strongholdrising (40 page)

"What was that all about?" she asked, setting the glasses down in front of them before lifting a chair and putting it next to Kaid so she could see the room.
"Just making sure two young Humans get back to their Guild safely."
"Right," she said, giving Kaid a long look as she took a sip of her own drink.
Shola, Zhal-Vartra, 4th day (July)
"Remember that discussion we had about Jebousa and Vikkul?" said Rhyaz, letting himself into Lijou's office.
Lijou looked up from his desk comm. "Yes. What's happened?"
"They're here, clamoring for Physician Muushoi to give them an antidote for roelda poisoning."
"Excuse me?" Lijou looked baffled.
Rhyaz came and sat down on the chair opposite the priest. "Strictly speaking, they thought it was something else but the blood tests showed it's roelda. It's a two-part poison," he explained. "One of the ones they're taught to use here. Harmless until the second part is administered either through skin contact or ingestion."
"How do they know they've been given it?"
"Normally they wouldn't, but this one had a dye with it. They thought they were pissing blood." He tried not to smile.
"Surely knowing they'd been given one part of a poison rather defeats the purpose. Ah," said Lijou, realization dawning as he spoke. "The point is not knowing when or how the second part will be administered. Won't it wear off in time?"
Rhyaz nodded. "Or if. And no, not roelda."
"That kind of knowledge could drive a person insane. Do they know who's responsible? I presume it is Kaid."
"What do you think? If they do, they aren't saying, but they are panicking for all to see. And everyone is making the connection with Ghezu."
"Is there an antidote?"
"None," said Rhyaz, getting up. "Have you chosen someone yet to head the priesthood on Haven?"
"Yes. Sister Jiosha."
"She's a good choice. She performed admirably on her assignment to the
Rhijissoh
when they liaised with the U'Churians at Jalna."
"She arrived here yesterday. I start work with her today to bring her priesthood training up to the level needed to run a major shrine on Haven."
"I think L'Seuli will be pleased with your choice," Rhyaz said as he made his way out. "They were in the same intake. L'Seuli's been on too many missions lately to form any relationships. It's time he did."
"Talking of which, what about yourself?" asked Lijou with a smile. "Isn't it time you found someone?"
"When I have time, my friend," said Rhyaz, closing the door firmly behind him.
Prime world, the same day
In the far southwest quadrant of the grounds of the City of Light, remote among the crop fields that served the inhabitants, was a small complex of buildings that had long ago been the animal breeding center. Like all the outbuildings, it was connected via a labyrinth of underground passages to the main City. It was along one of these that K'hedduk, lately a steward on the
Kz'adul,
was headed.
He picked his way distastefully around the debris caused by the many small earthquakes over the centuries, wishing it weren't necessary to leave the rubble there. Still, it gave the place the look of abandonment needed to continue their work. Turning a sharp corner, the blast-proof door came into view. His ancestors had built to last in those days, he thought with pride as he approached it.
Pulling the tiny transmitter from his pocket, he keyed in his access code and waited for the door to open. Flashing his ID at the guards on duty, he passed between them to the next set of doors. This time, he placed his palm over the lock, waiting for the scanner to recognize him.
More guards waited, rifles coming to bear on him as he stepped into the second room. Again he held his ID up, biting back his hiss of annoyance. These people were almost as bad as the implants. Restructured by gene therapy, they at least retained the ability to think for themselves, but the trade-off was almost as high because they had been recruited from the dregs of the cities outside.
Faded trousers, scuffed boots, thick animal-hide jackets worn over pull-on shirts was the uniform they affected, resisting any attempts to persuade them to wear something more formal. They were a far cry from the affluence that typified the City inhabitants. But it was the tattoos on their faces and heads that he disliked most. The imagery was bright and brutal, done to shock, worn as a badge of arrogance by them, displaying what they perceived as their status among the inhabitants of the nearest city to where they now lived.
"Damned psychopaths," K'hedduk muttered, striding past them to the elevator, but he said it very quietly.
Pressing the third level recess as the door slid shut and the elevator began to go down, he began to relax. These trips stressed him as there was always the danger of being discovered. At least this time he could stay for the next five days.
When the door opened onto the reception area for the Directorate's own Medical Research Facility, the scene that greeted him was far more to his taste. Architectural plants draped the walls, breaking up the smooth rock face. On the floor, a deep pile carpet of green added to the restful atmosphere.
He turned to his left where the nurse on duty looked up to greet him. "Good afternoon, Doctor K'hedduk," she said. "We've been expecting you. Your colleagues are already waiting in the lounge for you. Here are your patient records." She passed him a reader.
"And how have our patients been?" he asked, taking it from her and scanning the contents.
"368 went into labor last night, Doctor. Medical assistant Zhengu is with her because we think she's delaying the birth somehow. As you can see from the notes, we've had to restrain her from trying to do herself and the unborn child damage."
K'hedduk nodded, reading the notes. "And her mate?" he asked, looking up at her.
She pulled a face. "We eventually had to sedate him because the punishment collar was having little effect. He kept howling and throwing himself against the cage bars in his efforts to escape and join her. The noise was annoying our resident staff. I hadn't realized these Sholans were capable of such depth of feelings."
"Most advanced animals want to be with their mates when they're giving birth," said K'hedduk absently, flicking through the records. "Make no mistake, they are just animals, even if they strut the halls of the City dressed as ambassadors. Tell Zhengu to remove the child surgically. The female will kill it before she'll let us have it, I've seen it happen before. See there's a stasis unit ready and waiting for it to be put in immediately."
She nodded. "And the mother?"
He hesitated. The female was young and healthy, had only been revived to be impregnated by the male and her pregnancy accelerated to give them the information they'd needed to provide a growth environment for the hybrids. They had another five Sholans left, four of them females. Still, discarding her would be wasteful. "Treat her. I'll decide when she's recovered whether she's being returned to stasis or not, but keep her from the male. He must learn that such self-destructive behavior will not be rewarded with her return."
"Yes, Doctor," she said as he headed down the corridor toward the lounge.

* * *

"Directors," he said, nodding to the other four males as he took the seat left vacant for him in the small medical staff lounge. Placing his reader on the elbow-level table at his side, he looked round the group. Politically, they represented several powerful but as yet small factions in both the City and the Palace. Alone among them, he had medical knowledge: they depended on his expertise and leadership.
"You've had three weeks to observe our General. What do you think?" he asked.
"Three weeks isn't exactly long enough to see the quality of the male," said Ghoddoh, Director of Education, glancing at his neighbor. "I can, however, confirm his relationship to Emperor Q'emgo'h, but it was a distant one. It was the Emperor's cousin who sired him."
"He's a damned sight closer to royal than what sits on the throne now!" snapped Zsiyuk, the Director of Shipping. "Hell, my own ancestry is purer! No drones in
our
family. I say be done with it, K'hedduk. Have him approached. I've seen him curl his mouth in contempt at the Court and its airs and graces. He's as impatient with it as we are."
"Impatient isn't enough," said K'hedduk. "We need him to be capable of leading a coup, of overthrowing Cheu'ko'h. He's had loyalty to the Emperor bred into him. We need to be sure he won't turn against us because of that."
"We risk everything if we move too soon," said Schoudu of the Treasury. "We've made an enormous investment of money and time in this. We need to be sure."
"Have him sounded out now," said Zsiyuk. "He's begun building a life here. Don't want him getting too comfortable to turn the tide our way. And he's started training the first of those M'zullian hatchlings. Do it now then he can train 'em to overthrow that egg-licking drone who calls himself Emperor! Be damned if I want to keep bumping into those Sholan animals in the Court every five minutes!"
K'hedduk turned to the fourth member, head of sciences in the City. "Zhayan, you've said nothing so far."
Zhayan stirred. "Half of our total number of Warriors have been sent to the Sholan world for training, the other twenty are now working with General Kezule. In return, Shola has sent an ambassador and staff here. Our people mix daily with them, seeing for themselves that they can think and communicate as well as we can, and fight better than us. They see our Emperor trusting them with our future. As you say, K'hedduk, Kezule was bred for loyalty, but
his
Emperor is long gone. I don't see how we can afford to let this insidious attitude of allying ourselves with inferior species continue. We must speak to Kezule soon or let him indoctrinate those young Warriors into serving our current Emperor. Kezule is in a unique position to safely train an army loyal only to himself and us. Zsiyuk has the right of it," he said, looking at the older male.
Zsiyuk leaned forward, wide mouth splitting into a grin as he hissed with amusement. "Good for you, Zhayan! Got more sense than the rest of 'em put together!" He patted him robustly on the shoulder.
"I didn't say we shouldn't approach him," objected Schoudu. "Just that we needed to be cautious about it."
"Kezule's building a future for himself," repeated Ghoddoh. "He's taken a wife, and consolidated his position with the royal family. It may be that our offer isn't going to be attractive to him."
"Nonsense! He's old-fashioned like us," said Zsiyuk. "There's half a dozen Court females following him around and he's bedded most of them. We won't find him wanting to stick to one female, even if she survives dropping that egg she'll be carrying by now! It's obvious he dislikes Court protocol and the Emperor's policies as much as the rest of us, including this single wife nonsense! He'll have the good old days back quick enough!"
"If he's so tired of Court protocol, what makes you think he'll want to be Emperor?" asked Schoudu.
K'hedduk sat back and let them argue. They were doing exactly what he wanted— convincing themselves to approach Kezule now rather than later.
"He won't, till it's pointed out to him we want the old Empire back!" said Zsiyuk. "K'hedduk's got guards here that we can use, and more where they came from, eh, K'hedduk? From the back streets of the cities. Then there's Kezule's hatchlings in the vats, a hundred of 'em, plus the forty we already got and the implants. Give General Kezule a ship and an army and point him toward M'zull and Jkirtikk and he'll be off, won't he, Ghoddoh?"
"It's a strong possibility," agreed Ghoddoh. "He was a frontline General who preferred to actually lead his troops in the field. Reuniting the Empire might be the inducement he needs."
K'hedduk frowned briefly at the mention of his guards. An army of psychopathic killers was not what they needed roaming his City during a coup. For ground troops taking back M'zull and J'kirtikk, they were ideal, but not loose in his City.
"This will take time," he warned. "They're keeping Kezule's twenty daughters in the tanks until they're sexually mature so they can start breeding them immediately with the forty Warriors we already have. If Kezule is willing, we'll need another couple of hundred of his accelerated offspring."
"And if he isn't?" asked Ghoddoh.
"Take 'em!" said Zsiyuk. "You got contacts in Med Research, K'hedduk, use 'em! Why you didn't do it when he was on the
Kz'adul,
I don't know!"
"I couldn't get near him, or his samples," said K'hedduk. "Thanks to Chy'qui's little informal assassination attempt, Kezule was well guarded."
"What about those Sholans you took from the M'zullian ship back a year ago? Found a way to make them work for us yet?" demanded Zsiyuk. "You've had 'em long enough."
"The ones we have aren't telepaths," said K'hedduk, "but they could be implanted and controlled as a diversion during a coup— dress them up like the ambassadors and no one will suspect who or what they are. The punishment collars alone aren't enough, we can't trust them to do what we want, or even to tell us the truth. In their way, they are almost as ferocious as the M'zullians and J'kirtikkians."
"What about those telepathy experiments Chy'qui ran on the priest J'koshuk?" asked Schoudu. "Are you planning to continue them? Controlling the minds of people in key positions in the Court would be useful. Maybe even avoid the need for a coup."
"Chy'qui's research was wrong. Our tests here have established that we don't have the capacity for telepathy. The gene therapies we used on volunteers to stimulate those areas of the brain that would govern that ability have proved futile so far. As for Chy'qui's experiments on the priest, we're duplicating them at present but with no success so far."
"What about your guards? Can't they be turned into Warriors?" demanded Zsiyuk.
"They're only altered Workers. The Warriors were more than aggressive Intellectuals, Zsiyuk," said Zhayan patiently. "They were genetically different from us in many ways. They were a caste on their own. You cannot make a drone into an Intellectual, they don't have the brain capacity for it. We don't have the internal organs of the Warriors. No one does, except Kezule and two of our lost colonies."
"What's so special about them apart from that they can fight?" asked Zsiyuk.
Zhayan glanced at him, irritated. "They have extra organs that release certain hormones and pseudo hormones into their systems at will. They have total control over their bodies."
"We have some families where the females still carry those organs— we think they were once Warrior caste, but none of their males have them," said K'hedduk. "And they breed few male children. It will be interesting to see what Kezule's child with the good Doctor Zayshul will be like since she is one of those whose families we've been watching for several generations."
"Females aren't much use," hissed Zsiyuk. "Only any good as breeders."
"That's what he's doing," said K'hedduk patiently. "It's possible they may breed true Warriors. Same with the females we sent to him on the
Kz'adul
and those at the Court. All have the hallmark of Warrior genes in their ancestry."
"Does Med Research know this?" asked Zhayan.
"I've done my best to make sure they don't," lied K'hedduk with a toothy smile that didn't reach his eyes. "So we're decided. We need to make the first approach to Kezule as soon as possible."
"How do you intend to do it?" asked Schoudu. "Not through one of us, I hope."
"I've several young males planted near to Kezule. At present, they're gathering at the old parade ground watching him teach. All that's needed is for one of them to say the odd word in Kezule's ear, then we'll see which way the wind blows," said K'hedduk.
Zsiyuk grunted as he got to his feet. "Good. You get on with that, then. Meanwhile, I have to go. Got a meeting I have to attend with a firm wanting to build us two new commercial trading ships. The Emperor and his TeLaxaudin allies want us to start trading openly. And there's the small matter of military ships the Sholans say we'll need." He laughed as he walked over to the door. "Ironic them helping us design the fleet that'll destroy 'em, isn't it?"