The Centurion's Empire (49 page)

Vitellan's head was an order of magnitude more difficult to even begin work upon. Rebuilding the skull was
comparatively straightforward, and the upper spinal cord, pituitary, cerebellum, midbrain, and thalamus were not badly
traumatized, being deep within the brain. Unfortunately the buffer that had saved them had been the cerebral cortex,
which had ruptured and flowed like cream cheese underfoot in places.

It was early in the morning as Gulden concluded his briefing to Dellar and Burgess, and it had more of the sound of a
coroner's report than the assessment of a critically ill patient.

"Much of the braincase contains sterile gel encased in a membrane grown from the body's tissues on a vat template,"
Gulden concluded. "The other brain tissue is in a number of low-temperature storage vats in the Deep Frigidarium."
The time was 4:30
a.m
., and the marshal and Icekeeper were looking haggard.

"Where was the main damage to his brain?"

'The cerebrum is forty-seven percent rebuilt, and that portion has been returned to his skull."

"Is that enough for him to be, ah, viable?"

"Yes and no," said Gulden, almost playfully. "There is

some control from the brain over body function. The main problem is that even if the skull had been undamaged, the
tissue shows signs of massive oxygen starvation—about a half-hour's worth. The previous best was a stockbroker who was
revived after eleven minutes facedown in the family spa. He is still alive, and has his self-awareness and some
memories—" "But?"

"But his IQ is down one hundred points." "So the Master is dead."

"Well. . . nothing is quite so certain. What is left of the cerebrum does show a surprising degree of activity—

considering."

"Dammit, a beard will grow on the face of a corpse, but that doesn't mean that it's alive! Is anyone home in that body?"

"The body is biologically alive. The brain is functionally dead. Is that sufficiently blunt?"

"Yes. Marshal, do we have any idea at all when and how this happened to the Centurion?"

"The Icekeeper's tests on the body indicate anytime between late October and late December. We saw the Centurion's
realtime holo at that Corporate meeting, so the injuries were probably inflicted in the second half of December."
Dellar clasped his hands behind his back and walked over to the wall of glass laminate that looked out over the city
center of Durvas. Distant lights twinkled serenely, in fact nobody in the small city yet knew about the second attack.
Durvas Security had a charter that allowed it to handle most police functions, but a full report was due to be filed with
London soon, and then all hell would break loose.

"This city, the Village itself worldwide," Dellar said with his back to them, "it's founded on the life of the Roman time
traveler. Lord Wallace was only one of his servants, just as I am. Now that I am in the supreme chair, I learn that
Vitellan's brain is pulp! It's just twenty-six years short of the two thousandth anniversary of his birth, when he's due to
be revived before the world. Why me? Am I to preside over the presentation of this corpse? How can I explain why we
can't do what a lot of filthy, hairy barbarians did successfully back in the ninth century?"
The marshal turned to Gulden. Frederick Gulden, like Burgess, had been isolated while a deputy, but far from being
intimidated, he came to his new position with fresh ideas and enthusiasm.

"If you will permit me, Sir Peter," said Gulden after clearing his throat. Burgess turned away from the Durvas
panorama and glared at him.

"Well, Dr. Gulden, what have you found in the medical database?"

"Many puzzles, sir, but solutions as well. Much of it was obvious, I can't understand why Dr. McLaren didn't—"

"Solutions?" said Burgess hor«fully. "As in reviving the Centurion?"

"No, solutions in terms of massive, massive imprint exchange and new fixation techniques. Icekeeper McLaren was part
of this conspiracy too, and his research notes show that he was experimenting with a method of imprint buffering that
involved double brain imprinting from massive data buffers. His doctorate was in imprint systems analysis, as you must
recall, so he was well qualified for such work. You had better sit down before I tell you the rest."
Dellar glared at him. "Cheap dramatics are for interactive soap holodramas. Get to the point."

"Lord Wallace was having a large-scale gating and imprint therapy done on his son."
Dellar sneered. "That's well known, he spent a large part of his personal fortune on the work."
His reaction disappointed Gulden, who snatched up a vid board and glanced at the next item on his list.

"Robert Wallace's comatose body is not accounted for."

"Yet. That may just be security arrangements."

"I'm working on the search," added Burgess.

"So, are there any other bombshells to be uncovered?" Dellar asked Gulden.

"Just one," replied Gulden, keying his vid board to display a report on the wallscreen. It contained scans of a human
body with areas enhanced by knots of false color. "One fact that I
can
be sure of is that the body of the Centurion was not
at all healthy, even before it was mangled."

His voice was sharp and his words clipped. His pride had been stung, and he was a very proud man.
Dellar blinked. "Few medieval people were ever particularly healthy," he ventured cautiously.

"Quite so, but whatever the cause, that body's immune system is severely depressed. There are strong concentrations of
cancer-inhibiting drugs and viral carriers in his bloodstream, and a lot a small tumors. A more thorough scan that I have
planned for tomorrow will probably reveal that he had terminal cancer."

"Terminal cancer?" echoed Dellar, his voice drained of intonation.

"I suggest that we send a team to where the Centurion lay from 1358," Gulden continued. "The natural radioactivity in
rocks near where he was frozen may have given him accumulated tissue damage during his six hundred years of
suspended animation. I am an experienced doctor, and I have seen patients in this sort of condition about four to six
years after massive radiation exposure. In my
professional
opinion, Sir Peter, the late Icekeeper McLaren knew that the
Centurion was dying, yet kept him unfrozen and comatose for at least five years, maybe six."

"Why?" asked the marshal, when Dellar did no more than press his lips together and stare at the floor.

"Indeed, why?" replied Gulden, sharply. "It seems that I am not the only person on the Corporate with little need to
know whatever is to be known. The key areas of McLaren's records are so heavily encrypted that it may take months of
processing to decode them, but my overall impression is that my predecessor was conducting a massive, massive
imprinting experiment with Lord Wallace, Robert Wallace, and the Centurion."

The Icekeeper's final bombshell did indeed make an impression on Sir Peter Dellar. The muscles of his face sagged and
he swayed on his feet. Dragging his feet along the carpet, he walked to a chair and flopped down listlessly.

"What do we put in the report to London?" asked Burgess, who was also too weary to think straight by now.

"Lord Wallace and William Anderson can be part of the report, but the Centurion's body has no place there. It was
not mentioned as a casualty in any attack, and it was not directly involved in yesterday's intrusion, was it?"

"Are we stalling for time, do we have anything to hope for?" asked Dellar desperately.

"Yes and yes," replied Gulden. "I swear it as the Icekeeper of Durvas."
A t l a n t a , G e o r g i a : 3 0 J a n u a r y 2 0 2 9 , A n n o D o m i n i
Bonhomme had been in a strangely exhilarated mood for some hours. His handlers were pleased, as the great prophet
from the past had just endured a week of black moods of despair and had refused to speak to anyone. Public appearances
had been canceled, and the media were making their inevitable speculations. Paparazzi were loitering in increasing
numbers with their high-tech cameras and intrusion drones, a sure sign that a scandal was suspected.

"I shall need a gun today," Bonhomme declared as casually and brightly as if ordering a white shirt. "Have it keyed to
my palmprint so that I may shoot it, and it must shoot bullets that
annihilate."

The gun was fetched, and Bonhomme fired several test shots from the Lanther tumble-shot into the wall of his hotel
suite. They tore gaping, jagged holes in the plaster and he declared himself satisfied. His startled handlers had
witnessed stranger behavior from him, however, and they thought little of it as a Luministe security team swept them
away to an Atlanta stadium and the massed eyes, holonodes, and cameras waiting there. The gun would be part of some
brilliant lesson in faith, they told each other. They were not wrong.

Across the continent, on a Los Angeles sidewalk, Vitellan sat hunched over his handheld television. The scratched LED

screen was only inches from his nose and Bon-homme's words were a tinny cackle in his earpiece, with no overtones or
bass. He was standing on a wide, white podium of marble, holding a short-recoil Lanther TS in one hand and gesturing
with the other.

"And to me is said 'Give us a sign,' just as was said to Christ in the time that I was born. I say unto you, have faith! Do
you have faith?"

A vast rumble of voices echoed back, "We have faith!" "Do you see the light?" the prophet from the past cried. "We see
the light" overloaded Vitellan's earpiece. Bonhomme held the gun aloft. The crowd was silent at once.

"Our good lord Jesus Christ did give a sign, as you will recall from the Gospels. He died, and he rose from the dead after
three days. I will give you just such a sign, in His very name. Do you believe?"

"We believe!"

"Then stay, keep a vigil for three days with me. Keep my body undisturbed where it falls, call cameras to stay, for on the
third day from this moment I shall get to my feet and stand before you.

"Will you help me witness to the world?"

"We will help you!"

"Do you believe?"

"We believe!"

Bonhomme raised the gun to his right temple in a smooth, sweeping gesture and fired. His head burst, and he collapsed
to the marble.

Vitellan gasped, then swore in Latin and Old English. The subsequent screams and rioting went on for some minutes,
but the Luministes had good crowd control at their rallies and Bonhomme's body lay undisturbed where it had fallen.
The vigil began for the miracle on the third day.

Durvas, Britain: 2 February 2029, Anno Domini

An emergency sitting of the Village Corporate of Durvas confirmed Dellar as their new chief executive, and Burgess as
the new marshal. Burgess was puzzled as he walked back to his office. He had been the deputy marshal during two
massive security breaches, yet these had apparently been overlooked in the voting.

As was to be expected, the dashpad in what was now his office was flashing for attention. He ordered it into display mode
and piped it through to his desk hologram projector. A cartoon billboard materialized in midair and he filtered the
messages. Lucel's name stood out as he paged through a

score of reports. Informants had tentatively placed her everywhere from Antarctica to Finland. He stopped at a display
form that profiled a suspect landing at Gatwick Airport. She was a nightmare, Burgess fumed as he worked. With her the
Luministes could hit Durvas at will, the Centurion's city would never be more than a spear carrier in the world's
history—he caught himself and straightened, clenched fists sliding along his desk with a loud squeaking. Never give up,
he told himself. Fight back, get out of your office, disguise your movements, be a real agent again.

"Beatrix, come in here for a moment," he said to the pickup that shimmered at the left-hand corner of his desk. The oak
panel door to his left swung open.

"Book me on a flight to the Canary Islands tomorrow, Bea. Spread the word discreetly that I need a holiday—"

"So will Beatrix, when she wakes up."

The marshal's head jerked around, and he instantly noted both Lucel's mocking smile and a rail pistol.

"Just stand up slowly and walk around to one of those giltwood chairs," she ordered.

"I've already pressed the security pedal, the guards are on their way."

"Then I suggest you piss them off again—if you want to hear about how Lord Wallace was imprinting himself on the
Centurion."

Burgess goggled at her, then looked down at the rail pistol again. If she had wanted him dead, he would be dead by now.

"Security! Kill that alert," he snapped to his desk manager, then ordered the desk to switch into dormant mode. He
walked warily around to where Lucel had already seated herself.

"Were you behind that attack on the Deep Frigidarium?" he asked, his teeth barely moving.

"As it happens, not quite. I offered, but was turned down." ,

"Then who? Was it the Luministes?" "No."

"We are running out of interested parties, Ms. Hunter." "The Houston Ward Lords and the American branch of
the Yakuza both had a grudge. Two of their best doctors and several hundred other folk of varying rank were killed
under Durvas orders. Lord Wallace was covering some very suspicious tracks. He was being a little clumsy about it,
though: America is not his turf, and he did not realize how easy it is to antagonize some very dangerous and resourceful
people."