Empire & Ecolitan (2 page)

A
FTER PLACING THE
plastic square into the public comm console, the man with the muddy brown hair and incipient paunch began to code his message, slowly, almost laboriously, his tongue protruding from his lips as he punched in each word. He seemed to grunt slightly, from time to time, with the effort.

The clerk behind the transmission counter shook her head slowly, wondering how the man had ever gathered enough funds for the message, let alone for the trip he was obviously about to take, or had just taken.

At last he finished and pressed the display button to check his handiwork.

He nodded at his work with a pleased smile and punched the eject stud, taking the plastic square in his hand to the dispatch clerk.

“Alphane, Sector Blue,” he mumbled apologetically to the woman.

She inserted the card in the reader, scanned the number of characters, weight, and routings.

“Twenty-three credits.”

The workman fumbled through his battered pouch, finally coming up with a stained twenty and three chips, all of which he plopped on the counter.

“Thank you.” Her voice was simultaneously warm and bored.

The man bobbed his head. “How long, miss?”

“Let's see. The Alphane run goes through Scandia. No more than two days at the outside.”

“Much obliged.”

The cabinetmaker smiled a toothy grin, almost a leer, before he picked up his traveling satchel and headed back into the orbit control concourse.

The clerk routinely bypassed the privacy safeguards, as she had been taught by Halstani Security, and was reading his message to Aunt Malendr even before he had disappeared into the sparse crowd swirling through the station's curved corridors.

She had forgotten the cabinetmaker within a few minutes, her fading memory of yet another nondescript traveler blotted out by the news of the disaster on Halston below when the carefully scripted presentations of the explosions began to flash across the station's main screens.

W
HILE THE GLAMOUR
of the
Empress Katerina
had not entirely departed the ship, most of the old moneyed passengers who had once sworn by the
Empress
on the run between Halston and New Avalon had. Instead, they took the newer
General Tsao
, even while deploring the stark lines and functional decor of the newer ship.

The man who currently bore the name of Thorin Woden, sitting in the dark-paneled, but cramped, lounge of the
Empress
, enjoyed the faded ambience of the about-to-be-retired dowager ship.

In his hand was a well-thumbed manual on woodworking, although both hand and book lay along the arm of the heavy-appearing armchair. The chair was bolted to the deck, the mountings concealed beneath the thin but rich-looking carpet that was beginning to fray. Neither old nor heavy, the chair was a lightweight imitation comprised of well-connected struts, stiffened fabric, and first-class plastwood veneer. Thorin Woden appreciated both the appearance and the illusion, for reasons beyond the ambience.

“For those passengers with a destination of New Avalon, we will be entering orbit in fifteen standard minutes. On behalf of the
Empress
, we wish you a pleasant stay in New Avalon.

“Passengers continuing to Tinhorn should remain on board. Because of delays in returning to Halston, the New Avalon orbit station requests that only those passengers actually bound for New Avalon leave the
Empress
.”

Thorin Woden shook his head slowly, surveying the near empty lounge. Through passengers preferred the observation deck, where remote screens relayed the approach to orbit control, while most departing passengers were gathering their belongings, luggage, and spouses or offspring.

The man called Woden had little enough to gather, and while his vacation on New Avalon would be brief, he intended to enjoy it. He was too well aware that each vacation could be his last.

Finally, a faint
clink
ran through the hull, and he stood, holding a satchel and a nondescript carrying bag generally filled with clothes.

“We regret to announce that there will be a short delay before departing passengers can disembark. This delay is caused by the lack of available lock capacity. The
Empress
regrets the delay, but we are informed that it will be minimal.”

Woden frowned.

Lack of an available lock or docking capacity normally meant waiting off-station, not locking in and waiting. Lock capacity wasn't the real problem.

New Avalon enjoyed chilly relations with Halston. So the delay could not be at the request of Halstani officials. New Avalon was too proud of its quiet efficiency to deliberately allow anything to halt smooth passenger services.

Woden's hands moved to the heavy workman's belt, his fingertips skimming over the hidden openings. Then he lifted his luggage and stepped toward the lounge exit.

Abruptly, he stepped back into the lounge just in time to avoid two figures moving quickly toward the minimal amenities passenger cabins, more accurately termed closets, he reflected.

The first was a flushed and angry junior officer of the
Empress Katerina
, a third pilot by the stripes on her sleeves, flanked by an Imperial Marine Commander, who also looked out of sorts.

Woden frowned again, then forced his face to relax and headed toward the disembarkation lock.

If there were to be a confrontation, he needed witnesses.

Smiling thinly as he heard the heavy pounding on the cabin he had left hours earlier, he continued in the opposite direction, toward the main lock, where he was certain he would find another Imperial functionary of sorts.

“Wrong,” he muttered to himself as he reached the central section of the hull where all the corridors connected.

A crowd of passengers stood lined up before the lock, which was flanked by a pair of Imperial Marine guards in combat suits, their stunners unholstered.

Each passenger faced a credentials check, followed by a full-body scan, designed to compare the passenger against a preselected body profile. That was not the public explanation for the scanner, which was touted universally as a routine method for discovering internal body smuggling and for concealed weapons. Other methods, less conspicuous and just as effective, if unpublicized, already detected smuggling and unauthorized weapons.

The man called Woden let out his breath slowly, shaking his head, and letting his bags droop in his hands.

“You there. Either wait until you're cleared or get in line,” snapped the Marine on the right.

The cabinetmaker grinned.

“I said to get in line.” The guard raised her stunner, as if to emphasize the command.

“That won't be necessary,” suggested the cabinetmaker. “You can either take my word that I'm the one you're looking for, or you can put me through the scanner first.”

“You wait your turn.”

“Fine, and you'll spend your next turn on Adark, both for ignoring a reasonable suggestion and for unnecessarily delaying debarkation from an innocent commercial—”

“What's this?”

The cabinetmaker turned toward the red-faced Commander, the one who had already been pounding on cabin doors.

“Major Wright, Commander. Jimjoy Wright. Presume you're looking for me?”

The Commander's mouth dropped momentarily, and his nose wrinkled as if the air smelled of rancid fish.

“How…yes, Major. The Service does happen to be looking for you.”

“Too good to believe I might get leave after all. The mess on Halston?”

The Commander swallowed, as if to say something, then choked it back, finally answering, “If you wouldn't mind the scanner, Major?”

“Not at all. Only have my word I'm me.”

With that, the Major picked up his two bags and handed them to the officious Marine. “Take care of these, please. Thank you.”

Next he stepped in front of a bewildered young woman, black-haired and thin-faced, wearing a purple shipsuit that made her look even more washed out than her apparently natural pallor.

“Excuse me, miss, but this will speed up everyone's departure.” He half bowed, smiled, and stepped through the scanner, then glanced at the technician operating the equipment.

She avoided looking at him and tried to catch the eye of the Commander, who was now engaged in conversation with the ship's third officer. The Commander did not look up, and the technician tried to keep from looking at the strange Major.

The ship's officer's voice was low, but intense.

“…dangerous, you said…need to block the ship…quarantine the station…and he announces himself…Regency Lines…protest…consider the matter of compensation…”

The third officer was leaning toward the Commander, who took one step backward, then another.

The Major let a faint smile cross his face as he watched the Commander endure the civilian pilot's complaints. He had no doubt that he would hear from the Commander in turn.

“Commander?” asked the Major, loud enough to break into the pilot's monologue. “Believe your technician has something to say.”

“Yes, Aldora?” asked the Commander, half turning from the pilot, who glared at both the Commander and the Major, switching her glance from one to the other.

“The Major…I mean…the comparison…he's Major Wright,” stammered the technician.

“Thank you.” The cabinetmaker and Major inclined his head to the technician.

“I can believe it,” announced the Marine Commander. Turning back to the pilot, he inclined his head. “Thank you, Officer Shipstaad. A pleasure to work with you.”

The third pilot inclined her head stiffly. “My pleasure, Commander.” The words came out harshly.

The Major noted that the Marine guards appeared more tense, rather than less, now that he had been positively identified.

“Major?” The Commander gestured toward the ship's lock, where yet another pair of Marine guards waited.

The Major nodded and marched toward the lock and the second set of guards. He had no doubt that he could have escaped, but there was no reason to, not now.

He'd only done his duty, if not exactly in the way in which he had been ordered. But he had completed the job, and about that, High Command couldn't quibble.

On the other side of the
Empress
's lock, inside orbit control station, waited a third pair of guards.

The Major shook his head. All this to deny him his hard-earned leave. He grinned at the pair, who had leveled their stunners at him and motioned for him to stop.

“If I'd decided to take your toys away, technicians, you'd be long gone.” His smile was friendly, and so was his tone, but the man on his right paled slightly. The woman aimed directly at his midsection, in approved Service fashion.

“Major, I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from threatening my personnel. They might believe you, and I would have a hard time explaining why I was shipping your body, rather than you.”

“Commander, I appreciate your suggestion and solicitude, but I do need some relaxation now that High Command has decided unilaterally to cancel my hard-earned leave.”

The Commander coughed.

“Where to?” the Major asked.

“Lock six. To your left. There's a courier waiting.”

The Major who had briefly been a technician, a Halstani officer, a cabinetmaker, and assorted other occupations smiled again, briefly, and turned to his left.

A trailing guard raised an eyebrow at the other guard, the one who had arrived carrying the Major's bags. The baggage-carrying guard glared at the other, who looked away.

A third guard whispered, “The Major's supposedly a Special Operative. You wouldn't argue either.”

A handful of civilian passengers, cordoned off behind a rope, viewed the military procession with open eyes and closed faces, waiting for the Imperials to leave so they could get on board the
Empress
and on with their trip to Tinhorn.

A
MAN WHO
believes in nothing will support the status quo, not oppose it.

A man who believes in himself first can be trained to support his society.

The true believer will place his ideals above action, because no action can attain the perfection of his ideals.

These are the people who compose most of society.

The others? The criminals, idiots, writers, politicians, and fanatics?

The politicians pose some danger because they are interesting and employ popular vanity and the illusion of ideals to make small changes in society. Small does not necessarily mean insignificant, and for this reason the politicians must be watched.

Of the remainder, the greatest danger comes from the altruistic fanatic, who believes simultaneously in himself, his ideals, and the need for action. Such individuals should be killed at birth, if they could but be identified that early.

Failing that, they should be made military heroes and given the first possible chance at a glorious death. That is the Empire's current policy.

Unfortunately, someday one of those heroes will survive…

Private Observations

Sanches D. P. Kwixot

New Augusta, 2456 A.E.F.F.