Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Merchant Prince

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Dee shrugged. “In my brief spell on Earth I have observed that there are many who proclaimed themselves

Messiahs. A few have followers, but nothing more than that. If Fawg is determined to convert believer and

heathen alike, he will have his work cut out for him.”

Dyckon held up the phial. “But none of them possess this.”

Again Dee shrugged. “It could be dismissed as nothing more than a conjurer’s trick. For every believer on

Earth, there are a dozen disbelievers and doubters.”

“The humani can worship what they will,” the Roc snapped. “I do not care if they appoint Fawg set-ut as ruler

of their planet.” He held up the phial again. “This is a virus. Once it is released on Earth, it will propagate with

terrifying speed among people who know nothing of it and are wholly unprepared for what it can do. Think of it,

Doctor, think of the consequences. Think of the madness, of the mindlessness that will surely follow in its

wake.” He held up the phial again. “This tiny phial will destroy the world. And I can do nothing about it. But

you can. You must stop Fawg set-ut before he destroys your planet, Doctor Dee. Bring him back here.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is

entirely coincidental.

An Original Publication of Pocket Books

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-1748-8

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Visit us on the Word Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com

This tale of John Dee wouldn’t be possible without the input and blessings of Michael Scott and Bill Fawcett.I

wouldn’t be possible without the love and partnership of Kitty Swink.

Prologue

NOW HERE’S THE RUB.

I was born in the Year of Our Lord 1527, and it is now, as these people measure time, 2100—though, in truth,

they have changed and altered the calendar to suit themselves so that even I am not entirely sure of the

exact date. The positions of the stars, however, suggest that it is perhaps a decade or two later, which

makes much mockery of their year-end Bacchanalian celebrations. The position of the stars also tells me

that this is a precarious time, with malefics in stronger positions than benefics.

Riddle me this: If I am 573 years old, more or less—and looking remarkable well on it, too, I may say—why

then do the history books insist that I died in the Year of Our Lord 1608? And how is it that I, who was a

searcher after Truth and an explorer of mysteries, should now be a merchant prince in the eyes of many? I

have no goods to sell, no merchandise, and I was not born to the purple, not even on the wrong side of the

blanket, and so have no title to claim beyond astrologer and scholar. Yet so much is new to me in this time

and place that I suppose it is fitting that I reinvent myself in accord with the times. It is a strange society that

has shaped itself in this time, and I am in the position of seeking to find how to go on here, in accord with the

strictures of the age. Thus I am a merchant prince, raised by my knowledge to high position and wealth such

as no one of my time could reckon. I deal in secrets, as I have always done, and I have become the master of

the riches in my mind.

There is one other question that rankles: I have always prided myself on having a logical mind and the logic

runs thus: If the history books have me dying in my beloved Mortlake in 1608, and they are not mistaken in

their recordings, that implies that I managed to return from this accursed place and time to mine own genteel

and civilized world. Just the contemplation of my death being in the past fills me with such disquiet that I do

not permit myself to contemplate it, for fear that specific knowledge of what no man may know will serve to fix

me in this place, or bring about such an enormity that all the laws of Nature will stand affronted.

Yet I am dedicated to learning, to knowledge, to discovering the great arcana of Nature, and through these

devices, I seek to make my way back to the place I belong without wreaking any havoc on this time greater

than has been done already.

I wonder how I shall.

Extract from the Day Booke of John Dee, Doctor,

Dated this day, 25th January in the Year of Our Lord 2100

Chapter

AT FIRST IT HAD

been nothing but a whisper, more vapoury lies on the Omninet: The legendary Royal Newton had been

overthrown, defeated by a mysterious stranger who had assumed his role.

The rumours percolated onto the news groups and trickled onto the back pages of the tabloids as gossip

column fodder before duly shifting onto the front pages and becoming news. By then, of course, the story had

fractured into a dozen versions, all of them “exclusive” and from “sources close to the Newton family.”

Royal Newton, the richest man in the world, was dead; no, he was in a mental hospital; no, he was living in

penury in the devastated remains of Paris or New Rome or London; no, he had been incarcerated in one of

the satellite prison cubes that occasionally fell out of their orbits; no, he had killed himself; he had been

overthrown in a palace coup; he had given away his fortune and become a monk; he had changed sex and

become a nun; he had joined a troupe of neo-hippies and was living in Alaska, tending the caribou; he had

been seen at the helm of an outward-bound colony ship…the variations became more exorbitant and fabulous

with every passing hour.

And none of the stories, no matter how outrageous, came remotely close to the truth.

Royal Newton had been overthrown and ruined by Doctor John Dee, a five-hundred-year-old mathematician,

rogue, and astrologer from the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Dee, who had seen how such things were done,

had modeled himself on the merchant princes of his day and achieved what no one else had been able to.

Lee Vantis, however, was one of the handful of people in the world who knew that Royal Newton had not been

killed and was still alive—after a fashion. The electrician had been on call the day Newton had taken his heart

attack, his plastic and metal artificial heart actually exploding within his chest. Paradoxically, even though

Newton’s artificial lungs had been shredded by the shards of chrome and Teflon, the heart’s backup power

cell had kept his blood circulating long enough for the doctors to hook him up to an artificial lung. The

intricate Union demarcation rules on the Moonbase had dictated that an electrician had to handle the heart,

and Vantis had been called in to remove the sparking and crackling artificial heart unit from Newton’s chest.

The myriad monitors and tubes draped from the man’s body were proof enough that the richest man in the

world was still alive.

Vantis had seen Newton twice in the weeks since the accident. Once when he had been back to the

emergency ward to repair a faulty bed which insisted on folding itself shut at twelve noon every day—whether

it was occupied or not—and on another occasion to reduce the pressure on the sliding doors which either

closed with agonising slowness or snapped shut like the jaws of some rabid animal. On both occasions

Vantis had been unable to find anything wrong with either piece of equipment and was beginning to suspect

that the new religious movement which preached that God was in the machines might have something going

for them.

However, on each occasion he had seen the small, dark man at Newton’s bed. Vantis’s attention had been

drawn to the man because he seemed to be deep in conversation with the unconscious Newton. The small

man paced alongside the bed, arms flailing wildly, fingers darting, dark eyes wild and bright.

Vantis asked around and eventually the rumours began to trickle back. Nothing remained truly secret on the

claustrophobic confines of the Moonbase for long. The stranger was someone called Dee, rumored to be

English, and he was the man responsible for Newton’s heart attack—though no one was quite sure how. This

Dee was certainly wealthy and obviously quite high up in Newton’s organisation, Minuteman Holdings,

because he had moved into Newton’s apartment and installed his own people, a red-haired beauty named

Kelly Edwards and a enormous, dark-skinned, bald bodyguard who went by the name of Morgan d’Winter.

And Lee Vantis couldn’t help but wonder how much this information would be worth on the open market. Or,

better idea still, how much Dee would pay to keep his name off the Omninet and out of the newsgroups.

Doctor John Dee read through the email twice, an overlong beautifully manicured fingernail following the words

on the screen, lips moving in synch with the letters. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never come to terms

with these too-regular letters shaped and placed behind glass. He grinned suddenly; actually he supposed he

had lived to be a hundred—in fact, more than five hundred years. Well, no matter how old he was, in his

opinion, a missive should be on vellum or, at the very least, on paper, and in a legible, nicely rounded hand.

He always maintained that it was possible to tell much of the character of a person from how they shaped

and wrought their letters. But this—this printing told nothing of the person’s character, his state of mind, or

the purpose; though, in truth, he acknowledged, this was one of those occasions when he didn’t need to

know more than the words on the screen. Blackmail was blackmail, no matter how it was written or phrased.

“Doctor Dee, it is most urgent that we meet to discuss your relationship vis-à-vis Royal Newton.”

Dee reached forward and touched the screen, and the email whispered out of the printer set into the desk.

Settling deep into the antique high-backed leather chair, the small man steepled his fingers before his face,

pressing the tips to his thin lips, and considered the wafer-thin sheet of transparent paper. How much did the

person know? And what did he want?

He looked at the header on the email—Lee Vantis. Real or assumed? Dee knew how difficult it was to

acquire a false name in this time and place, but he was also aware that his assistant, Kelly Edwards, had

prepared four different emails, names, and nationalities for himself for when he wished to send discrete

messages.

Dee’s fingers moved across the console, accessing the Moonbase records, and moments later Vantis’s

description and biography appeared. So the man existed, with an address in a four-by-four cubicle in the

workers’ quarters. Dee looked at the mail again; the headers certainly seemed to confirm that it had come

from this Vantis person. Dee wondered if he would be so stupid as to make a threat and use his real address.

Stupid or arrogant? Men could be dreadful fools through vanity as well as ignorance, he reminded himself.

On a whim he reached over and manually dialled Vantis’s cubicle number. All the equipment in the room was

voice-and presence-activated, but Kelly Edwards had not managed to completely remove Royal Newton’s

voice from the programs—with the result that some of the commands executed erratically or disastrously,

and Doctor Dee was actually too short to activate some of the motion detectors which were set to Newton’s

height.

The call was answered on the second ring, the square panel rippling with liquid colour before showing

Vantis’s slightly distorted head and the hint of a filthy, chaotic cube behind him. Dee knew that Vantis would

not be able to see him in the screen; only the golden Minuteman Holdings symbol was revealed, revolving

sedately on a field of blue velvet. “Did you just send me a message, Mr. Vantis?” Dee said without preamble,

the machine taking his flat, clipped accent and turning it into something female and liquid.

“Is that you, Doctor Dee?” Vantis spoke with the nasal twang of those who had spent too long in the recycled

air of Moonbase.

“I speak for Doctor Dee,” Dee said absently, one eye on the screen, while simultaneously watching another

monitor which had begun to scroll Vantis’s movements over the past months, his expenditures, and current

financial status. “What do you want?”

“If that is you, Doctor Dee”—Vantis leaned close to the tiny monitor in his cubicle as if he could peer into it to

see the speaker beyond—“then I have a proposal for you.”

“And what is that?”

Vantis grinned, showing perfect plastic teeth. “I’ll not discuss it on an open channel. This is for a face-to-face

meeting.”

Dee tapped the second monitor with the back of his hand. There! Vantis has been in the infirmary on two

separate occasions, one of them apparently in connection with a brawl—not a reassuring sign, but indicative

of the man, Dee supposed. There was always a possibility that he had seen Dee and Newton. The man had

meager savings, no prospects, and had been disciplined on two recent occasions for arriving at work

obviously under the influence of pure oxygen.

“It seems I must place myself at your disposal, Mr. Vantis. Where would you care to meet?”

“Do you know the Unnamed Bar in the Sub-Levels?” He sounded furtive, but with a veneer of bravado to cover

it.

“I do not. But I will find it.”

“In an hour, then,” Vantis said eagerly. “And come alone. If I see you come in with that black bodyguard of

yours, then I’m gone and your story is splashed all over the Omninet.”

“I’ll be there,” Dee said softly, his manner anything but threatening. “And I will come alone.” He thumbed off

the screen and sat back into the chair, an expression of absolute distaste on his narrow face. Blackmail was

such an interesting sport—when played properly. In his time he had blackmailed and been blackmailed in

turn, and really, the rules were very simple. To be blackmailed, one had to allow oneself to be blackmailed.

And he was not willing to acquiesce.

Chapter

“SHALL I TELL YOU

what I have discovered about our employer?” Kelly Edwards pulled off the screen-goggles and swivelled in the

chair to look at Morgan d’Winter.

“Absolutely nothing?” d’Winter guessed, white teeth flashing in his ebony face.

“Absolutely nothing,” Kelly agreed, standing and stretching, pressing her hands into the small of her back and

working stiff shoulder muscles. “The man simply does not exist.” She stepped away from the huge computer

console, pulling off the almost transparent interface gloves and draping them over the back of the chair. “I’ve

spent the best part of a week digging through every avenue and byway of the Omninet looking for some

reference to him. I’ve even gone so far as to access birth records for people approximating his age; I’ve done

hunts on people of his height and eye colour; I’ve voice-matched his vocal patterns and attempted to match

them to a particular local. But even his accent doesn’t exist. There is nothing. The man simply does not

exist. And has never existed.”

“Why do you want to know?” d’Winter asked, standing before the food dispenser and staring blankly at the

menu. “This Newton had very exotic tastes. Some of this isreal fruit!”

“When you’re the richest man in the world, you can afford the very best,” Kelly said, joining d’Winter at the

dispenser. The red-haired woman barely came to the bodyguard’s shoulder.

“And yet our own Doctor has very simple tastes,” d’Winter remarked.

“Did your own research reveal anything?” Kelly asked casually as she leaned forward to dial up some orange

juice.

D’Winter grinned. “I should have guessed you’d find out that I, too, am looking into the enigma of the good

doctor.”

“You left some fingerprints on the Omninet.” Kelly grinned back, looking up into d’Winter’s broad face. The

fish-hook earring in his left ear took the light and sparkled menacingly. She handed him the orange juice and

dialed up another for herself.

D’Winter moved away, the glass almost lost in his huge hands. He stood before the window and stared out at

the desolate moonscape. He knew that what he was seeing was an image taken from some camera on the

moon’s surface and relayed deep into the heart of the moon, where it was projected onto this screen to give

the impression of a window. “I went looking for our employer in places you wouldn’t even know existed,” he

said, glancing over his shoulder. “Men like Dee are not that common. They may change their names, their

faces, their skin colour, but certain things remain. An assassin may always work with a particular calibre of

gun or type of explosive; a torturer may favour a particular method. There is a superstition to it, as if the

weapon or method immunizes the doer from the deed.”

Kelly shuddered. “Is that what you think Dee is: an assassin or torturer?”

D’Winter shook his head. “I don’t know. We do know that when both you and I were incapacitated, he carried

the fight right into the heart of his enemies’ camp. We know he was captured and beaten. We know that

when he managed to escape, instead of running, he turned right around and slaughtered half a dozen guards

to get back into Newton’s chamber. Doctor John Dee is not your average man.”

Kelly Edwards sipped the pure orange juice—an almost unimaginable luxury in this day and age—and

nodded.

“I’ve accessed every military and service listing I can find. I’ve tracked down Spooks and Silents, I’ve gone

after wet-work artists and covert specialists. I’ve even looked up the records of those who are either dead or

MIA, or so legendary as to be impossible to identify specifically. No one even vaguely approximating the

Doctor has turned up.”

Kelly nodded. “It is as if he simply stepped out of midair two years ago.”

“A man like Dee,” d’Winter mused, “cunning, ruthless, lethal—”

“And charming,” Edwards added, “don’t forget charming.”

“And charming,” d’Winter agreed. “Someone like Dee simply does not appear out of nowhere. There are

bound to be records somewhere.”

“Remember he has no biochip. Which means he has never been chipped or he managed to have it removed.”

Kelly tapped her fingers together. “Having it removed is difficult enough, but having it done covertly—”

“I checked with the doctors who perform that sort of surgery,” d’Winter said. “There is one particular specialist

in Kowloon, an artist of sorts, whom people with money use. The work is incredibly illegal and dangerous. If

the chip explodes, it will kill everyone in a three-metre radius. But neither he nor his associates ever worked

on a man of Dee’s shape or appearance. There are approximately fifty people in the known world who are

without biochips. I can account for forty-eight of them.”

“And the other two?” Kelly asked eagerly. “Perhaps one of them—?”

“The other two are women.”

“So?” Kelly demanded. “A sex change is a one-day operation.”

“They were tall women.” D’Winter was enjoying himself.

“Height reduction is also available.”

“And black.” He gave a vulpine grin.

“Okay, that’s a little trickier. But not wholly impossible.”

“Turning a thirty-something six-foot black woman into a five-foot white man is, I believe, beyond the

capabilities of most surgeons. And there would be scars and surgical pins. Dee’s scars aren’t surgical.”

“Which brings us back to the original question,” Kelly said. “Who is Doctor John Dee?”

“And where is he?” d’Winter asked, glancing at his watch. “I thought we were heading back to Earth

sometime today.”

Chapter

WHEREVER MANKIND CLUSTERED

, there would always be places like this. Doctor John Dee pushed through the heavy leather curtain and

stepped into the cloying heat of the Unnamed Bar and then stopped, absorbing the atmosphere, allowing his

eyes to adjust to the perpetual gloom. The bar was in the deepest part of the Sub-Levels, nearly two miles

below the bitter surface of the moon. This close to the heating reactors, the temperature was unpleasantly

warm and fetid with a multitude of odours that the Recyclers would never cleanse. It reminded him of the

stews and brothels of Southwark in his own time, of London during a visitation of the Plague. They, too, had

smelt like this; but then, he supposed that misery and despair carried its own horrible aroma.

The bar was crammed to capacity, men and women of all ages and races, most of them wearing coveralls

that indicated their rank and profession. A profusion of orange coveralls crowding the horseshoe-shaped bar

suggested that a Dockers shift had just changed, while the shabby white of the maintenance crews mingled

with the distinctive white-collared coveralls of the administrative corps. Dotted through the crowd, the grey and

black or olive green of off-duty police and military officers sat generally alone or in small groups, the chairs

angled to turn their tables into barricades against the other patrons. Wandering through the crowd, men and

women in garments designed to show pallid flesh moved with trays of oily-looking drinks.

Dee grinned suddenly and took a deep breath. The scene was so familiar it was almost making him

nostalgic. The costumes may have changed, and perhaps there were more dark-skinned folk here than there

would have been in his own time, and there should be a roaring fire against one wall, some class of meat

turning on a spit. There should be sawdust or rushes on the floors, dogs growling under the tables, but he had

stood in places like this in practically every city in Europe; and he doubted if he could recall a single time he

had done so out of pleasure. It had always been business; perhaps he was doomed to forever wander the

stews of the world, conducting some nefarious business—it was a fate he didn’t view with dissatisfaction.

A space at the bar opened up, and he slipped in alongside a hugely obese man wearing the yellow and black

of the recycling staff. Dee’s sensitive nostrils flared; he caught the distinct odour of faeces and urine from the

man’s clothing. At least he hoped it was from the clothing, and that the man was not so far gone in strong

drink that he was unable to control his body. This was a most unpleasant place, Dee thought, and decided

that made it appropriate for the work he had to do. It was also condign that this place should be where the

Recyclers met, for who better to deal with such offal as Vantis than these workers? The paradox of the

Recyclers was that they held one of the lowliest, least popular jobs on Moonbase, and were also the highest

paid. They controlled the air, water, and sewage maintenance, and Dee guessed that the man beside him

was in the sewage department. Just as well, Dee thought. He would have work for him shortly.

The bartender, a small man, missing the lobe of his left ear, caught Dee’s eye, and the doctor pointed to the

drink on the bar beside him and raised a single finger. The bartender nodded and turned away. It was a trick

the doctor had used time and again. It never mattered what the drink was—he had no intention of drinking it

anyway, and when he walked away from the bar, the person he was sitting beside would inevitably pick up

the drink, assuming it was theirs.

Dee turned slowly, taking in the room, eyes hidden beneath a long-billed cap. Most of the attention in the

room was now centered on a low stage upon which a young woman was performing a fire-eating act, drinking

peculiar-coloured liquids, and squirting multicoloured flames over the head of the audience. It was only when

he looked again that he realised that not all the flames were coming from her mouth. Dee forced himself to

look away. Not everyone was concentrating on the stage. The small group huddled in the corner were

obviously plotting some sort of scheme, possibly criminal, sketching it out on the back of a scrap of paper;

alongside them in the next booth, a woman who was an extraordinary example of the surgeon’s art—d’Winter

had told him about such things, and it had taken quite a stretch of the imagination to believe it—was

negotiating with a one-eyed rogue. And if the man wasn’t careful he was going to lose the other eye as well.

Farther along, three professional trollops, obviously foot-sore and off-duty, drank in silence and waved away

potential customers. And—there! Finally!

Lee Vantis sat in a booth close to the door, an untouched drink on the table before him. Now that he had

placed him, Dee allowed his gaze to move on, looking now for people watching Vantis. It would be out of

character if the man had arrived alone. There were two others, easy enough to spot, wearing the off-white

coveralls of the maintenance crew, with lightening flashes over the breast indicating that they, too, belonged

to the electricians guild. The fact that none of them had reacted to his appearance confirmed his suspicions

that they did not know what he looked like, though he had taken the precaution to disguise himself in the

drab nondescript uniform of a petty clerk.

As he moved into the seat, Vantis looked up and raised a hand. “This seat is taken, pal,” he said menacingly.

“I know,” Dee said smoothly, “by me. You were keeping it for me, Mr. Vantis, were you not?”

Vantis blinked, eyes automatically darting over Dee’s shoulders to where his companions waited. Even if Dee

had not been aware of the others, Vantis’s movement would have given it away. The doctor was almost

disappointed. There would be no sport to be had here today.

“You’re Dee.”

“Little escapes you, Mr. Vantis,” Dee said softly, his sarcasm lost on Vantis; he manouevered himself into

the corner of the booth, where he could both watch Vantis and see one of the men guarding the door. The

other was almost directly behind him, but there was little he could do about that. “What do you want?”

“I know all about you, Mr. Dee,” Vantis said quickly, in a lowered voice that was intended to be threatening.

“I doubt that.”

“I know you had something to do with Newton’s heart attack.” Vantis ended the statement with a faintly

upward inflection.

Dee stared at the man, saying nothing.

“I’ve seen you at Newton’s bed.”

“Listen to yourself,” Dee said abruptly, “listen to what you’re saying. You know I had something to do with

Newton’s heart attack and you’ve seen me at his bedside. Just what exactly are you accusing me of? Of

visiting the sick? Visiting the sick is a Corporal Act of Mercy: Is it a crime now to be a Good Samaritan?”

Vantis frowned, apparently not entirely sure what a Samaritan was. “I know you caused the heart attack. I

had to be called in to pull the burst heart out of his chest. And I’ve been asking around about you, Mr. Dee.

And guess what—no one knows about you. I reckon that if no one knows about you, it’s because you want

no one to know about you. It’s not happenstance. Maybe it’s because you’re a really private person, or

maybe it’s because you’re shy, or maybe it’s because someone is looking for you. But either way, you do

not want your name out there in the public domain. And you know the press are already sniffing around

Newton’s disappearance; they will pay handsomely for any new information. And I reckon they would pay

handsomely for your name.” Vantis took a deep breath. “And I reckon you would pay even more handsomely

for me not to tell them.”

“What is to stop you giving the press my name after I have paid you?” He considered Vantis archly. “You

could collect twice then. I don’t imagine you’d turn away from such an opportunity.”

Vantis’s eyes flared as he considered the new idea. He hadn’t thought of that. “Well, of course, I wouldn’t do

that; I’m a man of my word, Doctor Dee.”

“I’m sure you are, when it suits you.” Dee sighed. “But it seems to me, Mr. Vantis, that you have very little to

sell.”

“But I have—I have.” Vantis’s voice went up a notch in alarm. “And once I give the press your name, you know

they will dig and dig. God alone knows what they will find. And what they don’t find, they may invent.”

“True,” Dee admitted. “Very true. Tell me,” he said suddenly, “how much do your two friends know?”

Vantis eyes once again moved beyond Dee. This time he caught the movement himself and smiled

sheepishly. “Nothing. I told them I was collecting a debt, and I was afraid you might get a little rough.”

“Do I look the sort to get rough?” Dee asked innocently.

Lee Vantis looked down at the small man and grinned. “Not at all. I could take care of you myself.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that.” Dee smiled. “Tell me,” he asked, “how much do you want?” He moved in

his chair, shifting position, and slipped his hand into his jacket. “I presume you want only hard currency.”

“Absolutely. No credit transfers. Too easy to trace, and too easy to stop.” Vantis’s plastic teeth were yellow

in the gloom. “I was thinking perhaps ten thousand. It seems a reasonable sum. Particularly if it buys you a

lifetime of peace.”

“Very reasonable,” Dee agreed. He slid out of his seat and moved in alongside Vantis. He lowered his voice,

drawing Vantis closer to him. “However, I was thinking of a slightly higher price.”

“You were? How much?”

“This much,” Dee said, and slid the Italian stiletto between Vantis’s ribs, forcing the razor-sharp blade up and

into his heart. Putting his hand over Vantis’s mouth to stop the death rattle, he watched the man’s eyes

widen in that last eternal look of shocked surprise, and then his throat worked and a tendril of dark blood

appeared behind Dee’s fingers. Dee twisted the knife, ruining the heart, waiting for it to stop so that there

would be no surge of blood, and then, in one deft movement, pulled the knife out and plugged the wound with

the man’s coverall.

Chapter

IN HIS LONG AND

often adventurous life, Doctor John Dee admitted to several remarkably stupid mistakes. The incident with

Mary, Queen of Scots, that almost cost him his head; he should have known better than to undertake such a

venture under the baleful influence of Saturn. And there was the occasion when he had insulted Sir Walter

Raleigh in court, that incredibly stupid mistake with Princess Elizabeth before she had risen to the throne

and, of course, the foolishness with the de’ Medici woman which had, in its own peculiar way, been the

catalyst for everything that followed and which had been responsible for his encounter with the Daemon Roc,

who had transported him five hundred years into the future. However, even he, who was loathe to recognize

his own shortcomings, had to admit that he had now committed a remarkably stupid error, more impulsive

and ill-judged than any he had made before—possibly a fatal one.

If he had been more careful, and not quite so arrogant, he would have realised that Lee Vantis had brought

more than two companions.

Slaying the man had been a mercy killing; the fact that Vantis had survived for so long in the world was a

mystery. From the moment he had slid the knife between the blackmailer’s ribs, twisted it to ensure that he

was in fact dead, to walking out the door had taken perhaps ten heartbeats. Dee had been through the leather

curtain before the two guards had realised that anything was wrong. All they had seen was Dee moving in to

sit beside Vantis, a brief conversation, perhaps money changing hands under the table, and then Dee

casually and calmly walking away. The doctor had almost reached the end of the corridor before both men

had appeared, their shouts echoing off the metal walls. Glancing over his shoulder, Dee had grinned and

rounded the corner. And ran straight into the two huge men in the white coveralls of the maintenance

department. One had been lounging against the wall, a broad-headed wrench tapping idly against his leg. Dee

caromed off the man and sat down hard on the metal floor. While he had been struggling to his feet, Vantis’s

two companions appeared, shouting and pointing at Dee. The man with the wrench lifted the heavy tool as

Dee rolled forward. His guttural shout turned high and feminine as the smaller man drove the point of his

stiletto into the man’s groin. The maintenance man collapsed, legs tangling around Dee, and then the second

man was on top of him, swinging out with a short length of pipe. Dee stabbed with the blade, wishing now he

had something with an edge to it. He felt the blade strike home twice, but not to any useful depth, and then

the pipe struck him an agonising blow on the shoulder, numbing his arm; he felt no pain as the next blow

cracked his elbow, the sound loud and popping in the echoing confines of the corridor. The Doctor managed

to drive the dagger into the fleshy thigh of his assailant and twist it savagely before the other two men were on

top of him. He saw, in vivid, frozen detail, the pattern on the sole of the boot that rendered him unconscious.

The pain brought him awake, a hideous clarion that could not be denied. Pain was like a flower, he had once

written, a delicate ephemeral bloom, something to be welcomed, examined, enjoyed, and then put away.

That was before he had experienced true agony that set talons deep in his flesh and plucked at his very

vitals. He realised now how ludicrous those words had been. This was not the pain of a hangover, of raw

grapes and bitter mash, the pain of a stomachache, of sour wine and unripened cheese. This was not the

pain of riding, when every muscle ached and burned with exertion, and the spine felt hammered. Nor was this

the pain of lovemaking, when his muscles were deliciously aching, when his knees and elbows were burned

and scraped raw. No, this was pain, proper raw suffering. If his survived this encounter, and he was beginning

to think that he might not, he would pen a proper treatise on pain, and acknowledge it as the single greatest

emotion.

His arm was broken; he could actually feel the bones grate together, sending shards of hurt up his shoulder

and into his jaw; from the tightness in his chest, he imagined that at least three of his ribs were similarly

damaged, for breathing was an exercise in anguish. All the fingers on his left hand were immovable, swollen,

and discolored, and he guessed that they had been stamped upon. There was the tart copper taste of blood

in his mouth. He examined his teeth with his swollen tongue, but at least they all seemed to be intact,

though his upper left canine was loose.

Lying absolutely still, he made himself aware of his surroundings. He was supine on metal so cold that it

actually burned his skin, and from the ambient nature of the stillness that surrounded him, he guessed that

he was in some metal chamber of sorts; probably a cell. Which could mean that he was under arrest for the

murder of Vantis, if he was fortunate: He was a wealthy man, and wealth could buy many things in his own

time, even freedom. And he guessed that this time was little different. But if he was in a cell, then why had he

not been attended to by physicians?

When Doctor John Dee opened his eyes, he realised that he was in no holding cell. He had seen these

chambers throughout Moonbase in the last few weeks; he recognised the circular logo on the door.

As he struggled into a sitting position, he saw Vantis’s two companions staring at him through thick porthole

glass. And then the air began to hiss and vent, and Dee supposed that he was in a decompression

chamber—one that lead out onto the airless surface of the moon.

“So now it ends,” he said, oddly satisfied to die on the moon.

Chapter

“THEY THREW HIM OUT

of an airlock.” James Zhu passed the single-page report to Morgan d’Winter and stood back. The two men

turned to look at the disheveled and bloody group of Maintenance workers who stood and crouched against

the wall of the holding cell.

None of the terrified electricians would meet their gaze; d’Winter tall, black, and menacing, silk-soft leather

jerkin and trousers whispering menacingly as he moved; Zhu equally tall, but broader, immaculately dressed,

his flat Asian features impassive. Zhu they knew by reputation—he had been Newton’s Head of Security, a

Mongol who claimed direct descent from Genghis Khan—and a man who could kill with a single touch. But

the fact that Zhu deferred to the black man with the shaven head frightened them even more.

“I’m looking for an explanation,” d’Winter said slowly, surprised by the depth of emotion he felt at the death of

the doctor. He stared at one man, forcing him to look up. “What happened to Doctor Dee?”

“He killed one of our people.” The electrician, his white coverall splashed with the dried blood of his wounded

companion, braved d’Winter’s icy rage. Looking from him to Zhu, he continued hurriedly, “There was a

struggle; he pulled a knife. Bob’s here got cut bad….” His voice trailed away. Then, taking a deep breath, he

pressed on, “It was self-defense. And you have no right to hold us here against our will.” He looked about, as

if seeking help.

Zhu moved forward, soft-soled shoes making no sound on the metallic floor of the holding cell. “I want you to

have no doubts as to the seriousness of your situation,” he said calmly, his cultured British accent lending

his words a deeper menace.

“I want my lawyer,” the speaker said abruptly.

“Of course you do.” Zhu touched the man on the side of his face, the movement blindingly swift, the touch

gentle, almost caressing. “But I am afraid that you are not going to get him.” The man’s jaw cracked and

dislocated with a dull popping sound. “I am the law on this moon. I will ask you questions and you will answer

them. You will answer truthfully and completely. This is simply nonnegotiable,” Zhu said reasonably. “And

please believe me when I say that whatever I can do to you is as nothing to what my dark friend here wants to

do with you.”

“Five of you against one small man,” d’Winter sneered. “What were you afraid of, that you took so many? Yet

one of your number is dead, another lies gravely wounded, and a third needs major reconstructive surgery, so

five may have been prudent.”

“He started it,” one of the electricians whispered.

“Who did?” d’Winter demanded.

“The small man. He—”

“You mean you don’t even know his name?” d’Winter asked incredulously.

“We were never told. Just got a description. It was Vantis’s deal all along. He said he was going to collect on

a debt, and he asked us to come along in case things got rough. The small man killed Vantis. I saw him do

it. Just slipped a dagger into him, cool as you please. We chased him, there was a struggle. He still had a

knife—I think it was the same knife he used to kill Vantis. And then things, well, things got out of hand.”

“So you threw him out of an airlock!”

Zhu touched d’Winter’s arm, and the two men stepped back. “That’s how disputes are solved in the lower

sections. You know it as well as I do. It’s difficult to hide a body down there; the recycling isn’t so good. So

they push them out an airlock. Get rid of ’em. The equivalent of pirates making their victims walk the plank, or

soldiers fragging unpopular officers.” He glanced at the electricians, his look chilling them, even though they

could not hear his words. “What do you want to do with these.”

“Push them out of the same airlock!” d’Winter said without hesitation.

“That is, of course, an option. Though it achieves nothing,” Zhu added. “A good lawyer, if they could afford

one, might make a case for self-defense. It seems clear that the Doctor stabbed this man Vantis first.”

“But what was Dee doing meeting with Vantis in the first place?”

“With both Vantis and the doctor gone now, I presume we will never know.” Zhu’s lips moved away from his

teeth in what passed for a smile. “I presume from the little I’ve discovered about you and the woman Edwards

in the past few weeks that Dee is as much a mystery to you as he was to Newton and myself.”

D’Winter nodded. “A truly remarkable man,” the bodyguard agreed. “We know nothing about his life.”

“And even less about his death,” Zhu said, dipping his head and covering his mouth with his hand—an old

habit to prevent a lip-reader from recreating his words off the scanners and monitors that covered practically

every inch of the moonbase. “I’ve examined the airlock where these men claim they flushed Dee. And the

scanners do indeed show them pushing him into Airlock 22, and no record of him coming out. So I have to

assume he went out onto the surface. People do different things when they hear the first hiss of air beginning

to seep out of an airlock. Sometimes they run out onto the Moon’s surface when the doors open. Afterwards

you will find that the dust outside the airlock is churned up, or there will be scraps of cloth and bone, perhaps

strips of dried flesh, even a desiccated corpse close by. Though I do know of an escaped prisoner who

managed to run five metres before he finally succumbed. God knows where he was headed,” he added.

“However, if they huddle inside the airlock, then you’ll find that the interior is gory with the bits and pieces.”

“I’ve a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me.”

“As I’ve said, I’ve checked the records. I’ve got tape from the moment Dee entered the bar, to the second they

put him, unconscious, into the airlock. I’ve got the record of the airlock cycling to a full flush and vent—that

means it was fully opened, all breathable air gone.” Zhu paused for a sigh.

“And there was no sign of Dee,” d’Winter guessed.

“None,” Zhu said, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease a sudden sinus headache. “Either he wasn’t in the

airlock—in spite of all the evidence that suggests that he was—or he was in the airlock and managed to

somehow survive. And that is patently impossible.”

D’Winter turned away from the huddled electricians and strode down the corridor, a broad grin on his face.

“Why should that surprise you? Dee’s very existence is patently impossible!”

Chapter

“GOOD DOCTOR DEE

, this is becoming a habit.” The voice echoed as if it came from a long distance.

He had been dreaming. Of England. A green and pleasant land. Of perfumed breezes and gentle rains. And

then he had been drowning, or something worse. Standing in the middle of the maze at his beloved Mortlake,

arms wide, head thrown back, desperately trying to suck in God’s own breath. But there was none to be had.

There was no air. And, as he looked around him, the maze was withering, the leaves crisping, curling, grass

yellowing, dying, the world turning white and sere, the soft earth melting, reforming, turning hard and white,

cold beneath his touch. Blue skies and white clouds were burnt away as the sky itself turned metallic….

“Doctor—”

He was not in Mortlake, not in England. He was far, far from home—and dying. Dying in a time and place

beyond his wildest imagination, a mass of battered flesh and broken bones, more carrion than—

“Doctor Dee, can you hear me?”

And why could this voice not let him die in peace! What now tormented him in his hour of extremity? Doctor

John Dee opened his eyes, squinting against the harsh white lights, and looked into the face of a nightmare.

A long, narrow, and leathery reptilian head was inches from his, slit-pupiled eyes staring unblinking at him, a

thin tendril of spittle drooling from between scores of razor-sharp teeth. The mouth worked and Dee heard

words, though they did not synchronize with the movements of the mouth. “Ah, Doctor Dee, you are back

with us.” A razor-taloned claw offered a metal cup brimming with viscous green liquid. “Drink this. You need to

replenish some vital electrolytes and rehydrate.”

Dee accepted the cup and swallowed the liquid in one quick gulp. It tasted as foul as it looked. “Dyckon,” he

whispered, astonished at how weak his voice sounded, “though you be one of the ugliest creatures ever to

grace God’s earth, I’ll allow that I am mightily glad to see you.”

“Beauty, as they say on your planet, is in the eye of the beholder.” Dyckon grinned alarmingly. “On my planet

there are some who consider me handsome. It is all a matter of perception.”

Dee reached up and gripped the alien’s leathery skin. “At this moment, my friend, I think you are beautiful.”

And then the face of the creature dissolved into a thousand tiny shattered fragments, and the blackness

closed in again.

When he awoke, he felt marginally better. He sat up slowly, aching muscles protesting, but without the

sickening sharpness of broken bones, the deep, abiding torture of shattered organs. He traced the lines of his

ribs with his fingers, and, although the flesh was tender, the ghost of a bruise, green-yellow and faded on his

pallid flesh, the bones were whole. He worked his arm experimentally. It was stiff, but, like his ribs, was

whole again.

Dee swung his legs out of the bunk, remembering the last time he had lain in this cot. Then his state of mind

had been one of absolute terror; he had been convinced that he had died and gone to Heaven. And when he

met Dyckon ab-ack na Khar, of the Roc, he had been convinced that he had gone to Hell.

Two years ago, as he measured time—and five hundred years as the rest of the world counted it—Dee had

been sentenced to die by the de’ Medici. Walled into a tower, he had been slowly starving to death when

Dyckon had rescued him. Now—and he grinned widely at the irony and symmetry of the circumstances—the

Roc had done it again. Dee’s grin faded. This save had been much too close. He was obviously losing his

touch. In his youth he would never have ended up in such terrible circumstances.

He dressed slowly in a loose-fitting shift and then came unsteadily to his feet, swaying slightly on the chill

metal floor. The door facing him irised open, and Dyckon stepped through, talons clicking on the metal floor,

long serpentine tail hissing behind him.

“You are awake.”

Dee touched his throat and found he was wearing the thin metal collar which enabled him to communicate

with the Roc. “I am, thanks to you. I am obliged to you.” He bowed, in the formal courtesy of the court of the

first Elizabeth of England. “You are indeed my Guardian Angel.”

“I understand the concept,” Dyckon said. “In fact, I have reason to believe that one of my own ancestors

introduced it to your world some many thousands of years ago. The legends of your peoples speak of the

Shining Ones and Angels; I am sure they are referring to my people.”

“My friend,” Dee said kindly, “I believe you will find that we called your race Demons.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed!” Dee’s certainty was convincing to Dyckon.

“Well, if that is so, it will warrant research. There might be an analytical presentation in it.” Dyckon turned

away and Dee followed him. “A good presentation will bring honour to me and my family.”

“And how goes your attempts at advancement?” Dee has spent some time instructing Dyckon in the fine art

of lying—a talent unknown on the creature’s homeworld.

“I have been marked for advancement, and there is talk in the Collegium that I have been recommended for a

Chair of the Collegiate. If it comes to pass, then I will be the first ever Roc to hold such an exalted position

and the first of my clan ever to achieve any Notability.”

“And this is important to you?”

“Notability is always important.”

“Anonominity is much more so. The anonymous, the unknown, the discrete, the hidden, can achieve so

much more than those in power and high office.”

“It is an interesting concept, and I will consider it accordingly.”

“Do so.”

They came out into the large central chamber of Dyckon’s craft, and the Roc folded himself into a tall, narrow,

angular chair, his tail curling around the tall central post, locking him into position. From experience Dee

knew that he would not be able to sit in the facing chair, and he took up a position against a wall covered with

what he had once taken to be windows, but which he now knew to be screens.

Dyckon opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Dee said, “Tell me, what are you doing back in this

part of the galaxy? From what you told me, I would have imagined that you would be back on your

homeworld, striving for political advancement, attempting to bring honour to your family.”

Dyckon’s narrow head dipped in a bow of the first degree. “Your tutelage has served me well. I have done

more and advanced further than any of my race. The whole concept of ‘lying’ is fascinating. I have found that

people will believe the most outrageous untruths, provided that the words are delivered with sincerity and eye

contact.”

Dee smiled. “It was ever thus. There is nothing easier to get away with than the big lie. But never forget the

cardinal rule of lying—the cardinal rule of all politics.”

“Memory is everything and leave no witnesses,” said Dyckon.

Dee nodded. “Exactly. Liars need a good memory. Once you have been caught in a lie, the whole house of

cards begins to tumble. Thence it is but a short step to ruin. But if you are caught, then stop at nothing to

remove the witnesses.”

“It is a brutal way,” Dyckon acknowledged, “and yet effective.”

“The old ways are the best,” Dee agreed. “But you have not answered my question. What are you doing back

here?—aside from rescuing me, of course, for which I will be forever in your debt,” he added hastily.

Tiny spots of purple appeared on the Roc’s bald skull, and the sacs beneath his red eyes darkened and filled

with liquid. “I have a problem that needs to be sorted.”

“I’ll wager it is a serious problem if it has carried you back to this world.”

“Serious enough. You should know, Doctor, that I am not the first Roc to study your people, nor was I alone

in my studies. During my tenure watching over your planet, I was accompanied by a young student, Fawg

set-ut. Like me he was ambitious but, whereas I was prepared to watch and interact only with you, I

discovered that Fawg set-ut was more proactive in his experiments. He would travel to Earth and move

amongst the people, conducting experiments upon them, eliciting responses to his appearance, cataloguing

how the human body would react to excessive heat or cold, hunger, thirst, and fright.”

“Charming fellow,” Dee remarked.

“When I began to move in political circles, I took your advice to heart,” Dyckon continued, “I sought out those

who could prove detrimental to my career and either removed them from office or rendered them ineffective.”

The Roc watched Dee’s razor-thin eyebrows rise slightly and shook his head, a humani habit he had picked

up from too many years observing the mammals. “No, I did not kill them. Allow me to explain: I had

announced—lied if you will—that I had never failed a presentation, so I had to send the lecturer who once

failed me to one of the outer planets to head up a new library. The last four librarians all perished in

mysterious circumstances. I have no doubt that he will, too.” The Roc showed razor teeth. “Furthermore, I

had cultivated the air of a Roc successful with females, ensuring—as you suggested—that I should only be

seen in the company of the most beautiful and powerful women of my clan. So it was necessary to send any

female of my clan who might, shall we say, call my reproductive prowess into question, to one of the

Rimworlds. I created a research project specifically tailored to one particular female whose revelations might

prove embarrassing. The research project is completely fascinating, but made all the more difficult because

communication with the Collegium is rendered practically impossible because of the denseness of the suns

and the solar radiation in that part of the galaxy.”

Dee pushed away from the wall. “It is my experience that those who preface bad news with minor items of

success have very bad news to impart. It is usually an effort to sweeten a very bitter cup, and to keep the

bearer of such tidings from parting company with his head or his freedom. Which brings us, I think, back to

this Fawg set-ut?”

The Roc hissed, forked tongue flickering on the air, and Dee was once again reminded of the classic

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Deeshrugged.“InmybriefspellonEarthIhaveobservedthattherearemanywhoproclaimedthemselvesMessiahs.Afewhavefollowers,butnothingmorethanthat.IfFawgisdeterminedtoconvertbelieverandheathenalike,hewillhavehisworkcutoutforhim.” Dyckonheldupthephial.“Butnoneofthempossessthis.” AgainDeeshrugged.“Itcouldbedismi...

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