Requiem for the Conqueror

Chapter 12

So cold. So black. Veteran of a thousand battles, fear ran bright along Staffa's spine as he floated through the stygian sewer. His flaiing hand slipped off a rung as cold panic gripped him. Better to have let them kill him with the collar than to die in here. Something smooth and rubbery — like skin — slid against his chest and his face popped out into air. His head at the top of the bubble, sewage rippled around his chin. Not much room — and someone else was taking most of it.

"Scared hell out of me!" a woman's voice told him in the wretched air. She coughed. "Brak, that you?"

"They're worried about you. What's the problem?"

"There's a body blocking the outlet. I… tried. Couldn't pull it loose. Ran out of air. This stuff just leaves me weaker." She coughed again as his own throat began to bum from the gas. Worse, she'd used up almost all of the oxygen in this pocket.

"How far?" Staffa asked, trying to fill his lungs with the stink.

"Five meters. maybe six."

He ducked past her body and hurried along in the blackness. Like working in vacuum, he decided, and the horror and panic receded. His momentum carried him into soft spongy flesh. Cloth still surrounded the body. He grabbed a handful and found one of the rungs. With all his might, he pulled back, feeling his lungs strain. Something soft came out of the blackness and bounced off his face as he pulled. He could feel other things slipping over his flesh as they were carried past by the movement of the water.

Grunting, he felt the body give. Water began to rush past, dragging ever harder at his burden. Despite the gurgle and

surge racing by his ears, he could hear his heart — the blood pounding in his ears. His burning, gas-scorched lungs heaved, wanting to cough.

He braced himself and hooked a leg around the corpse so he could reach another rung and get that much more leverage. Water rushed faster as his strength began to fail and his heaving lungs started to spasm.

If he could get up one more rung, how long would it take before the air pocket extended to him? His fingertips slipped off the slimy metal. Fear gave him one last chance. Got it And he pulled himself against the weight of the water and the turning, twisting corpse.

By grim determination he held on, bits of vile material pattering his skin. The chill stole the warmth from his body. Fire flared in his lungs as they sucked at the bottom of his throat.

Water swirled around his hair, dropping rapidly in a bubbling gurgle. His head broke clear and he raised his mouth to gasp in the fetid stink. Sewage bitter on his tongue, he spit, feeling fouled and filthy. A faint glow behind him illuminated the scaly roof above his face. A stir of fresh air reached him just before he gagged and vomited into the black swirling current.

As the waters fell, he looked back to see his gruesome burden, a young woman, flesh puffed ghastly white, hair twining blackly with the refuse of the palace. Grasping her robe, he pulled her back up the tunnel.

Kaylla still clung to her rung, panting as she hacked and coughed. Staffa got a glance of hair plastered blackly to her skull as she turned and looked, eyes large in the faint light. Her wet face shone in the gloom.

"Thought the Rotted Gods were gonna be chewing on my soul real soon," she rasped. "You weren't any too quick, friend. I owe you."

"Call me Tuff," he told her as he shivered and shook with exhaustion. How much could happen in a single day? How long had it been since he'd stepped off the CV?

He remembered Skyla's skepticism and closed his eyes while filth trickled down his pale flesh. Dear Skyla, she'd tried so hard to help. Would he ever see her again? At the thought that he might not, a wretchedness filled him.

"Let's get out of here," he growled, unnerved by what he'd been through.

"Got that right Tuff." She slogged her way ahead as the water fell to their waists. Staffa towed the limp, cavorting corpse behind him as he pulled his way along the rungs. "This the sort of thing that happens all the time?"

He could see the grating behind him now. The dead girl's body had blocked it, her thick robe making an effective plug.

Kaylla shook her head. "Nope. Mostly it's boring, backbreaking labor. Things like roadwork, picking up trash around the public buildings, cleaning up storm damage. We were supposed to go to the desert this morning to lay pipe. The other crew had casualties."

Ahead, light showed. Splashing and cursing, they made their way to the inspection hole. Kaylla helped Staffa lift the body so the two slaves above could pull it out.

He boosted her up first and then pulled himself out — only to realize his cloth wrap had disappeared, lost somewhere in the sewer. Bits of fecal material and other filth clung to his flesh. He fought the urge to vomit again, his very soul feeling sullied.

"Huh," Anglo was saying. "Another Priestess. Young one. Couldn't take it."

"Why do they do it?" Morlai wondered.

"Can't take the consecration, probably. The hard sell that they're giving of the Blessed Gods doesn't take. Some client says something about them. I don't know."

Staffa glanced up and found himself under Kaylla's careful scrutiny. A frown etched her brow as she studied him, reservation in her eyes.

She looked trim and healthy, with no fat on her muscular body. But then maybe slaves at the bottom of Etarian society weren't allowed fat. Her hair wasn't black but apparently brown and cut shoulder length. Her facial features might not have been those of incredible beauty, but she wasn't bad to look at either. She had a slightly crooked nose and a square jaw. Her face had been graced with high cheekbones, a generous mouth, and fiery tan eyes. Her breasts were small and high over a slim tapering waist that led to long firm legs. Her expression remained grim, full mouth pinched — a look of animal wariness in the squint of

those hard eyes. She leaned against the wall, gooseflesh rising in the chill air.

"Kaylla, take Tuff to the corner, there, and hose off; you smell like shit," Anglo ordered, and Staffa saw her tense, the wariness intensifying.

He got to his feet and followed her, noticing the coiled anger in her movements. She said nothing as she turned on the tap and let it run over her body, awkwardly trying to scrub herself with one hand and hold the hose with the other.

Staffa took it from her and doused her liberally. He even found a bar of soap on a sink corner. She lathered and soaped while he hosed himself down, aware of his wretched odor. She rinsed him after he'd used the rest of the soap bar. He even washed his mouth out and spit, watching the water trickling back to the drain and shivering.

"Come on!" Morlai called. "We've got a full day yet."

"You going like that?" Kaylla asked, tone wry as she stepped into a loose garment.

"Lost my kilt in the sewer," Staffa admitted with a slight shrug.

She ripped a long section of hem off, leaving her legs exposed to above the knee.

"I owe you," Staffa told her as he tied it into a breechclout.

"Don't mention it," she said wearily. "I do that for all the guys who pull me out of the sewer. I keep remembering that Priestess' face. If you'd been a little slower…"

"We'd both have been there," Staffa added as they climbed into the back of the warden's battered aircar.

"What now, Morlai?" Kaylla slumped into the seat and closed her eyes as the vehicle hummed and rose.

"Pipe laying equipment west of the city is down. We go string pipe. That ought to make your backs crack. We'll sweat the fat out of you yet, Kaylla."

"Thank God," she whispered softly.

"Thank God? For hard labor?" Staffa studied her from the corner of his eye.

She glanced at him, tan eyes holding his for an instant before they flicked away. Her voice came as a low murmur almost lost in the wind. "Yeah, anything to keep out of that bastard Anglo's bed."

Staffa glanced out at the city they passed to avoid her haunted expression. The hot dry air sucked his sweat away before it could form. "How did you

get here? You don't sound or act like a slave."

She gave him a bitter smile. "No, I suppose not. Once, in what seems an eternity ago, I was the First Lady of a planet called Maika. I ruled with my husband. Tybalt valued our world more than our treaty. He hired that pus-spawned Star Butcher, and the rest is history."

Is there no one I haven't ruined? Is my legacy truly as the Praetor said? Does everyone curse my name?

"I had heard that all the governmental leaders had been killed," Staffa said woodenly. He remembered Maika. They'd executed the Maikan leaders in the main cathedral. He remembered the First Lady, a shy thing, broken and bawling as they blew her head off with a pulse pistol.

Oh, yes, remember them all, Staffa. Remember, we laughed as we killed them. Hear the jokes in your damned ears? No wonder the shades haunt your horror-filled nightmares. And what if this is only my beginning?

She shrugged. "My maid died in my place. When his troops had ceased raping me, they sold me. A broker bought me and I ended up here. Had a nice household to work in until the landlord jumped me one night. Maybe I was tired of rape. I killed him and wound up here. Now Anglo rapes me every night and can't convince myself to die simply for the pleasure of killing him, too." She paused, her mouth gone into that hard pinch, the lines about her eyes deepening.

"And all this is the fault of the Companions?" He raised an eyebrow, a tingle of loneliness growing in his breast.

She snickered sarcastically. "That water we just crawled out of is Myklenian honey compared to the foulness that runs in their pus-choked veins. Them and Tybalt."

Staffa lowered his gaze at the hatred in her contralto voice. Why did this woman's words sting so? Maybe because she'd had the guts to crawl into that sewer. And I put her here?

She remained silent as the car swept them beyond the square buildings on the outskirts and into the open fields of the fanning community: Square plots of green tied to the

oasis of water. Ahead, on the horizon, he could see the glare from the fabled white sands of Etaria.

Perhaps there is justice in the universe, Staffa thought bitterly. He glanced up at the sun where it blazed out of a brassy sky and he sat in silence, soul as desolate as the endless sands they now flew over. The heat beat down unmercifully.

They crossed a line of sief dunes and dropped in a whirlwind of blowing sand beside a ditching crew. A hovercraft could be seen skimming in from the north, a long load of pipe dangling below it.

"Out," Morlai muttered.

Staffa winced as the sand burned into his raw feet. Kaylla had no such trouble; her bronzed legs and callused feet seemed inured to the terrain. Staffa could feel his white flesh turning red.

"Morlai! About time." A redheaded officer walked out from under a tarp. "What took you?"

"Picked up a new man and had a plugged sewer."

The redhead put a hand on Moa's shoulder. "Glad you finally made it. Have your people load the bodies. Cave-in this morning. Took half an hour to bank the sand and dig them out."

Six corpses, five men and one woman, lay bloating in the hot sun. Staffa followed Kaylla's lead as she bent to pick up the first one's feet. One by one they carried them to the aircar.

"Must have been deep in the trench," she told him, grunting.

"How's that?" Staffa asked, slinging the third body into the aircar.

"If it's shallow," she told him blandly, "they blow out a pocket and bury them. If it's deep, they pull tem out to clean up the trench. Morlai will kick them overboard halfway back to town."

"You seem unconcerned. It could be us next time." He bent to pick up the last.

"Might," she agreed. "Incidentally, this guy we're carrying was the Maikan ambassador to Tybalt. How's that for justice?"

Staffa looked into the sand-packed features of the man.

A curious foreboding began to corrode his self confidence. Death came so easily among slaves.

"Then he's one you can't blame on the Lord Commander," Staffa muttered as

he followed her back to the shade of the tarp while Moriai talked to the redhead.

She gave him a shrug. "Maybe not," she sighed, "but if I could have any wish, I'd like to see him here in this pain and heat and filth."

Perhaps you have more of God's ear than you know, Kaylla.

That night, looking up at the star-shot heavens, he saw a ship move into orbit and remembered Kaylla's words. The stars mocked him in the desert silence. He rolled over on the sleeping mat they'd given him and curled into a fetal ball. His last exhausted thoughts lingered on Skyla and how the light gleamed in her ice-blond hair.

The ghosts, the shades of the restless dead, didn't come until later. Terror brought him bolt upright in the sand. Blinking, he looked around, skin prickling as if ten thousand eyes stared in hatred.

Gasping in deep breaths, he realized that only Kaylla watched him, her eyes slitted where she lay in a hollowed spot several meters away.

Pinching his eyes shut, he settled himself again. Damnation by the dead — horrid as it was — weighed less than the hatred of the living. The dead had ceased to feel.

In the swirling midst of assaults and flanking fire, the Rebels died or fell screaming; but for the most part they ghosted away, scaling the mountain, taking bone-breaking paths down the rocks by sneaking past the Regan fire control positions and vanishing into the night. And at last, Sinklar ringed the remaining Targan core and demanded their surrender, his net drawn closed.

Dust and smoke burned the morning sun blood red. Sinklar squinted down toward where the last of the broken Rebel force had fled, trailing wounded and dead off into the smoke-purpled shadows west of the pass. The scenic setting had been sundered. The rough country off to the west look oddly pastoral compared to the devastation

wrought in his immediate vicinity. None of the pines remained. The brush had been scorched to ash. The rock had been scrubbed by blaster bolts and gravity disruption. The very earth had been churned.

He pulled his flask from his hip and tipped it so the last drops of energy-rich drink dribbled onto his hot dry tongue.

"Shiksta?" he rasped, vocal cords strained from the orders he'd bellowed during the heat of the fray.

"Here, Sink." That brief statement carried an incredible eloquence of exhaustion and strain and drained emotion.

"Did you get Kaspa? Did you raise headquarters?" Sinklar settled himself on a blaster-cracked rock, hardly aware of the heat radiating into his battle armor. Below him, Gretta followed her people as they combed the rocks for wounded or stunned Rebels. The blasters occasionally crackled in the still dusty air. Or, on rarer occasions, some dazed Rebel got prodded to his feet to be sent staggering under guard toward the perimeter to join the two hundred and some captives.

"Got them Sink. Somebody's confused. I can't get Division first Atkin. They keep wanting to transfer me to Second Division instead."

"Rot them all! We've got wounded to evacuate! Sinklar shouted into the morning air. "We've got over two hundred prisoners!"

"I know that, sir. I told them. They said they'd send a couple of LCs out." Shiksta's voice had gone dull, too tired to care if his sergeant raged at him.

"A couple of LCs?" Sink's anger deflated into despair. He dropped his head in his hands and rubbed his gritty grime-smudged face. A couple of silly LCs? He needed a thrice-cursed squad! How long since he'd slept? His belly thundered with hunger. His head hammered with a sudden ache behind his swollen eyes.

He must have dozed because Gretta's hand on his shoulder brought him wide awake, blinking and starting in the bright morning light.

"You all right?" she asked as she took his hands in hers. Her blue eyes looked pale and haggard in the sunlight.

He nodded numbly. "Tired."

"LCs are here. Mac put the wounded on the first and loaded a batch of prisoners on the second. They called for

more to complete the evacuation." Her expression soured. "They want you in Kaspa — soonest."

He sighed, wondering if the odor of smoke and death would leave a permanent taste in his mouth. On a sudden impulse he asked, "Want a chance at a hot bath, clean armor, and maybe a night on a real sleeping platform?"

"Thought you'd never ask!"

They slept during the flight into Kaspa.

Sink supervised the unloading of the wounded before he and Gretta stepped out into the bright Kaspan sunlight. The LC had set them down in front of the same hospital Sinklar had stepped out of, how long ago? Could it truly have been only a matter of weeks?

Gretta came to stand beside him, and only then did he realize she was weaving on her feet. Her brown hair looked ratty and disheveled. Her armor had been smudged and scorched. In places the ablative material flaked off like scale. When she looked at him, her features were haggard, those marvelous blue eyes eclipsed with red.

Two corporals approached at a trot. "Sergeant Fist?" one chirped, snapping a salute. "Would you accompany us, sir?"

"Can I clean up?" he asked, looking down at his charcoal-and-blood streaked armor. The stuff had stiffened into an unforgiving hull from relentless impacts. His stink of sweat, gore, and fire stung even his own inured nose.

"I'm sorry, sir. First Mykroffs orders, sir," the corporal added stiffly.

"Mykroft? What's he got to do with this? Atkin's my—"

"Division First Atkin is dead, sir. Has been for over a week." The corporal's black eyes narrowed skeptically.

"Why didn't anyone tell us?" Sinklar wondered. No wonder we couldn't get supplies, couldn't get our wounded evacuated. Somebody's gonna pay for that.

"All right, let's go," Sinklar grunted, keeping his fuming anger banked. Atkin dead a week? With no replacement? What sort of political tail-chasing was going on anyway?

"I'll find a place for us," Gretta promised as they said good-bye.

Sinklar followed his escort across the compound. When he entered the main building, noncoms stopped and gawked at his battered uniform and hard eyes before whispering behind their hands. News of the fight must have already

rippled through the superstructure. But then, considering their isolation, he might have just fought a minor skirmish compared to what was happening around the rest of the planet.

They stopped outside a plush top-floor office and Sinklar heard his name announced. A Staff Fourth appeared at the door and took his salute with a "This way, Sergeant" and a motion.

He followed the man across thick pile carpet to an inner door and past a corps of secretaries bent over their comm sets. An ornate door opened into the inner sanctum. Sink stepped into a grandly furnished room the likes of which he'd never seen.

Second Targan Assault Division First Mykroft waved off Sink's nervous salute. Mykroft had a dapper build, his frame slight and bony despite the padded uniform. Thinfaced, with pursed lips, he stood stiffly, long nose quivering, eyes hostile. He wore a trimmed mustache and his face— despite medical regeneration treatment — was beginning to show age. That made him old, perhaps two hundred?

"Sergeant Fist," Mykroft greeted, unwilling to shake hands. Battlefields were dirty places at best. And I'd soil the First's manicured hands.

"Yes, sir." Sinklar kept himself at attention, eyes forward. An uneasy fear built to dwarf last night's. Rotted Gods, he was tired. He tried to keep from swaying on his feet.

"Drink?" Mykroft asked.

"No, sir. Thank you, sir. I'm afraid it would put me to sleep on my feet, sir."

The corner of Mykroft's mouth twitched as if he fought a smile. "A cup of stassa then?"

"That would be fine, sir." Sinklar let his eyes wander ever so slightly so he could catalog the room. Very nice! From the pictures on the wall, it had been a mining company headquarters once. Now he knew how a First lived— offices, all plush and gleaming metal, the windows overlooking the mountains to the west. Sinklar noted the column of smoke rising in the peaks to the west. With a shock, he realized it marked his battlefield.

"Yes," Mykroft observed as he handed him the stassa.

"We watched last night. Considering the distance, you made a remarkable display."

"It was impressive up close, too, I assure you," Sinklar said flippantly. Rotted Gods! I am tired. Watch your mouth, Sink. This is a spider's web.

I don't understand Mykroft's kind of politics. He took a deep breath, steeling himself.

First Mykroft laughed and settled himself on the corner of his desk. "At ease, Sergeant. This isn't any sort of a disciplinary meeting or inquest. So speak your mind freely."

Freely? I'm no fool First Mykroft. What's your motive? Why am I here?

Sinklar studied the First, knowing his bloodshot eyes and soot-blackened face must give his features a macabre look.

"With your permission, sir, what happened to First Atkin?"

"He was assassinated Sergeant. It happened in the middle of the night. Both Atkin and Second Nytan were brutally murdered — knifed in their sleep. Nytan's aide slept through the whole thing. It was done silently, effectively. We've only a vague clue as to who the assailants were. A dark-skinned man and a woman with yellow eyes."

Mykroft walked to the window, fingering his chin. "You can understand why we didn't make much of the news. The Targans, of course, attempted to demoralize our troops. And the intelligence information stolen by the assassins led directly to the attacks which decimated Third and fifth Sections — and to the attack which you seem to have repulsed so admirably last night."

He turned, piercing eyes on Sinklar's. "Tell me Sergeant, how did you manage? From the latest figures, you took two hundred and thirty-seven captives, killed another three hundred and sixty Targans. and lost how many men?" He raised an eyebrow.

Taking a deep breath, Sinklar supplied, "We have sixtythree wounded and twenty-one dead, sir." It made him wince, almost half his force.

Mykroft nodded thoughtfully. "Orbital reconnaissance is studying the fleeing groups of Rebels now. They seem completely dispirited. I must say, Sergeant, you have achieved a most amazing victory."

"Thank you, sir." Sinklar sipped the stassa, feeling its

warmth stealing through his body, perking up his nerves. "We used topography to our benefit."

"Your troops did very well, Sergeant. They were green two weeks ago." A pause. "Luck?"

"No, sir. Two weeks of constant combat does have a certain steadying effect, sir. We also ran training seminars during the day whenever we felt we had a modicum of security. It was my. Well, I must admit, sir, we made it up as we went."

Mykroft pursed his lips, trimmed mustache sticking out at an odd angle. "I see. Not exactly in the manual is it?"

"No, sir."

"But results do speak for themselves," Mykroft added, a thin eyebrow arching.

"If you say so, sir."

Mykroft studied him through slitted eyes. "At this juncture, let me tell you we have received most unusual orders, Sergeant Fist. I have been given the discretion — by the Emperor himself — to pick the successor to command the First Targan Assault Division. It is a token of the Imperial Seventh's concern that he is taking extraordinary measures such as these. He wants a man promoted from the ranks. Do you understand the. ramifications of such an appointment?"

Sinklar blinked, breath catching in his throat. "Rotted Gods, sir, half the command structure would feel themselves slighted!"

Mykroft nodded and poured himself a snifter of Myklenian brandy. "You are indeed as perceptive as your personnel file suggests, Sergeant. I can see that a major mistake was made when University declined your admittance and the Minister of Defense opted to simply draft you as a private rather than training you to be an officer. Perhaps we can remedy that situation."

"Sir?" The implications blew coolly through his mind. All my goals, simply dropped into my hand like a gift? Beware, this is more than it seems. Where is the trap? How am I to be sacrificed?

Mykroft settled on the corner of the Vermiion blackwood desk and sipped his brandy. "Sergeant, know that I myself do not approve. I believe in the chain of command rising

within the traditions of the service. Continuity is maintained that way."

"Yes, sir."

"But I don't have any choice." Mykroft's disgust invaded his voice. "The

Emperor, in his wisdom, and for his own reasons, has adopted this plan of promotion. It will turn most of the command structure on its ear. Jealousies will rage. Every sort of back-stabbing, accusation, and recrimination will result," he waved his irritation, "and I'm not sure the Empire can afford that at the moment."

Sinklar's fingers tightened on the stassa cup.

Mykroft read his reaction and allowed himself a cynical smile. "And who, among the command grade officers in the First Targan Assault Division would you recommend for that command, Sergeant Fist?"

Careful! This must be done very delicately.

Sinklar took a deep breath and set the cup on the desk. He moved his tongue to dampen his suddenly dry mouth, exhaled, and nodded. "First Mykroft, I am not in a position to judge my counterparts for either command competence or political ability. I can't make an evaluation, and, therefore, must abstain from offering advice."

"Very good Sergeant." Mykroft's eyes narrowed as he thought for a minute and sipped his brandy. "You know, for your considerable youth and ineperience, Sinklar, you would make a formidable adversary given a couple of decades of involvement in this business. You have a natural acumen."

Sinklar said nothing.

Mykroft cocked his head. "If I had any doubt before, Sergeant, I think it just vanished." He stood and paced across the deeply piled rug, dark gaze rising to Sinklar's. "I hope you understand my reservations concerning this. I don't have to like it, but I will obey orders." His voice lowered menacingly, "And I suggest, Sinklar Fist, that you remember who put you in this position. I would not like to be the one to cut you off at the knees and destroy you. It would reflect on my judgment. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Mykroft studied him hostilely, moving his head in slow assent. "See that you do Division First."

Gretta had rented a small room in one of the barracks

reserved for personnel in transit. The room consisted of a sleeping platform, toilet and shower, comm terminal and small work desk. Despite being baffled by the sudden change in his status, Sinklar had fallen asleep halfway through his description of the meeting with Mykroft.

When Gretta stirred, he jerked awake, half expecting battle to be raging around him. Only when he realized he was safely in the Kaspan barracks, did he slump back onto the platform and sigh.

"I don't understand it," Gretta told him as she stretched lithely on the sleeping platform. "It's all too fast — too unbelievable."

Sinklar blinked to clear his eyes. The dim glow through the window meant night had fallen. He looked at his chronometer and yawned. Two hours to the reception ceremonies.

"Way too fast," he agreed. "No, I'm being placed in the middle of a political maelstrom for some reason known only to the Emperor. But, by the Rotted Gods, what are they doing? And why? It's a prescription for disaster on Targa."

She ran light fingers down his scarred arm, eyes pensive. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"Love you. and do my best."

"We still have two hours," she told him, bending forward to kiss his shoulder. "We were both so exhausted we just came in here and collapsed. There's time to see what love on a platform is like."

He nodded and pulled her close, lips meeting hers passionately.

When they finally lay spent, he let his fingers trace the curve of her breast while his mind attacked the problem of his promotion. Three months ago, he'd been a scared private making his first combat drop. Now, all of a sudden, the Emperor had catapulted him to command of the First Targan Assault Division. Only the Minister of Defense and Tybalt had authority over him. And what did he do with Mykroft, who might back him to the hilt or cut his throat depending on which way events turned?

"I have a war to win while I stand with one foot on melting ice and the other in vacuum. By Blessed Etarus, it doesn't make any sense." He slammed a fist into the platform.

Gretta hugged him close. "I doubt any other man in the Empire could handle that dilemma as well."

Sinklar smiled his thanks and struggled to recall historically similar circumstances.

He cataloged each of the men and women who had shared his predicament. A surprising number had been sacrificial sheep. So very very few had survived. Would he?

A plan began to surface in his mind.

His Hoiness Sassa, The Divine Illumination, didn't look pleased. Neither did Admiral Jakre. None of which boded well for Myles Roma.

His Holiness' room measured over one hundred paces in length with high ceilings that sparkled with the honeyed tones of the Sassan sun which were carried to the room through a fiber optic system that rainbowed the light. Pearlescent walls shimmered in the glow, and the solid gold trim had been done in filigreed patterns that burned. A thick Nesian rug covered the floor and rippled in scarlet waves.

"The Lord Commander wouldn't even see you?" His Holiness asked, raising a hairless eyebrow. Sassa II looked like a poor excuse for a God. The man was a mountain of flesh — and not much of it muscle. Sassa never went anywhere unless it was on antigrav. For one thing, his heart couldn't have taken the strain. For another, his legs would only hold him up long enough to get from one antigrav to another, or into and out of his bath.

"Divine One, I have no explanation. Wait… I can see it in your eyes. It's not me Lord. Staffa wouldn't see Ily Takka either."

Sassa cocked his hairless head, the sparling overhead light gleaming off his pale scalp. His colorless eyes, set deep in the heavy flesh of his face, evaluated Myles dispassionately — much the way Holy Sassa might look at a slab of meat while he decided whether he'd eat it or throw it away. Then he placed his fat palms together, gemencrusted fingers scintillating in the light. "Didn't it occur to you that you might have been duped? That Ily's reaction might have been a sham, a diversion?"

Myles licked his fat lips and shook his head. Ily's angry eyes still bued in his memory. "No, Divine One. I swear, something is very wrong. Call it… well, a feeling. I can tell you, Ily Takka was enraged — not making a cunning scene, but enraged. The Wing Commander looked worried, tense. Why would Skyla Lyma act like that when she was simply telling us the Companions wouldn't accept contract? She had no reason on our account."

"Skyla wouldn't worry if the hounds of hell came after her," Jakre added from the side. "Divine One, My intelligence units tell me that something happened after Staffa talked to the Praetor. He acted very peculiarly when he killed the Myklenian leader — pulled the man's head off his body. Such a display of emotion is unlike the Lord Commander. I'm also bothered by the amount of remuneration he paid."

"Surely you can't complain! By the Divine, he paid a planet's ransom." Myles wrung his hands nervously.

"Exactly," Jakre agreed soberly. "Considering his smashing success at Myklene, would you have pressed Staffa over such a triviality as killing the Praetor? No, it's as if… as if he's punishing himself."

His Holiness Sassa II grunted irritably. "You may be pleased Admiral. I am not. The Companions acted before we were ready. Their action belittled the role of our elite shock troops in the Myklenian campaign. When we finally arrived, it was to find a broken world."

Jakre shot Myles an uneasy look.

"However," Sassa continued, "I am willing to forget an affront every now and then. Magnanimity is one of the blessings of the Divine, mercy a virtue. In the meantime, Myles, I want you to coordinate our intelligence services. We know that Rega currently has problems of its own with Targa. Revolt brews there like a Divine wind. Monitor the events. And find out why Staffa declined contract!"

Locating the pilot of the CV proved no problem when Skyla arrived in orbit over Etaria. Using false documents, she placed her vessel in parking orbit and shuttled to the main terminal. As was the case with any spaceport, scuttle-

butt in the bars gave her all the information she needed to find the hapless CV pilot. She found him in a packed, and loud, bar off the main shipping docks.

"I don't know," the pilot told Skyla and gestured in futility. He bent over his half-empty whiskey and shook his head. "One minute I was docked at Itreata. Next thing I know, I'm docked at Etaria! I've got a schedule that's suddenly Rot-chewed and I'm on suspension for mental investigation by the Imperial transport board. My license is revoked until they can get here and ship me home to see what's wrong." His speech slurred from the Mytol she'd slipped into his drink.

Skyla nodded, sipping her own drink before she looked around the crowded bar. "Sounds unusual."

"Yeah," the pilot turned his drug-glassy gaze on her again. His thoughts changed as his eyes stared into hers. "Uh, you got anything happening? I'd like to buy you dinner. Maybe you'd be interested in a show? Later we could. "

She gave him her best look of regret. "My husband is waiting for me. He's trying to negotiate a contract with the Temple and suggested that I meet him. I really can't stay."

The CV pilot nodded. "Even my luck with beautiful women is shot."

Skyla stood and smiled. She'patted him on the shoulder and walked out of the noisy bar toward the shuttle loading bay.

Staffa had been very clever. She shuffled into the milling crowd, waiting her turn to board. Her white swirling gossamer gown shimmered in the light, accenting her blonde hair and her cerulean-blue eyes.

She found a seat and buckled in, leaning back, eyes closed as she concentrated on the pilot's story. With any of the Regan travel documents the Companions possessed, Staffa could have gone anywhere. He might even have bought passage to another world without setting foot on Etaria — but she couldn't leave and take the chance that he might be on the planet below. Warning lights flashed as the shuttle disembarked.

n spite of himself, Staffa kar Therma would leave a trail. It would take no more than two days at the most to learn

if he'd landed at Etarus. After that, she'd make her way to Targa-his ultimate destination if he were to find his son.

She couldn't help but smile as she thought of him. Her imagination filled itself with the line of his haughty jaw, and those keen gray eyes. Indeed, just from his bearingarrogant and commanding-he would be remembered. At the same time, cunning Staffa would be watching his back trail, checking to see who followed in the wake of his plasma. One whiff of her questioning after him and he wouldn't take time to see who it was, but would disappear like atmosphere from an open lock.

Therefore, I must find him in an equally cunning manner. People would remember her in her finery. The clothing she wore would cost most Etarians three years' wages.

As the shuttle rolled to a stop before the main starport terminal outside Etarus, she ducked quickly into the toilet as people shuffled to deshuttle.

Skyla locked the door and turned to her carry bag. She slipped out of the gleaming whites and stared at her battle armor. Grimacing, she stripped it off and folded it into the shoulder pack she carried. Then she pulled a buff-brown standard robe from among her possessions. Around her naked waist she strapped the heavy weapons belt, the fabric weave cool on her smooth skin. She slipped the tan robe over her head and tied the rope tightly under her breasts, creating an empire waist to hide the bulge of the belt. Pulling her braid loose, she bound her wealth of hair in a Riparian mosquito scarf and zipped her pack closed.

A typical Regan tourist, she stepped from the toilet to the tail end of the dwindling crowd.

At liberty in the streets, she immediately located a used clothing store and purchased the grubbiest attire she could find. When she left through the rear, no one would have recognized Skyla Lyma, Wing Commander of the Companions. Instead, she looked like just another of the Etarian lower caste.

Struggling along under the weight of her pack-trading ribald jests with street merchants, and turning down propositions from the pimps and drug dealers-her soul soared, curiously free.

Is there so little overlay from the last thirty-five years? She felt at home here, the rhythm of the street filling her bones.

An earthy truth boiled up with the dust under her feet: Here lay the roots

of humanity. The street hadn't changed. The baseline of human passion and reality surrounded hertruth intermingled with the hawkers and struggling merchants peddling cabbages and wybald and cloth and spices.

"Hey, gorgeous!" A burly man with a thick black mustache matched her pace. "You been turned lately? I'll see your sweet meat filled for a starburst of pleasure!" He winked and blew her a kiss, his mustache curling.

"What?" she chided familiarly. "You think I'd let your rotted cock within a meter of my sweet honey trap? Your maggot dripping mind is the only thing to be turned around here." How easily the old ways fell about her like a protective veil.

He chuckled. "If you come to your Blessed Senses, sweet hot meat, see me. They call me Nyklos."

"I'll see if I can't put your name at the end of the list," she gave him a teasing smile. "Only it's so long I hope I remember. But say, you might know where a dandy Nab wanting to stay low would end up?"

"Might, for a kiss." "Fess, putrid."

"Temple block," he told her and bent to receive his kiss. She pecked him on'the lips, catching garlic and mint on his breath. As she turned to go, she added. "See you around, Nyklos. If I score, there might be a tip in it. "

"Trust you, sweet meat!" And he angled off into a doorway.

The street remained the same, she reflected. Here, she would know the ways of men. Here she would find her way to Staffa.

A soft mist dropped with the evening inversion and settled on Kaspa, wrapping around the buildings, leaving the street lights haloed in the wisps. Thick and damp it covered the sleeping city, filled the low places, and clung to the darkest of alleys.

In an older section of the city, water dripped from the dew glistening roofs and ran down through spouts to puddle among the cobbles. The old brick buildings had survived

the maelstrom of time and war, and here, the passages wound their meandering way between closely packed walls.

In the deeper blackness of a narrow alley, a door slammed followed by the patter of running footsteps.

The door slammed again, punctuated by a curse. "Arta!" a deep voice called, and heavier steps pounded down the narrow way.

No more than a shadow in the foggy dampness, Arta Pera emerged from the alley and onto the sinuous street. Frantically, she ducked to one side, crouching down next to a refuse bin, blending with the night.

Butla Ret but from the narrow opening, glancing back and forth, head cocked for any sound of flight. "Arta? Come back!" he bellowed into the night. "We've got to talk. I have to explain!"

Frantic, he hissed angrily to himself, turned to the right, and raced away into the mist.

As the sound of his mad dash diminished, Arta Fera staggered to her feet and fled in the opposite direction. In a shattered voice, she repeated, "Can't. love. can't. Blessed Gods, what's the matter with me? Can't love. Butla. can't. "

As she disappeared into the night mist, only the sound of choked sobbing echoed behind her.