by Chris Bunch
Soundlessly, the wall slid away.
Alex moved inside.
This was the "secret" of Arundel, although not that much of a secret. Sten had discovered it years earlier, when he had been commander of the Guard. Arundel was honeycombed with secret passages. They ran from the Imperial chambers to bedrooms to the dungeon to seemingly pointless openings in main hallways. The tunnels had charmed both of them, in another time, with another Emperor. A proper castle had to have secret passageways, and they were impressed with an Emperor who so indulged his romantic impulses.
Now, the passages would be—if Marr and Senn had been right and they had been built exactly as in the old Arundel—one more step toward the Emperor's destruction.
Alex moved up the winding step and the bending low-ceiling passages, always keeping his carefully memorized picture of the castle's outside interior in mind. He wanted the passageway that led to the row of bedrooms.
Kilgour's mood had changed again. Now, and it might have been claustrophobia from the kilotons of stone and the darkness and the close air around him, he felt as if someone was waiting for him.
Up there. Up above.
Three times he discovered sensors and disarmed them. But this was easy going, moving invisibly, like a rat in the walls, past whatever security was patrolling the interior of Arundel. A rat that stuck close to the walls, as any experienced snoop did when climbing stairs and walking down corridors. Not just for cover, but because boards creak, and…
Stale air?
No. Suddenly fresh.
Alex looked for a ventilating duct. Nothing but gray stone, or some synthetic cast to look like it. Although Alex suspected the wallmarks, suggesting the passage had been hand-hewn by an ax, might well be genuine.
Definitely fresh air. Alex knelt, holding his palm flat. There. Around this one great flagstone. The stone was a trapdoor. Pressure-activated, most likely. He dug a millcredit coin from his pocket, and slipped it through a crack, and let go. Ting… tiny… ting…
A long way down.
An oubliette?
Alex thought of tripping the door, but decided against it. It might be hooked to an alarm. Or…
… it might be occupied.
Kilgour moved on, hastily, reading his mind the riot act. Ah'm i' th' catacombs, y' clot, an' y're comin' oop wi' dungeons wi' rats an' blind prisoners whae been cast doon i' the dark frae decades. It's nae but a garbage pit. Or a 'spection hatch. Or th' Emp put i' in frae authenticity.
Oh aye. The lad's such a stickler he puts holes i' th' cave no one'll e'er see, except fr him, whae he hae't' fish one ae his fancy lassies or lads oot of.
Oh aye. Y' lyin' clot.
The long ramp came to an end, and a corridor, wider than the others he'd mazed through, opened.
This, Ah's'spect, i' th' floor Ah wan'. But Alex wanted to make sure. And, again, something was niggling at him. One floor above would be the Emperor's private chambers. And the Emperor would be in them.
Unless he was now hiding like th' ferret he's become, doon i' th' bunker, i' th' catacombs thae ran doon't' th' gates ae hell below.
P'raps a wee check, his mind suggested innocently.
Somewhere around here, his mental chart said, should be a braw arch, an' marble steps leadin' oop't' th' mon himself.
There was no arch.
Just solid wall.
Alex touched it in several places, making sure it wasn't another secret doorway. It wasn't.
Aye, he thought. So th' lad dinnae built ever'thing ae i' was. Mad, paranoid bastard, he thought, but with relief. It kept him from indulging that wild urge to solve all, with one mad charge into the heart of the enemy.
So he went for the target he'd intended from the beginning.
Alex found one of the panels—intended for observation, perhaps—that swung out into the main outer passageway. He swung it open a trifle… and looked.
Ah. Two Internal Security sorts, standing in front of a double set of doors. Marr and Senn told him the entire floor had been ripped apart and rebuilt. Only Poyndex occupied the floor. Only Poyndex was entitled to be this close to the chamber.
Alex smiled.
A very different smile than before, when he hung above the castle's entrance.
Now, the smile was truly on the face of the tiger.
Poyndex swore, but to himself. His frustration didn't show on his face, any more than any other emotion would be allowed to. He kicked out of the program he was running and cut back to the top of the fiche.
He had a dull headache. His eyes felt as if they had been sandblasted.
By rights he should have shut down and gone to bed. It wasn't that late, but he had been putting in twenty-hour days, between normal tasks of Internal Security, the Emperor's constant calls, and then this new mission of planetbusting all of the rebel worlds' capitals.
He had considered and reconsidered the Eternal Emperor's terror program.
At first, it seemed absurd. Not absurd, his mind corrected. Wagnerian, in the sense of Gotterdamerung. Like that Earth-tyrant, whatever was his name? Oh yes. Adolph the Paretic. But that was impossible. The Eternal Emperor couldn't be insane. Of course not.
He vaguely remembered one of his instructors in his youth telling him about some dictator of the past, who had overthrown the old boss and was having his flunkies write a new constitution, legitimizing his powergrab. The dictator had rejected one draft, telling his subordinates the new constitution must not, in any way, interfere with the state's use of terror as a legitimate ruling tool. Terror from above, it had been termed. So there was precedent to the policy.
The problem was, he could not remember either the dictator's name, nor whether his reign had been long and lethal, or brief and bloody… and he certainly did not have time to do any idle research.
On further consideration, Poyndex thought the Emperor's plan meritorious. Might this flickering nonsense of a rebellion, which now, with its "liberator" dead, should properly be called anarchic, be quelled by a huge, nearly instantaneous application of force? Machiavelli, after all, had instructed his prince to ax all of his enemies at one time as soon as he'd seized power.
Not that Poyndex had ever entertained disobeying, or even questioning, this new Imperial policy. He served loyally. Perhaps not the Emperor, but the new fascination he had that it was possible to live forever. To live forever, and… and to rule?
The list was drawn up. The Cal'gata's capital world. The Honjo's six canton worlds. The seventeen area centers of the Zaginow. The Bhor capital of Vi. And on and on. The death roster ordered 118 worlds obliterated.
It could be done—the Empire still had far more battleships and completely loyal crews who'd murder an entire planet because it was so ordered.
The problem was the Eternal Emperor wanted the planet-bustings done nearly simultaneously.
On which clock, Poyndex thought, and whose calendar? Local? Zulu? Prime? By rights, he should have been able to rout out Admiral Anders and his planning staff. The navy might be a bit less than stupendous, but it would seem anyone with logistical training would know how to arrange things so that ships would arrive in the target system in time, but not early enough to arouse suspicion. But the Emperor had insisted this would be a totally secure operation, which meant only Poyndex and his own personal IS staff were even aware of the bloodbath to come.
Poyndex got up from his multileveled metal desk. It, and the rest of the technical apparatus he required, clashed with the ornate wood and silk wallpaper of the suite. But what of it? Perhaps, one day, when this was over, he would have it redone. This time with some of his own ideas, rather than what he had done before, letting some imbecile who thought the old ways were the prettiest handle things. When there was time, when there was time.
But there never was enough time.
Perhaps a drink, to get a little sugar in the bloodstream.
Poyndex walked to the small bar, and eyed the bottles. The Scotch the Emperor loved, and Poyndex couldn't stomach. That awf
ul substance called "shine," and its even-worse companion, the ET beverage stregg, which the Emperor had reportedly once liked. Poyndex had tasted it once, and shuddered. No one but a soak or an ET could possibly drink that. He lifted the cut-glass decanter that held the multi-fruit brandy of his home world, which was about the only liquor Poyndex enjoyed the taste of, once a month or so.
No. That wasn't it, either.
He turned toward the doorway to his bedroom. That was what he really wanted. To lie down. To sleep. For a day, for a week, forever.
It took a moment to realize there was a man crouched in the doorway. A man wearing strange, camouflaged fatigues. His face was blackened. And he held a long-barreled pistol leveled at the center of Poyndex's chest
"Y'll freeze," Alex said quietly. Normally he would've used a petrifying shout—but there were two sentries posted outside.
"Y'll noo breathe, 'cept on command," he went on, coming to his feet and moving forward, neither eyes nor gunbarrel moving from Poyndex.
"You're Kilgour," Poyndex said, trying, and hoping he succeeded, to keep shock from his voice. A flicker of pride—he didn't feel any fear.
"Aye."
"You know, killing me won't stop the Empire."
"Aye?" Kilgour asked, in polite disinterest. "Thae's noo m' plan. Y'r noo f'r th' big sleep, unless y' do someat daft, like cryin' oot.
"First, y'all step awa' frae th' bar, turn wi' y'r back't' me, kneel, an' clasp y'r hands behin' y'r head. Move!"
Poyndex turned. Started down, then stopped.
"The thought just struck me," he said. "If you're not on a personal vendetta… is Sten still alive? Did he order this operation?"
"Ah said," Kilgour repeated, still in a near whisper, "Ah wan' y' doon ae y'r knees, mate. Noo—"
Poyndex began to kneel… and lifted his arms, toward the back of his head. Alex's free hand came forward, the tiny bee sting of the narcdispenser ready. Poyndex's right hand shot out toward the bar.
Kilgour's reflexes cut in.
The heavy-worlder's left hand dropped the syringe, curled to hammerstrike, flashed out.
And struck. Just to the right side of Poyndex's neck. The snap was loud. Poyndex's head dropped to an impossible angle… and his body fell forward. Alex caught him by the collar before he could crash into the bar, and eased him down to the carpet.
Knowing he was wasting his time, he checked pulse. Rolled Poyndex over and peeled an eyelid back. Even, stupidly, held his ear to Poyndex's mouth, hoping for the slightest breath.
Nothing.
Y' clot, his mind savaged. Y' know bettern' thae! Are y' sarkers? Cannae y' control y'self? I' dinnae matter i' this i' th' lad whae killed Mahoney, or helped th' Emp slaughter who knows how many?
Y'r noo a professional, he thought in disgust. And started to get up.
Then his eye caught the button, mounted in the base of the bar. He looked closer. Nothing in the bar front. There. Above him. A snapaway panel, just like they showed him in training. Behind it would be what? A gun? A gas dispenser? An electrified net? Linked to a panic siren? Whatever it was, it would've been disaster.
Noo, did Ah really o'erreact… or did th' corner a' m' eye spot the switch? Balls, he thought. Kilgour resolutely refused to believe in any sense beyond the common. Then he realized, for the first time since that sleepless night on the battlements of Otho's castle, the night so long ago when Cind had been named to speak for the Bhor, that feeling of doom was gone.
By th' Stuarts, he thought. Ah been carryin't this deathsense wi me f'rever, stumblin' like a 'cruit i' th' Selection March ae Mantis. An' it's vanished, wi' Poyndex's dirty soul.
Are y' suggestin' his mind snickered, thae y' sensed thae wae a death owed? An' thae either you, or Poyndex, wh'd hae't' pay the price? Clot off, he thought. Ah hae noo time f'r Highland devils an' goblins.
Th' real question i' whae d' th' milkmaid do, whae she's kick'd o'er th' bucket, an' th' missus a' th' house dinnae hae a cat?
He had it.
He shouldered Poyndex's body and went into the bedroom, back through the panel into the secret passageway.
Feeling bulletproof, he trotted rapidly down it, to where that huge flagstone was. Noo, i' it's nae boobytrapp'd or alarm'd, he thought, Ah'm home free. He dropped Poyndex's corpse on the stone.
It fell away, and the body dropped into darkness.
No sirenscreech. No scurry of guards, if there'd been a silent alarm.
Just a thud. Silence. Another thud. Another silence, even longer. A splash, finally, as the late Poyndex hit bottom. Kilgour wondered, once again, just what was at the bottom of the shaft? He shone his tiny flash down into blackness. Nothing.
He touched the flagstone, and it smoothly swung back into place, waiting for the next weight to land on it.
Was it a garbage disposal? A sewer?
Alex shook his head.
He would never know.
He considered what had just happened and, after some reflection, nodded thoughtfully.
Assuming Poyndex's body wasn't discovered, at least for a while, what would the effect be? On Internal Security and, most importantly, the Emperor himself?
A wee bit scary, Kilgour concluded. I' fact, all thae's been sacrificed by giein' Poyndex a braw clout i' y'r original dreamscheme wi' th' brainscan.
Nae a bad night's work, he thought. Ah'm noo th' gowk Ah thought, a few min ago.
He allowed he deserved a pint and a dram. And perhaps a wee walk in the moonlight with Marl and Hotsco.
Feeling romantic—and thirsty—Kilgour headed for home.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE CREATURE EYED Sten through its enormous compound eyes for a very long moment. Sten remained motionless, lying on his belly on the ocean's floor. Three meters above him, waves crested and crashed against a rocky island.
The animal had a three-segmented body, with hard jointed segments extending off in all directions. It looked hostile, but then, anything over a meter long with pincer-jaws usually was logged as unfriendly by Sten. Especially when it was about twenty centimeters from his face.
Eventually, some sort of sitrep was achieved by what passed for the creature's brain: You are the biggest thing in this ocean. No, you are not. There is something that is bigger than you. It is sitting just in front of you. You are a predator. You can devour anything that is in this ocean, No, you cannot. You tried to snag a morsel off this creature. Your pincers did not snag a morsel. This is not a familiar situation. You are in trouble. You should go somewhere, somewhere this creature is not.
The huge "trilobite," or so Sten had labeled him, flurried its "legs," and was gone, vanished into a floating drift of algae.
Very good. Sten resumed his final mental briefing before he charged wildly off in all directions. It wasn't that the arthopod was any danger to Sten—especially since Sten was wearing a spacesuit. But those clotting pincers snapping on his faceplate made it hard to think.
That transmission beam that had almost been missed, 'casting from the mansion, had led the Victory farther out into the back of beyond, into barely explored space. It intersected no system or object for light-centuries.
But then there was a solar system. Three worlds, one moon, and a sun. Not a dead system, like the relay station Kyes had discovered, the relay station that had self-destructed on him. Life was just creating itself here.
Sten had kept the Victory on the solar system's fringes, terrified that one mistake would snap the thin lead, like so many others had before. Then, they would have to find another one of the luxury safehouses/way stations, and attempt to duplicate Cind's success. Or else follow that other beam far out into the unknown. It would probably take no more than a lifetime or two to find whatever pot of gold was at the end of that nearly infinite straight-line rainbow.
Preston again returned to his first skill, the com board. He had absolutely guaranteed Sten that the com beam from the mansion impacted on the second world from the sun.
Sten transferred Freston, Presto
n's com specialists, Hannelore La Ciotat, and himself to the Aoife, and again remoraed La Ciotat's tacship to the destroyer.
Very slowly, the Aoife closed on 'the world. Very young, indeed. Continents slowly sinking, seas shallowing and spreading across the world. Cambrian was the description, or so Cind informed him, suggesting that he might wish to take some basic geology courses one of these centuries, in his spare time.
They looked hard. Visually, electronically, actively, passively. It took an E-week before Freston had something. He had picked up some odd indicators from the coast of one of the small subcontinents in the southern hemisphere. Something was down there, something that appeared artificial, but every surface scan, from IR to scope, said the area was just one more rocky outcropping on the still-sterile land.
Freston chanced simulcasting a beam from the Aoife on the same freq as the continuous beam from the mansion, 'cast for less than a second. He picked up some bounced radiation. It was his theory that an antenna, or more likely several of them, had been inletted into the planet's surface in that area. Capable of receiving, transmitting, or retransmitting.
Sten thought about it. The moonlet Cind had visited had been hollowed out as it was equipped with antenna, a buried shelter, power, and supplies. The Emperor was smart enough to not choose the same sort of world for each relay station—but it seemed he would be using a similar construct for all of these stations, and, for safety's sake, putting most of the station underground.
Or underwater.
Freston sneered at that—why would you bother adding the additional interference of liquid, not to mention building sediment, crustaceans with claws, and all the rest? Sten nodded—right. The station—if this is where it was—would be just at the shore.
Freston then triumphantly produced his second piece of information. He had put a tight scan on the area, a few hours after nightfall. That really gave him something. Something a searcher would have to be specifically looking for, and looking in a very small area.
The rocks held their warmth for a long time. Far longer than air. That gave Freston some interesting images, particularly when they had been computer-enhanced by an operator with imagination. Here… the lines of the buried antenna, where the material the antenna had been made of held its heat even longer than the rocks. Over here, an oblong outline, invisible without enhancement. Big. Freston thought that outline was a hangar door—the outline provided by cool air seeping through the door's edges. Over here—Preston's smile threatened to pass his ears and meet at the medulla oblongata—the door. People type.