Relic of Empire

by W. Michael Gear

  Ily turned toward her aircar, chewing on Sinklar’s warnings. Could the Lord Commander be that close to mobilizing his fleet? And if he were, how could Ily use Skyla Lyma against him? Some threat, perhaps?

  She stepped into the aircar, closing the canopy and tapped at the plush upholstery as the vehicle rose. This new attitude Sinklar had developed was most unsettingly. On impulse, Ily accessed her comm. “Gysell, there’s a woman, blonde, about one hundred and sixty centimeters tall and weighing about fifty-five kilos, with a physical appearance of twenty-five to thirty. She’s currently in Sinklar Fist’s LC. Surely we have an agent somewhere in Fist’s vicinity who can get a holo, or perhaps lift a print? Alert our people to watch for her. She couldn’t have just appeared out of nothingness. Check all of Fist’s contacts from school, from his previous life. Find out who she is and if there is anything we can use her for. “

  Because, Sinklar, if you do care for her, she may very well turn into exactly the lever I need to keep you in line.

  “On the quantum level, the power of the observer is both impressive and singularly limited. The magic of the quanta, of uncertainty, is one of perception. Through mathematics, we can describe the quanta holistically, but through observation, we can only document one event, much like seeing a single facet of a cut diamond. Among the Seddi, this is taken as a crucial clue concerning the way the universe works.

  “By the very act of observation, we affect and alter a discrete aspect of the universe. Returning to the photon experiment through the slitted box, our detector measures either a photon or wave, but never both, and each seems to ‘know’ what we’re looking for. Hence, observation creates reality.

  “But what of the other choice which could have been made? Have we simply altered a minute part of the universe, or is there more? Mathematically, we can prove that we are splitting reality into two realities. Each decision we make, for instance, saying yes to a dinner invitation when you had the option to eat with someone else, changes the reality around you. The universe splits, the other you accepting the alternate invitation. As in the two-slit experiment, you’ve chosen a facet, but the entire diamond remains.

  “But why? What is God’s purpose in this? “Among the Seddi, this proof of the existence of free will is critically important. By making decisions, we fuel the evolution of the universe around us. Without it, the universe would be fatalistic-and therefore, sterThe and stagnant, with no change.

  “Look around you, at the people you know, and realize that each one of you, consciously or not, is changing the future, and with it, the nature of the Universe-and of God Mind. Can you ever see the world through the same jaded eyes again?

  · Excerpt from Kaylla Dawn’s Itreatic broadcasts

  CHAPTER 21

  Mac sipped from a drinking bulb of stassa as he walked down the well-lit white corridor in Markelos and saluted the two guards who stood at attention before the captain’s cabin. He looked up at the door comm and called, “Division First MacRuder here.”

  “Come in,” Chrysla called.

  Her sensual voice shot shivers up Mac’s spine. He palmed the lock plate and stepped inside. The holos had been programmed for a soft blue that rose from the floor and dissipated toward the ceiling. Chrysla stood in the doorway to the back rooms, her backlit hair glowing like a sun-shot halo about her perfect features. She wore a deep turquoise dress that set off her hair and those marvelous amber eyes. The dress style had been carefully chosen to disguise her fabulous body, and it almost succeeded.

  Mac experienced a sudden sobering revelation at the thought that a woman would choose to deemphasize what other women craved and men fantasized over. A dawning understanding of what Chrysla’s life must have been like washed through him, strengthening his resolve and sensitivity. Unlike the others, he would look beyond the magnetism, treat her as the human being she yearned to be perceived as.

  Seeing his sudden frown, she stepped forward, gesturing to the room behind her. “Your staff just left a feast behind. I presume we’re to eat it together?”

  “If you don’t mind. We have some things to discuss, and I thought you might like a change of setting.” She smiled warmly, and Mac’s heart melted. “You’ve been very kind, Mac. And for the first time in years I don’t even feel like your guard is a guard. “

  “I thought it prudent on several levels. In the first place, you must excuse a little caution on my part. I don’t doubt your identity, but this is a military mission, and your motives. . . .”

  “Might be suspect,” she finished. “I understand. And yes, dinner will be fine. I look forward to your company. Come, you look dead tired and I don’t doubt but that you’re famished as well.”

  Mac followed her, allowing himself to admire the sway of her hips. With barbed mental lashes, he drove his mind from the images that motion conjured, and studied the room with calculated indifference to his soaring hormones.

  The dining room measured fifteen meters across, with a squat black acrylic table dominating the middle. Giant pillows covered in sleek fabrics surrounded the table, while the holographic display in the walls depicted a lush green world with golden rays of light that silvered as they approached the ceiling. Recliners and a wet bar stood in the rear of the room, and to his right the hatch to the sleeping quarters pierced the bulkhead.

  Chrysla’s perfect features pinched as she settled herself, pulling her legs up and to the side in a ladylike manner. Mac dropped and flopped, a leaden weariness in his joints.

  “First thing,” Chrysla began, “let me thank you for allowing me to stay here. I’ve enjoyed not only the luxury but the seclusion. Governor Beechie, despite his good intentions, almost drove me mad.”

  “He’s made a full-time nuisance of himself. Every chance he gets, he demands to know if you’re being treated properly, and worse, he’s threatening the most horrible punishments if we don’t. He’s very taken with you. “

  Her fragile smile died.

  After an awkward silence, Mac admitted, “It must be hard. I guess you have a pretty grim view of men in general. “

  She actually relaxed a little, reaching forward to remove lids from the food. “Once I suppose I did. Now I’m too tired to hate or dislike. I simply accept, and, yes, I even use it to my advantage when I have to. If I weren’t willing to use my . . .charms to achieve my ends, right now I’d be plasma floating in orbit around Myklene. Men are no more than they are, Mac. I suppose women are the same.”

  He took the plate she handed him and attacked it ravenously. How long since he’d eaten more than an energy bar? Chrysla’s interest in his appetite pleased him. Hell, any time he could be the object of that wonderful amber stare suited him.

  When he finally set the plate aside and met her inquiring gaze, she said, “You’ve been so busy you haven’t eaten or slept. I assume from that that we’re either in trouble or about to go into action.”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “It comes from a close association with Staffa and the Companions. Among soldiers in enemy territory, sleep and food become luxuries. The tenser the situation, the less likely that either one will be in any great suppy

  “What about Staffa? It’s been over twenty years.” She lowered her gaze to her hands and shrugged. “I have no idea what to expect. Twenty years? A great deal can happen. The Praetor used to tell me that Staffa had taken a lover, Skyla Lyma. He used to show me the holos of her, tall, muscular, and very beautiful with her gleaming blue eyes.” Her mouth pinched sadly. “Perhaps the Staffa I knew is a dream, something to place hope in, a raft to cling to when drowning in a sea of despair.”

  “I don’t know what his relationship is with the Wing Commander. The one time I saw them together...... “

  “Go on.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Despite the frag…The look I’ve worked so hard to develop, I don’t break that easily. Otherwise, I’d have slit my wrists years ago. “

  Mac shifted uneasily on the overstuffed pillows. “It’s only an impression, you
must understand, but they looked - like they cared a great deal for each other. Of course, that could be a deep friendship.”

  “Or he loves her.” Chrysla winced as she adjusted her injured leg. “I’m not naive enough to think he and I could just pick up where we left off. As for myself, I don’t know that I’d want to. I would, however, want to thank him for trying so hard to find me. I know what he paid, the lengths that he went to. The Praetor always made a point of bragging about it. And, of course, he gloated over his ability to keep my presence secret. “

  Mac picked at his thumb, aware that she watched his every movement. “Studying me? Trying to read my expressions?”

  “You’re nervous, Mac. And it’s not just your attraction to me.”

  He winced and fought the urge to squirm as a burning heat of embarrassment warmed his collar. “I try to keep that in balance.”

  “Mostly you succeed, which raises my respect for you immensely. You haven’t uttered a single undying protest of love. Is it because of Sinklar? Or Staffa?”

  “It’s because I don’t trust my desire. I can’t forget that I dealt with Arta. I was sexually attracted and morally repelled at the same time. Falling in love with a woman should come from more than hormones and sexual tension. There’s a rational and practical side which is too often ignored.”

  “You’re not very romantic.” He grunted. “I had most of that burned, blasted, and kicked out of me on Targa. “

  “And what did you do before that?”

  “Fooled around. Wasted my father’s money while I tried to decide what to do with my life.”

  “You are young. I thought you’d been through the rejuv center at least once.”

  “Did you? No, sorry. Death, misery, constant fear, and desperation tend to change you in a big hurry. On Targa we survived by a thread more than once. Looking back, I can only marvel that we made it. So much suffering and death, and all for what? The Seddi drowned that planet in blood in a gamble to assassinate one man. At Vespa, we lured the rebel army into a trap. We blew away nearly a million people. The bodies-those that weren’t incinerated immediatelyfell for kilometers around that horrible ridge.”

  “Tell me about Targa ... about what happened there. “

  Mac studied her skeptically, but those incredible eyes seemed to expand, to draw him in, and he realized she honestly wanted to know. He hesitated and she reached out, squeezing his hand to let him’ know that whatever he decided to tell her, it was all right. Slowly, awkwardly, he began, baring his soul and feeling oddly relieved that he could talk about those terrible days of war and maiming and death. The story unfolded from the first drop to the final evacuation in Staffa’s shuttles.

  “To know life, you must have teetered on the edge losing it,” she said when he finished. “You’re still teetering, aren’t you?”

  He spread his hands nonchalantly. “I’ve always made it by balancing on a micron. Why should I expect that to change? Sink and I are gambling for big stakes. Who you are, what you are, all that has to be set aside. I think the cause is worth my life if it comes down to that.”

  “And this mission?”

  Mac took a deep breath, straightening. He’d taken her hand in his as he talked and her warm touch reassured him. He stared levelly into her eyes, letting himself drift into those amber depths. “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about tonight. That’s why dinner was here, in your quarters. In a couple of hours, we’re going to put most of the Sassan citizens in a shuttle and cast them loose. Some, who ‘have sensitive information, like the captain and Governor Be,tcWle, we goiwg -with us because they can provide intelligence data on the Sassan Empire.”

  “You won’t hurt Beechie?”

  “No. We’ll use a little Mytol to get him to tell us everything, and then we’ll turn him free in a couple of months. I give you my word. But what you must decide is this: I can’t take you into combat, can’t risk your life. We think we’ve got a real good chance of making it out alive. If you go in the shuttle, you’ll be guaranteed of safety. You’ll land on Imperial Sassa after we’ve left. You can get a message to Staffa, and he’ll come and pick you up before we return.”

  She stared down at the plates and what remained of dinner. Somewhere in the background a clock chimed softly. “A couple of hours, you said? So we’re already through most of Sassa’s defenses?”

  “The Markelos provided perfect cover. She’s a big ship—one of the biggest in the Sassan fleet-and to date, the mass detectors and other sensors haven’t picked up enough of an anomaly to arouse suspicion.”

  “I don’t understand something, Mac. You said that you were trapped in Makarta Mountain. That you were fighting the Seddi. You skipped around a lot, and perhaps purposely muddied the story up. Staffa’s ships evacuated you-but not Sinklar. You’re fighting for Rega. And just now, when I brought this up, your expression hardened, Mac. What didn’t you tell me? That Sinklar and Staffa are about to go to war against each other?”

  With his free hand, Mac flipped one of the tassels on the oversized pillow. “That’s, a very likely scenario. Chrysla bowed her head, lost in thought. “I don’t understand. How? I mean, Staffa can’t just go to war against his son.”

  “It’s not him. I think I told you before, Sinklar doesn’t believe Staffa is his father. He thinks he’s the son of two Seddi assassins. Rotted Gods, I didn’t believe it until I found you alive.”

  Chrysla lifted her head, fire in her eyes, her grip tightening on his. “Mac, take me with you. I’ll risk what -you will. Take me to my son, it you can. Perhaps I can talk some sense into him—or into Staffa, depending on which is the most volatile at the time.”

  Mac narrowed his gaze. “It’s not that easy. This could well be a suicide mission.”

  She smiled knowingly, her perfect features at peace. “After all these years, you’re a refreshing change from the men I’ve become used to, Mac. I was right when I told you were older than your years-and infinitely wiser and nobler. To use your words, you must set yourself aside when you gamble for great stakes. I think my life is worth it if it comes to that, too. “

  “If this goes sour, every defense battery around Imperial Sassa will be targeting Gyton. You’ve got to-“ She placed warm fingers on his lips. “Quiet. My husband and my son are at stake. They’ve kept me alive all these years. You need me.”

  “All right. “

  But how much of that was good sense, and how much the desire to be close to her-even if only for a few hours more?

  Gysell’s face appeared in the comm monitor on Ily’s office desk. “I think we have an ID on the young lady in Sinklar Fist’s company.”

  Ily leaned back in her gravchair and played with a laser pen. She arched her spine to relieve the strain on her tired muscles. The lights shone on the polished paneling of her office, dancing as the crystals changed color. “That didn’t take ‘nearly as long as I thought it would. “

  Gysell gave her a placid smile. “I’d like to take credit for running a perfect organization, and for being the perfect subordinate. In this case, however, one of our agents submitted a routine report that Fist’s LC landed on the roof of the Criminal Laboratories in the Biological Research Complex. Our man there reports that Fist not only visited, but left with one of the student employees-a young woman by the name of Anatolia Daviura. Here’s her holo ID.”

  Ily studied the image that formed. “That’s her.” She’s better looking awake than asleep. Perhaps Sinklar has a thing for blue eyes? And if he does, I’ll have his testicles served to him on a platter.

  “Any further instructions?”

  Ily tapped her chin with the laser pen. “Find out all you can about her. Who is she? How does she know Sinklar? I want everything. If there’s anyone close to her there, bring him or her in and we’ll wring them dry. Who’s our agent in that building?”

  “A fellow by the name of Jan Bokken. He’s reliable, provides punctual reports, but I’d say he was lacking in imagination.”

>   “Good work, Gysell. Follow this up. I want to know everything there is to know about Anatolia Daviura.” “You will.” Gysell nodded his acquiescence and the monitor went blank.

  For long moments, Ily twirled the pen in her slim fingers. Then a thin smile bent her lips. “Enjoy her while you have her, Sinklar.”

  Arta placed a steaming plate in front of Skyla as she sat at the table in her yacht. The tabletop had been cut from a single slab of Vegan marble, the sides inlaid with gold. Behind her, Myklenian draperies were gathered into neat folds, and the fabric shimmered in the soft light reflected off the sandwood paneling. Once Skyla had joked to Nyklos about being held prisoner amidst the plush fittings in the yacht. Now she was getting her own dose of it.

  Golden armor gleaming, Arta slid onto the crushed velvet cushions opposite Skyla. Silently, they stared appraisingly at each other. Skyla broke the impasse by picking up her utensils and beginning to eat. With the acumen of the professional, Arta understood that Skyla would eventually act to free herself. Fera waited with keen anticipation, anxious for the challenge.

  Skyla forced herself to eat, recharging her reserves. The time would come when she would need all of her strength and skill.

  Arta ate slowly, gazing at the thick Ashtan rug as she chewed. Skyla finished the last of the Riparian catfish and stood, sliding the dish into the cleanser.

  “ You control a great deal of power among the Companions. Does that excite you?” Arta asked. Skyla drew a cup of stassa and resettled herself. “Excite? No. If I had to choose a label, I’d say it contented me. I started out as nothing-a whore’s child. How about you? What was it like to be raised by the Seddi?”

  “I didn’t know I was a Seddi. I’d been raisedschooled actually-by a woman on Vermilion. One night, when I was about twelve, an aircar arrived and they bundled me up, gave me my little sack of belongings, and took me to the spaceport.”

  “Who did?”

  Arta shrugged. “I don’t know the man’s name, but he stayed with me on the shuttle, and on the ship that carried me to Etarus. I remember that trip as if it were yesterday. All I called him was “sir.” He was nice, bought me what I wanted, and then we transshipped to Etaria. I was frightened by it, by all the people.” Arta glanced away nervously.