Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 (16 page)

They split up as they approached him so they
came from separate directions. Judah tried staring straight between
them, letting his peripheral vision reveal their positions. He’d
seen their technique; when one swung a paw at its prey, the victim
instinctively backed away from the blow—straight into the claws of
the second cat. The cats relied on the instincts of their prey.
That would be their major weakness.

The cat coming from his left swung its paw
first, while the cat on his right waited almost a full second
before making its swing, fully expecting him to leap into its
grasp. Instead, Judah leaped toward the swinging claw of the first,
arcing well over it to land beyond the stone-cat. Neither beast
connected with its first blow.

Judah landed with a dancer’s grace and
quickly made a second leap. The first cat turned much faster than
Judah would have hoped, but it was still slower than he was. He
landed on the back of that first cat’s neck, and used his momentum
to propel him into yet a third leap.

The second cat had also whirled to swipe at
him, but it also was a fraction of a second too slow. Instead of
hitting Judah, its razor claws slashed into the skin of its mate’s
neck, drawing blood and a howl of pain.

Now the confined quarters actually worked to
Judah’s advantage. The cats’ speed was largely neutralized by their
lack of room to move. As they tried to pounce on their smaller prey
they got in each other’s way and kept slashing one another. They
would snarl and slash again—and each time their claws connected and
did damage they became slightly slower.

The trouble was, Judah was getting slower
too. The constant leaping around the room was tiring him out—and it
would only take one time being too slow and the cats would finally
snare him. Even at this rate he was likely to be caught before the
cats killed each other. He had to find a more permanent
solution.

As he leaped again, the bright red touchplate
near the top of the wall caught the corner of his eye, and he
realized that was his way out. He’d wondered why the plate was so
high; it was out of an ordinary person’s reach—but a stone-cat
sitting up on its haunches could reach it easily. And so could a
Zionian trained in difficult dance leaps.

Getting over to it was another matter. The
room, which had seemed comfortably large when he was alone in it,
was crowded now that the two large animals had joined him. There
hardly seemed a moment when at least one of the cats wasn’t between
him and the touchplate. It would be a very tricky maneuver in the
three-dimensional motion of free-moving bodies for him to lure the
cats into a position where they were both against the front wall
while he had clear access to the back. And, at the same time, he
had to keep his eyes focused on the cats’ claws. They had abandoned
all hunting strategy, and were now just trying to get him any way
they could.

He darted, wove and leaped around the room,
barely managing—sometimes by no more than a millimeter or two—to
avoid the claws. He was doing impromptu choreography in his head,
wishing Eva were here with him to distract the cats further.
Together, the two of them could have made the stone-cats dizzy with
frustration.

Eventually he managed to get the positioning
he wanted: the two animals were facing the front wall while he was,
for the moment, behind them. That gave him the chance he needed—and
he didn’t hesitate to take it.

Leaping with his full strength—or what was
left of it after the frantic activity so far—he leaped into the air
and slapped the touchplate with his right hand. The leap also
banged him against the wall and slammed him to the ground—but the
door opened. Rolling in a fluid motion, he tumbled through the
doorway into the passage beyond, and the door slid shut behind him
just as the cats were turning around again.

He couldn’t afford to rest, though. The cats
had obviously been in that room before, and knew the trick to
opening the door. It would now be a question of their basic
behavior patterns. If they behaved like Earth cats, once the quarry
was gone they might stop to lick their wounds before going on. They
were cut and bleeding considerably, though he doubted any of the
wounds were fatal, or even disabling. He couldn’t count on that,
though. For all he knew, they might open the door again in just a
second and come down this passageway to find him.

He ran down the ramp, pushed at another
touchplate, and went through the doorway into the caged area he’d
seen before. It looked somehow more ominous, though, on this side
of the bars.

The bars were set fairly wide apart, since
the stone-cats were large animals and couldn’t possibly squeeze
through. The bars looked temptingly just wide enough to let him
slip his stocky Zionian body through—but he got stuck when he
tried. The bars were just a millimeter or so too close together,
but that millimeter could kill him. Wedged tightly in there, he’d
be easy prey for the stone-cats when they came out.

He tried to think fast. What would Ilya Uzi
do to quickly lose a millimeter or two? The idea came to him in a
flash, and he’d have laughed out loud if he weren’t in such a
hurry. Quickly he stripped off his uniform—tunic, slacks and
boots—and threw them out of the cage through the bars. He was
prepared to ditch the underwear if needed, but it turned out this
was enough. He’d heard the phrase “The clothes make the man,” but
in this case the clothes made the difference. With firm exhaling
and some creative wiggling, he just managed to squeeze between the
bars and out of the cage just as the stone-cats re-emerged behind
him.

He walked a few steps away, far enough that
the stone-cats couldn’t reach through the bars and snag him. Then
he gathered his clothes and flopped down on the ground to get
dressed again.

Then suddenly the tension let go all at once,
and he did burst out laughing. For more than a minute he rolled
around on the ground laughing like a madman until tears came to his
eyes. He imagined what a spectacle he must have made, sitting out
there in his underwear. Fortunately, no one was there to see him;
it was nighttime, and the grounds of the palace were deserted.
Ships would be leaving to go off to the battles to come, and people
would be much too busy to worry about a nearly naked man sitting on
the ground in the zoo.

He got himself under control again and put
his clothes back on. Close escapes from vicious beasts were all
well and good—but he still had a rebellion to stop, and he couldn’t
do it sitting here.

When Natalia woke the next morning, Eva was
gone. Her heart nearly stopped as she realized how totally alone
she truly was. Even though she’d fought it, she’d learned to rely
on Eva as a rock in the flood waters carrying her along to
doom.

She panicked and looked wildly around, and
that’s when she noticed the room’s monitor was blinking. Someone
had left her a message, and only one person knew she was here. She
fumbled quickly with the control to switch on the monitor.

As Eva’s smiling face appeared on the screen,
a wave of warm relief swept over the girl’s body. “Good morning,
Your Majesty. I hope you slept well. I wanted to run a few errands
and pick up some necessities. I should be back soon with my haul,
so keep yourself entertained.
Don’t leave the room unless it’s
on fire.
By the way, I figured out why you sleep alone—you
snore pretty loud.”

Natalia took a couple deep sighs of relief,
and then began hoping that one of her savior’s errands was to get
food. She’d never been so hungry in her entire life. It felt like a
rat was gnawing at her stomach. A very determined rat.

She turned on the news to distract herself.
All the stations seemed filled with calamity. The tsar’s death.
Fleets of ships seeming to converge on Earth from all directions at
once, and attacking one another as well as planetary authorities.
Locally, the rioting mobs who’d blown up
Argosy
and killed
the beloved young tsaritsa. The Sovyet Knyazey calling an emergency
plenary session in six days to deal with this unprecedented
situation. Everything was in chaos, and she was becoming more and
more convinced that it was somehow her fault.

Finally the door slid open and Eva came
through. She was wearing much more practical clothes than the
torn-up gown she’d had last night, and she was struggling with an
awkward collection of shopping bags. Natalia ran up to her and
would have thrown her arms around her if she could have fought her
was through the bags. “I was so scared,” the girl said. Then,
prompted by her stomach, she blurted out, “Did you get any
food?”

Eva laughed. “Hello, I missed you, too. This
bag over here, I think. Bread, cheese and deli meats. It’s not what
you’re used to, but it’ll do for a
nosh
, better than
chozzerai
.”

Natalia didn’t reply, just took the bag out
of Eva’s hand. She started gnawing on a baguette eagerly, then
finally slowed enough to combine the other ingredients. Eva waited
until the girl had slowed down, then began assembling her own
sandwich. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the
munching of food and the droning of the news program.

Finally Eva was satisfied enough to start
talking again. “I suppose you’ve heard by now about the special
meeting of the Sovyet Knyazey. That means we’ve got six days to
make it back to Earth and restore you to the—”

“About that,” Natalia interrupted suddenly.
“I’ve been thinking. What if I don’t go back?”

Eva stopped and looked at her. “What do you
mean?” she asked slowly.

“All this rebellion, all this fighting—it’s
all my fault. People don’t want me on the throne. I’m not even sure
I
want me on the throne. I wouldn’t be any good at it. This
is the perfect chance for me to leave it all behind. Everybody
thinks I’m dead. Why don’t I let someone who wants the throne just
have it?”

Eve stood up and turned around so the girls
couldn’t see her face. “And what about the rest of the Empire?”

“They don’t want me. They’re rebelling
against
me!”

“Just a few power-hungry
schmucks
,”
Eva said gently. “The rest of the people are just scared and
confused. They’ll follow anyone who offers them a way out of chaos.
Have you heard what they’re calling you? ‘The beloved young
tsaritsa.’“

Natalia gave a bitter snort. “How can they
love me? They don’t even
know
me!”

Eva chuckled mirthlessly. “That only makes it
easier. The fact that you’re dead helps, too. For all we know, the
two princes in the Tower in
Richard III
were nasty
little
putzes
—but they died young, which made them saints.
The people love what you represent—order and stability. And if you
show up now, they’ll rally around you with great cheers. Trust
me.”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead. Why not let it
stay that way? I’d be a lousy tsaritsa, anyway. The Empire’ll be
better off with someone else in charge.”

Eva whirled around angrily to face her. “Do
you really think so? Do you think the Empire will be better off
fractured into a thousand little states? Do you think the Empire
will be better off facing decades of civil war? Do you think the
Empire will be better off with planets bombing one another into
oblivion? Do you think the Empire will be better off under the rule
of
schmucks
who are ready to let billions of people die to
serve their own personal ambitions? Is that really what you think?
Because that’s what’ll happen if people don’t have a strong symbol
to rally behind—because right now, little girl, you’re the only one
who can do that. You’re the only one standing between the Empire
and chaos.”

“
NO!”
Natalia screamed. She buried her
head in a pillow, and for a while all Eva could hear was, “Why me?
Why me? Why me?” over and over again.

Her anger melted away, and she sat down
beside the girl. “Well, you’re bound to do a better job than a
momzer
like Yevgheniy Kuznyetz, if that’s any consolation.
Besides, a reluctance to take the throne is one good qualification
for it. I can’t think of anyone who’d be better than you—except me,
of course, but no one’s offering me the job.

“Besides,” she added, growing more serious,
“not everyone thinks you’re dead—or at least they won’t for
long.”

“But all the reports—”

“Yeah, that’s what the traitors want people
to think. But you can bet there’ve been top forensic specialists
sifting through
Argosy’s
wreckage for the past few hours,
looking for one particular body. And when they don’t find it,
they’ll clamp down tight. Our only chance is to get off Languor
before they do that.”

“How do you know they haven’t already?”

“I don’t, for sure. But they’re probably
pretty confident no one could have escaped that blast alive.
There’ve been no notices that outbound ships are being searched.
We’ve got maybe a few hours, at most to get offplanet. Otherwise
we’re stuck.”

“But if I stay in hiding for the rest of my
life, I won’t be any threat to them.”

“You’ll
always
be a threat to them,”
Eva said patiently. “Your very existence is a threat, whether you
claim the throne or not. They won’t stop until they have absolute
proof you’re dead.” She shook her head. “You can have no future as
a private citizen. None.”

Natalia’s eyes were drying now, but she said
nothing. Her lower lip quivered a little, and Eva continued
sympathetically, “You’ve been through more catastrophes in past few
hours than an army of fourteen-year-old girls has any right to
expect. Sure you’re scared and panicky. Who wouldn’t be? But you’re
also a tsaritsa. I’ve seen that in your eyes, in your face, your
voice. I know.”