Merovingen - Fever Season Part 3

There was nothing berthed on or near Merovin with the kind of firepower, let alone the numbers, to give the sharrh a run for their money. The mind of Mickey, fading, was full of sorrow for a job undone, and regret at not being able to protect what he so dearly loved-the colony below. The mind of Michael tried to tell the mind of Mickey that it was all right, not to grieve, that there'd be life left when this was over.

The mind of Mickey mourned, But the sharrh will win. We can't fight them, not with these weapons.

The mind of Michael consoled, But life will go on; civilization will survive-planetbound, but alive.

HEARTS AND MINDS43.

The mind of Mickey didn't think there was any civilization worth mentioning without the stars. The mind of Mickey was a rover's mind, a soldier's mind, a mind that couldn't grasp what Michael was trying to tel! it.

So Michael lied to the mind of Mickey, saying that the Adventists would make mankind on Merovin ready for a second confrontation with the sharrh-and that this time, man would win. Lied even as, through Mickey's eyes, he saw the targeting array shiver with sharrh ships like pox popping out on a sick child's face-too many sharrh ships for the damaged display to handle. It went w.a.n.k, and so did the mind of Mickey, wiping out the changing numbers and the unchanging stars.

Michael Chamoun heard a voice groaning, and another voice speaking unintelligible words. And he heard another sound, like the rushing of air from a vessel-or from lungs. He heard the rending of metal and the rending of flesh. He heard a soul leave its body and other souls screaming their last breaths as a ship broke apart under them, leaving them abandoned in a sea they couldn't swim.

Then there was just quiet, and the pinp.r.i.c.k stars on a field of red, and one voice droning over and over, "Michael, come back. You hear only my voice. You respond only to me. I will count to three, and at the count of three, you will open your eyes ..."

The voice had been saying that for ages, Michael realized, and tried not to listen. He wasn't Michael, he was Mickey, and Mickey was a dead sergeant in the Merovin Defense Force who wanted to sleep forever, who didn't want there to be an afterlife because he'd failed in life and helped lose everything dear to him: a war, a society, a freedom ... the stars.

The stars were what Michael Chamoun first saw when his eyes snapped open as if Ito Tremaine Boregy had strings attached to his eyelids. The stars danced in his field of vision, nearly blocking out the soft suede boots of his Merovingian outfit, the boots Ca.s.sie had given him.

Then he saw the boots and he could fee! his hands on his 44.Cfcris Morris knees, his fingers digging remorselessly into his own flesh. He could feel his heart pounding, very much alive. He could hear the thunder of his pulse in his ears. And he could hear Cardinal Ito telling him he wouldn't remember any of this.

But he already did. He remembered everything. He looked up into the eyes of the parchment-faced Revenantist cardinal and said, "I was there. I was there in the first battle against the sharrh! 1 saw it! I was a part of it." Somehow, he got to his feet and his legs held.

He took two steps, hands outstretched, toward the cardinal. Then he faltered and suddenly his arms went around the old, sepulchral monster and Michael Chamoun was sobbing up-ashamedly: "Thank you, Cardinal. Oh thank you, m'ser! You've given me more hope than I've ever had before-more strength, more . . ."He broke off when he felt the old man stiffen.

They backed away from one another. Chamoun, trying to hold his fear and awe and the strange joy welling up in him, tried again: "I never really believed in reincarnation, m'ser, but you've made a convert out of me! I'm so grateful.-I've got to-"

"You will do nothing," said the cardinal in a thundering whisper. "You will tell no one of what you think you remember. You don't remember anything, m'ser. You had an aberrant vision, nothing more. You're a foreigner. The drug was too strong for you. We use it to mold the hearts and minds of the gullible, to teach humility and obedience. We don't use it to reinforce specious hopes of confrontation with an apocryphal enemy. We don't use it to reinforce Adventist rebels in their sinful work!" Ito's eyes were blazing, coal black in his lined white face. "Do you understand what I'm telling you, Adventist?"

"Uh . . . yes, m'ser. I'll keep what I learned to myself."

"You didn't learn anything, you fool." Ito strode around to the other side of his desk in a flourish of velvet. From behind it, with both fists resting on it, the cardinal said forcefully, "This ritual is forbidden to the ma.s.ses; it's not to be discussed with anyone, not even Vega Boregy. On pain of HEARTS AND MINDS45.

Retribution of the persona! sort-overseen by me. What you thought you experienced had more to do with your expectations than reality. In your previous lives, Adventist slime, you were no doubt a stableboy, a petty thief, or a murderer. There was never any Merovin Defense Force, and if there had been, a soul as poor as yours could not have been among them. As likely you were the Angel with the Sword-the true Michael. Now get out of here, and come to your senses. Your lessons are suspended for one week as punishment. If, at the end of that week, 1 don't like your demeanor when you return here, they'll be suspended permanently. And we'll see how long your precious marriage lasts after a College cardinal has deemed you officially Irredeemable. Now, out!"

Chamoun let the tirade roll over him, only half listening. His head danced with the images he'd encountered during the regression: with the vision of the patrol ship's bridge; with his memories of the stars and the culture he'd been a part of, which called the stars its own.

It had to be real. It had tp be true. He'd never have dreamed such a thing-never had in atl his life. Ito was just angry because it was an Adventist past-life that Michael Chamoun had found himself living. A life that had ended abruptly, ended in darkness, but ended with honor.

Chamoun never remembered slipping out the door of the cardinal's office, or through the Coliege halls, or down the slatrs.

Then the cold wind came in off the canai and slapped him across the face, and he remembered the death of Mickey. Spinning toward the light. Nausea at the speed. But spinning toward the center of the universe, free among the stars. He didn't know where the Revenantist creed would take its adherents, but he'd learned something very precious: to him and his kind, eventually, were given the stars. His-or Mickey's-dying soui had sped toward a central point in the universe, past starfields and through comets' tails, as if drawn by a magnet. The Revenantists believed that if they lived righteously and died enough, they'd be reborn repeatedly, until they got it right. Then, having expiated all sins, they'd be 46.Orris Morris reincarnated on some other human world, a world less blighted, a world that was not a prison.

But Michael Chamoun now knew, in the depths of his heart, that the prison doors would open with his death. He'd be like Mickey, free among the stars. Mickey had been relieved when, after the ship shook apart under him, the pain shook apart too. And there had been the traveling.

Unseeingly, Chamoun headed homeward, forgetting to take the long way, going around the Signeury on the inner side, where the bridge to the Justiciary was, thinking things through.

There was life after death, and there was rebirth, not just the racial memory or wishful thinking that Ito had told bim he'd experienced. Mickey was a part of him, or Michael could never have imagined the smell of burning insulation on melting wires, of overstressed circuitry, and the sound as the air rushed from the screaming, rent hull of the ship. . . .

Mickey was a part of Michael, who was a part of the Adventists, who remembered their responsibility to the people of Merovin, who knew what Merovin needed to do before it was too late ...- Thump! "Hrrmph!"

"M'sera Kalugin! I'm so sorry. I didn't see you. Lost in my thoughts. . . ." Desperately, Chamoun clamped his mouth shut. He'd walked straight into Tatiana Kalugin, and she wasn't alone. With her was Chance Magruder, and the Amba.s.sador was frowning at him.

"M'sera Secretary, I believe you met our newest Boregy, Michael Chamoun, al the Twenty-Fourth Eve-"

"Your protege, you mean, Chance," said the tall Kalugin woman with the canny eyes. "Yes. 1 recall him. Good evening, m'ser Chamoun. What had you so absorbed in your thoughts?"

"What am 1 doing here, you mean?" Chamoun spoke without thinking. "I was at my catechism lesson. Cardinal Ito is teaching me, and he . . ." Ito had warned him not to tell.

Chamoun looked desperately at Magruder and the dangerous tableau before him came into sharper focus, wiping away the memories of Mickey and the warm, exultant feeling that HEARTS AND MINDS.

47.had buoyed him ever since he'd awakened from the trance. He made a motion with his right hand, a conference signal Magruder had taught him; then another that meant, 'I need help.'

But Magruder didn't appear to notice. He stood in the whipping wind with a Merovingen cloak billowing around him so that he seemed twice mortal size. The dusk put shadows under his eyes and deepened the bars of flesh around his tight mouth. His colorless eyes measured Chamoun for a long moment as a gust whipped up and past.

Tatiana grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck to keep it from blowing in her face and looked from Chamoun to Magruder, understanding that something was wrong here-or at least that something was keeping Magruder rooted to the spot.

Then Chance said, "Have you heard, Mike, that losers decreed a census? Tatiana and I have been trying to wrestle with the logistics of it all day."

"1-yes, I've just heard."

"So that's why I forgot about meeting you here," Chance said smoothly. And turned to Tatiana: "This young m'ser's up to his hips in Boregy intrigue, m'sera Secretary. And I've been paying too little attention to his problems, with which I've promised to help. Plus, we've got to get him his paperwork for the census. ... So if you'll excuse me-"

Tatiana Kalugin scowled at Michael Chamoun. "You know, m'ser, you're stealing my favorite alien advisor. Don't keep him too long. Amba.s.sador, our dinner can't be postponed. We've got to determine just how many teams we need to send out to convince the people to be counted in the census. Perhaps you can press the young m'ser into service-in my name, of course. Getting the aliens to register is, we think, most of what my father is interested in." Her humorless smile cut through the last of Chamoun's confusion.

"Yes, m'sera Secretary, whatever you say. I'd be honored to help in any capacity. It ain't-it isn't any kind of imposition. All I'm doing is taking these lessons at the College-" He waved vaguely behind him.

48.Chris Morris At thai, mercifully, Tatiana chuckled. "Anything to get away from your Uncle Ito, eh? Well, Chance, see what you can make of this boy before dark. But 1 can't do without you tonight."

Without another word, and without waiting for an answer from Magruder, Tatiana Kalugin swept by Michael Chamoun in a gale of cloak and perfume and female warmth and august will.

Chamoun slumped, jamming his hands in his pockets, his eyes unable to meet Magruder's. But he had to ask: "Did I screw up bad?"

"Not bad, Mike. Maybe good, who knows?" His hand clapped Chamoun on the shoulder roughly. "Come on, let's go to the Emba.s.sy. When we're on Nev Hettek soil, we can talk."

A warning. The Nev Hettek soil to which Magruder referred was on the Spur at Government Center, among the militia's buildings, where if anyone decided a Nev Hetteker enclave was suddenly a security risk, that enclave could just as suddenly cease to exist.

Chamoun had never been there. He hadn't exactly been Chance Magruder's confidant, the last months.

He had a feeling, by the way Chance was eyeing him, that this was about to change.

If it did. Chamoun would find some way to tell Magruder about Mondragon and Vega Boregy, about the messages he'd been running to Megary and the betrayal he'd been forced into. And about the regression he'd experienced under Cardinal Ito Tremaine Boregy's ministrations-about Mickey and the Merovin Defense Force. About seeing the unclouded stars.

"Whatever you're not telling me," Magruder said after he'd listened to the young Sword prattle on about a revelation gained through regression into a previous life as a s.p.a.ce patrol officer, "now's the time. Ito can't hurt you, unless you go against his direct order and tell Vega about the cardinal trying to turn you into some kind of psychic zombie-and we HEARTS AND MINDS.

49.might be able to use that against the College, later. C'mon, Mike-give. You've been avoiding me. Why?"

"Avoiding you?" The young agent looked around at Magruder's fancy-a.s.sed office in the new emba.s.sy, full of ormolu furniture and paintings on linened walls. He shifted on the brocaded settee and Magruder saw a furtive look flash over his face.

Chamoun was in worse trouble than you could get from eating deathangel and taking a mental trip at the hands of a psychwarring priest. Magruder could feel it.

"M'ser-Chance, you've been hard to find and they've been watching me, and every time I tried to get near you- when 1 really needed you-you were sleeping in with that Kalugin woman, so I couldn't get to you. Didn't dare, what with the risks-" It came out in a rush that ended as suddenly as it had begun.

"You bet," Magruder said easily, wandering to the mantle beside bookshelves that Tatiana had filled for him. "We've both been walking our own tightropes. Women are tough to run; you're finding that out." Whatever it is, Del-man, you spell it out or I'm going to start considering you part of the opposition. "How's yours?" He turned on his heel and faced the youth sitting on the whale-armed settee as if he might slide off.

"My what? Oh, my ... woman. Ca.s.sie's fine. It's not that."

"And Rita Nikolaev, your secret love? Seen her since the incident?"

"I-m'ser, did you . . . kill . . . Romanov?"

So that's it. Well, here we go. "Nope. Said I would, I know. Somebody else beat me to it. That's what's bothering you? He turned up in the Grand, pretty decomposed, and that's all anybody knows about it-"

"No it ain't. He was dead and gutted in my cabin, is what he was. Where we found 'im, and tossed his a.s.s overboard."

"Grammar," Magruder reminded Chamoun mildly, to hide his shock. "I see. And you would have told me sooner, but 1 wasn't available, right?"

50Chris Morris The youth nodded stiffly.

Kid, don't do this. Whatever you're into, it won't mean squat compared to what I'll do if you so much as look sideways at me. I've got too much on the line here now to risk you blowing everything. A dead husband wouldn't be insurmountable; we'll just create you a brother to administrate your holdings here . . .

"Me and the boathands, we did well enough. n.o.body knows. But if you didn't ki l him, then who?"

"That's to the heart of it. Who? 1 dunno." Magruder ran a hand along the mantlepiece and lifted a humidor's lid. Another present from Tatiana, whom he didn't trust as far as he could throw the Signeury. He picked two smokes, rolled them in his fingers against his ear to test their dryness, and offered one to Chamoun.

"We'll find out, Mike. Next time, use your emergency fallbacks sooner-' *

1."I ... did," said the young Sword agent as if the two words were an agony to articulate.

"You did? You went to Megary? By yourself? Why wasn't I informed?"

Chamoun shook his head miserably. "M'ser, I just did what I was told, and the Swords there did the rest."

"Anyone in particular who was helpful?" Who the h.e.l.l had aced Romanov? And why? And how deep did this go? He stared at Chamoun's open face, at the green eyes wide with palpable fear.

The youngster said, "They weren't giving names. But they were giving hard times. b.a.s.t.a.r.d named Baritz was one. I didn't see no al-Banna, even though that was where all the loose Sword talent was supposed to be."

"All right, that's enough. Let's drop it. I'll work on finding out the hows and whys of Romanov's death-if it was an inside move, we'd better find out about it. Meanwhile, I've got something I need your help with-"

Young Chamoun didn't look relieved, as Magruder had expected. He looked positively distraught. He looked consti- HEARTS AND MINDSFI.

pated. He looked like somebody had just slammed a door on his tail.

But then, he had a cushy berth, a slick young wife, all the money he could dream of, and, thanks to the Sword of G.o.d, a h.e.l.l of a lot to lose. You couldn't blame him for being nervous that the Sword would play him too openly- He could find himself swimming for his life in the general direction of Nev Hettek as quickly as he'd found himself the captain of the DeTfish, putting in to port here with Sword-given prospects and an arranged marriage on his horizon.

"I want you to do what Tatiana suggested: help with the census matter," Magruder said implacably. "I want you to put together a team of ... four . . . Nev Hettekers-not all Sword, for G.o.d's sake. Til get you names. Some of them can be Merovingians of Nev Hettek descent, as long as they're good at the local dialects. We'll be working with Tatiana to make sure that her father's decree is obeyed-that everybody registers."

"Is that-good for us?"

Us. The Sword of G.o.d. "I think it sucks, but 1 can't let on. Old losef sprang this d.a.m.ned trap on everybody-probably to tame his wild children; maybe to put a leash on me. You've seen the trick, I guess, or you wouldn't have asked that question."

"Uh . . . well, if everybody's registered, then they-the government-know how many we are, and where. Whoever doesn't register is an outlaw."

"That's right, Michael. And though I can use the list of Nev Hettekers to prune the Sword factions, I already have such a list: it's the Kalugins who don't. But we've got to help, or appear to be helping. It's possible the whole thing will fail. Merovingen-below won't like the idea of queuing up and taking a number. But you come around here tomorrow, and we'll put together a team for you. It'll look good for your family-the Boregys-to take a leading part."

"All right, sir. That's if you'll square it with the College- in case I'm not really suspended for the next week-until further notice."

Chris Morris HEARTS AND MINDS.

"Fine." Chamoun hadn't lit his smoke. Magruder lit his ostentatiously and exhaled a blue cloud with obvious satisfaction.

Still, Chamoun didn't move. Magruder prodded: "Something else?"

"No, m'ser. But-"

Magruder threw Chamoun matches. The youth caught them and lit the smoke, his eyes darting everywhere but Magruder's face.

"What if," Mike Chamoun said, "Romanov's faction was ... is hooked up, somehow, with Boregy House?" His voice was trembling.

"Then you've warned me," said Magruder casuaily. "I'll check h out." The youth was probably seeing enemies everywhere. Romanov gutted on the Detfish-it was a wonder the youngster hadn't cast off and been headed home to Nev Hettek by morning. "Give your wife my best-and youf best." Magruder had other things to do, and a meeting with Tatiana for which he had to change clothes.

Merovingian etiquette was a pain in the a.s.s, time consuming and foolish. But Tatiana called the shots here, literally and figuratively. Magruder was surviving on her patronage.

And that thought made him look up at Chamoun, poised halfway to the door like a dog who didn't know whether it was going to be beaten or petted next. "Mondragon part of your problem, son?" Not that wild a guess . . .

Chamoun stared at his feet. "Sir," he said, shedding the patois so many had spent so long drilling into him, "1 gotta talk to you. About Vega Boregy and Mondragon, and what's goin* on out at Megary."

The tone of Chamoun's voice and the words he spoke told Magruder that he wasn't going to like what Chamoun said next, and that when he got to Tatiana Kalugin's dinner party, if he managed not to be late, the census was going to be the last thing on his mind.

But then, he already knew what he wanted to do about the census. What he didn't know was what he was going to do about whatever compromised position this Chamoun had got- ten himself into. But he'd do something. That was why he was the Sword's strategic officer in Merovingen. And its action officer, whenever he decided action was called for.

He said to Mike Chamoun, "Look, sonny, whatever mess you're in, we can turn it to our advantage as long as you tell me everything. There's nothing Mondragon can do we can't counter. Just trust in the Sword, and the Cause." And put your life in my hands willingly, Chamoun, because that's where it's been all along. "We're here to win the hearts and minds of these Merovingians," Magruder continued with a feral grin when Chamoun didn't respond, "and we're going to do it if we have to put the fear of sharrh in heaven into 'em."

Chance had promised Michael that he'd "be part of the Sword's t.i.t for tat," whatever that was going to be. Some sort of retribution for the census decree, Magruder had alluded. And while Chance had been talking, it occurred to Michael that both Cardinal Ito and Chance Magruder had used the phrase "hearts and minds" to him that night.

But now it didn't matter. Now he was coming up the water-gate stairs into Boregy House, and he could hear Cas-sie's tinkling laughter as he made the main floor landing.

He couldn't wait to see her. He couldn't wait to tell her about his wonderful previous life . . . not just because Mickey had been a warrior against the sharrh and a hero, but because he, Michael Chamoun, had had a previous life.

There was nothing more wonderful he could share with his new bride than the revelation that he, too, believed in reincarnation. Now they wouldn't have to avoid the topic of religion so carefully, now they could share even more together.

And although Ito had warned him not to tell anyone, not Vega Boregy or any of his ilk, surely that prohibition couldn't extend to Chamoun's wife. . . .

Ca.s.sie was in the blue room, a formal parlor, and there were other voices emanating from it. One of the liveried Boregy servants minced up to Michael and took his cloak, damp with the chill mist of imminent winter. So exhilarated 54.Chris Morris HEARTS AND MINDS.

55.by his spiritual revelation was Michael Chamoun that he smiled at the retainer, who blinked in surprise.

Normally, the Boregy servants made Chamoun so nervous and guilty that he tried to ignore them. In Nev Hettek, his parents had been barely better off than any of these menials, until the Sword had lifted them out of poverty for reasons of its own. . . .