Exile (2 page)

Prime Cornelian's own great-grandfather had died in that conflict; and now Prime Cornelian was ready to elevate that symbol to an even higher place, by once again filling all of Mars with a hunger for war and savagery that would even outstrip the ancient one.

Soon, perhaps, the pink sickle within the iron circle would fly on all of the Four Worlds.

And also the Fifth.

"Ah," Prime Cornelian said to himself, knowing at last that he had come to the edge of the problem that bothered him.

The Fifth World.

Venus.

As one of his long-fingered hands continued to lightly stroke the sandstone of the railing, two others managed with the Screen he held. Almost reluctantly, he activated the viewer and watched as a series of pictures flashed inside the three-dimensional area. They were the latest from Venus orbit; and as Prime Cornelian viewed them, once quickly and then again slowly, one at a time, with great care, the tiny area of uneasiness he had felt began to blossom within him. This was not something anyone else would ever see—but Prime Cornelian knew that what he was looking at was the one vulnerable area of his plan.

"Sir?" the timid of voice of Pynthas squeaked behind him.

He turned his insect's head without moving the rest of his body and regarded the intruder with all the interest of a biologist studying a bacterium in a culture dish.

Pynthas, his human body quaking, bowed at the waist, not looking up.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Sorry for
what?"
Prime Cornelian snapped. He despised the man's inability to say what was on his mind, even more than he despised the man himself.

"I only wanted to tell you, sir, that there's been an update on the transmissions you requested. If you'll press—"

"I know how to use the machine!" Prime Comehan roared. In a smooth motion accompanied by the soft tickings and whirrings of his inner mechanisms, he swiveled the rest of his body around to face Pynthas. His fourth hand slid from the balcony, the long metal fingers wrapping with the other three around the body of the Screen.

His vertical blue-black eyes regarded Pynthas silently for a moment, and then he turned his attention back to the Screen as the new pictures came into view.

"Damnation," Prime Cornelian swore beneath his breath.

"I'm told it's not as bad as the photographs seem to show," Pynthas said in a hopeful whisper.

"Don't patronize me!" Prime Cornelian said angrily. "It's that bad and worse! They're arming the terraforming equipment as quickly as they can—as
quickly
as
they
can!
Do you know what that means? It means they don't care if they die! They'll martyr themselves along with the equipment!"

Breathing heavily, Prime Cornelian turned his attention back to the new information. On the screen the hazy green-orange orb of Venus swam in a haze of thin yellow cloud. Near the poles, the budding whites of ice caps stretched tentative fingers past their boundaries. Pockets of lush darker green dotted the landscape here and there; and in two spots on the planet's visible surface—the huge canyon Aphrodite Terra and Alpha Regio—shallow pools of standing water glistened like silver, surrounded by fringes of vegetation.

And here and there on the planet were the sites of future formations: where terraforming stations now stood, and where, after the detonation of the plasma blast equipment now being erected, would instead exist the blasted craters of man-made explosions hundreds of miles wide.

Making a disgusted sound, Prime Cornelian switched to the final transmission, a close-up of a station in the process of being armed, the long sleek blue tanks of the detonators clinging like leeches to the massive blocklike terraform stations.

"But sir—" Pynthas began.

Filled with rage, Prime Cornelian reared back one long-fingered hand and hurled the Screen at the toady, driving him back and knocking him to the sandstone floor, where he lay trembling, eyes closed, not daring to look up.

For a moment Prime Cornelian studied the sharp tip of one finger, which seemed to be covered in thickly drying blood, but was merely smeared with viscous oil.

Ignoring Pynthas, Prime Cornelian swiveled his body back to stand at the balcony ledge and stare out over the now darkened horizon. The lights of the city were winking on below, even as the stars spread out in the sky above. At the horizon, the pink glow turned with a departing flash of orange to blackness.

"Something will be done," Prime Cornelian said to himself.

Even deeper inside his brain was another problem, even more troubling, that he would not as yet even admit existed.

But one problem at a time.

Gliding close by past the still cowering Pynthas, his six long-jointed limbs, the front four bearing his hands, making ticking sounds like dog claws on the smooth sandstone floor, Prime Cornelian said almost as an afterthought, "Alert the Senate that I am coming."

Pynthas, groveling, not daring to even open his eyes, nevertheless nodded vigorously, rising from the floor only when he was absolutely sure he was alone.

I
n the Senate Chamber of the Grand Assembly of Mars, Senator Cray-Pol was given the floor.

The old parliamentarian shuffled slowly from his seat to the podium. Though his face was wrinkled and his walk lethargic, those who knew the old man understood by the look on his wizened features that he was boiling with anger. The strength of his voice was legendary, as was the depth of his wrath when riled. He had often been compared to a dune snake: sleepy and shade-driven when left alone, but when poked with a stick or dragged into harsh sunlight, all sharp tooth, fiery eye, and poison.

The membership waited for the old man to reach the dais, which he now did with aid. He did not turn in his customary way to thank the Senate page, which in itself gauged his displeasure.

Pushing back the arms of his crimson velvet robe, Cray-Pol gripped the top of the lectern and aimed his fierce stare out at his compatriots. The eyes below his shock of unruly white hair were bottomless with ire.

For a moment he did not speak, the gathering storm taking shape in his ancient body. But when the words finally broke from his lips they were of a force and stentorian level that had not been heard in that deliberative body for decades—since CrayPol himself, as a much younger man, had denounced from this same podium the High Prefect's road-usage tax of 2411.

"This is outrageous!"
Cray-Pol shouted into the depths of the pink Senate chamber. For a moment his voice lingered in the high recesses of the domed ceiling, like a bird circling and reluctant to fly away.

From the silence of the gallery came a few mumbled ayes.

"Outrageous, I say! To think that we have been dragged from our supper tables at the whim of one man! That the august body of the Senate of Mars should be treated in this fashion is indefensible! What crisis could possibly warrant such behavior? No one, not the High Prefect himself, warrants the authority to treat this assembly in such a manner. I move that we adjourn at once and that a writ of protest be filed! Whatever this mysterious crisis is, it can wait until morning!"

Cray-Pol pounded on the lectern. Though the strength of his hand in no way matched that of his voice, the murmurs of assent now rose to a clamor from the nearly filled half-circle of seats in the gallery.

With a dismissive wave, Cray-Pol turned from the
podium and accepted the help of the Senate page in descending.

Amid a chorus of talking and rustling, the Senate members, remembering their dinners and other activities, rose as one to depart.

"Not yet, gentlemen!" came a voice from the rear of the hail.

Startled, Cray-Pol paused halfway down the final step from the lectern and now, on beholding Prime Cornelian's insect body filling the back doorway of the Senate chamber, indicated to the page that he should be helped back up to the dais.

With a collective sigh, the senators settled back into their seats. One, the incongruously (for a Martian) stout Kol-Fan, produced a ripple of laughter with his lament of, "My roast goose!"

After what seemed an eternity, during which relative silence returned to the chamber, Cray-Pol resumed his spot at the rostrum, pushed back his robe's arms, and gripped the top of the lectern once more. Now, his eyes filling with even greater fury, he shouted, one palsied finger leaving the desktop to point the length of the gallery back at Prime Cornelian.

"How dare you enter this chamber! You are not allowed here! Haven't you caused enough trouble in the last months with your red-shirted ruffians running wild in the streets, your talk of war? You may have fooled some of the Martian people—and even the High Prefect—with your phony nationalism and
your call to the old, warlike heritage of Mars, Cornelian, but you haven't fooled me!"

Cray-Pol's words echoed and faded. Absolute silence descended on the Senate chamber. A few heads swiveled to regard Prime Cornelian, who stood unmoving in the open doorway.

"Sentinels!" Cray-Pol shouted. "Remove that
thing!"

Before the two festooned guards at the sides of the chamber could react, Prime Cornelian, in a voice even stronger than Cray-Pol's, said, "I bring you sad news . . . of the death of the High Prefect."

A collective gasp rode through the gallery.

"No!" Kol-Fan, settling weakly into his chair, whispered, all thoughts of dinner gone.

"We must stay in session until a new High Prefect is chosen!" came a voice from one side.

"Where is Senator Kris?" came another. "Let us elect him new High Prefect!"

At the podium, Cray-Pol seemed stunned, unable to speak or move.

"May I speak?" Prime Cornelian said courteously. When Cray-Pol still made no move, a voice cried out, "Let him speak!" seconded by, "Yes!"

Cray-Pol, at a loss for words, mumbled, "This is highly unusual. . . ."

"Give Cornelian the podium!"

In the back, Prime Cornelian waited patiently. Cray-Pol, mustering his strength, said, "We must put this to a vote. All those in favor . . ."

Nearly every hand, save for Cray-Pol's and that of L(ol-Fan, who had fainted, shot into the air. "Very ... well . . ." Cray-Pol said.

The old man turned away, leaning heavily on the page, and was helped down from the dais.

An electricity of anticipation built as Cray-Pol was helped to his seat and was lowered, shaking, into it.

Only after the old senator was seated did Prime Cornelian make his way up the center aisle. He seemed oblivious to the fact that those senators seated on the center aisle shrunk away from his form as it passed. His six insectlike limbs climbed the platform in a fluid motion and he turned to regard the assembly with his slitted eyes.

He spread his front hands in mock sadness, tilting his head to one side.

"He did not die in his sleep," Prime Cornelian said with a sigh, "nor peacefully."

He made a flicking motion with one needlelike finger.

Instantly a detachment of Martian Marines filed in through the rear doors, spreading like red ink around the perimeter of the chamber.

"Sorry about the, ah, security," Prime Cornelian said mildly, "but one can never be too careful."

In his seat, Cray-Pol began to recover and sat regathering his wrath.

Marines continued to file in, completely ringing the chamber. Now with another flick of Prime Cor
nelian's finger the heavy rear doors of the chamber were slammed shut with a hollow sound.

"I could say you are a captive audience—but we'll dispense with the levity," Prime Cornelian said. "The bald truth is, the High Prefect was murdered, by myself. As was General Korvin. They were both unreasonable men and refused to believe in the coming crisis. General Korvin, whose underlings seem more inclined to my views, has been replaced by . . . myself, and the High Prefect has been replaced by .. ." here he turned a sharp metal fingertip to point at his chest, "myself."

An uproar welled through the chamber. It was quickly silenced by the raising of two hundred Marine raser rifles.

Prime Cornelian held up his hand for silence—which nearly ensued, until Cray-Pol, his face a deep shade of angry red, pushed himself, shaking, to his feet.

"If Kris were here you would dare not—"

With a sigh Prime Cornelian said, "Kris is not here. In fact, aside from the few of you miserable lizards in this room who are still his friends, I have already eliminated any of his allies I could find, in the military, in the cabinet, hiding behind chairs—wherever I could find them." He made a motion to one of the Marines, who sighted his raser and fired. A ruby line pierced the old senator's upper body.

With a shocked gasp, the wrath, and life, left Cray-Pol's body. He collapsed into his chair, a knuckle-sized blackened hole showing completely through his chest cavity.

Tomblike silence descended on the chamber.

"And now," Prime Cornelian said, "I'm afraid that I must insist that the Senate be dissolved. All in favor?"

Prime Cornelian help up a hand, glaring at the assembly.