The Thousand Emperors

‘How do you know this?’ demanded Ben. ‘And why would the Coalition want to start a war?’

‘I know because I just got back from a meeting with Ambassador Sachs,’ Luc explained. ‘He told me the whole story. It seems the Coalition came under attack from an alien race they encountered inside the Founder Network not long after the Schism, and they only barely survived the encounter. Several of Cheng’s reconnaissance teams have disappeared without trace inside the part of the network they’ve been exploring, and Sachs believes the same creatures that attacked the Coalition are responsible. It’s my understanding that if those aliens found their way back here through Cheng’s secret transfer gate in the Thorne system, they could spread through this part of the Milky Way and kill everything they encounter.’

Their expressions ranged from frankly disbelieving to utterly terrified. ‘Once the Coalition realized there were Sandoz exploring the Network,’ he continued, ‘they entered into secret negotiations to try and persuade Father Cheng to stop. But the talks broke down, and unless you can find some way in the next twelve hours to persuade Cheng to stand down, or else pull his Sandoz teams back out of the Network, we’re going to come under attack from Coalition forces far in advance of anything we could possibly throw back at them.’

Somebody laughed, the sound low and derisive, and Luc turned to see it came from a dark-skinned woman, her hair cropped close to her skull, sitting with her back to a wall. ‘That’s quite some story,’ she said, ‘and you honestly believed one word of this?’

‘You heard what Cripps confessed to Zelia!’ someone else yelled. ‘What Gabion says fits in with everything else he said.’

Within moments the air was filled with a hubbub of conflicting voices.

‘Come on,’ said Zelia, stepping up beside Luc and leading him by the arm towards the stairwell. ‘I told you there’s something you need to see.’

‘Don’t let her take you down there,’ someone called after them with a mocking tone, ‘or you might never come back!’

Luc followed her down into the same stone corridor he had since revisited only in his nightmares. The passageway was as dark and dank as he remembered, the same rusting junk still piled in alcoves, the same thudding of distant machinery reverberating through walls and sending faint tremors through the floor. Zelia led him towards the steel trestle tables lined up neatly in a row where the corridor widened. As before, a few mechants and one of her machine-men stood around a single, supine form laid out on one of the tables.

Luc knew immediately it was Cripps, despite what had been done to him. In the few short hours since he’d last seen her, Zelia had found some way not only to capture Cheng’s right-hand man, but also begin the process of butchering his living body. Parts of his skull had been cut away, exposing the living brain matter beneath, while a nest of wires and sensors were now plugged into the raw flesh. Cripps’ lower jaw had been removed, the mechants hovering over him engaged in the process of securing machinery in its place.

The worst thing of all was when his eyes glanced towards Luc. Cripps was not only conscious, but also clearly aware of everything that was happening to him. He stared at Luc with maddened, pleading eyes.

Luc turned away from the sight, sick to his stomach. ‘What the hell have you done to him?’ he gasped.

Zelia regarded him with an expression of faint amusement. ‘You don’t actually feel sorry for him, do you?’ she asked. ‘He’s the one who caused all this, or carried out the orders, at the very least.’

Luc shook his head. ‘How . . . ?’

‘How did I find him?’ She let out a bark of laughter. ‘I know Cripps well enough to know just where to look, after all these years.’

‘Does he know what’s happening to him?’

‘Of course he does. There’s no point punishing someone unless they know they’re being punished, and what for,’ she remarked, her voice edging towards shrill. ‘Please don’t feel pity for him, Luc: he’s a miserable, sadistic little shit, and there’s a long queue of people who’d be very envious to know I’m the one who got to him first.’

‘Including the people upstairs?’ Luc asked. ‘How do they feel about . . . about this?’

Her nostrils flared. ‘They care about what’s important, such as Cripps’ full and frank confession to his part in Father Cheng’s crimes. This is no time for half-measures, don’t you understand that?’

Luc glanced back at Cripps just as the eyeless creature attending to him carefully snipped off one of his fingers, just above the knuckle. Cripps’ eyes grew wide with pain and shock, and a rattling sound emerged from the grille that had now been secured over the lower half of his face. The creature next to him then fitted some form of needle-tipped device over the raw stump where the finger had been.

Luc turned away and just about managed to resist the urge to throw up again.

‘Maybe you’re not as strong as I thought,’ mused Zelia, watching the surgery with keen attention.

‘There’s something seriously wrong with you,’ Luc gasped.

‘Let’s just stick for now to what’s important,’ she muttered darkly. ‘You were right. Cripps hid that data-cache on board that orbital station himself, without Cheng’s knowledge. I also persuaded our friend here to give me the name of the agent responsible for transporting a weaponized Founder artefact back through the Darwin–Temur gate.’

‘And?’

‘His name is Jacob Moreland.’ She turned her gaze back to Luc. ‘Unfortunately, he’s already returned to the Tian Di.’