Hell's Gate

Chapter Twenty-Three

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Kavilkan is in a meeting and can't be disturbed."

Jali Kavilkan's private secretary spoke with more than a hint of frost, and when frost appeared in Linar Wiltash's voice, most men cringed. Davir Perthis didn't. He was SUNN's Chief Voice, and he was too busy resisting the compulsion to tear out his hair with both hands to waste time cringing. Instead, he leaned forward, planted both hands on her desk, and thrust his jaw out.

"If you don't disturb him for this, you'll be looking for another job by supper. Move, damn it!"

Wiltash's eyes widened. Then she stood, spine stiff with outrage, crossed her palatial office with obviously irritated strides, and tapped at the door of the sanctum sanctorum of the Sharonian Universal News Network.

"What?" The predictable bellow rattled the door on its hinges, and Wiltash eased it open just a crack.

"Voice Perthis says it's urgent."

"It had fucking well better be! Get in here, Perthis!"

The Voice scooted, and he felt a sudden spike of satisfaction as he stepped through the door. The meeting he'd interrupted was providential, because Tarlin Bolsh, SUNN's division chief for international news, sat across the ship-sized desk from the executive manager of the largest news organization on Sharona. Or, in the entire multiverse, for that matter.

Jali Kavilkan didn't seem to feel there was anything providential about the moment, however. Kavilkan lacked any kind of physical grace. Short and broad, with the square, heavy-child face, he moved as ponderously as a Ternathian battleship, overflowed any chair Perthis had ever seen him sit in, and somehow contrived to loom larger than men a foot taller than him. And, at the moment, he had his patented bellicose, take-no-prisoners glare focused directly upon one Davir Perthis.

"Well? What the hell's so godsdamned important?" he demanded.

Perthis closed the door behind him, pulling until the latch clicked with reassuring solidity. Wiltash had ears in every pore of her anatomy, which she used to keep Kavilkan informed of everything that happened in SUNN in's headquarters. For once, though, Perthis was privy to information she didn't have yet, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Once he was certain the door was closed, he met Kavilkan's angry stare with a level gaze of his own.

"Sharona's at war, sir," he said flatly.

"What?" Kavilkan's bellow actually lifted him to his feet, jerked up like some immense marionette. It came out half-strangled, the oddest sound Perthis had ever heard from him, and he half-crouched across his desk.

"Just what the hell do you mean by that?" he demanded an instant later.

"Exactly what I said, sir. We're at war. One of our survey crews has been slaughtered by soldiers from an unknown human civilization. The Portal Authority hasn't released the official word yet, and it won't release details until families are notified, but Darl Elivath's got confirmation from three of his best sources."

He paused briefly, and Kavilkan jerked a brusque nod for him to continue. Elivath was SUNN's senior Portal Authority correspondent. His strength as a Voice was much too limited for service in the long-range Voice network, but his sensitivity and ability to capture nuances was enormous. And his talent for cultivating inside sources was legendary. No one could remember the last time Darl Elivath had been willing to go on the record with one of his sources and been wrong.

"According to Darl, there were no survivors from our crew." Perthis heard the harshness, perhaps even the denial, in his own voice as he continued. "Orem Limana has blood in his eye, and he's already redeploying the PAAF. And that's not all. He's ordered a full Voice Conclave on his own authority. Every head of state on Sharona?and all of our inner-ring colony universes?got the word maybe twenty minutes ago. The Conclave's set for three-thirty, Tajvana time, over the EVN."

For three solid heartbeats, Kavilkan stood rooted in place, as if Perthis had just turned him into stone, and Tarlin Bolsh's jaw eddied towards the floor. Then the executive manager shook himself like a rhino heaving up out of a dust bath somewhere on the Ricathian plains.

"Darl is sure of this?" he demanded.

"I wouldn't be here if he weren't," Perthis replied. "And you know Darl."

"What about confidentiality?" Bolsh asked. Perthis looked at him, and the international news chief grimaced. "You know what the Authority will do to us if they think we've breached Voice confidentiality on something like this, Davir."

"This is Darl we're talking about, Tarlin," Perthis more than half-snapped.

"I know that," Bolsh replied. His tone wasn't exactly placating, but there was definitely a … soothing edge to it. Perthis' defense of his Voices was proverbial. "I'm not saying he has breached confidentiality; I'm just asking if we're in a position to prove he hasn't if the wheels come off."

"I'm sure he'll be able to demonstrate it for any Voice Tribunal he might have to face," Perthis replied, and Kavilkan nodded sharply.

"That's good enough for me," he pronounced. Then he frowned, finally straightening his spine while the acute brain behind his eyes spun up to full speed.

"Three-thirty, you said?"

"Yes, sir." Perthis nodded. "And they're going to play hell getting a conclave set up that quickly, too."

"You're telling me?" Kavilkan snorted. "But the question's how soon we break the story."

"I think we have to be a little cautious with this one, Jali," Bolsh said. The executive manager looked at him, and the division chief shrugged. "If it's big enough for Limana to call a conclave, then it's really, really big. It's not just a question of pissing people off if we break the story sooner than they want; it's a question of knowing what the hell we're talking about before we a splash a report like this over the entire planet. At the moment, all we've really got is Darl's heads-up, and with all due respect for his normal reliability, I think the possibility that the entire planet might find itself at war with an entirely new trans-temporal civilization needs to be thoroughly checked out before we go public."

Kavilkan scowled, but he didn't jump down Bolsh's throat, either. Instead, he squinted his eyes in deep and obvious thought for several seconds. Then he nodded to himself and refocused his attention on Perthis.

"Tarlin's right. We've got to doublecheck everything on this. Is there any sign anyone else's picked up on the same story?"

"Not yet," Perthis said a bit unwillingly. This was the biggest scoop of any newsman's career, and the thought of sitting on it for one second longer than he had to was almost more than he could stand. "It won't be long, if they haven't already, though," he pointed out. "Limana's used the EVN to set up a conclave. The fact that he activated the EVN at all is going to become public knowledge pretty damned quickly. Once that happens, other people are going to be digging, too."

"Granted," Kavilkan agreed. "And I'm not saying we don't start setting up for it right this minute."

He yanked open a file drawer and hauled out a folder Perthis recognized as SUNN's crisis-communications tree?the list of names of every SUNN office on Sharona, the men and women who represented the first tier of people they would need to contact. Each of those people, in turn, had his or her own list of people to contact, comprising the second tier in the system that would send a priority message worldwide within minutes, via SUNN's own Voicenet.

"Pass the preliminary alert now," he instructed the Chief Voice, handing across the file. "And start roughing voicecast copy, too. Go with two versions. Number one assumes we have a clear scoop; number two assumes we're neck-and-neck with at least one of the minors."

Perthis grimaced but nodded. It wasn't like Kavilkan to play it this cautious, but by the same token, this was the biggest news story in at least eighty years. It wasn't too surprising that the executive manager was being a bit careful. And, when Perthis came right down to it, none of the other news services could compare with SUNN's coverage and penetration. Over seventy percent of the home universe's population?and closer to eighty-five percent of the home universe's Talented population?were SUNN subscribers, directly or through one of SUNN's many affiliates. Even if one of the minor services managed to break the story first, SUNN's massive, well-oiled organization would overwhelm the competition in short order with the sheer depth of its own coverage.

"Go ahead and work up both copy sets using everything Darl has," Kavilkan continued. "If there hasn't been any official release by three o'clock, Tajvana, then we break the story with whatever we been able to confirm."

"Yes, sir," Perthis said, with considerably more enthusiasm, and handed over a hastily scribbled sheet of paper. "I've actually made a start on that already. I thought we'd use this for the first announcement, then do a Voice patch to the Authority HQ. Darl's standing by there now, with a reporter, in case we want to use visuals. And I think we want a talking head standing by, too. Maybe a retired survey crewman looking give us an expert opinion on what's going on out there. It'll give us a good human interest angle, too."

"Who?" Kavilkan demanded, then answered his own question. "Gortho Sandrick," he said, naming the man Perthis had already chosen, and switched his forceful gaze back to Bolsh. "He's in your division, isn't he, Tarlin? Wasn't Gortho a survey crew chief before he joined SUNN?"

"For twelve years," Bolsh agreed with a nod. "Before he broke both legs so badly in that landslide and had to retire."

Kavilkan grunted in acknowledgment, his eyes scanning Perthis' copy.

"Yes," he muttered under his breath. "Good job, Davir." He handed back the sheet. "Put Grandma Sholli on to conduct the interview with Gortho. This story needs a woman's touch, and Sholli brings out the best in human interest elements. She's everyone's favorite grandmother. And use Nithan Dursh to anchor the main voicecast. He's got the physical presence it takes to keep people calm."

"As calm as we can keep people, with news like that to report," Bolsh growled, and Kavilkan swore.

"The last thing Sharona needs is a bunch of damned fools running around in a state of total terror. We've got to minimize panic as best we can, and Nithan's our best bet." He ran a hand through iron-gray hair. "Gods and thunders, who the fuck did we run into out there? Well, don't stand there trying to answer a question nobody can answer yet. Move it! And Davir?"

"Sir?"

"Damned good work. Tarlin, I'll want banner headlines on every newspaper SUNN prints. Go ahead and start setting that up now?we're not going to be able to get a special edition out before three, anyway, so we might as well get to it now. But tell everyone, down to the typesetters, that if anyone leaks a single word of this before I personally say to, he?or she?will never work in this business again."

"Understood," Bolsh said. And, like everyone else, he knew Jali Kavilkan wasn't given to hyperbole when it came to things like this.

"Drag as much information as we can out of the Authority. Use smart speculation on what they don't have?or won't give us?but make damned sure we distinguish clearly between official information and speculation. And, while you're doing that?"

Perthis didn't stay to hear the rest of Kavilkan's instructions to Bolsh. His job was the Voicenet well, not newsprint, and he had one hell of a job on his hands.

He rushed across the dumbfounded secretary's office without so much as glancing at her. He'd spent forty-three years in the news business. In that time, nothing?not even the Juhali eruption?had even approached this one in sheer magnitude. He was already spinning out follow-up voicecast ideas as he ran through SUNN's hallowed corridors, planning which SUNN Voices to put at the disposal of reporters in imperial and national capitals to cover the political repercussions this was bound to have.

Under other circumstances, Perthis would have felt euphoric over the scoop they were about to grab. Instead, his mind ran in frantic circles, wondering?as Kavilkan had?just what it was they'd run into "out there." Not to mention how nasty the other side intended to get. Perthis wasn't accustomed to the hollow feeling in his stomach, a disquieting sensation that he finally identified as fear. Stark, raw, ugly fear. Fear of the unknown, of a human civilization that shouldn't even exist. He wasn't used to feeling fear, and he didn't like it. In fact, he hated it.

He vastly preferred the outrage simmering around the edges of that fear. Outrage that anyone would dare to attack Sharonians. Fury that marauding soldiers had slaughtered Sharonian civilians without a shred of pity or human decency. Such monstrously uncivilized behavior deserved nothing but the most hardfisted military response. Sharona needed to throw their violence right back into their teeth. He bared his own teeth, and his eyes were hard. Rage was an ugly emotion, but it was far better than fear or terror. People needed to demand justice and reprisals, not to cower in stunned panic like a pack of quaking rabbits.

He grimaced at the thought. He knew politicians. Knew them well enough to predict political disaster. He couldn't believe the governments of the world would voluntarily set aside their squabbles and do what had to be done. The Portal Authority's First Director was determined enough, but the Authority couldn't handle a crisis of this magnitude. It didn't have the authority it would need to commandeer men and supplies from every corner of the globe, every universe they currently possessed.

Sharona needed a world government?a strong world government. One headed by someone with the experience to run a massive group of diverse people. Someone with a tradition of strong military leadership, yet with an equally strong and unshakable tradition of justice. There was only one name on Davir Perthis' short mental list of people qualified for that job. But there were two names topping his list of people who would want that job?and one of them couldn't be trusted with a child's milk money, let alone the reins of world power.

They'll be coming to Tajvana, he told himself. They'll hash it out amongst themselves, what to do with the crisis, what to do about who makes the decisions when decisions have to be made fast.

Tajvana was the logical location for such a meeting. Almost all the international?and interdimensional?organizations were headquartered there, not to mention the Portal Authority itself, and Tajvana had the infrastructure to handle a gathering of that size. And it carried the enormous weight of precedence, as well. What other city had ever been the capital of an empire that had covered or colonized two-thirds of the world?

And when they came to Tajvana, they would give Davir Perthis his golden opportunity.

It was time to rouse the public to action, to hit the world's leaders with a deluge of demands for prompt, forceful action and strong, unimpeachably honest world leadership, and a cold smile touched his mouth, displacing the grim set of his lips. As a SUNN division chief, he had the power to make the public issue those demands, without people even realizing he'd done it. Savvy SUNN executives had used that power time and again over the decades. Perthis fully intended to use it, as well?and for a far greater and far better cause than it had ever been used before.

Then he turned the final corner and he was back in his own domain, bellowing for his staff. People scurried like ants, and he flung himself into the comfortable chair behind his own desk and started jotting down hasty, time-critical notes while other people came running toward his office.

His pen moved with furious speed as he focused his mind totally on the project in hand … and very carefully didn't think about his sister's only son, who was on a survey crew somewhere "out there."

Traveling by ETS was unnerving.

One moment, Halidar Kinshe was looking at the console where the ETS Porter sat, eyes closed in fierce concentration as she prepared to teleport them from Tajvana to the ETS station in Sethdona, fourteen hundred-odd miles away. And then there was a moment of overwhelming dizziness, wrenching nausea, and an indescribable sensation?as if he'd slipped between the empty spaces between one thought and the next.

And then he was swaying, dizzy and shaken, on another platform, blinking into the eyes of a totally different person.

"No, don't try to take a step just yet," the young man said as he balanced Kinshe carefully on his unsteady feet. "Wait until your equilibrium returns. Your inner ear still thinks it's in Tajvana."

Kinshe didn't feel quite so bad when he saw Samari Wilkon. The big, strapping Faltharian Voice was almost a foot taller than Kinshe, and he looked decidedly grey-faced as he leaned heavily on another attendant's shoulder.

"That was, ah, very odd," Kinshe managed as he finally began to regain his balance and his breath, and the attendant propping him up smiled.

"That's what most of them say, sir," the young man assured him.

"And the ones who don't?"

"Are usually on their knees, too busy throwing up and cursing to say anything." The attendant's smile turned into a grin, and Kinshe surprised himself with a genuine chuckle.

"Ready to try a few steps now?" the younger man asked, and he nodded. The attendant guided him carefully off the platform and down to the floor. His knees felt rubbery, but they still worked. By the time they'd reached the other side of the room, he felt almost normal again, and Wilkon was right behind him, looking sheepish.

"Your wife is waiting in the lobby, Mr. Kinshe, and there's a carriage waiting for you, as well, just outside," the young man said, finally letting go of him to see if he really could take a few steps on his own. He could. In fact, by the time he reached the door, he was actually convinced he could walk out of the ETS station unaided.

"Thank you very much," he said, gripping the attendant's hand in thanks. "I wish I could tell you why it was so urgent."

"These teleports usually are, sir," the young man said with a smile.

Kinshe nodded, but his answering smile was more than a little forced. This pleasant youngster would be finding out soon enough, he thought grimly, and when he did, he would no longer be smiling, either.

"Ready, Samari?" he asked, turning to see if the Voice had recovered.

"Yes, sir," the towering Faltharian nodded. "Let's get this over with, sir. We may have time to get there first, yet."

Kinshe nodded, opened the door, and strode briskly through it into the station lobby. His wife, Alimar, was waiting for him there, her expression anxious. Alimar had decided not to accompany him to Tajvana this trip because her caseload was always so heavy this time of year. With the schools in session, Healers?even relatively minor Talents like his wife?were in high demand.

Alimar wasn't as skilled or powerful, in a purely physical sense, as some of the truly outstanding telepathic Healers. But she had an adept way with the normal bumps and scrapes that school children managed to acquire a playground, and her sensitivity to emotional nuances made her exceptionally valuable working with children, who were seldom able to fully articulate their feelings. He'd sent word ahead by Voice, asking her to accompany him today, and warning her that her particular ability to soothe and comfort would be needed before this day was over.

She just didn't know how desperately it would be needed … or why.

He pulled her close and held her for a long moment, and his embrace tightened as images of destruction and devastation flickered through his mind. The thought of some rapacious horde of barbarians rushing through the portal in Tathawir and the spreading out across the face the world in a ravening mass, killing and maiming everyone within reach, filled him with a sudden, icy fear that was all too real?and personal?as he felt his wife in his arms.

"What is it, Hal?" she asked in a frightened voice as she tasted his emotions, if not their cause, through her Talent.

"Not here, love," he murmured. "Only when we're alone."

She bit her lip, but nodded. She'd long since been forced to accept that his work in both the Portal Authority and the Shurkhali Parliament meant there would be things to which he was privy that he literally could not share with her. Not without violating his responsibilities to Shurkhal's independence.

But that, too, was about to change, Kinshe thought grimly. Unless he very much missed his guess, Shurkhal would no longer be an independent nation, once the dust settled and their world got down to the serious business of meeting this threat. But he couldn't say that, either, so he guided his wife across the lobby?and faltered to a halt.

Crown Prince Danith Fyysel was standing beside the door.

"Your Highness?" Kinshe said in surprise.

"My father felt it appropriate that I go with you, sir," Danith said, and Kinshe drew a deep breath, then nodded.

"Thank you, Your Highness." He managed to smile. "I was afraid your father would insist on sending a whole retinue us."

The Crown Prince's smile was fleeting?not surprisingly, given the grim business which had brought them both here?but it warmed his eyes for a moment.

"I talked him out of it," he said. "The Ambassador will be distressed enough, as it is, without having to cope with a whole roomful of royal retainers fluttering uselessly about."

"Thank you," Kinshe repeated with another nod, then inhaled deeply. "I'm told there's a carriage waiting?"

"Indeed. And an express train, as well, at Fyysel Station."

Alimar Kinshe's eyes had widened in deep surprise at sight of the Crown Prince, and they'd grown still wider while Danith and her husband spoke.

"What is??" she began, then closed her lips again, blushing painfully. "Sorry. I won't ask again."

"Let's get into that carriage," Kinshe said. "Once we're on the train, I'll fill you in. Both of you."

The Crown Prince inclined his head gravely and led the way outside. There was, indeed a carriage?one of the royal coaches, no less, with a section of ten Household Cavalry waiting as escort.

"I've arranged to bring it with us on a special car," he told Kinshe as they approached it, then paused as a footman opened the door. "No, Mrs. Kinshe. After you," he said as Alimar hesitated, waiting for the prince to enter first, as custom decreed. "I insist."

"Thank you," she murmured, and Kinshe handed her up.

The prince entered the coach next, then Kinshe climbed in, and Wilkon followed last. The moment the footman had closed the door, the coachman clucked to the horses. The beautifully matched team of four grays responded instantly, and the footman scrambled up onto the boot as they sprang into motion, accompanied by the cavalry escort.

The Sethdona ETS station was logically located, in the heart of the capital city between the Royal Palace and the Parliament building. That placed it relatively close to the train station, as well, and traffic was thankfully light at this time of day. The journey was a short one, and when they reached the station, the carriage turned down a special drive reserved for conveyances that were to be shipped overland.

The commander of the mounted escort had obviously been briefed ahead of time, and they proceeded directly to the correct track, where the carriage paused alongside a private passenger car which bore the royal coat of arms on both sides. Three more cars were coupled behind it. One was the special car for the carriage Danith had referred to, while the other two were standard-looking passenger cars. The first of them was obviously for the use of the Crown Prince's security escort, and Kinshe suspected that the other contained a hastily assembled support staff.

The footman opened the carriage door, and Kinshe led the way out at the prince's gesture. He assisted Alimar down the steps, then stood waiting until Danith had joined them. As the Crown Prince led the way towards the royal passenger car, Kinshe found himself gazing at the quietly panting locomotive in something very like awe.

"It's one of the TTE's new Paladins," Crown Prince Danith said quietly. Kinshe glanced back at him, and the young man gave him a true aficionado's smile.

"I'm afraid I'm not as well informed about locomotives as you, Your Highness," Kinshe admitted. "First Director Limana is a huge fan, but I've been more involved with personnel administration than the Authority's freight divisions."

"Actually, the Paladin's a bit too much engine for our purposes, but it was the best compromise available in a short time frame."

"Too much engine, Your Highness?"

"For four cars?" Danith chuckled, and waved one graceful hand at the maroon-and-black painted, steam-breathing behemoth. "This is a 4-10-4, Halidar. Eighty-inch drivers and something like six thousand horsepower. On reasonably flat ground?which describes a lot of Shurkhal, when you think about it?a Paladin is capable of sustained speeds well above a hundred miles an hour with complete passenger trains! Assuming, of course, that the rails are up to it."

Kinshe blinked. That did sound a tad excessive for a mere four cars.

"Father told the line supervisors speed was of the utmost importance," the Crown Prince continued more soberly. "There's not a locomotive on Sharona that will get us there more rapidly than this one."

Kinshe's jaw muscles knotted at the reminder of why they were here, and he nodded. Then they were climbing up into the plushest train car he'd ever seen. Attentive rail stewards showed them to their seats and offered refreshment while the carriage and team, along with the escort's horses, were rapidly loaded. Within ten minutes, the mighty Paladin gave a deep-throated "chuff" of steam, and the special train began to move.

They maintained a decorous speed through the city, but they began to speed up as soon as they reached the open desert. The acceleration was smooth, yet as he watched the eastbound rails and ties of the double-track blur beside them, Kinshe realized that the Crown Prince's speed estimate had been completely serious.

It was an astonishing and exhilarating sensation to move at such speed, and he was reluctant to pull his attention back to the business at hand. Partly, he knew, that was a form of cowardice. He didn't want to think about it, but Alimar needed to know why they were racing through the desert at such enormous speed.

So he told her.

"They did what?" His wife, normally a gentle and loving soul, stared at him with eyes of naked fury. "They butchered an innocent girl? What kind of monsters are these people? They must be punished! Tracked down like jackals and punished!"

"Yes." Kinshe nodded, his expression grim. "They must be?and they will. In fact, they may very well already have been. Don't forget, our information is a week old. A column has already been dispatched to confirm what happened and rescue any of our people who may have survived, and I imagine they've made contact with the other side by now … one way or another. But you have my word, Alimar; the people who could perpetrate this kind of atrocity won't escape justice."

As he spoke, he met Crown Prince Danith's eyes. The heir to the throne had not yet married, but he had sisters. The look that passed between them was a vow made in Shurkhal the blood-debt honor: not another Shurkhali woman would die. Not one.

Kinshe couldn't help wondering what King Fyysel's ultimate vote in Conclave was going to be. The parliamentary representative knew the Crown Prince shared many of his own political convictions, but if Sharona ended up voting in a world government, Danith Fyysel would lose his opportunity to wear a crown.

"My father and I have already spoken about the most important aspect of Shurkhal's participation in this Conclave, Representative Kinshe," the Crown Prince said, as if he'd read Kinshe's mind, and his tone was as formal as his choice of titles. "He specifically instructed me to share our thoughts with you, since you are both a senior member of Parliament and a Portal Authority director. Both of us know Sharona must have a world government. At the same time, Father has already sworn on blood-honor that we will never tolerate a government run by Uromathia. His exact words were, ah, "death before Uromathia,' I believe."

"That certainly sounds like your father, Your Highness. Rather mild for him, actually," Kinshe observed with a grimace, and the Crown prince's lips twitched.

"You know him well. What I want to say, however, before this matter even comes to vote, is that I support Father's position absolutely. I hold the survival of Sharona far higher than any petty desire to sit on a fancy chair in Sethdona. We can't afford that kind of nonsense."

"Your Highness," Alimar Kinshe said softly, before her husband could speak, "you've just proven how worthy you would have been to sit in that chair."

Danith Fyysel blinked in surprise. Then the Crown Prince of Shurkhal actually turned red for a second or two before he finally managed a chagrined smile.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kinshe," he said. "That may be the greatest compliment I've ever received."