Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter) (25 page)

He was already moving toward his private quarters and the outside exit when he tapped the intercom stud.

By the time he raced through the quarters and into the corridor toward the drop shaft, he was nearly running. He slowed only after he was actually dropping toward the concourse and the tunnel train station below.

The platform concourse at his destination station—the Imperial Senate Tower—was moderately crowded but melted away from him as he marched toward the lift shaft.

“Seem to draw back from an Ecolitan on the march,” he mused as he watched a number of citizens edge away from his path.

Sylvia’s office was only fifty meters from the exit stage.

“Lord Whaler, how good to see you,” burbled Charles, the friendly receptionist, half rising from his chair and leaning toward a small panel on the console.

Nathaniel reached the man before Charles’ hand could hit the warning plate.

“This is a friendly visit, Charles,” announced the Ecolitan as he hoisted the other away from his console.

“Friendly?”

“As a matter of fact,” noted Nathaniel, he tapped the flat plate labeled, F-M.

“You’re here? Here?” asked Sylvia on the small screen.

“Nowhere else. Do you want to come out or invite me in?”

“I’ll be right out.”

Nathaniel returned his full attention to Charles and set the receptionist down in a swing chair away from the main communications console.

“Lord Whaler?”

“Yes, Charles.”

“Why…I mean…to what do we owe…?”

“To a happy occasion, I hope.”

Nathaniel kept his eye on the console and on the portal from the staff offices, wondering if he should have charged all the way through, hoping that Sylvia wasn’t ducking out whatever back ways existed.

“Happy time?”

“I hope,” the Ecolitan added under his breath, wondering what he was doing literally hours before he was to catch his shuttle home.

His head snapped up at the whisper of a portal.

Charles looked at the console, then at Whaler, and decided to stay put.

Sylvia was wearing the same blue and white trimmed tunic she had worn when they had gone sightseeing together. Did he smell the faint tang of orange blossoms? What was he seeing in those gray eyes?

He shook his head.

“I’m impressed. You came to say good-bye in person.”

Her voice was polite, but he could sense an undercurrent, exactly what he couldn’t identify.

He shook his head again.

“No. I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not to say good-bye.” He shifted his weight, looked at her for a long moment, then at the floor, before finally taking the slip of notepaper from his belt and handing it to her.

She unfolded it.

“This is supposed to mean something, dear Envoy?”

“Nathaniel,” he corrected automatically. “Sylvia, you know I’m not good at speeches…and there’s not much time—”

“So don’t deliver a speech. Say what you have to and go.”

“Those codes represent your visa, your clearance, and your immigration permit to Accord.”

From the corner of his eye, Nathaniel could see Charles’ mouth drop wide open.

“Me…an ex-Imperial agent?”

“No. You…the person…the woman…Flamehell! We’ve got less than three hours to catch the shuttle.”

“For what?”

“For Accord. For us.”

Sylvia smiled, and her expression was guarded. “Why us?”

“Because I want you to come with me!”

The guarded look was replaced with a fuller, yet somehow more tentative smile.

“You haven’t asked me.”

“Would you please come with me?” He finally managed to grin himself. “Even if you hadn’t planned to emigrate for a few more years yet?”

“But I’m scarcely—”

“Sylvia.”

“Yes.”

Without realizing what he was doing, Nathaniel reached for her, only to find she had the same thing in mind. They collided in mid-step, grabbing at each other to keep from falling.

“I think this time you beat me to it,” he murmured in her ear.

“Not now. We’ve only got three hours to catch the shuttle.”

She kissed him slowly full upon the lips and then stepped back from his arms.

Charles shook his head from side to side as the tall man and the dancer walked from the office, hand in hand.

For Eric, Phyllis, and Alex

“Though fraud in other activities be detestable, in the management of war it is laudable and glorious…”

Niccolò Machiavelli
 [pre-Ecollapse writer…dates unknown]

“Conflict is always rooted in ecology, and rational scholars spend careers denying this precept, because it precludes the possibility of cultural transcendence.”

Kristen Janes-Cornet,
Compilations of the Primes

“The most cost-effective war is that waged by others on their own lands at their own cost. Strive always for such…”

Fleet Admiral Gorham,
Memoirs

“A
good
economist is worth a dozen spies and two fleets. Unfortunately, the fleets and spies are far easier to come by.”

Alexi Lederman-Meier,
Economics of Conflict

SECESSION, ECOLOGIC (3647–48)

T
HE WAR LEADING
to the independence of the Coordinate of Accord [See also Ecologic Rebellion, Accord, Ecolitan Institute].

During the years 3645–46, Imperial relations with the Fuardian Conglomerate became increasingly strained, and a number of colony systems protested the ad valorem and ad personam taxes levied by the Empire to support the infrastructure necessary to restrain the Conglomerate. Among the discontented colony systems were those of Accord (Imperial Sector Five) and Sligo (Imperial Sector Seven).

Accord used high-technology sabotage and commando tactics to destroy key military fueling and staging bases (Haversol, Cubera, Fonderol) at a time when the majority of Imperial forces were deployed in Sector Two to counter the perceived Fuardian threat. The Accord sabotage limited to an even greater extent the ability of Imperial warcraft to reach Accord’s isolated location on the Parthanian Rift.

Unable to deal with potentially extended conflicts on three fronts, the Empire reduced Sligo, where casualties exceeded fifteen million, despite an initially published estimate of only three million [See Lies for the Popular Good]. Following the Empire’s destruction of Sligo and all installations in its system, the provisional government of Accord launched a successful ecologic attack on Old Earth in 3647, primarily using the resources of the Ecolitan Institute [See The Black Institute].

The resulting Ecollapse eventually fragmented the terran ecology. The Empire retaliated by sending a full fleet to the Accord system. Innovative and suicidal tactics developed and spearheaded by Ecolitan [later Prime] James Joyson Whaler [See Wright-Whaler Controversy] resulted in the total destruction of that Imperial fleet in late 3647.

The Fuardian Conglomerate then unveiled a new series of warships of performance and armament vastly superior to existing Imperial craft [See CX Affair] and seized former Imperial systems in Sector Two (the Three System Bulge).

With the Empire weakened by the increasingly unstable political climate and mounting death toll from the Ecollapse on Old Earth, the potential of further ecological devastation from the Ecolitan Institute, and the clear technological superiority of the Conglomerate, Emperor Jynstin II recognized the independence of Accord and shifted all Imperial forces and battle groups to Sector Two, leading to the Truce of Tierna. Under the Truce, the Conglomerate retained the Three System Bulge, except that the then-undeveloped system of Artos was ceded to New Avalon, and the Empire ceded the undeveloped system of D’Sanya to Chezchos, later the Federated Hegemony.

The perceived failure of the monarchy led to the Senatorial Reformation [See N’Trosia Catalyst] and the political restructuring of the Empire…

Dictionary of Imperial History
K. J. Peynon
New Augusta 4102

F
ILLED WITH THE
faint odors of oil, hot metal, and recycled air, the down-shuttle from Accord orbit control to Harmony was less than half full. In the left front couch sat a tall sandy-haired man wearing the formal greens of an Ecolitan. On his left uniform collar was a black-and-green lustral pin—a gift from the Emperor of the Hegemony of Light, more commonly known as the Terran Empire. The pin was a contradiction in terms because the substance of the lustral represented a small fortune and the form was a miniature of the crest of the Ecolitan Institute. Beside the Ecolitan sat a dark-haired woman in a blue jumpsuit.

Sylvia glanced sideways at Nathaniel as the Ecolitan fidgeted in the hard passenger seat of the Coordinate shuttle.

“Iffy approach,” he said.

“And yours haven’t been?” The slender and dark-haired woman offered a smile.

“Mine?”

“Yours.” The smile broadened.

“Which kind are you referring to?” he countered, trying not to grin in return.

“Any kind, most honorable envoy.”

“I’d hope mine, especially in shuttles and needle-boats, were less rocky,” he finally said, squelching a frown as the buffeting shuttle tossed him against his harness.

“Do all pilots find other pilots’ approaches questionable?”

“Probably. We hate being passengers.”

“It sounds like you’re all control addicts.” She offered a softer smile.

“That’s probably true, too.”

“I still wonder.” She shook her head. “This is so sudden. I hadn’t planned to emigrate so soon. And certainly not to Accord. Your clearance officers on the orbit control station—they barely looked at me. Do all Ecolitans have that kind of power?”

“Hardly.” Nathaniel laughed. “It wasn’t me, but the Prime Ecolitan’s access codes.”

“Just codes? Could any Ecolitan do that?”

“Not unless the Prime gave him the codes.” The sandy-haired man swayed in the seat as the shuttle banked onto what Nathaniel hoped was the final approach. “They’re held tightly.”

“Does that happen often?”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Every few years, maybe. This was important to us.” Still, he had trouble believing his mission as an agent/official envoy was over, and that he had actually managed to avert what could have been an interstellar war between the Coordinate of Accord and the Empire. Although he’d sweated and worried, especially when it had looked as though the Imperial fleet had been ready to deploy, now it seemed almost too easy…and as if he’d missed something. He refrained from shaking his head. At least he’d gotten Sylvia off Old Earth. But did she want off?

“You’d already gotten the trade agreement before you left Old Earth,” Sylvia continued. “You didn’t need me. Why was I important to your mission? Or afterwards?”

“Because I think so.” He grinned. “Because you made it all possible, and because—”

“Please remain in your seats. Shuttle Beta is on final approach to Harmony. Please remain in your seats.”

“—you’d be an asset to the Institute.”

“They’d take me on your recommendation?”

“Not automatically, but I can’t recall when the recommendation of a senior professor was last rejected.” He cleared his throat and raised his voice above the roar of the landing engines. “That’s because we don’t make many, and we’re held responsible.”

“How many have you made?” Sylvia asked with a smile.

“You’re the first. I don’t know of any professor, or even the Prime, who’s made more than three. Some never have.”

Her eyes dropped to the green of the bulkhead before them. “You make me sound extraordinarily special, and I’m not.”

“You’re not? How many people would have had the background, the understanding, and the willingness to help me—and to prevent the deaths of billions of human beings?” And that was just where an interstellar war could have led.

“I’m not that special.”

“We’ll talk about that later, Ms. Ferro-Maine,” Nathaniel said as the shuttle’s tires screeched on the permacrete of Accord and he lurched against the harness. “Way too rough…” he murmured more to himself than Sylvia.

Even before the shuttle lurched to a halt, prompting another sour look by Nathaniel, the announcement hissed through the passenger compartment.

“Please pick up your bags or any luggage on the way out of the shuttle. You are responsible for carrying your own luggage unless you have made prior arrangements. Please pick up your luggage on the way out.”

“Self-sufficiency begins from the moment you set foot on the planet, I see.” After the final lurch, Sylvia eased out of her harness and stood, stretching.

Nathaniel watched for a moment, enjoying her grace, still half-amazed that she had not been good enough for a professional dancing career on Old Earth.

“Dancing takes more than grace.”

“How did you—”

“You’ve said it enough, especially every time I stretch.” Another warm smile crossed her lips. “Time to become pack animals.”

“With what little you brought?”

“I had very little time to choose, as you may recall?”

“Sorry. I’ll see that you get a stipend for that.” And he would, even if it came out of his pay.

“You aren’t responsible for everything, dear envoy.”

No
, he thought,
we Ecolitans only think we are
.

One of the uniformed crew members—a woman in olive greens standing behind the baggage racks—looked sharply at the two for a moment as they retrieved their bags, two field packs for Nathaniel and two oblong black synfab cases for Sylvia.

Once they stepped out of the shuttle and into the shuttleway to the port terminal, Nathaniel took a deep breath. “Smells better than ship air.”

“It smells like burned hydrocarbons to me,” confessed Sylvia.

“Professor Whaler?” asked the redheaded young woman in plain greens, waiting by the end of the shuttleway.

“I’m Whaler,” Nathaniel acknowledged. “And this is Ms. Ferro-Maine. She’s accompanying me to the Institute.”

“Trainee Luren, sirs,” offered the youngster, probably a fourth-year trainee, Nathaniel suspected. “The Prime sent a flitter when he got your message.” Her rust-colored eyebrows lifted just slightly. “If you would follow me?”

“Thank you.” The Ecolitan did not answer the unasked question. Few Ecolitans got private flitters on returning to Accord. Most carried their own luggage and took the monorail.

As they trailed Luren, Sylvia murmured, “I thought you said we’d have to take the monorail.”

“I couldn’t count on a flitter…didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“You won’t be disappointed that you aren’t flying it?” She raised her eyebrows.

“A little, but into each life some rain falls.”

“Please…”

Luren paused by a narrow doorway. “We’re down the steps and across the permacrete.”

Nathaniel squinted as they stepped out into the bright sunlight of Harmony, if a shuttle port nearly twenty kilos south of Harmony could be considered part of the Coordinate capital.

“There it is, sirs,” said Luren.

Nathaniel glanced toward the green flitter as he eased the field packs through the doorway, then looked back toward Sylvia, whose mouth opened.

Scritt! Scritt!

Nathaniel scarcely felt the needles that slammed him around, not after Sylvia threw him behind the slight cover afforded by their bags. For a moment, he just lay there. On Accord? With an Institute flitter less than a hundred meters away? How could an assassination attempt take place? And why? He’d already done his job, and nothing would stop implementation of the trade agreement.

Nathaniel squinted through his sudden dizziness at the sprawled form of the trainee and then toward the flitter.

Thrummmm…thrummm…
Almost as quickly as the stunner bolts flew from the Institute craft, two figures in greens sprinted from the flitter toward the three sprawled on the permacrete.

Eeeeeee…
The sirens seemed to waver in and around Nathaniel from a distance as he slowly eased himself into a sitting position.

His entire side was a mass of fire.

“Are you all right?” Sylvia asked.

“Will be…need to get to the Institute.” He struggled to stand, then found himself being helped by both Sylvia and a young Ecolitan.

“Whoever it was is gone, professor. We’ve alerted the Prime, but we’re to get you home double speed.” The young crewman turned to Sylvia. “You, too, Ms. Ferro-Maine.”

Nathaniel forced his legs to carry him toward the still waiting flitter, although it was more of a stagger than a walk. Still, he knew every pace was worth more than antique gold, especially if the needles had carried nerve collapse toxins. He blocked the pain and kept walking, but the permacrete and the flitter began to swirl around him.

“Catch him.”