Section Thirty-Two: Meeting with Lord Stern
Ronnie did not like the plan. Captain Star Runner did not like the plan. The Czarina and Captain Kidd were not encouraging about the plan. Gyllian did not ask Christabel what she thought of the plan. She suspected Christabel would side with Captain Star Runner. To tell the truth, Gyllian was not wild about the plan either, but no better plan had emerged. The four companions would be released by the Afternoon of the Faun River so they could easily make their way home. Gyllian would meet Ronnie in Lord Stern’s office.
When Captain Star Runner presented this plan to the four companions, Hollis cried out, “I cannot go back. She wants to kill me. Please let me stay.”
No one was prepared for this response. Ronnie thought Hollis would be tired of being away from his comfortable life and by now Lord Stern would have found a way for Hollin to refrain from poisoning him.
Quick thinking because she was an AI, Christabel told Star to ask, “Are you seeking asylum aboard this ride?”
“Please let me stay,” Hollis repeated. “I will not be any trouble. I’ll just stay down here and not bother you.”
By then Gyllian was able to say, “Tell him he can stay for a few days, no more.”
Shielding Hollis from the other human beings on board would become increasingly difficult. No one thought complete isolation would be beneficial to the boy who was used to other people doing his bidding and taking care of him.
Star granted temporary asylum. Gwennore wanted to stay, too, but Star insisted she return to her observing. Star praised her for her work thus far. This delighted Gwennore. The Czarina had proposed giving Gwennore a pin to wear and had designed one. Star gave it to her and Gwennore proudly affixed it to her jump suit. Star also presented her with a stylized picture of a Pantheran. Ronnie recognized it as based on a famous Pantheran statue which appeared on many video clips and as a common image depicting The Race.
Teddy smirked at them all. Ronnie watched him carefully. She was anxious that he meant her harm. In Gillian’s opinion, Teddy did not see Ronnie as a threat nor did he have much investment in her except as a cover for his own actions.
Ronnie and Gyllian agreed on the time where they should meet to see Lord Stern.
The meeting did not go well. Lord Stern objected to every proposal either woman presented. He did not believe Teddy was a member of The Rebel Horde. He did not believe the residents at 202 Green Street excepting Ronnie were agents of the Pantheran Empire. He did not want Hollis to stay aboard Gillian’s spaceship while things were sorted out with his sister. He assured Gyllian that the Three Planets Alliance was secure and no Pantheran incursion was imminent. Ronnie began to wonder if Lord Stern was a Pantheran agent but she saw no way to communicate that to Gyllian while they were at the meeting. Finally, Lord Stern insisted Ronnie discover who they should arrest for the murder of the swan, Gyllian lost her patience.
She said, “Ms. Camberwell is a trusted member of my team. She would never, never hurt an animal. She never saw a swan until she came to Marathon. I think you should look closer to home, Lord Stern. We have identified a member of The Rebel Horde who has the motive, the means and the opportunity to kill the swan, implicate Ms. Camberwell with the item I gave you and put the message there. In fact, i am sure he is the one who you sent to place Ms. Camberwell’s case there. You said you were interested in establishing a relationship with the rest of humanity here in the western galactic arm. I see no evidence of that willingness. I think the organization I represent needs to look elsewhere. As for Prince Hollis–”
Here Ronnie interrupted before Gyllian could release Hollis to his fate. “Hollis has asked for asylum. We will review his request in the next few days to determine its validity and to confirm it is what he wants to do.”
Gyllian did not hesitate.
“That is our procedure,” she confirmed. “He may lose his royal status with us, but he is young and has great opportunities before him.”
“Prince Hollis is needed here,” Lord Stern insisted.
“So that he can be a pawn in his sister’s sick schemes?” Ronnie asked. “This is not a fairy tale where the evil queen gets to do things to our hero so he can prove himself. Hollis is young and vulnerable.”
“Which is why he should not be aboard your ship,” Lord Stern shot back.
“We have him isolated from the rest of the crew,” Gyllian assured him. “He has seen the Pantheran, of course, but not the other humans and me.”
“His supposed death is a fake,” Lord Stern said, trying to get hold of his emotions.
“Does he know this? I don’t think so,” Gyllian said.
Lord Stern sighed. “It is how it is done. The young prince ‘dies” to the public. This allows him to remove himself from the public eye and learn how to govern. Hollin to take over all public activities in her own right and concentrate on public relations. Hollis will work in the background. I did that before him. When he is ready, he will take over from me. Unfortunately, my sister died in a boating accident and that meant we had to rush Hollin into the role. She doesn’t completely understand it yet and is making some colossal mistakes. I need the flexibility to work this through." Again Lord Stern sighed.
“Then we have a perfect opportunity to educate Hollis,” Gyllian said, not missing a beat."
Lord Stern dismissed her suggestion with a wave of his hand. “moving forward is generally a good idea, but we have thousands of years of tradition. It will not change on my watch.” But, of course, it did.
Section Thirty-Three: The Rebel Horde Takes Action
The explosions started soon after our meeting with Lord Stern. They started on the eastern coast of the continent and worked their way west. The Royal Province of Debussy on La Mer is on the west coast. It took only a few hours for anything to happen here. The Royal Province of Barbara of Portugal sustained the worst damage. What surprised us all was how much damage was done to the area I had thought was the Democracy of Rock and Roll. From what Teddy had hinted, I thought perhaps this was the home of The Rebel Horde, but Captain Star Runner, who was monitoring all the communications traffic, said this was not true. We speculated that The Rebel Horde wanted to trigger either an earthquake or a volcanic eruption or even a tsunami. Nothing of the kind occurred. The Royal Province of Barbara of Portugal fell. The Royal Province of Telemann went offline and it was months before anyone knew for sure what had happened. The Duchy of Scarlatti became the central contact point for The Rebel Horde. It is to the northeast of the Royal Province of Debussy on La Mer. This meant Lord Stern mobilized to contain them so that their activities would not spill over the border and affect valuable agricultural areas.
The explosions change everything. Gyllian intended to return to the ride after our meeting, but when the explosions started, Captain Star Runner blasted off into space. Although we were in direct communication with her and Christabel and the others, Star was unwilling to set the ride back down on the ground.. Gyllian and I returned to my room at 202 Green Street. We would have to do together what I was supposed to do on my own. Although I consider myself a fairly brave person, I was thankful Gyllian took over my role. I maintained a lookout while she went up the stairs to Daniel s’s attic room. To my horror, Daniels returned and I engaged him in a brief conversation to at least let Gyllian know he was coming. After he left me, I stepped inside my room, but listened at the door. I heard Daniels moving about but nothing else.
I wondered how Gyllian managed to hide and how long she would have to stay hidden. There was a tap at my window. I turned around to see Gyllian crouching on my fire escape. I quickly moved to the window and let her in. Fortunately, she had worn her coat but she was quite cold. As usual, the fire on the hearth was very weak and I had not replenished the coal to make a hotter fire. Gyllian gestured that I should fetch my coat.
We crept down the stairs and out onto the street. I decided it would be dangerous to frequent the Green Street Tea Room. Gyllian had already removed some bugs from my room. Instead we took an omnibus to a better section of town. Gyllian and I stopped at a shop and I bought a better coat. Gyllian was for throwing my old one into a rubbish container, but I found a charity shop and left it there. There was still some wear in it and it would keep another poor soul warm for the rest of the winter. Not much conversation passed between us until we found a noisy eatery where we gratefully ordered hot food and drink. We could finally talk in our corner booth.
“How did you get out?” I asked.
Gyllian replied, “Through the window. It is set up as an escape route. I don’t think he’ll know I was up there.”
“And from the window you went–” I prompted.
“Onto the roof. Then I went to the neighbor’s roof which is a bit lower and from there to one fire escape after another. I was really glad there is one outside your window.”
I shivered. “Scary,” I said.
“I was worried about ice,” Gyllian confided. “Fortunately, I did not run into any.”
“Did you have time to see anything?”
“Lots. No wonder you found him creepy. There’s a lot of of pornography scattered about. Not just pornography but torture as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to find snuff there as well.”
Again I shivered. Daniels was a nasty piece of work.
“And I saw communications equipment,” Gyllian went on. “Some of it appears to be local. I think he is tapping into the local communications network. That means he is listening in on all royal traffic internally and between the provinces. I also saw Pantheran technology. It is very old technology like the device Gwennore had.”
“So we have a link between Pantheran technology and local communications,” I said.
“You have it in one,” Gyllian agreed. “I think Daniels is a smuggler, too. There’s lots of stuff all over that attic. If Gwennore and the landlady Farnesworth are both involved, there must be goods stashed everywhere.”
“We could report it,” I said hesitantly, “but in the current emergency, I doubt anyone would pay any mind.”
“A smugglers dream come true,” Gyllian said, finishing off her tea and pouring another cup from the pot between us.
“the part I cannot figure out,” Ronnie said, “is how the Pantherans contacted these people.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Gyllian said. “I think I have been working under a false assumption.”
Ronnie looked interested. Gyllian rarely made mistakes. She even more rarely admitted them.
“Here’s what I think,” Gyllian said. “i thought our coming here tipped the Pantherans off. That is why I have been watching their military movements–well, I’d be watching them anyway–but I’ve been worried that they followed us here and it was my investigation of The Big Dig that alerted the Empire to these three human settled planets. Now I’m wondering if that is true at all.”
“Say more,” I said to encourage this exposition.
“Suppose the Pantherans have known for some time that these settled planets existed. Suppose their incursion into the Pharaoh Star System wasn’t to learn where the people from The Big Dig had gone, but to keep us from finding them. The locked insertion point was to keep us out. They knew all along how to get here. When we got through, they acted as if they did not know how to get here. Maybe they’ve been here for some time, watching. The technology is old because they’ve been watching for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years.”
“Do you think they would wait so long to do anything?” I asked.
“The Pantheran Empire has been around for tens of thousands of years,” Gyllian said. “What’s a few thousand to a race that believes it will always be dominant. The Pantherans cannot conceive anyone will ever defeat them. Oh,” she put up a hand to keep me from interrupting, “I suspect there are a few gendered Pantherans who have a better understanding of the rise and fall of civilizations, but the rank-and-file Pantherans, mostly of which are ungendered, believe in Pantheran hegemony forever. Star does. Star is a prime example of their educational system I am sure.”
“So what are the Pantherans doing here?”
“Causing instability,” Gyllian replied. “They are keeping The Three Planet Alliance backward. They can still travel between their planets, but they cannot leave the area. They cannot contact the rest of humanity. They stay frozen in time more or less. One way or another they’ll recover from this most recent upheaval. Maybe the provinces will abandon royal rule or maybe they’ll reinstate it. Maybe they will join together under one leader or maybe there will be a descent into a more chaotic period, but they will not become a space faring entity to change the balance of power anywhere. The smaller space faring races will not have any interest in combining with them to challenge the more established space faring groups like the Fungusian Network or the Featherote Charm or the Alliance of Planets. Queens land isn’t interested in them nor would the Republic of Space pay them any mind. The Seven Sacred Worlds isn’t sending out any evangelists at the moment either.”
It sounded convincing but it wasn’t what we had said earlier so I said, “I thought we thought the Pantherans were set on total annihilation.”
“That fit the facts at the time,” Gyllian said. She could certainly shift her position and be convincing. “Seeing all that gear in Daniels’ room leads me to think otherwise. It’s diabolical. Eventually their space faring ability will wither. They will run out of resources to fabricate anything electronic and they will revert to an agrarian society which will be subject to plagues, famines and wars. In short, they will become less human and it is all because they left what we call the Coalition. If I’m right,” and here she leaned across the table, “we all have greatly underestimated the Pantheran mind set. We’re used to dealing with the ungendered. The ungendered who are engineered to be politicians and diplomats are excellent. They play their cards close to the vest. They wield and deal marvelously. I have also dealt with their military intelligence. They are bright, devious, and all of them are very shrewd. Their traders drive a hard bargain,. Their star runners are the best pilots any race knows. But we don’t know the rulers, the big decision-makers. We never see them. We would hardly know they exist except for propaganda fed to the Race as a whole. What I think I now know is they play a very long game. It is something I need to take back to the Alliance and the Solar League. We need to do some hard thinking and a lot of research. There is a mind at work here which is prepared to watch and wait. Christabel may be able to learn something from the satellite which can change my mind or confirm my suspicions. We’ll just have to see.”
I thought about my lovable Captain Star Runner and what Gyllian had said. Star thought herself clever, but basically she was an open book, able to be easily deceived and at times manipulated, especially by people like Colonel Gyllian Romeres Lujo. That said, it would be a major mistake to expect all Pantherans were like Star. After all, Star had done something no other ungendered Pantheran had done, at least that we knew of. Star had revolted against termination and gone out on her own. No other ungendered Pantheran had successfully done such a thing as far as anyone else knew of. Perhaps it was being a fuchsia-colored Pantheran that had made this possible. Perhaps Star had a more influential role to play in the history of the Pantheran Empire. Perhaps, as Star often said, the rarity of fuchsia-colored members of The Race simply invited myth making.
My thought process was interrupted by a crowd gathering around a patterer. Patrons in the eatery were leaving their tables to hear the news. It must be important. I rose from my chair.
“What’s going on?” Gyllian asked.
“There is news,” I said. “Come and we’ll hear.”
We left the restaurant and joined the crowd.
“What is this?” Gyllian asked.
“Most people in Capital City cannot read a newspaper. There is no video or audio communications so individuals retell the news. They are called patterers and they make news telling an art form. People toss them coins if their performance is worthy or the news is important. Basically, they work for tips.”
We could not see the patterer but we could hear her.
Disaster. Disaster. Weep and wail. Lord Stern killed by the sword. Valiant. Courageous. A credit to our queen.
~ The patterer’s tribute to the now deceased Lord Stern was interrupted by a mighty explosion. People in the crowd cried out. There was pushing and shoving. People went down. Some were trampled.
“It’s the Royal precincts,” people were shouting. “The Royal Precincts have been hit. The Royal Precincts have been destroyed.”
Gyllian grabbed my arm.
She said, “Come with me. Hurry.”
We ran. Most people ran away from the river. Most people put as much distance between themselves and the fire which raged where the great edifice which was the Royal Precincts now burned. Large sections of the great stone work had fallen away. Some of it fell into the Afternoon of the Faun River. Other parts fell back inside the Royal Precincts. I wondered how many people were either dead or trapped beneath those mighty stones.
“I hope one of the bridges is still in tact,” Gyllian panted.
“Come this way,” I said, taking control of the direction of our run. The bridge further up the river may still be there. Besides, there may be a boat we can snag.
I was right. One of the bridges near the more expensive neighborhoods was still standing. People were rushing to and fro but we fought our way across.
“Which way to the Royal Gardens?” Gyllian asked, still breathless.
I pointed.
When we dashed through the gates, Gyllian stopped to signal the ship.
“We have to get out of here,” Gyllian told either Star or Christabel. “The city will be in chaos soon. We’ll try to find Hollin. I think I know where she is. I will not be able to look for her inside the Royal Precincts. Hurry.”
Then Gyllian set off at a run toward the lake and the island where I found the dead swan.
Miraculously, the foot bridge to the island was still in tact. Gyllian, no longer running, but walking fast, circled the island and came to another foot bridge. We crossed it and found ourselves in a woods.
“Where are we going?” I managed to ask, gasping for breath.
“To the bower,” Gyllian said. “I met Lord Stern there once. It is here somewhere. He said it was a favorite haunt of the queen.”
We made a few wrong turns and had to backtrack twice, but we found the cottage. As Gyllian predicted, Hollin was there. She was curled up in a corner, weeping.
“Help me,” Gyllian said and reached for one of her arms.
Together we got Hollin on her feet.
“It’s all hopeless,” Hollin sobbed. “Lord Stern is dead. Hollis has run away. I don’t know what to do and now the Royal Precincts are destroyed.”
“We’re taking you to your brother,” Gyllian said. “Hurry. You’ll be safe with him.”
Unquestioningly, Hollin went with us. Star put the ship down. Fortunately she had kept the ride in geosynchronous orbit and could come for us quickly.
We ran up the ramp and before we could settle ourselves, Star was blasting off.