Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 (12 page)

Eva knew about fourteen-year-old girls. She’d
been one herself, and a particularly high-spirited and independent
one at that. She knew that if you ordered them to go left, they’d
stop and argue with you about their preference for going right,
even if the cliff edge on the right was clearly in view.

Eva didn’t have time for that argument, which
couldn’t be won no matter how loudly you yelled. So she simply
reached out and gave the tsaritsa a Zionian love-tap—quite
sufficient to knock a fourteen-year-old girl unconscious. She
thought a moment, then detached Natalia’s wristcom and dropped it
casually on the floor. Then she picked the tsaritsa up and slung
her over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

She couldn’t carry the tsaritsa out the
passenger tubeway—there were still too many people boarding, and
she couldn’t fight them all off while holding Natalia safely at the
same time.

So she headed down into the cargo area
instead. There were a couple of people along the way who tried to
stop her, but Eva had no time for those arguments, either. Those
people also got love-taps knocking them out cold.

Because of their hasty departure, there’d
been far less luggage than otherwise. The gear had already been
loaded, the hatch shut and the conveyor belt turned off. Eva set
the tsaritsa down gently beside the hatch so she could open it,
then placed the girl’s body into the tube.

The tube was built to accommodate baggage and
small crates of food and supplies; it wasn’t tall enough for a
human—not even someone comparatively short like a Zionian—to stand
up in. Eva got down on hands and knees and entered the tube behind
Natalia’s limp body, then closed and sealed the hatch behind her.
With any luck, it would take a little bit of time for anyone to
realize exactly where the two women had gone.

The tube was completely dark, and Eva cursed
herself for not having the foresight to bring a flashlight.
Fortunately the passageway was totally straight; it went only
forward and back, with no way to make wrong turns. Pushing the
unconscious body in front of her, she made her way slowly down the
tube.

The ship had been docked well over a
kilometer from the terminal, and progress was agonizingly slow down
the tube. There was no way to tell how far they’d gone. Eva only
knew she could never assume it was far enough.

The tsaritsa was making indistinct groaning
noises now and starting to move. Eva continued pushing her forward
until Natalia resisted. “Where are we?” the girl said. “What’s
happening? Why can’t I see anything?”

“We’re in the baggage loading tube, getting
away from the ship.”

“You!” Natalia said, recognizing her voice.
Then, indignantly, “You struck me!”

“Damned right,” Eva said. “I’ll do it again,
too, if you don’t start moving forward. We’ve got to—”

An ear-shattering boom cut off her words. The
passage around them shook as though in a mighty earthquake, and the
walls cracked and dust rained down on their heads. That was
followed by a thick wall of silence, as though they were cut off
from the entire rest of the universe.

Judah stood by the stone-cats’ cage watching
the look of animal lust on Marya’s face. The ferocity of the
animals had triggered a ferocity in her, a ferocity that chilled
him to the bone. He’d seen looks of sexual tantalization before,
such as when Cousin Eva was talking about some of her adventures,
or even when his fiancée Vida was feeling particularly kittenish.
But he’d never seen anything to match Marya’s intensity right now.
It scared him.

Marya was squeezing his arm tightly, with a
power almost equal to another Zionian. Suddenly she pulled him
around to face her, held her body tightly against his and began a
long, passionate kiss. Her tongue thrust its way through his lips
as she aggressively forced her passion onto him.

He half expected her to drag him to the
ground and rape him on the spot, but instead she pulled back from
the kiss—but not from the clinch—and looked straight into his face.
“Come with me,” she said huskily.

The last thing Judah wanted personally right
now was go anywhere with this suka. But he reminded himself he was
on a mission for the Empire, and that took precedence. “Where are
we going?” he asked, and his voice sounded a little shaky even to
him.

“Where would you like to go?” she asked with
a sultry grin. “Or should we do it right here?”

Judah was blushing furiously. “Uh, this is a
little public—”

“I know where we won’t be disturbed,” she
said. Taking his hand, she began pulling him back along the path
toward the palace. Judah reluctantly allowed himself to be
pulled.

What would Ilya Uzi do?
he asked
himself, knowing perfectly well what Ilya Uzi would do, but not yet
willing to admit it to himself.

She led him through a side door of the palace
and took a gravtube to the third floor. They were in a part of the
palace Judah wasn’t familiar with, the personal household rooms
where he’d never been allowed before. If his mind hadn’t been so
occupied with the immediate situation, he might have seen it as a
great opportunity to sneak around the premises, after …

His mind refused to go that far into the
future. There were more immediate problems to deal with first.

They finally came to a room that was
obviously a woman’s bedroom, Marya’s bedroom. There seemed to be
mirrors everywhere: behind the wall-length exquisitely carved
wooden bureau, behind the dressing table, and a full-length mirror
on the doors leading to the closet and the adjoining bathroom. And,
of course, there was the bed.

It was a huge bed, much larger than
king-size, with tall posts at the corners and a flat wooden canopy
on top. A thick brocade comforter was spread over the bed in plush
shades of wine colors shifting subtly tone-on-tone as the eye moved
across it. As Marya pulled him closer to the bed, Judah could see
that the inside of the canopied top was also lined with
mirrors.

“Is this private enough for you?” she asked.
“No one’s going to bother us here.”

She didn’t give Judah much chance to answer,
though, as she pasted her body up against him and began rubbing
sensuously. Her left hand grabbed his chin and pulled it close to
her face, thrusting her tongue so deep into his mouth he was afraid
it might come out his ear. Her hands were stroking his back, and
then moved around to the front to undo the buttons of his uniform.
They seemed very experienced at unfastening uniform buttons.

The moment of truth was rapidly approaching,
and Judah knew he’d have to make a decision. He’d known when he set
out on this mission that something like this might occur. Certainly
Eva would have no ethical problems in this situation. There were
certainly Vida’s feelings to consider; he hadn’t had time to let
her know where he was going—he presumed his father would fill her
in—but she’d read enough of the Ilya Uzi books to know what kinds
of situations spies faced.

What would be the harm if he gave in? He had
to lose his virginity sometime, and Marya would certainly be an
experienced teacher. How would Vida feel about that? She’d never
insisted he be faithful to her during their engagement, but that
didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt her feelings nonetheless.

He thought about Marya. She was
unquestionably beautiful and enthusiastically eager. But she was
also vicious and sadistic, sexually excited by the bloody
destruction of innocent life. She was also part of a plot to
overthrow the Empire on her route to becoming tsaritsa.

Did he really want to have this woman as his
first sexual experience? Did he want that memory indelibly
imprinted in his mind, her image forever tainting his
consciousness? How could he live with that?

He tried to push her body gently away and
turn his face from her kisses. He was only partially successful.
“I’m engaged,” he eked out.

Marya was undaunted. “Is she a knyaghinya?”
she breathed hotly in his ear.

“No,” Judah admitted.

“Then I outrank her,” Marya said, continuing
her assault on his senses.

“I gave her my word.”

“What does that matter? She doesn’t mean
anything to me.”

“But she does to
me!
“ Judah
exclaimed, pushing Marya away—and this time he used Zionian
strength to put some space between them. “You’re a beautiful woman,
Marya, but my heart belongs to her.”

Marya’s face held a look of surprise that
quickly turned to hatred. “And she can have it!” she spat in fury.
“You’re just a pitiful, puny little man with no taste and less
ambition. Do you think you can turn down the daughter of a knyaz
for some krepostnaya? My freiliny deserve better than you.”

She reached out to either slap him or claw
his face, but he reached up quickly to block the blow and it never
connected. “They probably do,” Judah said quietly. “But I
know
they deserve better than serving a blyad like you.”

Marya’s face was bright red. “Get out!” she
screamed. “Get out of my room, get out of my life! If I ever see
you again I’ll have you dismissed from the palace—dismissed from
living, if I have anything to say about it!”

She reached out to the top of her dresser,
picked up a knickknack of some kind and threw it at him with great
violence. Judah dodged it easily, but decided this was a wonderful
time to make his exit. He slipped out the door before she found
another object to throw, but she was still yelling at full volume.
All became quiet, though, once the door closed behind him. She was
right about not being interrupted; the room was completely
soundproof.

As he caught his breath and settled his
nerves, he looked around and decided that, apart from the
unpleasantness with Marya, the incident couldn’t have turned out
better. Here he was, alone in the private rooms of the palace, with
access to places he could never otherwise explore. He put Marya
totally out of his mind as he refastened his uniform buttons. There
was work to do.

He walked purposefully through the halls,
noticing bits and pieces of things mostly through his peripheral
vision. His kavalergard uniform let people see him without noticing
him. As Ilya Uzi had said, “Spies don’t slink. They have every
right to be where they are, doing what they’re doing. And they’re
always on an important errand that doesn’t give them time to answer
foolish questions or engage in idle chitchat.”

He roamed the palace for well over an hour,
but saw nothing that could remotely be labeled “Secret Rebellion
Plans.” He even wandered through the offices of Kuznyetz’s social
secretaries and eavesdropped on conversations while pretending to
look for something else, but nothing seemed suspicious or
dangerous.

He was beginning to think he’d squandered
this marvelous opportunity when he saw an old woman at the end of a
passageway—a Zionian. It wasn’t just her build that told him this;
there were a lot of short, stocky unmodified humans, too. But she
was carrying a package that looked much too heavy for someone of
her advanced age, and her movements were very precise. Zionians on
lower gravity worlds moved like that, like astronauts on the moon
trying not to bounce too high when they walked. This woman had
spent a very long time living on a low-gee world, but another
Zionian could still tell.

Judah approached her, bounding just fast
enough to let her be aware he was another high-grav native. “May I
help you with your package,
bubeleh
?” he asked
reverently.

She looked at him with a bit of suspicion.
“You’re Zionian?”

“Is
matzo
flat?” he replied.

Her eyes narrowed. “So what’s a Jewish boy
doing in the uniform of a
momzer
like Yevgheniy
Kuznyetz?”

Judah shrugged. “Jewish boys don’t need to
eat too? I tried a lot of things, and this paid the best for the
least work. It’s a living.”

“It’s a bad living,” she said emphatically.
“Better you should dig ditches, it’s more honorable. I could tell
you stories—”

She broke off abruptly, worried she might
already have said too much. “You’d better go.”

This was the most promising encounter he’d
had yet, and Judah wasn’t about to be shooed away so easily.
“Please, it’s been so long since I’ve seen a Zionian face. I’d like
to talk with someone who knows what’s going on.”

“
Oy,
you think it’s been long for you?
Nu
, come along and we can talk.”

Judah took the package from her, which was
bulky but lighter than it looked. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sadye. And you?”

“Ivan. Ivan Borodin.”

“Not a very Jewish name.”

“My father changed the family name. You know
how that is.”

She nodded sadly. “Too many people are
embarrassed by their heritage. It’s very sad.”

“I’m thinking of changing it back. How do you
like the name Judah?”

Sadye nodded again. “It’s strong, noble. Do
it. Be a
mensh
.”

Judah smiled. “I think I will. Thank
you.”

Sadye led him to her room, where he put the
package down. She offered him a chair and put on a small kettle to
make some tea. They talked as they sipped, and Sadye was so starved
for someone to confide in that soon her whole story leaked out.

About thirty years ago, when she was almost
forty, she came to Kyrby to be a lady’s companion to the young Lady
Teodora. Teodora was a lovely and smart young woman, and Sadye soon
became very devoted to her.

A year or so after Sadye’s arrival, a woman
came to speak to Teodora’s parents, bringing her twenty-two year
old son Yevgheniy with her. Sadye couldn’t remember who the lady
claimed to be, but Sadye recognized her from old pictures she’d
seen as a young woman. The lady was Anastasia Alexeyevna
Sokolova.