Deathstalker Rebellion (56 page)

“Blackmailer. All right, basically, the Church was growing increasingly dubious about the moral probity of its ostensibly faithful son Gregor. I’d been keeping his extremely dubious private habits under wraps through some inventive PR and heavy backhanders where they would do the most good, but stories kept getting out anyway. There was talk of a full Church investigation, and then even all Gregor’s money and social standing might not be enough to buy him a clean bill of health. Nasty, disgusting little toad that he is. I told him he’d have to keep a lower profile once he got in bed with the Church, but did he listen? Did he, hell. So, I did the only thing left to me. I figured out who
would most likely end up running the investigating team, set him up with a young lady of the evening of my professional acquaintance, let nature take its merry course, recorded it all on film from every angle, and blackmailed him. How was I to know I’d picked one of the few really honest men left in the Church these days? He told all, made a public confession, and I resigned from Gregor’s employ before he could fire me. Bearing in mind that Gregor’s displeasure tends to be expressed through sudden violence and assassins, I walked into Imperial News and asked for the first assignment they had on the far side of the Empire. And I ended up here. Sometimes I wonder if Gregor got to them first.”

“Maybe he did,” said Flynn.

“No. He’s not that subtle. Being subtle was what he employed me for.”

“Well, maybe the winter won’t be as bad as everyone says. It couldn’t be that bad.”

Toby glared at him. “Didn’t you watch the briefing tapes? The winters they have here could be officially classified as cruel and unnatural punishment. Snowstorms start with a blizzard and then escalate. The Eskimos have one hundred and twenty-seven different words for snow, and even they have never seen snow like they have here. In fact, if you brought an Eskimo here and showed him the snow, he would stop dead in his tracks and say,
Jesus Christ, look at that snow!
The winds in winter reach three hundred miles an hour! It snows sideways!” Toby stopped and took a deep breath to calm himself. His doctor had expressly warned him about his blood pressure, but his doctor had never had to work on Technos III. Hell, he wouldn’t even make a house call to his neighbor’s apartment. Toby scowled up at the sky and then back at the factory. “We’d better get undercover. Bring the equipment.”

“You brought it out here,” said Flynn, “you take it back. I do not fetch and carry. It’s in my contract. I am a cameraman, and the only thing I carry is my camera. I told you that when we started out.”

“Oh, come on,” said Toby. “You can’t expect me to carry the lights and the monitor. All you ever carry is that bloody camera, and if it weighs more than ten ounces, I’ll eat the bloody thing.”

“I don’t move things,” said Flynn. “It’s not in my nature. If you wanted a pack mule, you should have brought one.”

Toby glowered at him and then started gathering up the lights. “God, you people have got a good Union.”

Daniel and Stephanie Wolfe, in charge of stardrive production and therefore Lords of all they surveyed on Technos III, helped themselves to another large drink from the automated bar. As aristocrats, they were normally used to the luxury of human servants, but such frills and fancies had no place on a factory world, even for such distinguished visitors as the Wolfes. The drinks weren’t very good, either. Stephanie threw herself sulkily into a large supportive chair that tried to give her a soothing massage before she turned it off. She didn’t feel like being soothed. Cardinal Kassar was on his way, and she needed to feel in full control for the encounter. Daniel was stalking back and forth across the deep pile carpet like a caged animal, and she wished he wouldn’t. It was getting on her nerves.

The room was comfortably large by Technos standards, which meant you might have squeezed ten people into it at most, and only then if you happened to have a crowbar handy. The furnishings were understated to the point of anonymity, and the overbright lighting was giving Stephanie a headache. Daniel finally stopped his pacing and accessed the factory’s external sensors. One wall disappeared behind a representation of what the weather looked like outside. Mostly, it looked like snow being blown sideways by very strong winds that had the disconcerting habit of shooting from left to right and then back again just a little faster than the human eye could comfortably cope with. Stephanie turned in her chair so she wouldn’t have to look at it and concentrated on her game plan.

Ostensibly, Valentine had sent them here to see that everything went smoothly until mass production of the new stardrive officially began. He’d arranged a ceremony for the big day to be transmitted live across the Empire in prime time, to remind everyone—especially those at Court—where Wolfe money and power came from. Actually, Stephanie had arranged everything. She’d planted the idea for a ceremony in his mind, and then intrigued quietly but continually behind the scenes to ensure that she and Daniel would attend the ceremony rather than Valentine himself. A live broadcast would be the perfect opportunity to throw some heavy but undetectable spanners into the works, slow down if not halt
stardrive production, and generally make Valentine look incompetent. Such a high-profile failure might be just the lever she and Daniel needed to pry control of the factory away from Valentine and over to them. And then they’d see who really ran Clan Wolfe.

The local rebels were still a nuisance and would have to be put sharply in their place well before the ceremony. But that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Kassar had brought a fair-size army of the Faithful with him to back up the numerous Wolfe mercenaries. The natives wouldn’t know what hit them. On the other hand, the presence of so many security troops could mean that her carefully planned and considered pieces of sabotage would have to be carried out with great subtlety. If she, or more likely Daniel, were to be caught in the act, all the fast talking in the world wouldn’t be enough to save them. Valentine would seize the opportunity to discredit them and quite possibly expel them from the Family. It was what Stephanie would do in his position. She looked up, and there was Daniel, still staring at the faux window, and she knew he wasn’t seeing the storm outside.

“Let it go, Daniel,” she said softly. “Our father is dead and gone, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

“No. He’s not dead,” said Daniel and would not turn away from the storm. “You saw him in the Court. His body’s dead, but those bastard AIs on Shub repaired it. Daddy’s still alive in there, trapped in a decaying corpse. He recognized me. Spoke to me. We have to rescue him, bring him home.”

“What you saw was just a Ghost Warrior,” said Stephanie, her voice carefully calm and even. “A dead body held together by servomechanisms and run by computer implants. It was just a machine talking, imitating our father. A composite program, probably derived from father’s public holo appearances. The man we knew is dead. He doesn’t need us anymore. Forget him.”

“I can’t.” Daniel finally turned his head to look at her, and there was something in his face that gave Stephanie pause. His normally sulky mouth was set in a firm line, and his gaze was steady, determined. “For once, I’m not going to let you talk me out of something I know is right. If there’s even a chance Daddy is still alive, I have to rescue him. I have to. I let him down so often when he was alive; I can’t fail him now he’s dead. You don’t need me here. The sabotage is your plan. Kassar can take care of the rebel problem for you.
He’s got experience in things like that. I can’t think about things like that anymore. The rebels don’t matter. The factory doesn’t matter. Wolfes come first. Always.”

Stephanie heaved herself up out of her chair and moved quickly over to join Daniel before the window. “I need you here, Danny. You’re my strength. Stay here with me, at least until after the ceremony. We can send agents out to locate our father and discover what his true state is. People with experience in these matters. And that way we can keep things quiet. After all, there are a lot of people with a vested interest in seeing our father doesn’t return to head the Family again.”

She saw the decision in his eyes before he nodded reluctantly, and she sighed silently with relief. Daniel was too much of a wild card to be allowed to run loose. She needed him at her side, where she could control what he saw and said. He meant well, but he lacked her vision, her focus. She knew what was best for the Family, and it didn’t include charging blindly around the Empire on a fool’s errand. Dear Daddy was dead, and that was for the best, too. She’d have had him killed eventually anyway. He was in her way.

“If I’m going to stay, find something for me to do,” said Daniel. “I feel useless here.”

“Perhaps you’d care to work with my troops,” said Cardinal Kassar. “Always room for another brave warrior in the service of the Church.”

They both turned around sharply, Daniel’s hands clenching into fists at being caught unawares. Stephanie nodded coolly to the Cardinal. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of appearing flustered. Even if she wasn’t sure how much he might have overheard. The Cardinal stood grandly in the open doorway, his chin held high. He was wearing full battle armor, even in the supposed safety of the factory’s private quarters—which might have been down to Church paranoia, or maybe a veiled insult to the Wolfes, in that he didn’t trust them to ensure his safety. Stephanie thought he was most likely wearing it because he thought it made him look strong and soldierly.

In which case it was almost successful. The great bas-relief crucifix on his chest tried hard to draw the eye, but Kassar’s ravaged face would not be ignored. Half eaten away by acid, the scarred side of his face looked more like a skull than a living countenance, even down to the gleam
ing teeth visible through the rents in his cheek. Stephanie managed a gracious smile, but didn’t move, and stuck close beside Daniel so he wouldn’t, either. Let Kassar come to them.

The Cardinal was late, but she’d expected that. Kassar was the kind of man who always kept people waiting, just to show how important he was. He needed little victories like that to sustain him, especially since being ordered to Technos III. Officially, it was an opportunity. The Church had sent him a small army of the Faithful and a dozen elite Jesuit commandos to help the Wolfe forces defeat the rebel terrorists. The Church of Christ the Warrior didn’t normally do favors for the aristocracy, let alone Clan Wolfe, but like everyone else, the Church’s future power was dependent on gaining access to the new stardrive. Those who got there first would have a temporary but very real advantage over those who did not. And the Church had not got where it was by ignoring possible advantages. The fact that the Church despised the Wolfe Family in general, and its current head Valentine in particular, could not be allowed to get in the way of political one-upmanship. Needs must when the devil drives.

Kassar especially had no love for the Wolfes, but none the less he had lobbied almost savagely for the posting. The war on Technos III was a chance to show what he could do as a commander of troops, and that was after all the fast track to advancement within the Church. Piety was all very well, but it was victory in arms that got you promoted. And though he barely admitted it even to himself, Kassar needed to be sure of his own courage. He couldn’t help feeling he’d made rather a poor showing when the Ghost Warrior and the Fury and the alien broke loose that day at Court. He could have done something, something brave and commanding to save the day, but instead he’d just stood there like all the others with his mouth hanging open. People must have seen him doing nothing, even if no one dared to say so to his face. So he had come to Technos III to win a great victory, whatever the cost, and then no one would have any doubts about his valor. Not even him.

They stood looking at each other for a long moment, all three with their own private thoughts, none of them willing to make the first move. Finally, Stephanie took one step forward and extended a hand to Kassar. He took a step forward,
accepted the hand, and bowed curtly over it. His handshake was firm but brief. Daniel stayed where he was and nodded briefly. Kassar nodded back.

“Welcome to Technos III, Cardinal,” said Stephanie, her voice gracious but cool. “Sorry about the weather, but if you don’t like it, stick around, and something else will come along shortly. The weather here changes its mind like a village priest caught between two sins. I trust your men are settling in comfortably?”

“My men are preparing for their first assault on the rebel positions,” said Kassar. “Comforts can wait. You’ve let the terrorists get away with far too much, but given the small size of your forces, I can’t say I’m surprised. Why haven’t you pressed some of the factory workers into service? I can supply whatever arms and armor may be needed.”

“I think not, Cardinal,” said Stephanie. “All the workers here are clones, bred and designed solely for factory work. And you don’t give clones weapons.”

Kassar shrugged carelessly, to cover his faux pas. “As you wish. My troops are more than enough to get the job done. Now, Daniel, what do you say? Shall I find a place for you in our ranks?”

“Wolfes didn’t fight for other people,” Daniel said flatly. “We fight for ourselves. Always.”

A silence fell that could have been awkward, as each party present was damned if they’d be the first to break it, and then the tension was broken as Toby the Troubador and his cameraman Flynn came bustling through the open door. Toby nodded briskly to all present and gestured for Rynn to find a position where he could cover everyone with his camera.

“Morning, one and all,” he said cheerfully. “Isn’t it a perfectly awful day? Hope I’m not interrupting anything vital, but I really do need to get some footage of the Cardinal meeting his hosts. That kind of thing always plays well with the audience, and it’ll make a good introduction to the campaign to come. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short and to the point. I’m sure you’ve all got things you’d rather be doing.”

Daniel gave Toby his best intimidating scowl. “Is this really necessary?”