Exile

by Al Sarrantonio

  But still, after weeks of escalating trouble, Dalin was loath to use the iron fist.

  "Your father would have done so without hesitation!" Minister Faulkner counseled, with the mixture of mild exasperation and calm reserve that characterized him. "It's obvious that rebel cells have been at work within the various governorships—you must let the army do its job!"

  There had been, that morning, a bomb scare in the palace itself, and this meeting was being held underground, in the lower chambers Dalin's father had had built during the early consolidation of the empire, when threats had been a daily occurrence. Dalin vaguely remembered playing down here: the hushed, tense voices around him while he ran from dank room to dank room with toy soldiers clutched in his fist.

  The present room was little different than it had been in those days; the years of disuse had inspired disrepair, though, and there were dusty paintings on the dented walls and stacks of abandoned and broken furniture in the corners. Dalin's advisers had had to sift through this mess to arrange a table and chairs for Dalin and his ministers to occupy.

  Somewhat to his chagrin, Minister Faulkner discovered that the ancient wall Screen, an early and small model, did not work at all, depriving them all of the minister's ever-present data—a development which did not bother Dalin in the least.

  "You must not, under any circumstances, use the army, Sire!" Defense Minister Acron shouted, red-faced. "It would only make you look like a tyrant!" Acron was a man who almost never acted calmly, and Dalin had tried to keep him away as much as possible, which had been impossible lately.

  "I disagree with Minister Acron utterly," Faulkner said.

  "I had no doubt you would," Dalin answered.

  Acron's face reddened to deep ruby. He pounded his fist on the table, which shook on its three good legs, the fourth being propped on a stack of old aluminum cartons.

  "There is no rebellion as Minister Faulkner keeps suggesting! Merely a bit of civil unrest in reaction to the events on Mars!"

  Minister Faulkner shook his head at this last suggestion.

  Down the short table, Minister Besh nodded.

  "I agree with Minister Faulkner," he said quietly. "There is more than enough evidence to prove that Prime Cornelian is behind the Afrasian uprisings. I believe the military should be used without delay."

  Acron turned on the new voice with sarcasm. "That is why you are finance minister, Besh! Tend to your ones and zeros, please!"

  There were a few titters, but mostly silence. Besh said, "And how have we handled the current shortages in food and supplies?"

  This last question was directed at Labor Minister Rere, a stout man with a deep voice, who now cast a malevolent glance at Besh and said, "I authorized a discreet holding back of certain items to prevent hoarding and further rioting. This is standard practice."

  "Is it standard practice to ration water and wheat?" Besh said.

  Rere turned his hands palm upward. "When necessary—yes!"

  "Where did the rioting begin?" Dalin Shar asked.

  Minister Faulkner answered, "In Canton, Sire. A week ago yesterday. As you know, there was an attempt on the governor's life, followed by a general labor strike. This led to shortages and then Minister Rere's attempts to bring those shortages under control."

  "What prompted the labor strike?"

  Minister Faulkner hesitated before answering. "We had . . . certain information that rebels had infiltrated many of the guilds. This influence has spread. That is why I believe that immediate military measures

  Dalin found his anger level beginning to rival that of Minister Acron, though he was able to keep it under control for now. "Am I correct in concluding that this was not brought to my attention earlier 'for my own good'?"

  There was silence at the table, and not a few downcast eyes. Only Minister Besh looked at Dalin Shar and nodded. "This seems an altogether fair charge," the minister said.

  Minister Acron suddenly stood up, his face nearly purple, his finger pointing at Dalin. "This ... boy is not fit to rule! He is not old enough nor wise enough!"

  Instantly Prime Minister Faulkner rose and turned to the imperial guard standing by the doorway. "Remove Minister Acron and place him in detention. As f this moment he is under house arrest."

  Two guards, burlier and taller than Acron, approached and took the defense minister by either arm, pulling him up out of his chair.

  "Let go of me!" Acron demanded, but the guards, at Faulkner's motion, took an even firmer grip and dragged the beet-faced, shouting man from the room.

  "I apologize, Sire," Faulkner said, bowing toward Dalin Shar.

  Dalin said, "You have much to apologize for, as do the rest of my ministers." Dalin let his anger build slowly, and let Faulkner and the others see it. "Why do I seem to know nothing of what has been happening in my own kingdom?"

  He pounded on the table. "Why?"

  Minister Faulkner looked calmly down at his nails for a moment and then looked at Dalin Shar. "Do you wish the truth, Sire?"

  "Of course!"

  Minister Faulkner said quietly, "Because for the last weeks, it has seemed like you have been behaving like a lovesick puppy, incapable of action."

  Dalin Shar's face reddened, not in anger but in embarrassment. He began to shout in protest but then held his tongue, chastened for the moment.

  Minister Faulkner continued quietly, "I apologize to you, Sire, for speaking this way, but you did demand the truth from me."

  Choking on his mortification, Dalin Shar studied the faces of his ministers and saw by their aversion to his gaze that this was true.

  "All right," he said finally. "Be that as it may. What, then, can we do?"

  "We should follow our present course of controlled shortages," Labor Minister Rere said without hesitation. "And we should allow Minister Acron's replacement to take military action against the colonies—and in the cities, if necessary."

  Still red-faced, Dalin began to speak, but then Faulkner caught his eye with a well-known glance that said, Speak with me. Alone. Now.

  "I ... will think on this and make my decision as soon as possible," the king said.

  The meeting was adjourned.

  The Imperial security detachment advised that the upper levels of the palace had been cleared of danger; no explosive device had been found.

  Dalin thought he would be asked to accompany the prime minister to a conference room, where his cherished wall Screens and data could be put to use; it therefore came as a surprise when Faulkner asked to walk in the garden with the king.

  "You? Outside?" Dalin said with amusement. "In all my years I don't believe I have seen you in sunlight, Prime Minister."

  Faulkner tried not to look sour. "It would be a welcome change," he said unconvincingly. "And besides . . ."the prime minister motioned with his hand as if they should proceed to the garden now.

  When they reached the rose trellises—in fact, when they stopped at the precise spot where Dalin had first kissed Tabrel Kris—Faulkner said, "There are things I wish to tell you that other ears should not hear."

  "Do you mean the palace is not safe for speaking?"

  "Not these days, Sire."

  "I see."

  Faulkner allowed slight impatience to creep into his voice. "You are a burden to me, Dalin Shar! I have never known when you are not being frivolous. I have tried my best to counsel you in all things. these past years. But your attitude . . ."

  Dalin allowed a bigger grin to cross his face. "I have made you angry! It has been my life's work!"

  "Please, Sire! Let me speak of these things!"

  "Go ahead. But you know very well we are being watched and listened to here as well."

  "Yes, but by people loyal to you."

  Dalin's manner immediately sobered. "Has it gotten that bad, then?"

  Faulkner drew a weary hand across his face. "Sometimes you vex me, Dalin. Your father was not like this."

  "You miss him, don't you?"

  Faulkner seemed
mildly startled. "Yes, I do."

  "I didn't know him very well myself. A bounce on the knee, a pat on the head. And then he was gone."

  "He was a good man. A great man."

  "As are you, Minister Faulkner."

  Again Faulkner seemed startled. "Perhaps . . "Tell me, then, of these plots and intrigues. As long as I can remember we have had plots and intrigues."

  "This is different. This may mean your life. I'm afraid Acron was only the beginning. I'm not even sure of his part. At the least he is a pompous fool who needed airing out. At worst . . ."

  "Tell me, Faulkner. As I told you in that meeting, do not treat me like a boy."

  "But you are a boy! And you act like a boy! Acron was not wrong with that."

  The prime minister pointed to the riotous colors of the roses surrounding them; their bright reds and pinks made the afternoon air thick with perfume.

  "I, of course, witnessed what happened here between yourself and Senator Kris's daughter on that afternoon three weeks ago."

  Anger began to fill Dalin, but Faulkner held up a stern hand. "Hear me! It has been my job to watch over you since your father's death; it has been my existence."

  "Arid have you watched my other assignations in this garden?" Dalin hissed. "Have you peeped into my most private moments like a lewd voyeur with sweaty hands? Is everything recorded on a data card?"

  Dalin's hands were balled into fists, but the hardness he now witnessed on the prime minister's face—iron beneath the surface which he had only beheld a rare glimpse of before—made his fists relax and made something like fear crawl into his gut.

  This was a man who, Dalin Shar was suddenly sure, had killed before, possibly in his, Dalin's, name.

  "Listen to me," Faulkner said, with a coldness Dalin had never heard from either the minister or anyone else; he realized that he was seeing a man on the edge, at the limits of himself.

  Dalin managed to keep his composure and summon a measure of courage. "All right," he said. "But I tell you that no one has ever spoken to me like this, and I will not forget."

  Faulkner spoke between gritted teeth. "I have watched you, yes, King Shar, I have watched nearly your every move since you were still soiling your underclothes. On the day your father was butchered, I lifted you from your daybed and hid you in my cloak, while murderers passed by me with bloodied knives. I hid you in a place no one knew about, not even your father. Did you know he was tortured before he was slaughtered? They wanted you, Dalin; they wanted to end your father's line and destroy his empire. But I saved your life."

  Faulkner's face belied an inner rage, a cauldron that must have been building for years. "I saved you, when I could have let those dogs have you that day. And every one of those traitors I tracked and brought down. For your father. For you.

  "And in the years since, while you grew and frolicked and fancied yourself becoming a man, I pulled the strings for you in this government, because you did not yet seem ready for that mantle to be placed upon you. I would be lying if I said I did not welcome rule by proxy it is what I do best and what gives me most pride.

  "But all these years, through all the crises, the trouble, the petty insurrections and betrayals, I have managed for you, I have waited for you to flower not with manhood, but with your father's capacity for rule. I have steeled myself, waiting for the day when I could see your father in yourself.

  "And that day has not come."

  Suddenly there was more than just rage in Faulkner's words; there was sadness and resignation. "I fear it may never come."

  "I am sorry I disappoint you, Minister Faulkner."

  "Disappoint! That is a stupid word! A useless word! There is a burden, a . . . weight . . ."

  Suddenly it seemed as if Dalin could see that burden which Faulkner had carried; the weight of an empire bearing down on his stiff shoulders, the weight of years and rule which was not rightly his own, and which he would gladly dispense with.

  "And now," Faulkner said, his voice filled with weariness, "when the biggest crisis has come and you are needed most of all, you choose this time to fall in love."

  Dalin was about to explain himself when the minister suddenly placed his hands on Dalin's shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. Here, then, was the root of the man, shown in those recesses behind even the iron.

  Back there, Dalin saw fear.

  "It is beginning now, Dalin," Faulkner said. His hands were like talons digging into the king's shoulders. "And it will come swiftly. There will be a move against you, very soon. And I don't know who it will be. What I did with Acron was merely a feint; the fact that no one protested my action worries me greatly. At most Acron is a co-conspirator, an affordable loss; but the real master remains hidden. I could have Acron tortured, but I doubt he even knows who is pulling the strings; he is stupid enough to think he is pulling them himself. And I don't know who it is.

  "Listen to me, and very carefully. Trust no one, from this moment on. For the past two weeks, while you sulked, I have used every power I have to find out who has plotted against you arid, if that plot was enacted, to give you a back door to pass through. I have failed in the first enterprise, and now I fear we are very close to an attempt on your life. There are very specific things you must do, if and when this attempt comes. And you must not think of me if it happens."

  Faulkner removed his grip from Dalin's shoulders and sat the young man down on a nearby bench. "Now listen to me very carefully. . ."

  There followed hours of discussion. When Dalin looked up, he saw that the stars and a sickled moon had risen above the trellises and that it was now night air that was scented with the sweet, languid odor of roses. At times he thought Faulkner had gone mad and was ranting with fever; but finally the discussion ended and the prime minister took his leave.

  In the faintness of moonlight, Faulkner's face looked ghostly and pale; he seemed a diminished man, unburdening his strength along with his plans and advice.

  "Take care, my king," Faulkner said, melting into the night. "With another meeting I have this hour, we may know who is friend and who is foe."

  The prime minister was gone then; and Dalin, suddenly aware of the chilled night, felt as if he should have said good-bye.

  It did not come as a complete shock, then, when Dalin Shar was awakened deep into the same night, with the sliver of moon edged down the west, to be told that Prime Minister Faulkner had been found that night murdered in his own chambers, his eyes and tongue cut out, his severed head still resting upon his pillow but robbed of all but eternal sleep.

  "It makes little difference to me, you understand," Prime Cornelian said languidly, "but I really would like to know where your daughter is."

  As he spoke, the High Leader took lazy pulls from the hookah borne by a rolling assistant. The machine had been designed expressly for this purpose and no other; it was, in effect, a hookah on wheels with a primitive brain. As Cornelian slowly circled the upright field where Senator Kris was held tightly suspended—so tightly that the yellow light of the field protruded not a bare millimeter from his crushed chest; his chest produced great pain each time the senator breathed, which was not that often. The field commenced a bare meter off the ground and held the senator in a suspended state with no movement possible. The room, in one of the higher towers of the residence of the former High Prefect, gave a stunning view through its open window of much of the Arsia Mons region in the distance—though Cornelian had made sure that the senator, when placed within the field, had been facing the bare opposite wall.

  "Oh, do talk, Senator!" Cornelian chided, taking another pull and letting the smoke out in precise O's, which floated through the field and made Kris cough painfully. "I'll find her nevertheless, and it would be so much easier on you for me to let you die today—think of all the pain to come tomorrow and the day after, otherwise!"

  Kris, through torment, muttered, "You know I won't tell you."

  In the middle of another string of smoke .O's, Cornelian said, "Correct!
That is why I should tell you that she is safely on Titan, a guest of my good friend Wrath-Pei, and that she will soon be on her way back to see you!"

  Kris sought to struggle within his confines, gasping, "He said he would protect her! Wrath-Pei promised—"

  Cornelian hooted, "A promise? From Wrath-Pei? Did you really think you could believe anything that monster told you?"

  Kris abruptly stopped struggling and let the pain subside before he panted, his eyes steady, "Wrath-Pei won't return her." Something like a smile came briefly to his lips, before the agony in his rib cage wiped it from his face. "I don't care what he's told you, he won't let her go. She's too valuable to him politically."

  The senator hissed in pain as his ruined heaving chest pushed out against the steel-like wall of yellow light. "And ... not because of her union to .. Jamal Clan."

  Moaning in pain, Senator Kris fainted away in his upright cage.

  Prime Cornelian stood tapping one long digit against his cranium in thought.

  "You're wrong, of course, Kris, but as always, your political instincts are in the right place. That's what made you so valuable to me as a tool. I must think on this."

  Prime Cornelian passed through a soft shaft of afternoon sunlight, which played across his angled body like a caress before hitting the far pink wall again after the High Leader's passage.

  On his way from the room, Cornelian paused in his thoughts long enough to tweak the containment field a fraction tighter; Senator Kris immediately came back to consciousness, fighting for breath and groaning in discomfort.

  "You realize, of course, Kris, that Tabrel will return for your sake?"

  A long moan escaped the senator, which followed the High Leader happily from the room.

  A demonstration had been prepared in the city of Shklovskii, in the Acidalia Planitia, in the northern hemisphere. Though bored with the trip, Prime Cornelian relished the destination.