“What do you have to do to get in touch with him?” she asked.
Austin felt the swirl of intrigue all around. He wasn’t sure he trusted Marta fully, but he had no choice with his father under Tortorelli’s thumb, the FCL being dismantled, and Manfred on the run. Manfred would know what to do once they talked this through.
“North side of the Czar Alexander Fountain,” he said.
“What’s that?” Marta came out of her own deep thought. “Oh. How you contact Manfred.” She instructed the driver to change destination. The massive limo swayed slightly as it took a corner at high speed. Otherwise, Austin had no sensation of movement as they raced through the increasingly war-torn capital.
“He’s lucky to have a friend like you,” Marta said suddenly.
“And a patron like you. How did you get him to train your refitted IndustrialMech pilots?”
Marta shrugged, her brown eyes drifting away from Austin for a moment. Then they came back to fix on his.
“Manfred is quite an impressive man. In many ways.” A small smile came to her lips.
Austin understood then how the captain of the FCL and the president of the Mirach Business Association had come to trust one another. He had overlooked the simple notion that there was more to the world than politics.
A red light flashed on the padded console arm beside Marta.
“Czar Alexander Fountain,” she said. She changed the polarization on the window next to Austin so he could look out. The huge white limo drove several times around the fountain with its towering twenty-meter-high sprays and intricate, lacy veils of tumbling water before Austin spotted the message.
Anyone passing by on the sidewalk circling the fountain might think it was only graffiti, but Austin recognized the scrawl immediately as a locator code used by the FCL during maneuvers. He deciphered the relative position and passed along instructions to the driver. The section of town where they headed looked as if the war had already been fought, leaving behind only destroyed buildings and fearful inhabitants.
Austin drummed his fingers nervously, worrying that Manfred might be dead amid this rubble. The limousine braked to a smooth stop.
“This is it, exactly four kilometers from the fountain,” the driver said on the intercom.
“Here,” Marta said to Austin, opening a small panel in the door, revealing a 10-mm pistol. He took it, jacked a round into the chamber, and held the weapon for a moment to savor the feel and balance. He didn’t recognize its make, but the operation was obvious enough.
“The clip has a mix of bullets,” Marta said. “Every third round is an explosive round. The others are armor piercing.”
“Couldn’t cut through too much,” Austin said, staring at the compact weapon. Then he reconsidered. Marta wasn’t the sort to make idle boasts.
“At close range, a full clip of those will severely wound a soldier in light battle armor.”
“I doubt it will come to that right now.” Austin slid from the limo and found himself in a strange world unlike the regal elegance of the Palace of Facets or the starkly utilitarian FCL barracks. Scents of rotting garbage and death assaulted him as much as the sight of burned-out buildings and bodies partially buried in the rubble, no one even trying to dig them free.
Austin leveled the pistol and set off, looking for the next set of instructions from Manfred—if the captain was still alive.
23
Ministry of Information, Cingulum
Mirach
3 May 3133
“What do you mean, you lost contact?” Lady Elora’s green eyes turned colder than jade as she glared at Calvilena Tortorelli. “Aren’t the devices I loaned you adequate, or were the operators inept?”
“Please, Elora, don’t be like this,” Tortorelli said, moving about the Minister’s office. He picked up knickknacks and replaced them after only cursory examination, making Elora angrier by the instant.
“How should I be, Calvy?” she asked with venom dripping from every word.
“They’ll turn up again. Where could they have gone? After all, Kinsolving has a large communications company to run and those dreary MBA meetings to attend. And who cares about Ortega’s worthless son? The Baronet does nothing but run hither and yon. He’s completely lost in the world of political infighting that you and I are so adept in. It was a fine idea I had separating him from the FCL, although I suspect he is hardly a soldier, either.”
“You forget who spearheaded the FCL attack during your so-called military exercise,” Elora said. She wished she didn’t need him to command the Home Guard. The civil unrest could be subdued quickly when he unleashed his forces, but it would come at a huge and bloody cost. Elora smiled faintly. She would be sure to assign the blame later where it belonged, after she was sure Mirach would be another shining jewel in the Clan’s sword hilt and her true worth was recognized.
She rocked back in the chair behind her vast desk. Her eyes swept across the flat expanse. Newly embedded in the surface, angled by clever lenses to follow her as she swiveled about, were a half dozen different projected images monitoring not only what was on-air but also the faces of her directors and producers as they worked. She reached forward, the ring on a bony finger clicking slightly as it touched the desktop, and brushed across a slight depression. The array of monitors changed, giving her a view on the world outside the Ministry of Information.
Tortorelli prattled on, citing how quickly the Baron had been isolated from all support, and taking credit for clever ploys she had suggested. Let him think he was in charge and not being groomed to be the eventual scapegoat. Elora was more intent on watching the renewed wave of rioting in the streets. Cingulum was torn apart by a dozen disturbances. Stripping police, support from Governor Ortega had been difficult because she had done it slowly, incrementally, so no one really noticed, least of all Sergio Ortega. He knew he was a toothless tiger now but could do nothing to retrieve control because he had lost the means of enforcing his orders.
The police had become looters and rioters themselves when Elora had planted rumors of manpower cutbacks, punishments, and huge salary cuts due to declining planetary revenues. Mirach’s economy had not weakened appreciably, but without the HPG to furnish second-to-second comparisons with other worlds in The Republic, gullible people would believe anything she told them because the news spoke to them directly every day, every night. She controlled the news and would the Minister of Information ever lie?
Elora almost laughed at how she had reported fighting on Achernar and set off another round of riots in Cingulum. She had heard only rumors from DropShip crews, but it sounded better—and served her purposes more—to report huge loss of life as if it were literal truth. Let the whispering spread.
“Can you be certain Kinsolving and the Baronet are not going to be problems?” she asked. “What of that renegade captain of yours?”
“Leclerc?” Tortorelli finished his circuit around the room, fingering all the small statues and objets d’art, then stopped in front of the huge faux window looking out across the city. Elora reached out a bejeweled hand to change the view to gauge Tortorelli’s reaction, then stopped. He didn’t care that he stared at a cleverly contrived monitor.
“You didn’t arrest him at the Borzoi. Your military police have been equally incapable of tracking him since his escape.”
“The Borzoi?” Tortorelli frowned, trying to recollect the name.
“The tavern where the MPs failed to kill him and young Ortega.”
“Was that the name?” Tortorelli shook his head. “Some officer I didn’t authorize was in charge. I am sure he was disciplined for his incompetence. It’s in the report my staff filed.”