Empire of the One (Wine of the Gods Book 14)

by Pam Uphoff

  Her eyes twinkled. She giggled, just like a teenage girl.

  Urfa eyed her thoughtfully. He was beginning to see through the bubbles, and the Princess under it all was interesting. Watchful, adaptive, using verbal and physical misdirection to deliberately give the wrong impression. And apparently as happy underneath as she looked on the outside. All the men, and Urfa had to include himself, tended to melt in her vicinity. He had noted, now that he had access to so many files, her close resemblance to the Clostuone secretary in the Ministry of War who’d accidentally released the data that had turned the last election into such a free-for-all. Of course, the secretary had had long curly red hair, not the short, straight professional cut Rael wore when in uniform, or the gelled spikes she was sporting today. If Rael is a former Dancer, if she was the "leak" in the War Ministry . . . Did the One deliberately unseat the former President?

  In any case, poor Ahba hadn’t a clue who or what she was. Nor that she was leading him on into further errors.

  Xiat sent a chilling look in Ahba's direction. "It would be uncharacteristic of them to attack a rival’s child, but they might decide to spread rumors. Some casual social connections could give us a bit of prior warning."

  Definitely time to hand out some work. "Ahba, Idlo? Why don’t you two take a look at the situation, at the next show. Are you known to them? As the former president’s men who stayed with the Directorate?"

  Idlo leaned back in his chair. "We were just babies, not even errand runners in that group. Security, not Intel." His mouth was tight, he didn’t like admitting that, to this group.

  Ahba nodded. "You Modernists are so thin on the ground, everyone gets noticed. It wasn’t that way for us."

  Idlo looked back at Urfa. "I know a fair number of the younger wives, socially. I went to school with some of them. I’ll introduce Ahba around, we’ll just sort of ooze into the social scene." He wrinkled his nose. "I guess spying on the other political parties is a large part of our job."

  "Inasmuch as they may make trouble for the President. Theoretically there are legal barriers to domestic espionage aimed at actual political campaigns, not that I’ve ever noticed either the War Party or the Isolationists worrying about election laws." Urfa looked at Xiat. "These horse show people, mostly War Party or are the Isolationists active there too?"

  "Both. It’s an approved high society activity. And then the wives swap around so much, they’re pretty indifferent to the label they take on when they marry someone of the other party. They’re real good at not saying the wrong thing, and hiding their real opinions. I hadn’t thought, but the horse show scene is a good infiltration point."

  Idlo was blank faced, Ahba looked a bit taken aback.

  "Good. That’ll be a good setup for the future." Poor children, still pining for the days of being interchangeable Gofers in a much bigger pond. Hopefully the Modernists will become "us" before too long. And a bigger pond.

  Or, of course, we could lose the next election, and then everyone will try to leverage their insider knowledge of us into a better position in one of the other parties or a job in one of the Directorates or Ministries.

  ***

  Ydro frowned around at the fervent students parading down the street carrying signs full of hatred and violence, and felt a million years old.

  He caught the eye of another watcher. The man with the forged ID card.

  The big man looked like a country bumpkin. "One. Naive and nasty. Idiots."

  Ydro snickered. "Say it louder, and find out just how nasty they can be."

  The man shook his head. "Hurting them won't straighten out their thinking. I've seen you in Civics, haven't I?"

  "Yeah. Ydro Servaone."

  "Este Randle. Not that I object to isolationism, as such. But these idiots, trying to whip up violence against natives, are likely to get people killed."

  "That is what they're trying."

  "I doubt they have a clue. Probably have trouble making themselves step on a cockroach. Or maybe they have the genes to rape, and they don't think they'd have any more trouble killing the women, after. Or during." The bumpkin looked at his hands, made a wringing motion and hunched his shoulders. "Sick."

  Ydro blanched. "I . . . guess I hadn't thought about what it would be like. The actual." He stopped abruptly and looked at his hands. Closing on a girlfriend's neck . . . He turned and nearly ran away. He made himself stop after a block. He was supposed to be getting to know the targeted group, not getting spooked by them. The man looked so stupid, I wasn't expecting him to have analyzed the Fire and Sword people. To see the complete corruption in their ideas—and make me understand it a whole lot better.

  He looked back and spotted Este working his way out of the crowd and followed him to a history class. After class, the big man grabbed a sandwich in the Commons, and took over a table. He waved to someone, a woman in purple, with a trail of admirers. Princess, not shielded enough. She seemed to have picked up a persistent male, who failed to go away after she spotted Este and made a beeline for him. Ydro boggled as he recognized her follower. The number two man locally, in the Fire and Sword. He edged close enough to overhear the conversation.

  "So, you are a friend of Heil's?" The man was obviously a Oner. Tall, blonde, and handsome. He looked down his nose at the seated man.

  Somehow, even being a bit taller than this fellow, with light brown almost blonde hair and grey eyes, he didn't seem to think of Este as "Obviously a Oner." And neither did I.

  Now, Este was frowning, apparently suddenly recognizing the other man. "Oh, you're one of those idiots that was out marching around this morning."

  "Idiots?" The man's eyes narrowed.

  "Wow." Ydro intervened, wanting a conversation, not a fist fight.

  Este glanced over his shoulder. Ydro let his mouth hang open, staring at Heil, tray sagging.

  "Hey. Ydro, this is Heil. Sit down before you drop your food."

  The F&Ser took that as a universal invitation and joined them. "I'm Ojku. I'm taking programming with Heil."

  Heil, between the two outsiders, looked a bit irritated, but suddenly scooted her chair over closer to Ydro. "Kail, come sit with us."

  The girl she addressed nodded. "Okay. I've just got a minute, though. I need to talk to that professor about his theory on the dimensions. It sounds like it solves most of the problems with conservation of mass and energy." She plunked her tray down and hooked a chair. She looked like a baby librarian, or maybe that was just the impression of sexless intelligence she fairly radiated. Ydro guessed her at perhaps sixteen, and looking younger. She was tall, with wavy brown hair, and eyes so dark they looked black with a blue rim.

  Ojku wasn't ready to give up the fight. "You don't like isolationists?" He stared at Este.

  Este smiled bucolically. "Keep to ourselves. Kill the nasty natives. As if t'universe was a mirror that would imitate your every move, and leave you alone in peace. And incredibly naive. Most likely not a one of your buddies has ever killed an animal more complex than a fly. Never butchered a steer. Hasn't a clue what it is like t'kill a human being. But they're out there, parading about, claiming to be willing t'kill little children, and pretty teenage girls. Stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I have to look in t'mirror every morning."

  Ojku scowled. "It would be better if we just didn't have anything to do with any worlds with Natives."

  "I suspect most of those Natives would agree. Have you tried talking t'them, t'establish common grounds and approach t'government from several directions?" Este's bovine continence didn't show a bit of what Ydro was beginning to realize were impressive brains.

  Inre has got to meet this man. He could give him a few pointers about being underestimated.

  "You know, that's a good point, Este." The purple princess looked over at Ojku. "With more Empty worlds than Primitive worlds, we should simply leave other people alone. Maybe the next Empty World approved for settlement, we should relocate our people from the Native worlds, then cast them loose."r />
  Ojku sputtered indignantly. "Give up our Colonies?"

  Kail raised her eyebrows. "Logically, if you want to have nothing to do with Natives, your choices are to admit that they own their own worlds, or kill them all."

  Ydro grinned. "Then you're back to killing pretty girls and old gents who never did you a bit of harm." Yikes! Now I sound like I've gone native!

  Ojku sneered and pushed back from the table. "What a pack of crybaby softies."

  Heil snickered as he walked away.

  Ydro swallowed and tried to not feel the draw of her glow. Infiltrating this group is going to be dangerous and delightful.

  For now, though, he shouldn’t push it. And following Ojku might be useful.

  Especially if he was heading off campus. Ydro swallowed the last of his sandwich and waved casually as he walked off. Trotted, once he was around a corner. Ojku was standing at a bus stop. Ydro circled through alleys and dawdled out of sight until Ojku was focused the other direction, at the bus coming up the street. Ydro trotted forward and got on three people after Ojku. Kept his head turned as Ojku fussed his way into a seat, and sat several rows behind him. How he was going to get off without being seen . . . Ojku stayed on until the main train terminus. Half the bus got off, and Ydro lost track of the man. Took a guess and boarded the next Paris train. Spotted Ojku boarding two cars up. Perfect. As was the exit at the Centre. And the meeting in the crowded, noisy café. Ydro bought a cheap cap in the colors of the local football team and sat with his back to Ojku, barely a foot away.

  "It worked like a charm. I got the anteste into the apartment hot water system. If it weren’t for the nausea, none of them would have realized they’d been dosed. The newspapers aren’t reporting it, but the rumor I got from a girl working at the clinic, there’s at least a dozen cases diagnosed. That’s four years they won’t be contaminating the gene pool."

  The older man nodded. "Excellent news, but don’t work to hear rumors, your interest could bring attention to yourself. We’ll hit somewhere else, next. You just carry on normally for a few months. You’ll really like what we’ll do next. So stay clean."

  Ydro kept his back resolutely turned, caught the departure of the old man out of the corner of his eye, and sauntered off that direction. I should recognize that man. I've seen him before.

  But whoever he was, he proved impossible to follow.

  Ojku flashed a lot of money around the next few weeks, but failed to impress Heil.

  Ydro wrote up the report and sent it to Izzo.

  ***

  "All righty, I've voted for my pick of movies tonight. And what do you have here?" Rael sauntered up behind the president's daughter.

  Paer glared down at her little computer. "History homework. The Origins of the One. Why didn't the Prophets write their history down? It would have made everything simpler."

  Rael grinned. "Unfortunately for fourteen centuries of students, they were trying to be obscure, mystical, and scary. Otherwise they'd never have managed to make it to the top."

  Ahba sniffed as he walked by. "They were incredibly powerful. They would have taken over, no matter what."

  "The Islamics of that century were absolute fanatics. The Prophets had to finesse their way into the power structure, take over the religion, and then take over the political structure from inside."

  Ahba just sniffed again, and walked off to vote on the movies for their customary Wednesday night movie trio.

  The vid screen in the big commons area took up most of one wall. At the moment it was showing a news program, the sound low enough to ignore as background. Rael caught a glimpse of men kicking a ball around and turned back to the girl.

  "What's your specific homework?" Xiat joined them.

  "Compare the three main theories of the Prophets' origins and argue persuasively for one of them. It's stupid. I'm not religious enough to think they really were sent by Allah to lead the Arab League to world conquest. And I don't believe in surviving secret enclaves of Mercans who designed the Prophets. Nobody was doing that sort of genetic engineering back then. They aren't doing it now. Obviously they came through a dimensional gate. They must have been, like, an Info Team. And they got marooned."

  "Sure seems like it, now. But back then thirty-five people walking out of thin air must have looked like a miracle." The soft voice belonged to Ohmi, a Priest of the One. He smiled at their expressions. "What the One has become, and whether Allah intended it to all happen this way, is an entirely different question."

  Paer squirmed a bit. She'd been raised a staunch atheist, but at her age, she wasn't brave enough to argue with a priest.

  Rael kept her face straight. "That might be an interesting point to argue. Did God misdirect a group of magically powerful dimensional explorers and drop them into a war zone to help his followers here on this version of Earth?"

  Xiat sniffed dismissively. "Inasmuch as Islam was taken over by the One, and that religion is nearly dead, it seems unlikely that Allah took a hand in it."

  Paer rolled her eyes. "I have no interest in becoming a history scholar, let alone a religious one. I just need to pass, and get back to riding."

  Across the room a cheer went up from a group of Princesses. "Stud alert!"

  The vid was showing an interview with the popular rider, Endi Dewulfe. "Anyone can do magic. All those Oner genes help. The power genes mean you can do more. But anyone. Native, Multitude, Halfer. Anyone can do some magic."

  "Quick, somebody turn that crap off!" Ahba looked disgusted.

  Rael giggled.

  Xiat glared at a guard reaching toward the controls. "Wait, she's asking about the competition."

  " . . . against Princess Paer?"

  "Oh, just in Class A. The Grand Prix competition is even stiffer. Very cut throat, everyone wants to qualify for the Regionals, and from there the Olympics."

  Paer sighed. "I wish I was older. Crystal's Olympic quality, and I will be." Then she scowled. "And he ducked her question about me. Stupid man, probably thinks I'm just a little girl, not real competition."

  Rael looked down at her. "With the drive you've got? You'll be beating that Boy Toy Halfer for years." She looked over at the screen. "Speaking of theories. That man's going to get himself beat up, if he keeps saying anyone can do magic."

  "By the grace of Allah and the One, the Power is concentrated in a small portion of the population, but is not exclusive to that group." The priest's eyes twinkled as he walked on.

  "Humph." Rael tapped Paer's comp. "So? I doubt you need much help tonight."

  "I know, I know. Stop procrastinating." The girl bent her head over the machine, fingers flying.

  Rael looked over at the voting table. "How's the vote going? Am I going to get my spy thrillers tonight?"

  Idlo leaned and checked. "Nope. 'The Director's Men,' 'Circle of Eight,' and 'Trail of Corruption' are in the lead."

  Rael shrugged. "Political intrigue's not bad. On the screen."

  Chapter Six

  Le Havre, European Region

  10 Safar 1396 YP

  Izzo sniffed the rotten seaweed and dead fish odors of the docks district. Le Havre was legally a separate city, but in practice Paris had engulfed the entirety of the Seine valley and extended hundreds of miles up and down the coast. He eyed the old rundown area with disfavor, and listened to Subdirector Efge and Senior Investigator Oscw chatting up the local cops. The trickle of forged IDs had turned into a flood. They'd brought a force of ten men to watch the man of interest, his housemates and anyone he dealt with, to collect evidence and eventually arrest him and any suspicious contacts he made.

  Sergeant Arko Clostuone of the local force knew exactly who they meant.

  "Este Randle. He's with a group that runs a ceramics and glass factory and shop. They use Halfer style names, but you can feel their strength, by the strengths of their shields, and the bit of leakage. The two men might be Halfers, but the three women definitely are Oners. Haven't seen one of the men for awhile. He's gotte
n some hoity-toity job in Britain. The women, I figured they were running away from their parents, with their Halfer boyfriends. Not illegal. I figured they'd get sick and tired of poverty and crawl home to their mommies soon enough." He shrugged.

  "But they haven't?" Efge prodded. The subdirector had decided to look into the startup of the surveillance personally, instead of leaving it to Oscw. Sick and tired of the office, Efge claimed.

  Izzo knew that was true for himself as well. And it only gets worse the higher one goes. So . . . If the excuse is thin, what is the actual reason? What is it about the forgeries that necessitates Efge’s personal attention? Is it something personal, a play in the game, or something political? He’s most likely staking a claim to a chunk of personal glory, if this turns into a big case. And is a notable success. Otherwise, he’s never heard of it.

  "No. They're down to the one man, but all four are taking turns manning the store and going to Le Havre City College." The sergeant turned at a ping from his desk comp. "Since you were interested, I tracked down some pictures and ran them through the facial identification program." He turned the screen so they could all see the results. "Low confidence and . . . looking at the pictures, those aren't them. Not any of them."

  Izzo reached for a toothpick. Stopped himself. "Nice to know they don't have criminal records . . . but doesn't this imply that they've never had any official identification? No credit. Never drove a car?"

  "Legally." The sergeant shrugged. "Or they could be from a colony, and had local ID for that."

  Efge frowned at the Sergeant. "They're suspects, especially Este Randle, in a ID forgery case we've been working. We can't find any evidence of where they could be getting the blanks. We're hoping to trace them, and we're starting with Este."