“Did you land with us?” asked Marten, sick of behind-the-lines policemen.
“I’m not an animal that grubs among the beasts,” Neon said, outraged.
“Enough,” said Tan.
“But Your Excellency—” Neon said, turning toward her.
“I have spoken,” said Tan.
Neon stiffened, and the twin spots of color reappeared on his cheeks. After a half-second’s delay, he flicked his right hand at the myrmidons. They spread out in the corridor and then crouched low, ready like defensive robots.
“Are you expecting trouble?” Marten asked.
“Order your bodyguard back to his quarters,” said Tan. “Then tell him to disarm. You may give your sidearm to him as well.”
“…Not just yet,” Marten said.
Arbiter Neon’s head swiveled toward him. The man placed his hand on his palm-pistol.
“I have given you an order,” Tan said.
“We’re still in a combat zone,” Marten said. “Soldiers don’t disarm under those conditions.”
“You dare to engage me in a dialogue?” asked Tan.
“I’m a soldier and this is a combat zone. That means—”
“All the cyborgs are dead,” said Tan. “You will obey me at once.”
Marten didn’t like the direction of the conversation. His only true friends had died or waited aboard the Erasmus, the handful of space marines that had endured two battles against the cyborgs with him. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what Osadar had been trying to tell him. He’d been too busy fighting a war to worry about the peace. That might have been a mistake.
“Chief Strategist,” Marten said. “I request your permission to keep my sidearm. If you refuse, I will relinquish my command and return at once to the Erasmus.”
“You are in no position to give me terms,” Tan said.
Suddenly, Marten was weary of the bickering. It reminded him of Major Orlov, of Training Master Lycon and Arbiter Octagon, of everyone who’d tried to tell him what to think.
“I’m not giving you terms,” Marten said. “I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”
“You will adjust your tone while addressing me,” said Tan.
Marten squinted at the small woman. She controlled the bulk of the military vessels in this planetary system. She was the de facto ruler. But Marten no longer cared. She was playing games he didn’t understand, and through the arbiter, she’d just tried to disarm them.
“Did you wish to see me?” Marten asked.
Tan’s mouth grew firm, and three seconds passed. “Your bodyguard will return to his room.”
“And?” asked Marten.
“And you and I shall speak within,” said Tan.
“Sure,” Marten said, recognizing that she’d dropped any reference to his disarming, at least for now. He’d won this round. Now he’d have to make sure he walked out of her chamber a free man.
-5-
In Tan’s chamber, a statue mused in a corner. The statue depicted a fawn of a woman with wisps of cloth heightening her semi-nudity. The statue stared into an unseen distance, as if thoughtfully concerned over the fate of the world. A golden lyre hung on a wall, as did several faint, brushstroke paintings. Brown and teal silk hung from the ceiling in a complex pattern of loops.
Tan knelt on a cushion before a low table. On the table was a small dispensary, with a silver chalice beside it. Smoothing her robe, Tan indicated that Marten should sit across from her. Then she picked up the chalice and pressed a button on the dispensary. A blue pill appeared. With tiny fingers, Tan slipped the pill onto her tongue, sipping it down with wine.
Feeling like a giant, Marten sat cross-legged on a cushion. He had to adjust his holster to do so. The table was metallic and smooth, with controls near Tan’s hands. No doubt, she could project images on it.
“You leave me in a quandary,” said Tan.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“It would trouble me if you did,” said Tan, sipping more wine.
“I don’t want to give you trouble,” Marten said. “Look, you’ve just destroyed the last cyborgs in the system. You should be rejoicing. Then you should figure out how to take the fight to the enemy.”
“Ah,” she said, setting the chalice onto the table without making a sound. “You reached that conclusion even faster than I’d expected you to do. But then, you are a monomaniac.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The obvious: that you’re a single-minded soldier. I might add that you thrive on mayhem, on chaos and instability.”
“You call fighting to stay alive mayhem?”
“I’ve studied you, Marten Kluge. You’re more than a soldier. You are a killer, an atavistic throwback to man’s earliest times. You would have done well in a suit of armor on a horse and with a sword.”
“If this is about the kidnapping—”
“You once laid hands on my person,” said Tan, with a trace of emotion. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten the event.”
“Good. Then you’ll also remember that you planned to go to Athena Station. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have unknowingly given yourself to the cyborgs.”
Tan smiled indulgently. “You claim to have kidnapped me for my greater good?”
“Chief Strategist,” said Marten.
Tan held up a small hand. “That day, your actions were beneficial to me. I concede you the point. No. This meeting has nothing to do with that. The cyborgs invaded our system, destroyed three-fourths of our society and then perished under our retaliatory strikes.”
“I helped kill the cyborgs.”
“Killing to you is as eating is to a glutton,” said Tan.
Marten banged the table with a fist. “I resent that.”
“Now your barbarism is on display.”
“This is just great,” said Marten. “Everywhere I go, people try to kill me or try to force me to accept their beliefs. They don’t ever consider that I might want to run my own life.”
“I’m sure every killer espouses a similar doctrine.”
“I’m tired of you calling me a killer. You’re the killer.”
Tan smiled faintly. “Your dialogue lacks grace and wit. It is a sophomoric verbal assault. Undoubtedly, it’s the reason you’re so quick to resort to physical violence.”
Marten’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one using genetically-warped policemen. I thought you Jovians had stopped using myrmidons. When did that change?”
Tan’s manner intensified as she stared at him.
It allowed Marten a good look at her eyes, at their dilatation. There was a glassy sheen to them, perhaps a side effect of the blue pill. It made him pause and wonder what it would be like orchestrating the war against the cyborgs. They were cunning, ruthless enemies. Yet Tan had made some brilliant guesses these past months, and she had outmaneuvered the guiding cyborg intelligence. Marten had never considered what that kind of high-level pressure might do to a person. He’d heard how the controllers of Europa and Ganymede constantly argued with Tan, and how the Helium-3 Barons tried to interfere with military matters.
“I congratulate you on your victory,” Marten said abruptly.
Tan appeared not to hear.
“The cyborgs were clever,” he added.
Leaning toward him, Tan clutched the table’s edge. “Clever, you say. They were brilliant.”
“Yet you beat them.”
A line creased Tan’s otherwise smooth forehead. It heightened her beauty. Then she eased back so she rested her butt on her heels. Turning her head, she looked at the golden lyre.
“They destroyed us,” she whispered. “They killed the most superior form of life in the Solar System, and by that I mean the Dictates. Yes, I crushed them as one would a spider. As the last philosopher-queen of Callisto, it was my solemn duty to do so. Yet what have I achieved? Renewed life of the perfected form?” She shook her head slowly.
“The war was brutal,” Marten said.
Tan stopped shaking her head to regard him. “Banality is your strong suit.”