Relic of Empire

by W. Michael Gear

  She followed Sinklar through the chambers, past the two guards on duty, and into the personal quarters. Sinklar stopped to check his comm for messages while Anatolia wandered past, wide-eyed. He handled the routine communications, posted orders for the day, and looked up as she returned to his office, running fingers through her mussed hair.

  "You live here?”

  ‘Pretty plush, isn’t it? Listen, back in the bedroom there’s a shower. Fiddle with the knobs and you’ll figure out how it works. I called ahead and sent Mhitshul out to find new clothes for you. What you’re wearing is down to rags. Whatever he found should be back there on the bed. Hopefully he got the right size.”

  She took his hand, staring curiously into his eyes. “What’s next, Sinklar? You’ve already been so kind to me. But I want to know the plan. You can’t just adopt me as ... as. . . .”

  He reached down and smoothed her hair. “Do you know what you could do for me? Just be here. Talk to me. I haven’t felt this comfortable with anyone for a long time ... since Gretta. Do you know what I mean?”

  She nodded, blue eyes warming. “Once, I would

  have thought you were after something. But after the street, I think I can appreciate how you feel.”

  He glanced down at her hand where it had found his. “So much depends on me. Last night I discovered that I may have made a mistake. I’m swimming in waters I don’t understand.”

  “Want to tell me about it?” “I.... Maybe later.”

  She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “All right. But seriously, what’s next? Where do we go from here? Do I go back to the lab and take up my duties?”

  Sinklar stared absently at the molten-gold carpet under his feet. “For the moment, Anatolia, I really don’t know. That’s part of what I was talking about. You’re not going back to living in the women’s toilet. Look, don’t worry about it for now. Let’s eat, relax, and tackle things as they come.”

  “I won’t be a parasite. I have my work.”

  “I don’t need parasites.” He fought the desire to stroke her smooth skin. “Just be yourself.”

  “You’ve got it. But I wanted to make the point.” “Thank you. Go clean up while I go through all the clutter on the comm.”

  She squeezed his hand and headed for the bedroom and the shower. Sinklar watched her as she strode purposefully away. She walked with a special poise and grace. Then he sighed and went back to accessing reports. As he went down the list, he stopped short. The message was simple: DECKER OPERATION SUCCESSFUL.

  Sinklar sagged bonelessly in the gravchair, a happy grin spreading across his face. How long he sat there in a haze of relief , he didn’t know, but Anatolia appeared in the doorway wearing a cobalt jumpsuit that did wonders for her. Her skin had taken on a rosy glow from the hot water, and her hair shimmered in the light.

  “You look ... spectacular.”

  She spun on long legs, hair whipping out around her. “Your Mister Mhitshul has wonderful taste!”

  “I’ll have to give him a raise. But then, after Ily, he Is probably trying to set me up.

  “Ily? "

  Sinklar stood up, shutting down the system. He wanted to savor Mac’s message for a while before he dove into the morass created by Ily. “Hungry?”

  “Sure. Ravenous. You were right about my stomach expanding. So, who’s Ily?”

  “Ily Takka. “

  Anatolia froze, eyes losing their animation. “The Minister of Internal Security?”

  Sinklar nodded, a sliver of panic cutting through him like a Terguzzi wind. “I don’t know what to think about her. One minute, she’s so ... well, warm and understanding. The next, she’s inhumanly cold. I used to tell myself that she was a reptile. But she’s so nice to me.” He bit his lip, thinking about just how nice and the implications. “I don’t know if I’m being played for a fool, or if she really cares for me, for what I’m trying to do.”

  Anatolia settled on the other side of the table, her gaze suddenly calculating. Sinklar dropped to the pillows, uneasy at the frost that seemed to have settled on the conversation. “That’s one of the reasons I was out walking the other night. I found a report in the comm-Tybalt’s. He had an entire history of Ily’s activities. Much of it contradicted things she’d told me.”

  Anatolia looked up, expression neutral. “And do you care for her?”

  Sinklar gestured his confusion. “She’s. Be honest, Sinklar. “No. I suppose that if I never saw her again, I wouldn’t feel heartbroken.”

  “You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?”

  He nodded, his feelings of guilt obvious. “She does things.... I swear she ought to be working at the Temple on Etaria. She could teach a Priestess a thing or two. “

  Anatolia tilted her head, the light sending sparks through her hair. “You don’t seem like her type. You’re much too kind and trusting. Not only that, you don’t know when to keep your mouth shut-but I’ll let that pass for now. You know she sends her remains to us, don’t you?”

  Baffled, Sinklar leaned forward. “She sends you her what?”

  “Remains. Victims. We’re a safe repository, you see. Oh, hardly anyone knows except Professor Adam, myself, Bokken, and a few others in Administration. We just got one the other night. An engineer, it turns out. I wouldn’t have known, but he used to live in my building. He worked for the Power Authority....

  What’s the matter? You’ve gone pale. “

  “Rockard Neru"

  “Did you have anything to do with his arrest?” Sinklar shook his head numbly. Like wave-washed sand, another pillar crumbled and dissolved.

  “She was quite thorough with him. His genitals had been eaten clear off his body. Acid, most likely. After that, she pulled his intestines out through the right inguinal canal. One of my duties at the lab, you see, is to catalog the cases as they come in. Most are for simple disposal through the regular channels as ‘used cadavers.’ Neru went to the compactors at the fertilizer factory. “

  “She lied,” Sinklar whispered. “She looked me right in the eye and lied.” Why? He swallowed hard, feeling filthy and polluted. “So she can infiltrate the Power Authority. She’s sinking her claws into everything. “

  “Sinklar?” “Leave me alone, Anatolia.”

  He got unsteadily to his feet, anger tangled with outraged pride. He started for the door, only to have Anatolia spring up and grab him, pulling him around, as she demanded, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going over there and telling her she’s through. Finished and gone! I’ve had it! She used me! She ... she used me!”

  “No!” Anatolia shook him as he fought to break her hold. “Sinklar, listen to me! Listen, Rot you! You go storming in on her, and she’ll never let you leave! Do you hear me?”

  Her tone penetrated his confusion and fury. “She’s dangerous, Sinklar. You walk in there and threaten her, and I promise you’ll wind up in the lab like Neru. Disfigured, tortured, and stone cold dead! No one will know. You’ll just be another corpse on the way to the fertilizer factory.”

  His resolve staggered. Any sense of direction vanished. He followed meekly as she led him back to the table and ordered stassa. She handed him the cup, wary gaze on his anguished features. “So you really didn’t know?”

  He wiped at the hotness of an angry tear that coursed down his cheek. His voice had gone hoarse. “She ... she told me that we each fight in our own way. I with my armies, she with her own means. Where was the difference in morality? And she claimed we both strove for the same thing: A better way of life for all the people. Freedom from the excesses of the Imperial system.”

  Anatolia sipped at her stassa. “And she made it seem like you were the man of her dreams? That you’d finally arrived, someone she could share the future with? Did she hang attentively on each word? ?”

  Adopt that breathless, adoring pose.

  He glanced up, grinding Ihis jaws. “When did you know her?”

  “Know her? Rotted God
s, Sinklar, that’s what all women do when they want to work a man! Appeal to his vanity and insecurity. You act as if his mere presence thrills you to the core of your being, as if each word is fascinating, no matter how Rotted boring he is. You make him think you’ve never met a man as wonderful and interesting as he is. The more beautiful the woman, the more powerful the effect, because a man always operates under the assumption that a beautiful woman has her pick of all the other men in Free Space. Therefore, if she’s enraptured with him, he must be pretty special.” She lifted an eyebrow and added, “Sex is a powerful weapon if you know how to use it-and apparently Ily does.”

  Stunned, he stared at the stassa cup he clutched. Yes, he remembered. That look Ily gave him had always left him uncomfortable, his rational side drowned by overpowering desire. Rysta’s harsh warning echoed in his memory, “Are you just another of her lackeys? Is that it? Did she wiggle her cute ass until your testicles overloaded your brain?”

  He closed his eyes, a welling emptiness yawning within him. He felt sick and degraded.

  “Sinklar?” “What a fool I’ve been. What a fool I would have continued to be. She would have called me to her office the next time, given me all the rational answers, each with enough truth to disarm, and then she would have gotten me to relax . . . and before it was all over, we’d be in bed again.” He avoided her eyes. “I feel like a piece of filth. “

  “The hardest lessons to learn are the ones you never forget. Now, you can sit there and look like you just swallowed something rotten if you want, but I’m going to eat. “

  Despite himself, no matter what his brain might be doing to punish itself, his body needed fuel. He began by picking and ended up demolishing major portions of the meal.

  “You know,” Sinklar admitted humbly when he was finally sated, “I owe you-“

  “Forget it.” She waved it away with a slim hand. “I got a series of good meals, a shower, and a new set of clothes. Consider it paid in full. You look like you’re about to fall over from lack of sleep. I’d better see if I can get a ride back to the lab and catch up on my work. Vet’s going to be beserk as it is. If I know him, he covered for me today. When I get there, he’ll be livid. “

  “He’s still there? This late?”

  “He’s got security duty for the next two nights.” She paused. “You’re going to have to be very careful with Ily. If she even suspects that you’re not securely under her thumb, she’ll do anything she can to find a lever to control you. Maybe through one of your people, like Mayz, or Kap. Anyone she thinks might be vulnerable. “

  Sinklar’s heart skipped. “She saw you. Asked about you when she showed up at the LC. We ... well, it wasn’t a pleasant meeting. I took her outside where we could talk about Staffa’s threat. . . . “

  “Go on.” Anatolia had picked up his unease.

  “I told her you were just a friend.” A prickling ate along his spine. It all came clear. “Rotted Gods, Anatolia, who could be easier to pick up than you? You’re living in a damn bathroom! Your family is in Vermilion. Who would miss you?”

  She glanced uneasily at him. “Look, I’ve got a job and an education to pursue.”

  “Uh-huh.” he squinted at her, mind functioning again. “How much do you want? Name your salary.” “Salary?”

  “Technical adviser? Personal aide? Biological attache? Scientific liaison? Name it.”

  “Sinklar!” He crawled over the table, taking her hands, gaze probing. “You don’t understand. You can’t go back. I ruined your life the night I walked into the thirtyfifth floor and wanted to see my parents. You’ve told me about file 7355 and whai’s in it. To me, it doesn’t make a bit of difference what my DNA is. To someone like Ily, well, what if she got her hands on that data? What if she got her hands on you?”

  Anatolia looked away.

  “Yes, you understand, don’t you? All of a sudden, you’re back on the street again. If you stay with me, I can protect you, draw the army around you like a net. I can send you home, back to your family if you want. Anything. But in the meantime, stay with me, for your safety and mine.”

  “Look, you can’t be sure she’d tag me as a lever ......

  He just stared, as if by that effort she’d understand.

  Panic possessed her for an instant, then she brought herself under control, deflating as she bit her lip.

  “I’m right-and you know it.”

  A shoulder lifted in defeat. “Well, it’s not like I had much to go back to. The bathroom will never be the same without me.” She stared listlessly at nothing for a moment. “Why is this happening to me?”

  “I don’t know. It’s happening to all of us. Myself, I feel like I’m being rushed away in a river, with no hope of reaching shore. All I can do is struggle, try and keep my head above water.” And in the end, I’m going to drown.

  “What about the Star Butcher? You mentioned him, too. Is he in this?”

  “Ily evidently grabbed his Wing Commander, Skyla Lyma. The Star Butcher has issued an ultimatum that if Ily doesn’t release her, he’s coming to burn Rega into radioactive slag. But for the moment, that’s the least of my troubles.”

  “The least of.... I’m not sure if I want to know what your serious troubles are.”

  “I think you already do ... and it’s your problem, too.”

  “War can be likened to fire, and humanity to an untamed forest. Think about the forest for a moment. Left to themselves, forests age in a slow but steady process. The giants grow and spread their leaves in a vast canopy that blocks any light from reaching the ground. Down there, in the darkness, all that grows are fungi and bacteria. Sometimes a seed makes it through the litter of leaves and sprouts, but to what kind of fate? Walk through an old forest sometime and you’ll see them. Pale sickly shoots with yellow leaves that die when they’re no more than a centimeter highfood for the fungi and bacteria.

  “When you look up, all you see are the forest giants, with trunks two or even three meters in diameter. But are these old giants the end? If so, then reality is a depressing thing indeed, for the old forest giants are riddled with disease, the cores of the trees slimy with the black rot that is eating at their hearts. An old forest is a forest in stagnation. What chance is there for new growth?

  “Now, do you see the value of fire?

  “And when you look around you at the older planets, you find governments and people who have lived in peace for three hundred years, with social institutions and government bureaucracies like the giants of the forest, which have woven their branches together in a canopy. What do you expect to find beneath their canopy, but rot, stagnation, and disaffection.

  “And now you know the value of war.”

  Lecture given to the young Staffa kar Therma during his tutorial by the Praetor of Myklene

  CHAPTER 24

  Hyros expertly dropped from the traffic lane, passing the security field and winding down the Capitol’s approach route. From his seat in the rear, Myles watched the passing spires and gleaming facades that rose around him. The Capitol was such a magnificent building that he marveled despite his familiarity with it, and despite the fact that his exhaustion left him in a dreamlike state.

  Hyros banked and decelerated through a series of concentric golden rings that marked the entrance to Divine Sassa’s secure zone and entered the orifice reserved for official ingress. The aircar hummed as Hyros jockeyed it artfully into a lighted receiving area and settled next to the entrance, where tense guards waited. Immediately before them, the huge bulk of Than Jakre’s military transport filled most of the clearance.

  To think I used to travel like that, with fifty swarming aides getting in the way and raising a racket. He shook his head as the dome lifted and Hyros leapt out to help him. To Myles’ satisfaction, he climbed from the car without the grunting he used to emit, and quickly straightened his tunic. Nevertheless, the fatigue left him feeling wobbly, as if his knees might give at any second. Behind him, the second car with Arron and Jorome settled,
the dome rising as his security personnel hopped out, staring around with a professional air. “Anything else, sir?” Hyros asked.

  Myles considered, trying to organize the tattered fragments of his thoughts. “Yes, you might want to accompany me. This will no doubt be a stormy session. Everything is collapsing. I want not only your recordings, but also, I may need your observations when this is all over.

  “Yes, sir. “

  Myles tugged at the hem of his beautifully embroidered coat and started forward, aware of the uneasy looks the guards gave him. That crisp tension filled the air, reaching even his blurred senses. Within the vaulted hallways of the Capitol itself, the effect must have been debilitating as rumors flew back and forth about the attack and what it meant.

  Myles stepped through the doorway into the decorated hallway all done up in brushed bronze and polished black stone.

  “This way, Legate.” A security officer bowed and waved. “The antigravs are ready for you and your staff.” The woman craned her neck, staring back past Myles and his three companions.

  “There is just myself and those yousee here, thank you. One antigrav will be sufficient.”

  The woman’s anxiety immediately increased. “As you wish, Legate.”

  Myles stepped onto the antigrav and sat back wearily as it slipped down the hallway. Heedless of the priceless statuary they passed, Myles dropped his chin on his chest, trying to keep everything in perspective despite the fogginess caused by sleep deprivation.

  The entire planet reeled, stunned by Gyton’s blow. The Empire waited in a state of shock. The impossible had occurred. Not only had the Regan attack destroyed the military’s largest base, but it had blasted the Imperial Defense command control. People now looked up at their skies, wondering if the same fate lurked just beyond the speed of light. Were Regans spacing for their fragile homes even as they stared into the night skies? Would their loved ones be next?

  Over a half billion human beings lay dead, mostly unburied and frozen on the other side of Imperial Sassa. The ripples of destruction and ruin continued to spread as clouds blocked the summer sun and the planet itself shivered with destabilized tectonic plates.