Death Match, page 29
part #3 of Sten Omnibus Series
Sr. Ecu, the universe’s diplomat emeritus, banked, nearly spun out, and wished that his race understood the unquestionably leavening benefits of profanity and obscenity.
Below him was arctic desolation.
Gray seas crashed high against a solitary rock pinnacle to his right. To his left a monstrous iceberg floated. It was bright blue on the slate seas — the only primary color as far as the eye could see. An achingly lonely color.
Ecu did not wish to judge this world, but he found it had all the charm of the Christian religion’s hell, with the fires out.
On an ice floe far below, a dot moved. He focused on the dot, and the dot became a huge, obese aquatic creature, a creature whose blubbery hide, tusks, and skin suited it for this frozen hell, who probably thought the weather a pleasant spring freshet.
It made little sense that the unknown being on that ice cube below appeared to be a primitive fish-eater — but in fact could well be one of this world’s premiere philosophers. Or poets.
A shearing gust caught him, and Ecu almost lost control once more. His three-meter-long tail thrashed air, trying to stabilize, as his great white wings curled, reconfiguring lift areas to the blast — their red-tipped winglets trying to damp Ecu’s overcontrolling.
He was too old and too dignified for this nonsense, solo-flying through a polar storm as if he were a spratling who had just discovered flight.
He also thought that everything to do with this self-appointed project of his smacked of the low-grade melodramas that children and bumpkins appreciated, with clearly marked heroes and villains — One Being against the Forces of Evil, and so forth.
Let alone that Sr. Ecu actually believed, and winced from the belief, that he was the only being who seemed to be aware of this great evil, an evil that could bring everything shattering down. This, his thoughts continued, was absurdity, and he prided himself on being someone who had learned that there was seldom truth and almost never light. Everything was shades of gray, to be analyzed and interpreted most carefully.
Perhaps Rykor would have attendants waiting, who would skillfully sedate the Manabi and escort him to a padded room where he could spend the rest of his days babbling about the Eternal Emperor.
Perhaps that was why he had sent the material ahead of him, material that he had laboriously transferred into an exotic code they’d used back during the days of the tribunal — when the members of the privy council were to be brought to trial for their crimes.
Sr. Ecu tried to bring his thoughts under control, just as he wished, with equal lack of success, that he could cause this williwaw to subside into a calm. He thought, ruefully, that one reason his mind was so undisciplined was that he was frankly terrified. Fear was a feeling that always prevented logical analysis.
Not that he was irrational to feel it.
Sr. Ecu might have served the Eternal Emperor on many occasions, and even convinced his race to ignore their long-held neutrality and clandestinely back the Empire during the Tahn war, but he was under no illusions as to what the Emperor would most likely do if he was aware of Sr. Ecu’s thoughts, beliefs, and mission.
Which was one reason he had vanished from his own world, telling no one his mission or destination. His passage to Rykor’s home world had been made on one of the Romany free-trading ships. Another relationship, he realized, that had come from the tribunal days, and had originally been created by that man who had wanted anyone to be able to fly: Sten. Sten had drawn Ecu into his involvement with the tribunal with a simple gift: a kit-built holographic display of an ancient Earth “air circus,” where ground-bound humans jeopardized their lives by riding in twin-wing combustion-powered aircraft any self-respecting archaeopteryx would have sneered at.
Seeing the model, Sr. Ecu had marveled:
“Did they really do that . . . I’ve never really appreciated before what it was like to be permanently grounded by an accident of genes. My God, how desperately they wanted to fly.
“Beings will risk a great deal,” Sten had said, “for a little freedom.”
He wondered how the human was doing in his assignment in the Altaic Cluster. He hoped well — but he suspected, especially considering the recent news blackout on the area, that the situation, already bad, was growing worse.
He considered if Rykor somehow thought his mad theory to be correct, whether Sten would be brought in. How? In what capacity? he jeered at himself. And to do what?
Are you starting to do what these humans do, and think that any time a seemingly irresolvable problem appears, the solution is to collectively throw up your hands and turn everything over to a ruler in shining armor, who, of course, turns out to be a tyrant?
That was what had created the present situation. That, Ecu corrected himself, and AM2.
AM2. That was the stumbling block. Without AM2 everything in the Empire, its triumphs as well as its crimes, would be lost.
And AM2 was what would prevent, Ecu finished morosely, finding any real solution to this problem.
The horizon cleared, and he saw an island ahead. It was as grim and uninviting as the rest of this world, jagged rocky spires jutting up from bouldered shallows. Desolate — but his white sensing whiskers told him there was life down there.
Then his eyes confirmed his other sense, as he saw movement on one of the island’s rocky “beaches.” More beings, like the one who had waved to him, were sprawled on the icy wave-washed slabs as if they were humans basking in a tropic sun.
He heard a bellow over the wind-howl as one of those beings stretched to its full height on rear flippers, and honked a greeting. Rykor . . . it must be.
The being humped a few awkward meters on land, dove, and became eely grace into a breaking wave, then vanished.
Now, Sr. Ecu thought in irritation, how am I supposed to emulate her behavior? Am I supposed to follow her underwater like I’m triphibious?
Then black rock moved aside and there was the entrance to a wide tunnel yawning in the middle of one of the island’s cliffs. Around it and above, on the cliff top, antennae bristled.
Ecu tucked and plummeted, reflexively curling his winglets even though the tunnel was more than wide enough to allow a medium-size starfreighter entry.
This was Rykor’s home — and her office.
Ian Mahoney frequently compared Rykor to a walrus in jest. But in fact, the similarities were only physical — to a degree — and Rykor’s species was also aquatic by evolution and preference. The physical resemblance wasn’t that great — Rykor was a third again as big as the biggest Earth Odobenus, with a body length of over five meters and weight of more than two thousand kilos.
Her species, however, was known for its intellect, particularly in areas requiring intuitive analysis and the ability to draw extrapolative conclusions from fixed data. Therefore, they were poets. Philosophers. City- and world-planners. And, as in the case of Rykor, psychologists.
When she retired, she was the highest-ranked psychologist in Imperial Service. She also had been used, sub rosa, by Ian Mahoney — then head of Mercury Corps and Mantis — as his specialist in the head workings of spies, saboteurs, assassins, and traitors, Imperial and unfriendly.
She had been convinced to come out of safety and seclusion by Sten, when he had set up the tribunal. She had then, like everyone else involved in what had seemed triumph at the time, been offered anything and everything. But after the Emperor’s return, she had realized why she had retired in the first place: there were volumes to be written on human and other species’ behavior patterns that she and no one else had experienced and could possibly explain.
Plus Rykor had a surfeit of what was, truthfully, bending her skills into the service of someone else to convince the analyzed person/culture to behave in a certain manner.
Now she was being asked to use her talents once more. But for a far greater purpose — this time by Ecu.
“This is most unusual,” Rykor apologized. “I had this chamber constructed to deal with my land-bound friends and clients. And also as a personal joke, since I spent so many years serving the Empire from either a saltwater tank or a gravchair.”
Sr. Ecu waggled his sensing whiskers, politely indicating amusement — his species needed no ego reinforcement for being clever.
This chamber was fitting revenge. It was a high-ceilinged, wide-mouthed tidal cave, whose above-water entrance had been closed with a transparent wall. Ecu thought the wall was probably mobile and would rise and fall with the tide. Looking out to sea, there appeared to be nothing between the crashing surf and the viewer except those spray-drenched boulders that formed a partially sheltering lagoon outside. Wind and sea sounds were miked and their level controlled by a mixboard. Entrance to this cave was by living under the wall for Rykor and her fellows, or by solid passageways for land beings.
Ecu hovered just above the artificial shelf Rykor had built for land-bound visitors. It, too, was tide-responsive and would rise and fall so that it always was a few centimeters above the gentle waves inside this cave.
The shelf was fitted with all sorts of comforts and devices, from viewers to coms to computers. Above this conference room were apartments and dining areas.
Rykor’s own quarters and work areas were reached by underwater tunnels that led from chamber to chamber. The equipment Rykor used in her normal course of work was either environmentally insensitive or sealed.
“I am,” Rykor said, “somewhat unfamiliar with the . . . etiquette, let alone the practicalities, of entertaining an aerial being. Do you, well . . .”
“Roost?” Ecu’s whiskers twitched once more, and, after a moment of slight embarrassment, Rykor’s own face bristles ruffled and her sonic-blast laughter echoed around the chamber until the active acoustic system damped it.
“No,” he said. “My race lands but seldom. And then for specific purposes.” He did not explain; Rykor did not ask.
“May I offer you refreshment? Since the Manabi are not the most commonly entertained race in this Empire, it was most hard to learn what you preferred to ingest. But I gather the following, in spray form, is considered pleasurable. Even though these microorganisms aren’t exactly duplicated on this world, we have synthesized the mixture.”
Her flippers stretched and touched keys on a floating panel beside her. An overhead screen flashed a chemical formula. Ecu scanned it. Again, he “laughed.”
“Your source was correct, Rykor. We do enjoy that organic compote. But it also renders us hors d’ flight, and we become ‘pissed as newts,’ as our mutual friend Kilgour puts it. Perhaps later. Perhaps when we have begun our discussions I will feel less like a fool, less worried, and more able to relax.
“Or you may wish to sedate me with that formula, since I fear my basic neural reactions are becoming unpredictable.”
“Manabi,” Rykor said flatly, “don’t go insane.”
“I may be the first.”
The cave was still, except for the sound of the sea and the wind, dimly in the background. Rykor floated motionlessly for awhile.
“No,” she said, firmly. “You are not insane. I have gone through your material. Analyzed it both intellectually and electronically. Further, I allowed my most trusted aide — do not start: he is, in fact, one of my sister’s pups and is to be trusted, since the corruptions of the Empire don’t interest us, and thus far nobody has attempted to subvert us with fishing rights on an Imperial river on Earth.”
She laughed again and Ecu felt himself relax.
“First, though,” she said, “let me express my thanks for that parcel you sent. It’s the first real ‘book’ from ancient Earth I’ve owned. A question: Was the volume originally waterproofed?”
“I had that done.”
“Ah. I surmised. I found it most interesting, and charming, in a sad sort of way. I imagined this primitive human, writing in the darkest of dark ages, sitting there and staring out at what must have been terrible times.
“In those days, there would have been nobody but witchfreuds, I think they were called, who cast spells and made vile potions in cooking pots, their couches spread around the great tribal fire that kept out the real and imagined monsters of the dark.” She whuffled sympathy. “And so this poor man imagined that one day there would be rules for psychology. That it would become a science. Except that — what did he call it? Psychohistory? It was a fascinating conceit.
“I, myself, find that dream fascinating. Although I realize that if we can’t solve the n-body problem in astronomy, the tera-cubed-tera-plus bodies that constitute intelligent life will never be fitted into a computation.
“I must say, however, I found the scribe’s hero, that Selden human, rather repellant. Far too reminiscent of some of my crèche tutors, full of false truth, wretched prejudice, and themselves.
“But I digress.
“I see why you sent me that present, however, and how this fictional, fumbling attempt to find order in an entropic universe and equally entropic Empire pertains to the data you provided.
“A question. Were you selective in the material — choosing only data that supported your theory?”
“I was not,” Ecu said. “I attempted to provide as complete an assemblage as I knew how.”
“Your experience in diplomacy suggests that you do know how to be fair,” Rykor said. “I took the liberty of reducing your raw data into symbolic logic.”
Again, she touched keys, and several screens lit. Ecu, even though he did not use symbology a great deal in his art, knew the discipline.
It took almost an hour for the data, even crunched into computer language, to screen.
As gibberish to most people, it may have been a little less depressing. But not to the two experienced beings in the sea cave. Finally the last screen blanked.
“Is my reduction approximately correct?” Rykor asked.
“Not approximately. Exactly.” Ecu’s wings sagged. The situation was as bad as he had surmised.
“Summarizing your theses verbally,” Rykor went on, coldly, clinically, “it’s evident that the Empire is in the direst straits. Not cause for total panic, though, since this isn’t the first or the fiftieth time that Imperial catastrophe has loomed. However, you have further theorized that this economic, social, and political decline is being accelerated by the Empire itself. Specifically, by the actions the Eternal Emperor has taken since his . . . return.”
Sr. Ecu said, “That was where I feared I was becoming less than competent in my thinking.”
“Not at all. Since I’ve reassured you as to your sanity, would you now care for that refreshment? Because it’s now my turn to reason, and to add some interesting data that I have gotten on my own, since your package arrived.”
“Thank you. I shall indulge.”
“It is in a pressure container, just to your right. Activated — yes, with that rather large lever.”
Moisture hissed into the air. Sr. Ecu felt himself lifted and momentarily was reminded of the time, once on Earth, when he had seen simple avians frolicking in a spray of water.
Rykor treated herself to what appeared to be a slab of flame-dried peat. “Piscean leather,” she explained. “Hung just beyond the highest reaches of the ocean spray, and wind-dried. It’s as close to a narcotic as my sometimes simplistic race has managed. Although research goes on.
“Continuing. I noticed that you included in your data the disaster our young crusader, Sten, is trying to solve. The Altaic Cluster. He’s sustaining a madman, as you’re aware. A Dr. Iskra. Did you know that this Iskra is a being who’s been supported in exile for years by the Emperor? To control on the former ruler.
“I further found that Sten is under direct orders from the Emperor that Iskra must be kept in office, regardless of cost.”
Ecu’s body rocked in a nonexistent blast of wind. “What is your source on this?” he asked.
“I cannot say. My colleague remains in the system, and therefore in danger.”
Rykor stopped and her tail flippers crashed down against the water’s surface. “How odd,” she mused. “To hear myself say a friend’s life is in danger because that friend is close to our respected ruler, and because this friend speaks a bit of the truth.”
“I, myself, have felt potentially in physical jeopardy,” Ecu confessed.
Rykor did not answer that, but went on. “A second fact. I don’t recall when I stumbled upon it. But I assure you it was in the course of some legitimate field of inquiry. As I said, I disremember the circumstances, but I found myself wondering just what the Emperor gained — directly, monetarily — from his rule. Or was the mere exercise of power adequate recompense? So I investigated.
“Obviously I was most careful in my curiosity. But I found that, indeed, the Emperor had rather incredible funds, invested in various arenas where his governing policies would also prove financially rewarding. The investments were made with multiple cutouts that could never be traced back to the Emperor. I found such an action neither moral nor immoral. These investments, I further learned, had been used during times of disaster to support the economy . . . as well as his policies. Which would suggest these profits would be considered ‘moral’ by most. I think they’re called a slushy fund by humans.”
“Slush fund.”
“Is the spray affecting — oh. Yes. Slush would be correct. A few days ago, I very carefully rechecked a couple of those funds.
“The Emperor’s personal wealth is increasing at a monstrous rate, second by second. In these times, which most would call depressed, our own ruler is vastly profiting from his own Empire’s poverty.”
“That’s insane,” Ecu said, his normal smoothness broken.
“For the first time, I agree with your application of the word, even though it is clinically without meaning. By the way — some support for what you just said. Have you been watching the Eternal Emperor when he appears on livie casts lately? More and more rarely, of course, and when he does the angles are favorable and remote. But look closely at the way his eyes shift, like a whipped Earth canine waiting for another beating — or else someone who is slipping further and further into what used to be called a manic-depressive psychosis.”
