Vortex (5 page)

"Mr. Kilgour," Sten said. "An act of cowardice! You at least should have stayed and explained."

"Rotate around it, lad. Th' way th' lass impress't m' mum was by beatin't her ae arm wrestlin.' Ah'm mad, but Ah'm noo daft."

Sten checked the time. "We're due at the
Victory
in ten minutes. Let's drink and get."

Kilgour blurred into motion, old battle reflexes reappearing. The beer and alk on the table vanished. He burped politely, rose, and started toward the exit, threading his way between tables, Sten in his wake.

Alex's way was blocked by a very large quadruped, whose gray hide looked as if it would make an acceptable suit armor. The being emptied the large plas balloon he had been sniffing and bounced it away into a corner. All three of his—her? its?—eyes glared around separately, then settled on Kilgour. The being's twin manipulating arms flexed.

"Men! Don't like men!"

"Ah dinnae either," Alex said equably.

"You man."

"No."

"What you?"

"Ah'm a penguin. Frae Earth. A wee slickit cowerin't birdie thae lives on herring."

Sten ran through various ET handbooks, trying to ID the being. Nothing in his memory had four legs, three eyes, two arms, a dim brain—last undetermined for certain, given probability said being was blitzed—stood two and a half meters tall, weighed several squillion kilos, and had a terrible attitude.

Oh, yeah. Not very vestigal claws on the arms.

Sten felt mildly sorry for the being.

"You not penguin."

"An' how d'ye know, lad? Y' dinnae hae th' look ae a passionate penguin pervert aboot y'."

"You man."

"Look, son. Y're tired. Y'hae a bit t'… snuff, snort, swill, or suck. Hae y'self ae sitdown, an' Ah'll buy y' a wee new balloon."

"Don't like men! I hurt men! First I hurt you, then hurt him."

"Ah well," Kilgour said. "Sten, y' bear witness t' m' wee mum Ah'm noo goin't out an' gettin' in th' bloody frae like Ah wae a cub again."

"I'll tell her."

"Ah knew Ah c'd rely on you."

The being was reaching for Kilgour's neck—what little neck the tubby man had.

Kilgour's hands circled the being's arms, just where a wrist would be on a humanoid. And he levered down. The being scrawked in pain and collapsed down on what were maybe knees, just as gracelessly as an Earth camel. Kilgour, still holding the being's "wrists," stepped forward—and the quadruped collapsed back into a sprawled, seated position.

"Noo," Alex said. "Y' see how easy pacifism is, when y' put y'r mind t' it?"

"If you're through playing, Mr. Kilgour?"

"Ah'm through, Admiral. But Ah hae t' buy m' friend his round. As Ah promis't."

Kilgour, an upright and honorable man from the high-gee world of Edinburgh, Sten's long-time aide and accomplice and one of the Empire's most highly trained elite commandos,
did
keep his word—and bought the now quiescent monster a balloon before they left for their inspection tour of the Imperial battle cruiser
Victory
.

" 'Tis  all i' th' the leverage," was his only explanation to Sten. "Like tearin' a phone book apart."

"What's a phone book?"

" 'Tis quite a ship," Alex said, three hours later.

"Aye," Sten agreed. He took off the sensor hood he had been wearing and stopped his run through of the
Victory's
tertiary and redundant TA systems.

Alex's eyes swept the room before he spoke. There weren't any crewmen within earshot, and the com box wasn't picking up. "Perhaps Ah'm gettin' old," he went on, still tentatively, "but the way this scow's set up's noo like it would have been back in the—the old days."

"You mean before the Emperor's assassination."

"Aye," Kilgour said. "Thae's a bit too much flash ae filigree fr this to suit th'
old
Emp. Or am I rememberin't th' past ae better'n it wae?"

"I've been thinking the same thing," Sten said. He touched keys, and the computer obediently threw a three-meter hologram of the
Victory
into the air over the mess table they were sitting at. Another key combination, and the computer began peeling the hologram, displaying the new battle cruiser from all angles and deck by deck.

"Ah'd heard this wae t' be a 'maphrodite," Alex said. "But it looks more like a three-way or four-way arrangement t'me."

Sten nodded agreement. He wasn't happy, on a number of levels. First was the entirely pragmatic consideration of the
Victory
as a warship. Sten had experience with tools, vehicles, and ships that were ostensibly dual- or multiple-purpose. Almost without exception that meant that the tool did quite a number of things badly, and nothing well.

Battle cruisers, for instance, were based on aeons-old designs of ships that had enough muscle to beat up almost anything—except battleships or monitors—and enough power to run away from the biggies. Quite frequently, though, it worked out that the class was too slow to be able to catch and destroy smaller ships, and played hell getting away from the monsters. Plus, once the ship was caught, its armament, quite capable of bashing a stray destroyer or such, was too light to damage a battleship, and its defensive systems, active or passive, were too weak.

Sten had gone through the builder-promised specs on the
Victory
, cross-correlating them with the actual performance the battle cruiser produced during its trials. Unless the Imperial procurement people were on the take—not an impossibility, but not very likely—it looked as if the
Victory
might be an effective weapon.

The problem was this tacship capability the Emperor had evidently decided was vital. The
Victory's
rear third was dedicated to hangar/weapons/quarters for a complete tacship flotilla—three squadrons of four ships each. The tacships were Bulkeley-II class ships, developed and refined during the Tahn war. They were just-over-hundred-meter-long needles of destruction. They were built to get in at speed, hit hard, and get out. Anything else—crew comfort, defensive capabilities, armor—was secondary or nonexistent. Sane pilots hated the tacships—they required constant hands-on pilot response and were unforgiving, as in kill you, of the slightest error. Sten loved them.

So on one hand the
Victory's
added capability was something Sten appreciated. But it also meant that the rear spaces were flying time bombs, packed with sensitive explosives, fuels, and weaponry. The large hangar and maintenance areas meant any hit in those spaces might destroy the battle cruiser. Plus the
Victory
was more than a bit blind and defenseless around the stern. "Thae'll be a problem," Kilgour had observed. "Means thae i' we cannae break an' run, we'll hae t' retreat backwards, clutchin' our bustle an' flailin' wi' our wee ladylike brolly."

That image of Earth Victorian times brought up the
Victory's
final oddity: complete luxury. Sten already knew the ship had been outfitted for luxury—even the lowest-rank wiper had his own tiny compartment. Paneling appeared to be wood and stone on many of the passageways. The kitchens could efficiently prepare and serve Imperial conference banquets with no strain.

Sten appreciated this to a degree. A lean, clean fighting machine might sound good in the livies, but Sten knew from his tacship experience that after three or four weeks into a mission, one thing
not
appreciated was a fresher one had to squeeze oneself into to degrease the body. Especially if that fresher just happened to have a sharp corner cleverly located where elbows and knees went.

But then there was the Imperial Suite, which included living quarters large enough, it seemed, for an entire Imperial court, plus guest area and troop support sectors, including armories and gymnasiums. Sten was glad to see the latter—he was still aware of the smallish handles he had previously noted in the Imperial mirror.

The Imperial Suite—if that was the correct label for such a large area—covered the upper quarter of the
Victory
between the tacship decks to the forward command spaces for the
Victory's
own crew. A frontal cross-section would show the Imperial area as a T, the figure's leg extending deep into the ship's center. Like all flagships, the
Victory
was designed and built so the Imperial—or flag—quarters were independent of the warship's own areas. For thousands of years every admiral had known he was a better captain than the flagship's own captain, and would frequently drop the larger concerns he was paid to worry about and play skipper-for-a-day.

Yes. Sten agreed with Alex that this Imperial Suite was a bit much. The heads had gold fixtures. The basins were real marble. The bedchambers were richly upholstered. As for the beds themselves, particularly the ones—plural correct—in the Imperial private quarters, Sten wondered how they would be described in the inventory:

BED, Mark 24
, perhaps.
Multiple-user-capable. Structurally reinforced to allow occupants limitless creativity. Bed fitted for hydraulic modification while in use, which includes adjustment overall area from polyhedron to circular to conventional; vertical adjustment of any portion of bed for height. Internal and external multiple capabilities, including, but not limited to, internal illumination, external illumination, holographic projection, holographic recording. Includes refrigeration and snack area. Includes full communication capability. Overhead rack (can be hidden) capable of supporting as many as three beings. Fitted for light array to include, but not limited to, stroboscopic or holographic imaging.

The owner of such a bed, Sten summarized, would be listed as orgy-qualified and -experienced.

The Emperor?

Sten did not give a damn—but it was odd that during his time as captain of the Emperor's Gurkha bodyguard, he hadn't noticed that the Eternal Emperor seemed particularly sex-driven. He hadn't thought much about it, but sort of guessed that after a few thousand years maybe the possibilities had been completely explored.

But now?

Hell, he was not even sure he was right—it wasn't as if Sten had personally explored every inch of Arundel Castle to ensure that what was listed as a storeroom might not, in fact, have been an Imperial bordello.

The problem was going to be, Sten thought, sleeping in that bed himself. Why you puritanical little clot, his mind jeered. There have been times, he prodded himself, that he'd been known to roll about in a big pile with friends. And speaking of which, his thought went on, who's going to see you sleeping in that humongous great bed, anyway? You might as well have been a clottin' castrato of late.

Sten brought himself back to the issues at hand. "Mr. Kilgour," he said, "I'm not at all sure what this goatrope they call the Altaic Cluster is going to be. But I'm getting the idea our boss isn't giving us all these goodies just because he likes my legs."

"Prog: ninety percent," Alex agreed.

"Which means I'll be needing all my assets. So, uh, do you think it'd be a proper utilization of your talents, Laird Kilgour, for you to skipper this solid-gold whorehouse?"

Kilgour appeared taken aback. "Me? But thae's an admiral rank. Twa-star, Ah'd hazard. An' th' highest rank Ah e'er held, last time Ah meter-metered the matter, wae but wee warrant."

"I don't think that would present a problem," Sten said. "And it wasn't what I asked."

Alex considered. Then slowly shook his head. "Ah dinnae think so, lad. But Ah'm touched ae the thought. T'now, thae's nae been a Kilgour been an admiral. 'Ceptin' the pirates, a' course.

"M'mum'd be pleased, an a'.

"But… nae. Marchin' swabs here an' bye, pushin' all this steel aroun' th' sky… thae dinnae tweak m' testes. Ah'm more int'rested in all thae clots we're goin' out to straighten oot—Ah think thae's m' main talent, skipper."

Sten was very damned elated. Beyond the value he placed on Kilgour's friendship and quite literal back-guarding ability, he knew that the man whom the Emperor called Sten's personal thug had real talents at diplomacy, situation analysis, and solution breakdown.

Then a notion crossed his mind. Sten grinned—it was just a shade farcical. But it would bear consideration.

He shut down the computer and stood up. "Come on, Laird Kilgour. Let's go back to the bar and see if that rhino's ready to buy us a round."

Alex came to his feet, then frowned and checked the wall-chrom. "Nice thought, boss. But we cannae. We'll be haein' vis'tors back ae our quarters."

"Visitors? Kilgour, are you running another number on me?"

"Noo, lad. Hae y' e'r, e'er known me to stick ae match under y'r breeks jus t' see how high y'll jump?"

Sten didn't even trouble with an answer, nor with kicking his "diplomatic adviser" in the slats.

"I shall be entirely gotohell," Sten said.

"Is that all you're going to say? No 'Clottin' Kilgour did it to me again?' No 'But duty calleth, M'lady, and I must away?' "

"Nope."

Sten crossed from the entrance to his suite in Arundel Castle to the sideboard. "Best I can do," he said, "is I just came from a room I'd like to show you, someday."

"Do I get an explanation?"

"Nope."

"Do I get to see that room?"

Sten did not reply. He picked up a decanter and eyed its contents.

"Stregg?"

"Yes… stregg."

"It's early—but I'll have one if
you're
drinking."

Sten found two corrosion-proof shot glasses, poured them full, and took one across to Cind. She half sat, half lay on one of the room's couches.

Sten had met Cind many years earlier under circumstances both would have preferred to be different. Cind was a human woman, a descendant of the warrior elite who had once defended the religious fanatics of the Lupus Cluster, known as the Wolf Worlds. Sten had overturned that corrupt and militant church government during his days as an undercover Mantis Section operative.