Empire of Two Worlds

We must have seemed strange, remote figures to the Rheattite population. Once things settled down we had become recluse, living in green towers dotted about the landscape. Grale and Hassmann shared a tower, otherwise each of us had had his own tower built, lacking windows and completely cut off from the outside world, where we each lived according to his own propensities. Reeth had designed the inside of his dwelling himself and had covered the walls with paintings of naked Killibollian women he had somehow got a local artist to paint from imagination. He had a different Rheattite woman every day. Tone the Taker’s place was simply a den where he kept himself in a permanently drugged condition. Harmen, apart from his private dwelling, also staffed an alchemical laboratory with about twenty Rheattite assistants. Currently, so I heard, he was trying to get a nuclear reactor built.

I had purposefully built my own tower without too much luxury. Unlike the others, who had nothing but leisure on their hands, there was still plenty for me to do. I was Bec’s liaison for the armaments programme and for training the League of Rheatt, as the youth organisation was called. Bec himself never went out now, and every day he called me on the screen for conferences and instructions.

Dressed and armed, I checked the outside. Bright light filtered through the screen of cloth I used to do this, momentarily lighting up the interior with a green glow. I judged it was mid-afternoon, took the elevator down and put on my dark goggles while I drove over to Bec’s tower.

The elevator took me in automatically. Bec was seated in a deep soft chair, a glass of hwura, an intoxicating beverage, in his hand. In Klittmann he had smoked a lot of weed, but now we couldn’t get that he drank hwura instead.

Bec was almost surrounded by television screens and piles of documents and written reports.

“Hello, Klein,” he said. “I think somebody’s trying to do a takeover. Come and look at this.”

Several of the screens were alive. Only as I crossed the room did I see the one he was watching. It showed a number of Rotrox leaning over something. When one of them moved I could see that what they were leaning over was Tone the Taker. He was lying on his back on a couch, his features vacant. Their voices came over, blurred and indistinguishable. I strained my ears but could make out nothing.

“They’ve been trying to get Tone to tell them where the gateway to Killibol is,” Bec supplied.

“Has he told them?”

“No, but only because he’s too blocked to know what’s going on. When he needs another shot he’ll start to come round and then he’ll tell them anything.”

“Why do they want to know? Is Imnitrin trying to bypass us?”

Bec shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve been hearing vague rumblings for some time. There’s always been a small caucus on Merame that resented our influence and our reconstituting the Rheattic nation instead of destroying it completely. Evidently this is an action group. Their idea will be to seize the gateway, probe beyond it, and if it looks good try to gain enough support for a wholly Rotrox invasion. At the same time they’ll want us shouldered out.”

I stared at the scene. One of the Rotrox was shaking Tone. “Isn’t that somewhat rebellious? Could they pull it off? What would the Council think?”

Bec moved uneasily. “It’s a funny thing about the Rotrox. I’ve noticed that an idea or an argument can be in the air for years without anything happening. The Council might even veto it. But if somebody takes some action on their own and it begins to look as if it’s moving, they get interested. Consequently I don’t want these zealots poking into our business. Especially, I don’t want them poking around on Killibol.”

“Why not? They’d simply find a dead world.”

“That’s why it would be so bad. They could convince the Council that I’ve been lying to them. The Rotrox are expecting all kinds of loot out of Killibol.”

There was one other question I wanted to ask.

“Have you got all our towers bugged?”

“Between you and me — no. Only Tone’s and Harmen’s. I figured that would only be sensible.”

“It looks like you were right. What do you want me to do about this?”

“Take a squad over there and don’t leave anybody alive.”

“Isn’t that a bit drastic?” I asked. “The Rotrox might not like that.”

“I’ll square it. They’re not squeamish about expending their young bloods. I’ll make it look like they came in shooting and Tone’s bodyguard defended him. That might convince the action caucus that we’re more solidly entrenched than they thought we were.”

“Right.”

As I turned to go, Bec added: “By the way, when I said leave nobody alive I meant nobody. And that goes for Tone, too.”

I paused. “Is that necessary?” I said. “He is one of us.”

“He’s the only weak link in the chain and I want him out of the way. They wouldn’t dare to try this on any of the others. I seem to remember you missed Tone once before. Now’s your chance to make up for it.”