x
Even with the most modern environmental controls that Zaytsteva had imported, the room was cold. Condensation formed and dripped on the smooth walls. The only reaction he received was that Adam dropped his gaze and swallowed. His brother appeared unaffected by the news. With no word or sign, he just lay on the operating table as instructed.
"Where the Premier are all my techs? They are never here when I need them! They were ordered to meet me here! By the Premier, I'll strap on or tow of their number down and see whether it improves their---what is it now?" A member of his office staff had appeared in the still-open door.
"Sir, a message has arrived by lasercom from Elizavetaburg! A military squadron has taken orbit, under command of the Executor-General! Troops have repulsorlifted down and purge-flyers are reported on their way this very minute!"
Zaytsteva glared. "What?!"
"Sir, a military squadron has...."
He waved a hand. "I heard you! What could the fool want?"
The nervous administrator swallowed, answering the question Zaytsteva had asked of himself. "I'm afraid I really couldn't say...."
"Get back upstairs and say whatever you are not afraid to say! Find out what they want. Stall them! I shall join you directly."
As the fortunate clerk made his getaway, Zaytsteva turned to one of his officers. "Captain, take your warriors to my apartments. Collect my daughter along the way and see that she is well guarded. Lieutenant, guard this prisoner--- from outside influences as I doubt he is inclined to run away. Adam, stay with him." He held up the alien device. "I will deal with this interruption and return as soon as I can, do you understand?"
Adam gulped, "Yes, sir."
"It should not take long. We shall lock this door behind us." With these words and a mechanical clash, he left them.
Self-conscious silence descended over the pair, broken only by a rumble of activity overhead, their own breathing, and dripping along the walls. The officer paced, hands at his back, bouncing on his toes, essaying a half-mute whistle and thinking better of it, looking from Adam to the figure lying on the table. At last, he bent over the unconscious form. "The infamous starwolf Yvan Dragomilov, is he? Why, he's little more than a child! All the same, hadn't we better truss the little bastard up, just to be on the safe side?"
Adam opened his mouth. "The Oligarch-ProTempe----"
A hard fist spread the lieutenant's nose across his cheek and deprived him of consciousness. Deft fingers on his forearm deprived him of his weapon. A boot heel on his larynx deprived him of further concerns.
"Zakh!" Adam screamed the name.
Animated more by fury than by strength, Yvan Dragomilov sprang across the room, seized his older brother by the throat, and pinned him to the wall, his other hand holding the lens of the quickblade within a mililine of the bridge of Adam's nose. "Where is Maria? You have three seconds! One! Two!"
Adam choked. "Your old room in the tower! I beg of you, Zakh!"
Keeping his weapon steady, the desperado made a rapid search of his brother's clothing. "No key. It is a print lock. Must I drag you there----" he showed teeth," ---or can I just lop off your treacherous head and take it with me?"
Adam's answer was another scream. "An override file in a niche beside the door! I swear! But what good is it? We are locked in!"
Yvan Dragomilov released him. Adam sagged against the wall, held up by friction alone. "You are locked in, Adam. If you have lied to me, I shall take pleasure doing to you what I just did to Zaytsteva's toy soldier!"
He turned and ran a hand along the seam between two graniplastic blocks beside the door. Having played in these chambers as a child, he knew their every secret, few of which he had ever shared with the adults of his family. This knowledge had been crucial in his decision to return to Genrich. A loud click sounded and a section of the wall swung aside. Without another word to his brother, he slipped through, letting it swing shut behind him. A louder click persuaded Adam there was little hope of repeating Zakh's escape. In this, he was proven right all too quickly, for, cautiously glancing one way down the secret passageway, he entered, Yvan Dragomilov just missed a shadowy figure which took his place with Adam in the dungeon.
Remaining as much as possible within a network of hidden passages he had just explored as a boy, in the end, he had no choice but to abandon it where it was interrupted by some ancient effort at remodeling. Planning to reenter a few lines away, down a well-traveled corridor, he was appropriately cautious. Approaching a right-hand bend, quickblade ready, he clung to the wall, keeping movements quiet, scraping his back along all of the blocks, stopping to listen. With the greatest care he could muster, he poked his head around for a glance...
And was seized by the hair! Massive gray-green arms whirled him around and slammed him into a wall. This Cossack and another, with their superhuman hearing and sense of smell, had been awaiting him. He wrenched free, heedless of pain or potential loss of the scalp. Before the second giant could take him, he thrust of blade of kinergy into its eye, destroying one side of its brain. Compartmented by its conversion into a fighting machine, it was only slowed by what should have been a mortal blow. It might die of the wound, in time. Now it groaned and pawed the air, attempting to seize him. He was busy with the first Cossack which had triggered an alarm and also tried to sweep him into its grasp. Repeated thrusts at its chest and s solar plexus proved futile. Before he was aware of it, his designator flickered and died, along with all kinergic power. With the seeming defeat of the rebels and Zaytsteva's attention elsewhere, his troops had grown lax. The idiot officer who had owned this quickblade had not kept it fully charged!
Now the slave-warriors' amplified strength and reflexes were set against a merely human will to live and stay free. At a basic level, this was what they lacked, the very capacity that was taken away to make them Cossacks. Despite their daunting power and speed---and a fearsome reputation serving as a weapon by itself---Yvan Dragomilov, who, as Zakh, had fought a hundred imaginary battles in this corridor, did not give up as many another might have. He ducked the wounded creature's treelike arms, luring his healthier pursuer into its half-blind, entangling grasp. He seized upon the straps of the damaged warrior's quickblade. They came away. Provided he had time, he now had a weapon meant for use against the semi-artificial fighters.
The first Cossack pushed the useless one away and came for him, never raising its quickblade. It must have orders to take him alive, although how Zaytsteva knew of his escape so soon....no time for that! Lifting a weapon much heavier than his own, he centered a crimson splash on the Cossack's face. The bolt took its victim in the forehead. It staggered, sank to its knees, and fell down. Before he could take another breath, six more entities exactly like it marched around the corner and stumbled on him.258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzp18r6AM3y
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUPHwU8YNFv
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyXmIhJxyze
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFXDhuQC6dx
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVYUkiK5k7p
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR0g8B03btx
"Good evening, Captain! Or should I address you as young Master Sorokin, now that you have returned home after so long an absence?"
Yvan Dragomilov opened his eyes, not without effort, for they felt as if they were cyanoed shut. He essayed to sit up but he didn't succeed, his head being just a part of his body throbbing with pain. His right arm was in a sling. He lay on a divan he didn't recognize, within what had been his father's office, a silky coverlet pulled over his legs. On a nearby table, a carafe sent wisps of steam and the wonderful aroma of caff into the air.
"The former," he croaked, for it was all he could manage at the moment, "which I chose and earned."
Two men stood before him, one tall and gray, uniformed in a paramilitary fashion sometimes affected by Romanovan aristocrats. Yvan Dragomilov guessed that his black mask portrayed the half-mythical Malcolm Ten. The other was slight, attired in stylish and expensive civilian clothing of Dzendayn cut. He wore a forthright and unmistakable rasputin. As his eyes began to focus, Yvan Dragomilov saw that it was the Romanovan who had spoken and who now knelt to assist him with the caff, which was heavy with milk and sweet flavoring.
He drank deep. "Who in the Premier's name are you?"
"In the Premier's name indeed." The gray man stood again, set the carafe on the table, took a step backwards, and swept his mask away. "My boy, I am Flownx Trezleniya-Silvertou, Oligarch-Advisory and---what is even more important now---Executor-General to Arkivitius X."
Yvan Dragomilov blinked. "Trezleniya...Silvertou?"
"Aren't you familiar with the name? Pray permit me to introduce my esteemed colleague and official enemy, Peter Bogdan-Kryukov, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot to the Droom on Romanova, who accompanies me as an observer. Ambassador, I give you the Yvan Dragomilov."
The man doffed his mask, bowed without a word, afterward standing with arms folded across his chest, a scowl on his dark face. Yvan Dragomilov extended a hand, noticing for the first time that he wore other bandages and in places tinged from disinfectant fields. More, he had been deprived of his--- or rather, the Cossack's---quickblade, and neither of these two carried one he might take. "Some effort has been spent reviving me. How long---?"
"How long have we been here," Trezleniya-Silvertou asked, "or how long have I been unconscious? I gather we arrived almost upon your heels. As to the latter, my people dragged you here, somewhat zealously, I might add by way of apology---about an hour and a half ago, after an exhaustive search of the premises and what I am told was an impressive battle below. Young man, you have cost the Premier rather a pretty coznik this day. Do you truly recall biting through the carotid artery of one of my Cossacks?"
Yvan Dragomilov shuddered. "No," he lied.
"Be that as it may," Trezlinya-Silvertou continued, his voice acquiring a trace of irritability, "you proved difficult to come to grasp with. In the same span, three light divisions of the Premier's Cossack legions took a whole world rather more easily from supporters of the man you call the Black Usurper."
This time he did manage to sit up. "What has become of him?"
"We hear he escaped into the forest, looking for a vantage point from which to bring our occupying forces under his thumb, employing some alien weapon he is rumored to have. In absence of your brother, who seems to have disappeared as well---I have people searching for them now---this weapon was one of the items I wished urgently to discuss with you."
"And Maria Petrovka?"
Trezlinya-Silvertou drew a chair up beside the divan. The ambassador threw himself upon a settee across the room where he sat scowling. "I have," the Romanovan reflected, "very special instructions regarding her. She was not in her----quarters. I surely hope to discover her safe and sound."
Yvan Dragomilov nodded, sharing his hope. In any case, many dire reckonings would be paid before this was finished, and he did not intend letting some idiot Premier interfere. "'One of the items.' What else do you wish to discuss with me, Executor-General, my trial and termination as a rebel and starwolf?"
"Dear me, no!" The man laughed as if it were the furthest thing from his thoughts, which it was. "On the contrary, my boy, it is my desire to enlist, on the behalf of my Premier, the sympathies and cooperation of a celebrated...shall we say 'adventure'?"
Yvan Dragomilov raised an eyebrow. "Sympathies?"
"And cooperation. I intend, wherever and whenever we found you, to offer you, straightaway, the Premier's amnesty and a full pardon...."
"The same as offered my brother by the Black Usurper," he snorted. "It seems that each side, in whatever capital-planet dispute this represents, wishes its own pet Sorokin for some obscure reason. Well let me assure you, Executor-General, I have not the faintest interest which faction finishes uppermost in any political struggle. My experience is that the Cosmopolity---and your Empery-Cirot, sir---are but two strains of the same virus!"
"Sedition!" Bogdan-Kryukov gasped at the first word he had spoken in Yvan Dragomilov's presence. "This creature is nothing more than a common murderer! On Homeworld, we have ways of dealing with his ilk!"
"Yes, Peter, I know you do." Trezlinya-Silvertou turned back to the figure on the divan. "My friend refers to encephalocyberectomy. On other occasions, he wonders why the Empery-Cirot suffers a chronic death of talent and initiative in these latter days." The Executor-General sighed. "Even you must realize, my boy, that, in the true universe, our imperium-conglomerate represents the least of many greater evils. It is the only proven defense against not just Dzendayn predation---you will excuse me, Peter---but the threat of anarchy which endangers any civilization."
"I must now point remind you that I am not your boy," an angry Yvan Dragomilov shook his head. "Also, save your apology for someone on whom it may prove effective. I am a ship-robber, a representative of that anarchy that you just mentioned. Moreover, knowing something of defenses, proven otherwise, and being a businessman of sorts, I remain convinced of your proposition upon pragmatic grounds of contract, profit, and loss.
Trezlinya-Silvertou blinked. "Sir?"
"You argue that you protect civilization from predation. Yet what do I owe a protector," Yvan Dragomilov demanded, "who keeps his part of the bargain---a bargain, I might add, which I had nothing whatsoever to do with, to which I was never offered a chance to consent or abstain from consenting---with confiscation and conscription, the very predation you claim to defend me from, in short, with little else but the bargain's alteration?" From the ambassador a series of half-articulate mutterings was audible. For his own part, the Executor-General opened his mouth to offer one of many conventional answers on the subject. "Not to mention endless sophistries," Yvan Dragomilov added before he could speak, "designed to redefine that lattermost word away?"
Trezlinya-Silvertou closed his mouth. Yvan Dragomilov lifted the coverlet, swung his legs across the divan, and rose to his feet. "What do I have left," he asked, "to offer a defender who defends me---from enemies that he made for me---by taking more away than they could? What am I free to say of a liberator that defends liberty by placing it in protective custody?"
The brigand folded his good arm about his sling. The man sighed and shook his head. These probing questions were the same as he had often asked himself (in mental privacy) for which he had never found an adequate answer.
"You are an even greater idealist," he offered at last," that I was given to believe. Albeit it one who backs his ideals with intelligence and an act of palpable courage. Permit me to appeal to both, your idealism and courage, as they are rare. You cannot help having seen how our rather overcivilized young men today lack---let us use olden words---the 'grit' or 'gumption' you manifest every minute. My bo---Captain, it was your kind who made Romanova great for a millennium. Yet even now, at its peak, the rot starts to show. Your imperium conglomerate needs you if it is to survive another thousand years."
"Your imperium-conglomerate, sir. And I observe, in passing, that it was not to my intelligence that you chose to appeal. I repeat: I am a desperado."
"By your light, I am a contract-defaulter," Trezlinya-Silvertou chuckled. "One outlaw to another, what may I offer in exchange?": He held up a finger. "Shall I hand you a traitorous brother for whatever you consider justice?" He held up a second finger. "Shall I play a file I brought of my Premier promising to restore all Sorokin promises to you?" He held up a third finger. "With title and power of an Oligarchy, not for this planet alone, but the region of the Deep surrounding it? It would not be unprecedented. Someday, visiting the Droom, you might appropriately affect the visage of the insane clergyman Grigory Rasputin, who became de-facto czar of ancient Russia by appealing to his sovereign's superstitions."
"If I were to wear a mask, it would likelier be of Vladimir I. Lenin, a dissident who led a revolution to overthrow his sovereign." Yvan Dragomilov shook his head. "Make clearer why you need me badly enough to offer these things."
This was too much for Bogdan-Kryukov who leaped up, threw his hands wide, and shouted: "Why do you let him speak to you in this manner? Give him to me! What I leave will be happy to cooperate!"
"He merits an answer, Peter." Trezlinya-Silvertou shrugged. "Strategic reasons, Captain Dragomilov. Genrich itself is of no value. Yet, fearing Dzendayn interference, with due respect to the ambassador, and a rising alien presence in what has become, through a degree of neglect, an unstable region, the Premier is anxious to find a competent, popularly supported governor..."
Yvan Dragomilov nodded. "One well able to supply his own firepower?"
Trezlinya-Silvertou's smile was on the verge of a grin. "Yes, and maybe, in the process, rid himself of an increasingly bothersome desperado by some means other than the lengthy and expensive method of hunting him down like some animal."258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZgpasQtEh4
"Or attempting to win his confidence through the ancient goodman-badman gambit, with the help of your 'official enemy'?"
Bogdan-Kryukov tossed back his head and laughed. "Pay me, Flownx! I wagered that it would not last half an hour! Pay me my thousand cozniks!"258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4OGmr2uRVj
Trezlinya-Silvertou gifted Yvan Dragomilov with a look of rueful admiration. "Cozers, Peter, and I shall pay you once the captain has answered."258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhFNcGUqS73
Yvan Dragomilov took a long while. "Living the life I have thus far lived, I shall suffer no one to call me master, nor ever call another by that name."
"Well said, sir!" Trezlinya-Silvertou smiled, "and in the future, I shall make bold to quote you. Yet it appears that I confront futility. Allow me a final inducement. "He strode to the desk, leaned over to press an annunciator lever. "Will you please send in my niece?"258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡso8lvGDzNE
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz78AzoPIv5
