Infinite Day (56 page)

“Must it be . . . like this?” Merral heard bewilderment, even anger, in her voice.

“It has to be done. I feel as sure of this as I have of anything.”

Suddenly Slee, who was still watching the screen, said, “Looks like Nezhuala's here. Ordinary-looking chap.”
A typical cartoonist's comment.

Merral gave an order. “Team, get ready. Less than a minute.”

He turned back to Anya. “We must all play our parts today. This is what I must do. You must play yours.”

Anya bowed her head. “
No,
Merral. I cannot accept this. I have lost so much; to lose you would be too much.”

“If I rightly understand what is happening in our time, then we can't say of anything that it is too much.”

He saw bitterness in her face.

“Anya, I do not ask that you accept this now. I simply ask that you play your part.”

She turned her face away for a moment. “As you wish.”

“It's not as
I
wish. It really isn't.”

They heard a voice now from the screen, amplified and reverberant. “I am the lord-emperor Nezhuala, lord of all the worlds of the Dominion, the most high over men. I will not speak long with you.” The Communal was slightly accented.

Merral grasped Anya's hand and then let it drop. He walked to the door. He saw that Slee was holding the handle.

Nezhuala's words echoed through. “You are of the Assembly of Worlds. We are of the Dominion. You know our history: as the Freeborn we tried to liberate ourselves of the shackles you wished to place on humanity. But your ancestors sought to utterly destroy us. And from that we learned the lesson: there can only be you or us. And if it can only be you or us, then
this time
it will be us. I have decided this.”

“Ready, Lloyd?” He saw his aide had fully extended the flagstaff and, with the flag furled tight, bore it in his left hand. In his right, he held a gun.

“God be with us all,” Merral said.

In the background, the lord-emperor's voice continued. “You have come here to the heart of my world. You will not be returning from it. I want you to look upon all this and see it.” The voice was proud and the hand gestured around. “
This
is all my work. I am the one that history has led to. I am the fulfillment, the goal, the endpoint of history.”

Merral nodded at Slee. “Okay. Open up.”

The massive doors slid apart with a smooth, well-oiled motion. Although he was prepared for a vast space, Merral was almost overwhelmed by the enormity of what stood before him. About to step in, he suddenly felt extraordinarily small. Even allowing for the fact that he had known nothing but a spaceship for the last five weeks, this was an immense and daunting space. The towering walls, the heavy ornamented buttresses, and the intimidating ceiling and dangling tubes seemed to shrink him and reduce him to the scale of an ant.

The lord-emperor's words rolled on. “In me, the destiny of the human race turns. It turned once before, when soul and spirit were placed on flesh. It changes now.” The voice grew proud and exultant. “I am the new Adam!”

With determination Merral walked forward. Many things registered on his senses. He felt the odd roughness of the floor and saw that it looked like ice or light marble. He smelled the strange, fetid air. He heard beyond the footfalls of Lloyd just a pace behind him and the lord-emperor's echoing, boastful words the high-pitched murmurings and calls on the edge of audibility. He saw the guards on the raised ledges; the banner with the ever shifting sign; the vast, embellished ribs that held up the dome of the roof; and the slight, brown-haired, black-robed figure on the throne.

He pushed gently past a couple holding each other for support. “Excuse me, please,” he said, and without looking at him they responded, “Of course” and dutifully moved to one side. Yet he and Lloyd were noticed. And as they walked to the head of the crowd, he could hear a whispering spreading behind him like the wake radiating out behind a ship.

“I don't believe it!” he heard someone say. “That looks like Commander D'Avanos!”

He made out Isabella on her own near the front, her shoulders sagging, her face downcast. She saw him, and her look changed to one of astonishment.

“You came at last,” she said, but he wondered if relief or accusation was in her voice.

She moved to follow him, but he gestured her back.
I would like to speak to her, but I have other priorities.

The lord-emperor was still speaking. “There is to be a new kingdom, and mere flesh and blood cannot inherit it.”

At the dead center of the floor, Merral stopped.

As he did, the lord-emperor ceased speaking. He turned his gaze on Merral and Lloyd. “Strangers, I bid you welcome. I know who you are.”

Merral touched the microphone stud on the armor.

“Do you?” His words, amplified through the suit speakers, echoed loudly round the great space.

The figure seated on the throne leaned back and stared at him. “I imagine you are going to tell me. Your kind normally do. Some futile statement of defiance very often forms their last words.” The tone was haughty and sneering.

Merral glanced back to see that the team had come in through the doors and was lined up against the rear wall. He turned to face the lord-emperor and as loudly and as clearly as he could, he spoke. “I am Merral D'Avanos of the Assembly of Worlds and, by the grace of the Risen One, commander of the armies of Farholme.”

Merral turned to Lloyd. “The banner, Sergeant!” Lloyd unfurled the flag, but in the still, heavy air it dangled loose and rather pathetic.
As it did at Tezekal.

The lord-emperor shook his head. “Doesn't really work, does it? Your little bit of cloth with the sheep on it. Not here.” He gestured up above him. “This place bears the final emblem. An emblem that looks forward, not back.”

Merral prayed,
Lord, give my words grace and power.
Then he pressed the microphone stud and spoke again. “Lord-Emperor, I address you. I use the title you have chosen, although I deny its relevance to me or any of these people. You are neither our lord nor our emperor and never will be. I have been authorized by the legitimate powers of Farholme to come here and bring these our citizens back. They were taken by trickery, and I propose to take them back openly. I therefore ask, in the name of the One who rules over all, that you let them go.”

The lord-emperor leaned forward.

“How nice of you to ask. What a well-brought-up boy you are.” Sarcasm discolored the words. “I hope you are not too disappointed if I tell you that I have not the slightest intention of releasing them.”

“Didn't think that would work,” muttered Lloyd. “Nice try, though.”

“You have to ask.”

Lloyd leaned forward. “Permission to try to kill this man, sir? I can get him with a rocket.”

“Permission refused . . . for the moment.”

The lord-emperor raised a hand to his chin as if considering something. “Now, if I remember, the normal response by people like you at this point is to try weaponry. But please do not consider that you will fight me. You are substantially outnumbered.”

He waved his hand languidly, and on each side of him, the doors slid up on the lower three ledges. Through the doors came a mixture of men in armor bearing weapons and creatures. Merral recognized some of these: Krallen—there must have been several hundred—ape-creatures, and cockroach-beasts. Other creatures were unfamiliar: great black insects with long, multisegmented legs and claws; huge, narrow, gray creatures like giant centipedes; and things with tentacles and plates that defied description. The forces moved out to form a great arc facing them. Merral heard an unnervingly familiar rippling noise above and looked to see a stream of slitherwings tumble out from between the hanging pipes like great bats.

Merral heard gasps of horror from the hostages. “Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into,” Lloyd muttered.

“Complaining, Sergeant?” Merral said, aware that he was strangely calm, as if somehow he had been pushed beyond fear.

“Quoting, sir. Laurel and Hardy.”

“Ah, yes. We watched them last week.”

“But you know, sir, I think I really should have brought some more ammunition.”

“Let's be positive, Sergeant; I don't see a baziliarch.”

“Well said, sir. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.”

Merral turned toward the throne and flicked the microphone on again.

“Very well. Lord-Emperor, I want to offer you a trade.”

“What sort of trade?”

“I am not sure you have yet been fully briefed by Fleet-Commander Lezaroth, so let me remind you of events. You were defeated at Farholme, a world that had long forgotten war. There, your full-suppression complex, the
Triumph of Sarata
, was destroyed. There were two land battles. You lost heavily at Tezekal Ridge and even more heavily at Ynysmant, where a baziliarch was destroyed. You sent massive power to our world, and all that you have left is a freighter, a dozen or so men, and thirty hostages. The rest is just dust.” Merral paused, letting the words that Vero and Luke had helped him put together sink in. “Do you know what I think happened at Farholme, Lord-Emperor?”

“Tell me.”

“I think you met the one man you fear. The great adversary of legend. The one destined to frustrate your plans.”

“I fear no man.”

“But is he a man?”

The only answer was a brooding silence.

“Lord-Emperor, many thousands of years ago, the prototype of your Dominion was created by William Jannafy. He was brought low by a man, and all he had created was destroyed. Or, as we now know, almost all. Around my neck I bear an ancient identity disk. Would you like to guess, Lord-Emperor, whose name it bears?”
Vero suggested Ringell be mentioned. Let's hope it has the effect he wanted.

“Lucas Ringell,” Merral said.

He heard something that might have been a hiss come from the throne.

“You are probably making a deduction by now. Especially as I was in charge of the Farholme defenses and I fought at both Tezekal and Ynysmant. And what's perhaps intriguing you is the striking fact that we came here by freighter and yet, within days of arriving in your home system, we had stolen one of your new destroyers. And now we are here. I have managed to lead my soldiers before your very throne.”
I would never have gone so far in boasting, but Vero encouraged it.

There was a long pause before the lord-emperor spoke. “Fascinating. So, why shouldn't I kill you now? I can do it with a word.”

“Because you have a problem.”
This is the tricky bit
.

“Please explain, Commander.”

“By now, the
Dove of Dawn
—you knew we had seized that, didn't you?—will have been at Bannermene for at least a week. Its crew and passengers will be on Earth with the records of those events and battles. By now, the news will be spreading throughout the worlds.”
Perhaps. If Delastro and Clemant haven't rewritten history.

The man on the throne was silent.

“You know what will be happening now, don't you?” Merral paused, bracing himself for something else that Vero had suggested.
Lord, forgive my presumption.
“Now as we speak, on a thousand worlds, a trillion people are talking about me. The Assembly leaders are encouraging it because it gives people hope that victory can be achieved. They are probably making statues of me. Filming reenactments of the battles. Naming their children Merral.”
Are they? If I believed that, it might turn my head. But I must play up my part here.

The lord-emperor seemed to give a smile. “So, all the more reason to kill you.”

“Ah, but if you kill me now, that would simply end the story in the neatest manner possible for the Assembly.” He paused. “That's the way to go! My death in a desperate rescue venture to the very foot of your throne. That would be the crowning glory to my life. You have no doubt studied the Assembly; you know how much we appreciate self-sacrifice.”

“Indeed. But how would they ever find out, Commander? You are a long way away.”

And now I'm going to lie. Well, if any man has forfeited the right to hear the truth,
it's this man.

He tapped his shoulder near where the camera sat. “As it happens, everything here is being transmitted back to the
Sacrifice
. And the
Rahllman's Star
. And from there it is transmitted directly to Farholme through quantum-linked photon communication devices that we developed and sent to Earth on the
Dove
.” Merral tried to sound confident. “So this is going out live to Earth. Within minutes. To kill me here would just enhance my reputation.”

“An interesting analysis. I shall enjoy watching the imagery when I take Earth. But I do not see the trade you suggested.”

“You let these people go, and I stay with you. As a ransom.”

“And what am I supposed to do with you?”

“That is up to you. Imprison me until the war is over? Kill me privately? Seek to bend me to your will? You might find it best to keep me safe as a prisoner so that you could trade me for your own people.” Merral paused. “So if you promise to release my people, I promise to stay.”

The lord-emperor was silent for a moment in which Merral glanced upward, only to feel crushed by the appalling height of the roof above him. Below it, the slitherwings flapped around in leisurely circles.

“But I could just seize you now,” Nezhuala said in almost a conversational tone.

Merral gripped his gun. “I will not be taken alive. And my dead body is worth little. I do not fear death.”

There was another silence before the lord-emperor spoke.

“So, Commander, if I let these people go, you would stay here?”