The Dragons of Andromeda Read online

  Flax, for her own part, wasn’t sure why Zala was so abusive. In language fluctuating between human and Magna, Zala called her many things, but most revolved around a single word: whore.

  Too frightened to tell Gul about the beatings, even when alone with him, Flax asked whether his wife would have preferred a male slave.

  “Perhaps,” he replied, sitting in the den. “Zala always had a jealous streak.”

  “Why would she be jealous of me?” Flax asked, shaking her head.

  Gul considered a moment. “I don’t really know.”

  “Do Magna ever have relationships with their slaves? I mean sexually?”

  He guffawed.

  “No, of course not!” he said. “I mean, there’s always rumors of such things, but bestiality is strictly taboo.”

  “Bestiality?” Flax replied frowning.

  Not realizing the insult, Gul went on, “I mean, just as a practical matter, I don’t see how it’s even possible. Humans are such frail things, I can’t imagine one surviving such an encounter.”

  Flax, feeling herself flush, stared at a stain on the carpet. She wondered if Zala would beat her for it.

  “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Gul inquired. “I was always happy to answer Nigel’s questions.”

  “No,” Flax said. “Nothing.”

  A few days later, two Magna dressed in official attire came to the door which Flax answered dutifully. She led them to Gul’s study where they spoke in private. Once they left and the judicator had talked to his wife, he came to the storeroom where Flax was unpacking food for the evening dinner.

  Flax had only known him for a short while, but she knew by the furrows in his brow that something serious had happened.

  “I’ve been selected for a great honor,” he said.

  “Really?” she replied.

  “I’ve been appointed to the Consilium.”

  “The Consilium?”

  “Yes, I must leave in the morning.”

  Flax stammered, straining to remember what the slave trader Ipak-Bog had said.

  “When will you be back?” she asked after a pause.

  “I won’t be coming back,” Gul replied, nearly choking on the words. “Those appointed to the council remain in the Consilium for the remainder of their lives.”

  “So, that means I’ll be here alone with... your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  Flax dropped the frozen steak she had been handling. It landed with an icy clunk on the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lords Winsor Woodwick and Radford Groen sat on their balcony overlooking the Regalis River. The music of police sirens wafted on the wind from the direction of Middleton on the other side of the river. The night sky glowed red with fires burning in the distance. Woodwick, with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, cast a doubtful glance at Groen who was staring at his datapad.

  “I say, Radford,” Woodwick said, “Rome is burning and you’re playing the fiddle!”

  Groen looked up. “I’m doing nothing of the sort! I’m betting on a dead pool about which royal gets killed next.”

  “Your House is one of the Five Families. Are you planning on getting murdered as well?”

  Groen gave his friend a side glance. “Murder-suicide is always a possibility...”

  The two men kept eye contact for an uncomfortable few seconds until Woodwick chuckled.

  “I say, Radford. Your droll sense of humor will be the death of me!”

  Groen smiled devilishly, his attention drawn back to the datapad, and placed another bet.

  “By the by,” Woodwick went on after a while, “I don’t suppose you’ve been following this Sylvia Flax business?”

  “Who is that?” Groen muttered.

  “What? You’re joking, surely!”

  Groen said nothing.

  “She’s practically the face of VOX News,” Woodwick insisted. “You’ve really never heard of her?”

  Again, Groen was silent.

  “Well, plopadops,” Woodwick remarked. “It’s all gone to pot if you ask me. A real cock-up.”

  “A what?” Groen asked, finally bothering to speak.

  “What’s what?”

  “Whatever you just said.”

  “The Imperium, obviously,” Woodwick replied while tugging at his mustache. “A proper damp squib.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Groen said. “I’m sure people know what they’re doing.”

  A flare of light illuminated the buildings in the distance. Something had exploded.

  “I don’t know, Radford. I simply don’t...”

  In the underground city of the Necronea, Grand Necromancer Ghazul took a passage leading to where Philip Veber’s private quarters were located. Days ago, the boy had asked for books and then disappeared once he received them. No one had seen him since until today, when he sent a message asking the Grand Necromancer to visit him.

  His long vestments dragging on the loose soil, Ghazul came to Philip’s door. Tapping the skull on the end of his staff against the wood, he heard the boy’s voice from the other side.

  “Yes?”

  Ghazul pushed the heavy door open. Wearing a simple gray robe, Philip stood on the other side of the room next to a table on which three books rested among candles. The pungent aroma of incense clouded the air.

  “It’s good to see you,” Philip said.

  The necromancer closed the door behind him. The small room contained a bed in one corner and a wardrobe in the other. A rug covered the bare dirt in the center. Ghazul also noticed the outline of a doorway sketched onto a wall.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” he said.

  Philip smiled, his teeth like yellowed ivory. “Indeed, I have!”

  “Have you been experimenting with portals?”

  “A little.”

  “You should remember my warning,” Ghazul replied. “Portals can be dangerous without the wisdom to use them.”

  “Of course,” Philip said. “I’ve been careful.”

  The young Veber drew nearer until stopping at the edge of the rug with the table at his back.

  “I’ve been studying the grimoires night and day,” he went on. “Not that one can tell the hours of the day down here.”

  “What have you learned?”

  “You never told me about the Old Ones...”

  Ghazul’s face, lacking a nose or lips, managed to tighten into a knot. “For good reason.”

  “Why keep them secret?” Philip asked. “They’re the ones who receive our sacrifices, aren’t they?”

  “No.”

  “Who then?”

  “The Guardian of the Gate.”

  “Isn’t he an Old One too?”

  Ghazul shook his head. “He’s a servant, like so many others.”

  “But he guards the gate keeping the Old Ones on the other side...”

  The old necromancer raised his hand. “Stop. These are not questions you should be asking.”

  “On the contrary,” Philip said. “These are the only questions I care about.”

  “I insist,” Ghazul replied sternly, “and you must return the grimoires.”

  “But I’ve made so much progress! Please, come see what I’ve discovered...”

  Philip beckoned and, reluctantly, the necromancer crossed the room toward the other side. As he stepped onto the rug, Ghazul felt it give way. Dropping his staff, he and the rug were falling through thin air for several seconds until, just as quickly, he tumbled across a hard, metallic surface with only the woven mat to soften the impact.

  With a spark of anger, he thrust the rug off him and got to his feet. The specks in his otherwise empty eye sockets darted back and forth. Everything was metal, from the ceiling to the floor. On one wall was a hatch and on another, drawn in chalk, the outline of an archway.

  “Clever boy,” Ghazul said.

  Philip had scrawled a portal incantation on the floor of his room and covered it with the rug. When Ghazul walk
ed over it, the gate swallowed him up, sending the old necromancer to wherever this place was. Of course, it was all pointless. Ghazul knew he could simply reactivate the portal from this side and come back. Perhaps it was just an elaborate prank, he wondered. Human children were known for such things...

  Something else drew his attention. He slowly became aware of a sound. Listening more attentively, he concluded it was repeating like an alert a computer might make. He palmed the controls and the hatch slid open, revealing a corridor.

  I’m on a starship, he thought.

  Following the sound, the necromancer passed through an empty galley and down another hall. The ship seemed abandoned, but there was no damage evident. Still, the beeping grew louder.

  He opened another hatch and found himself on the bridge containing four command chairs and a set of controls. Blast shields were down, covering the view ports to the outside.

  On the console from which the noise was originating, a red light blinked. Ghazul paused by the controls, leaning forward to read the monitor.

  “PROXIMITY ALERT,” it said.

  He reached for a switch, releasing the blast shields. As the barriers fell aside, the bridge became a blaze of light. Covering his face, the necromancer could only make out the churning, fiery surface of a star.

  Ghazul’s gaping mouth opened as if to scream but burst into flames as the starship careened into the sun.

  With his hands tightly clenched behind his back, Prince Richard stared through the sheer curtains of his office at the wafts of smoke still rising from downtown Regalis.

  The prince’s execubot Cornelius, his chrome casing and smooth metal faceplate devoid of expression, still managed to present a cheerful air.

  “What a beautiful day!” the robot said. “Not a cloud in the sky...”

  “Shut up,” the prince replied.

  “I have some good news, Your Highness!”

  “Keep it to yourself.”

  Cornelius tapped his claw-like hand against his chin. “It’s fascinating how humans remain committed to an emotion even if it’s gloom.”

  “Wallowing in self-pity is all we have sometimes,” the prince said.

  “Are you quite sure you don’t want to hear the good news?’

  Prince Richard turned away from the window and glared at the robot. “Alright, go ahead.”

  “I’ve received a direct message from dy cybernetics,” Cornelius explained. “It appears Dyson Yost himself wants to speak with you!”

  “Should I feel honored? I’m the Emperor’s son after all...”

  “Of course, Your Highness! I meant no disrespect, but it’s very unusual to speak with someone as reclusive as Mr. Yost. I don’t believe your father has met him, even by remote.”

  “What does the old hermit want?” the prince asked.

  “I’m unsure, but his robot said it was an offer to help with the rioting.”

  The prince looked thoughtful. “Well, it couldn’t hurt I suppose.”

  Prince Richard took a seat behind his desk, a cherry wood behemoth from which a monitor rose like a black monolith. The screen sprang to life and the weathered face and white hair of a man appeared.

  “Prince Richard,” he said, his voice raspy but enthusiastic, “how are you, my boy?”

  The prince grimaced at the tone but remained civil, not wanting to alienate one of the most powerful men in the Imperium.

  “Good,” he said shortly.

  “Quite a pickle of late,” the old man continued. “Lots of disgruntled citizens filling the streets...”

  “I’m aware of that,” the prince replied. “I was told you had something to offer?’

  “Indeed I do! Indeed I do!”

  Yost coughed into the sleeve of his suit, an out-of-fashion but still respectable jacket and tie.

  “It seems to me,” he went on, “that part of the problem is manpower. You just don’t have enough security forces to deal with this mess.”

  “True,” the prince said. “We’ve started using our regular military units but they aren’t trained for this kind of thing. Their methods are a bit too... brutal.”

  “So I’ve seen on the news! Can’t have the Imperial Army opening fire on citizens. It has, as the young people say, bad optics.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So, I’ve got a proposition,” Yost said.

  “I’m waiting...”

  “Well, dy cybernetics happens to have a surplus of killbots at the moment. Normally we go through them like hotcakes, but there’s been a downturn on planets like Marakata so we’ve got quite a few extra.”

  “Are you suggesting we use killbots against Imperial citizens?” the prince asked.

  “No, no!” Yost replied. “Well, yes actually, but we’d rebrand them of course. Call them something like peacebots or whatever. It’s really all a matter of programming.”

  “Go on.”

  “Loaded with the right software,” Yost said, “they can use non-lethal methods against these troublemakers. I mean, we can still rough them up a bit, but fatalities will be at a minimum.”

  Prince Richard considered this, chewing on his inner lip. “How much would this cost the Imperium?”

  “Oh, we don’t need to worry about that right now,” Yost said. “This could be a whole new revenue stream for us, so I’m considering this more of a field test, so to speak.”

  “I see,” the prince replied. “How soon before you could put them on the streets?”

  Yost laughed, his voice hoarse. “Within a week at the latest. Of course, if it works out here on Aldorus, we could ship my peacebots all over the Imperium. We’ll nip this insurrection in the bud!”

  “It’s a deal. I look forward to seeing your robots as soon as possible.”

  “Me too,” the old man said. “Me too!”

  Across the river, in the penthouse on top of the dy cybernetics HQ building, Dyson Yost watched the video monitor go blank. He grinned, his yellow teeth visible, and drummed his wrinkled fingers along the desk in front of him. “Well, I think that went just peachy!”

  Yostbot, one of several identical copies in existence, stood off to the side so Prince Richard hadn’t been able to see him.

  “You might say that,” the robot replied. “Computer, turn off the simulation.”

  “Bye now!” the old man said, waving just before fading into nothing. The holo-emitter that hung from the ceiling went dark.

  “Peachy indeed,” Yostbot said.

  Aboard the Baron Lancaster, the display case in Captain Redgrave’s office contained mementos from his thirty years with the Imperial Navy. A collection of medals, garnished with miniature laurels and starbursts, hung on a felt board on the top shelf. On the shelf below, a fragment of metal from the hull of a pirate ship sat beside the half-melted tubing of a vacuum suit. On the bottom shelf, a ceremonial cutlass took up the length of the case, the highly polished blade engraved with the words HIMS Maxwell (DD-153), the first ship Redgrave ever captained.

  Hearing the warble of the door, he turned from his translucent image reflected in the glass case. “Come in.”

  Commander Maycare, a man overdue for his own command, strolled in with a look on his face like he needed a favor. Redgrave wondered if he had gotten into trouble. The Maycare family always seemed to be in trouble.

  “Sir,” the commander said.

  “Take a seat,” the captain replied, sliding in behind his desk. “What is it?”

  Sinking into the chair in front of Redgrave, the commander smiled. “I got a message from my uncle, Lord Maycare.”

  “Oh?”

  “He had a book stolen from his library.”

  Redgrave shrugged. “Okay...”

  “It’s a special kind of book,” the commander went on. “He was hoping you might be able to help replace it.”

  The captain frowned. “Doubtful. I was never much of a reader...”

  “Apparently, it originally came from the Talion Republic. Since you’re always telling stories
about your time there—”

  “Well, that time was mostly spent killing Tals, not reading their books.”

  “Still,” Maycare said, waving his hand, “you might know somebody who knows somebody...”

  Redgrave’s brows, furrowed with age and experience, lowered skeptically. “Like who?”

  Maycare leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

  “What’s so special about this book?” the captain asked.

  “It’s really old, according to my uncle. He also said his assistant had to translate some weird language to understand it.”

  “Couldn’t he have his robot do that?”

  “It got squished.”

  “His robot?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “His robot?”

  “No, my uncle.”

  “Well, whoever got squished,” the captain replied, “there’s lots of Talion books floating around. I don’t see why he needs me.”

  “My uncle said it’s actually from a different race,” Maycare said. “The K’thonians, I think.”

  The captain’s eyes widened in recognition. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Does that make a difference?”

  “Night and day, son. Those kinds of books are incredibly rare. Unless you’re lucky enough to have one already, the Talion Republic is the only place to get one.”

  “So, you can’t help him then?” Maycare asked.

  “I didn’t say that, Commander!” Redgrave replied, picking a datapad off his desk. After swiping a few screens, he stared down his nose, reading to himself. “I may know somebody...”

  “Who?”

  “He’s a trader who goes back and forth across the DMZ.”

  “That Ramus guy?”

  “No, of course not. He’s human — a good guy for a scumbag — anyway, he’s got contacts with the Tals. If anybody has a line on a K’thonian grimoire, it would be him.”

  Maycare grinned appreciatively. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Commander. Your uncle will likely need to pay a lot.”

  “I’m sure he can afford it.”