A Choice of Treasons (68 page)

He threw back the covers, found to his great relief his right leg was still whole, with no indication it had ever been missing. He wiggled the toes, they felt fine.

It had all been a dream, he realized, an insane dream . . .

. . . Alsa looked sadly at her handiwork. All that remained of York was a bit of tissue, a piece of bone, a smear of blood.

The technician held out the open body bag. “I’ll scrape him into it.”

Alsa looked at what was left of York, shook her head. “That’s not him. There’s nothing left of him.” She reached out, scraped the bits of tissue into a pan, turned toward the disposal can . . .”

York woke up screaming, struggled for long seconds while mentally he flipped back and forth between the two realities: it was a dream. No it wasn’t . . . yes it was . . . no it wasn’t . . . This time he wasn’t going to be fooled. Not by any of them. It was real, the body bag dream was a dream, but this was real.

He started crying with relief. It wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t insane. No, he was insane, but that was all right, as long as it was real . . .

Alsa looked at what was left of York, shook her head. “That’s not him. There’s nothing left of him.” She reached out, scraped the bits of tissue into a pan, turned toward the disposal can . . .”

. . . And then Maggie was there. She was alive, and whole and healthy. And he was alive and whole and healthy, and he started to sob.

She wrapped her arms around him, held him tightly while he wept, held him until the tears subsided. It was all a dream, he knew . . . all a dream, but he no longer cared.

When he stopped crying she still held him, and then she kissed him, gently at first, softly, then more passionately. And they made love, and for a time they were free.

Imperial Captain Bella Tzecharra looked at her screens in utter disbelief. Sarasan Prime was no more than a derelict—an Imperial Subsector Headquarters reduced to nothing more than a hazard to shipping.

“Captain,” her first mate said. “There’s not really enough debris in the system for it to have been a full scale assault, though we’ve picked up a hulk orbiting the planet. Radiation profile is too much of a mess to provide definitive identification, but best guess is a
feddie
cruiser that went out with all hands.”

Tzecharra nodded. “This doesn’t add up. Instruct all captains to proceed with extreme caution.”

“Captain,” her com officer blurted out suddenly. “I’m getting a transmission from Sarasan Prime. It’s uncoded and contains no Imperial ID header.”

Tzecharra looked at her screens. Her captains were all tied into her command circuit and knew what was going on as well as she. “Answer it,” she barked at her com officer. “Find out who they are and what’s going on.”

Tzecharra waited patiently and watched her screens. “Captain, this is really weird. The guy at the other end says he’s a
feddie
sublegion. Says he and a small detachment were left on the station to guard a bunch of imperial prisoners. Said the prisoners are all in good shape, been treated well, and he wants to surrender. Also said . . . Sarasan was burned by one of our own cruisers.”

Tzecharra looked at Sierka, was careful not to let her distaste show.

“I know him,” Sierka said. “I know what he’s going to do next.”

“And what is that?” Tzecharra asked.

Sierka shook his head and spoke as if she were a subordinate. “That’s highly secret information. I can divulge it only to Lord Abraxa. Take me to him immediately. That’s an order.”

Tzecharra was tempted to show Sierka how much his orders were worth by having him vented. But the situation was too unusual for rash decisions—maybe the idiot did know something. For the moment Tzecharra swallowed her pride. “I’m under direct orders from Fleet. I’ll have to contact my superiors there before taking any such action.”

Sierka stood as if dismissing her. “Very well, Captain. Please do so immediately. I’ll be waiting in my cabin.” Then he turned and left.

Her first officer next brought in Major Juessik. Juessik saluted crisply, then without preamble asked, “Forgive me, Captain, for appearing brash, but before we go on I should establish my identity. May I use your terminal?”

Tzecharra hadn’t made captain without learning one was always cautious around an AI officer. She smiled, nodded toward the terminal on the far side of her office. It was a duplicate to the one recessed in the desk in front of her, though its circuits were slaved to the one at her fingertips and she could monitor everything Juessik did with it.

Juessik bent over the small terminal, started a log-in sequence. She watched every keystroke echoed to the screen in front of her, and her first clue came when her terminal didn’t echo the password he entered. She sat up a bit straighter. Then a file appeared on her screen, one she didn’t even know existed in the log of her ship, with an access code she’d never heard of. The file identified Juessik as an AI colonel—a damn bird colonel—the only damn full colonel in AI.

Tzecharra stood cautiously and greeted Juessik as an equal, perhaps a superior. Juessik sat down opposite her, seemed pleasant enough. “What can I do for you, colonel?” Tzecharra asked.

“Tell me what Sierka told you.”

Tzecharra lit a tobac and offered one to Juessik. “He said he knows Ballin well enough to predict what he’ll do next.”

Juessik declined the tobac. “And what is that?”

“He won’t tell me, says it’s a matter for Abraxa’s ears alone.”

“And what do you think?”

Tzecharra shrugged, blew a stream of blue smoke into the air. “He’s an idiot. Probably doesn’t know a damn thing.”

Juessik grinned and nodded. “Yes. He’s an idiot. And he’s unstable, not fit to command a garbage shuttle. But he does seem to know Ballin fairly well—has a personal vendetta against the man—and he may actually have some idea what he’ll do.”

“We could get that information out of him without having to wait the nine days it’ll take a fast ship to get him to Abraxa.”

“I’m tempted,” Juessik said, “but Sierka’s unstable enough to actually hold out against that sort of thing. In fact, it might push him over the edge and we could lose the information he does have. Let’s humor him, put him on a fast ship back to Luna. I’ll send a message to Abraxa to expect him. Perhaps I’ll go with him myself.”

York slammed awake, sat up in bed, ignored the sideways tug of the deck gravity as it tried to pull him out of his grav bunk. He tore frantically at his shirt while his mind flipped back and forth between the hallucination that he was hallucinating and the hallucination that he wasn’t.

Suddenly he realized what he was doing, froze, cursed, forced his hands down to his sides, refused to succumb to the urge to see if there were any indications his injuries had been real. They were real—he knew that, just as he knew there would be no scars or any sign that an assassin’s bullet had nearly cut him in two.

He tried to recall how long it had been since the assassination attempt, guessed something like four or five days, though it didn’t matter. Each night he dreamt of body bags and hallucinations—and Maggie. An odd part of his hallucination was that he was beginning to wonder if perhaps the dreams were in some way connected to reality. And each day he woke up with his heart pounding, climbing up into his throat. And each day he struggled with reality, to find it, to reach out and purposefully take hold of it. Reality was no longer something he could take for granted, and all day long he worried constantly that he might have taken hold of the wrong reality.

They managed to keep the assassination attempt quiet. Palevi had gotten all the blood cleared away before first shift, and they’d made excuses for York’s absence while Alsa worked frantically to put him back together. Apparently a fragment from one of the assassin’s bullets had torn a large hole in the left ventricle of his heart. Alsa wasn’t able to repair it in-situ, so she’d removed his heart, put in a temporary prosthetic, and was even now working in her laboratory, trying to regrow a new left ventricle on his damaged heart. She thought she could put it back in his chest in a couple of days.

It was important York be visible and healthy, important for morale and important for the crew. He understood that, and they’d gotten him up and walking about within a single day. He walked around, gave orders, pretended he was in command, was thankful the drive to Borregga had been routine.

Sitting in his bunk, York put his hand to his chest, felt the arrhythmic thumping of the prosthetic heart. It mimicked a human heart nicely, but between beats York was certain he could feel a very non-human, electro-mechanical hum. Probably just another hallucination.

York climbed down out of the grav bunk, threw on his clothes. He’d taken to sleeping in empty cabins in junior officers country—picking a cabin at random, telling no one but Palevi where he was. He knew he was developing some serious paranoia.

He threw on yesterday’s uniform, tucked his gun under his belt. He was no longer content with just a palm gun, and while he tucked this new, larger gun under the hem of his tunic, making an effort to hide it from casual observation, he no longer cared much if someone noticed the bulge.

When he stepped out into the corridor there was a marine waiting for him, leaning casually against a bulkhead some distance down the corridor, as if no one would take notice of a marine
just casually hanging around
. Since the assassination attempt there was always a bodyguard somewhere nearby, though they stayed discretely in the background. But still, York was thankful Palevi took no chances.

Back in his own cabin he showered and shaved, had just finished putting on a fresh uniform when his intercom chimed. “Yes.”

“Captain,” his yeoman said. “The empress is here to see you.”

“Tell her I’m not in.”

“That won’t work,” the empress voice said over the intercom. “You’ve been avoiding me long enough.”

York gave the yeoman orders to admit her.

The d’Hart woman accompanied her. They both refused to sit, so York also remained standing. He offered them
trate
, gulped at his own while they sipped at theirs nicely and looked over the rim of their glasses at him. They were obviously concerned, probably about the state of his mental health and his ability to captain this ship. Well, they should be.

He started the conversation, speaking in a way that precluded any small talk. “Having second thoughts about your decision to give me command?”

Cassandra laughed. “I’ve had second thoughts from the moment I made that decision, Captain. But until recently you’ve done nothing to make me think it was a mistake.”

“And now . . .”

She looked at her drink. “And now there are rumors all over the ship.”

“Such as?”

“We’re headed for Borregga.”

“That rumor is correct.”

“You’ve awakened Red Richard from the tanks and are negotiating with him.”

“Partially true,” York said. “The negotiations are complete, and Richard is now acting in an advisory capacity.”

Cassandra flinched, had expected him to deny or explain the rumors. The d’Hart woman, however, remained impassive. It was she who spoke next. “There is also a rumor you’re going renegade, that you’re going to join the Mexak League and become a pirate.”

York nodded. “I’ve heard that rumor too. Richard certainly believes it. There’s also a rumor I’m going to attack Borregga, take it like I took Sarasan, though I’d think there aren’t too many people on this ship stupid enough to believe I’m that stupid. There’s also a rumor I’ve been working under cover all this time for AI, and another that I’ve been working for the Directorate. Pick your rumor. There’re enough of them going around you should be able to find one that’s close to what you want to believe.”

Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t want to
pick a rumor
. I want to hear from you what you’re going to do.”

York shook his head. “That information is available only on a need-to-know basis, and you have no need.”

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

York continued to shake his head. “You’re in no position to insist. I told you when you gave me command I’d do certain things you wouldn’t like, and that you’d not be allowed to change your mind, and I’ll not voluntarily relinquish command, and there’s no one here who can take it from me.”

She stood and shouted, “We had an agreement.”

York nodded, and when he spoke he couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice. “Yes. We did. And I kept my end of the bargain. I delivered you to the safety of the empire, and my people and I were betrayed. Your precious empire murdered a third of my crew.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath and seemed to age right in front of him. “Captain, I’m sorry about your crew. I had no idea that was going to happen, though I suppose I might have suspected. If it’s any consolation, they died for a worthy cause.”

York’s anger welled up uncontrollably, “A worthy cause.” He suddenly had a thought. “I’ll make another bargain with you. You tell me your secret, and I’ll tell you mine.”