The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) (13 page)

Athena watched the faces in the People's Galleries.  She decided: 
302 - 275. 
When the Carried vote was announced, the galleries exploded with applause.  Athena smiled. 

With the conclusion of the session, the chamber-lord's gavel pounded and the members filed from the benches.  Athena returned to the elevator, descending to the basement.  When the doors opened, guards equipped with the latest automatic rifles snapped to attention.  Athena twirled her parasol and shuffled past into the expansive, low-ceilinged, windowless room.  Thought the furnishings were spare, it was illuminated with the most modern electric lighting system. 

The men and women working at tables amid the charts and maps pretended to ignore her, but she sensed their unease by way of the drop in conversation, the slowing of the clacking of the mechanical calculating machines, the delay between when a pneumatic tube hissed and when the message container was extracted.

They know
, she thought. 

Athena could walk the streets of the city unrecognized and was known to high society merely as heir to a modest fortune and wife to a promising officer, but in this room were clerks who had been there since the days of Artemis and had spoken to clerks who had been there in the days of Astrid.  Through muted gossip the rest all knew:  that there was a power behind the Peacock Throne, and it was more than human.       

In the center of the room, surrounded by scribes poised at writing podiums, stood a man with tightly trimmed hair and razor-creased clothes, blinking through rimless glasses.  Isak Mavan, Senior Technocrat of the Imperial Republic, bowed to the one person in the realm to whom he would ever need bow. 

Athena started to address him, but then noticed the far better dressed man at his side. 

“What are you doing here?” Athena demanded.

“I, uh, was wondering about the Rinthian vote,” the Prime Minister mumbled.  “I'm about to go to the reception and, uh, people will ask questions.”

“Say that it is a great victory for human rights.”

“But it's, uh, kind of a turnabout from the official position of the government, is it not?  I thought we weren't giving the Rinthians their rights.  You know, Republic for us, Imperium for everyone else.  That's always been the slogan, you know.”

“I've no time for rhetorical parsing.  That's your job.  Now go mingle at the Queen's reception and leave us to work.”

Seeing the cold stares, the PM muttered, “Sorry for the disruption.”

Athena shouted as he exited:  “Mind your posture!”  She eyed Mavan and scowled.  “Why does everyone slouch these days?”

With a bemused smile, Mavan replied, “He was standing fine until you arrived.  I assume he was adopting what he thought was a pose of submission.”

“You stand straight in my presence.  Am I to interpret that as lack of submission?”

“No one fears you more than I.  Yet I know that groveling irritates you, and you prefer results as a evocation of obedience.”

She'd heard people claim their dogs were as smart as they.  Sometimes she felt that way around Mavan.  Despite his relative youth – less than half a century in Earth years – he had manifested remarkable wisdom during his tenure as her right-hand man.  He would make an excellent Governor for the Human Reservation. 

“I'm curious about the Rinthian Situation myself,” Mavan said.  “Have you become their champion?”

“I am no one's champion.  Yet the idealists need their symbolic victories.  If they become disillusioned, we risk rebellion.  If we let them believe that social progress is being made, however slow, they will remain loyal to the imperial system.”

He looked relieved.  “I have so much to learn from you.”

“Enough prattle about political theater.  You spoke of results.  Show me the deciyear figures.”

Mavan set out the binders packed with the most recent charts.  Athena flipped through the pages, needing only a glance to memorize.  She thought back to the monthly budget reviews during her days as a departmental head at the Star Seed Project.  With the passing of centuries, the presentations had regressed from computer-generated graphics to hand-inked sheets of paper.  She did not mind the transition.  To her, numbers were the essence and the graphics had often gotten in the way of what the mind could conceive on its own.

And in her mind, she converted numbers into narrative. 

Despite the massive diversions of capital, the imperial economy was still growing.  New trade ties with Pindor, the completion of the coastal railway on Amara, a record harvest from the plantations of Rinth – all the figures were up.  That was comforting, yet not enough to completely put her at ease. 

As fast as Pavonia grew, reports from her spies indicated that the Forjvisian economy was growing even faster.  The problem, she surmised, was that as quickly as she could introduce a piece of Earth technology into the Pavonian economy,
their
spies introduced it into the Forjvisian economy.  She could see the time was soon coming when  in order to keep a technological lead, she would have to provide electrification to the streets of Victoriana, forever ruining her view of the stars at night.  Then would come automobiles, forever ruining the city's tranquility.  Why was pre-Singularity industrial technology so polluting, so resource-sapping?

Perhaps it would be best just to have it out with the Forjvisians as soon as possible.  In the back of her mind as she scanned the budget figures, she tallied profits and losses and contemplated the cost of war.        

She scribbled revisions with her red pencil.  The room quieted.  Well, right they were to be concerned.  Budgets would be shifting because times were changing.  The long-prophesied Star Child was on his way – assuming that annoying emulator didn't botch its assignment.

Mavan observed:  “You've raised the budget on Project Zeus
again
.  Where are we to find the money?”

“Out of thin air, of course.  You still don't understand the principles of central banking?”

“I do, though the level of duplicity numbs my mind.  My concern is we're already risking heavy price inflation with a credit expansion to finance the naval construction program.”

“We'll schedule a contraction next cycle.  For now we need both a bigger fleet
and
Zeus.”

“I understand that our military expenditures are a response to those of Forjvis, but someday, please explain the necessity of Zeus.”

Athena smiled. “Someday.”

She wondered how Mavan would react if she said it was not the Republic that needed Zeus, but that Zeus needed the Republic – that the Republic existed to financially support Zeus.

Finished with the reallocations, Athena checked her pocket watch.  “I have an appointment.”

Without ceremony, she exited the control center and took the narrow passage to her office.  The sole occupant wore a dress uniform that was not as well-cut as Asterdon's, but bore the kind of medals and ribbons one received for actually shooting and being shot at.  Captain Kliev Dathar of the Imperial Aerial Navy was examining the map that spanned the wall behind her desk, tracing with his finger the gray shading that encircled the Amero Archipelago.  Thus immersed, he spared her entry only a glance. 

“Tell me,” he asked.  “Why is there a Barrier?”

She shrugged nonchalantly.  “What makes you think that I would know?”

“If there is anyone who can account for herds of aerial leviathans the size of dreadnaughts, it is you.  I wouldn't be surprised to know that you are in some way connected to the Barrier.”

“The Storm Barrier has been around for decades.  How old do you think I am?”

“There are those that say that you bear too remarkable a resemblance to your Aunts Artemis and Astrid, so much so that you are in fact the continuation of them.”

“What a bizarre notion!”

“Well, they were both prominent women who were remarkably well preserved into late middle age, yet fell ill and went into seclusion and died, just as their far younger doppelgangers arrive from an elite boarding school whose location is unknown and which no one else seems to have attended.  The debutantes are introduced to capital society upon the demise of their elders to take virtually the same social position – “

She laughed.  “You've read that silly man's book!”

“I do know that at least one part isn't so silly.  It does seem you own half the city and I for one know of your political influence.  And doesn't our very location speak of your veiled power?  I know of no other private citizen who has an office in Government House.”

“That deranged writer vastly overestimates my familial wealth, and I serve the government merely as a consultant.  I was speaking, though, of his outrageous conjectures against my person.  The man all but accuses me of witchcraft.  That I'm so antique, that I was the model for Victoriana Personified!  I'm debating whether to sue him for libel.”

“For taking you to be a goddess?” 

“I am not a goddess.”  The burden of centuries added:  “I surely do not feel like one.”

“Well, my dear, you surely look like one.  And the statue does have your eyes.”

“These, you say?”

She approached and looked up inquisitively.  He bent his head and they kissed. 

“I've missed you, darling,” she whispered. 

“And I you, dearest,” he whispered back.  “But you haven't answered my question about the Barrier.”

Athena extracted herself from his embrace and became businesslike once more. 

“'What have I to do with it?'” she replied.  “Nothing.  Why would I enclose myself?”

“You're saying it was created to contain you?”

She swatted lightly.  “You're hopeless!” 

His demeanor changed to pleading.  “Athena, let me command 
Nemesis
.”

She plopped into her chair.  “Not that again!”

“There's nothing I'd rather do!  Why, the first ship to cross over!  Seven-eighths of the world, open to conquest!”

You have no idea what a small thing that is
. “There's no guarantee that even
Nemesis
can breach the Barrier.  Besides, I have other plans for you.”

“What then?”

She glanced at the top desk drawer, in which was her draft for Asterdon's obituary.  The sniper had already received half payment.  After a suitable period of grieving for Asterdon (and, oh yes,
Dathar
's current wife), she and the Captain could announce their engagement . . . having been married so often before, she wondered how a marriage for love would be different. 

That, however, was placing cart before horse.  As Father would often say was the key to success in life, she had to maneuver her target into thinking her idea was his.  For that, she had to know the real Kliev.  

“Never mind the future.  I've been waiting days to hear in private.  Tell of your visit to Klun.”

“I filed the report with Admiralty, and I know you have access to all their secrets.  So again, tell me why I can't – “

“I want to hear the report in your own words.  For example, what of the people?  Are they genuinely fanatics?”

“Hardly.  Archbishop Kantel is a boozy bowl of corruption.  Horbin, his secretary, runs the Abbey behind the scenes, and is quite competent but cares only for power.  As I said in the report, the monks are trained in the use of the radio and I am confident the Abbey administration will fully cooperate in apprehending the . . . are we actually calling him the 'Star Child?'”

“You can call him 'Matt' if you wish.”

“I once had my mouth washed out by my devout mother for taking that name in vain.  Yet you say he is only human.  Why all these precautions?”

“He's full of tricks.  Both wizards are.”

“The archbishop says the other one hasn't been any problem at all.  Just sits there in the dungeon, staring blankly at the wall.  Follows if you pull at him.  Put food in front of him, he eats.  Put the bucket in front of him, handles his bodily functions on his own.  Otherwise, just a blank.  Such is the founder of their religion!”

“Don't be so quick to scoff, Kliev.  He's been that way for a hundred years, barely aging.  Doesn't that give you pause?”

“Sleepwalking through one's bowel movements falls short of my expectations for wizardly deeds.”

“I suppose.  Now is that your full report?  Everything?  Nothing to add?”

“Nothing.”

Athena watched closely.  She could plainly see the micro-reactions:  the twitch of the cheek, the averting of the eyes, the flick of the tongue on the lips. 

“There is something else.”

“No, nothing.”

She locked on his eyes.  “Something is troubling you.  Tell me.”

Darkest suspicion arose.  Few knew that the dungeon beneath the abbey of Klun was where the Elder Wizard was incarcerated.  The whole world, however, knew that Klun was notorious for something else.  Suddenly she felt cold.  She could instantly see the prospect of marriage receding.  How foolish of her ever to think that a baseline male could be trusted with her heart!

“Athena, there really is nothing – “