A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (48 page)

The train on which they had travelled from the aerodrome entered a tunnel beneath Ministries, and after some hundred yards pulled into a station. They disembarked amid a crowd and followed it into the main tunnels running beneath the civil government’s offices.

They hurried along ill-lit tunnels, moving as if on an urgent errand, as if they knew where they going. They could not ask for directions because that was not in keeping with their disguises. Eventually, they reached a junction and found a small, and probably out-of-date, map to the government buildings above them. Tovar remembered from his research aboard
Desert Runner
that the Imperial Historical Research Institute was in the same building as the Imperial Tenancy Office, which was identified on the map.

Half an hour later, they were above ground, striding along a narrow alleyway between the rears of ministries, agencies and bureaux. Doors the length of the alley disgorged clerks and runners, many carrying locked cases. Reaching the rear of the Imperial Tenancy Office’s building, they entered. The office for which they were looking was located on the third floor. Even inside, the corridors were mean and undecorated, made of pale unpolished stone. They climbed a staircase which switched back between floors. On the correct floor, they chose a direction at random and marched until they spotted a door bearing “Imperial Historical Research Institute”.

Tovar pushed open the door warily and stepped inside. He found himself in a square room, divided in half by a chest-high wooden counter. There was no other furniture. Behind the counter, looking down on those who entered the room, was a woman with pinched features. Lotsman and Dai stepped up to join Tovar. They crossed to the counter.

“Yes?” snapped the woman. She gazed up and down at their clothes, but her face did not change expression.

“We’d like to speak to someone in charge,” Lotsman said.

“You have some research you want doing?”

Lotsman unpinned his escutcheon from his collar, stepped forward and presented it to the woman. “Please,” he said, “look it up.”

Clearly unhappy at having to fulfil the request, she took the coat of arms, directed her gaze at the counter top before her and began flicking switches.

Moments later, she looked up sharply. Her face had lost its pinched look. “There is an Involute in the office. He wants to see you.”

A panel swung open in the counter, a small door. Glancing at Dai and Lotsman, Tovar ducked his head and entered.

The door did not lead, as he had expected, to the other side of the counter. As he stepped over the threshold, he found himself at the top of a flight of six steps in a wooden tunnel which appeared to stretch for a length of ten feet. There was a door at the other end, and this opened as he hesitated on the threshold.

“Come on, hurry,” urged a voice.

Tovar hurried; and heard Dai clatter into the tunnel behind him, the sound of her heels drowning out Lotsman’s footfalls. At the far end of the wooden passage, Tovar stepped into a waiting room. Standing beside the door was the person who had spoken to him. He wore a clerk’s uniform too, but he held a mace and had the bearing of a soldier.

He gestured for the three to continue across the waiting room and through an open door. Which in turn led into a sumptuously appointed office.

There was a plush carpet of a maroon which drank in the light. A great desk of a polished amber wood, with carved pilasters at its corners. Behind it sat a high wing-backed chair of aged green leather. To left and right stood tall bookcases with glass doors and shelves crammed with leather-bound books.

Sitting behind the desk in the chair was a portly figure in black. His head was silver, ovoid and featureless but for small round eyes of black glass.

A caster on the desk spoke: “The crew of
Divine Providence
. We had wondered what happened to you.”

“We were on
Vengeful
,” began Lotsman.

“The Admiral’s battlecruiser? Then you have much to tell us.” The Involute held up a hand. “But first, why are you here?”

“We were held prisoner by the Admiral,” put in Dai. “We only managed to escape during the battle.”

“Battle?” The Involute leaned forward but his mask hid any show of interest his features might have displayed. “So you didn’t run off and join your princeling?”

All three shook their heads vigorously.

“Then a thorough debriefing is required. But not here, I think.”

Tovar, Dai and Lotsman spent four hours waiting in a locked room in the institute in Ministries. Eventually they were visited by a proletarian woman also dressed as a government clerk. She brought with her a bag. It contained clothing. “You are to put these on,” she said, and then left.

Tovar checked the door after the woman had closed it behind her. It was locked. He turned back to see Lotsman digging through the contents of the bag. The pilot pulled out a bundle of clothing and shook them out. The garments appeared to be military uniforms—dark green coveralls, and dark green jackets with black frogging.

“Imperial Skirmishers?” asked Dai.

“No. Imperial Commando, I think,” replied Lotsman. He held up a forage cap, displaying the regimental crest above the bill. It depicted a globe on a stand, with a crown above. “Yes, Imperial Commando.” He grinned. “I don’t think we’ve ever played regimentals before. Should be fun.”

“These are yours.” The pilot handed Tovar a coverall and jacket. He turned and handed a second set to Dai.

The three shed their clerical outfits and dressed quickly in the uniforms. None, Tovar felt, cut especially dashing figures as Commandos. Lotsman was too tall and lanky, Dai too buxom, and he himself a little on the portly side—more a quartermaster than a ranger. But he doubted anyone would look beyond the uniform.

Once suitably attired, they sat and waited. It was another two hours before the prole woman returned. She gathered up the clothes Dai, Lotsman and Tovar had worn when they arrived, shoved them into the bag and then hurried from the room. The door remained open.

Tovar rose to his feet and took a step towards the open exit. He turned and looked back at Dai and Lotsman, puzzled. The scrape of a boot against the wooden floor caused him to turn back.

A figure stood in the open doorway—slim, cloaked, and with a deep hood over its head. The figure reached up and pushed the hood back onto its shoulders, revealing a silver egg-shaped head, featureless but for two round eyes of black glass.

An Involute.

Tovar stepped back and, when he felt the lip of a chair against the back of his legs, dropped to sit down.

This Involute was a woman. She was tall and svelte, and she moved with noble grace. She wore a dress of glossy black, high-necked and falling to mid-thigh, with long tight sleeves which ended in close-fitting gloves. Embroidery in black thread crawled in serpentine patterns across the bodice. Her legs were clad in glossy black hose, and her feet shod in low-heeled ankle boots. About her neck, she wore a silver necklace; about both wrists, silver bracelets; and about her waist a silver chain.

“Good,” she said. Her voice was disguised and issued from a tiny silver caster pinned to her collar. “Let us pull the sting of the Commando. You will come with me.”

She turned on her heel and strode from the room. In the corridor, she pulled her hood back over her silver mask. The three men-at-arms hurried after her. She led them by a different route from the offices of the Imperial Historical Research Institute. They found themselves in an empty hallway, one for the use of yeomen and nobles. The Involute did not hesitate but immediately set off deeper into Ministries. Soon they joined a more populous thoroughfare, a wide hall with an arched ceiling and pillars along each wall. Doors and archways gave onto the offices, agencies and bureaux of the civil government.

Tovar wondered at an Involute who would be seen in public with an Imperial Commando escort. Had the situation deteriorated so badly on Shuto? What had she meant by “pull the sting of the Commando”? As far as he knew, the Order had no links to any regiment. Not, of course, that his lack of knowledge meant anything. He was only a man-at-arms and he had spent the last twenty years flitting about the Empire’s rim in a data-freighter.

There was clearly something odd going on, but the meaning of it all was beyond Tovar. He marched along behind the Involute, trying hard to appear military, and wondering if he had ever met a female Involute before. He remembered encountering less than a dozen knights of the Order and fewer still Involutes. So that perhaps meant nothing. He didn’t even know how many men-at-arms the Order boasted. He knew of only three for certain: himself, Dai and Lotsman.

Curiouser and curiouser, the party of four paraded the length of the hall and then turned off into a side corridor. They did not continue on to the exit. The Involute said nothing but continued to stride ahead. Another turn and they found themselves on a ramp heading down. Tovar was unfamiliar with the layout of Ministries, but something about their route made him wary.

“Where is she taking us?” Tovar asked Lotsman in a whisper.

The pilot shrugged. There had not been much point in asking him: he knew as much as Tovar did himself.

“The garages are down here,” put in Dai. “I think.”

The garages: where nobles working in Ministries left their limousines. Yeomen and proles travelled in by train.

“Perhaps they’ll smuggle us out in a limousine,” Lotsman said with a grin. The prospect of luxury appealed to him.

The ramp they had been descending ended in a rectangular chamber some forty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Rounded arches on each wall led into the great cavern where the limousines were parked. The chamber was empty.

The Involute halted. She turned to the three men-at-arms. “Thank you,” she said. “You have been most helpful.”

They were being dismissed? Lotsman peered through the nearest arch, but could see no vehicle waiting for them. He turned to look to the other side. Nowhere, in fact, was there a waiting limousine to be seen. The garage was deserted of people, just row upon row of parked cars, bobbing silently on their chargers.

A scuff of boot leather on stone behind him broke the silence. He turned about, saw Tovar and Dai doing the same. Six figures stepped through an arch from their hiding place. They wore close-fitting black coveralls, and hoods that left only their eyes visible within a narrow slit. They advanced warily and, once within ten feet of Lotsman, Tovar and Dai, pulled out swords.

Lotsman swore under his breath. He heard footsteps behind him, and swore again. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw it was only the Involute heading up the ramp. She was leaving them to their fate.

“Now I know why you never hear of anyone retiring from the Order,” remarked Dai bitterly.

Lotsman had adopted a defensive stance. “We’ve seen off better than this,” he said.

The two leading assassins increased their pace and raised their blades. One targeted Lotsman and the other Tovar. As the point of a blade shot towards him, Lotsman twisted to one side, stepped forward, and brought the edge of his hand down on the assassin’s wrist. The sword fell to the stone floor with a clang. The pilot stepped forward, turned to present his back and drove an elbow high into his attacker’s throat. He hooked his heel behind the man’s leg, twisted and sent him to the floor. The assassin let out a wet gurgle from his smashed larynx. His feet drummed against the ground. He lay still.

A second assassin was moving in for the kill. Lotsman had no time to see how his shipmates were faring. He knew they were both excellent fighters.

This attacker was more cautious than the previous one. He held back, sword before him, point circling while he looked for an opening. He lunged and Lotsman spun away, lashing out with a fist as he did so. The assassin was quick to recover, too quick. His blade flicked out and caught the pilot on the upper arm. It did not go deep, but the sudden sharp pain made Lotsman hiss. He stepped back and, knees bent, waited for his attacker to make another lunge.

He went low.

Lotsman leapt above the blade and kicked out. His boot caught the assassin in the chest and knocked him back. His sword flew from his hand. Lotsman landed lightly, ran forwards and stamped down on the hooded man’s throat. The assassin slammed a hand down against the stone and then moved no more.

Turning to the others, Lotsman saw that Tovar was struggling against both of his attackers, while Dai had all ready disposed of one of her pair. The cargo-master needed his help. Lotsman rushed forward and dived. He took one of Tovar’s assassins around the waist and together they flew out of the melee. He landed on the assassin and quickly chopped down. Scrambling to his feet, he turned about —

In time to see Tovar take a sword in the chest. The cargo-master folded. His knees hit the floor. The assassin withdrew his bloody blade. Tovar rolled sideways, then onto his back. His arms fell open.

“Adril!”

Lotsman ran forward, not caring for his own safety. He barrelled the assassin aside. But the cargo-master was dead; his face had been washed free of expression.

A burning pain in his side made Lotsman bellow. He looked down to see a sword point protruding from his abdomen. The sword withdrew and Lotsman yelled a second time. He spun about, bent one knee and swung out the other leg straight. It swept the assassin off his feet. The masked man landed heavily on his back. He did not make a sound. Lotsman was on him immediately, bending over and delivering a straight-armed punch at where he guessed the man’s nose to be. He felt cartilage break beneath his knuckles. The assassin arched his back and then collapsed.

“Lex! Quick!”

It was Dai. A hand to the wound in his side, Lotsman turned about. She stood over the body of an assassin and held his sword loosely in one hand. Blood dripped from its point.

“We have to go,” she said urgently.

“Adril is dead.”

“Yes, yes, I know, damn it. But we can’t stay here.”

“We can’t go up there.” Lotsman winced as he pointed up the ramp. He groaned.