Hell's Gate m-1

by David Weber

  "That's probably what this fellow was getting at when he said that the parallel universes stay 'close together,'" Elivath said. "But he also pointed out that where the portals form is where one universe 'runs into' another one, and since similar universes stay close together and … head in the same 'direction,' then it's the most dissimilar universes which are most likely to collide and form portals. He says that's the best current theory for why we've never run into humans before. As different from us as these people obviously are, they still almost have to come from a universe that's in our basic 'cable,' since there are humans in it at all."

  "I think I see where you're headed with this," Perthis said slowly. In fact, he was impressed by Elivath's analysis. Of course, he realized the Voice hadn't come up with it on his own, but it was obvious he'd been thinking hard about it for some time.

  "So your basic point," the Chief Voice continued, "is that since we're all … traveling along in this same direction of yours, the odds are against any of the universes in our 'cable' colliding with another universe in their 'cable.'"

  "Exactly." Elivath nodded vigorously, and it was Perthis' turn to gaze out the window into the night while he thought.

  "I'm not sure it follows," he said finally. "Mind you, Darl, I'd like it to. Given how murderous these bastards seem to be, I'd like it a lot, actually. But if I'm following the logic properly, then didn't we start a fresh 'cable' at the moment our universes made contact? What I mean is, isn't there a new batch of universes spreading out from the point at which our universe and their universe found the same portal cluster? And if that's true, aren't the strands of that new 'cable' all laying out parallel to one another … and at right angles, for want of a better description, to our original 'cables'?"

  "Now my head really hurts," Elivath said plaintively, and Perthis chuckled.

  "It's not that bad. Or, at least, I don't think it is," he said. "At the same time, it sort of underscores our basic problem, doesn't it? You and I are hardly multi-universal theorists, but from what I'm hearing out of the people who are, they don't really have any idea at all what the ultimate consequences of this contact are likely to be. We may never find ourselves sharing another portal with these people, or we might find ourselves running into them every time we turn around! At any rate, I think we have to plan on the basis that we could be running into them again and again."

  "And," Elivath said, cocking his head, "you see this as an opportunity to put Ternathia in charge of the planet, anyway."

  Perthis managed not to blink, although the shrewdness of the correspondent's observation had taken him considerably aback. I think I've been underestimating him, the Chief Voice thought after a moment. Either that, or I've been an awful lot more obvious about my little manipulations than I ever meant to be! He gazed at Elivath for several seconds, then shrugged.

  "I suppose you're right," he conceded. "Oh, I started out feeling that way simply because of the threat these people represented. I figured somebody had to be in charge if we were going to respond to them the way they obviously deserved, and Zindel was absolutely the best person I could think of for the job." The Chief Voice's lips twitched humorlessly. "For one thing, he's so damned levelheaded I figured he'd probably help restrain my own murderous impulses if they needed restraining.

  "I still do think we need a world government that can not simply take advantage of whatever we manage to negotiate with these people this time around, but keep an eye on them for the future. But I'll admit that I've been more and more impressed with the possibilities of a world government?especially one with Ternathia's traditions behind it?for dealing with all the rest of our problems, too."

  "Somebody to make the children behave right here on Sharona, you mean?" Elivath asked, but Perthis shook his head.

  "That's probably part of it," he conceded, "but not all of it. Not by a long shot."

  He paused briefly, trying to decide how best to say what he was thinking. It was odd. He was a professional newsman, yet putting his own thoughts into words in a conversation like this one often refused to come easily for him.

  "We do have some problem children here on Sharona that need somebody to look after them until they finish growing up," he continued seriously at last. "But in realistic terms, and especially given the safety valve the portals have given us, the nations whose problems are a simple lack of maturity aren't any particular threat to the rest of us. Unfortunately, that's not true for all of our problem children."

  "You're thinking about Uromathia, aren't you?" Elivath challenged.

  "Mostly," Perthis admitted. "But even the current problems with Uromathia are almost all due to Chava, when you come right down to it. I mean, Uromathians in general sometimes seem to me to walk around with a king-sized chip on their collective shoulder, especially where Ternathia is concerned. But by and large, they're not really any more jingoistic or just naturally nasty than anyone else. The fact that their current emperor?and all three of his sons, as far as I can tell?are certifiable lunatics, now, though … that's a problem.

  "On the one hand, that means getting rid of him (and of them) would solve our presence difficulties with Uromathia. But, on the other hand, it means the next Chava?whether he's Uromathian or from somewhere else entirely?will simply present his own clutch of problems. Putting someone like Ternathia in charge of a world government with the mechanisms in place to deal with future Chavas as they arise will save us all an awful lot of grief down the road. Whatever happens at Hell's Gate."

  "Assuming someone like Chava doesn't wind up in charge of it, instead," Elivath pointed out.

  "That's not going to happen," Perthis said firmly.

  Elivath looked rather more skeptical than the Chief Voice, but he didn't disagree. He couldn't, really, and Perthis knew it.

  It had become painfully evident, even to Chava Busar, that his own candidacy for Emperor of Sharona had been a complete nonstarter. Only his closest neighbors had voted for him, and they'd obviously done it more because they were afraid of him (and how he might react if they hadn't voted for him) than because they'd thought he'd make a good planetary Emperor. The fact that anyone outside his own empire had voted for him, coupled with the military and economic clout of that empire, gave him a degree of bargaining power when it came to the terms under which Uromathia might accept the Conclave's decision, but that was about it.

  And it's enough, Perthis thought glumly.

  "So you think this new compromise the Committee on Unification is supposed to be getting ready to report out is going to go through?" Elivath said.

  "That's what Tarlin thinks," Perthis replied.

  "He said so?"

  Elivath sounded surprised, and Perthis laughed. Tarlin Bolsh and his international news division's analysts were notorious for covering their posteriors carefully when it came time to prognosticate on major international events. Without a Glimpse for guidance?and there weren't any Caliraths working for SUNN?precognition was pretty much useless when it came to political events, and it often seemed to Perthis that the analysts were more concerned with not being wrong than they were with being right.

  "More or less … although he wasn't prepared to admit it for public consumption," the Chief Voice said dryly, and it was Elivath's turn to laugh.

  "On the other hand," Perthis continued, his smile fading, "I think he's probably right."

  "If I were Zindel, I wouldn't want Chava marrying into my family," Elivath said sourly.

  "Neither would I," Perthis agreed. "But, as Tarlin pointed out, Chava's picked his demands pretty shrewdly. He's right, after all. Intermarriage has always been part of the traditional Ternathian approach to guaranteeing the inclusion of 'subject peoples'?although I hate the way Chava keeps throwing around that particular term?in the mainstream of their Empire." The Chief Voice shrugged. "If we're going to institute a planet-wide Ternathian Empire under the Calirath Dynasty, then demanding that the heir to the throne has to marry someone from the Uromathian royalty actually makes a l
ot of sense."

  "In a perfect world," Elivath snorted. "In this world, it's going to make Chava Busar Janaki chan Calirath's father-in-law. Now, does that strike you as a marriage made in heaven?"

  "Not by a long shot," Perthis said again. "But Janaki's a Calirath, and they've been making dynastic marriages for as long as anyone can remember. For that matter, for as far back as the oldest histories go! They haven't all worked out very well on a personal level, of course, but Janaki's going to understand the political necessities. And let's be fair, Darl. Whatever we may think of Chava, Uromathia is still the second most powerful nation on Sharona, and there are an awful lot of Uromathians. They deserve to be fairly represented in any world government. And if they aren't represented, what does that say to everyone else? You and I may be confident that Zindel chan Calirath isn't going to produce some sort of tyranny, but if we expect countries all over the planet to surrender their national sovereignty to him, then they need to know he's prepared to be reasonable about inclusiveness, honesty, fairness … and access to power."

  "Maybe. No," Elivath grimaced, "not 'maybe'. You're right. But I don't think Zindel's especially happy about the prospect of sharing grandkids with Chava!"

  "Given the fact that there probably aren't two men on the face of the entire planet who loathe each other more than he and Chava do, that's probably just a bit of an understatement." Perthis' tone was drier than a Shurkhali summer wind. "Of course, he knows Chava knows that, too. That's why he's dug in his heels so hard over 'resisting' the entire marriage proposal. Tarlin says his people figure it's Zindel's way of telling Chava that it's the only one of Uromathia's demands that Chava's going to get. And, frankly, I think Chava's entirely prepared to settle for it. He knows he can't possibly put a planetary crown on his own head; he's too hated and distrusted for that. So the best he can realistically hope for is to put it on a grandson's head. He'll settle for that, especially since somebody like him will figure that, if he's patient, sooner or later a possibility for him to … improve his own position is going to present itself."

  "Now there's a charming possibility," Elivath said sourly.

  "I wouldn't be very happy if it worked out that way, myself," Perthis said more mildly. "On the other hand, you?and Chava, for that matter?might want to think about how long Ternathia's been playing this sort of game."

  The Chief Voice showed his teeth in a smile that was really quite unpleasant, Elivath thought.

  "Chava Busar thinks he's clever, and in a brutal sort of way, he is," Perthis said. "And he thinks Uromathia is an ancient empire, and that he's a ruthless sort of fellow. Both of those are true, too. But Ternathia's one hell of a lot more ancient, and the fact that the Caliraths have traditionally put their subjects' best interests first doesn't mean they aren't ruthless. In fact, Darl, if you go back and look at Ternathian history, I think you'll discover that nobody's ever been more ruthless than a Calirath when there was no other way to win. And do you really think Chava is even in the same league as Zindel chan Calirath when it comes to intelligent ruthlessness?"

  Elivath opened his mouth. Then he stopped, looking thoughtful, and his frown turned slowly into a smile of its own.

  "Actually, when you put it that way," he said finally, "no."

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Hadrign Thalmayr lay rigidly on his side on the white-sheeted bed in the airy, sunlit room. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his fists were clenched so tightly that his nails had cut bleeding crescents into his palms.

  The breeze through the open window moved gently, almost caressingly across him. He could hear the distant but unmistakable sounds of a drill field: voices shouting orders in a foreign language, whistles shrilling at irregular intervals, the occasional clatter of weapons as troops went through their own version of the manual of arms, and the deep-voiced sound of drill formations counting cadence. The air was cool, the distant background noise?deeply familiar to any professional soldier, despite the fact that he couldn't understand a single word of the orders he overheard?only made the quiet around him even more soothing, and he could almost literally physically feel the relaxing, comforting peacefulness which had settled over this place.

  It was all reassuringly calm and normal … and its very normality only made his terror and helpless rage still worse.

  The man sitting in the chair beside his bed spoke again, in that same utterly incomprehensible, comforting voice, but Thalmayr wasn't fooled. He squeezed his eyelids even more tightly together and bit his lip, welcoming the pain of the bite as it helped them summon all of his resistance while that insidious, loathsome touch slid once again across the surface of his mind.

  It took all he could do not to moan or whimper in terror. He called up all of his hatred, all of his fear and disgust, to bolster his defiance, but it was hard. Hard.

  He never knew exactly how long it lasted this time. Sometimes the man behind that lying, soothing voice stayed longer; sometimes he gave up sooner, and left. But he always came back, Thalmayr thought despairingly. And he always would come back, again and again. Until, finally, he managed to breach his victim's defenses at last, and the mere thought of what would happen then filled Hadrign Thalmayr with horror.

  But eventually, finally, his tormentor gave up … this time. The commander of one hundred lay rigidly still, refusing to move or even open his eyes until he was positive the other man had truly left. That he wasn't just waiting, lurking above the bed like a vulture.

  He lay there for a long time, then slowly and cautiously let his eyes slip back open. The chair beside the bed was empty, and he heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and finally allowed himself to relax, at least a bit.

  He wanted to roll over onto his back, but the sandbags holding him on his side prevented it. Which, he admitted, was just as well, given the incision across his spine.

  His teeth clenched again as he thought about that wound and all the pain their so-called "healers" had inflicted upon him. Butchers?barbarians! He'd been right about them all along, and he cursed Sir Jasak Olderhan in vicious mental silence as he remembered the other hundred's precious "shardonai."

  I should've fed the pair of them to the nearest godsdamned dragon! he thought savagely. Them and all their fucking friends!

  He'd long since figured out that that sneaky little bitch with her bruised face and pitiful "poor me" eyes had somehow managed to get a message out to her butchering friends. He still didn't know how, but the way they'd flung her name at him again and again in their questioning proved she had … and the way they kept battering at his own mind suggested several ugly possibilities as to how she had.

  The whole time that fucking idiot Olderhan was standing there 'protecting her,' she was busy telling her friends where we were and how to come find us and kill us! It's the only way they could've known she was still alive!

  His molars ground together. It was all her fault. She was the one who'd brought the attack in on Thalmayr's command. It wasn't his fault. There was no way he could possibly have known what the little bitch was doing, that she'd managed to bring an entire godsdamned regiment down on him! If it hadn't been for her, his men would still be alive. Magister Halathyn would still be alive.

  And Hadrign Thalmayr wouldn't be the half-paralyzed prisoner of the butchers who'd started all of this by massacring that brainless incompetent Olderhan's men in the first place. The butchers who'd somehow transported him over what had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of miles without his remembering a single thing about the journey. The butchers who cut open the flesh of helpless captives in some obscene pretense of trying to "help them," and then, when they were weakened by the pain, tried to rape away any useful information in their minds.

  Well, they might break him in the end. Any man could be broken by enough torture, enough cruelty, and he had no way of knowing what other, even more horrendous powers of mental destruction they might yet be able to bring to bear upon him. But they wouldn't find it easy.
He swore that to himself yet again, repeating it like a precious mantra of defiance, while despair poured over him with the gentle, soothing breeze.

  "Frankly, Sir," Company-Captain Golvar Silkash said, "I'm at a loss." The Healers' Corps officer shook his head, his eyes unhappy. "I've done all I can, and Tobis is still trying, but I've never had a patient with this man's attitude. I just don't know what else we can do to get through to him."

  Namir Velvelig grunted unhappily. It wasn't the first time Silkash had reported the same things to him, but the regiment-captain kept hoping that somehow, some way, something would change. But it didn't, of course, he thought moodily, playing with the mug of tea on his desk. Silkash had a matching mug in his left hand, but the Healer had been ignoring it ever since he sat down.

  "Is Tobis right, do you think?" he asked.

  "What? About the man having at least a trace of Talent of his own?"

  "Yes. Could that be what's going on?"

  "I suppose it could," Silkash said with a grimace. "Tobis knows a lot more about that sort of thing than I do, but I think even he's shooting blind on this one. We just plain don't have any experience with people who've never even heard of Talents!"

  Velvelig grunted again, gazing out his window, where the steadily setting sun sank slowly behind the Sky Bloods, as if he imagined he could somehow find the answers he needed out there in the bronze and copper glow gilding the mountains. Company-Captain Silkash was the finest surgeon and medical doctor with whom Namir Velvelig had ever had the pleasure of serving. But, unlike the majority of the Healers' Corps's commissioned officers?or Platoon-Captain Tobis Makree, his assistant surgeon, for that matter?he had no Talent at all. That put Silkash at a distinct disadvantage when it came to trying to analyze the Arcanan prisoner's reaction to Makree's Healing Talent. And, as Silkash had just pointed out, no one had ever had to deal with a patient who didn't even know what the Healing Talent was!