Ninth Euclid's Prince

by Daniel M. Hoyt

  Fortunately, my Lord Oswald was too smart for Ogden’s fate. I managed his personal finances as well as the finances of his office, and we’d never been close to a deficit in all the time I’d been serving him. In fact, we ran a surplus — not so much of one, however, that New Rome felt the need to increase our tribute, which they did occasionally just to show the other planets that they could.

  Over the past few days, though, since the call from New Rome, we’d burned through a large chunk of the prince’s official discretionary surplus getting ready for the trip to New Rome. Because of the short time frame, we were running the palace all day and night, which meant increased costs.

  To complicate matters, we had no idea what was going on with any of the other heirs. I verified that Prince Vere was in New Rome, as my Lord had suspected, but beyond that I was unable to get any information at all. All of my usual sources were eerily silent, so I couldn’t ascertain if there were other heirs called to New Rome, although I suspect they would deny it even if it were true. On the good side, this uncharacteristic breakdown of the usually reliable grapevine meant that there was a good chance that rumors of my Lord’s call might not have made the rounds either.

  Tuesday evening rolled around with no new information, no change to the readiness, and several of the staff missing. One minute they were packing for our travel, the next they were nowhere to be found. I was on my way to report this new wrinkle to Lord Oswald when I was waylaid by Lady Redwing.

  “Oh, Euclid,” she said, fairly bubbling with enthusiasm. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  I stopped in my tracks at the sound of her voice and turned around, trying to look unfazed. “Lady Redwing, so nice to see you this evening.” Much as I hated to do it, I didn’t budge from my spot, lest she get the idea I had time to chat. My heart skipped a beat or two at her sight, but I swallowed my desire to offer her a smile.

  “Where should I have my things put?”

  I stared at her, confused. Her father’s butler, Foster, hovered nervously behind her. It was a wonder he found time to perform his duties at his master’s house.

  “On the starship, of course,” she continued, as if it were obvious. “For the trip to New Rome.” She sounded out each word individually, slowly.

  Understanding dawned. She expected to go with us. Of course she would expect it, given the relationship she thought she had with my Lord. Frankly, I’d forgotten completely about her in favor of all the preparations that needed to be made for our travel. Contrary to my own beliefs, I needed to thwart her as soon as possible.

  I walked over to her, took her hand in mine, and said soothingly, “The prince didn’t wish to endanger his precious Lady Redwing on such an arduous journey, full of unseen perils at every turn.”

  Now the lady stared at me, confused.

  I sighed. “You’re not expected, Lady Redwing.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, giggling. “Of course I’ll be going. Now, where shall I put my things?”

  “I’m sorry, Lady,” I said honestly, and turned away. As I retreated down the hallway, she threatened to take up the matter with Lord Oswald personally. Silently, I wished her luck. I was sure my Lord had no wish to be plagued by Lady Redwing on this particular trip.

  ***

  Sometime before the dawn on Wednesday, my Lord declared that we were ready to leave. The missing staff — which were part of the prince’s retinue — still hadn’t returned, but we couldn’t wait for them any longer and called for some Angels to help us out. At this point, we had only one ship capable of getting us to New Rome in time.

  Although the Mallard was the fastest ship in the prince’s stable, due to some rather expensive upgrades my Lord had installed on a whim — for which I’d chided him mercilessly at the time, but now thanked him for ignoring my pleas — it was also a real “bomb,” to borrow an Old Earth term regarding ancient vehicles. The Mallard was massive, the largest and one of the oldest, which meant we needed a full maintenance crew along for the ride.

  I knew something about maintaining old equipment. On my daddy’s farm, the other Euclids were all older, so they learned to run the harvesters before I did. When I was ten, I sat on the fence around the west field after my chores and watched them working in the dawn light, jealous of their big machines. I had seen them work the controls before and was convinced I could do it, too. One day, I sneaked behind the north barn, intent on proving it.

  Old Winslow was a big thresher, used for the wheat that we had grown before the research my daddy requested from me necessitating better paying crops. Since the changeover, Old Winslow sat behind the barn, rusting, which was just as well with Fourth Euclid, who said it had a finicky starter and didn’t like driving in a straight line. Sixth Euclid, who understood me a little better, pointed out the old engine used a far more expensive type of fuel, too, making it cheaper to buy a new one.

  My mind made up, I ignored my brothers’ warnings and managed to fire up the big thresher on the first try, which led me to dismiss Fourth’s comments wholesale. I reconsidered them once I got Old Winslow moving, though, as it lurched away from the barn and promptly cut an arc through the new vineyard, the one bearing grapes for the first time that year, with me at the controls, desperately trying to stop it. Second Euclid came running as soon as he heard the shouting from the hired pickers, scrambling to get out of the way of Old Winslow’s spinning blades. He vaulted up to the controls in one giant leap and pounded on the side before punching the starter button off. The engine sputtered and belched black smoke before a tremendous shake threw me to the ground. Second jumped down, eyes red with rage, and gave me such a beating I still can’t sit down whenever I think of it.

  Since that time, I didn’t trust old machines that needed constant maintenance, like the Mallard. To add to my anxiety, its stardrive was the most costly to operate, which meant this trip could force us to dip into the prince’s personal funds.

  “Ready, Euclid?” Lord Oswald had crept up behind me, trying to surprise me while I stared blankly at the big starship. Catching me off guard was a favorite pastime of his.

  I was so engrossed in my thoughts, I didn’t jump at the sudden sound of his voice. “All except for the pilot,” I answered smoothly, without turning around, “who was due here an hour ago.”

  The prince stood beside me and frowned. We both stared at the Mallard for a while, while the Angels — a couple dozen with minor transgressions that General Zanuck has assigned to the prince for this voyage instead of the normal punitive duty — lugged containers on board.

  “Did I ever tell you,” said Lord Oswald, “that I used to pilot starships?”

  I turned my head slowly to look at him. Was he serious? Starship pilots had a good six years of training. When did he find the time for that along with all of his other adventures?

  “I took out the Mallard here on her maiden voyage. It’s a manual, you know. I know those controls like the back of my hand.” He started for the hatch; I was so stunned that he made it to the hatch before I thought to run after him, yelling at the nearest Angel to get everyone on board immediately.

  He stormed straight to the pilot’s chair and sat down. “Yeah, sure, that’s right,” he mumbled as he flicked controls all about the console. “Right; now I remember.”

  A grinding sound grated directly below us, and the lights flickered twice.

  “Everybody aboard?” Lord Oswald asked, then added, “Let’s go,” without waiting for an answer.

  I jumped into the co-pilot’s chair, simply because it was the first one I saw that had restraints. If he really was going to take the Mallard out, I wanted to be strapped in as tightly as possible. Cinching the restraints so tightly I was afraid I might make my kidneys bleed, I clamped shut my eyes, willfully ignoring the open hatch warning light blinking on the console. His Angels were reliable; they’d be on board before he could actually take off, surely.

  The ship shuddered, and for a second I thought I was back on Old Winslow. When I opened m
y eyes, I half expected to find my nose in the squashed grapes, but I didn’t see anything. The lights were out completely.

  “Hmm,” my Lord said in the blackness. Dull curses drummed through the thin walls of the starship. “Somebody must’ve upgraded it since I last flew it.”

  “Indeed,” I said, somewhat sarcastically, before I could stop myself. “I think we should get back outside.”

  “Good idea,” he said, and we felt our way back down the corridor and followed the dim glow of light from the still-open hatch, whose warning my Lord had ignored.

  Once outside, neither of said a word for a long time. The power of speech had not yet returned to me, and would have been hindered by my heart beating in my throat, anyway.

  Fortunately, I was spared the embarrassment of engaging in silly small talk to break the silence by the clanging of alarms. In the prince’s private jumpport, any kind of alarm is taken seriously, but this particular alarm indicated that a rogue ship was trying to land without permission.

  The port master’s voice boomed throughout the jumpport, “Crash imminent, crash imminent, take cover, take cover.”

  So the rogue wasn’t just landing without permission, it was crashing without permission. An unusual development, to be sure, but certainly not my main concern at the moment. My priority was to make sure the prince got to safety. Ducking into a blast-proof room, along with a couple soldiers who’d ventured outside directly behind us, we braced for the inevitable explosion.

  A few minutes later, we were still waiting, and our tiny room had filled to capacity with the rest of the Angels. The room comlink sparked to life, and the port master’s hologram appeared inside. “Prince Oswald,” he said, bowing low. “We have a situation here I think you need to see. Is it possible for you to meet me in the bay?”

  The prince looked at me instead of answering the port master, apparently expecting me to ascertain the level of danger in the port master’s request.

  “What happened to the rogue ship?” I asked, my eyes locked on the prince, who still stared at me.

  The port master fidgeted. “It was a jumper. Landed on autopilot; no response to our hails.”

  I continued staring at the prince. “Then what’s in the bay, Master?”

  “That’s the problem,” the port master said. “The jumper landed okay, but the pilot’s dead. Has been for a while, too. Broken neck. I really think you should come and see.”

  My eyebrow raised itself of its own accord. Why was he so anxious for the prince to come down personally? “We have more pressing matters to deal with right now. Take care of it.” He waved at the Angels; four left, leaving us some more breathing room. “I’ll look into it when we get back. We need to leave for New Rome immediately — once our pilot arrives, that is.”

  The port master looked surprised. “He already has. That’s the problem. The Mallard pilot was in the rogue.”

  A knot in the pit of my stomach twisted into my liver. We had come down to the wire and had very little spare time before we’d have to leave just to make it there on time. And now we’d need to find another pilot who had some experience with manual controls. I opened the door and we all piled out of the room, headed for the bay, but we were forced to wait outside, since the transparent blast screens weren’t yet retracted.

  A smile played across my Lord’s lips as he regarded the Mallard with the same expression he used on horses before he broke them.

  I panicked, glancing between my Lord’s calm assurance and the old bucket waiting in the bay. Even if he could pilot the thing — an assumption which had yet to be proved — I wasn’t sure that my internal organs would survive the trip. There was only one sane solution; I needed to find another pilot, and quickly.

  I looked around at the remaining Angels. “Any of you pilots?” I asked, hopefully. To a man, they glanced away and looked busy.

  Lord Oswald was, I was sure, about to say something I’d regret when an explosion buckled the Mallard, spraying bits of the old starship against the blast screen. I dove to the floor out of reflex. Despite the rational knowledge that the blast screens would protect me, instinct took over when I saw a seat restraint bulleting toward my head.

  I had no way of knowing for sure, but I swear the burning remains of a sky blue suit — that matched my hair exactly — slamming against the blast screen just before I struck the floor was the suit I had planned to wear on our arrival in New Rome.

  But that didn’t matter any more, now that we no longer had a starship capable of getting to New Rome in time.

  Chapter 4

  Redwing's Rescue

  WE WATCHED THE MALLARD BURN. With only some of the wreckage smoldering, most of it was still flaming and more explosions rocked the ship whenever some vital system or another overheated. It was clear that we weren’t going to be able to take any ship out of the prince’s jumpport. Sour bile climbed my throat.

  We weren’t going to make it to New Rome.

  Despite the grapevine’s previous silence, I didn’t think this kind of bad news would escape notice. Within hours, it would be clear to the rest of the empire that the prince wouldn’t make it to New Rome. Shortly after that, it would be an established fact that Prince Oswald was no longer in the emperor’s good graces.

  “Euclid?”

  “Yes, my Lord,” I said.

  “I don’t think the Mallard’s going to make it to New Rome.”

  I stared at Lord Oswald.

  His lips twitched at the corners, as if invisible strings tugged on them in opposite directions. His lips parted, trembling, and finally his laughter exploded in one long, loud barrage. I was sure the echoes could be heard in the corridors opposite us, at the other end of the bay where the Mallard burned steadily.

  “Brilliant, isn’t it?” Lord Oswald glanced at me.

  I wasn’t sure what he found funny in the tragedy, much less brilliant. I decided to remain silent.

  “Think about it, my boy,” he said. “Somebody murdered our pilot and then sent him to us special delivery. Why?”

  I thought about it. Why, indeed? Why kill the pilot; why not kill the prince himself? Was the demise of the Mallard an attempt on the prince’s life? Or was it just a warning shot?

  In all the years I’d spent in the prince’s service, I’d been the best secretary I knew how to be. I’d organized and administered the prince’s palace to a state of efficiency it had never seen. But in all that time, I’d never quite grasped the court politics that ruled Prince Oswald’s life. Oasis politics had steadfast rules and bizarre exceptions, just like New Rome, but they were rules and exceptions that my Lord and I had created. I understood Oasis. But New Rome was another animal altogether, with its bones rooted in traditions more ancient than I could comprehend, and its meat attached in ways that I couldn’t explain. New Rome was an enigma.

  “Start with the basics,” my Lord Oswald said impatiently. “Why blow up the Mallard?”

  “To kill you?”

  Lord Oswald nodded thoughtfully. “Possibly. But probably not. It wasn’t a direct attempt. The bomber couldn’t predict that I’d be on that particular ship at that particular time.”

  “Right,” I said, continuing the prince’s line of reasoning. “And if we’d gotten away earlier, we expected to take one of the newer ships, so blowing up the Mallard would be silly when we’d be halfway to New Rome on another ship.”

  “If we were late,” the prince said, “we’d be forced to take the Mallard, but then why not set the bomb to go off after we launched, when I’d be sure to be on board? No, I don’t think the idea was kill me.”

  I nodded. “Assuming the bomb would remain undetected before liftoff, that is. Since that’s not a likely case, the bomber had to know we’d be relying on the Mallard, but not yet have launched her. And the only way to ensure we were still here instead of on our way would be—”

  “—to kill our pilot,” my Lord finished, “so we’d still be waiting when the bomb went off.” He looked smug, but also expe
ctant, clearly waiting for me to reason out the next step.

  But why send the murdered pilot to the jumpport?

  I scanned the bay monitors for a minute, searching for the rogue spaceship the pilot had arrived in, before I realized that the initial explosion had come from the far side of the Mallard, over by the quarantined area where the rogue ship should have been, but was curiously missing. There was, however, a burned blast pattern emanating from a spot in that area that was exactly the size of a personal jumper.

  “The bomb was on the pilot’s jumper,” I said, nodding with comprehension.

  “Which is now vaporized, along with the pilot. And no way to find out who was behind this.”

  I had to agree; the situation was brilliant — for an heir to the empire that wanted to eliminate a rival while minimizing his chances of detection.

  The prince was effectively cut out of the succession race if he failed to appear in New Rome in two days, and his unknown enemy managed to make that probability more likely without the inherent risk of a raid on the prince’s personal jumpport. Most of the other heirs — especially the now-dead ones — had poor defenses, but everyone in the emperor’s court knew that to breach my Lord’s jumpport meant tangling with his fearsome Angels.

  On the other hand, if by some miracle Prince Oswald managed to make it to New Rome despite the present obstacles to his success, then he certainly knew he’d be a target for a future assassination attempt. As there’d certainly been a lot of heirs going missing these days, it stood to reason that he’d try to stay a little closer to home in the future, safe in the arms of the Angels. From what I had managed to glean about New Rome’s politics, that would be fatal to his succession chances as well.

  To be fair, I’m not convinced the prince actually had much of a desire to rule the empire, but it was a well-known fact that the first official act a new emperor generally sought was to eliminate his dangerous competition — and a prince with fairly close blood ties is always dangerous.