"Good morning!" sang out XJ. "Rise and shine!"
"Sufferin' Satan! Damn and blast you to hell and back again!" Tusk clutched his head, squinched his eyes shut.
"No swearing!"
The computer turned the lights up to full power and opened the viewport. A flood of blazing sunlight drowned Tusk. Groaning, he staggered to his feet and vanished precipitously into the head.
XJ hummed to itself and lay in wait.
"Where's the kid?" the computer demanded when Tusk reappeared. "You didn't lose him in some game of seventy-eight, did you?"
Tusk fell face-first onto his hammock and lay there wondering if his head was going to remained attached to his neck or just float off into the sky like a balloon. He found himself devoutly hoping it would leave before it exploded.
"I asked you a question!" XJ snapped.
"I'll answer it as soon as I shave the fur off my tongue," Tusk mumbled into the pillow. "Whadaya mean, where's the kid? He went into town with Link."
That didn't sound right, Tusk thought. I should tie a string on my head. Tie the other end around my wrist . . .
"That was yesterday afternoon, you rummy! The kid didn't come home all night. I've been worried sick! You're no help. You stroll in after a hard day at the gaming table boozed to the—"
"Didn't come home?" Tusk sat up, holding onto his head with his hand. Someone was trying to stick a pin into his balloon. "I didn't play cards. I was with Dixter." The explosion sent shattering pain through his throbbing temples. "Dixter! The kid! Sagan!" The mercenary staggered to his feet and headed for the hatch.
"You can't go see the general looking like thatf' the computer cried, scandalized. "Put on a shirt! And a pair of— He's gone." XJ sounded disbelieving. "Everybody'll blame me, I suppose! Well, it's not my fault he goes around looking like a refugee!"
"That's as far as I could get, General," Nola Rian said. "The door was sealed shut, from the inside. No one in that factory knows a damn thing except that they went to work one day and there was nothing there. No furniture, no computers, no files—nothing except the electric outlets. You understand, sir, that the people I talked to were the ones who wouldn't be likely to know much about the business—maintainence, groundskeepers. The people who did, the people who knew things— Well, they're gone."
"Gone?"
"Just . . . gone." Nola spread her hands, encompassing empty air. "The business was obviously a front for something else, something really big. I came up with a name. It may or may not mean anything. One of the secretaries had to bring coffee to a meeting of the general managers one day and he heard the name 'Snaga Ohme—'"
"Ohme!" Dixter stared, his heavy eyebrows meeting in a frown.
"Yes, sir. The secretary remembered it because he'd been reading a mag about a party this Ohme fellow had thrown on Laskar. Apparently he's one of the rich and the beautiful."
"One of the rich and the deadly. He's—"
A buzz made Nola start. Dixter depressed a button.
"Tusk's here, sir."
"Thank you, Bennett. Send him in."
The last was unnecessary. Tusk flung open the door. "The kid's gone! He didn't come home—"
"Come in, Tusk, please, and shut the door." Dixter was calm, unperturbed. "You remember Driver Bian?"
"Nola!"
Looking at her, Tusk saw her looking at him and he realized he was standing in General Dixter's office in nothing but a pair of filthy, stinking blue jeans and rope sandals. His hair was uncombed, unwashed, his body was unwashed and half-undressed. His eyes must look like Tison's twin red suns, and Tison's desert sands were in his mouth.
"I'm sorry, sir, I—"
"Sit down, Tusk. Rian, would you please wait in the outer office? This won't take long."
"Yes, sir." Nola rose to her feet. She cast a worried, concerned glance at the mercenary, who was too upset and preoccupied to return it. The door closed behind her.
Tusk slumped into a chair. He couldn't believe Dixter. The general was cleanshaven, uniform clean and no more rumpled than usual. His eyes were clear. His shoulders were hunched, but that seemed to be from a heavy burden he was carrying rather than the effects of yesterday's brandy. The painful throbbing in Tusk's head moved to his heart.
"Sir, I think we should send out patrols—"
Dixter interrupted, raising a hand. "That won't be necessary, Tusk. I know where the boy's gone."
Tusk knew, too, then. He stared at the general in bitter silence. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet and started to leave.
"You couldn't have stopped him."
Tusk whirled around. "I sure as hell could have tried! Sir!" He grabbed for the doorknob, missed, and nearly fell over backward.
Dixter sighed. "Tusk, sit down and listen to me. That's an order."
Tusk didn't know whether to obey or throw the chair through the door. Discipline and his better sense won out. He relapsed into a seat, his face angry and brooding. He kept his eyes on the floor.
"You know how it is, Tusk, to be one of the Blood Royal."
"I'm only half," Tusk muttered, not looking up. "My mother wasn't. My old man never did anything right."
"But you know—"
The mercenary stirred uncomfortably. His head hurt, bad. "Yeah, I had delusions of grandeur. Once. That's why I joined the Air Corps. Got beat out of me real quick."
"Your father tried to stop you from joining, didn't he?"
"That was a helluva lot different, sir!" Tusk lifted his head, glared at the general. "I was going to flight school, not throwing myself into a terminator!"
"You knew your own name, Tusk. You know who you were, who your father was. And, yes, you were going to flight school. You weren't going out to find a throne."
"The only throne that kid's gonna sit on is the kind you flush. Why did you let him go, sir? The woman—Lady Maigrey, if that's who she was—gave him into your trust!" I gave him into your trust, Tusk added, but had sense enough not to say aloud.
"No, Maigrey said that if Dion needed help, he could trust me. The boy did. I answered his questions. I told him all I could. But I can't live his life, Tusk, and neither can you. If it's any comfort, I don't believe Sagan will execute the boy. There's something about Dion. He's got 'destiny' stamped in large letters across his forehead."
"But you let him go alone, sir!"
"Who would you have sent with him? You? Me? Sagan would have terminated both of us, without a moment's thought. You're a deserter for God's sake, Tusk! I'm traitor. Not to mention the fact that Sagan's carrying a grudge against you for swiping the kid out from under his nose in the first place. I think that was another reason the boy went—to protect us. Besides, Dion's not alone. Lady Maigrey's with him."
"Good!" Tusk grunted. "Great! A ghost."
He was still mad, but he didn't feel like he was going to throw things anymore. What Dixter said made sense—or at least Tusk figured it would when the balloons quit bursting in his head. He wasn't mad at the general. He was mad at himself. And at Dion, he thought. Damn fool kid. I let him down. But why'd he have to make me care, anyway?
Dixter's lips parted in a wry smile. "I don't think she's a ghost. Tusk. I think she's with Sagan, probably a prisoner, too."
He hopes she's a prisoner, Tusk realized fuzzily. God, that man's hurting. Love. You'd think, after all these centuries, they could have found a cure. He rose unsteadily to his feet.
"I'm sorry, sir, for the way I acted."
"Apology accepted. I understand. I felt like hitting someone myself when I woke up this morning."
Tusk paused, hand on the doorknob that he managed to find this time. "Sir, do you think I can fly my plane now? The Warlord's got what he was after, and anyway I really don't give a damn. If he wants me, he can come and get me."
"Sure, Tusk, go ahead. This war isn't going to last that much longer. The government's about ready to negotiate. Marek estimates they're losing twenty million on the uranium shipments daily."
"And when it's fi
nished?"
"I've already had offers from three other systems. I'll take the one that's farthest away. There's nothing here for either of us anymore, Tusk."
Reaching up to his left earlobe, Tusk jerked out the earring that was in the shape of an eight-pointed star. He stared at it, fingering it, then stuffed it into the pocket of his blue jeans.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Not a thing!"
Chapter Twenty-Six
Necessity and chance
Approach me not, and what I will is fate.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
It was ship's night of the day following the day of the meeting with Dion. Maigrey hadn't seen Sagan, she hadn't seen the boy. She'd kept herself apart from both. Going to the library on board Phoenix, she returned to her quarters with a book. She had just started to read it—she'd finished about sixty pages—when she came to this passage:
'"In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to meet us, from many strange places and by many strange roads . . . and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is set to them to do to us, will all be done.'"
The words struck Maigrey and chilled her, and she looked back to reread the paragraph with more careful attention.
My lady.
Sagan's thoughts suddenly entered her mind, startling her as much as if he had suddenly entered the room.
My lord. Maigrey closed the book, keeping her fingers between the pages to mark her place, and waited in trepidation. Sagan had spent the night in prayer; she'd sensed his thoughts. She'd spent the night awake, staring into the shadows.
I intend to initiate Dion.
You can't be serious!
I am, and you will assist me, my lady. You should be pleased. It will lengthen the days of your dance.
The boy isn't prepared! It takes years of study, training. The thought came to her reluctant and unbidden. What if he fails?
I have no choice. The President and the Congress know that he is in my possession.
Captain Nada, she guessed.
Yes. He has just wit enough to serve my purpose. He feeds Robes's paranoia, and a fearful man is a clumsy man. I am close, very close to gaining what I've always sought. I must know completely the will of the Creator in this, my lady, before I make my final move against the leaders of the great and glorious Republic.
The sneer was almost audible.
If you have so little respect for Robes and his principles, why did you join the rebellion? I know you considered our king weak and unfit to rule. I know you believed he had lost his mandate from heaven. But was it—she hesitated. Did you truly believe the worlds would be better off under a democracy?
They could hardly have been worse, or so I thought at the time, Sagan replied. It seems I recall having this conversation before, my lady. Don't you remember?
No, she didn't remember. They must have talked that night . . . before the killing started. He must have given her some hint, some indication of what he intended to do. He couldn't have concealed his purposes from her. Which meant she must have known, must have condoned and gone along. . . .
Their silences merged and she sensed him thoughtful; sensed, too, the disillusionment that had corroded the once strong, true steel of his ideals.
Yes, my lady, I believed in Peter Robes. You didn't know him then. You considered him beneath you—
That's not true. I didn't like him. I didn't trust him.
It is true. You could never forgive him for being one of us and yet for renouncing us. I believed in his goals, his principles—or what he wanted us to think were his goals and principles. I believed in the people. Pah! Do you know, lady, that in the last election only twenty percent of the citizenry bothered to vote? And those who did elected the candidate who spent the most money to woo them. Never mind that Robes is proven corrupt. Never mind that the once great empire is crumbling into pieces.
Edmund Burke, Sagan continued, is said to have predicted that the French revolution would lead to a military dictatorship . . . and there was Napoleon, reaching into the ashes to fan destiny's dying spark. I am reaching, my lady, and it is almost within my grasp.
Maigrey carefully shut the book and lay it down upon her reading table.
And why the boy, my lord? Why this obsession with him?
Isn't it obvious, my lady? To keep sentimental fools like you from raising up another Starfire—another weak king who couldn't decide if he should part his hair in front or behind.
You'll dazzle Dion with power. He'll come to love and respect and honor you, and then you'll betray him just like you betrayed—
Maigrey checked her heedless, headlong rush down a path she'd never meant to take. She drew a quivering breath, wiped a stray tear from her face, and searched for a handkerchief. She never had one; it was some sort of law with her. Finding none, she wedged herself into the tiny bathroom, grabbed a face cloth and doused it in cold water.
You speak easily of betrayal, my lady. It seems to be the one unresolved question between us. Who betrayed whom?
Did I betray you, my lord? Or did I betray my king? Did I know what you planned and keep silent until it was too late? Maigrey sighed and pressed the face cloth to her eyes.
I refuse to help you, Sagan.
I will need three days to prepare myself. You may have that time to prepare the boy for the ceremony. If you ve forgotten it—
"Not likely," she said aloud.
—you'll find it on the computer, in my private files. I'll give you access.
I won't—
You will, my lady. Because you're wondering, too.
He was gone.
Maigrey returned to her chair, picked up the book, and opened it. The computer on her desk beeped to life with a message, and she glanced over at it.
"File: Rite. Type code and enter."
Resolutely, Maigrey ignored it and returned to her book.
". . . 'you may be sure that there are men and women already on their road, who have their business to do with you, and who will do it. Of a certainty they will do it. . . .'"
Yes, they would. Maigrey couldn't stop that. And the boy had better be prepared, he had better know what he could do. If he could do it. Besides, she was wondering, she had to admit it. Sagan knew her, knew her very well.
Maigrey started to dog-ear the page, thought of the grim and sour-faced ship's librarian who would glare at her, and dog-eared it anyway. Very few people ever checked out the ancient English language texts. She and Sagan were probably the only ones, and then he wasn't very likely to read Little Dorrit. It was a long book.
I wonder if I'll live to finish it.
Three days. The words came from her subconscious as if in answer to her question. Why? Why that time? Maigrey paused, considering. Three days. Sagan didn't need three days to prepare himself! Certain ceremonies required a priest to spend hours in fasting and in prayer—especially if one was going from warrior to cleric—but not this one. He was waiting for something, something that would happen in three days. And he was keeping it hidden from her in the very darkest part of his mind.
Going to the computer, Maigrey stared at the screen and then, sighing, reached out and experimentally hit a key and then enter. Nothing happened. A true code was required, and it was like Sagan not to tell her what the code was. Of course, it would be something she knew, something only the two of them knew, for it was forbidden that anyone outside the Blood Royal should have knowledge of the mysteries.
It needed little prompting for her to remember the words, but a great measure of strength to type them, to give them life. She could have said them aloud. That, however, would have been to give them a soul. Her fingers were stiff and fumbled at the keys.
"Two togeher must walk the paths of darkness before they reach the light."
She hit enter hurriedly, wanting to see them vanish. Nothing happened.
Maigrey bit her lip and forced herself to reread them carefully. This had to be the code he would select.
There it
was, a stupid mistake.
She added the 't' in together. Hit enter.
The screen blanked out and then filled with words. She assumed they were words. All she could see, for long moments, was a shining blur.
"An initiation rite, my lady?" Dion appeared dubious. "Isn't that sort of . . . silly?"
Maigrey shook her head. "Lord Sagan isn't talking about a frat party. This is serious. Deadly serious."
Dion looked alarmed at her tone, but Maigrey did nothing to soften it. She wanted him to be scared. Scared as hell.
The two were together in the empty diplomat lounge. Maigrey had gone back to watching the ever-shifting, ever-same magnificence of the universe and she had brought Dion with her. The lounge was cold and almost devoid of furniture—just a few chairs that looked as if they'd been cut out of a circle, then the halves turned upside down and stacked on top of each other. Sitting in one of these, her arms resting on the high sides, Maigrey stared at the stars glittering in the deep blackness and pondered her words.
Dion, sitting in a chair across from her, found his gaze drawn irresistibly to the scar on her face. It seemed to him that when the flesh had knit to close the wound, it had caught up the soul and bound it in as well. The face might try to hide her thoughts, her emotions, but they were clearly visible in the scar. He could see her blood rise and fall in it, see the pulse of her heartbeat. He knew he shouldn't be staring. It was impolite. But he couldn't help it. When she turned her eyes upon him, suddenly, he flushed and made believe he had been looking with intense interest at one of the centurions, standing in the doorway.
Maigrey's hand moved unconsciously to touch the scar that sometimes ached with an unbearable pain.
"The initiation rites began years ago as a test—"
"A test?" Dion bounded to his feet. "Lord Sagan doesn't believe me, does he, my lady? He doesn't believe who I am—"
"Sit down, Dion. And allow me to finish."
Flushing more hotly, shamed by the cool rebuke in her tone, the young man subsided, sitting back in his chair.
"During the second Dark Ages that occurred in the early twenty-first century, the intelligentsia saw only two beacons of light in the future of mankind—space travel, whereby they could escape the repressive governments, and genetic tampering, whereby they could create their own superhuman leaders to come back and take control. Over future generations, they proved successful in achieving both goals.
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