On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “The only real hope is gradual reform, but there are thousands of entrenched interests that will fight reform tooth and nail. Here, on this planet, you’ve seen the planters. They have their supporters back home; hell, there’s an entire industry built around Water of Life. None of them will agree to any reforms that might destroy the industry, or grant the slaves some rights that will make it harder to force them to work in the plantations.”

  “They could move the vines to an orbital settlement, one configured to match the environment on Greenland,” Mariko pointed out. “Wouldn't that be a great deal simpler than keeping the planet midway through a terraforming cycle?”

  “Of course it would,” Fitz said. “And if you asked Archie, he would come up with hundreds of excuses about why it couldn't be done. Propose the plan back on Homeworld and there would be millions of lobbyists lining up to speak against your plan, while Archie’s family and everyone else who profits from Water of Life would be quietly moving to have the plan permanently shelved.”

  He shrugged.

  “The hell of it is that Greenland isn't the worst place in the Imperium,” he added. “Start granting aliens rights and the entire edifice will start to shake – and then we will go all the way down to a new dark age, the twilight of the human race.”

  Mariko looked at his grim face and understood, suddenly. Fitz cared, more than he was prepared to admit. The Imperium wasn't much, but it was all they had and he needed to work to prop it up, which meant condoning thousands of atrocities committed by humans against their fellow humans – and countless alien races. She recalled what he had said about the Imperium slowly dying and wondered what would happen when the links between Homeworld and humanity’s far-flung colony worlds snapped. How long would it be before the power vacuum was filled with warlords, or aliens intent on revenge against humanity?

  They drove onwards through the remains of an alien city, pausing long enough to study the alien buildings that were now overgrown with genetically-engineered plants. The terraforming team hadn't cared about the damage they were inflicting on the Slimes; they’d created plants that absorbed the planet’s previous atmosphere and pumped out the oxygen-nitrogen mix favoured by humanity. Their creations had grown at astonishing speed and torn an alien city apart.

  Mariko shuddered as she studied the odd buildings, subtly wrong to human eyes. The Slimes had never had a chance. Most of them had probably never realised why their world was changing so rapidly, why their atmosphere was slowly becoming poisonous. It would have been worse for the children and the elders, she reflected, as she looked up at a giant alien temple, now coming apart at the seams. They would have died, leaving their helpless parents and children terrified for the future and mourning their loss.

  Orbital bombardment would have been kinder.

  “They would have forced the population to move away from their cities,” Fitz said, as Mariko turned the engine back on and steered north, away from the fallen city. “Most of the survivors would have gone into work camps intended to make them slave for their new masters, in exchange for supplements that would help them to survive their new world. Others would have hidden in the countryside, and perhaps thought of striking back. But how could they have grasped the concept of starships and aliens from another world?”

  Mariko nodded, feeling bitter shame for the entire human race. A culture that had barely climbed out of the water – or the slime, for the Slimes – would not have been able to comprehend the ideas behind modern technology. They wouldn't have understood starships, or directed energy weapons, or even the processes behind terraforming. Some of them would have worshipped the newcomers as gods; others would have been unable to cope with such a shift in their worldview and died. The Janus Legend would have claimed another victim.

  “Janus wasn't like they say,” Fitz said, but he refused to be drawn any further on the subject. “How long until we reach Lady Mary’s plantation?”

  “About an hour,” Mariko said. The hovercraft didn't seem to have any problem on the alien-built roads, even though she couldn’t understand why anyone would have used brute labour to build a road when machines were cheap. But they would have had to have been shipped to Greenland while the alien population was already present. “Maybe a little less if we can pick up speed now.”

  Fitz shrugged and returned to his thoughts.

  Mariko glanced at him, and then looked back at the road. A handful of Slimes – they had to be children – appeared out of nowhere, saw them and then vanished back into the foliage.

  Auntie Jo had to be right, Mariko realised, although she wouldn't have willingly granted that woman anything. The Slimes had returned to their cities and were hiding entire armies in the spaces between plantations. Who knew what they might be planning in the long term? A renunciation of the Janus Legend?

  She knew the story, of course: every human learned it in basic education, even on the primal worlds where technology above a certain level was banned. Janus had been a planet surprisingly close to its primary star for life to develop, too close for any form of terraforming to turn it into a place humans could live. A number of scientists had set up research bases in orbit and sent teams down to study the unique vegetation that had flourished on the surface. One of those missions had discovered a real surprise: intelligent life on a world where carbon-based intelligent life should have been impossible. The scientists, having no designs on the world, started to talk to the aliens rather than bringing them under humanity’s sway.

  They’d been open with the aliens, perhaps too open. The aliens hadn't known about the stars – their planet’s atmosphere was simply too thick for them to realise that their sun was only one of millions of stars – or about the existence of other life forms. They’d eventually realised that the galaxy belonged to humanity, that anything they might do for themselves had already been matched and surpassed by the human masters of the universe. And then, the entire race had committed suicide. They’d seen no point in living in a universe dominated by the human race.

  The Purity League had been quick to point out that the aliens had been ill-suited for life in a human universe, that in fact the universe was humanity’s and no other race should be permitted to survive. They, Mariko knew, wouldn't have hesitated if they’d been offered a chance to wipe out all non-human forms of life. Perhaps they saw it as a final solution to the problems facing the Imperium, the dependence on alien labour combined with alien reluctance to serve the Imperium without being granted rights.

  But others had been less inclined to accept that judgement. They’d argued that there should be no direct contact between humanity and a primitive race until the primitive race discovered spaceflight. Maybe then, contact could be made on more even terms.

  But if the Janus Legend she’d been taught wasn't the truth...?

  “I never asked,” she said, to Fitz. “How did you get involved in this in the first place?”

  “My father sent me to the Guards in the hopes they would make a man of me,” Fitz said, flatly. “I told you what happened to me then. Luckily, I attracted interest from some others interested in trying to save and reform the Imperium; one of them arranged for me to have the training and augmentation I would need to move around the Rim as a trouble-shooter. And then I had the ship constructed to my specifications and set out with Don in the hopes of saving the Imperium.”

  Mariko heard the edge in his voice and shut up. He’d worked with someone with the same augments and training as himself, someone who had clearly been much more than a subordinate – and that person had been killed by the Secessionists. Now he had to carry on his mission with a pair of amateurs as his only support. Mariko had seen enough during their training sessions to be aware of how much they didn't know. And they certainly weren't augmented, unlike Fitz. They would be at a gross disadvantage in a fight.

  The hovercraft continued to rumble along as they turned down a side road and headed up towards Lady Mary’s plantation. In the distance, Mariko could see clou
ds forming with astonishing speed, as if it were going to rain at any moment. Tuff had had frequent rainstorms, despite the best efforts of Lady Mary’s weather control technicians, but rainstorms weren't that common on Greenland. The terraforming program had screwed up the weather beyond easy repair. She heard the sound of thunder from the sky and shivered. The last thing she wanted was to be caught in the open by a rainstorm.

  “Drive faster,” Fitz ordered, as a second peal of thunder echoed through the sky. “We should be able to take shelter in the plantation house if it does start to rain...”

  The world seemed to explode around them. Mariko screamed as the hovercraft spun wildly to one side, gravity forces pushing her back into her chair. The rows of vines were coming at them at terrifying speed...and then they crashed through the vines, the air cushion collapsing and leaving them heading right for the ground. There was a terrible crash as the hovercraft hit bottom, glass windows shattering with the force of the impact.

  Mariko suspected that she’d blacked out for a second. She appeared to have crashed without any clear memory of how they’d managed to fly off the world.

  Fitz was pulling at her, tugging out of her seat. “Are you all right?”

  Mariko managed to scramble out, with his help, and stand on unsteady legs outside the hovercraft. A plume of smoke was rising up from the side of the road, marking the point where something had exploded beside their vehicle. Mariko remembered what little she’d been taught about hovercraft and realised that the explosion had forced them sideways, right into the vines. Thousands of credits worth of vines had been destroyed as the hovercraft scythed through them before finally crashing to a halt.

  “I think so,” she said, finally. She’d coped with near-disasters in space without losing her cool, so why was she shaking now? “What happened?”

  “An IED,” Fitz said, grimly.

  The term meant nothing to Mariko.

  “An Improvised Explosive Device,” Fitz explained. “Very common on worlds that don’t have a proper weapons industry of their own. A smart person can invent an IED from common materials available anywhere and place it somewhere for an unwary Marine or Civil Guardsman to stumble over. Given enough raw materials, you can make life very unpleasant for a heavily-armed combat unit even without technological equality.”

  He shook his head as another burst of thunder rippled through the sky. “We’ll have to go to Lady Mary’s plantation house and hope we can call Archie from there,” he said. “If not...”

  Mariko frowned. “We could call Mai, couldn't we?”

  “I’d prefer not to reveal that we can do that unless the situation turns from serious and becomes desperate,” Fitz said. He didn’t sound as if he were joking. “And besides, if someone left an IED here to discourage visitors, they might have an HVM launcher hidden away as well.”

  They walked back onto the road and started to head northwards, Fitz leading the way and watching for other IEDs. Mariko could understand why the devices were so feared, even by the most advanced military forces. A single IED in the right place could bring an advance snarling to a halt. She hadn't seen any sign they were about to trigger one until it had actually exploded; even a military force in battlesuits would have difficulty noticing one until it was too late. The experts who defused them had to be the bravest men in the Imperium.

  The vines beside them rustled suddenly and a dozen Slimes appeared out of nowhere, carrying what looked like primitive weapons in their hands. Mariko froze as the semi-amphibious aliens pressed in around them, fish-like hands pawing at their belts and removing weapons, tools and communicators. A moment later, two of them pulled her hands behind her back and used a metal tie to secure them behind her. Fitz, it seemed, was getting the same treatment.

  “Come,” the lead alien hissed, as if he – or she – had a permanently sore throat. “You come now.”

  Alien hands pushed at her and she started to walk after the aliens as they headed back into the vines. Fitz didn't seem to be too worried, at least. He grinned at her as they were pushed onwards, just before he pulled his foppish persona around him. He wouldn't worry about a thing.

  High overhead, another roll of thunder announced the start of a rainstorm.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The rain came down like a tempest out of a nightmare. Sheets of water hit the vines overhead, splashing down on the humans below. Mariko felt the water running over her body and shivered, wishing that she could raise a hand to cover her stinging eyes. The rainwater tasted funny, as if something had been mixed with the droplets of water. Part of the terraforming program, perhaps, or something different? She stumbled, slipping and sliding through the mud, and watched the aliens resentfully as they seemed to have no problems with the water. Indeed, they seemed to enjoy it.

  I should have researched the Slimes more thoroughly, she told herself, angrily. Her father had always taught her to research carefully but she had always tried to ignore his advice. Lack of research had gotten her into trouble on Dorado, and now Greenland. She didn't even know what the Slimes called themselves, if any research had been done on their civilisation and culture prior to its destruction.

  The aliens burbled to one another in voices that seemed more alive in the rain, speaking a language she couldn't understand. Imperial Standard One didn't seem to have anything in common with their language. But then, that wasn't surprising, she told herself. Their mouths were clearly very different from human mouths.

  A hatch opened in the ground and the Slimes marched right in down a darkened tunnel that seemed to be covered in slippery mud. Mariko slipped as she stepped inside and had to endure the indignity of a pair of aliens grabbing her shoulders and holding her upright until she managed to regain her footing. Water drifted through the air, providing a moistness that reminded her of parts of Tuff, something that was probably good for the Slimes. Once they reached the bottom of the tunnel, the walls were illuminated with dull red lights, each one casting an eerie glow over the complex. Hundreds of Slimes seemed to infest the complex, all carrying weapons that looked crude, but effective.

  Mariko wondered how anyone could build such a complex without the human overlords noticing, before remembering how unconcerned Archie had been about the Slimes. Anything they saw would probably be dismissed as unimportant.

  The liquid in the air seemed to grow stronger as they were thrust into a small room, with the door firmly closed and locked behind them. Mariko struggled against the tie around her wrists, but it was metal and refused to budge, no matter how hard she struggled. Fitz seemed to have remained inhumanly calm, sitting down on a damp bed and rolling his eyes at her in the dim red light. It must have been what the Slimes found comfortable, or something they remembered from the day before their world was reshaped to suit humanity. Mariko opened her mouth to demand that he do something, before realising that the cell would almost certainly be bugged. But what would happen now? Kidnapping someone like Lord Fitzgerald wasn't like killing a handful of workers or even raiding a plantation in the middle of the night. There would be questions asked by his family, perhaps with the Imperial Navy ordered to investigate directly. And that would risk exposing the presence of the rebel cell to human forces.

  She smiled, rather sourly. It was unlikely that the Imperial Navy would be as disinterested as the planters on Greenland. The rebels could hardly hope for someone less observant than Archie and his family, with the possible exception of Auntie Jo. But Jo was back on Tuff, she assumed, visiting Lady Mary. Or would she have come to grief in the jungles when Lady Mary realised what she wanted the Imperial Navy to do? One careful investigation might reveal Mary’s involvement with the Secessionists.

  “Don't worry about a thing,” Fitz said, in his foppish voice. “I’m sure that this is just a misunderstanding and we will get it sorted out soon enough.”

  Nearly an hour passed before the cell door opened and a pair of armed guards came inside. One of them grabbed Mariko and pulled her to her feet – the Slimes were str
onger than she’d realised, or perhaps these Slimes had been raised in what they considered a natural environment – before pushing her towards the door. The other one helped Fitz to his feet and shoved him after Mariko, forcing them both down a long muddy corridor. Darkness seemed to fill half of the rooms, only vaguely broken by the eerie red light. It was easy to imagine that the darkness was filled with monsters, just waiting for a chance to reach out and snatch her from her captors. A human would never have found it a comfortable place, but the Slimes seemed happy and content in the mud. The handful she saw as they were marched down the corridor seemed to stare at the humans almost defiantly. It was difficult to read their expressions – their faces seemed curiously immobile compared to human faces – but they didn't seem to be happy. It was easy to imagine how they might take the opportunity to extract a little revenge by killing both of them.

  Just how large was the complex? It was impossible to tell. There were no recognisable markings on the walls, nothing that a human might use to navigate from place to place; the dull red light seemed to make it even harder to navigate. It was possible that they were being pushed through the complex in a pattern intended to suggest that the complex was larger than it actually was. But if they’d used primitive mining tools to build the complex, and installed shielded generators to power the complex, it was possible that it stretched for miles under the surface.