Throne of Stars (54 page)

For the moment, at least.

“On the purely military side,” O’Casey continued after a moment, “it seems clear Adoula, despite his current position at the head of the Empire’s military establishment, hasn’t been able to replace all of the Navy’s officers with safe cronies, either. Captain Kjerulf, for example, is in a very interesting position as Chief of Staff for Home Fleet. I’d bet he’s not exactly a yes-man for what’s going on, but he’s still there. And then there’s Sixth Fleet, Admiral Helmut.”

“He’s not going to take what’s happening lying down,” Julian predicted confidently. “We used to joke that Helmut got up every morning and prayed to the picture of the Empress over his bed. And he’s, like, prescient or something. If there’s any smell of a fish, he’ll be digging his nose in; you can be sure of that. Sixth Fleet’s going to be behind
him
, too. He’s headed it for years. Way longer than he should have. It’s like his personal fiefdom. Even if they send someone out to replace him, five gets you ten that the replacement has an ‘accident’ somewhere along the line.”

“Admiral Helmut was noted for some of those tendencies in reports I’ve seen,” Temu Jin interjected. “Negatively, I might add. Also for, shall we say, zealous actions in ensuring that only officers who met his personal standards—and not just in terms of military capability—were appointed to his staff, the command of his carrier and cruiser squadrons, and even to senior ship commands. Personal fiefdoms are a constant concern for the IBI and the Inspectorate. It was only his clear loyalty to the Empress, and the Empire, that prevented his removal. But I concur in Sergeant Julian’s estimate of him, based on IBI investigations.”

“And there’s one last possibility,” Eleanora continued. Her voice was thoughtful, and her eyes were half-slitted in a calculating expression. “It’s the most . . . interesting of all, in a lot of ways. But it also depends on things we know the least about at this point.”

She paused, and Roger snorted.

“You don’t need the ‘cryptic seer’ look to impress me with your competence, Eleanora,” he said dryly. “So suppose you go ahead and spill this possibility for us?”

“Um?” Eleanora blinked, then flashed him a grin. “Sorry. It’s just that a fair percentage of the Empress’ Own tends to retire to Old Earth. Of course, a lot take colonization credits to distant systems, but a large core of them stays on-planet. After tours in the Empress’ Own, I suppose backwaters look a bit less thrilling than they might to a regular Marine retiree. And the Empress’ Own, active-duty or retired, are loyal beyond reason to the Empress. And they’re also, well . . .” She gestured at Julian and Despreaux. “They’re smart, and they have a worm’s eye view of the politics in Imperial City. They’re going to be making their own estimations. Even absent what we know, that Roger was on Marduk when he was supposedly carrying out this attempted coup, they’re going to be suspicious.”

“Prove I was out here, not anywhere near Sol . . .” Roger said.

“And they’re going to be livid,” Eleanora said, nodding her head.

“How many?” Roger asked.

“The Empress’ Own Association lists thirty-five hundred former members living on Old Earth,” Julian replied. “The Association’s directory lists them by age, rank on retirement or termination of service, and specialty. It also gives their mailing addresses and electronic contact information. Some are active members, some inactive, but they’re all listed. And a lot of them are . . . pretty old for wet-work. But, then again, a lot ain’t.”

“Anybody that anyone
knows
?” Roger asked.

“A couple of former commanders and sergeants,” Despreaux answered. “The Association’s Regimental Sergeant Major is Thomas Catrone. No one in the company really knew him when he was in. Some of us crossed paths, but that doesn’t begin to count for something like this. But . . . Captain Pahner did. Tomcat was one of the Captain’s basic training instructors.”

“Catrone’s going to remember Pahner as some snot-nosed basic training enlistee, if he remembers him at all.” Roger thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, I doubt he was a snot-nose even then. It’s hard to imagine, anyway. Any other assets?”

“This,” Eleanora said, gesturing at the overhead and, by extension, the entire ship. “It’s a Saint insertion ship, and it’s got some facilities that are, frankly, a bit unreal. Including some for bod-mods for spy missions. We can do the extensive bod-mods we’re going to require for cover with those facilities.”

“I’m going to have to cut my hair, aren’t I?” Roger’s mouth made a brief one-sided twitch that might have been construed as a grin.

“There were some suggestions that went a bit beyond that.” Eleanora made a moue and glanced at Julian. “It was suggested that to ensure nobody began to suspect it was you, and so you could keep your hair, you could change sex.”

“
What?
” Roger said in chorus with Despreaux.

“Hey, I also suggested Nimashet change at the same time,” Julian protested. “That way—
oomph!
”

He stopped as Kosutic elbowed him in the gut. Roger coughed and avoided Despreaux’s eye, while she simply rolled a tongue in her cheek and glared at Julian.

“We’ve come to an agreement, however,” the chief of staff continued, also looking pointedly at Julian, “that that extreme level of change won’t be necessary. The facilities are extensive, however, and we’ll
all
be retroed with a nearly complete DNA mod. Skin, lungs, digestive tract, salivaries—anything that can shed DNA or be tested in a casual scan. We can’t do anything about height, but everything else will change. So there’s no reason you can’t keep the hair. Different coloration, but just as long.”

“The hair’s not important,” Roger said frowningly. “I’d considered cutting it, anyway. As a . . . gift. But the time was never right.”

Armand Pahner had cordially detested Roger’s hair from first meeting. But the funeral had been a hurried affair in the midst of the chaos of trying to keep the ship spaceworthy and simultaneously clear the planet of any sign the Bronze Barbarians had ever been there.

“But this way you can keep it.” Eleanora kept her own tone light. “And if you didn’t, how would we know it was you? At any rate, the body-mod problem is solved. And the ship has other assets. It’s too bad we can’t take it deep into Imperial space.”

“No way,” Kosutic said, shaking her head sharply. “One good look at it by any reasonably competent customs officer, even if we could get it patched up, and he’s going to know it’s not just some tramp freighter.”

“So we’ll have to dump it—trade it, rather—with someone we can be sure won’t be telling the Empire what they traded for.”

“Pirates?” Roger grimaced and glanced quickly at Despreaux. “I’d hate to support those scum in any way. And I wouldn’t trust them a centimeter.”

“Again, considered and rejected,” Eleanora replied. “For both of those reasons. And also because we’re going to need a considerable amount of help pirates simply aren’t going to be able to provide.”

“So who?”

“Special Agent Jin now has the floor,” the chief of staff said, rather than responding directly herself.

“I’ve completed an analysis of the information that wasn’t wiped from the ship’s computers,” Jin said, tapping his own pad. “We’re not the only group the Saints have been messing with.”

“I’d think not,” Roger snorted. “They’re a pest.”

“This ship, in particular,” Jin continued, “has been inserting agents, and some covert action teams, into Alphane territory.”

“Aha.” Roger’s eyes narrowed.

“Into whose territory?” Krindi asked in Mardukan. Because the humans’ personal computer implants could automatically translate, the meeting had been speaking the Diaspran dialect of Mardukan with which all the locals were familiar. “Sorry,” the infantryman continued, “but I’ve been getting up to speed on most of your human terms, and this is a new one.”

“The Alphanes are the only nonhuman interstellar polity with which we have contact,” Eleanora said, descending into lecture mode. “Or, rather, the only one which isn’t
predominately
human. The Alphane Alliance consists of twelve planets, with the population about evenly split between humans, Altharis, and Phaenurs.

“The Phaenurs are lizardlike creatures—they look something like
atul
, but with only four legs and two arms, and they’re scaly, like the
flar-ta
. They’re also empaths—which means they can read emotions—and, among themselves, they’re functional telepaths. Very shrewd bargainers, since it’s virtually impossible to lie to them.

“The Altharis are a warrior race that looks somewhat like large . . . Well, you don’t have the referent, but they look like big koala bears. Very stoic and honorable. Females make up the bulk of their warriors, while males tend to be their engineers and workers. I’ve dealt with the Alphanes before, and the combination is . . . difficult. You have to lay all your cards on the table, because the Phaenurs can tell if you’re lying, and the Altharis lose all respect for you if you do.”

“But the critical point, for our purposes, is that we have information the Alphanes need,” Jin continued, picking up the thread once more. “They need to know both the extent of Saint penetration—which they’re going to be somewhat surprised about, I suspect—and the true nature of what’s going on in the Empire.”

“Even if they do need to know that, and even if we tell them, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to help us,” Roger pointed out.

“No,” Eleanora agreed with a frown. “But they can, and there are reasons they may. I won’t say they
will
, but it’s our best hope.”

“And do you have any suggestions about how we’re going to penetrate the Empire?” Roger asked. “Assuming we can convince the Alphanes to help us, that is?”

“Yes,” Eleanora said, then shrugged. “It’s not my idea, but I think it’s a good one. I didn’t at first, but it makes more sense than anything else we’ve come up with. Julian?”

Roger looked at the noncom, and Julian grinned.

“Restaurants,” he said.

“What?” Roger frowned blankly.

“Kostas, may he rest in peace, gave me the idea.”

“What does Kostas have to do with it?” Roger demanded, almost angrily. The bitter wound of the valet’s death had yet to fully heal.

“It was those incredible meals he’d summon up out of nothing but swamp water and day-old
atul
,” Julian replied with another smile, this one of sad fondness and memory. “Man, I still can’t
believe
some of those recipes he came up with! I was thinking about them, and it suddenly occurred to me that Old Earth is always looking for the ‘new’ thing. Restaurants spring up with some new, out-of-this-world—literally!—food all the time. It’s going to require one helluva lot of funding, but that’s going to be a problem for anything we do. So, what we do, is we come to Imperial City with a chain of the newest, most you’ve-got-to-try-this-new-place, most brassy possible restaurants serving ‘authentic Mardukan food.’”

“You’ve wanted to do this your whole life,” Roger said, wonderingly. “Haven’t you?”

“No, listen,” Julian said earnestly. “We don’t just bring Mardukans and Mardukan food. We bring the whole schmeer.
Atul
in cages.
Flar-ta
.
Basik
. Tanks of
coll
fish. Hell, bring Patty! We throw a grand opening for the new restaurant in Imperial City that’s the talk of the whole planet. A parade of
civan
riders and the Diasprans bearing platters of
atul
and
basik
on beds of barleyrice. Rastar chopping the meat off the bone right there in the restaurant for everyone to watch. Impossible to miss.”

“The purloined letter approach,” Kosutic said. “Don’t hide it, flaunt it. They’re looking for Prince Roger to come sneaking in? Heaven with that! We’ll come in blowing trumpets.”

“And do you know how good a restaurant is for having meetings?” Julian asked. “Who thinks about a group of former Empress’ Own having one of their get-togethers in the newest, hottest restaurant on the face of the planet?”

“And we’ve got the whole
Basik
’s Own right there in the heart of the capital,” Roger said, almost wonderingly.

“Bingo,” Julian agreed with a chuckle.

“Just one problem,” Roger noted, with another of those quick, one-side-of-the-face smiles. “They’re all lousy cooks.”

“It’s
haute cuisine
,” Julian said. “Who can tell the difference? Besides, we can scrounge up cooks on the planet. Ones that are either loyal to us, or don’t know what’s going on. Just that they were hired to go to another planet and cook. That place in K’Vaern’s Cove, the one down by the water—you know, the one Tor Flain’s parents own. That’s a whole
family
of expert cooks. Ones we can trust, come to think of it. And how many humans
speak
Mardukan? It was only your toot and Eleanora’s that let us get by at first. Then there’s Harvard.”

“Harvard?” Roger asked.

“Yeah, Harvard. If you trust him,” Julian said seriously.

Roger thought about that for a long time. They’d discovered Harvard Mansul, a reporter for the Imperial Astrographic Society in a cell in a Krath fortress the Marines had captured. He’d been almost pathetically grateful to be rescued, and to have his prized Zuiko tri-cam returned more or less unharmed. Since then, he’d been attached to Roger like a limpet. Not for safety, but because, as he’d frankly admitted, it was the story of all time. Marooned prince battles neobarbarians and saves the Empire . . . assuming, of course, that any of them survived.

But Mansul wasn’t in it solely for the story. Roger felt confident about that. He was not, by any means, scatterbrained, and he was loyal to the Empire. And furious at what was happening at home.

“I think I trust him,” the prince said finally. “Why?”

“Because if we send Harvard back early, he thinks he can get a pretty good piece—maybe a lead piece—into the
IAS Monthly
. He’s got good video, and Marduk is one of those ‘I can’t believe worlds like that still exist’ places the IAS loves. If we hit right after the IAS piece, it’d make for that much better publicity, and he’s willing, more than willing, to help. Obviously, he’ll hold off on the
big
scoop. And he can do some other groundwork for us in advance. We’re going to need that.”