Emperor's Edge Republic (29 page)

Grumbling under his breath, the humorless guard pulled out a key. He nodded for his comrade to keep an eye on Sespian, then unlocked the door. He opened it wide enough to peek inside and no wider.

As Sespian opened his mouth to shout a greeting to Mahliki—and suggest that she might like to see him—an explosion went off inside the room. A
loud
explosion. In the hallway, the floor trembled and crumbling mortar sifted out of the cracks between the bricks. The dust this caused was nothing compared to the cloud of smoke that rushed out of the open door. The guard stumbled back, coughing.

“Mahliki!” Sespian charged toward the door.

The second guard tried to stop him. Sespian blocked the grab and threw an elbow into the man’s ribcage, then pushed the heavy door open wider and lunged inside. Black smoke filled the air. He couldn’t see more than three feet in front of him. He stumbled forward, flapping his arms, trying to clear the haze, then bumped into a table or counter, and glasses rattled. He stopped.

“Mahliki? Are you in here? Are you... all right?”

“Yes,” came Mahliki’s voice from the back of the room. It was calm with a hint of of-course-I’m-all-right-and-what-are-you-blathering-about in it.

A rumble started up overhead somewhere. A ceiling fan? The smoke was gradually drawn upward, revealing a laboratory full of workbenches and counters, all covered with alchemical apparatuses. Liquids of different colors boiled above burners and tiny specimens floated in concoctions. The beakers and tubes were all secured with clamps, and as far as Sespian could tell, nothing had broken during the explosion. From the way Mahliki and Basilard stood calmly in front of a waist-high glass box—a vivarium?—wearing padded garments and protective goggles, Sespian realized that the explosion may have been intentional. The burning brand in Mahliki’s hand was another clue.

She dumped it into an ash urn and lifted the goggles to her forehead. “Is it nighttime again? Look, you can tell my father I apologize if I woke anyone up, but we have to try everything. Some of these reagents are a little loud when they mix, I admit, but they’re very potent. If anything is going to work on the plant...”

Sespian was patting the air with his hands. “He didn’t send me. I—”

“
Nobody
sent him,” one of guards snarled from behind Sespian. “He snuck past us when I was checking on you.”

“We didn’t want to grab him and rough him up, on account of him being the former emperor,” the other rushed to add. Afraid he would get in trouble? Mahliki hardly seemed the sort to berate guards for not keeping people out. Or berate anyone. At least insofar as Sespian had seen.

Mahliki shrugged. “He can stay. Why are you grabbing your ribs, Balfus?”

The guard Sespian had elbowed glowered at him. “No reason, my lady.”

“Let us get back to work, then, please. And if anyone comes down about the explosion, tell them there won’t be any more tonight.” She turned toward the vivarium, the “probably” she added not audible to anyone standing more than a few feet away. She picked up a pen and wrote something on a pad of paper resting atop the glass box. A three-foot length of vine lay pinned inside of it.

Sespian gulped. She hadn’t collected any samples more than a couple of inches long.

Despite the clamps pinning it down, the end of the vine wavered back and forth like a pendulum. The fatter end had been sliced away, but blackened. Cauterized, maybe. Did that work to retard growth or was it simply something they had tried, hoping for the best?

“Basilard, check that gauge, will you?” Mahliki asked, alternately writing notes and nibbling on the tip of her pencil.

Basilard walked around the end of the vivarium, giving Sespian a nod as he passed by, and peered at one of three gauges set into the glass next to a control panel.
Still no oxygen inside
.

“I can’t believe this thing is still alive,” Mahliki muttered. “What did they do? Engineer it to survive in outer space?”

The guards exchanged dubious looks and shuffled back outside, shutting the door behind them. Sespian wondered how much they had been told about the plant’s origins.

Good evening, Sespian
, Basilard signed. He too had lifted his goggles. Soot smeared his face, save for the pale skin around his eyes; he looked like some sort of reverse raccoon.

“Good evening, Basilard. How did you get volunteered for the role of assistant?”

Basilard’s expression turned wry.
Amaranthe. I believe I was signed up under the role of
advisor
, not assistant.

“Ah, good. So you don’t have to fetch her tea as well as reading her gauges?”

No, she hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in the hours I’ve been in here.

“Perhaps she’s gaining sustenance from the tip of that pencil.” Sespian watched Mahliki to see if his teasing would draw a reaction, but she was so intent on her notes that he might as well have not been in the room.

It
has
gotten shorter since I arrived this morning.

“As an advisor, what advice might you offer, if she were to accept your input?” Perhaps Sespian could act as his translator. Though Mahliki could read Basilard’s signs, if she was so intent on her own ideas, she might not see them. But a voice could cut through her focus more easily, surely. Sespian didn’t see the Mangdorian translator around, perhaps because the president had been unwilling to give access to this room to someone who wasn’t already familiar with the history of the plant.

I have already offered it. I do not know if anything would come of it, but I believe we should search for a natural predator. In the wilderness, plants rarely grow out of control because of predation and competition from other species.

“Any hungry herbivores we can bring in to nosh on that thing, Mahliki?” Sespian asked, this time prodding her in the shoulder at the same time to make sure she was paying attention.

She put down her pencil, propped her elbow on the glass, and faced them. “Basilard has already given me his theory, and I’ve invited him to find me such a herbivore, one with teeth like your father’s dagger and the appetite of a tiger. Actually a blue whale. If memory serves, they eat four tons of krill a day.”

“Would one fit in the lake?” Sespian joked.

Mahliki snorted. “Even if it would, this plant doesn’t look like a krill to me.”

“Maybe it tastes like one.”

Mahliki gave him a flat look, the sort Sicarius was so good at.

Sespian found himself disappointed that she didn’t appreciate his attempts at humor. Another time perhaps. She had probably been up all day and maybe the night before working on this. He lifted a hand. “I apologize. I can leave if I’m bothering you. I simply came to make sure you were well and had everything under control.” He eyed the vine. The tip that had been waving back and forth earlier had either straightened or grown another inch in the short minutes he had been there. It was pressed against the glass now.

“I’m sorry for being a grouch,” Mahliki said. “To both of you. I’m just...” She swallowed and faced the vivarium. “My father is counting on me. He believes I can solve this problem. If I can’t...”

“Mahliki, I know you’re very intelligent and have studied biology, but I’m sure he doesn’t expect you to do this alone. Won’t he let any experts in? He has to be willing to grant some people access and blast security concerns. This is more important than worrying about what the general public knows.”

“Oh, several people have been by. The problem is they weren’t helpful. At all.”

She knows more than the biologists and botanists in the city
, Basilard signed.
Your people are behind when it comes to the natural sciences
.

“Tell me about it.” Sespian sighed. “I was the one to arrange the import of microscopes to the university when I was a boy, mostly because I wanted one for myself. We’re making progress now, though. I’ve heard that one of our manufacturing companies is making some of the finest microscopes out there.”

“Yes, and exporting them to real scientists in Kyatt and Alsorshia,” Mahliki said dryly. “The last so-called professor who came in to help didn’t know what a
cell
is. A cell, Sespian. That’s kind of a basic thing.”

“Perhaps we can arrange to have one of those microscopes sent to him,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why he kept trying humor on her. It wasn’t working well today.

She dropped her face into the palm of her hand and exhaled abruptly. He didn’t think it was a laugh. A cry of frustration? He stepped forward, thinking to comfort her with a pat on the back, but she rubbed her face and stood up, composing herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I don’t mean to insult your people. I know that neither the natural or mental sciences have been fostered here. I’m just frustrated.”

“No, no, I understand. I find my people frustrating from time to time too.” Sespian almost mentioned the idiot foreman in charge of his construction project. The work had barely started, and already there had been more accidents and injuries on the job site than most projects suffered in a month. Putting up a building was hardly a priority though, not compared to this.

Basilard tapped the vivarium.
The vine is applying pressure to the glass.

Sespian eyed that tip again. More of it touched the glass now

Mahliki sighed. “I know. It keeps growing, even without oxygen.” She waved to a suction apparatus at the far end, apparently the device that had removed the air. “That slowed it down, but—this plant is utterly odd.”

“Excuse my ignorance,” Sespian said, “but I thought plants created oxygen from carbon dioxide. Do they actually need it themselves?”

“Yes,” Mahliki said. “They produce more oxygen than they require, but plant cells perform cellular respiration, the same as animal cells do. Granted many wetlands plants have developed a tolerance for low-oxygen conditions, but they shouldn’t be able to survive without
any
.” She glowered at the vine. “Unless our gauge is lying to us, and we weren’t effective at removing all the air, but Father designed that pump, so I’m inclined to trust it.”

“Did he also design the case?” Sespian asked.

“Yes, though it was cobbled together from what could be scrounged on short notice.”

That extra tidbit did not comfort Sespian. “Can you kill this particular piece before it breaks the glass and escapes?”

“I can’t kill any of them, Sespian. That’s the problem. We can hack them into pieces, but each piece has the potential to grow into a full plant.”

When it grows too large for the experimentation case, we call the guards in,
Basilard signed.
They lubricate themselves and run the plant down and toss it into the lake. It’s the best we can do.

Ah, so they had dealt with one outgrowing the case before. That might explain why those guards had been so leery at the thought of having a leg grabbed from below. If they had already dealt with the vines, they knew how difficult it was to remove them from human flesh. Still, if they had successfully extricated all of the plant starts from the basement, perhaps Sespian’s notions of one taking over the hotel had been premature. “You’re able to keep it from taking root then?”

“Yes, it does seem to need a soil medium for that. Held suspended in air, the vines only grow longer vines.” Mahliki walked to a different table and lifted a cover from a cloche. The root bulb she had cut into lay within. “This has remained dormant, though I don’t believe it’s dead necessarily.”

“Like a seed lying fallow for years, waiting for the perfect circumstances for unfurling?” Sespian asked.

“Yes, but I don’t think it’ll wait for years.”

I would like to fetch animals and experiment
, Basilard signed.
If we find something that likes to eat it, our problem may be solved.

“You’re welcome to look for something,” Mahliki said, “but I’m still skeptical that a terrestrial animal is going to be able to chew on that thing and digest it. Even if some rabbit with steel molars got it down, if stomach acid won’t break it down—and we’ve experimented with acid already, remember?—then it might start growing in the animal’s stomach. That would be a horrible death.”

Beneath the soot, Basilard’s face grew pale.
I hadn’t thought of that.

“Nor I,” Sespian said, “but how disturbing.”

I wouldn’t wish to inflict that fate on any animal.

“If it has a natural predator, I doubt it lives on our world,” Mahliki said.

“Your mother has a library on that ancient people, doesn’t she?” Sespian asked. “Is there any mention of this in there?”

“Nothing, save one that says the Orenki—that’s the name of the ancient people—were skilled horticulturists.” Her mouth twisted. “Good to know you’re going up against the best, isn’t it? If I thought the fellow who didn’t know what a cell is had primitive knowledge, I can only imagine what these people would have thought of me.”

Basilard tapped the glass again.
This must be removed before the cage is damaged. I will fetch the guards.

“Don’t forget to tell them to grease up,” Mahliki said. “We—”

A crack sounded, and Sespian jumped. His first thought was that the vivarium had shattered, but the sound had come from the other side of the laboratory, and the noise had been deeper than that of breaking glass. And muffled.

“What was that?” Sespian jogged toward the wall. Shelves filled with jars of bases and acids rose from the cement floor to the wood ceiling, but nothing appeared damaged.

“I’m not sure,” Mahliki said.

Basilard tapped the glass for their attention.
It did not come from inside this room.

“You’re right,” Sespian said, reconsidering the direction and type of sound he had heard. “But we’re on the end of the building, aren’t we? Is anything over there?”

“There’s a side yard and the street, eventually. But we’re ten feet below ground here.”

Sewer
? Basilard asked.
Could someone be trying to burrow a way into the hotel?