The Risen Empire (34 page)

The Secularists had a simpler plan. They were, as Laurent had put so long ago, simply pro-death. Universal and irrevocable, natural death leveled all members of a society. Of course, the technology of the symbiant could never be uninvented, but its effects could be ameliorated as much as possible. Elevation should be rare, its rejection celebrated. And the Secularists wanted the living to hold as much power as possible; the dead could stay in their gray enclaves and stare at their black walls, but could not use their unanimity and accumulated wealth to steer the course of Empire.

Thus three parties, a clear majority of the Senate, stood against the Emperor, but theirs was a divided opposition.

To bolster her case for increased population, the Expansionist senator showed recordings from the First Incursion. Eighty years before, the Rix had sought to break the Empire's will, to force acceptance of compound minds within all Imperial infostructures. The Incursion had opened with appalling terror attacks. Living cities were ruptured by chaotic gravity beams fired from space, buildings rended as if made of straw, crowds sucked into scrambled piles, in which human forms commingled with metal and plastic and clothing. Gray enclaves were decimated with special munitions, flechette cluster bombs that shredded victims beyond the symbiant's ability to repair. In rural areas not covered by nuclear dampening fields, clean bombs were used to destroy human and animal populations.

Oxham contemplated the images: death enough for anyone.

Perhaps that was the seductive nature of war: it gave all parties what they thought they wanted. Millions of new elevated war heroes for the Utopians, vast population increases for the Expansionists, and plenty of true death for the Secularists. And for the Emperor and Loyalty, a period of unquestioned authority.

The dead sovereign nodded when the Expansionist finally finished. Darkness was falling, and Oxham realized that she hadn't slept for two of Home's long days. The dead needed little sleep—they seemed to drift into an internal world for short, rejuvenating meditations—but the living members of the council looked exhausted.

"I am glad you have chosen to prepare for the worst, Senator."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Any objections?" the sovereign asked. Nara realized that this was it. The whole package of population increases, of childhoods spent in military training, of countless virgin biomes raped, it all came down to a simple vote among a few exhausted men and women. It was all happening too fast.

She cleared her throat.

"Does it not seem to the council that this Rix Incursion is different from the first?"

"Different?" asked a dead general. "It has not yet begun in earnest."

"But the last began so suddenly, with a clear ultimatum, followed by a wave of simultaneous terror attacks on several worlds."

"Hasn't this incursion begun suddenly, too, Senator Oxham?" the Emperor asked. Nara had grown more adept in reading the man; he seemed intrigued.

"As suddenly, but with greater restraint," she began. "Only a single planet was attacked, and no civilian targets were destroyed."

"They accomplished by blackmail what they could not by terror," the dead general answered. "A compound mind, forced upon us by hostage-taking."

Oxham nodded, concealing a look of disgust. Though losing four billion lives, the Empire had never relented in the First Incursion. But when the beloved Empress was threatened, they had let the Rix inside.

"However appalling their choice of targets," she said, "the Cult has shown tremendous focus in their attack. A single world, a single hostage, a limited result."

"But with absolute success," the Emperor said.

"An unrepeatable success, Sire," she finished.

She felt the council recognize the truth of her words. The Rix could hardly take another hostage of the Empress's stature; no one except the Emperor himself would warrant the restraint that Zai had shown.

"Do you think that they'll stop now, Senator?"

"I think, Sire, that they tried to bludgeon us into submission once, and failed. This time, they have decided on a more subtle approach."

She looked around the circle, saw the counselors' attention beginning to focus through their fatigue.

"We don't know what their ultimate plan is," she continued. "But it would be odd for them to begin the war with such a precisely delivered stroke, only to return to the crude terror tactics of the First Incursion."

The dead general narrowed his eyes. "Granted, Senator. As you said, their
subtle
victory is an unrepeatable one. But surely it is also purposeful. They have a viable mind on an Imperial world, and they are moving to communicate with it. They clearly intend to gain some strategic advantage from their occupation of Legis."

"An advantage that could lead to terrors like those of the First Incursion," the Emperor continued the thought. "If they can tap the knowledge of their mind on Legis, they will know us better than they did a century ago."

"Would that they knew our fortitude," Raz imPar Henders said.

"An interesting expression, Senator Henders," the Emperor said. "Perhaps we should demonstrate how great a sacrifice we are willing to make."

"What sacrifice could be greater than the four billion lost in the First Incursion, Sire?" Ax Milnk asked. "The Rix should know us well enough by now."

The Emperor nodded in contemplation, and the council stayed respectfully quiet.

Finally he said, "We shall have to consider that question."

Nara Oxham saw it then in the dead sovereign's thoughts—the hulking shadow of his fear, the strength of his resolution. The Emperor's will had reached an absolute condition. He would do anything to prevent the Rix from communicating with their mind.

If the
Lynx
failed, something awful was going to happen.

EXECUTIVE OFFICER

They met the next time in Hobbes's cabin.

She didn't want this grim rehearsal, sullying her small, private domain. But hers was the cabin on the
Lynx
most similar to Zai's; the same size and shape except that it lacked the captain's skyroom. It was close enough.

The conspirators stood in their positions uncomfortably, mock assassins playing at a game they were still afraid to make real.

"Are you sure you can get us in?" Magus asked her again.

Hobbes nodded. "I've had the captain's codes for months. He sometimes sends me to his cabin if he's forgotten something."

"What if he's changed them?"

"He hasn't," she said flatly. Hobbes wished that Magus would shut up about this. It didn't do for them to examine her claims too closely.

"Trust Hobbes," Thompson said to the third pilot. "She's always had the old man's ear."

The words struck Hobbes with palpable force, a wave of guilt, like some tendril of gravity whipping through her stomach. Gunner Thompson trusted her completely now, and there was more than trust behind his eyes. Her Utopian beauty complicating things again.

She saw the others reacting to Thompson's words, questioning his blind faith. Magus was still far warier of Hobbes than he, and Hu had apparently started to think that this had all been her idea rather than Thompson's. She would have to watch her back.

"Come in, King," Thompson ordered.

Ensign King entered the cabin, a nervous look on his face. His job during the murder would be to block the ship's recording devices; he would be at his communications station. So he was standing in for Captain Zai.

Magus and Hobbes took his arms, exchanging the timid looks of an unsure rehearsal, and pulled him forward carefully. This was during the daily half-hour break from high acceleration—the
Lynx
was under a mercifully steady single gee—but they all still moved with exaggerated care, their bodies conditioned to caution over the last five days.

Thompson crouched in the center of the cabin on the ceremonial mat, a blade of error in his hand. The blade was a gift from his father, he had explained, for his graduation from the academy. What a morbid present, Hobbes thought. She hadn't known Thompson's family was so gray. Indeed, all the conspirators were from conservative families. That was the irony of this situation; mutiny was hardly an Imperial tradition. But of course, it was the grays who were most appalled by Captain Zai's rejection of the blade.

Hobbes and Magus pushed King forward, and Thompson rose to thrust his empty fist into the ensign's stomach. He mimed the crosscut of the blade ritual, and stepped back as King crumpled convincingly to the mat.

The conspirators regarded the still body before them.

"How do we know this'll fool anyone?" Magus complained. "None of us has ever worked in forensics."

"There won't be a full investigation," Thompson said.

"A suicide with no recording? Won't my equipment failure be a little suspicious?" King said, rising from the mat.

"Not under heavy acceleration," Hobbes said. Seven days into the maneuver, systems were failing intermittently throughout the ship. The ship's circuitry was at the bleeding edge of its self-repair capacity. So was the crew's nervous system, Hobbes reckoned. Tempers had grown short. A few times over the last ten hours, she'd wondered if the conspirators would fall to fighting amongst themselves. She had hoped the mutiny would have crumbled under its own weight by now.

"Don't worry," Thompson said. "Any anomalous forensic evidence will be put down to easy gravity effects."

"Even the blood all over your uniform?" Magus said.

"I'll space the damn thing."

"But a thorough investigation—"

"—is at
Captain
Hobbes's discretion," Thompson insisted.

They all looked at her. Again, she felt the weight of the conspiracy upon her. Hobbes wondered when she had become the leader of this mutiny. Was she leading them all further into this than they would have gone if she'd simply ignored Thompson's insinuations? She forced the doubts from her mind. Second thoughts were an exercise in pointlessness. Hobbes was committed now, and had to act the part.

"This will be deemed suicide, officially," she said. "That will be the reasonable and
politically
acceptable interpretation."

They nodded, one by one, agreement a virus spreading through the room. By mentioning the political situation, she had suggested that they were following the Apparatus's implicit wishes. With every utterance, her hands were dirtier.

"So, it's settled," Thompson said. Then, to Magus and Hobbes, "You two can handle Zai?"

"No problem," Magus said. She stood almost two meters tall. Under normal conditions, she alone could easily murder a man of Zai's slight build.

But Captain Zai was integrally part of the
Lynx.
The conspirators couldn't give him time to shout to the ship's AI or work a gestural command. If he had prepared himself for mutiny, defensive orders programmed into his cabin's intelligence could be invoked with a gesture, a syllable. For the plan to work, they all knew, the deed had be done in seconds, and in total surprise.

It was time to press this point.

"He might have time to shout something," Hobbes said. "You'll have to cover his mouth, Thompson."

The gunner looked at her with concern. "While I stab him? I've got to hit him square in the stomach. No one will believe a messy wound."

Magus looked worried. "Maybe Yen Hu?"

The gunner's mate swallowed nervously. He didn't want to be included in the actual violence. Under Thompson's plan, he was supposed to be lookout, to warn them if anyone was with the captain, and to let them know when they could exit the cabin without being seen.

"He needs to stay outside," Thompson said. "You do it, Hobbes. Just hit him in the mouth."

"I've got to keep a hold on his hands," Hobbes argued. "You've seen how fast he works airscreens. He could send an alert with one finger."

"Maybe we should just knock him out," Magus suggested.

"Forget it," Hobbes said. "The Adept is bound to notice any trauma to his head. The politicals will at least take a look at him."

They were silent for a moment. Hobbes watched their unsurety rise as they cast glances at one another. However many times they had all fired weapons in anger, the physical nature of a murder by hand was dawning on them. Maybe this would be the moment the conspirators would come to their senses.

"I'll take the risk. Let's knock him out," Thompson said. Magus nodded.

Hobbes sighed inwardly. They were set on their course.

"No," she said flatly. "I'm the one who has to cover this up. I say we need another person."

Hobbes watched Thompson carefully. Her reason for continuing this far—besides the hope that the conspirators might relent, and redeem themselves to some small extent—was to flush out any unknown mutineers.

She saw Thompson start to speak, but he swallowed the words. He was definitely hiding something, still keeping someone in reserve. Perhaps he had plans for Hobbes herself after the ship fell into her hands.

The thought chilled Hobbes, steeling her will.

"I know someone," she said. "He's quick and strong."

"You can trust him?"

"I don't want anyone else—" Magus protested.

"He's with us already," Hobbes interrupted. She looked coolly into the stunned faces. "He came to me, wondering if there was anything he could do."

Thompson shook his head, on the edge of disbelief.

"You think you're the only ones who don't want to die?" she asked.

"He just came to you?" Thompson asked. "Suggesting a mutiny?"

She nodded. "I'm the executive officer."

"Who is it, Hobbes?"

"A marine private." No sense giving them a name; they'd have time to check her story.

"A grunt?" Magus cried. Daren King looked appalled. They were both from solid Navy families.

"As I said, he's fast. In hand-to-hand, he could take us all."

"Do you trust him?" Thompson asked, narrowing his eyes as he watched her reaction.

"Absolutely," she answered.

That much, at least, was true.