Empire's End (9 page)

Headshake no. Motion—back.

Sten hit the cycle button.

Grindingly, the lock emptied its air back into the main chamber. He started forward, and Kilgour waved him back. Cover… and Sten did. Alex moved forward and ripped the door open, spinning back flat against the corridor’s wall.

Nothing. Inside. They forced the outer door closed again.

Now they were well and truly trapped. Both of them shut off their helmet lights. Being an obvious target was one thing— there was no necessity to put a spotlight on the bull’s-eye.

Cycle.

The grinding stopped, but the light that would signal ATMOSPHERE EQUALIZED did not go on. Burnt out. Possibly.

Nor did the inner door open automatically.

Sten pushed at it, and it reluctantly slid aside.

They were in Thoresen’s dome.

Both men were crouched on either side of the lock, weapons ready. Sten could feel his suit press against him from atmo-spheric pressure outside before it adjusted. So where had the atmosphere come from? Was Thoresen’s dome built so well that it held air after being abandoned all these years? Not clottin‘ likely.

He looked at a gauge. Neutral gas, 75 percent; oxygen, 18 percent; garblegarble trace gases. Oh really. Half a percentage of carbon dioxide. Exhalations from an oxygen-breathing creature? Possibly.

Breathable—no gases analyzed.

Pressure half E-normal.

There was enough light from the stars and a far-distant sun through the dome’s skylights for Sten to see without needing his helmet light.

Kilgour pointed and Sten saw the piled racks of empty oxygen containers. That was where the atmosphere had come from—a hand-carried flask at a time.

Thoresen’s dome was huge. Envision a jungle, now petrified when it lost atmosphere sometime ago. A garden. Up ahead would be Thoresen’s office/living chambers. Sten and Alex would have to fine-comb the dome, their task complicated because they had no idea what they were looking for—nor if it was even there.

Sten turned on an outside microphone and listened. Nothing. He of course did not chance opening his faceplate and breathing the dome’s atmosphere, no matter what his suit’s analysis told him.

He went into the chamber.

In front of him was the twisted, desiccated drought nightmare that had been Thoresen’s lush forest.

Very strange, trying to move silently, as if he were walking point for an infantry patrol, deep in a planetary jungle. In a space-suit. Toe first… touch, test the ground under you, heel down, full weight down, other foot lifted straight up, brought forward slowly, close to Sten’s center of gravity… toe touching…

The dead boughs twisted up around him, agonized arms stretching for, never to reach, the far-distant stars.

A crunch. Sten tensed and looked down.

Gleaming bones.

He remembered. One of Thoresen’s “pet” tigers. The one he’d killed with a desperation thrust-kick with both legs, crushing its throat. Sten shivered. He was the one who should have died.

Kilgour followed Sten. He, too, looked down at the tiger’s skeleton, then, without realizing it, at Sten’s back. Clot, he thought. Ah heard th‘ story, but really didna believe it. Ah ne’er, ne’er woulda gone f r it.

Somewhere across the dome, Sten heard a noise. Or thought he did.

He froze, waiting. Nothing. He chanced a look back at Alex. He could see Kilgour shake his head from side to side through the faceplate. He’d heard nothing.

Sten continued on.

He half expected to find Thoresen’s skeleton next, rib cage shattered where his heart had been torn out, still beating. But the body would have been removed and given some kind of burial, or at least dumped into space.

Wouldn’t it?

Here was the wall where Thoresen had hung his weapons collection, everything from an archaic flamethrower to a broadax. The racks were empty, weapons most likely souvenired by the victorious Guardsmen as they poured through the dome.

Over there. Thoresen’s office. The huge slab that had floated, held invisibly up by McLean generators, was canted against one wall.

And then Baron Thoresen walked out of the gloom.

Sten’s willygun was up, finger pulling through to full auto, mind screaming,
Goddammit, you aren’t there, you aren’t there you’re dead goddammit or by Christ you’re going to be because there aren’t any ghosts full magazine right in the middle of that clotting robe, right between where those skinny arms are stretching out for my neck
…

He heard the baron’s voice through the open mike:

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”

A scratchy, wavery old being’s androgynous voice.

One thousand out of one thousand normal people would have already opened fire. Nine hundred and ninety-plus Guard-trained combat-experienced soldiers would have, too.

Sten’s finger came off the trigger.

“Don’t kill me,” the old voice said again.

Sten’s helmet light slashed on.

In front of him was an emaciated man, ancient skeletal claw arms and hands outstretched, trying to ward off the death he saw from the suited killer in front of him. The few strands of hair left sprayed wildly out above his head.

“I won’t hurt you,” Sten managed.

The old man was wearing a set of Thoresen’s formal robes, the same sort Sten had seen him wear once, when delivering the mock-pious funeral oration for his parents. Stolen from Thoresen’s unlooted wardrobe?

Sten lowered his weapon.

Kilgour did not.

He crabbed sideways, around Sten.

“Who’re you?”

His voice, amplified, boomed through the chamber. The old man winced.

“Please. Please. Not so loud.”

Kilgour brought himself back out from
Controlled Panic
—
Lethal Mode
, and his outside speaker control down as well.

“ID yourself.”

“I’m not anyone. I’m Dan Forte.”

“Where’s your ship?”

“I don’t have a ship. The others have the ship. They left me here. They said I had no right to live. They said I was… it doesn’t matter what they said I was, does it.”

“Somebody stranded him,” Sten wondered. Alex nodded—he guessed so.

“Ah wonder whae th‘ lad did’t’ get marooned?”

“Maybe we don’t
want
to know.”

“Aye. Dinnae y‘ turn y’r back on th’ rascal.”

Kilgour went to Forte—the man flinched—and swiftly, expertly, checked him for weapons. “He’s clean, metaphoric’ly speakin’t… but Ah’d noo be openin‘ m’ faceplate’t‘ hae a sniff.”

“How long have you been here, Dan?” Sten asked.

“Not long. Not long.” The old man started laughing, and then singsonging: “A bottle here/A bottle there/A ratpack here/A ratpack there/Breathe it ouf/Breathe it in.” His singsong stopped.

“You know, the sun is going to die. They are going to kill it. The Tahn know things like that. What they know/They always know/What they do/They always do.”

“Laird hae‘ mercy,” Kilgour said. “Th’ puir clot’s been here since durin’t th‘ war!”

“And I watch,” Forte went on.

“I always watch.

‘Take me with you. Please. Don’t leave me. There was another man. He wore a suit. Like yours. He had a gun. Like yours. I was afraid to ask him. He had a gun. But I was young, then. And afraid of more.

“Now I’m not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Is there?”

Kilgour let his sling snap his rifle back against his chest to carrying port arms.

“No, old ‘un,” he said heavily. “Thae’s nae’t’ fright y’self. W’re nae but friends.”

“That man,” Sten said carefully. “Did he leave something here?”

Forte quivered.

“And Moses smote the rock twice… and the congregation drank… and the Lord spoke… because you believe me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children… ye shall not bring this congregation into the land.”

“Uh… we believe you, Dan.”

“Then strike ye against the wall!” Forte shouted, waving.

Alex and Sten looked at each other. Sten nodded. Alex shrugged, aimed his willygun against the wall Thoresen had hung his weapons on, and snap-fired four times. Once against each corner of the wall.

And it crumbled and fell, as one piece.

Behind the wall, high-piled in a hidden chamber that could have been built by Thoresen or Mahoney, was the Secret. Stack after stack after stack of identical file-storage cases.

Sten rushed forward. Knelt in front of one case. It was neatly labeled, in Mahoney’s militarily perfect handwriting:

ASSASSINATIONS, SUCCESSFUL

Official Denials

Suppressed Evidence

Rumors Circulating Following

Personal Theories

Another case:

THE SECRET YEARS

System Politics

Murders Ordered

First AM2 Supplies Provided by

Philanthropic Foundation Instituted

Yet another:

THE “CIBOLA” EXPEDITION
Scientific Journals—Expedition Suggested As Possibility

No Other Info Available

No Hard Data Could Be Found

Personal Theories Only

Sten realized what he was looking at.

He didn’t know—and suspected Mahoney didn’t either—if these cases held The Secret that would destroy the Eternal Emperor—or even A Secret that might help. But he
did
know these cases contained enough dangerous data for the Emperor to be willing to sacrifice most of the Imperial Guard to recover. These were the notes for the never-written biography.

After the Eternal Emperor had been assassinated by the privy council, Mahoney had found it expedient to retire, and begin plotting the destruction of the council. As a cover he announced that, in deep mourning for his old leader and friend, he would write the Eternal Emperor’s complete biography. At first, just a cover. But as he had told Sten, Mahoney would have been quite happy being an archivist instead of a general, and so his files got larger and larger, more and more thorough.

The thought floated up: perhaps if Mahoney
had
become a researcher he would have lived longer. But he shut that idea out.

The cover had become a fascination, as Mahoney discovered that
all
biographies of the Eternal Emperor were fraudulent, either authorized or unauthorized. Deliberately false data had been given; incompetent writers, researchers, and foundations had been encouraged while capable ones were shunted aside.

Mahoney found many, many versions of given events, versions that had been deliberately created by the Empire and used as red herrings.

Sten had wondered what the Emperor had been trying to hide, and Mahoney had retorted, “Damned near everything, from where he came from to how he got where he is… I’ll just mention two of the murkiest areas, besides where the clot the AM2 is. First is that the son of a bitch is—or was, anyway— immortal.

“And the second thing is… he’s been killed before.”

Sten had scoffed—and Mahoney had offered to show him the files sometime. But events moved too fast and too bloodily, and the one time Sten had thought about those files, he had decided they were certainly explosive, and that anyone interested in staying on the Emperor’s fair-weather side would probably be wisest not even considering their existence.

Or, as the Z-grade livies put it, just after the scenarist had failed to come up with an even vaguely believable explanation for all the drakh he had come up with earlier, “There are some things in this universe, boy, man was not meant to know.”

All right, Sten thought. But this time man’s gonna find out.

Because Mahoney, in a way, died for these files.

Sten got to his feet. He started to key his com, to order the
Victory
to send down a cargo lighter and some strong deck apes. He—or somebody, anyway—would begin analysis when they reached their intended destination, Sten’s intended base of operations.

“You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Sten remembered Forte—and, when he called the
Victory
, he told them to send down a bubblepak stretcher, with the interior controls sealed.

Dan Forte, completely insane, would either be cured, if that was possible—and Sten would dedicate all resources he had to help—or else given a long, happy life in whatever luxurious asylum Sten could put him.

Because he had very possibly given Sten the keys to the Empire.

CHAPTER
NINE

“YOUR SUCCESS THUS far has bordered on the miraculous,” Sr. Ecu said.

“Correction,” Sten said. “It’s been nothing but a series of
real
miracles. But, I can’t keep on counting on smiles from the gods. I need a goal. And a plan. All I’ve been doing is shooting and scooting in the dark.”

“I can see how operating without a plan would be especially disturbing to you, Sten,” Rykor said. “You always were a being in search of structure.”

Sten laughed, unfazed by this instant bit of analysis from the

Empire’s most eminent psychologist. “Another delusion destroyed. Here I always thought I was a real seat-of-the-pants kind of a guy.”

“Oh, but you are,” Rykor said. “I remember the first profile I drew up on you. Your inventive skills were among the best I’ve ever seen. But you tend to be displeased if your actions must take place in a vacuum. It’s a typical trait of most special-operations experts. You like the illusion of complete freedom. But there must be structure just the same.”

Water splashed as she eased her bulk in the tank. “In the past, it was service to the Emperor that provided that structure.”

Sten shuddered. All too true.

“Guilt is not necessary in this situation,” Rykor said, reading him like a creche-level fiche. “It is my own misfortune to share some of these same traits. I too found comfort in the bosom of the Emperor.”

As Sten mulled this over, one of Sr. Ecu’s tendrils whiskered out to touch a hidden switch. A small ‘hot bearing a tray churned out of an alcove. In a moment, Sten was gratefully slugging down stregg.

“I hate to sound like an old-fashioned dipsomaniac,” Sten said. “But boy did I need that. Thanks.”

Sr. Ecu’s tendrils wriggled with humor. “The circumstances cry out for inducements. Besides, Rykor and I are ahead of you. Appropriate stress relievers have been added to the atmosphere. As well as to that liquid our largish companion is lolling about in so casually.”