36
THE INTERDICT’S body shook, and I didn’t know if it was anxiety or anticipation at the prospect of leaving, of following his calling and rescuing the galaxy of his faithful. I didn’t hear his argument with his vicars, but I did see their distrusting, worried looks as they regarded me. They probably recalled all too well that I’d kidnapped the Interdict the last time I was here.
Of course, after they looked at me, they looked at Anguish—and one glance at him dissuaded them from saying another word of objection.
The Interdict beckoned me to follow him. I stayed by the Interdict’s side as Neveni and Anguish trailed us.
Orthanion spoke rapidly to me. Nervously. “This starship is called the Arbiter. It’s the only vessel in my possession that can move of its own power. My inquisitors are selecting some among their number to accompany us. As for the Hera, I mean it to follow us with more of my vicars to reinforce us. In the meantime, your ship will be safe.”
Certainly safer than it would have been in Pasus’s hands. We floated up in a lift to reach the access plank. I found myself gazing down at the starship, which had appeared as just a curved wall from the ground. From above, it was six concentric circles braided together.
“My immune system is out of date,” noted the Interdict.
“Yes. We can harvest antibodies from my blood.”
I sent Neveni and Anguish about to explore the ship, check for any visible repairs needed before we left. In the medical bay, the med bots examined my blood. I’d been exposed to a few pathogens, but not a great many.
“Neveni would be the ideal donor, but . . .” I fell silent.
“That girl is Luminar, is she not? I recognize the accent.”
“She is.”
His lips twisted. “I can understand if she’d refuse.”
She’d more than refused. She’d informed me she’d sooner bleed out than donate a single drop of her blood to the Interdict. “We’ll find other volunteers once we leave this system. It’s a good thing you do.”
The med bot finished isolating my immune cells, and then it was only a matter of waiting for a synthesizer to duplicate them for Orthanion’s immune system “The first thing we must do is announce my return,” said the Interdict. “I will need as visible a platform as possible. I can also command my vicars to end their stalling with regards to that scepter. . . . Though if the situation is as dire as you said, perhaps we should wait until the Emperor is freed from the hands of his foes.”
“No need.” I unzipped my coat, drew the scepter from within. “It’s right here.”
“May I?”
I let him take it, turn it in his hands.
“The last time I held this,” he mused, “the Emperor Amon had just been revived from his artificial coma. The Domitrians vary widely in their ability to command this device, and Amon was not one of the more skilled wielders, but even casual use of this makes one a threat. He was sedated his entire trip to my doorstep, and the entire process of draining and reinfusing his blood, over and over. Shocking his body, over and over. I only had a vague idea about how to loosen his power over this. Finally, we tried stopping his heart. The third artificial cardiac arrest, and this machine readied itself for his successor. His mind was terribly damaged by the entire process, but he was still aware enough to panic when he realized he could not command this any longer.” His dark brows furrowed. “It was quite pitiful truly.”
“So much effort to defuse the threat of that machine,” I said.
“It should never have come from Earth with us, Nemesis. It doesn’t belong here. Our ancestors abandoned a great deal of technology when they left Earth—and this should have been abandoned as well. This is a machine that can only be commanded by one who is colonized by . . . machines.”
I looked at him sharply. “Colonized?”
The Interdict considered me for a long moment as though weighing something in his mind. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “What I tell you must remain between us.”
I dared not say a word. All I did was nod.
“All of the humans we left on Earth had these internal machines. They were one of the initial steps of human and artificial hybridization. They infested an entire body from birth. They were in one’s sperm, one’s eggs, in the new embryo they formed. They adapted to the DNA of each successive child born, multiplied as that child grew, and then when numerous enough, they formed a network within that child’s body. Our ancestors strove to be rid of those internal machines, and any technology that necessitated such a network of machines to control. One man thwarted them. Domitri Orlov.”
Domitri. Was this the ancestor of the royal line?
“Domitri realized that in this new world, all other humans would be natural ones, so if he retained a technological edge over them, he could position himself as their king.”
“That was surely a Domitrian.”
“Actually, no. Domitri had no children. I am fairly certain he died in prison after he was found out. His blood was purged against his will and this device was placed in a vault. The thing was, Domitri wasn’t the only one who had that idea. Quite a few sought to keep an advantage, and soon they earned a pejorative—the Domitrians. The day came at long last when a single child was born infested with these microbots, and it was only a matter of awaiting the day she was old enough to be purged of them.”
I understood it. “And yet—that Domitrian instead became the first of the royal line.”
He touched his nose. “The new colonies broke into their first proper war, and someone thought of this device and that girl who could use it—and the potential to seize control over all enemy ships at will. It so effectively ended that conflict that the girl was kept as she was, and then her child was also preserved. The entire Empire sprang of that one family line.”
He slid his nails over the metal surface until they caught on something. A press of his fingers and it unlatched . . . Revealing its empty insides. Empty at first glance, at least . . .
The Interdict withdrew a sliver of metal. It was as thin as a human hair and as long as a pinky finger.
“This is a the royal scepter. A supercomputer. The outside is just decoration. I suggest you carry that casing, I carry this supercomputer, until it’s safe for us to give them both to your Tyrus.”
I nodded. “How will you . . .”
The Interdict poked the tiny, sharp end of that metal filament through the top layer of skin on his forearm and threaded it under his skin. That didn’t look comfortable to me, but he just pulled his sleeve down over it. “We should begin by—”
And then it happened.
A loud shriek of metal scraping metal drove into my ears. The Arbiter jolted around us, sending the Interdict tumbling. I hoisted him back to his feet, and said, “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“Where’s the command nexus?” I said.
“This way,” he said.
We charged into the chamber to see Neveni there, all by herself, and out the windows, we saw the rear of the ship straining against the docking clamps holding it to the Sacred City. Anguish rushed into the nexus as well and cast me a suspicious look.
Neveni greeted our entrance with a smile. “Right in time.”
“Neveni, what’s happening?” I demanded.
“Looks like we’re busting out of our moorings,” she said.
“What?” I cried.
Then the Arbiter ripped right out of the Sacred City’s docking tethers, hurtling us into space. I hurled myself toward the navigation panel, saw that it was locked.
Which meant someone had locked it.
I looked at her over my shoulder. Her black eyes were fixed on the window. “Orthanion. Look closely.”
“Pardon me?” said the Interdict.
“Blink and you might miss it.” Neveni’s voice dripped with poison.
The Hera veered into view, and my heart gave a spasm at the realization it had also torn out of its dock, but it was swerving itself around, hurtling back toward the Sacred City. The Arbiter glided farther and farther back as the fearsome asteroid ship accelerated toward the massive habitat of diamond.
And then—impact.
The Hera met the Sacred City at full speed and this was no starship to be torn through, but a celestial body of equal mass that erupted in a blinding swell of light.
“Neveni!” My scream at her was lost in the erupting roar of the shock striking us.
Outside: splintering diamond and graphite and fire, and about us a feeble starship bucking, straining, the wave of heat driving us into a crazed spin. The burning, shattered remains of the holiest place in the Empire whirled in and out of sight, and my head smashed back into the wall. The weight of our spin pressed me to the floor, but a small, determined figure clawed across the floor toward the fallen Interdict. I shouted as another blast hit us, but my warning went unheard.
And Neveni reached the Interdict. The blade in her hand glinted as she screamed: “How do you like watching your entire world get destroyed?” Then she plunged the blade into his chest.
“NO!” I screamed.
But the blade plunged again, again, into his heart, his stomach, his throat. He raised his hands, but the skin of his arms shredded to the kiss of metal. . . .
“NO!” I heaved myself over to them, clasped her fragile body, and ripped her away from him. I paid no mind to where I’d tossed her as the ship rocked around us, and flung myself over the Interdict.
Blood. So much blood. Too much. No med bot would save this, but I pressed my hands to his hot, seeping chest, desperate to contain all that fountained from his aorta. “Don’t die. Don’t die! DON’T DIE!” I screamed, and then I saw Anguish hauling Neveni to the navigation panel, and she grinned madly as she jerked us to a sudden halt.
And fell into silence.
Neveni looked at the bloodied man beneath me and laughed as she had seeing her face on that screen, the new greatest terrorist in the Empire. In substance, not just name now. Blood saturated her, but Anguish’s strong grip held her steady—looking more about comfort than restraint.
My mind ground to a strange halt. The Interdict’s blood was already crusting on my hands. This man was the only salvation. I peeled back his eyes and saw the sludgy absence of life.
It was done.
And then Neveni whispered to the Interdict, but it might as well have been to me:
“Where’s your Living Cosmos now?”