I noticed that Frede was studying her even more intently than I. Only then did I realize that Nella was rather pretty, youthfully charming.
“It will be my pleasure to escort you to the capital,” Nella said, with a sparkling smile.
Turning to Frede, I said, “Lieutenant, you’re in command while I’m gone.”
“Yessir,” she said, snapping a salute.
Startled by her formality, I returned Frede’s salute, then told her, “Take care of the ship. And yourself.”
Her face a frozen mask, Frede only repeated, “Yessir.”
The capital city on Prime was a stunning surprise to me. True, most of its buildings were made of heavy gray stone quarried from the nearby cliffs, but everything else the ship’s computer had shown me seemed to be a carefully edited pack of lies—or at least, a terribly slanted view of Prime.
The sky was thick with clouds, but they scudded past on a warm wind from the sea with plenty of blue sky showing between them and sunshine beaming down on the gray old stones of the city. The avenues were thronged with people, vehicles skimming lightly over the guideways, pedestrians strolling past shop fronts displaying brightly colored fashions and all sorts of wares from hundreds of worlds.
There were Skorpis warriors in sight, but not in battle dress. They were easy to spot, their heads bobbing along well above the rest of the crowd. They seemed to be on leave, not on duty. Plenty of other aliens, too, some of them fully encased in space suits to protect themselves from an environment that was hostile to them.
The city seemed happy, busy, engrossed in the everyday matters of shopping, dining, meeting people, finding romance, earning a living, enjoying life. Not at all the grimly forbidding view painted by the Commonwealth’s computer. I was shocked by the contrast. And then I realized that the city did not seem concerned at all about the war. If these people knew that their soldiers and allies were fighting and bleeding and dying for them, they certainly did not show it. Just a few hundred kilometers above their heads orbited dreadnoughts and battle stations ready to blast an invader into subatomic particles. But down here on the busy avenues life went along in sunny unconcern.
I saw all this from inside a luxurious limousine. Nella had brought me straight to the capital’s spaceport, and then we had ridden in this spacious, well-appointed skimmer into the heart of the city. I got the impression that she was enjoying the ride tremendously; she did not often get to ride in such elegance.
We drove through the crowded shopping district, then past long rows of buildings that looked almost like ancient temples. The traffic here was lighter.
“Government offices,” Nella replied when I asked her what they were. She pointed to one as we swept past. “I usually work in there, back in the rear, you can’t see it from here. I don’t have a window, anyway.”
The street climbed up a steep hill.
“That’s the capitol, up in the old castle,” Nella told me. “That’s where we’re going.”
A full honor guard of Skorpis warriors lined the steps as we disembarked from the skimmer and entered the capitol building. I saw that they were fully armed. They fell in step behind us as Nella led me through a large and beautifully furnished entry hall toward a narrower corridor that ended in a metal door.
It was an elevator. The doors slid open to reveal two human soldiers, wearing sidearms only. Nella ushered me in, then came in behind me. The doors shut, leaving the Skorpis detachment outside.
We rode down, not up. “Medical exams,” Nella murmured when the elevator stopped. “We must make certain that you’re not carrying any disease organisms.”
Or bombs, I added silently. The examination was swift and almost completely automated. I was walked through four different scanning archways; then a white-coated human doctor watched as still another automated archway recorded my full-body scan.
“Completely normal,” the physician pronounced, running a finger across the readout display screen. “And extremely healthy.”
Satisfied that I was not a walking bomb, Nella and the two human soldiers led me back to the elevator. Again, we rode down, deeper into the bedrock upon which the city was built.
At last I was led to a massive blastproof parasteel door.
“I’ll have to leave you here,” Nella said, almost apologetic. “When the doors open, step right through. The Director is waiting for you on the other side.”
She hurried away, back to the elevator. I stood in front of the heavy doors, feeling a little silly to be standing there all alone.
Then the doors swung open as silently as the lid of a jewel box. I walked into a dimly lit room. I saw a long highly polished table that seemed to be made of granite or perhaps onyx. High-backed padded chairs lined both sides of the table. All of them empty.
The doors swung shut behind me, casting the room into even gloomier shadows.
There was someone sitting at the far end of the table, at its head. Alone, barely discernible in the dim lighting. I realized that I was bathed in light from a lamp in the ceiling high above, bathed in a cone of light while whoever it was at the head of the table hid in the shadows.
I stepped forward and the cone of light moved with me. Very well, I thought, I’ll go to the head of the table and see who’s there.
But I stopped before I had taken two steps. My eyes adjusted to the dimness and I recognized the figure watching me from the head of the table.
My knees sagged beneath me.
Anya!
Chapter 24
She did not smile at me. She did not give the slightest inkling that she knew who I was. She watched me with those incredibly beautiful gray eyes as I slowly, hesitantly, came toward her. Anya was wearing a simple cream-colored sleeveless dress; her hair was pulled back tightly, highlighting the sculptured plane of her cheekbones, the delicate yet strong curve of her jaw.
As I approached her, slowly, like a penitent making his awestruck way to a shrine, her face began to change. Her skin wrinkled, lost its youthful luster, began to look like faded parchment. Her hair turned gray, then white and lifeless, her hands became knobby claws, spotted with age.
“I am dying, Orion.” Her voice was the croak of a feeble old crone.
I rushed to her side. She barely had the strength to hold up her head. I reached out to take her in my arms, but found myself frozen in place, immobile, helpless.
“Aten and the others have sent you,” she said, her voice a weak, rasping wheeze. “They want to finish the work they began long ages ago.”
I could not even speak. I strained to break free, to reach her.
“Don’t struggle, Orion. You are in a stasis field and you will remain there until I determine what to do with you.”
But I’m not your enemy! I wanted to tell her.
Her withered face cracked into a sad smile. “My poor Orion. Of course you’re not my enemy. Not consciously. Not willingly. But you are Aten’s creature and you will do his bidding whether you want to or not. You have no choice. And I have no choice except to protect myself as best as I can and fight against the others with the last atom of my fading strength.”
“I am dying, Orion. It takes a long time, but the strength ebbs away a little more each day, each hour. It took an enormous effort for me to appear young, the way you once knew me, when you first entered this chamber. Now you see me as I am, with very little time left.”
Anya shook her head painfully. “I don’t want it to end this way, my beloved. I don’t want it to end at all. But I am trapped. Aten has won.”
“Never!” I roared. And with all the willpower in me, with all my anger against the smug self-styled Creators, with all the rage against my being used as a witless pawn in this battle across the millennia, with all the blood lust
