Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 16

Maggie spent much of the day in her room, lost in thought. She could see why Zeus would be terrified after Lord Felph’s maniacal display this morning. The murder of Zeus’s clones, the sight of his brains spattering against the floor, had shocked Maggie to the core. Certainly it must have dismayed Zeus even more.

If Maggie were Zeus, she’d leave, too. Indeed, this whole morning, Maggie had been thinking: whatever her promise to Lord Felph the night before, she saw now he was mad. She’d come to Ruin searching for a place to bear her child in peace. She’d hoped Felph’s palace might afford security.

Now she had to wonder. Felph frightened her; but what had he really done?

Destroyed clones-lumps of unaware flesh. Violence against clones, however terrifying was not the same as violence against a person.

Still, Felph seemed threatening.

Or was he simply trying to teach a lesson? Felph claimed he wanted to teach his children responsibility. They’d never had to learn the consequences of their actions.

Silently, Maggie damned Felph for what he’d done to his own children. Never mind that he claimed to love them. He was as manipulative as anyone she’d ever met.

Yet she didn’t entirely trust Zeus, either. She’d been warned that he was more than he seemed. She knew she couldn’t trust appearances.

Maggie lay on her bed most of the afternoon, unable to rest. She wished Gallen were here, or that she’d gone with him. She craved the security of his presence.

At the same time, she recognized that this would give her an opportunity to get to know Felph’s children. It might be necessary to rescue them from their father. Such an operation would be messy, if Felph refused to let them go.

Maggie imagined various confrontations with the old man. He was moody, unpredictable. He kept a gun in his pocket.

Gallen might have to kill him. But what would that accomplish? The Controller in Felph’s head kept contact with the artificial intelligence in Felph’s revivification chamber. If Gallen killed Felph, the Al would download his memories into a clone, resurrecting the man. Security droids could secrete Felph in hidden wings of his palace, where Gallen wouldn’t be able to strike.

Maggie might have to dismantle the Al in the revivification chamber. If Gallen had to kill Felph, it would be better to leave the man dead.

But killing Felph would not be enough. Certainly, Felph had formidable resources. As they’d flown the florafeems, she’d seen silver torsos of security droids roving the perimeter of Felph’s grounds. While Felph might reasonably claim that these droids kept predators off his grounds, those droids could also keep his children on his property. So if Felph’s children were to escape, those droids would have to be neutralized.

Maggie knew her thoughts were traveling down dangerous paths. Sabotaging the ground’s droids, murdering Felph. The ideas seemed paranoid. Yet defeating the killer droids, murdering Felph-both were jobs that would require certain technical knowledge only Maggie could access. The mantle she wore held the key to freedom.

So much for searching for a safe place to have her baby. Felph’s palace, as luxurious as it seemed, might be nothing more than a glorified prison. Certainly, Felph’s children were virtual slaves. The stone walls suddenly seemed suffocating.

Yet even now, Maggie couldn’t be certain Felph was the Monster she imagined.

Was Zeus merely trying to play on Maggie’s sympathies for his own reasons?

Maggie found herself in a quandary. She wanted to question Felph’s children, yet Zeus’s hints made her feel insecure talking to anyone. Zeus had said that Hera was certainly Felph’s spy. Then there was Herm; Maggie did not trust the winged man. He always wore a slight smile which said, “I know more than you. I have secrets.”

So, Maggie was in a turbulent frame of mind as she made her way to the North Garden.

The evening came peacefully, Darksun dipping over the west hills in a blaze of gold that painted high clouds in shades of saffron. Almost immediately, even before the sun fell, Brightstar began to blaze, gaping like a hole in the night.

Maggie walked down the stone paths, along hedges that carried rose blooms in a hundred shades of blue. The scent of freshly tilled earth, of grass trampled under the wheels of gardener droids, all mixed with the scent of myriad roses.

Felph’s roses were exotic. Some had been genetically altered to exude a bouquet of natural scents, like lemon, ginger, or tangerine. Other blooms had odd-shaped petals. Maggie had seen frilled roses on Tangor, roses that looked more like carnations. But Felph’s collection included tufted roses with cottony petals. Others had enlarged stamens and small silky petals, like orchids.

The climbing roses scaled elaborate arbors carved from white marble, which arched over her head, forming extravagant walls around her, until she came to the center of the garden, secreted deep within the hedges. There, on a small hillock, an onyx statue of a huge peacock, his tail in full display, stood regally near a rocky pool while statues of peahens seemed to delicately feed in the grass around the pool.

The waters of the pool did not have a fountain, as she’d expected. Instead, the water merely burbled up from below ground, adding small liquid sounds to the scene. A few sparrows winged over the pool, dipping into the water. As Maggie watched, a nereid splashed, swimming on her back, breasts bobbing in the water as her tail flapped lazily. Maggie stood watching the thing, unsure. If it were some genetically altered creature or merely a viviform. Whatever she was, the nereid was lovely. She had a creamy complexion, sweet face, hair of a sea green, blue eyes filled with delight. The nereid splashed about, as if unaware of Maggie’s presence, and Maggie decided that the creature must be a viviform, a work of art that only mimicked life.

Maggie waited on a stone bench for twenty minutes, till Darksun set. Then Zeus appeared with a basket. Maggie could smell sweet scents within-fresh bread and fruits. Zeus hardly said hello before he opened the basket, brought out a bottle of wine and two cups, filled them. He set the plates, then began opening silver containers of food.

“Grilled skog in raspberry sauce with fresh mint,” he said, not at all enthusiastically. The next plate contained rye bread, covered with cheese and poppy seeds, followed by vegetable dishes and a compote of mixed tropical fruits, cooked in brandy.

All these Zeus served with a singular lack of energy, a self-absorbed air, so Maggie wondered what sort of inner storm might be brewing in him.

After he’d set the first bowl on the stone bench and became so brooding he forgot to remove the lid, Maggie took his hand. “What’s troubling you?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”

Zeus hung his head. Here in the dark, with only moon and starlight shining on him, she could not see his eyes. They were lost beneath lanky hair. But when he startled, glanced up, starlight gleamed in his dark eyes. It surprised her. She had not been prepared for the intensity, the passion in his eyes. “I … I feel guilty,” he whispered. “My problems aren’t yours. I should not have tried to involve you in this. Forgive me. It was … so thoughtless.” Zeus uncovered two platters. The only sound to pierce the night was the ringing of silver.

“It wasn’t thoughtless,” Maggie said. “I know you wouldn’t do it lightly. Are you frightened?”

Zeus gave a laugh. “Frightened, of my father? No. The man loves me-he says. He loves me so much, he will never let me go. But I am not frightened of him.

“Forgive me, Maggie, this is none of your affair. You should not become … embroiled.”

He fell silent again. She said softly, “Let me judge that. I understand your pain. I was imprisoned by a Guide once. I know what it is to be a slave.”

Zeus looked up at her; hope kindled in his dark eyes. “Then you know how it feels, year after year, longing for release! I think, I think this morning some mad fit took me. I swear, I ran naked out into the sunlight for the first time, and I wanted to throw myself from the citadel in joy, to feel perfect liberty, to be unencumbered.”

Zeus got up, stalked to the edge of the fountain, and looked out over the gardens to a line of stars that lay heavy on the hills. “What a fool I must appear. I thought that because Felph removed my Guide, he would let me go free.”

He stood, hands clasped behind his back, staring up.

“I could help you,” Maggie said. Thinking furiously. She had determined earlier to reserve judgment, to let him reveal himself slowly. But now, here in his presence, hearing the intensity behind his words, she didn’t doubt that he fervently wanted to be free. She’d been imprisoned by a Guide for only a few days. What would it be like to remain imprisoned for years, craving freedom, in the way that Zeus had been genetically engineered to crave?

Zeus shook his head, then wandered back to the bench. From his basket, he silently brought out a single candle, lit it, and set it between their plates. Once again he became lost in contemplation.

“Please,” he said after a moment, “let us not mar a fair dinner with foul conversation.” He raised his glass of wine in salute. “To my fair Maggie, who through her kindness has already won for me all the freedom I’ve ever known.”

Zeus drained his cup, and Maggie followed suit. The wine was stronger than any Maggie could remember having tasted, with a fruity bouquet, mildly sweet.

They ate quietly. The food was superb. Despite her dark thoughts, Maggie found that the wine and surroundings lightened her mood. The stars shimmered, the aroma of roses washed the air. A slight warm wind breathed through the gardens, while burbling pools made their own music. Maggie felt light-headed.

Zeus refilled her wine. “No, no more for me,” Maggie apologized. “I’m feeling foggy.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Zeus said, breathing deeply. “You’re right. I’ve had too much, too.” He stood. “Will you walk with me?”

Maggie tried to stand; the ground seemed to wobble under her. Zeus caught her elbow before she fell, steadied her.

He laughed. “Take off your shoes. The grass here feels good under your feet.”

He pulled off his own shoes. Maggie did the same. He led her down a trail to the north, through the thick carpet of grass, along a dark border of roses.

The sky blazed with stars, for Brightstar was now setting. Maggie heard a faint whooshing noise and looked up. Under the starlight, dozens of creatures, like small florafeems the size of plates, hurtled through the night sky in a bouncing gait, like stones skipping through heaven.

Zeus led Maggie to a palace wall. They looked over darkened wheatfields. “There are the meadows of freedom,” Zeus said, “where I want to run.”

“How far do you think you need to get?” Maggie asked. She had thought Zeus would want to leave the planet. Now she wondered if he might only want to get away from the palace, live in the desert, as unpleasant as that sounded.

“I must get off-world, get lost in the wider universe. If I do, Felph might not follow. I hope he’d let me go.”

“He has your genome in stock,” Maggie said. “If you fled off-world, it would be easier to build a replica of you than hunt for you.”

“I’ve been thinking of the Milky Way,” Zeus said absently. “So far away. It sounds exotic. Do you ever consider returning?”

“Yes, I’ll return,” Maggie said.

“Where to?” Zeus asked. “Tell me about the world you long for.”

The question troubled Maggie. She could not return to Tihrglas, not legally. Higher technologies were outlawed there thousands of years before she was born. The wights enforced that ban, artificial beings she’d been raised to believe were malevolent spirits. On Tihrglas she’d been ignorant of the larger universe-of space travel and genetic enhancements, of telecommunications and nanotechnology. In a coastal village she’d worked in an inn from sunrise to sundown, wearing out her hands and her joints. Nearly everywhere in the universe, life was easier than it had been on Tihrglas. Droids did the dirty work. AIs handled tasks that were too tedious for mankind. Genetic engineering and medications removed most afflictions from life.

Yet Maggie, was beginning to suspect that technology had really failed to make her life much richer. It did not give life a purpose, a sense of fulfillment.

As Maggie considered what kind of world she dreamed of, she considered her memories of life on Tremonthin where the Inhuman had downloaded the images from a hundred lifetimes filled with struggle and toil, craving and desire. People had access to life-enhancing technologies on Tremonthin, yet it had brought mostly sadness in the lives she recalled. It merely gave men a goal, perhaps a false goal, to struggle for. No, if it was contentment she wanted, her thoughts returned to Tihrglas, to the eternity she’d sometimes felt at the end of a rugged day when she finished cleaning the kitchens at Mahoney’s Inn, or the enjoyment she’d had just listening to old Dan’l Sullivan play his fiddle by the stove on a winter’s night, while the old folks reminisced.

I know too much, she realized. Six months earlier, when she’d been on dronon with Gallen trying to fight the invaders or their home world, her mantle had filled her with elation at discovering the secrets of dronon technology.

She’d imagined that the heart-pounding wonder would never end. Learning the secrets of dronon technology would help give her life focus, the purpose she’d always sought.

She’d been so naive. Now she knew better: true, the dronon built powerful gravity drives, better than those mankind had developed, The plasma cannons on dronon warships shot farther than those mankind used. Their walking hive cities were marvels of technology by any standard.

All of it was worthless.

Maggie had dropped her brogue accent months before. Now for Zeus’s sake, she affected it. “On my home world, it’s like this we’d be talking, and it’s not the kind of place you’d brag to your mother after.”

Zeus laughed at her accent, thoroughly charmed.

“The streets get all full of mud after a rain, and when I was a lass, I liked to look in the puddles, to see how they mirrored the sky, and to see how the dark pine trees glowered above me. It’s a smart man who knows how to keep to the margin of the road when he’s riding a horse, for many a horse will slip and fall in the muck.

“The rain was dear to me-the smell of it. Not the tang of a thunderstorm on the horizon, but the smell afterward, when the air is all washed-out, and it’s only pine trees you’re smelling.

“And the colors: in spring, the rain cleans the trees and fields and makes the whole world a brighter green-or at least that’s how me ma told me. She didn’t have a true notion why grass gets greener after a rain, or why crocuses looked brighter. She’d never heard of nitrogen in the air, and how rainwater fertilizes the ground. She just knew it happened, so she said the rain `washed’ things.

“That was the way of folks on Tihrglas. We found easy answers to questions, and we were happy with them.

“After a rain, Ma, she would flutter about the house, her hands busy stitching clothes or setting a new fire or kneading bread or washing a dress, and she’d sing, happy as a sot with a new bottle. I’d ask her why she sang, and she’d say, `Frogs sing after the rain. Birds sing. So should we.’

Then she’d dance round the house.” Maggie smiled.

“It sounds a happy place,” Zeus said.

It had been, it had been, Maggie realized, before everything went wrong, before her parents died. Tihrglas was a good world. It had just gone bad for her. Maybe that’s the way of it, she told herself. Maybe most worlds are fine, till the weight of misfortune crashes down on us. She looked up at Zeus, who stood dark against the stars, staring over the countryside, and offered, “I’ll help you get away.”

He shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Maggie. I’ve been thinking. Even if I can get away, should I?”

Maggie did not follow his logic. After a moment, he explained, “Consider this. Imagine I escape, with your help, and Father decides to build another like me. What would be my point? I’d have my freedom, but my clone wouldn’t have his. Father would only tighten his grip, hold this one more fiercely. He’d never let it go.

“I … don’t know if I could live with the guilt of knowing I had purchased my freedom at the price of another’s. Hera and Arachne are on Felph’s side, yet I’m afraid if I leave, he will treat them harsher for it. I can’t tolerate the thought of leaving them behind “

Maggie frankly felt surprised by the nobility inherent in Zeus’s convictions.

“What other choices do I have?” Zeus agonized.

“Perhaps you should stop Felph,” Maggie said.

“Stop him, yes, but how? Nothing short of murder would stop him-and even then, assuming that I could be rid of the man, how free could I be with such a thing on my conscience?”

So, he spoke of killing. Maggie suspected it might be necessary. Usurpers were the same across worlds, whether human or dronon. Good men like Zeus could not tolerate their deeds, yet found the idea of eliminating such men repugnant.

“There are laws to protect you,” Maggie said.

“On other worlds, not on this.”

“You could fight to change those laws. A world cannot subsist under tyranny unless its people capitulate.”

“What could we do? Father needs nothing. We have no economic clout to force him into submission-his workers are nearly all droids, under his control. Nor do we have any military might. He controls the arsenals.

“Even if we could rouse a dozen people, marshal them against Felph, he could buy the sympathies of the majority. He treats them well enough now. What do they care if he is a tyrant only within the walls of his own palace?”

Of course, Zeus was right. Felph was, for all practical purposes, unassailable.

“I’ve pondered how to win my freedom for years, and I can see no way, though Felph has loosed my bonds,” Zeus said. His voice sounded strained; Maggie yearned to comfort him. He turned away. Maggie reached to massage the tension from his back. His muscles felt astonishingly tight. She had not guessed at the strength under his silk shirt.

Maggie recalled her own imprisonment at the hands of Lord Karthenor. Of all the ugly and wretched incidents in her short, dark life-of all the abuses she had suffer-that outweighed them all. She’d watched her mother die, had felt the weight of grief when a father and three brothers drowned. She’d watched Veriasse die in single combat, his face burned with dronon stomach acids, his bones shattered. She’d seen Orick nearly sliced in two, and recalled the look in Gallen’s eye when the Inhuman’s agent burrowed into his brain. Yet when Karthenor had imprisoned Maggie, the agony felt greater than the sum of all her other torments. She’d nearly perished. To salvage her, Karthenor had forced her Guide to suffuse her with endorphins. Even that would not have kept her alive. She’d have perished at Karthenor’s hands, had Gallen not rescued her.

“I’ll help you get free,” Maggie said vehemently. She knew it was insane. She’d planned to be more careful. “I can get you free.” Immediately she regretted the words. She might have to eliminate Lord Felph. Maggie could not easily stomach the idea of murder. Yet Felph’s actions will bring ruin on his own head, Maggie justified her thoughts. If he dies, it will be a deserving death.

Zeus turned, his face now in shadow. Maggie could see only a gleam of his eye. “You would do that for me?”

“Not just for you,” Maggie said. “For Hera and Herm, Arachne and Athena. All of you, whether your brother and sisters value their freedom or not.”

“Thank you,” he choked, awe in his voice.

Zeus reached up his right hand, stroked her jaw. Maggie felt surprised. One did not notice it until standing next to Zeus, but he was huge. Muscular. Maggie had thought him rugged before, but somehow the starlight softened his features. Perhaps it was because she knew him better, felt his suffering, but she found him attractive.

Perhaps that is why when he leaned down to kiss her forehead, she did not startle backward.

When he kissed her lips, she did not retreat. What am I doing? she wondered. This isn’t like me. This is innocent, she told herself. This is innocent. This is only a kiss of gratitude.

Zeus wrapped his left arm around her shoulder, held her head. His lips tasted so sweet. Maggie knew this was wrong. She wanted to back away, yet she felt curious and surprised at this turn of events. Zeus was handsome. She felt flattered he found her attractive.

His kisses tasted so sweet. She felt so drawn to him. It must be the wine, she thought. It’s clouding my judgment. Zeus held her tighter, and Maggie tasted those lips, and remembered … two thousand years back, in a lifetime she remembered from Tremonthin, she’d been Kweetsah, a slave girl to a race called the Yamak’hai. On her first night as a slave, her masters had dressed her in red linen and placed bells on her wrists, then escorted her to Overseer T’nok, a huge man with long arms, covered in red hair.

T’nok was not of the Yamak’hai. His subspecies was unknown. Yet his masters valued T’nok, for his kisses drove women mad with lust.

So the overseer kissed Kweetsah for a long sweet hour, fondled her until she felt giddy and overcome with desire. Then T’nok delivered her to her new husband, an old man who was quite plain. Yet she felt so overcome by lust, felt such a need for lechery, she’d slept with the new husband willingly. T’nok’s kisses could do that to any woman.

Pheromones, Maggie realized, heart pounding. Zeus’s kisses were laced with the same pheromones T’nok’s had been. She stepped back from Zeus, dizzy. She was quivering with anticipation, almost blind with desire. It took all her strength to back away.

Zeus stepped forward, kissed her once more, and stroked her left breast with his free hand. She nearly melted into his arms.

Maggie knew that if she did not leave now, she would not be able to. She shoved Zeus in the chest. He backed off.

“Forgive me!” he cried. “Oh, Maggie, forgive me!”

“No, it’s all right,” Maggie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. He’s nothing but an innocent child, she thought, still dazed. He feels gratitude for his freedom and confuses it with something more. I should know better. I must be drunk.

“I did not mean to take advantage,” Zeus whispered hurriedly. “It’s just that … I think I love you.”

“What?” Maggie said, still shaking her head. Zeus’s kisses had done something to her, nearly blinded her. She tried to make out his form, but little flashes of light seemed to baffle her vision.

“I know it sounds crazy … premature,” Zeus hurried, “It even sounds strange to me. You’re one of the few women I’ve ever met, aside from my sisters. At first I thought it was only the, because you are so exotic and beautiful that I felt this way.

“Yet, when I look in your eyes, I can see goodness in you. When I smell your hair, I smell your strength. How can I deny what I feel now? You’ve made me crazy!”

“Stop!” Maggie shouted. She knew she should not have got herself get into this predicament, yet she wanted this man now in a way she’d seldom wanted Gallen. “I’m married.”

This was all happening too fast. She’d planned to be more careful, to weigh Zeus, evaluate him over days. Yet in only a couple of hours, she’d found herself bending to his every whim. She’d promised to free him. She’d even thought of killing his father. She’d nearly bedded him.

This was all happening too fast. The pheromones had undone her.

“But-what does your marriage have to do with anything?” Zeus asked. “You could love two dogs, and no one would think ill of you. You could love two flowers or two colors. Just because you love Gallen, does not mean you can’t love me, too, the way that I love you.”

Zeus gazed at her imploringly. Maggie wanted to go to him, but she remembered how Gallen had hurt her, on a night much like this, with a woman as beautiful in her way as Zeus appeared now, a woman whose kisses had also been laced with pheromones. Maggie could not betray a trust so deep.

“No,” Maggie said as Zeus advanced, reaching for her. “No!”

“Maggie-” he began to say, and suddenly a change seemed to come over him. He seemed angry with her. He straightened his back, clenched his jaw. He towered menacingly, and Maggie feared he would strike. He stopped, hands shaking.

“Zeus? Maggie? Is that you?” a woman’s voice came from uphill. A woman rounded a corner of the road between two towering walls of roses. She bore a candle in her hand.

“Ah, it is you,” Hera called. “In the garden I found your candle burning. I hoped you wouldn’t be far.”

“You were walking?” Zeus asked, incredulous. “Here in the North Garden?”

“As I’ve often wanted to at night,” Hera said with a slight nod, “before our lord freed us.”

Zeus held his tongue, subdued for the moment. Maggie felt sure Hera had followed them, had perhaps been watching them all along.

“Oh,” Hera said in surprise, looking at their faces, at the way they stood too near one another. “I’m not disturbing anything?”

Zeus touched Maggie’s elbow from behind, a gentle warning, though she needed none. “No,” Maggie said. “We were just about to come in.”

“Indeed, my pet,” Zeus told Hera, “I’m glad you found us. I’d enjoy your company on the walk home. I fear it is getting cold out here.”

“Cold? I don’t think so,” Hera said.

“Believe me, it has been cooler than I like,” Zeus answered, gently putting his hand on Maggie’s shoulder. He squeezed it as if to say, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

As Zeus left with Hera, Maggie nearly collapsed. A sudden release of adrenaline accompanied Zeus’s departure. Maggie’s hands and legs shook so badly she could hardly walk:

She dropped to the grass and sat, taking great wracking breaths, almost sobbing. Gallen, Gallen forgive me for what I almost did, she told herself. On Cyannesse Gallen had made love to a Tharrin, had given himself to a child who was forced too soon to become a woman. He’d done it because the girl was sweet, because she needed comfort. Mostly, Maggie now realized, he’d done it because of pheromones. If the Tharrin’s release of amorous chemicals had been anything like Zeus’s, it would have required the steadfastness of a saint to walk away.

Gallen was no saint. Neither am I, Maggie realized.

Tomorrow. Zeus wanted to meet her tomorrow. Maggie felt dizzy with desire. It so frightened her, she ran back to her room, leaving her shoes in the garden.

As Zeus went to Hera, he took her arm in his, and decided to leave his dirty plates and picnic basket by the fountains till morning. They strolled along up through the flowers, until they’d left Maggie far behind, and Hera said, “I hope I spoiled your evening.”

“Never fear, my dove,” Zeus answered. “I had the quarry cornered, but was about to let her go anyway. Some women appreciate a man who struggles for self-control in the face of her overwhelming charms. I want her to think well of me.”

Hera laughed lightly. “I rather doubt she’ll think of anything but you, tonight.”

Zeus chuckled. He’d halfway-seduced Maggie. He imagined she would sleep uneasy; fantasizing about him. Let her suffer the night, and let Hera think she’s scored some minor victory. The night had turned out better than Zeus had hoped. Even if he did not get Maggie to lift her skirt, he suspected he had gone his siblings one better.

He hoped he could trick Maggie into helping him murder Lord Felph.