Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 (10 page)

Judah stood even straighter. “Junior
Lieutenant Ivan Borodin, Your Ladyship.”

“I see.” She studied him like a microbe under
a microscope. “Junior Lieutenant Ivan Borodin, do you know who I
am?”

“No, Your Ladyship.”

“Then why do you call me ‘Your Ladyship’? Is
that how you address gornichnie and krepostnye?”

“I call you that because you bear a striking
resemblance to Her Ladyship Marya Yevghenyevna,” Judah replied.
“But until you show me your identification, I can’t know for
certain.”

The woman gave him an even closer inspection.
“You’d prohibit even the knyaz’s daughter from going through that
door without identification?”

“Those are the rules, Your Ladyship.”

“Who made up such stupid rules?”

“Presumably, your father.”

She stood silently. So did he. The duel of
wills continued for half a minute before she finally said, “Smooth,
use the damn scope.”

Judah raised the iriscope to her eyes and
checked the pattern. It confirmed that she was, indeed, Marya
Kuznyetza. “You may pass, Your Ladyship,” he said politely.

“I’m so relieved,” she said, sarcasm dripping
from her voice. She started through the door, then paused at the
threshold and looked back at him. This time she looked like a
hungry diner choosing her dinner lobster from a tank. Judah could
just see the edge of her tongue licking her lips.

“What time do you get off duty?” she
asked.

The question startled him momentarily. “Uh,
0900 hours.”

“Fine. Meet me at 10 at the west entrance to
the gardens.” Then she turned and went on her way, with no looking
back to see whether he’d heard. She walked as though the incident
had been totally forgotten. Marya Kuznyetza was obviously a woman
who was used to being obeyed without having to say things a second
time.

It was a good thing Judah’s job was not more
demanding, because he was in a state of mild shock for a while
after the encounter. He knew Lady Kuznyetza was predatory, but he
hadn’t expected her to come after him—particularly not after such a
hostile beginning to their meeting. But the more he thought, the
better this opportunity looked. There was a good possibility she’d
know more details of her father’s plans. And even if she didn’t,
being on her arm might gain him access to the parts of the palace
that were normally closed to him

As Ilya Uzi had said, beautiful women had
more uses besides the obvious.

* * *

When his shift was over, he raced to the
B.O.Q., put on a clean uniform and generally made himself
presentable to be seen in the company of a dvoryanka. He had no
idea what the specific occasion might be—a simple stroll or a fancy
dress ball (in mid-morning?)—but a basic uniform would be correct
for all but the most formal events.

At 10, as requested, he was waiting at the
west entrance to the palace gardens, still curious where this
latest development might take him. He stood with his back to the
palace, so it wouldn’t appear as though he was specifically
watching for Marya. The young lady had enough self-confidence
already; no need to bolster it.

At 1013, Her Ladyship walked up to him from
behind. “Junior Lieutenant Ivan Borodin,” she said
matter-of-factly.

“Your Grace, it’s delightful to see you
again.”

“Call me Marya,” she said—but not in a “let’s
be friends” tone. More like “here’s a favor you can repay
later.”

“It’s certainly a beautiful morning.”

“Is it? I usually reserve judgment on
mornings. It’s only the nights before that make them bearable.”

“Then how was last night?”

“Boring,” she said with slight irritation.
“But there are prospects for today.”

“If there’s anything I can do to make it a
better day, Your … Marya, just let me know.”

“I may do that,” she said, just the wisp of a
carnivorous smile tickling the corners of her mouth. “But for now…
Have you seen Daddy’s zoo?”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

“You are new, aren’t you?” She gave a long,
new appraisal. “It’s considered one of the greatest private zoos in
the Empire. Animals from all over Scorpio sector. You must let me
show it to you.” Coming from her, the “must” was a direct order.
“It’s this way. Come.”

She took his arm before he offered it and led
him on a path to the right. He let her take the lead, wondering
exactly how far she would take him, but having fewer doubts every
second.

They came to the first row of exhibits, and
he looked down the path curiously. “Cages?” he asked. “I thought
most modern zoos used force fields to hold the animals in.”

“Force fields can fail in a power outage.
That can get messy.”

“I guess so.”

“Besides,” Marya added offhandedly, “Daddy
likes cages. He says force fields give the animals a false sense of
freedom. He wants the animals caged up, so they know they’re
prisoners and at his mercy.”

Sounds like a wonderful chap,
Judah
thought.
I hope
I can get a front-row seat at his
execution for treason.

They continued through the zoo, with Marya
keeping up a stream of narrative about different creatures. They
stopped in front of the cages of the fiercest predators, and Marya
seemed to take particular delight in describing what they did to
their prey. Judah said little, but Marya hardly seemed to
notice.

“What kind of future do you want?” she asked
abruptly as they left one particular area.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you intend to be a junior lieutenant all
your life? Do you have any higher aspirations?”

Judah shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it
much. Maybe I’ll rise through the ranks. What about you? What
aspirations does the daughter of a knyaz have? I suppose you’ll be
knyaghinya after your parents die.”

“I intend to be tsaritsa,” she said
boastfully.

Judah pretended not to hear her correctly.
“That’s certainly aiming high,” he said with a small laugh. “But
Vasiliy won’t be marrying anybody, and I don’t think you’re
Natalia’s type. There’s a few too many people in line ahead of
you.”

“Who knows what may happen?” she said
somberly. Then, realizing the conversation had perhaps gotten a
little too intense, she dismissed it with a wave of her hand.
“Well, a girl can dream, can’t she? Oh, you’ve got to see the
stone-cats. It’s feeding time. Come on.”

She pulled Judah along while his mind was
still untangling her words. The only way Marya Kuznyetza could ever
become tsaritsa would be if her father were tsar and she succeeded
him. And her father was so far down on the list of succession that
the only way he could become tsar would be to take the throne by
force. Which he was certainly planning to do.

Marya definitely knows about the
uprising,
he realized.
She’s counting on it to make her
tsaritsa some day.

Marya stopped at a very large cage labeled
“stone-cats.” The floor was covered with short grass, and the back
wall was a pile of boulders to look like the side of a mountain.
There was a door in the rocks that might be an entrance to a cave.
The cage was currently empty.

“The stone-cats are the most ferocious
hunters on Kyrby. They’re deadly and merciless.”

“I don’t see anything,” Judah said. “They
must be sleeping or something.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll see them. Just keep
watching.”

After a few uneventful minutes, a rectangular
section of the cage floor sank down like an elevator. A few moments
later it rose again, carrying an animal that looked like a cross
between a goat and a small antelope. It looked around itself, not
knowing what to make of its new surroundings, and bleated
plaintively.

Marya gripped Judah’s arm tightly. “Here it
comes,” she whispered.

The cave door slid silently open, and Judah
could see some slight motion in the darkness behind it. The prey
caught the scent of the stone-cats, and its bleats became shrieks
of terror. It bounded furiously around the cage, looking for some
way out, but the bars were just a little too close together for it
to escape.

The stone-cats emerged at an almost leisurely
pace, one behind the other. They stood taller than Judah’s head at
their shoulders, and had yellow fur mottled with gray spots. Their
yellow eyes gleamed with animal ferocity. And they separated as
they came through the door, one going left, one going right. The
prey, realizing it could not escape, tried to stay in the middle,
an equal distance from each.

“This is a hunting pair,” Marya said, her
voice tinged with excitement. “They work as a team. One swipes at
the prey, who instinctively jumps away to avoid it—and jumps right
into the grasp of the other. Watch their coordination.”

Judah could feel his revulsion growing, but
he didn’t turn away. The stone-cat on the left lumbered slightly
closer, then quickly swiped at the prey with a strong blow and
sharp claws.

The hapless creature leaped away, only to
find itself running straight into the swinging claw of the other
predator. The scream of pain only served to excite the
stone-cats—and Marya—even more. Razor claws raked the poor victim
over and over until it could no longer make a noise. The two
killers pushed the lifeless body back and forth across the ground a
couple of times until the cage floor was generously smeared with
blood. Then they began dividing the body between them.

Judah could finally watch no more and turned
away from the repulsive sight. But he saw Marya’s eyes fixed
intently on the scene, her face positively glowing with excitement.
For a moment Judah couldn’t decide which was more horrible—the
creatures eating their kill or the woman who so delighted in
watching them.

Then he thought of Marya’s aspirations to be
tsaritsa. The stone-cats killed for food; Marya watched for sport.
He must not allow this monster to rise to the imperial throne!

In a third floor bedroom suite, in a sturdy
mahogany bed with a plush red velvet canopy and fine silk sheets,
Tsar Vasiliy II lay dying.

The most powerful man in the galaxy had lain
here dying for the past five years since his stroke, in a deep coma
from which his doctors were certain he would never awake. Those
same doctors were uncertain how long he might remain this way; he
could lie dying in his coma for the next fifteen minutes or fifteen
years. Meanwhile his grandniece Natalia grew up to assume the
throne. and the rest of the Empire held its breath.

The curtains were drawn and the room was in
perpetual twilight. In older times the room would have been crammed
with heavy, awkward machinery, but progress had simplified the
devices enormously. Now instruments monitored heart, breathing and
brain wave activity wirelessly, and sounded alarms if any deviation
from the optimum should occur. The instruments were so accurate and
so sensitive that no one actually needed to be in the room to know
the tsar’s condition. Teams of skilled professionals waited
devotedly in the adjoining rooms, ready to step in at a moment’s
notice if the slightest thing went wrong. The bed itself
administered nutrients and medications to the tsar’s still body,
and removed what wastes there were. Periodically attendants would
enter to change the sheets, bathe the body, and move it around a
bit to prevent bed sores. Other than that, nothing disturbed the
tsar’s unconscious form.

Now, on this particular day, the flow of
oxygen through the respirator began to diminish imperceptibly. The
drop was so minor that an outside observer would never notice it.
Even when the decrease reached levels that should have triggered
the monitors, they mysteriously did not sound any alarm. As far as
attendants watching the instruments were concerned, all was
normal.

Gradually the tsar’s breathing became more
labored as the body struggled to replenish its oxygen, but
microphones throughout the room somehow failed to record the
wheezes, gasps and coughs.

The respirator slowed its pumping until it
came to a complete stop. The tsar’s body, unable to breathe fully
on its own, thrashed about weakly in its bed. Tsar Vasiliy
convulsed once, twice, three times and then was still. Life had
fled that frail body.

On its own, the respirator started up again,
and its instruments continued to show it was operating perfectly.
For the next half hour the observers believed everything was
normal. Then suddenly all hell broke loose. Lights flashed and
bells rang. Doctors and nurses sprinted into the room in
well-orchestrated chaos. The tsar’s body was suddenly surrounded by
people making heroic attempts to save the ruler’s life.

But they soon had to acknowledge they had
failed. Despite the best doctors and medical equipment in the
Empire, Tsar Vasiliy II was dead. And the path of the Empire was
changed forever.

* * *

The
Argosy
floated peacefully down
onto Languor Field without incident, and the landing crew bustled
around busily to make sure all was secure. None of them wanted
anything unfortunate to happen to the imperial yacht while it was
on their watch.

Inside the vessel, the passengers were eager
to debark, anxious to leave the plush prison they’d been cooped up
in for nearly a week. Graf Federico, the local ruler, would be
their host for the next nine days while the Velikaya Knyaghinya
toured the world’s wonders and met some of its special people. Most
of the itinerary had been set weeks in advance and triple-checked
by ISIS and Natalia’s personal security teams for the maximum
safety and the minimum chance of surprises. When she was a tourist
herself, Eva reveled in surprises and welcomed the unexpected. As a
bodyguard, however, she was just as glad the excursions had been
made as bland and boring as possible.