CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE ETERNAL EMPEROR would not have been pleased to see the use Sten and Cind were putting to his former suite aboard the Victory. The luxurious sleeping area—with its athletic-field-sized bed—was littered with fiches and printouts and wads of scrawled notes.

Sten and Cind were perched on the bed itself, plotting the Emperor’s demise.

They went over all the information Cind had gleaned. And then checked it again. Finally they were done.

There was only one more piece missing.

“I don’t see any other way to look at it,” Sten said. “That tightbeam antenna has to be the key.”

“Which gives us one directional leg,” Cind said.

Sten grimaced. “Yeah. But to get a fix we’re still going to have to come up with another. A second leg.

Right now all we know is that the Emperor’s hideout is somewhere between Point A and infinity.” Cind nodded, gave a weary sigh, and lay back on the bed. As one side of Sten’s mind worried at the problem, the other noted the slender form of his lover. She was gloved into a black skin-tight jumpsuit that covered her from neck to heel. It had been a long time since they’d had many hours together.

A small part of him wished the impossible. That their existence could be different. That he and Cind could be normal beings with normal problems. Instead, the course he was on required him to continually risk the life of the person who was closest to him.

“Well, I’ll be a beardless mother,” the woman of his dreams suddenly exclaimed. She sat up in the bed.

Abrupt “Wait just a clottin‘ minute, here!”

“What do you have?”

Cind shook her head, impatient. Started burrowing through notes. “I’m not sure… but if you will button your lip for a second, my love, I’ll…”

Her voice trailed off as she grabbed a handheld and began punching in data. Sten did as he was told, watching with growing interest as she muttered to herself and pawed about for more bits of information.

She finally looked up at him, eyes bright with excitement. “I think I’ve got it,” she said. “The other leg, I mean. Or how to find it.”

Cind scooted closer to Sten, so he could see the handhold’s small screen. “See… That little factor that kept messing us up before. We thought it might be static. Or, maybe even a screwy secondary from all that security apparatus. But look. That wasn’t the explanation at all.” She watched anxiously as Sten weighed the information on the screen. “Maybe I’m full of it,” she said, beginning to doubt herself. “Maybe my brain has turned to something like one of Kilgour’s pet haggises.”

“No,” Sten said, hastily running a recheck program. “I’m pretty sure your mind is functioning perfectly.” A grin split his face from ear to ear. “It’s a second beam, all right. It’s gotta be. On a different freq and aimed in a completely different direction!”

Sten quickly patched into the Victory’s main logic banks and ran the data. In a few moments the answer came back. “That’s it,” he said. “There’s no other possibility.” Cind chortled in triumph. “Now all we have to do is track that bearded wonder down… and locate Point B. Which should be… I’m hoping… one of the relay stations like Kyes found. Except that it hopefully won’t have done a meltdown. Run a fix from there, and that should give us the other leg—straight into the Emp’s scrotum.”

She knelt on the bed. Hoisted a lovely hand to give Sten a salute. Looking sexier than hell. “Sir! I respectfully request permission to investigate.”

Sten hated what he had to say next. He would have to tell her no. His rejection would take a great deal of explanation. None of which Cind would buy.

This time, he would be the one to go. Alone.

Not out of love. Or fear of losing her. Well… not really, he rationalized, steering to the cold facts of the matter.

When Kyes had confronted the Emperor on that burned-out AM2 station, he had come supported by an entire team of former Mantis operatives. Yet there’d been some kind of mistake made—and the station had self-destructed.

As skilled a soldier as Cind was, she was certainly not as experienced as any member of that grizzled team of stealth warriors. And he assumed the relay station had far more devices for self-protection than just autodestruct.

Sten had spent a small lifetime in Mantis. It was not ego that told him he was the best of the very best.

His built-in Mantis calculator delivered this up as solid truth.

He was the only logical choice for the mission.

But how could he say all this to Cind and get her to understand? To see the situation clearly, and unemotionally. With no rationalizations of her own to spare her lover from danger?

He saw the flushed excitement on her face. The dancing lights in her eyes. He hated to kill that look.

Sten told her. She raged at him. She reasoned with him. She pleaded with him. But he held his ground.

Finally the matter was settled. Or at least they’d declared a truce and had agreed not to discuss it for a while.

On the shaky theory that one couldn’t eat and be angry at the same time, he rang the mess to serve dinner in the suite.

They spent the first half of the meal in near silence. The second in light chatter. By the time they got to the snifters of crusty old port, the chatter had turned to serious talk.

Sten told her about Rykor and the brainscan and Bravo Project.

“I still don’t know what to do about it,” he said.

“Some people would wrap it in suit-proof patents,” Cind said, “and then sit back and rake in several large fortunes.”

“I know I won’t do that,” Sten said.

“I figured as much,” Cind said, with a small smile.

“Besides,” Sten said, “the ability to manufacture AM2 really doesn’t have much to do with the problem we have right now. I suppose one reason I’ve put off a decision is because I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.”

“I’ve thought of that, as well,” Cind said. “I wake up with the cold sweats sometimes, wondering…

What if the Emperor wins?”

Sten said nothing. He refilled the snifters.

“But that sort of thinking is pointless,” Cind said. “He either will or he won’t. Sometimes Bhor fatalism can save a lot of agonizing.”

She swirled the port in her glass. Thinking. Sten could see she was hesitating to ask a question. Then she spoke, without lifting her eyes.

“What happens if we win?” she asked. “Who—or what—is going to replace the Emperor?” Sten shook his head. “It isn’t up to me,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a revolution. Not a coup. Other beings are going to have to make those kinds of decisions. It’s their future. Their choice.”

“I think you’re being a little romantic,” Cind said, “if you think it’s going to be that simple. You’ll be the man of the hour. The rescuer. More to the point, there’s the AM2. Whether it’s natural or synthetic.

From an alternate universe or a processing plant. You’ll be the one holding the keys… the keys to the Emperor’s kingdom.”

“I’m not much enamored of that thought,” Sten said. Flat.

Cind put a hand on his. “I know,” she said. “And that’s why I love you. It’s also why I want you to think about it. Because when the moment comes, there won’t be much time to decide.”

“I notice you didn’t offer your opinion on what I ought to do,” Sten said.

“I’m the last person who should say,” Cind answered. “Do I think you’d make a good ruler? Clot, yes.

Would I rather have you to myself? Double clot, yes.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m prejudiced, remember?”

Sten flushed, embarrassed. Cind giggled. “How cute,” she said. “You’re blushing. Now, I’ve got something on you. The great rebel leader, blushing like a boy.”

“Blackmail,” Sten said.

“Absolutely,” Cind replied.

She slid out of her seat and slipped into his lap. Sten found his arms füH of a wriggling, willing woman.

Kissing at his neck. Nipping at his earlobes.

“What’ll you give me if I don’t tell?” she whispered. Naughty.

Sten’s hands were busy moving over the form-fitting jumpsuit. Outlining curves. Exploring hollows.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he said. “But first, you tell me. How the hell do you get this thing off?” She took his hand… and showed him.

The whisper came hot in his ear: “There,” she said. “Press… right… there!” CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE GUARDS‘ BOOTHEELS crashed louder and closer. Alex hung like a spider in his web just above the great blast doors that led from the huge parade-ground/bailey into Arundel Castle. Waited patiently, eye on his timer, trying to ignore the skincrawl.

It had grown worse the closer he got to the Emperor’s castle. Not that he had encountered any concrete reasons for this death-tick. Kilgour’s serf-insertion had been a piece of cake. Thus far. And by his own self-deprecating definition.

He had ridden public trans from Ashley-on-Wye to the nearest decent-sized city. Then he had checked to make sure there had been no recent changes to the ID required on Prime World, and that his own fake cards were correct. Then he found a bad section of town, and bought a currently-in-register gravcar at one of the town’s graymarket hurleyburleys. None of the unpleasant questions such as Place of Residence, Place of Work, Reason for Cash Purchase, References, or the rest that might have concerned a conventional dealer were asked.

The sled may have been registered, but its drive was in unspeakable shape^4he McLean generator would only lift the gravcar three meters, at max, and held the car at a 15-degree angle to the side. Top speed was no more than 55 kph.

Alex dropped another hundred credits to the seller’s purported brother, to get it running right. He knew the “brother” would jury-rig the repairs, and probably fill the lubricant reserve chambers with something on the specific gravity of molasses— frozen. But what of it? The craft was intended for only a oneway trip.

Twenty klicks outside Fowler, the city closest to the Imperial grounds, Alex found a litter-filled field just beyond one of Prime’s omnipresent parks. Clottin‘ gorgeous, he thought. Put i’ a park, w‘ penalties f’r trash, an’ thae’ll still be clots thae’ll dump their slok ten meters beyon‘ the gate. Exact whae Ah been seekin’, however. He lifted the gravsled into the middle of the lot, grounded it, smashed the ignition and choice parts of the drive, stripped its registry off and buried it, and abandoned the wreck.

He hitched into the city and disappeared into its high-rise slums.

Step One, Two, and Three were accomplished successfully— getting onto Prime, setting up a secure base, and infiltrating into Fowler. Now for a cooling-off period. There was just a possibility he’d been tracked from his arrival, and the Emperor’s Internal Security was giving him rope, to see what mischief he had in mind. I‘ dinnae be likely, he thought. But why chance m’ neck i‘ th’ noose? I’s th‘ only one Ah hae.

He had rented the room because it had two separate “back doors”—one out onto a rusty, abandoned fire ladder that Alex had secretly reinforced, and the second from the other side of the corner room onto some rooftops just made for a rapid departure. Plus it had a half-arsed kitchen, so he wouldn’t be forced out into public view.

After a week of laying low and eating packaged food not much better than military rats, he concluded he had dragged no tail with him. On to the next part.

He treated himself to a bottle of expensive brandy, remembering he would have to dump the flask somewhere else to avoid suspicion, since people in the district he had taken lodgings in seemed addicted to simpler pleasures, such as filtered industrial alk or home brew. And he plotted.

Stage Four would be getting himself as close as possible to Arundel. Stage Five would be getting into the Emperor’s castle.

Stage Six would be out and gone for home, hopefully in one flat-out ran.

Alex’s plan—one in, twa oot—was that he’d have a partner when he left.

Poyndex. He was fairly sure the man might have some objections to being snatched, and might become violent, or at the very least vocal.

Neither of which was in Kilgour’s scheme, especially since a brouhaha would produce an uncomfortable feeling for Mm, such as death. And for his overall plan to work, Poyndex would have to vanish silently and completely. The Snark would have to be a Boojum. But he didn’t want the distinction to be made positively until it suited Alex, Sten, and the rebellion’s plans.

Alex’s ambitious plan was to vanish Poyndex straight to the brig of the Victory. There he would be offered the same choice his agent on Vi, Hohne, had been given: double or be brain-scanned.

Alex cynically figured that Poyndex, being a purported professional, and having turned his coat once, wouldn’t even hesitate as long as Hohne had.

All of Alex’s sources on Prime said Poyndex was the Emperor’s cat’s-paw in everything. His knowledge of the Emperor’s closely held secrets would help in the final days.

At that point, Alex planned to have Poyndex surface, publicly. That would be yet another blow to the Empire.

All he had to do was bell his pussycat…

He forced himself to pay no attention to that little backbrain chant saying, “And lang lang may the maidens sit/Wi‘ their goud kaims in their hair, A’waiting for their ain dear love/For him they’ll see nae mair…”

Maybe he would be killed this time. He felt it likely. Maybe this was his last run—but what of it? He had never had the idea he was either immortal or that he would die in a silken bed of old age. But he was determined that at the least, his ran on Poyndex would succeed before he would consider taking the journey to the Isle of the Blessed.

He muttered as he finished the bottle. He was going on like a creaking seer, mewling around a cauldron on a blasted heath, thinking naught but wrack and rain. Stick to bus’ness, lad. But if he was a seer, and his plan held up in the sober morn, Alex foresaw a minor crime wave in Fowler’s future. At that point, he shut off the single light in the shabby room and rolled over to sleep.

He slept. If he dreamed, he did not remember them when he awoke. He ignored the hangover and reconsidered his drunken plans of the night before. They still made sense. Alex went out for one beer and a plate of greasy eggs and settled down for a nap until night.

The first theft was from an ambulance, parked at the back of an emergency ward. Kilgour, cross-trained as a medic in Mantis, knew just what he needed to clip from the gravsled’s kit. He got what he needed, muttered at one object’s unwieldiness, and left, relocking the ambulance’s door behind him.

He stashed his loot, and checked the time. Ver‘ good, he thought. Ah still hae time, i’ Ah hurry. Th‘

bistros’ll nae be closin’t frae another three hours. Back out into the night he went, headed crosstown to another part of Fowler, where an un-grated window didn’t immediately suggest a brick and an eyeball-calculated trajectory.

The joint wae jumpin‘, he thought, looking through the mesh fence at the luxury gravcars parked behind the exclusive boite. One… two security bein’s, a couple of carparks. Nae problem.

He used a small laser to cut a Kilgour-sized hole in the fence and went into the lot. He stole the registration plates from six gravcars—and put five of them back. On different craft than the ones they had been taken from. He replaced the fence grating and, with the sixth plate, went back to his tenement.

Clean and simple. Kilgour rewarded himself with a couple of beers in an after-hours dive. He bought some rounds, and made some friends.

The next day, he lazed around, after doing minor stretch exercises, only going out for a meal and a shopping expedition. He bought three days’ worth of dried rations, a pack, a canteen, a flash, a set of camouflaged coveralls, and a cammie ground-sheet. He wished the Mantis phototropic camouflage was available on the open market, which it of course was not. He couldn’t have brought a set with him, since he had carried nothing that would even lift an eyebrow in the event of a stripsearch. The birdwatcher’s gear would have to do. His final purchase was a small but heavy-bladed “survival” knife. His next stop was at an electronic hobbyist’s center, where he bought some innocuous devices and the tools and circuitry necessary to modify them.

Then he allowed himself one of the two indulgences he had promised himself for the mission. He found a grocer’s and bought three kilos of inexpensive, thin-sliced lean beef, salt, fresh parsley, and a collection of dried spices. Back at his tene-ment, he strip-cut the beef, about three centimeters wide. The strips went into a marinade of soy sauce, water, some cheap red wine, some hot sauce, and spices—garlic, a handful of juniper berries, summer savory, pepper. The garlic, berries, and spices were sauteed a bit, and men dumped, hissing hot, into the rest of the marinade. The strips of beef went in to soak for a day.

About midnight, he went back to the dive he had scouted the night before. One of his new friends was waiting. He had secured what Kilgour had expressed interest in. Actually, he had an assortment. Kilgour sneered audibly at the miniwillygun, although that was the weapon he would have preferred. But, as he told the fence, ‘T Ah gie nabbed, wi’ one ae th‘ Eternal Emperor’s owene pieces ae AM2 artillery, Ah’m f r th’ high jump, an‘ Ah dinnae wan’‘t’ revisit m‘ old haunts, f r a while yet.“ Also that’d keep the fence from thinking Kilgour had major mayhem in mind, and possibly keep him from singing to the local constabulary about the gun-buying stranger to whom he owed nothing in the way of a buttoned lip.

For similar reasons he rejected a large-caliber handgun, and a folding-stock carbine, even though they were conventional projectile weapons. He chose—and then bargained for half an hour over the price of—a smallbore targetshooter. “Ah dinnae wan‘’t‘ be doin’t more’n bluffin’,” he lied.

Happy he had convinced the fence he was no more than a ‘ lightweight mugger, he trundled home and to bed.

Early the next day he finished off the first indulgence. The strips of beef were drained and laid on the counter. Over them Alex sprinkled salt—at least a pinch per slice. After that, chopped parsley. Then very generous pinches of a potpourri of the spices he’d bought. Thyme. More savory. Sweet basil.

Pepper. Garlic pepper. Herb pepper. Marjoram. Some cumin, just for the hell of it. He pressed the spices into the meat with the flat of his knife, then flipped the slices over and repeated the seasoning. The meat went into the tenement’s dilapidated oven, set at its absolute lowest, and with a cork holding the oven door open a centimeter or two.

While the beef dried, he went to work on the electronic devices, turning them from innocent gimmicks into proper burglar’s tools.

He took a lon& nap, storing energy for the future. When he awoke, just before duslCthe-slices-orbeef were dry, twisted, black, thoroughly nasty, and no more than a kilo in total weight. He admired his jerky.

Ah’m noo th‘ cook th’ Emp, Marr, Senn, or e’en m‘ wee Sten is. But this’ll chew easy, i’ th‘ woods i’

lh‘ rain. He sealed the jerky in a water-resistant pack. Then he packed and cleaned house. If Security was able to find the tenement, all of their most clever sweeps would yield them nothing, except that the slum had been rented by someone who was compulsively neat

He went looking for his second indulgence. Taking all of his debris, from that brandy bottle to the electronics tools he’d purchased with him, and leaving them in an industrial dumper.

He found a restaurant big enough so he wouldn’t be remembered, and savory-smelling from the outside.

And he ate. First he protein-packed, even though he knew that wasn’t the best way to prep himself for the run, but clot th‘ nutritionists, he thought. Ah’ll hae someat’t’ think aboot, eatin‘ bushes an’ pap. Three seafood cocktails. Two very large steaks, ultrarare. A side of sauteed fungi. A large salad, with a simple dressing. A half bottle of wine, to help digestion. The waitress lifted an eyebrow when he finished, sighed, and announced he was now ready for part two of his meal, but said nothing. Part two was carb-packing.

He stuffed pasta, in as many permutations as the menu offered, until even he could detect outward movement in his rotund belly. He drank heavily. Water. Pitcher after pitcher of it. Water-packing.

By the time he finished gourmandizing and rolled out tipping well as Laird Kilgour ought, considering this might be his last real meal, it was getting on.

Now he was operational. The plan was running.

In an exclusive residential enclave he had cased several days earlier, he stole an expensive gravcar, easily subverting its alarm and ignition cutouts. He put the registration plate lifted from the bar’s parking lot on the car, and that craft’s legal plates on the gravcar just in front of it Confusion shall noo be m‘ epitaph, he thought and lifted the gravcar away toward his slum. That was a bit of a risk, as he left the out-of-place gravcar down the street long enough to grab his gear and bid a long, last farewell to the slum. Ah’d say thae’s naught humbler, but Ah know, i’ an hour or so, Ah’ll be thinkin’t ae aught havin‘ a roof wi’ infin’te fondness.

Into the car, and away. He headed for his jumping-off point—the ultraluxury part of Fowler, the grand estates of the wealthy who sucked around the Emperor and his palace as closely as they could.

Now was when his registration switchy-swappy of a few nights before would pay off, if it had even been noticed yet. If it had been narked, and a copper bleeped him, they would be expecting a prankster, not a criminal. A pity for them, he thought, making sure the pistol in his lap was loaded and locked.

The Imperial Grounds around Arundel were walled and given every imaginable security device. Alex parked his stolen gravsled on the closest street to the wall, and shouldered his gear. Again, another justification for the swapped plates. When the gravcar was reported stolen, it’d be on every rozzer’s hotsheet, since it belonged to a richie. Or, at any rate, its registration plate would be. And that plate was sitting on another vehicle entirely, back at the theft sight, adding more confusion to the situation.

Kilgour needed this expensive sporter of his to sit where he had parked it without being noticed for at least three days-—and he knew that any money district, especially one as close to Arundel as this, would be patrolled. He also planned to use the gravcar for his slither-stage-left, with Poyndex, back to Ashley-on-Wye.

Confusion to m‘ enemies, he thought, sitting across the street from the wall, meter-metering the security precautions. In two hours, he had the Emperor’s system nailed. A walking guard every hour/hour and a half, one well-trained enough to vary his appearances. One sensor just before the wall. One atop it. The coiled razor wire on the wall itself would be tagged. He thought he saw a tree-mounted sweep in a treetop on the other side. An aerial about every hour. A vehicle patrol in between on the street.

Amateurs, Kilgour sneered. A‘ th’ rankest sort. A standard Mantis test was to break in—or out—of a max-security prison within one E-day. The test wasn’t regarded as one of the section’s more stringent.

It’s time, lad. And he went across the street, through the security, over the wall, and was on the far side of that tree-mounted pickup in less than ten minutes.

Tsk, he thought. Th‘ Emp’s noq^omy gaga, but he’s hirin’ brainburns’t‘ boot.

Now it would get sticky.

There were twenty-seven kilometers of unpopulated forest and glade between him and Arundel Castle.

What would be a morning’s jog took him three days and nearly cost him his life on four occasions. Dogs.

More auto-sensors, of every possible configuration, from seismic to UV to motion to anything the Imperial Household’s Head of Security could come up with. Set in unlikely locations. Irregular patrols.

Aircraft. It could have been worse, however. A weak point was that the Emperor had insisted his security must be as unobtrusive as possible. So this meant dead zones, killing fields, checkboard light-searches, and the like had been forbidden by His Eternal-ship.

Alex remembered a boast he had once made to Sten, saying he could do something, i‘ his sleep, draggin’

a wee canoe. He felt as if he was doing just that, lugging the McLean-powered stretcher he had stolen from the ambulance that he planned to stick the unconscious Poyndex into, which would give Alex only a few kilos of weight to lug all the way back to the wall.

He moved a few meters at a time, checking his backtrail, sanitizing it when necessary. He never slept, but huddled under the camouflaged groundsheet now and again for a necessary breather and a return to full alertness. He defecated in streams and carried his empty ratpacks with him. Once he hid in a pond, trying to find the promised pleasure in gnawed jerky as a pack of hounds quartered the shores.

At last he saw Arundel, standing black against a blazing hot sky. Its cannonports appeared eyes, staring straight at him. And the crenellations of its battlements… he turned off his imagination.

Alex stashed the stretcher in an impenetrable thicket. He was right on schedule—it was midmorning of the first day of the weekend. By tonight, he would have to be inside its walls, or else go to ground for another week.

He would, if necessary. But he would rather not.

There was nothing between him and the 200-meter-tall, 50-degree-sloped walls of the castle’s bailey, walls that actually enclosed offices and storerooms for Arundel’s vast staff. In the late afternoon there came a clamor, and he imagined the palace employees who had been stuck working on a rec day hurrying toward the pneumosubway that’d whoosh them back to Fowler.

Among them, he knew, would also be the lucky sods of the palace security who had been given passes.

All that would be left in Arundel would be the skeleton weekend shift, plus whatever personnel had pressing tasks that couldn’t be put off for two days, the workaholics, and a full staff of palace functionaries, from cooks to bakers to laundry people to butlers.

Big clottin‘ deal, Kilgour thought. There wae a time whae th’

staff d be taken’t‘ consid’ration, bein’ ex-Guard, -Merc, or -Mantis. But wee Poyndex hae all ae those dismissed. An‘ replaced, so Senn an’ Marr said, wi‘ other people, who’s qual’fications dinnae be greater’n a droolin’ adoration ae th‘ Emp.

Plus security.

Not Gurkhas—they were long-gone. Nor the Praetorians— they’d never been reformed after their colonel had converted them to a private army in a plot to overthrow the Emperor. Thae wae th‘ prob’

lad, he thought to the memory of the deceased Colonel Fohlee. Y‘ were whae thae call a preemie antifascist. An f’r y’r pains y’ got fed int‘ a meatslicer.

Now the guards were Internal Security. Poyndex’s own. Which no one from Mantis or Mercury who’d encountered Internal Security was very impressed with.

Come night, we’ll find oot, Kilgour thought, if the rankin’s pure jealousy, or wi‘ grounds.

There were two other beings who would be in the castle.

Poyndex. Sten had been correct—he seldom left his quarters/ offices in the castle.

And one other.

The Eternal Emperor.

Kilgour considered that, while he waited. W’d thae be th^ simplest solution, an‘ avoid all of Sten’s moils, toils, an’ machinations? An‘ c’d he e’en get wi’in striking distance? Most likely not. Gettin’ ambitious, he reminded himself, most oft means y‘ bollix up th’ whole clottin‘ mess, i’stead ae endin’ wi‘ th’ girl, th‘

gold haggis, an’ all.

Poyndex i‘ th’ lad, an‘ th’ on’y lad.

Come night, after he had timed the overhead aerial patrols, he moved out, slithering up the 50-degree slope of the bailey’s walls to just below its crest—to what’s known as the military crest, just below the peak. He followed the line as it veed back and forth, to dead-end against Arundel’s great wall that climbed 700 meters above him to the leering fangs, of the battlements. Alex took off his boots, and tucked theminto his pack.

An‘ noo f’r m’ spidger actrhe thought, and slid sideways, onto the wall. Notches between stone blocks… fingerjam… toehold… moving sideways, toward where huge blast doors closed off the main entrance into the castle.

Twould be easier, he thought, wi‘ climbin’ thread an‘ jumars. But he hadn’t been willing to chance buying climbing gear in Fowler. And this wall was not exactly a jo-block fitting… He swallowed a gasp, a bit of stone coming away under his fingers, his toe sloppily crooked, coming off, hanging by two clawed fingers and his other leg, god damn it, hearing that tiny piece of stone land on the parade ground thirty meters below him, crashing, smashing, its echo ringing around the bailey, louder than an avalanche, louder than a cannonshot, almost as loud as Alex’s hard breathing.

Back on the wall. Y‘ should’a done a few practice climbs afore y’ left, lad. Where? Oop an‘ doon th’

main hanger deck wall ae th‘ Victory! Keep on keepin’ on.

He stopped just above and to one side of the blast doors. Noo,‘t’ find m’self a home. He found a good one. He drove the thick blade of his knife into a crack for a place to stand. And a nice secure handhold, one that let all four fingers cling to the stone.

Ah c’d dance.

He checked his watch. Bare minutes, he thought, m‘ timin’s perfectamente, till th’ first changin‘ ae th’

guard.

The blast doors crashed open just at 1950 hours, and the changing of the guard commenced. Alex watched closely, as a professional.

It was as much a ceremony as a security process. The entire watch paraded out, with the officer of the guard and the watch commander at its head. The formation stopped at each guard’s post, the guard challenged the watch—nice touch, thae, Alex thought. Thae’s clottin‘ clans ae strange troopies clatterin’

through Arundel ae an‘ evenin’ an y‘ dinnae wan’‘t’ be truckin‘ wi’ strangers—the challenge was answered, and the guard relieved. He came to port arms, doubled to the rear of the formation, and his relief, at the formation’s front, took the post. Then, with much crashing and bashing, the formation moved on to the next post and the next relief.

Alex hung happily overhead—he knew that no one in a military formation ever looks up, down, or to either side, in fear of Instant Disembowelment from a noncom or officer—and itemized Internal Security’s stupidities.

Since this was a ceremony, IS’s black uniforms—nice, functional, and unobtrusive at night—had been prettied up with a white sam browne belt, helmet, epaulettes, and gloves, plus white slings on their willyguns. At least, Alex thought, they’d junked the stupid parade-ground rifles, f’r chrissakes, the Praetorians used to parade with.

They were, he concluded, most inconspicuous. Especially when he listened, and realized someone had ordered pony and heel taps nailed on their bootsoles. It sounded spectacular against the stone, Alex thought contentedly. Y‘ c’n hear the clots comin’ frae a country mile. Whaee’er a mile is.

Eventually the crashing of bootheels and -toes, the thudding of rifle butts against the ground, and the slap of gloved hands on riflestocks ended, and the old watch disappeared back into Arun-del.

Noo, Alex thought, his amusement gone for a total focus, w’ll see i‘ thae parade ground’s a sham. I’s noo, i’s noo, i’s noo, he thought in glee, damned near falling off his perch. Thae’re ceremonial beings, throo an’ throo…

Be sick, braw greatness, he thought, a memory from his days in school, an‘ bid thy ceremony gie thee cure.

Twa hours frae noo. 2200, an‘ Ah move.

The best time to mount an attack—or a snoop and poop—is either in the wee hours of the morning or else just before dawn, when energies are low and everyone’s half-asleep. Normally.

But Kilgour was cagier than that. Which was why he had chosen a weekend as the perfect time to assault an essentially peacetime fortification. Everyone who’s not got a pass is either broke, on a striper’s drakh-list, lonely with nobody to go see, a lifer, or generally irked at it being their turn in the barrel. Pius supervisors normally take weekends off whenever they aren’t on the duty roster.

Combine these two facts, and you end up with peoglegoing through the motions, generally just a little gruntled about things.

Kilgour, being a sophisticate, also chose the/Hour carefully. First shift is 1800-2000. These are guards wh6’ve been recently fed, but are fairly alert, if for no other reason than the officer of the guard will likely make his rounds on their watch. 2000-2200. Second watch. Not bad, but still a bit early. People are still out and about. 2200. Third watch’s first shift. They’re fed, had time to stir around the guardroom in boredom, or visit the canteen if the base has one—Arundel did, and it served beer and wine—for a consoling pint, or begin a card game. And then it’s time to walk the post in a military manner, all the while realizing at midnight you will be relieved, you will go back to the guardhouse rather than being permitted to return to your own comfortable quarters and personal sack, and will be rousted out at 0400 for yet another tour before dawn. Perfect.

Kilgour’s biggest worry was that IS was as subtle as the Gurkhas. They, too, had worked the same patterns when they guarded the castle, and had crashed and bashed with almost as much ceremony, even though they had worn parade-ground gear just on ceremonial occasions. And they had taken their duty very seriously, confining their on-duty canteen purchases to tea and a sweet But the Gurkhas had their own, uniquely nasty touch, characteristic of the brown men from Nepal. They’d anticipated that some nefarious type, such as Kilgour, might have figured a parade formation is really easy to anticipate, evade, or avoid. So, behind the flashing panoply of the watch change swept a full platoon, in combat gear, weapons ready, at the bloodthirsty lurk.

Evidently IS hadn’t gotten word of the twist. The troopies Alex had seen were all there were.

And so, at 2150, as the guards’ bootheels crashed louder and closer, Kilgour kept himself from chortling aloud. The third watch came out—Alex heard a few out-of-step marchers who had hit the canteen—and moved through its roundelay. The formation came back, the relieved second-watch guards yawning, looking for a bit of a headdown.

Kilgour slid out of his web, dropped to the parade ground, and went through the blast doors behind the guard, just as the doors crashed closed.

He was inside Arundel Castle.

Now was the moment of maximum danger. Moment, quite literally, since he planned to be visible for not much more than that.

He eeled forward, behind the guard. Ahead was the guardhouse, and the stairs leading down, into the largely ceremonial dungeon far below. Alex hoped ceremonial—i.e., deserted. He had once been imprisoned there, as part of the twisting moils of the Hakone plot, with most of the Gurkhas.

The dungeon was his goal. A gaol f’r a goal, he thought merrily, and was suddenly surprised at his cheer.

The feeling of doom was just as powerful. More so, really. And he was in greater and greater jeopardy, yet felt strong. Strong and even cheery. N‘ wonder, he thought with a bit of disgust, we Scots hae taken it i’ th‘ kilt frae th’ Brits. We hae songs an‘ merr’ment, an’ they soljer on, grim-arsed, an‘ tread us hit’ th‘

dirt.

Och well. Roll on, death.

The guardhouse. Guard… halt. Order… harms. Carry… harms. Column of files from the left… for’rd, harch. The watch went inside, followed by the officer of the guard and the watch commander. Shortly thereafter, Kilgour slunk into the guardhouse as well.

Clatter, shouts, the fresher flushing, rifles clattered into racks, mattresses being unrolled, noisy chatter of young men and women after two hours of walking froo and toe in a military manner.

Nobody even noticed the coverall-clad man who flashed past the open door and down the hall. The hall dead-ended at a thick door, dripping with elaborate locks. Elaborate and old-fashioned. It took less than a minute to pick the three that were locked, another minute to jimmy them so they looked to be still secure, and Alex was inside, at the head of the stairs leading down into the slammer.

He shut the door behind him, wedging it closed. He put his boots on and started down. The stone steps were worn—as if generations of prisoners and guards had trudged the via dolo-rosa.

Kilgour’s flash illuminated the chamber at the base of the steps. Just as he remembered it, although memory was a traitor. But Marr and Senn had sworn Arundel had been rebuilt exactly as before. The door to the huge holding cell h/ng open—a lock he wouldn’t have to pick.

Now, Ah rec’lect wee Sten came through th‘ wall aboot here… and he pressed.

Soundlessly, the wall slid away.

Alex moved inside.

This was the “secret” of Arundel, although not that much of a secret. Sten had discovered it years earlier, when he had been commander of the Guard. Arundel was honeycombed with secret passages. They ran from the Imperial chambers to bedrooms to the dungeon to seemingly pointless openings in main hallways. The tunnels had charmed both of them, in another time, with another Emperor. A proper castle had to have secret passageways, and they were impressed with an Emperor who so indulged his romantic impulses.

Now, the passages would be—if Marr and Senn had been right and they had been built exactly as in the old Arundel—one more step toward the Emperor’s destruction.

Alex moved up the winding step and the bending low-ceiling passages, always keeping his carefully memorized picture of the castle’s outside interior in mind. He wanted the passageway that led to the row of bedrooms.

Kilgour’s mood had changed again. Now, and it might have been claustrophobia from the kilotons of stone and the darkness and the close air around him, he felt as if someone was waiting for him.

Up there. Up above.

Three times he discovered sensors and disarmed them. But this was easy going, moving invisibly, like a rat in the walls, past whatever security was patrolling the interior of Arundel. A rat that stuck close to the walls, as any experienced snoop did when climbing stairs and walking down corridors. Not just for cover, but because boards creak, and…

Stale air?

No. Suddenly fresh.

Alex looked for a ventilating duct. Nothing but gray stone, or some synthetic cast to look like it. Although Alex suspected the wallmarks, suggesting the passage had been hand-hewn by an ax, might well be genuine.

Definitely fresh air. Alex knelt, holding his palm flat. There. Around this one great flagstone. The stone was a trapdoor. Pressure-activated, most likely. He dug a millcredit coin from his pocket, and slipped it through a crack, and let go. Ting… tiny… ting…

A long way down.

An oubliette?

Alex thought of tripping the door, but decided against it. It might be hooked to an alarm. Or…

… it might be occupied.

Kilgour moved on, hastily, reading his mind the riot act. Ah’m i‘ th’ catacombs, y‘ clot, an’ y’re comin‘

oop wi’ dungeons wi‘ rats an’ blind prisoners whae been cast doon i‘ the dark frae decades. It’s nae but a garbage pit. Or a ’spection hatch. Or th‘ Emp put i’ in frae authenticity.

Oh aye. The lad’s such a stickler he puts holes i‘ th’ cave no one’ll e’er see, except ft him, whae he hae’t‘ fish one ae his fancy lassies or lads oot of.

Oh aye. Y‘ lyin’ clot.

The long ramp came to an end, and a corridor, wider than the others he’d mazed through, opened.

This, Ah’s‘spect, i’ th‘ floor Ah wan’. But Alex wanted to make sure. And, again, something was niggling at him. One floor above would be the Emperor’s private chambers. And the Emperor would be in them.

Unless he was now hiding like th‘ ferret he’s become, doon i’ th‘ bunker, i’ th‘ catacombs thae ran doon’t’ th‘ gates ae hell below.

P’raps a wee check, his mind suggested innocently.

Somewhere around here, his mental chart said, should be a braw arch, an‘ marble steps leadin’ oop’t‘

th’ mon himself.

There was no arch.

Just solid wall.

Alex touched it in several places, making sure it wasn’t another secret doorway. It wasn’t.

Aye, he thought. So th‘ lad dinnae built ever’thing ae i’ was. Mad, paranoid bastard, he thought, but with relief. It kept him from indulging that wild urge to solve all, with one mad charge into the heart of the enemy.

So he went for the target he’d intended from the beginning.

Alex found one of the panels—intended for obsejrvation, perhaps—that swung out into the main outer passageway. He swung it open a trifle… and looked. /

Ah. Two Internal Security sorts, standing in front of/a double set of doors. Marr and Senn told him the entire floor had been ripped apart and rebuilt. Only Poyndex occupied the floor. Only Poyndex was entitled to be this close to the chamber.

Alex smiled.

A very different smile than before, when he hung above the castle’s entrance.

Now, the smile was truly on the face of the tiger.

Poyndex swore, but to himself. His frustration didn’t show on his face, any more than any other emotion would be allowed to. He kicked out of the program he was running and cut back to the top of the fiche.

He had a dull headache. His eyes felt as if they had been sandblasted.

By rights he should have shut down and gone to bed. It wasn’t that late, but he had been putting in twenty-hour days, between normal tasks of Internal Security, the Emperor’s constant calls, and then this new mission of planetbusting all of the rebel worlds’ capitals.

He had considered and reconsidered the Eternal Emperor’s terror program.

At first, it seemed absurd. Not absurd, his mind corrected. Wagnerian, in the sense of Gotterdamerung.

Like that Earth-tyrant, whatever was his name? Oh yes. Adolph the Paretic. But that was impossible.

The Eternal Emperor couldn’t be insane. Of course not.

He vaguely remembered one of his instructors in his youth telling him about some dictator of the past, who had overthrown the old boss and was having his flunkies write a new constitution, legitimizing his powergrab. The dictator had rejected one draft, telling his subordinates the new constitution must not, in any way, interfere with the state’s use of terror as a legitimate ruling tool. Terror from above, it had been termed. So there was precedent to the policy.

The problem was, he could not remember either the dictator’s name, nor whether his reign had been long and lethal, or brief and bloody… and he certainly did not have time to do any idle research.

On further consideration, Poyndex thought the Emperor’s plan meritorious. Might this flickering nonsense of a rebellion, which now, with its “liberator” dead, should properly be called anarchic, be quelled by a huge, nearly instantaneous application of force? Machiavelli, after all, had instructed his prince to ax all of his enemies at one time as soon as he’d seized power.

Not that Poyndex had ever entertained disobeying, or even questioning, this new Imperial policy. He served loyally. Perhaps not the Emperor, but the new fascination he had that it was possible to live forever. To live forever, and… and to rule?

The list was drawn up. The Cal’gata’s capital world. The Honjo’s six canton worlds. The seventeen area centers of the Zaginow. The Bhor capital of Vi. And on and on. The death roster ordered 118 worlds obliterated.

It could be done—the Empire still had far more battleships and completely loyal crews who’d murder an entire planet because it was so ordered.

The problem was the Eternal Emperor wanted the planet-bustings done nearly simultaneously.

On which clock, Poyndex thought, and whose calendar? Local? Zulu? Prime? By rights, he should have been able to rout out Admiral Anders and his planning staff. The navy might be a bit less than stupendous, but it would seem anyone with logistical training would know how to arrange things so that ships would arrive in the target system in time, but not early enough to arouse suspicion. But the Emperor had insisted this would be a totally secure operation, which meant only Poyndex and his own personal IS

staff were even aware of the bloodbath to come.

Poyndex got up from his multileveled metal desk. It, and the rest of the technical apparatus he required, clashed with the ornate wood and silk wallpaper of the suite. But what of it? Perhaps, one day, when this was over, he would have it redone. This time with some of his own ideas, rather than what he had done before, letting some imbecile who thought the old ways were the prettiest handle things. When there was time, when there was time.

But there never was enough time.

Perhaps a drink, to get a little sugar in the bloodstream.

Poyndex walked to the small bar, and eyed the bottles. The Scotch the Emperor loved, and Poyndex couldn’t stomach. That awful substance called “shine,” and its even-worse companion, the ET beverage stregg, which the Emperor had reportedly once liked. Poyndex had tasted it once, and shuddered. No one but a soak or an ET could possibly drink that. He lifted the cut-glass decanter that held the multi-fruit orandy of his home world, which was about the only liquor Poyndex enjoyed the taste of, once a month or so. ‘t

No. That wasn’t it, either.

He turned toward the doorway to his bedroom. That was what he really wanted. To lie down. To sleep.

For a day, for a week, forever.

It took a moment to realize there was a man crouched in the doorway. A man wearing strange, camouflaged fatigues. His face was blackened. And he held a long-barreled pistol leveled at the center of Poyndex’s chest

“Y’ll freeze,” Alex said quietly. Normally he would’ve used a petrifying shout—but there were two sentries posted outside.

“Y’ll noo breathe, ‘cept on command,” he went on, coming to his feet and moving forward, neither eyes nor gunbarrel moving from Poyndex.

“You’re Kilgour,” Poyndex said, trying, and hoping he succeeded, to keep shock from his voice. A flicker of pride—he didn’t feel any fear.

“Aye.”

“You know, killing me won’t stop the Empire.”

“Aye?” Kilgour asked, in polite disinterest. “Thae’s noo m‘ plan. Y’r noo f’r th’ big sleep, unless y‘ do someat daft, like cryin’ oot.

“First, y’all step awa‘ frae th’ bar, turn wi‘ y’r back’t’ me, kneel, an‘ clasp y’r hands behin’ y’r head.

Move!”

Poyndex turned. Started down, then stopped.

‘The thought just struck me,“ he said. ”If you’re not on a personal vendetta… is Sten still alive? Did he order this operation?“

“Ah said,” Kilgour repeated, still in a near whisper, “Ah wan‘ y’ doon ae y’r knees, mate. Noo—‘

Poyndex began to kneel… and lifted his arms, toward the back of his head. Alex’s free hand came forward, the tiny bee sting of the narcdispenser ready. Poyndex’s right hand shot out toward the bar.

Kilgour’s reflexes cut in.

The heavy-worlder’s left hand dropped the syringe, curled to hammerstrike, flashed out.

And struck. Just to the right side of Poyndex’s neck. The snap was loud. Poyndex’s head dropped to an impossible angle… and his body fell forward. Alex caught him by the collar before he could crash into the bar, and eased him down to the carpet.

Knowing he was wasting his time, he checked pulse. Rolled Poyndex over and peeled an eyelid back.

Even, stupidly, held his ear to Poyndex’s mouth, hoping for the slightest breath.

Nothing.

Y‘ clot, his mind savaged. Y’ know bettern‘ thae! Are y’ sarkers? Cannae y‘ control y’self? I* dinnae matter i’ this i‘ th’ lad whae killed Mahoney, or helped th‘ Emp slaughter who knows how many?

Y’r noo a professional, he thought in disgust. And started to get up.

Then his eye caught the button, mounted in the base of the bar. He looked closer. Nothing in the bar front. There. Above him. A snapaway panel, just like they showed him in training. Behind it would be what? A gun? A gas dispenser? An electrified net? Linked to a panic siren? Whatever it was, it would’ve been disaster.

Noo, did Ah really o’erreact… or did th‘ corner a’ m‘ eye spot the switch? Balls, he thought. Kilgour resolutely refused to believe in any sense beyond the common. Then he realized, for the first time since that sleepless night on the battlements of Otho’s castle, the night so long ago when Cind had been named to speak for the Bhor, that feeling of doom was gone.

By th‘ Stuarts, he thought. Ah been carryin’t this deathsense wi me f’rever, stumblin’ like a ‘cruit i’ th‘

Selection March ae Mantis. An’ it’s vanished, wi‘ Poyndex’s dirty soul.

Are y‘ suggestin’ his mind snickered, thae y‘ sensed thae wae a death owed? An’ thae either you, or Poyndex, wh’d hae’t‘ pay the price? Clot off, he thought. Ah hae noo time f’r Highland devils an’

goblins.

Th‘ real question i’ whae d‘ th’ milkmaid do, whae she’s kick’d o’er th‘ bucket, an’ th‘ missus a’ th‘

house dinnae hae a cat?

He had it.

He shouldered Poyndex’s body and went into the bedroom, back through the panel into the secret passageway.

Feeling bulletproof, he trotted rapidly down it, to where that huge flagstone was. Noo, i‘ it’s nae boobytrapp’d or alarm’d, he thought, Ah’m home free. He dropped Poyndex’s corpse on the stone.

It fell away, and the body dropped into darkness.

No sirenscreech. No scurry of guards, if there’d been a silent alarm.

Just a thud. Silence. Another thud. Another silence, even longer. A splash, finally, as the late’tPoyndex hit bottom. Kilgour wondered, once again, just what was’tat the bottom of the shaft? He shone his tiny flash down into blackness. Nothing.

He touched the flagstone, and it smoothly swung back into place, waiting for the next weight to land on it.

Was it a garbage disposal? A sewelr?

Alex shook his head.

He would never know.

He considered what had just happened and, after some reflection, nodded thoughtfully.

Assuming Poyndex’s body wasn’t discovered, at least for a while, what would the effect be? On Internal Security and, most importantly, the Emperor himself?

A wee bit scary, Kilgour concluded. I* fact, all thae’s been sacrificed by giein‘ Poyndex a braw clout i’

y’r original dreamscheme wi‘ th’ brainscan.

Nae a bad night’s work, he thought. Ah’m noo th‘ gowk Ah thought, a few min ago.

He allowed he deserved a pint and a dram. And perhaps a wee walk in the moonlight with Marl and Hotsco.

Feeling romantic—and thirsty—Kilgour headed for home.