Chapter 8
". . . have lost our last intelligence asset on the
ground."
"And our remote sensing capability?" The
intelligence captain scrolled through his notes before answering
Sailor Pluto.
"Beryl can not block us, but she now has the
capability to detect even pin-hole probes. We essentially
have no covert intelligence ability."
"And your solution?" Sailoruranus's tone suggested
the captain provide either a solution or his resignation.
However the captain was un-disturbed by the blond senshi's tone.
"Since we could not avoid detection, we encouraged
it." Sailor Pluto raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry.
"A malfunction at the planetary communication
center caused. . ." The captain consulted his notes again. "Thirty
two billion six hundred forty million eight hundred thousand
and twelve pin-hole gates to open simultaneously throughout Queen
Beryl's realm." This surprised a bark of laughter from Sailoruranus.
"I hope that the proper apologies were sent to Her
Majesty, Queen Beryl." murmured Sailorneptune.
"They were indeed, Sailorneptune," the captain
replied. "Along with a stern message to the communications
center from Queen Serenity with orders to be more careful." The
captain looked embarrassed. "Uh, and a message to my office as well,
asking for copies of everything we obtained," he paused, "and
a sealed message for you, Sailor Pluto." The captain handed
Sailor Pluto a small wafer. Sailor Pluto broke the seal and scanned
the brief missive. The captain watched in fascination as the tips
of Sailor Pluto's ears turned a delicate pink.
"Very well captain. But I will review all materials
BEFORE they are sent to the Queen."
"But the Queen. . . " "Does not need to see things like this!"
Sailor
Pluto activated a viewer with a savage motion. The air above the
table swirled with formless colors that coalesced into an image
of. . .
The captain closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
Beside him he could hear Sailorneptune make choking noises as she
buried her head in Sailoruranus's chest. The captain noted with
some satisfaction that Sailoruranus also looked pale and sick.
Only Sailorpluto remained unaffected. She dissolved the image
with another gesture.
"I do not believe that it will serve any purpose to
disturb the Queen with this sort of thing, do you captain?"
"That was a nasty trick to pull," Uranus said
savagely as soon as the captain had departed. She held Neptune in
her arms, rocking her gently as she stroked her hair.
"That idiot was going to send raw imagery to the
Queen," Pluto snapped back. " I just wanted to remind him of the
kind of things that were liable to show up in Beryl's realm."
"He's not an idiot." Neptune's voice came out
muffled from her position buried in Sailoruranus embrace.
"He's a very hard working young officer and we're lucky to have him."
"You're right. I'm sorry. If you think it necessary
I'll apologize to him."
Neptune wasn't fooled by Pluto's tone. She new very
well that Pluto's first and it sometimes seemed ONLY priority was
the Queen. She and Sailoruranus had worked with Pluto their entire
adult lives. Indeed, Pluto was the only family they had. And she
also knew that Pluto would cook both of them over a slow fire and
serve them up with a garnish if she thought it would bring a smile
to Serenity's face.
"You might offer him a promotion to senshi,"
Neptune offered. "I've been watching him. He has potential,
and it's not as if we have a surplus."
Pluto looked surprised, then thoughtful. "The idea has
merit. But do you think he would be
willing to undergo the translation to sensh? He strikes me as. . .
ah. . . perhaps too attached to his present life."
"Young idiot," Sailoruranus snorted. "Oh?" Neptune questioned
archly. " I seem to
remember someone who cried, and cried and cried during their
translation."
"I was a stupid, stubborn, snotnosed little bastard
who didn't know what was good for. . . "
"You were an adorable little boy who was scared by
what was happening to you," Neptune giggled suddenly, "and you
had the most adorable dimple on your. . . "
Sailoruranus clamped a hand over her lover's
mouth.
"You WATCHED me!" "Uh huh," Neptune nodded, grinning
unrepentantly.
"The whole thing from beginning to end. I was always sorry you
lost the dimple along with. . . "
Pluto cleared her throat . "Perhaps we should move on to the
next issue in
private, before we all drown in this hormone storm." A transfer
portal opened at Pluto's command.
Sailoruranus blushed and tried to jerk away from
her lover. Neptune clamped her arms tighter around her waist and
looked at Pluto through lowered lashes.
"And perhaps you'd like to read us that note from
the Queen?"
Silvery laughter echoed in the room as the portal
closed behind the three senshi.
****************************************************** *
Normally the eerie whispers and darting shadows of
the time gate made Sailoruranus. . . uncomfortable. Not this time.
"Are you insane!" Sailoruranus whispered. "Do you
know the penalty for tampering with the time line? Assuming you
don't turn us all into a steaming pile of goo, they'll build an
entirely new hell just for us."
Pluto gazed calmly at Sailoruranus for a moment,
then turned to Sailorneptune.
"You're our intelligence analyst. What's the
latest on Beryl's 'Shadow's"."
"Before we lost our real-time assets we knew that
one was operational with another in the early stages of completion.
It appears to be a slow job, maybe two standard years to complete
a single 'Shadow'. There were also indications of at least three
more, and possibly a fourth, in the planning stages."
"And if they use them in an attack, what will be
their effect?"
"It will be a slaughter. Best estimates show sixty
to eighty percent losses on our side before we can stop them if they
employ two 'Shadows'."
"And if they have three, four, five, six. . . or more
Shadows? Then what?"
"We can't stop them," Sailoruranus said
reluctantly. "We couldn't do more than delay them." She looked up at
Pluto. "But Beryl's put everything she has into the 'Shadows'. Her
conventional forces don't amount to more than a token guard
force. And the 'Shadows' are just a cruder form of our own
'phase generator' technology. Our system is much stronger and
more versatile. . . "
"And it doesn't work, now does it?" Pluto returned
coldly. " That's the problem. The biggest gun in the world,
broken, is worth less than a big rock. And Beryl has got a very
big rock."
"All right, what exactly do you have in mind?" "Our only hope
of stopping the Shadow's is to find
someone who can use the phase generator and survive. Neptune
has provided me with the results of the latest simulations."
Pluto held up a small data-crystal. "Any individuals that meet these
characteristics should have a 97% chance or better of using the
'phase generator' and surviving. No one in the entire Imperium meets
these criteria. . . now. But at some time there must be at least
one person who does. And that's all we need. One successful
candidate. One will be enough to stymie Beryl. And from that
one person we can produce more ." Sailorneptune grimaced.
"That sounds a lot like Beryl's Aritfaxs. Why not
just build an artificial person to your specifications and use
it. It would be faster and they can only execute you once."
"Don't you think I haven't tried?" Uranus was startled. She'd
been kidding, but it
looked like when Pluto decided to break the law she didn't want
to miss any.
"So far we haven't been able to duplicate Beryl's
processes. We can not create a complete artificial person.
Every attempt has died or become. . . unstable shortly after
maturity. But, if we have a living example of what we need, THEN we
can duplicate it, improve upon it. But we need that original template
first." Pluto drew in a deep breath and faced her sister senshi.
"I know this is highly illegal and very dangerous.
If it goes wrong the best we can all hope for is a swift death at
the hands of the Royal executioner. At worst. . . well you might
wish you were in the hands of Beryl. But I think we can succeed. I
think we can find the person we need, activate the weapon and save
the Imperium."
"Gee boss, what do we do AFTER lunch?"
**************************************************
"Higher papa, higher." The little girl squealed
with delight as her father tossed her in the air and caught her.
"Higher," she demanded. "Higher. I want to fly!" "That's enough
flying right now. We have to get on
the road if we're going to make the Fair by nightfall." The little
girl and her father exchanged conspiratorial glances as they answered.
"Yes mama." "Yes dear." She gave them both a look of fond
resignation. "Honestly, I can't tell which one is the child and
which the parent. I think I've got two children sometimes."
"YES MAMA," Father and daughter chorused, then
broke down laughing. Mother, father and daughter headed down the
mountain their packs loaded with goods for the trade fair.
"Do you think people will really like this papa?"
The little girl anxiously thrust her small fist toward her father. He
looked down at the object gleaming in her hand.
"Yes dear, I really think they will." "Are you sure? Are you
really, really sure?" He reached down and plucked the item
gently from
her hand. He'd been an iron smith for forty years. He'd married late
and his little daughter was the spoiled darling of his life. If
she'd given him mud-pies with bug toppings, he'd have declared them
ambrosia and eaten every one. But this. . . he examined the small
figurine with awe. He was a good iron smith and he knew it.
Hinges, plowshares, wheel rims even knives and twice swords he'd
crafted. He was a good workman. Careful, with a good eye and steady
hand. And his wife. . . he glanced at the beautiful young woman on
his other side and marveled again at his good fortune. His wife had
all the female accomplishments. Her woven work, her embroidery
sold well at the fair. His eyes dropped again to the fragile thing
cradled in his hands. He couldn't explain this. A spider web, spun
from glass. It stretched between two branches of a tree. In the
lower corner sat the spider, every detail, every fine hair lovingly
detailed in glass. There was glass dew beaded on the web, and in the
upper corner a small moth was just touching the web, not yet aware
of its fate. And every color, every shading and marking of spider,
moth and tree were reproduced in the glass. And his daughter had a
score of other glass jewels in her pack; mice, birds, clouds, even
a leaf floating down a stream. All carefully packed in straw.
"Yes, baby, I'm sure the people will like it. Now
let me put it back so it doesn't get broken."
He had, again, a sudden impulse to smash it, to
smash everything in her small pack and head back up the mountain.
His daughter had no idea that this one item was worth more than
their home, his forge, tools and everything he had made or could
ever hope to make in iron. But he wanted what was best for her.
And some noble would see her work and become her patron.
She would want for nothing for the rest of her life, might even
find a place at court. She would never spend another cold
winter on the mountain, or a hungry summer. The price was high, for
his wife and him. She would go off with her patron and they would
stay. They might not see her again for years, or ever. Life was hard
on the mountain. But if that was the price for her security, her
happiness they would pay it and gladly.
**************************************************
"This looks promising." "What have you got?" "This is the
best match we've found so far. I say
we extract."
"What have we got for mass/energy exchange?" "That's the best
part. There's a typhoon just off
the coast."
"Do it."
**************************************************
He couldn't understand what he was seeing at first.
The top of Iron Fang, tallest of the Iron Mountain range seemed to
shiver like a pool of water in a wind gust. Then he did understand,
but couldn't believe. In his thirty years living on the mountain
there'd never been an avalanche this late in the year. And in
living memory never from the top of Iron Fang.. He dropped his pack,
grabbed his wife and daughter and ran. Behind him three hundred
thousand cubic tons of snow and earth moving at ninety kilometers
per hour followed. He sprinted for the tree line. It was a faint
hope, but the trees and rock might slow the snow enough. . . disrupt
the flow enough. . . He was strong from years of hard work, his
wife was young and swift. . . They should have had a chance. . .
If he hadn't tripped. . . if the ground hadn't seemed to reach up
and claw at her ankles. They fell, father, mother and daughter. They
fell. Fifteen hundred kilometers away a small fishing village was
hit by a typhoon at that same instant. A young mother was caught
out fishing when the storm hit. A drifter was swept off the beach
where he was sleeping and out to sea. And the storm suddenly died
away. Everyone said that it was a miracle they survived.
Two people lived, two people died. The equation balanced..
The universe was satisfied.
**************************************************
"Papa! Mama!" The small girl struggled against the soft bindings.
They had gone to a lot of trouble to get her and they didn't care
to have her injure herself.
"Paaaapaaaa! Maaaammaaaa!" Dirty. . .
bruised. . . frightened. But alive. And not
a ripple in the time stream. Pluto's eyes burned with triumph. They
had their weapon. . .
The little girl turned her dirty tear stained face
and Pluto could see her eyes. Huge grey eyes, like a soft sea
mist. With an effort Pluto wrenched herself away and her gaze
fell on the open pack at the child's feet. From it spilled a
treasure in glass, birds, insects, clouds. In the ten thousand
thousand lifetimes she'd seen and lived at the Time Gate, she had
never seen such delicate, exquisite work and knew she might not see
such again for twice ten thousand thousand. A mental command brought
one of the pieces to her hand, a tiny butterfly, its brightly colored
wings poised to fly away. 'Serenity would love this,' she thought,
'and she would love the little girl.' Unbidden her eyes were again
drawn to the frightened, weeping girl. Something inside of the
little girl called to a part of her. This could be her daughter!
Rendered forever childless by her duties and by the
radiation sleeting through the Time Gate she'd never thought to
have children. Her belly clenched suddenly with the thought. 'A
daughter,' she thought wonderingly. An end to loneliness. Serenity
had filled one hole in her heart. Suddenly this little girl showed her
another, one she'd never known existed. Pictures raced through her
mind. Sitting in the gardens with Serenity watching their children
play. Teaching her daughter to read, buying her presents. Glowing
with pride as her daughter created beauty from sand and fire, light
and shadow. . .
Shadow. Her fists clenched and a shudder rocked her body.
The image of her daughter creating beauty was replaced by Serenity
broken, dead, defiled. The Shadows prowled the ruins of the
Imperium like maggots feeding on a corpse.
"Are you all right? Your hand is bleeding." Pluto opened her
fist and shards of bloody glass
fell to the floor.
"Move her to the test facility. I want the first
stage implants installed and on line before that second 'Shadow'
is operational."
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