It was Winchester, in his low and grumbly voice, who said, “We couldn’t agree more. What did you have in mind? I’m sure the four of us could come to some understanding.”
Hector’s energy disk stopped. “The four of us? No.” He shook he head and sighed. “No, the entire Round Table needs to agree.”
Octo offered his infuriating smile again. “But, my friend, you see how they are. They’ll never agree on anything.”
“But this isn’t the solution,” Hector said, gesturing to the four men gathered in the hallway. “This isn’t how the Round Table was meant to function. Not in private.”
“My friend, do you think the Round Table is functioning at all?”
Cash stepped in front of Octo and pointed a finger at him. “Listen here. I see the way you encourage them to bicker. I don’t know what you get out of it, but you could help us regain order when we’re trying to accomplish something.”
Octo raised his thick eyebrows as if confused. “Hector, is someone supposed to have more influence than anyone else at the Round Table?”
The answer was low and sullen. “No.”
Turning to Cash, Octo said, “Then what am I supposed to do? If I call for silence and order, I’m effectively taking a seat at the head of the table.” Turning back to Hector, he added, “Did Vere want anyone to sit at the head of the table?”
“No.”
Octo moved past Cash. Winchester angled around the representative as well, both of them leaving Hector and his friend where they still stood.
Before disappearing around the corner, Winchester turned and said, “If you don’t want to come to some agreement between the four of us, and if you are set on the Round Table operating exactly as Vere envisioned, I really don’t see how we can help you. I’m sorry.”
Then he turned and left, Octo beside him, leaving Hector and Cash alone in the hallway.
60
Arc-Mi-Die’s android assistant entered the warlord’s chamber, and after being searched by the Woghort guards, proceeded to the outer edge of the Treagon barrier surrounding the outlaw.
“What news do you have?” Arc-Mi-Die said.
“My lord, there is still no update from the Round Table. They have neither rejected nor agreed to your terms, nor have they offered a counterproposal.”
A sentient being who provided this update might have feared for his or her life. The android, though, stood with perfect posture rather than looking for the closest exit.
Arc-Mi-Die wasn’t usually one to punish the bearer of bad news, however. Sometimes he did, but only when something simply had to be destroyed. If an android assistant happened to be within reach at the time, he had no compunction about consigning it to the scrap heap. Instead of becoming caught in a fit of rage, though, the warlord tossed his head back and gave a bitter snort of laughter.
“I expected as much. Let me tell you something,” he said to K, who stood in silence. “If I were in charge of the Round Table, things would be different. I wouldn’t let some criminal”—he laughed at his own sense of humor—“dictate what the greatest collection of forces ever assembled in the galaxy did or didn’t do. I think they need a warlord running their operation. What do you think?”
“Indeed, my lord,” the android said without any emotion or inflection in his voice.
“Send the next ship. Pick a larger target than last time. I want them to understand the blood is on their hands.”
“Yes, my lord.”
And with that, the android turned and left the dark and windowless room.
61
From a side bay of the Solar Carrier in the Round Table fleet, a dozen small projectiles launched and began moving out in a wide arc amid the flagships stuck in the Orleans asteroid field. The projectiles were probes, the size of proton torpedoes, but without the explosive payload.
The probes, it had been decided upon by the remaining brigadiers, would be used to map the space around each flagship. Normally, the ships’ sensors would be able to provide this data with ease, but since those systems were no longer reliable, the probes had to be deployed. Traditionally, they would be launched off to far corners of a sector to send back completely mapped regions of space using advanced scanning technology. Now, because the brigadiers knew that the same trick that could block their ships from operating correctly might also prevent the probes from functioning the way they were intended, each projectile was instead used as if it were blindfolded.
Rather than send holographic maps, the probes would test the surrounding area like minesweepers. Each probe would take a slightly different course from every other unit. Each would loop around the fleet in an ever-expanding radius. Even if an asteroid were detected in its path, the probe would continue. Only when one blew up would another be launched to replace it. Sometimes they might be destroyed by asteroids that were clearly visible and other times they might pass undamaged through the holographic hunks of rock appearing to float in space.
The mapping progressed slowly. Each time a probe exploded, the crew mapped out exactly where it had been destroyed. Each time one flew directly through a picture-perfect hologram of a rock, they recorded that as well.
This was how the remaining brigadiers planned on getting their crews and their ships safely out of the Orleans trap they had entered. As soon as they were done mapping a way back out to open space, they would leave.
It wasn’t what they preferred to do. The best plan was to rescue Julian and the others. But they had no idea if their general or anyone else was still alive, and had no way of knowing if they would be sending more people to their deaths if they also entered the Carthagens’ caves. And so the remaining senior officers planned on getting out of the asteroid field and contacting Edsall Dark for further guidance, knowing they would most likely be told to return home. If that happened, anyone left on the asteroid would be stuck in the Cartha sector without help for the foreseeable future.
62
Even though he was awake, Julian didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t really awake, he realized, so much as aware. He was conscious of his body and of a sense of being, but didn’t feel the rock or blanket beneath him or hear the medical bots.
When he did open his eyes, he immediately knew he wasn’t in Lancelot’s chamber. But he also wasn’t with his soldiers or aboard his ship. He also hadn’t returned home to Edsall Dark. In fact, from the absolute darkness all around him, it appeared he was nowhere.
As far as he could see, there was no sky above him. The void began at his feet, giving him the impression there also wasn’t ground underneath him. Confused, he squinted to make out what he might be standing on, somehow aware he wasn’t floating but also wasn’t resting on a surface. Looking to either side, he saw no walls, no people. There was nothing.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked aloud, the same way he would think a question to himself, not really expecting an answer.
“Are you awake?” a man’s voice asked in return.
Julian looked all around to find who had spoken but couldn’t see anyone. Only then, as he turned in a circle, did he realize he was in perfect health. The last thing he remembered was Lancelot’s helmet coming off and then her placing a metal boot on his head. Yet the medical bots weren’t working on him and the Carthagen—or the human woman pretending to be a Carthagen—was nowhere to be seen. He realized that he wasn’t wearing his CAB suit but was instead dressed in a plain pair of cream-colored pants and shirt. Looking down at his hand, he noticed it too was fine. Wherever his real body was, if he was still even alive, he guessed the medical bots would have to replace the one remaining human hand he had with a second bio-engineered hand.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“You’re here,” the voice answered.
“Where are you?”
“I’m here too.”
The voice sounded as if it belonged to an old man. There was a bit of amusement in the tone, as if any concerns Julian had were of no consequence.
Julian turned, straining
to see who was talking. As he did, vague memories came back to him—the dreams he had been having. It was the same rapidly fading impression he had awoken with after each duel with Lancelot. It was the same voice that had been speaking in his dreams that was speaking to him now. It was aged and sarcastic, like his grandfather whispering a riddle directly into his ear. And yet Julian saw no one nearby.
“Who are you?” he asked, not with fear but out of curiosity.
Rather than reply with a question of his own, the voice said, “My name, Julian, is Mortimous.”
“How do you know my name?”
Laughter echoed all around him as if Mortimous were not in any one place but surrounding him. Turning again, Julian saw a cloaked figure, every part of the man covered in black robes that blended into the black nothingness, making the figure look as if it could just as easily not be there. The hood covered Mortimous’ face completely, casting it in shadow, preventing Julian from seeing any part of it other than the outline of an eye socket and a cheek.
The figure was close enough to Julian that he could have reached out and pulled the hood from Mortimous’ head. Instead, he stood there, waiting for an answer that would never come. He suspected that if he did reach out the figure would vanish right in front of him or else his hand would pass through it the way it would pass through a hologram.
The next question that popped into Julian’s head seemed to make as much sense as any other. After all, he was uninjured and in a completely different place from where he had been.
“Am I dead?”
In response, Mortimous asked if Julian was alive.
Rather than grow impatient or stubborn, Julian considered the question. The truth was he really had no idea if he was dreaming or dead.
“How did I get here?”
This seemed to amuse Mortimous, who said, “You are here because of all the decisions you have made in life.”
“Where will I go next?”
“Julian, that is yours to decide, and yours alone.”
He must have blinked because when his eyes fluttered open the next time both the void and Mortimous were gone. There was a searing pain in his temples and a loud buzzing in his ears. In his peripheral vision, he saw all three medical bots gathered around his head.
“You might not want to move right now,” Lancelot said.
Her helmet was back on, returning her voice back to a mechanical drone rather than the human voice he had heard after the helmet’s voice modulator was ripped off by his ion knife. She turned to him and shook her head as if disgusted.
Then she turned away again and said, “They’re in the middle of repairing your skull. Any movement could be fatal.”
63
“Any movement could be fatal.”
Lancelot looked down at Julian with disdain. While the medical bots worked to fix the invader’s fractured skull, Lancelot had injuries of her own which would have to go without attention. Julian’s ion knife had cut through the skin at her jaw, all the way down to the bone. The resulting two-inch gash made it uncomfortable to move her mouth.
Although the medical bots worked to mend the so-called Terror of the Cartha Sector, who hadn’t proven to be much of a challenge for her, they could not also provide Lancelot with the same attention because she couldn’t take off her armor and reveal to them that she wasn’t a Carthagen. She could force the medical bots to work on her, but then she would have to destroy all of them. If she didn’t, they would leave her chamber and immediately report her true identity to the Dauphin. It was easier to let the bots do their work on Julian and allow them to leave. She could take care of herself. It was what she had been forced to do for as long as she could remember, and she would continue to do so.
The other Carthagen warriors respected her as Lancelot, the greatest fighter of their species. If they knew she wasn’t who she claimed to be, there wouldn’t be another one-on-one duel. Instead, the other fighters would all attack her at the same time or perhaps the Dauphin would use the defenses built into the asteroid against her. They already feared her, and that was without truly knowing her. If they did find out who she really was, they would not only fear her, they would be terrified of what she represented and they would do anything in their power to kill her.
It was a sad fact of her life that the lowly medical bots were her closest allies. They didn’t fear her, respect her, or treat her differently than they would any other Carthagen. They simply existed around her, leaving her to herself and helping when needed.
The realization made her groan. Mortimous’ question came back to her: What kind of life did she want? Many people would give anything to be respected the way the elders and warriors respected her. Most people would love the acclaim that came with being the best fighter in an entire sector—maybe in all of the sectors. And yet Lancelot was never able to remove her helmet or any other piece of her armor unless she was in her private chamber. It was the one place she was assured of being alone and not being monitored through the Dauphin.
If Mortimous were there, she knew the question he would ask: Is this the kind of life that makes you happy?
Part of what irritated her so much about Julian’s mere presence, one of the reasons she enjoyed defeating him over and over, was that he reminded her of how fragile her own world was. If she killed him and the other Round Table forces, more invaders would arrive. If she let them go, the Dauphin and Carthagens would have to flee to another asteroid and they would no longer trust her. No matter what happened, it seemed that the life she had made was inevitably going to end. And soon. Before it did, though, she could deliver one punishment after another to the cause of her torment: the invaders’ general.
The key, as she saw it, was to decide for herself how her life would proceed. This was the focus of many of the discussions she had with Mortimous.
Looking down, she noticed Julian’s eyes were open and his head was perfectly still. He was grimacing in pain.
“You were right about one thing,” Lancelot said with a grin that Julian might be able to hear but wouldn’t be able to see behind her helmet. “That was our final duel.”
Even speaking these words frustrated Lancelot. Inside her helmet, her voice was normal. No one else ever heard it, though, because she needed the dull, mechanical version of her voice, something programmed to sound like other Carthagens, in order to continue pretending to be something she wasn’t.
She nodded in the direction of the medical bots and added, “You will be careful about what you say.”
To her, the implication was clear: if Julian revealed who or what she was while the bots were there, nothing in the room, whether it was a Round Table general or a medical bot, would survive.
Julian blinked a few more times as he tried to register where he was and what was happening. His gaze shifted left, then right, then down at his hands to inspect them. Lancelot knew he was carefully considering what he should say. Rather than speak, he closed his eyes again.
Lancelot offered a bitter laugh and said, “You would make a terrible spy.” Confused, he opened his eyes and focused on her. She added, “You were talking in your sleep.” Her voice changed as she mimicked him, mocking his confusion. “Where am I? Where are you? Am I dead?”
Rather than deny what he might have said or not said, he mumbled, “I don’t think I was asleep.”
“Perhaps.”
He narrowed one eye at her, not sure if he was being made fun of. “What do you know of it?”
“I know I was the same way when I started having the visions.”
Without thinking, he turned to look at her, then cried out in pain when the medical bot accidently sliced into part of his head. The bot emitted an exasperated beep and paused its work until it seemed Julian was settled.
“You’re lying,” he said. “You’re trying to play some kind of trick on me.”
This also made her laugh. “You don’t even know what’s happening to you and yet you accuse me? Is it so hard to believe The Scourge of the
Round Table hears the same voice as you? You are like the commanders in ancient times who prayed to their gods for good fortune, never considering that the commander on the other side of the battlefield was praying to the same god for the same thing.”
Julian groaned and closed his eyes again while the medical bots continued their work. “How bad was the damage this time?”
“The most serious issue was your skull, which, if it had sustained more stress, would have been crushed completely. In that case, nothing the medical bots could do would have saved you.”
He groaned again, his eyes still closed. She suspected his next question was going to be if he would suffer any long-term damage. Instead, he asked if his son was still alive.
“I don’t know,” Lancelot said, no satisfaction in her voice.
Julian’s eyes opened and trained on her. “You don’t know? You’re supposed to be their best warrior. You’re supposed to be in charge of them. And you don’t know?”
“Things have become complicated,” Lancelot said, sitting down on the chamber floor a few feet from where the medical bots worked on the invader.
When the bots had first arrived and seen her injured arms—which weren’t real Carthagen arms at all but part of the sophisticated suit of armor she wore to mimic a Carthagen—their programming directed them to treat her first. She declined, directing them back to the gravely injured invader, and went about trying to repair her own armored appendages.
“You will not report back to the Dauphin on my injuries,” she had told the bots, knowing she wasn’t actually injured at all, but only had armor that was damaged. There was no way to know if the bots would follow such a command.
Julian opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of speaking. Lancelot was sure there were going to be many questions for her once the medical bots left her room.
A moment later he said, “My son, if he is alive, is there any way to save him?”
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