Hidden Empire (67 page)
He raised a plump hand, his face satisfied but humble. It was time now to show his generosity, his paternal benevolence. “I
do my task only as well as you do yours, as do all of my Ildirans. A Mage-Imperator is no more responsible for the prosperity
of the Empire than is the lowliest servant of any kith.” He nodded to the scaly delegate. “Your offering is appreciated, but
your loyalty is a far more valuable treasure to me.”
All the scalies bowed to the throne room floor as if overwhelmed by this reaction. “But truly even I do not deserve such an
incomparable gift,” the Mage-Imperator continued. “It is my command that you display this wondrous object in your equatorial
zones, for your kithmen, in commemoration of your own prowess. As it dazzles under our seven suns, let it remind all of us
of your efforts on behalf of the Ildiran Empire.”
Still kowtowing, the scalies backed up in unison. The Mage-Imperator could feel the warmth in their hearts, the worshipful
devotion, and he knew he had made the right decision. Their loyalty was enhanced, and his control was strengthened.
Before he could say another word, though, a horrific tidal wave of pain and despair swept through him. He spasmed in his chrysalis
chair. Jolts shot along his links with the
thism
. He cried out in pain, rocking backward, his enormous soft body twitching.
His personal bodyguard rushed forward, deadly crystal katanas drawn, ready to fight any foe. Bron’n glared at the scaly delegation,
as if they had somehow poisoned the Mage-Imperator. The scalies wailed in sudden apprehension.
The Mage-Imperator writhed again. The chattering small-statured attenders fled, shrieking. The Ildirans close to their leader
also flinched, thanks to the tenuous
thism
link, feeling a strong echo of his anguish. He became lost within himself, falling into the tapestry of other lives across
his Empire, drawn like a moth to the hot flame of disaster blooming at Qronha 3.
Through the mental connection, he experienced the horror and pain, the astonishing and unwarranted destruction, the obliteration
of the splinter colony. He felt the ekti-processing facility devastated by the hydrogues, and then the further massacre as
Qul Aro’nh drove his fully crewed warliner on a suicide mission to destroy one of the alien warglobes. The Mage-Imperator
endured the deaths of the soldiers and crew, and all of the slaughtered workers who had not been evacuated from the sky city.
He felt the defeat of the Ildiran Solar Navy.
And when he came back to himself, surrounded by stunned silence and confused fear in the throne room, the Mage-Imperator remained
speechless. He was appalled by what the hydrogues had done. He wanted to howl his anguish, his anger and helplessness.
He had read the signs and known of the increasing threat from the legendary enemy, but he had looked upon the reappearance
of the strange aliens as an opportunity. If managed correctly, the hydrogue aggression could have been used to rekindle the
waning golden age of his Empire. But the Dobro experiments were not yet complete, and the Mage-Imperator doubted his plans
could ever come to fruition now.
Ah, the agony in his soul!
With their attack on Qronha 3, the hydrogues had struck him to the heart. Now he feared that this war would bring about the
destruction of not only the upstart Terrans … but the Ildiran Empire as well.
O
X had saturated Raymond’s brain with so much information the young man felt his skull would explode. And there seemed to be
no end in sight. So much to learn, absorb, and memorize. If anything, the urgency of his training seemed to have increased.
After enduring so much tedious instruction and review, the wonders of the Whisper Palace had begun to fade, and Raymond’s
restlessness was growing. He had not been outside to breathe fresh air or run through the streets in months. Though the Palace
was vast, with many remarkable chambers and diversions, he thought longingly of the days when he had been able to slip unseen
through the crowds that gathered for the King’s speeches. He liked to sneak a treat from a vendor’s stand, or walk home with
a bouquet of fresh flowers for his mother.
His heart ached at the thought of her, not only because of the accustomed sadness, but because—with this one memory—he realized
that OX’s lessons, the entertaining toys and games and fine food, had made him
forget
about his family. His mother and brothers had died in the terrible fire and explosion, and Raymond did not want to be distracted
from the tragedy. Perhaps that had been the Chairman’s intention all along.
Recently, he had acted petulant, resisting assignments the Teacher compy gave him. He had refused to perform simple tasks
Basil had requested, for no reason other than to be difficult. But OX and the Chairman had made it clear that Raymond’s continued
pleasure and his future depended entirely on the benevolence of the Hansa. What was it worth to him?
Basil had scolded him. “You’re an intelligent young man, Peter. Don’t act childish. Your behavior is disappointing, like a
little boy throwing a tantrum.”
Raymond had sat across from the Chairman. He remembered when his little brothers had thrown tantrums. Rita Aguerra had always
known how to deal with them. He wished she were here now. He couldn’t seem to control his behavior.
“Consider what your life would be like if we hadn’t intervened on the day of the disaster. Such rewards do not come for free.”
Basil had sounded paternal as he leaned across the table, his face softening. “We don’t ask so very much of you. Perhaps you
resent being told what to do at times, but you must understand that no one in the Hansa—not a factory worker, nor an artist,
nor even myself as Chairman—is completely free to do what he wishes to do. You must make concessions in order to reap the
benefits.” Basil sat up straight, like a businessman finishing a meeting. “Now, do you understand?”
Raymond had nodded, still resentful, still confused, but now he realized he would have to take a different approach. He’d
need to play along.
That morning, OX had been delighted when Raymond asked to work independently for a while, to scour the databases accessible
inside the Whisper Palace. “I promise not to go into any restricted areas,” he said contritely. “I’m just curious about the
other planets in the Hansa. There are so many colonies on so many worlds. Maybe when I’m King, I’ll be able to visit them.”
The small Teacher compy made an appreciative noise. “Even as King, it would require many years to visit all sixty-nine of
the Hansa colony worlds.”
“Then can I at least look through the databases?” he asked, not trying to cover his eagerness.
“That would be a most constructive use of your time, Prince Peter. Because you are to be King, very few datafiles are restricted
to you.”
The weight of responsibility felt heavy on Raymond’s shoulders. At the moment he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what state
secrets he might find.
So, he spent hours with the polite interactive computer systems, studying the geographical files of world after world, some
of them rich and exotic, others hardscrabble places that Raymond had never heard of before: Palisade, Boone’s Crossing, Cotopaxi.
By accident, he stumbled upon planetary files for the primarily Islamic world of Ramah. He hesitated before he remembered
why the name sounded familiar. Long ago, his father had fled there, running away from wife and family, never to be heard from
again.
Curious to test how much freedom he really had, Raymond pulled up detailed population records for Ramah. On the entire planet
he saw no listing for a man named Esteban Aguerra. Ramah’s relatively small population observed a traditional Islamic way
of life, and the world was not high on anyone’s list of memorable Hanseatic colonies. When he realized that nearly all of
the names were of Arabic extraction, he wondered if his father had changed his name. In that case, Raymond would have no way
of finding him.
After further thought, however, he recalled the month and year his father had left home, after Esteban and Rita Aguerra had
spent the night arguing and shouting. From there, it was a simple matter to discover which colony recruitment ship had departed
for Ramah in that time frame.
Next, he acquired the passenger manifest and the colonist number assigned to Esteban Aguerra, which allowed Raymond to track
his father through the number instead of his name. Following him to Ramah, Raymond discovered that Esteban Aguerra had converted
to Islam and changed his name to Abdul Mohammed Ahmani.
Delighted with his cleverness, the young man then went back to the Ramah population records and tracked where his father had
lived with moderate success as a metal worker. Raymond frowned when he learned that Abdul Mohammed Ahmani had remarried and
fathered two more children.
Much more unsettling, though, was the discovery that his father had died recently. He stared at the record, feeling strange
and unsettled, trying to remember the man. Raymond had never much cared for his father, but now he had reached a dead end.
Esteban had been killed in a backstreet brawl, apparently by muggers who had never been caught. The case had been closed,
drawing little attention whatsoever.
Suddenly Raymond realized that the date of his father’s death was within days of the apartment fire that had claimed the lives
of his mother and brothers. The young man sat back heavily, feeling cold prickles of sweat on his back. A coincidence? Perhaps,
but an awfully big one.
He remained motionless for several minutes, feeling weak. When he finally returned to the database, he began to address the
questions he had dreaded asking all along.
He called up news clips, then written records, then finally the accident investigation reports about the disastrous explosion
that had claimed the lives of so many people. As Raymond knew, illicitly stored contaminated stardrive fuel had been hidden
in sublevels under an innocent-looking dwelling complex. Containers had cracked, volatile fumes leaked. The explosion had
ripped out the foundations of the building and sent an eruption of flames and toxic vapors through all levels. Private reports
of the accident investigation, however, highlighted certain irregularities in the identity of the building owner, a man with
supposed black-market connections, the origin of the siphoned and stolen fuel.
One of the rescue engineers injured in the fire had insisted during an interview that the doors beyond level sixteen had been
blocked so that no one could have escaped, even those who might have survived the initial explosion. He even suggested that
the evacuation doors had been welded shut on purpose. Oddly, the man had not been interviewed in any other accident investigation.
According to the records, after his recuperation the rescue engineer had been transferred to municipal duty in a small emergency-response
department on the planet Relleker.
Raymond found other discrepancies when he compared interviews and reports from different sources. He was not surprised to
find his own name tallied among the casualties. Basil Wenceslas had warned him that they would cover up his disappearance
to prevent anyone from suspecting “Prince Peter’s” humble origin. He swallowed hard when he read the names of his mother and
three brothers beside his own, listed in small type among so many other casualties.
His heart turned to ice, however, when he uncovered greater detail. According to precise time codes, his own name and the
names of his family had been entered onto the list of
victims first
—before the fire had been extinguished, before the first bodies were identified, and before the accident investigation had
begun. He compared the precise filing time of the report with the chronometer readings on the fire images and the news coverage.
There could be no question.
They had known all along. The Hansa had recorded the deaths
beforehand
.
Coldly horrified, Raymond deleted all record of his search, hoping that his caretakers had not bothered to watch his specific
movements. He had been innocently busy for hours before he’d looked at anything that might have been construed as suspicious.
Raymond’s entire world had changed again, as much as it had on the day of the fire. Now he knew for certain that his family,
including his estranged father, had been assassinated, all to tie up loose ends in order to stage Raymond’s death. The stakes
were high.
Chairman Wenceslas and the Terran Hanseatic League were willing to pay any price so that a young man named Raymond Aguerra
could vanish completely and reappear as Prince Peter, their willing puppet.
None of it had been an accident.
Infuriated and sickened, Raymond vowed to resist the indoctrination. No matter what his handlers told him, no matter what
OX taught, no matter how much Basil Wenceslas tried to be oh-so-paternal, Raymond silently swore he would remain independent,
though he might act cooperative on the outside. In his secret heart, he would refuse to fill the role forcibly laid out for
him.
