Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

He leaned forward. “I will even designate them as being within the second tier, if you wish,” he added. “They will be in line for the Clan Headship.”

Cordova’s face twisted. Tiberius could almost read his thoughts. A person in the second tier wouldn’t be that close to the headship, but Tiberius himself had no children, not yet. If he never produced a child, he would leave the second tier — which included Gwendolyn and Pompey — to fight it out over the succession. Any child of Cordova and Kathy Tyler would have an excellent chance to become Clan Head. It should have been irresistible.

“I’ll think about it,” Cordova said, finally.

“This isn’t the time to play games,” Tiberius warned, sharply. “. On this, you are either with us, or against us. There is no middle ground. If you are not ready to move when we give the signal, the truth will come out and you will become the most hated man in the galaxy.”

Cordova smiled. He seemed genuinely amused. “When there’s so much competition for the title?” He asked. There was a mocking note in his voice. “You must have a high opinion of my capabilities.”

He bowed once and left the room. Tiberius knew what he would do. He’d been careful to give Cordova no choice. One way or the other, he would do as Tiberius bid… or his new life would come crashing down around him.

Andy Gillingham lay on the bed, a strange half-smile on his face.

Charlie watched dispassionately as Sandra lay next to him, wearing only a pair of thin panties, and murmured questions in his ear. The drug she’d hit him with, apart from merely bringing a sex-starved man face-to-face with her perfect body, had been artfully designed. Gillingham would remember nothing of the conversation, or even of the interrogation, remembering only a romantic meeting with a fellow traveller. His mind would add details itself, from how much she enjoyed his attentions to how many times they’d done it in the bed, and he wouldn’t be inclined to question them. It would have drawn his conquest into question.

The drug itself was fast-acting and very hard to detect. It had sent him into a light trance, one that he would take hours to come out of, even without being prodded. It would leave his system fairly quickly and would be completely gone within a few hours, although he would remain entranced for much longer. Imperial Intelligence had taught Sandra how to use her body and sexuality to best advantage and Charlie knew just how good she was. Gillingham would never know what had hit him.

He was also incapable of hearing anyone, but Sandra. A squad of armed Marines could have burst into the room, shouting orders and firing their weapons right next to his ears, and he wouldn’t have heard a thing. Charlie could chat with Sasha all he wanted and Gillingham wouldn’t know; he wouldn’t even be aware of their presence. Sandra was his entire universe now, as long as he remained in trance, and he would have a perfect explanation for missing time. In the past, taking someone out of the loop for more than a few hours would have raised eyebrows, but now anyone suspicious would discover that Gillingham had merely found a partner for the night.

“A stroke of luck, perhaps,” Sasha said, beckoning Charlie away from the bed to the other side of the room. Charlie came without reluctance. Somehow, knowing what was going on robbed the scene of all of its emotional value. Gillingham would be devastated if he knew how little Sandra cared for his opinion, or even his body. She’d once lured a pair of Imperial Navy officers with dubious loyalties into her bed, engaged in a long and happy session of pillow talk with them, and then calmly reported them to Imperial Intelligence as possible subversives. The two men had never connected her with their arrest, quick trial and sentence to a prison world. “What do you think?”

Charlie frowned. Gillingham would never know that Sandra had picked him out of a crowd and called him effortlessly to her — come hither , his mind whispered — but it was quite possible that they’d had too much luck. If someone suspected their presence, why not take the opportunity to slip them a ringer? Imperial Intelligence didn’t have a monopoly on willingness to use dubious means when necessary and whatever counter-intelligence Admiral Wilhelm possessed would be looking out for spies. It didn’t seem likely, however. If he were normal, Gillingham couldn’t have hidden anything from Sandra and the kind of brain-surgery required to alter his responses to the point where he could hide something — anything — would have been obvious right from the start.

But it was still a worrying coincidence.

“I think we’ve gotten lucky,” he said, finally, after outlining all of his reservations. The same problems would have occurred to Sasha. She was, in many ways, far more experienced than he was at such matters. “The odds against it, however…”

“It gets worse,” Sasha said. She tapped the side of her head meaningfully. “I checked Andy Gillingham against the database of citizens — Cottbus citizens, that is — and he doesn’t show up. That shouldn’t happen, not for someone who has clearly worked in a shipyard — he talks the talk too good for that to be a lie — and its worrying.”

Charlie felt his eyes go wide. The Empire tried to register everyone , no exceptions, who lived within the Empire. It rarely worked out perfectly in practice — there were uncounted trillions of humans within the Empire — but everyone who worked directly for a shipyard, a Type-I shipyard at that, should have been registered. Sasha hadn’t been able to carry all the names and details around in her head, but they’d pulled a copy from the Imperial Intelligence base on Hawthorn and Gillingham’s name should have been there. If it wasn’t…

“I suspect he’s genuine all right, but that he’s not from here,” Sasha said. “If he was brought in from outside the sector, he won’t be on our lists.” She raised her voice. “Sandra, ask him where he comes from.”

There was a brief moment when Sandra whispered sweet nothings in his ear and listened, carefully, to his murmured responses. “Tao’s World,” she said, finally. Charlie swore. He couldn’t remember, offhand, who Tao had been and if he’d named the world personally, but he knew where it was. Sector 77, right on the other side of Cottbus from Earth… and now almost certainly an ally of Admiral Wilhelm. The calculations about relative fleet strengths had just been proven invalid. He might have upwards of twice as many ships as had been predicted… and that meant that Cottbus should have been far more heavily defended.

He listened as Sandra, following his thoughts, asked more probing questions. The story that emerged was growing worrying. Gillingham had been summoned to Cottbus to assist with the redevelopment of the shipyard… from his previous position at Tao’s World. That made a depressing kind of sense. The shipyards and starships on the outskirts of the Empire tended to be in better shape than the ships further in towards the Core Worlds. If the stories about Morrison were true, the starships there hadn’t been able to operate until their new commanding officer had executed the previous commanding officer and started a massive refitting program. Admiral Wilhelm hadn’t missed a trick.

And as for the numbers of starships…

“Hellfire,” Sasha muttered. “Sandra, put him into a deeper trance. We need to talk.”

They moved to a secondary room, even though there was little point. Gillingham wouldn’t have heard or remembered anything, at least in theory, once Sandra had put him into a deeper trance, but none of them had lasted long by taking foolish chances. Sandra didn’t bother to dress, but she picked up a glass of water and drank it noisily, just to cool herself down. Seducing the innocent, Charlie decided, was obviously thirsty work.