Empire Page 3

  Thula’s full name was Khethukuthula. It meant “choose to stay quiet” in his own tongue. Cutler had once suggested to Thula that it really meant “mouthful,” at which point Thula had lifted Cutler from the ground by his neck and waited for him to start turning blue before releasing him. Thula’s name was not entirely suited to him, for Paul had found him to be more open in private. His public face was serious, though, and he rarely smiled. He was slim but immensely strong, and almost as tall as the average Illyri. Like Paul and Steven, Thula had been a member of the Resistance, fighting and killing the Illyri in South Africa, and had barely escaped a death posting to the Punishment Battalions, where the Illyri sent those humans who were regarded as terrorists and criminals. It was one of the reasons why he and Paul had bonded. Thula’s intelligence and strength marked him out: even the Illyri were not inclined to waste the potential of such a fighter.

  Thula winked at Paul. Paul just shook his head in amusement. Faron was only a few months into his command. They could be stuck with him for many more. It made sense to try to find a way to live with him as best they could, and antagonize him as little as necessary.

  But, then again, Faron really was a jackass.

  Steven slowly brought the shuttle down. Without being ordered, the twelve troopers on board began checking their weapons. All Illyri weapons issued to humans or other species were fitted with sensors that prevented them from being fired at an Illyri target so that the Brigades could not rebel against their Illyri commanders. Brigade troops received pulse weapons as standard issue, but few really liked carrying them, for the pulse weapons were designed for use in conjunction with the Illyri’s own implanted neural Chips. This meant that the force of the pulse blast was decided in the split-second interaction between the user’s brain and the Chip, and transmitted instantly to the rifle: a stun, a kill, or a full-force shot that could blow a hole in a wall.

  Humans, though, were not permitted to be chipped—supposedly because the functioning of the human and Illyri brains differed, but mostly because the Illyri did not want to implant subject races with such cutting-edge technology. But the truth, as Paul had quickly come to learn during basic training, was that the Chips had made the Illyri slightly lazy: they had come to depend upon them so much that some of their natural responses had been dulled. For instance, Paul’s brother might not have been as technically proficient a pilot as some of the Illyri, but he was a more adaptive one, relying on his wits, not just technology.

  Without Chips, the only way for humans to use pulse weapons was to adjust them manually or rely on a neural “net” worn as part of a helmet. Even then, reaction times were slower, and a blow to the helmet could result in the net malfunctioning, leaving a trooper holding a useless weapon. In addition, pulse rifles occasionally failed to identify the DNA of their human users, rendering them unusable. In the event of such a failure, a message would appear on the weapon’s digital display: URD, for “User Recognition Denial,” or, as the Brigades renamed it, “U R Dead.”

  Where possible, therefore, humans preferred conventional weaponry. Thus it was that Paul checked the depleted uranium loads in his Illyri Military-issue SR automatic rifle: three hundred rounds to a load, and he carried five loads as standard, enough to start a small war. His webbing belt also contained five grenades—three incendiary, two gas—a seven-inch knife with a serrated edge, and a Colt pistol.

  The Colt was technically illegal, but many of the humans complemented their Illyri-issue weaponry with some lethal additions from Earth: pistols, handguns, even sawed-off shotguns. Machetes, and the odd sword or ax, were also not uncommon. Officially, the Illyri frowned on such Earth armaments because, unlike pulse rifles or other Illyri arms, they could be used on the Illyri themselves. Gradually, though, the Illyri came to realize that any risk of rebellion was relatively low. Those who had, in the early years, turned against their Illyri officers had been hunted down within days, and footage of their unhappy deaths—tossed from airlocks and freezing in the blackness, or wasting away of radiation poisoning in a Punishment Battalion mine—was shown to new recruits, just to remind them of the consequences of rebellion. So Earth weapons incapable of automatic fire—shotguns, semiautomatic pistols—were reluctantly permitted. Their familiarity was found to make the troopers more effective fighters, and psychological tests had revealed that humans with Earth weapons as backup were more willing to enter dangerous combat situations than those without.

  The shuttle touched down. Peris was the first to his feet.

  “Gentlemen, you’re up.”

  He nodded to De Souza, who took over. De Souza was Brazilian, and one of the smallest men in the troop, but he radiated a confidence and authority that inspired respect.

  “Sergeant Kerr, Thula, you have point. Cutler, Olver, you have the rear. The rest of you in the middle. Baudin and Rizzo, you stay with the ship. Any questions?”

  “No, sir!” shouted their voices in unison. Cutler was the only exception.

  “Hey, Lieutenant, do Baudin and Rizzo get to stay here because they’re chicks?”

  Baudin, a muscular French girl who carried a crossbow as her additional weapon, gave Cutler the finger. Rizzo, a tiny dark Italian, flicked her right hand, and a throwing star headed straight for Cutler’s groin. It buried itself in Cutler’s helmet, which, fortunately for him, he happened to be holding on his lap. Cutler lifted the helmet and stared at the little silver weapon.

  “Not fair,” he said. “Like, that could really have caused me some damage.”

  “Cut it out, all of you,” said De Souza. “Let’s try to pretend we’re professionals.”

  He pointed at Baudin and Rizzo.

  “You know what to do: we come running, and you start shooting.”

  The two young women nodded. They were the best shots in the unit. If something went wrong at the platform, De Souza wanted them providing covering fire. At least he could be certain that Baudin and Rizzo would hit whatever was chasing them. Cutler couldn’t hit a barn door if it was lying on top of him.

  “Steady,” said De Souza.

  A red light flashed. The shuttle doors began to open.

  “Go!” said De Souza. “Go, go, go!”

  CHAPTER 5

  Syl’s enforced stay with the Nairene Sisterhood was conducted entirely in the Twelfth Realm of the Marque, which was one of the more recent additions to the home of the order, rebuilt some years earlier after the collapse of its main tunnel system.

  However, it was still a place of stone and rock, its classrooms starkly lit and hard-edged, while the rest was dim and thinly coated in a layer of dust. The Twelfth Realm was used to house and train the Novices—those in their first, second, and third years—for it was thought to be beneficial for older and younger Novices to mingle easily, although Elda, had anyone cared to ask her, might have had something to say about that.

  The Twelfth was directly connected to the Thirteenth Realm. The senior Novices lived in the Thirteenth for the final two years of their education—or rather their indoctrination, as Syl preferred to think of it. The seniors were known as Half-Sisters.

  These two sections were the only Realms that could not easily be sealed off from each other. Beside them was the Fourteenth Realm, which contained the living quarters for those Sisters directly involved in the training and education of Novices, shielded from prying recruits by that wretched door.

  Syl walked past the kitchens, past the gymnasium, past the doors that led to greenhouses and lecture rooms, and into the small yet adequate quarters that she had initially kept with her governess Althea, and Ani. Each had her own bedroom, but they shared a living area, a kitchen, and a bathroom. They had settled into these close confines easily enough, and Althea had arranged a cleaning roster, but first she showed them how to use the communal laundry to wash their robes and sheets, because the highborn castle girls had never stared down at a pile of grubby washing before
. Indeed, they’d never scoured a pot either, or swept a floor. Althea forced such domesticity on them, settled them in, ensured their basic needs were met, and then only last month she’d asked to speak to Syl in private.

  “Would you mind excusing us, Ani?” Althea had said, but it wasn’t so much a question as an instruction.

  Ani raised an eyebrow of sympathy at Syl before leaving them be, for over the years it had fallen to Althea to admonish Syl when she had misbehaved and her father wasn’t present, and countless times Ani had been sent on her way before the grand telling-off. But Syl knew her relationship with Althea had changed since their adventures on Earth: Althea no longer treated her as a child to be protected, nor did she defer to Syl as a hired nanny might. Instead, she viewed her charge as her equal, and an ally in the fight against the darkness that shrouded the Illyri Conquest. Like a mother acknowledging that her daughter was a woman now, Althea advised Syl, and warned her to take care, and fretted about her, but she avoided giving orders and instruction, and she also refrained from mollycoddling the girl.

  To outsiders she appeared to be nothing more than a doting nursemaid, but in private she was a force to be reckoned with.

  “Now, my dear,” Althea had said when they were alone, and there was a firmness to her voice that made Syl anxious over what would come next. “I need to go back to Earth. At least for a while.”

  “What? Why?”

  Syl felt childish tears welling in her throat.

  “I am incapacitated here, and of no use at all to anyone,” replied Althea.

  “You’re of use to me!”

  “What? To pick up your discarded underwear? To make sure you have laundered robes? To soothe your ego when they call you names? You don’t need a maid, Syl.”

  “But you came to be my maid,” Syl had said nastily, words she later remembered with shame.

  “Oh, Syl, don’t be churlish. You know very well it was a ruse so that I could accompany you and Ani, so that you would not be alone. But you told me what happened on Earth after I last saw your father—you told me he might be infected. In Edinburgh, I am able do what I can to help, and at least I am better informed. Meanwhile here I must play the role of simpering nursemaid, forbidden from entering the Nairene libraries, or reading their precious books, or even looking the Sisters in the eye.”

  “You can’t leave me here alone!” Syl had sobbed, but Althea merely hugged her tightly, breathing in the scent of her near daughter’s hair.

  “You’re not alone; you have Ani. You have each other. And you have a mission to fulfill, as do I,” said Althea. “I know you’re both safe here; I know Syrene has no intention of harming you—at least not physically. I can’t guarantee she won’t try to play with your emotions, but I have faith in your ability to handle that kind of nastiness. Meanwhile, I have my own business to attend to.”

  “What business?” said Syl, although she remembered all too clearly what Ani said about seeing Althea kiss a human. Passionately, Ani had said, but Syl was sure she’d been imagining any lust. Althea wasn’t the sort for such things, surely.

  “Oh, my little one”—and Althea laughed drily as she looked up at her charge, so much taller than herself these days—“you know it’s best if I keep my own business to myself. Then you can’t tell, or be forced to tell.”

  “When will you go?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. As your supposed maid”—she looked at Syl archly—“the request for my removal from the planet needs to come from you, as my mistress. I need you to inform the Sisterhood that you no longer want me here.”

  Syl looked at her, shaking her head. “How . . . ?”

  “Tell them you’re tired of having me hovering over. Tell them you feel like a child tripping over your nursemaid constantly, and that you’d be able to fit in better without me here, to make friends if I’m not hanging around. Tell them you want independence. Tell them I’m annoying—I really don’t care. They’ll be delighted to be shot of me, though, so it hardly matters. Please, will you just do it, Syl?”

  Syl stared at her feet.

  “Of course I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But when will you return, Althea?”

  “If you summon me. Being your lowly governess prevents me from making such decisions for myself.”

  “So you’ll come if I call?”

  Althea laughed again. “As fast as the nearest wormhole will allow. But promise me you’ll be safe, Syl. Be careful. Look after Ani. Take care of each other.”

  Syl had done as Althea requested, and her governess had left smartly on the next ship off Avila Minor, but not without more tears, for they had never been apart for more than a few days, and not before Syl had implored her to try to find out what she could about Paul Kerr and his brother Steven, and if they were safe. Althea had frowned disapprovingly, but seeing Syl’s distress, she’d finally nodded her assent: she would try.

  Now Althea’s room waited, neat and strangely sterile. She’d changed her bed linen before she left, but some of her clothes hung like a promise in her modest wardrobe, and her favorite volume of poetry lay bookmarked on her desk. It was a small comfort. Otherwise, the living arrangements were companionable—or had been until it became clear that Ani and Syl were to be treated differently by the Sisterhood.

  The Sisters, through Syrene, had become aware of Ani’s abilities. She was a natural psychic, and those with any sort of mind powers were of great interest to the Sisterhood, for such individuals were very rare. This was why Tanit and her gang, with their assorted mind tricks and tortures, were given so much leeway. Ani’s own skill appeared less harmful, for hers was an ability merely to cloud minds, a minor gift as far as Tanit’s hellcats were concerned. But it was a gift Dessa also had, and one in which she had proved to be most adept.

  Syl grimaced in confusion as she pondered the motive behind what could only have been Dessa’s intervention earlier—her conspiratorial nod as Syl and Elda had hurried away had confirmed as much.

  Perhaps Tanit and her gang had forgotten that deep, dark Dessa could make others see what she wanted them to see—a full Sister where a Novice stood, for instance—and perhaps they were careless about shielding themselves from her. And indeed, why should they be on their guard with Dessa when she was one of the inner circle, one of their own?

  Yes, it was definitely unsettling.

  • • •

  As for Syl, as far as the Sisterhood was aware, she was not special like Ani, for Syl had no powers at all. Yes, Syl and Ani had been seized together by the Sisterhood, tricked into becoming Novices by the Archmage Syrene, but only Ani had a gift that could be developed and used by the order. As for Syl, her father was a great Military leader and the Military were known to distrust the Sisterhood, so securing the daughter of Lord Andrus was something of a coup for the Nairenes. She was treated as a trophy, for display only, and that was where her usefulness began and ended.

  The Sisterhood was wrong, though. Syl had power beyond its imagining, and she was being very careful to keep it hidden. Not even Ani guessed, nor did Althea. Syl was a psychic with depths of potential that she barely comprehended herself.

  But Syl knew she had to hone her strengths, so she routinely cross-questioned Ani about her extra lessons, and Ani was always eager to chat because her own psychic awakening was at once exciting and terrifying, so what she was learning—or trying to learn—spilled out of her in a stream of words. Ani had never considered herself exceptional before, and her gift had always been a source of unease. She had kept it hidden for most of her life, afraid of what might happen if it were discovered, fearful that she was, as she put it, “a freak.” But the Sisterhood embraced her, and told her that her abilities made her special, made her extraordinary. Ani was encouraged, celebrated even, and she reveled in the special attention she received as one of the Gifted.

  So Syl listened t
o her friend rambling on excitedly, drinking in every breathless word, and privately she practiced all that Ani was being taught about focusing her powers, about control, repeating the exercises over and over while the Marque rested, building up inner protective walls so that her abilities wouldn’t be detected by the Nairenes.

  The grizzled Sister who was in charge of all the Novices, Grandmage Oriel, was particularly sensitive to psychic ability. Syl had felt Oriel testing her when she and Ani had first arrived at the Marque, probing for any signs of power. It had been all that Syl could do to remain passive, but she believed that Oriel had been fooled, for the old crone appeared to have shown no further interest in Syrene’s latest acquisition. It was Ani who interested Oriel, and that was fine with Syl. Well, kind of fine, because it meant Ani spent many hours with Tanit and the Gifted, and many hours away from her Syl.

  A distance was growing between them and it frightened Syl, for without Ani she stood alone and friendless in the Marque.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Tormic atmosphere was a reasonably sweet mix of mostly oxygen and carbon dioxide, but the heat of it still scorched Paul’s nose and throat as he left the shuttle. His thermally regulated suit instantly began cooling his body, but the system didn’t work as well with helmets, and sweat was already leaking into his eyes. A breeze created ghosts from the sand, as though the grains were fleeing from him. Thula stood at Paul’s back, each mirroring the movements of the other, turning, scanning, their eyes fixed to the sights of their weapons. Both had activated the lens over their right eye, the small circle offering details of wind speed, distances, sources of movement—anything that might give them an advantage if it came to trouble.

  Now, with the weight of the gun in his hands, Paul felt as though every nerve in his body, every synapse in his brain, was functioning at its highest level. They had no way of knowing what, if anything, had happened at the drilling platform. It was possible, Paul supposed, that they might find the entire research team treating themselves to a long lie-in, or hiding in closets and behind curtains, waiting to pop out and surprise the visitors. Possible, but unlikely. Something had gone very wrong here. He could feel it.