The Imperial Hammer Series Set, page 51
“You don’t want to go there, either,” Dalton added. “So why are you for once letting everyone else’s opinion weigh more than your own?”
That stung. “Thanks for the feedback, Dalton.” I cut the connection.
Three hours later, we zipped up and headed for the New Phoenicia gate, and Melenia.
I kept to myself while we were in the hole. It was only a twelve-hour hop, for New Phoenicia and Melenia were on the far side of the empire from each other. But we were blind and deaf while we were in the hole.
We emerged through one of the three gates that hung over the sprawling star city and joined the traffic lane heading for the sunside, where all the landing bays and the original, ancient station section were located.
Lyth carefully broke the seal around the ship, so we could communicate with Melenia station and get our landing bay assignment—a temporary one for now. Negotiating a deal on a permanent bay was best done face to face, once I’d found a competent broker to work with.
“Hell and damnation,” Juliyana breathed. Her bridge station was behind me. I turned and raised my brow.
Juliyana lifted her gaze from her screen and looked at me over the top of it. “Someone tried to assassinate the Emperor.”
“Again,” Lyth said heavily.
5
WE STEPPED OUT OF THE little bay we’d been assigned, to find the station was full of the news about the Emperor’s close call.
Most of the display screens were running footage of Ramaker moving onto the public balcony of the imperial palace and waving, to demonstrate to everyone that he was alive and well.
I found myself peering at the screens each time I glimpsed the footage, straining to examine Ramaker closely.
“It certainly looks like him,” Juliyana said, as our lunches arrived at the little concourse café we’d picked. Her attention was on the huge screen on the wall across the way from the café.
“That nose is unique,” Dalton added. “Same arrogant jut to the jaw.”
“That could be rehearsed,” I pointed out.
“It’s him,” Dalton said, shaking his head. “Lucky bastard survived another hit.” He turned his attention to his sandwich and took a huge bite.
“Maybe it wasn’t him who the assassin was pointing at,” I replied. Dalton and I had both heard the Emperor confess he used doubles occasionally, to give himself more personal freedom.
“They’re running footage of the assassination attempt, too,” Sauli pointed out. “Check the Emperor out when they run that again.”
Sure enough, the footage popped up barely ten minutes later. It was another public function, of course—and there were damn few of those these days. Ramaker stepped up behind a podium while everyone clapped and we all bent to peer at him.
“It looks like him,” I said. “I’ve seen him under strain and not smiling,” I added.
“Him or a very good double,” Dalton added.
“He was about to give a speech. You really think he’d make a double do that?” Sauli asked. “That seems…wrong. Sure, waving at a crowd, or pinning medals, but actually speaking as if he was the Emperor?”
“Ramaker is facing enemies, these days,” Dalton reminded him, while avoiding using Noam’s name. “He’d absolutely use doubles for speeches…for everything, if he could get away with it.”
“And if he could find the doubles,” I pointed out. “This is the third attempt in, what, eight weeks? I imagine he’s running out of men who look even vaguely like him.”
“Especially volunteers,” Juliyana added. She got to her feet and picked up her pad. “Lunch is on me,” she told us. “Then…shopping.” She said it with relish and went to settle the bill. None of us could simply scan our wrists to pay, anymore. The chips were all onboard the ship.
We hadn’t bothered concocting a lie to explain why we were staying on the ship, either. Noam couldn’t challenge us on why our chips were on the ship while we were showing up on monitors in the old concourse. It would reveal that he was watching us very closely, which would raise questions he wouldn’t want to answer.
We went shopping.
At least, Juliyana and I did. Juliyana bought things and I tagged along. I don’t know what Sauli and Dalton did. If they were getting drunk in a bar, I would have liked to have joined them, but Juliyana was my granddaughter and newly recovered. I felt I should spend some time with her that was as frivolous as she craved.
It was at the very least a distraction to wander stalls and stores with products and items from across the empire available. Everything from zero-gee churned butter (“lighter and better for you!”) to junk diamonds to a personal sports pod guaranteed to reach one percent of light speed or your money back.
Juliyana was trying on a ballgown we both knew she would never wear when I received a message from Lyth.
“Captain, I have your coffee ready,” he told me cheerfully.
My gut cramped. My heart stopped.
Juliyana looked over the top of the change room stall, her eyes going wide. Then she whirled away, frantically tugging at the fastenings on the frothy layers.
With difficulty, I picked up the cue and ran with it. “Brilliant timing, Lyth. I’m parched and more than ready to stop shopping. Juliyana just saw the price tag on this dress, so I think she’s ready, too.”
“I’ll have her tea ready when you get here.” Lyth disconnected.
We picked up Juliyana’s bags and hurried through the concourse, while trying to look like we were strolling. We stepped onto the slidewalk and put the bags down as we were shuffled along the concourse, leaving the commercial district behind.
“There’s much better shopping to be had in the residential districts, of course,” Juliyana said, her voice showing just a hint of strain. I could see she was wondering what the emergency was, too.
“When we’ve got the selection of permanent bays narrowed down, I’ll make sure to consult you on which one has the best shopping nearby.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure.”
“Really,” I insisted. “You should be happy.”
“With all this going on?” she said flatly, the pretense sliding.
“There will always be another emperor,” I said dismissively, even though I knew she was referring to Noam and the pressure he was applying on all of us. “And Ramaker had lasted three centuries so far, so he may hang in there another hundred years or so. There’s always going to be something going on. You were a Ranger. Did we ever run out of wars, battles and police actions?”
Juliyana looked thoughtful. “We get through it, or we don’t. Might as well enjoy it as much as possible, is that what you’re saying?”
“Something like that,” I said carefully.
Lyth was actually waiting at the top of the ramp with my coffee cup in one hand, and Juliyana’s monster tea cup in the other.
The ramp closed up behind us and hissed as the seals formed. A mouse trolley rolled up to us and we put the shopping bags on it. It trundled down the passage, heading for Juliyana’s room.
I raised my brow at Lyth. “Dalton and Sauli…?”
“They didn’t wander as far as you. They arrived two minutes ago,” Lyth replied. He took us down the corridor toward the back of the ship and then around to the mountaintop board room, which was better set up for serious discussions.
“We need a passage that goes straight across,” Juliyana pointed out.
“I’ll arrange it,” Lyth said, and I knew he meant it. The back end of the central body of the ship was empty, except for Varg’s desert sand pit. Lyth could arrange walls and spaces as he wished.
Even though we were free to speak now the cage was sealed, I waited until we stepped into the room.
Dalton and Sauli were sitting at the wooden picnic bench. Varg sat under the tree, off to one side, looking sleepy and complaining about the temperature in here, which wasn’t warm enough for her liking. There was a small breeze, that smelled faintly of pine and damp loam.
We all took seats, including Lyth. He didn’t wait for me to tell him to proceed. He built screens in front of all of us, one each. Data began to flow; images and graph curves and tables—lots and lots of tables.
I didn’t try to keep up. I could look at it later and besides, Lyth had already been over every fragment, or he would not be showing it to us now.
“You found the factory,” Dalton guessed, before Lyth could open his mouth. Dalton’s tone was hopeful.
“Not yet, but I am giant steps closer to doing so,” Lyth replied. “It’s something else. Something…interesting. And that interesting thing will help me find the factory, but I think you should know about this now.”
“It’s worth pulling me away from a ballgown?” Juliyana asked. There was no animosity in her voice, just curiosity.
“I’ll buy the gown for you,” Lyth said dismissively. As he had shares in the company we had formed, he could afford it.
An image on the screen in front of me jerked my attention fully to the screen. “This is from my old pad,” I pointed out.
Lyth nodded. “That’s where this started.”
Our screens blanked out.
“Remember this?” Lyth asked.
My voice issued from the screens. “You’re on Sh’Klea Sine, giving out business awards.”
“You keep track of the Emperor’s movements?” Dalton’s voice said.
Dalton sat up, his attention snagged. “Tracia,” he muttered. “Before the suits attacked.”
“I keep track of all the powerful people in my life,” my voice replied.
“A simple speech and pinning medals? Any fool can do that.”
“That’s Ramaker,” I said.
“You recorded the conversation on Tracia?” Juliyana asked me.
“Of course she did,” Dalton said. “I would have, if she hadn’t.”
Lyth halted the playback. “Ramaker said something which caught my attention. Here.”
We listened.
“I’m surprised you haven’t learned the value of Faraday cages yet,” Ramaker said. “I have had dozens of them built in the last few years.”
“Since you knew about Noam.” That was me.
“Precisely. I have been keeping an extended itinerary of tours and inspections. Saguenay, Sarov, Urrah, Shonzo—the most out of the way places, the smallest pitstops in the Empire. If they had a celebration, be it the most superficial and tiny affair, I would attend if invited.”
The playback halted once more.
We all looked at Lyth expectantly.
“Urrah and Shonzo are exactly what the Emperor suggested,” Lyth said. “Small populations with micro economies, dependent upon one major export.”
“I know Urrah,” Dalton said. “It’s a backwater, as advertised.”
“The other two places he mentioned?” I prompted Lyth.
Lyth shook his head. “Saguenay and Sarov don’t exist. Not on any Imperial map. Not on any star chart, not even as alternative names or folk names.”
I could feel everyone’s puzzlement.
“Okay, we’ll bite,” I told Lyth. “You’ve figured out why the Emperor made up two places out of whole cloth, or you wouldn’t have sent up an emergency flare.”
“I haven’t figured out why he did it,” Lyth said, and this time he surprised even me. “But he didn’t make the names up out of whole cloth, Captain. They exist in mythology and in old Earth history.”
He had everyone’s attention now.
“A nation of ancient Terrans convinced several other more powerful nations that the Kingdom of Saguenay was a far better prize, as it had riches and treasures beyond imagination. For generations, Terrans searched for the mythical kingdom. It was never found.”
“And Sarov?” I said.
Lyth nodded. “Sarov existed. It was an entire city within one of the ancient Terran countries, a closed city that no one was permitted to enter. The city’s only residents—all of them—worked upon scientific projects so secret they were not permitted to leave the city. Within the city, everyone was in on the secret and understood the work. It was a continual thinktank, where they lived and worked together, spoke about their work all the time and advanced the work at a vastly accelerated pace.”
“A closed city? How does one close an entire city?” Juliyana said, her tone remote.
“Ask Noam,” I said dryly.
“Of course, yes. Sorry.” Juliyana sat up. “Why would the Emperor talk about a place that never existed and a city devoted to a single scientific project?”
We looked at each other.
Lyth shrugged. “As I said, I don’t know why he did it. All I can do is speculate.”
“He was drawing our attention to it. Something that he could not or would not speak of aloud, just in case Noam was listening, even though he had a perfectly good Faraday cage in place—because it was that critical that Noam not learn of it,” I said, working my way through it. “Something so secret, he didn’t dare give us more than a couple of names to go on.”
“He knew you were recording the conversation…” Sauli said.
Dalton nodded. “If it was so important that Noam not hear about it, then he couldn’t afford to do more than mention the names, in case Noam managed to find the recording later.”
“I hope you have the data files inside a sealed virtual vault with unbreakable codes on it, Lyth,” I said.
“Since I realized what the recording represented, I have been very careful with the storage and retrieval,” Lyth replied.
“So what could possibly be worth so much secrecy, so much caution to make sure Noam never hears of it?” Juliyana asked the air, her tone thoughtful.
I sat up. “Something to defeat him.”
Everyone sat up, then. I could see their attention zoom into sharp focus as they considered that.
“A science project in a closed city, in a hidden kingdom…place,” Lyth said.
I nodded. “Something is being developed that can control Noam. Contain him.”
“Not destroy him?” Sauli said, sounding surprised.
“He’s a sentient lifeform,” Lyth replied. “He has as much right to live as any other life, including human life. But he cannot be allowed to continue to threaten the future of the Empire just because it suits him. He must be contained, and the array he controls must continue to operate. The future of humanity depends upon it.”
Sauli pursed his lips. Then he nodded. Reluctantly.
“We have to find Sarov, Lyth,” Dalton said. “Find them, work with them, help them…whatever it takes.”
“Why?” I said sharply.
“Because they are working to defeat Noam,” Dalton said, as if it was obvious.
“Okay. Suppose we figure out where Sarov is. What next? We hot foot it to Sarov to help them? You think Noam isn’t going to wonder why we’re heading off to some invisible place in the middle of nowhere?”
“In the middle of Saguenay,” Lyth amended. “The location of which we have yet to figure out.”
“Like he says,” I added. “If we make a single move in the direction of Sarov, Noam will be all over it in a heartbeat. And if Sarov isn’t ready, if their project isn’t complete, then Noam will destroy the place. He’ll send in every suit he has and burn Sarov down.”
Dalton didn’t like it. He sat fuming, but he didn’t dispute that I was right, either.
“Should I continue to look for Sarov, Captain?” Lyth asked.
“Let’s circle back to that in a minute. How is Sarov related to Noam’s factory? You said looking for Sarov put you much closer to finding the location of the factory. What is the relationship?”
“It’s the lack of a relationship, actually.” Lyth nudged the screens and they began to flow with spreadsheets and tables and much more. “I looked into the two things you asked me to research; inflation and the financial irregularities being investigated.” He glanced around the table. “There is a relationship between the two of those, which I did not expect to find.”
“We’re all ears, Lyth,” Juliyana assured him.
“First of all, the financial irregularities.” Lyth stared at the screens as they displayed his data, concentrating. “There were far, far more than I expected. The Imperial Finance Ministry is currently investigating two thousand, three hundred and forty-nine alleged cases of fiscal irresponsibility and shoddy reporting.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lot, if you consider how many corporations and business turn in reports every year,” Dalton said.
“That is just the current number of cases they are actively investigating,” Lyth said. “There are another five thousand and fifty-three cases pending, and over the last five years, a total of sixty-seven thousand, three hundred and ninety-two cases have been investigated and companies fined.”
“How many in the five years before that?” I asked.
Lyth looked at me. “Just over twelve thousand.”
“In the whole five years?” Dalton clarified.
Lyth nodded.
“Murphy was right,” I breathed. “There’s something going on here. Theories, Lyth?”
Lyth looked at the screens again. They popped up with different data, each screen splitting into two. “I dug into the records of the companies that have been investigated and fined, which is nearly all of them. The irregularities are there to find if you know where to look and after researching just ten sets of company records, I noticed the pattern, which made it easier to see the rest, when I looked for them.”
“Why hasn’t someone else noticed a pattern, if there is one?” Sauli asked.
“Because Lyth is who he is,” Juliyana said, with small smile. “Unique in the universe.”
Lyth didn’t look at her. “And because there were two patterns,” he told Sauli. “Plus, there is only one of me. The Finance Ministry has thousands of investigators and none of them have thought to trade notes with any of the others because of the privacy laws involved.”
“Two patterns?” I asked.
Lyth pointed at the split screens holding in front of us. “There is one of the patterns, right there. It was enormously subtle. Elegant, even. And it is systemic—there are thousands of other cases the Ministry has missed.”
