The Empire of the Zon

by R. M. Burgess

  “I don’t know if silencis is better than the firing squad,” said Megara. “Can you imagine the loneliness? I speak to her every day, and I can hear her deep sadness. And she used to be such a positive, happy person, raising all of our spirits!”

  She tossed back the glass of juice she was drinking and said impulsively, “I will take some more leave and go stay with her.”

  She was as good as her word. She went by Lady Selene’s office and got her leave approved that morning and was on the evening’s supply airboat back to Atlantic City. She drew a military speeder from the pool at the airfield and drove to the d’Orr palace. As she approached, she found the gates closed and the enormous grounds dark.

  “Hi Caitlin,” said Megara, opening a comm channel. “It’s me, Megara. I am here at the d’Orr palace. Can you open the gate?”

  There was no response, but a few seconds later, the motors hummed and the great gates swung open. Megara drove up the long driveway. She had been here many times before, but she had never seen the palace in such complete darkness. As she pulled up in the portico, she found one of the huge front doors ajar. Caitlin awaited her there. Megara jumped out of the speeder, rushed up to her, and took her in her arms.

  After her long period of enforced solitude, Megara’s rush of warmth and love was just too much for her to bear, and she burst into tears.

  “Hush, hush,” said Megara, petting her hair. “We’ll stand against the world, you and me.”

  “I…I…” Caitlin’s mouth worked, but she could not bring out the words in her head. Silencis had robbed her of her self-confidence, and she had grown so unused to speaking that she began stuttering again.

  Megara clucked, put a finger on Caitlin’s lips, and steered her into the palace. Light panels came on as they moved through the corridors. Megara knew the layout of the palace well and led the way to Caitlin’s suite. There were floor-to-ceiling viewports in Caitlin’s bedroom that looked out over the city. They sat in antique high-backed chairs and drank in the view.

  “I am here for a week,” said Megara brightly. “We will paint the town red. Just like we used to do when we were at the Academy.”

  Those carefree days seemed like a dream to Caitlin, and she smiled ruefully.

  “Who could have predicted that our lives would get this complicated?” she responded. “I feel like I have lived my whole life in these last months. The Academy seems a hundred years ago.”

  “Nonsense,” said Megara. “This silencis will pass. The public mind is fickle. Some other scandal will erupt to capture their attention, and your life will return to normal again.”

  “Not quite,” said Caitlin. “I am no longer an electra. I can never get that back.”

  “Let some time pass, Caitlin,” said Megara. “Once the public furor dies down, we can appeal the court martial sentence.”

  “I never thought of that,” said Caitlin, cheering up considerably at this prospect.

  “Let us get some sleep. Everything will look better in the morning.”

  The next morning, they rose together. It was difficult for Megara to see Caitlin donning civilian clothes, the white, untanned bands of skin on her wrists and throat mute and conspicuous reminders of her expulsion. Megara suggested breakfast at a café she particularly liked on the Encircling Ridge. It had great views, they could sit outside, and it would get Caitlin out of the oppressively empty palace.

  They drove over in the military speeder Megara had checked out from the airfield. They chatted amiably all the way to the café. Caitlin began to come out of her isolationist shell and seemed a little more like her old self. Megara told her about her doings in the Residency during the war. Caitlin smiled when she heard how Esme had crawled up to them on the battlements and offered to talk to the women besieging them.

  “I always thought of her as someone who hated us implacably,” said Caitlin.

  “The most implacable hatred is often based on ignorance,” said Megara. “She will never be my best friend, but I grew to like her after a fashion. And I think she rather liked me too.”

  They entered the café, and Megara spoke to the hostess, getting them a table with a panoramic view down the Great Rocky Escarpment onto the massive Amu-Shan plain, the breadbasket of New Eartha. A server came in due course and Megara ordered, pretending not to notice how she expressively ignored Caitlin. The food and drinks came, and soon they were eating, chatting, and laughing. Caitlin told Megara about Horus’s encounter with Diana and how he had eagerly grasped at her excuse of his sword stuck in his scabbard.

  “So he said to Cornelle Diana, ‘If my sword hadn’t gotten stuck, I would have disarmed you in a flash,’” she said, giggling at the recollection. “It was so difficult to keep a straight face, but I think we all managed it, just. The man is such a clown that one cannot really be contemptuous of him. His antics would be funnier if he weren’t so important to us.”

  Megara laughed heartily, and Caitlin’s giggles grew into full-throated laughter as well. The sky was blue, the sun was shining on the snow-covered Encircling Ridge, and everything seemed to be going right again. Their eyes met and spoke to each other, wordless communication that was precious beyond measure. They luxuriated in each other’s friendship, oblivious to the world around them for the moment.

  The sound of bustling feet eventually grew so loud that it intruded on their invisible bubble of happiness. They both looked up to see a crowd gathering around their table. The crowd grew as they watched, several more joining from the street. They were speaking among themselves in stage whispers, and Caitlin and Megara only caught a few words here and there: “maybe she doesn’t know…,” “impossible…,” “no contact…,” “must suffer too…”

  Eventually a centuria in an airship uniform stepped forward.

  “Seignora, I am Centuria Blanchia Rodina, Executive Officer of the Hydromeda,” she said, pointedly addressing Megara. “You are Seignora Megara Paurina of the Cohort of Palace Guardians, I believe? We have met briefly once or twice.”

  Both Caitlin and Megara stood immediately. Megara saluted, hand on heart. By force of long habit, Caitlin saluted as well.

  “Yes, we have,” replied Megara. “And this is—”

  “I wish to bring a very important matter to your attention, Seignora,” said Blanchia, cutting her off brusquely. “I can only assume that you are ignorant of the protocols of silencis. Those flouting it risk being sent to silencis themselves.”

  Megara flushed, and her azure eyes flashed.

  “Centuria, I can only assume that you are ignorant of the true nature of the person you are referring to,” she said. “Princess Caitlin is so noble and righteous that she humbles the rest of us. The manner in which she has been treated is shameful, an abominable injustice. She is of the same fiber as her great ancestors who built the civilization we enjoy today.”

  “Your opinions are your own, Seignora,” said Blanchia. “If you wish to proceed into silencis, that is your affair. I just thought that with your fine military record, you deserved fair warning.”

  Caitlin knew that her words to the others would be resolutely ignored, so she grasped Megara’s arm.

  “Megara, you must leave me!” she cried. “Go immediately! I will not drag you into silencis with me.”

  “I will not let fate tear you away from me again,” Megara exclaimed. She drew her laser pistol. “I will shoot anyone who harms so much as a hair on your head!”

  This brought on catcalls from the crowd.

  “Defending the whore! Maybe she craves male flesh too!”

  “Did you join Caitlin in her fighting pit striptease, Megara?”

  “Shun her! Shun her!”

  Caitlin grew desperate. She went down on her knees in supplication to Megara.

  “Please, please, my dearest Megara, if you love me, go! I could not bear being the cause of your being sent to silencis.” She began to sob, repeating over and over, “Please go. Please leave me.”

  By now, Megara was crying t
oo. She looked up at the heavens and screamed, “Goddess Ma! How can you allow this to happen! How can you strike down all that is good and true?” She looked down at the begging Caitlin, torn between what she was asking her to do and her own burning desire to stay with her.

  “Please…go…Megara…” said Caitlin, losing confidence and beginning to stutter, bringing up spittle. This brought on raucous laughter from the crowd.

  “You will always be a princess to me!” wept Megara, raising her to her feet, hugging her and kissing her. But Caitlin extricated herself from the embrace and gently pushed her away. Megara took one last long look at her before stumbling off blindly.

  “You have gotten your way; please don’t shun her!” Caitlin entreated the crowd. They all looked away, ignoring her with a great show of purpose, and slowly they began to disperse.

  THE COMM EDGE of the scene in the café was an instant hit. Everyone was watching it, and almost all exulted over detaching Caitlin from her best friend. Vivia pulled it up over lunch with Darbeni, and they watched it together.

  “That could not have gone better if I had stage-managed it,” gloated Vivia. “I must get my staff to put out a few comm edges praising Centuria Blanchia for rescuing Seignora Megara from the risk of silencis. That is sure to bring on some more venom for Caitlin. She must be pretty close to suicide now, and some more public denunciation may be enough to drive her over the brink.”

  “You are a tenacious enemy, Mother,” said Darbeni, careful to sound approving. “So you wish to kill her too?”

  “Yes,” crowed Vivia. “And it will be completely legal! I wonder if there is some way to make money out of this. Maybe I’ll talk to one of my producers about making a show for one of our live sites—with all the interest in her at the moment, it is bound to be a hit.”

  “You are brilliant, Mother,” said Darbeni. “As usual.”

  I always knew Vivia was dangerous, she thought. But I never realized how cruel she could be. I must be very careful.

  CAITLIN WAS MENTALLY and physically exhausted. The parting with Megara had drained her emotional reserves, and she had no more tears to cry. She had to walk back all the way from the café on the Encircling Ridge to the d’Orr palace on Temple Heights, as the Rapid would not stop for her. The long walk would not normally have troubled her, but today her injured leg throbbed. By the time she got back to the palace, it was quite painful.

  She let herself into the cavernous, dark palace. Without truly thinking about it, she walked into the Ancestral Hall in the part of the palace open to the public. It contained portraits of every d’Orr princess going back well over a thousand years to her ancestors from Eartha, as well as an immense number of historical exhibits. The hall’s light panels as well as the spotlights illuminating the displays came on as she entered. There was the helmet worn by Simran the Merciless at the Battle of Rocky Scarp, the coronation gown of Caitlin the Unforgiving, the blackened wrist bracers of Truda d’Orr salvaged from her crashed airboat, and many, many more.

  A gasp escaped her as she saw a new stone plinth in the center of the hall. She almost ran to it. It was her mother’s helmet, enclosed in a glass case. It was the combat helmet she had worn when she died. They had placed it lovingly on a velvet pad in exactly the condition they found it. It was scuffed from her sword fight in the warehouse, and there was a slight dent where her head had hit the ground when she fell after being hit by the crossbow bolts. The plinth had a description carved into it:

  The helmet of Princess Deirdre d’Orr, First Principal

  Killed in action at the Battle of Aurora, 1678 Z.

  Heroine to her huntresses. Savior of the Sisterhood.

  Caitlin ran her fingers over the glass. She was cried out and remained dry-eyed, but a painful lump grew in her throat. Vivid memories arose in her mind of her mother cuddling her in her great bed on weekend mornings, telling her stories of the ancestors in this hall. You are the newest link in a glorious chain that stretches back millennia, my child, Deirdre would tell her. One day this freckle-faced, snub-nosed little ragamuffin will grow into a beautiful princess and carry the future of the Sisterhood on her shoulders. Then she would tickle her till tears ran down her face.

  Caitlin tore herself away from the helmet and walked down the line of portraits. She paused in front of her namesake, Caitlin the Unforgiving. She had the same red hair and green eyes as the queen in the portrait, and the resemblance between them was striking. I named you well, Deirdre would often say after Caitlin grew past puberty. You will find new realms to conquer, as Caitlin conquered Briga six hundred years ago.

  The most recent portrait was Deirdre’s official portrait, the same one Caitlin used to carry in her wrist bracer’s memory. How beautiful you are, Mother, she thought, stopping in front of it. And how perfect. I wish I could have become the princess you wanted. My portrait will never hang in this hall; I will be the first missing link in our ancient chain.

  The idea of being a link in a chain sparked a new line of thought. I have failed as a person. But I can still do my duty as a d’Orr. I carry my mother’s genes; I can pass them on. I can become a mother, so there will be a d’Orr princess after I am gone, a princess who can live up to my mother’s hopes and dreams.

  That night Caitlin tossed and turned, impatiently waiting for morning. The chronometer seemed to move with glacial slowness. When the alarm finally went off, she awoke with a start, realizing that she had, in fact, slept. It was still dark as she got ready rapidly. She went to the hangar-sized garage that seemed much larger now that all of the official vehicles associated with her mother’s office were no longer there. She got into her personal speeder and drove fast to Repro.

  She entered and approached the reception desk with well-warranted trepidation. None of the staff there would acknowledge her presence. But they did not stop her as she wandered into the labyrinthine corridors of Repro. Several medicae that she tried to talk to brushed her off before one took pity on her and asked her what she wanted.

  “One of my friends is in obstetrics,” she said when she heard Caitlin’s request. She looked nervously up and down the corridor to make sure no one saw them. “I’ll open a comm channel to her. She likes you. I think she will help you.”

  She tapped her wrist bracer and allowed Caitlin to talk to her friend. Gisfin Ednina, the obstetrics medica, gave Caitlin directions to the Pregnancy Evaluation Center. Caitlin thanked her benefactor, but she waved it away and departed quickly.

  Gisfin was much friendlier and asked about her rehab as she went about collecting samples and running tests.

  “Well, officially there is no ban you becoming a mother,” she told Caitlin. “And the test results are wonderful. You d’Orrs have all the right characteristics—it is a shame your mother did not have more daughters.”

  “I wish she did too,” said Caitlin. “Then I could have died in peace, knowing that there was someone to wear the d’Orr tiara.”

  “Well, not to worry,” she said briskly. “You can have as many daughters as you want. You want to start today, you said?”

  “As soon as possible,” said Caitlin.

  “Indeed, with a profile like yours, why wait?” said Gisfin, leading her to the Repository.

  The staff there gave them hostile looks, and Caitlin grew afraid, but Gisfin stayed with her and took her to a viewscreen terminal. She entered Caitlin’s personal data card containing her test results and explained how the system worked. She sat with her for some time while Caitlin familiarized herself with it.

  “I’ll wait for you by the Repository front desk,” she said with infectious good cheer. “You won’t have to deal with any of those crabby ones; just come back to me when you have made your selection.”

  Caitlin blessed her inwardly and began. At first she toyed with some random mates and then began to assemble desirable characteristics in her head. The more she worked on the list, the more she thought about what she had said to Greghar as he prepared to fight for his life in the Hall of
the Whale: If anyone deserves to carry a royal name it is you, for you have more honor than any man I know.

  Who better to father a princess than the son of a king, she thought. She remembered that Greghar had been slated for extraction in Simrania, so he might be present in the Repository. She entered more and more of his characteristics into the search fields, narrowing the resulting output from thousands to hundreds and finally to five. She pulled up the data on the five matches, and there he was! Extraction in Simrania, she read. Signed by Medica Cognis Dannae Margelina.

  You refused me in real life, Greghar, she thought. But you cannot refuse me now. Her heart beat faster as she pulled up the virtual outcome of the pregnancy. Be a daughter, she pleaded inwardly. Be a daughter. She closed her eyes as she did the final tap.

  She opened them slowly and had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle her whoop of triumph. It was a daughter! She raced through the images, bringing the virtual daughter up to adulthood. She was beautiful, healthy, and long-lived! Mother, I wish you could see your granddaughter, Caitlin thought. I can see you in her. She is so much more beautiful than me. She will fulfill your dreams.

  THIRTY

  LOTHAR PACED THE High Terrace of Nordberg Castle, watching the work gangs active on the ruins of the High Tower. It was an expensive project, especially since Shobar had left so little gold in the treasury. But in his judgment, the price was worth paying. Nordberg Castle symbolized the power of the King of Utrea, and the blackened ruin of his highest tower was like a black eye in his face. It is typical of Lady Death, he thought savagely, looking over at the white walls of the Residency. Where she goes, death and destruction follow. He had asked Resident Rita for a subsidy to help defray the costs, but she had demurred, pointing to the heavy expenditures the Sisterhood had borne in the war. He was thinking about the burden on his treasury and consequently was not in a good mood. So when his daughter-in-law, Guttrin, emerged from the High Hall and curtsied, he nodded perfunctorily.