Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (29 page)

Asking her a few official-sounding questions, Lorenzo nodded solemnly at her answers. The two of them had known each other for years, on the most intimate basis. She was an attractive, statuesque woman, and as she addressed him, the womanizing Doge found himself increasingly captivated by the comeliness of her figure and her dark brown eyes.

For several minutes, they engaged in a formal discussion for the sake of the onlookers, but her submission was a fait accompli. Finally, waving aside the whispered concerns of his attaché, Pimyt, he openly invited her to his private chamber to discuss the matter further. There, they pulled one another’s clothes off and made love, as they had done so many times before.

Then, while the scheming woman was dressing, Lorenzo summoned Pimyt, and formally approved her documents, making her a Princess of the Realm.

In reality, even though Saito Watanabe told many people that he had disowned his son, he had never actually completed the necessary documents, hoping that he and Noah would reconcile one day. Without the Doge’s knowledge, Francella had brought forged estate papers with her.

In the actual documents, which she had destroyed, Prince Saito had left half of his estate to his son.

Chapter Forty

A secret is never meant to be kept. It is always trying to break out of the box confining it.

—Graffiti, Gaol of Brimrock

The shuttle trip down to the surface of the Mutati homeworld would take longer than his entire cross-space journey to the Paradij pod station, covering millions of parsecs. This seemed incongruous to Giovanni Nehr, but it was the reality nonetheless. Hyper-fast podships were one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, but he had another one with him, in the heavy parcel he carried under his arm.

Boarding the shuttle, he was confronted by two Mutati guards, their large, pulpy bodies draped in black uniforms. They ran the yellow beam of a scanner over his body and the package, to make certain he wasn’t carrying anything dangerous.

During the procedure, Gio smiled confidently. In reality, he
was
carrying something explosive—but not in the usual sense of the word. Speaking to them in common Galeng, he provided his name and demanded to see the Zultan Abal Meshdi himself.

Surprised, the guards laughed, a peculiar squeaky sound. “Our Zultan?” one of them said. “Don’t you know he hunts down your kind and tortures them?”

“Tell him I am Giovanni Nehr, brother of Jacopo Nehr, inventor of the nehrcom. You are familiar with that device?”

The guards looked at him stupidly.

“Just tell him I’m a very important person,” Gio added.

“Our scanner shows you are carrying rocks,” the shorter of the guards said. “Are they pretty stones?”

“Oh yes, pretty stones for your Zultan. He will like them.”

The taller guard reached out and was about to touch the parcel, when he started to sneeze and sniffle. His companion’s eyes began to water, and he coughed.

In proximity to the Human, both guards were becoming uncomfortable, not having bothered to wear implanted allergy protectors near their own homeworld. Their small fleshy faces reddened and they stepped back, taking seats on the shuttle as far away from Gio as possible. There were no other passengers.

“What sort of a fool are you?” the taller of the guards asked, eyeing him with contempt. His large eyes had become purple-veined and watery.

“A
Human
fool,” his companion answered. He sniffled and laughed, then sneezed.

After the shuttle landed, four guards replaced the initial pair. Staying as far away from Giovanni as possible, they took him by groundjet to the imposing Citadel.

After a careful security screening and a check of his identity documents, the visitor was escorted through a long portico and then into a maze of interior corridors and lifts that took them to one of the upper levels of the Citadel. The parcel was carried by a guard, who put gloves on before touching it. As Gio’s escort of Mutati men sniffled, sneezed, and wiped tears from their eyes, they spoke to him in Galeng.

“Are you brave or just crazy?” one asked.

“Perhaps both,” came the reply.

“You are fortunate that the Zultan has consented to see you. As the brother of the nehrcom inventor, you are an important person in the Merchant Prince Alliance.”

“Ah, so you know what a nehrcom is?” Gio asked.

“I’ve heard of it,” the guard said, although he did not elaborate.

Ahead of them, two immense doors carved with space battle scenes swung open, revealing a glittering audience hall beyond. An immense Mutati in a jeweled golden robe sat in the center, on a high throne. Curiously, he had some sort of a blue bubble attached to his forehead, a device with internal workings that bathed his face in spinning circles of multicolored light.

Gio took a deep breath, for this had to be the Zultan Abal Meshdi himself. As Gio approached, the Mutati removed the bubble device and handed it to an attendant. With a scowl on his face, the Zultan stared down silently at his visitor as if observing every detail, absorbing information without words.

The hall was nearly empty, except for a few attendants around the perimeter. Gio noticed a hairless alien standing off to one side as well, and judged him to be an Adurian, a race that was said to be allied with the Mutatis. This one wore a black suit and a white cape, and he had a number of colorful caste markings on his face and forearms.

“Greetings, bold Human,” the Zultan said. “You have a gift for me? I like gifts.”

The guards halted Gio at the base of the throne. He felt very small in this immense chamber, like a tiny child in the midst of the oversized Mutatis and furnishings.

Looking up, he bowed and said, “Your Eminence, I bring a gift for all of your people, not just for you personally.”

“What?” He looked displeased. “Not for me personally, you say?”

“Of course, you don’t have to share it if you don’t want to,” Gio added hastily. He glanced sidelong at the parcel held by one of the guards.

“What sort of strange offering do you bring?” Meshdi demanded.

“Unlike anything you have ever seen. It will enable your great kingdom to compete with the Merchant Prince Alliance.”

From his quivering, pulsating mound of fat, the Zultan sneezed and then responded huffily. “What makes you think we wish to
compete
with our inferiors?” Surveying the fearless Human, he added, “Nonetheless, what is your gift? If it is a good one, I will be pleased.”

At a signal from the Zultan, the guard stepped up to the throne, and handed him the parcel.

Meshdi examined the package, turning it over and over without opening it. “The scanner report says that there are rocks inside,” he said, with a sly expression. “I think you have rocks in your head, too.”

The Adurian, having moved closer for a better view, snickered.

“I have not brought you common rocks, Your Eminence.” Gio motioned. “Please, open your gift.”

Beaming like a fat child, the Zultan tore off the plaxene wrapping, then lifted the lid of a box inside. A wash of green light startled him, and he almost dropped everything.

The guards clicked their weapons, but Meshdi waved them off.

“Jewels?” he exclaimed, looking at them with his eyes wide. “These glitter in ways I have never seen before.” He selected one of the small green gems and held it up to the light. A peculiar fascination filled his face.

“You hold in your hand a great military secret,” Gio said, “the secret of the nehrcom transceiver, sometimes referred to as the Nehr Cannon.”

With a perplexed expression, the Mutati asked, “Instantaneous communication across space? This is the secret?”

“It is.”

He looked confused, but his dark eyes glinted with pleasure. “But how does it work?” He put the gem back in the box, picked up another.

Having penetrated his brother’s computer system to learn the secret of the cross-space transmission device, Gio began to spew forth information, telling how to cut the rare stones and align them for perfect transmission, holding nothing back. He knew it was foolhardy to do this, and perhaps even suicidal, but he didn’t care. After working closely with his brother, and seeing the decadence and debauchery of the merchant princes, Gio had decided it was only a matter of time before the determined Mutatis defeated them, and he wanted to be on the winning side. Even if he never saw that day and these shapeshifters put him to death, he would go to his grave knowing he had knocked the arrogant Jacopo Nehr off his pedestal.

The transmitter wasn’t really a cannon at all, Gio announced. The term “Nehr Cannon” was merely selected to confuse and misdirect the curious. He even told the Zultan how to mine for the deep-shaft piezoelectric emeralds, and that they could be found on a number of planets around the galaxy, including some that had no military defenses. He provided a list.

Finally, Giovanni Nehr fell silent.

“Is that all you know?” the Zultan inquired.

“It is, Majesty.”

“Then of what use are you to me anymore?”

“I assumed you would be grateful.” Feeling a surge of unexpected panic, he added a lie: “Besides, my expertise will still be needed to perfect your own galactic communication system, to work out any problems that you are bound to encounter.”

“But if you betrayed your own people—including your own brother—we cannot trust you, either. Your disloyalty marks you as dangerous and unreliable. If what you have said is true—and we recorded all of it—we have scientists capable of replicating the nehrcom transceiver and dealing with problems. We don’t need you.”

“But I brought you a gift! You should be grateful!”

“You said yourself that it was not for me personally, that it was for my people. Thus, you committed a social gaffe, an unforgivable faux pas in our culture.” His large eyes narrowed. “You should have researched more carefully.”

With a cruel smile, Abal Meshdi motioned for the guards to take the sputtering, suddenly terrified man away. “Foolish Human, you will not live long enough to learn how to bargain.”

* * * * *

Under tight security, Gio was taken to a prison moon orbiting the planet Dij. He recognized the name the moment he heard it. This was one of the worlds stripped of all resources and abandoned by the Merchant Prince Alliance.

He did not know, however, that on the surface of Dij, under the direction of Hari’Adab Meshdi—the Emir and eldest son of the Zultan—planet-busting Demolio torpedoes were being constructed.

Chapter Forty-One

Disaster—and salvation—usually come from unexpected sources.

—Data Banks, sentient machine repository

A polyglax bubble stood in the middle of a circle of standing noblemen, all dressed in jerkins, capes, and liripipe hats. Inside the clear enclosure—a combat rink—a pair of crimson eagles fluttered and ripped at each other with beaks and talons, powerful birds shrieking and tearing each other to shreds, spattering blood on the bubble’s interior. Their wings had been cropped, so that they could not fly.

“Kill him!” one of the men shouted, his voice hardly rising above the noise of the birds.

“Rip his heart out!” another shouted.

As the birds gouged each other, making feathers fly, spectators threw merchant prince liras and platinum coins in a wide dish on top of the bubble, making bets and raising them or dropping out of the game, depending on the progress of their feathered champions.

Lorenzo del Velli had placed a wager on the larger bird, but it was losing to its smaller, faster, competitor. The Doge was not pleased, but still was not yet ready to give up. With a scowl, he threw more money on the pile. It was late evening, and he was in the illuminated courtyard of his Palazzo Magnifico, with young members of his royal court. Around them, most of the lights in the palace were out.

He liked to associate with people much younger than he was. They gave him energy, almost making him forget what an old man he was becoming. Even with all of his wealth—no prince had more money—he could not slow the advances of age. Time was like a thief, and a sneaky one at that, taking what rightfully belonged to him when he was unaware, moment by moment.

And unknown to him, another time thief lurked in the shadows behind shrubbery, looking on.…

* * * * *

In all of the realm of the merchant princes, there was perhaps no more loyal robot than Jimu. This had something to do with his original programming, since all MPA robots were programmed to be loyal to their Human creators. But it had even more to do with his sentient character, which he had developed on his own, through devotion and hard work.

As a robot, Jimu had been maltreated by Humans for decades. They had always overworked him and kept him going with whatever parts they could lay their hands on, no matter how that decreased his operating abilities. His Human masters could have installed new program modules in him, or the latest grappling arms, but had not bothered to do so. They just kept cobbling him together while awaiting new automaton models, always intending to replace him. But Jimu fooled them.

By the force of his personality, his dogged determination and will to survive, he had basically maintained himself, locating or rebuilding his own parts, all the while remaining cheerful and making himself useful. In his machine unit he had risen to the rank of a noncommissioned officer—a duty sergeant—but still people spoke constantly of getting rid of him in favor of a newer, more efficient model.

Several times Jimu had felt the end was near, especially during the Battle of Irriga years ago, when his undercarriage was shot out from under him. Thinking he was useless, soldiers dumped his mangled metal body in a pile of scraps and forgot about him. But he still had his upper body and backup battery pack, and managed to pull himself around until he found another machine with the parts he needed. Within hours, he put himself back together and reported for duty.

That created quite a stir in the ranks of Humans, and the soldiers took him on as a mascot, symbolizing the fighting spirit of their unit. They promoted him to Captain of Machines—a rank that put him in charge of six thousand other robots. For a while, Jimu felt basically invulnerable, as the soldiers maintained him passably well, even knocking out some of his dents and polishing him up. But personalities changed around him as his military friends moved on to other assignments, and one day Jimu again felt forgotten, and had to fend for himself with new troops, who didn’t know his personal story or care about him.