Requiem for the Conqueror

  Just me. And all those adults. Questions, so many questions. They asked them so quickly. And I remember afterward: Mother placed a hand on my shoulder and told me she was proud. I felt so tired after that. I ... I told her I wanted to go home and sleep."

  "Sounds like they put you through a test of some sort. Did your mother fawn over you? Beam with pride?"

  "Her? She didn't beam. Not like when you talk about your little boy. No, she was reserved and, now that I think about it, more satisfied than anything else. I remember, she said, hat'll show the skeptics,' and she winked at my father."

  Kaylla's eyes narrowed.

  "Don't look so grim." He chuckled dryly. "All my life has been one testing program after another. I never lived any other way. Each day came with the knowledge that tomorrow I would face another challenge, another exam."

  "What about your father?"

  He lifted a shoulder. "So much has been blocked." He shook his head. "The sensations are similar to when I used to find a psychological trigger left by the Praetor—one of his mental booby traps."

  Kaylla hissed her disgust. "They made you into a damn machine! What kind of parents did you have?"

  "Well, my mother was small, thin. She had flaming red hair and my father was pale blond. I remember they sunburned so easily. They were—"

  "That's not what I meant," Kaylla growled. "I mean, they acted like you were some sort of thing! Didn't they ever take you to the parades, or bring you toys, or send

  you to a normal educational facility with other kids? What about your birthday? Didn't they have parties with your friends over? Didn't you ever spend time with other families on outings, or trips, or holidays?"

  Staffa lifted his hands helplessly. "I don't . . . well, exactly know what you mean by all that. The first I knew about birthdays was after I joined the military. I'd been enrolled in flight school and navigation training. I thought birthdays were something only adults did."

  "But didn't you have friends your own age when you were little?"

  "No. I do remember a couple of times when I was around other children." He frowned deeply. "You know, they didn't have my. . . . How do I explain this? I wanted to solve intricate puzzles. They wanted to make noise and engage in the most inane behavior. Running—as I recall— touching each other to see who chased who. Is there a purpose to children doing that?"

  She squinted grimly. "How old were you then?"

  "I don't know. I never knew how old I was."

  "But you had to figure it out sometime."

  Staffa flipped a hand. "I was told I was fourteen when I entered the military training academy. At least that's the age the Praetor filled the appropriate box with. I always estimated back from there. That date provided a framework."

  "And how old were the other students?"

  "Twenty-one, at least." Staffa shifted, uncomfortable, realizing how odd it all sounded now. He hurried to explain, "You see, I was always special, always by far the youngest. When you're sponsored by the Praetor, you get special treatment. And most of all, I always dominated the classes."

  "You were always the best?" Kaylla asked, an eyebrow arching.

  "Of course! But it isn't as if I didn't know about failure. I knew a couple of young men who failed out of various programs. I wasn't stunted or anything like that."

  "And you were never second place, or third?"

  "Of course not. It would have been unthinkable. To have come in second would have been. ... It wasn't allowable. If I had to, I'd study all night—every night. If there was any chance another might surpass my ability, I sought out special tutors.

  Whatever it took, I did it."

  "You couldn't let yourself be less than perfect?" She winced. "God, what a wretched way to live."

  "Perfection is a goal to be striven for by all humans. Anything less is—"

  "Terguzzi sumpshit!" Kaylla exploded. "Listen to you, Staffa! Do you hear what you're saying?" She squinted soury. "My God, we've been locked in here for what seems like an eternity now. I know you, Staffa! Probably better than I've ever known any other human being—except my husband. I know what you think . . . what you dream at night. I kick you awake so you'll quit whimpering and crying through your guilty nightmares. Your psychological composition is like so much wreckage. Your identity is in fractured shambles."

  "I'm not in shambles!"

  "What the hell do you call that little stunt where you tired to commit suicide! You exhibit the symptoms of a classic manic depressive, down one moment, and up the next. You make stupid decisions based on improper neural assessments of reality. You're hounded by a sudden understanding of guilt!"

  "It's not guilt!" he lied.

  "No? Then what the hell is it? You told me you went to Etaria in search of what it meant to be human? Well, you got a dose of it, Lord Commander, and what you found horrified you. Didn't it? Admit it!"

  "To be a slave and deal with the collar isn't human—"

  "The blaspheming hell, it isn't!" She curled her lip in disgust as she pointed with a callused finger. "No, Staffa, I think—whether you'll admit it or not—for the first time, you felt what it was to be human. Hear? You FELT!

  Suffered, thirsted, tasted all the wretchedness it means to be really human!

  What scared you Star Butcher, was the feeling of humanity. Just like me, or Peebal, or Koree. You realized you were human after all—and it scared the pustulant piss out of you!"

  Her tone of insolence and disgust stirred him. He jumped to his feet, a surging rage building. He closed to stare into those defiant tan eyes. Nearly berserk from the scornful tongue-lashing, he reached for her.

  "Now what, Staffa?" she asked, voice level and challeng ing. "Going to hurt me? Come to finish what you started at Maika? Going to add me to your list of ghouls?"

  His hands began to shake as he knotted his shivering fingers into fists and gritted his teeth. The anger eroded like sand in surf. Her truth twisted within him as surely as if she'd knifed him.

  Helplessly, he raised a hand and let it drop, turning away to hide his eyes.

  "Yes, I wanted to hurt you for using that tone. Sometimes I scream defiance at the universe, other times I whimper and shake. I was so strong once."

  "Because you don't know who you are, Staffa kar Therma. You never had the chance to find out Anger? Sudden fear? Rushes of emotion? Your soul is crying out. Defiance? You want to reassure yourself you're someone to take seriously.

  Each wavering of emotion is a sign of the pain you bear because you were shut away from the human tribe for so long. An exile in your own mind."

  She paused. Then she added, "Isn't that one of the reasons you killed so ruthlessly? Wasn't it a means of getting back at the human condition you'd never had the opportunity to share?"

  He lowered his gaze to his hands, slowly flexing his fingers. Was that it? Did I take my rage out on all humanity to pay back the sins of the Praetor and my parents?

  She shook her hair back, watching him pensively. "Selfawareness is painful.

  Most of us learn we're not gods when we're still children. You didn't learn until the Praetor gutted your godhood on Myklene—and you weren't really sure until that Etarian judge clapped the collar on you and threw you in the sewer with me."

  She hesitated. "I don't envy you, Staffa. If you want to see this through, you're likely to find you don't like yourself very much."

  He laughed, the sound bitter with irony. "I don't like myself now."

  "This is the hardest part, here, now, locked away with me. On Etaria you had hatred and anger to keep you going. Here, you're trapped. You've got nothing here but four gray walls . . . your conscience . . . memories—and me."

  CHAPTER 24

  Each LC had a command control module immediately behind the flight deck. There an officer had access to communications, observation, and weapons. Prom a circling LC he could monitor and orchestrate an entire battle. Computer equipment filled one wall while a fold-down table created work space or dining area,
and the bench behind that could be slept on.

  Sinklar felt the LC move. Through the command monitor, he watched dust boil out below as the craft rose above the gutted Regan military compound in Kaspa.

  The blackened pile of burned corpses piled in the center of the plaza spoke eloquently of the fate of the prisoners taken from Mykroft's Division: Targan retribution for Mykroft's execution of the Rebel prisoners that day in the square. Must have been a gruesome bonfire.

  The LC rose and began a lazy turn to the south. Sink watched as the city dropped away beneath his craft. So much had changed since the first time he'd seen Targa through his night glasses. Now he left Kaspa again—this time under his control.

  His Groups had retaken the city; resistance had been minimal and halfhearted.

  The "pacification" of Kaspa really amounted to little more than a meeting with business leaders and the heads of the mining labor committees. News of the defeat of the Rebel forces at Vespa had taken more fight out of the radical elements than another three Divisions could have accomplished.

  "All right, Mac," Sink said into the comm, "we're up and on the way back to Vespa. The city's yours. Take care of it." He turned from the monitors that displayed Kaspa and glanced at Gretta. A pensive expression molded her face as she watched the charred corpses fall behind.

  "We're on top of it, Sink," Mac's voice assured. "Take care of yourself.

  There's still a lot of passion loose. No telling what the Seddi might do in retaliation. More than one conqueror's won the war—and fallen to an assassin's knife the next day."

  "Affirmative."

  "Anything else?"

  "Get a detail to haul those corpses out and bury them somewhere." Sink cut the connection and gripped Gretta's hand firmly. "War's over except for the shouting and flag waving and the small matter of mopping up the Seddi main temple. Makarta, wonder where that is?"

  Gretta pulled glistening long brown hair over her shoulder to nervously twist it into a shining dark strand. "I'll bet Sylenian ice to Riparian mud your Arta Fera knows." She lifted an eyebrow suggestively.

  Sinklar laughed. "A fascinating woman, that one. I don't know why, but there is something compelling about her. I . . . call it familiarity. Something...."

  "I call it sex," Gretta grunted. "For some reason—phero mones, perhaps, or those eyes of hers?—men seem to find her a sexual magnet. I can't see it, but men take a first look and then stop dead in their tracks to stare—oblivious of the rest of the world. I thought it prudent to change the guard to females.

  The men we had down there kept drooling all over themselves."

  Gretta considered him seriously before she asked, "You going to be wandering down to interrogate her about the mysterious Makarta?"

  Sink glanced out the view port and pursed his lips. The Targan countryside flashed below: Ephemeral drainages in dendritic patterns cut rough jagged ridges of gray and brown rock; mottled masses of conifers blotched the northern slopes in dark green.

  "No," he told her. "I don't ever want to see her again. She cost us too much.

  Cost Targa too much. I can't figure. How could she kill her lover that way? I heard the scream all the way down the hall. Eerie, inhuman, like some wretched nightmare."

  "She thought we were bluffing. Not an entirely unreasonable assumption."

  Gretta settled herself into a drop couch, a frown starting to trace her forehead. "Now that I hear you're not sexually infatuated with her like the rest of the men, I can feel sorry for her. Think of the guilt, of what it must feel like to have caused the end of everything. Must be a horrible weight to bear, all that blood and death. The end of her Seddi cause. All her fault."

  "I've seen her on the holos," Sink agreed, turning back to the view port. "I think she's snapped. I don't know very much about such things, but maybe some of the psych personnel could do something with her."

  Gretta pursed her lips, face pensive. "Perhaps. When we get back, I might wander down to talk to her. Maybe I can say something that will break her open—get her to feel something. If I can talk to her, maybe she'll tell us where we can find this Makarta."

  Sink rubbed his chin. "Leave her alone. There's something very wrong about her. I can't put my finger on it. Something . . . frightening." He frowned, grappling with his image of the woman. And so Rotted familiar. Why do I feel like I now her? There's some memory I can't place . . . deep in my mind.

  "Any word from the fleet yet?" she asked, diverting his attention.

  "Just the order that I relinquish command to Mykroft and submit myself for arrest." He grinned maliciously at her.

  "And will you?"

  "What? Let Mykroft undo all the good I've done? Rotted Gods in the temple, he'd have Targa burning within two days! No, I think I have a better bargaining position here, in charge of the Regan assault forces and my Targan irregulars." He looked out at the ragged mountain peaks they were passing over. "My position will be even better when I have the Seddi in my hands. The word is out. I want to meet with their leadership. I can end this once and for all."

  "What is this obsession with the Seddi?"

  He smiled absently. "It goes back to Rega and my. . . . Nothing, never mind.

  The fact of the matter is that we've committed treason. Our only hope is to hand Tybalt this entire planet. The defense structure is going to want to hang us by the heels and bleed us to death drop by drop for having the audacity to win. We're a long way from being anywhere near safety." And it scares me to death.

  She nodded, still staring thoughtfully as she wound her thick hair about her fingers.

  The Vespa plain appeared below as the high steepled peaks dropped away into an alluvial valley, now green with spring growth.

  "Makarta," he mused. "What I'd give to be able to find it."

  "Anything?" Gretta asked.

  "Hmm?"

  "You'd give anything to find Makarta?"

  "I suppose." Sinklar pictured Targa in his mind. Where could the Seddi have hidden their major temple? Under one of the cities?

  The LC swooped down, coming to a neat stop before the headquarters building.

  Sink stood, lost in his thoughts as he absently collected his gear. The ramp dropped with a hydraulic whine and he walked out into the warm sunshine.

  Beyond his command center, the rhythm and pulse of Targan life had reestablished itself. The mines were working— true, on reduced crews—but production could still be claimed to be a reality. Produce flowed into the cities and supplies and goods flowed back out. The dead were still being buried, but men and women could look about for a new beginning—though uncertain what it all meant.

  "I'll be up in a bit," Gretta called, reaching over to give him a sound kiss on the lips. "If you need me for anything, call through the comm."

  He nodded, her words already half-forgotten as he considered the Seddi. They remained the key to Targa. Why had they plunged their planet into such a bloodbath? What had they hoped to gain? With the resources available on Targa, they hadn't stood a chance. What fool reasoning could have filled Seddi heads to egg them headlong into certain defeat?

  And how much of this growing preoccupation is rooted in your parents' death?

  They were Seddi assassins—just like Ana Fera. Had they been trained here? Had they, too, walked the streets of Vespa? Had they known the location of Makarta?

  He climbed the stairs, mind on the problem, heedless of the salutes the guards threw him, oblivious to the awed shine in their eyes, the extra care they took to look profes sional as he passed.

  "I'm missing something," he muttered to himself. "There's a key element in their actions which I don't understand. A linchpin, which will make everything clear."

  He paused, hand on the door to the ops room, head cocked. "Unless they're total zealots. Could they possibly have fought a war on faith? Believed in some mystical hocus-pocus? Supernatural intervention?"

  He chewed his lip and frowned, shaking his head as he opened the door and passed into his pent
house ops room. Mhitshul and Shiksta were pouring over a pile of correspondence and marking notations on maps.

  " 'Nuther call from fleet, sir," Mhitshul said, looking up from the pile.

  "Figured you'd be here soon enough, so I didn't patch it through." He marked his place, stood, and moved to the comm Gretta normally handled. Within seconds he patched through to an orbiting ship high overhead.

  A block-faced woman, gray-haired and with a grizzled look, stared back at him through the comm monitor. She had flinty brown eyes. Her nose was crooked and age spots dotted her forehead. Her mahogany skin had lined with age. A sour tension was reflected in the set of her thin bloodless lips.

  "Sergeant Sinklar Fist?" Her voice grated as if the vocal cords had been damaged.

  "First Sinklar Fist of the First Targan Assault Division," he told her, emphasizing "First," seeing the hard glint filling her eyes. Not good, career military, this one—and a doubly seasoned veteran to boot. "And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

  "Commander Rysta Braktov of the Imperial Regan Assault Cruiser Gyton. You are hereby ordered to relinquish all military command to First Mykroft and place yourself under arrest. To fail to do so immediately will outlaw you as a criminal and you will be executed on sight."

  Sinklar nodded, knowing Shiksta and Mhitshul had frozen. "I see. Commander, I am not in a position to relinquish my command at the present moment. I face a dilemma you can no doubt understand."

  "And that is?"

  "Were I to follow your recommendations, the planet would rise in instant rebellion against Mykroft. The Targans hate him. In fact, that is why I originally requested an LC from orbital to retrieve him from the planet. The Targans would give anything for his head."

  Sink paced before the screen. "At the same time, both the First and Second Targan Divisions have reservations about their future treatment. We have been, shall we say, inconsistent in obedience to the Minister of Defense. The reasons, I'm sure you're familiar with. We didn't die when we were supposed to." His wry smile and raised eyebrow did nothing for her expression.