by Ian J Miller
"Ulsian technology, if you know who they are."
"We have heard of them," Livilla said. "I understand your Roman companion fought with them?"
"Yes, he did," Natasha said. "He was removed from Earth with Quintus Flavius, if he is who you mean by the divine Quintus, but was taken to Ulse instead of here, and because of relativity, if you know what that is, he has been able to return."
"But not with the divine Lucilla? That's unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?"
"It may be a myth, but on his deathbed, Quintus foretold that the divine Lucilla would return and get us off this planet. It is a prophecy that we have all hung onto. I guess we'll have to get used to that not happening."
"You may yet get to see Claudia Lucilla," Natasha said, "but I need you to promise me something, and that is, you stop this calling her divine. It will make her unbearable."
"She is here?"
"She is commanding two Ulsian battleships out by the gas giant."
"Actually, she isn't," Marcus Junius said. "According to our information, there were two ships out there, but they have disappeared."
"There have been no transmissions," Katya said, "although I should say that down here we are shielded from low energy transmissions. However, before we came down here, I can assure you that whatever happened, Lucilla has done it under some form of concealed movement. Had she done it as a consequence of Ranhynn force, I would have been made aware of it, so for the moment, I would not worry. I suggest you forget about this and concentrate on things that we can do."
"That raises an interesting question for me, though," Natasha said, turning to Junius. "How do you know?"
"We monitor all sorts of things," Junius explained. "More than once our continued existence has depended on just that."
"So, back to how you are here, and how you can survive in the presence of a technologically advanced race that doesn't seem to like you very much?"
"This was due to Quintus," Flavia explained. "The stories have it that when he was given to the Ranhynn, he and three others were made slaves. There was something of a revolt, and two of them were killed, but Quintus and the other somehow escaped, and somehow stole a small shuttle and forced the pilot to fly them away. They were pursued, and shot down over a place very far away. They managed to escape and run, and were pursued but then, it appears, there is another race there, and they claimed this was some form of violation of their territory. They trussed the Ranhynn up, apparently after plucking them, and from what we gather this was the first time a plucking occurred, then they returned them with the comment that such incursions into their territory would not be permitted.
"They also stated that such kidnapping is forbidden by the treaty with Ulse, and unless they wanted war, they would permit these two humans to return to the Ranhyn domain. Before they were returned, they would be taught certain things by these others, and there would be a territory marked out for them, or else."
"Needless to say," Arrius added, "the Ranhynn hardly kept their word, but Quintus had learned well, and he begun digging tunnels. The Ranhynn don't like tunnels, so they devised machines to go down them, but the others had shown Quintus how to take control of such machines, and had given him equipment to do so."
"The net result," Flavia continued, "is that Quintus freed a lot of slaves and brought them to the tunnels his machines had made, and soon we had a small army of machines sent in to destroy us.
"What Quintus did next was to play on the Ranhynn weakness. His men bored tunnels into the Ranhynn nest areas and told the Ranhynn either they made peace or the eggs would be destroyed."
"Naturally, the Ranhynn chose war," Arrius said, "and they tried to gas us. But Quintus had foreseen this . . ."
"Or the others had warned him, and he was ready," Aella interrupted.
"Anyway, the gas was dispersed harmlessly, and a nest was disrupted and all eggs broken. Then the offer was repeated. The Ranhynn did not like this one bit, but eventually they saw sense, and peace was declared. We have then traded with them, providing some fruit from the area where we grow things, because they really do not like working in agriculture, and in return, we purchase some electronics and some useful goods."
"Arms?" Natasha asked.
"They deny us weapons," Aella replied with a shrug, "but we steal some from time to time. However, we have undertaken never to use them unless they try to exterminate us."
"Which we fear they will try soon," Lucius said, his voice showing signs of deep pessimism. "Relations between us and them have deteriorated markedly since the killing of Tenzat Tallyn."
"Killing? How?"
"Poisoned," Lucius said with a shrug.
"You know this for sure?"
"Oh, we can prove it, but we are not going to because we would be killed before we could present evidence in their courts."
"Presumably Tergyn was the poisoner?"
"Actually, no. It was done on the express orders of the father of the Ranhyn that you may know as Cardinal Sender. We are unsure whether this was on the order of the Great Conclave or whether it was a somewhat rogue effort."
"So how do you know?" Natasha asked.
"Because one of us was hiding in the kitchen and watched the Ranhyn butcher prepare the meat. The butcher put a white powder into the meat, and this was seen by another Ranhyn, who asked why he was doing this. The butcher simply replied that he was acting on the order of this elder Sender, and this other one had better keep very quiet. As it happened, this other Ranhyn was found with his throat cut the following morning. The human kept a very low profile, and as soon as he had the chance, he fled and told us. Next day Tallyn's body was found, and for the obvious reason, the elder Sender ordered no further examination of the body be made. There was no autopsy, and the Conclave ordered that the body be cremated immediately."
"Kazyn will be interested to hear that," Natasha said.
"Yes, but it doesn't do him any good. There is no way we are going to give evidence in one of their courts, where the Cardinal is the judge, and in any case, the elder Sender is dead."
"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't," Natasha said. "That depends on whether he wishes to challenge Thapet Tergyn for the position of Tenzat."
"He wishes to challenge?" Lucius asked. "They will kill him first."
"He knows that," Natasha agreed. "One thing, you said you feared the Ranhynn would be likely to try to exterminate you soon. What makes you think that, given that they have not done that for almost two thousand years?"
"Because they have built a number of annihilation bombs. Apparently they have a fleet somewhere, and they intend to send those bombs to it. We do not know where they are going, but we suspect they will head to what you call Earth, and humanity will presumably be wiped out."
"Do you know why they have taken this interest in exterminating humanity, if that is what they intend?"
"We don't know. We do know that the Great Conclave received a message from Plotk saying that the battle against the M'starn was won by Ulse, but the victory was totally due to the Terran commander, your Claudius Scaevola. The Great Conclave have decided that they cannot permit Earth to generate enough military might, and this is definitely the last chance they have to get rid of humans. Our guess is, we will be killed at the same time, if they can."
"Then we have to get a message to Gaius."
"You'll never make it. They'll be guarding him . . ."
"All we need to do," Katya interrupted, "is to get me to somewhere that is less shielded, which means somewhat less ground above me. I must get close to the surface."
"That we can do. Alexius, take Katya up shaft twenty-three."
"Weapons?" Alexius asked, as he looked towards a shelf carrying various weapons.
"No need," Katya said. "I shall look after you. I have more killing power than all those weapons over there."
Chapter 30
'Katya and Natasha have made progress,' Marcellus reported. 'They have made contact with a number of humans, almost all of whom are li
kely to be descendants of Quintus.'
'Which means Natasha is still alive. Good.'
'That's good, but the rest is not. According to Katya, the humans believe that when the Great Conclave heard about your victory at Plotk, not only did they not send help to Earth, but they decided that your victory signalled that this will definitely be the last chance to remove humanity from the Planet of Origin, and if they do not do it now, they never will have the opportunity again.'
'And they decided to do it?'
'There is no evidence the Conclave decided to do that. However, we have to assume that from the information we have, Cardinal Sender has undertaken the task. We do not know whether he has some sort of approval, or whether he is acting on his own initiative.'
'All of which means that Athene's intervention is actually responsible for generating exactly the same effect as what she was trying to protect against.'
'That frequently happens with temporal intervention, which is why Ulse bans it,' Marcellus noted. 'Some things seem ordained to happen, and all you do is change the way it happens, an example of which may be Vipsania's death. She was always going to die; the only question was, how?'
'Perhaps, but since this destruction did not happen on Athene's timeline, until there was a temporal intervention, then the destruction of Earth is not inevitable.'
'There is logic in that.'
'And the fact Sender has taken so long to do it may mean this is a rogue action. Make a call to Seppet Zakryn.'
'Certainly. Any good reason?'
'It is important to know whether these ships are officially part of the Ranhyn Military Curia, and we have to find them.'
'In that context, Lucilla has found them. According to the Romulus' sensors, there are at least thirty major vessels hidden in an ice cave on a satellite of the outer gas giant. There could be many more. Lucilla has her two ships in geostationary orbit above the entrance.'
'Good news. Send an order to Lucilla that unless I countermand this order, she is to stop them from emerging. If they start to power up, she will send them a message from the senior Ulsian commander that, by treaty, they must obey. The message is simple. They must not emerge until their status is clarified.'
'Done. I have a call through to Zakryn. I should warn you that we cannot guarantee that this call will not be monitored.'
'I know, but we may be in a hurry.'
Gaius stood in front of the screen and saw Zakryn, whose expression Gaius found to be unreadable.
"Greetings. You wish to talk with me?"
"Thank you for agreeing to talk," Gaius began. "It has come to my attention that Cardinal Sender has requested some very heavy weapons from your Curia, and I was curious to know –"
"He requested. In fact he has requested many times, but he did not receive." Zakryn's face remained unreadable.
"I understand also that thirty new Ranhyn Warships have been built over the last twenty years. As supreme –"
"Then you are mistaken," Zakryn interrupted. "Once the M'starn threat to Plotk was removed, the Military Curia has constructed no further warships. The reason we did not send any to assist at Earth was because all surplus ones had already left for Ulse prior to receiving that news. We saw no need to build more."
"Then I apologize," Gaius replied. "You will understand that since the Space Curia refuses to move on this treaty issue, I have to assume there is a hidden agenda, but I am pleased to hear you have no concealed warships."
"The Military Curia has no concealed warships."
"Then thank you." Gaius then terminated the call.
'He may not be telling the truth,' Marcellus pointed out.
'No, but I have what I wanted. He has stated that there are no official Ranhyn ships out at that gas giant, so we can consider them to be pirates. I shall order Lucilla to prevent their emerging.'
* * *
"We have news," Antonia said, as she aroused Lucilla. "There is evidence that either the Great Conclave or some errant Cardinals have decided to annihilate life on Earth, which is what we feared. Gaius has ordered us to stop any ship that arrives and tries to land, because he believes it will be carrying annihilation bombs for the fleet in the ice caves."
"Good for big brother; always giving orders," Lucilla shook her head. "All the same, I agree, we have to try. Can we?"
"Two of then most advanced mainline battleships in this part of the galaxy should be able to stop the odd freighter."
"What if those ships below start to come out."
"I would recommend that if we detect their motors powering up, you order the exit to be sealed."
"So ordered," Lucilla said calmly. "Isn't that an act of war?"
"Not at all," Antonia answered. "Gaius has been told by the military Curia that there are no hidden warships."
"Yes, but our sensors show –"
"They show ships, but not necessarily Ranhynn ships. Since the Military Curia denies knowledge of them, they cannot be official Ranhynn ships."
"So they must be pirates or something," Lucilla nodded. "What a crafty big brother. So, what do we do about the freighter, assuming it is a freighter?"
"We invite any such freighter to stop and be inspected."
"Do we have the authority to do that?"
"By the treaty, Ranhynn ships are subject to reasonable orders of an Ulsian Space Marshall, are they not?"
"Of course they are. Nevertheless, I don't like it," Lucilla said, "as I'm sure you know, but equally there is no real alternative."
'Which is also my opinion, as you know.'
'Then we wait until the scanners show something,' Lucilla agreed. 'As an aside, what would you recommend if a few ships power up down there and the bombs have not arrived?'
'Order them to identify themselves as official Ranhyn military units, with authorized designation at the Military Curia. If they cannot, then they are no different from pirates. So you order them to stay where they are until appropriate verification can be carried out.'
'They won't like that.'
'Probably not, but if they are not true military units, they probably will not risk a confrontation with major battleships, and if they really are military, then given that their existence has been denied, then we are within our rights to consider them up to no good, and hence we would want to keep them contained until the situation is clarified.'
'Well,' Lucilla mused, 'I suppose I have the refuge of clear orders.'
"That's the spirit," Antonia reverted to speaking. "So will I, when you get around to giving some."
"Then set scanners to detect all incoming ships and identify them," Lucilla said. "If any come into sight and are headed towards this satellite, request them to identify themselves and their purpose, and make themselves available for an inspection. If they refuse to comply, inform them that there is a general order to destroy them for such refusal and invite them to reconsider. Inform me of the situation as soon as reasonable, but if they continue to refuse, the default position is to execute the destroy order. Also, set scanners to detect ships powering up within the ice, and if that happens, invite them to identify themselves. Alert them to the fact that there have been reports of pirates in the vicinity, and invite a senior commander to emerge in a shuttle and explain him or herself to us on our ship. Inform them that any effort by major ships to emerge will be considered as an intention to engage in hostilities, and appropriate action will be taken by the Ulsian battleships to protect themselves."
"Those orders are quite clear," Antonia responded. "They will be carried out. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the ship's computer analysis concurs that what you have suggested is an eminently desirable course of action."
Chapter 31
Kyurta qu' Tharryt had started to suspect that his future as a Conclave Guard might not be all that desirable. It was breakfast time, and he had taken his plate from the Guard mess and had taken a seat. He was convinced his allotment of food was somewhat less than that of most of the others who followed him, and he was c
onvinced that they had each sneered at him and had gone to separate benches. Nobody was interested in being close to him. His first problem was that he was a three-namer. At the top of the heap in the guard were Sender's bastards, because they had the boss behind them. Next came the two-namers. These were from the top families of Ranh, but what they failed to realize was that the fact they were here, rather than in important administrative positions, was because they were essentially both arrogant and useless. They were placed in the guard to get rid of them, for even the military refused to take them. The older three-namers looked down on him because he had failed during Baht's run, and they suspected something had happened that led to his release. His protests that he had got away while Kazyn was careless when Kazyn had escorted him into Tukhranh had been met with disbelief. Unfortunately, they were right, Tharryt admitted, but he was still with the guard, so the Cardinal must still believe, or he must be playing with him. Which was it? That could be important.
He partly cursed himself for not having a slightly more detailed story. He had kept as close to the truth as he could afford; he had told them that he had been led away from Kazyn's lair with a hood over his head, and that was truthful. He had been put in a vehicle and driven into Tukhranh. That was truthful, although the detour at the Cardinal's palace was overlooked. He had immediately returned to barracks, which explained why he turned up at the Cardinal's estate when he did, and with no new orders, he had returned to his apartment in town, after seeing something of the chase around the back of the palace.
He should have kept quiet about that because it had been a failure, which meant others were in trouble. How was he to know that they had kept quiet about it? Still, he had survived that, but he suspected that he had only just survived. What he did not fully appreciate was that the fact he had reported the chase whereas the others had kept quiet about it had gained him points with Sender. Something had gone wrong, and those others had tried to cover it up. They would learn what that meant. Not that learning what that meant would endear Tharryt to them. On the other hand, they would know better than to try to take retribution because anything they did to Tharryt would promptly descend on them no less than fourfold. They might despise Tharryt, but the Cardinal was a completely different matter.