Vortex (31 page)

"Being buried alive," Sten said, "is an honorable death here on Jochi."

Otho growled. "And how can murder ever be honorable?"

Sten gave Alex a hand out of the grave.

"Y' dinnae answer m' question, boss, on whae use w' put this atrocity to? Ah cannae say Ah think thae'll be aught good i' we call in th' penny dreadfuls, an' let th' deed be howl't 'crost th' Altaics. Thae'll be more tinder f'r th' firestorm i' we do."

"You're right. We'll cover the hole back up. And all we'll do—at least at first—is ship a copy of Cind's record to Prime."

"Eyes Only frae th' Emp? Sten, this isn't th' first, it's just th' worst ae what we've been tellin't th' boss. Whae makes y' think he'll pay this any more heed—Ah ken he's seen more gashly sights o'erth' aeons."

''I don't know, "Sten said. "But he'd damned well better start—because you had it when you said there's a firestorm building. And we're right in the middle."

Then they fell silent.

And there was no sound but the shovels scraping dirt back into the mass grave… and the high roar of the wind as it built up force overhead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he question of whether the revelation at the Place of the Smokes would change the Emperor's course would not be answered.

Her family was not rich, not poor. Or at least not what the citizens of Rurik called poor—on many other worlds she would have been thought a slummer. But she knew both her father and mother, and only two of her brothers had died as babes. She had always eaten at least once a day, and her clothes were clean, if restyled and resewn garments her older sister had owned.

She was a Jochian. But she did not remember, as a child—at sixteen E-years, she of course considered herself adult—having any particular hatred for Suzdal or Bogazi. Even though she seldom saw either of the ET species in her sector. And she never felt anything more than pity for the few Tork families she encountered.

Some years before she had heard stories that her world would change, change for the better. Once that tyrant the Khaqan was gone—she had never thought of him one way or another before—a new day would dawn.

It would be brought by a man named Iskra. Some of her friends gave her pamphlets that talked about how this noble man had always believed in the Altaics, had believed they were to be civilization's center, and that the new fire would be sparked by Jochians.

She did not, of course, actually read any of this doctor's writings. She had been told they were far too complex for someone of her sex and education, and she did not need to waste the time.

She joined a small organization, a secret organization, of course, and was oath-sworn to help bring that new day in whatever way she could.

And then Iskra returned to his home world. She had been part of the roaring throng that welcomed him. She thought she had actually seen him—a dot far away on a balcony of the palace that had belonged to the Khaqan.

Then the stories had started. The new day was not dawning fast enough. The Torks still paraded and showed off their riches, riches that had been ill-gotten from Jochians. And worse, Jochi was still polluted by the presence of Suzdal and Bogazi.

Even when the "aliens" left, there were still evils plaguing Dr. Iskra's attempts to bring a firm hand to the madness. And of course, once her cell leader explained, she saw the real villains clearly: those Imperials who were trying to use Dr. Iskra as their cat's-paw, just as they had used the Khaqan. Now she realized Dr. Iskra was being held as a near-captive in that palace—not ruling freely as she once believed.

She wanted to do something. Something that would bring the change even faster.

Somehow, some way, she could help.

On the livies she saw what others had done. Two young men and a woman—a woman even younger than herself—had doused their bodies with flame, willingly shaming themselves with this dishonorable death, because only by such a stroke would all of Jochi realize
they
were the ones who were shamed.

She told her cell leader of her willingness to die. He said he would ask
his
counselor if such an act would be good.

Two days later, he told her that this was not to be her fate. Instead, she would be allowed to perform an even greater task, a task that would drive the Imperials from their worlds like a great wind from the north.

She was delighted and humbled.

She studied and rehearsed carefully.

Two days after Sten found the bodies buried in the forest, she was told it was time.

* * *

"The clots never listen," the sentry said to the other two Imperial soldiers assigned to the guard post. "Y' can tell them a hundred times this is closed off, you can't get a back way to the market stalls this direction, and they'll nod, smile, and try again next time they come to town. When the Maker asked the Jochians if they wanted brains, they thought he said drains and said 'go ahead and flush.' "

The sentry post was at one of the entry streets that opened on the Square of the Khaqans. It was now secured, because the part of the palace that had been given to the battalion from the Third Imperial Guards for barracks/offices/mess was about a hundred meters away.

He yawned—less than an hour after dawn, which meant less than another hour until the post was relieved and he could eat—picked up his willygun, slung it, and walked out of the sentry shack. He watched as the gravlighter floated toward him. A clottin' antique, he thought. Damned thing actually travels at a cant.

Its cargo compartment was full of what looked like half-ripe, half-rotten tree fruit that no one but a Jochian would have bought, let alone considered eating.

He shook his head. He resolved that when his hitch was up he would
never
bitch about anything on his home world, having seen just how little these Jochians actually had. You would almost feel sorry for them, if they weren't such hate-shoutin' bastards, he thought.

He couldn't see who was behind the controls of the lighter through the cracked, dirty plas shield. The sentry held both hands flat—universal language for "Ground it."

The lighter stopped—but didn't land. It moved back and forth in the gusting wind that came across the wide Square of the Khaqans.

The sentry swore. He moved to one side. Maybe the driver couldn't see him. Then he half smiled in approval. Pretty one, she was. He motioned again—just as the gravlighter went to full power and drove toward and over him.

It may have looked battered, but the lighter's McLean generators were freshly rebuilt and tuned for maximum power. The sentry had one second to think the young woman had misunderstood, then he rolled out of the way as the lighter drove forward at speed.

Imperial—and commonsense—security: the entrance to any secured compound should always be laid out so any entering vehicle, ground or aerial, would be forced to slow to minimum speed. But this particular gateway had but one V-turn in it.

Solid blocks, heavy-duty fencing, or even rolled razor wire had to be stacked to at least three meters above the ground. This gateway had only three rolls of razor wire, the third piled between the second.

The gravlighter snagged wire—but kept on moving.

It was imperative, Imperial security directives continued, that any compound include a secondary vehicle block, in case the outer barrier was breached.

No such block had been constructed.

Under no circumstances, the directives went on, even more sternly, was a troop barracks ever to be vulnerable to a suicide assault. Minimum precautions in hostile areas included monitors, AA posts, ground obstacles, roving patrols with heavy antiarmor weapons, etcetera, etcetera.

The gravlighter was only ten meters from the steps leading into the Imperial Guards' barracks when the young woman pilot—that friendly smile she had forced to the sentry now a rictus—reached down to a small control box that had been hastily welded to the floor.

There were two pull-levers, one sprayed red, the other blue. She had been instructed that the blue lever would start the timer, and she would have thirty seconds to clear the area.

The red…

The red was to be used in the event of emergencies.

She never knew that both knobs were the same, because she had determined that there would be no mistakes made. This would be the shot—the blast—heard far beyond Jochi or the Altaics.

It would be heard on Prime World, where that evil puppet master, the Eternal Emperor, would be forced to listen and realize what his machinations had produced.

She pulled the red knob straight up.

She died first as the three tons of conventional explosives that was the gravlighter's real cargo detonated.

The blastwave crashed through the wall of the barracks. Of the 650 beings carried on the Guard battalion's TO&E, more than half of them were still asleep, or being shouted awake by non-coms. Five hundred and eighty total Guardsmen were in the palace building.

Colonel Jerety, caff pot in hand, was about to ask his executive officer and battalion sergeant major if they needed refills when the blast rolled over him.

The explosion smashed down the barracks.

The lucky ones died in the blast.

The slightly less lucky ones never recovered consciousness or were crushed as the building fell about them.

But there were others.

The screams started even before the shock wave died, and while the dust was still boiling.

Halfway across the city the shock wave hit the embassy.

Sten, still abed, was brooding, and Cind was trying to convince him that his day would be vastly improved if he would lie back and let her tongue continue its wanderings, and he felt the rumble and the building shake, and he was on his feet, naked, sure for an instant that the bastards had hit the embassy itself.

He was at a window, ignoring Cind's shout to get down, and staring out as that great pillar of smoke and flame began building.

Deep in his guts he knew this was the turning point.

What would happen next, he had no real idea.

But he had a skincrawl/soulcrawl that it would be something to make all the murder and treachery that had gone before seem like nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"I
knew things were going to be pretty bleak when I got back," the Eternal Emperor said, "but, like most of my subjects, I thought all I needed to do was tighten the Imperial belt and slog onward."

The Emperor topped up Mahoney's glass with scotch and refilled his own. "I was stupid enough to think that with a little imagination and a lot of hard work the crisis would pass." He let his gaze rest briefly on Mahoney, then moved onward.

Mahoney had the sudden flash of a lizard searching for a fly. He shoved the disloyal image aside. "I'm sure it will work out eventually, sir. We all have complete faith in you."

The Emperor gave a hollow laugh. "Faith is an overvalued commodity, Ian. And, yes, it
is
a commodity. I should know. I just purchased some for extra insurance."

Mahoney let that go by. He didn't want to know what the Emperor was talking about. "How can I help, sir?"

"That's one of your most admirable traits, old friend," the Eternal Emperor said. "When I call, you're always ready to volunteer.''

In other times, Mahoney would have flushed warmly at the compliment of being called the Emperor's friend. Now the words sounded cold, insincere. "Thank you, sir," he said. He sipped his drink to cover confused emotion.

"First, let me tell you what has come to pass," the Emperor said. "I've got a desk full of fiche from my experts''—he thumped the side of his antique desk for emphasis—"which contradict each other on just about every point except one.'' The Emperor turned a thumb downward. "And that's the direction my Empire is heading.

"The optimists say we're going downhill slowly. They've got progs of complete collapse within twenty E-years. The boys in the middle say five or six.

"The pessimists tell me it has already happened. They say we're being carried along by economic inertia. That the sheer size of my empire covers up the hard, cold fact that we are dead, dead, dead."

"Surely they're all in error, sir," Mahoney said. "Experts make their fortunes on gloom. Not good news."

"No error. Except, possibly, my own. I've been simply ignoring what's staring me in the face."

"But… I don't see how this can be." A bit shaken, Mahoney gasped back his drink, then reached for the decanter to refill their glasses. It was empty. He rose and went to the sideboard to fetch another. Mahoney started to pick up another decanter of scotch, then changed his mind, seeing a flask of stregg. He lifted it up. "Maybe we need something stronger, boss," he said.

The Emperor's face paled with anger. "What's
that
doing there?" he barked. "I don't drink that anymore.'' Alarmed, Mahoney watched the rage build.

"Dammit," the Emperor snarled. "I told Bleick I don't even want that drakh in my presence." Then he caught himself and gave Mahoney a weak attempt at a smile. "Sorry," he said. "Little things get to me these days."

Mahoney just nodded and walked back to his seat with a decanter of scotch. What the clot was going on here? Why the sudden hate for such an innocuous thing? For the first time, Mahoney felt he was in the presence of a stranger. A dangerous stranger.

The Emperor continued as if nothing unusual had happened, as Mahoney refilled the glasses with scotch.

"When the Tahn war were over," the Emperor said, "the debt we had taken on was astonishing. But I had a firm, workable plan to whittle it away without causing too much discomfort. Unfortunately…"

He didn't have to fill in the rest. Mahoney knew quite well that the Emperor had never had the chance to put that plan into motion.

"I could still have pulled it off," the Emperor said, "if it weren't for the actions of the privy council. My God, did they spend. But not for one thing worthwhile. Not a thing that could eventually put credits back in the treasury, or even spur a little mini-boom in the economy."