"Thanks a whole bunch," said Owen. "Any other nasty little surprises you've been keeping from me? No, tell me later. Oz, shields up and go hyper the moment the power levels are steady. I don't know why they're not firing already___"
"Presumably they're being extra cautious, after already losing one ship," said the AI. "It's not something that happens all that often. They're trying to contact us. Should I talk to them?"
"It couldn't hurt. Lie a lot."
"There's no way this ship can stand up to that kind of firepower," said Hazel. "And there's no way we can get out of here before they open fire."
"Not necessarily," said Owen. "This ship has a new kind of hyperdrive. Very powerful, very fast."
"Why do I get this strong feeling that there's a but hanging on the end of that?"
"But, it's rather… untested. No one's had a chance to use it much yet, and there's always the chance they haven't got all the bugs out. I always intended to take her on a long shakedown run, but what with one thing and another, I never found the time. And then circumstances rather caught up with me."
"Great," said Hazel. "Just great. If I had anything left in my stomach, I think I'd be sick."
"All systems are ready, Owen," said the AI. "Or as ready as they're ever going to be. Power's up and all tests are positive. I'm lying my head off to both starcruisers, but I don't think they're in a listening mood. Both are now in firing range. It's time to go, Owen. There's nothing left to hold us here."
The viewscreen filled with light as both starcruisers opened fire on the Sunstrider. Owen and Hazel winced instinctively.
Take us out of here, Oz," said Owen. "We're going to Mistworld."
"And the good God grant us luck," said Hazel. "Because we're going to need it."
The Sunstrider dropped into hyperspace and was gone, and the starcruisers were left to orbit Virimonde alone.
CHAPTER THREE
Fashion, Paranoia and Elves
The Imperial Palace lay deep in the rotten heart of Golgotha, homeworld of the Empire: the concentration of power, and of destiny. It lay hidden away, far below the surface, drawing its power from a geothermal tap; sunk so deep even a scorching by the entire Fleet couldn't touch it. Up above, the delicate towers and pastel cities of the elite, the noble and the moneyed. Down below, like a cancer in a rose, a massive steel bunker a mile and a half wide, the home and fortress of Her Imperial Majesty, Lionstone XIV. And within that bunker, behind the many layers of cutting-edge technology, a court of gleaming steel and brass where the whole Empire came to pay homage to its ruler. The personification of honor and duty, law and justice, whose whisper was louder than thunder, and more far reaching.
Lionstone XIV, the perfect and divine, the worshipped and adored. Also known as the Iron Bitch.
Her private chambers comprised the heart of the bunker, surrounded by layers of guards and protection, some of which never slept. The Empress had many enemies, and she liked it that way. Love passed and honor changed, but fear remained constant. Lionstone was the latest in a long line of rulers, and she had no intention of being the last. Her private chambers, where she only had to be herself, were bedecked with silks and flowers of a hundred vivid hues from a hundred different worlds. The air was perfumed with subtle and gorgeous scents that were also quite deadly, unless you'd been immunized to them.
In the midst of it all, Lionstone sat at her toilet before a full-length mirror, attended by her surgically-altered maids in waiting. They moved about her with silent grace, like so many butterflies, dressing her in the armor and furs necessary for a formal appearance at court. Lionstone scowled at her reflection in the mirror. She had power over many things, but tradition wasn't one of them. So she suffered her maids to wrap her in the colors and robes of office, hitting and slapping the young women when they got in the way or as the mood took her, and studied her perfect face in the mirror.
Lionstone XFV was tall and slender, towering over her maids by a good head and more. Her face was fashionably pale, but with none of the usual splashes of color that fashion dictated. She had little taste, and less discrimination, and didn't give a damn. She had no time for the wild colors and wilder trappings that engaged the attention of so many of her court, or anything else that might distract from the impact of who she was. She had long, sharp-edged features, with a wide slash of a mouth and brilliant blue eyes, topped by masses of pale blond hair piled up on top of her head. Her back was straight, her head erect, and her gaze could chill at a hundred yards. She was beautiful. Everyone said so.
Her maids fluttered around her, adjusting a fold here and a hem there. Their hands were always moving, their touch gentle but sure. Lionstone trusted them completely; she oversaw the conditioning of each new subject before they were allowed to join the other maids. She never spoke with them, either in conversation or to enquire their opinion. They had nothing to say. Lionstone had had their tongues cut out, so they couldn't talk about her. She'd also had them blinded and deafened, and now they knew the world only through cybernetic senses. It wasn't fit or safe that anyone should have direct knowledge of Her Majesty in her most private and defenseless moments, so Lionstone's maids-in-waiting were deprived of the senses nature gave them in return for more perfect and controllable artificial systems.
It was supposed to be a great honor to serve the Empress in person, and there was a long list of applicants, from the highest to the lowest in the land, but Lionstone would have none of them. To their private relief. Her maids had always been rebels or debtors or outlaws. Or perhaps just someone who had fallen from favor. The Empress had them mind-burned and reprogrammed, and those who had once dared defy her now served as her most devoted slaves. The thought never ceased to amuse her.
She'd done other things to them, too, but no one ever talked of that. Or at least, not when someone might be listening.
Lionstone tapped her long-nailed fingers impatiently on the arms of her chair as her maids-in-waiting put the last touches to her appearance. She held herself immobile till the tall spiky crown cut from a single diamond had been lowered respectfully onto her head, and then she surged to her feet, scattering the maids with a wave of her arm. She studied herself in the mirror, and the reflection nodded approvingly back. The body armor fitted her snugly from throat to toe, dully gleaming where it wasn't disguised by thick luxurious furs from the inner worlds. Only her face remained bare, as tradition demanded. In an age of clones and other duplicates, the Empire liked to be sure exactly who was ruling them.
There were other safeguards and protections built into her armor, and she ran quickly through a warm-up checklist as her personal computer implant flashed it up before her eyes. Everything checked out, not that she'd had any doubts, and she allowed herself one last glance at the mirror before striding out of her boudoir, leaving her maids to hurry after her. They quickly caught up with her and fell into their usual protective shield about her, their cybernetic systems constantly on the alert for any threat or sign of disrespect. They were her bodyguards as well as her attendants, and waking or sleeping they never left her side.
Outside her boudoir, a crowd of people filled the corridor, desperate as always for her attention. Clerks, military attaches, lobbyists of all creeds and persuasions, all wanting answers and decisions for things that could not go forward without the Imperial nod. They swarmed around her in a babble of voices as Lionstone strode down the corridor. The maids kept them from getting too close. No matter how desperate the importuners were, they all had enough sense not to upset the maids. The Empress seemed to be ignoring the crush, but every now and then she'd pick a face out of the crowd and snap yes or no or later. Anything really important would come through the proper channels, but the proper channels could be… diverted, one way or the other, by someone with enough credit or influence. Lionstone believed in being up to the moment.
They finally reached the private elevator at the end of the corridor, and Lionstone waved the crowd away. Most of them fell back immediately; the few who didn't react
quickly enough almost fell over themselves backing away as the maids turned their unwavering gaze on them. Lionstone glared at the closed elevator doors as she waited for it to arrive. She was on the verge of being late for her own audience, and that would never do. No one would say anything, of course; if she chose to be late, that was her business, and no one would have the temerity to disapprove. But the word would start quietly in certain quarters that just possibly the Empress was slipping, growing lax, and the kind of people who had assassins on their payroll would lick their lips in anticipation.
A delicate chime interrupted her thoughts as the elevator arrived and the doors slid open. The maids checked it out with their augmented senses, decided reluctantly that it hadn't been tampered with, and allowed the Empress to join them inside the elevator. The doors slid shut on the bowing heads of the crowd in the corridor, and the elevator rose rapidly from the heart of the bunker to the outer levels where court business was transacted. Lionstone XIV smiled slowly, and if the courtiers waiting for her to arrive could have seen that smile, they would have found sudden pressing reasons to he somewhere else that day.
The only way to reach the court chambers from anywhere else on Golgotha was by underground trains controlled directly by palace computers. The trains were prompt, comfortable and guaranteed accident free, but still no one liked using them. People of importance were not used to or happy about giving up control over their personal security, but in this, as in so many other things where the Empress was concerned, they had no choice. Her security came first. Always. As a result, everyone setting foot in a palace-controlled train did so knowing that they were literally putting their lives in the Empress' hands. Lionstone sometimes used the trains as a simple means of dealing with those who had gained her displeasure. At a silent command from the palace computers, the train would stop, the doors would lock, steel shutters would slide over the windows and a lethal gas would fill the carriage from end to end. The gas jets weren't even hidden.
The Lord Jacob Wolfe glowered at the jets, and then looked away. They were old news, and he had more pressing concerns on his mind. The Empress" summons to court had been abrupt and uninformative, even for her, with barely an hour's warning, which meant that whatever had caught her attention was urgent as well as important. It could be that she'd found another traitor, someone sufficiently high up that she wanted the whole court present while she interrogated and executed him as a message to any who might be wavering. Lionstone was a great believer in making examples and putting her point forcefully. And there were always traitors. Some days attending court was like playing Russian roulette when you didn't know how many bullets were left in the gun.
Besides, if it had been anyone important, he'd have heard something before now. The Wolfe had good contacts at all levels. Every Lord did, if they wanted to stay a Lord.
It wasn't necessary to attend court in person; you could always send your holo image. Current technology allowed the elite complete access to all that was happening, with no risk that some of it might happen to you. However, by tradition and law, only those who attended in person would be heard by the Empress. So if you wanted your voice to count, you had to be there. Besides, for someone to appear only as a holo as court was a risk in itself. Lionstone might choose to interpret that as a personal insult, that the Lord didn't trust his Empress to ensure his safety. It didn't do to give the Empress ideas. She had far too many of them as it was. Which was why the Wolfe and his son Valentine were sitting alone in their carriage, without weapon or bodyguard, on their way to court to hear something they probably wouldn't want to know anyway.
Jacob Wolfe was a great bull of a man, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest that wouldn't have looked out of place on a professional gladiator. He wore his hair cropped close to his skull, maintained his face as that of a man in his forties, and ignored all fashions as they came and went. His jaw jutted always forward, as though daring anyone to comment. His eyes were dark and piercing, and it was a point of honor to him that he never looked away first. He had hands like mauls, large and blocky, curled most often into fists, and his voice was a growl. The Wolfe had put a lot of time and thought into the image he projected, and he was quietly pleased with the result. It let people know right from the start that he was not a man to be trifled with.
The Wolfe was a hundred and three years old, but thanks to Imperial science, the young man sitting opposite him could easily have been mistaken for his brother rather than his son. Even so, a stranger would have found it hard to detect any Family resemblance between them. Valentine Wolfe was tall, slender and darkly delicate, like a hothouse flower rudely torn from its usual habitat. His face was long and thin and more than fashionably pale, and his shock of jet black hair fell to his shoulders in curls and ringlets. Heavy mascara highlighted his overbright eyes, and a painted crimson smile hid his feelings from one and all. He had an artist's hands, all long slender fingers and languorous gestures, and they fluttered about his throat in moments of excitement like startled doves in the night.
Valentine Wolfe was well known in and out of court for having tried every drug known to man, and a few he'd had made up specially. If you could smoke it, sniff it or stick it where the sun doesn't shine, he'd tried it all once, and twice if he enjoyed it, which he usually did. It was truly said he'd never met a chemical he didn't like. It was a wonder to all who knew him that he hadn't fried his brains long ago, but by some dark chemical miracle, his mind remained sharp and dangerous. He had the usual enemies for a man in his position and looked like he would outlive them all. And though he chose not to play the game of intrigue himself, he could still be a subtle and malevolent influence on those who did. Valentine might be a hothouse flower, but his thorns were poisonous. He produced a tab from a silver pillbox and pressed it against the side of his neck, over the main vein. His painted smile widened like a scarlet wound. His father sniffed disapprovingly.
"Do you have to do that now? We'll be at court soon, and we're both going to need all our wits about us."
"It's just a little something to take the edge off, Father." Valentine's voice was calm and polite, and only a trifle dreamy. "Rest assured that all my many resources are at your disposal. If I was any more alert, my synapses would be going into meltdown. Why do you suppose Her Imperial Majesty, long may she reign, desires our company this time?"
"Who knows why the Iron Bitch does anything these days? I've spent more time traveling back and forth in these damned death traps this last week than I'd normally expect in a month. She's not following any of her usual patterns, and all my usual sources have either disappeared into the woodwork or developed unexpected scruples. I've been paying the little turds good money for years, and just when I really need them they fold on me. Assuming I make it back from court in one fairly large piece, heads are going to roll, boy, and I am not being metaphorical. She's planning something, something she knows the Company of Lords won't approve of, so she's doing all this just to keep us distracted and separated. It's a smokescreen, sleight of hand, but hiding what? Pay attention, boy! One of these days, loath though I am to admit it, you're going to have to take over from me as head of the Family, and I won't have it said I didn't do everything in my power to ready you for that."
"Far away may that time be. Father," said Valentine, and only a careful ear might have detected a note of sarcasm in his voice. "You do so much for me, and I never appreciate it. I have a few trifles about me that are said to boost the intellect and liberate the mind. Would you care to try a little something?"
"No, I would not. I've never needed drugs to be smart. Show me how smart you are. Why do you think the Bitch wants to see us this time?"
Valentine drew a flower from his sleeve. It had a long stem bristling with thorns, and its thick pulpy petals were black as night. He sniffed the flower appreciatively, then took one petal between his perfect teeth and pulled it free. He ate the petal slowly, savoring the juices.
"The Empress has been most disturbed of lat
e, ever since news came in of two newly discovered alien species outside the Empire with technologies at least the equal of our own. One would have been enough as a potential threat, but the prospect of two such species seems to have practically unhinged the poor dear. Then there's the cyberats, playing their disruptive little games in our computers, the clone underground spreading its proclamations everywhere you look, and let us not forget the elves, bless their black little hearts. The elves have been growing increasingly arrogant, not to mention successful, in their attacks of late. And of course there are always the endless court intrigues, with their plots and schemes and intricate designs. Some days at court you don't dare cough or scratch your ear for fear someone will take it as a sign to start something violent. Still, you don't need me to tell you that, Father."
The Wolfe smiled briefly. It was not a pretty sight. "So, you have been paying attention, at least. They're all good answers, but which one would you pick? Where does the real danger lie for the Empress and for us?"
Valentine Wolfe ate another black petal, chewing thoughtfully. Bright spots of color glowed on his pale cheeks like badly applied rouge, and his dark eyes saw many things. "The aliens are too distant a threat to be worrying our dear Majesty yet. Perhaps we should just introduce the aliens to each other and then stand well back while they fight it out. The cyberats are too few and far between to be anything but a nuisance, and the clone underground lacks the funding necessary to emerge as & real political force. And the elves have been surprisingly quiet these past few days. Obviously that won't last, but I would have to say they've done nothing outrageous enough just recently to justify our dear Majesty's abrupt summons. No, I fear it's more simple than that. Dear Lionstone has caught someone of standing with his pants down or his hand in the till, and she wants us to watch and take notes while she has something extremely unpleasant and instructive done to him. La belle dame sans merci. Our Lady of Pain. The Iron Bitch."
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