The Lost King (16 page)

The plane was
night-silent, the only sounds being the comforting whir and whoosh of
life-support, the steady drone of the engines, and the occasional
clicks or muffled bleeps as the computer continued its job of running
the Scimitar. In the hammock next to him, Tusk heard the boy talking
to himself in his sleep. A jarring, discordant note sounding from the
syntharp made Tusk start.

"Kid's fallen
asleep with the damn thing in his hand," Tusk muttered.
Groaning, he fought his way out of the hammock and stumbled through
the semidarkness to the kid's berth. Hidden beneath a blanket, the
instrument was revealed by its bright beams of light. Carefully and
quietly, Tusk removed the harp from the boy's sleep-limp hand and
propped it up against a locker.

Lying back down, the
mercenary took another pull from the bottle.

Heir to the throne. The
kid might be the rightful ruler of the whole blasted galaxy.

Fervently and with
feeling, Tusk said, "Bullshit!"

"I heard that!"
XJ snapped. "And if you think it's cold in here now, just wait
until morning!"

Sighing, Tusk grabbed a
blanket, drew it over his head, and, cradling the bottle in his arms,
closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Who, or why, or which,
or what . . .

Edward Lear, "The
Akond of Swat"

Tusk woke, shivering.
Calling down imprecations on the computer's metal head, he pulled on
his winter fatigues, including his leather flight jacket. The kid's
hammock was empty and he could hear voices from below. He reached the
ladder just in time to hear the kid say, "That doesn't prove
anything."

"Damn!" Tusk
said, sliding down the ladder. "I thought I told you not to tell
the kid."

"Why not?"
Dion's blue eyes turned on Tusk, their expression cold and
suspicious.

Tusk sighed. "Look,
kid," he said, fumbling for words beneath that intense,
penetrating gaze, "it's all speculation. Circumstantial
evidence—"

"And I'm a word
processor!" XJ flashed. "Circumstantial evidence. We caught
the kid standing over the body, the smoking gun in his hand!"

"And the body's
probably mine!" Tusk snapped. "You yourself said it didn't
prove anything. I wasn't going to tell you, kid, until we had a
little more to go on, that's all. And you promised not to tell him
either!" he shouted at XJ.

"I am not
programmed to recognize a promise. Honor is merely a word in my spell
checker. And I say we have plenty of information to go on! Look, this
kid's mentor was a Guardian. I found his name right here—Platus
Morianna. Platus's sister was also a Guardian, Maigrey Morianna. They
were both in Sagan's squadron, both survived the holocaust that
night. The Warlord, Derek Sagan, comes to this planet and he kills—"

"XJ," Tusk
warned, seeing Dion flinch.

"Er, disrupts a
planet to try to find you, kid. Your master, this Platus, dies to
keep your whereabouts secret. The Guardians swore an oath to guard
and defend the Royal Family with their lives. It all makes sense.
Didn't this Platus ever tell you anything about himself, about the
Guardians?"

"About the
Guardians, yes," Dion answered. "I learned their history.
How they are all members of the Blood Royal, those people
specifically bred to be genetically superior to others and therefore
to have the ability to be good rulers. The idea came from the ancient
philosopher Plato. He spoke about it in the
Republic
-. 'Then
there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who
in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the
good of their country—'"

"Uh, right.
Plato," Tusk interrupted hastily. "Look, I'm going to go
pay a visit to the head. Why don't you find something for breakfast,
kid, and you"—he glared at the computer—"turn
on the heat!"

"I'm
conservation-minded," XJ said.

Tusk, with a muttered
comment, clambered back up the ladder.

"You know,"
Dion said, looking after him, "he'd be one, too, wouldn't he? A
Guardian. A member of the Blood Royal. Genetically superior—"

"—to
earthworms," XJ scoffed. "He's royal, all right. A royal
pain."

"But his father—"

"Just goes to show
you, kid. Even science is fallible. Hungry? Grab a couple of those
frozen food trays and pop them in the nuker."

Tusk came back to find
food cooked and waiting for him. Dion, sitting in the co-pilot's
chair, was eating his meal slowly, but he was eating—a fact
that Tusk noted with relief. The kid had gone all day yesterday
without a mouthful. Because of that, Tusk never mentioned that he
wasn't accustomed to starting his mornings with spaghetti and clam
sauce. He'd have to remember to tell the kid that the trays marked B
were for breakfast.

"So, what else did
your . . . er . . . mentor tell you?" Tusk asked, thinking that
the spaghetti didn't taste half-bad. "About himself, I mean, not
Plato's
Republic
."

"Nothing,"
Dion answered, shoving the spaghetti around with a plastic fork. "I
didn't even know he had a sister. He never mentioned her, he never
mentioned friends, anyone.

You, Tusk"—the
blue eyes nailed him—"were the first person I've ever
known him to talk to."

"Hey, come on,
kid," Tusk said, trying not to look worried. The more he heard
about this, the less he liked it. "I mean . . . you must've gone
to the grocery store, the hardware store, somewhere."

"No, we didn't. We
grew our own food or ordered what we needed over the computer.
Supplies were delivered by helicopter."

"You never went to
school, to the vids even?"

"No. I studied at
home. And I've never heard of vids. What are they?"

"They're . . .
Well, never mind." Tusk scowled. This Platus had been scared,
scared as hell. "So your mentor never talked to anyone. What
about you? Kids your own age?"

"I met some once,
not too long ago. A group of scouts got lost, hiking through the
outback."

"And?" Tusk
prompted.

"And what? I
didn't like them," Dion said shortly, his eyes on his plate.

"Uh-huh,"
Tusk said, munching garlic bread and exchanging glances with the
computer's electronic eye. He noticed that XJ was being unusually
quiet and that the computer was surreptitiously recording every word
the boy said. "So, why didn't you like them?"

"Look, what does
it matter?" Dion tossed his half-empty plate to one side on the
control panel and stared out the viewport at the stars, his arms
folded tightly across his chest. "I didn't like them, that's
all."

"Just trying to be
sociable, kid," Tusk said easily. "We're going to be
spending a lot of time cooped up together and there's not much to do
around here except sleep or talk. So, these kids," he continued,
seeing the boy's stiff shoulders begin to relax, "what did they
think of you?"

Dion shrugged. "They
seemed . . . awed, I guess."

Tusk closed his eyes.
Awed. Yes, that was the word. He could understand, he could imagine.
It explained the feeling he got every time he looked at the kid.
There was something about Dion that made you want to step back away
from him, to think twice about touching him. It was the blue eyes,
Tusk decided. That intense, brilliant blue gaze that stared not at
you but clean through you. Tusk tossed his food tray in the trash
liquidator. From the taste in his mouth, he might have been chewing
the plastic plate.

Dion sighed suddenly,
and ran his hand through the mane of red-golden hair, brushing it
back from his face with his fingers. The brilliant red-gold color was
the only warm spot in the cabin. Huddling deeper into his down-lined
flight jacket, Tusk shot the computer a vicious glance.

"I can see what
you're leading up to," Dion said suddenly. "Platus told me
we led the lives of solitary scholars, unspoiled by contact with
those who wouldn't understand us. But we were really leading the
lives of fugitives, weren't we? We were hiding."

"It looks that
way, kid. And with good reason, apparently. I mean, after what
happened and all."

"It fits."
Dion stared out into the ever-changing star patterns. "I knew I
wasn't any relation to him. He always told me the truth about
everything and so I rarely asked him anything about myself. It seemed
to cause him pain and I never— He was so good to me, I—"

Dion's voice faltered.
Shaking his head, he forced back his emotions, and when he spoke, his
tone was steady. "But one time, about a year ago, I pressed him.
I don't know what made me do it. I felt angry and tight inside and I
didn't care if I hurt him. I
wanted
to hurt him, in fact!"
His hand clenched. "I didn't know myself. I felt like some kind
of monster—"

"Puberty," XJ
remarked knowingly.

"That's what
Platus said." Dion almost smiled. "Afterward, I apologized.
He apologized, too, for losing his patience."

"What did he say
about you?"

"When we were
arguing, he lost his temper and told me never to bring up the subject
of who I was again. You see this necklace I wear-—this ring?"

Dion pulled it out from
beneath the collar of his shirt. Tusk leaned over and looked at it.
It was an unusual one. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything like
it. A circlet made of tongues of carved flame opals, it burned with a
bright red and orange and purple fire. Tusk felt relieved; he'd
half-expected to see the royal crest or something.

"I've worn it ever
since I can remember. Platus told me that there'd been many times
when he was tempted to rip this off and throw it away. Something this
insignificant shouldn't signify what a man is or what he becomes. A
man's past isn't important. What is important is who a man is now and
what he plans to become in the future."

"So, what are your
plans?" Tusk asked, thinking he could have argued with good old
Platus over that one.

Dion gave a brief,
bitter laugh. "Plans! I have no idea who I am, where I come
from, why I was born. All I know is that a man I loved and honored
and respected gave his life for me. What can I give back?"

He swiveled in the
seat, turned to stare directly at Tusk. "Someone expects me to
give something, that's obvious." Dion paused. When he spoke
next, his voice had an odd quality—a coolness about it that
startled the mercenary. "There's one person who knows who I
am—Derek Sagan."

The mercenary choked.
"Sure," he said when he could talk. "He'd probably be
real glad to tell you, too! Right before he stood you up against the
wall and shot you."

"Incorrect data,"
XJ informed him. "They don't do that now, not with vaporization
chambers and other, more efficient—"

"Oh, dry up!"

"Do you think he'd
do that?" Dion asked casually, staring down at the instruments
and idly running his hands over them.

Tusk grunted. "I
take it you never heard news reports, never talked about politics?"

"I'd never heard
of a Warlord until . . . until—" Dion frowned and changed
the subject. "I studied government, but it was all abstract.
Platus said he was inadequate to teach anything else. Oh, I knew
there were other planets out there and that something governed them,
but it never mattered much what. It all seemed so far away, so far
removed from us."

Tusk cleared his
throat. "Government. Well, you see, kid—" The
mercenary scratched his head. "The monarchy was around for a
century or so. Each planet was ruled by a member of the Blood Royal
and all the Blood Royal swore allegiance to the king—also a
member of the Blood Royal. It was a good system, I guess, for a
while—"

"Benevolent
monarchy." Dion nodded wisely. "The best form of
government, according to—"

"Yeah, yeah"—Tusk
waved a hand—"benevolent whatever. Anyway, what it comes
down to, I guess, is that if the king's good everything's fine, but
if he isn't you're in a hell of a mess."

"And this Starfire
wasn't a good king?"

Tusk squirmed. Hell,
they might be talking about the kid's uncle! "Uh, he was okay, I
guess—"

"He was weak,
wishy-washy," XJ cut in. "Dumped every thing in the lap of
the God. 'If the Creator wills it —that sort of philosophy.
Without the Guardians to cover for him, Starfire wouldn't have lasted
as long as he did."

"So there was a
revolt," Tusk said, taking over the lesson. "A guy named
Peter Robes—a professor of political science at some
university—got together with Derek Sagan and some of the other
high-level malcontents in the armed forces and staged a coup. Now the
galaxy's run by—ostensibly—a democratically elected
Congress. It's got some fancy name, but everyone calls it just
that—the Congress. When they call it anything polite, that is.
The Congress is so divided that the President, Robes, is the real
power. You see, following the overthrow of the king and the Royal
Family, Robes divided the galactic empire up into one million
sectors. Each sector elects two members to sit on the Congress. Each
has an equal vote in how the government's run."

"Democracy,"
Dion said. "A democratic form of rule."

"Yeah, that's what
they promised. And I guess that's what it looks like, on the surface.
As time went by and the Congress couldn't get much done, what with
half the members running for reelection and the other half arguing
among themselves, Robes began to acquire more and more power just so
that someone could get something done.

"Now some people
want the Congress abolished and all power consolidated in the hands
of the President. Others want the President abolished and everything
put in the hands of the Congress. And you know what some others
want?" Tusk propped his feet up on the control panel, his gaze
fixed on the tangle of wires above his head.