I thanked the Truth Seeker for the valuable information and promised to have a talk with Crown Princess Natalie. The old lady nodded, bid farewell audibly, then suddenly added mentally:
"The paralyzed girl spoke the truth about my very advanced age. I cannot speak on the Antagonists, though. They once had Truth Seekers more ancient than myself, but I truly am the oldest one in the Empire proper. My youngest son was the first captain of the scout ship Star Mutt. The twins Paul and Paola are my distant great-great-grandchildren. Paola even looks like me in my youth, despite all the generations that separate us. Crown Prince Georg, I was very glad when I saw that my distant relatives were with you. If your Majesty can come to an agreement with the Swarm and the Mechs, I would be much obliged if you could send Paola to me. I would be very grateful and would accept her with great honor."
"Agreed. I'll suggest that Paola go to the Blue House. I'm sure the girl will be glad to meet her great-great-grandma," I promised the seven-century-old Krista.
Standing change. Blue House (Empire) opinion of you has improved.
Present Blue House (Empire) faction opinion of you: +5 (warm)
Standing change. Blue House (Empire) opinion of the Unatari State has improved.
Present Blue House faction opinion of the Unatari State: +1 (indifferent)
I turned the screen off and, accompanied by a whole division of invisible bodyguards, returned to the large hall of the cafeteria. It had become crowded there. The work day was over, and many employees of the laboratory had come down to dine, at the same time making use of the chance to see the ruler of their government in the flesh, even if only from the corner of an eye. Popori de Cacha was nervous, and advised me to finish all negotiations and return to a more appropriate location as quickly as possible, as he considered it too unsafe here. But Florianna sensed no danger, so I decided to spend some time carousing with the rank and file.
Ayna was dancing with Admiral Mike ton Akad among a great many spinning couples. Duke Valesy royl Unatari was talking with Bionica and, judging by the half bottle of strong alcohol on the table before them, trying to get my pretty secretary drunk. How naive. When I showed up, the old man pointed to the armchair next to him, and said in a none-too-sober tone:
"Georg, I must admit something to you. For the last few days, I have been hearing Marta's voice ringing out in my head, clear as day. My dead daughter is angry that everyone has forgotten her. She says that I'm no father to her until I get revenge for her death. The voice shows up unexpectedly and is just driving me crazy. Marta has also started coming into my dreams every night to keep compelling me there. She suggests I take advantage of your trust, strike you in the back, and take all the power for her daughter Likanna. Tell me, Georg, have I lost my mind? After all, a person cannot hear voices in his head, right?"
I tried to calm him:
"You have not lost your mind, Valesy. Many psionics are capable of planting voices in people’s minds. The Alien Queen shares this ability. I suppose this is the work of a fairly strong Truth Seeker. She is pretending to be Marta, and is trying to poison us that way."
"Georg, I cannot sense any traces of such activity here. That could just mean that the enemy is significantly stronger than I am, though."
Bionica stretched out her arm, took the bottle and poured two glasses of strong brandy, one for herself, and another for the Duke. She offered to pour me one, but I refused. Duke Valesy took it obediently and drank it down. It turned out that I had been mistaken in my initial evaluation of the situation. It wasn't the old Duke trying to get the pretty young girl drunk at all. In fact, my android was clearly taking advantage of the fact that alcohol had no effect on her, to loosen the Duke’s lips.
"Georg, I cannot go on like this. Marta will put me in the grave. She tries to get me to usurp your power day and night, but she doesn't understand that I will never manage as ruler. I saw your skill today. Even the strongest figures in the universe treat you with deference. People are afraid of you. They respect you. No one would ever take me seriously. The Unatari State would die with you, and get gobbled up by its neighbors in short order."
"Yes, that is all true. That's why you need to fight the mind control. Resist. I will ask Florianna to give you mental protection, like the kind I have. Perhaps the voices won't go away entirely, but they should become much weaker. Also, my highly experienced doctor, Nicosid Brandt, can prescribe you some medicine to make it so you won't dream at all anymore. But soon, I will return with Likanna, and at the same time bring one of the strongest Truth Seekers in the Empire to our side. After that, the voices will stop once and for all. Perhaps my Truth Seekers will be able to root out your invisible enemy and make them answer for this low blow."
Standing change. Valesy royl Unatari's opinion of you has improved.
Presumed personal opinion of you: +53 (friendship)
Just then, Popori de Cacha appeared before me, telling me with a respectful bow:
"Tuki-tuka-de-sa, a message has just come in from the Iseyek. Swarm Queen Nai Igir is prepared to receive your Majesty two days from now in Dekeye."
* * *
The Iseyek had a demand at the very last second: only one ship, of a class no larger than a frigate was to be allowed. It was unexpected and even, in my cousin Katerina's words, a borderline insult. The monarch of a sovereign government generally has a somewhat bigger retinue than a small frigate can accommodate. Under different circumstances, I would have reacted indignantly, but I had no other way to pick up my daughter and her friends from insect space, and wanted to preserve my good-neighborly relationship with the Swarm, so I was forced to make concessions and bring down the size of the Unatari delegation. I even had to consider the fact that, on the return journey, we would be carrying three Crown Princess and their new Alpha Iseyek companions, as well as the wanted criminal Marian Sabati. That was why our cohort was very light as we set out to meet Nai Igir: me, Bionica as translator, and a cohort of bodyguards.
We flew in Warhawk-4, captained by the highly decorated Tamara Vuzhek. Choosing her as pilot was no accident, either. First of all, the Iseyek respected her, and knew her as the most skilled frigate captain in my fleet. Second, Tamara knew my daughter Likanna well, and I was hoping that their friendship would have a positive effect on the behavior of the three Crown Princesses, who were probably going stir-crazy from the long trip in such a small space.
We were already in the Yal system, waiting to charge our frigate, and I was talking with my cousin about the Blue House's proposal over video. Katerina heard me out with rapt attention, but after a long silence, answered:
"To be honest, my natural reaction is to do the opposite of what they suggest. As Duchess Ovella's position is so tenuous, the sensible thing to do would be supporting little Natalie in her ambition for power. We stand to gain a lot more. Not just fifteen billion credits, which is of course not bad, but the whole Blue House at our beck and call until Crown Princess Natalie comes of age four years from now."
"An attractive prospect," I agreed, but Katerina shook her head:
"Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as it seems. The Crown Princess will never agree to sit locked up in isolation for so long. Also, it would be impossible for us to influence the course of the rebellion in the Blue House from Unatari space. We will not be able to provide security to the girl beyond the borders of Unatari, and she will simply be murdered, though not by our hands. We will get no reward whatsoever, and the Blue House will be very insulted as well. It's a bad option. I say we take Krista's offer, but first we need to make sure we get an official guarantee from her boss, Duchess Ovella, first. After that, try not to blacken your name too much in earning these fifteen billion for our shared government. And another thing, Georg. The whole situation with Krista has led me to an important thought. I hope you are smart enough not to make Marian Sabati your oldest daughter's Truth Seeker. I'm quite sure that, if you do, Unatari will be getting a new ruler much faster than you would like."
Duch
ess Katerina royl Unatari signed off, leaving me in thought. I mean, I trusted Likanna completely but, all the same, I took my cousin's warning into account. The timer I set beeped, telling me that the Green House armada was arriving to the Forepost-31 system. I decided to send an ultimatum to Crown Prince Demyen royl Amelius ton Lavaelle, commander of the Green House First Strike Fleet, who was now securely in my trap.
I did not talk with the Crown Prince myself, as I was afraid of potential aggression from the several strong Truth Seekers in his fleet. As such, I decided to limit myself to a message. In it, I promised Crown Prince Demyen and his people their lives, good treatment in captivity, and a quick return to Green House space, if he capitulated immediately and transferred all his one thousand five hundred ships in full working order to the Unatari State. I also promised the commander that, if my generous proposal was not accepted within eight hours, the two million soldiers of the Green House First Strike Fleet would be learning firsthand about new concepts such as "starvation" and "cannibalism." Then, to those conditions, I added a demand that Crown Prince Demyen royl Amelius ton Lavaelle and all other aristocrats in his fleet resign from power without exception.
I sent the message to Bionica for her to send onward, but my usually quiet, modest assistant unexpectedly asked me to hold off sending the ultimatum.
"Your Majesty, Crown Prince Demyen has just arrived to the Forepost-31 system. He has no idea what a mess he's in. His ships are waiting to charge, and have not yet realized that the next warp beacon will not be turning on for them. It seems to me that we should make use of their inaction and build on the effect of your Majesty’s trap."
"What did you have in mind, Bionica?"
"In the Green fleet, there are a huge number of androids. The Green House manufactures all android models and uses them for all kinds of labor. All of their ships are chock-full of robot servants, who are responsible for cleanup, laundry, food preparation, soldier entertainment, and much more. And though weapons rooms and ammunition warehouses are critically important locations and are guarded by living people, the more banal storage facilities are completely run by robots. I could order the Green House First Strike Fleet's androids to begin preparing goods for disposal. They could send all full containers to be compacted or into the vacuum of space. They could also destroy the briquettes of dry food in their trash burners. These are scheduled procedures that are performed periodically on any ship to make space for fresh products in storage. These kinds of activities do not require any approval, and would not arouse suspicion. Before the enemy starts suspecting anything, a large proportion of their stocks could be destroyed. Similar actions could be used with the fresh water storage. Simply order the robots to empty out all the tanks and send all the 'spoiled' water into space."
My eyebrows shot up in surprise I wasn't expecting my peaceful Bionica to give me such a sophisticated, well-thought-out act of villainy.
"Very well, get to work. I'll send my ultimatum to the Duke in seven hours then, when our Warhawk is coming out of the warp tunnel in the Kiya system. When I do that, ask your android friends how the sabotage went."
"Yes sir, my Prince," Bionica gave a slight bow and set off to the communications officer to send encoded messages incomprehensible to living people.
I, though, remained sitting deep in thought. If my personal secretary had always had such ideas in her arsenal, why had Bionica not told me about them earlier? And also, if you think about it, why would the Green House, which created the androids and had a great understanding of them, not also use such tactics? If, then, Bionica recently got the ability to give commands to other androids, I needed to find out why these changes had taken place. Basically, the time had come for a very serious conversation with Bionica.
Swarm Princess
I had the conversation with my synthetic assistant planned for the morning. First of all, in order to be able to get some rest after such a long, action-packed day, and just gather my thoughts. Second, before the conversation, I wanted to find out the results of the subversion planned by Bionica in Crown Prince Demyen's fleet. By the way, Tamara Vuzhek had given my android a separate, spacious room, forcing her own crew into tighter quarters to do so. And, what completely surprised me was that my modest Bionica took the honors extended to her totally for granted.
I fell asleep instantly, my head barely having touched the pillow. And... I immediately found myself in a totally unfamiliar place. Some kind of darkened room with no windows, furnished with futuristic reinforced plastic furniture, a floor that gave a spring as you walked, and some vertical hanging curtains covering openings in the wall that led to some kind of corridors. The only source of light was behind a less thickly covered door in the next room over. I could hear wind chimes jingling away from that room as well. Clearly, someone was suggesting I go in that direction.
All the same, before getting up and walking toward the source of light, I went up to a dark mirror on the wall and took a look at myself in order to figure out what body I was in. From the gloomy, ancient mirror, Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle was looking back at me wearing a pair of white long underwear. Not the most appropriate getup for a walk around an unfamiliar location, but still better than nothing. I adjusted my disheveled hair with my hand, walked toward the light and carefully cracked the door open.
It was a child's room, judging by the flowery pink wallpaper, low shelves weighed down by toys and the diaper changing board next to the wall. The glow was coming from a flower-shaped night-light in the wall. In the far corner from the night light, there was a child's bassinet with a canopy over it. Hanging from the ceiling above that, a musical mobile was slowly spinning a set of hanging, brightly colored toys. That was what was making the melodious sound I’d heard. I walked up to the bassinet quietly and carefully peeled back the canopy to look inside at the sleeping child.
It was a sweet little girl, smiling as she dozed away. She had curly dark-colored hair. An interactive popup came up obligingly, telling me who exactly I was seeing in the crib:
Deianna royl Georg ton Mesfelle, Crown Princess of the Empire
Age: 8 months
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Relation to you: Your legal daughter
Class: Aristocrat
Achievements: None
Fame: +1 Standing: 0
Presumed personal opinion of you: (inactive)
"Isn't she wonderful, Georg?" I could hear unhidden tenderness in Miya's voice, ringing out from somewhere behind me.
I turned around slowly to see my spouse, sitting in a deep armchair. For clothing, the beauty was making do with the very same frivolous and erotic construction of bright pink ribbons that I had seen Miya in on our very first meeting. The woman pointed me to the chair next to hers with an inviting gesture.
"Take a seat, Georg. You and I have a lot to talk about."
"What is this place?" I wondered, taking the seat next to my spouse.
The redhead beauty just waved my question off carelessly:
"What difference does it make? It's nothing more than a peaceful location where no one can trouble me or my daughter. To be honest, I don't know where it is myself. Maybe it's a villa somewhere in the real world. Maybe it's a 3-D virtual image of one. I also cannot exclude the possibility that this entire area was created from scratch by programmers."
"What do you mean? Are you trying to say that you don't know if you're in reality or a virtual world?"
Miya chuckled and cracked her fingers. A piece of the round table next to us went silently downward and, when it came back up a few seconds later, there was a dark ceramic jug of wine sitting open on it next to two high-walled wine glasses filled with ruby red liquid. My attention caught, and I picked up the jug for a closer look. But I was disappointed. The elaborate label was adorned with a drawing of unfamiliar pear-shaped blue fruits, and some strange script I had never seen before. Nevertheless, the wine was good, which I became sure of after it touched my lips.
"Here's what I'm saying," Miya took a small gulp of wine and set the glass back on the table. "There is no difference whatsoever between a real and virtual world if you live in it, enjoy it and perceive it as reality."
"I cannot live like that. It is important for me to know where I am," I disagreed with her, but Miya just laughed in reply:
"You can't be serious, right? You have already spent seven and a half months in Perimeter Defense, and yet you haven’t made up your mind as to whether it’s a game or not. Your lack of certainty does not stop you from living a complete life, going to war, making enemies, forming plans and loving, though."
It would have obviously been stupid to argue with a woman who could read my thoughts. Yes, despite all my contemplation on the nature of Perimeter Defense, I had found facts that both confirmed and refuted both options.
"So then, could you enlighten me?" I asked, though I understood that I wouldn't receive an answer that easily.
Miya smiled and shook her head "no."
"You must find the answer yourself, otherwise it won't be fun. Let's talk about something else now. Your second contract has been underway for a month and a half, and I finally got enough strength to check in on how it's going with the defense of the Unatari star system. I can sense that the capital is holding out, but I couldn't find out any details. Only today did I finally feel rested enough to read any actual news from Perimeter Defense. What I saw completely caught me off guard, which is why I decided to spend pretty much all of my energy to call you for a frank conversation."
New Contract (Perimeter Defense Book #3) Page 21