Vortex (9 page)

"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.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
here were about twenty beings cloistered in the room. The atmosphere was conspiratorial. Thick with talk—and smells. The sweet musk of the Suzdal. The mint/fish odor of the Bogazi. And the methane and ammonia aroma of humans.

"Like privies smell," the Bogazi male clicked. "Own privies."

"Shush. Might hear," one of his wives warned. She fussed over him, tucking a stray feather back into his fabulous tail display. His name was Hoatzin.

He tapped the big hammer of his beak against hers, showing pleasure. "Humans I study in books only," Hoatzin said. "Some in school I see. But not close."

He waved a delicate grasping limb at the humans in the room. "This
very
close. Like it. Not smell. Like study close." Hoatzin was a teacher, as were most males in his society. They reared the young. Their domain was the nest and the book. For the wives, it was the hunt.

Hoatzin looked over at the main table with pride. This is where the leaders of each group held forth, seeking a way, or, at least, agreement to agree. His chief wife, Diatry, was one of the four. She was speaking now.

"In circles we talk," she said. "Big egg circles. But big nothing in egg. Could all night stay. Talk and talk. Still egg not hatch." She peered down the hammer beak at the much smaller forms around her. Even by Bogazi standards she was tall: nearly three meters.

The Suzdal pack leader made a tooth display. The dim light glittered all along the sharp edges. "Summed up like a true Bogazi," Youtang said. "Forget the flesh. Get to the bone of the thing.'' The flattery to a former enemy was not intended. Youtang was getting weary of all the fencing. She would probably be surprised to learn that she had one other thing in common with the Bogazi: In their hatred of the smell of humans, they were sisters.

The general sighed. He wasn't sure how he had let himself be talked into this meeting. Except that the Tork, Menynder, was notoriously persuasive. Douw was frightened. What had started as an information-only probe had developed into a full-scale engagement. The current griping irritated him. As the Jochian secretary of defense, he certainly had the most to lose.

"What
more
am I supposed to say?" Douw gave his shoulders a helpless shrug. "That conditions are intolerable? Of course they are." He looked nervously around. "I mean…
some
conditions are bad. On the other hand…"

"There's a foot," Menynder broke in.

"What?" Douw's face was a blank.

Like a cow, Menynder thought. A silver-haired cow. "This isn't a staff meeting, General," he said. "Every being here has a life on the line. We gotta start talking plain. Otherwise the risk isn't worth it."

He motioned around the room. "I told you the place was clean. I had it scoured for bugs stone by stone. Now, so far I have provided a safe place to meet. Right in the middle of the squeakiest clean Tork neighborhood on Jochi." He ticked the rest off on his fingers. "Youtang stuck her neck out contacting the Bogazi. And Diatry, here, is probably on the Khaqan's
Most Suspicious
list, so she risked it even coming out of her roost.''

The Tork shifted his heavy weight in the chair. "Face it, General, if he knows we're here we are already dead. Now, let's go."

Douw soaked this up, slowly churning it through his conservative military mind. Menynder was right.

"After close observation of the Khaqan," he said quite formally, "I have come to the conclusion that he is insane."

No one laughed. Every being in the room realized the step Douw had just taken. It was almost as if the words had been delivered in a courtroom.

"Furthermore, I believe he has become a danger not only to himself, but to all the beings living in the Altaic Cluster.'' The general sucked in breath and let it out in a great whoosh. There. It was done.

The room erupted.

"I'll say he's insane," Youtang said. "Killed every one of his own cubs, didn't he?"

"One hatchling was trouble," Diatry said. "With rebels he plotted."

"Sure. But what about the others? Three daughters and a son. He killed them all. Afraid they wouldn't wait until he died for them to try to take over." Youtang was especially outraged by this sin. The Suzdal were highly protective of their young.

"In gluttony he lives," Diatry said. "Food. Drink. Sex. Money. Power. Too much of all he has. All over Altaics, roosts are cold. Markets they are empty. Stores outside we line. For hours and hours. What a life is this?"

"Drakh. That's what," Youtang snarled.

"What do we do about it?" Menynder pressed.

"Do? What's to be done?" Douw asked.

Menynder boomed laughter. "Well, from the looks of things in this room, we're all pretty much in agreement that the old buzzard has to go."

"Three questions we must decide," Diatry said. "One: Do we kill? Two: If kill, how? Three: Once gone, who rules? In these I am correct, yes?"

There were no arguments.

"Let's start with the last part," Menynder said. "Speaking as a Tork, I'm tired of us getting short-ended because we're a minority. Whoever takes the Khaqan's place is going to have to deal with that."

"I agree," Youtang said.

"Same for Bogazi," Diatry said.

"What if we felt out Dr. Iskra?" Menynder wondered. "He's respected all over the cluster. And he has a rep for seeing all sides of a problem."