by B. V. Larson
Cooper pursed his lips and nodded. He already knew I was bullshitting. In case the rest of them were still in the dark, I pressed onward. I briefed them all on the voyage home, our expected deactivation, and what to do if they needed some special problem fixed.
After they’d all asked a few questions and been dismissed, Galina stepped closer.
Cooper vanished—but he didn’t do it quickly enough. I kicked out to my left and hooked his ankle. He went sprawling on the deck and cursed while I pretended to be concerned for his well-being.
“You’ve got to watch that stealthing nonsense Cooper,” I told him. “Accidents happen all the time to Ghosts who overuse it.”
“Thanks for the tip, Centurion,” he said sourly from the deck.
Galina stepped up to my side. We watched my unit file out of the main chamber together.
“Great to see you back with us, sir!” I gushed. “What can I do you for?”
“You’re not doing anyone, McGill,” she said in a low tone. “Not today.”
“Huh?”
“Drop the stupid act. I find it intensely annoying right now. Just tell me how you did it? Just tell me how you manipulated everyone into thinking you’re some kind of hero while they’re looking at me like I’m a streak of shit.”
She was angry. I knew all the tell-tale signs, and Galina didn’t hold back on the best of occasions.
“Maybe we should go for a little walk, sir? To somewhere people aren’t listening?”
I gestured with a tilt of my head toward the various trolls who were watching us surreptitiously.
Fuming, she marched away. Pasting on a smile, I walked after her.
-58-
Out in the passages, Galina went full alley-cat on me.
“So, it’s true,” she said. “You left me dead for more than a month, so you could chase tail all over the ship. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”
“What? Hey! I wasn’t the one who made the decision to leave you dead.”
“You certainly didn’t try to revive me. Do you know how many times I’ve pulled strings to breathe life back into your worthless corpse again?”
I mulled that over. It did seem like she’d made such efforts on several occasions. On the other hand, she’d also tried to get me killed more than once in the past. We didn’t have what you might call an ideal relationship.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m only a centurion. I don’t have a budget and political contacts. I shoot things for a living—that’s about it.”
“What bullshit. You do whatever you damned-well please. I wouldn’t feel so betrayed if you’d been romancing bio women to try to get me back—but no! Nothing of the kind—and yes, I checked.”
“Huh…” I said.
“That’s it? That’s the entirety of your eloquent self-defense?”
I leaned against the wall of the passage and put on a smile again. I gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, I am glad you’re back, even if you’re busting my balls right off the mark.”
Galina turned aside in frustration, walking quickly away. I watched her go, wondering if I should follow.
I’d never been the puppy-dog type. Generally, if a woman wanted to walk out on me, well, I just went and found another one.
But watching this particular woman’s hindquarters always had a certain effect on me. It made me want to follow after her, if you know what I mean. None of the other women I’d been around lately could compare.
Heaving a sigh and suspecting I’d regret it, I began taking long strikes in her wake.
She walked faster, but it was damn-near hopeless. Unless she wanted to pick up and run, she wasn’t going to stay ahead of me. My legs had to be half-again as long as hers were.
“Where are we going?” I asked when I’d pulled up next to her.
“I’m facing a court of inquiry,” she said. “I’m going to meet my lawyer-bot and plan my deposition. Do you still want to come along?”
“Uh…” I said, chewing that over. “All right. Maybe I can help.”
She looked honestly surprised. “Help with what?”
“Details. Remember, I know things no one else does. I talked to the Skay. I talked to Armel and Sateekas during their final moments.”
She stopped at the elevators, slapped at the buttons and waited irritably.
“You don’t know anything I don’t know. I’ve read your reports, seen your body-cam files.”
“Uh-huh… That’s right, those things tell all. They never miss a trick.”
I was freaking her out on purpose, and it was working. She let me into the elevator, which sped off sideways to Gold Deck. All the while she was studying me intently.
Putting on an affable smile, I let her stew until we got to our destination and walked to her office, which also doubled as her quarters on Legate.
A few hog-like guards watched us enter with raised eyebrows. I ignored their stares, just like I ignored the dismay on the face of her boy-toy secretary. He’d probably thought he was rid of old McGill for good after listening to the tribune rant about me.
“Tribune?” he asked as we whizzed by his desk. “There’s a lot of correspondence to catch up with, and a raft of requisitions to sign. You’ll find them—”
Swish, the door closed in his face.
“Drink?” I asked her.
“No way. You don’t fool me. Tell me something I don’t know, or I’ll kick you out of here right now.”
“About what?” I asked, playing hard-to-get. I walked over to her tiny bar and helped myself.
“About Sateekas or these Skay things you’ve sold your soul to.”
I looked at her then. “So… you don’t want to work with them? You don’t want to swear allegiance to a new race of Galactics?”
“I want to survive, James. I want to stop Rigel and keep Earth from getting caught up in the new civil war breaking out in the Core Systems.”
“They’re up to that again, huh?” I asked. “You know what Xlur told me? That the Empire needed an emperor. That’s the real problem, according to the Mogwa. There’s no designated ruler. How can you have an Empire if you don’t have a ruler at the top?”
She blinked at me. She hadn’t heard that before, I didn’t figure.
When you thought about it, the problem seemed obvious. Not all figurehead despots were good guys, but a system built from the ground up to be ruled by a single individual couldn’t stand long with an empty throne.
“That’s what they’re fighting about? Succession?”
“Yes. Thousands of worlds burned. Decades of conflict. The stakes are high, there are too many players, and they can’t agree who should ascend the throne.”
She studied the wall, but she wasn’t really seeing it.
“The war is finally leaking out to us, James,” she said quietly. “We’re becoming participants. Everything we think is important pales in significance compared to a single battle in the Core Systems—all our squabbles, our petty struggles for dominance out here on the frontier... ”
“That’s no way to think about it,” I said, pressing a drink into her hand. She took it with numb fingers. “Look, to a fly, all he cares about is that one fly-swatter. He doesn’t care if a city is dusted off in another sector.”
“We’re the fly, huh?” she asked, sipping her drink. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“If the shoe fits.”
“Right… now, tell me what really happened with Armel and Sateekas. The reports cleaned it all up. It was written to calm nerves back at Central.”
I gave her the rundown. I included everything, even the part with Armel using a simple tool to cave in the thin skulls of several Mogwa.
“That isn’t like him,” she said. “He’s checking out. He must be.”
“Checking out?”
“Yes—a cover-up. Leaving Earth. Getting himself ‘permed’ as far as we’re concerned, but living on somewhere else.”
“Oh… you mean the way Claver does it? Bu
t who would want to revive old Maurice Armel? He an irritating prick on a good day.”
She looked at me expectantly, tilting her head and sipping her drink. She said nothing.
I stared at her for a second. She must think I should know the answer to my own question, but…
“It can’t be Rigel,” I said. “Those bears are so arrogant they’d want nothing to do with a human officer.”
“Very true,” Galina said.
“Well then… who else is there? The Mogwa sure as heck don’t… wait a second. You don’t mean Claver did it, do you?”
“You mentioned that name yourself.”
“Sure, Claver is the human wizard of illegal revives,” I admitted. “He even revived me a few times to talk to me, out there on his weird clone planet.”
“And why do you think he did that? What do you think he hoped to get from that?”
I stared at her. “A new follower? A man like me?”
She pointed a finger at me. The nail was unpainted, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. She was the kind of woman who only had unpainted nails after a fresh revive. “Claver needs a military man,” she said. “Isn’t that obvious? Armel wasn’t afraid to die, even to be permed—you said yourself he was anxious for you to get on with his execution.”
“That’s right… he said he had other places to be. Could he have meant Claver-world?”
She pointed that finger at me again. “Yes. Claver has begun to gather a following. Just living with his own clones, dumbing them down—such a society would be highly limited, don’t you think?”
“You’ve been out there,” I said in a hushed tone. “You and Armel both.”
“Of course I have,” she said, shrugging. “Did you really think that Claver only used his revival machine as a special favor to you? That you were the only one he’d met with that way? You are naïve. Others have been revived there, and they have spoken with him. The only difference is the rest of us were smart enough to keep our mouths shut about it.”
Chewing that over, I found I didn’t like the taste.
“Galina,” I said, “maybe you shouldn’t tell me any more. If you want me as a supporting witness at your trial, you shouldn’t admit things that border on treason.”
She laughed and downed her drink. “Are you kidding? First of all, I’d never ask for your testimony. I’d have to be insane. And don’t forget, my overgrown boy scout, any talk of Claver’s illegal revival machines might get us both permed.”
“Okay…” I said, pouring us both another drink. “Where does that leave us?”
She stared at me thoughtfully. “It’s going to leave you with your ass kicked out of here. You still haven’t given me any useful information.”
That surprised me. I’d figured after a lot of talk and a drink, she’d forget about that requirement.
I thought hard for a moment, then I shook my head. “I’m not sure…”
She downed her drink and turned away, heading to her bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower, I’m sticky after that last revive. And no, you’re not invited in with me. If you can’t come up with something impressive, get out of my quarters before I’m finished.”
Leaving me there with a drink in my hand, she began stripping down before she stepped into her bathroom. In a cruel twist, she left her door ajar. I was haunted by the sounds of her undressing and climbing into one of those water-sucking, tube-like shower stalls they have on all spaceships.
My first instinct was to down my drink and walk out with the bottle. I almost did it, too, but then I recalled something that had been bothering me.
Snapping my fingers and grinning, I sipped and I poured her a fresh glass.
A few minutes later, she came back out. Her hair-drying robot had done a good job. Her hair was straight and glossy down her back. The only surprise was that she’d forgotten to put her uniform back on.
Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. Galina was an ambitious woman, and she was very uninhibited. She liked to use every gift the Good Lord had seen to bestow upon her for her own advancement in life. Today was no exception, and she was clearly offering up a mind-fogging view of herself to get me talking.
And if I stayed quiet, or I was just plain clueless? Well, she liked tormenting the sad likes of me anyway. The truth was, she couldn’t lose in this situation, and she knew it.
“Well?” she asked, standing with her fists planted on her hips.
“I remembered something,” I said. “It must have been the mist from your shower that awakened my mind.”
She laughed. “Right… Now talk or get out.”
“You remember back on Dark World, when I brought down that orbital factory?”
Her face darkened. “Why, in a million lifetimes, would you bring that up? Do you want me to call the MPs and tell them you won’t leave?”
“No sir!” I said, sitting up straight. “I’m talking about the generator. There was a strange device on that orbital platform that powered the whole thing—or at least part of it. When I shorted it out, the whole structure ended up crashing down into the planet’s ocean.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I remember. What about it?”
“Did you read my report from the action under the alien dome at Hammonton? We found another generator just like it—on Earth.”
She nodded thoughtfully. She pulled out a robe and slid it over her skin. I watched regretfully as she covered up.
“All right, I’m listening,” she said. “You found two of the same alien generators. That’s interesting, but—”
“One of them was at Dark World,” I said. “The second one was on Earth, and it had to have come from the Skay.”
“That stands to reason, but I’m not impressed. Seriously, James, is that all you’ve—”
“Think about it,” I said. “Where did that orbital platform come from? Do you think the Vulbites built it?”
“No… that seems unlikely. They aren’t very creative or intelligent. They worked on the factory, but they didn’t build it.”
“Who built it then?” I asked.
She shrugged. “The Cephalopods, probably—or Rigel.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but now, I’m not so sure. Do you know that our province isn’t really the frontier? That the Empire used to be bigger? That they’ve already abandoned some of the fringes?”
She nodded, staring at me and frowning now. She didn’t know where I was going with this, but she was intrigued.
“The next province over was called 929. We’re 921. A century or so ago, before Earth was even annexed by the Mogwa, they abandoned Province 929.”
“Okay, all very interesting, but how does this involve these generators?”
“Here’s my theory: The Skay told me that his kind once ruled over 929. It was the Skay, therefore, that built that orbital shipyard at Dark World. They still use the same kind of power-generators today.” I nodded with a self-satisfied smile on my face.
She stood up and began to pace. I sat low in my chair, sipped my drink and enjoyed the spectacle.
“I’m beginning to see where you’re going with this…” she said. “The Skay once owned neighboring property along the frontier with the Mogwa in this region. Perhaps they wish to again. It’s too bad the damned Galactics don’t bother to teach us about these things directly.”
“Knowledge is power,” I said. “Historically, many empires with a slave class made it a crime to teach slaves to read.”
“Hmm…” she said thoughtfully. “I can use this information at my trial. I thought of it—all of it. Is that understood?”
“What?” I said, pretending to be outraged. “I planned out a college lecture circuit on this topic.”
“Sure you did,” she said, sitting in my lap all of a sudden. “Are we in agreement?”
“Yup.”
We made love then, and she complained that I was too enthusiastic for her freshly regrown body—but it had been quite a while since I’d been with her. It was like going ho
me again.
-59-
Legate made planetfall over Earth about a month later. We were immediately summoned to Central, the biggest building on the continent. I was invited to join Drusus, Graves and Turov as we exited Legate. We took a lifter down to the spaceport, then hopped a military sky-train going to Central. I thought it was kind of cool that the top officers had brought me on a VIP trip directly to Earth’s military headquarters.
We were the only passengers on the sky-train, which was kind of weird to me. I wasn’t used to traveling like royalty.
Looking out the window as we came down out of the clouds, I spotted Central right away. The black puff-crete and ballistic-glass structure was more or less pyramid-shaped. It was an impressive building, squatting like some kind of gigantic sacrificial altar in the middle of Central City.
“Holy shit…” I said, sucking in a breath of air, “look at the city!”
No one else spoke. They were all looking, and they were all glum.
Central City was a mess. There was a circular region immediately around Central that had been blown flat. Only stumps of buildings still stood, like the ground-down teeth of an old dog. Farther out, toward the harbor district, things looked pretty normal. You could tell the Skay had done a number on the city immediately adjacent to Central.
I’d never seen this damage, naturally, as I’d been dead after the Hammonton operation ended.
“But…” I said, still staring, “if the Skay ship retreated before we nuked Hammonton, who did this exactly?”
“Some of their assault ships survived our nuke,” Graves told me. “They returned the favor by firing missiles from New Jersey before we could take them all out.”
“Such firepower…” I marveled. “I guess the war could have gone a lot worse for us. That robot-minded Skay was just toying with us all along. It wanted raw materials and compliant subjects, not a full-blown war.”
“I think that’s correct, McGill,” Praetor Drusus said from the row of seats behind mine. “It’s actually not an uncommon pattern when dealing with Imperial powers. When a given Empire faces a minor power, they often possesses superior forces, but they’re unwilling to take serious injury when subjugating much weaker nations. It’s just not worth it to them. On the other hand, we’ll fight to death to defy them. That’s how guerilla wars can be successful.”