Читать книгу Vortex (Sten #7) - Allan Cole - Страница 13

CHAPTER SIX

THE ATMOSPHERE IN the Imperial study was autumnal. There was no alk or stregg in sight. Sten felt himself very definitely in the V-ring as he came to the end of his Altaic mission briefing and sped through the last few items. “Coding . . . SOI . . . emergency procedures . . . all that’s here in the fiche. We’re ready. The Victory can lift within three E-days when victuals and ordnance are boarded.”

Sten put two copies of his fiche on the Emperor’s desk. They were coded and marked for the highest security access. The Emperor ignored them.

“You seem,” he said, “to have also done an excellent job of picking your personnel for this mission. Your longtime aide — the heavyworlder. The Bhor. Their commander. Most photogenic. And an excellent way to avoid . . . foreign entanglements.”

Whoever had had the meeting before Sten’s must really have crapped in the Emp’s mess kit. But Sten was used to vile temper from his superiors and paid no mind. “One more thing, sir. Also regarding personnel.”

“What else do you want?”

“A skipper for the Victory. I think you’ve arranged it so that I’m going to be very busy on Jochi.”

“Is there somebody you want?”

“Fleet Admiral Rohber Mason. He’s currently awaiting reassignment here on Prime.”

At first the idea had come to Sten as almost a joke. Then, on further consideration, it seemed a better and better idea. Mason might run a tyrannical ship, but the morale of the Victory’s crew was not especially of concern to Sten. Keeping himself alive was — and Sten knew that Mason the martinet was as capable of that as anyone. Besides, he knew that the admiral would follow orders. He was mildly curious to see whether it would bother Mason to serve under a man he disliked. Probably not — Mason almost certainly had the same feeling for all sentient beings. Sten himself had learned as a Delinq and then a soldier that one did not have to be friends with someone to task with them.

“Mmm. Very well. But you have a habit of wanting my best.”

So the Emperor had heard of Sten’s prospective Gurkkha recruits. “Yessir. And that brings up something else. I’ve had twenty-seven of your Gurkkhas volunteer for this mission.”

“And you told them?”

“I told them that if this was in accordance with Imperial policy, they would be welcome. They seemed to feel your approval had been tacitly granted.”

The Emperor swung his chair around and stared out the window at the sprawling castle grounds. He said something that Sten could not make out.

“Pardon, sir?”

“Nothing.”

Silence. Then the Emperor swung around again. He was smiling. He chuckled once.

“Having a few Nepalese along,” he said, “would certainly suggest to the Altaic beings that your mission is taken very seriously — and that you have access to the very highest levels, wouldn’t it?”

Sten did not answer.

“Take them,” the Eternal Emperor said. “It will do them good. We probably should start a program of rotating the Gurkkhas into temporary outside field duties. Give them experience — and keep them from getting stale.”

“Yessir.”

“I think,” the Emperor said, “you have done an excellent job of preparing yourself and your team for this mission. I wish you success . . . and luck.”

He stood and held out a hand. Sten shook it, then came to attention and saluted — even though he was in mufti. Very smartly he about-faced and headed for the exit. No parting glass, he thought absently. But he was more intent on what his mind suggested the Emperor had said, when his back was turned: “So everything changes . . .”

The Emperor held his ceremonial smile until the doors closed behind him. Then he dropped it. He stood for a long moment looking at the door Sten had gone through before reseating himself and keying the chamberlain to allow the next catastrophe to enter.

* * * *

Sten stopped at Arundel’s Admin Office long enough to have them issue orders transferring Mason to the Victory, and to tell the Gurkkhas’ CO that the volunteers’ request had been approved and that they should pack their kit and report aboard the next day. Then he headed for his gravsled in a truly sour mood. Hell. He should have told Lalbahadur Thapa to go sit on one of Nepal’s eight-thousand-meter peaks until his pubes froze, and take his twenty-six friends with him.

And having somebody slither around and find out that he and Cind were not sleeping solo — not that they’d kept their building relationship particularly secret — he didn’t like that, either.

Sten knew that the Emperor had survived as long as he had by keeping his Intelligence the best available. He knew that every retainer in the Imperial household had had at least some intelligence training, and most of them were ex-specialists. And he guessed it made sense to know whether your ambassador plenipotentiary was available, booked, or in area-wide lust.

But he did not like it.

As he went down the broad steps to the parade ground, he automatically touched his forehead, returning the salutes of the posted sentries. Too many goddamned nosy people in this world, he thought resentfully. He suddenly snickered. He guessed spooks never did like it when somebody looked under their sheets.

There was another gravsled waiting beside his, a nearly exact duplicate. That was strange . . . Sten’s transport was a sleek, stretched, blazingly white luxury item that reeked official muckety, from its assigned driver and guard — one of Cind’s Bhor — to the small ambassadorial flags mounted on each corner of the vehicle, to the phototropic bubble roof. Not uncommon on Prime. But Sten’s diplo-yacht was emblazoned with the Imperial crest on a solid red slash on either side of the vehicle’s doors.

The other gravsled lacked only ambassadorial markings to be a clone of Sten’s. The door came open . . . and Ian Mahoney stepped out.

Mahoney was ex-head of Mercury Corps, ex-head of Mantis Section, the man who had plucked Sten off the factory world of Vulcan and recruited him into Imperial Service. Mahoney had gone on to command the elite First Imperial Guards Division, then to become overall commander for the final assault on the Tahn. Then, when the Emperor had been killed, Mahoney had begun the drive to destroy his assassins, the privy council.

The Empire regained, Mahoney had been given an assignment much like Sten’s: to be one of the Emperor’s roving troubleshooters, with ultimate authority.

The task of trying to piece the ravaged Empire back together was enormous. So Sten and Mahoney had only seen each other twice during the intervening years, and even those two occasions had been briefly seized moments.

Mahoney mock-scrutinized Sten’s shoulders. “I can’t make out the epaulettes,” he said. “This time, do I outrank you, or do you kiss my ring?”

Sten laughed, and wondered why he suddenly felt so good. He realized there were very few people he could talk to openly, let alone consider a bit of a mentor, even though he had pulled Mahoney’s butt out of a crack as many times as Ian had saved him.

“Damfino,” Sten said. “I’m not sure what pay grade I’m getting this time around. Let’s stick with me calling you ‘sir’ — that way I won’t have to be apologizing for old habits. Time for a drink?”

Mahoney shook his head. “Unfortunately, the path of duty calls, and it is a stony path indeed. I am due to make a rather more meaningless than usual speech before Parliament shortly. And much as I’d love to stomp to the podium, belch stregg, and start by damning all politicians’ nonexistent souls to the Pit, I think the boss” — Mahoney jerked a thumb up at the Emperor’s apartment — “would have words with me.”

“Clot,” Sten said. “You and I fought the war to end wars, and they still won’t let us do any malingering.”

Mahoney frowned, seemingly deep in thought. “Why don’t we kill a few minutes before my speech? It’ll give us a chance to talk, plus get a little exercise, which we both could use. Have these poor excuses for politicians’ hearses meet us over there — if you have the time.”

“I have the time.”

* * * *

“Wasn’t it around here,” Mahoney said, “where the Emperor had his workshop? Building . . . what were they?”

“Guitars,” Sten said.

“Wonder why he never rebuilt the shop, after . . . his return?” Mahoney asked.

Sten shrugged. He had really wanted to blow some steam off, but so far Mahoney had kept the conversation relentlessly trivial.

“Those were some days, weren’t they . . .” Then Mahoney’s casual tone changed. “Damn, but you take hell’s own time tracking down, boy. Keep the smile on the face. We’re just beyond parabolic mikes now, but there’s a long-range eye that’s up on one of the battlements. It can read lips.”

Sten’s bobble lasted for only a microsecond. Then he became the total professional. “How do you know we’re clean?”

“I have a copy of all security plans — and changes — to Arundel. Woman in the tech department owes me a small favor.”

“What’s going on?”

“Damn, Sten, but I wish I could answer that straight on. Or that we had more than two minutes before we’re in range of the next pickup. Because I’m not all that sure. But things . . . just aren’t right. Haven’t been, as far as I can see, since he came back.” Mahoney grunted. “Or maybe I’m just becoming a senile, paranoiac old man. But the fault, from my seeing, is the Emperor.”

Sten almost slumped in relief. There it was — somebody else saw something.

“And if I try to give you specifics, you’ll think I’m past it,” Mahoney went on. “Because . . . It’s all little things. Little things that lead to big things.”

“Like the new Guys in Gray,” Sten wondered. “This Internal Security?”

“That’s a bigger thing. Still bigger is that they don’t answer to Mercury or Mantis. And it’s strange that the closer they get to the Emperor himself, the more they look like they’re his damned sons or something. Time!”

“Right. Just getting tired. But lately, retiring back to Smallbridge has sounded better and better,” Sten picked up smoothly. “Let the world go by and all that.”

“I always said you lack ambition,” Mahoney said.

“And lacking it more the older I get.”

“Clear,” Mahoney said. “Have you spent any time around court?”

“Not really.”

“It’s being taken pretty seriously these days,” Ian said. “It used to be a place the Emperor had to stash obnoxious or stupid people with money or clout. Give them a title, tuck them here on Prime, and they can’t stir up any trouble back home. Most of them now are still prancing peacocks. But it seems that the Eternal Emperor spends more time in their company. Plus there’s starting to be some people here who aren’t popinjays.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Mahoney said.

“Have you noticed the Emperor’s temper’s on a short fuse these days?” Sten asked.

“You see,” Mahoney answered, starting to spread his hands helplessly and then changing his mind, “drakh like this — like whether he’s being cranky — I don’t even know if it’s important. Maybe he was always like this. Maybe he’s just pushing too hard, trying to put this crumble of an Empire back together. I . . . I truly do not know,” Mahoney said once more.

“That’s the other question,” Sten said. “Maybe the real question, and what’s been eating at me. Can this clottin’ Empire be saved? Or did the combination of the Tahn war and the privy council batter it too much?”

“Clean it up . . . three, two, now . . . Again, Sten, the only answer I have is DNC — insufficient data.”

They walked on, as the path wound toward the artificial mountain the Emperor had built with the ostensible reason of keeping him from having to look at the clots in Parliament, talking of this, and that. At last Mahoney announced that they were outside any bugs, and asked about Sten’s current assignment.

“We’ve got ten minutes now, so give me the full details.”

Sten did. Mahoney mostly kept silent, except for an occasional shake of his head or grunt.

“Now, there’s a fine example of what I’ve been groping at,” Mahoney said. “The Altaic Cluster. Good analysis by the boss, yet you wonder why he let it go on for so long. Blame it on being busy with bigger catastrophes.

“What’s bad is that he told you to go out there and lay sacred hands on the Khaqan and bless his hustle. He could just as well, and possibly more wisely, have sent you out to get a feel for the problem and then reach a solution as to whether to reinforce the old thief or just send in Mantis to cut his throat.

“Now there’s a point that just occurred to me, thinking out loud as I am. It’s as if he doesn’t quite have the same patience or depth.

“Oh well,” he said. “Oh well.”

“The problem is,” Sten said, smiling a bit ruefully, “is that the Emp is, as far as I can see, the only game in town.”

Mahoney did not answer him. “I’m sure it’ll all straighten out,” he said obliquely. “Now. We’re coming up on range of more bigears. Let me take care of my business. I didn’t go to all this clottin’ trouble because I particularly care about your pissant personal problems. There’s chaplains for trash like that.”

Sten laughed, feeling a great deal more cheery. Mahoney was using the old Mantis “sorry you’re bleeding to death but could you do it in another color, since I always hated red” hard-edged sympathy.

“First, here.” Mahoney’s hand brushed Sten’s, and a square of plas passed between them. “That’s body-temp sensitive. Keep it close. If you drop it it’ll char.”

“What’s on it?”

“A very elaborate, very complicated computer program, and its two brothers. Get to any Imperial computer terminal that’s cleared for all/un input, and key the codes in. The first one will wipe all references, anywhere in the Imperial records, including Mantis and Imperial Eyes Only, to one Ian Mahoney. The second does the same for Sten, No Initial; the third for that thug Kilgour. After wiping, it then mutates in all directions, destroying as it goes.”

“Why the hell would I need that?” Sten said in complete shock.

Mahoney didn’t answer. “One other thing. And listen close, because I am only going to say it once, and I want you to bury it in your backbrain.

“If the drakh comes down — really comes down, and you will absolutely know what I mean if it does — start by going home. There’s something waiting.”

“Small-”

“Think, goddamn it,” Mahoney snarled. “You’ve got your head up like you were a straight-leg trainee. That’s it. Four tools, maybe. Or four parts of an old man’s degenerating into senility?”

Mahoney chortled suddenly. “. . . said, ‘you clot, the line was there’s hope in her soul.’

Mahoney laughed. Sten, more than familiar with situations when sudden merriment sans joke was required, also laughed. “Fine, Ian. If we’re telling old stinkers, here’s one of Kilgour’s, which I won’t even begin to try in dialect.”

As his mouth began the words to the half-remembered joke, Sten forbade himself a guilty look back over his shoulder at Arundel Castle . . . and concentrated on jokes, obscene, scots, stupid.

* * * *

Days later, Ian Mahoney stood in the shadows near a spaceport hangar. Far across the field a violet flame plumed into the night.

The Victory lifted smoothly on its Yukawa drive until it was a thousand meters above Prime. Then its captain shifted to star-drive, and suddenly there was nothing but silence and night sky.

Mahoney stood for a long time looking up at that nothing.

Luck, lad. Better than mine. Because I’m starting to think mine’s running thin.

And I hope you learn it may be time for this town to hunt up another game — and find out just what exactly it could be.