On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Now the fun starts,” he said, dryly.

  Mariko looked up at him. “Fun?”

  “Metaphorically speaking, of course,” Fitz said. “We’re about to be debriefed by people who have rarely been in the field and know very little about the realities of active service. And then we have to report to my...to my father.”

  He shrugged. “It won’t just be bad. It will be terrible.”

  ***

  He was right.

  Several days after entering the debriefing chamber, Mariko felt as if everything she knew had been torn from her mind, savagely questioned and then thrown back at her. Some of the questioners seemed to know the subject matter better than she did; others were completely ignorant and didn't even try to hide it. One of them even asked intrusive questions about her relationship with Fitz, as if that was any of his business. Fitz had told her to answer all of the questions as completely and truthfully as possible, but it was hard to restrain herself from simply walking out of the chamber and going back to the ship. Meeting Fitz again after the end of the sessions was a relief.

  He looked as harried as she felt. The interrogation – and it had been an interrogation – hadn't been aimed specifically at her. This pleased her in some strange way she couldn't quite identify.

  “I heard that Mai has been accepted into the Wormhole Engineers,” Fitz said, as they walked towards an aircar seated on its pad. “They’ll make sure that she becomes a fine engineer – or dies trying. And they’re terribly shocked by everything that happened on Sumter. Mai might be able to kick them out of their complacency.”

  “They seem to be the only ones who care,” Mariko said, sourly. “Do you know that one of them even asked how many times we’d had sex before we fought at Sumter?”

  “That will be from the Human Resources bastards, fiends in human form,” Fitz said. There seemed to be a great many demons in human form scattered throughout the Imperium. “They aren't allowed to play a direct role in running Imperial Intelligence, so they do their best to make it harder for the rest of us. They’ve barred good agents from entering the field and cleared agents who had breakdowns while on active service. I think they were probably trying to draw up a psychological profile of you while listening to your answers.”

  Mariko snorted as the aircar took off and steered towards one of the gleaming towers that housed the Grand Senate families. Each of the towers was larger than anything built on Edo – and tiny compared to the colossal orbital towers that reached all the way to low orbit. Homeworld had very strict laws on what could and could not be flown into its atmosphere, for reasons that made little sense to Mariko. She wouldn't have been surprised to discover that environmental concerns were simply a cover for maintaining the orbital tower monopoly on surface-to-space transport.

  “There used to be a Professor at the Imperial Academy who claimed that Homeworld wasn't the true human homeworld,” Fitz said, changing the subject.

  Mariko glanced at him in surprise.

  “He studied the patterns of human settlement and claimed that the true homeworld was located somewhere in the Tau Ceti Sector. That isn't an uncommon claim over historians who debate the question of just what happened before the Imperium, and if he’d stuck to it he might never have run into trouble. But instead he started to ask hard questions about the current state of the Imperium.”

  Mariko shivered at the warning in his voice. “What happened to him?”

  “He lost his position, had himself and his family reclassified as Class Three...I think that some of my allies did something to mitigate the punishment, but asking the wrong questions can be disastrous these days. Bear that in mind.” Fitz shrugged, grimly. “There are far too many people who would prefer to bury inconvenient truths rather than admit them to everyone else.”

  “Like Imperial Intelligence,” Mariko said, quietly. All of the officers she’d dealt with, apart from Fitz himself, had warned her at the end of each session that what she’d heard was not to be talked about, on pain of life imprisonment on a penal world. “They don’t want everyone to know how badly they failed.”

  Fitz nodded. “There’s no way to tell, now, if Prather was dirty or if someone in his organisation stuck a knife in his back,” he said. “Either way, Imperial Intelligence dropped the ball on this one; if we hadn't come along, the Imperium would be trying to deal with the loss of all of the wormholes, not just a handful in a single sector. The last thing they want is the Grand Senate to hold an open inquiry into their failure.”

  Mariko nodded and held her tongue as the aircar dropped down towards a landing pad. Outside, a trio of maids were waiting for them, along with a single gentleman she didn't recognise. The maids dragged her away almost as soon as the aircar landed, leaving Fitz behind with the gentleman. Mariko gave up struggling as they pulled her into a dressing room, undressed her and started to bathe her with scented water. If this was the kind of treatment aristocratic girls like the twins received all the time, no wonder they were all spoiled brats. By the time the maids were finished, having washed and braided her hair, dressed her in a simple dress and attached jewellery to her ears and neck, Mariko felt a completely different person. She almost didn't recognise herself in the mirror.

  The maids escorted her out to where Fitz was waiting, wearing a suit that reminded her of the one he’d worn when they’d first met – and had been lost on the Bruce Wayne. He winked at her, gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek to avoid damaging the makeup, and then took her by the hand and walked her down the corridor and into a dining room. Mariko half-expected to be announced again, just as they had been on Tuff, but instead there were only a small number of guests at the table. Fitz smiled as he pulled out a chair for her and then sat next to her. At her puzzled look, he made introductions.

  Baron Yu was a man who reminded her of her grandfather, apart from the beard he’d cultivated to give him an air of distinction. His face was wizened and old, but his eyes were still sharp and there was something about him that told her that he should be taken very seriously. Prather had identified him as the Director of Imperial Intelligence, back on Sumter – and probably Fitz’s immediate superior. All of the Priority-One Agents reported directly to him, circumventing the bureaucracy that infested Imperial Intelligence.

  Grand Senator Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Fitz’s father, was an older version of his son, once-dark hair slowly turning to grey despite the rejuvenation treatments. His handshake was firm; his gaze lingered on Mariko’s face rather than looking down at her chest. Fitz was a formidable man; Mariko realised, as he sat back, that his father was just as formidable...and probably the leader of the cabal that was trying to save the Imperium.

  The third man was unnamed, purposefully. He was short and squat, with a bulldog face and tight outfit that hinted at a very well trained body. His gaze was thoughtful, but there was a suggestion of extreme violence floating around him. Whoever he was, Mariko realised, he had to be important – and recognisable. No wonder Fitz hadn't been willing to name him outright.

  “We understand that we have a great deal to thank you for,” Baron Yu said, once the waitresses had delivered the first course, a form of chicken soup. “Without you, the Imperium would have come to a crashing halt.”

  Mariko flushed at the praise, but said nothing.

  “That is correct,” Fitz said, into the silence. “Without Mariko and her sister, the Imperium would have been lost to us.”

  “But you have also put us in a worrisome position,” Baron Yu continued, as if Fitz hadn't spoken. “You and your sister know too much, in effect, to be allowed to roam freely around the Imperium.”

  “Your gratitude knows no bounds,” Mariko said, sarcastically.

  There was a harsh bark of laughter from the unnamed man. “I can understand that you would feel bitter about being told that your life is no longer your own,” he said, in a gravelly voice. “But you do realise that we cannot take the risk of Lady Mary trying again – or someone else, for that matter?”
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  “Lady Mary is dead,” Mariko protested.

  “Presumed dead,” Fitz corrected, grimly. “We assume that she has been killed, and we hope that she has been killed, but we do not know that she has been killed. And finding out the truth may be completely impossible unless she resurfaces somewhere else.”

  “The important thing is that we cannot let anyone know how close we came to disaster,” Baron Yu said. “We have taken steps to prevent a general wormhole collapse – and we have explained away the collapse of the wormholes in the Sumter Sector as being caused by a random failure in the monitoring systems. The Secessionists will dispute our version of the truth, of course, but they will not be believed.”

  Mariko doubted that, but kept her opinion to herself.

  “We have sent ships to pick up the refugees on Tuff – and others to investigate Greenland,” Grytpype-Thynne said. The Grand Senator sounded impatient, as if he had much more important work to do elsewhere. “I can assure you that Greenland’s profitability will fall sharply even without the collapse of the wormholes. With Lady Mary’s estates seized as part of the effort to mop up her network, there will be a chance to undo the damage inflicted on the Slimes by their overlords.”

  “They won’t like that,” the unnamed man pointed out, with some amusement.

  “Too bad,” Grytpype-Thynne said. “I think there will be bipartisan support on this one – and Mary’s family won’t say anything about it, not when one of their daughters turned into the greatest traitor since Court Dearborn. The League of Alien Allies can have a chance to show what they can do to aid aliens who genuinely need help.”

  “Which raises the question of what to do about the Snakes,” Fitz said. “They funded an attack on us.”

  “And lost a chunk of their fleet, thanks to you and your allies,” his father said. He shook his head. “The Grand Senate won’t support a declaration of war.”

  “Because the Imperial Navy isn't ready for war,” Fitz said, sharply. “And because you’re scared of raising up an Admiral who might rise against you. Who cares about the people threatened by the Snakes when your power might be threatened?”

  “You are out of line,” Grytpype-Thynne snapped.

  “I would say that he was quite right,” the unnamed man said.

  “The point is that we need to ensure that word does not spread,” Baron Yu said.

  Mariko felt a lump of ice congeal in her stomach as he looked at her.

  “Your sister is under the care of the Wormhole Engineers – they never talk to anyone. You, however, are a different case.”

  “My son feels that you would make a good agent for the Imperium, like himself,” Grytpype-Thynne said. “We can provide you with training and augmentation that will prevent you from passing on classified information, deliberately or otherwise. And we can offer you a chance to actually serve the Imperium in a way that few are ever offered.”

  “And we can make some offers to your parents that will stop them from complaining too loudly,” Fitz interjected.

  Grytpype-Thynne shot his son a hard look. “The alternative is we find you a comfortable place to spend the rest of your life,” he continued. “It will be a prison, no matter how comfortable. I am sorry to even suggest this, because you do deserve better, but if word of this ever leaks out...”

  Mariko looked at Fitz.

  “Stay and work with me,” he urged. “There’s always something to do on the Imperium’s Secret Service.”

  “You lost your ship,” Mariko reminded him.

  “There will be others,” Fitz said, as if he hadn't moped around the Happy Wanderer for two weeks after leaving Sumter behind. “And besides, my cover may have been frayed rather badly over the last few months. Lady Mary will certainly know who I am, if she survived. I will have to devise a new cover, one that will protect us both.”

  Mariko looked up at Grytpype-Thynne, and then at Baron Yu. They were both used to wielding power on a scale that was beyond her comprehension, making decisions that affected the lives of billions of people. And yet they were helpless against the forces threatening to rip the Imperium apart, left using people like Fitz and her to patch holes in the ship of state, knowing that a single tidal wave could sink it and drop the entire Imperium into chaos. Below their controlled faces lay desperation. They knew they had come within a hairsbreadth of losing everything. The next time they might not be so lucky.

  And they were right. Lady Mary had identified Mariko as well. If she somehow managed to resume flying around the Imperium, the Secessionists might go after her for revenge – or on the assumption that she knew more than she did. Either way, she would wind up dead, or worse. And she wanted to be with Fitz.

  “Mai will be taken care of?” she asked.

  “The Wormhole Engineers will train her, shape her talent and put her to work,” Fitz said. “I think she was never happier when she was working on engineering problems. She’ll be happy and you can see her when your paths cross. I’ll see to it personally.”

  She lifted her eyes to meet Baron Yu’s eyes. “Very well,” she said. “I will join you.”

  Fitz grinned. “Then allow me to be the first to congratulate you,” he said. “I think you’ve already passed the first exams. Welcome to the Imperium’s Secret Service.”

  The End