She turned the most amazing amber eyes on him and smiled. The planet might have stopped dead in its rotation as she approached. “Director Tyklat?” “Yes. “
“Hello. Ily sent me. I’m yours.” “Mine?”
Her smile broadened and she handed him a small box-the control for a slave collar. Tyklat glanced up, curiosity piqued. Looking closely, he could see the slave collar now, a golden band about her perfect throat. Not only that, but this close, he could catch her scent, and it added to her sexual allure.
“Minister Takka rewards her people well,” she told him. “I don’t know what you did, but she said I was to tell you that I’m to replace the one that got away.”
“Ah!” Skyla Lyma! No, Ily doesn’t suspect a thing! Ily had promised him the Wing Commander before everything went awry on Etaria. Tyklat felt a load shift as the last of his nagging doubts vanished. Not only had he survived, but now he was being promoted in the Regan power structure, a fact that would please Magister Dawn when she heard.
“What do I call you?”
“Most recently I was called Gretta, but you can call me anything you want. I’m yours to do with as you please.” And her eyes gleamed with excitement.
“I’ll call you Gorgeous. My thanks to Ily.” “Minister Takka sends her regards,” Gorgeous told him as she took the lead. “I’m to show you to your new lodgings and make you comfortable. Ily will see you first thing in the morning when you’ve had a good night’s sleep. After that, I’ll be responsible for showing you around Rega, seeing to your needs, and will accompany you on your next assignment. I hope that I please. “
Tyklat grinned as he nodded. “You more than please, Gorgeous. “
“This way, my lord. “ Gorgeous inclined her head, an exciting promise in her tiger eyes. She led him down the long hallway, calling, “Your baggage will be shipped directly to your quarters. I hope that pleases.” “It does.” Had she thought of everything?
An official aircar waited at the security exit. More of the soldiers stood guard, their blasters at hand. Tyklat took a deep breath of the Regan air. It burned in the back of his nose. Not only that, the place seemed to roar constantly.
“Looks like things got a little rough here.” Tyklat nodded at the guards as the aircar lifted and sailed out over the city in a priority lane. He watched the arching spans of giant buildings pass and noted the brown haze in the air. Could there really be dirt down there under all that ceramic, metal, and concrete?
“We’ve had violence for almost a month.” Gorgeous shivered. “It was terrible. Horrible things happened. Government officials killed, aristocracy murdered in their beds, you wouldn’t believe. And Etaria? Did they riot, too?”
“No. They don’t pay much attention to the troubles of the Empire. The Blessed priests tend to avoid politics. “
The aircar settled on the high roof of a palatial looking building. As they stepped out, the aircar sailed off. Gorgeous led him to a lift, palmed the security lock, and dropped them a floor to a plush apartment the likes of which Tyklat had never seen. He stepped out into the large room, feet sinking in the carpet. The furnishings might have suited an emperor. One entire wall was transparent, revealing a view of the city.
“ Do you like it? If not, I can find you another,” Gorgeous stared hopefully into his eyes.
“Fine. It’s just ... well, fine! Everything is.”
She carried his valise into the bedroom, powering up the sleeping platform and checking the dispensers. She unwrapped the ungainly coat she wore, revealing more of her sensational figure. “Are you hungry?”
“ No,” Tyklat whispered, devouring her with his eyes.
She noticed and stepped close to help him off with his coat. “Would you like something else?”
“ I. . . . “ She cut him off as she reached up and kissed him, long fingers stroking his face.
The feel of her full breasts against his chest shot adrenaline through his body. Her long fingers slipped his shirt off before reaching down to undo his pants.
Struggling for breath, he stripped her, marveling at the wondrous perfection of her body. He bore her to the sleeping platform to bury his head in her breasts. She mounted him, allowing his hands to explore her muscular body. When he looked up, an excited gleam, almost feral, illuminated her eyes. The soft light threw shadows across her firm flesh.
The Blessed Gods wished this for humanity, he thought. She’s the goddess in human flesh and she’s all mine. Thank you, Ily! He cried out as she brought him to pulsing ecstasy. He slumped, totally spent, as she curled around him. “Blessed Gods,” he whispered, drifting off to sleep.
Arta Fera watched him until his breathing deepened. She used a thumbnail to pry a section of the slave collar loose and a small phial dropped into her fingers. She smiled as she placed the phial beneath his nose and crushed it.
Tyklat’s breathing deepened as he inhaled the vapors. Arta waited, catlike, for another couple of minutes before she moved, and then only to roll her body onto his, whispering, “Tyklat?” She patted his cheeks looking for a reaction. Finally she slapped him a stinging blow. Tyklat slept on.
Arta stood then, spitting on his naked body as she unhooked the fake slave collar and threw it at him.
A panel slid back and Ily entered, followed by several technicians who carried medical gear. Arta laughed as they tried and failed to ignore her.
“Get dressed,” Ily ordered. To the techs she added, “You have other business than staring. I want him swept from top to bottom. If he’s Seddi, as I suspect, he’ll have a way to kill himself.” Her black eyes narrowed angrily. “All the others have.”
Arta picked up her bulky coat. “Is there a shower here? I need to wash away his filth. “
“In there. “ Ily turned, walking over to stare down into Tyklat’s slack face. “Very soon, dear Tyklat, I’ll know everything that happened on Etaria. And if you’re Seddi? Well, I’ve caught an important one.
Staffa sat propped on the edge of the scarlet couch, one leg dangling as he sipped his brandy and watched the fire that crackled merrily in the ornate fireplace. Divine Sassa would ignore him. A melancholy had settled on his heart. I had to try reason first. Now what, Staffa? Blast Impeial Sassa? Employ the very measures that damned you in the first place?
“I still don’t understand how you got to Etaria,” Myles said, a curious resolution on his face. “I’ve given you a commitment, made my gamble. Now it’s time for you to gamble that my word is good. What happened to you, Lord Commander? You used to be as cold as liquid hydrogen.”
Staffa ran a nervous finger over the incised cuts in his drinking bulb. The amber liquid caught glints in the firelight as he swirled it.
Staffa took a deep breath. “I became aware. That sounds curiously abstract, doesn’t it? But it’s true, Myles. You see, once upon a time, the Praetor of Myklene was like a father to me. He raised me, called me his greatest creation-and that’s what I was. He trained me, and laid a rather insidious trap for me in the process. What do you know about mental conditioning, training the neural pathways?”
The Legate frowned, gesturing with his beringed fingers. “A little. Information is planted in the brain in a three-dimensional tree sort of arrangement. We access data through neural pathways that follow that arrangement. “
“ Very simply put, that’s right. Pathways can also be blocked. In my case, that’s exactly what the Praetor’s psychologists and teaching machines did. They blocked the personality centers in my brain. The best analogy I can give you is that they created a sort of human battle computer, one without conscience, without shared values, without morals. As you put it: cold as liquid hydrogen ... and just as emotionless.” Staffa stared into the roaring flames. “He made me into a monster. “
Myles stared up, a horrified look on his face. “That’s why you killed him?”
Staffa’s eyes narrowed as he remembered ripping the old man’s head from his body, leaving it to stare sightlessly into Myklene’s green sunset.
“Perhaps. It’s hard for me to remember. I told you he laid a trap? Key words, linchpins to unlock that hidden part of my mind. That’s what he let loose that day: an emotional torrent that flooded my brain with endorphins, acetylcholine, and all the other chemical imbalances. I didn’t know who, or what, I was. Worse, he told me that he’d taken my wife and child-kidnapped them years before. Evidently Chrysla-my ... my wifewas aboard his flagship.” .
“And you blew it to pieces on the first assault,” Myles whispered as he stared emptily into his glass. “I killed her,” Staffa admitted. “The Praetor was going to use her to bargain with, to save Myklene, but I never gave him the chance. You can guess how the information affected me. I’d loved her for years, Myles. Paid out fortunes to people to search for her. If you check your system, you’ll find a tag on every Sassan personnel computer.”
“And your son?”
‘He’s alive. You see, that’s why I disappeared to Etaria. It was the logical place to transship to Targawhere the Seddi had my son. The problem was, naive and arrogant as I was at the time, I got into trouble.” He chuckled, giving Myles an amused glance. “I might be very clever when it comes to Imperial politics and fighting battles, but I knew nothing about the street. A group of Etarian thugs set me up, robbed me, and I killed a couple of them in the process. What would you think if you found a man like me naked in the street beside two dead citizens? I was condemned to the collar. I spent those months while the whole of Free Space searched for me hauling pipe in the Etarian desert with the same people I’d sold into slavery for profit. “
“Rotted Gods! So that’s where Ily found you?” “It was. But by then, as you can imagine, my perspectives had changed about a lot of things. Not only were my thoughts beginning to coalesce, I had to learn how to deal with my brain, to stifle the improper neural pathways and integrate a human personality, but I suffered day in and day out with people whose lives I’d destroyed. The guilt ... pustulous hell, Myles, the guilt damn near suffocated me. In that horrible desert I met wonderful warm human beings whose lives I ruined ,”
“Go on. “
Staffa chuckled hoarsely. “Go on? How? I can’t tell you, Legate. Dream about it ... let it haunt your nightmares like it does mine. Place yourself there in the desert among people you’d condemned to slow death by slavery and rape. Suffer there in the sand with people whose lives you’d looted and broken in blood. It’s an understanding of the soul, not of words. “
Myles lowered his eyes uneasily and licked his lips. “But Ily found you. Then you blew up the Internal Security Building?”
“Skyla did. Ily was desperately trying to recruit me to become her conqueror-to share an empire with her. Skyla, bless her, had managed to track me to Etaria, and with the help of the Seddi, broke me out and got me smuggled to Targa.”
“We’ve wondered how you got there.”
In a shipping crate with the woman who is now the Magister of the Seddi Order. Kaylla Dawn. You should meet her, she’s pretty impressive. I murdered her husband and her children when she was the Maikan First Lady. It was in that Rotted sialon box that she gave me direction for my life, a framework with which to deal with the universe.
“So you became Seddi?”
“I became a Seddi. They have a lot to offer us. But that’s not at issue. The only issue is stopping this war. I was in Makarta Mountain. There, I fought Sinklar Fist. I know his ability, Myles. I know that planet and what it took for him to subdue it—especially without Regan orbital support. If Skyla hadn’t pulled us out when she did, Ily would have had me blasted in that rock. “
”You don’t think we can beat Sinklar fist? He’s just enty some years old.”
Staffa gave the Legate a grim smile. “I might be able to beat him in a full-scale war. But lban? Never. Than doesn’t have the flexibility, the imagination, or the sheer unbridled genius that is Sinklar’s. No, he’ll have Sassa within two years at the most. The problem is that too many worlds will die in the process.”
Myles sat scowling into his drink. “You don’t make it sound very reassuring.”
:’It’s not a comfortable situation for any of us.” ‘Iban’s going to make a strike. He’s already massing assault ships and personnel. You know that, you can read your scanners as well as anyone. He’s going to hit them within.
Myles started and looked around fearfully.
“Four months, right?”
Myles rubbed a hand over his fat face. “I guess I made my commitment, didn’t I?’
“ But old habits die hard.” Staffa took the Legate’s drinking bulb and refilled it.
“What is the future, Lord Commander? Let’s say you can stop the war, what then?”
“I’m breaking us out of the Forbidden Borders, Myles. Once I do that, humanity is on its own. I’m going to go back to Itreata and love Skyla Lyma for the rest of my days and run my industries. “
“The Forbidden Borders are your obsession. Staffa grunted softly to himself. “No ... they are my atonement.
Division First Mykroft sighed gratefully as the military shuttle settled on Regan soil. For him, the long nightmare had finally come to a conclusion of sorts. How curious, he thought. He’d left Rega a powerful man in charge of a full Division. He-and the other officers in the spartan shuttle-returned disgraced and displaced.
Mykroft replayed the Targan campaign in his head. After the destruction of the First Targan Assault Division under Atkin, his Second Division had landed, secured the capital at Kaspa, and proceeded to battle the rebels. How could he have known the convolutions of Imperial politics in far-off Rega? The Seddi had assassinated Atkin, and Tybalt had looked for a sacrificial Division. Most striking of all, Mykroft’s orders insisted that an officer be appointed from the ranks of the decimated First Division.
From his office window in Kaspa, Mykroft had watched the fierce battle waged by Sinklar Fist-and he’d acted to appoint him. After all, Sinklar’s Division was slated for destruction in the field. Then, despite all conventional wisdom, Fist had survived, taken his objective, and beaten the rebels.
How could I have known?’In celebration, Mykroft had thrown a Divisional ball for the Second Targanand the rebels had struck, wiping out most of his command. To his dismay, Fist had disobeyed his orders when Mykroft demanded Sinklar hand over the First Targan Division to him. And I appointed him! The callous ingrate. For that, he humiliated me! Defied me! The anger burned in Mykroft’s breast.
The others in the shuttle: Sampson Henck, of the Twenty-seventh Maikan; Tie Arnson of the Fifth Sylenian; Rick Adam of the Eighth Regan; and the others, had been similarly defeated. It could have been worse. Weebouw and his entire command were deadblown away.
“We’re back,” Henck said sullenly. “Do you think there’s a hero’s welcome awaiting us?”
“We’re lucky to be alive,” Adam added. “But what next? Fist just had us loaded in the shuttle and sent down? Said we were free to go? What kind of lunatic is he, anyway?”
“A dangerous one,” Mykroft supplied as he stood and unclipped his personal effects from the overhead. A soldier—one of Fist’s-stepped into the compartment and undogged the hatch. The woman said nothing as they filed out onto the tarmac of the shuttle port. But Mykroft could see by the set of her body the anger she was restraining.
He stepped down from the shuttle, feeling the heat radiating from the vehicle’s side, and took a deep breath of Rega’s sour air.
“Well, let’s get inside,” Henck said. “We can call for transportation.” He kept his eyes lowered and started for the terminal building.
They walked silently, each lost in his own thoughts. To Mykroft’s surprise, he entered the terminal and found a group of young men waiting.
“First Mykroft?” “Yes"
One by one, the others in his party were called by name.
The young man acting as spokesman added, “Would you please accompany us. We have transportation waiting. We’ll be taking you to your quarters.” “Quarters?” Arnson as
ked.
“Yes, sir. “
Mykroft glanced suspiciously at the young men who had surrounded him. “What if I wish to go elsewhere?”
The young man smiled. “I’m afraid I must insist, sir.”
Mykroft nodded and sighed. Probably just another military debriefing, but if that were the case, why weren’t the young men in uniform?
“I must insist,” the young man repeated.
“Come on,” Adam urged. “It’s probably some official nonsense.
“Very well,” Mykroft agreed. But as he followed his escort, he couldn’t shake the premonition that this, too, would turn out to be a mistake.
Ily Takka’s private comm buzzed her. She rode in her personal aircar, watching the buildings slide past the transparent dome of her vehicle, her thoughts on Tyklat and the secrets he’d yield.
Ily thumbed her comm. “Go ahead.”
“Minister Takka? This is blue team. We have the Division Firsts in custody. We’re currently transporting them to the Ministry.”
“Very good. Did you have any trouble?” “No, ma’am. “
“Place them in individual cells. We’ll interrogate them later.” And they’ll know which master they now serve.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ily leaned back and smiled. Two catches in one day. “Sinklar, two of us can play at this game. Insurance comes in many different forms.”
“Oh, what I almost did!” Sinklar moaned from the small closet-sized toilet in his quarters aboard Gyton.
MacRuder had leaned his butt against the deskstacked as usual with a clutter of flimsies with his arms crossed on his chest. He inspected his lean image in the mirror across from him and patted down his blond cowlick where it stuck up. He tilted his head, then winced at the sound of violent vomiting.
“You sure you don’t want me to stick you into a med unit to check you out? Maybe she put something into your food. Some slow poison.” Mac glanced warily at the rumpled bedding on the bunk. It looked like Sink had simply flopped down and passed out.