The Timeweb Chronicles: Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (29 page)

Chapter Fifty-Eight

From birth to death, life is a game of chance.

—Old Sirikan Saying

Even Doge Lorenzo del Velli, the richest and most powerful Human in the galaxy, liked to keep a little extra spending money around. He was not certain exactly why he felt the need to carry liras around with him in the pockets of his royal robe, but he did anyway. Perhaps just to reassure himself that the assets were available if he ever needed them, an eventuality that would require catastrophic changes in his life. He would have to lose his magnificent palazzo, all of his corporate holdings, and find himself tossed out in the street. All utterly impossible, but he felt helpless to avoid the feelings, the chronic fear.

This theory carried through the rest of his life. In secret places all over the galaxy, he had stashed his treasures, culled from the legitimate and illegitimate profits of his business and governmental enterprises. This went far beyond liras, although he had plenty of those in various places. Of critical importance, he didn’t want to depend on the solvency of the merchant prince economy. To protect against that, he owned, among other things, some of the largest and most valuable gemstones in all of creation. This included the famous Veldic Saphostone, which disappeared from the Intergalactic Museum one day and found its way—through a circuitous path—to him.

The men who had taken it for him had been put to death. Now no one knew his little secret.

Each morning, as he was doing now, Lorenzo strolled through his ornamental Galeng gardens, passed a guard station, and entered a scaled-down version of his Palazzo Magnifico that had the same number of rooms and the same configuration, but with much smaller dimensions. He rather liked his “Palazzito” for its coziness, but it was not a suitable place for contemplation, or a place to be alone. It was, instead, where he practiced what he most enjoyed doing.

Gambling at the most sophisticated gaming tables in the galaxy.

The first to arrive in his private casino, the Doge went from machine to machine in the Blue Chamber, activating the programs, seeing how well he could do at the mechanical games of chance. His favorite, where he stood the longest this morning, was a simulated suicide machine, called Spheres. He didn’t have to put money or chips in it, because he owned the establishment. After a scanner identified him, he could play it to his heart’s content.

By voice command, he selected the means of “death” that he preferred, and instantly the ominous hologram of a Mutati with a huge handgun appeared on one side of him, with the weapon pointed at his head.

Next, he specified the amount of his wager, which in reality wasn’t anything at all. But he provided a number anyway, and the screen in front of him filled with hundreds of tiny spheres, each with a different color and number on them. He had only two minutes. With a foot pedal, he directed the motion of the balls, trying to balance them on a narrow bar.

In only a minute, he had seven spheres lined up, and his score appeared on the screen: 17,252. It had to be higher than the last time he played the game, or the holo shapeshifter would fire, and a holo of blood would be all over his head and clothing.

The last time he played, his score was 17,251, and he liked to play it close, only increasing by one point at a time. This was the most risky way to play, dancing on the edge of the proverbial sword, but it energized him.

Game after game, he increased by one point, without fail. He became aware of a crowd of men and women streaming into the chamber around him, the royal court. They cheered him on and chanted his name. He liked that, playing the hero. One day, he might even use the threat of a real Mutati with a weapon, instead of a hologram.

Presently, Francella came in and sat by him. She wore a low-cut black lace dress, with a long red fall of hair cascading over her shoulders.

Only she and Lorenzo knew that he could not lose here, not in his own casino. If he didn’t measure up at any game that involved skill or if a game of chance did not go his way, the machine compensated, and he won anyway. It did not work that way for the other players, and they lost a lot of money on a regular basis. But as members of the Doge’s royal court, they had no choice. If they wanted to remain in his favor, they needed to participate in what Lorenzo called “friendly exchanges.”

Actually, this meant transferring their funds to the casino, and ultimately into one of the Doge’s secret stashes. It was an additional source of income for him, one of many.

And he needed all he could get, he thought, as he looked into Francella’s dark brown eyes. She was an expensive mistress.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

For as long as there has been warfare, there has been subterfuge. It can be the key to victory.

—Mutati military handbook

Just above the hazy atmospheric envelope of Plevin Four, a podship emerged from space in a burst of translucent green light, having traveled the faster-than-light podways known to the sentient space travelers. It settled into a docking station at the little-used pod station.

A cargo hold opened like a mouth in the side of the podship, and a long black transport ship slipped out into the docking bay, followed by what looked like a red-and-gold merchant schooner.

But this vessel was not that at all.

The Mutati outrider at the controls taxied out into space, and went through the detailed checklist he had learned at the training camp on Dij, just prior to its destruction. He had prepared carefully for this moment, and would only get one opportunity to make good.

Today my life and death meet
, he thought, feeling supreme joy at the prospect of his final journey to heaven.

This Demolio suicide mission had been dispatched prior to the attack against the factory by a pair of Human escapees from a Mutati prison moon. The vessel had no long-range communication device aboard, so the pilot didn’t know what had happened. He also could not be called back by the Zultan and diverted to a more significant planet. The timing of the attack had been predetermined, and he had waited in deep space for the moment to arrive.

The pilot looked forward to his own glorious death, and to his ascension into heaven. It would be wonderful, but in a way he wished he might have gone on the Demolio mission later. In recent weeks he’d been hearing intriguing rumors of an instantaneous cross-galactic communication system under development by the Mutati Kingdom. Everyone was curious about how it worked, and how it would enhance the war effort.

But it all seemed like another universe to him, another life. The fate of the galactic communication system was just one of many loose ends he had left behind, along with family, friends, and his career as a construction superintendent.

He would never know that the Mutatis were investigating the Human’s own cross-space nehrcom system, based upon information secretly provided by Jacopo Nehr’s brother. Through their own experiments the Mutatis had confirmed what they were told by the turncoat Human, that nehrcoms only operated between land-based, planetary installations. The only exceptions to this were the lower quality relay transmissions that could be made to and from space stations or spaceships that were near nehrcom planets. At that very moment, the Mutatis were building nehrcom stations on distant star systems, to conduct their initial tests.

Nor would the pilot ever learn the strategy behind his own demise. The Mutati High Command was willing to sacrifice not only terramutati outriders such as himself, but any Mutatis, such as Seatels, who might still reside on Human-controlled planets. He only had a narrow view of his mission, the scant but focused information that had been drilled into his mind by his trainers.

All thoughts faded now. The shapeshifter had completed his final checklist, making all of the necessary settings. The kamikaze torpedo was heading for its target, accelerating.…

* * * * *

From somewhere, Tesh Kori heard a piercing, high-pitched whine that hurt her ears, followed by a rumbling sound, and a huge explosion.

Chapter Sixty

I cannot bear the thought of my own death. If only there were a way to prevent it, I would give anything. Well, almost anything. I’d have to keep something to sustain me in my long life, after all.

—Doge Lorenzo del Velli, private notes

The elegant nobleman hated “up-shuttles.” Even when he ordered the pilots to ascend as slowly as possible through the atmosphere, the Doge Lorenzo del Velli always got nosebleeds. They were more of an irritation and an embarrassment than anything else, since trillions of his followers in the Alliance gave him superhuman, almost godlike attributes. But inside shuttles, doing something commonplace, just going from planet to pod station, Lorenzo had to sit with a white handkerchief over his nose, glaring around to make sure that no one was staring at him.

At mid-morning, he rode with a handful of military officers, bureaucrats, and his usual entourage of personal attendants. None of them seemed to pay any attention to his condition, and certainly none dared mention it to him. From experience, they knew he snapped back whenever that particular subject came up.

For this up-shuttle ride, he was not, however, going to a pod station. Instead, he was making his first inspection trip to EcoStation, having received confirmation from his officers that they had taken control of it away from the remnants of Noah Watanabe’s defenders. He wanted to see the famous orbital facility firsthand and make decisions about the future of the asset. His first inclination had been to destroy it, now that his son was not there, but his bankers had told him he could make money with the operation, just as Noah did. This intrigued the Doge.

The southwest corner of the Ecological Demonstration Project compound had not been so easy to take over, but that morning the Guardians had finally fallen there, too. His troops had captured some of them, but most had disappeared into the surrounding forests and hills, melting away with high efficiency. His Red Berets had searched for them and had found a few. They were living off the land, surviving like animals in the wild. Noah Watanabe, the master ecologist, must have taught them how to do that.

The Doge smiled bitterly as he dabbed at his nose. Those forest rats were more trouble than they were worth. He had called off the search operations, since they were too costly and not worth the effort. Noah’s Guardians were useless as a fighting force now. Lorenzo didn’t worry about them anymore.

Still, he had a certain amount of grudging respect for them.

Of course, he could throw mininukes or pulse bombs in the woods, but he didn’t want the political fallout that would certainly result from the use of such controversial weapons. No, it wasn’t worth it at all.

Doge Lorenzo had not taken a complete inventory, but it seemed to him that every bone in his body ached from the night of ardor he’d spent with Francella. They had made love in virtually every room of her brother’s house, which was on the grounds of the Ecological Demonstration Project that the Guardians had abandoned. For days, the woman had been in a frenzy that alternated between rage and passion. One moment she would tear apart Noah’s offices or the parlor of his home, and the next she would want Lorenzo to make love to her, right in the middle of the rubble.

The Doge had not participated in the destruction himself, except as an observer, but he had found the violence tremendously exciting, and stimulating. Francella’s emotions and sexuality were raw and almost primal, although she was also highly intelligent, with a wide knowledge of business and cultural matters. She could speak at length about virtually any subject. Then, in the privacy of a bedroom (or any other room for that matter), she might become someone entirely different, as if a switch had been activated.

He sighed. Lorenzo had never met anyone like her, and didn’t expect that he ever would.

Only the day before, he had received a paternity report that he had requested. His investigators had confirmed to him that Anton Glavine really was his son, and Francella was the mother.

Initially, Lorenzo had been angry at her for concealing such an important matter from him for all of these years. In the face of his rage she finally apologized in tears, and insisted that she’d only done it for his own good, since she hadn’t thought that he wanted a bastard child to interfere with any sons he might have sired through marriage. With years passing, and the Doge having only daughters, Francella had claimed she’d wanted to tell him the truth, but had never found the right opportunity to do so. She also admitted not feeling comfortable as a parent herself, and hoping against hope that Lorenzo would one day father a son by legitimate means, thus creating an untainted noble heir.

Eventually Lorenzo had told her he forgave her, and this was true for the most part, since he had never been able to stay angry with Francella for any reason during the more than two decades of their relationship. On a certain level, just below his full consciousness, he had always known that he was a slave to his passion for her. He always tried not to dwell on any negative thoughts about her, or the way he felt for her. He only knew for certain that he could not live without her, despite her selfish ways.…

The shuttle floated into a docking berth on the space station, and airlocks clicked into place. Lorenzo sniffled blood up his nostrils, trying not to be too loud. Gradually, as he stepped into the corridors of the space station with his officers, his nose stopped bleeding and he began to feel better.

Robots wearing red caps stood guard at doorways along the way. Some of the sentient machines were black, and others silver. Many had dents and metal patches. Lorenzo liked this group despite their appearance, and had rewarded them for saving his life by making them full-fledged Red Berets. They looked particularly proud this morning. As he rounded a corner, he saw their leader Jimu using a probe to interface with another machine.

Jimu had been expanding the number of machines under Doge Lorenzo’s command, cleverly replicating them without the need for Human intervention. They recycled old parts, found their own raw materials, and fabricated replacement parts. The machines were loyal, efficient, and cost him very little, since they took care of themselves. It was an ideal situation.

But as he looked around at the green-and-brown walls and peered into empty classrooms and offices, knowing his son Anton had been there before him, his mood darkened. He worried over the young man’s welfare. Both anxious and furious at the situation, he swung an arm at a hanging plant in one of the lunchrooms, and became entangled in it. The whole thing ripped loose from its ceiling hooks, and he fell with it over a table, cursing.

“Are you all right, Sire?” one of his aides said, running over to free him from the snarl of vines and leaves. “Oh Sire, you’re injured.”

“It’s only a little nosebleed, you fool! I’m fine, fine. Now, get away from me.”

Pushing the man out of the way and nearly tripping as he stepped away from the plant, the Doge issued a stream of expletives.

“Sorry, Sire, sorry,” the hapless man said as he tripped and fell himself.

“How am I supposed to run the Alliance when I’m surrounded by idiots?” Lorenzo, asked, as he returned to the corridor and rejoined the officers who were showing him around.

The Doge was extremely worried about his newly-discovered son, and suspected that Noah was trying to maintain control over him as a means of leverage, for his own selfish ends. Francella had said that Noah knew all along about the real parentage of Anton, and that he had assumed the role of an attentive family friend when he knew all along that he was really the young man’s genetic uncle.

It enraged Lorenzo how Noah was putting Anton in danger to further his own schemes. The Doge was even beginning to believe Francella’s claim that Noah had been responsible for the death of his own father and for other crimes, while putting up the public persona of the great galactic ecologist.

As far as Lorenzo was concerned, the meeting that Noah had demanded with him must have only been a stalling technique, to give him more time to escape, undoubtedly with treasures he had stolen from Canopa. Noah Watanabe had proven himself to be anything but a man of high morals.

The inspection tour took until early afternoon, after which Lorenzo caught a shuttle back to Canopa. He was especially looking forward to another tryst with Francella, which should put him in a better mood than he was in now.

His attaché Pimyt met him at the shuttle station. The furry little Hibbil strutted up and asked, “Any sign of Noah or your son?”

“Nothing.”

The Hibbil spoke nervously as he walked beside his much taller superior. “I have a groundjet waiting to take you back to Elysoo, Sire.”

“I’m going back to the compound first,” Lorenzo said.

“But you’ve conquered it, and the space station, too. What more do you need to do?”

“Since when do you question me, or direct my actions? I will notify you when I am ready to return.”

“But much important business needs your attention, Sire. Diplomats and other dignitaries are at the palazzo, anxious to speak with you.”

Stopping, Lorenzo confronted the little alien. “I don’t answer to you,” he said, “or to any of the
dignitaries
, as you call them.”

“It’s that CorpOne woman, isn’t it, Sire? Pardon me for saying so, but she’s dangerous. I hear she holds aspirations of becoming Doge herself.”

“Preposterous! There has never been a female Doge, and there never will be!”

“I’m sure you’re right, Sire. I’m just providing you with the information, for you to handle as you see fit.”

“As for ‘that CorpOne woman,’ I’ll spend as much time with her as I please, whenever I please.”

“Of course. My apologies, Doge Lorenzo. I only have your welfare in mind.”

“When you get back to the palazzo, send for my wife. Have her waiting for me when I return.”

“When will that be?”

“Just get her there. And say nothing to her of my whereabouts, or the military operation we conducted against Noah Watanabe.”

The furry little attaché bowed very low to the ground, and hurried off to do as he was told.

Priding himself on his ability to manage relationships with several women at once, Lorenzo intended to make love to both Meghina and Francella in the next few days, but would keep them far apart because of the loathing the women felt toward each other.