Кристофер Банч - Vortex

The Square of the Khaqans brooded under storm clouds knuckled black in the sky. A weak sun crept through those clouds, picking out flashes of gold, green, and red from the towering buildings and domes.

The square was immense: twenty-five square kilometers solid with gaudy buildings, the official heartbeat of the Altaic Cluster. On the western edge was the lace-pattern fan of the Palace of the Khaqans—home to the old and angry Jochian who had ruled over the cluster for a hundred and fifty years. For seventy-five of those years the man had labored on this square, lavishing billions of credits and being-hours. It was a monument to himself and his deeds—both real and imagined. Almost as an afterthought there was a small shrine park in a forgotten corner of the square in memory of his father, the first Khaqan.

The square sat in the center of Jochi's capital, Rurik. Everything in this city was huge; the inhabitants were forever scurrying about, reduced in scale and spirit by the size of the Khaqan's vision.

Rurik was quiet this day. Humid streets emptied. Beings huddled in their tenements for mandatory viewing of the events about to unfold on their livie screens. All across the planet Jochi it was the same.

In fact, on all the habitable worlds of the Altaic Cluster humans and ETs alike had been cleared from the streets by loudspeaker vehicles and ordered into their dwellings to punch up the livie cast. Small red eyes at the bottom of the screens monitored their required rapt attention. Security squads were posted in every neighborhood, ready to kick in the door and haul away any being whose attention flagged.

At the Square of the Khaqans itself, three hundred thousand beings had been ordered in for public witness. Their bodies formed a black smear around the edges of the square. The heat from the living mass rose in waves of steam and drifted up into the menacing clouds. The only movement was a constant nervous shifting. There was not one sound from the crowd. Not the cry of a child or a cough from an Old One.

Heat lightning branched over the four gilded pillars that marked each end of the square and the enormous statues honoring Altaic heroes and deeds hunched over it. Thunder boomed and echoed under the clouds. Still the crowd held its silence.

Troops were formed up in the center of the square, weapons at ready, eyes scanning the crowd for any sign of danger.

At their backs loomed the Killing Wall.

A sergeant barked orders, and the execution squad clanked forward, walking heavily under the burden of twin tanks strapped to each being's back. Flex hose ran from the tanks to a two-meter-long tube held by each squad member.

Another order, and hands sheathed in thick fireproof gloves flexed the triggers of the flamethrowers. Molten fire dripped from the ends of the tubes. Gloved fingers tightened, and a howl rent the air as flame exploded out and against the Killing Wall.

The squad held the triggers back for a terrible moment of heat and acrid smoke. The flames hammered at the wall in heavy waves. At the sergeant's signal, the fire stopped.

The Killing Wall was unmarked, except for the deep red glow of superheated metal. The sergeant spat. The spittle exploded as it touched the wall. He turned and smiled.

The execution squad was ready.

A sudden squall erupted, drenching the crowd and sending up hissing clouds of steam from the wall. It stopped as quickly as it had begun, leaving the crowd miserable in the humid atmosphere.

There was a nervous buzz here and there. Among so many beings, fear can keep the silence only so long.

"This is the fourth time in as many cycles," a young Suzdal yipped to his pack mate. "Every time the Jochi police come hammering on the door to call us out to the square, I think, this time they're coming for us." His little snout was wrinkled back with fear, exposing sharp, chattering teeth.

"It's nothing to do with us, dear," his pack mate said. She rubbed the thick furred hump that protruded above her muzzle against the adolescent male, spreading soothing hormone. "They only want the black marketeers."

"But all of us do it," the frightened Suzdal yipped. "There's no other way to live. We'd all starve without the black market."

"Hush, someone will hear," his pack mate warned. "This is human doings. As long as they're killing Jochians or Torks, we mind our own business."

"I can't help it. It feels like what some humans call Judgment Day. Like we're all doomed. Look at the weather. Everybody's talking about it. No one's seen anything like it. Even the Old Ones say it's never been like this on Jochi. Freezing cold one day. Blistering hot the next. Snow storms. Then floods and cyclones. When I woke this morning, I thought it smelled like spring outside. Now look." He pointed at the heavy black storm clouds overhead.

"Now, don't get yourself overwrought," his pack mate said. "Not even the Khaqan can control the weather."

"He's going to get to us eventually. And then…" The young Suzdal shuddered. "Do you know one being who has been executed yet who was really guilty? Of anything… big?"

"Of course not, dear. Now, be quiet. It'll be over with… soon." And she rubbed more hormone into his fur. Soon the chattering teeth were still.

There was a crash and a boom and howl of music over the great loudspeakers, so loud that the foliage in the scattered parks of the square shivered with the beat. The gold-robed Khaqan Guard trotted, spear formation, out of the palace. At the apex of the spear was a floating platform bearing the Khaqan on his high-back, gilded throne.

The whole group quick-marched to a position just near the Killing Wall. The platform settled to the ground.

The old Khaqan peered about him with suspicious, rheumy eyes. He wrinkled his nose at the close smell of the crowd. An ever-attentive privy aide caught the gesture and sprayed the Khaqan with his favorite sweet-scented incense. The old man pulled a decorated flask of methquill from his belt, uncorked it, and took a long drink. It quick-fired through his veins. His heart raced and his eyes cleared along with his enthusiasm.

"Bring them out," he barked. It was an old, shrill sound, but it put the fear of the cowardly gods who tended this place into his servants.

Orders were whispered down the line. In front of the Killing Wall, metal hissed on oiled bearings, and a dark hole yawned. There was a hum of machinery, and a wide platform rose up to fill the hole.

There was a long, audible shudder from the crowd when they saw the prisoners standing there in their chains, blinking in the dim light. Soldiers hustled forward and prodded the forty-five men and women to the wall. Metal bands emerged from the wall and clamped them into place.

The prisoners looked at the Khaqan with stunned eyes. He took another pull on his flask and giggled with the heat of the methquill.

"Get on with it," he said.

The black-robed inquisitor stepped forward and began reading the names and confessions of each of the assembled felons. Their list of crimes boomed over the loudspeakers: Conspiracy to profit… Hoarding of rationed goods… Theft from the markets of the Jochi elite… Abuse of office to profit… On and on it went.

The old Khaqan frowned at each charge, then nodded and smiled at each disposition of guilt.

Finally it was done. The Inquisitor slid the charge fiche into its sleeve and turned to await the Khaqan's decision.