“If that is all,” Kell said, “I think a vote is in order.”
“One moment.” Ole Branklin stood up. “I have something to say. In my hundred and ten years as a Quinx Council member, I have never encountered the like. What has been proposed is utterly vicious. What has been discussed by all of you is completely unwarranted by any action on the part of the Matriarchy. I cannot remain in this chamber any longer.”
“Is that a formal resignation?” Mart Kell asked innocently.
Branklin threw him a look that spoke volumes. “Take it any way you wish to.”
“We cannot vote on a measure of this size without a Vice Premier,” Truny Syzygy said, “and if Branklin is resigning, we need a new one.”
“I nominate Mart Kell of the Ophiucan Kells,” a voice came out of the chamber. Diad recognized the nominator as Sali’m Branklin, Ole’s youngest son.
“I second,” Vinson Todd, Llega’s son, spoke up.
The vote was by full-chambered shout. Branklin alone voted “Nyet!” as he stepped out of the MC chamber into a waiting chamber, where he slumped into a floating chair, his head held in his hands.
But now some politicking must be done for a vote on something as crucial as possible all-out war with the Matriarchy. Llega Francis Todd repeated the rules: They must remain in the chambers during the voting on the variety of proposals Mart Kell had made, which would take several hours Sol Rad., and on any modifications of those proposals. Committees would be put together. The Quinx members would be called for a general vote as soon as each proposal by a committee was ready. Until then they might comm. their families or businesses – but not any of the Stellar Commercial Exchanges – and naturally all of those comm.s would be censored so no information about the proposals could be leaked out.
Having made the formal proposals, Mart Kell could not serve on any committee. He took advantage of this time to do his own, more personal politicking, going around the chamber and receiving congratulations and gratitudes, especially from many of the younger male and female members who, in some sense, he represented, with his own relative youth, his already well-defined glamour.
Diad watched Kell with interest. He had met him only several months ago. But they had been meeting on an almost-daily basis since then whenever Diad was in the city. Before, he had known only what any other O’Kell company captain knew. He recalled seeing Mart once, years before at some company meeting. He had been only a neonate then, a serious, sulking, slender youth distinguished by his shock of the Ophiucan dynasty’s miraculous bronze hair and his huge, seemingly multifaceted emerald eyes. Young Mart had never been shy or unfriendly. And he had done nothing to hide his resentment at his grandfather, who had operated the company for so many centuries.
Of course, there had been scores of unauthorized PVN bio.s of Mart Kell in the past decades. Several of Diad’s off-City romantic partners had gobbled them up in digest versions, and they knew more about his boss than he did. Once sex was over, they would question him eagerly, and in turn tell Diad about the unimaginable wealth the young Mart had grown up in, the harsh discipline and the rigid schooling he had been subjected to by his tyrannical guardian – and off in the distance somewhere the mistily shrouded figures of Mart’s father, dead at scarcely 150 in a freak Thwwing racing accident, and Mart’s mother, a stunning socialite, who at Gil Kell’s death had suddenly and unaccountably abandoned her only child to enter a Maudlin Se’er nunnery. Only when Mart Kell had gone off to the university – and away from his grandfather’s influence – did he reveal how much like his father he could be. Mart simultaneously became the most relentless playboy the school had ever known and the head of a growing student Oppositionist Movement. His love affairs with the children of the most exciting members of the Matriarchy’s political, business, and cultural elite were detailed in magazine-size PVNs as well as updated on Inter. City Comm. News. One young woman, Zawa Franc’ck, had committed suicide over Kell when he had left her for a young male – a galactically famous musician. Diad wondered what relationship she had had to Ole Branklin, and if that could have been the source of the enmity revealed today.
When Mart had returned to Hesperia at his grandfather’s death and taken over the company, he had revealed another aspect of himself. Besides his obsession with beautiful youths of both genders, his reckless gambling and daredevil Thwwing racing, Mart Kell had all the business acumen his grandfather had drummed into him for decades. And added to that the flair, the risk-taking skills of his great-grandfather, old Jat Kell himself, who had helped build the City. Tools that Mart had used to treble the size and reach of O’Kell UnLimited, and to sextuple its already nearly uncountable profits.
And now, it seemed, he was adept in other ways, looking for an even larger arena upon which to display his talents: nothing less than the galaxy itself.
“Ambassador Diad!” Mart had come up to where Diad was standing within an oval oriel looking out at Hesperia, a magnificent view of one of the 100 or so “city-centers” – a vast space in three dimensions filled with parks and fountains, kiosks and sculpture, and, in this case, also more official edifices – where some four large “girder” sections of the City came together. “Gratitude for being here,” Kell added. “And for the promptness of your answer.”
Diad smiled. “Little did I – or anyone else in the this chamber – know where that little detail on that hauler would take us.”
Mart Kell laughed. Then he turned serious. “You’ll still go?”
“Naturally. You notice I don’t even ask how you knew I was going.”
“The Inner Quinx has not hidden the fact that it follows your off-City movements with the greatest interest. And anyway, this is in all our interests since you wish to be with Councilor Rinne. And we wish you to be with her on Deneb XII.”
Diad appreciated his honesty. “What if matters on Deneb turn out differently than expected?” He went on to explain: “What if the MC has other plans for the ‘rescue’?”
Mart Kell had moved in very close, a result of both of them wanting to be heard above the continuous din of committees in the chamber, and also of the size of the oriel within which they stood gazing outside.
“You’ll do what you must.” He lifted a hand to Diad’s face and caressed Diad’s single shaven cheek lightly. “I trust you completely.”
It was so seductive, so feminine a gesture, Diad was startled.
He reached up and held the hand at his cheek.
“How is it you’re so certain of my loyalty?”
“Don’t you see how I envy you?” Kell asked, urgently. “I, Branklin, Lady Todd, Wicca Eighth Herself – all ride the wave of history. Remember what the ancient Metro.-Terran Kondratieff said? ‘Ride the wave, rise and fall as it does’? But you are tied to that wave by only the flimsiest of lines which you can toss off at will. You alone have the power to make choices in tricky situations.”
“Explain then” – Diad had thought of it several times during the meeting – “why it is that you told me recently that you would allow me to play soldier. And now that a battle is likely, you don’t send me there, but to Deneb XII?”
“You’ll still have your chance to play soldier,” Mart Kell said. “The Norma Arm action isn’t big enough for what I’ve got planned for you. I want your name to last for millennia.”
“Gratitude.” Diad almost laughed. “But we cannot guess how history will treat our names and persons in the future. I suspect that, for a while, this meeting will be hailed. But that later on it may well be vilified.”
“It could have been worse. I could have proposed the complete elimination of the Centaur species, and don’t think that after some debate that also wouldn’t have been approved. Even so, I’m sure we’ll all be vilified by history for provoking the riots and the blockade. All of us, that is, except you.”
“And why not me?”
“Because that happens to be my whim, Diad. And because I happen to be riding the crest of the biggest wave around. I ride it,
and for the moment, I hold its reins.”
Silver-tongued devil: the ancient phrase popped into Diad’s mind. He was completely charmed by Mart Kell, as he had been by only two women in all his years. Under other circumstances, and although he was a lover of women, Diad might have considered Mart. He lifted Kell’s hand away from his cheek; then, reconsidering, put it to his lips for an instant before releasing it. Let him make of that whatever he wanted.
Mart was surprised. He was about to say something when a series of chimes rang. The first committee had completed its formal proposal for a vote. “It’s for your mission,” Kell said, his focus had already moved out of the realm of their conversation to that of the vote. Living instant to instant. Riding the wave.
“As soon as they vote on it, you’ll leave for Deneb XII. Take a small crew, a Fast with a ‘cloak’ to get you right into the planet’s atmosphere, and the best of our pilots to outwit the Cult fighters that are certain to be in orbit. And, Diad ... come back safely to Hesperia.”
Minutes later, Ambassador North-Taylor Diad was upon a mid-center high conveyance crossing from the Quinx Meeting Hall to the nearest Fast port vehicle. Under his arm, a slim portfolio, full of orders and clearances.
Rinne was just shaking herself out of the usual disorientation she felt coming out of Fast jump when the door to Commander Lill’s room opened up, and Lill herself stepped in.
“Problems!” she said gruffly, and turned to her personal Captain’s log, wrist-connecting into it, then speaking quickly and quietly into a closed microphone a few minutes while Rinne disconnected herself from the Fast jump belt-ins and waited.
Done, Lill spun on her stool. “I can’t put you down on Deneb XII as I promised. While we were in Fast jump, there were developments.”
Rinne stayed calm. Lill went on.
“The Alpheron Spa fell to the rioters.” The MC soldier watched Rinne’s face for a reaction; then, getting none, continued, “Most of the women in the program were gotten away in skimmers to one of the abandoned Bella=Arth. nest cities. A few skimmers didn’t make it. We lost some troops and had others captured by the local Deneban rioters. A small fleet of MC Fasts is orbiting now. We’re to join them. Because the rioters are holding MC hostages as well as because of the highly tense situation, no landing will be possible.”
Rinne thought, I was right to come here. This is where something terribly important is occurring. But to have overcome difficulties to get here and still not be able to land – that was intolerable!
“Are we in orbit yet?” Rinne asked.
“We’re approaching. We’ll join the fleet shortly.”
“Before that happens, can’t you send me down in a T-pod?”
Lill almost flinched. “I don’t think you understand how difficult the situation is down there for those women!”
“Commander, I’m this sector’s Councilor for Health and Reproduction. I belong down there with those women.”
Lill frowned. “It could be arranged before we hit orbit. Do you know how to operate the new pods?”
“They can’t be all that different from the old ones.”
“What about hand arms. Do you know how to use one?”
“I won’t need one.”
“Then a belt shield.”
“No, I –”
“Look, I don’t care what kind of High Councilor you are. Those people down on Deneb XII are out of control. They’ve wrecked the spa. They’ve killed women and soldiers. They’re under the influence of the Maudlin Se’ers and Oppos. provocateurs. They’re running amok. They’re not going to respect your Eve-damned rank or clearances! In fact, they’d probably like someone of your position to execute publicly.”
“All right, I’ll take a shield.”
Rinne was inside the Fast’s pod-belly, the two seater T-pod was open and in operation, ready to drop as soon as she received the word from Commander Lill. They must be in orbit by now, no?
Suddenly Lill was at the T-pod. What now?
“Move back, I’m coming with you!”
“You? Why?”
“It’s the only way you’re going to get down there without being blasted out of Deneb’s atmosphere by the Fleet.”
Rinne moved into the back netting. “I don’t understand. How are you...?”
Lill netted herself in securely. “I left Captain Wang’Un in charge and told her to comm. me a safe passage through the Fleet. Those ladies are very nervous, very trigger-happy up here. Insult to the Matriarchy, all that Eve-damned fecal matter! I told them I wanted a look-see.”
“Couldn’t you just tell them I was you?” Rinne asked.
“I could” – Lill closed the T-pod – “but if anything happened to you, Northie would track me down across the galaxy if it took centuries and when he found me ...”
The Fast’s hatch opened.
“Hold on to your ovaries!” Lill shouted just as they took the drop.
A whirl of deep blue-black space rapidly traded places with swatches of pale orange Deneban surface as the T-pod spun wildly out of control before settling on its gyros. They dove straight down toward the huge and waterless planet. Rinne could hear the beeper the pod emanated as it passed through the Fleet’s lines. She could even see one or two of the huge MC Battle Fasts above them, as the T-pod began to angle off more shallowly, still thousands of kilometers from the ground, speeding toward the black and red lines of mountain ridges that ran parallel along the ochre surface.
Suddenly laser light flashed out of the front of the pod. “Just testing!” Lill said.
After some minutes, she asked “Can you see the nests?” She pointed ahead, to where the double ridge of mountains bent slightly. Five tall, almost-symmetrical cylinders grew out of broad bases, the entire structures the color of the earth itself. One was a mere needle, the others in various states of ruin. “The biggest is Hymenoptolis.” Lill went on. “That’s where they headed for after leaving the spa. It was already well defended.”
The T-pod dropped suddenly and quickly until it seemed they were about to strike one of the mountain ridges. Finally it settled in the rough narrow valley between them. Evidently Lill didn’t want to attract attention from below, even with this tiny nearly invisible vehicle.
Below them, Rinne could see an occasional mine or low structure; one time she saw a sort of village, but if anyone was looking out for the pod, she couldn’t tell. After a few minutes, the T-pod rose above a ridge, then veered away toward the middle and largest of the nests, the immense size and scale of which Rinne only now began to appreciate. They flew straight off the mountain ridge, yet were only halfway up the height of the nest.
“It’s gigantic!”
“Even bigger underground,” Lill said. “This one held over a million Bella=Arth.s before the war. Oh-oh! We’ve got company.”
She slid the pod to a stop. They were half hidden by the enormous bulk of the nest’s walls from its huge curved open entrance, of which Rinne could only make out part of the top lip. From this close to the nest, what had appeared from afar to be silk-smooth walls proved to be rougher, with the consistency of lumpy porridge. It seemed that small air-spouts dotted the structure at irregular intervals.
“Do you see them?” Lill asked, and pointed to the nest entrance, around which Rinne now made out throngs of people in skimmers and on the ground. Among the predominant Plastro-blue of their air-suits, she picked out an occasional minuscule red-uniformed figure. “Looks like they’ve taken the front. We’re going to have to find another way in.”
“Those spouts.” Rinne pointed to one nearby. “Could they be entrances?”
“Could be. We’d have to find one closer to the ground. The refugees will be hidden deep. And these nests can be mazes. We have to get as near to them as possible.”
The pod started up again, moving to within a few meters of the massive nest’s wall, slowly dropping and simultaneously moving sideways until the entrance was out of sight. As they approached one spout about one-third the hei
ght of the structure, Lill stopped to inspect it. It had a sort of built-out lower lip, wide enough to land the T-pod and for two Humes to stand on. Then it tunneled into darkness.
“Sentry posts!” Lill said. “Eve-damned Wasps were smart.”
The T-pod continued to drop down the wall, which had begun to bulge and look hand-crafted as they neared the ground. Intelligent creatures had constructed this, Rinne found herself thinking in wonder, year after year building the walls higher and higher by regurgitating a combination of undigested Deneb soil and their own saliva, then patting it into place with their palps, and moving aside for their fellow workers, who had done exactly the same thing in the next spot. Millions of them had worked here, day after day, for centuries, making the walls thick and secure, leaving their individual yet species-identical palp-prints on these walls. This was their past made solid, and all of them had a part in it. No wonder they had defended it so long and so gallantly. No wonder they had chosen mass suicide rather than live to see it fall into the hands of aliens.
Finally Rinne spotted another sentry post only a few meters off the ground. Lill landed easily on the lip, and they got out.
From here the view was extraordinary: kilometers of tableland, then suddenly rising as though grown out of the flatness, four other huge ruined nests. With nothing else in the landscape for a measuring stick or optical guide but the sweeping curve of the two mountain ridges, the lower one streaked red, the higher one black. Deneb’s binary orange-and-blue suns hung unevenly sized but tinted identically by the atmosphere to resemble blood-smeared coins.
“Better put these on,” Lill handed her a visor with infrared lenses. “It’ll be pretty dark in there.” The MC soldier made sure the T-pod was wedged into place, then gave the bleak and garish landscape a wistful glance. “Let’s go!”
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