Майкл Гир - Requiem for the Conqueror

ated the conclusions. I find no reliable data to indicate any deviation from the original strategy is necessary at this time. Staffa kar Therma no longer has a useful role. His actions defy prediction, and, therefore, cannot be

countenanced. You must neutralie him. To do otherwise will unleash his ultimate control of Free Space. And what will that control bring o humanity?"

"Destruction. Death. Total slavery and chaos," Bruen intoned wordlessly, following the pattern of Mag Comm logic.

"Excellent, Bruen! You have your agents in readiness?"

"We do. The Lord Commander will bring his fleets to Targa, Great One." Bruen swallowed, allowing the plan to unroll in his mind. "When he comes to drown our voices in blood again — then Lord, we will strike."

"My compliments, Bruen. You understand the danger posed by the Lord Commander's continued existence. He is a cancer in your society. Like any threat to health and peace, such a disease must be excised from the flesh and the True Way must heal the wounded body of humanity. I read the intricacies of your planning and intrigue. You, my Magister, are more than I could have hoped for. Blessed is your name, Bruen. You shall be the salvation of the human species. You shall bring to all people the Teachings of Truth."

"I am humbled, Great One!" Bruen cried out, sensing the righteousness of the words.

"The time has come to act. You are to trigger the Targan revolt immediately."

"Yes, Great One. I shall unleash the wrath of the people against the Regan tyrant."

"Blessed is your name, Bruen. I will call for you when I have more information. Continue, Bruen — and thank you for your dedication to the Way. The fate of yor species hinges on your success in this venture."

"So many lives—"

"Your species hangs in the balance. What is it worth to you? The threat must be countered — even if a planet is bait. To fail is to invite extinction."

For a brief instant, Bruen's mind filled with a scene of sterile planets and dead cities: silent, only the ghostly ruins of human habitations remaining, lifeless, eerie in the hollow displays in his mind.

His unbalanced thoughts reeled as the Mag Comm withdrew and left him drained and trembling. Bruen blinked, awed at the emptiness in his mind.

Suffering from the aftereffects of the communication, Bruen lifted the feathery weight of the golden helmet from his sweaty head. Arms shaking, he would have dropped it had Magister Hyde not rushed forward to place the headse on the holder. He became aware of the alcove, of the anxious faces of the Initiates. Vertigo began to recede.

"Is everything all right?" Hyde asked, fleshy face lined with concern.

"Y-yes, it is," he lied. Unnerved, he felt his mind returning to normal. "I–I must get back to Kaspa." He smiled weakly. "You've seen the figures, Magister. What choice does the machine leave us? What choice do our own projections leave?"

"Then we…" Hyde shook his head, wagging the layers of fat that hung in long jowls from his cheeks. His faded blue eyes went dull. "It ordered us to. "

"Yes, Brother Hyde," Bruen whispered hollowly. "Our lot is to drench our world in blood and misery one more time."

Hyde wrung his hands nervously. "But so many will die. And to what purpose? A trap? For one man?"

"No buts," Bruen added wearily, pulling himself up in the hands of the Initiates. "Or do you have another idea? We've been through this time and again. We have no choice, old friend."

Bruen wobbled on his feet, refusing to look back at the Mag Comm, feeling its insidious presence nonetheless. He was only thankful that, in years past, they had managed to "accidentally" eliminate the Mag Comm's external sensors located within its chamber, leaving it the helmet as its sole means of observing and communicating with them. "We've looked at the risks, attended to the odds. We have only ourselves to rely on."

"And that God-cursed machine," Hyde added.

Bruen closed his eyes, rubbing thumbs into his temples. The subtle beat of a brain-wrenching headache pulsed behind his eyes. It always happened after the Mag Comm withdrew.

"Yes," he added feebly. "And the God-cursed machine, too."

Blessed Gods, let me live long enough to see this through! I must do something, must lay a trail, somehow, to see that insidious machine destroyed should

I fail!

The voice sang hollowly in Staffa's head. "How ironic. blew her to plasma…" The Lod Commander turned and pinched his eyes closed, feeling the weight of the words threading tendrils through his memory.

"I killed her. The only woman I ever loved. / KILLED HER!"

"You have no soul, Staffa. You are a machine… construct of human flesh… a machine… a creation…" The Praetor's voice echoed in ghostly waves, forcng Staffa kar Therma to press knotted fists against the sides of his skull and pound mercilessly at his temples to still that reedy voice.

"Damn you! Damn you Praetor!" he howled into the stillness of his private chambers. Around him, the familiar walls glared back in eloquent silence. Trophies and mementos hung in their usual places — booty from battles fought and won. Monuments to his strategic and tactical brilliance. Now they seemed tawdry, sullied by the memories of blood from which each had been plucked.

His ship, Chrysla, named for her, mocked him in the irony of her death.

Staffa ground his teeth, hearing the grating slide of moar on molar. He ground them harder, trying to drown out the wicked satsfaction in the Praetor's knowing voice. In a sudden burst of energy, Staffa curled and rolled to vault from the sleeping mat. He landed lightly on bare feet, and whirled in a combat stance, nervous, pulse racing at the voice in his memory.

How had it happened that way? How had the old man beaten him so soundly? / did it to myself. Her blood is on Y hands!

He threw his head back, gasping breaths of cool air. "Damn you, Praetor! May the Rotted Gods gag on your pustular corpse! How did you bring me to this?

In anger, he shook his head, enjoying the sensation of his loose hair as it fell about his face in a black aureole. A mind trap, a deeply buried conditioned response that caused him to access improper neural pathways in the brain that would arouse an emotional response — flooding his brain with chemicals that clouded objective, logical analysis of data.

"I can't trust myself to think clearly — and I've only barely touched the surface of what he might have released."

The Praetor mocked, "May God rot your inhuman self. Staffa, you are a man accursed. accursed. accursed…"

"True."

His eye caught the gleam of the dispenser. He stuck a golden Regan chalice under the tap and numbly watched as Myklenian brandy drained amber into the vessel. Could he drown that cackling shade's voice in a haze of alcohol?

"Indeed, Praetor. Accursed from the moment I laid eyes on you." The bitterness in his voice moved him, mocked him, turned in his gut, "Would that my body had joined my parents that day, eh Praetor?"

Idly he sipped the brandy, barely aware of its body, of the rich smoothness of a drink valued all across Free Space.

Unwanted, fleeting glimpses of a younger Praetor — laughing, as he offered his hand during personal combat training — flashed through Staffa's mind. A kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, sensations and memories swept him. He closed his eyes, reliving those days.

"We were… we meant so much to each other. once." He recalled the encouragement, the praise, yes, and even love. "And still we brought ourselves to meet finally like. like beasts!" A painful numbness cramped his fingers where they gripped the jeweled handle of the golden chalice. "What have you wrought Praetor?"

The Praetor's voice snapped in Staffa's brain.". A hell of your own devising!" Staffa winced. "You have no soul, Staffa. no responsibilities to God." Each burning word engraved itself in letters of fire to brand his soul.". You are reviled as a demon."