Through the Reality Warp

by Donald J. Pfeil

  “And now for the surprise,” Santha exclaimed. She pulled an insulated container from the hamper, undid the clips at each end, and carefully lifted off the top.

  “My God!” Billiard exclaimed. “Broxonian Eel Bird! How the hell did you come up with that?”

  Santha held up the pale-blue roast bird, famous for its delicious and slightly hallucinogenic flesh, examining it critically. “The Imperial Chef had two of them in the palace freezer. I think he was planning to sell them on the black market.”

  They ate in silence, savoring the sun-flavored blue meat and passing the wine bottle back and forth, their meal backgrounded by the music of the water tumbling into the pool, then bubbling out for the long fall to the river below. When they finished, Santha gathered up the remains of the meal and neatly tucked them back inside the hamper.

  “You’d make someone quite a wife,” Billiard said lazily, watching her clean the area.

  “Not really,” she responded, looking up at him with a hint of red on her cheeks and a look of puzzlement in her eyes.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked, changing the subject quite pointedly. Or at least it appeared to Billiard that she was changing the subject.

  “About what?”

  “Your main problem,” she said with a smile.

  “I wasn’t aware I had any main problem,” Billiard said, returning her smile.

  “The ‘power universe.’”

  That one sentence from her wiped out his smile.

  “You know about it?”

  “Of course I know,” she said, continuing to smile. “As your second in command, I have to know what’s going on around the palace.”

  “And you understand why I have to find it?” Billiard asked.

  “If you’re going to stay in power as the new God, you have to get control of it away from the Redhats.”

  Billiard let out a sigh of relief; Santha had not, by some fluke, guessed his real reason for wanting to find the research center.

  Santha mistook his sigh. “But we aren’t supposed to be talking business,” she said with a grin. “You’re supposed to be relaxing and enjoying a day off.”

  “What about us?” Billiard asked, changing the subject as she had suggested, but onto one she didn’t seem to be prepared to think about.

  She looked down into the water, an unhappy expression on her face. “You know the tradition,” she said. “The God of the Lorian Empire can be married only to that empire: he cannot take a wife. He can, of course, have female servants.”

  Billiard thought he saw tears glint in her eyes, though it may have just been a reflection of the sparkling waters.

  “And do you recommend that I have such a servant?” he asked.

  “Now you’re asking too much,” Santha said, anger showing in her voice for the first time. “I could never be—”

  “No, I’m not asking too much.” Anger sounded now in Billiard’s voice, too. “You know how I feel about you. You should also know by now that you’re the only person on this whole damn planet I can trust without reservation. Yes, I do have a job to be done: an empire to consolidate and govern, and, hopefully, turn onto a better path. And that job does demand that I remain unmarried. But I can’t do that job without you…”

  “I’m sorry,” Santha said softly. “I know you’re right. But for now, though, please take me back to the palace.”

  Billiard stood, reached down for her, and pulled her up into his arms. For a fleeting moment their lips met. Then Santha pulled free and started back up the gorge. Billiard looked after her for a moment, then bent and picked up the hamper, following her with his eyes on the rocks, but with his mind a universe away, on another obligation.

  SIX

  I

  Billiard found that what he had at first thought to be a heavy work load was as nothing compared to what was to come. Within weeks he found himself completely snowed under with reports, recommendations, requests, etc.—all somehow connected with the conquest and reorganization of the Lorian Empire, and all requiring his personal attention. Although he searched diligently through the reports each morning, none seemed to offer any leads to the location of the secret Redhat research center that had been on the captive universe. This greatly increased his anger with the people of Lori, who didn’t seem to give a damn what sort of government they had.

  Billiard was slowly bringing order out of confusion as his men became more skilled in their exercise of control over Lori. Some Redhat officers, and a few regular army and navy men, elected to continue their resistance, making the pacification of the planet a frequently bloody task. Nevertheless, within two months, the revolutionary forces were in complete command of the nerve-centers of the empire.

  Billiard had moved into the office of the former God of the Lorian Empire, not because he had taken the post—he hadn’t yet, officially, at least—but because it was the only area in the Star Palace properly set up to handle many of the problems he was facing. It was here that he had the communications net he needed as well as the office space necessary for the immense staff he found obligatory to keep all his time from being chewed up by petty details.

  One of the most troublesome of his problems was the number of people constantly wanting to see him. Most of them could be screened by his staff and diverted to the various departments capable of handling such matters, but some simply had to see him, either because of the nature of their problems or because of the position of importance they occupied in the political scheme of things. Former ministers of this and that, ex-politicians, high-ranking military officers, industrialists, economists, bankers, and media moguls—all waited with varying degrees of impatience in the anteroom of the God’s personal office.

  Billiard tried to see as many each day as possible—before, between, and after dealing with the day-to-day administrative problems of the empire—but more new names appeared on the list each day and far exceeded the names that were frequently scratched. On the day Billiard received a red-faced report from the security chief that someone had been putting anti-revolution propaganda sheets in with the pension and welfare checks before mailing them, he did not feel like seeing anyone.

  That afternoon he was sitting at his desk, going over reports on Goromi military activities along their border with the Lorian Empire, when his secretary opened the anteroom to announce that there would be no further appointments. He heard the groans from those who had been sitting waiting all day, but paid little attention to them. His mind was preoccupied with both possible Goromi incursions and the problem of locating the hidden Redhat laboratory. Why else did I become God of this god-forsaken empire, if not to locate the encapsulation-probe center? he asked himself today, as he did constantly. He paid little attention to what was happening outside until he heard the sharp hiss of a laser and a cry of pain.

  Reacting instinctively, Billiard came out of his chair, drawing his laser with a smooth motion, and rolled off to one side, out of the line of fire of what he assumed must be an assassination attempt—an attempt he had been expecting for some time.

  His gun came up immediately and centered on a short, disheveled figure standing in the anteroom doorway. But before his finger could tighten on the trigger, Billiard observed that the man did not have a weapon and that he was holding a burn spot on one arm. As Billiard watched the man, his guards were pulling him into the corridor.

  Billiard lowered his gun. Over the noise and excitement in the anteroom, he could hear the small man yelling.

  “But you don’t understand!” he was screaming as he fought the guards. “I’m Major Fentara, of the revolution’s Intelligence Service.”

  “Hold it!” Billiard shouted.

  His guards, startled, stopped and looked into the inner office.

  “Bring that man here,” Billiard ordered. “And close that damn door.”

  Peace immediately returned to his office as the door to the anteroom, and finally his own, swung shut, blocking out the still-continuing complaints of the
disappointed visitors. The guards pulled the disheveled man up to Billiard’s desk, each holding on to an arm.

  “Release him,” Billiard said.

  “Thank you,” the man said simply, reaching over to gently probe the spot on his forearm where he had been brushed with a laser beam.

  “Who are you?” Billiard demanded, “and what do you want?”

  “Major Fentara, sir. Of your Intelligence Service.”

  “And why have you found it necessary to try to break in like this, Major?” Billiard asked. “My secretary announced that there would be no more appointments today.”

  Fentara looked at the guard standing to his right, then back to Billiard. “Sir, this is in reference to Project One.”

  Billiard was startled at hearing the code word he had assigned to his prime mission back when the revolution was just beginning, two years before. The code had been given to the first men who had gone out, and Billiard had assumed that those who had not reported back had been caught and executed. With a wave of his hand, Billiard sent the guards out of the room, then motioned Fentara to a seat.

  “What have you found out, Major?” Billiard asked, leaning forward in his seat as tension built in his mind and body. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, Fentara might have the information he needed so desperately.

  “I’m really not sure, sir. Maybe this is information for Project One, and maybe something else entirely.”

  Fentara paused for a moment, fishing in his shirt pocket; then he pulled out a small box. Without being asked, Billiard pushed the projector forward on his desk and Fentara slipped a color slide into the feed slot.

  “After returning to Lori from Sutet IX,” Fentara said, settling back in his chair, “I spent a full year trying to pump government employees for information on any new research projects—conducted either by Red-hats or by the armed forces. And I drew a complete blank. As a matter of fact, I kept up the investigation for so long I’m surprised I didn’t receive a visit from Redhat security.”

  “You must have found something,” Billiard said when Fentara paused for a moment, “or you wouldn’t be here now.”

  “Yes, sir. I did find something. Or at least I think I found something.”

  Fentara pushed a switch on the projector and a map appeared on the screen. With a blunt fingernail, Fentara walked over and pointed to a group of red dots near the center of a pink-shaded area on the map—a Redhat security area.

  “As I understood it, your search was basically for a power-research station. And although I could be wrong—God knows, I’m no scientist—I figured that a research station looking for a new, or more powerful, power source would naturally be using a lot of power.”

  “A logical assumption,” Billiard said with a smile.

  “And if that’s the case,” Fentara continued, a note of triumph in his voice, “I’m sure I have the location of the project.” He tapped his finger again on the red dots on the screen.

  “There?” Billiard asked, disappointment in his voice. “At an established Redhat base? Right out in the open? Don’t you think I would have found it by now, Major, if it is in an established Redhat security area—right out in plain sight?”

  “But this station isn’t right out in plain sight, sir. This is an old base—probably your men haven’t been there yet—built by the Redhats as a detention center, and then abandoned more than twenty years ago. It was originally planned as a detention center for all local political prisoners of the Redhats; but there were too many jurisdictional squabbles to settle: Internal security, the armed forces, the planetary police, and half a dozen other agencies somehow got involved—and objected to the concept of a central prison such as this. So the whole plan was shelved, and never opened up again even when the Redhats had managed to absorb the functions of all those other agencies.”

  “So what makes you think they’re using it as the site for Project One?”

  “Two things. First the place is supposed to be abandoned—actually it’s what they termed ‘inactive’—but something is drawing enough power out of the Lori continental net there to power a small city. Second, from what I’ve been able to find out, there’s a full defensive shell around the place.”

  “How dependable is your information on all this?”

  “Regarding the power consumption, totally dependable. I managed to see the power-drain records myself. This was before you arrived. I had to bribe and connive. It ought to cost the revolution a hundred thousand gilts once I turn in my expense vouchers.”

  “And the defensive shell?” Billiard asked.

  “That’s a bit less certain. It took me weeks, but I managed, not long ago, to reach a town called Pelli, about fifty miles from the area; I’ve just got back, by the way. Well, I believe there’s a full shell. Everything points to it. If anyone tries to fly into the airspace inside the area, he gets a live ‘Hold position’ instead of the usual canned warning for violating inactive areas. A few minutes later comes a visual inspection by a flight of flit-boats. I saw them once. There have been, I was told, at least two cases in the past couple of years of commercial ships—one of them a passenger liner with over four hundred people on board—being blown out of the air by anti-aircraft missiles from the area. Both instances were somewhat hushed up by the Red-hats, but it’s hard to hide the deaths of four-hundred-plus civilians, even with total media control.”

  “That defensive shell,” Billiard said softly, more to himself than to Fentara, “is going to make things tough.”

  “Why?” Fentara asked, surprise in his voice. “Go in there with one medium cruiser and the place will be yours in ten minutes.”

  “And the place will also be nine-tenths destroyed,” Billiard retorted, “which does not fit my purposes. I’ve got to find some way through that defensive shell without starting a major battle.”

  “There might be a way…” Fentara said.

  “How?” Billiard demanded, his head coming up sharply to look at the intelligence officer.

  “General M’tang. A first cousin of the former God, and the officer in charge of all Redhat research projects. If anyone would know of a way through the defensive shell without a battle, he should.”

  “And just how do you suggest we find him?” Billiard asked, sarcasm in his voice.

  “Why, we don’t have to,” Fentara replied. “He’s hiding right here in the capital. In a hotel downtown.”

  “What?” Billiard yelled. “Here? Why hasn’t he been picked up?”

  “Well, sir, I assume that no one but me has tracked him down. And the only reason I know of his whereabouts is because of the checking I was doing near that abandoned base. And I haven’t had time to inform your security men about him.”

  Minutes later, Billiard and Fentara were in an unmarked groundcar, Billiard behind the wheel breaking every speed limit for ground vehicles and a half-dozen other traffic regulations as well. They were alone, not even accompanied by Billiard’s personal guards. He wanted as few people as possible in on the captive-universe story, if only so as to eliminate as much discussion of the subject as possible once he found, and closed down, the project. The more people who knew about it, the more people would be wondering why he didn’t continue it in order to get the new power source for himself.

  After getting M’tang’s room number from Fentara, Billiard left the major in the car and walked into the hotel by himself. Bypassing the desk, as if he had every right to be going up in the bounce, he soon found himself outside Room 225. Checking to see that his laser was free in its holster, Billiard knocked on the door.

  The sound of his knuckles echoed in the dusty silence of the hallway. Several minutes passed without a sound. Then Billiard knocked again, this time harder, his fist pounding against the wood-grained plastic. He was ready to kick in the door, when the latch clicked and the door swung open less than an inch.

  Billiard saw one bloodshot brown eye peeking past the jamb.

  “What do you want?” a low voice croaked.


  Billiard’s shoulder hit the door, hard, and it flew open, knocking the old man back toward a rumpled bed. “You. General M’tang. That’s what I want.”

  “You must be mistaken,” the old man said, lifting himself from the floor and shrinking back to the bed. “My name is Nevils. Goddrun Nevils.”

  “Your name is General M’tang. A name which will probably look quite good on your tombstone, which will be cut this afternoon unless I get some instant cooperation from you.”

  The old man looked at Billiard; then suddenly his shoulders slumped. A beaten man, he sat on the bed for a moment before he got slowly to his feet. His shoulders pulled back until he was standing at attention. “What do you want?” he asked. “Am I under arrest, or are you simply going to execute me, here and now?”

  “You are not under arrest—at least not yet,” Billiard barked. “And as for execution, that entirely depends on how you act in the next few minutes. What I want from you is information, and the amount of information I get will determine exactly how long you will survive and in what condition you will await your eventual death—as a prisoner, or as a free man.”

  “And who might you be, sir, to be making such threats, and such promises?”

  “Latham Billiard.”

  “The new God?”

  There was such a tone of incredulity in M’tang’s voice that Billiard almost laughed. Instead, he simply nodded.

  The old man suddenly sat down again on the bed behind him. “What information are you seeking?” he asked.

  “Everything you know about the abandoned detention center near Pelli city.”

  “What is there to know?” the general said with a shrug. “It’s an abandoned base. Probably pretty badly run down—although I can’t say from personal experience. Out of my department, you know.”

  “General,” Billiard asked quietly, “do you really want to die?”

  “What? Of course not.”