The Centurion's Empire

by Sean McMullen

"If you will permit me, Sir Peter," said Gulden after clearing his throat. Burgess turned away from the Durvas panorama and glared at him.

  "Well, Dr. Gulden, what have you found in the medical database?"

  "Many puzzles, sir, but solutions as well. Much of it was obvious, I can't understand why Dr. McLaren didn't—"

  "Solutions?" said Burgess hor«fully. "As in reviving the Centurion?"

  "No, solutions in terms of massive, massive imprint exchange and new fixation techniques. Icekeeper McLaren was part of this conspiracy too, and his research notes show that he was experimenting with a method of imprint buffering that involved double brain imprinting from massive data buffers. His doctorate was in imprint systems analysis, as you must recall, so he was well qualified for such work. You had better sit down before I tell you the rest." Dellar glared at him. "Cheap dramatics are for interactive soap holodramas. Get to the point."

  "Lord Wallace was having a large-scale gating and imprint therapy done on his son." Dellar sneered. "That's well known, he spent a large part of his personal fortune on the work." His reaction disappointed Gulden, who snatched up a vid board and glanced at the next item on his list.

  "Robert Wallace's comatose body is not accounted for."

  "Yet. That may just be security arrangements."

  "I'm working on the search," added Burgess.

  "So, are there any other bombshells to be uncovered?" Dellar asked Gulden.

  "Just one," replied Gulden, keying his vid board to display a report on the wallscreen. It contained scans of a human body with areas enhanced by knots of false color. "One fact that I can be sure of is that the body of the Centurion was not at all healthy, even before it was mangled."

  His voice was sharp and his words clipped. His pride had been stung, and he was a very proud man. Dellar blinked. "Few medieval people were ever particularly healthy," he ventured cautiously.

  "Quite so, but whatever the cause, that body's immune system is severely depressed. There are strong concentrations of cancer-inhibiting drugs and viral carriers in his bloodstream, and a lot a small tumors. A more thorough scan that I have planned for tomorrow will probably reveal that he had terminal cancer."

  "Terminal cancer?" echoed Dellar, his voice drained of intonation.

  "I suggest that we send a team to where the Centurion lay from 1358," Gulden continued. "The natural radioactivity in rocks near where he was frozen may have given him accumulated tissue damage during his six hundred years of suspended animation. I am an experienced doctor, and I have seen patients in this sort of condition about four to six years after massive radiation exposure. In my professional opinion, Sir Peter, the late Icekeeper McLaren knew that the Centurion was dying, yet kept him unfrozen and comatose for at least five years, maybe six."

  "Why?" asked the marshal, when Dellar did no more than press his lips together and stare at the floor.

  "Indeed, why?" replied Gulden, sharply. "It seems that I am not the only person on the Corporate with little need to know whatever is to be known. The key areas of McLaren's records are so heavily encrypted that it may take months of processing to decode them, but my overall impression is that my predecessor was conducting a massive, massive imprinting experiment with Lord Wallace, Robert Wallace, and the Centurion."

  The Icekeeper's final bombshell did indeed make an impression on Sir Peter Dellar. The muscles of his face sagged and he swayed on his feet. Dragging his feet along the carpet, he walked to a chair and flopped down listlessly.

  "What do we put in the report to London?" asked Burgess, who was also too weary to think straight by now.

  "Lord Wallace and William Anderson can be part of the report, but the Centurion's body has no place there. It was not mentioned as a casualty in any attack, and it was not directly involved in yesterday's intrusion, was it?"

  "Are we stalling for time, do we have anything to hope for?" asked Dellar desperately.

  "Yes and yes," replied Gulden. "I swear it as the Icekeeper of Durvas." A t l a n t a , G e o r g i a : 3 0 J a n u a r y 2 0 2 9 , A n n o D o m i n i Bonhomme had been in a strangely exhilarated mood for some hours. His handlers were pleased, as the great prophet from the past had just endured a week of black moods of despair and had refused to speak to anyone. Public appearances had been canceled, and the media were making their inevitable speculations. Paparazzi were loitering in increasing numbers with their high-tech cameras and intrusion drones, a sure sign that a scandal was suspected.

  "I shall need a gun today," Bonhomme declared as casually and brightly as if ordering a white shirt. "Have it keyed to my palmprint so that I may shoot it, and it must shoot bullets that annihilate."

  The gun was fetched, and Bonhomme fired several test shots from the Lanther tumble-shot into the wall of his hotel suite. They tore gaping, jagged holes in the plaster and he declared himself satisfied. His startled handlers had witnessed stranger behavior from him, however, and they thought little of it as a Luministe security team swept them away to an Atlanta stadium and the massed eyes, holonodes, and cameras waiting there. The gun would be part of some brilliant lesson in faith, they told each other. They were not wrong.

  Across the continent, on a Los Angeles sidewalk, Vitellan sat hunched over his handheld television. The scratched LED

  screen was only inches from his nose and Bon-homme's words were a tinny cackle in his earpiece, with no overtones or bass. He was standing on a wide, white podium of marble, holding a short-recoil Lanther TS in one hand and gesturing with the other.

  "And to me is said 'Give us a sign,' just as was said to Christ in the time that I was born. I say unto you, have faith! Do you have faith?"

  A vast rumble of voices echoed back, "We have faith!" "Do you see the light?" the prophet from the past cried. "We see the light" overloaded Vitellan's earpiece. Bonhomme held the gun aloft. The crowd was silent at once.

  "Our good lord Jesus Christ did give a sign, as you will recall from the Gospels. He died, and he rose from the dead after three days. I will give you just such a sign, in His very name. Do you believe?"

  "We believe!"

  "Then stay, keep a vigil for three days with me. Keep my body undisturbed where it falls, call cameras to stay, for on the third day from this moment I shall get to my feet and stand before you.

  "Will you help me witness to the world?"

  "We will help you!"

  "Do you believe?"

  "We believe!"

  Bonhomme raised the gun to his right temple in a smooth, sweeping gesture and fired. His head burst, and he collapsed to the marble.

  Vitellan gasped, then swore in Latin and Old English. The subsequent screams and rioting went on for some minutes, but the Luministes had good crowd control at their rallies and Bonhomme's body lay undisturbed where it had fallen. The vigil began for the miracle on the third day.

  Durvas, Britain: 2 February 2029, Anno Domini

  An emergency sitting of the Village Corporate of Durvas confirmed Dellar as their new chief executive, and Burgess as the new marshal. Burgess was puzzled as he walked back to his office. He had been the deputy marshal during two massive security breaches, yet these had apparently been overlooked in the voting.

  As was to be expected, the dashpad in what was now his office was flashing for attention. He ordered it into display mode and piped it through to his desk hologram projector. A cartoon billboard materialized in midair and he filtered the messages. Lucel's name stood out as he paged through a

  score of reports. Informants had tentatively placed her everywhere from Antarctica to Finland. He stopped at a display form that profiled a suspect landing at Gatwick Airport. She was a nightmare, Burgess fumed as he worked. With her the Luministes could hit Durvas at will, the Centurion's city would never be more than a spear carrier in the world's history—he caught himself and straightened, clenched fists sliding along his desk with a loud squeaking. Never give up, he told himself. Fight back, get out of your office, disguise your movements, be a real agent again.
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  "Beatrix, come in here for a moment," he said to the pickup that shimmered at the left-hand corner of his desk. The oak panel door to his left swung open.

  "Book me on a flight to the Canary Islands tomorrow, Bea. Spread the word discreetly that I need a holiday—"

  "So will Beatrix, when she wakes up."

  The marshal's head jerked around, and he instantly noted both Lucel's mocking smile and a rail pistol.

  "Just stand up slowly and walk around to one of those giltwood chairs," she ordered.

  "I've already pressed the security pedal, the guards are on their way."

  "Then I suggest you piss them off again—if you want to hear about how Lord Wallace was imprinting himself on the Centurion."

  Burgess goggled at her, then looked down at the rail pistol again. If she had wanted him dead, he would be dead by now.

  "Security! Kill that alert," he snapped to his desk manager, then ordered the desk to switch into dormant mode. He walked warily around to where Lucel had already seated herself.

  "Were you behind that attack on the Deep Frigidarium?" he asked, his teeth barely moving.

  "As it happens, not quite. I offered, but was turned down." ,

  "Then who? Was it the Luministes?" "No."

  "We are running out of interested parties, Ms. Hunter." "The Houston Ward Lords and the American branch of the Yakuza both had a grudge. Two of their best doctors and several hundred other folk of varying rank were killed under Durvas orders. Lord Wallace was covering some very suspicious tracks. He was being a little clumsy about it, though: America is not his turf, and he did not realize how easy it is to antagonize some very dangerous and resourceful people."

  "Impossible," said the marshal smugly. "Anything like that would have come through me first."

  "Wrong. Lord Wallace arranged it himself, merely by applying money. He bought contract hit squads through the Luministe accounts."

  "Impossible," the marshal -sighed again, confident that she was lying.

  "I'm a Luministe agent—and traitor," she admitted. "I was in a position to know, and I was able to give the Ward Lords and the Yakuza a very convincing audit trail."

  She suddenly smiled broadly, as if she had just taught a very important lesson to a very slow child. The marshal's calm had vanished, but he was unable to articulate his fury.

  "They paid me a fortune," Lucel continued, "yet all that I had wanted to do in the first place was kill Lord Wallace. Kooky world, don't you think?"

  "Who the hell are you really working for?" shouted the marshal, standing up and knocking his chair over. "The Luministes?"

  "No. / am working for Vitellan, the Eternal Centurion of Durvas. True, I have made use of the Luministes for a long time. They're awfully earnest, just like all other religious folk that I've met."

  The marshal picked up his chair and sat down again. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the armrests so tightly that the joints creaked.

  "Lady, I'm rather strung out and probably in a fairly psychotic state just now. Just stop these fucking riddles and come to the point. Why are you here?"

  "Whatever I say, you are not going to believe me," Lucel declared coyly, settling back in her chair and crossing her legs.

  "As soon as I've said my piece it will be splat!" She fired the rail pistol with a sharp clack. It struck a charcoal portrait of the late Lord Wallace squarely between the eyes.

  "Hey! That's a Breugon original, it cost a hundred thousand—"

  "Compared to what his Lordship did to Vitellan, that's nothing. Dr. Gulden, you can come in now!" she called. Gulden entered with the missing director of surgery, Cas-sion. The Icekeeper was holding a command remote and Cassion was wearing a penal control collar.

  "Dr. Cassion and I had a little talk with the Icekeeper last night," Lucel began to explain, but Burgess shouted her down.

  "Gulden! You knew about this, you sat through an entire meeting of the Village Corporate without telling me anything!"

  "My loyalty is to the Centurion, not you," said Gulden tersely.

  "The point is that the Icekeeper of Durvas thinks that I am worth a fair hearing," Lucel cut in as Burgess was drawing breath. "Dr. Cassion, would you say your piece, please?"

  The director of surgery seemed uninjured, yet he was pale and haggard. When he spoke the stress was evident in his voice.

  "Marshal, what she says ... is true," he said slowly. Burgess waited, but Cassion just stood staring blankly, his eyes slightly crossed.

  "Dr. Cassion will be available for further consultations after your interview with Ms. Hunter," Gulden finally added.

  "Come on, Doctor, walkies."

  The marshal watched as the Icekeeper escorted Gulden from the room, and Lucel could hear the grinding of his teeth from where she was sitting.

  "Don't think too badly of Dr. Gulden," she said as she pocketed her rail pistol. "I approached the Icekeeper first because he would guarantee me a fair hearing if it involved Vitellan's safety. Icekeepers are like that."

  "What? I'm marshal, damn you, Vitellan's safety is my life's work—"

  "Marshals are merely vigilant where Vitellan is concerned. Icekeepers are psychopathic. Now, bear with me for one more riddle. Who organized the attack on the Durvas clinic last November?"

  "The Luministes, I suppose, but you're probably going to tell me I'm wrong so do it now."

  "Yes, you're wrong. The Luministes only did the attacking; Icekeeper McLaren did the organizing." Burgess gasped so hard that he breathed some of his own saliva. He flopped back in his chair coughing, with the heels of his palms pressed into his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was barely a whisper. "Are you going to tell me any details, or do you want to play more humiliation games? I can have security send in a whip and a leather cat suit if it makes you happier."

  Lucel giggled, then shrugged. "Sounds like fun, but this is meant to be a business meeting. As you know, some of the Corporate wanted Vitellan kept frozen until the appointed year of 2054, others wanted him revived to help with the crisis of the Luministes. Six years ago an agreement was reached to revive his bodily functions without consciousness, primarily for surgical work. He was carrying a lot of battle injuries, and had been drinking a degraded, caustic version of the Oil of Frosts for a long time."

  "I was not on the Corporate then, but I know about that decision. Whenever the Centurion was to be actually awakened, it was to be in perfect health: no pain, no infections, and no parasites. The surgery and healing took a few weeks, then he was refrozen."

  Burgess clasped his fingers beneath his chin, waiting for Lucel to fall into the trap.

  "He was not refrozen," said Lucel.

  "Damn!" he snarled, looked away from her.

  "Sorry?"

  "Nothing, go on."

  "McLaren refroze a cadaver of identical build with a mask bonded onto his face and dermal mockup scars in all the right places. Lord Wallace, Cassion, Anderson, and McLaren had set up a tight little team of systems medics and agents from outside Durvas. Over six years McLaren imprinted Lord Wallace's whole consciousness on the Centurion's brain, leaving only gate-access memories so that his total overlay could mimic being the Centurion. If it had not been for the Luministe raid he would have his own life

  functions terminated during a final imprinting session, and been awakened as the Centurion himself. Don't worry about reviving Vitellan's crushed body, Marshal, it's only a stale version of Lord Wallace." Burgess treated her horrifying revelations with grudging acceptance. She knew so much about what should have been secret that this story was probably true as well. He was eager to know more, in spite of himself.

  "So what about that Luministe imposter that, he paraded in front of us at the Village Corporate meeting last December?" he asked.

  "I'm coming to that. Lord Wallace had everything sewn up, but there was only one thing that he did not understand: the fanatical loyalty of the Durvas Icekeepers. Any of the other ten dozen Durvas Icekeepers would have shouted the truth from t
he manor's chimneypots, but for some reason McLaren kept quiet and helped. I don't know why, but it must have been something to do with Vitellan's welfare. Can you help here—and please, no tricks." Air hissed between the marshal's teeth as he drew breath. He took his time, thought carefully, looked to a portrait of Icekeeper Guy Foxtread for inspiration, then decided that he had no alternative. He had to share information with Lucel Hunter.

  "I probably need my head read for telling you this, but... the Centurion's body was frozen near rocks of relatively high natural radiation in 1358. That did a lot of damage to his tissues over six centuries, and Icekeeper Gulden tells me that McLaren and Dr. Cassion probably had quite a battle to keep his body alive from 2022 to the first Luministe attack." Lucel "sat forward eagerly. "Yes, yes! The good Icekeeper."

  "Good Icekeeper? He was bloody awful, he was the first traitor in 120 appointments—"

  "No, just the opposite. McLaren was behind the entire scheme, he probably planned it back in 2016-when he first realized that Vitellan would die of cancer only a few years after being unfrozen. Lord Wallace was his stooge. While his Lordship was being imprinted on Vitellan, the same resources were being used to imprint Vitellan onto Robert Wallace. McLaren was sending Vitellan to safety, into a young body in near-perfect health. I've done some rough calculations, and they show that two total overlays would cost only about five percent more than one—if done together. The difference is noise. I doubt that our late peer knew the truth about Vitellan's condition until after McLaren died. What else can you tell me?"

  "The imprinting cost a lot. There are vast amounts of credit missing from the Durvas books, billions. We are not bankrupt, but our economic health will be delicate for at least a decade. The money has been hard to trace, but it appears to have gone to medical and CPU service wholesalers. Whole-brain imprinting would account for it. How lucky for McLaren that Robert Wallace was at hand, and in a comatose state."

  "I'd bet anything that McLaren staged the car bombing and had the boy drugged and abducted to the clinic—where he was sedated and mocked up to look braindead. Recent scans of Robert's body show only cosmetic surgery. His personality was murdered to become a host for Vitellan's mind."