The Empty Warrior (52 page)

The captain finally spoke. “I see you’ve been making productive use of your free time,” she said sarcastically.

“All my time is free,” O’Keefe answered dryly, squinting slightly from the light that poured into his bedroom through the open door.

The captain primly sidled into the room and took a seat in a dressing chair that was pushed into a far corner, while O’Keefe was mildly surprised that a warder did not follow her through the doorway. The absence of one of the mechanical guards was as out of place as the captain’s demeanor. Something momentous was definitely afoot, but O’Keefe’s physical state was having such a negative impact on his brain that the mental calisthenics necessary to attempt to determine the nature of what she was so perturbed about was quite beyond him at the moment. The captain crossed her legs demurely but remained stiffly erect in the chair, still clenching her arms tightly to her body.

“It would seem your presence here has suddenly become more important to the brass hats,” she began. “The High Commissioner of the Union Police has arrived in orbit, and is coming here, to my house, today. And I get the distinct impression she has come for the sole purpose of taking you off my hands. I’m wondering what could possibly have happened to bring about this extraordinary turn of events.” She said no more, but watched O’Keefe intently, seeming to scrutinize his face for any indiscreet expression that might impart more to her than his words.

His first reaction was to gloat, to inform her highness that her superiors were confiding things to him that she knew nothing about. And that those same superiors might very well now consider his oft-denigrated evaluation of the Vazilek threat to be not only germane, but valid. But the warnings from the network had been very explicit, so he fought down the impulse. If he ran his mouth now, even at the last moment, the commissioner might very well turn around and go home leaving him to land alone and in a cell. So he was forced to content himself with only a bitter acerbity. “Well,” he said sourly, “I’ll miss you, too.”

At that the captain relaxed somewhat, loosing the tight grip of her arms around her torso and dropping her hands to her knee where she clasped them with interlocking fingers. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to be inconsiderate.” She paused, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward toward O’Keefe. “But this is
very
unexpected. The highest levels of our government were made well aware of your presence on
Vigilant
long before we arrived here. But until today their only interest in the matter has been to make sure that you remain hidden from the media and isolated from other people. Now suddenly the high commissioner herself has the time to leave her duties and travel all the way to Sefforia, with her only ostensible purpose being to spirit you away. It all seems astonishingly irregular.”

O’Keefe suppressed a smile. “Maybe they’ve decided where to send me,” he said blithely. “Maybe whoever they sent to check out Earth has reported back. Maybe I’m going home.”

“I don’t think you understand,” the captain said firmly, shaking her head. “Commissioner Burkeer is the highest ranking law enforcement official in the Union. She answers only to the High Council and the Legislature. I, being a captain, hold a relatively high rank in the Union Police force; I command an
Incorruptible
class starship, and yet I have never met the woman face-to-face. The commissioner would not be coming here merely to inform you of your future disposition. Any underling, even a drone, could have accomplished that. Are you certain you have no idea what brought this on?”

“Are you crazy? I don’t know a damn thing about anything around here,” O’Keefe lied. “Maybe your commissioner just wants to see a barbarian killer with her own eyes.” He had uttered the remark with as much derision as he was able, yet in an insulting display of Akadean arrogance the captain seemed, for a moment at least, to give it serious consideration. O’Keefe was on the verge of uttering a string of vituperative invective when she spoke up again.

“No, no that can’t be it either. If she were simply curious she would have had you brought to her long ago. There has to be some other reason.”

“Thanks a lot,” O’Keefe spat with a sneer. As usual, it had only taken a few minutes of serious conversation with the captain to raise his ire.

She in turn looked bewildered for a moment before realizing that she had dealt him yet another insult. “Again, my apologies,” she said earnestly. “I do not mean to hurt your feelings, but you really haven’t any idea of the tumult your presence here is causing, do you? You must try to understand that in our society, you are seen as exactly how you just described yourself, as a dangerous barbarian. To us you are a member of the most deadly and menacing population in the known universe. You are a shadowy figure from a forbidden world, the stuff of myth and legend, the embodiment of our deepest fears. The Union has done everything possible to keep your presence here a secret, yet somehow rumors of you and your existence among us have spread across planetary divides in just the few short months since your arrival. So far, the media has treated it as mere hysteria amongst the people, a reaction to the threat posed by the Vazileks. And yet the rumors persist. Did you know that my entire crew and the crews that they have joined are now, in effect, quarantined incommunicado on long missions solely for being unfortunate enough to have gained the knowledge that you do in fact exist?

“And do you know why you are being kept here? Partly it’s because the media would not in a millennia think that an aberrant would be allowed to live in a private residence. They might check out every rehab center in the galaxy to try and verify rumors as portentous as those currently swirling through half the systems in the commonwealth, but they would never think to come out
here
to look for you. But more than that; it’s because I have already been exposed to you. Not only is my home utterly secluded, I’ve already spent time in your presence. As long as only I see you there is no threat of any further contamination. See this?” She held up her arm to display the black bracelet that never left her wrist. “This is a monitoring device. They make me wear this to make sure I don’t say the wrong thing to the wrong people and that I don’t display any ‘behavioral abnormalities’ as a result of my interaction with you. That is how seriously your presence here is being taken, and yet now Burkeer herself is taking the risk of direct contact. I do not understand any of this. It makes no sense at all.”

O’Keefe had listened politely to the captain’s diatribe, but now that she was finally quiet he stretched mightily, reaching for the sky with his arms while arching his back and neck until he could feel his vertebrae popping.

“Well, if that thing really is a monitoring device,” he said as he grimaced from working the kinks from his neck, “I wouldn’t worry about all this too much. If you do, you’re liable to end up being quarantined like all your friends.”

The captain sprang to her feet as if the chair had stung her. She stalked over to the bed and stood indignantly before him, her fists squarely on her hips. “You do know something, don’t you? How is it that
you
,” she spoke the pronoun contemptuously, “know something of this when it comes as a total surprise to me? How is this possible?” She glared at him as if an explanation were her birthright.

But instead of answering O’Keefe rose from the mattress and stood over her frame, forcing her to look up at him. Her glare lost some of its intensity and she unconsciously backed away a tiny step. “My, my,” O’Keefe said through a lascivious grin, “I didn’t know you had such deep feelings for me, Val.”

“What are you talking about?” the captain said scornfully.

“I’m talking about this Commissioner Burkeer coming to take me away from you and you having a fit about it. It seems you care more about what happens to me than you’ve let on.”

“I don’t care one iota what happens to you,” she stammered. “I just…I want to know what is going on in my own home, that’s all.” Her gaze no longer held his, and her arms had assumed their familiar clench beneath her breasts.

“What’s happening is this,” O’Keefe said in a tone that oozed superiority. “Your high commissioner is coming to this house to see
me
, and I need to get cleaned up before she gets here. So I could use a bit of privacy, all right?”

As he finished speaking he ostentatiously tugged at the drawstring of his pajamas with thumb and forefinger, releasing the knot that held them around his waist. Only his tenuous grip on the string kept the silky trousers from falling to his ankles. The captain glowered at him disgustedly for an instant but then pivoted and marched out of the room, the door sliding silently shut behind her.

An hour later O’Keefe was clean, dressed, and with the help of Seldon’s pharmaceutical concoction, more or less totally recovered from his hangover. As he exited his sleeping chamber he was surprised to see that the high commissioner, easily identifiable by the conspicuous, jeweled markings of rank that adorned her gold uniform, had already arrived. She sat chatting with the captain over tea in the common room, the two of them flanked by armed guards. Both women rose as he approached.

“Ah, Mr. O’Keefe,” the commissioner said with what sounded like genuine warmth, “I am Uthelle Burkeer. It is a pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve heard so very much about you.” She walked toward him comfortably and extended her hand, which O’Keefe readily accepted. Her clasp felt strong and dauntless, especially for that of a woman. The commissioner seemed like one of those people who walked through life enfolded in an aura of imperturbable confidence.

O’Keefe’s eyes wandered over her face, evaluating her. She appeared to be in her early to mid-thirties from a purely physical standpoint, and quite pretty aside from the slightly bulbous nose that was a bit large for her angular face. But the easy self-assurance of her smile and her movements, the measured tempo of her words, and the dignity of her carriage all belied the appearance of youth. He suspected her to be his senior by at least half a millennium. O’Keefe had expected as much.

But it abruptly struck him that aside from a light patina of makeup which might very well have been permanently affixed; the high commissioner sported none of the cosmetic alterations that seemed so popular among other Akadeans. Her eyes retained their natural brown color as did her wavy and almost disheveled hair, which she wore short enough to just fall over the lobes of her ears. And aside from the badges of rank, she wore no jewelry whatsoever. She projected the image of an industrious woman who no longer had the time or the inclination to expend the effort on her person that beauty would have demanded. O’Keefe was suddenly certain that she was older, much older, than any Akadean he had previously met.

“You’ll be no doubt pleased to learn that the reconnaissance mission to your Earth has returned,” the commissioner continued, “and that the Vazileks have apparently decided not to proceed with further incursions into your system. Perhaps they view your people with as much trepidation as we do. In any case, we’ll be sending you home in short order, with your legs intact, and with enough precious metals to compensate you many times over for the damage caused to your property by our and the Vazileks’ intrusion.

“A police scout, the
Doughty
, will be arriving in a few days to transport you. In the meantime, I was hoping that you would consent to be my guest at a private resort, here on Sefforia, that I have secured for the duration of my stay. It is my desire to confer with you before your departure concerning matters with which you seem to have intimate familiarity. Will you accept my invitation?”

O’Keefe didn’t believe a word of what the woman had just said. It was as the captain had reasoned; the high commissioner would not have come all the way to Sefforia merely to confer with him for a few days and then see him off to Earth. There were more choices in play here, more cards to be laid on the table.

He looked beyond the commissioner, surveying the two gray clad guards that stood warily behind her. They were more intimidating than any Akadeans he had yet seen. They were not much taller than the norm, the top of their heads rising only to about the level of O’Keefe’s shoulders, but they certainly were in better shape. Even partially obscured by the body armor they wore, their rippling musculature showed clearly through the uniforms beneath. And they were armed to the teeth. From their belts, straps, and bandoliers hung everything from simple night sticks to menacing sidearms so sophisticated that O’Keefe could only guess as to what they fired or how they were operated. Even resting at ease the men appeared dangerous. And despite the visored helmets that hid every facial feature save their thin, impassive lips and tightly held jaws, O’Keefe got the impression that they watched him in the way that wary but confident hunters would watch the unexpected emergence of a dangerous animal from the undergrowth of a jungle. One even slightly aggressive move and they would kill him.