C. J. Ryan - Gloria VanDeen 4 - Burdens of Empire

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Burdens of Empire

C. J. Ryan

Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

Also by C. J. Ryan

Copyright

1

Lord Kenarbin cut a splendid figure as he stepped out onto the dock, and knew it. He was tall

and trim, strikingly handsome, with medium-length silver hair curling over the tops of his

ears and piercing blue eyes that commanded the attention of all who fell under their gaze. His

strong, slightly bony nose suggested Hazar blood, while his smooth, swarthy complexion

implied a complex genetic heritage. In his ninety-seventh year, he looked as virile and

vigorous as a man half his chronological age.

Kenarbin carried himself with a diplomat’s aplomb and a drill sergeant’s precision. His

shiny black knee boots, formfitting white breeches, and gold-trimmed deep blue tunic were

accented by the diagonal red sash draped across his torso, signifying his Imperial mandate. His

features automatically assumed a familiar, well-practiced mien of amiable determination and

boundless self-confidence. He paused and stared into the mid distance for a few moments in

order to let the swarm of media imagers record his arrival.

Aside from the gaggle of media reps and the cluster of official greeters, both human and

native, there was not a lot to see. His Cruiser had splashed down in a broad, sluggish river,

brown and oily—the local Mississippi or Amazon, he supposed. The dun-colored landscape

offered little in the way of vegetation or relief, and the chill, steady wind sweeping in from the

river felt unfriendly and forbidding. The sky was cloudless but yellowed from its cargo of dust

and debris, and the single cold star provided a weak, unflattering orange radiance.

In the distance, the dark towers and crenellated walls of the city looked medieval, and the

smaller structures dappling the plain could have been the huts and hovels of serfs. A patina of

age clung to the place—a reminder of the weary millennia of experience boasted by this

civilization, which had achieved star travel when humans were still scrimmaging with

Neanderthals and mammoths. Yet it was this world that had been conquered and occupied by

the upstart humans and their burgeoning Empire—an outcome emphasized by the sheltering

canopy of military vehicles that patrolled the ugly sky above.

Denastri, he thought. Well, he’d seen worse.

Kenarbin took it all in, then turned to face his welcoming committee and offered them a

hearty smile. It was met by unsteady grins from the humans and the blank, impassive gaze of

the indigs—Empire slang for indigenous species. The Denastri, he had been told, were not a

demonstrative race, and the expressions on their alien faces might have meant anything at all,

or nothing.

We are not welcome here.

The unavoidable thought did not trouble Kenarbin unduly. Humans weren’t really

welcome in most places they went. It didn’t matter. The Empire was here, and it was here to

stay. It was Kenarbin’s job to get the locals to accept that immutable fact. They don’t have to like

us, he reminded himself, and we don’t have to like them.

Lord Kenarbin had been coming to places like this for more than half a century,

representing the Empire with skill and imagination. In the process, he had become something

of a legend, having pulled Imperial fat from fires that might have consumed lesser negotiators.

His reputation was well and justly earned, and if the job had become familiar from repetition, it

remained a point of pride with him to do it to the best of his considerable ability. These days,

Emperors used him sparingly, recognizing that his very presence magnified the significance of

any mission on which he embarked: Kenarbin was here because Denastri was important, and

Denastri was important because Kenarbin was here.

Three years earlier, in a swift and relatively bloodless little war, the Imperial Navy had

smashed the small, antique Denastri fleet, putting an abrupt end to thirty thousand years of

conflict within the minor grouping of stars known to Terrans as the McGowan Cluster. While

the local tides swept endlessly back and forth between the Denastri and their neighbors, a

millennium of relentless human expansion had finally brought the Terran Empire to the

doorstep of the McGowan Cluster, 1053 light-years from Earth, and henceforth the locals

would have to behave themselves. The backwater world of Denastri, and everything on it or

under it—particularly the latter—now belonged to the Empire. His Imperial Highness Charles

V had decreed peace, and peace there would be.

Some of the locals had refused to believe or accept this turn of events, and even the

presence of a division of Imperial Marines had failed to convince the holdouts. If anything, the

sputtering insurgency had picked up steam in the preceding year, making life uncomfortable

and dangerous for the Terrans who had come here for the sake of Imperial power and

corporate profits.

The indigs, in any case, were a fractious lot, split three ways and as eager to slaughter each

other as they were their human overlords. Instead of meekly bowing before the overwhelming

might of an Empire that spanned two thousand light-years and encompassed 2673 worlds with

a population exceeding 3 trillion, some of them remained determined to fight on, heedless of

the consequences for themselves or their lackluster little world. Kenarbin had come to reason

with them.

Sanjit Blagodarski, the Imperial Governor, stepped forward and extended his right hand.

Kenarbin clasped it in both of his.

“Welcome to Denastri, Lord Kenarbin,” said the Governor.

“Thank you, Governor. Good to see you again, Sandy. You’re looking well.”

His first lie, less than a minute after setting foot on the planet. In fact, Blagodarski looked

awful. Drawn and frazzled, he seemed to have aged twenty years during the ten since they had

last met. The Governor shrugged off the obvious falsehood with a weak smile and introduced

his Imperial Secretary, a Level XII Dexta functionary named Freya Benitez, and the

commanding officer of the Occupation Task Force, General Steven Ohashi. The general gave

Kenarbin a crisp, military nod along with a firm handshake. “Glad you’re here, milord,” said

Ohashi. That, in itself, struck Kenarbin as an ominous note; Marines were seldom happy to see

diplomats on their turf.

“And now,” said Blagodarski, “it is my privilege to present the Premier of Denastri.

Honored Premier, may I present Lord Kenarbin?”

The alien stepped forward and extended a four-fingered hand, which Kenarbin took in his.

Its flesh felt cold.

“Vilcome to our furled,” said the Premier, with obvious effort.

“Thank you, Honored Premier,” Kenarbin replied as he stared into the dark, vertical slits of

the alien’s eyes. The creature was vaguely humanoid—two arms, two legs, nearly as tall as

Kenarbin. But its face was narrow and noseless, with large, drooping, triangular ears, sallow

skin, a sharp, pointed chin, and a mouth that would have looked at home on a rainbow trout.

The vertical almond-shaped eyes seemed to be all pupil, and looked like the entrances to

shadowy, unexplored caverns. From a narrow bony crest at the top of its head sprouted a long

shank of blue-black hair, braided and bound with thin colored threads. The Premier’s clothing

consisted of a belted saffron-colored robe that fell nearly to the ground.

Kenarbin released the Premier’s hand and touched a stud on his tunic, activating the

translation software on the computer pad in his pocket. “Honored Premier,” he said, “I bring

sincere and heartfelt greetings from His Imperial Highness, Emperor Charles V.” He paused to

let the Premier’s own pad translate his words into the fluid tonal language of the Denastri, then

continued. “The Emperor has asked me to convey his deep personal gratitude for your service

to the Empire, and to your world. He expresses his confidence that, working together, we shall

restore peace and prosperity to his loyal subjects on the rich and beautiful world of Denastri.”

He paused again as the Premier absorbed the translation. Kenarbin studied the Premier’s

face carefully but could detect no identifiable reaction. After a moment, nictitating membranes

closed in from the sides of the Premier’s eyes in an approximation of a blink. Then the Premier

spoke in a flowing, almost musical passage that was pleasant but incomprehensible to human

ears.

The computer rendered the translation in a soft, precise, androgynous voice. “You are

mostly kind to be here, generous lord,” it said. “The words of Imperial Highness Fifthborn

Charles are registered in deep appreciation by this humble Thirdborn. Peace and prosperity

inspire all to high wishfulness. It is a goodness.”

Kenarbin frowned and furrowed his brow. He had been warned that the translation

software was still a work-in-progress, but he had hoped for something better than this.

“A goodness, indeed, Honored Premier,” Kenarbin said. “I look forward to working with

you to make it so.”

“Yes,” the Premier responded. “Work will make good. We will build again that which has

fallen and return—unknown word—to Denastri and the felicitations of Fifthborn Charles and his

grasping Empire. Yes.”

Kenarbin glanced at the Governor, who tilted his head a little and offered a wan smile.

“You’ll get used to it, milord,” he said.

“I think I know what he’s saying,” Kenarbin said. “I just wish I could be sure that he knows

what I’m saying.”

Blagodarski shrugged. “We manage,” he said. “For the most part. We should be on our way

now, milord. We’ll have you safely into the Compound in a few minutes. It’s not wise to linger

too long in an exposed position like this.”

“It isn’t? Why not?”

“Because we make too good a target, milord,” General Ohashi explained.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Blagodarski added hastily.

“The hell it isn’t,” Ohashi mumbled under his breath. The Governor gave him a sharp,

reproving glance, but Ohashi looked away, focusing his gaze on the far side of the river, as if

searching for snipers.

Kenarbin nodded. “I see,” he said. “In that case, gentlemen, ladies, Honored Premier,

perhaps we should continue our discussion in the Compound. I look forward to seeing your

capital city, Honored Premier. I understand that it is older than any on Earth.”

“Earth is young,” the Premier agreed. “Denastri is blessed with the continuing wisdom of

all our time. Perhaps you will learn—unknown word—from us, Lord Kenarbin. A goodness.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Kenarbin. “A goodness.”

The party began moving along the dock. Kenarbin noticed that the dock was flanked by

squads of armed, helmeted Marines, who snapped to attention as he passed. Ahead,

surrounding a small fleet of limo skimmers, the Marines were accompanied by what appeared

to be native Denastri troops, hefting Terran plasma rifles. They were noticeably taller than the

Premier and their skins were more orange than yellow.

“Fourth- and Fifthborns,” Blagodarski said as they walked. “Warrior caste.”

Kenarbin nodded. “Fine-looking troops,” he said to the Premier, who seemed momentarily

confused by the comment and didn’t respond immediately.

After a few moments, the Premier said something that the computer rendered as “Beauty is

in the eye of the beholder.”

Kenarbin, surprised, looked at Blagodarski. “The software has trouble with clichés,” the

Governor explained. “Garbage in, garbage out, I suppose. Not that what you said was garbage,

milord.”

“Perish the thought,” Kenarbin replied with a chuckle.

At that instant, a dazzling burst of intense white light blinded him. A split second later, he

was deafened by the thunderous crack of a concussion device. Stunned and all but senseless,

Kenarbin felt hands grabbing at him, clutching his arms, and dragging him, then lifting him.

He flailed out uselessly and shouted something equally useless, then felt himself being thrown

bodily into what must have been the backseat of one of the limo skimmers. Someone shoved

him down onto the floor of the vehicle, and he felt it lifting and moving.

Security, he thought. They’re getting me out of here.

Sound and sight gradually returned. He tried to turn over and push himself up, but found

himself being pushed back down against the floor. “What’s happening?” he demanded, his

own words sounding faint and distant. He could hear no response, and saw nothing but a

blurred smudge of maroon carpeting, an inch from his nose.

Kenarbin calmed himself. There had been other attempts on other worlds, and he knew the

routine. Security people would treat him like a sack of highly valuable potatoes until they were

certain that the threat had passed. Annoying but necessary. He could hear the high-pitched

whine of the skimmer now, competing with the ringing in his ears. He wondered if the

Governor and the Premier were safe.

Minutes went by, and he felt the lurching, darting progress of the skimmer. It seemed to

him that they ought to have reached the Compound by then. He managed to twist around a

little and turned his head to look up. He expected to see burly Marines on the seat above him.

Instead, he found himself looking into the narrow orange-tinted face of one of the Denastri

warriors.

“What’s happening?” he asked again. “Where are you taking me?” The Denastri offered no

response. Possibly, he had no translation device and didn’t understand.

Kenarbin again tried to push himself up from the floor, but the warrior rudely shoved him

back down. The first tickle of fear and suspicion began to dance at the edges of his mind.

“Dammit, what the hell is going on here?”

The Denastri leaned forward a little and stared down at him. The alien eyes looked placid

and unsympathetic. “You is ours,” it said in Empire English.

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“Vord is ‘hostage,’ yes?” the warrior asked.

Comprehension flooded into Lord Kenarbin in a cold, unwelcome wave.

“Yes,” he said at last, “that’s the word.”

2

The sun glared in Norman Mingus’s face, bright enough to be annoying, even through the

polarized panoramic dome. Poised just above the irregular peaks on the rim of Shackleton

Crater, its unrelenting radiance was an imposition on an old man’s eyes and gave Mingus yet

another reason to resent the necessity of these semiannual excursions to the South Pole of

Luna. He envied Charles, sitting opposite him, twenty meters away, on the far side of the

three-tiered circular amphitheater where the Imperial Oversight Committee was pleased to

hold court. The solar inferno was comfortably positioned behind the young Emperor’s right

shoulder, and he had to face only the less constant, if much closer, fires of angry

Parliamentarians.

Ninety degrees to Mingus’s right, Lord Nepali looked characteristically haughty, as befitted

the Chairman of the Council of Lords; and ninety degrees to his left, Prime Minister Edith

Singh looked typically harried, as befitted the leader of a popular assembly facing elections in

four months. Arrayed to her left, curving around the table until they collided with the Imperial

retinue flanking Charles, various Government ministers were busy consulting with their aides,

camped in the second and third tiers behind the main table. Seated to Singh’s immediate right,

Minority Leader Jimmy Karno, florid-faced and combustible, had been coming to these

meetings for almost as long as Mingus, and deftly rode herd on the squabbling minority MPs

strung out to his right.

Mingus’s own retinue was small; he preferred to travel light. Loyal, steadfast, encyclopedic

Hiroshi Kapok, his Executive Assistant Secretary, sat on his right, and on his left, his Assistant

Secretary for Administration, fussy, grandmotherly Theodora Quisp. Behind them sat a

handful of superfluous aides, ready and excessively eager to provide assistance in the unlikely

event that Mingus should require any. He had been attending these meetings for forty-four

years, ever since he became Secretary of the Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs back in

3176, and he knew the drill. He was here to serve as a target, nothing more; a dartboard at

which angry and ambitious MPs could fling their missiles. Mingus accepted the necessity but

didn’t enjoy it. The only good thing about the Imperial Oversight Committee meetings was

that they gave him the opportunity to spend a day in the buoyant ease of one-sixth gravity. It

was a minor perk, true, but at 133 years of age, Mingus appreciated it.

As Secretary of Dexta, Mingus was responsible for running the Terran Empire. Parliament

passed laws and raised taxes, while the Emperor and the Household handled military and

diplomatic matters, official appointments, and other Imperial concerns, great and small; but it

was Dexta that actually made the whole thing function. The vast bureaucracy oversaw the

day-to-day affairs of the Imperial Government, rode herd on the profusion of local planetary

governments, and tied everything together through the provisions of the all-encompassing

Dexta Code. In some respects, Mingus reflected, he was the most powerful human being who

had ever lived. But he still had to answer to Parliament.

Prime Minister Singh called the meeting to order and formally, graciously, tediously

thanked His Imperial Highness and the Dexta Secretary for deigning to attend this meeting of

the elected representatives of the 3 trillion people they ruled. She made a few opening remarks

for the sake of the media, then turned the floor over to Lord Nepali, who made some more

unnecessary remarks. Then Jimmy Karno was permitted to put in his two crowns’ worth of

polite invective. It was all as stylized and predictable as a Kabuki performance but—in

Mingus’s view—much less interesting. That thought spawned another, and he wondered if

there would be any sushi available at the postmeeting buffet.

Singh launched into the formal agenda, which leaned heavily on matters involving

revenues and expenditures, giving the MPs the opportunity to howl about taxes and

government waste. Since Parliament was responsible for all of the taxes and much of the waste,

Mingus didn’t pay close attention to what was said. When a question was directed toward him,

he deflected it and let Kapok deal with the inquiry in stupefying detail. Charles employed the

same tactic, giving members of the Household Cabinet an opportunity to show off their

obfuscatory talents. No one learned much of anything that they didn’t already know, and if

something new or surprising was said by anyone, it somehow escaped Mingus’s notice. The

meeting droned onward with the dramatic speed and force of an oncoming glacier.

If Mingus disdained the politics and posturing inherent in these meetings, he nevertheless

respected their underlying gravity, which was much more portentous than a mere sixth of a

gee. The Imperial Oversight Committee represented not a glacier, but an iceberg—or at least

the visible part of one. Here, the underlying discontents of Empire broke the surface and

offered themselves for formal inspection and comment. The vapid ditherings of the media

could be ignored, mostly, and the strident plaints of pressure groups and corporate interests

could be swept aside, suppressed, or bought off, as the occasion required. But Parliament held

the Imperial purse strings, and nothing Mingus or Charles wanted to do would ever come to

pass without the support of at least some of the people in this room.

Mingus reflected that a representative democracy was not the ideal form of government for

an expanding empire. The Romans had understood that, long ago, and replaced their republic

with a more effective Imperial system. The Americans, on the other hand, had never quite

come to terms with the contradictions of empire, and had paid the price. The old republican

Terrestrial Union had dissolved in chaos that endured until Hazar finally consolidated power

and proclaimed the Empire, 698 years ago. But the yearnings and aspirations of the

people—human and otherwise—could not forever be suppressed or ignored, and over the

centuries Parliament had chipped away at Imperial prerogatives until now, in 3220, the balance

of power teetered precariously atop a pyramid of competing interests.

The Empire was in trouble. Mingus had known it for decades, but had hoped—naïvely,

perhaps—that the inevitable reckoning could be postponed beyond his time. Let the next

generation deal with it. His own generation had seen enough sorrow and tumult and, Mingus

believed, deserved a respite. He had labored to see that they got it, and his efforts had resulted

in a half century of relative peace and prosperity.

But the Terran Empire, like others before it, was a victim of its own success. With the

conquest of the Ch’gnth Confederacy in 3174, the last remaining external threat to the Empire

had been removed from the board. For a thousand light-years beyond Imperial space, in every

direction, no existing power was capable of thwarting the continued expansion of the Terrans.

There were, to be sure, a few minor impediments, like the fledgling Zukkani Hegemony,

waiting a couple of hundred light-years beyond the Frontier in Sector 4. The Zukkani, a race of

vast pretensions and minimal subtlety, had carved out a miniempire of forty or so worlds, but

they posed no immediate threat. The Empire would have to fight them someday, Mingus

presumed, but probably not on his watch. The outcome, in any case, would be a foregone

conclusion. The same applied to the handful of other races that might object to the onward

march of Homo sapiens.

Paradoxically, it was the very absence of an external threat that now imperiled the Empire.

Many historians, Mingus knew, held that it had been the rise of Islam in the seventh century

that had forced the consolidation and forged the power of modern Europe. It was not until

after the temporary decline of Islam that the Europeans, deprived of a strong external enemy,

fell upon each other in two centuries of fratricidal insanity, polluting the historical record with

names like Napoleon and Hitler, Verdun and Auschwitz. The later fall of the Soviet Union had

much the same effect on the Americans, who built their doomed empire without ever

admitting to themselves what they were doing. The Terran Empire, at least, harbored no

illusions about what it was and what it meant to achieve.

But without the balance and focus provided by external powers, the whirling centrifugal

forces inherent in so vast an empire were bound to tear it apart someday. Mingus, a lifelong

student of history, knew that the larger an empire grew, the harder it was to govern. He also

understood mathematics; the old Earthly empires only had to deal with two dimensions, but

the Terran Empire was condemned to grapple with three. Thus, the Empire, 2000 light-years in

diameter, comprised some 4.2 billion cubic light-years of space, with a surface area on the

Frontier of 12 million square light-years—all of which had to be patrolled and policed. If the

task was not inherently impossible, it was certainly daunting.

Mingus accepted the implications of the unforgiving math; but Charles, alas, did not—or at

least, he refused to face them. Charles was the third Emperor he’d had to deal with during his

time in office, and, by far, the most difficult. Bumbling old Darius had paid little attention to

the niggling little details of his realm, which was probably just as well. Gregory hadn’t been

around long enough to make any difference. But Charles, now in his seventh year as Emperor,

was young, arrogant, and ambitious. At thirty, he was finally showing some signs of maturity;

perhaps the recent birth of Henry, his son and heir, had something to do with that. Yet his

essential character was unlikely to change, and Mingus knew that at his core, Charles was a

cold, ruthless son of a bitch. Takes one to know one, Mingus wryly conceded. Age might mellow

Charles, but it was not likely to improve him.

Charles wanted to continue—and accelerate—the Empire’s headlong expansion, regardless

of the cost. Edith Singh’s ruling Imperial Solidarity Party supported him in that ambition.

Singh was smart, if not necessarily wise, and understood the mathematics as well as Mingus.

But she and her party believed that the only way to overcome the forces pulling the Empire

apart was to outrace them. “The only way to ride a tiger,” she had once said to Mingus, “is with

spurs and a whip.” Rapid and continued expansion was the only answer to internal rot, drift,

and decay. The Big Twelve corporate behemoths agreed, and backed the ISP with their

immense wealth and weakly regulated political power. The discovery and exploitation of new

markets and resources would pay for the expansion, they argued, without the necessity of

imposing additional Imperial taxes. Local governments could assume the burden of dealing

with purely internal matters; if they failed to deliver, well, people could always vote with their

feet. In such a vast empire, there would always be pockets of depression and discontent, but as

long as the Empire itself remained sound, local failures would not matter.

But they mattered a great deal to the people directly affected by them, countered the Loyal

Opposition, as embodied by Jimmy Karno’s People’s Progressive Alliance and the potpourri of

smaller parties aligned with it. The PPA had been out of power for more than twenty years, but

had a not-unrealistic hope of putting together a majority coalition in this year’s elections.

Karno—a crafty, gregarious hothead—wanted to put the brakes on Imperial expansion and

devote more resources to improving the lot of the Empire’s 3 trillion citizens. Most of them

reaped no benefit from planting the Imperial flag on distant worlds, and many suffered under

the yoke of incompetent or oppressive local governments that were in cahoots with or in thrall

to the Big Twelve. Their only hope for a better future lay in an activist Imperial Government

dedicated to internal improvements—or so Karno and his allies argued.

Mingus, supposedly above politics in his role as Dexta Secretary, knew that Karno was

C. J. Ryan - Gloria VanDeen 4 - Burdens of Empire

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