Starfighters of Adumar (19 page)

Another group was of Cartann nobles—Wedge saw Iella and her minister among them. Iella noticed his attention, gave him a smile; then she was back in character and responding to something said by one of the men in her vicinity. Most of that crowd constituted men and women dressed in similar stuffy fashion, which suggested that this was a crowd of ministers, but the fact that they were well away from the
perator
said that they were a group the ruler had no particular need to consult—minor functionaries.

Turr Phennir and his pilots were at the center of their own knot of people. One of Phennir’s pilots, a tall redheaded man, had his hand out before him as if grasping a TIE fighter’s yoke; his hand shook as though he were firing on a target, and his eyes were wide, animated. The group around him made noises of admiration. Phennir was not paying attention; his gaze was on Wedge.

“Before the day’s events begin,” called a courtier, “a diversion. Ground Champion Cheriss ke Hanadi accepts a title challenge from Lord Pilot Eneboros ke Shalapan.”

“That explains where Cheriss is,” Tycho said, and craned his head for a better look.

The crowd in the vicinity of the
perator
moved back to make an open circle; Wedge headed that way.

Cheriss was already in the center of the circle, stretching, going through a few practice thrusts and lunges with her blastsword’s power off. Her appearance was different from the way it had been in the previous blastsword match; her intensity was there, but she wore no predatory smile. She also looked tired, a little disheveled, not her meticulously neat self.

Into Wedge’s ear, Hobbie said, “She’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday.”

Beside him, Janson nodded. “Not like her. Such a clean girl. Even when she’s stabbing people.”

“Quiet,” Wedge said. “There’s something wrong here.”

Her opponent, at the edge of the crowd, was very tall and lean, with an elaborately curled brown mustache and a goatee that tended more toward blond. Friends or assistants to either side of him were binding up his flowing sleeves so they would not interfere with his motions. When he was ready, he nodded to the speaker, who in turn caught Cheriss’s eye. She thumbed on the power of her blastsword and its tip began leaving blue trails through the air. Her challenger also flourished with his blade, its tip leaving traces of a more purple-blue behind.

The announcer called for salutes to the
perator
, then signaled for the fight to begin.

It didn’t take long. The challenger moved in with a thrust that was little more than an initial probe. Cheriss swept it aside and, in the same motion, threw herself forward, a daring counterstrike that left her exposed … but caught her enemy in the rib cage. There was a crack and a flash of blue light, and with a cry her challenger went down.

Cheriss looked to the
perator
.

The ruler of Cartann shrugged and put his hand out, palm down—the signal that the defeated man should die.

Cheriss slowly shook her head and turned her back on the defeated man and the
perator
. She moved into the crowd, leaving the fight behind. The audience parted for her, many of its members offering a low noise of surprise.

“Did she just do what I thought she did?” Wedge asked. “Give the
perator
the choice on what happened to her opponent, and then defy him?”

“That’s what I got out of it, boss,” Hobbie said.

The
perator
was scowling now, but lost the expression when a minister stepped up to him and began talking. In moments, the ruler had apparently forgotten the
fight, and friends of the challenger picked the injured man up to carry him from the hall.

Wedge moved through the crowd in pursuit of Cheriss. When he caught up to her, she was speaking to the man who had announced her fight. “… standard acceptance for ke Seiufere,” she said. The man nodded.

“Cheriss, a moment of your time?”

She glanced at Wedge, and he was taken aback by what he saw in her expression. Before she had always been so animated, so full of energy and cheer; now her eyes seemed dull, lacking passion or interest. “A moment, yes,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

She offered an indifferent shrug. “While I have been acting as your guide, I have let other duties pile up. Such as attending to the many challenges I receive. I am merely clearing some of those away now.” She suppressed a yawn.

“You haven’t changed since yesterday. Have you slept?”

She shook her head. “I don’t need sleep to deal with these pretenders.” She looked over Wedge’s shoulder and her expression became even more mournful. “You’d best go. Someone might grow suspicious … for no good reason at all.” She turned her back on him and moved into the crowd.

Wedge turned to look. Immediately behind him was Tycho, alert and intent as ever. That didn’t make sense; why would Tycho “grow suspicious”?

But over his shoulder, a few meters back, doing a very good job of looking innocuous, stood Iella.

Wedge froze and continued to scan the crowd in that direction. Who else could have provoked such a response from Cheriss? He noted and dismissed a double dozen faces. No, she had to have been referring to Iella.

But she shouldn’t have known Iella’s face. To know it, she had to have … Wedge calculated the times any of
the New Republic pilots had been in contact with Iella. No, Cheriss had to have seen it last night. She had to have been the quiet stalker Janson had heard. She must have been outside Wedge’s quarters when he and Janson returned from the
Allegiance
last night, must have followed them to their meeting with Iella, must have later gotten a look at Iella’s face by some means.

And now she was—

“We are doubly blessed,” called the announcer. “Ground Champion Cheriss ke Hanadi, not content with a single victory this day, accepts a title challenge from Lord Pilot Phalle ke Seiufere.”

The crowd moved out to open another circle, and there stood Cheriss, this time opposite a squat plug of a man who looked as though he had tremendous upper body strength. Blond, with shoulder-length yellow hair and a mustache that trailed and swayed limply, the new challenger stared at Cheriss with real anger in his sea-green eyes.

Wedge swore to himself. The fight was already under way by the time he was able to maneuver himself to the front of the crowd. Nor was this a quick and easy battle like the last one; Wedge saw Cheriss and her opponent exchange assault after assault, each time deflecting blastsword blows with deft parries or by the more punishing method of catching the explosive blows on the guards of their swords. Within moments the air was thick with the delicate, colorful traceries of the movements of blastsword tips and with the acrid smell of blaster impacts, which became almost strong enough to overpower the perfumes.

Cheriss’s opponent, strong and fast, seemed to have no problem swatting aside Cheriss’s assaults before her blade point endangered him. Some of her thrusts, breathtaking in their speed and intricacy, snaked around the guard on his left-hand dagger, but these he took with equal skill on his blastsword guard, always disengaging
immediately and moving forward in aggressive attack, driving Cheriss into retreat. Soon both Cheriss and her opponent were breathing heavily, sweat running from beneath their heavy and elaborate clothing.

Cheriss, slowing, swept her opponent’s point aside with the knife she still held in her distinctive reverse grip and leaped forward into a lunge. Her opponent riposted, his blastsword moving her tip out of line while his remained in line—but her lunge took her body lower than it customarily did, and suddenly she was skidding past him on her knees. Cheriss struck backward without looking and her blastsword point took her opponent behind the left knee. He yelped loud enough to drown out the blaster sound of impact, and collapsed onto one leg; before he could begin to recover, before he could force his body to work through the pain and shock of blast impact, Cheriss rose, spun, and tapped him once on each arm. He shrieked once more and slammed to the floor. Smoke rose from his wounds and the air filled with the smell of burned flesh.

The audience applauded. Cheriss, looking far more tired and shaky than Wedge had ever seen her, bowed her head to the crowd, then looked to the
perator
.

This time the ruler did not bother to give her a cue. He turned his back on Cheriss and her downed opponent. The crowd uttered a rippling noise of surprise. Cheriss turned her back on her opponent and moved into the crowd.

Wedge headed for her. But before he could take half a dozen steps through the milling crowd, the announcer called out, “Attend! Before this day is given over entirely to demonstrations of the blastsword art, the
perator
wishes to address us, and all the world, on the matter of today’s gathering.”

The crowd went into motion again, its elements dividing by what looked like random motion into its earlier groupings. Wedge lost track of Cheriss and sighed. He
returned to his pilots. Tomer and Hallis joined them a moment later.

“Nice timing with the New Republic uniforms,” Tomer said. “It turns out the
perator
’s going to broadcast worldwide. And the Imp pilots, in local dress, don’t even stand out in the crowd. You couldn’t have done better.”

“Nice to know I’ve accomplished
something
on a diplomatic level,” Wedge said.

Tapestries high up on two of the walls drew aside, revealing the flatscreens Wedge had seen on the night of his arrival on-planet. The screens showed confused, wavering visions of a crowd—this crowd—and then settled in on the face of the
perator
, who was smiling, golden, looking as perfect and imperishable as a statue. The
perator
was looking off to the side, talking to someone; he received some sort of cue, for he turned directly into the flatcam view and his smile broadened, became dazzling.

“On this historic day,” the
perator
said, “I address all of Adumar—something I find I will be doing often.

“We have now had time to see that Adumar does not exist in a void. Rather, we share the universe with other worlds, and collectives of worlds. Hidden for centuries by distance and forgetfulness, we find ourselves now within easy reach of new friends who would embrace us as equals—except for one important manner in which we are
not
their equals.”

A murmur rose in the ranks of the audience, and many of its members looked at Wedge and his pilots, at Turr Phennir and the Imperial flyers. The expressions of some were curious; those of others graduated toward resentment or suspicion.

“I find,” the
perator
said, “that we lag behind these united worlds in only one characteristic—one which is easily corrected. We are a world divided by ancient borders, national identities that serve only to keep us apart and to fragment our ability to make wise decisions affecting
all Adumar. I am grateful to our visitors from other worlds and their gentle manner of demonstrating this to us.”

“We haven’t demonstrated anything,” Wedge whispered. “We haven’t been able to talk to him.”

“True,” Tomer said, also in hushed tones. “But he’s been absorbing information we’ve passed on to him. Records, histories, encyclopedias.”

“In consultation with the rulers and representatives of other nations,” the
perator
said, “we have come to an agreement that the establishment of a unified world government for Adumar will allow us to interact with outside worlds more effectively, permitting the establishment of trade and exchange of knowledge.”

“This is good,” Tomer whispered. “This is excellent.”

The
perator
drew himself more upright, and his expression turned from cheerful benevolence to a leader’s awareness of history and import. “So,” he said, “on this memorable day, I hereby establish the government of the world of Adumar. With both humility and trepidation I take the reins of command of a united world.” There was a stirring, a growing murmur, from one portion of the audience, but he continued, “This new government will be structured as an outgrowth of the government of Cartann, and will be centered in the city of Cartann to allow for an instantaneous and effective implementation of rule.” He bowed his head in humility.

Portions of the audience applauded. But a riot of noise erupted from one large cluster of the audience—the one, Wedge saw, that was dominated by foreign dignitaries. “Wait!” cried one dignitary. He surged ahead, out of his cluster of crowd and toward the
perator
’s waving his hands, his flared sleeves rippling with all the colors of the rainbow. “There has been no vote—”

“Liar!” That was a shout from a deep-voiced representative wearing muted greens; even his hair and beard
were green. “You cannot unilaterally—” The rest of his shout was drowned out by the rising volume of applause and shouts from elsewhere in the audience.

Not one of these angry declamations was broadcast over the flatscreens on the walls. Wedge supposed that a directional voice pickup was being used so that the
perator
’s words, and only his words, would be broadcast.

Wedge glanced at Tomer. “Is what I think is happening actually taking place here?”

Tomer, confusion on his face, kept his attention on the
perator
and shrugged.

“You know what they call it when one ruler declares a world government and the rest don’t agree?” Wedge asked. He could recognize the anger, the taunting quality, in his own voice. “We get a war of conquest. Lasers and missiles fired on civilian populations.”

“Shut up,” Tomer said.

The
perator
finally raised his eyes to look out over his worldwide audience again, and a gentle smile returned to his lips. “Today is the last day of the old Adumar,” he said. “Prepare yourselves and prepare your children for a new age, a golden age, to follow. Tomorrow we will all be citizens of a new and greater world.” He nodded, and the flatscreens on the wall faded to a neutral gray.