King's Sacrifice (53 page)

The drug proved
too powerful. She had fallen asleep.

Daniel paused
before activating the paralyzer, studied her intently. Perhaps it
wouldn't be needed. Perhaps, after all, she would sink into the
hibernation. He drew nearer, hand outstretched, thinking to check her
pulse.

The black
eyelashes fluttered on her cheeks, eyes opened. "Free me,"
she whispered. Her arm slid around his, drew him in to her softness,
her warmth. "You and I . . . together . . . take control ..."

Daniel stood up,
breaking the hold that had, after all, been flimsy, flaccid. Tomi
smiled at him, sweetly, sleepily.

He clamped the
paralyzer firmly on her wrist, activated it, and reached for another
bracelet.

"My lady,"
said Agis when Maigrey returned to the bridge. "I have received
a signal from His Majesty. All is arranged. The fleets belonging to
Baroness DiLuna and the vapor-breather Rykilth are on their way. If
everything goes as planned, His Majesty will meet us at the
rendezvous point on schedule."

Poor Dion. He'd
caught the silver ball, spikes and all.

"Very
good." Maigrey rubbed her burning eyes. "Course plotted?"

"Yes, my
lady. Xris reports from engineering that they're ready down there. Do
I make the Jump?"

Maigrey looked
out into the Void, the darkness that was cold and empty.

"Make the
Jump," she said.

Now I, to
comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God . . .

William
Shakespeare,
King Henry V,
Act II, Scene 3

The kings
shuttlecraft was returning to
Phoenix
.

The shuttle took
its time; wending its way among the ships of the line, assembled for
inspection, assembled to do him honor. Bursts of lascannon fire
exploded from each ship as the shuttle passed, the traditional
salutes unheard but visible, tiny, sparkling stars flashing
yellow-red amid the blackness.

Dion, in formal
dress uniform with purple sash, stood at attention, watched with
solemn gravity from the bow of the shuttlecraft. The Honor Guard in
splendid panoply formed ranks behind him. This image was being
transmitted to every ship in the fleet and to countless billions
watching the galaxy over. All eyes were on him, the boy-king, the
romantic hero of human legend throughout the centuries, going forth
to do battle against evil. He had been compared to Achilles before
the walls of Troy, to David facing Goliath, to Alexander conquering
the world, to John F. Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. President
Robes had sent the king a message, lauding his courage.

Dion, standing
in lonely grandeur on the deck of the shuttle, thought of all the
countless numbers watching, entranced as humanity is always entranced
and seduced by parade, pomp and circumstance. He was reminded of
something Sagan had said to him, quoting Bertold Brecht.

"Unglucklich
das Land, das keine Helden hat! . . .
Unhappy the land that has
no heroes."

And the reply.

"Nein,
unglucklich das Land, das Helden notig hat.
No, unhappy the land
that needs heroes."

This was a land,
a universe, that desperately needed a hero, a savior—someone to
fight their battles, bear their burdens; someone to die for them,
make them feel alive.

Dion was the
elect, the chosen—either by God or by circumstance. Or himself.

I have to be
who and what I am.

Flying that
stolen Scimitar, flying to
Phoenix
to find a name, to find
destiny. He recalled, with a kind of regretful sorrow, as for
innocence lost, how awed he'd been at the sight of the magnificent
warship, shining brightly as a sun, of its attendant planets. And how
insignificant he'd felt, a speck of dust in comparison.

He remembered,
too, how lonely he'd been, as lonely as he was now. How much
everything had changed . . . and how little.

The shuttlecraft
landed on
Phoenix,
His Majesty descended, to be received by a
glittering assemblage: Admiral Aks, looking worried and gray and
harried around the edges; Captain Williams, smooth and personable and
determined to cover himself with glory; Baroness DiLuna, daunting,
haughty, self-satisfied; Rykilth, pleased with himself, to judge by
the color of the vaporous fog surrounding him; Bear Olefsky, huge,
stalwart, towering as a mountain; General John Dixter, stolid,
reassuring, slightly rumpled.

Dion tread the
red carpet that spread beneath his feet like a river of blood and
received their formal bows with calm dignity, mindful of the watching
eyes.

Soon, when all
was ended and the vidcams were shut down, the 'droid reporters
escorted from the ship, the people would shut off their vids and go
about their ordinary lives.

Dion would
descend into hell.

And if he came
back, they would cheer him and love him and crown him their king. And
if he failed, they would forget him and wait for someone else.

Had he ever had
a choice? Was what Maigrey said true? Was he standing here now by an
act of divine intervention? Or had he made the decisions that brought
him to this point? Was he acting of his own free will? Or was he
being fooled into thinking he was by some snickering omnipotent
being?

He remembered
Platus, who wanted the child to be ordinary, but who had named that
child after Plato's hope of a good and wise ruler.

He remembered
Sagan, killing Platus. He heard again the Warlord's voice, Perhaps I
came to rescue you.

And Abdiel's
voice,
You can use the power of the Blood Royal. You have only to
reach out your hand, my king, and take it.

He remembered
golden eyes, a shield held in front of him. He hadn't spoken of what
he intended. He hadn't had the courage. Oh, he'd told her about
DiLuna, about his promise to marry another. That much, Kamil had a
right to know. There would be no lies between them. But not this. Not
his decision to do . . . what must be done. Tusk was right, something
might happen. Fate . . . God . . . chance . . . might intervene.

Might save him
from himself? Is that what he wanted?

"Your
Majesty." Admiral Aks came forward. "We have received a
signal from the Lady Maigrey. She is making the Jump across the
Void."

"We will
follow," said Dion, rubbing the palm of his right hand, as if it
pained him.

Where all life
dies, death lives. . . .

John Milton,
Paradise Lost

Day after day,
day after day

We stuck, nor
breath nor motion: As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted
ocean.

Samuel Taylor
Coleridge,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Night watch.

No different
from the day watch, except by the clock. Powered by strange winds of
pulled-apart quarks, racing past the light of stars left far behind,
the
Belle
sailed across the Void at speeds only the aweless
minds of computers could calculate.

And yet, to
those aboard, it seemed they stood motionless, becalmed.

Agis came onto
the bridge, stood behind the pilot's chair, looked over the
half-breed's shoulder at the instrument readings.

"All goes
well?"

"She go
very well," said Sparafucile, stretching in lazy satisfaction.

The half-breed
uncoiled himself from his seat, unwinding body parts as if he had no
bones. Just how he sat for hours unmoving, Agis had never been able
to determine. Eyes almost completely shut beneath his thatch of
tangled hair, Sparafucile either hunched over or curled up or
slouched down, or perhaps a grotesque combination of all three.
Settling himself in, he never shifted position for the duration of
his watch, which was four hours. A casual observer might have
supposed the half-breed had fallen asleep. That casual observer,
trying to sneak past Sparafucile, would have been dead wrong.

Agis remained
standing, after the assassin had removed himself. The centurion
disliked sitting down just after the half-breed had vacated the
chair. He left behind an unpleasant warmth, to say nothing of the
lingering, objectionable odor. Agis always spent the first half hour
of his watch standing.

Sparafucile
grinned at him, as if he knew exactly what the centurion was
thinking, and left the bridge, heading out to do God knows what.

Agis gave the
chair a disgusted glance and, pouring himself a cup of hot coffee,
leaned against the console and concentrated on monitoring the
instruments.

Watch was
extremely boring, vitally necessary, which was why the Lady Maigrey
had scheduled the three of them— herself, Agis, and the
half-breed—four hours on, eight hours off.

Agis kept his
eyes on the instruments, fixing one part of his mind on its
monitoring duties, setting his inner mental alarm to go off when
required. That done, he sipped his coffee and allowed the other
portion of his mind not currently engaged to travel through time and
space in the opposite direction, travel back to where it always
traveled at times like this: back aboard
Phoenix.

The centurion
could not remember a time in his life when he had not been a soldier.
He assumed there had been one. He assumed he'd had a childhood,
parents, a home, perhaps a dog. No conscious memories of such a past
existed for him, however. It wasn't that such memories were unhappy
ones, deliberately shoved aside. They were simply unimportant. He
couldn't have told, without looking up his record, his real name.

Life began for
Agis when he entered the military. He'd been an exemplary pilot,
whose skill and daring won him the attention of the Warlord. The
proudest moment in Agis's life was his acceptance into the ranks of
the Honor Guard. Agis's second proudest moment was when he'd attained
the rank of captain of that elite corps.

He was with them
now, in spirit, if not in body.

"Cato is a
good commander," he said to the flashing numbers on the screen.
"He will serve the young king well. And he'll be able to adapt
to being captain of the Guard for a king, as opposed to that of a
Warlord. I'm not certain I could have. He'll be going through hell
now, though."

Agis pictured in
his mind the myriad duties required of a captain whose king is not
only going to war, but was going to war in the company of dubious
allies against an extremely hostile neighbor in that neighbors own
territory, outnumbered zillions to one.

But if all went
well, if they beat the odds, if they pulled this off, Cato could find
himself captain of the Palace Guard, a force whose existence had been
wiped out the night of the Revolution. Honor, glory, wealth, even a
chance for retirement, a pension—a thing never expected in the
Warlord's Honor Guard. One rarely grew old in Sagan's service.

I won't, Agis
thought with a smile.

The coffee had
grown cold, he set the cup down.

Agis had no
regrets. On the contrary, he would have had it no other way.

"No matter
what happens, even if we win, even if we defeat our enemy, I have the
foreboding that I will be the last of the Guard to serve my lord. And
so it's better this way. Cato will make a good captain of the Palace
Guard. Yes, it's better this way."

Calmly, at
peace, Agis took his seat in the now-cool leather of the chair and
devoted his full and complete attention to his duty.

Night watch.
Another night.

Xris made his
way to the engine room, prepared to take over the watch from one of
his men. Like Agis, Xris was mainly responsible for watching numbers,
monitoring equipment. But the numbers he watched indicated the
functioning of the engines and the computers that ran the engines,
and unlike Agis, Xris and his men were required to spend considerable
amounts of time constantly adjusting, altering, repairing the complex
systems.

The cyborg read
the log from the last watch, checked his instruments, ordered his men
to go get some sleep. Harry complied. Britt emerged from somewhere
back in the depths of the engine just as his replacement, Bernard,
came through the door. Two men were required in engineering, working
eight-hour shifts.

"Never
thought," said Britt grimly, removing the badge that measured
the amount of radioactivity his body had absorbed and tossing it down
on the desk, "that you'd turn me into an engineer, Xris. Being
bored to death is a hell of a way to go."

The cyborg
smiled, shook his head. Leaning back in his chair, he pulled one of
the black twists of tobacco from a pack stashed in a pocket, lit it.
"Things'll liven up soon enough."

"Yeah?
Well, I tell you, I'm going to be so happy to get to Corasia that I'm
liable to throw my arms around one of the buggers and give it a big
hug. Maybe kiss the ground it rolls on. Can I bum one of those from
you?"

Xris blew smoke.
"I thought you quit."

"Yeah, I
did. Thanks."

"Speaking
of hugging the Corasians, that's about what we're going to be
expected to do when they come on board."

"Yeah, so
Lee said. How do we know that they just won't decide to add us to the
items already on their menu?"

"We don't.
But the lady plans to convince them that we're wanting to establish a
regular supply route. 'Fresh meat delivered right to your door.'"

"You think
it'll work."

"It's got
possibilities. The black market trade in human flesh and technology
has picked up over the years. Back when I was with the agency, rumor
had it that people in very high places were involved. The Corasians
aren't stupid, even if they do all think with one brain. They're
bound to figure that they can gain more by cooperating with us than
making us a midday snack."

The augmented
hearing of the cyborg caught the sound of the mincing, high-heeled
gait of the Adonian, the shuffling whisper of his raincoated
companion.