Morojal.
This time she didn’t have a fishing pole, and instead of standing on the bridge, she was sitting on a folding chair by the stream. There was another chair next to her.
‘Welcome, Prince Khemri,’ she said. ‘Come, sit by me.’
I sat, while looking cautiously around.
‘How can this place be here and at Kwanantil, Great-Aunt?’ I asked in a very respectful tone of voice.
I’d learned a lot in the year since we’d first met.
‘This sanctum is a vehicle that goes where it is needed to be,’ replied Morojal, which didn’t really answer my question. How did it travel? How did it end up in the middle of an asteroid, or deep underground in a planet?
‘You have been brought here to be offered an opportunity, Prince Khemri,’ continued Morojal.
After my discussion with Haddad about how a new Emperor was chosen, I thought I knew what was coming. Surely I must be one of the chosen thousand Imperial candidates due to disappear over the next year? Which was both exciting and unnerving. Exciting because I could be the Emperor. Unnerving because no one knew what happened to the 999 candidates who didn’t make it . . .
‘A rare opportunity to serve the Empire,’ said Morojal, her calm voice lapping on the shores of my imagined promised land, where I had been elevated to the Imperial Crown. ‘You are aware of the seven Imperial services?’
Her question snapped me out of my daydreaming.
‘Uh, seven?’ I asked. ‘I know of six. The Navy, Marines, Survey, Diplomatic Corps, Imperial Government, Colonial Government . . .’
‘There is a seventh, secret service. It is called Adjustment. You have been selected to become an Adjuster.’
So I wasn’t an Imperial candidate after all. The Imperial Crown in my imagination fell off my head and dissipated into nothing.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked grumpily. ‘What does an Adjuster do?’
‘An Adjuster does what is required by the Imperial Mind to maintain the balance of the Empire,’ said Morojal. ‘Usually this means interfering in the plans of other Princes, sometimes to assist them in their objective, sometimes to deny them the same. To enable Adjusters to do this, they have particular powers not granted to regular Princes. For example, more priests, better access and communication with the Mind, the ability to present as more than one identity to other Princes, and so forth.’
‘To what? To present as more than one identity? What does that mean?’ I asked. I was deeply shocked. That meant the Imperial Mind really could lie to us, and not just in Haddad’s ‘levels of veracity’ way.
‘When necessary, the Imperial Mind can . . . recalibrate the information you broadcast to other Princes, indicating that you are in fact a different Prince or hold a different rank that is more useful, and so on.’
‘But what about if it’s to a Prince who already knows the Adjuster?’
‘Adjusters are also permitted to change their physical appearance, unlike other Princes. Under controlled conditions.’
‘I never understood that,’ I muttered, thinking of my own slightly too long nose. ‘I mean, the tek is there. Why not just let us all look however we want?’
‘Face sculpting allows surgeons—even priest-surgeons—to get far too close to a Prince’s brain,’ replied Morojal. ‘That is why it is only allowed even to Adjusters in circumstances where the entire medical team’s loyalty is both beyond question and under close observation.’
‘In case of what?’
‘In case of the introduction of alien or enemy Psitek components into a Prince’s brain,’ said Morojal. ‘Which might then invade other Princes or even the Imperial Mind.’
‘So even priests can’t be trusted?’
‘Not all the time,’ replied Morojal. ‘Most priests who are not relay communicators are not regularly in contact with the Imperial Mind, and some are only mentally inspected and adjusted on an annual or even less frequent basis. Loyalty conditioning breaks down. Things happen.’
‘That’s for sure,’ I said feelingly. ‘Or they don’t. Happen, that is.’
‘You are a very young Prince,’ said Morojal. ‘However, unlike many Princes who never bother to learn anything beyond satisfying their immediate desires or ambitions, you appear to be capable of wider thought. I think you have the capacity to be a much more significant Prince of the Empire, should you choose.’
‘What happens if I don’t want to be an Adjuster?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Morojal. ‘You go to work here at the Supply Station. In a few months, you will probably be assassinated, or die in something that appears to be an accident but will in fact have been engineered by Admiral Jerrazis, who knows that you permanently killed his protégé Huzand.’
‘What?’ I yelped. ‘How does he know that?’
‘He was informed,’ said Morojal, her eyes cold, the blue fluid roiling around and around inside her head.
‘You told him. To bring pressure on me,’ I said. ‘To make me choose to be an Adjuster.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Morojal. ‘Partly. An Adjuster had been working at the Academy to remove Huzand in a way that would dishonour House Jerrazis. Assisting you on your path to becoming an Adjuster was a second objective. Elegantly, she used you to achieve both objectives.’
‘I suppose I don’t really have a choice, then,’ I said, furious at being manipulated in this way.
‘There is always a choice,’ said Morojal. ‘Even if the alternatives don’t appear to be equal. In the interests of your making a fully informed choice, I should tell you that if you do volunteer for service in Adjustment, you must pass a graduation test.’
‘What test?’ I asked. I was wondering who the secret Adjuster at the Academy was. Morojal had said ‘she,’ but this could be misdirection. Who could have made me more of a target for Huzand? I mean, more than I did myself?
‘It is not an easy test,’ replied the arch-priest. ‘First, we transfer your consciousness to an unaugmented version of yourself.’
A what? I thought.
I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Morojal didn’t pause to let me speak.
‘Then we put you in an obsolete one-person life capsule of inferior, copied-Imperial tek and drop you in some sparsely inhabited system well beyond the borders of the Empire. For a year, or thereabouts.’
I shut my mouth with an audible click, nipping the end of my tongue.
‘If you can make it back to the Empire, you will be returned to your augmented physicality and welcomed into Adjustment. In your case, we would probably also give you a Naval cover story and promote you to lieutenant commander. You might even get another medal. Questions?’
Questions? I had enough questions to keep the arch-priest busy for the next three days, but since I doubted I’d be allowed that time, I rapidly sorted them out into the top three or four.
‘Does this happen straightaway? I mean, I get “transferred” into a . . . nonaugmented body . . . and wham! Off I go?’
‘No. The transfer is immediate, but you would then have a period of training and orientation, to become used to the lack of augmentation and also to be familiarised with how ordinary humans live, or typically live, outside the Empire.’
‘What about the genetically programmed Bitek improvements I grew up with, and my natural Psitek ability?’
‘The unaugmented version will have some of the viral programming of your early growth, but not all, as some sequences can be detected and identified. All the additional Bitek organs and glands that you have now will not be present. You will have whatever your latent Psitek ability was, which may be considerable in your case. You will have no internal Mektek shielding or reinforcement, of course, nor will you have the internal monitoring you are used to.’
I shuddered at the prospect of losing all of this, and remembered the feeling I had when my arm was cut off. Could I deal with a whole year of being even more reduced? But if I didn’t take on this graduation test, I would be shovelling shit, or at le
ast watching shit being shovelled, for months before getting killed anyway, and now I could not be at all confident I would be reborn. Somehow I didn’t think that Princes who knew about Adjustment but weren’t Adjusters were allowed to wander about and potentially inform the Princely community about what was really going on.
‘If I’m in a nonaugmented body, no one will know I’m a Prince,’ I said slowly. ‘How could I get anywhere near an Imperial post, or inside a temple?’
‘Indeed,’ said Morojal. ‘I believe I told you this is a graduation test?’
‘If I still have some Psitek, will I be able to communicate my real identity to priests?’
‘If you’re close enough,’ said Morojal. She paused and then added, ‘Perhaps.’
‘Great. No Mektek or Bitek ID and only maybe Psitek. It’s impossible!’
‘Is it?’ asked Morojal. ‘Commodore Elzweko managed it, as have some forty-six others in the last twenty years.’
Elzweko the manure spreader was an Adjuster? I made a mental note, once again, not to judge by first impressions.
‘Yeah, but how many failed?’
‘You do not need to know that number. It is not an impossible test. Merely very difficult. Now, I must ask you for your decision.’
I rested my face in my hands and tried to think it through. Either way looked like a death sentence. But at least if I stayed a Prince, I’d be better equipped to handle whatever might happen. I mean, what if assassins tracked me down while I was in a nonaugmented body?
Surely it would be better to stay on the supply station? Maybe Haddad could think of something—
‘I need a decision,’ said Morojal. ‘One way or another.’
‘I’ll try out for Adjustment,’ I said. It just sounded more interesting than moving manure about while waiting to be assassinated, and at least there would be a chance, however slim, that I could stay alive and prosper.
‘Good,’ said Morojal. ‘We would have been sorry to lose you at this point.’
‘But . . . but you said I could go back to the supply station. . . ’
‘I lied,’ said Morojal. ‘That is part of the test. You mean you didn’t figure that out?’
I didn’t answer. I hoped this would be taken to mean that of course I had it all figured out.
‘So what happens now?’ I asked.
Morojal pointed at the stream.
‘All right,’ I said. I stood up, took off my clothes, and waded into the water that was not water, and once again I found myself falling into darkness lit by a multitude of beams of light.
When I returned to my body, or at least to a body, I was in total darkness, and as far as I could tell, I was alone. I felt incredibly weak, and it took an extreme effort to crawl out of—not the creek—but some sort of low bath full of a very salty fluid, which was irritating my eyes and mouth.
I collapsed onto the ground, which was cold and unrelenting, clearly a Mektek deck or installation floor. I lay there for quite a while, trying to stem the panic that I was barely keeping at bay. My body felt weird and clumsy, and my mind was slow and disoriented. I don’t know how long I lay there, because I no longer had an internal clock to tell me the time.
My senses were also greatly reduced, but after a while I noticed that I could see the outline of the bath I had crawled out of and a thin strip of light some distance away at floor level. But that was as good as it got. I no longer had the capacity to shift my sight across a variable spectrum. I wasn’t going to see any more unless I could find a source of light.
It was also very quiet, particularly inside my own head. I was used to being connected to the Mind, being able to query it, to pick up information, to view overlays about the world around me, to luxuriate in a constant flow of information, picking out whatever I wanted to know. Not to mention mentally chatting with Haddad and my other priests and fellow Princes . . .
All of that was gone. To all intents and purposes, I was no longer a Prince of the Empire.
It suddenly came home to me that perhaps I never would be again.
Slowly, I started to crawl toward the strip of light. At first, my muscles were so weak I could barely manage to drag my sorry self along the floor. I found myself trying to initiate Bitek glands that I no longer had, glands that would have provided stimulus to those pathetic muscles and glands that also helped a Prince overcome fear. Without the hormones and other infusions, I was thrown back to a primitive state, and I was faced by the two great fears that have always threatened humanity.
Fear of the unknown and its dread companion, fear of the dark.
A small sob caught in my throat. I swallowed it down, acutely aware of the sound it made. Until I knew where I was, and what threats I faced, I did not want to draw any attention. Particularly since I wasn’t sure if I even had the strength to stand up, let alone defend myself.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I inched and wormed my way to the light. It seemed to recede as I approached, and I mourned the loss of all my target acquisition and ranging augmentation. I could not tell if the light was a weak one ten metres away or a powerful one at a much greater distance.
I struggled on and found myself growing stronger. It was as if my muscles were awakening from a long sleep. Eventually, I stopped crawling on my belly, and reaching above me to make sure I didn’t hit my head, I stood up.
As I did so, the thin band of light suddenly expanded into a doorway of blinding brilliance. I shielded my face with my arms and half shut my eyes, as I no longer had the additional eyelids of a Prince, nor the systems that would compensate and adjust my vision.
Slowly, the brilliance paled, and I made out a humanoid shape in the doorway. It raised one hand in welcome and spoke. The voice sounded familiar, but I could not quite place it—nor match the voiceprint against internal records.
‘You have done well to get so far, Khemri. Or as I will call you now, Khem.’
‘Khem?’ I croaked. My voice sounded strange. Everything sounded strange, for it was no longer filtered and ordered as it had been.
‘Khemri might be recognised as an Imperial name. Khem is suitably short and speaks of no particular origin.’
I nodded. This made sense. ‘Where am I?’
‘Arokh-Pipadh,’ replied the figure, and at last I recognised the voice. It was Commodore Elzweko. ‘Deep inside, at the Adjustment facility that is hidden within the supply station.’
Elzweko stepped through the doorway, and I peered at him, my eyes adapting very slowly to the light. He wasn’t in any kind of Imperial uniform, instead wearing a stained and patched coat with a fur-lined hood, padded trousers, and knee-high boots with metal knee plates. He had a weapon on his belt, but it was in a closed holster, so I couldn’t identify it.
He touched his hand to a panel on the wall, and the door closed behind him and lights came on overhead. I looked around to find myself in a large chamber of Mektek construction, typical of ship interior plating. The bath I had emerged from was no longer present, but a panel some three metres long and two meters wide was closing in the floor, marking the bath’s exit.
There was nothing else in the room. I looked down at myself and saw that I was naked. Apart from that I looked exactly the same as I had before, at least as far as I could tell.
But I did not feel the same. I felt weak, and small, and incredibly vulnerable.
:Can you hear this?: asked Elzweko in mindspeech. It sounded distant, even though he was only a few metres away, but it was clear.
:Yes!:
I answered in a mental shout, like a man calling for a lifeline.
:Good. Your latent psychic power is excellent. Follow me:
I followed him to the other side of the room, where another door sprang open. That led to a corridor that gently curved for a hundred metres or so, ending in an airlock hatch that was covered in warning signs. Doubtless it also had an overlay that would have been visible in tekspace.
The signs read DO NOT ENTER. WORMHOLE DRIVE RADIATION HAZARD. EXTREME RISK CATE
GORY EIGHT.
Category Eight meant instant death for ordinary humans, slow death for hybrids like the mekbi troopers, and very unpleasant but probably not terminal sickness for a Prince.
Elzweko waved to the door, and it rumbled back. He went into the airlock and turned to face me. I followed very slowly, still learning to move my weaker, slower body.
‘It’s not actually a Cat Eight risk, is it?’ I asked. ‘Only now . . . it would kill me straightaway.’
‘No,’ rumbled Elzweko. ‘There is no Mektek wormhole drive present. It is just to slow down the inquisitive. Tell me, when you were in your Princely body, would you have thought so much about that warning?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘No. I am suddenly all too aware of how easy it is to die.’
‘Good,’ said Elzweko. The door shut behind us, warning lights flashed red for several seconds, then the inner door whined as it began to open. ‘Keep that in mind. Stay behind me.’
We exited the airlock, entering a guardroom. Six unusually equipped and strange-looking mekbi troopers watched us, not springing to attention. They were taller than any troopers I’d seen before, less thin-waisted, and instead of energy projectors they carried short, gleaming tubes that were obviously weapons but not ones that I knew.
The tubes were pointing at us, which was also completely at odds with normality.
Elzweko made a complicated gesture with his hands and muttered something I didn’t catch. My hearing was dull now and could not be turned up or down.
Whatever he said, combined with the gestures, made the troopers raise their weapons and stand aside. As we walked past, I tried to hear their Psitek chatter, but either there was nothing or I just couldn’t pick it up.
In the corridor beyond the guard post, I asked Elzweko about the strange troopers and their mental silence. I was afraid that my inability to hear them meant that my natural Psitek was very weak indeed, and as it represented my only hope of getting into a temple sanctum, I really needed to know.
‘They have limited neural capacity and all Psitek is blocked,’ he answered. ‘So they cannot be suborned or commanded. They answer only to certain visual and auditory stimuli or particular situations.’