The Thousand Emperors

Antonov had hit him with was slowly starting to wear off.

‘Careful now,’ Antonov warned, giving him a reproachful glare. ‘I can knock you out again if you keep struggling, but you really need to be conscious during this. Otherwise there’s a serious risk of brain damage.’

Brain damage? Panic tightened Luc’s chest. He could just about see the squirming thing in Antonov’s hand from out of the corner of one eye, struggling to escape. It was clearly a mechant of some kind, not unlike a segmented worm in appearance but barely the length of a finger. Its body glittered in the light.

‘What the fuck is that?’ Luc managed to gasp.

‘This,’ said Antonov, with apparent pride, ‘is a delivery system for the greatest gift I could possibly give you.’

Luc had a sudden intuition of what Antonov might be about to do to him, and tried to twist free. The heavy cord binding him to the chair creaked loudly, but did not give.

Antonov slapped him hard across the face, and Luc grunted with shock.

‘I told you,’ said Antonov, ‘keep still. For your own sake, do not struggle.’

Antonov next stepped behind Luc, wrapping one meaty forearm around his head and rendering him more thoroughly immobile. Luc’s nostrils filled with the scent of the other man’s unwashed skin, and he wondered how a man so badly injured could still have so much strength.

Something cold squirmed against Luc’s upper lip, then jammed itself hard inside his right nostril.

The pain that followed was indescribable. He could hear a sound like chewing, as if something were forcing its way through the gristle and bone of his skull. He screamed, jerking and twisting in his restraints, jaw locked in a rictus grin of terror.

As terrible as it was, the pain faded to a numb ache after another minute. His body spasmed a few times, then became still. Sweat cascaded across Luc’s skin, his chest rising and falling with the nervous energy of a hummingbird.

Antonov stepped back in front of him, looking noticeably paler than he had a few moments before. ‘I suppose you’re wondering just what a transfer gate’s doing here,’ he said, and let out a weak chuckle. ‘That’s the understatement of the year, right? Well, now that we’re the only ones left alive down here, I don’t see any reason not to tell you why.’

Antonov moved to lean against a nearby console, his face very nearly bone-white. ‘We’re on board a spaceship, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. We kept it in close orbit around 55 Cancri, since the photosphere of a star often proves to be a good hiding place. Once we knew the Sandoz were on their way here, we plotted a course to slingshot this ship towards the outer system, but even that wasn’t enough to give us the velocity we needed to get out of range of your intercept missiles. They’re chasing us right now, and they’ll catch us sooner or later.’

‘Where’ – Luc swallowed, feeling like he hadn’t uttered a word in a thousand years – ‘where are you taking this ship?’

‘We have other redoubts,’ Antonov replied, ‘scattered throughout this system and in others. We would have severed the wormhole link once we were all on board except now, it appears, I’m the only one left alive.’

‘Then it’s over,’ Luc managed to croak. ‘This isn’t how you want it to end, Winchell.’

Antonov shook his head with evident amusement. ‘What’s the alternative? Surrender myself to you, so Father Cheng can orchestrate my execution on the eve of our glorious Reunification with the Coalition? I’d rather choose my own fate – and with that in mind, you might care to know I’ve set the ship on a course that will send it plunging back into the heart of the star it so recently orbited.’

Luc stared at him, speechless.

‘Now, I don’t know just how au fait you are with wormhole physics,’ Antonov continued, his face twisting up in pain as he spoke, ‘but they’re surprisingly robust under certain conditions. Once this ship’s descended far enough into 55 Cancri’s photosphere, the shielding will give way and the transfer gate linking it back to Aeschere will be destroyed. However – and this is the theory – the wormhole should maintain coherence just long enough for a great deal of superheated plasma to come rushing into the complex.’

‘Why? Why not just . . . surrender?’

‘For many reasons, Mr Gabion, but chiefly because Cheng would never let me live, knowing the things that I know.’

Luc shook his head in incomprehension. The inside of his head felt as if it had been hollowed out. ‘What things?’

Antonov chuckled. ‘You need,’ he said, ‘to make your way back up to that control room where you left your friends, back on the other side of the transfer gate. There are cryogenic units there – do you understand?’

‘No. No, I don’t.’

‘Oh, but I think you do. Get yourself inside one of those units, and you should have a decent chance of surviving the inferno.’

‘But why?’ Luc demanded. ‘Why—’

But before he could say anything further, Antonov reached out to touch the side of his neck with something cold and sharp, and he lost consciousness once more.

Listen to me, Luc. You’re still asleep.