Tales of the Spinward March Book 2: The Red Queen

by David Winnie

  The procession arrived at the center of the Main Temple. A pair of gilded doors greeted them, a kneeling priest at each. Annika patted Yuri’s arm and stood before the gilded portal.

  She struck a defiant pose, her hand on her hips, head held high to her full four feet ten. She cried out in a loud voice,” I am Annika Raudona Khan, preferred legatee to the crown of my ancestor, Angkor Khan. I require these doors open so I may join my progenitors in this holy place!”

  The entire assembly knelt and bowed until their heads touched the floor. The doors slid open smoothly and a voice called out from beyond the doors. “Enter Annika Raudona Khan and be welcome. Your ancestors await.”

  Two attendants awaited her in the Room of Preparation. Swiftly, they stripped Annika of her white top and trousers, handed her soft leather breeches and calfskin riding boots.

  The jacket they presented was called the Imperial Rainbow Robe. Its stiff brocade was a brilliant yellow to her waist. There it fanned into narrow stripes the colors of the eight heirs. Wide red cuffs adorned the sleeves, the left embroidered with a wild horse, the right with a golden dragon. A brimmed hat of black mink fur was placed on her head.

  A cord was slung over her shoulder, a golden intricate braid. It held a gilded knife at her waist. One attendant handed her a small, glowing brand.

  She bowed to them in thanks and assumed her defiant pose before the next door.

  On it was depicted an ancient warrior, dressed as she was dressed, astride a white charger.

  “Honored ancestors,” she intoned, “it is I, Annika Raudona Khan. I ask your permission to enter this house and join your number with the Holy Blood.”

  The panel opened noiselessly and a woman’s voice responded. “Welcome Annika Raudona Khan, Daughter.”

  The light of the room rose to the level of dusk. Before her were sixteen niches carved in the wall. The first fourteen contained a pair of funerary urns. The fifteenth had a single urn. The sixteenth was empty. Her breath caught. She was in the presence of her predecessors, the previous fifteen reincarnations of the Great Khan himself, and their partners. Two millennia of the royal line.

  She covered her face and willed herself to breath.

  Over each niche was a sealed box, bearing an image of the Khan who was interred at that spot. She went to the first box, lit the incense stick left there by the nuns of the temple who prepared this place, bowed and prayed: “I humbly greet my ancestor Janus Arcadia Khan. I ask for him to look favorably upon my ascension, that he bid me to join the honored of the Khans of Terra. I ask he demands from beyond the Gods to look with favor on my Empire.”

  She moved down the line, bowing, lighting and praying at each of the boxes; Hinabrian, Gerta, Ho-Lua, James the First…Hesitating at the eighth, the emperor who would have no name. The incense was there, though the urns had been smashed and the image on the cabinet had been burned. She bowed and executed the ceremony.

  Annika arrived at the last occupied niche. The image of Robert De L’Orange. He was young and beautiful, the very persona of the Terran Emperor. She delicately traced his face with a finger. How she longed to stay there with her father, stare into the image of his kind eyes. But she had the ceremony to complete. She bowed to her father’s remains and repeated the ceremony.

  She came to the last niche. Her niche. Where her remains would be for all eternity after her death. She opened the cabinet above her niche and removed a small vessel, took the ceremonial knife from its golden cord. “Honored ancestors, I now claim my place with you. With my blood drawn by my own hand here in this place, I declare by the Law of The Great Angkor Khan, that I am perfection of our bloodline. I now declare myself the sixteenth reincarnation of Angkor Khan.”

  She drew the knife across her left palm. Bright red blood gushed. She held it over the bowl, filling it halfway. According to her instructions, she placed bowl in the cabinet and closed the door.

  There was the tinkling sound of a dozen small bells.

  The cabinet’s door now bore an image of Annika. From the day on Celtius 4, astride the horse, her hair streaming back, her eyes wide open and wild, her mouth screaming with joy: “VICTORIOUS! FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS!”

  From a pocket in her Rainbow Robe, she drew a white cloth and wrapped her bleeding hand. On her left, the last door opened.

  A voice, two thousand years in the grave spoke.

  “Enter, Daughter.”

  The room was so bright, at first Annika had to cover her eyes.

  The entire room, ceiling, floor, walls were gold. At the center of the room was a raised plinth, holding a crystal casket. She bowed her head as she approached.

  Inside rested the two-thousand-year-old preserved remains of the first Khan, the Great Angkor Khan. He was dressed in the Rainbow Robe and furred hat. In his hands, he held an urn.

  His wife, Sophia.

  In a line across the top of the casket was a row of shallow dishes. Each contained a lock of hair tied with a ribbon and bore the name of a reincarnate of Angkor Khan. The last dish bore her name, Annika Raudona Khan.

  Her Rainbow Robe was equipped for this ceremony, too. A red ribbon came from her pocket, which she tied to the end of her braid. She used the ceremonial knife to cut the tuft of hair, then placed it with reverence in the vessel bearing her name.

  The walls were covered with writing. It was the Law of Angkor Khan, the codification which ran the Empire. In simple terms, it spelled out the responsibilities of the rulers and the citizens. Illuminations of various points in the Great Khan’s life scattered throughout. Meeting Sophia. The Vinithri War. The peace he made with the First Daughter of the Vinithri. The first heirs.

  His death.

  These were the laws Annika had grown up learning. To her, they were the very foundation of her life.

  She relit the flaming brand and circled the cist, igniting the sixteen incense sticks that had been placed there. She knelt on the floor before her ancestor and meditated for an hour.

  Annika returned to the Room of Preparation. The attendants helped her remove the heavy robe. She stripped and they wiped her with damp towels, anointed her with oils and sweet perfumes. Her hand was bound, hair brushed and braided, cosmetics lightly applied. Dressed in a gown of shimmering gold, a golden cap was placed on her head and silken slippers on her feet.

  At the door, she cried out, “I am Crown Princess Annika Raudona Khan, returned from the Gods as a God.” The doors opened, all fell to the floor and prostrated themselves, save Yuri.

  They smiled at one another and Yuri extended his arm. Gracefully, she placed her hand on his arm and they walked to the Throne Room of the Temple.

  Annika was reminded of her Throne Room in Giza. The walls, ceiling and floor were white and filigreed in gold. Art work and tapestries were on every wall. At the far end of the room filled with a hundred prostrate subjects, a three-step dais held a plain cathedra. Yuri led Annika up to her throne. When she sat, everyone slid back on their heels.

  “Rise,” she commanded.

  Tahn stepped forward and cried out, “The File Committee and the File Council of Advisors greet our new Goddess Queen, head of our Order and sixteenth reincarnation of our Founder. I give you Crown Princess Annika Raudona Khan.”

  The room raised its arms; “HooooOOOO! HooooOOOO! HooooOOOO!”

  “I thank you, my loyal subjects. I vow to do my upmost to uphold the Law and prepare myself for my final ascension to Empress.”

  “My friends, I know we are here to celebrate the promise of a new dawn over our Empire,” Tahn said. “But, we have more pressing matters to attend to immediately. Crown Princess, we were put in an untenable position when your father was murdered. You were not ready to assume your position and we had no recourse in the law. The solution we agreed to has exacerbated the issue of succession. There is also a danger we have failed to speak with you about. I invite Doctor Lucius Reynolds to speak.”

  A tall, grey haired man stepped forward. He had a patrician look, down to his long no
se and firm chin. “I am Doctor Lucius Reynolds of Columbia University. My expertise is forensic genealogy. When the eighth Khan sought to destroy the Empire with his so-called democracy revolution, he tried to destroy his family line by murdering the heirs. He very nearly succeeded, killing all but two. With the death of He Who Shall Have No Name, his daughter became Empress Petra Khan. Fearing for his life, her brother, Thomas Blanc, hid from his sister, escaping to the rim to live out his days in obscurity.

  “The File Council noticed a decline in the Empire after Petra Khan’s reign. Perhaps she was inferior? We don’t know for sure. The signs were unmistakable. While we were fulfilling the laws of Angkor Khan, the heirs were in decline, weakening the Empire.”

  Tahn interjected. “During the reign of Zander Khan, an errant gene sequence was identified as the root cause for the aberration in the pursuit of perfection. Our predecessors analyzed the sequence and believed they had made the necessary adjustments to eliminate erratic sequence. But the disastrous result was Kim Choi Khan.”

  “We isolated the errant gene,” said Doctor Reynolds. “It was evident to us the mutation would require gradual modification. With Robert Khan, we achieved our goal. Unfortunately, he also carried the recessive gene sequence. We designed Annika Khan with the recessive sequence removed, replaced with a receptor sequence to restore the line. Since we couldn’t create the needed sequence, the only solution was to find a descendant of Petra Khan’s brother, Thomas. Evidence indicates he was the last heir not to carry the recessive gene. The search has been long and exhausting. But tonight, we have in the room a descendent of Petra Khan’s brother, one who carries the gene sequence we need.”

  “Tell me, Doctor.” The room went silent when Annika spoke. “This descendant, what is required of him?”

  Tahn spoke in a quiet, but urgent tone. “By the law, Crown Princess, you would need to be bonded with the one, to create the next heir class.”

  “Bonded. You mean marry. Master Tahn, what if I had decided I don’t wish to marry?”

  “Majesty, it would be unseemly for you to produce heirs without a bonded mate,” replied Tahn.

  “So, you’re more concerned with appearances than with my will,” argued Annika

  “It is not a matter of appearances,” Than said. “It is a matter of survival.”

  “So, to save our species, I must give up my Rights of Privacy,” Annika hissed.

  Tahn looked sad. “Majesty, for our survival, sacrifices must be made.”

  “But this is my life we are talking about,” Annika protested. “My body. My free will.”

  “It is not your body we are discussing,” snapped Doctor Reynolds. “Only twenty-four of your eggs are needed for sequencing with the seed supplied by the descendant.”

  “Ah, so I am a hen to produce golden eggs for the Empire?” Annika waggled a finger. “Careful, Doctor, you are bordering on ugly ethics questions now.”

  “She needs to be told,” said Tahn.

  “Told what?” Annika demanded.

  “Is that information you would want to know?” an anonymous voice asked.

  “Know what?” interjected Yuri. “I am a doctor. Annika and I are very close. If this is medical information you are withholding, then I demand to know what that information is.”

  “You have no voice here, Doctor,” came Reynolds icy reply. “This is File Council business, not the business of a starry-eyed boy.” Jeers and shouted words filled the room.

  “Enough,” Tahn ordered. His voice sliced through the crowd and they fell silent. “Doctor Russolov is correct. And I would add, his relationship with Her Majesty is a critical factor.

  “Majesty, this information, while common knowledge to this Council, is sensitive. I would prefer we discuss it in private?”

  Annika rose, accepted Yuri’s arm and strode regally from the room. Tahn led them to a cozy, open air balcony overlooking the western Gobi. An elderly nun in saffron robes offered them tea.

  “Children, this is my wife, Ui,” Tahn declared. “I asked her here today as she is my other half and may be able to find the words I cannot.”

  “What words would those be, Master?” inquired Annika.

  Tahn took his wife’s hand. “Ui and I have been married for seventy-five years now. We were younger than you two when we married. We will see perhaps as many as another fifty years together. That is the nature of man and woman. You find your other half, live your lives and pass. It is a great sorrow, but an even greater joy. I would drink the bitter tea all my days for each perfect dawn of my wife.”

  He sipped his tea, patted his wife’s leg and continued. “Not all are as fortunate as Ui and I. Some never find their other half. They are the saddest of all. Some find their other half, but seek to sweeten their tea overmuch and in doing so, lose them. Still others find their other half, but only receive a half measure of life.”

  “One half dies before the other,” Annika whispered.

  “Yes.”

  A long silence ensued.

  “How many years do I have, Master Tahn?” Annika asked.

  “It is more complicated than that, Crown Princess. With luck, you will live to one hundred and twenty-five, one hundred fifty.”

  “That is an average lifespan,” interjected Yuri.

  “Yes. But there are…complications.”

  “I want the truth,” Annika said flatly. “All of it, Tahn.”

  Tahn’s sigh came as a half sob. “We have spoken many times of compromise, Daughter. When I designed you, I was creating the ultimate brain. In this, I have succeeded brilliantly. You have the most brilliant mind in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, you are transitional. A prototype. We made your brain as compact as we could, trading your physical size for brain capacity. Already, the base sequence that will create your children’s brains is laid down. They will have brains at least the equal of yours; two will be superior. But for you, the physical strain on your brain structure was sacrificed. At some point, as early as age seventy to seventy-five, your brain will begin to deteriorate. Certainly, by eighty, the degradation will be noticeable. By ninety, you will be essentially incompetent to run the Empire. By ninety-five, you will be in a vegetative state.”

  “So, you see doctor, the Crown Princess living to one hundred twenty-five would be, for her, more a curse than a blessing.”

  “Gods below!” Annika breathed the curse. “Is there no hope? Is that to be my future?”

  “Do not look at the bitter tea, Child,” Ui spoke up. “Look to the countless dawns.”

  “They do not look so countless to me,” Annika said bitterly. “Your husband has announced my doom.”

  “A single day is a lifetime for a June fly,” Ui said calmly. “Yet it doesn’t sit and bemoan its fate. It lives the day it was given, drinking the tea as it is served. What will you do with your day?”

  They were quiet for a while. Then Annika said, “So, this is to be my fate. Why the rush, then, to mate me and establish my line?”

  “The Empire is at a crossroads, Crown Princess,” Ui answered. “I serve the Council as a political advisor. We have enemies both without and within. Both have watched the Empire weaken the last seven hundred fifty years because of declining leadership from our Khans. Your father was to serve as a bridge between the ineffective Khans and you. Our enemies turned that plan on its head when they assassinated him. Because of this, we have been forced to accelerate your training.

  “The schedule we designed for you would have had you becoming Empress at age forty-five, not twenty-five. Those twenty years would have given us sufficient time to ensure the proper development of your successor’s superior brain.”

  “Then I am to be nothing more than a hen for the Empire,” Annika asked the bitter question again.

  “No!” insisted Tahn. “I created you for greatness, not a simple caretaker. Already you must have noticed how the military flocks to you. You will need them, Ming si will not give up the Empire now that he has a taste for power. Beyo
nd that? Our enemies from without fear you for good reason.”

  “Master Tahn?” Yuri asked. “In all of this, what is my role to be?”

  “Why, Doctor, your role is the most important of all to the future of the Empire,” Tahn smiled.

  “You are the descendent of Thomas Blanc.”

  It was decided quickly. Annika and Yuri would be married the next day before the File Council. Afterwards, the harvesting would be performed. The File Committee stayed up late into the night working on the final patterns, preparing to receive the eggs and seed needed to create the next perfect Khan.

  The couple was placed in the opulent chambers of the Khan. While Yuri slept, Annika sat on the edge of the balcony. The night was moonless and the stars so bright she could make out details on the desert floor. But her attention was on the stars.

  Terra’s orbit this time of the year aimed the night side inward towards the galactic core. Spinward. Where Grandfather Leonid had disappeared. In the direction of the Galactic Council, an entity that had started three declared wars against Terra.

  She would only have sixty years to rule.

  Annika counted one hundred fifty stars, more than her Empire. She could easily cover that many with her hand.

  The Khan who replaces me must have a foundation to work with, one bigger than one hundred fifty worlds. If Terra is to survive, I must leave my child a larger Empire. An Empire that is safe for all Terrans.

  She gathered herself and turned to leave, sending a silent vow into the void.

  I will come. You can join me or you can stand against me. And if you stand against me, you will die.

  She allowed herself a tiny smile. Annika raised her chin and stared at the Universe imperiously. She closed her eyes and thought of Yuri. Now he wasn’t just her savior, he would be the savior of her Empire.

  Chapter 21

  The wedding was a simple ceremony. Annika wore the Imperial Rainbow Robe, Yuri his brown suit. The couple shared their vows in the Temple. Tahn bound their hands together and by the laws of the Khalkha, they were married.