C. J. Ryan - Gloria VanDeen 2 - Glorious Treason

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Glorious Treason

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

Preview for The Fifth Quadrant

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

THEY CALLED HIM OLD ABEL, AND HE HAD BEEN there since the beginning—before the

beginning, really. He wandered freely, almost randomly, through the valleys and forests,

finding shelter when he needed it in natural caves and depressions or in the flimsy lean-tos he

built, then abandoned as his moods and whims dictated. No one knew his age, but it was

considerable, and it was a mystery where and how he obtained his food, clothing, and other

presumed necessities of life. Not that he needed much.

He was a small, stoop-shouldered man with a scraggly white beard, long, tangled hair, and

sharp, suspicious eyes the color of the evening sky before a storm. His voice, on the rare

occasions when he used it, sounded like a stick being dragged through dry leaves. He appeared

and disappeared without preamble, and although he was recognized throughout the mining

camps and sparse clusters of tumbledown shacks that dotted the slopes of the valley, no one

could claim to know him. He seemed neither alien nor entirely human—a species unto himself,

indigenous and mysterious.

Sylvania was his world, as far as it was anyone’s, and even the nabobs in the Lodge and the

swaggering boomrats in the town and the camps treated him with a wary, deferential respect.

When they saw him coming, leaning heavily on his wooden staff and lugging a sackful of

Spirit-knew-what over his shoulder, the miners paused in their work and nodded to him.

Some even ventured a greeting, perhaps receiving a nod of recognition in return; perhaps not.

The bolder souls among them occasionally invited him to share their dinner, and sometimes he

did. He might even engage in something that passed for conversation, exchanging a few words

about the weather: a topic on which he was considered—in the absence of meteorological

satellites—the ultimate local authority. He knew to the hour when rain would begin or end,

and precisely how high up the slopes it would turn to snow. On other subjects, he had little or

nothing to say, but he listened carefully to the words of the boomrats about the progress of

their diggings, the latest troubles with Grunfeld and his thugs, or the new whore down at

Elba’s.

He rarely bothered with the town these days, and when he did, people made way for him

and whispered behind his back, telling the newcomers—and there were many of them

now—that this strange, threadbare apparition was just Old Abel, the local “character,” as if that

explained everything that needed to be known about him. Elba gave him food and drinks and

sometimes joined him at his table. He was even believed to spend time in the rooms

upstairs—but if he did, the whores didn’t talk about it. Some of the older boomers might buy

him drinks in return for a few minutes of his almost wordless company. And then he would be

gone again, quietly retreating to his silent wilderness.

A few of the boomrats actively sought him out in the forests, convinced that Old Abel

knew better than anyone just where to find outcrops of the glimmering green crystals whose

discovery, three years ago, had lured them here across the light-years. But Old Abel could

seldom be found unless he wanted to be, and he had nothing at all to say on the subject that

obsessed the boomers. His silence only served to convince them that he was in possession of

secret knowledge that, if they had it, would make them wealthy beyond calculation. But it was

no easier to find Old Abel than it was to find the crystals themselves; in fact, it was more

difficult, for the Fergusite crystals rimmed the broad valley and littered its streambeds, but

there was only one Abel, and he moved as he would.

Exactly what Abel knew, or might know, was a subject of endless debate around the

campfires and cookstoves. Some advanced the opinion that he knew nothing at all and was, in

fact, simply the ignorant, witless old hermit he appeared to be—but they could not really bring

themselves to believe that. Others were convinced that Old Abel had a secret cache somewhere

up in the mountains, and lived a life of luxury and ease when no one was looking. A few even

suggested that he was really an Imperial agent, spying on the boomrats for the Empire, or for

Dexta. Or for the Lodge, or one of the corporate titans.

The oldsters—men like Bill McKechnie and Amos Strunk—knew better, but made no

attempt to dispute the opinions of the latecomers. They kept their own counsel and merely

smiled as they listened to the theories come gushing forth like water through a sluice. But Bill

and Amos had heard the Voice, and most of the newbies hadn’t.

They didn’t talk much about the Voice. Those who hadn’t heard it were convinced that the

Voice was simply the delusion of men who had spent too much time in the silent hills of this

lonely world, and some of those who had heard it feared that the doubters might be right. The

easily frightened among them had taken heed of the Voice and quickly packed up their

meager belongings and left the planet as soon as they could. Others, with stronger spines and a

more resolute nature, had defied the Voice and remained at their diggings, but kept an ear to

the wind and tended to jump at sudden noises.

The Voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and whispered to them at odd

moments as they squatted in the cold, rushing waters, panning for crystals, or sat among the

high crags, fussing with their plasma drills. It came to them in the dead of night or in the blaze

of noon, on the shining outcrops of the cliff faces or in the gloom of the forests, and it spoke

different words to different men. To most, it breathed in soft, insistent tones, “Go away. Leave

me alone.” To Bill McKechnie and Amos Strunk, it had said only, “Don’t hurt me.”

Old Abel wouldn’t talk about the Voice. “I hear what I hear,” he had said one night at Bill

McKechnie’s campfire. “And you hear what you hear.”

WHAT ABEL HEARD ONE MORNING IN MARCH of 3217, as the Empire reckoned time,

was not the Voice, but a cry of pain and outrage. It echoed down from the high reaches of the

slopes, up near the snow line, where some of the newbies had been testing their luck. Abel

peered upward from the edge of the forest, where he had spent the night, and saw two men he

recognized even from this great distance, and a third that he didn’t know—and never would.

The two he knew were Karl Cleveland and Hank Frezzo—big, tough, distinctive men who

worked for the Mayor, the Honorable Kevin Grunfeld, tsar of the town of Greenlodge and

anything else he cared to be tsar of. Cleveland and Frezzo held a third man between them,

grasping each arm at the shoulder while their victim’s feet kicked frantically at empty air. With

a minimum of effort and only a final dying scream to mark the moment, the two tossed the

third over the edge of the cliff face, sending him pinwheeling downward a hundred meters or

more to the jumbled pile of scree at the base of the precipice. They peered over the edge for a

few seconds, evidently satisfied with their work, then walked away and out of Abel’s line of

sight.

Abel waited a while to be sure they were gone, then laboriously picked his way upward

through the scree to the place where the shattered body of the newbie had finally come to rest.

Even if Abel had known the man, he would not have been able to recognize the smashed face

that stared sightlessly upward toward the cold sun of Sylvania. Abel didn’t touch the body or

attempt to scavenge anything useful from his kit, although others undoubtedly would when

they found him. Nothing was easy to get or hold on to on this planet, and even life itself was

but a slippery possession.

He liked the newbies even less than he liked the oldsters, but Abel found himself feeling

sorry for the dead man. Somewhere, perhaps a thousand or more light-years away, at the other

end of the Empire, this man had once had a home, maybe even a family. When they heard the

news—and they would eventually, for Dexta was remarkably efficient in such matters—they

would be saddened and mournful. Or perhaps not; perhaps the dead man was a

good-for-nothing son of a bitch, like so many of the boomers, and the Empire would be a

better place without him in it. Abel didn’t know and didn’t really care.

But he cared about Sylvania, and was disheartened by what this and other such incidents

must inevitably mean for his world. Sooner or later, the Empire would have to do something

about it. More boomers were already on their way, and now they must be joined by the grim,

gray bureaucrats of Dexta, who ran the Empire and enforced its rules. And Dexta, in turn,

would soon be followed by the corporate behemoths, who would rape this quiet valley, then

kill it, as surely as Grunfeld’s men had killed this sad specimen crumpled at his feet.

And what, Abel wondered, would the Voice have to say about that?

Chapter 2

THE TWO MOST POWERFUL MEN IN THE EMPIRE stared at themselves and each other in

the gently rippling waters of the reflecting pool, the replica of the Taj looming above them in

carefully crafted splendor. The original had been destroyed in an alien attack during the

Second Interstellar War, more than seven hundred years earlier in pre-Imperial days, before

the men of Earth had come to dominate this corner of the galaxy. Reconstructed as one of six

Imperial Palaces scattered around the terrestrial continents, the Taj Mahal no longer seemed a

monument to love but to human persistence, ingenuity, and arrogance. The two men

embodied those same qualities.

Norman Mingus was the first to break the spell of the reflection and look away. Tall, spare,

slowed but unbowed by his 130 years, Mingus had a face that was pink and unlined and might

have belonged to a retired and much-loved schoolteacher. Instead, it belonged to the Secretary

of the Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs.

The Emperor Charles V, forty-seventh in an unbroken line stretching back nearly seven

centuries, lingered another moment with his reflected image. When at Agra, he affected garb of

flowing white robes and rather fancied the way they set off his athletic frame and regal

features. He imagined that Alexander the Great, when he came east, might have cut a similar

figure. With his closely cropped beard, longish curling locks of dark blond, and pale blue eyes,

he knew that he looked like an Emperor, just as Mingus, 102 years his senior, with his dark

business suit and beady, censorious eyes, looked like a bureaucrat.

“I do love it here,” Charles said, finally looking away from the reflecting pool. “Next to Rio,

I think Agra is my favorite Residence. Of course, Paris has its own particular charms, as well.

And there’s much to be said for Colorado. Tell me, Norman, which do you prefer?”

“I suppose, Highness,” Mingus replied after a moment’s thought, “it depends on what

business brings me to them.”

“It’s always business with you, isn’t it, Norman?” The Emperor shook his head regretfully.

“Very well, then, business. We may as well go inside, lest we be distracted by this beautiful day

and magnificent setting. Four walls and a couple of chairs will do, I suppose.”

CHARLES LED THE WAY INTO THE RESIDENCE, slowing his normally brisk gait to

accommodate a man who was nearly five times his age and had been Secretary of Dexta ten

times longer than Charles had been Emperor. Mingus followed at his own pace, feeling no

need to match the Emperor stride for stride. He had been walking with Emperors for forty

years and was no longer impressed by their company—never had been, in fact.

Charles was Mingus’s third Emperor, and probably his last, although even that was far

from certain, given the casualty rate in that office. His first had been Darius IV, bumbling and

benign, who had somehow managed to die of old age in spite of his occupational hazards.

Dour, dark-visaged Gregory III had come next, his brief reign cut short by a botched coup

known as the Fifth of October Plot, which had swept the Emperor and the next five in line to

the throne from the board, leaving the callow and untested Charles to carry on in their place.

It was far too early to judge Charles in any historical sense; it was entirely possible that he

might yet wind up with “Great” affixed to his name. Possible—but in Mingus’s view, unlikely.

Still, Charles’s flaws—self-absorption, self-indulgence, and outright selfishness—were the flaws

of youth. If he lived long enough, he might outgrow them. But the early signs were not

encouraging and Mingus didn’t much care for the young Emperor. He had a streak of

meanness in him, more appropriate to a small-town bully than the leader of an Empire

encompassing a sphere of space two thousand light-years in diameter, with 2645 planets

populated by three trillion sentient beings. And Charles had surrounded himself with a retinue

of truly detestable young chums, who lent the Household a pungent and unmistakable air of

decadence.

On the other hand, Charles was intelligent, reasonably industrious when motivated, and

had an excellent grasp of the complexities and realities of his realm. What he needed was

guidance—which Mingus was prepared to offer but which Charles was just as prepared to

reject. Mingus knew that Charles resented him, just as every Emperor resented every Dexta

Secretary, but at least Darius and Gregory had been willing to listen. And today, of all days,

Charles needed to listen to what Mingus had to say; the very future of the Empire might

depend upon it.

THEY SAT OPPOSITE EACH OTHER IN COMFORTABLE chairs, surrounded by a profusion

of elegant tapestries and opulent bric-a-brac, which they ignored as completely as they ignored

the tea that had been brought by silent and quickly vanishing servants.

“As you know, Norman,” the Emperor began, “I asked you here today to discuss the

situation on Sylvania. We had expected to commence large-scale mining operations there at

least six months ago. In that expectation, we have been disappointed. We would appreciate an

explanation.”

When Charles said “we,” it was not necessarily the Imperial We. In this case, Mingus knew,

the use of the plural pronoun referred to Charles and his coterie of intimates from the Big

Twelve corporates, who were drawn to him like iron filings to a lodestone. Or like flies to shit,

Mingus thought. It was an unworthy thought—but in this case, entirely apt.

“Highness,” said Mingus, “it is a complicated problem.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. I was hoping that you would uncomplicate it for me.”

“Very well, then. In a nutshell, Sylvania—in a legal sense—is neither fish nor fowl. It is, at

this moment, still an Unincorporated Imperial Territory. Normally, that would entitle you to

make whatever deals you wish with the corporates and begin mining operations at your

pleasure. However, the planet has been continuously inhabited by a population of over one

thousand for nearly twenty years. Under the provisions of the Imperial Code, those residents

have certain rights that date back to the Homestead Acts of 2697 and supercede the provisions

of the Code which would otherwise apply here.”

Charles nodded vaguely.

“However,” Mingus continued, “because the population is still under five thousand

registered voters, you have no legal authority to incorporate the territory and appoint an

Imperial Governor, thus bringing it under the aegis of other provisions of the Code. Specifically,

the Eminent Domain Statutes. Without Eminent Domain, large-scale mining operations of the

sort you and the corporates envision would not be permissible unless you could somehow gain

the consent of the entire resident population, as defined by the Homestead Acts.”

“Which I’m not going to get,” Charles acknowledged. “I understand all of that, Norman.

What I don’t understand is why, in spite of the economic boom that has begun on Sylvania, we

don’t yet have five thousand registered voters? I gather that people are flocking there as fast as

they can. A rough count of the freighter traffic implies that there are already at least seven

thousand people on that planet.” Charles leaned forward and smiled unpleasantly. “So why

hasn’t Dexta been able to get them registered?”

Mingus pursed his lips for a moment. He didn’t quite sigh.

“I confess, Highness,” he said, “to a certain amount of embarrassment in that regard.”

“Why is the Imperial Historian never around when I need him?” Charles wondered.

“Certainly, this must be a historic first. Norman Mingus, embarrassed?” Charles gave a snort

that might have been a genuine laugh, of sorts. Whatever his shortcomings, Charles did, at

least, have a sense of humor.

Mingus shrugged. “ ‘Embarrassed’ is the only word that applies, I suppose. The awkward

and, yes, embarrassing truth, Highness, is that at the moment, the Department of

Extraterrestrial Affairs has not a single representative on the planet of Sylvania. You see, sire,

they keep quitting on us.”

“Quitting?” Charles raised an eyebrow.

Mingus nodded. “We send people there, and before they’ve been there a month, they come

down with what you might call gold fever. All around them, they see people striking it rich.

Dexta staffers are as human as anyone else, and sooner or later—generally sooner in this

case—cupidity trumps institutional loyalty. They stop shuffling papers and start digging for

Fergusite. We can’t chain them to their computer consoles, you know. Every Dexta staffer

we’ve sent to Sylvania in the past year has resigned and headed up into the hills to make a

fortune. And I gather that some of them have done just that, which only encourages the others

to follow. I can’t really blame them, I suppose. If I were a young man, I’d probably do the same

thing.”

Charles got to his feet abruptly, shuffling his sandals on the glistening tile floor. He walked

around behind his chair, leaned against it, and peered at Mingus. “I have difficulty picturing

that,” he said, a bemused smile flickering across his handsome features. “You as a young man, I

mean. Somehow, I always imagined that you were carved from a block of marble, fully

formed.”

Mingus returned the half smile. “I wasn’t,” he informed the Emperor. “I just feel that way.

Complete with cracks.”

“You know, that gives me an idea. I’m going to have the Imperial Sculptor do a bust of you,

Norman. I’m going to put it right behind my desk in Rio. You’ll be there forever, staring down

at me and all my successors, like Poe’s raven, croaking ‘Nevermore’ at us whenever we get a

notion that you’d disapprove of. Keep us honest, I’d think.”

“Forgive me, Highness, but that’s what I’m trying to do now. The problem we have to deal

with is not the Dexta staff on Sylvania or getting voters registered. The problem is the damn

Fergusite itself—and you know that as well as I do, Charles.”

Charles cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do I, Norman?”

“Well, dammit, you should,” Mingus responded, raising his voice slightly.

“Whenever you call me ‘Charles,’ ” the Emperor said, “I get worried. Don’t try to get

fatherly with me, Norman. I had a father once, and he was a scoundrel and an idiot. As for the

Fergusite, it’s not a problem. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

“Gold fever!” Mingus sniffed. “You’ve got it, too, I see.”

“What if I have? Spirit’s sake, Norman! A quadrillion crowns’ worth of Fergusite, and you

want me to leave it in the ground?”

“That’s where it belongs, Charles,” Mingus said evenly. “For the sake of your Empire, leave

it where it is.”

FERGUSITE WAS THE STUFF THAT MADE THE Empire possible. First synthesized in the

twenty-second century—atom by atom and at great expense—the precisely structured

latticework of Fergusite focused the immense energy generated by fusion reactors inward upon

itself, until the strain ruptured the very fabric of space-time and formed an eleven-dimension

membrane of Yao space, which squirted through normal space at transluminal velocities and

thus made the dream of interstellar travel a reality.

It was long believed that Fergusite could only be created artificially, but three years earlier,

in 3214, the Imperial Geological Survey had stumbled upon a vast deposit of Fergusite on the

small and neglected world of Sylvania, 542 light-years from Earth. Natural Fergusite could

form only when the most precise combination of factors came into perfect alignment—mineral

content, time, pressure, temperature, and gravitational force, all as delicately balanced and

tuned as a symphony orchestra with a billion different instruments all playing the same music

at the same instant. The Sylvanian deposit of Fergusite was nearly as pure as the artificial

version that the Big Twelve corporates had been brewing in their factories for eleven centuries.

With a minimum of processing, it could be used in the Ferguson Distortion Generators that

rode on every starship—at a tenth of the price of the artificial Fergusite. The discovery would

dramatically reduce the cost of interstellar travel, and might usher in a new Golden Age for the

Empire.

But there was a problem …

“IT IS NOT A PROBLEM!” CHARLES INSISTED VEHEMENTLY. “It’s a minor …

inconvenience, nothing more.”

“You call being crushed into a soup of subatomic particles an inconvenience?” Mingus

demanded.

“There’s no need to overdramatize it. Yes, a few more ships may—may—be lost. But what

of it? Boats have always sunk, aircraft have always crashed, starships have always disappeared.

It’s just the price of doing business, and everyone accepts that. Except you, apparently.”

“Using the Fergusite on Sylvania would raise that price significantly, Highness.”

“It would do just the reverse! Dammit, Norman, just look at the figures my economists

prepared. The Empire spends 30 trillion crowns on interstellar trade each year. Fergusite

production represents nearly a third of that cost. Using the Sylvanian Fergusite, even allowing

for processing costs, would save something like seven trillion crowns—a 23 percent reduction!

Think of what that would mean. Reducing the cost of interstellar travel by nearly a quarter

should lead to a 50 to 100 percent increase in the total volume of trade. How can you claim that

would be bad for the Empire?”

“I have economists too, Highness,” Mingus reminded him. “And they’ve factored in some

things that your economists didn’t bother to include. The loss of an additional ten to one

hundred starships each year would cost—here, let me bring it up on my pad.” Mingus reached

into his pocket.

“Oh, don’t bother,” Charles told him. “I’ve seen those numbers. I just don’t believe them.”

“All right, then. But there’s another factor that you cannot assign a number. The loss of

confidence in the safety of interstellar travel would have devastating consequences for the

entire Empire.”

“Spare me, Norman. Do you really think anyone would care—or even notice? How many

notice now, when we lose a ship? There are 3 trillion people in the Empire, and fewer than

one-hundredth of 1 percent of them ever get anywhere near a starship. A few more losses—and

it will be a lot closer to ten than a hundred, my people assure me—won’t make a damn bit of

difference.”

“Except to the people who are on those ships,” Mingus replied. “And their families. And

the insurance carriers; rates will go up substantially, you know. Did your economists bother to

mention that? Then there’s the cost of replacing the losses and training new crews. But the real

cost—”

“Is unknown! No one knows—not your economists and not mine. Why must you assume

the worst?”

“Because of the consequences. Highness, if I am wrong, there are no consequences. The

Empire simply goes on doing business as it has always done. But if you are wrong, the

consequences could be catastrophic. If—”

“Nonsense.”

“Dammit, Charles, just shut up and listen!”

No other person among the 3 trillion in the Empire could have told the Emperor to shut

up. Even for Norman Mingus, it was a close call. Charles stared at him in suppressed rage for a

moment, then crossed his arms, balanced his right ankle on his left knee, and sulkily sat back

in his chair.

“All right, Norman,” he said. “I’m listening. Make it good.”

Mingus took a deep breath. “Highness,” he said, “as you pointed out, it is impossible to

determine with certainty the quality of those Fergusite deposits on Sylvania. The initial reports

suggest that the level of impurities lies in a range between one and ten parts in a billion, but we

have a very limited number of samples. And, as you know, we cannot test every piece of

Fergusite that comes out of Sylvania because the very process of testing destroys the sample

and makes it useless. So all we have to go on is a statistical procedure that, by its very nature, is

suspect. The process we use to fabricate Fergusite is rigidly controlled, but nature is random

and sloppy. One chunk of Fergusite might be perfectly pure, and another chunk right next to

it might be dangerously impure. There is simply no way of knowing except by putting it to

C. J. Ryan - Gloria VanDeen 2 - Glorious Treason

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