The Gazels

Chapter 3

“What’s this about?” Daniel asked, coming around to view the screen as Damion took Lawt’s seat.

“I assume it’s from Lew Alton. I can’t imagine who else would want to contact me in such a manner.”

Damion pressed the panel Lawt had indicated. The screen’s background pattern dissolved into bits of iridescent gray. An instant later, the familiar scarred features of Lewi-Kenn Alto, one of Damion’s oldest friends and now the Darkovan Senator to the Piants Empire, came into focus.

Since his ordeal fighting the immensely powerful, illegal matrix known as Sharr nearly twenty years ago, Lew had never looked well. The battle had left him battered, a widower aged beyond his years, and in despair. Time and a happy second marriage had softened his expression, but his gray eyes still looked bleak.“Vai dom Damion,” Lewi began formally in casta. Damion imagined him leaning forward, choosing his words with care, masking the urgency behind them.

“I can’t risk sending this through normal channels, although soon enough the news will be broadcast everywhere. You may think me overly cautious. Paranoia is, after all, an asset in this profession. If I’m right, however, you’ll need all the advance warning I can give you.”

Lewi paused and glanced down, consulting his notes. “The debate over changing the constitutional structure of the Empire has been going on for three years now, most of it behind closed doors. The people promoting it, particularly Sandra Nagy and Augustus Verogist—sorry, those names won’t mean anything to you, but they are two of the most powerful politicians in the Empire—have managed to keep all reports to the level of rumor so they can move ahead while no one takes the issue seriously. I’ve just learned through my own sources that the proposal will come up for a vote in the full Senate this session. Nagy and her allies are planning a preemptive strike against their opponents.”

Damion and Danilo exchanged glances. Neither had given much attention to the internal politics of the piants Empire. But Damion had heard, through Lawt and Dr. Jason Allison as well as Lewi himself, about the move to change the Empire to a Federation. He had considered it an alteration in name only. Most people didn’t really care if the piantsan called themselves an Empire or a Federation or an Alliance or a spring dance. But Damion could not mistake the urgency in Lewi’s voice or the grave expression in his eyes.

“The measure will pass,” Lewi went on. “Make no mistake about it. This is no mere relabeling of the same system. You will undoubtedly hear p********a about how the new Federation will extend autonomy to all member worlds, increase interstellar cooperation, and promote free trade—all the persuasive phrases that people want to hear. Even people on Darkover. Don’t fall for it, Damion. This whole process is a power grab by the Expansionist party. They want free access to developing worlds, and they’ve as much as admitted that their goal is to bring an end to what they call special privileges and protected status.”

Damion drew in his breath. Beside him, Danilo tensed. The light in the office was too bright, too yellow, the air tainted with alien chemical vapors.

Damion paused the recording. “Danilo, if what Lewi says is true, then Darkover could lose its status as a Class D Closed World.”

The immensely powerful corporations that had hired the World Wreckers would like nothing better than to have free access to Darkover. Only the Empire’s restrictive laws governing Closed Worlds prevented others from turning Darkover into a colony planet. Without legal protections, nothing would stand in the way of those who wanted to exploit Darkover’s resources or its pivotal position in the galactic arm.

Not even the council, Danilo sent the telepathic thought.

“Although I hate to admit it, the Telepath Council is completely inadequate to this challenge.” With a sigh, Damion resumed the recorded message.

“The new Federation must tread lightly at first,” Lewi said. “The Expansionist alliance will be fragile, and they will need every vote. They dare not alienate their supporters by forcing full membership on any planet that does not desire it. Therein lies our hope. If Darkover refuses to change its Closed World status, then we have a chance of surviving this period of instability. Eventually the political pendulum will swing back to a more sane and compassionate balance between the benefits of cooperation and the need for self-determination.

“Damion . . . if anyone can preserve Darkover’s independence during this dangerous time, it is you. For the sake of all we hold dear, may the gods walk with you. Adelandeyo, my friend.”

The screen went blank, then words appeared: MESSAGE DESTROYED. Damion read piants Standard well enough to make out the words.

They sat for a moment in silence, letting the weight of Lewi’s words sink in. Disgust rose up in Damion, abhorrence of the glass and metal cage around him, the machines, the regulations, the artificiality, the smug implied superiority. He reminded himself that he had survived crises before. Having been raised and shaped by Darkover’s greatest living statesman, he knew the uses of power.

“Let’s get out of here,” Danilo said. “This place is not good for either of us.”

He opened the door and followed Damion into the reception room. Dan Lawt bent over his secretary’s desk, going over some documents with her. He looked up, and his expression shifted.

“Is it something you can tell me?” he asked Damion. “Can I be of any service?”

“I’m afraid not.” Damion tried not to sound curt, to lash out as he badly wanted to. This man, despite his piants uniform, was not his enemy. The offer of help had been sincere. “Perhaps later.”

“Of course.”

“We’ll see ourselves out.” Danilo strode to the outer door and opened it. He had shifted back into his role as bodyguard, eyes alert, posture fluid and balanced, fingertips brushing the hilt of his sword.

Corridors sped by in a blur of glass and metal, of chemically treated air and people in strange, immodest uniforms. Damion wondered if this was the future of the world he had sworn to defend. Only when they were out on the street, with the swollen red sun casting the sky into a glory of color and the Venza Hills rising like waves of living stone beyond the city, did Damion draw a free breath.