An Enemy of the State lf-1 Read online

  The man inhaled deeply, held the air, then let it out slowly, hoping to ease some of his inner tension. The maneuver failed. His personal misho, sitting on the window sill, responded to the tension it sensed coiled like a spring within him and held its trunk straight up from its earthenware container in a rigid chokkan configuration. Turning his head toward the twisting, leaping, gyrating shadows behind him, the man opened his mouth to speak but no words came forth. He suddenly wanted out of the whole thing. This was not in the plan. He wanted out. But that was impossible. A course of action had been started, wheels had been set in motion, people had been placed in sensitive and precarious positions. He had to follow through. It would be years before the plan came to fruition, but the actions of a single man tonight could destroy everything. He had to be stopped.

  The blond man swallowed and found his throat dry.

  “Time to go.”

  The shadows stopped moving.

  IN PRE-IMPERIUM DAYS it had been called Earth Hall and the planet on which it sat had been known as Caelum. Came the revolution and “Earth” was replaced by “Freedom,” Caelum renamed Throne, seat of the new Outworld Imperium. The hall's vaulted ceiling, however, remained decorated in the original pattern of constellations as seen from the motherworld, and it was toward those constellations that the climate adjusters pulled the hot fetid air generated by the press of bodies below.

  Den Broohnin didn't mind the heat, nor the jostling celebrants around him. His mind was occupied with other matters. He kept to the rear of the crowd, an easy thing to do since everyone else in Freedom Hall was pushing toward the front for a better look at Metep VII. It was Insurrection Day, anniversary of the out-worlds’ break with Earth. Broohnin blended easily with the crowd. He stood an average one-point-eight meters tall and wore his black hair and beard close-cropped in the current Throne fashion. His build was heavy, tending toward paunchy; his one-piece casual suit had a grimy, worn appearance. A single distinguishing feature was a triangular, thumbnail-sized area of scar tissue on his right cheek, which could have resulted from a burn or a laceration; only Broohnin knew it had resulted from the crude excision of a patch of Nolevatol rot by his father when he was five years old.

  The good citizens around him did not notice that his attention, unlike theirs, was not on the dais. Metep VII, “Lord of the Outworlds,” was making the annual Insurrection Day speech, the 206th such speech, and Broohnin was certain that this one would be no different from all the others he had suffered through over the years. His attention was riveted instead on one of the ornate columns that lined the sides of Freedom Hall. There was a narrow ledge between the columns and the outer wall, and although he could detect no movement, Broohnin knew that one of his guerrillas was up there preparing to end the career and the life of Metep VII.

  Hollowing out the upper section of one of those columns had been no easy task. Constructed of the Throne equivalent of granite, it had taken a high-energy cutting beam three days to carve out a man-sized niche. The huge amphitheater was reserved for rare state occasions and deserted most of the time; still, it had been nerve-wracking to sneak four men and the necessary equipment in and out on a daily basis.

  Yesterday morning the chosen assassin had been sealed into the niche, now lined with a thermoreflective epoxy. He had a small supply of food, water, and air. When the Imperial security forces did an infra-red sweep of the hall on Insurrection Day morning, he went unnoticed.

  He was out of the niche now, his joints flexing and extending in joyous relief as he assembled his lightweight, long-focus energy rifle. Today had to be the day, he told himself. Metep had been avoiding the public eye lately; and the few times he did appear, he was surrounded by deflectors. But now, on Insurrection Day, he was allowing himself a few minutes out in the open for tradition's sake. And the assassin knew those moments had to be put to use. Metep had to die…it was the only way to bring down the Imperium.

  He had no worry for himself. It was Broohnin's contention, and he agreed, that the man who killed Metep would have little fear of official reprisals. The whole Imperium would quickly fall apart and he would be acclaimed a hero at best, or lost in the mad scuffle at worst. Either way, he would come out of the whole affair in one piece-if he could kill Metep before the guards found him.

  He affixed a simple telescopic sight. The weapon was compatible with the most up-to-date autosighter, but that idea had been vetoed because of the remote possibility that even the minute amount of power used by such an attachment might set off a sensor and alert the security force to his presence. Sliding into a prone position, he placed the barrel's bipod brace on the edge of the narrow ledge. Metep stood sixty meters ahead of him. This would be easy-no adjustments for distance, no leading the target. The proton beam would travel straight and true at the speed of light.

  The assassin glanced down at the crowd. The forward part of his body was visible-barely so-only to those at the far side of the hall, and they were all looking at the dais. Except for one…he had an odd sensation that whenever he glanced at the crowd, someone down there snapped his or her head away. It couldn't be Broohnin-he was at the back of the hall waiting for Metep's death. No, somebody had spotted him. But why no alarm? Perhaps it was a sympathizer down there, or someone who took him for a member of the security force.

  Better get the whole thing over with. One shot…that was all it would take, all he would get. Alarms would go off as soon as he activated his rifle's energy chamber and scanners would triangulate his position in microseconds; security forces would move in on him immediately. One shot, and then he would have to scramble back into his niche in the column. But Metep would be dead by then, a neat little hole burned through his brain.

  Almost against his will, he glanced again to his right, and again experienced the uncanny sensation that someone on the fringe of the crowd down there had just turned his head away. But he could not pinpoint the individual. He had a feeling it could be one of the people near the wall…male, female, he couldn't say.

  Shrugging uncomfortably, he faced forward again and set his right eye into the sight, swiveled ever so slightly…there! Metep's face-fixed smile, earnest expression-trapped in the crosshairs. As he lifted his head from the sight for an instant's perspective, he felt a stinging impact on the right side of his throat. Everything was suddenly red…his arms, his hands, the weapon…all bright red. Vision dimmed as he tried to raise himself from the now slippery ledge, then it brightened into blazing white light, followed by total, eternal darkness.

  A woman in the crowd below felt something wet on her left cheek and put a hand up to see what it was. Her index and middle fingers came away sticky and scarlet. Another large drop splattered on her left shoulder, then a steady crimson stream poured over her. The ensuing screams of the woman and others around her brought the ceremony to a halt and sent Metep VII scurrying from the dais.

  A telescoping platform was brought in from the maintenance area and raised to the ledge. To the accompaniment of horrified gasps from the onlookers, the exsanguinated corpse of the would-be assassin and his unused weapon were lowered to the floor. The cause of death was obvious to all within view: a hand-sized star-shaped disk edged with five curved blades had whirled into the man's throat and severed the right carotid artery.

  As the body was being trucked away, an amplified voice announced that the remainder of the evening's program was canceled. Please clear the hall. Imperial guards, skilled at crowd control, began to herd the onlookers toward the exits.

  Broohnin stood fast in the current, his eyes fixed on his fallen fellow guerrilla as the crowd eddied past.

  “Who did this?” he muttered softly under his breath. Then louder. “Who did this!”

  A voice directly to his right startled him. “We don't know who's behind these assassination attempts, sir. But we'll find them, have no fear of that. For now, though, please keep moving.”

  It was one of the Imperial Guard, a young one, who had overheard and misunderstood him, a
nd was now edging him into the outward flow. Broohnin nodded and averted his face. His underground organization was unnamed and unknown. The Imperium was not at all sure that a unified revolutionary force even existed. The incidents-the bombings, the assassination attempts on Metep-had a certain random quality about them that led the experts to believe that they were the work of unconnected malcontents. The sudden rash of incidents was explained as me-tooism: one terrorist act often engendered others.

  Still, he kept his face averted. Never too careful. Breaking from the crowd as soon as he reached the cool dark outside, Broohnin headed for Imperium Park at a brisk pace. He spat at the sign that indicated the name of the preserve.

  Imperium! he thought. Everything has “Imperium” or “Imperial” before it! Why wasn't everyone else on the planet as sick of those words as he was?

  He found his brooding tree and seated himself under it, back against the bole, legs stretched out before him. He had to sit here and control himself. If he stayed on his feet, he would do something foolish like throwing himself into the lake down at the bottom of the hill. Holding his head back against the firmness of the keerni tree behind him, Den Broohnin closed his eyes and fought the despair that was never very far away. His life had been one long desperate fight against that despair and he felt he would lose the battle tonight. The blackness crept in around the edges of his mind as he sat and tried to find some reason to wait around for tomorrow.

  He wanted to cry. There was a huge sob trapped in his chest and he could not find a way to release it.

  The revolution was finished. Aborted. Dead. His organization was bankrupt. The tools for hollowing out the column had drained their financial reserves; the weapon, purchased through underground channels, had dried them up completely. But every mark would have been well spent were Metep VII dead now.

  Footsteps on the path up from the lake caused Broohnin to push back the blackness and part his eyelids just enough for a look. A lone figure strolled aimlessly along, apparently killing time. Broohnin closed his eyes briefly, then snapped them open again when he heard the footsteps stop. The stroller had halted in front of him, waiting to be noticed.

  “Den Broohnin, I believe?” the stranger said once he was sure he had Broohnin's attention. His tone was relaxed, assured, the words pronounced with an odd nasal lilt that was familiar yet not readily identifiable. The man was tall-perhaps five or six centimeters taller than Broohnin-slight, with curly, almost kinky blond hair. He had positioned himself in such a manner that the light from the nearest gloglobe shone over his right shoulder, completely obscuring his facial features. A knee-length cloak further blunted his outline.

  “How do you know my name?” Broohnin asked, trying to find something familiar about the stranger, something that would identify him. He drew his legs under him and crouched, ready to spring. There was no good reason for this man to accost him in Imperium Park at this hour. Something was very wrong.

  “Your name is the very least of my knowledge.” Again, that tantalizing accent. “I know you're from Nolevatol. I know you came to Throne twelve standard years ago and have, in the past two, directed a number of assassination attempts against the life of the current Metep. I know the number of men in your little guerrilla band, know their names and where they live. I even know the name of the man who was killed tonight.”

  “You know who killed him, then?” Broohnin's right hand had slipped toward his ankle as the stranger spoke, and now firmly grasped the handle of his vibe-knife.

  The silhouette of the stranger's head nodded. “One of my associates. And the reason for this little meet is to inform you that there will be no more assassination attempts on Metep VII.”

  In a single swift motion, Broohnin pulled the weapon from its sheath, activated it, and leaped to his feet. The blade, two centimeters wide and six angstroms thick, was a linear haze as it vibrated at 6,000 cycles per second. It had its limitations as a cutting tool, but certainly nothing organic could resist it.

  “I wonder what your ‘associates’ will think,” Broohnin said through clenched teeth as he approached the stranger in a half-crouch, waving the weapon before him, “when they find your head at one end of Imperium Park and your body at the other?”

  The man shrugged. “I'll let them tell you themselves.”

  Broohnin suddenly felt himself grabbed by both arms from behind. The vibe-knife was deftly removed from his grasp as he was slammed back against the tree and held there, stunned, shaken, and utterly helpless. He glanced right and left to see two figures, a male and a female, robed in black. The hair of each was knotted at the back and a red circle was painted in the center of each forehead. All sorts of things hung from the belts that circled their waists and crossed their chests. He felt a sudden urge to retch. He knew what they were…he'd seen holos countless times.

  Flinters!

  CHAPTER TWO

  There used to be high priests to explain the ways of the king-who was the state-to the masses. Religion is gone, and so are kings. But the state remains, as do the high priests in the guise of Advisers, Secretaries of Whatever Bureau, public relations people, and sundry apologists. Nothing changes.

  from THE SECOND BOOK OF KYFHO

  Metep VII slumped in his high-back chair at the head of the long conference table. Four other silent men sat in similar but smaller chairs here and there along the length of the table, waiting for the fifth and final member of the council of advisers to arrive. The prim, crisp executive image had fallen away from the “Lord of the Outworlds.” His white brocade coat was fastened only halfway up, and his dark brown hair, tinged with careful amounts of silver, was sloppily pushed off his forehead. The sharply chiseled facial features sagged now with fatigue as he rubbed the reddened, irritated whites of his blue eyes. He was one very frightened man.

  The walls, floor, and ceiling were paneled with keerni wood; the conference table, too, was constructed of that grainy ubiquitous hardwood. Metep II, designer of this particular room, had wanted it that way. To alter it would be to alter history. And so it remained.

  Forcing himself to relax, he leaned back and let his gaze drift toward the ceiling where holographic portraits of his six predecessors were suspended in mid-air. It came to rest on Metep I.

  Anyone ever try to kill you? he mentally asked the rugged, lifelike face.

  Metep I's real name had been Fritz Renders. A farmer by birth, revolutionary by choice, he had led his ragtag forces in a seemingly hopeless assault against the Earth governorship headquartered here on Throne-then called Caelum-and had succeeded. Fritz Renders had then declared the out-worlds independent of Earth, and himself “Lord of the Outworlds.” That was 206 years ago today, the first Insurrection Day. The rest of the colonials on other planets rose up then and threw out their own overseers. Earth's day of absentee landlordship over her star colonies was over. The Outworld Imperium was born.

  It was an empire in no sense of the word, however. The colonials would not stand for such a thing. But the trappings of a monarchy were felt to be of psychological importance when dealing with Earth and the vast economic forces based there. The very name, Outworld Imperium, engendered a sense of permanence and monolithic solidarity. Nominally at least, it was not to be trifled with.

  In actuality, however, the Imperium was a simple democratic republic which elected its leader to a lifelong term-with recall option, of course. Each leader took the title of Metep and affixed the proper sequential number, thereby reinforcing the image of power and immutability.

  How things had changed, though. The first council meeting such as this had taken place in the immediate post-revolutionary period and had been attended by a crew of hard-bitten, hard-drinking revolutionaries and the radical thinkers who had gravitated to them. And that was the entire government.

  Now look at it: in two short centuries the Outworld Imperium had grown from a handful of angry, victorious interstellar colonials into a…business. Yes, that's what it was: A business. But one that produced not
hing. True, it employed more people than any other business in the out-worlds; and its gross income was certainly much larger, though income was not received in free exchange for goods or services, but rather through taxation. A business…one that never showed a profit, was always in the red, continually borrowing to make up deficits.

  A rueful smile briefly lit Metep VII's handsome middle-aged face as he followed the train of thought to its end: lucky for this business that it controlled the currency machinery or it would have been bankrupt long ago!

  His gaze remained fixed on the portrait of Metep I, who in his day had known everyone in the entire government by face and by name. Now…the current Metep was lucky if he knew who was in the executive branch alone. It was a big job, being Metep. A high-pressure job, but one with enough power and glory to suit any man. Some said the position had come to hold more power than a good man would want and an evil man would need. But those were the words of the doom-and-gloomers who dogged every great man's heels. He had power, yes, but he didn't make all the decisions. All the civilized out worlds, except for a few oddball societies, sent representatives to the legislature. They had nominal power…nuisance value, really. The real power of the out-worlds lay with Metep and his advisers on the Council of Five. When Haworth arrived, the true decision-makers of the Imperium would all be in this one room.

  All in all, it was a great life, being Metep. At least until recently…until the assassination attempts had started. There had been one previous attempt on a Metep-back when the legal tender laws were being enforced by Metep IV-but that had been a freak incident; a clerk in the agriculture bureau had been passed over at promotion time and laid all blame on the presiding Metep.