The Princess of Caldris (3 page)

Hammerstein’s female officer spoke then,
“Brilliant!” At which Hammerstein felt obligated to introduce her
at last, “Winteroud this is officer Tokushima.”

Steve Moore

I already knew that, of course. I bowed, and
wished I was older. I could sense she thought I was a “cute little
boy”, which was infuriating to no end. She was in the full flower
of womanhood; all I could do was wait, grow, and dream. I also
sensed she was in love with Hammerstein, which was funny because he
didn’t have a clue and thought of her as far too young for him, and
more or less a distraction with all her beauty moving through
criminal investigations like a fine art piece at a demolition
site.

“
Maam
.” I said, which I immediately
regretted.

“
She was indeed
researching the Arcturian Wars. Specifically New Galen. Had even
funded a small expedition there, a couple bots,” Hammerstein looked
at Mr. Gibbon who had been dutifully following, “No
offense.”

“
None taken.” Gibbon
lifted his chin.

“
A couple of bots, nothing
Major. An analysis of the remains of ship building facilities on an
outer moon had her convinced the Arcturian Fleet was far smaller
than the Transhuman Imperials at Deneb IV have long asserted. Much
of her research, however has been deleted from the Royal Archive.”
he said.

The doors opened and I felt
the well of time like a vortex. I stepped back a moment and Captain
Venkatesan held my shoulder. Hammerstein’s chin went forward like a
fist, he stepped in ahead of me like a prize fighter, like he would
protect me from the quantum streams. He still didn’t get it, I
managed to muse with a smirk, that this wasn’t something he could
find and wrestle to the ground.

It was a vast circular room, many levels
high. A multicolored skylight crowned its dome. In the center of
the floor was a holomap of the galaxy. Built even before colonies
had spread to the globular clusters.

“
Something dark she found.” I said. “
A
hatred and hunger!
” I stepped back, away
from the room.

“
Away, boy!” Hammerstein
snapped. “You rescue no Princess if your wits fail you.”

So I retreated, towards the
fountains with their hologram sculptures. Away from the geometric
doors, away from the room where the hologram of the galaxy
glittered across the floor like a toy,
like a barrel full of fish.

Tokushima, for all her martial arts and
weapons training, exuded nothing less than the same emotions my
mother glowed with when I was sick or bruised. Men frame it in
terms of “motherly love”, but there is something fierce and feral
in it for all of that. Men would do better to think of Artemis; the
ancient Greeks had it right with that. If one seeks to understand
humanity, go to the Age of Bronze.

Of course, even at twelve I was compelled,
in the presence of such a female archetype, to find my center; my
own archetype. Courage and duty and honor in the face of
danger.

So I looked back toward the
room. Toward the darkness that had eaten the Princess in her search
for truth. Caution sometimes the better part of valor, I was slow
in my probing. A great lie had been foisted upon mankind. The
Princess had discovered pieces of it, revealed like a beast too
large for its camouflage.
A wicked talon
here, a fang there.

“
Hammerstein!” the captain
of the guard snapped. “No more today! Get this child home or I will
summon the King.”

Hammerstein, for all his
unbending determination of will, sought hard within himself to
grasp and understand my weakness. Hammerstein would have walked
into the dark, with not a thought to his comfort or safety. It is
what he was. The warrior archetype; there was no retreat for him.
It took him time, only moments really, to undue his lifetime of
training and instinct to move in to battle. When he was able to
detach long enough, he pulled me away from the room.

It seemed like an eternity. The detective’s
ethos, “death before dishonor”, almost undid us both. There was a
place and time for his code; this was not that day. He struggled
with the concept of retreat, found it, and retreated for my sake.
We judge such men harshly, I think, in the realms of civility and
safety. In their world such pauses more often than not cost life
rather than save it. We must give them that much; born fighting it
is not the charge into the fray that gives them pause, but the
hesitation that garners an enemy time to reconnoiter.

I had learned enough that
day. Firstly, the Princess had found evidence that the official
histories of the Arcturian Wars were in fact incomplete, which
alone put her at odds with great powers in the far away Imperia.
Secondly, a darker secret lay even behind that, vile, inhuman, and
something not even considered. I slept in Hammerstein’s aircar, all
the way back towards the Sole estate I was beyond tired, beyond
rest, and beyond reach. Only Mr. Gibbons chromium assurances
reached my consciousness, and with a joke at that.

Gibbon’s jokes were not
very good. I remember forcing a smile and then
fading
.

We were high over the Tangerine Sea when I
woke suddenly. Something was coming. Something bad. My impressions
were of waspy things, cloaked things with bad intent. Dead things,
then-no, not dead. Mechanical.

“
Assassin bots.” I
said.

Hammerstein was like a well oiled matter
cannon. His attention snapped to his screen.

“
Defensive maneuvers, scan
for cloaked bots.”

Gabriel
Montagudo

The other Security aircars
broke formation like in a floral geometry, spiraling and splining
in different directions. High energy defensive shielding glimmering
in the bright sun of Caldris, and I felt my seat come alive with
emergency protocols; personal shielding. This was not one’s grand
papa’s aircar.

The world moved like a
giant toy, first below us, then beside, then above; round and
round

Hammerstein dipped and dove. A gravity
bubble saved us from hi-gee pulls in the dives. Over and over again
he dodged, still unsure where the bots might be. The other Security
aircars were doing the same.

The bots finally revealed themselves in a
sudden and impossible volley of disser fire. Had I not warned the
Security team, we would have surely been killed. As it was I could
see cuts and slashes of heat ripping at the body of our aircar.

Sizzling, steaming. Wicked.

Firing, however, they
revealed their positions and now Hammerstein and his team paid
back. The rapid click of modified guns sung like electronic dance
music, a cool mechanical cursing, vengeance served up
cold.

Hammerstein's eyes gleamed and I sensed the
thrill of a grown man in combat. Violent death winged about us with
a clockwork impunity such are bots-and there was no fear in him,
only an even, amazing sense of “now’ and “act” that precluded any
of his life before or after.

Now. Act. Respond. Win. Survive.

Existence reduced to a sport, a contest, a
ballet of destroying a menace. In the end, he and his team made
short work of the bots. I had provided an unexpected ace in the
hole for them; the warning they needed to act, to respond, to
win-and they did what they were trained to do, flawlessly,
beautifully in fact.

I knew then, at twelve standard Caldris
years something most civilized humans never truly understand; the
place a warrior goes in combat, a timeless place where they are one
with all their ancestors, outside the well of time-with all their
descendants hanging in the balance.

Now. Act. Respond. Win. Survive.

“
Hammerstein, this is
Palace security. We’ve just recorded the attack and will have a CSI
team on it stat!” a small holo-face spoke from Hammerstein’s
screen. Suspicion ran dark and wild in his mind.

“
Sure, you do that. I’ll
have our unit expect the results as soon as they come
in”

He wasn’t counting on any
of the information being helpful. Whoever had sent the things were
professionals. Their trails would be curled and Byzantine. He
glanced at me and I sensed his gratitude, and passing curiosity if
maybe I could find something even the CSI team had
missed.

“
Thanks kid, you saved
our-err, well…you know. Hope you had that disser ready, aye, Buck?
Hit ‘em back, hit ‘em hard, and hit ‘em hot.”

I placed my small hand on
the disser. “Yeah!” For I am a Sole, and we are from a long line of
those who go first, into the unknown; beyond the charted worlds, to
settle and build, and fight if need be. That was the first time in
my life a warrior had acknowledged me. I held the moment clear and
bright, the thick of the fight, glory. My ancestors were with me
that day.

“
Let’s get the kid home,
people. Tokushima, staff that estate with a platoon of combat duty
guards with tech support. Police orders.”

He held back a very ugly and profane
expletive, for my sake. I chuckled a little. The ribald words
people invent to snap back at the madness of the universe. In a
way, they’re art form unto themselves.

Mother was furious when
informed of the attack, of course. Father’s growing pride in his
son, his strange and inscrutable boy, well, it was something new
and pleasant for me. No longer merely the child with “special
needs” who couldn’t fit in to the ordinary world, I was
instrumental in the search for the Princess. I had just preserved
the lives of a number of Royal Detectives.

He had discovered something
he hadn’t sensed in me before, call it courage. I realized then too
something I hadn’t sensed in him before, his mind so full of
business and tasks, errands, responsibilities as it were. How
profoundly he valued this thing. Courage. The essential virtue on
which all others depend.

I sensed then too how fragile that
virtue-how years of it could be broken with a single moment of
weakness, and how often it was so for otherwise brave and
worthwhile people. Should that day ever come, should I succumb to
fear and fail him, I hope he could find it within himself to
forgive me.

For even at twelve I was
not fool enough to think the courageous were always so. Fear and
doubt; on the edge of our universe always, ready to pull us in to
shambling other-worlds of surreal nightmares. At the end of the
day, we have no weapon but our courage, our faith. Woe the one that
reaches such a state without a friend. Without a mighty Hammerstein
ready to stand in the fire with you.

Mother had a few expletives of her own
withheld when she saw the disser marks on the aircars.

I have no clue where
Gibbons had gotten this bit of programming, but when we alighted
from the aircars he surveyed the damage and amazingly,
whistled
. A long one too.
Then he quipped, “Ayie, caramba!”

Tokushima gave him a look of surprise.
“Okay!” she said, “I’ll escort the boy to the kitchens?” she looked
to my parents.