The Knights of the Black Earth

by Margaret Weis; Don Perrin

  Interesting. And, yes, damn it, it was like Rowan. Always trying to put some sort of cosmic spin on every ball, whether he sank it or not. Seeing himself as a god. Saving the world. But he’d gone too far. Decided he was above the law; above the ordinary, the little people. Above honor, friendship, loyalty.... Yeah, it figured, Xris tried to tell himself.

  Except it didn’t. Not Rowan.

  Xris glared at the file, frustrated. He’d come expecting answers to his questions. More that, really, than expecting to find Rowan. If I could just understand...

  “So, you know where he ... she lives . . . his . . . her place of employment?” Xris found this all very confusing.

  “In the file.”

  The cyborg glanced through, gave a low whistle.

  “Now you see my problem,” Wiedermann remarked. “I don’t give a damn about the bureau. I don’t want trouble from the Royal Navy.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Xris conceded.

  Nine years ago, the galaxy had been under the control of powerful Warlords, who had each ruled his or her sector of space with enormous battle cruisers, destroyers, spaceplane carriers, fleets of spaceplanes. Since the return of the king, the Royal Navy was now the most powerful force in the universe—a force to be reckoned with, run by a man Xris knew well. Knew and admired. Lord of the Admiralty, Sir John Dixter.

  Xris had worked for both Dion Starfire—now His Majesty the king—and John Dixter in the past. The cyborg tapped the paper with a finger, frowned. He didn’t particularly like crossing swords with either Dion or Sir John on this one. Still, it couldn’t be helped.

  I’ll have to be extra careful, that’s all.

  “Employee of ‘RFComSec,’ “ Xris read. “What the hell is that?”

  “Royal Fleet Communications Security Establishment. We’re not certain, of course, but we figure it deals with coded transmissions ship-to-ship, and such like. Mohini lives on base in secure accommodations. The base itself is classified, off limits to unauthorized personnel. We couldn’t even find out where it was located.”

  “Ideal,” Xris remarked dryly.

  “Certainly. Mohini has the entire Royal Navy to protect her. And they probably don’t even know they’re doing it. As I said, she was able to obtain security clearance. Probably low-level. We couldn’t find out precisely what she does. Her job description reads ‘CCA-2 FCWing.’ “

  “Any guesses?”

  “Clerical work, maybe. We have no idea what CCA stands for, but a level-two employee—if that’s what CCA-2 means—is usually pretty far down on the scale, wouldn’t be likely to have top-security clearance, for example.”

  Rowan, a clerk. Xris tried to imagine him ... her crunching numbers, tagging files, maybe doing a little programming for variety....

  He felt unaccountably sick inside; was almost sorry, at this point, that he’d gone through with this. He chewed the last bit of twist, swallowed the acrid tobacco juice, looked for someplace to deposit the wad. Wiedermann indicated a trash disposer unit on one side of the desk. Xris dumped the wad, picked up his file, prepared to leave. He needed to be out in the fresh air, needed to be by himself, needed to think.

  “What do I owe you?”

  Wiedermann rose to his feet. He was taller than Xris had supposed, tall and excessively thin. When the detective stood, his shoulders slumped forward, his chest caved in.

  “We’ll send you our bill. It was a pleasure working on your case. A real puzzle. Your friend Rowan was clever, very clever. He didn’t make many mistakes.”

  Just one, Xris thought. He left me alive.

  “Do you know how we finally got on to him?” Wiedermann was prattling on. “His medical insurance forms. They’re still on file. By law, you have to keep them on file for a certain number of years. I don’t suppose you ever thought of looking at those?”

  Xris had no comment, but he made a mental reminder of this slipup. Medical insurance. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Probably the same company, the same policy that had covered him, obtained through the bureau. Rowan had never been sick a day in his life, but still ...

  “One of our operatives noticed your friend had been under treatment by a doctor during the trial. Could have been stress; probably what people were told. But in checking through the insurance files, our agent discovered that the doctor was administering a drug at frequent intervals. Except the drug wasn’t a stress drug. Hormone shots. Female hormones. They have to inject the hormones several months in advance of the surgery. Swells the breasts, among other changes. Prepares the body and the mind, you see.”

  Xris didn’t want to see. He wished Wiedermann would shut up. The cyborg edged his way toward the door.

  Wiedermann trailed along behind. “Once we’d gone that far, the rest was easy. Then we ran into the death certificate. A nice touch. Almost stopped us cold.”

  It stopped Xris. He turned, stared.

  “It was in the hospital computer,” Wiedermann explained. “Dalin Rowan died on the operating table. Date, time. We nearly lost him there, but I figured out what he must have done. Dalin Rowan died the day Darlene Mohini was born. I knew what to look for and, sure enough, I found it—a woman checking out of that hospital who had never checked in. I included a copy of the death certificate for you. It’s in the file. Thought you might be amused.”

  A death certificate. Rowan had written his own death certificate. Well, maybe that made things easier.

  Xris reached the outer office, negotiated his way around the boxes of ancient, forgotten records of ancient, forgotten cases. He and Wiedermann shook hands. Wiedemann’s grip was cold and damp, fishlike. Xris didn’t prolong the good-byes. He stood outside the closed door. Opening the file, he located the death certificate, stared at it, not really seeing it.

  He was back inside that hospital. Back inside the nights, inside the terrible pain. Back inside the days, learning how to walk, talk, see, hear . .. live all over again.

  If you could call it living.

  He snapped the file shut, was about to continue on his way out of the building when the door popped open.

  “Oh, by the way”—Wiedermann peered out—”when you see Darlene Mohini, you might mention that if we were able to find her, so could others. Like the Hung. Her cover’s blown. She’s in real danger. You’ll be sure to tell her that, won’t you?”

  “Yeah,” said Xris, shifting the file to his cybernetic hand, getting a secure grip on it. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

  Chapter 7

  The Way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership, so that they will share death and share life, without fear of danger.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  The large, private spacegoing vessel left Laskar at a leisurely speed. The ship—a typical research model, known as Canis Major Research I—was not supposed to be equipped to make the jump to hyperspace. Such modifications to university research ships were extremely expensive, generally unnecessary, and would have excited comment, required the need for explanations. As it was, the killers were able to slip off Laskar quietly, orbital-traffic control giving them bored clearance.

  Inside a small room on board the ship, one of the four men— the one who had murdered Bosk—sat in front of a computer terminal. He was working on the terminal and at the same time speaking into a commlink. He stopped both when the hatch slid open and one of his subordinates entered.

  “Knight Officer. I’ve monitored Laskar’s evening’s news, sir.”

  “Yes, and—?”

  “The fire destroyed the building completely. A single body was discovered in the wreckage. The body was burned beyond recognition, but only one tenant remains unaccounted for and it is presumed that the body is that of an Adonian known as Bosk. The fire was suspicious in origin, believed to have started in the apartment of the dead man. He was known to have ties with the mob. Neighbors reported that four men—armed—paid the deceased a visit shortly before the fire broke out. They described the vehicle the suspects were dri
ving. It was discovered abandoned a short time later, stripped and burned.”

  “The local authorities are satisfied that it was the mob?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Case closed, then.”

  “I would say so. Yes, sir. The Laskar police will not get involved in mob business.”

  “Very good. Tell Knight Officer Captain he may depart when ready.”

  The subordinate nodded, departed.

  The leader returned to work.

  “You heard his report, Knight Commander?” the leader asked over the comm.

  “Satisfactory. Continue. What is it you have found?”

  The voice at the other end of the commlink was laconic, crisp, and obviously belonged to a machine. The speaker entered his or her words into the computer, the computer spoke them aloud. No one, not even the highest-ranking officer of the knighthood—of which Bosk’s killer was one—ever heard the Knight Commander’s voice. No one had ever seen the Knight Commander. No one knew his or her real name. All information was exchanged via commlink—voice only.

  “Contrary to initial reports, Commander, it appears from Ohme’s files that he actually constructed a working model of the negative wave device.”

  “Indeed.”

  “The device was crude, apparently, but operational. Ohme’s records indicate that he performed a test on a living subject. And that the test was successful.”

  “A living subject.” Knight Commander mused. “How is this possible? He wouldn’t have dared test it on Derek Sagan. And if I’m not mistaken, there were no other Blood Royal known to exist at the time.”

  “That is true, Commander. This was just prior to Sagan’s discovery of the whereabouts of the young king. Snaga Ohme did not have a Blood Royal on which to test his device, but that presented no problem for him. He couldn’t find a true Blood Royal and so he created one. If you will recall, sir, Ohme had an extensive collection of weapons dating back to ancient times. Appropriate for a weapons dealer.

  “Among his collection was a bloodsword. According to the notation in Ohme’s catalog, the bloodsword was obtained during the Revolution, when most of the Blood Royal were eradicated. Inside this sword are the micromachines that are injected into the body of the Blood Royal when they insert the sword’s needles into their hands. These micromachines connect the body and brain with the sword and are used to activate both the sword and its shielding device. A certain amount of these micromachines remain in the bloodstream and are activated every time the sword is used.

  “Ohme removed the fluid containing these micromachines from the bloodsword and injected that fluid into his test subject. He then used the newly created negative wave device on the subject and recorded the results.”

  “Was the subject aware he or she was being used for such purposes?”

  “According to Ohme’s account, no, the subject was not aware. Ohme feared that the subject’s awareness might influence the test results.”

  “He was probably right. Did the subject die?”

  “No, Commander. Ohme didn’t want to kill the subject, who might prove useful to him later. Ohme wanted to study the effects of the device on the micromachines in the subject’s bloodstream.”

  “How did Ohme manage to keep such an experiment on the subject secret?” The mechanical voice held no inflection, but the officer could discern that his superior was skeptical.

  “The subject was a male, in his late twenties, and, according to the record, a Loti.”

  “Slang term for habitual drug user, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Yes, Knight Commander.”

  “An expression that has its roots on Earth. The fruit of the lotus or lotophagi, as the Greeks termed it, was supposed to induce in those who ate it a state of dreamy forgetfulness, a loss of desire to return home. One might almost consider the entire human race as lotus-eaters. But they will remember their home.” The voice was soft, ominous. “We will make them remember.”

  A pause, then the voice returned to business. “Surely such a heavy drug user as a Loti would be an inappropriate candidate for testing?”

  “Ohme recognized this problem, sir, but determined that the drugs in the subject’s system would have no influence on the micromachines and vice versa. It appears, from my preliminary investigation of the files, that Ohme was correct.”

  The Knight Commander was not convinced. “Ohme was a genius, there is no doubt about that, but he did not possess the patience and meticulous mind of a good researcher. He obviously chose this Loti because the man was convenient and not liable to ask questions. However, we must work with what we have. What were the results of his experiment?”

  “Unfortunately, Commander, the exact results of the test are not recorded in the files. The last entry is dated the day on which Ohme was murdered. It reads, ‘The experiment has been highly successful.’ Nothing more. Bosk makes some attempt to fill in the experiment’s results, but he was not in Ohme’s complete confidence. Careful analysis proves that Bosk knew very little; most of what he added was mere speculation gained from observing the test subject, who lived and worked in Ohme’s mansion.”

  Silence from the commlink. Then, “There is nothing more?”

  “No, Knight Commander.”

  “Are you certain, Knight Officer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn!” said the Commander. “We need more information!”

  Silence. The Knight Officer, having nothing further to contribute, maintained disciplined quiet. He made no suggestion as to their next course of action, would make none unless he was asked. Looking out the viewscreen, he watched the planet Laskar dwindle to a small green marble.

  A wretched planet, corrupt, vile, he thought. But really no different from countless others in the galaxy. Humanity trashes its home, flees it, seeks out others, and ends up destroying them. It is only a matter of time before it will all end out here. Then the swarm of humanity will turn their faces homeward again. Then they will come to us and say humbly, “We are sorry.” ...

  “It would be extremely valuable to us”—the Commander spoke suddenly and abruptly, startling the Knight Officer—”if we could get our hands on the test subject.”

  “Yes, Commander.” The officer brought up the file containing information on the Loti. “Bosk had the same idea, apparently. He began to search for the man, but only in the most desultory and haphazard fashion. He soon gave up. The subject is an Adonian, as was Snaga Ohme. You are familiar with the Adonians, Commander?”

  “A degenerate race of people who live solely for their own pleasure and gratification. Intelligent, charming, and completely amoral. Ohme was typical of his breed. I suppose this Loti is another?”

  “A hired assassin, Commander. Specializing in chemical poisonings, as one might expect from someone who is dependent on chemicals. Ohme kept this Loti around to perform ‘odd’ jobs now and then. Ohme surrounded himself with his fellow Adonians. Bosk was another.”

  “As a race, Adonians are extremely attractive—the men and the women. Snaga Ohme could not stand to be long in the presence of an ugly person. The only thing that overcame his squeamishness on this point was money. Continue, Knight Officer.”

  “Yes, sir. This Loti had other advantages. He is firm friends— has an almost symbiotic relationship—with an empath.”

  “Not unusual,” remarked the Commander. “Empaths enjoy being around Loti because their drug-induced tranquillity is rarely disturbed and thus the empath is not subject to disturbing emotions.”

  “The two were rarely apart, according to Ohme’s notes. The Loti is the only one who can understand the empath. He acted as a sort of translator whenever Ohme needed to know what someone was thinking or feeling.”

  “What race is the empath?”

  “Bosk claims no one knows. The empath was always cloaked in some sort of disguise. No one ever saw the face. Ohme had no interest in trying to find out.”

  “So long as the empath proved useful, Snaga Ohme wouldn’
t care.”

  “On studying the empath’s description, Commander, I think it probable that we are dealing with a Tongan.”

  The Knight Commander was silent again.

  “I have examined all the facts, Knight Commander. The empath is extremely short in stature. He is always disguised, which indicates that there is something unusual about his features or his body, and the Tongans as a race are as ugly as the Adonians are beautiful. He appears to have not only empathic abilities but telepathic abilities as well. Tongans are the only race to meet all these requirements.”

  “You know, of course, Knight Officer, that Tongans are forbidden on pain of death from leaving their home world?”

  “All the more reason for the disguise, sir.”

  “Perhaps you are right. At any rate, such an unusual pair would be fairly easy to track.”

  “Bosk had no difficulty, at first. He and the Loti kept in contact. Both of them were eager to avenge Ohme’s death. But whereas Bosk had determined that Ohme was murdered by Derek Sagan, the Loti was following a different theory. He was convinced that the murderer was a man known as Abdiel. Following this theory, the Loti worked in the Exile Cafe on Hell’s Outpost, figuring that either Abdiel or someone who knew the old man’s whereabouts must come to this place eventually. The last message Bosk received from him, the Loti was joining up with the late Lady Maigrey Morianna. They planned on entering the Corasian system—”

  “So,” said the Knight Commander, “the Loti was part of that small band of heroes. His Majesty owes both his throne and his life to them. Their leader was a cyborg—a rather unusual cyborg, as I recall.”

  “I have no information on that, sir,” the officer admitted.

  He was not surprised that these facts were known to the commander. The Knight Commander knew every prominent and/or infamous person in the galaxy; he was familiar with the political situations on innumerable major planets; he was privy to knowledge not readily accessible to ordinary citizens of the realm. Once, when the officer had first joined up with the organization, he had used such clues in an attempt to puzzle out the Knight Commander’s true identity. That had been almost twenty years ago. Now the officer—a true fanatic—no longer knew or cared. He revered. And obeyed.