Brian Daley - Alacrity 01 - Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds.pdf - Brian Daley - widez2

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" … and let him be cast forth, into the exterior darkness."

Matthew 22:13

PROLOGUE—IN THE TIME OF THE THIRD BREATH

Stormclouds for my winding sheet, Caspahr Weir thought with approval as his chair floated out over

the meadow.

A towering black front was rolling toward him, outlined in blue-green by Guileless Giles, the larger of

Epiphany's two moons. That he'd helped nature along, ordering his meteorological engineers to shape the

night's tempest, didn't detract from Weir's enjoyment. He was accustomed to arranging things to suit

himself. And, he'd decided, a person as close to death as he could be forgiven a little theatricality.

Certainly his life had been filled with high drama, triumphs, and defeats.

He wondered what they'd say about him when he was gone. Perhaps a paraphrasing of an ancient Earth

barb, one of his favorites: He was never more popular than when he died.

Fifty light-years inside what had, within living memory, been a special corner of hell, Director

Weir-sometimes known as Weir the Defender—touched a control on the arm of his chair. It descended

slowly toward the meadow's thick, tangled carpet of ribbon grass. By craning his head a bit—panting

with the effort, feeling dizziness assail him again—he could see his home, stronghold, and palace,

Frostpile.

It was a lofty dream-megastructure, veined like intaglio and lighting the night. Frostpile was composed of

domes, turrets, and spires; citadels like shark fins; outlying forms that often put visitors in mind of moored

dirigibles cut from crystal.

Begun almost thirty Standard years earlier, it wasn't quite completed yet. A pity …

Director Weir winced as the chair jostled the least bit, settling onto the oily ribbon grass. He

automatically reached for a control to make built-in medical apparatus mute his pain. But the control

wasn't there; he'd chosen to soar forth from Frostpile in his old chair, unencumbered by machinery that

was fighting a futile holding action.

At least this is a seat of power, he thought, and not a flying geriatrics clinic. Its arms, of beautiful

teak from Brimstone, worn by his hands and the years, comforted him. The chair had served him for a

decade before the damned sawbones and his sister had browbeaten him into using an airborne deathbed.

He smiled his chagrin at his own absentmindedness and took his hand away from where the missing

control ought to be, lowering it into his lap slowly, trembling with the effort. No pain interdiction tonight!

No message blockers or neuroinhibitors; no dulling drugs. He wanted to experience everything, even the

pain; it was time to die.

The deathwatch had already summoned together loved ones, friends, and allies, along with others for

whom he had little or no regard. If it made them feel better to gather there on Epiphany, the Director had

no objection so long as they left him in peace.

Doubtless enemies in many places were keeping their own shadow-vigil. The repercussions of his death

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would be felt far beyond the relatively small volume of the nineteen systems he ruled.

His momentary twinge had been swallowed up in the deep, steady aching he'd endured for so long.

Now he watched the stormclouds roll in, right on schedule. He nodded without realizing that he did. His

engineers were expensive, but they were the best—and they asked no questions.

He knew he could trust them to keep their mouths shut, too. Good girls, even though Sonya's eyes had

been brimming over when he'd given the order. Everyone knew his fondness for good, bracing weather.

At least, he tweaked himself, you're fond of it now that you don't have to campaign in it anymore.

The black avalanche of clouds engulfed the sky, spreading and advancing. As he watched, it blotted out

The Strewn, the gemwork open-star cluster that ornamented Epiphany's night as though a divine hand

had sown seeds plucked from the First Light. Lightning danced among the clouds, green-white, followed

by thunder; the air freshened with ozone.

On Old Earth-now shunned, mocked, having turned her back on her progeny—on Old Earth his age

would be reckoned at ninety-three. In that time he'd been slave, murderer, outlaw, rebel, and conqueror.

Hated and loved, he'd never quite believed that he deserved either.

Weir had brought along a small sound unit. Almost missing the control in his trembling, he put finger to

touchpad. Music surged, sinister but lush and high-flown.

It was the overture to an opera written long ago on Transvaal, a world that Weir had been about to

draw into his expanding sphere of influence. A thinly disguised metaphorical tale sponsored by that

planet's government, it had been composed by a young genius who'd unleashed his full powers. Weir was

portrayed as a kind of Mephistopheles who was defeated in the course of the story.

But Weir took a perverse pleasure in the grand and undisguised majesty of the music, the

unrestrainedness of it. The young composer had died in the final battle for his home planet. Weir's forces

took over, doing away with the slave trade that had thrived there and executing most of the plutocrats

who'd run the place.

He loved the music, though, and was amused by it. He was not as evil as he was often portrayed, he

was convinced; nor was he as virtuous.

He longed to stand and stretch, fill his lungs with the charged air, but his body had long since failed him.

Perhaps on one of the truly advanced worlds, one that had missed the dark age after the sundering of the

old interstellar unity and the end of the Second Breath of humankind, he could have had more years of

life. But the new techniques were unavailable within his jurisdiction, and he refused to leave it. That had

left him infirm, wed to the sustaining machines.

Until tonight.

Still, he'd extended his influence, played his part in the great conflicts and struggles that had given birth to

the Third Breath of the human race.

"The Third Breath!" It was a labor even to murmur the words, but a joy nonetheless. He loved their

sound, he who ruled nineteen star systems and wore an owner's code tattooed into his skin, and a

subdural implant that broadcast it.

The Third Breath, no longer being born but passionately alive. Change and growth and light; he

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welcomed them. Strange attractors. A habitual musing came to him as his thoughts wandered. Strange

attractors …

When Weir realized he was no longer alone, he was half dreaming of a girl he'd known for a brief

moment in his youth. Her brown hair, ringlets of it, with its highlights of gold, had flown in the wind of a

landing field. Her eyes, black and deep, had reflected the glare of a binary stellar system and held

everything else to themselves—at first.

They'd come to love one another. For nearly eighty years, he wondered what had become of her, and

never, for all his efforts, had been able to find out.

Then, emerging from his reverie, he saw the figure. Many in Frostpile were waiting with him, waiting for

death. This was one such.

He said wearily, "Please go. I want to be—"

"You've altered your last will and testament. Why?"

Although no more than the residual image of his onetime self, muddled with age and pain, Weir was

instantly cautious. "It doesn't concern you. No one's business but my own."

The interloper's tone put danger in the air, like the lightning's ozone. "It might be everyone's business,

Caspahr. An Earthman. A Terran ! What have you bequeathed him? Why are you bringing him here?"

Weir looked up craftily. "You mean 'her,' don't you?"

The figure moved closer. The wind was cold now, the lightning flashes more frequent, the thunder

louder. "The cunning hasn't left you, Caspahr." A right hand came up; a glittering pinbeam pistol was

pointed at the old man. A left hand exhibited a medical styrette.

Weir almost laughed at those, but hid it; a near-century of experience had made it a reflex to keep his

options and advantages hidden as long as possible. He'd been victorious so many times, and on such a

scale, that people tended to forget his defeats. Weir never did.

"No," the intruder went on, " 'he' is the correct pronoun. That much I know. What have you given him?"

The pain was growing in Weir again, and he felt a little dizzy. He grunted, shifting in his chair, then

gasped with the passing torment of even so minor an effort. He'd been lucky to make it from his bed to

the chair.

"You'll be there for the Willreading. You'll find out then," he wheezed.

With a rasp of exasperation, the other stepped closer, the styrette before him. "You'll tell me in any

case."

"A memory release?" Weir allowed himself a hacking laugh, forcing it a bit. It devolved into a gargling

cough, and the old man tasted blood. It wouldn't be long now.

"Ahh, I see," the dark figure breathed. An injection would be futile, producing only coma or death. The

styrette disappeared, leaving the pinbeam. "But why Earth? Why ?"

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Brian Daley - Alacrity 01 - Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds.pdf

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