The warlord gave a slight shrug. “Whatever you wish.” He stared at her. “A sturdy creature,” he commented. “Not to my taste at all.” He turned back to Milo. “I remember that your reputation with women in the old days assumed the dimension of mythology. One rumour that I heard later astonished even me. About a woman called, let me see, was it Miriam?”
“Miranda,” said Milo stiffly.
“Was there any truth in the rumour?”
“Yes. It was true.”
The warlord chuckled. “As I said, all is vanity, but that is taking it to extremes. What ever happened to her?”
“She died.”
“Forgive me,” the warlord inclined his head. “I see that the subject is still a sensitive one for you despite the passing of so many years. Let us talk instead of how you managed to survive all this time.”
“I got off the planet,” said Milo. “Managed to get a seat in one of the last shuttles before the off-Earth communities imposed their quarantine. Went to the Belvedere space habitat.”
“Belvedere. Ah yes, the first and biggest of the habitats,” said the warlord. “It still exists? I used to listen in on transmissions from Belvedere and the other habitats years ago but our radio equipment has long since fallen into disrepair.”
“Belvedere still exists. So do the other three habitats and the Martian colonies. The lunar colonies died out long ago. There was no way they could become self-sufficient, and the other off-Earth communities couldn’t spare the resources to assist them.”
“And how long did you stay on Belvedere?”
“As long as I could. Until I ran into the inevitable problem. The problem of being immortal, of course.”
“The Belvederians didn’t have a liberal attitude in that area?”
“On the contrary. And besides, if they discovered I was an immortal they would automatically have identified me as a high executive in one of the gene corporations or a head of state. I’d have been executed one way or the other—either as an illegal immortal or a war criminal.”
“So your solution was?” asked the warlord.
“There is regular, if not frequent, traffic between the off-Earth communities. I did a few of these trips as a volunteer crewman to one of the other space habitats—Creuse City. Then, when an opportunity came up to do a trip to the Mars colony I took it. It was a long voyage.” Milo sighed. “What I did I had to do. My survival was at stake.” He looked at the warlord. “You understand?”
“I do indeed.”
Milo glanced briefly at Jan then continued. “There were six of us on board. I was the only one to reach Mars alive. My story was that an emergency decompression—caused by a micro-meteor penetration—killed the others. I happened to be doing maintenance work in the airlock at the time and was wearing my suit. My story was believed.”
The warlord said, “But how had your situation improved? With Belvedere and the Martian colony in radio contact the Martian colonists would have known who you were and, most important, how old you were.”
“I switched identities with one of the other crew members. As far as the Belvederians were concerned I was dead.”
“And the deception was never discovered?”
Milo shook his head. “The Belvederians wanted the survivor sent back to Belvedere to take part in a court of enquiry but I asked for political asylum on Mars. There are political differences, you see, between Mars and Belvedere. The Martians refused to extradite me, saying that the results of their own enquiry on the tragedy should be enough to satisfy the Belvederians.”
“And so you remained on Mars.”
“For as long as I could,” said Milo. “Until, finally, the same problem arose. I was getting within a few years of my 200th birthday again.”
“And your solution on this occasion?”
“Much the same as before. I campaigned for an expedition to Starshine, the last of the space habitats to be established. It was to be a trading mission. We knew they had succeeded in synthesizing a wide range of drugs that we’d long ago run out of on Mars. We, on the other hand, would take them plant seeds to improve the crop strains in their hydroponic gardens. The expedition wasn’t really necessary, of course, and drained the colony of much-needed resources, but by then I had attained a position of some influence.”
The warlord gave an approving nod.
“The ship never reached Starshine,” said Milo. “I couldn’t allow it to. Starshine and Belvedere had formed an alliance. There was a lot of traffic between the two and I couldn’t take the risk of encountering someone from Belvedere or Starshine who had been alive when I’d left the habitat a hundred and sixty years before. Unlikely but a distinct, and dangerous, possibility.”
“So what misfortune befell this expedition?” asked the warlord.
“A rupture in the main fuel tank. No way could we reach Starshine, but we did have enough fuel to nudge ourselves towards the Earth and let its gravity do the rest. But the ship wasn’t designed to enter the Earth’s heavy atmosphere and broke up on the way down. I and some of the crew landed in the sea in an escape pod. We drifted a long time and the others, not possessing my, er, special qualities, died. I was picked up by a sea habitat. I lived on it until it was attacked by the Lord Pangloth and I was captured. And that’s it, until you arrived.”
Jan knew he was not telling everything. Ceri had said that it was Milo who had convinced the sea habitat people to move closer to land. Why? He must have had a reason.
The warlord considered Milo carefully. Then he said, “And during your time on the Lord Pangloth you have discovered something that you feel will be of great value to me. I confess I am curious as to its nature.”
Milo smiled at him. Jan knew that smile. It was the one she didn’t like. “Before I tell you,” said Milo, “I want to hear of your adventures over the years.”
The warlord made a nonchalant gesture with his hands. “Mr Haze, compared to you I have lived a life of infinite dullness since the Gene Wars. Once I established myself on the Perfumed Breeze, admittedly an achievement of some difficulty and much regrettable bloodshed, I was out of danger. With total power in my hands my immortality was no longer a problem. The traditional Japanese predilection for obedience towards authority worked in my favour, of course. And I helped the situation by cultivating my own modified version of Bushido which, among other things, conferred godhood upon myself. My subjects therefore expect me to be immortal. The advantage, Mr Haze, of living within a society that has culturally regressed as opposed to living with your outer space technocrats.”
“You were fortunate,” agreed Milo.
The warlord glanced in the direction of Prince Caspar’s severed head, then gestured at the long row of Aristo heads. “It is curious, is it not, that these Americanos also appeared to have regressed culturally? I am at a loss, I admit, to understand why they seem to have adopted a vaguely medieval European lifestyle when such a society would not be in the American cultural memory. Perhaps, as an Americano yourself, you can explain this mystery to me.”
“Old movies,” said Milo dismissively. “You’re right, it’s not a genuine cultural regression. All the furniture and other crap came out of old movies.” He went on to explain to the warlord about the series of fantasy ‘entertainments’ that Jan had seen.
The warlord laughed. “How typically Americano,” he said. Then he reached over to Lady Jane’s head and brushed her cheek with his fingertips.