L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

"No fighting?" asked Rhyana.

"If you want to, you can, but Tech Eltyn and Tech Faelyna are too valuable to hazard."

He paused. "Besides, I don?t see how you could contribute more to the reformation?s military effort than you already did, and it appears likely that we will be incorporating the rainbow as the symbol of the reformation."

"How is the…reformation…going?" asked Faelyna.

"We?ve already regained control of most of Primia, except the immediate area around Hururia, but after the destruction of the Ruche dome by the rainbow, and the probable death of a number of The Twenty, we?d be very surprised if we didn?t have The Fifty reestablished by the end of the year…with a few changes…of course."

"Such as?" asked Eltyn warily.

"We?re going to have to widen the forum for discussion and disagreement and change the idea that questioning equates to rebellion or that uncertainty, particularly with regard to science and public policy, means weakness…" Solano rose from the chair. "If you will excuse me and the interrogator. There are a few other demands on my time." He smiled. "One of my assistants will be with you shortly to work out quarters and provide you with passes and codes…and the other details of life here in Chiental." With a last smile, he turned and departed.

Bernyt followed Solano, but without a backward glance or a smile.

Eltyn did note that the wall panel, presumably to the Administrator?s office, remained open after the two had left.

In some ways, reflected Eltyn, none of it made sense…and yet it did.

He turned to Faelyna. "We suffered more at the hands of TechOversight than at the hands of The Twenty, although The Twenty certainly tried harder to destroy us and the station. After everything we?ve been through, we accomplished more by throwing a pebble than by anything else either of us did."

"You wouldn?t have been able to throw that pebble if it hadn?t been for everything else we did," she said with a smile.

"Everything else you did," he corrected. "My approaches didn?t work. Yours did."

"We did it together."

He looked directly into her eyes. "I?d like to do far more…everything…together."

Faelyna leaned toward him, taking his right hand in both of hers. "So would I."

After a long and bittersweet evening with Maarlyna, during which he had not so much loved her as clung to her, Maertyn spent most of the remainder of the night fully awake…amid infrequent brief periods of dozing. He would have preferred to have left then, but there was little point in that, since he only knew where to reach Tauzn during the day.

They spoke little as they prepared for the day and dressed, but Maertyn kept looking at Maarlyna, wondering how it had all come to the point where all his efforts to save her had led inexorably to his having to leave her, possibly forever…if he failed.

Do you really have to do this? That he had asked himself more than once over the long night. But how could he not? He, and he alone, from what he knew, had the ability to stop a tyrant before matters worsened. How did a man live with himself if he refused that opportunity?

He didn?t want to follow the example of the Laarnian martyrs…but he had to do…something.

Arm in arm, they walked down to the lower level, where they shared tea and not-quite-stale bread slathered with sweet orange preserves. He wanted to say something more to her about how much she meant…and how he didn?t want to leave her…

All of that would merely have repeated what he had murmured the night before…and made him seem somehow…pathetic.

So he smiled and looked at her, trying to create a lasting image in his mind.

Then, as the time drew near, they walked back up to the main level, where he checked the pair of stunners that had been in the crate Rhesten had sent so many days before. He also fingered the ice hammer, before putting it in the inside pocket of the formal ministry jacket he?d chosen to wear-a maroon and silver-gray lord?s jacket for all of that.

"Is it time yet?" he asked "I want to be in his office just before he returns from his morning staff meeting."

"Almost. What if he doesn?t have a meeting?"

"Then he?s there…or he?s not, and I?ll work around it." He slipped the stunners into the side pockets of the jacket, then walked toward the south door of the station, where he stopped.

"Let it be done…dearest. I will return…as I can."

"You know that if you leave the Bridge this way, you can?t return…except by traveling back to the canal?"

"I know. I heard you tell the others that."

"And you know I can?t leave? Ever?" The tears ran down the sides of her face, and she stepped forward and embraced him. "You deserve better…" she murmured.

"We don?t always get what we deserve," he murmured back. "But perhaps we have…or what we wished for. I wanted you to be here forever, and I wanted the chance at great deeds." He tightened his arms around her for a moment, then brushed her lips with his, before easing out of her arms.

"Be as careful as you can, dearest," she said softly.

"That I will." He smiled and looked at her, taking a long look, one he hoped would not be the last, then turned toward the door.

"It takes longer here," she said quietly. "Or seems to. I?m not quite certain which."

"I know." He did not look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the station wall.

When the stone did slide open, the brilliance of all the colors of the rainbow flared around him as he stepped through the opening and down from the railing onto the outside balcony of the office of the Minister of Protective Services, a balcony that overlooked all of Caelaarn to the south.

Maertyn did not look back but hurried to the glassine door between the covered balcony and Tauzn?s private office. Inside, the office was empty, as he had hoped. The door was locked, but it only took three sharp blows with the ice hammer to break the lock. That wasn?t surprising, since few would have expected a burglar or assassin to enter from an eleventh-floor balcony in the middle of a guarded complex.

He wiped the grip of the hammer with the fabric at the bottom of his jacket and dropped the hammer on the yielding flooring of the balcony, then took one of the stunners from his pocket before he stepped into the office.

So far as he could tell, his entry activated no alarms. At least no one burst through the door to the outer office, but that might have been because the brilliance of rainbow light still flared behind him, possibly distracting security personnel.

From his recollections, the offices of all ministers had private facilities for changing and other necessities. He tried the door on the left. It was a closet. The one on the left held the facilities and a robing chamber with a mirror. That would do. He left that door ajar and turned back to the wide and empty desk.

There he checked the comm system. He didn?t even try to access anything in it. All he wanted was an open line with a delay to one other system. That took him only a minute or so, and he couldn?t help but smile wryly as he thought about the idea that time didn?t exist, only event-points on a continuum, or something like that.

Then he retreated to the small room, leaving the door barely ajar, and waited…and waited…

He wasn?t certain how long he had waited when he heard voices.

"…took forever this morning…"

"That?s understandable, sir. There?s been no success in entering the canal station, and with the inquiries about the Gaerda dirigibles…and that rainbow…"

"Ashauer?s at the bottom of this…"

Although Maertyn had only heard Tauzn speak a handful of times, the minister?s deep, resonant, and reassuring voice was distinctive enough that he recognized it immediately.