42
Achilles and three junior aides were reviewing recent sightings by the Fleet’s early-warning array when Vesta entered the office. “Excuse me, Excellency. Eupraxia has returned from Hearth.”
“Bring him,” Achilles sang. To the rest, he added, “Leave us.”
“But, Minister,” Zelos, one of the aides, responded hesitantly. “About these sightings?”
Achilles stood tall, hooves set far apart, eyes fixed on this impudent aide. Was it not enough that he had Nature Preserve One to govern, and prisons to run, and all the worlds’ defenses to manage? Was it not enough that for the safety of all he ceaselessly improved Proteus? “Must I do everyone’s job?” he asked.
“My apologies.” Zelos twitched. “When it is convenient for you, Excellency, we will present our analysis.”
Achilles waggled heads once, dismissing them, and off they scurried. “Bring Eupraxia.”
“Yes, Excellency,” Vesta sang, also hurrying from the room.
The sad truth was, Achilles did do everyone’s job, and another to which he did not admit. Adding capacity to Proteus was not enough. The time-consuming part was extending its autonomy routines so that the scaled-up system could achieve its full potential. Singly, each tweak and add-on offered some worthwhile improvement. Together, if he ever had the time to complete his work, those changes would undermine Ol’t’ro’s control—
“Excellency,” Vesta sang. With him at the doorway was a cowering, bedraggled specimen.
“Inside,” Achilles ordered Eupraxia. “That will be all, Vesta. Close the door.”
His deputy hesitated. “Proteus has requested a great many more hyperdrive-capable drones. He wants sufficient drones in reserve to direct several against each enemy missile, not just every enemy ship.”
“Then order the drones built!” Achilles sang. He had work to do.
“Respectfully, that will entail further diversion of production resources.…”
Such diversion was the Hindmost’s problem, not his. Pressuring Horatius had failed to bring about a resignation. Ignoring the Hindmost, leaving him to fester in his inadequacies, had yet to succeed, either.
“What I deem necessary for the planetary defense is necessary,” Achilles sang. And the Hindmost can cope with any popular dissatisfaction.
The public mood …
Achilles’ attention refocused on the shaggy-maned recent arrival trying to fade into the wall. “Tend to it,” Achilles sang, with sharp undertunes of impatience.
“Yes, Excellency.” Vesta backed from the room and closed the door.
Eupraxia plucked at his already tousled mane.
“What do you have to report?” Achilles roared.
With his heads lowered subserviently, Eupraxia sang, “Dissident uploads continue across Hearth, Excellency.”
“I know that.” Achilles strode behind his desk. From astraddle his padded bench, he initiated a playback.
With each new video and each new viewing, Achilles’ hatred grew.
“Minister Achilles cannot be trusted,” Nessus sang. “For his own political gain, he has provoked our enemies: the Pak, the Gw’oth, and most recently the Kzinti. Of my certain knowledge, he has attempted premeditated murder.
“Citizens of the Concordance, Achilles must not retain a position of authority. He—”
Achilles froze the playback. Those crazed, mismatched eyes bored into him like lasers. No one could have survived the destruction of Long Shot—and yet there was Nessus.
“What progress have you made toward locating Nessus?”
Eupraxia lowered his heads farther. “None, Excellency.”
“What have you learned to help stop this outrage?” Achilles demanded.
“Excellency, I traced one of the rogue videos to a pocket computer left in a public shopping mall. Lip and tongue prints from Nessus were found on it. The upload program had a two-day delay before initiation.”
“Which suggests what?”
“That … that more rigged computers may be out there waiting to upload?”
Not may be—are. Nessus, curse him, would not stop. “What progress have you made purging these scurrilous lies from Herd Net?”
Softly: “Insufficient, Excellency.” And all but inaudible: “Copies get made and uploaded and shared among Citizens faster than the network administrators can remove them. The files spread almost like viruses.”
“How am I to defend the Fleet? How can I save everyone while such treasonous slander circulates about me?” Achilles demanded.
“I beg your pardon, Excellency. I … I…”
Achilles stomped on the call button beneath his desk, and Vesta galloped in. “Yes, Excellency?”
“See to it that Eupraxia has a respite from his too onerous duties.”
“I … I need no rest, Excellency,” Eupraxia sang desperately. “I will redouble my efforts.”
“You will work hard, indeed,” Achilles thundered.
Because nothing would focus the mind of the next worker—Zelos, Achilles decided—like knowing where failure had delivered his predecessor.
To Penance Island, the world’s maximum security prison.
* * *
MUCH NEEDED DOING, but Achilles needed time alone more. Time to think. Time to calm down. Time to picture the torment Nessus would suffer once he fell into Achilles’ jaws.
“I will be on the promenade,” Achilles sang as he swept through the outer office. He strode through the palace to the colonnaded walkway.
“Yes, Excellency,” sounded a ragged chorus.
A string of suns hung high overhead, and the afternoon was warm and pleasant. Hearth had set but the other worlds, in differing phases, were lovely. The valley far below was rich in countless shades of orange, purple, and red. Stands of ornamental grass bowed and swayed on the terraced gardens downhill from the palace.
He inhaled deeply, serenity infusing him with each breath.
But the rustle of the ornamental grasses was muffled and incomplete. He needed to feel the breeze, to savor its delicate fragrances.
Controls for the weather force field were inset in the decorative columns. With a wriggle of lip nodes, he disabled the field. Now the warm breeze whispered over him, unencumbered. His eyes fell shut. He could almost forget his hatred of Nessus …
With the force field off, the crack of a sonic boom came loud and clear. Achilles’ eyes flew open, his heads pivoting toward the sound. There! A brilliant speck in the sky.
It was a returning grain ship, reflecting the suns. Nothing could be more natural.
The warm breeze carried a delightful bouquet of fresh-mown meadowplant, and ripening grains, and wildflowers. His eyes fell shut again.
Perhaps he dozed.
Achilles stirred to a bothersome droning, the noise coming from behind him. He knew that sound all too well: the tentative, argumentative buzz of aides debating who would bring him bad news. What had they done wrong now?
As he turned to go inside the palace, a flash caught his eye. The grain ship—or, anyway, a grain ship—had grown from a speck to a tiny disk. It grew as it descended, angling across his field of vision. He had not realized any of the flight patterns approached so near to the palace.
The ship’s apparent size began to rival the worlds in the sky.
“What is it?” he sang.
Vesta sidled onto the promenade. “That grain ship, Excellency. During reentry, the pilot reported difficulty controlling his vessel. It should not be this close to us.”
Must I do everything? Achilles once again wondered. He pointed across the beautiful valley. “Advise Proteus. He should take down that ship if it crosses that mountain range.”
“Yes, Excellen…” Vesta’s voices trailed off, his gaze tipped upward.
The sunslit ship had become stained. No, not stained: clouded. Achilles watched the blot spread, dark and inchoate. Dispersing as it fell, the smudge grew and grew. While the ship continued its slow, crosswise descent, the brown fog, caught by the prevailing winds, streamed toward the palace.
That couldn’t be…?
“We must go, Excellency,” Vesta sang imploringly.
Shaking with rage, Achilles stood his ground. “Find Nessus,” he bellowed. Who else would dare? “Find him. Do whatever it takes. Bring him to me.”
Achilles did not bother to reactivate the barrier. No mere weather force field could hold back the stench of a shipload of manure.