Кристофер Банч - Empire's End

Since this was a ceremony, IS's black uniforms—nice, functional, and unobtrusive at night—had been prettied up with a white sam browne belt, helmet, epaulettes, and gloves, plus white slings on their willyguns. At least, Alex thought, they'd junked the stupid parade-ground rifles, f'r chrissakes, the Praetorians used to parade with.

They were, he concluded, most inconspicuous. Especially when he listened, and realized someone had ordered pony and heel taps nailed on their bootsoles. It sounded spectacular against the stone, Alex thought contentedly. Y' c'n hear the clots comin' frae a country mile. Whaee'er a mile is.

Eventually the crashing of bootheels and toes, the thudding of rifle butts against the ground, and the slap of gloved hands on riflestocks ended, and the old watch disappeared back into Arundel.

Noo, Alex thought, his amusement gone for a total focus, w'll see i' thae parade ground's a sham. I's noo, i's noo, i's noo, he thought in glee, damned near falling off his perch. Thae're ceremonial beings, throo an' throo…

Be sick, braw greatness, he thought, a memory from his days in school, an' bid thy ceremony gie thee cure.

Twa hours frae noo. 2200, an' Ah move.

The best time to mount an attack—or a snoop and poop—is either in the wee hours of the morning or else just before dawn, when energies are low and everyone's half-asleep. Normally.

But Kilgour was cagier than that. Which was why he had chosen a weekend as the perfect time to assault an essentially peacetime fortification. Everyone who's not got a pass is either broke, on a striper's drakh-list, lonely with nobody to go see, a lifer, or generally irked at it being their turn in the barrel. Pius supervisors normally take weekends off whenever they aren't on the duty roster.

Combine these two facts, and you end up with people going through the motions, generally just a little gruntled about things.

Kilgour, being a sophisticate, also chose the hour carefully. First shift is 1800-2000. These are guards who've been recently fed, but are fairly alert, if for no other reason than the officer of the guard will likely make his rounds on their watch. 2000-2200. Second watch. Not bad, but still a bit early. People are still out and about. 2200. Third watch's first shift. They're fed, had time to stir around the guardroom in boredom, or visit the canteen if the base has one—Arundel did, and it served beer and wine—for a consoling pint, or begin a card game. And then it's time to walk the post in a military manner, all the while realizing at midnight you will be relieved, you will go back to the guardhouse rather than being permitted to return to your own comfortable quarters and personal sack, and will be rousted out at 0400 for yet another tour before dawn. Perfect.

Kilgour's biggest worry was that IS was as subtle as the Gurkhas. They, too, had worked the same patterns when they guarded the castle, and had crashed and bashed with almost as much ceremony, even though they had worn parade-ground gear just on ceremonial occasions. And they had taken their duty very seriously, confining their on-duty canteen purchases to tea and a sweet. But the Gurkhas had their own, uniquely nasty touch, characteristic of the brown men from Nepal. They'd anticipated that some nefarious type, such as Kilgour, might have figured a parade formation is really easy to anticipate, evade, or avoid. So, behind the flashing panoply of the watch change swept a full platoon, in combat gear, weapons ready, at the bloodthirsty lurk.

Evidently IS hadn't gotten word of the twist. The troopies Alex had seen were all there were.

And so, at 2150, as the guards' bootheels crashed louder and closer , Kilgour kept himself from chortling aloud. The third watch came out—Alex heard a few out-of-step marchers who had hit the canteen—and moved through its roundelay. The formation came back, the relieved second-watch guards yawning, looking for a bit of a headdown.

Kilgour slid out of his web, dropped to the parade ground, and went through the blast doors behind the guard, just as the doors crashed closed.

He was inside Arundel Castle.

Now was the moment of maximum danger. Moment, quite literally, since he planned to be visible for not much more than that.

He eeled forward, behind the guard. Ahead was the guardhouse, and the stairs leading down, into the largely ceremonial dungeon far below. Alex hoped ceremonial—i.e., deserted. He had once been imprisoned there, as part of the twisting moils of the Hakone plot, with most of the Gurkhas.

The dungeon was his goal. A gaol f'r a goal, he thought merrily, and was suddenly surprised at his cheer. The feeling of doom was just as powerful. More so, really. And he was in greater and greater jeopardy, yet felt strong. Strong and even cheery. N' wonder, he thought with a bit of disgust, we Scots hae taken it i' th' kilt frae th' Brits. We hae songs an' merr'ment, an' they soljer on, grim-arsed, an' tread us hit' th' dirt.

Och well. Roll on, death.

The guardhouse. Guard… halt. Order… harms. Carry… harms. Column of files from the left… for'rd, harch. The watch went inside, followed by the officer of the guard and the watch commander. Shortly thereafter, Kilgour slunk into the guardhouse as well.

Clatter, shouts, the fresher flushing, rifles clattered into racks, mattresses being unrolled, noisy chatter of young men and women after two hours of walking froo and toe in a military manner.

Nobody even noticed the coverall-clad man who flashed past the open door and down the hall. The hall dead-ended at a thick door, dripping with elaborate locks. Elaborate and old-fashioned. It took less than a minute to pick the three that were locked, another minute to jimmy them so they looked to be still secure, and Alex was inside, at the head of the stairs leading down into the slammer.

He shut the door behind him, wedging it closed. He put his boots on and started down. The stone steps were worn—as if generations of prisoners and guards had trudged the via dolo-rosa.

Kilgour's flash illuminated the chamber at the base of the steps. Just as he remembered it, although memory was a traitor. But Marr and Senn had sworn Arundel had been rebuilt exactly as before. The door to the huge holding cell hang open—a lock he wouldn't have to pick.

Now, Ah rec'lect wee Sten came through th' wall aboot here… and he pressed.

Soundlessly, the wall slid away.

Alex moved inside.

This was the "secret" of Arundel, although not that much of a secret. Sten had discovered it years earlier, when he had been commander of the Guard. Arundel was honeycombed with secret passages. They ran from the Imperial chambers to bedrooms to the dungeon to seemingly pointless openings in main hallways. The tunnels had charmed both of them, in another time, with another Emperor. A proper castle had to have secret passageways, and they were impressed with an Emperor who so indulged his romantic impulses.

Now, the passages would be—if Marr and Senn had been right and they had been built exactly as in the old Arundel—one more step toward the Emperor's destruction.

Alex moved up the winding step and the bending low-ceiling passages, always keeping his carefully memorized picture of the castle's outside interior in mind. He wanted the passageway that led to the row of bedrooms.

Kilgour's mood had changed again. Now, and it might have been claustrophobia from the kilotons of stone and the darkness and the close air around him, he felt as if someone was waiting for him.

Up there. Up above.

Three times he discovered sensors and disarmed them. But this was easy going, moving invisibly, like a rat in the walls, past whatever security was patrolling the interior of Arundel. A rat that stuck close to the walls, as any experienced snoop did when climbing stairs and walking down corridors. Not just for cover, but because boards creak, and…