JULIEN

II

Chapter 21

Drosera, nepenthes...

It turned out to be an old, old story: an otherwise highly intelligent man had allowed himself to be blinded by envy and ambition and led into doing something stupid. For some reason Ajmer had felt limited by his role as First Councillor to his Noble Cousin Aldegard. The problem lay with him and him alone: his wife Denndea, far from playing the role of Lady Macbeth, had reminded him, whenever he expressed dissatisfaction with his current role, that he already enjoyed a position of far greater power and influence that he might have expected, given his comparatively low birth. And in all probability her wisdom would have prevailed and things would have gone no further. But then, shortly after the return of the Emperor in the rather disappointing form of an ignorant off-world kid, he had happened to run into a man who introduced himself as the emissary of a mysterious Movement for the Restoration of the True Empire.

Ajmer wasn't stupid, and his first instinct was to warn Lord Aldegard and to send the militia to investigate the Movement. Aldegard had carried out the same sort of basic investigation he had done in the case of several similar groups, and when his men failed to find any trace of the emissary he'd decided that there was no real threat. He concluded that someone had simply tried to involve Ajmer in a plot of some sort in order to blackmail him, and it didn't seem to be in any way connected with the much larger threat aimed at the Emperor himself which dated right back to his first disappearance twelve cycles previously.

Shortly after the second disappearance and subsequent difficult reappearance of the alleged Emperor he was contacted again. This time the man made it clear that the Empire couldn't hope to last very long with an undisciplined child at the helm, particularly since it was clear that the kid was completely out of his depth and incapable of being what the people needed him to be. Furthermore, it was clear that the kid was being manipulated by people who cared far more about protecting their own status and privilege than about allowing other, more able, people to reach the positions that their abilities made them suitable for. In fact, the entire obsolete system by which the Nine Worlds were ruled prevented any sort of progress, under the pretext or protecting the Empire from purely hypothetical disasters. And now humans and the other intelligent species were being held back so as to preserve at the heart of government, not an Emperor who guaranteed the proper functioning of everything, but an imposter, a mere puppet whose strings were being pulled by the Council of Mirrors. And that simply could not be tolerated any longer.

Under normal circumstances Ajmer would probably have been able to muster plenty of arguments against this clearly one-sided point of view. But in fact he was already starting to have thoughts of a similar nature himself, and it didn't take much to persuade him that any argument against this interpretation of things would simply be the result of indoctrination from an early age and an education that sought to convince everyone that there was no alternative to the present order of things, even though a careful examination would show it to be both archaic and unfair.

The man also pointed out that the recent Ksantiri affair demonstrated clearly that others were also ready to rise up against the oppressor, and their failure simply showed that they had lacked the advice of a well-placed, sensible ally...

All the same, he had been on the point of reporting everything to Aldegard once more, but it seemed to him that Aldegard had started to keep him at arm's length, particularly in matters relating to the Emperor. He was just being left with the day-to-day running of the Bakhtar estates. He'd also developed a strong dislike for Tannder, whose frequent private interviews with the First Lord seemed to have begun at around the time Aldegard had started keeping his First Councillor in the dark about anything important.

Before too long he found himself in frequent contact with the Emissary and his colleagues. This consisted mostly of keeping them informed about the movements of Julien and his team and of affording them access to the Bakhtar apartments so that their agents – a different one each time – could plant sensors there.

But it came as a brutal shock to him when he discovered that his 'allies' were not in fact from any of the Nine Worlds: the secret base to which he had been transported, without the help of any Guide, for an 'interview' was actually situated on a satellite of a gas giant planet that was completely unknown to R'hinz astronomy. At that interview the gloves had come off and he was given a choice: either he could help with the conquest of first Nüngen and then the rest of the R'hinz, after which he would be rewarded with a position of power, or – should he suddenly be overcome by scruples – he could take the risk of angering their masters, who were not known for either gentleness of spirit or patience. Obviously he took the only choice open to him and offered, with as much feigned enthusiasm as he could muster, to collaborate in the conquest of the Nine Worlds.

On top of everything, his new masters had a final surprise for him: the appearance on the transfer platform of Tannder and three colleagues, who had instantly been immobilised by some sort of paralysing gas. As he was being closely watched he had no option but to pretend to be delighted by this, even though his real feelings were completely different despite his animosity towards the Warrior. Hence the exclamation, which he had thought would be heard by nobody except his new allies but which was also unfortunately heard by a man he had thought was unconscious. The Noble First Councillor had spent every moment from then until his subsequent arrest in a state of profound anxiety.

oo0oo

After listening with Julien to the report on the initial probing of Ajmer's mind Dennkar's expression became, if it were possible, even darker.

“There's nothing in there we can use,” he said. “At least, nothing that offers the remotest clue as to where Tannder might be. Even if we tried attacking the base – which would be very difficult anyway - it wouldn't help very much. Aïn and Wenn Hyaï are both certain that he wasn't in the building when they left. I'm sorry, My Lord, but we might have to write Tannder off and assume he's dead.”

“Try telling Karik that!” responded Julien. “And I'm not ready to give him up just yet either, and nor will I be until I actually see his dead body.”

“Well, they're still probing Ajmer to see if there's anything they missed the first time around.”

“Go and tell Subadar that will do for the time being and ask him and Aïn to come and join us.”

oo0oo

Chapter 22

Raid

“My Lord! I can't let you do something as stupid as that!”

“Dennkar, I'm the best qualified person for this. With Xarax with me I'll be able to pinpoint where they're holding Tannder. We just need to be on the same world.”

“Xarax will only be able to tell you which direction he's in.”

“Right, but it's still better than anyone else can do.”

“Why don't you lend Xarax to me? He can tell me a direction as easily as he could you – and I'm trained for combat.”

“True, but I am a Guide, so as soon as I see Tannder he'll be safe.”

“Take me with you, then.”

Julien thought about that.

“I'd like to,” he said, “but it's not a question of numbers. We're not intending to lay siege to a fortress here. Aïn will take us to the base and I'll find out which direction from there will take us to Tannder. If his men are with him I'll bring them back too. If they're not, not even Xarax will be able to find them – he's sampled Tannder, but not the others.”

“I'm coming!” said a voice behind him.

“Karik! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be sleeping!”

“I've been asleep for long enough. I'm coming with you. You can't deny me that – and you need someone who can use a weapon.”

“But...”

“Be honest – you can't go on your own. As soon as you meet an enemy you'd either have to run or you'd get killed. You have to choose someone to come with you.”

“But...”

“I'm as good as anyone else – I've already proved that. And I'm not the one telling you that you have to stay here, either – in fact if you want to risk your skin to save Tannder you'll get no argument from me. Everyone else will tell you that you're the Emperor and so you can't take the risk, but the only thing I'll say is that I can help you to get him back and protect you while you're doing it.”

Niil looked to be on the point of interrupting, but Karik forestalled him. He'd obviously planned his arguments in advance.

“You're First Lord of the Ksantiris,” he said, “and I'm pretty sure that Julien won't be happy about you leaving Ambar on his own if anything goes wrong. And in any case, I'm better with those little hand-guns than you are.”

Niil opened his mouth, but this time Julien got in first.

“There's no need to get into an argument,” he said. “I'm taking Karik. And we're leaving right now – we've lost enough time as it is.”

Wenn Hyaï actually barked, adding “I cwom too!”

Then he leaned against Julien and added mentally, I'll team up with Karik and together we'll protect you. If we do that, you and Aïn can concentrate on finding Tannder.

“As you wish. I don't seem to making the decisions round here any more...”

oo0oo

Aïn and Wenn Hyaï had a fair idea of the way and Julien, unlike Karik, could actually see where they were going as they headed towards the unknown planet. So could Xarax, who recorded every aspect of the journey – at least, every one that he could follow - into his infallible memory. What he could not record, and what Julien himself was unaware of, was the way in which the two Guides carefully probed their destination before materialising into normal space. They had to be sure that they weren't going to find themselves surrounded by enemies as soon as they appeared.

They arrived a little way away from a very low building that was barely above ground level, thus suggesting that the bulk of it was below the surface. The air was cold but perfectly breathable, if a little thin, and that came as a relief: they hadn't been sure before they set out whether the building they had been in previously had its own artificial atmosphere. They were on the dark side of the satellite, but a good part of the sky was filled with the blue orb of the gas giant around which this moon was orbiting, and that acted as a mirror, reflecting a cold light that was so strong that it would have been possible to read the fine print of a telephone directory with no difficulty.

Without letting go of Karik's hand, which he had been holding since the start of the journey, Julien took a step towards a slightly flatter piece of ground, and at once he felt a disconcerting sensation that he couldn't immediately identify. But Xarax recognised it straight away.

It's gravity, he explained. It's a little weaker here than on the Nine Worlds, so you'll have to be careful if you need to run or fight. And Tannder is on this world, and he's still alive.

They had decided that whatever happened they would not split up and that this time Xarax wouldn't go scouting the way he had done when he and Julien had arrived on Dvârinn for the first time. Instead they travelled by a series of jumps, which required the two Guides to make maximum use of their skill – it was one thing to jump from one klirk to another through immense distances of space, but it was another thing altogether to try to travel across the surface of a world of which you had no prior knowledge and where you were unsure of the distance you had to go or the direction in which to travel. Had they got it wrong they could have spent hours going round and round in circles without ever finding what they were looking for.

Finally they were able to identify the area in which Tannder was being held. To get there they had made about ten jumps towards and then into the day side of the moon, and this had brought them to the shores of a sea over which a storm was raging, one which was particularly dangerous because the moon's low gravity allowed the sea to throw up huge waves which broke against the granite cliffs like a whole series of tsunamis. Low smoky clouds rushed across the sky, allowing only brief glimpses of the bright star whose direct radiation they thought it would be wise to avoid as much as possible. The only plant life here was a sort of red lichen which clung to the rocks, saturated with water like a sponge. However, although Xarax was sure they were in roughly the correct place, there was no building to be seen, and they had to call upon the Guides' expertise once more.

Eventually Wenn Hyaï located an enormous underground cavity, like a bubble that had formed during the cooling of the primordial magma, which now held installations of some sort, as well as a small number of people. There was undoubtedly an entrance hidden somewhere in the Dantesque landscape, but they didn't need to look for it: instead the Guides transported them into the corner of a large hall that looked a little to Julien like the engine room of a transatlantic liner – except that here there was an impressive silence, broken only by a faint pulsing sound that was barely audible. Huge masses of grey metal formed structures whose purpose Julien was unable to discern, but there was a clear suggestion of something immensely powerful at work within them. The temperature, in contrast with the damp cold outside, was pleasantly warm. A uniform bluish light was emitted from the ceiling, which was about thirty metres above their heads. The room was deserted, and that gave them a chance to relax a bit, to recover from the cold and to consult with each other.

Tannder is very close, said Wenn Hyaï, and he's alone. It shouldn't be too hard to pull him out. But we don't know if the other two are here. We'll have to search a little.

We must stick to the plan we've already chosen, said Aïn. Julien should take Tannder back straight away while the rest of us search for the others.

At that moment a clatter of rushing feet warned them that men were hurrying into the hall and would soon locate them – their arrival had been enough to trigger a silent alarm, and at the same time to cause the discharge of a knock-out gas. One by one they dropped, apparently affected by a neurotoxin that was absorbed through the skin without even needing to be breathed in. Four guards wearing heavy protective suits and gas masks ran towards them.

Karik's weapon produced four sharp reports in quick succession and the enemy guards' advance came to an abrupt and permanent stop, and at the same time the 'paralysed' quartet stood up and then disappeared like a puff of smoke. They had just bought themselves a few precious minutes.

oo0oo

The unfortunate experience of the Warrior they had rescued previously had given them vital information: they had learned how he and his colleagues had been captured, and that had allowed the armaments experts to prepare counter-measures. The filtering membrane used for the observation platform on Tandil could be used for other purposes, and one of those was to form an extremely flexible transparent container which could be adapted to fit a body and which would then offer a good defence against bacteriological or chemical attack. With it covering the mouth and nose there was no need for any additional mask to be worn. It wouldn't offer a defence against everything - it was no protection against radioactivity, for example – but it was certainly effective against the enemy's gas.

Tannder had been alone and unconscious in a room that looked like a cross between a torture chamber and an ultra-sophisticated operating theatre. Several tubes were connected to his body, carrying unidentifiable fluids. He bore the bloody marks of violent treatment – Julien preferred not to speculate about exactly what had been done to him.

He drew his nagtri and cut through everything that was attaching Tannder to this hellish place and then transported him to the Orientation Table and thence to the klirk of the Der Mang base, where a team of Health Masters were waiting for them. He then had to spend a long time in the decontamination room being thoroughly scrubbed down before he was able to shed his protective envelope. Dennkar came to join him just as he was putting on a clean laï and brought him up to date without waiting to be asked.

“Karik and the guides are back,” he said. “They're just about to be decontaminated. The other two Warriors are both dead – they made sure of that before leaving. They placed their explosives in the hall but didn't wait for them to go off. With a bit of luck the enemy won't be able to work out what happened when they discover that that base doesn't respond to calls any longer.”

“How's Tannder?”

“The Health Masters can't say yet. They've got to purge his body of whatever poisons have been injected into him. But I think we can count the operation a success.”

“Half of our people died, Master Dennkar,” said Julien. “If that's a success, I don't want to think about what will happen if we're defeated.”

oo0oo