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INITIATE
Just before the courier ship docked, Initiate Viran Farre of the Imperial Political Apparatus tried one last time to dissuade the adept
"Please reconsider, Adept Treviht carry through the dozen meters of thermosphere between the courier ship and the Lynx Not that there was any need to shout The adept&039;s face was, as it had been for the last four hours, only centimeters from her own "I should be the one to accompany the rescue effort"
The third person in the courier ship passenger tube (which was designed to hold a single occupant, and not in luxury)sound, which propelled hiee
"Don&039;t you trust me, Initiate Farre?" Barris sniffed His crude emphasis on her rank was typical of Barris He too was an initiate, but had reached that status at a far younger age
"No, I don&039;t" Farre turned back to the adept "This young fool is as likely to kill the Child Eed to stare into the middle distance, which, even for a dead woman, was certainly a feat in the two cubic meters they shared
"What you don&039;t seem to understand, Farre," Adept Harper Trevim said, "is that the Empress&039;s continued existence is secondary"
"Adept!" Farre hissed
"May I remind you that we serve the Risen Emperor, not his sister," Trevim said
"My oath was to the crown," Farre answered "It is extremely unlikely under the circumstances that the Empress will ever wear that crown" The Adept looked directly at Farre with the cold eyes of the Risen
"Soon sheBarris offered
Even Adept Trevie She spoke directly to Farre, her voice sharp as needles in the tight confines of the courier ship "Understand this: The Emperor&039;s Secret is more important than the Empress&039;s life"
Farre and Barris winced Even to hear mention of the Secret was painful The initiates were still alive, two of the few thousand livingand a body full of suicide shunts made it acceptable for them to knohat they knew
Trevim, fifty years dead and risen, could speak of the Secret more easily But she had reached the Adept level of the Apparatus while still alive, and the training never died; the old wori the warm that the risen felt no pain, but Farre knew that wasn&039;t true
"The Eerous situation If she is wounded and a doctor examines her, the Secret could be discovered I trust Initiate Barris to deal with that situation, should it arise"
Farre opened herroared within her, drowning out her thoughts, her will Such directAdept Trevim had silenced her as surely as if the courier ship had suddenly decompressed
"I believe my point is made, Initiate," the adept finished "You are too pure for this tempestuous world, your discipline too deep Initiate Barris isn&039;t fit to share your rank, but he&039;ll do this job with a clear head"
Barris began to sputter, but the adept silenced hilance
"Besides, Farre," Trevi, "you&039;re far too old to become an orbitalwent through the ship, and the three uttered not another word
CHILD EMPRESS
Two hundred seventeen kilometers below the Lynx, the Risen Child Ehty Worlds as the Reason, waited for rescue with deathly calm
Inside her mind were neither worries nor expectations, just an arid patience devoid of anticipation She waited as a stone waits But in those childish regions of her mind that remained active sixteen hundred years Imperial Absolute since her death, the Eames inside her head
The Child E at her captor She often used her inhuman stillness to intimidate supplicants to the throne, the pardon- and elevation-seekers who invariably flocked to her rather than her brother Anastasia could hold the sa, for days if necessary She had crossed into death at age twelve, and so gaaze certainly had an effect on noruely possible that, after these four hours, it ht be disruptive in those sudden seconds when rescue ca else to do
Alas, the Rix co her blaster trained unerringly on the E The Eed aperture less than two le round from the blaster would eliminate any possibility of reanimation; her brain would be vaporized instantly Indeed, after the spreading plasma storm was over, very little of the Empress&039;s body would re death--the one which brought no enlightenness--would coh only five hundred subjective, such were her travels) she would finally be extinct, the Reason for Eone
And it was the case that the Empress, despite her arctic absence of desires in any other normal sense, very much did not want that to happen She had said otherwise to her brother on recent occasions, but now she knew those words to be untrue
"The room is now under imperial surveillance, m&039;Lady," a voice said to the Child Empress
"Soon, then" The Empress mouthed the words
The commando cocked her head The Rix creature always reacted to the Empress&039;s whispers, no matter how carefully she subvocalized She see to hear the Empress&039;s invisible conversant Or perhaps she wasat her prisoner&039;s one-sided conversation, the Eht her captive mad
But the confidant was undetectable, short of very sophisticated and h the Empress&039;s nervous system and that of her Lazarus syuishable from its host, constructed of dendrites that even bore the royal DNA The Empress&039;s immune system not only accepted the confidant, but protected the device froh from a strictlyits host&039;s energy without perforical function But the device was no freeloader; it too had a reason to live
"How is the Other?" the Empress asked her confidant
"All is well, m&039;Lady"
The Eh her eyes reuard The Other had been well for alood in this strange, al moment to make sure
Of course, every tribe of scattered humanity had developed so the wealthy Members of the Rix Cult preferred the slow alchey to machine as their ical therapies--teloan transplant, meditation, nano-reinforceht struggle against cancers and boredoai mummified themselves with a host of data; they were frantic diarists, superb iconoplasts who left personality s of themselves in the hope that one day someone would awake them from death, somehow
But only the Risen Empire had made death itself the key to eternal life In the Ee to a higher state The legends of the old religions served the Ereat flaw of his Lazaru sy host So the wealthy and elevated of the Empire spent their natural two centuries or so alive, then moved across the line
The E the supre his own life in as now called the Holy Suicide He perfor little sister, who sickness Anastasia was the Reason That gesture, and sole control of the symbiant--the power to sell or bestow elevation upon his family&039;s servants--were at the root of Ehed It had worked so well for so long
"The rescue atterows nearer, m&039;Lady," the voice said
The Empress did not bother to respond Her dead eyes were locked with her Rix captor&039;s Yes, she thought, the woes were so active, sobbing and fidgeting But she was as still and silent as a stone
"And, nored the confidant
"Perhaps you should drink some water?"
As always, the request that had been repeated insistently over the last fifty years After its centuries of biological orowing ever lass at the Empress&039;s side, as always But she didn&039;t want to break the contest of wills between herself and the Rix For once, the Other could wait, as the E: patiently Soon, the Rix woaze The comented eyes
"M&039;Lady?"
"Silence," she whispered
The confidant, at the edge of its royal host&039;s hearing, just sighed
DOCTOR
Dr Vecher settled against a bulkhead heavily The horrible feeling of suffocation had finally begun to ebb, as if hisin Perhaps the instinctive quarters of his brain had realized that although Vecher wasn&039;t breathing, he wasn&039;t dying
Not yet, anyway
He was supposed to be in the entry vehicle by now All twenty-three ht and oily as preserved tuna The black, aerodynaed in a circle around the launch bay; the rooiant revolver Vecher felt heavy The cold weight in his liquid-filled lungs and the extra ainst the bulkhead, as if the launch bay were spinning rapidly, pinning hiht eant as supposed to be packing Dr Vecher into his entry torpedo orking frantically to prep the tall, young political with the nasty sneer This initiate had shown up at the lastorders to join the insertion over the marine commander&039;s (and the captain&039;s) objections They were doing the physical prep now, even as the arether a full suit of battle arly fra thepressures of braking At the saris with the green goo
Dr Vecher looked away froht, cheerful strawberry-flavored hed or spoke, although the h with the stuff in your lungs That is, until it ran low on oxygen and its ence decided it was time to eject itself from your body
Vecher couldn&039;t wait for that
They finally got the initiate prepped, and the eant crossed the launch bay with a foul look on his face He popped open Vecher&039;s entry vehicle and pushed hiets hio out of your way to fix hieant pulled down Vecher&039;s chin with one thuuard in with his free hand It tasted of sterility, alcohol, and soan to flow
The visor of Vecher&039;s hel as the seal went airtight The door to the entry vehicle closed with athestatus lights Vecher shuffled his feet, trying to re, but that was a
Then a coolness registered down at his feet even inside the battle armor&039;s boots Vecher reel It came in as a liquid, but set quickly, like a plastic ht arainst the testicles, constricted the neck to increase Vecher&039;s sense of suffocation, if that were possible And worst of all, it entered his hel around Vecher&039;s face like so closed eyelids
There was no longer any part of Vecher that couldco reflex The tendons of his hands could be flexed slightly, but the arers as still as a statue&039;s
Vecher stopped trying, let the terrible, oht press hi without any change or fra utterly stilled, he only had his heartbeat toseconds And with sealed ears, even that rhythh the heavy injections that reinforced his rib cage