Prince of Tanith, page 18
“Understood,” Hortega nodded. “We’ll start with a few days of pure physical training, and then move to unarmed combat, firearms, and small unit tactics. Then we start with survival training, basic bodyguard technique, combat piloting . . . and then we’ll move on to the tough stuff. In four weeks, they’ll be adept at every weapon they can get their hands on, know how to fly a space ship, be able to plot a simple astrogation course, discuss trade relations with ambassadors, charm the ladies, amuse the gentlemen . . . and report back accurately everything they hear and see.”
“Glad we got you for this duty, Gordon,” Harkaman said, clapping the smaller man on the back. “I don’t think I could trust it to anyone else. Just . . . make sure they’re fanatically devoted, okay? The history books are filled with political assassination accounts. In most cases, they involve the cooperation or the incompetence of the guards. I don’t want to be an issue for this unit.”
Hortega dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand. “Fanatical devotion? The oldest kid here is twenty-five. They’re all young, stupid, and impressionable, and more than a little idealistic. Fanatical devotion? In four weeks?” He exhaled a large cloud of smoke, as the assembled candidates below broke formation and took off running for the horizon, their one-eyed drill instructor screaming obscenities at them all the way. “Piece of cake.”
* * *
Lucas stepped back from the bedroom chamber door, his eyes wide in disbelief. Countess Dorothy closed it behind her.
“She’s resting, now,” she said as she stripped off her gloves and washed her hands. “She’s fine, the baby’s fine. Just a small pre-contraction, perfectly normal.”
“Yes, I remember reading about that,” the Prince said, dazed. “And she seems healthy enough, I guess, but doctor – sorry, Countess—”
“ ‘Doctor’ is fine, Highness,” the Mardukan woman said, casually. “Dorothy, even. We’ve past the point of titles, now, haven’t we? Or are you going to be one of those officious nobles who tries to stand on his aristocratic dignity while his pants are down around his ankles, turning his head and coughing? I can play it either way.”
Lucas nodded, smiling despite himself. “I see your point. No, I stand on ceremony when it serves me. And please call me ‘Lucas’ – in intimate situations, of course. But Doctor – Dorothy – is it really normal for a pregnant woman to eat that much?” he asked, mystified.
“Perfectly,” the woman chuckled, crossing the room to pour herself a glass of whiskey, neat. “Don’t forget, gestation is a metabolically intense process. She’s building a baby, in there, plus keeping her own body working. That requires a lot of fuel. She’s well within the normal tolerances, I assure you!”
“Oh, of course,” Lucas said, shrugging. “I wasn’t sure, is all. She nearly attacked the serving robot this morning . . . and she’s been craving the damnedest things.”
“Perfectly normal,” repeated the doctor, smiling fondly. “She’s going to be a good breeder, Lucas. Not to make her sound like a kregg mare, but she’s well-built for the task. And I’m sure you’ve noticed the, ah, abrupt changes in mood?”
Lucas nodded dumbly. He poured himself his own drink. It was almost noon, after all. And he’d had a troubled morning.
“Hers are actually pretty mild,” Dorothy chuckled. “Believe me, this has been a model pregnancy. You just need to relax.”
“Hard to relax when there are people throwing grenades at my – good breeder. And plotting insurrection.”
Dorothy shrugged. “You can look at it that way,” she admitted. “But the fact is that we all face dangers every day. Back at Malverton General we got fifty or sixty poor souls a day who fell off a landing stage, or went down the wrong alley, or tripped in the shower. People die, Lucas. All the time. We’re constantly in danger, and every day we get up might be the last we see.”
“You’re awfully philosophical for a doctor,” Lucas muttered. “Not to mention morbid.”
“It’s the facts of life,” she explained. “Look, you might be killed by an assassin. That’s a possibility. Valerie might die in childbirth. That’s a possibility. We might all be incinerated by some mad Sword World king with a grudge and atomic weapons. Or we might all die peacefully in bed of a sudden heart-attack after spending the day picnicking. Who knows? You take proper precautions, you hope for the best, and you relax. That’s all you can do.”
Lucas paused, and studied her. “Is that what you did after you were prohibited from re-attaching Spasso’s arm? That must have seemed pretty barbaric, to a nice civilized physician such as yourself.”
Dorothy sipped philosophically. “I once saw a little girl, about nine years old – cute little thing – come in after getting caught in some industrial machinery. Accident, she climbed into an abandoned factory and one of the robots was still on. She’d lost both of her legs and her left hand.”
“Dear God,” Lucas murmured.
“It was awful,” Dorothy agreed. “That little girl didn’t deserve that. I was able to reattach the hand and one leg, the other was gone. She’s in college now. Uses a prosthetic. I still get cards every now and then.”
“And the point to this morbid story is . . . ?”
“That little girl didn’t deserve what happened to her, and she lost a leg. Almost died. Garvan Spasso tried to commit regicide, and lost a hand. When I look at the big picture, I just have to accept that sometimes the universe gives you a little extra justice.”
“An interesting perspective,” nodded Lucas. “Tell me, Dorothy, why did you really drag your entire clinic out here to Tanith?”
“Honestly?” she said, finishing the drink. “Because I can be a real doctor, here. In Malverton I saw maybe six patients a week, and spent the rest of the time filling out forms. I saw six patients before lunch, today, and one of them was a very frightened and excited new mommy who promised me, when I agreed to come here, I wouldn’t have to do much paperwork.”
“Paperwork? That’s it?”
“Oh, the pretty scenery, the clean, unpolluted air, the fact that the joint is fairly crawling with well-built, testosterone-poisoned men that my mother would never approve of – well, let’s say that I can give up seeing the Malverton Ballet company for a few years. This place is exciting!” she said, dreamily.
“That’s one way to look at it,” agreed Lucas. “Any last bit of advice before you abandon me to . . . that eating machine in there?”
“Yes,” Dorothy said, as she hefted her medical bag on her shoulder, “Tell her she’s beautiful, tell her everything’s going to be okay . . . and then get off-planet for a few weeks. The fun part is almost over.”
* * *
The foothills east of the grasslands were very old, the roots of mountains that had been ancient and mighty when life had begun on Tanith. Compared to the mighty Alta Fresca range, they were barely mountains. But where the grassy plains broke into hilly woodlands, beyond the valley that cradled Camp Valiant, were ancient caves and crevasses that went deep into the hills.
Before the Space Vikings came, they were sites of cultic worship, where mystical hermits might repair to commune with the spirits and perform secret rites, or outlaws might use to hide from their foes. When Admiral Harkaman had ordered a general civil defense plan be drawn up, however, those caves were charted and explored. Only a few were deemed large and stable enough to construct real bunkers within, and the Royal Navy construction crews were already hard at work.
But among those examined and withdrawn from consideration was one only an hour’s walk from Camp Valiant, and a few minutes by aircar. The entrance was occluded by a rocky overhang, and at some point some neobarb had turned it into a shrine – there were arcane markings fading away on the exterior walls of the cave.
Within, however, past a twenty-meter tunnel, was a small series of chambers that, while not ideal for surviving a nuclear attack from orbit, were nonetheless idea for conducting secret rites or hiding from observation. Capt. Hortega was not a wasteful man – when he had access to such a resource, he utilized it. The cave became the secret classroom for the new royal guards.
It had been established after the first week, when three of the candidates had washed out already, that regular veridication would be a part of the training. Everyone had known and accepted that, when they had signed on. It was expected as a security precaution for anyone with a sensitive position, and there were no more sensitive positions than the royal guards.
But after the first few pro forma sessions, in which the instructors and examiners established the truthful identity and background of the candidates, the sessions under the big glass ball continued. Not just continued, they were augmented.
“Gentlemen, in order to forge a unit of maximum efficiency and utter dedication, it is vital that you know and trust each other. You will also need to learn how to quickly and effectively interrogate a subject under verdication. So we’re going to get to know each other – intimately. Each of you will sit in that chair for five minutes tonight, and each of you will answer any and all questions put to you – by anyone. You will answer truthfully, to the best of your ability, is that understood? Good. I don’t care if you’re asked to discuss your feelings about your mother, your potty-training issues, the first time you rogered a servant girl or stole from your teacher, you answer truthfully. And we’re going to keep doing this, until each and every one of you knows everything there is to know about your comrades. Needless to say, anything you hear in the cave, it stays in the cave. The point of the exercise is to learn to trust each other – and that extends to being worthy of that trust. These men are your brothers – we don’t discuss our brothers’ secrets.”
The sessions were brutal. No subject was taboo. They learned how each of them had suffered, endured, achieved and triumphed, and they learned to accept those mistakes in their comrades without judgment or condemnation. They learned each others’ motivations for joining the unit, and for serving the nascent Realm in the first place.
They learned that Austin Bovaro had murdered a man and got away with it. They learned that Holden Barnes preferred the company of other gentlemen. They learned that Goswin of Canara witnessed his mother’s unfaithfulness with the village miller. They learned that Alexi Karvall’s beloved had been senselessly slaughtered by Prince Viktor’s hired guns in Wardshaven, and he thirsted for revenge. They learned that Armand Delio’s name was not Armand Delio, and why, and they swore to keep his secret.
They learned about the awful scars of life under the lash and the petty injustices of aristocratic life. They learned the pain of killing and of losing friends in battle. Not many nights did they go to sleep peacefully, but they slept knowing that the men around them knew them better than they knew themselves.
Those caves were useful for smaller classes in those types of warfare not taught in basic training: the art of the garrote, the best way to silence an enemy from behind with a knife, the use and dangers of poisons. They learned how to bribe a petty official, a police officer, or a nobleman. They learned how to speak to others innocuously, yet learn volumes of information about them.
They studied the classics of war and power: Claustwitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Travis. They learned how to pick a pocket, pick a lock, and pick the right assassin out of a crowd. They studied the deductive logic of Sherlock Holmes and the keen methods of observation used by police and spies throughout the ages.
They took fieldtrips to Rivington, haunting the wild entertainment complex used to gently separate a Space Viking from his pay and learned how to tail a man without detection, how to protect a charge in a crowd, how to blend into a crowd without being obtrusive, and how to survive a barfight without seriously hurting anyone.
They learned how to pump a mark for information, how to ask the right questions to get answers without spooking him, and how to misdirect and intimidate and bully and persuade. They learned how plant electronic eavesdropping devices, use a mail drop, do a quick pass without being spotted. They learned how to masquerade as a barfly, or a bishop, or a blind mute. They learned how to hotwire an aircar or commandeer one. They went to depressing shanties of the Slags to learn how to blend in amongst the poorest in society. They learned how to pistol whip a suspect in a back room without leaving any obtrusive marks. They learned the language of the criminal element, and how to mask their actions with misdirection and misinformation.
They took fieldtrips to the Government Section, where they learned how to glean information from bureaucrats without them knowing, how to get past officious secretaries, and how to seduce innocent young noblewomen who might have powerful fathers. They learned how to stand guard for hours at a time, and then snap to action in a heartbeat. They learned how to run a security detail, how to escort a prisoner, how to escort a queen. They learned how to plot an escape route and how to change that route in an instant, if necessary. They learned how to play the role of an aristocrat, a diplomat, a technician, a servant, or a bureaucrat.
They took fieldtrips to the spaceport, where they learned how to sneak aboard a ship and commandeer its systems. They learned how to speak with authority, how to command subordinates, and how to politely request.
They took fieldtrips to the moonbase, where they learned how to set up emergency airlocks, attack an airless station, and take control of it from outside.
In orbit, they learned how to board a ship in force, how to disable security systems, how to subvert the programming of common robots and get them to do their bidding. They learned how to program and use nuclear weapons, how to deploy a stealth team into a ship undetected.
They learned diplomatic operations, manners and courtesy, proper forms of address, the rudiments of astrogation, first aid, engineering, languages – particularly the various dialects of debased Lingua Terra spoken on Tanith – politics, history, geography, philosophy – the list went on and on.
But always they returned to the cave, to spill their secrets, reveal their fears, and confront their inner demons.
It was a fascinating experiment, to their instructors. It was a unique experience, for the candidates. Differences between them faded as they became true comrades, each and every one willing to die for the Royal Family. For Tanith, or for each other.
* * *
With only a week to go before his scheduled departure, Lucas was feeling the stress. This would be the first real raiding trip the Nemesis had been on in well over a year, after serving as the flagship for the many diplomatic trips Lucas had been forced to make. His exec, a capable veteran Space Viking, Wilhelm Roupe, was seeing to all the details, of course: armament, ammunition, inspecting combat contragravity, provisions, carniculture medium, and of course the personnel roster. Still, there were a billion other things for the Prince to worry about.
A thousand slave girls, however, were fairly low on his priority list, compared to preparation for space war with his homeworld. Unfortunately, his wife, the Princess, had a differing opinion.
“Darling, has there been any progress on the Voltlily investigation?” she asked, innocently enough, after a private dinner at Trask House one evening. “I’m concerned about those poor girls.”
“Harkaman’s looking into it,” Lucas admitted as they enjoyed dessert on the balcony overlooking the garden, the twilight birds – well, they flew, so they were “birds” – singing and squawking gaily as the sun faded over the horizon.. “So far all he’s been able to establish is that the Voltlily met with another ship regularly over the last six months, somewhere, to pick up the rifles. Somewhere within a hundred light years, he’s guessing. We’ve checked the ship’s manifest and made inquiries about where they might have picked up the rifles. We’ve got a few good leads,” he said, cautiously.
“Well, I understand about the rifles,” she said, plowing through a berry tart like a conquering general, “we’ve got to find out about that. But what about the girls?”
“What about the girls?” Lucas asked.
“Well, where has the investigation into where the girls were sold led?”
Lucas shrugged, as he poured a cup of coffee from the serving robot. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask. I’m sure he’s looking into it.”
