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Authors: Jody Lynn Nye

Tags: #Fiction, #science fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Space Opera

Fortunes of the Imperium (41 page)

BOOK: Fortunes of the Imperium
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“It’s a thousand times more than we knew before,” M’Kenna said gratefully. “Thanks. That really helps. You don’t know what it’s like, feeling like you’re sealed inside a rock. It’s horrible for all of us, but mostly for my kids. All of them were born in space. This is the longest any of us have been groundbound. I just want to get back on our ship. Can you get us out of here, even for a while?”

Lord Thomas’s handsome eyes were sad.

“I am afraid not. Can I help you with legal representation?”

“I’ve got that under control, your lordship,” Allisjonil said, shifting back and forth. “Everyone on this corridor is my client.”

“Good to know.”

“Look, you haven’t asked it,” M’Kenna blurted out, “but I’ll tell you straight: none of us smuggled anything, especially not weapons. All we want is the truth to come out.”

“We’ll find it,” Lord Thomas said. “My crew is astonishingly accomplished at discovering things no one expects them to find. We have already been gathering up information in other locations, but since your shipments were eventually meant to reach Dilawe, here is where we expect to find our answers. I will report back to you as often as I can.”

M’Kenna’s heart sank.

“So we can’t get out until then?”

“I’m sorry. I am afraid not. I will do everything I can for you, I promise. And trust Parsons,” he added, with a glimpse back at the other man. “He knows how to get things done. I have a pretty high opinion of myself, but a higher one of him.”

M’Kenna glanced at the other man. He must be really something, if Lord Thomas thought that highly of him. She nodded.

“Thanks.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked. “Anything I can bring you?”

“I don’t know. We just miss the little things. I mean, the food here is all right, but it’s not our food, if you know what I mean. And they never bring the kids candy or snacks. The kids are being really good about this whole situation. I wish I could make it more normal for them. Not that anything around here is normal. It’s kind of nice to have company.”

Another glance at the dark-eyed man. “Well, I can spend a little more time with you, if you wish. Ask me anything. I’ll tell you what I know. I’d like to get to know you better. How do you obtain your cargo? Who are your favorite distributors?”

Just like that, he led them into discussing shipping routes with Rafe, talked what sold best where with M’Kenna, all the while sitting on the floor with the little ones. He paid Nona outrageous compliments on her beautiful eyes and hair, and let Dorna crawl into his lap. Even from where she sat on her bunk, she could tell Dorna needed a change, but Lord Thomas didn’t say anything.

“And what do you think your parents would like to have? Do they have favorite foods? I mean, your stay here is temporary, of course.”

“Fruit jellies,” Nona said, promptly. At once, M’Kenna felt her mouth water, craving that tart sweetness. It had been months since she had tasted any. “And Daddy likes champagne artichokes.”

“Um, so do I,” Lord Thomas said, his eyes dancing. “And what about the rest of you?”

“We’re going to die,” Lerin said solemnly. “We don’t have to have anything.”

Akela gasped and burst into tears.

“No!” he sobbed.

Lord Thomas picked the little boy up and put him on his other knee beside Dorna. He shook his head.

“Now, I can prove that’s not true.” He reached into the pocket of his beautiful jacket and took out a deck of old-fashioned playing cards tied with a ribbon. “Have you ever had your fortune told? No? Well, I am honored to be the first. Will you help me shuffle the cards?”

Carefully, patiently, the nobleman showed her elder son how to hold the halves of the deck in each hand and flip the edges together. M’Kenna found herself holding her breath. Lerin, uncharacteristically calm with a stranger, looked up at the tall man and smiled.

“You are very good at this,” Lord Thomas said. After a few tries, Lerin managed a rough shuffle. Eager for his turn, Akela seized the deck but dropped all of them on the floor. Putting out his lower lip, he looked at Lord Thomas to see if he was getting a scolding.

“Now, you’re just going for the easy option,” Lord Thomas said, with a laugh. “Watch.” He turned all the cards face down and mixed them together with both hands. “Now, gather them up.”

The boys picked up the cards and handed them to him. He shuffled them once with a mighty
snap!
like a poker hustler, and fanned them out in the air. Akela laughed, his fright momentarily forgotten. Lord Thomas gathered the deck together, then dealt three cards in a line face up.

“Now, you see here? We have the queen of hearts, the six of clubs and the ace of diamonds. Help, wisdom and truth. There is not one bad card here. If I had dealt the nine of spades, that might mean death. But these are all good cards.”

“You hid some of them!” Lerin insisted. Thomas held up his hands, protesting innocence.

“You can count them. There are 52.” Lerin boldly went through Thomas’s pouches and pockets, but came up empty. He sat back on the floor, his arms folded mulishly. M’Kenna wanted to laugh at him. Lord Thomas tied up the cards in their ribbon and gave the deck to him. “Here, take these. You can try it yourself. This is the chart showing what each of them means.” He showed them his viewpad. Lerin scrambled up and ran for the children’s tablet. Lord Thomas transferred the file and gave it back. He studied the other three children with a serious expression. “Hmmm. Now, I can’t just give Lerin a gift. I owe all the rest of you present.”

“Pwesent,” Dorna piped up, her brown eyes shining. She hadn’t followed most of what had just happened, but that word always got her attention. “I want present. Got me one?”

“Yes! I hope you like these.”

From his pockets, Lord Thomas came out with a small cuddly unicorn-bear, a model of an Uctu carnival ship for Akela, and a box of face paints for Nona. Dorna leaped upon hers and cuddled it fiercely. Nona accepted the last with nervous excitement. All of her makeup was still on the ship, and she missed it. M’Kenna did, too. She almost wished Lord Thomas had given her one, too. She noticed that all of the items were marked with the Hotel Raffles logo. He must have picked them up in the gift shop on his way to see them. She was grateful to him for even thinking of bringing the children gifts.

“Say thank you,” she chided them.

“Thank you,” the children chorused obediently.

“Thank you, sir,” Rafe added. “That was really nice of you.”

“You may not know it, but I am an experienced uncle,” Lord Thomas said. He dislodged the two small children from his lap and rose to his feet.

“I can tell,” M’Kenna said. “You know kids.” She hesitated. “You’re not the complete idiot we thought you were, sir. My lord, I mean. No offense, but what we saw on the vid, well, it worried us a lot.” She tilted her head toward Rafe, who shrugged his shoulders in apology.

“Oh, appearances can be deceiving,” Lord Thomas said, with a self-deprecating smile, as the three of them watched the children enjoying their presents. “I am an idiot but in ways that you cannot imagine. But I do try, really, I do. I must go now. You don’t know it, but it’s the middle of the night outside.”

M’Kenna rose to her feet.

“Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. It gives me some confidence that we can get through this mess.”

“I am sure you will, you know. You are strong.” Lord Thomas cocked his head and looked thoughtful. “You know what you need? You need a talisman against the loss of hope.” He took a tiny device from another pocket. Bright colors twinkled from the miniature lights studded on gold wires. “This is my lucky circuit. I will send you one.”

Nobles had weird ways. M’Kenna held up the tablet.

“You gave me your direct number, and you promised to get us out of here. That’s as much of a talisman as we need for now.”

“Oh, you’ll like them,” Lord Thomas said. “They’ll help cheer up this dreary temporary domicile of yours. I’ll send it along with those fruit jellies.”

M’Kenna felt abashed. The children shouldn’t have said anything.

“You don’t have to get us anything. But, maybe, will you come back? That would help more than any sweets or little lights.”

“I will come back,” Lord Thomas promised.

A siren sounded in the corridor. Captain Oren appeared at the door. The guards chivvied the guests out of the cell, but Lord Thomas looked back at her and winked. M’Kenna cherished the warm feeling for as long as she could.

CHAPTER 36

“What more can I do for them, Parsons?” I asked, as we flew away from the prison complex. “They have touched my heart, especially the children. They are in a terrible fix.” The compartment of the transport shuttle was large enough that we sat at one end of the cabin, well out of earshot of the other passengers returning to the capital, including the large, white-furred attorney, Mr. Allisjonil, as well as Ms. Metcalf from Ambassador Galeckas’s office, who had been my escort from the city. “Every one of them professes their innocence. I cannot help but believe them. The Coppers were convincing, but it was the outrage of the Wichus that really make me believe that they have been used in some dastardly fashion.”

Parsons had no more outward expression than usual, but I felt that he had been moved by the sight of all of those decent people locked up in cells smaller than my walk-in wardrobe.

“It is distressing, my lord. All the more because the evidence is mounting that they are innocent.”

My heart, which had been heavy throughout my visit to that depressing place, lifted up and sang.

“You are certain?” I asked. “You were a trifle late meeting me at the prison, so I hoped there would be news.” I put my chin in my palm and looked up at him in expectation. “By the crackling energy around you, it must be good. Let me hear it.”

“I must confess, it merely added to the mystery,” Parsons said. “Far from finding a solution, we have a new enigma.”

“Tell me all!”

He hesitated a moment, then brought out the dull gray cube. I felt the air seal around us like an arm thrown reassuringly over my shoulders. Parsons closed his hand upon it.

“I do not wish to jump to a conclusion I cannot support, sir, but it would seem there was extensive tampering to the vessels of all of the accused. All of the nanites that run the purification systems on board each ship have vanished. To have one ship so swept clean could be explained by a programming error, but to have all in the same condition suggests an underlying cause. My tardiness came because we wished to reinspect each ship to make certain we had not missed any pockets of nanomachines. They are indeed all void.”

“What do you make of that? How does that connect with the weaponry found in the waste tanks?”

“At present all we have are theories. It is possible that the nanomachines worked on a molecular level to open the tanks, hold back the contents, make it possible for the contraband to be introduced, then reseal the tanks to look exactly as they did before. Nanites have been used for microsurgery and many other actions that require absolute precision. Then the nanites were evacuated from the ships, so no one could determine how the trick was done.”

“Those nanites would also have had to interfere with the cameras watching the landing bays,” I pointed out. “No one saw anything. As Ms. Copper just explained to us, someone or something is tampering with video pickups to conceal their nefarious deeds.”

“Indeed, sir. It was a most complex plot to place those items into the ships and must have included compromising the cameras. However, in this case, a trace was indeed left. The process seems to have taken
all
the nanomachines from the ships, not just the ones involved in the subterfuge. The smugglers caused the ships to gradually cease to function. In fact, two of them would not have made it all the way to Dilawe from Partwe without loss of life. It is a good thing that the ships were intercepted upon arrival in the Autocracy, or several people would have died.”

I gulped.

“That’s very odd. Surely the crews would have noticed the air was getting bad.”

“It is possible that the change was so gradual that it had not yet come to their attention, sir. Most of these ships are very old. The crews would be accustomed to odors and noises. But I fear none of them would have survived a return trip to the Imperium in that state, sir,” Parsons concluded. “Therefore, I must assume that they were unaware of the deficiency. None of them seems to be suicidal, not in previous examinations, nor in the opinion of the Uctu court service, nor my own observations just now. Otherwise, having accomplished the delivery of the illicit goods, they would complete the job and take their own lives. All the merchants that we visited this evening are eager to survive.”

“But negative evidence is not evidence,” I said, drumming my fingertips upon my cheek. “You can use it to speak to their state of mind in court, but naturally, we don’t want it to go that far, and it might be misinterpreted by an Uctu magistrate. How infinitely frustrating.” Still, I felt the stirrings of hope. “Are any of these pilots capable of visiting this odd plague on the others? Could one be responsible for all of them?”

“It would seem not, sir. It would require an advanced knowledge of engineering and resources that appear to be out of reach of simple merchant spacers. While several of them have degrees and experience in many fields, I saw no biographical history that suggested any of the prisoners are responsible. If one is working with the culprit, we have yet to determine that. I must also stress that opportunity to introduce the programming could not have been done in advance of arrival on Way Station 46, and the responsible party would not know if they would reach the station before all of the others. The insertion must have happened there.”

I brought my fist down and pounded upon my knee.

“Then who is responsible?”

Parsons made the merest suggestion of a head-shake.

“That I do not yet know.”

“How was the hostile programming introduced?”

“I do not know that yet, either.”

“Well, I shall design circuits for all of them. One to a cell, I think, except for the Copper children. I think they would like one each, don’t you?”

Parsons nodded austerely.

“Yes, indeed, sir. Once you have designed them, you may send the schematics to the repair facility that is attached to the impound station. I am certain they would enjoy the change from the day-to-day maintenance on ships and station. I have spoken to one of the fabricators, and they are in danger of job burnout, sir. You would be doing them a service by giving them a task that may be seen as pleasurable.”

I beamed at him.

“By heaven, what a grand idea. What is the name of your connection? I will send my designs to him or her.”

“Why not give me the file, my lord? In your name, I will be able to coax a more rapid response from the workshop than even if you were to ask yourself. I must go there in any case, to accompany the crew on further investigation of the impounded ships. I will also see to it that they are delivered with your compliments, along with whatever other goods you see fit to gift them.”

“Comets, that’s a good notion,” I said. I worked while I talked. “You take another burden off my shoulders, Parsons. You always do. But don’t forget the fruit jellies. I want Ms. Copper to have those as soon as possible. She has been a rock for those children. I think it’s a great pity that she has been too frightened to undergo the habilitation therapy. Whatever cleared the nanites out of her ship has taken them from all the merchants as well. That is another reason that the magistrate must find them innocent.”

“We will have to learn the protocol for providing gifts to those under detention, my lord.”

I glanced across the cabin and caught Ms. Metcalf’s eye. Like any good diplomat, she read my intent to converse. She rose from her place and made her way to us. Parsons subtly returned his small device to his pocket. Both of us stood to receive her. I took her hand cordially.

“Ms. Metcalf, I wish to thank you again for aiding me in visiting the prisoners. I warn you that I will want to go back again in a day or so. My responsibilities to them will not be discharged until I see them all set free.”

“Of course, sir,” she said. I offered her a cushion on my couch, and she settled onto it. Once she was seated, Parsons and I resumed our perches. “It’s natural for you to take an interest in them. Unfortunately, we have to accede to local laws and customs. The trial is scheduled for three days from now, the day after the accession feast.”

“Then I will be there,” I declared. “They’re innocent. If I may testify as a friend of the court, I will. In the meantime, I would like to provide them with some small gifts, some home comforts that they might have been missing.” I brought out my viewpad. “For example, Captain Nuro of
Sword Snacks IV
has not had any beer since his arrest.”

“We can’t give them beer,” Ms. Metcalf said, openly horrified.

“Why not?” I asked. “What harm can it do?”

“Well, it makes them noisy,” she said.

“They’re Wichus,” I said, reasonably. “They are already noisy. Ms. Metcalf, these citizens of the Imperium are under threat for their lives. A little leavening of the mood will go a long way toward helping them to be in the best possible state of mind when they must go to court. I know that my emotions would be in turmoil, and at worst, madam, this may be the last beer they are able to enjoy.”

I knew I was cruel to employ such dire emotional tactics, but it worked. Her face went still, but I was accustomed to trying to read the concealed screen that was Parsons. I could see the wheels turning in her mind as though her thoughts were printed in large type on her face.

“Very well, sir,” she said at length. “If you will arrange the gifts, I will make certain that the prisoners will receive them.”

I seized her hand and shook it with great vigor.

“You are most kind, Ms. Metcalf.”

She retrieved her fingers.

“It’s nothing, my lord. We wish to render you any service we can.” She rose, and we with her. “I must send an inquiry to the Bureau of Corrections to learn how to bring in such presents. Let me get back to you.”

“You have my connection,” I said.

She went halfway up the ship, to an empty seat, and began to speak urgently into her pocket secretary. Parsons and I resumed our places.

“How did you progress with Her Excellence?” Parsons asked.

“Oh, we are going to be very good friends,” I said. “We talked of countless matters, cabbages and kings, and whatnot.”

“Did you inquire as to the reason for limiting ships coming into the Autocracy?”

“No,” I said. “She was rather resistant to answering any questions of import, but perhaps in time. My hours were not wasted, though. My heaven, I had no idea as to the smouldering resentment that still exists within the Autocracy for the Imperium. The memory of the last battles still persists. And she has only been on the throne two years. Shojan still seems a bit raw around the feelings, and he has reigned in the Imperium for twelve years already. The friendlier I can persuade the Autocrat that we are, the better it will be in the long run for relations between our two peoples.”

“That is a most penetrating insight, my lord,” Parsons said, and I could not find a trace of irony or sarcasm in his tone. “But what of the matters at hand? The sooner that the embargo can be lifted, the better. And the well-being of those whom you have taken under your wing is in jeopardy.”

I sighed.

“I will continue to try to ask Visoltia, in between reading her stars and the lumps on her head. But, Parsons, I feel that my answers will not come from her, at least not directly. As you are undoubtedly aware, the person with the greatest power is often not the one whose title is the most grandiose or lofty, but a more humble toiler. In that person, you will find the one who actually Gets Things Done.” I did my best to make the capital letters audible.

“Her secretary?” Parsons asked.

“No.” I fetched a deep and regretful sigh. “The very angry gentleman whom I recognize as being my mother’s opponent in the last space war.”

“Yes, the High Protector. I recall him from years past. He looks remarkably unchanged.”

My eyebrows rose upon my forehead.

“Were you aboard my mother’s ship in that final battle?” I asked. “I don’t remember her telling me that.”

“No, sir. But I was involved.”

“I will bet that you were,” I said, glancing out of the window of the shuttle as the sound of the hover engines changed from a smooth hum to a meaningful rattle. “But I will await the unfolding of that story on another day. I see the landing pad of the Raffles ahead of us.”

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