Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

T
he following morning, Syl walked quickly through the hallways of Edinburgh Castle, the soft silk of her trousers swishing against her legs, her face set in an expression that she thought of as determined but those who were responsible for her would have wearily described as “obstinate.” It was a word used often about Syl. Perhaps, the young Illyri told herself privately (and rather hopefully), she took after her mother, the beautiful Lady Orianne, who had been both willful and charming, a combination that made her quite impossible to resist.

Syl, by contrast, was still working on the charm component. And beauty? Well, her father told her beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that to him she was the most beautiful creature in the world—indeed, in all worlds. Of course he would say that! The truth was that she was not unpretty, but her features still held the unformed softness of youth, coupled with an unnerving intensity in her eyes and a sharpness in her manner. The effect wasn’t helped by the fact that Syl wasn’t given to smiling just to please people—because smiles could be much better employed than that—and she only laughed on occasions that truly merited it. And how else was she to behave? she asked herself, for she had no intention of smiling for no reason, or wasting time laughing at stupid jokes. Anyway, Syl took the view that laughing at something just to be kind usually meant the joker would plague you with another attempt at humor, and you’d have to laugh again, and so the cycle would continue until she either died of boredom or killed someone, and frankly she couldn’t be sure which might happen first.

And yet much tolerance was shown to Syl, for she had been conceived among the stars, and as the first Illyri child born on Earth, she was a living link between the homeworld of Illyr and the conquered planet. Of course, it helped that her father was Lord Andrus, governor of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and by extension all of Europe. Like all Illyri females, though, Syl bore the name of her mother’s family. She liked being Syl Hellais. Syl Andrus sounded, well, ugly.

Britain had been the obvious base for Illyri operations in Europe: even before the invasion, it had been a country obsessed with surveillance, both obvious and secret. Its streets were infested with security cameras, many of them with facial-recognition capacity, and the actions of its citizens were constantly being monitored by government departments. The Illyri had hardly needed to change anything upon their arrival. The same was true for the other most powerful nations: China, Russia, the United States. The governments of Earth, aided by populations too lazy or trusting to care, and obsessed with putting every detail of their lives on the Internet, had helped to give the Illyri control of the planet.

Andrus was also responsible for the overall administration of Europe, and the governors of the other European nations deferred to him. Technically, he enjoyed equal status with the administrators of similar large territories, including Africa, China, Russia, Australasia, and the Americas, but he chaired the Ruling Council, which gave him a deciding vote on every important decision. Effectively, Governor Andrus was the most powerful man on Earth, although Syl knew better than to say “Do you know who my father is?” to get herself out of trouble. Well, she knew better than to try it a second time. . . .

And then there was the fact that the Lady Orianne had died when Syl was only a year old, succumbing to an attack of malaria while the Illyri were still coming to terms with the diseases of the new world. There is no substitute for a mother and so there was a sadness that lingered around Syl, coupled with an anger that she found difficult to suppress. Recently Andrus had begun to despair of her behavior, but as Althea, Syl’s childhood governess, would gently point out to him, he was not the first father to be rendered speechless with frustration by a daughter approaching adulthood.

“Even were her mother here, my lord, I suspect Syl would still be a difficult proposition,” she would murmur. Althea had been entrusted with Syl’s care since the death of Lady Orianne, mothering her as best as she could, and she loved the girl as a daughter. Her own child, a son, had died shortly after birth, another victim of disease, and she had become Syl’s milk-mother. A special bond had formed between Syl and Althea, but the teenage years were proving trying for the governess too. Still, she had high hopes for the girl. Syl would do well in life—assuming her father didn’t throttle her first.

Now Althea hurried to catch up with her charge as Syl rushed ahead of her.

“Why aren’t you in school, Syl?” said Althea.

Like all children of the Illyri, Syl attended classes each day: science, mathematics, history, and languages. They were taught of Illyr and its empire, but they learned, too, of the cultures of Earth and the other principal conquered worlds.

“Leave me be, Althea,” said Syl, as the older woman fell into step beside her. To amuse herself, Syl varied her pace, slowing down and speeding up, so that Althea was alternately left behind or stranded a foot or two ahead of her charge. Either way, she ended up talking to empty air. She had an idea of where Syl was going, and was determined to stop her.

“Your father is not to be disturbed,” said Althea. “He arrived back in the early hours, and has barely slept.”

“It is my birthday, Althea. I’m entitled to ask a favor of him.”

It was a tradition that, on the anniversary of their birth, Illyri could make a single request of a loved one that had to be granted. It was a relic of an older time, but still fondly regarded. Husbands would ask for a kiss from their wives, mothers a meal cooked by their sons’ hands: small gestures, but no less meaningful for that.

“You may talk to him after your classes,” said Althea.

Syl had already tired of her earlier game, and was now determined to leave Althea in her wake, so the frustrated governess was forced to scamper to keep up with Syl’s long strides. Althea was short for an Illyri; today, on Syl’s sixteenth birthday, the girl was already much the taller of the two.

“My request is that I should not have to attend classes,” said Syl. “I would like a day to myself in the city.”

As if Althea was unaware of what that might involve, Syl stopped by one of the castle windows and gestured dramatically at the streets of Edinburgh below. Edinburgh and London provided twin administrative bases for Andrus, but he preferred Edinburgh, and its great castle perched above the city, to the confines of the Tower of London. London was a difficult city to like: overcrowded, smelly, and increasingly violent. Three months earlier, the Tower itself had come under attack from a suicide bomber piloting a small plane packed with explosives. The assault was thwarted, but Andrus would secretly have been quite happy if the Tower had been blasted to smithereens. He would have loved an excuse to spend more time in Scotland, with its harsh but beautiful landscape that reminded him of the northern wilds of Illyr itself, where he had spent his youth. Syl too was happier in Edinburgh, and so it remained her home when her father was absent in the south for weeks, or even months.

“So,” Syl continued, “how can my father grant my birthday wish if, by the time I ask it, my birthday will be over?”

Despite Syl’s unarguable logic, Althea knew that Andrus had given strict orders that he should not be disturbed. There had been two attacks the previous night, and the dead were still being counted, leaving Andrus under pressure from his offworld superiors to provide an appropriate response to the latest outrages. He already trod a delicate line between those who advocated gentleness and understanding in their dealings with the humans, and those who called for harsher discipline. As with the humans, so with his daughter, thought Althea.

“Syl, this is not a good time. There were killings last night. . . . ”

“Oh, there are always killings, Althea,” said Syl. “Every day, every week. If we’re not killing them in firefights, then they’re killing us with guns and bombs. Maybe we shouldn’t be here at all.”

“Hush!” said Althea, grabbing Syl’s arm. “That’s all very well for classroom debates, but it’s not to be said within earshot of your father’s chambers. There are those who would take great pleasure in whispering that Lord Andrus’s daughter speaks treason in the governor’s castle.”

Syl wasn’t so sure that even the classroom was the place to debate the rights and wrongs of the Illyri’s conquests. She was one of twenty students, the youngest of whom was only seven. They were all taught by the same tutor, Toris, who was so ancient that Ani, Syl’s closest friend, said there was no such thing as history for him: it was all personal experience. Toris did not encourage independent thought. His purpose was to tell them things, and his students’ purpose was to remember them.

“Since when did expressing an opinion become treason?” asked Syl.

“Don’t be so naive. Suggesting to someone that the weather might change is an opinion. Stirring up dissent is treasonous.”

“Why, do you feel stirred, Althea?” said Syl, and even while being mocked, Althea loved the spirit that dwelt within this one. “Will you take to the streets in protest if the weather holds?”

Althea took the girl by the hands and held her there, looking up into her eyes. They were reddish gold, like her mother’s. She had her mother’s voice too, low yet musical. What she had inherited from her father was not so clear. She had certainly not acquired his diplomacy, or his ability to refrain from speaking his every thought aloud. Despite that, she had an uncanny way of winding others around her little finger, of gently bending them to her will. Even Althea was not entirely immune to Syl’s manipulations.

“You must be careful, Syl,” said Althea. “Your father’s position is not secure. There has been talk of recalling governors because of the escalating levels of violence. Already the Diplomats have increased their presence here. Washington is now a Diplomat city, and the Diplomats have just been granted a special order excluding the Military from Iceland, effective from next month. As the senior Military commander on Earth, your father is furious.”

Syl’s obvious surprise made it clear that she had not heard any of this, and Althea instantly knew that she had said too much.

“A recall?” said Syl. “Then we could return to Illyr?”

Althea noted the use of the word
return
. Like many Illyri now marooned far from home, Syl longed for Illyr. Althea had no such illusions. Illyr was not what it once was. It had changed. The conquests had changed it.

“Perhaps,” said Althea. “Your father could return, but it would be in disgrace—possibly even in chains. And remember, Syl, your father loves it here. He does not want to go back. All his life he dreamed of seeing new worlds, and he has spent more time away from the homeworld than he has living on it. He wants to be buried on this alien world with this alien sun warming his grave. If your mother had lived, things might have been different. She was bound deeply to Illyr. She loved the homeworld, but she loved your father more.”

“And she died for it,” said Syl bitterly. “Died for the sake of a planet that hated her, and all like her.”

Althea did not argue. She had heard all of this before, and there was some truth to it.

“I am not my father,” continued Syl. “I want to live on Illyr. It is my true home.”

Illyr: she had seen it only in books and on screens—projections of forests that towered ten times higher than any similar vegetation on Earth, and oceans deeper and cleaner than the polluted waters of the Atlantic or the Pacific. She marveled at the creatures that walked and swam and crawled and flew through its environs, so much more noble and striking and beautiful than the denizens of this planet, the greatest of which—tigers and blue whales, gorillas and polar bears—were already close to extinction. Most of all, Syl wanted to see its cities: Olos, the Gem of the North; Arayyis, part of it built beneath the ocean and part above; and great Tannis itself, the City of Spires, the most beautiful city in the Illyri Empire, the place in which her mother had been born. True, she had walked on Illyr by activating the virtual-reality programs in the wired rooms of the castle, but she was always aware that they were illusions. She wanted to breathe Illyri air, not some computer’s pumped-in imitation of it. It was only during Toris’s discussions of Illyr that Syl showed any patience with her tutor, for the old fool was as besotted with the planet as she was.

“Illyr is not as it was,” said Althea. “Do not believe all that Toris shows or tells you. That old man will drown in his own nostalgia.”

Syl freed her hands. “Nothing pleases you, Althea. You are as sour as an unripe apple.”

Then, just as Althea seemed set to take offense, Syl planted a big kiss on the older woman’s cheek, and sprang away, smiling. That was another of her talents: the ability to recognize when she had gone too far, and to act to prevent any further harm being done. If only, Althea thought, she could stop herself
before
she went too far.

“Now you’re distracting me,” said Syl, “and I have a favor to request.”

“Syl! I told you, he’s busy.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t disturb him. I’ll just wait outside until he’s finished. And please stop running after me. You know you can’t keep up.”

Syl darted down the hallway, waved from around the corner, and was gone. Althea sighed deeply and leaned against the nearest wall. Below her, the city went about its business, the previous night’s bombing seemingly forgotten. In the distance loomed the crag known as Arthur’s Seat. There was a grandeur to Edinburgh, Althea admitted, but its beauty was stern and austere. Summer was at an end, and the first hint of a cold, damp winter was already blowing through the laneways. Althea hated the cold. She wished Andrus had become governor of Spain and Portugal, or Central America, somewhere with a little heat and light. These northern territories oppressed her with their gloom.

But now someone was coming. She looked up to see the tutor, Toris. He was a scowling, wrinkled figure who walked with a pronounced stoop. There was no harm to him, but Althea, like Syl, regarded him as an old bore. Unlike Syl, though, she did not have to listen to him unless she chose to do so.