, Curaitis. I do not expect word of his existence to get out. Period." Victor took a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly. "Someone else defined the rules of this game and I'm just learning them. Once I've mastered them, I will be ready to destroy my enemies. And when that day comes, it will be my distinct pleasure to use their best weapon against them."

  42

  Elissa

  Wolf Clan Occupation Zone

  26 October 3055

  Phelan Kell rubbed at his eyes. The insides of his eyelids felt like they were coated in sandpaper, but that was to be expected after hours of staring at a computer screen. Still clad as he had been in the cockpit of his Wolfhound, he had left the battlefield and immediately taken command of the Red Corsair's office. What he had planned as a cursory examination of files turned into an hours'-long plunge into a conspiracy that left him feeling shaken and hollow.

  He looked up from the desk as someone knocked at the door. "Enter."

  Two Elementals in gray jumpsuits and bearing side-arms led Conal Ward into the spacious office. They hustled him along, dragging him when the chain hobbling his feet kept him from matching their stride. Holding him upright on the white marble floor, they let him get his feet under himself.

  Then the Elementals took a step back, but stood ready to restrain the prisoner. Phelan gave them a smile, then held out his right hand. "Please give me the key to his shackles. You may leave. We do not want to be disturbed." One of the Elementals hesitated and the Khan added, "We will not have trouble, will we, Conal?"

  The prisoner shook his head.

  The Elementals complied with Phelan's order and withdrew. As the door clicked shut, Conal's head came up. "Figured it all out, did you?"

  Phelan's fist tightened on the key, then he flipped it to Conal. "These documents leave little to the imagination. I would not have believed you hated me so much."

  "Do not flatter yourself." Conal freed his legs and started working on his manacles. "Yes, I hate you, but even more I hate the way you Wardens have crippled the Clans. We live for war and we are the ultimate army. Ulric and Natasha and others like them have stripped us of our true nature."

  "I would not have thought treason was part of a Clansman's true nature." Phelan rested his left hand on the computer console. "I have read how the atomic mine was to be used to destroy this base and leave no clue if the Red Corsair's mission failed. You could have set it and been clear long before we arrived."

  The Khan shook his head. "I wondered why you didn't press me when we fought. You should have ripped me to pieces, but you were looking beyond that immediate pleasure to a greater revenge. No one from outside the Clans would believe you were willing to die in a nuclear blast just to get at me and the Wolf Clan. But then they would not understand how the Clans work. They don't know their history."

  Conal sneered at him. "And you do?"

  "I know enough to realize that your plan would have cost more lives than all the other wars mankind has known. You would have destroyed all the Wolves, you know, not just the Wardens." Phelan shivered. "The last Clan that dared use atomics was utterly destroyed. They were hunted down—men, women, and children—and all slain. The Clans barely even acknowledge that they ever existed, and their crime ..."

  Conal shook his head. "The Wolverines used a nuclear blast to destroy a genetic repository. They deserved to die. Here things would have been different. Many of my people would have survived and the conclusion they would have drawn was that a nuclear weapon brought in by the Kell Hounds detonated prematurely. You would have been blamed, and Ulric along with you. The Wolf Clan would have been destroyed just like the Wolverines, but our bloodlines—good Crusader bloodlines—would have passed into other Clans."

  Conal laughed in the face of Phelan's horror. "Yes, I would have died in the blast along with you, but I would have died a hero because I opposed you. My genetic material would have contributed to legions of sibkos, and battles would have been waged for its possession."

  "You are a monster!" Phelan stood and ripped open a desk drawer. He pulled out a black grease pencil and tossed it to Conal. "Use it. Draw a circle. I will give you the honor of dying in a Circle of Equals."

  Conal batted the pencil out of the air and defiantly rested his fists on his hips. "I may be a monster, but I am not a stupid one. You are my Khan. You have a duty to me and the Clans. As is my right, I demand a trial before the Grand Council."

  Conal's request took Phelan's breath away. "What?" he whispered hoarsely.

  The elder Clansman smiled triumphantly. "You heard me correctly, Khan Phelan. I demand a trial before the Grand Council. I want my fate decided before a Council of all the Khans."

  "You are insane, no doubt about it." Phelan shook his head, hoping to banish the start of the headache pulsing out pain at his temples. "Were I you, I would have no desire to see my treason paraded before the Khans."

  "But you are not me, and you do not have my understanding of Clan politics." Conal's smug expression made Phelan's heart begin to sink. "What you have determined about the nuclear mine and our fight is just supposition. You have no proof."

  The Khan rapped his knuckles on the computer console. "The Corsair's evacuation plan for the base is here. It talks about using the nuke to destroy everything."

  Conal shrugged. "So the Red Corsair stumbled upon a device hidden by the pirates who used to inhabit this place, and she decided to use it. She was a renegade."

  "No she wasn't." Phelan frowned heavily. "She was being aided and abetted by the Jade Falcons. They gave her ships and BattleMechs both before and during her campaign."

  "You will find no record of such things in Jade Falcon files." Conal shrugged. "Besides, she is dead and what was given to her is immaterial to my trial. It will not, in fact, affect how my trial turns out. Innocent or guilty, I will win."

  "I don't understand."

  "I know." Conal held out his left hand. "If I am found innocent, you and the ilKhan will be viewed as having entered a treasonous alliance with Victor Davion to retake Elissa. Ulric will be challenged, as will you. Natasha will be challenged, too, and you will see the Crusaders replacing you within the hierarch
y of our Clan. A new ilKhan will be elected and the truce will be repudiated."

  Conal's right hand came up. "Even if I am found guilty of treason, my act of treason will have been in the name of defending a woman who proved what we all know to be true: the truce is a sham that protects the Inner Sphere from us. With only a poorly armed and supported force, she was able to raid at will within the Inner Sphere."

  Phelan swallowed hard. "The truce is again questioned, Ulric is challenged, and the peace dies."

  "And that is just from the Clan side of things." Conal pointed back toward the door. "If even a hint of this gets out to the Inner Sphere, the demand for war on their part will shatter your precious truce. And you can be assured that word will get out, because I will demand testimony from the Kell Hounds and other Inner Sphere witnesses."

  Conal folded his arms across his chest. "Sooner rather than later, the truce is dead and we return to doing what we do the best—war. If you were really of the Clans, you would see that and would have joined me. You know I am right—I can see it in your eyes—I have won! You have lost, the Inner Sphere has lost. You know now what my trial will make manifest to everyone."

  In one smooth motion Phelan drew his pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Conal over the right eye and blew back out the rear of his head. His body twisted around and fell to the ground, dead before it hit.

  The Khan of the Wolf Clan came around from behind the desk and picked the grease pencil off the floor. Grasping it firmly in his left hand, he carefully drew a black circle in the middle of the floor. It surrounded the body.

  He finished the circle and placed the pencil on the desk. "Guards!"

  The two Elementals, anxiety showing on their faces, burst into the room with their guns leveled. They looked from Phelan to the body and back up.

  "He preferred a Circle of Equals to a trial on charges of treason." Phelan holstered his pistol. "He lost."

  Epilogue

  Kooken's Pleasure Pit

  Federated Commonwealth

  13 November 3055

  Christian Kell smiled at the two boys playing in the yard when he stopped the Rover he had rented in Dobson. He climbed out, then pulled his black cap from beneath the shoulder flap on his red fatigue shirt. He settled it on his head with a tug on the bill, then walked toward the house. By that time the two boys, clones of each other, stood in his way, craning their heads back to look up at him.

  "You're from the Kell Hounds, aren't you?" one asked.

  Chris squatted down to meet them at eye level. "I am and I would guess you are Jacob and you are Joachim." The twins looked at him in awe, and Chris smiled, thankful he had been lucky with his guesses. "Your grandfather told me all about you."

  "Boys, come inside."

  The blond twins turned to look at the woman standing on the porch, holding the door open. "Mom, he's a Kell Hound. He knows Grandpa."

  "In the house. Now!" Her stance and her tone promised no reversal and no mercy, so the two boys trudged listlessly under her arm and into the house. She released her grip on the door, then let it slam shut behind them. Hugging the folds of a thick sweater around her, the woman stood ready to defend her sons against the threat he represented to them.

  The mercenary straightened up. "I am Major Christian Kell."

  "I know who you are. I remember you from when you tried to visiphone." She looked up at Chris and the blue of her eyes sent a jolt straight through to his soul. "I told you then that I didn't want to talk to you. I meant it."

  "I knew you did, at the time. I thought. ..."

  "You thought wrong, if you thought at all." A shiver shook her skeletal form. "First Jon and then the Kommandant. I won't have it happen to my boys. Please leave."

  "Mrs. Geist, Dorete, I'm here to discharge a debt to your father-in-law." He coughed lightly. "You're not making this easy."

  "His dying doesn't make it very easy on me." Venom pumped like blood through her words. "Nelson Geist is dead. He lived and died by the sword. You owe him nothing."

  "Wrong!" Chris re-exerted control after his initial shout. He could see she wanted to provoke a reaction. "I owe him my life. Every one of the people we brought back here to Kooken owes Nelson Geist his life. The fact that the Inner Sphere is not again at war with the Clans is because of Nelson Geist. Just hear me out, give him that much, then you can tell me to leave."

  Dorete remained silent and stone-still. The breeze tugged at the hem of her floral print dress and whipped a few wisps of blond hair across her face, but she did not move a muscle. She didn't even blink and Chris wondered if she was going to faint. When she did not, he took her silence as permission for him to continue.

  "Nelson Geist resigned his commission with the militia and joined the Kell Hounds before he died. He was given the rank of major. Because of that you—and your sons—have certain rights and privileges that we accord the survivors of our fallen members."

  Her head came up and Chris saw a tremor in her lower lip. "I have memorial flags and apologetic holovids enough, thank you, Major."

  Chris shook his head. "I understand that, ma'am. This is different. We're taking Major Geist to Arc-Royal to be buried with the other Hounds. We'd like you and his grandsons to come along. You'll have a place there. We have programs that will get the boys an education."

  "No!" She bunched the sweater in her hands as she balled her fists. "I won't have my boys turned into soldiers."

  "That's not what we're talking about, Mrs. Geist." Chris pulled off his cap and clutched it in his hands. "We're talking about a chance for the boys to grow up to be whatever they want: doctors, lawyers, whatever. No obligation to the Hounds: we'd be repaying our debt to Major Geist."

  "Nelson Geist is dead." Her face hardened. "I don't want anything from him."

  "That's too bad, Dorete, because you already have it." Chris let an edge creep into his voice. "Nelson Geist gave you a future. That's why he died, to give a future to you and to your children and to their children and to theirs." Then he softened his voice again. "And, yes, they might decide to be soldiers, but if that happens, you know as well as I that, short of killing them yourself, you could do nothing to stop them."

  A tear splashed down her cheek and her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Chris mounted the steps to the porch and put his arms around her. She fought him for a moment, then relented and clung to him. "Why?"

  Chris shrugged. "That is the question no one can answer. Right now, though, Nelson's death means you and the boys don't need to face the future alone."

  He looked down and saw the two boys framed by the screen door. Their mother's sobs had tears brimming in their eyes. "Who are you, mister?"

  Chris gave them as brave a smile as he could muster, but then words failed him.

  "He is a friend." Dorete shifted within his aims and looked at her sons. "Your grandfather sent him. He's taking us home."