Deathstalker (48 page)

He had everyone involved quietly killed, save for those few scientists necessary to produce and refine more of the drug. It was vital that he control it utterly. He knew even then that it could be his road to the Iron Throne itself. The clone underground would serve as further test subjects, and finally as his own private army of espers, loyal only to him. They would do anything for him in return for the drug, because he knew its secrets. The effects were only temporary.

To remain an esper, you had to keep taking the drug. And though the drug itself wasn’t addictive, being an esper was. Anyone who’d experienced it, even for a short while, would do anything necessary to be an esper again. To be whole again. He controlled production and distribution of the drug, which meant he controlled anyone who took it. Forever. The thought pleased him, and he laughed softly. The clones would take the drug eagerly to begin with, because they trusted him, trusted Hood, the tried and true backer and supporter of the underground. And by the time they discovered the truth, it would be far too late.

Of course, the twenty to forty percent death rate was a problem. He’d have to do something about that. He deplored waste.

He’d only taken a minor dose himself. The more powerful the dosage, the higher the death rate. Once your body had adapted to the drug, you were safe enough, but the initial dose was always a risk. So, being sensible as well as ambitious, he’d settled for a minor dose. It meant only limited esper abilities, but he could live with that. He’d save the larger doses for his clone volunteers. He was interested in seeing what abilities the larger doses would produce, but he could wait. He was patient. There was always the chance large doses would produce battle espers, like the Stevie Blues. Given an army of those, he’d face any enemy. Augmented and adjusted men were the past; esp was the future.

It was a pity the tests on clone espers had been terminated. They’d been producing very interesting results, under his indirect control, until the Empress found out about them and had them shut down. That had been her agents at work again, and only some quick thinking on his feet had kept his connections from coming out. That wasn’t going to happen again. The esper drug was his one weapon against all the Empress’ power and influence. Unless, of course, she already knew about it. Which was a possibility. You could never be sure exactly what the Empress did and didn’t know. Except that if she had known what he planned and intended, she’d have had him killed by now.

“Talk to me, Argus,” he said finally, and sank back in his chair with his eyes closed as his personal AI brought him up to date on everything that had happened in his absence. Dram had many enemies, most of whom knew where he
lived, and he relied on the AI’s unsleeping vigilance to protect his quarters while he was away.

“Everything is under control, sir. I dealt with all the routine matters in your absence, using your face and voice, and made a number of entries in your diary. Do try and read it sometime, sir; I don’t make these appointments for fun. It would appear you’re still remarkably popular with the populace, according to your mail, proving once again that there is no allowing for taste. Requests for help or money are up, proposals of marriage slightly down. The Company of Lords still hates your guts. They sent a number of professional people to booby-trap your apartment while you were out. I let them get on with it rather than use emergency measures. It takes such a long time to clean the blood off the walls afterward. Once they were gone, I went around and disarmed everything. They’re getting pretty ingenious, you know. Every time this happens, I find something new.”

“Are you sure you got everything?”

“Reasonably sure.”

“What doesn’t that mean?”

“It means if I have got it wrong, at least you won’t be around to say I told you so.”

Dram laughed in spite of himself. He allowed the AI to be rude on occasion. He felt it was good for his character.

“Someone wishes to talk to you, sir.”

“I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now. You deal with it.”

“It’s the Empress, sir.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Dram sat up straight in his chair, immediately wide awake again. “Never mind. Put her on.”

The wall to his left became one large viewscreen, filled with the Empress Lionstone’s arctic features. She looked … thoughtful. Dram didn’t like the look of that. Lionstone was never more dangerous than when she’d been thinking. He stood up, bowed respectfully, and smiled warmly into the chill of her blue eyes.

“Lionstone, my dear. An unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?”

“Come to my private quarters. Now. There’s something we need to discuss.”

Dram started to frame a polite and reassuring reply, but the wall had already gone blank. He scowled thoughtfully as
he went to retrieve his cloak from the coatrack. His first thought was that the Iron Bitch had discovered everything and his best bet was to head for the horizon. He ran through the nearest exit routes in his mind, and the quickest ways to get offplanet, and then stopped and made himself take a few deep breaths. Calm slowly enveloped him as his iron will forced out the panic. Lionstone couldn’t know everything, or she wouldn’t have bothered with a reasonably polite summons. Instead, a squad of armed guards would have kicked in his door and dragged him screaming away. Or at least, they would have tried. One of the secrets he kept hidden from Lionstone was the extent of his personal security defenses.

So, something must have come up while he was off being Hood. Something she chose not to discuss over an open commlink. Dram ran through the various problems that were currently under surveillance by his people, but nothing obvious sprang to mind. There was nothing immediately dangerous about any of them, for a change, or he wouldn’t have gone to the underground meeting. He couldn’t afford to be found missing in an emergency, and there was a limit to how much Argus could cover for him. He sighed, opened the door, gave the AI his usual commands about maintaining security and not talking to any strange men, and let himself out. The quickest way to find out what was going on was to go and ask Lionstone. He just hoped she wasn’t feeling amorous. He’d had a long day.

He walked unhurriedly down the corridor, nodding casually to those he passed. It was important not to look flustered or nervous; that might be construed as signs of weakness. It wasn’t enough for him to be strong and in control; he had to be seen to be strong and in control. Otherwise the vultures started gathering. People bowed low as he passed and made way for him. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t filtered down to the lower orders yet. Dram couldn’t help noticing increasing levels of security as he approached the Empress’ private quarters, including some he hadn’t seen before. Either Lionstone was feeling insecure again, or there’d been some new attack on her during his absence. There shouldn’t have been. If the elves or the clones had been planning anything, he’d have known about it. And there’d been nothing new in the last reports from his agents. But everywhere he looked there were more guards, cameras,
sensors, and undoubtedly a great many more he couldn’t see. His back began to itch in anticipation of unseen weapons following his every movement. He had no doubt they were there. He’d had most of them installed. His esp suddenly shut down as he came within range of a new esp-blocker, and that definitely was new. Usually Lionstone was happy to settle for having one in her quarters. There was always a long waiting list for a new esp-blocker, and there always would be as long as it took a whole esper to make one.

He came to the reinforced airlock that was the only entry to the Empress’ private quarters, and the six guards on duty (four more than normal) crashed to attention. Dram casually acknowledged their salute and stood calm and easy as the security sensors established he was who he seemed to be. He wasn’t carrying any of his usual weapons; even he wasn’t allowed to go armed into the Empress’ private chambers. The airlock swung open with a low hiss of equalizing pressures, and he stepped inside. It was only just big enough to take him, and he felt increasingly claustrophobic as the door cycled shut behind him. The shape of the airlock usually suggested some self-conscious womb imagery, but he wasn’t in the mood. The interior door swung open, and he stepped out into the Empress’ private domain. And there to meet him were the only other people Lionstone ever allowed to share her privacy: her maids. They glared at him, growling deep in their throats, and then moved reluctantly aside as he strode confidently forward. Dram wrinkled his nose. The air was thick with the Empress’ current favorite perfume, there to disguise the poison in the air that he and the maids had been immunized against. It wasn’t a subtle deterrent, or a subtle perfume, but Lionstone wasn’t a subtle person in private. She didn’t have to be. You could tell that from the furnishings.

The large room was crammed with furniture, paintings, statuettes; all of them unique. Only the lower orders had to make do with copies or holo duplicates. Gold and silver and precious gems gleamed everywhere he looked: the loot and splendor of the Empire, all stuffed into one room with hardly any space to breathe. Lionstone liked to surround herself with beautiful things: the trophies of her rule. She also used to keep the mummified heads of her enemies on a row of spikes, until Dram talked her out of it on health grounds.
And everywhere drinks and drugs and sweet things for every palate. In private, Lionstone was something of a pig.

She was sitting in a grand chair carved from the shimmering metal of one of the living metallic trees on Unseeli, watching new weapons trials on a wallscreen. She seemed utterly intent on the orchestrated mayhem, and didn’t spare him so much as a glance. Dram moved over to stand beside her, and the maids crouched at her feet stirred uneasily. It was programmed into them that he was the only man permitted near the Empress, but they didn’t like it. He looked them over dispassionately, spotting several new faces replacing those who’d died during the elf attack on the court. He wondered briefly what new enemies Lionstone had made by snatching these young girls from their Families and burning everything out of their minds except the need to defend the Empress. Dram occasionally wondered if he might end up the same someday. A mindless stud, living only to please his mistress. It wasn’t a comforting thought. He decided to look at the viewscreen instead.

Battle machines and combat androids clashed together on a deserted plain beneath a bloodred sun. Two vast armies of mechanical creatures, beyond pain or glory or fear slammed together again and agin, metal arms and steel jaws grating against each other in showers of sparks. Some were as small as insects, some had the shape of men, and some were vast assemblages too large for the mind of man to easily assimilate. They fought with inhuman ferocity because that was what they had been designed to do. Sharp hooks tore into metal sides and out again, and straining arms pulled at yielding structures. There were metal heads with glowing eyes, skeletal frames with barbed flails, and rising above it all the roar of mighty engines and rending steel. They fought until they were too damaged to continue, and then the victors ground the losers underfoot as they surged on in search of new prey. No one grieved for the fallen or cheered the survivors. There was no emotion in the endless carnage, only machines in conflict, in search of efficiency.

Dram watched them fight, and his blood ran cold. A human army could expect no mercy or compassion from such a foe, no shared concepts of honor or glory. They would just keep coming, irregardless of casualties, uncaring of losses, blindly following orders. And human flesh would tear so easily under spiked metal hands. Which was why they were
created and tested and eventually put to work. Because they were so good at the ancient art of butchery.

Somewhere, computers were following everything, determining which machines were the most efficient and lasted the longest, and why. And from their deliberations would rise the next generation of war machines to be sent out against the Empire’s enemies in the name of humanity. Dram stole a glance at Lionstone. She was enjoying the show. The Empress had always been a great believer in technology as the answer to her problems. Dram had to admit she had a point. Machines might not be as versatile as marines, augmented men or battle espers, but within their limitations, they followed orders unswervingly and got the job done. Especially on planets where men couldn’t survive without extensive technological support. In the end, the observing computers would decide which designs would be continued and refined, and which scrapped, but Lionstone liked to have her input, too. War was too important to be left just to the machines.

“Very impressive,” Dram said finally.

“I should hope so,” said Lionstone, without looking away from the screen. “Considering what these latest efforts cost me, a good show is the least I can expect from them. And I’m glad you’re impressed, because I’m not. They’re destructive enough, but I was hoping for more. More sophistication. But you always have to draw a careful line when it comes to designing cybernetics. Make them too smart, and you end up with something that’ll make a run for Shub. Too dumb, and the simplest foot soldier can run rings around them. The only way to get the balance right is to keep experimenting, and that’s expensive. You should hear Parliament howl every time I go to them with a new budget. You’d think it was their money the way they carry on. But tomorrow’s war must be fought with tomorrow’s weapons, and that means maintaining our edge.”

“You should know,” said Dram dryly. “You’ve put a lot of time and effort into maintaining your own personal edge You’ve had enough implants, augmentations and body-shaping to almost qualify as an android.”

“I have to be the best,” said Lionstone, finally turning off the screen and turning to look at him. “I have my enemies and I have my pride. And I will allow no one to be greater than me in any way.”

“There are rules about how much augmentation is permitted,” said Dram. “You signed them into law yourself.”

“Laws are for little people. Come with me.”