Part 60 (1/2)
Phocion swore. ”Can see just about everywhere, except where I really want to-the Prince, and the base-d.a.m.ned berserkers still have a pretty effective communication curtain up around those areas.”
”If he wants to communicate with us, he can order it opened, can't he?” The Lady Beatrix stared at her husband's image, as if she could not imagine what to make of it.
At last some words came through clearly. Harivarman, recognizing the colonel at least, shouted a question: ”Do you plan to go on attacking the berserkers?”
”Of course I do.”
”At your own risk. I can't give you immunity. I need the berserkers active to keep myself from being arrested. Do you mean to arrest me, Colonel, when you can?”
Phocion shouted back. ”I've got myself in trouble, General. But I draw the line at being goodlife. Or tolerating them.”
The Prince was speaking again, words that were now half-obscured by noise. ” . . . real evidence, look in the outer regions. Around where I was working . . .” There was a little more; Chen thought he heard the word ”surrender,” but he couldn't tell the context now. Noise had increased.
Presently there was nothing left on the screen but noise. Colonel Phocion turned it off. He looked at the others.
”The outer regions,” said Lady Beatrix.
Phocion turned to her. ”What do you think of that? Now am I supposed to shoot him or try to help him?”
”He's still my husband, Colonel. If you're going to try to shoot him, you'd better start now, with me.”
”I don't know if I am or not, blast-d.a.m.n it all! Should I be out to get him? Isheout to get the rest of us?
Has he told the berserkers not to shoot at me? Not so's I've noticed it!”
”Actually he might have, I suppose. They've not been pursuing us, though you did blast one of them.”
Phocion sighed, a heavy sound on radio. ”All right, the outer regions, then. At least there'll be fewer berserkers out there, I expect. A better chance for us to be picked up alive, if and when a human fleet arrives. But I don't know where he was working, and he expects us to find some kind of evidence there.”
”I know that,” said Chen. ”I've seen the place. I remember what the numbers were, the coordinates.
They were on the screen in the staff car that we rode in.”
”Then we go there,” said the lady. ”I don't know what kind of evidence we'll find, but we can try.”
”I'm afraid I do know,” said Phocion, in a low voice.
The others looked at him. He amplified: ”I'm afraid I let them in.”
Phocion, having made that remark, was willing to explain it. Beatrix insisted that they keep moving, starting for their new goal at the outer surface, even as he spoke.
They found a twisting service ramp that went that way, wide enough to accommodate the heavy gun.
They tramped downward through dim light, the weapon and the ammo trailer following. The colonel said: ”A few months ago I was in something of a bad way. Knew I was going to have to leave my command here, being eased out-there comes a time in a man's career when he knows he has no more to look forward to. A point when he realizes that the rest is certain to be all downhill.
”However, not by way of excuse: explanation. I've hesitated to tell, naturally, but I've got to tell someone. I might cash in at any minute here, and no one would ever know. . . . What it comes down to is that about three standard months ago I accepted a bribe. Yes, in my capacity as base commander. Of course the idea of berserkers never entered my mind then. Didn't know who the people were, who talked to me. Never thought of goodlife. . . . This sector had been peaceful for so long-however, as I said, this is not meant as an excuse.
”Smuggling was what I thought I was selling myself out for. Supplying certain civilian needs-I even had the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' word for it that Templar people would not be involved at all . . . and I took their word . . . I don't know who they were. Shows you how far down I was. I was going to set myself up for a pleasant retirement . . . well.
”Point is, there was a time three months past when a landing-of anyone, or anything-could have taken place on the outer surface of the Fortress, and none of us in here any the wiser. For all I know now, it could have been berserkers.”
”But if they arrived only a few months ago, that means-” The Lady Beatrix, Chen could see, was struggling agonizingly to think clearly. He could also see what she must be thinking. If Colonel Phocion's suspicions were correct, it meant that the Prince's claim of having discoveredancientberserkers was almost certainly false.
”I still believe him. I can't help it,” the lady whispered finally.
At the lowest landing of the descending ramp that was still in atmosphere, the colonel brought them to a large locker containing s.p.a.cesuits-it was, he told them, where he'd stashed his gear when he came in from his first raid on the outer part of the Fortress. Just beyond the airlock leading down, the vehicle that he had used then waited. Presently the three of them, the self-propelled gun and ammo cart following as before, were traversing airless pa.s.sages on the way back to the outer surface.
They were three quarters of the way there when Beatrix, driving, brought the flyer to a quick halt. She reported that she had sighted several mysterious figures in the distance. They had looked like a Templar or Templars, moving quickly.
Chen at once thought of Olga. But a.s.suming she had survived the shootout in the tavern, how could she be here, ahead of him, already?
It seemed to Colonel Phocion, and he said so, that Commander Blenheim might have managed to get some people out of the base to carry out some unknown mission in these parts. ”I expect she might have managed that. I could have, and she's a smart gal.”
They waited for a few minutes, the flyer's lights out, in almost total darkness. There were no indications of Templars, berserkers, or any other ent.i.ties being in the vicinity.
Cautiously, they proceeded.
Lescar, in one room of the latest villa-this one large and gloomy-was listening in surrept.i.tiously as Harivarman and Lergov began a strained conference. The Prince had given Lescar other orders, meant to keep him out of the way, but as the servant had observed to himself on certain occasions in the past, there were some times when looking out for his master's welfare required him to do things even against his master's will.
Lergov was so far being allowed to sit at his ease. He began the conversation by informing the Prince rather stoically that he was worried about his fate.
There was some Dardanian music playing, from some small part of the electronic equipment that was now strewn everywhere. Prince Harivarman liked to listen to it. He ignored Lergov's worries about fate, and took a more positive approach: ”What do youwant, Lergov?”
”What do I want, sir? I'll settle for very little at the moment. To get out of this with a whole skin.”
The Prince nodded slowly. ”I happen to want something too, Captain. I wish to be Emperor.” (And Lescar, listening secretly, drew in his breath.) ”And not only that, but to be Emperor with some security-something I fear would be hard to manage as long as Prime Minister Roquelaure is still a force to be reckoned with.”
”All quite understandable, sir.”
”I am glad you are easy to converse with, Lergov. And I am certain you have other talents. To arrange things as I want them, I could use the help of a dependable man like yourself.”
There was a pause, in which Lergov swallowed. ”What will Your Honor trust me to do?” he asked at last.
”Tell me a few things, to begin with.”
”What do you want to know, sir?”
Here Lescar turned and looked around him, bothered by the feeling that perhaps someone else was also listening in. But there was only the house around him, as far as he could tell. And the scattered items of electronics. Of course, someone might be listening.
Prince Harivarman was saying to the captain: ”Tell me about the prime minister's involvement in the Empress's a.s.sa.s.sination. And what part you played. I know some of it already.”
Lergov told a strange and revealing story. Of his adoption, on Salutai, of the ident.i.ty of a liberal protestor named Segovia, and of his role as liaison with a woman named Hana Calderon, also in the employ of the secret police. She had played the role of chief provocateur, making sure there would be a demonstration before the Empress by a pro-Harivarman protest group, who could then be blamed for her a.s.sa.s.sination, as could the exile himself.
Harivarman signaled to the controller, as always at his side. He gave some low-voiced orders. Lescar could not hear what they were, but he could see Captain Lergov turn pale.