“Your friend is drinking even now.”
Richard looked bitterly over at Hazin. But his back was turned, facing the altar, holding a burning taper to light a candle.
“Cromwell, we can play this game for the rest of the day. You can even try and kill yourself by not drinking. But I can assure you that you will be forced to drink.”
Hazin turned and smiled. “O’Donald is telling us everything-the size of your fleet, your army, types of weapons, he’ll tell us all.”
“Your spies told you already, so why torture him?” Richard snapped.
“Interesting. You seem more worried about him than yourself.”
“I know what to expect.”
“I understand your body was covered with lash scars even before the current unpleasant treatment. Were you a slave of the Bantag?”
“The Merki.”
“Even crueler. A primitive people, the Merki. It shows a certain toughness on your part.”
Richard continued to eye the decanter. It contained a swirl of color, a rainbow sparkle of light that was infinitely pleasing.
“The information we have on your Republic is old. Half a dozen or more years. After the treaty we of course sent spies in, but recent events caused my order to shift its attention elsewhere. Frankly, the appearance of your ship was a bit of a surprise for me, but in the web of things I feel there might be a use for it-and you.”
Hazin drew closer, and, pulling out a chair on the other side of the table, he sat down. Richard looked at him warily, gaze flickering to his belt, hoping to see a knife. Though all of this race had an overwhelming physical strength, they were usually slower, even a bit clumsy, and a human moving quickly could at times snatch a blade or weapon.
“I’m not armed, at least not with the type of weapons you seek,” Hazin announced dryly, as if bored with Richard’s intentions.
“What the hell do you want, then?” Richard snapped. “If poor Sean is breaking, you have what you need. I’ll just lie, and you know that. So finish it, damn you.”
Hazin chuckled softly. “Spirit. That’s why you are sitting here with me while ‘poor Sean,’ as you call him, is being questioned in a slightly different manner.”
Richard bristled, and Hazin held up his hand.
“No. The torture is finished. That was just a way of making one of the two of you pliable. You intrigue me, Cromwell. I just want to talk.”
“How did you know our names?”
“Foolish question. I expected better. Your names were written on the seams of your clothing, and both of you had your commission papers in your wallets. Poor security, flyers should never be allowed out like that. One of my Shiv recognized the name O’Donald, and I of course had heard of your father.”
Richard stiffened and lowered his eyes.
“Yes, the traitor of your Great War, Did you know him?”
“No. My mother was a Merki slave. He died when I was an infant.”
“Yet you kept his name. A certain pride there. I approve of that in anyone, of my race or of yours.”
“The Shiv?” Richard asked.
Hazin stood up and returned to the altar, then leaned against it, looking back at Richard. “The future for this world.”
“The Republic is the future. If you come after us, you will never win.”
“A loyal answer, but then, you only know of your Republic. You know nothing of us, of what we are and shall be.” Richard thought of the ship he was now on, how easily it had smashed the Gettysburg, of the man with the cold eyes who Richard sensed could kill with effortless efficiency.
“The Shiv are your future, Cromwell. Across ten generations we of my Order have been breeding humans, seeking the traits desired: physical strength, intellect, and cunning. Those who pass such traits on to the next generation are allowed to continue to breed. The others,” and he smiled, “well, they have their uses as well.”
Richard looked at him, incredulous. He knew he should feel outrage and disgust, but the damnable drug was making itself felt. The room was drifting, floating. The way the light shone through the porthole, catching Hazin’s strange blue eyes, held his attention.
“Imagine what fifty thousand such warriors could do to your army. But there does not have to be a fight. It could instead be a compromise, an understanding without needless bloodshed.”
“The Republic will never surrender, as long as Keane and those who think like him are alive.”
Hazin nodded. “Yes, I know. Just a dream of mine.” He sighed.
Strangely, Richard felt a sympathy, almost a desire to somehow please, to understand. He fought against it, trying to stay focused, to find something, anything in the room that he could fight with, to kill, to go down fighting.
“You have a remarkable strength, Cromwell. I admire that. Everyone else is far too transparent and malleable. It is actually rather boring at times.”
Hazin drew closer and remained standing, looking down at Richard.
“I could force you, I want you to know that. The Shiv are bred to the needs of my order. At five they are taken from their mothers, who offer them up gladly, and for the next fifteen years are trained mainly by those of their own race. Half die in that training for war, or for other work, or for our special purposes.”
“Special purposes?”
“We can discuss that later.”
“I give them something to believe.” He nodded to the black altar. “Combine such strength with religious belief, and you have a force that is terrifying to behold. You, unfortunately, would never believe. Always there would be the memory of childhood, of other things. I could deaden you with what is in that decanter, make you pliable for a while, but you could never be fully of them.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’ve never had the opportunity before,” Hazin replied. “It intrigues me. You are not of the Shiv, not of the millions of other humans who live among us as slaves. Being different, there must be a use for you. Focusing on that will be an interesting experiment for me.”
Richard struggled for control, to somehow avoid the eyes, the sudden thirst, the desire to let the power of the drug expand. After the war, in the rare times that he and Vasiliy had gone to Suzdal, he had seen more than one crippled veteran who had become addicted to the morphine given to them in the hospital. They would sit in a shady corner, oblivious to their squalor, drifting in dreams. Is that what they are doing to me now?
He looked back at the decanter and then, with a slow deliberate gesture, knocked it over. As the decanter fell off the table, it seemed to hang suspended. Fascinated, he watched as it ever so slowly fell, the golden container upending, crystal blue liquid gurgling out onto the dark wooden floor.
His gaze shifted to Hazin.
“No,” he whispered. “I suggest that you find your entertainment elsewhere.”
“I could make it far more painful that you could ever imagine. We could slowly cut your friend apart in front of you for starters, then turn on you.”
“Go ahead. We’re dead anyhow.” The brave words spilled out of him, even as the thought of what was to come.
Of course, he had proclaimed the usual amnesty, even praising those of the court who had so loyally served his brother. Once settled in, he could begin the quiet process of elimination and vengeance.
And yet the question of Hanaga’s survival still lingered. A survivor from Hanaga’s flagship had been fished out of the water and claimed to have seen him abandoning ship just before it had exploded.
It would be like him to survive,” Yasim muttered, looking over at the slight diminutive form wrapped in the white and gold robe of the Grand Master.
“And which ship did he flee to?”
“The sailor did not know.”
“Undoubtedly one of ours.”
“One of yours?”
The Grand Master chuckled. “But of course. Don’t you think there is more than one captain of a ship who is secretly a member of our order?”
Yasim looked over nervously at the Grand Master. “You said that Hazin was reliable, that he would fulfill the contract.”