What had he read the other day? Osadar had scribed it to him. He deleted most of her messages unread. She wrote these long screeds on things, seemingly writing a book on each topic. It was too much for him even to try skimming. But he had read an interesting link the other day. It was concerning the growing triad of power in the Jupiter System.
There were the political leaders of Ganymede and Europa forming one side, the Helium-3 Barons forming another and the former Guardian Fleet personnel the third. According to the article, there had been a shift in fleet personnel during the fifteen months of war. The last survivors of Callisto—various station crewmembers, far-outpost personnel and monitors—had inexorably entered the fleet. There was no other place for them where they felt as comfortable. There were only a few military vessels left, and they were concentrated with the last people of Callisto. In effect, the old order had been resurrected in the remaining patrol boats, meteor-ships and the lone dreadnaught. The article had finished with a cry for civilian control of Jupiter and an end to the tyrannous rule of Chief Strategist Tan.
A cold feeling coiled in Marten’s stomach. “Do you remember which units stormed onto Athena Station?” he whispered.
“You will cease with your infernal muttering,” the arbiter said over his shoulder. Marten recalled the man had told them his name was Neon. He spoke with a nasal tone, with didactic authority.
Marten opened his mouth to reply, and he felt Omi’s grip on his wrist. He glanced at Omi. The Korean minutely shook his head. The look said more than just ‘stay quiet.’ It said this wasn’t the place for a showdown. It was better to wait.
Marten’s nostrils flared, but he nodded minutely, and he kept his mouth shut.
The myrmidons had grown tense. They glanced at Neon. The lean arbiter sneered in his superior fashion, the way a highhanded teacher might before inferior students. Flicking his wrist, Neon indicated that they keep heading toward their destination.
Omi released Marten’s wrist and the grip of his holstered pistol.
Marten found he’d been holding his breath. Anger surged through him. He stared hotly at the arbiter’s back, wanting to clout the man across the back of the head. But the myrmidons would attack if he did that.
Then it hit Marten. Had that been staged? He scowled. If Chief Strategist Tan wanted him disarmed, she could order it. Yet maybe it wasn’t that simple. The article had spoken about three keys to the Jovian power base.
Marten glanced around, and he spotted spy-sticks on the ceiling, recording devices. If Tan presented the controllers of Europa and Ganymede and the Helium-3 Barons with video of him going berserk—
The cold feeling in Marten’s stomach grew. He’d like to study the space marine manifests of the units that had stormed Athena Station. More importantly, he’d like to study the place of origin of the personnel. It was natural to put soldiers from Ganymede, say, into one unit. It was best to put men from the same town into a unit. Men fought harder with their friends around them and men fought more poorly amongst strangers. Which units had stormed Athena Station? Or asked another way, which units had remained out of the action and therefore had retained one hundred percent of its soldiers?
Chief Strategist Tan had fought a masterful campaign against the cyborgs. Would she simply relinquish power now, or might she have maneuvered these past fifteen months to retain authority? Her power rested on one thing: a preponderance of military personnel and hardware.
Marten rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the kinks out of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t care who ruled. He cared all right. But after Yakov’s death fifteen months ago, he was more concerned with killing and defeating cyborgs.
Arbiter Neon halted, turned and raised his hand.
Marten noticed the arbiter glancing at the myrmidons, as if signaling them. Marten cleared his throat sharply and reached for his gun.
The myrmidons were fast. Each spun around with a shock rod in one hand and a stunner in the other. Maybe if they had fired that instant everything would have worked for them.
Omi had been a gunman once in a vicious drug gang in Sydney. Then he’d gone through Highborn training and had survived the Hell of the Japan Campaign. He caught the signal and clawed his long-barreled .38 free of its holster.
Marten drew even faster than Omi. While Omi aimed at the nearest myrmidon, Marten held his pitted barrel at Neon’s forehead.
The arbiter’s smug smile vanished as he stared at the ugly weapon. The color drained from his face, leaving it a pasty white. Then two bright dots appeared on his cheeks.
“Lower your weapons,” Arbiter Neon whispered.
“Your myrmidons are fast,” Marten said. There was steel in his voice. “But I’m betting I can put a hole in your forehead and gun each of them down before they twitch a finger on their stunners.”
Marten refrained from adding that Omi and he each wore a nullifier, won long ago on Yakov’s meteor-ship.
“You are aboard the Chief Strategist’s flagship,” Neon said in a choked voice. “Her authority is supreme here. Any deviation from it is a breach of protocol.”
Marten motioned Omi. The two of them took several steps back. The stunners might not affect them. The bony knuckles on the end of those dangling arms surely could, however. Marten had respect for the fighting prowess of the gene-warped warriors.
“The Dictates—” Neon began to say.
“Died with Callisto’s passing,” Marten said.
Neon stiffened. And that made the senior myrmidon growl menacingly.
“You spout inanities,” Neon said harshly. “You—”
On the ceiling, a red light flashed near one of the spy-sticks. Neon’s head twitched. He clamped a thin hand over his right ear. He must have had an implant there. He frowned, and he gave his head the slightest negative shake.
“New orders, eh?” asked Marten.
Neon opened his mouth. He never uttered his chosen phrase. A door swished open at the head of the corridor. Tan stood there.
She was a tiny woman, with smooth, bio-sculpted features. She was beautiful in an elfin way, with dark hair wound around her head. She wore a red robe, with red slippers and with red rings around her small fingers.
“Chief Strategist,” Neon said.
“You and your myrmidons shall stand guard outside my door,” Tan said. Her gaze flickered over Omi. “I didn’t ask for your bodyguard.”
“You asked to see both of us,” Marten said.
Tan had dark eyes. They seemed to turn a shade darker as she stared at him. “Tell him to return to his quarters.”
“She’s separating us,” Omi whispered.
“The Chief Strategist has given you instructions,” Neon said. “Instant obedience is expected, along with proper protocol. You will address her as—”
“What kind of protocol did you give the cyborgs on Athena Station?” Marten asked.
“What?” Neon said.
“Did you land with us?” asked Marten, sick of behind-the-lines policemen.
“I’m not an animal that grubs among the beasts,” Neon said, outraged.
“Enough,” said Tan.
“But Your Excellency—” Neon said, turning toward her.
“I have spoken,” said Tan.
Neon stiffened, and the twin spots of color reappeared on his cheeks. After a half-second’s delay, he flicked his right hand at the myrmidons. They spread out in the corridor and then crouched low, ready like defensive robots.
“Are you expecting trouble?” Marten asked.
“Order your bodyguard back to his quarters,” said Tan. “Then tell him to disarm. You may give your sidearm to him as well.”
“…Not just yet,” Marten said.
Arbiter Neon’s head swiveled toward him. The man placed his hand on his palm-pistol.
“I have given you an order,” Tan said.
“We’re still in a combat zone,” Marten said. “Soldiers don’t disarm under those conditions.”
“You dare to engage
me in a dialogue?” asked Tan.
“I’m a soldier and this is a combat zone. That means—”
“All the cyborgs are dead,” said Tan. “You will obey me at once.”
Marten didn’t like the direction of the conversation. His only true friends had died or waited aboard the Erasmus, the handful of space marines that had endured two battles against the cyborgs with him. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what Osadar had been trying to tell him. He’d been too busy fighting a war to worry about the peace. That might have been a mistake.
“Chief Strategist,” Marten said. “I request your permission to keep my sidearm. If you refuse, I will relinquish my command and return at once to the Erasmus.”
“You are in no position to give me terms,” Tan said.
Suddenly, Marten was weary of the bickering. It reminded him of Major Orlov, of Training Master Lycon and Arbiter Octagon, of everyone who’d tried to tell him what to think.
“I’m not giving you terms,” Marten said. “I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”
“You will adjust your tone while addressing me,” said Tan.
Marten squinted at the small woman. She controlled the bulk of the military vessels in this planetary system. She was the de facto ruler. But Marten no longer cared. She was playing games he didn’t understand, and through the arbiter, she’d just tried to disarm them.
“Did you wish to see me?” Marten asked.
Tan’s mouth grew firm, and three seconds passed. “Your bodyguard will return to his room.”
“And?” asked Marten.
“And you and I shall speak within,” said Tan.
“Sure,” Marten said, recognizing that she’d dropped any reference to his disarming, at least for now. He’d won this round. Now he’d have to make sure he walked out of her chamber a free man.
-5-
In Tan’s chamber, a statue mused in a corner. The statue depicted a fawn of a woman with wisps of cloth heightening her semi-nudity. The statue stared into an unseen distance, as if thoughtfully concerned over the fate of the world. A golden lyre hung on a wall, as did several faint, brushstroke paintings. Brown and teal silk hung from the ceiling in a complex pattern of loops.
Tan knelt on a cushion before a low table. On the table was a small dispensary, with a silver chalice beside it. Smoothing her robe, Tan indicated that Marten should sit across from her. Then she picked up the chalice and pressed a button on the dispensary. A blue pill appeared. With tiny fingers, Tan slipped the pill onto her tongue, sipping it down with wine.
Feeling like a giant, Marten sat cross-legged on a cushion. He had to adjust his holster to do so. The table was metallic and smooth, with controls near Tan’s hands. No doubt, she could project images on it.
“You leave me in a quandary,” said Tan.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“It would trouble me if you did,” said Tan, sipping more wine.
“I don’t want to give you trouble,” Marten said. “Look, you’ve just destroyed the last cyborgs in the system. You should be rejoicing. Then you should figure out how to take the fight to the enemy.”
“Ah,” she said, setting the chalice onto the table without making a sound. “You reached that conclusion even faster than I’d expected you to do. But then, you are a monomaniac.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The obvious: that you’re a single-minded soldier. I might add that you thrive on mayhem, on chaos and instability.”
“You call fighting to stay alive mayhem?”
“I’ve studied you, Marten Kluge. You’re more than a soldier. You are a killer, an atavistic throwback to man’s earliest times. You would have done well in a suit of armor on a horse and with a sword.”
“If this is about the kidnapping—”
“You once laid hands on my person,” said Tan, with a trace of emotion. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten the event.”
“Good. Then you’ll also remember that you planned to go to Athena Station. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have unknowingly given yourself to the cyborgs.”
Tan smiled indulgently. “You claim to have kidnapped me for my greater good?”
“Chief Strategist,” said Marten.
Tan held up a small hand. “That day, your actions were beneficial to me. I concede you the point. No. This meeting has nothing to do with that. The cyborgs invaded our system, destroyed three-fourths of our society and then perished under our retaliatory strikes.”
“I helped kill the cyborgs.”
“Killing to you is as eating is to a glutton,” said Tan.
Marten banged the table with a fist. “I resent that.”
“Now your barbarism is on display.”
“This is just great,” said Marten. “Everywhere I go, people try to kill me or try to force me to accept their beliefs. They don’t ever consider that I might want to run my own life.”
“I’m sure every killer espouses a similar doctrine.”
“I’m tired of you calling me a killer. You’re the killer.”
Tan smiled faintly. “Your dialogue lacks grace and wit. It is a sophomoric verbal assault. Undoubtedly, it’s the reason you’re so quick to resort to physical violence.”
Marten’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one using genetically-warped policemen. I thought you Jovians had stopped using myrmidons. When did that change?”
Tan’s manner intensified as she stared at him.
It allowed Marten a good look at her eyes, at their dilatation. There was a glassy sheen to them, perhaps a side effect of the blue pill. It made him pause and wonder what it would be like orchestrating the war against the cyborgs. They were cunning, ruthless enemies. Yet Tan had made some brilliant guesses these past months, and she had outmaneuvered the guiding cyborg intelligence. Marten had never considered what that kind of high-level pressure might do to a person. He’d heard how the controllers of Europa and Ganymede constantly argued with Tan, and how the Helium-3 Barons tried to interfere with military matters.
“I congratulate you on your victory,” Marten said abruptly.
Tan appeared not to hear.
“The cyborgs were clever,” he added.
Leaning toward him, Tan clutched the table’s edge. “Clever, you say. They were brilliant.”
“Yet you beat them.”
A line creased Tan’s otherwise smooth forehead. It heightened her beauty. Then she eased back so she rested her butt on her heels. Turning her head, she looked at the golden lyre.
“They destroyed us,” she whispered. “They killed the most superior form of life in the Solar System, and by that I mean the Dictates. Yes, I crushed them as one would a spider. As the last philosopher-queen of Callisto, it was my solemn duty to do so. Yet what have I achieved? Renewed life of the perfected form?” She shook her head slowly.
“The war was brutal,” Marten said.
Tan stopped shaking her head to regard him. “Banality is your strong suit.”
“I thought it was being a killer.”
“A banal killer,” she said with a soft shrug.
“What’s wrong with you? You’ve just won a great victory. Now you sulk in your room and turn against your fellow soldiers.”
Something flashed in her eyes. “You dare to equate me with yourself? I belong to the philosophers. You are at best a guardian who cannot understand his place in the hierarchy. There is no equality between us.”
“Are you drunk?” asked Marten.
Tan made a sharp gesture. “I have enhanced my thinking. I see linkages between actions that are invisible to others.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Marten said. He adjusted his holster. “You know what I think.”
“Grace me with your wit,” she said.
“I think you’re trying to revive Callisto or these Dictates the only way possible now: through a military dictatorship. Which units landed on Athena Station? Did you hold back the ones with Callisto space marines?”<
br />
“How little you know.”
“You’re brilliant,” Marten said. “You’ve fought a grueling war against aliens of human devising. The cyborgs are a nightmare, and they’re merciless, more than willing to bring about our extinction. Your strategies checked them at every turn. I did some hard fighting, along with many others. Too many good men died implementing your orders.”
“The wisest should rule,” said Tan. “It is an axiom of inexorable truth.”
“Men should live free,” said Marten. “It’s what makes life worth living.”
“Ah, your quixotic belief,” said Tan.
“I’m not sure what that word means, but your tone, the myrmidons outside—you want to revive the old Callisto order.”
“Look around you, Marten Kluge.”
Marten glanced at the paintings on the walls.
“No,” she said. “That was a metaphorical phrase. How simple you really are, how direct and…barbaric.”
“What happened to you?” Marten asked. “You’ve changed.”
The glassy look to Tan’s eyes had grown. “I peered into the abyss, barbarian, into the future. I saw the cyborgs staring back at me—and no humans existed in that future.”
“We beat the cyborgs.”
“We defeated a small penetration raid into our system.”
“How do you know it was just a raid?” asked Marten.
“It is self-evident,” whispered Tan. She picked up the chalice, staring into the depths of the cup. “How does one face certain doom?” She shook her head. “I realized many months ago that I must retain full control of the Jovian moons, as only I possessed the insights, the sheer brain-power to counter cyborg brilliance. Strategically, there was only one manner in which I could do so.”
“You’re wrong,” Marten said.
Tan looked up, blinking. She seemed surprised to see him. “Wrong?” she said, as if tasting the word.
“You’re trying to re-forge the chains that bound the Jovians in servitude. Don’t you remember Force-Leader Yakov? He sacrificed his life so we could defeat the cyborgs on Carme. He didn’t sacrifice it so proud philosophers from Callisto could lord it over the people of Ganymede.”
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