by Ian J Miller
The next day they marched towards a cliff face, and reached it without incident by mid afternoon at the required coordinates. As described, there was a strange rock shape, and they marched towards it. They climbed the hillock leading to the rocks, and made their way behind them, where they saw the entrance to a cave. They walked towards it.
"Welcome!"
They turned around to see Kazyn climbing down from a viewing point on one of the rocks. "You were not followed?"
"We may or may not have been to start with," Gaius said, "but I believe there were no followers for the last two days."
"Well, I saw no sign of anyone tracking you," Kazyn said. "Come inside." Kazyn led them inside the cave, where they could see signs of organization, including a small area for preparing food, two barrels of water, some armaments, and in one corner, chained to a large rock, the Conclave Guard.
"So, what has he told you?" Gaius asked.
"Not much, actually," Kazyn admitted. "His name is Kyurta qu' Tharryt, although for ordinary purposes, call him Tharryt. The qu' is a modifier, but unlike your 'sir' on Earth, qu' lowers the status, but indicates a status higher than a full three named Ranhyn."
"So why did he go to shoot Baht?"
"He didn't. He claims his orders were to ensure that the officials at the end of the run saw nothing of what the other Guards were doing. He claims he has no idea what their orders were, and I am afraid he may be telling the truth."
"Where did the orders come from?"
"Cardinal Sender, or at least from his country estate. Strictly speaking, the orders came from a Ranhyn in the command centre, but I doubt any such orders would go out without Sender's approval."
"I agree," Gaius said. "Now the question is, what started this attempt on Baht? I gather you sent her on an expedition to find things out. What have you learned?"
"Not much, but I think the problem was that Baht was looking. I still think this is all about me."
"So why pick on Baht?"
"Because Baht was caught helping me. As to why, what I have found were records of the last days of my father. He was quite well, and indeed in excellent health. He even had a medical check-up the day before he died, and he was regarded as being in excellent health. When he died, instead of being returned to the family, as is the Ranhyn tradition, the Conclave Guard took his body, no autopsy was carried out, and indeed, as far as I can tell, the then new Cardinal Sender ordered that no autopsy be carried out. I believe either Cardinal Sender on his own, or the Conclave of Cardinals, ordered his death, and is seemingly after me too, and I don't know why. This pathetic example of a fowl," and he indicated Tharryt with a claw, "isn't any help."
"He may not know," Gaius suggested.
"Then he is in for a rough time," Kazyn growled, in a voice that Tharryt could clearly hear. "Either he is going to be useful or he is not, and in the latter case –"
"He will be useful," Gaius interrupted. "At what remains yet to be determined. In the meantime, you may be interested to know there is surveillance evidence that you could not have put that pluckee in your larder."
"You didn't believe me?" Kazyn protested.
"As far as I was concerned, you hadn't even denied it," he said with a shrug. "I am sure that when the food supply goes down, you would be capable." He turned to Tharryt and added, "Don't you think?"
Tharryt shuddered.
"So, why?" Kazyn asked.
"My guess is that the reason is Earth," Gaius said. "Your father was sympathetic towards building relations with Earth, and you had been there."
"Then Hadell is in danger," Kazyn said. "I have to –"
"Keep calm!" Gaius interrupted. "As far as we can tell, your mother is aware of the danger, and she is taking precautions, and anything you do is more likely to put her in danger. She can look after herself tolerably well, once warned, but she may get into trouble if she has to look after you as well."
"I am not going to sit in this cave for ever."
"I agree," Gaius said, "but if you do anything in general, they won't be ready for it. If you start hanging about your mother, they may anticipate that, capture you, and spoil your mother's precautions."
"So, what do you think we should do?"
"The first thing I'd do is to interrogate Tharryt," Gaius smiled. He turned to the chained Ranhyn, and said, "Your choice is, tell us what we need to know, or we shall drag it out of you. Here I have some equipment," and he delved into the pack and pulled out a headpiece with a number of very short filaments protruding through the bottom face, "and with this, I can read your brain, and take out everything of interest." He paused to let that sink in, then he added, "There is a problem, of course. If we take out everything, there is nothing left, and you will have the experience of a vegetable, and will have to start learning everything over again. I really suggest you talk."
"You wouldn't do that," Tharryt whimpered, but without particular conviction.
"Better people than you have called me a barbarian," Gaius shrugged. "If you think I am too soft, I should inform you that I have had about thirty to forty people crucified, and that involves nailing arms and legs to a wooden cross, and leaving them hang around until they die, which usually takes about two to three days. You have ten minutes to start talking." With that he turned his back and crossed to the other side of the cave, where he sat down on a large rock.
"What do you want to know," came the bleat after about five minutes.
At first, the information came slowly, but then the flow gradually increased. However, most of it was of little interest. They had been ordered to watch the "run" from a distance, and when Methrell became involved, they received instructions from the Cardinal himself for Tharryt to ensure the officials were distracted so they could not see what was happening when the other two entered the field. If apprehended, they were to deny any involvement by the authorities. If they wanted to stay alive, they should carry out their orders and escape.
"So," Gaius said with a grin, "your being captured means you are likely to be killed by the Cardinal, if he were to lay his claws on you?"
The Ranhyn said nothing, but from his expression the truth was fairly obvious.
"It seems to me you have two choices," Gaius said. "You can help us and live, or I shall package you up and return you to the Cardinal."
"Of course, we can always eat you if you can't choose," Kazyn said helpfully, then added, "which we shall do if you promise to help and then run to the Cardinal."
"Don't worry," Gaius said. "If you double cross us, I assure you the Cardinal will get evidence that you are betraying him even then. But let's not go there. Tell us more about what you know of the Cardinal's activities."
This was not exactly illuminating, although one point that did come across was that those working for the Cardinal on "less than religious" projects always received their orders from, and then reported to, representatives at the Cardinal's country home, and they were never to go to his offices in Tukhranh.
Gaius and Kazyn walked away from Tharryt, and sat down out of earshot to have something to eat, and to discuss what to do next. Gaius took two more food bars from the pack that Marcellus had carried and he began chewing, and as he ate, he noticed that Kazyn seemed to be somewhat thoughtful and a was a little distracted as he cut some meat, so much so he almost let his knife slip, and he had to make a grab to stop it from falling on the floor.
"Something on your mind?" Gaius asked.
Now Kazyn showed more signs of concern, as he said, "Strictly speaking, if I told you, I could be accused of espionage."
"And exactly who is going to accuse you?" Gaius said with a smile. "I assure you, it won't be me, and there aren't a lot of others here."
"OK, then," Kazyn said, as he seemed to have made up his mind. "Mind you, you're not going to like this, and I'm going to ask you to treat this information carefully and tread lightly."
"So, what is it?"
"After the great fleet was sent to Plotk, a small number of warship
s were built to serve as home defence, then the building of such ships reverted to peacetime rates until the news of the Plotk outcome reached here." Kazyn then stopped, as if unsure how to continue.
"That is not entirely unexpected," Gaius smiled. "Given the strategy, which I might say, annoyed Ulse severely, no more ships should have been required. Both Ulse and the M'starn had effectively committed everything they had, and while one would be defeated, the other should have been fairly badly mauled too. That fleet would be the biggest left, if all went to plan.
"The fact that only a bit over half the Ulsian fleet actually fought meant that Ulse still had a very significant fleet left could not be known here, but since the Ranhyn fleet kept to its word, there was no need for further ships."
"That is fine," Kazyn said, "but you haven't heard everything."
"Oh? What else is there?"
"I did a search of economic activity, largely to try to work out if there was any reason anyone would want to kill my father," Kazyn said.
"So?"
"Once the news came and shipbuilding was allegedly stopped, the production and usage of the special raw materials largely used only on our relativistic space ships shot up."
"You mean they started building more ships?" Gaius asked, his voice raised in surprise.
"That would seem to be the obvious conclusion," Kazyn replied.
"I suppose that raises the question, what for?" Gaius said, his voice now showing real concern.
"What bothers me," Kazyn replied, "is where are they?"
This, Gaius realized, was a very good question. Ships designed to approach relativistic speeds were generally assembled in space, both for ease of construction and for launching. Construction was a lot easier in space, while if the ship were to be assembled under a significant net gravitational force, the rather large mass led to acute problems due to the presence of bending torques on the structure during the early stages. If the ship were to be assembled under the weightless conditions of orbital motion there were no such bending torques. It was also very undesirable to launch a major ship from a planetary surface. First, the soil usually did not support the mass so huge reinforced runways had to be constructed; second, the ships would have to be mounted on some sort of huge trailer because it was not designed to have wheels and would never use them again; and finally, the exhausts from the major motors were a column of either nuclei or even elementary particles travelling at very close to light speed, and hence the ship taking off would spray over the countryside the equivalent of extremely energetic cosmic rays of an intensity unseen in nature, even in a supernova. From orbit, because any force provided net acceleration, the ship could use low power, hence the exhaust could be relatively harmless if well away from it. To launch from the ground, the mass of the ship and the net gravitational force usually led to the motors having to be near full on to escape the planetary atmosphere and gain at least a stable orbital velocity.
"I suppose there could be no such ships, and we have jumped to a wrong conclusion," Gaius said, although his voice showed he was far from convinced of this.
"The materials must go either to the military or the general economy," Kazyn said. "If they go to the general economy, where they go is listed, and the production and consumption accounts balance. If the accounts do not balance, leaving aside fraud, the only place they could go to is the military."
"What about the Conclave?"
"They would have the power to hide the resources, but what would they do with them? They have no factories and no ability to manufacture. As I see it, let's assume they are to build ships. If so, why hide the construction?" Kazyn continued. "If such ships were to help Ulse, or even for the defence of Ranh, wouldn't the politicians want to make a big thing of them?"
"Against that," Gaius cautioned, "if they were making them for some underhand reason, wouldn't they build them as usual and lie about their intended use? After all, you don't have to acknowledge the true use until you deploy them, and if they are simply in orbit, you can always claim they are for the defence of Ranh."
"And you cannot see any other options?" Kazyn challenged.
"Yes, I can," Gaius conceded. "I suppose we cannot rule out that some fragment of the Ranhyn government is building these in secret."
"In which case Cardinal Sender knows about it, and probably authorizes it," Kazyn said, "and my guess is, Tallyn found out somehow, and that was why he was killed. Then I was framed because I might be in a position to challenge Tergyn, and I am known to have a very close association with a Terran."
"In which case, Tergyn is also a stooge," Gaius said. "But if you adopt that interpretation, the only reason for hiding the ships would be to take part in a war, and you can't really do that without the Military Curia. If you take that interpretation to its obvious conclusion, you accuse the Seppets of involvement."
"I know," Kazyn said with a gloomy tone.
"That doesn't make sense to me," Gaius said. "There were two incidents in which attempts were made on Seppet Methrell's life."
"It is possible that Methrell is not involved," Kazyn admitted. "I can't make her out, other than to say she is the most dangerous female I have ever encountered."
"I still don't get it," Gaius said, "but I think that is because we are missing too much."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I think the first thing to do is to check whether there is or has been a secret program for building space ships, and if so, who is in charge."
"And how will you do that?"
"I think that if your theory is correct, the Cardinal must know about it," Gaius said. "That means somehow we have to get into his country property."
"Easier said than done," Kazyn muttered.
"Not necessarily. Tharryt can presumably get in, in as much as he always reports there."
"You think he's going to do what we want?" Kazyn said in a bewildered tone.
"Yes, I do, because before he goes in, I am going to insert a capsule containing a thallium compound under his skin. There is a time limit before the poison gets into the system, and then the victim has a few days of getting progressively worse. On the other hand, I can withdraw the capsule and if I am too late, I have an antidote. What Tharryt must understand is that if he does what we ask, he gets the antidote, otherwise, well, it is a fairly painful death."
"And you're not going to tell him what the poison is, I presume?"
"Not while he has a need to know."
"What say he makes no real effort, and says he cannot get anything?"
"Marcellus and I shall go in with him," Gaius said. "What we need him to do is to gain access."
"You'll be detected by their security system. Are you sure you want to start an official incident?"
"I'll try to avoid that," Gaius said. "Fortunately, I brought a chameleon suit with me. It is not fool proof, but it is the best concealment garment that Ulse can make, and Marcellus can generate some illusions that will 'prove' the equipment is not working, in the odd event we are picked up. In any case, we have to do something, and this is the best I can think of."
* * *
Tharryt was blindfolded and marched from the cave to a section near a road where a vehicle was hidden, and then driven to be near Sender's country retreat. The good news was that Sender had left for Tukhranh that morning, so by an hour before midday the captive could be assumed to have a reasonably clear run. Kazyn held him down while Gaius inserted the capsule, amid a lot of protesting squawking, then he was informed in no uncertain terms what would happen if he got nowhere.
Tharryt was let out of the vehicle and Marcellus stood beside him. They walked towards the main gate, with Gaius walking behind the increasingly nervous Tharryt. Fortunately, there was no guard on the gate. The gate was opened, and they proceeded down a long drive that progressed through something that was almost a forest with numerous large podocarps, most trunks of which were covered with large green epiphytes. In some ways, this would make subsequent escape easier, altho
ugh he gathered from Tharryt that on the other side of the electrified wire fences there were numerous raptors that would make escape rather difficult.
Then they reached the place where the forest began to thin, and there, across a broad open space, was the Cardinal's so-called country retreat, although "palace" might have been a better term, at least in its more modern meaning, and not the meaning from Gaius' time, which was whatever was built on the Palatine. It was certainly an impressive structure, with three levels, not counting anything underground, and enough space for twenty reasonably sized rooms per level on the front alone. In the centre there was the main entrance, which comprised two large doors behind several glistening silver pillars holding up a slightly sloping roof to cover the approach. There were two guards at the entranceway.
The first problem involved crossing that space, and Tharryt alone could do that. According to Tharryt, he always went there after an operation, and he would be expected to return and report. For the report, Tharryt was to say that Kazyn had crept up behind him and knocked him out, but he came to, pretended to be still unconscious and when everybody left, having ignored him, he had followed Kazyn through the forest for two days, however eventually Kazyn had seen him and shot at him with that projectile weapon. He had taken cover, and had crept around into a gully. When he emerged, he had lost sight of Kazyn, and since he was unarmed he felt he had to give up since blundering around with a Ranhyn with a long-range weapon gave him few options, and worse, he was not entirely sure where he was, and probably took a longer route back than was necessary. Kazyn had given him a route that would reasonably have taken the time. The story was not fool proof, but it was reasonable and difficult to prove false. Gaius reminded Tharryt what had to be done, and then he was sent on his way. He marched up to the guards, conversed with them, and was admitted. At least, so far, so good. Tharryt had obviously been recognized by and was on reasonable terms with the guards.