The Killing of Worlds

Chapter 17

  She felt strangely rested. For the first time in weeks, her body wasn't full of nervous tension. But her sight was blurred, and all that she could comprehend of her surroundings were a few pastel planes, the restful hues of sickbav.

  Hobbes tried to move.

  Medically restrained, said a machine voice in second hearing.

  "Shit," she said, remembering her knee. She blinked gumminess from her eyes and tried to look down the length of her prone body.

  Standing at the foot of her bed was a figure whose stance she recognized even through the haze. Laurent Zai, "They said you'd be coming around. " "How long, sir?" Her voice was dry and frail.

  "Ten hours. Five hypersleep cycles. "

  A whole day, Hobbes thought. And she couldn't remember a single dream. The last time she'd slept more than two straight hours had been before the hostage-taking. It was strange to remember that time could go on while she was asleep. Despite this disorienting news, however, Hobbes's mind felt clearer than it had in days.

  "Who cut out the drive, sir?"

  He smiled. "Frick. "

  Of course. The first engineer could operate any aspect of the ship from his synesthesia interface. It was lucky he'd been on the bridge, and not knocked unconscious on one of the wildly spinning aft-decks of engineering.

  "But you made a valiant try, I see," Zai added.

  He glanced down at her left knee. Hobbes lifted her neck, straining to see her legs, but all she could see was a network of traction bars and a few glistening nano drips traveling down into shrouded flesh.

  "Looks pretty ugly, sir. "

  "Nothing permanent, Hobbes. The Al doubts you'll even need a servo-prosthetic. But you'll be limping until we get back to Legis and get some new ligaments put in you. "

  Back to Legis. The engagement was truly over then. No more monstrosities had emerged from Rix space to threaten them. It was hard to believe.

  "Just ligaments?" she wondered. It had felt as if the kneecap had been shattered. She must have weighed more than three hundred kilos when she'd fallen.

  "Well," Zai admitted, "ligaments and a hypercarbon kneecap. If you plan on taking any more strolls at five gees, I would recommend you get a pair of those. "

  She smiled. Then images returned to her mind from the fiery moments of the blackbody drone attack. Dead bodies on the bridge. Blood in the air.

  "How many casualties, sir?"

  "All told, eighty-one of us died," he said. "All three bridge pilots, and Gunner Wilson. " Eighty-one. A bloodbath. Between her three engagements-- hostage rescue, the first pass of the battlecruiser, and the blackbod-ies--the crew of the frigate was more than a third gone.

  "I should have listened to you, Hobbes," Zai said. "Removing the armor from around the bridge almost cost us the Lynx entire. "

  "No, sir. It was my mistake. I shouldn't have gone to six gees. That was too much with the AG already failing. " She shut her eyes, reliving the moment. If only she'd ordered a slower ramp-up to three gees, the AG might have held.

  "You couldn't have foreseen that, Hobbes," the captain assured her. "The Rix plan was brilliant--mutual destruction. The battle-cruiser released a hundred and twenty-eight drones just before they self-destructed. Full blackbody types. Enough to tear the Lynx to pieces. We were saved by Data Master Kax, who stayed alert while the rest of us were celebrating. He spotted them and warned Tyre. "

  Hobbes furrowed her brow. Hadn't Kax been blinded?

  "And you too, Hobbes," Zai continued. "You got us out before the drones could cut us to pieces. Every kilometer between Lynx and the blackbodies saved lives. No one died from the acceleration. "

  Hobbes felt a moment of relief. At least her rashness hadn't killed anyone. "But there were a few injuries, I'll bet, sir. "

  "Purely from the acceleration? Only a hundred or so. Your knee's just about the worst, though. Every other member of my crew has the sense not to stand up in five gravities. "

  She smiled wanly at the captain's teasing. Hobbes's memory of her mutinous thoughts was hazy. The fierce conflict that had raged within her seemed now like a phantasm, a stress reaction rather than a true failure of will.

  "And we've captured it," Zai said.

  It took Hobbes's mind a moment to grasp this. "The object, sir?"

  Captain Zai nodded. "We've got artificial gravity again, as you may have noticed. We have the thing under tow. "

  Her eyebrows rose. Easy gravitons were swamped in the proximity of supermassive objects like planets. But on something like the Rix object, which massed only a hundred billion tons or so, they could get purchase, she supposed. But the ship would be straining like the devil to make any headway.

  "What vector are we making, sir?"

  "Practically nothing. But four heavy cargo tugs are under construction on Legis," he said. "Between them and the Lynx, we'll be able to accelerate the object at almost a full gee. "

  Hobbes nodded. The frigate's powerful drive was her most advanced feature. If it weren't for the fragility of humans and equipment inside, and the limits of AG when it came to dampening high gravities, the Lynx could accelerate like a remote drone. With a few cargo tugs thrown in, and additional darkmatter scoops to provide reaction mass, the frigate could move a small planetoid.

  "The object is already making two thousand klicks per second into Imperial space, sir," Hobbes said, calling a tactical display into the air before her. "We should be able to get it up to point-nine constant in under a year. "

  Zai smiled at her enthusiasm. "It'll take a hell of a lot of reaction mass, Hobbes. You might want to include darkmatter variation in your math. "

  "But where are we taking her, sir? Trentor Base?"

  "We're going Home. "

  Hobbes's mouth fell open. All the way Home again. She could see the quiet happiness in Laurent's eyes. Whoever his secret lover was, she was back on the Imperial capital.

  A trip to Home would take ten years Absolute. The war might well be over for the crew of the Lynx.

  Of course, for many of them, the war was over already. Katherie wondered how many of the honored dead were suitable for reanima-tion, and how many were gone forever.

  She suddenly felt exhausted again, despite her five cycles of hyper-sleep. Her mind couldn't take in any more information. The simple facts were overwhelming enough. The Lynx had survived, accomplished her mission, and captured a war prize that might well change Imperial technology forever. Laurent Zai was still alive, still an elevated hero, and Katherie Hobbes, it seemed, was not a traitor.

  Things were better than she would have been expected.

  But Hobbes knew the next time she woke, she would have to face the details of the situation: endless components to be repaired; preparations for the long trip home; assistance in the rebuilding of Legis's infostructure. Learning how to walk again.

  And she would have to read the names of the dead. Friends, colleagues, and crewmates. She closed her eyes, deciding not to call up the casualty list yet. That could wait.

  "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Hobbes," Zai said. "You must be--"

  "Tired, sir. But thank you for seeing me. "

  "Thank you, Hobbes. "

  "For what, sir?"

  "For never doubting me," Laurent said softly. "Through all this madness. "

  "Never, sir. "

  Never again.

  Marine Private

  The prisoner offered no resistance as she was led onto the Lynx.

  She emerged from the airlock with alien grace, her step like a courtesan's from a storydream back on Private Bassiritz's home world. But the marine realized after a moment that her tiny steps were not a sign of humility, but the result of shackles. The woman's 245 ankles were bound with two interwoven sheaths of hypercarbon fiber. Her hands were concealed by a garment that stretched around her like a straightjacket, as if she were hugging herself to keep out the cold. A stun collar was clasped around her neck. The Legis Militia guard who escorted her ca
rried the collar's remote outstretched before him, a totem to ward off evil.

  The prisoner had been through some sort of terrible firefight, Bassiritz could see. Her head was mostly bald, and her red, dimpled skin and lack of eyebrows suggested she'd lost her hair to fire. Her face was hatched with cuts and scars.

  But the woman met Bassiritz's stare with a steady gaze, her stunning violet eyes bright with curiosity.

  He swallowed. He had never seen a Rixwoman without a helmet on. Since the battle in the palace, Bassiritz had read many books about the members of the Cult, the first people he'd ever seen who moved as fast as he, who reacted as quickly. They seemed to share the accelerated time frame that had until now been Bassiritz's private domain.

  But that didn't make them friends, he reminded himself. This woman had killed dozens of Imperial soldiers, even a few Lynx marines, maybe even Sam and Astra. Wrapped in unbreakable bonds or not, she was dangerous enough to warrant three guards. Still, she fascinated him.

  The militiaman handed over the stun collar's remote, and the three dirtsiders disappeared back into the airlock with evident relief. The marine sergeant stayed a few meters from the prisoner at all times, gesturing for Privates Bassiritz and Ana Wellcome to take hold of her arms.

  Bassiritz could feel the corded strength of the Rixwoman's muscles even through the straightjacket's metallic fibers. She crossed the deck as smoothly as cargo on a gee-balanced lifting surface, her tiny footsteps utterly silent. Her head darted about like a small bird's, taking in the passageways of the ship in a way that made Bassiritz nervous. Her movements had the sudden menace of a predator, her eyes the acquisitive gleam.

  The cell they brought her to was new, specially configured for the Rixwoman. It was constructed of six bare surfaces of hypercarbon. The substance was not as strong as hullalloy, Bassiritz knew, but it was less susceptible to metal-eating viruses and other tricks. It was hard, simple, massive.

  They had to take her through the cell's door, which was a meter square. Bassiritz watched her calculating the angles, and saw the danger here. Even with her arms immobilized, the Rixwoman could use the door frame to leverage her powerful leg muscles. A simple bend at the knees, and she could push off like a rocket in any direction, butting her head against one of the guards with devastating force.

  Private Wellcome stepped through and held out his hand for the prisoner.

  Bassiritz hesitated.

  "Sergeant?" he said.

  "What is it, Bassiritz?"

  He struggled to form his instincts into words.

  "She has the advantage here, sir," he said haltingly. "The small door helps her. "

  The marine sergeant scowled. He looked the woman up and down, then turned to Bassiritz.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, sir. "

  The sergeant held up the shock collar remote.

  A jolt ran through the Rixwoman's body, every muscle stiffening. Her violet eyes went wide, and a stifled cry came through teeth that were suddenly clenched like a hunting dog's. Bassiritz was frozen for a moment by her horrible expression.

  "Well, get her in!" the sergeant barked.

  He lifted her stiff and vibrating body through--she was much heavier than he'd thought--and placed her gently on the floor. At another gesture from the sergeant, she sagged limply in Bassiritz's arms. Spittle ran down one of the Rixwoman's cheeks.

  They left her there, and sealed the door.

  The outside wall of the cell was covered with a hardscreen that 68 by the compound mind on Legis," the initiate said. "Is this cell secured?"

  Zai glanced at Hobbes.

  "The cell has no particular data security, sir. But it's pretty blind in there. No camwall or synesthesia projectors. And she's hardly been spilling secrets. "

  "Ma'am," Bassiritz offered nervously. "There's an extra remote, for watch changes. "

  They would only be safer with two remotes, Hobbes realized. She nodded, and the marine produced another of the black hardkeys. He handed it to Farre.

  Zai gestured, but the door failed to open. Hobbes recalled that it was purely mechanical, cut off from automatics and even decompression safeties. She nodded to the ranking marine, who ordered two of the fire team to muscle it open. Chain of command in action, Hobbes thought.

  Bassiritz went through first.

  Captain Zai waited for a moment, watching for the commando's reaction. The Rixwoman stood, but kept to her corner. Hobbes saw now that her movements were strangely disjointed, as sudden as a nervous bird's.

  "Executive Officer," Zai said.

  Hobbes's finger brushed the reassuring bump of her concealed flechette pistol before stepping through the meter-wide door. The room was bright, lit by a ceiling full of dumb, spray-on filaments. It smelled of confinement, but without overwhelming rankness. The Rixwoman's sweat had the scent of milk about to turn.

  Zai and the initiate came after her. The four of them remained in the opposite corner from the Rixwoman. Her eyes shone violet in the harsh light, her face as still as some ancient lizard's.

  "Captain Laurent Zai," she said. Hobbes recognized in her accent the long vowels of Legis XV's far northern provinces.

  "Yes. And your name?" Zai answered.

  It had never occurred to Hobbes that she would have one.

  "Herd. " Her accent slipped into some native phonology, and the vowel was inflected by a zuzz at the back of the woman's throat.

  "And you have a message for me?"

  "From Alexander. "

  Good god, thought Hobbes. The compound mind had a name.

  Zai just nodded. "What is it?"

  The commando cocked her head, as if listening to something. Then shifted inside the straightjacket, rolling her shoulders.

  "Alexander wishes to give you a weapon. "

  "A weapon?" Zai asked, finally unable to keep surprise from his voice. "Technology?"

  "No, Captain. Information," she said. "To use against the Emperor. "

  Farre raised the shock remote.

  "You see, Captain? She has classified information. "

  Zai was silent for a moment, stunned by the Rixwoman's words. Hobbes glanced toward Private Bassiritz. The commando might be trying to create a moment of confusion before launching an attack, and the old initiate would never react quickly enough to stop her. The marine seemed completely alert, however; he was shutting out the words. His eyes were fixed on the commando fiercely, as if she were some childhood monster come to life. Hobbes swallowed, and again touched the shape of her flechette pistol through the wool of her sleeve.

  "I am the Emperor's servant," Zai said.

  "He is afraid of us, and he will destroy us if he can," the Rix-woman said.

  "Us?" Zai asked. "You and . . . ?"

  "The Lynx and Alexander. Us. We are bound together now. "

  Captain Zai placed his palms together. "The Emperor knows no fear," he began the catechism. "Not even death--"

  "A lie," Herd said quietly.

  Farre made a noise, as if she'd been struck with something.

  "Silence," the initiate cried. "Captain, you must secure this room. Immediately. "

  The captain glared at the prisoner. Hobbes thought for a moment that Zai would turn and leave the madwoman in her lonely cell. However much the past months had changed him, Zai was still appalled by her blasphemy.

  But instead he took a deep breath.

  "Of what is the Emperor afraid?" Laurent Zai asked, his jaw clenched with the effort of the calumnious words.

  "He has a secret," Herd said, "which Alexander discovered on Legis. If this information became known, it would destroy his power. "

  "Silence!" the initiate shrieked, again flinching as if the words were dealing her physical blows. Both her hands clenched around the remote.

  The Rixwoman's form jerked horribly to attention within the straightjacket. She toppled against the wall and slid down to the floor, her body as stiff as a statue, her face frozen i
n a terrible rictus.

  "Listen, Zai," she hissed, her accent becoming flat and Rixian. "The dead are--"

  Then the collar overwhelmed the Rixwoman, her body thrashing like a corpse animated with electrical shocks. "Private," the captain said quietly.

  Bassiritz adjusted his own remote, and the shock collar released the commando. Initiate Farre dropped to her knees, holding her head and shaking as if she'd been shocked as well.

  Hobbes ignored the initiate and took a few steps toward the prisoner. She knelt, still a meter away, and looked into the commando's now slack face.

  Saliva bubbled from her lips. She was breathing, at least. Hobbes glared back at Farre.

  "Silence," the political insisted again, her voice reduced to a mewling cry.

  Bassiritz gazed on the proceedings with a strange, horrified expression. Yet the marine looked strangely pleased, as if he'd just squashed some large and repellent insect.

  "Cut the audio feed from this room," Zai said to the wall. "No more contact with this prisoner. "

  "Sir?" Hobbes asked.

  "She may indeed know Imperial secrets, Hobbes. It's up to us to guard them. "

  Hobbes reached out a hand, and touched the woman's neck. She felt for a pulse.

  "They have no hearts, Hobbes," Zai said. "Not the beating kind, anyway. "

  The executive officer nodded. The skin was room temperature; she remembered that Rix commandos were generally cold-blooded to prevent thermal imaging.

  What a compromised human being.

  "Come away from there," Zai ordered softly.

  Hobbes stood, and retreated.

  The Rixwoman moved, turning her head slowly.

  "Wait," she croaked.

  "For god's sake, silence, woman!" Zai pleaded.

  Herd shook her head. "No secrets. Just a question. "

  Captain Zai looked at Hobbes, lost for a moment. The initiate lay on the ground, head in hands and beyond hearing, but Bassiritz stood ready with the other remote.

  The executive officer turned to the prisoner, knelt again.

  "What is it, Herd?"

  The commando took a few breaths, swallowing, as if to wet her mouth. When she spoke, the words were tortured.

  "Is it true that Rana Harter is alive again?" she said.

  The woman seemed confused, as if she were speaking her own mind after a lifetime of prompting. Her words were halting.

  "I must see . . . Rana Harter," she said.

  Zai shook his head. "The Honored Sister is not to be disturbed. Not by anyone. "

  The prisoner nodded. "But she is alive. "

  Hobbes felt a strange sympathy for the Rixwoman. But the captain had no choice; the Emperor's orders were explicit. Not even the other honored dead were allowed to speak with Rana Harter. An adept of the Apparatus, the ranking political aboard the Lynx, was posted in her antechamber.

  "He'll kill her," Herd said.

  "Who will?" Hobbes asked.

  "The Emperor," the woman said softly. "Your Emperor fears that she knows his secret. But she doesn't. "

  "Rixwoman," Zai said. "Don't speak of secrets. "

  "Let me see her," the woman pleaded, trying to rise from where she lay. But the attempt exhausted her, and her head dropped back to the floor.

  "My orders are clear," Zai said. "Rana Harter is to be left alone. "

  He turned away from the prisoner and pulled himself through the door. Hobbes stared at the alien woman for a moment, looking for the signs of truth she might find in a normal human's eyes. But the commando's face had hardened again. Once more she seemed to come from some nonmammalian order, as inscrutable as a tortoise.

  Hobbes signaled to Bassiritz to help the initiate out of the cell. What had affected the political like that? She knew that calumny against the Emperor was painful to the most heavily conditioned members of the Apparatus, even to lifelong grays like her Vadan captain, but she'd never seen anyone brought to their knees by mere words.

  Hobbes followed Zai, wondering what to do. The room was sealed behind them, and the wall went blank, as impenetrable as stone.

  As they strode toward the bridge, Zai said, "Rana Harter. "

  "Sir?"

  "The order to keep her isolated. I've never seen such a command. It is very strange to imprison the honored dead. "

  Zai's voice shook as he said it. Hobbes knew that Harter's reanima-tion was dubious at best, in the eyes of tradition. The politicals occasionally used the symbiant for tactical reasons, to interrogate a traitor or reverse a local assassination that threatened stability, but the official fiction was that all the dead were honored. So it must wound Zai's Vadan soul to restrain a risen woman.

  "Perhaps there are secrets that we're not meant to know, eh, Hobbes?"

  "Almost certainly, sir," she answered.

  He stopped short, turned to her.

  "Do you think we need a weapon against the Emperor, Hobbes?"

  She knew that anything short of swift denial was treasonous, but she couldn't bring herself to lie.

  "I don't know, sir. " She half-closed her eyes, her face tense as if awaiting a blow from an angry parent's hand.

  But Captain Zai said, "I don't either, Hobbes. I don't either. " He turned away again, and they went up to the bridge.

  Senator

  The garden had changed.

  Arciform sand dunes still dominated the walk to its center, but the scorpions had been replaced with desert flowers. The many fountains still played their tricks of orientation, lovely gravity wells bending the water through playfully twisted paths, but the liquid was now phosphorescent, the drops sparkling like the last glimmers from a firework display. The sinuous and threatening vines Nara Oxham remembered lining the walk had been done away with. Ranks of tulips framed the spiraling path now. Purple and black, their petals were variegated with red lines caused--she remembered--by a virus.

  They were quite beautiful, though.

  Senator Oxham wondered if these changes to the Emperor's garden were part of some weekly redecoration, or if the lighthearted touches were a response to war, a curative for the sovereign's cares. The short journey through the garden certainly seemed less threatening now.

  Oxham shook her head, realizing that her own assurance had nothing to do with the flowers or sparkling waters. She was simply no longer intimidated by the Imperial mystique.

  The dead man waited for her at the center.

  "Counselor," he greeted her.

  "Good day, Sire. "

  "Please be seated, Senator Oxham. "

  Oxham sat in the floating chair. It seemed to remember her, adapting to her shape more quickly than it had the first time she'd come to the Diamond Palace.

  It was strange to meet the sovereign again outside the presence of the War Council. The precisely balanced tensions of that group had become so familiar, their range of emotional reactions so predictable. Oxham felt a sense of dislocation. Perhaps that was why the Emperor had reconfigured his garden, to put her subtly ill at ease.

  A cat leaped into her lap, startling her. The creature was the color of gray ash, with an apricot-colored mask and white paws. Oxham ran her hand along its back, feeling with quiet distaste the ridges of the symbiant.

  "Does it have a name, Sire?" she asked.

  "Alexander. "

  "He seeks new worlds to conquer, then. "

  The Emperor smiled wanly. "Perhaps. " She could see the emotions in the dead man clearly. Anxiety, tempered with the confidence of a well-laid plan. Oxham had set her apathy bracelet perilously low, but here, shut off from the raging city, her sensitivity was bright. She remembered Roger Niles's warnings, and determined that she would make no mistakes today.

  "To what do I owe this honor, Your Majesty?"

  The sovereign reached under his chair. He produced a small human skull, turned so that its eye sockets stared at her.

  Oxham stiffened slightly, and the little beast on her lap betrayed her reaction
with wide-eyed annoyance at the motion.

  "Forgive me, Senator," the sovereign apologized.

  "I am your servant, Majesty. " Oxham stealthily jabbed the cat with a fingernail, but it simply purred.

  She regarded the skull. At first, it seemed to be that of a child, but the cheekbones jutted ahead of the brow, and the teeth were arrayed in an uncorrected, pretechnology jumble. Along with the sloping forehead, these characteristics suggested the diminutive skull of an ancient hominid adult.

  "Another history lesson, Sire?"

  "An illustrative example, Senator. " He rotated the skull in his hand, tipped it to face him as if he were going to play Hamlet. Now its top was to Oxham, and she saw the holes.

  There were four of them in a rectangle, each a few centimeters across, the two closer to the front much larger. Old cracks emanated from the holes. Only a sealant of gleaming transparent plastic kept the skull from crumbling in the Emperor's hand.

  Nara swallowed. This example might be a grim one.

  "Some ancient form of execution, Sire?"

  He shook his head. Another cat appeared from among the tulips and wound between the legs of her chair, then disappeared.

  "Just an old story, for those who can read it. "

  "I'm afraid I cannot, Liege. "

  "This creature, one of our honored ancestors, lived on the African continent of Earth Prime. " "In Egypt?"

  "Farther south," he corrected. "Before there were nations. At the edge of humanity's existence, when tools were first emerging. "

  Oxham nodded. This skull was old indeed. What a long, strange journey it had taken, to wind up here in this dead man's hand.

  "They lived in darkness, without language or fire. No agriculture, of course. Her people had no rudiments of civilization. They had no writing or spoken language. "

  "What did they eat, Sire?"

  "Wild plants, from the ground. Distasteful. "

  "I've eaten wild plants, Sire. "

  "Vasthold has a primeval charm. "

  "It did when I left it. "

  The sovereign turned the skull to face her. "She and her people lived in lava funnel caves, massive and deep, extensive enough to support their own food web. Our ancestors had a stable and protected niche. We would be there still if they hadn't been driven outward into the sun. "

  Oxham's eyes narrowed as she looked at the holes again.

  "The teeth of a predator, Your Majesty?"

  "Dinofelis. Extinct long before the diaspora. "