The Chosen

'For your own good, lad.' Raj's voice was 'audible' here. 'Priceless training, really. You can't get more rigorous than this; and outside, you won't be able to get up and start again.'

'I still-'

A sound alerted him. He whirled, drawing the pistol from the holster on his right hip and firing under his own left arm, into the planks of the door. His weight crashed into it before the ringing of the shots had died, smashing it back into the room and knocking the collapsing corpse of the Fourth Bureau agent into his companions. That gave John just enough time to snapshoot, and the secret policeman's weapon flew out of a nerveless hand as the bullet smashed his collarbone. . . blackness.

The street reformed. 'I still really hate dying. One behind me?'

correct. Center did not bother with amenities like speaking aloud. scanning to your right as you entered the room was the optimum alternative.

'I hated it, too,' Raj said unexpectedly.

The street scene faded to the study where they'd first. . John supposed 'met' was as good a word as any. Raj puffed alight a cheroot and poured them both brandies.

'Hunting accident-broke my neck putting my mount over a fence,' he said. 'Quick, at least. I was an old, old man by that time, and the bones get brittle. Still, I had enough time to know I'd screwed the pooch in a major way. The real surprise was waking up-' He indicated the construct. 'I was expecting the afterlife, the real afterlife.' He frowned. 'Although this isn't precisely my soul, come to think of it. Maybe I'm in two heavens. . or hells.'

'At least you got to see your own funeral,' John said.

His body-image still carried the revolver. He opened the cylinder and worked the ejector to remove the spent brass, then reloaded and clicked the weapon closed with his thumb. The action was wholly automatic, after thousands of hours of Center's instruction-and Raj's, too. The personality of the general gave the training an immediacy that the machine intelligence could never quite match, one that remembered the flesh and the unpleasant realities to which it was subject.

'My grandchildren were touchingly grief-stricken,' Raj said, his grin white in the dark face. 'And now, back to work.'

'This is play?' John asked.

His own bedroom in the embassy complex snapped back into view; it was private, with the door locked, and big enough for his body to leap and move in puppet-obedience to what his mind perceived in Center's training program. Experience had to be ground into the nerves and muscles, as well as the mind and memory. The rest of the staff thought he had an eccentric taste for calisthenics performed in solitude.

The phone rang, the distinctive two long and three short that meant it was from the ambassador.

John sighed silently as he picked it up. There were times when it was easier to deal with the Chosen; they were more straightforward.

* * *

Gerta found the embassy of the Land of the Chosen in the Imperial capital of Ciano reassuringly familiar, down to the turtle helmets and gray uniforms and brand-new magazine rifles of the guards at the gate. They snapped to present as her car halted; an officer checked her papers and waved her through, past two outward- bound trucks. In the main courtyard, staff were setting up fuel drums and shoveling in a mixture of file folders and kerosene distillate. The smoke was rank and black, towering up into the sky over the pollarded trees and the slate- roofed buildings. The guards at the entrance gave her a more detailed going-over.

'Captain Gerta Hosten, Intelligence Section, General Staff Office, geburtsnumero 77-A-II-44221,' she said.

'Sir,' the embassy clerk said, after a moments check of the tallysheet before him. 'Colonel von Kleuron will see you immediately.'

I should hope so, Gerta thought with perfectly controlled anger as she walked through the basalt-paved lobby of the main embassy building. After dragging me out here for Fate- knows-what when the balloon's about to go up.

It was busy enough that several times she had to dodge wheeled carts full of documents being taken down to the incinerators. Not so busy that several passersby in civilian dress didn't do a slight check and double-take at her Intelligence flashes; probably the Fourth Bureau spooks were about as happy to see her here as they would be to invite Santander Intelligence Bureau operatives in. The air was scented with the smell of paper and cardboard burning, and with fear-sweat.

She repeated the identification procedure at the Intelligence chief's office. This time it was a Chosen NCO who checked her against a list.

'Welcome to Ciano, Captain,' he said. 'No problems at the airship port?'

'Walked straight through, barely looked at my passport,' she said. 'The colonel?'

The NCO hopped up from his desk-it was covered with files being sorted-opened the door and spoke through it, then opened it fully and stepped aside.

Gerta marched through, tucked her peaked cap precisely under her left arm. Her heels clicked, and her right arm shot out at shoulder-height with fist clenched.

'Sir!'

Colonel von Kleuron turned out to be a middle-aged woman with a long face and pouches under her eyes. Her office, with its metal filing cabinets, table with a keyboard-style coding machine, and plain wooden desk, seemed to still be in full operation. All in military gray, nothing personal except a photograph of several teenage children on the desk.

'At ease, Captain,' She looked at Gerta with a slight raise of her eyebrow. 'You seem to be throttling a considerable head of steam, Hosten.'

'Sir, Operation Overfall is scheduled to commence shortly. My unit is tasked with an important objective, and we've been training for nearly a year. Nobody's indispensable, but I'll be missed.'

'We should have you back shortly, Captain,' von Kleuron said. 'Not to waste time: give me your appraisal of Johan-John-Hosten, your foster-brother.'

Gerta blinked in surprise. That she had not expected. Von Kleuron tapped the folder open before her; a picture of John was clipped to the front sheet. Gerta recognized it; it was a duplicate of one she'd gotten from him. She also recognized the correspondence tucked into the inner jacket of the file; of course, she'd submitted all her letters for approval before sending, and turned over copies of all his immediately. Plus, the Fourth Bureau would have their own from the censors in the postal system, but that was another department.

'As in my reports, Colonel. Intelligent and resourceful, and, as I remember him as a boy, with considerable nerve and determination. Certainly he overcame his handicap well. From what he's accomplished in the Republic over the last twelve years, he's become a formidable man.'

'His attitude towards the Chosen?'

'I think he had reservations even as a boy. Now?' She shrugged. 'Impossible to say. We don't discuss politics, only family matters.'

'Weaknesses?'

'Sentimentality.' The Landisch word she used could also mean 'squeamishness.'

'Are you aware that Johan Hosten has become an operative for the Republic's Foreign Intelligence Service? As well as a diplomat.' The last was a little pedantic; in Landisch, diplomat and spy were related words.

Gerta's eyebrows went up slightly. 'No, sir, I wasn't aware of that. I'm not surprised.'

'It has been decided at a high level to attempt to enlist the subject as a double agent. We are authorized to waive Testing and offer Chosen status, and appropriate rank.'

Gerta frowned. It smacked of an improvisation, not a good idea on the eve of a major war. On the other hand, John would be an asset if he could be turned. . and it would be pleasant to have him on-side. If possible. It was obvious why she'd been brought in; she was the only Chosen intelligence operative with a personal link to John. Heinrich had known him as well, but he was a straight-leg, an infantry officer. And far more conspicuous in Ciano; her height and physical type was far more common in the Empire than his.

On the other hand, women who could bench-press twice their own weight were not common here, and she hoped very much she wouldn't have to try looking like an Imperial belle in a