CHAPTER THREE
1233 A.F.
317 Y.O.
Looks different from a Protégé's point of view, John Hosten thought, carefully
slumping his shoulders.
He
was walking the streets of Oathtaking in the drab cotton coat and
breeches of some middling Protégé worker. He could have been a
warehouse clerk, or a store-checker; his hair had been dyed
brown, but the best protection was sheer swarming numbers and the
fact that nobody looked at an average Proti.
He'd
forgotten how hot the damned place was, too. Hot, the air
thick and wet and saturated with coal smoke and smells. Bigger
than he remembered from his childhood; the villas went further up
the slopes of the volcanoes, the factories were larger and the
smokestacks higher, there were more overhead power lines, workers
hanging out the sides of the overburdened trolley cars. And many,
many more powered vehicles on the streets. Most of them were in
army gray, steam-powered trucks and haulers built to half a dozen
standard models. A fair number of luxury cars, too, some of them
imported models from the Republic. Half a dozen Protégés went
by on a gang-bicycle, which was a very clever invention, when you
thought about it.
Too heavy for one to pedal-it takes six. Factory workers
can use them to commute, but they don't get personal mobility.
Cleverness
wasn't a wholly positive quality. . . .
He
ducked into the brothel's front door; it wasn't hard to find,
having BROTHEL #22A7-B, PROT&EACUTEG&EACUTE, CLASS 6-b
printed on the front door, with a graphic symbol for illiterates.
Inside was a depressingly bare waiting room with a brick floor
and girls sitting around the walls on wood-slat benches, naked
save for cotton briefs, folded towels beside them, and a number
on the wall above each head below a lightbulb. They didn't look
as run-down as you'd expect, but then few of them were
professionals. Temporary service in a place like this was a
standard penalty for minor infractions of workplace regulations.
A staircase led to cubicles above, and a clerk sat behind an iron
grille just inside the door; the place smelled of sweat, harsh
disinfectant, and spilled beer.
A
hulk stood nearby, an iron-bound club thonged to his massive
wrist, picking at his teeth with the thumbnail of his other hand.
Probably a retired policeman; he looked John over once, and
tapped the head of the club warningly against the stucco. John
cringed realistically, turning and ducking his head.
"Prices
are posted," the clerk said in a monotone; she was in her
fifties, flabby with a starchy diet and lack of exercise.
"You want I should read 'em? Booze is extra."
John
pushed iron counters across the table and through the scoop
trough beneath the iron grille. Fingers arranged them in a
pattern; they were from Zeizin Shipbuilding AG, one of the bigger
firms.
recognition, Center said. Pointers dropped across the
clerk's pasty face indicating pupil dilation and temperature
differentials. 97%, ±2.
That
was about as definite as it got; now the question was whether
this was his real contact, or whether the Fourth Bureau had
penetrated the ring and was waiting for him. His palms were damp,
and he swallowed sour bile, eyes flickering to the doors. He
wasn't carrying a weapon; it would have been insanely risky,
here-a Protégé caught armed would be lucky to be
executed on the spot. And when they found his geburtsnumero
. . .
subject is contact, Center reassured him. anxiety levels are
compatible. 73%, ±5.
A
whole hell of a lot less certain than the first
projection, but still reassuring. A little.
The
clerk nodded and pressed a button on her side of the counter. A
light went on with a tick over the girl closest to the
stair; she stood with a mechanical smile and picked up her towel.
The
upper corridor was fairly quiet, in midafternoon; a row of
cubicles stood on either side, with curtains hung before them on
rings and a shower at one end. John's guide pulled aside a
numbered curtain and ducked through.
He
followed. Within was a single cot, a washstand and tap, and a jar
of antiseptic soap . . . and crouched in a corner, the burly form
of Angelo Pesalozi. He stood, bear-burly, more gray than John
remembered.
"Young
Master Johan," he rumbled.
John
extended his hand. "No man's master now, Angelo," he
said, smiling.
The
hand of Karl Hosten's driver and personal factotum closed on his
with controlled strength. John matched it, and Angelo grinned.
"You
have not grown soft," he said. "Come, we should do our
business quickly."
The
girl put her foot on the cot and began to push on it, irregularly
at first and then rhythmically; with vocal accompaniment, it was
a remarkably convincing chorus of squeaks and groans.
"A
minute," John said. "My life is at risk here, too, and
will be again, and I must understand. Karl Hosten is a good
master, and your own daughter is one of the Chosen. Why are you
ready to work against them?"
Brown
eyes met his somberly. "He is a good master, but I would
have no master at all, and be my own man. I have four children;
because one is a lord, should the others be slaves, and my
grandchildren? There are more bad masters than good."
He
jerked his head towards the girl. "She dropped a tray of
insulator parts, and so she must whore here for a month-is this
justice? If a man speaks against the masters when they send his
wife to another plantation, or take his children for soldiers,
his brother for the mines, he is hung in an iron cage at the
crossroads to die-is this justice? No, the rule of the Chosen is
an offense against God. It must cease, even if I die for
it."
John
met his eyes for a long moment. subject is sincere;
probability- He silenced the computer with a thought. I
know.
And
Angelo had always been kind to a boy with a crippled foot . . .
"Yes,"
John said. "That is so, Angelo."
The
Protégé nodded and produced folded papers from inside his
jacket; they were damp with sweat, but legible.
"These
I took from the wastebasket, before the daily burning," he
said. "Here is an order, concerning five airships-"
"I
worry about that boy," Sally Farr said.
"I
don't," Maurice Farr replied.
They
were sitting on the terrace of the naval commandant's quarters,
overlooking Charsson and its port. This was the northernmost part
of the Republic of Santander, hence the hottest; the shores of
the Gut were warmer still, protected from continental breezes by
mountains on both sides. The hot, dry summer had just begun;
flowers gleamed about the big whitewashed house, and the
tessellated brick pavement of the terrace was dappled by the
shade of the royal palms and evergreen oak planted around it. The
road ran down the mountainside in dramatic switchbacks; there
were villas on either side, officers' quarters and middle-class
suburbs up out of the heat of the old city around the J-shaped
harbor.
The
roofs down there were mostly low-pitched and of reddish clay
tile; it looked more like an Imperial city from the lands just
north of the Gut than like the rest of Santander. Much of the
population was Imperial, too-there had been a steady drift of
migrant laborers in the past couple of generations, looking for
better-paid work in the growing mines and factories and
irrigation farms.
Farr's
eyes went to the dockyards. One of his armored cruisers was in
the graving dock, with a cracked shaft on her central screw. The
other four ships of the squadron were refitting as well; when
everything was ready he'd take them up the Gut on a show-the-flag
cruise.
"John,"
he continued, "is on his way to becoming a very wealthy
young man. And he's doing well in the diplomatic service.
"Thank
you," he went on to the steward bringing him his afternoon
gin and tonic. Sally rattled the ice in hers.
"He
has no social life," she said. "I keep introducing him
to nice girls, and nothing happens. All he does is study and
work. The doctors say he should be . . . umm, functional . . .
but I worry."
Maurice
turned his head to hide a quick smile. From what Jeffrey told
him, John had been seen occasionally with girls who weren't
particularly nice. Enough to prove that the infant vasectomy the
Chosen doctors had done hadn't caused any irreparable harm
in that respect, at least.
"Do
you know something I don't?" Sally said sharply.
"Let's
put it this way, my dear: there are certain things that a young
man does not generally discuss with his mother."
"Oh."
Smart,
Maurice thought fondly. Pretty, too.
Sally
was looking remarkably cool and elegant in her white and cream
linen outfit and broad straw hat, the pleated skirt daringly an
inch above the ankle. Only a little gray in the long brown hair,
no more than in his. You'd never know she'd had four children.
"Besides,"
he went on, "he's been assigned to the embassy in Ciano.
From what I know of the tailcoat squadron there, social life is
about all he'll have time for-it's a diplomat's main function.
Count on it, he'll meet plenty of nice girls there."
"Oh."
Sally's tone wavered a little at the thought. "Nice Imperial
girls. Well, I suppose . . ." She shrugged.
She
looked downslope in her turn. There were fortifications there,
everything from the bastion-and-ravelin systems set up centuries
ago to defend against roundshot to modern concrete-and-steel
bunkers with heavy naval guns.
"John
seems to think that there's going to be war," she said.
"Jeffrey, too."
Maurice
nodded somberly. "I wouldn't be surprised. War between the
Chosen and the Empire, at least."
"But
surely we wouldn't be involved!" Sally protested.
"Not
at first," Maurice said slowly. "Not for a while."
"Thank
goodness Jeffrey's in the army, then," she said. The
Republic of Santander had no land border with either of the two
contending powers. "And John's safe in the diplomatic
corps."
"You
dance divinely, Giovanni," Pia del'Cuomo said. "It is
not fair. You are tall, you are handsome, you are clever, you are
rich, and you dance so well. Beware, lest God send you a
misfortune."
"I've
already had a few from Him," John Hosten said, keeping his
tone light and whirling the girl through the waltz. The ballroom
was full of graceful swirling movement, gowns and uniforms and
black formal suits, jewels and flowers and fans. "But He
brought me to Ciano to meet you, so he can't be really angry with
me."
Pia
was just twenty, old for an Imperial woman of noble birth to be
unmarried, and four years younger than him. Also unlike most
Imperials of her sex and station, she didn't think giggles and
inanities were the only way to talk to a man. She was very pretty
indeed, besides, something he was acutely conscious of with their
hands linked and one arm around her narrow waist.
No, not pretty-beautiful, he thought.
Big
russet-colored eyes, heart-shaped face, creamy skin showing to
advantage in the glittering low-cut, long-skirted white ballgown,
and glossy brown hair piled up under a diamond tiara. Best of
all, she seemed to like him.
The
music came to a stop, and they stood for a moment smiling at each
other while the crowd applauded the orchestra.
"If
jealous eyes were daggers, I would be stabbed to death," Pia
said with a trace of satisfaction. "It is entertaining,
after being an old maid for years. My father has been muttering
that if I wished to do nothing but read books and live single, I
should have found a vocation before I left the convent
school."
John
snorted. "Not likely."
"I
would have made a very poor nun, it is true," Pia
said demurely. "And then I could not have gone on to so many
picnics and balls and to the opera with a handsome young officer
of the Santander embassy. . . ."
"A
glass of punch?" he said.
Pia
put her hand on his arm as he led her to the punch table. The
white-coated steward handed them glasses; it was a fruit punch
with white wine, cool and tart.
"You
are worried, John," she said in English. Hers was nearly as
good as his Imperial, and her voice had turned serious.
"Yes,"
he sighed.
"Your
conversations with my father, they have not gone well?"
Even
for an Imperial commander, Count Benito del'Cuomo was a
blinkered, hidebound. . . . With an effort, John pushed the image
of the white muttonchop whiskers out of his mind.
"No,"
he said. "He doesn't take the Chosen seriously."
Pia
sipped at her punch and nodded to her chaperone where she sat
with the other matrons against one wall. The older woman-some
sort of poor-relation hanger-on of the del'Cuomos-frowned when
she saw that Pia was still talking with the Republic's young
chargé d'affaires. They began walking slowly towards the
balcony.
"Father
does not think the Land will dare to attack us," she said
thoughtfully. "We have so many more soldiers, so many more
ships of war. Their island is tiny next to the Empire."
"Pia-"
He didn't really want to talk politics, but she had reason to be
concerned. "Pia, their note demanded extraterritorial rights
in Corona and half a dozen other ports, control of grain exports,
and exclusive investment rights in Imperial railroads."
Pia
checked half a step. She was the daughter of the Minister
of War. "That . . . that is an ultimatum!" she said.
"And an impossible one."
John
nodded grimly. "An excuse for war. Even if your emperor and
senatorial council were to agree to it, and you're right, they
couldn't, then the Chosen would find some new demand."
"Why
do they warn us, then? Surely they are not so scrupulous that
they hesitate at a surprise attack."
"Scarcely.
I have a horrible suspicion that they want the Empire to
be prepared, so you'll have more forces in big concentrations
where they can get at them," John said.
They
walked out into the cooler air and half-darkness of the great
veranda. Little Adele and huge Mira were both up and full,
flooding the black-and-white checkerwork marble with pale blue
light, turning the giant vases filled with oleander and jessamine
and bougainvillea into a pastel wonderland. The terrace ended in
a fretted granite balustrade and broad steps leading down to
gardens whose graveled paths glowed white amid the flowerbanks
and trees. Beyond the estate wall, widely spaced lights showed
where the townhouses of the nobility stood amid their walled
acres, with an occasional pair of yellow kerosene-lamp headlights
marking a carriage or steamcar. Westward reached a denser web of
lights, mostly irregular-Ciano had a street plan originally laid
out by cows, except for a few avenues driven through in recent
generations. Those centered on the Imperial palace complex, a
tumble of floodlit white and gilded domes.
From
here they could just make out the glittering surface of the broad
Pada River; the dockyards and warehouses and slums about it were
jagged black shapes, no gaslights there. Above them two
lights moved through the sky, with a low throbbing of propellers.
An airship, making for the west and the great ocean port of
Corona at the mouth of the Pada.
"Chosen-made,"
John said, nodding towards it. "Pia, your soldiers are
brave, but they have no conception of what they face."
Pia
leaned one hip against the balustrade, turning her fan in her
fingers. "My father . . . my father is an intelligent man.
But he . . . he thinks often that because things were as they
were when he was young, so they must remain."
"I'm
not surprised. My own government tends to think the same
way." If not to quite the same degree, he added to
himself.
They
were silent for a few minutes. John felt the tension building,
mostly in his stomach, it seemed. Pia was looking at him out of
the corner of her eyes, the beginning of a frown of
disappointment marking her brows.
"Ah
. . . that is . . ." John said. "Ah, I was thinking of
calling on your father again."
Pia
turned to face him. "Concerning political matters?" she
asked, her face calm.
An
excuse trembled on his lips. Yes. Of course. That would be
all he needed, to add cowardice to his list of failings. A
crippled soul to join the foot.
"No,"
he said. "About something personal . . . if you would like
me to."
The
smile lit up her eyes before it reached her mouth. "I would
like that very much," she said, and leaned forward slightly
to brush her lips against his.
probability of sincerity is 92% ±3, with motivations
breakdown as follows-Center began.
Shut the fuck up! John thought.
He
could hear Raj's amusement at the back of his mind. Damned
right, lad.
Jeff's
voice: God, but that one's a looker, isn't she? He must be
getting visual feed from Center, through John's eyes.
Will you all kindly get the hell out of my love life?
"Giovanni,
there are times when I think you are talking to God, or the
saints, or anyone but the person you are with!"
John
mumbled an apology. Pia's eyes were still glowing. "The only
question is, will he consent?"
"He'd
better," John said. Pia blinked in surprise and slight alarm
at the expression his face took for a moment. He forced
relaxation and smiled.
"Why
shouldn't he?" he said. "He knows I'm not a fortune
hunter"-the del'Cuomos were fabulously wealthy, but he'd
managed to discreetly let the Count know the size of his own
portfolio-"and if he didn't like me personally, he'd have
forbidden me to see you."
Pia
nodded. "Well, I do have three younger sisters," she
said with sudden hard-headed shrewdness. "It isn't seemly
for them to marry before me-and also, my love, I think Father
thinks he can beat you down on the dowry by pretending that the
marriage is impossible because you are not of the Imperial
Church."
John
grinned. "He's right. He can beat me down."
Some
cold part of his mind added that Imperial properties weren't
likely to be worth much in a little while.
He
took a deep breath. It was like diving off a high board: once you
were committed, there was no point in thinking about the drop.
"Pia,
there is something I must tell you." She met his eyes
steadily. "I am . . . I was born with a deformity." He
averted his eyes slightly. "A clubfoot."
She
let out her breath sharply. His glance snapped back to her face.
She was smiling.
"Is
it nothing more than that? The surgeons must have done well,
then-you dance, you ride, you play the . . . what is the name?
Tennis?" She flicked a hand. "It is nothing."
Breath
he hadn't been conscious of holding sighed out of him. "It's
why my father never accepted me," he said quietly.
She
put a hand up along his face. "And if he had, you would be
in the Land, preparing to attack the Empire," she said.
"Also, you would not be the man I love. I have met Chosen
from their embassy here, and beneath their stiff manners they are
pigs. They look at me like a piece of kebab. You are not such a
man."
He
took the hand and kissed it. "There is more." John
closed his eyes. "I cannot have children."
Pia's
fingers clenched over his. He looked up and found her eyes
brimming, the unshed tears bright in the starlight-and realized,
with a shock like cold water, that they were for him.
"But-"
He
nodded jerkily. "Oh, I'm . . . functional. Sterile, though,
and there's nothing that can be done about it." He turned
his head aside. "It was done, ah, when I was very
young."
"Then
you too have reason to hate the Chosen," Pia said softly.
"Look at me, Giovanni."
He
did. "You are the man for whom I have waited. That is all I
have to say."
Jeffrey
Farr smiled.
"You
find our ships amusing?" the Imperial officer asked sharply.
The
steam launch chuffed rhythmically along the line of anchored
battlewagons. He'd noticed the same attitude often in Imperial
naval officers. Unlike the Army-or the squabbling committees in
Ciano who set policy and budgets-they had to have some
idea of what was going on abroad. Not that they'd admit the state
their service was in, of course. It came out in a prickly
defensiveness.
"Quite
the contrary," Farr said smoothly. "I smiled because I
recently received news that my brother, my foster-brother, is
going to be married. To a lady by the name of Pia
del'Cuomo."
And I don't think your ships are funny. I think they're
pathetic, he added
to himself.
The
Imperial officer nodded, mollified and impressed. "The
eldest daughter of the Minister of War? Your brother is a lucky
man." He pointed. "And there they are, the pride of the
Passage Fleet."
Ten
of the battleships floated in the millpond-quiet bay of the
military harbor, flanked by the great fortresses. Lighters were
carrying out supplies, much of it coal that had to be laboriously
shoveled into crane-borne buckets and hoisted again to the decks
for transfer to the fuel bunkers. The ships were medium-sized,
about eleven thousand tons burden, with long ram bows and a
pronounced tumblehome that made them much narrower at the deck
than the waterline. They each carried a heavy, stubby single
350mm gun in a round cheesebox-style turret fore and aft, and
their secondary batteries in a string of smaller one-gun turrets
that rose pulpit-style from the sides. Each had a string of four
short smokestacks, and a wilderness upperworks of flying bridges,
cranes, and signal masts.
They'd
been perfectly good ships in their day. The problem was that the
Empire was still building them about twenty years after their day
had passed.
correct,
Center observed. roughly equivalent to british battleships of
the 1880s period.
Eighteen . . . ah. Center used the Christian calendar, which
nobody on Visager did except for religious purposes. For one
thing, it was based on Earth's twelve-month year, nearly thirty
days shorter than this planet's rotation around its sun. For
another, the numbers were inconveniently high.
Jeffrey
shivered slightly. The period Center named was two thousand years
past. Interstellar civilization had been born, spread, and fallen
in the interim, and a new cycle was beginning.
"You're
loading coal, I see," he said to the Imperial officer . . .
Commodore Bragati, that was his name. "Steam up yet?"
"No,
we expect to be ready in about a week," Bragati said.
"Then we'll cruise down the Passage, and show those upstarts
in the Land who rules those waters."
Two weeks to get ready for a show-the-flag cruise? Raj thought with disgust. I'd
say these imbeciles deserve what's probably going to happen to
them, if so many civilians weren't going to be caught in it.
"The
main guns are larger than anything the Land has built,"
Bragati said.
low-velocity weapons with black-powder propellant, Center noted with its usual
clinical detachment. the chosen weapons are long-barreled,
high-velocity rifles using nitrocellulose powders.
He
thought he detected a trace of interest, though, as well. Jeffrey
smiled inwardly; the sentient computer wasn't all that much
different from his grandfather and the cronies who hung around
him-military history buffs and weapons fanciers to a man. Center
was a hobbyist, in its way.
"And
the main armor belt is twelve inches thick!"
laminated wrought iron and cast steel plate, Center went on. radically
inferior to face-hardened alloy. Which both the Land and the
Republic were using for their major warships.
None
of the battleships looked ready for sea. Less excusably, neither
did the scout cruisers tied up three-deep at the naval wharves,
or the torpedo-boat destroyers. Or even the harbor's own torpedo
boats, turtle-backed little craft.
On
the other hand . . . "Well, the fleet certainly looks in
good fettle," Jeffrey said diplomatically.
So
they were, painted in black and dark blue with cream trim.
Sailors were scrubbing coal dust off the latter even as he
watched. He shuddered to think of the amount of labor it must
take to repair the paintwork after a practice firing. If they did
have practice firings; he had a strong suspicion that some
Imperial captains might simply throw their quota of practice
ammunition overboard to spare the trouble.
"Thank
you for your courtesy," he said formally to the Imperial
commodore.
At
least he'd learned one thing. Bragati wasn't the sort of man he
wanted to recruit into the stay-behind cells he and John were
setting up. Too brittle to survive, given his high rank.
"Damn,
I hate dying," John said as the scene blinked back to
normalcy.
Or
Center's idea of normalcy, which in this scenario was a street in
a Chosen city-Copernik, to be specific-during the rainy season.
There was no way to tell it from the real thing; every sensation
was there, down to the smell of the wet rubberized rain cape over
his shoulders and the slight roughness of the checked grip of the
pistol he held underneath it. Watery rainy-season light probed
through the dull clouds overhead, giving a pearly sheen to the
granite paving blocks of the street. Buildings of brick and stone
reached to the walkways on either side, shuttered and dark,
frames of iron bars over their windows.
John
looked down for a second at his unmarked stomach. There hadn't
been any way to tell the impact of the hollowpoint rifle bullet
from the real thing, either-Center's neural input gave an exact
duplicate of the sensation of having your spleen punched out and
an exit wound the size of a woman's fist in your lower back. The
machine had let the scenario play through to the final blackout.
His mouth still felt sour and dry. . . .
"Do
you have to make it quite that realistic?" he muttered,
sidling down the street, eyes scanning.
"For
your own good, lad." Raj's voice was "audible"
here. "Priceless training, really. You can't get more
rigorous than this; and outside, you won't be able to get up and
start again."
"I
still-"
A
sound alerted him. He whirled, drawing the pistol from the
holster on his right hip and firing under his own left arm, into
the planks of the door. His weight crashed into it before the
ringing of the shots had died, smashing it back into the room and
knocking the collapsing corpse of the Fourth Bureau agent into
his companions. That gave John just enough time to snapshoot, and
the secret policeman's weapon flew out of a nerveless hand as the
bullet smashed his collarbone . . .
. . . blackness.
The
street reformed. "I still really hate dying. One behind
me?"
correct.
Center did not bother with amenities like speaking aloud. scanning
to your right as you entered the room was the optimum
alternative.
"I
hated it, too," Raj said unexpectedly.
The
street scene faded to the study where they'd first . . . John
supposed "met" was as good a word as any. Raj puffed
alight a cheroot and poured them both brandies.
"Hunting
accident-broke my neck putting my mount over a fence," he
said. "Quick, at least. I was an old, old man by that time,
and the bones get brittle. Still, I had enough time to know I'd
screwed the pooch in a major way. The real surprise was waking
up-" He indicated the construct. "I was expecting the
afterlife, the real afterlife." He frowned.
"Although this isn't precisely my soul, come to think of it.
Maybe I'm in two heavens . . . or hells."
"At
least you got to see your own funeral," John said.
His
body-image still carried the revolver. He opened the cylinder and
worked the ejector to remove the spent brass, then reloaded and
clicked the weapon closed with his thumb. The action was wholly
automatic, after thousands of hours of Center's instruction-and
Raj's, too. The personality of the general gave the training an
immediacy that the machine intelligence could never quite match,
one that remembered the flesh and the unpleasant realities to
which it was subject.
"My
grandchildren were touchingly grief-stricken," Raj said, his
grin white in the dark face. "And now, back to work."
"This
is play?" John asked.
His
own bedroom in the embassy complex snapped back into view; it was
private, with the door locked, and big enough for his body to
leap and move in puppet-obedience to what his mind perceived in
Center's training program. Experience had to be ground into the
nerves and muscles, as well as the mind and memory. The rest of
the staff thought he had an eccentric taste for calisthenics
performed in solitude.
The
phone rang, the distinctive two long and three short that meant
it was from the ambassador.
John
sighed silently as he picked it up. There were times when it was
easier to deal with the Chosen; they were more straightforward.
Gerta
found the embassy of the Land of the Chosen in the Imperial
capital of Ciano reassuringly familiar, down to the turtle
helmets and gray uniforms and brand-new magazine rifles of the
guards at the gate. They snapped to present as her car halted; an
officer checked her papers and waved her through, past two
outward-bound trucks. In the main courtyard, staff were setting
up fuel drums and shoveling in a mixture of file folders and
kerosene distillate. The smoke was rank and black, towering up
into the sky over the pollarded trees and the slate-roofed
buildings. The guards at the entrance gave her a more detailed
going-over.
"Captain
Gerta Hosten, Intelligence Section, General Staff Office, geburtsnumero
77-A-II-44221," she said.
"Sir,"
the embassy clerk said, after a moment's check of the tallysheet
before him. "Colonel von Kleuron will see you
immediately."
I should hope so, Gerta thought with perfectly controlled
anger as she walked through the basalt-paved lobby of the main
embassy building. After dragging me out here for
Fate-knows-what when the balloon's about to go up.
It
was busy enough that several times she had to dodge wheeled carts
full of documents being taken down to the incinerators. Not so
busy that several passersby in civilian dress didn't to a slight
check and double-take at her Intelligence flashes; probably the
Fourth Bureau spooks were about as happy to see her here as they
would be to invite Santander Intelligence Bureau operatives in.
The air was scented with the smell of paper and cardboard
burning, and with fear-sweat.
She
repeated the identification procedure at the Intelligence chief's
office. This time it was a Chosen NCO who checked her against a
list.
"Welcome
to Ciano, Captain," he said. "No problems at the
airship port?"
"Walked
straight through, barely looked at my passport," she said.
"The colonel?"
The
NCO hopped up from his desk-it was covered with files being
sorted-opened the door and spoke through it, then opened it fully
and stepped aside.
Gerta
marched through, tucked her peaked cap precisely under her left
arm. Her heels clicked, and her right arm shot out at
shoulder-height with fist clenched.
"Sir!"
Colonel
von Kleuron turned out to be a middle-aged woman with a long face
and pouches under her eyes. Her office, with its metal
filing cabinets, table with a keyboard-style coding machine, and
plain wooden desk, seemed to still be in full operation. All in
military gray, nothing personal except a photograph of several
teenage children on the desk.
"At
ease, Captain." She looked at Gerta with a slight raise of
her eyebrow. "You seem to be throttling a considerable head
of steam, Hosten."
"Sir,
Operation Overfall is scheduled to commence shortly. My unit is
tasked with an important objective, and we've been training for
nearly a year. Nobody's indispensable, but I'll be missed."
"We
should have you back shortly, Captain," von Kleuron said.
"Not to waste time: give me your appraisal of
Johan-John-Hosten, your foster-brother."
Gerta
blinked in surprise. That she had not expected. Von
Kleuron tapped the folder open before her; a picture of John was
clipped to the front sheet. Gerta recognized it; it was a
duplicate of one she'd gotten from him. She also recognized the
correspondence tucked into the inner jacket of the file; of
course, she'd submitted all her letters for approval before
sending, and turned over copies of all his immediately. Plus, the
Fourth Bureau would have their own from the censors in the postal
system, but that was another department.
"As
in my reports, Colonel. Intelligent and resourceful, and, as I
remember him as a boy, with considerable nerve and determination.
Certainly he overcame his handicap well. From what he's
accomplished in the Republic over the last twelve years, he's
become a formidable man."
"His
attitude towards the Chosen?"
"I
think he had reservations even as a boy. Now?" She shrugged.
"Impossible to say. We don't discuss politics, only family
matters."
"Weaknesses?"
"Sentimentality."
The Landisch word she used could also mean
"squeamishness."
"Are
you aware that Johan Hosten has become an operative for the
Republic's Foreign Intelligence Service? As well as a
diplomat." The last was a little pedantic; in Landisch,
diplomat and spy were related words.
Gerta's
eyebrows went up slightly. "No, sir, I wasn't aware of that.
I'm not surprised."
"It
has been decided at a high level to attempt to enlist the subject
as a double agent. We are authorized to waive Testing and offer
Chosen status, and appropriate rank."
Gerta
frowned. It smacked of an improvisation, not a good idea on the
eve of a major war. On the other hand, John would be an
asset if he could be turned . . . and it would be pleasant to
have him on-side. If possible. It was obvious why she'd been
brought in; she was the only Chosen intelligence operative with a
personal link to John. Heinrich had known him as well, but he was
a straight-leg, an infantry officer. And far more
conspicuous in Ciano; her height and physical type was far more
common in the Empire than his.
On
the other hand, women who could bench-press twice their own
weight were not common here, and she hoped very much she
wouldn't have to try looking like an Imperial belle in a low-cut
dress. She didn't even know how to walk in a skirt.
Behfel ist Behfel. "How am I tasked, sir?"
John
tapped his walking stick against the front of the cab.
"Driver, pull up."
The
horses clattered to a halt, and the driver set the brake and
jumped to the cobblestones to open the door.
"Signore?"
he said, looking around.
They
were in a district of upper-middle-class homes, about halfway
between the theater district north of the main railway station
and the apartment John kept near the Santander embassy.
"I've
changed my mind, I'm going to walk home," he said.
Shameless self-indulgence, he thought. He should make up for
taking an evening off at the opera with Pia by going straight
home and reading files. On the other hand, he had his cover as a
effete diplomat to maintain. The Santander diplomatic service was
supposed to be a harmless dumping ground for well-connected
upper-class playboys. Many of them were, and the rest found it
useful camouflage.
He
paid the cabbie the full value of his intended trip, and the
horses clattered off through the dark.
Ciano
was a pleasant city to walk through, this part at least, on a
warm spring night. The sidewalk was brick, with trees at
four-meter intervals-oaks, he thought-and cast-iron lampstands
rather less frequently. Most of the houses on either side had
wrought-iron railings separating them from the street, often
overgrown with climbing roses or honeysuckle. The gaslights gave
a diffuse glow to the scene, soft yellow light on the undersides
of the trees; the street had a melancholy feel, like most of the
Imperial capital, a dreamy sense of past glories and a long sleep
filled with reverie.
John
twirled the walking stick and strolled, unclasping his opera
cloak and throwing it over his left arm. It was very quiet, the
air smelling of dew and roses. Quiet enough that he heard the
footsteps not long after Center's warning.
four following, the computer said. there are two more at
the junction ahead.
John
was suddenly, acutely conscious of the feel of the brick beneath
his feet, the slight touch of the wind on his face beneath the
glossy black topper. Twelve years of Center's scenarios and Raj's
drill had given him a training nobody on the planet could match,
but he'd never had anyone try to kill him before. Odd, I'm not
really frightened. More like being extremely alert and
irritated at the same time.
There
was a double-edged steel blade inside his walking stick, the gold
head made a very effective bludgeon, and a small six-shot
revolver nestled under one armpit. It didn't seem like much,
right now, but it would probably be enough if these were street
toughs out to roll a toff.
The
wall by his side was brick. John turned casually and set his back
against it, like a man pausing to admire the view toward the
north and the Imperial Palace.
Four
men came up the sidewalk behind him. They were dressed in
double-breasted jackets and bag-hats, peg-leg trousers and
ankle-boots; middle-class streetwear for Ciano. Their faces were
unremarkably Imperial as well, rather swarthy and blue-stubbled
for the most part. There was something about the way they moved,
though, the expressions on the faces-or rather the lack of them.
Big men, thick-shouldered. With flat bulges under their left
armpits; one of them was holding his right hand down by his side,
as if something was resting in the loosely curled fingertips The
hilt of a knife, perhaps, or a lead-weighted cosh.
Protégés, he thought. Tough ones, at that.
Operatives. Fourth Bureau, or Military Intelligence.
correct,
Center said. 97%, ±2.
Well,
it was some comfort to know his judgment was good.
The
men halted and spread out, waiting with a tense wariness. One
spoke:
"Excuse,
sir. You will please to come with us." A guttural accent in
the Imperial, one natural to someone who'd grown up speaking
Landisch.
Four
of them, and two more waiting close by. Not good odds. And
if they'd wanted him dead, he'd be dead. A steamcar and a couple
of shotguns, no problem and no fuss. Or someone waiting in his
apartment, the Chosen could certainly find a good shooter when
they needed one. This was a snatch team, not hitters.
"All
right," he said, turning and walking ahead of them.
Two
closed in on either side. One quietly relieved him of the walking
stick. Another leaned over, put a hand under his jacket and took
his revolver, dropping it into his own coat pocket. A few seconds
later, fingers plucked the little punch-dagger out of the collar
of his dress coat. There was a sound at that, something like a
very quiet chuckle smothered before it began. The men closed in
on either side of him-nobody in front, of course. This lot had
been fairly well-trained.
They
all halted under the streetlight at the T-shaped intersection.
The two men waiting there both threw their cigarettes into the
center of the road. Seconds later a quiet hum of rubber tires
sounded as a steamcar came down the road and halted-a big
Santander-made four-door Wilkens in plain blue paint, with
wire-spoke wheels and two sofa-style seats facing each other in
the rear compartment. The head of the snatch team signaled John
to enter.
There
was a woman sitting in the front seat, with her back to the
driver's compartment. The interior of the Wilkens was fairly
dark, only the reflected light of the streetlamps. That was
enough to show the oily blued sheen of a weapon in her hand; it
gestured him back to the rear of the vehicle. He obeyed silently.
Two of the Protégé gunmen sat on either side of him, wedging
him into position. The front door chunked closed. Just for
insurance, the Protégé beside John had a short double-edged
blade in his hand, under the limp hat. That put the point not
more than a couple of millimeters from his short ribs. John's
lips quirked. They certainly weren't taking any chances with him;
but then, the preferred Chosen method of dealing with ants was to
drop an anvil on them.
The
woman leaned out the window and spoke to the other members of the
team. "Report to the safe house," she said. Gray
uniform tunic, Captain's rank-tabs, red General Staff flashes,
Military Intelligence insignia.
The
motion left the light on her face for a second. She was in her
late twenties, not much older than he; a dark brunette, black
hair cropped to a plush sable cap, black eyes, high cheekbones,
and a rather full mouth. An Imperial face or Sierran, except for
the hardness to it, the body beneath close-coupled and muscular
but full-bosomed. He blinked, surprise tugging at his mind.
"Gerta!"
he blurted.
probability subject identity not gerta hosten is too low
to be meaningfully calculated, Center noted, overlaying the woman's face
with a series of regressions that took it back to the teenager
who'd said good-bye to him on the docks of Oathtaking twelve
years ago.
She
sat back and let the pistol rest on her knee; it was a massive,
chunky, squared-off thing, not a revolver.
recoil-operated automatic, magazine in the grip, Center said. 11mm caliber, six
to eight rounds.
"Hi,
Johnnie," she said in Landisch. "Nice to see you
again."
John
took a deep breath. "If you wanted to talk, you could have
invited me more politely," he said in a neutral tone.
"Behfel
ist behfel, Johnnie."
"I'm
not under Chosen orders."
She
smiled and waggled the automatic.
"All
right, I grant that. I presume you're not going to kill me?"
"I'd
really regret having to do that, John," she said.
veracity 95% ±3, Center observed. A brief flash showed pupil
dilation and heat patterns on Gerta's face.
Of course, the way she phrased it implied that she might have to
kill him anyway. Looking at her, he didn't have the least doubt
she'd do it-regrets or no.
"How're
the children?" he asked after a moment.
"Erika's
just starting school, and Johan's at the stage where his favorite
word is no," she said. "We've adopted two more,
as well. Protégé kids, a boy and a girl. The boy's a byblow,
probably one of Heinrich's."
"Two?"
John said, raising his eyebrows.
"Policy."
Which
was information, of a sort. The Chosen Council must be
anticipating casualties . . . and not just in the upcoming war
with the Empire, either.
He
didn't try to look out the windows as the wheels hammered over
the cobblestones, then hummed on smoother main street pavement of
asphalt or stone blocks. Gerta uncorked a silver flask. John took
it and sipped: banana brandy, something he hadn't tasted in a
long time.
"Danke,"
he said. "Anything you can tell me?"
"The
colonel will brief you, Johnnie. Just . . . be reasonable,
eh?"
"Reasonable
depends on where you're sitting," he said, returning the
flask.
"No
it doesn't. When someone else holds all the cards, reasonable is
whatever they say it is."
He
looked at the pistol. She shook her head.
"Not
just this. The Chosen hold all the cards on Visager; it'd be
smart to keep that in mind."
He
was almost relieved when they pulled into a side entrance to the
Chosen embassy compound. The Wilkens was as inconspicuous as a
steamcar in Ciano could be-powered vehciles weren't all that
common here, even now-and the rear windows were tinted. The
embassy itself was fairly large, a severe block of dark granite
from the outside, the only ornamentation a gilded-bronze sunburst
above the ironwork gates. The area within was larger than the
Santander legation, mainly because all the Land's diplomatic
personnel lived on the delegation's own extraterritorial ground.
It might have been something out of Copernik or Oathtaking
inside, boxlike buildings with tall windows and smooth columns,
low-relief cataryids beside the doors. Fires were burning in iron
drums in the open spaces between, while clerks dumped in more
documents and stirred the ashes with pokers and broomsticks.
Christ,
he thought. The sight hit him in the belly like a fist, more than
the danger to himself had. War was close if the embassy
was torching their classified papers.
He
was hustled through a doorway, down corridors, finally into a
windowless room with a single overhead light. It shone into his
eyes as he sat in the steel-frame chair beneath it, obscuring the
two figures at a table in front of him. One of them spoke in
Landisch:
"Let's
dispose with the tricks, shall we, Colonel?" Gerta said.
"This isn't an interrogation."
The
overhead light dimmed. He blinked and looked at the two Chosen
officers. Both women-nothing unusual with that, in the Land's
forces-in gray Army uniforms. Intelligence Section badges. A
middle-aged colonel with gray in her blond brushcut and a face
like a starved hound.
"Johan
Hosten," the senior officer said. "We have arranged to
speak with you on a matter of some importance."
John
nodded. He could guess what was coming.
"The
Land of the Chosen has need of your services, Johan Hosten."
"The
Land of the Chosen rejected me rather thoroughly when I was
twelve," he pointed out. "I'm a citizen of the Republic
of Santander."
"The
Republic is a democracy with universal suffrage," the
colonel said. "Hence, weak and corrupt, with no real claim
on your allegiance." She spoke in a flat, matter-of-fact
tone, as if commenting on the law of gravity. "Your father
is second assistant of the general staff of the Land and a member
of the Council. The implications are, I think, plain."
They
certainly were. "I'm not Chosen and not qualified to be
so," he said. Think, think. If he rolled over too
quickly, they'd be suspicious.
"The
regulations governing admittance have been waived or modified
before," the intelligence officer said. "I am
authorized to inform you that they will be again, in your case.
Full Chosen status, and appropriate rank."
"You
want me to defect?" he said slowly.
"Of
course not. You will remain as an agent in place within the
Santander intelligence apparat-of course, we know that your
diplomatic status is a cover-and provide us with information, and
your nominal superiors with disinformation which will be
furnished. We can feed you genuine data of sufficient importance
so that you will rise rapidly in rank. At the appropriate moment,
we will bring you in from the cold."
She
nodded towards Gerta. Ah. They sent Gerta along as an earnest
of good faith. The offer probably was genuine. And to
the Chosen's way of looking at it, perfectly natural. Perhaps if
he'd never been contacted by Center, it might even have been
tempting.
There
were times he woke up at night sweating, from dreams of the man
he might have become in the Land.
"Let
me think," he said.
"Agreed.
But not for long."
He
dropped his head into his hands. Jeff, you following this?
You bet, brother. You going to ask them for something in
writing?
Out of character, he answered. A Chosen officer's word is
supposed to be good. I don't have much time.
Although
surely they knew that he knew he'd never leave the
room alive if he refused. The embassy could be relied upon to
have a way of disposing of bodies.
He
raised his head again. No problem in showing a little worry, and
he could smell his own sweat, heavy with the peculiar rankness of
stress.
"I'm
engaged to be married to an Imperial," he said.
The
colonel shrugged. "Marriage is out of the question, of
course, but after the conquest, you can have your pick for
pleasure. Take the bitch as you please, or a dozen others."
Gerta
winced and touched her superior on the sleeve, whispering in her
ear.
John
shook his head. "Anything that applies to me, applies to
Pia. Or no deal."
The
colonel's eyes narrowed. "You have already been offered more
than is customary," she warned.
"No.
Pia, or nothing."
Gerta
touched the colonel's sleeve again. "We should discuss this,
sir," she said.
"Agreed.
Hosten, retire to the end of the room, please."
He
obeyed, facing away from the table. The two Chosen leaned
together, speaking in whispers. Far too softly for anyone to
overhear . . . anyone without Center's processing power, that
was. The computer was limited to the input of John's senses, but
it could do far more with them than his unaided brain.
"What
do you make of it, captain?" the colonel asked.
"I'm
not sure, sir. If he'd agreed without insisting on the woman, I'd
have said we should kill him immediately-that would be an obvious
fake. The woman . . . that makes it possible he's sincere . . .
but he'd also know that I know him well."
Thanks a
lot, Gerta.
"As
it is, I still suspect he's lying. Immediate termination would be
the low-risk option here."
"I
was under the impression that you thought highly of this Johan
Hosten."
"I
do. Heinrich and I named a son after him. I respect his courage
and intelligence; which is why he's too dangerous to live unless
he's on our side."
"He
seems inclined to agree to the proposition."
"He'd
have to anyway, wouldn't he?"
"What
evidence do you have to suppose he lies?"
"Gestalt.
I lived with him until he was twelve and we've corresponded
since. He's committed to the Republic, absurd though that may
sound. He believes. And John Hosten would never betray a
cause in which he believed."
A
long silence. "As you say, the Republic's ideology is
absurd-and he is, from the records, not a stupid or irrational
man. Termination is always an option, but it is irrevocable once
exercised. We will test him; his position is potentially a
priceless asset. And we are offering him the ultimate reward,
after all."
"Colonel,
please record my objection and recommendation."
"Captain,
this is noted." Aloud: "Johan Hosten, attend."
When
he was standing beside the chair, she continued: "We will
concede this woman Probationer-Emeritus status."
Second-class
citizenship, but if married to one of the Chosen her children
would be automatically entitled to take the Test of Life.
Although they'd know he could sire no children. He blinked,
keeping his face carefully neutral. Pia had wept when he told her
that, and he'd been afraid, really afraid.
"This
is . . ." He stopped and began again. "You understand,
I've been growing more and more frustrated with Santander. You
must know that, if your sources inside the Foreign Office are as
good as I suspect. I keep telling them the risks, and they
ignore them." He shrugged. "As you said, it makes no
sense to fight for those who won't fight for themselves." He
stood, and gave the Chosen salute. "I agree. Command me,
colonel!"
The
colonel returned the gesture. Gerta stared at him with cold
appraisal, biting at her lip thoughtfully. Then she shook her
head and made a small gesture to the senior officer, a
thumb-pull, much the same as one would make to cock a pistol
before shooting someone in the back of the head.
Colonel
von Kleuron looked at them both and then shook her head.
John
fought back an impulse to let out a long sigh of relief. They
aren't going to kill me now. Thanks, Gerta, thanks a lot.
Although
he should have expected it. He'd always known his foster-sister
was smart, and she did know him well.
"Johan
Hosten."
The
basset-hound face of the colonel allowed itself a slight smile.
"You
have made a wise decision. You will be dropped at some distance,
and contacted when appropriate. May your service to the Chosen be
long and successful."
"Welcome
back, Johnnie," Gerta said. "I'm sure you'll make a
first-class operative. You've got natural talent."
Lucky bastard, Jeffrey said silently.
No, it's Chosen arrogance, John replied from half a continent away. A
faint overlay of the controls of a road steamer came through the
link, beyond it a long dusty country road.
Jeffrey
smiled, imagining serious expression and the slight frown on his
stepbrother's face.
Have they contacted you since? he said/thought.
No. It's only been three days, and they're very busy.
The whole Land embassy staff left on the last dirigible.
Jeffrey
lifted his coffee cup. It was morning, but some of the other
patrons in the streetside cafe had already made a start on
something stronger. Many of them were settling in with piles of
newspapers or books, or just enjoying the perennial Imperial
sport of people-watching. The coffee was excellent, and the
platter of pastries extremely tempting; you had to admit, there
were some things the Imperials did very well. His contact should
be showing up any minute.
Give me a look at the activity in the harbor, John requested. Jeffrey turned
slightly in his seat and looked downhill; Center would be
supplying the visual input to John.
Awful lot of Chosen shipping still there, his stepbrother commented.
They're still delivering coal, Jeffrey replied. To the naval
stockpiles, no less.
My esteemed prospective father-in-law, John thought dryly, assures me
that the Imperial armed forces are ready down to the last gaiter
button. Quote unquote.
Is the man a natural-born damned fool?
No, he just can't afford to face the truth. I think he
wishes he'd died before this . . . and he's glad Pia will be safe
in Santander.
Speaking of which, we should- Jeffrey began. Then: Wait.
A
dirigible was showing over the horizon, just barely. Jeffrey was
in officer's garrison dress, which included a case for a small
pair of binoculars as well as a service revolver. He drew the
glasses and stood, looking down the long street leading to the
harbor. The airship wasn't in Land Air Service colors, just a
neutral silvery shade with a Landisch Luftanza company
logo on the big sharkfin control surfaces at the rear. A large
model, two hundred meters in length and a quarter that in maximum
diameter. One of the latest types, with the gondola built into
the hull and six engines in streamlined pods held out from the
sides by struts covered in winglike farings.
"That
isn't a scheduled carrier," he said to himself.
correct. vessel is land air service heavy military
transport design.
A brief flash of a report he'd read several months ago. sharkwhale
class.
"I
have a bad feeling about this," he said. "John, I'm
going to be busy for a while."
I suspect we all are, his brother answered. Better try and
make it to the legation.