Morgan's Choice (24 page)

“
Suri
Selwood, come quickly.”

She whirled, startled. Asbarthi approached
her across the lawn, all decked out in high boots, white breeches
and his gold brocade coat, a grin of satisfaction splitting his
face. “The revolution has started. Our people have stormed the
Governor’s palace.
Sur
Jones’ death
was just the tipping point we needed.” He slipped an arm around
Morgan’s shoulders and squeezed. “We will celebrate
tonight.”

“Already?” She stepped away from him, out of
his reach, hating his touch.

“Oh, yes. I’m told the palace will be ours in
a few hours. All it needed was a spark. Come inside. I have
pictures.”

Lakshmi, Akbar and Indira were already
gathered. Asbarthi turned on the view screen.

“This is first footage from the palace.”

The scene showed a handsome domed building of
red and black stone behind a forbidding metal fence. Guards stood
along the length, weapons held ready. Beyond the fence they’d
erected portable orange barricades to keep the people even further
away. The images were being taken from inside a crowd behind the
barricades; sometimes the back of a head intruded, or a
shoulder.

The crowd stirred. The person with the camera
swayed with them. With a phut-hiss a projectile flew through the
air. It exploded in the midst of the guards on the fence. Bodies
tumbled amid screams and shouts. Blood spattered the flagstones.
Men streamed out of the crowd, interrupting the view but the
watchers caught enough to see the barricades toppled. And then it
became a surging melee. Stones flew through the air, pieces of wood
became cudgels, weapons fired, people fell but the others drove on,
baying for blood. Signs rose, carried high above the crowd. Guards
ran down the steps from the building beyond the fence but the
revolutionaries had brought in their own powerful beam weapons. The
mob snarled, a many-headed demon. The fence swayed and crumpled. A
rocket hit the palace, sending fragments spinning through the air.
Fire flared red and smoke began to rise.

Asbarthi turned the machine off. “That’s all
the footage I have so far, but I can assure you the operation was
an unmitigated success.”

“
Oh, well done, Asbarthi.”
Hai Sur
Devagnam leapt to his feet.
“This calls for a celebration.” He summoned a servant to fetch
glasses, open wine. “Such a pity that
Sur
Jones cannot be with us. But at least we have you,
Suri
Selwood.”

Morgan did her best to smile. That was all
fine. What they did on their own planet was their own business, but
the sight of those signs… she and Jones in their fancy dress, King
and Queen of the Orionar. Her stomach heaved. This was starting to
feel like one huge, colossal mistake.

Asbarthi handed her a glass of expensive
sparkling wine himself. “
Suri
Selwood, please, dress yourself in your Queen’s garb for
this evening’s meal. Some of our colleagues will join us to
celebrate this start.”

****

The other conspirators—the same ones she’d
met at
Hai
Sur
Wensar’s
home—arrived shortly afterwards, dressed up in their usual
extravagant finery for a grand dinner. All of them were
jubilant.

Morgan, in her gold and white dress, endured
the toasts and the congratulations. She smiled and let Asbarthi
bask in the applause, a beaming Lakshmi at his side. It was his
idea, after all.

“Here’s to our brave people,” he said, glass
raised. “Here’s to the revolution.”

They applauded, hands thumping gently on the
table, or clicking spoons against their glasses.

Asbarthi beamed. “Ah. Some more images from
the front.”

The severed head on a spike nearly lost
Morgan her dinner. She gagged and swallowed, barely hearing the
words from the elated man in the uniform beyond registering that
Governor Murag had lost the fight and with it, his life. The camera
lingered on the spitted head. The eyes were still open, lips
contracted in a grimace. Blood had oozed from the nose and smeared
its skin. Asbarthi and his friends laughed and cheered.

The vision slid down to a headless body on a
blood-splattered floor. A gore-stained yellow sash crossed the
chest from shoulder to hip. The pictures from the palace were
replaced with footage of a street scene. Women were being loaded
into trucks, hurried along by soldiers. One woman clutched her
shirt closed with her fist. The expression on her face said it all.
Morgan had seen that look on many a woman’s face after pirate
attacks, eyes wide with fear, expression blank with shame. Now
she’d noticed one, she knew that woman wasn’t the only one. Some of
them looked to be little more than children.

Smoke from still-burning houses drifted in
the air. Soldiers emerged from one house, arms laden with objects.
She caught the glitter of firelight on gold. Looting; they’d
descended to looting. A scuffle caught her eye. A young man was
being dragged between two soldiers wearing the dark green livery of
the KPP. The youth slipped, stumbled and was rewarded for the
affront with a savage kick to the head. He curled into a ball,
protecting his head but the soldiers kept kicking. Another joined
in with a baton. Flecks of blood flicked onto the pants of the
assailants. Morgan winced at every blow. No one could survive
that.

A number of people chuckled.

She didn’t like the sound, like rocks in
freezing water. No mirth, no humor. In fact, she didn’t like this
party, didn’t like their obscene glee.
Smile, keep smiling
Morgan.

“
Hai Sur
Devagnam can take our lovely Queen,”
Asbarthi flung his arm out to Morgan and heads turned, “down to the
capital to meet her subjects tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am
expecting
Hai
Sur
Sayvu to arrive
tomorrow, as well. He and I will entertain our Mirka
guest.”

Mirka guest? The chuckles and guffaws the
announcement elicited were positively evil.

“This won’t buy trouble from his fleet,
Asbarthi?” Dargen said.

“The fleet has been told to withdraw.”
Asbarthi chuckled. “Murag sent the order and I heard him speak to
Ravindra myself. ‘Bugger off’ was the term he used. And his ship
has been told he died in the assault on the palace. Which is almost
right.”

Died? Ravindra? Morgan’s heart jolted. She
struggled to keep smiling while Akbar’s guests laughed. She hadn’t
even known
Vidhvansaka
was
here.

The room swirled around her; dark faces
leered, grinning with debauched delight. King Tony and Queen
Morgan. Puppets with Asbarthi’s hand behind their backs. She
despised them. She despised herself. Ravindra. One brief,
incandescent encounter that would live in her memory forever, even
if for him it was just a roll in the hay with a tart. And now he
was dead. And it was her fault; her fault. Had it not been for the
Orionar Queen, Asbarthi wouldn’t have been able to launch his
revolt and Ravindra would still be alive.
Oh, Ravindra, I’m sorry. So
sorry.
A tremor rocked
the armor that protected her heart.
I loved you
.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she managed to
say. She had to get out. Tonight, if she could, while they
celebrated their victory. No way was she going to drive through
cheering crowds in an open car, waving her wrist at Asbarthi’s
command.

Another ten minutes and she could manage
to yawn and excuse herself. She’d kept the pretense going that she
wasn’t strong after the escape from Mellnar’s property. Out of the
corner of her eye she noticed Lakshmi’s contemptuously curled
lip.

“
Of course,
Suri
.” Asbarthi laid a solicitous hand on her arm. “We want you
at your best for tomorrow.”

Morgan smiled and took herself off. She
leant for a moment against the closed door, squeezing away the
threatening tears.
Oh, Ravindra
. A
glint of silver caught her eye. Something on the table by the door.
A hank of hair? With a clasp. Mirka. She almost gasped. She’d seen
that clasp many, many times. Polished silver fashioned in the form
of a serpent or dragon curled around itself, like the tattoo on his
shoulder. Asbarthi’s Mirka guest, for him and Sayvu to entertain.
‘Almost right’, he’d said. Hope flared. Maybe he was alive and
somewhere here.

She removed the clasp and hurried upstairs as
fast as the cumbersome skirt could take her.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Where would Ravindra be? She’d have to find
him. Because sure as the sun came up, tomorrow they’d torture him
to death.

She sagged back in the chair and stared at
the camera on its bracket near the ceiling out of hooded eyes. With
a bit of luck they wouldn’t notice her protracted interest, too
busy watching horrors on the screen. Her implant took over and she
followed the data circuits, simple collection devices, into the
processor. If they had a monitoring system, she could investigate a
bit further. Simple enough, just the surveillance cameras and an
alarm system. She checked the streams from the cameras. Her room,
the passages, a couple of other bedrooms. And a cell. She burrowed
deeper, finding the data stream. Her heart gave a huge, surging
fillip. He was there, back to the wall, in white dress uniform.
Blood had dripped on the jacket from a long cut on his face and his
trousers were stained, too. A bare room, a solid door, a stone wall
with a vent at the top. Perhaps one of the line of outhouses at the
back and to one side of the manor, a stone building beside the
workshops and barns.

First she’d have to get out of this room. A
man stood guard outside and she’d be deluding herself if she
imagined they wouldn’t notice if she broke the surveillance camera
up in the corner.

They would have yesterday’s monitor pictures
stored somewhere, probably by date. A simple redirection and the
images the guards would see would be from last night. She took a
moment to do the same for the camera in the bed room. Last night
from the cell would be wrong. Maybe the previous hour? She checked
and fixed a suitable point, repeating continuously. What about
window alarms? It seemed an obvious thing to have. Yes, doors, too
and the outside gates. Morgan turned them all off.

Blinking, she refocused her eyes on the here
and now in her sitting room.

Clothes first. She crossed to the wardrobe,
pulling the dress off as she walked. Black would have been good but
the blue pants and shirt would have to do. She put Ravindra’s clasp
in her pocket and made a quick trip to the washroom to blacken her
face and hands. Now to get out of here. The guard was still at the
door; it would have to be the window. She’d need something to
rappel down. A bed sheet? She shook her head. She wouldn’t be able
to tear it up. Her eyes roved around the room, searching for ideas.
The ties for the window drapes, double loops of heavy silken rope.
She could tie them together; they wouldn’t have to reach all the
way down.

She set to work.

She could let herself down into the
courtyard; and then what? Find Ravindra first and work things out
from there. Asbarthi’s guests would all be occupied for a while
yet, congratulating each other. At least the cloud cover precluded
any moonlight. That would help.

Clumsy rope in hand, Morgan opened the
window. It creaked, sending her pulse racing. A peel of muffled
laughter floated from downstairs and her shoulders relaxed. She
eased the window open a little further, tied her makeshift rope to
an armchair and dropped the rest outside. It wasn’t as long as
she’d hoped. Peering down, she figured she’d have maybe a meter and
a half to fall. Doable. Sure. Easy. Of course it was.

Rope gripped firmly, she wriggled out the
window and walked down the wall. It was wet from the rain and her
foot slipped. Her muscles burning from the effort, she caught her
toes on the masonry and pulled herself back to position. Soon, too
soon, she ran out of rope. Her heart pounding, she let her body
slither down the stone until she hung perpendicular. If she’d got
this wrong
…
Get on with it, woman
.
She could almost hear Ravindra say the words. One last swallow and
she dropped, curving her body to take the shock. As soon as her
feet hit the ground she bent her knees and rolled onto her
shoulder, head tucked in tight. Listening hard, she vaulted to her
feet, leant her back against the wall and recovered her
breath.

The sounds were the normal ones of a rainy
night; the sough of branches blown in the wind, a steady drip… drip
somewhere. Nothing else. The rain might be a hindrance, but in a
way it was a blessing.

The rope hung above her, the tassels gleaming
in moonlight peeping through a hole in the clouds. Only for a
moment. The clouds drifted on and the rope was a formless shadow
against the house. Sometimes bad weather was a blessing. Time to
move. She padded away.

The heavy door that sealed off the walled
courtyard wasn’t locked, although it was fitted with an alarm—which
she’d turned off. She lifted the latch and slipped through, making
sure she closed the door behind her.

A few slivers of light shining between the
shutters on the kitchen windows striped the darkness at the back of
the house. She forced herself to walk along as if she had somewhere
to go. If anybody noticed her, with luck her blue clothing would be
close enough in the dark to the outfits the workers wore. Laughter
rang out from the kitchen as she passed, sending a tingle of fear
through her nerves.
Steady on, Morgan, that’s not about you
.