A Confusion of Princes Read online

  My chambers in the temple were one of the things I was looking forward to leaving behind. Already in my imagination I had planned far more extensive and luxurious accommodations. I knew as a Prince I could commandeer such things, provided they were not already the property of another Prince or protected under the authority of a Prince, a temple, or the Emperor Hierself.

  But I was glad to enter the simple living chamber that day. I sat down in the single chair as Haddad stood before me, and we both looked at each other, though of course Haddad kept his eyes down, as was only proper.

  I had not seen an assassin before, or at least had not recognised any, for Haddad looked no different from any other priest. The priests of each Aspect had their own distinctive formal robes, but they rarely dressed in them, usually adopting simple tan-coloured robes or shipsuits, one-piece coveralls like the one Haddad wore now.

  He was tall and spare of frame, and looked to be around forty or fifty years old. His skin was lighter than my own, and more yellow than brown. His head was shaved, to reveal the transparent panels that ran from his temple to the back of his ear, the mark of a full priest. I could see the sheen of blue cooling liquid pumping around his brain, indicating that he had some Psitek activity running, though I could detect nothing with my own Psitek abilities. He had one natural eye, the iris a deep brown colour, and one Bitek replacement, which was entirely green, without a pupil, and obviously specialised, but I did not know its type or purpose.

  I wondered what he thought of me and how I measured up. He would have served Princes before me, as assassins were transferred by the Emperor every ten years. Haddad might well have been Master to other newly hatched Princes about to embark on their careers.

  I was taller, faster, and stronger than the priests, the novices, and the mind-programmed servants I had lived among, but now a faint shadow of doubt crept in as Haddad stood before me. Perhaps I was not much of a Prince. Maybe I would be not quite as fast, or strong, or tall as the others. I might even be ugly, for I had the face I was born to have, Princes being forbidden to change their appearance, apart from enhancements or necessary repair. I had never thought of this, because I had never shared the company of equals, or even those who might venture an unbiased opinion.

  :What was that silver box . . .:

  I began to send, but Haddad interrupted.

  :Mindspeech not recommended:

  ‘There are too many people within the temple and the outer grounds who can eavesdrop on mindspeech in close proximity,’ said Haddad. ‘I am blanking the aural receptors and other devices in the room, so it is best to speak aloud.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, trying to act as if I was in command and Haddad was acting on my instructions. But it did not sound like that, even to me.

  ‘You did well to evade the flower-trap’s sunbeam, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘However, you must take it as a warning of things to come. A Prince or number of Princes are aware that you have ascended, and they seek to remove you before you become even a potential threat.’

  ‘What? Already?’ I asked. While I knew about competition between Princes, at this stage I thought it was more chivalrous and I had no idea it was so . . . well . . . lethal. ‘I haven’t done anything yet! I haven’t even connected to the Imperial Mind!’

  ‘It is because you have not yet connected to the Mind,’ said Haddad. ‘If successfully killed now, you are permanently removed, with no chance of rebirth. One fewer Prince to contend with, and the Emperor’s abdication is only two years away.’

  ‘That makes it even more foolish of them,’ I said. ‘When I become Emperor, I certainly won’t forget or forgive these attempts on my life!’

  Haddad didn’t even blink at this remarkably naïve assertion.

  ‘I suspect they do not recognise your true potential at this stage, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘It is simply a common and accepted strategy to remove any newly ascended Prince candidates as an opportunity kill.’

  ‘It’s a pathetic strategy,’ I muttered. ‘I wouldn’t do it. Where’s the honour in taking out a new Prince?’

  Haddad was silent, no doubt thinking that either I was a soft idiot or I would soon change my tune.

  For my part, I was bottling up a sudden rage at the priests who hadn’t told me that I might be assassinated straightaway and had neglected to inform me that the Emperor’s abdication was so close. I was aware that the Emperor abdicated every twenty years, and one of the ten million Princes of the Empire would ascend the throne. But I did not know how this came about, though I presumed the existing Emperor chose their heir, and I had not known the next such abdication and ascension was only two years away. I would have to work fast to do some glorious deeds and make myself known so the Emperor would choose me to be hier successor. Which was annoying, since I wanted to just look around the Empire a bit first, in my own ship. Though I supposed some adventures might come my way in any case.

  ‘The priests should have told me about all this,’ I said after a few moments of silence.

  ‘It is an intentional part of your education, or lack of education, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘The winnowing begins as soon as you are made a Prince. Approximately thirty-two per cent of all ascending Prince candidates do not last past the first hour out of their childhood temple.’

  My internal chronometer said I had been a Prince for all of thirty-five minutes. If I made it through another twenty-five minutes, I’d be ahead of the statistical curve. . .

  ‘Our first priority must be for you to connect to the Imperial Mind,’ said Haddad. ‘This will have three positive results. Firstly, it will remove the possibility of permanent death, and so the benefit of assassinating you will reduce, possibly enough that any plans already laid will be postponed. Secondly, it will allow you to access resources and information necessary for your protection and future plans. And thirdly, you will be able to call upon the Mind to witness, and this will make blatant breaches of the law against you more unlikely.’

  ‘What?’ I exploded. This was getting worse and worse. ‘Blatant breaches? You mean a Prince could act against the Imperial Law?’

  ‘It is a question of the potential benefit versus the potential punishment,’ replied Haddad. ‘There are also ways and means of obscuring the Mind’s viewpoints and capture of information so that it is not entirely clear whether a breach has been committed or not—’

  ‘I’m going to go and ask Uncle Coleport some serious questions,’ I interrupted. ‘With a knife.’

  ‘There’s no time for that, Highness,’ continued Haddad, as unruffled as ever. ‘Do you have any possessions you need to pack?’

  ‘What?’

  I was stuck thinking about what Haddad had just told me. I had been taught that the Imperial Mind watched over everything, that it knew everything, and that Imperial Law was always followed to the letter. Though of course Imperial Law was not for the ordinary citizens of the Empire. They had to do whatever their ruling Prince decreed. Imperial Law was for Princes, setting down how the authority of a Prince worked with other Princes, the precedence of Princely commands, and so on.

  ‘Possessions . . .’ I repeated slowly. Though my mind was supposedly as accelerated as my body, I did not find my thoughts coming quickly.

  I looked around my living chamber and through the doorway to my bedroom. All my clothes were brought to me, fresh and new, each morning. Information flowed to my mind directly, or sometimes via secure pods that were also brought to my rooms. Practice weapons came from the armoury and went back there at the end of a session.

  ‘No. I have nothing. Uh . . . where are we going and . . . why are we going anyway? Surely it would be better to stay here and . . . um . . . plan . . .’

  My voice trailed off. Though I had long imagined the day when I would become a full Prince, none of my daydreaming had included being almost killed and then having to flee. Mostly it had consisted of looking at the specifications of various extremely fast and deadly starships.

  ‘We can’t remain
here,’ explained Haddad. ‘This temple will not allow you to stay beyond the first hour, Highness, and we must reach a place of relative safety, somewhere where you can access the Imperial Mind. Had you planned which service to join for your initial career?’

  Princes supplied the officers of all the key services of the Empire: Navy, Marines, the Diplomatic Corps, Survey, Imperial Government, Colonial Government . . . but they all sounded like hard work, and though I had expected I would join one of them at some stage, the thought of yet more training did not appeal to me. Also, it would mean putting myself into a hierarchy of Princes where I would be the lowest of the low. It would be much more fun to simply go somewhere interesting and be a Prince at large, preferably the only one around. Then I could do whatever I wanted.

  ‘Uh, I don’t want to commit to any service and all that training malarkey,’ I said. ‘I want to enjoy myself first. Get a ship—you know, a corvette or maybe something smaller, of course with high automation, head out for some distant stars, see something beyond this mouldy old temple, smoke a few Naknuk ships or the like. . . .’

  I looked at my Master of Assassins.

  ‘That’s not going to happen, is it?’

  ‘Not advisable,’ said Haddad tersely. ‘The nearest shipyard that might have a vessel not already earmarked for a Prince or under the aegis of a Prince would be . . . Jearan Six. We’d have to go commercial from here, several changes, several lines—the risk would be extremely high. Also, it would mean delaying your connection to the Mind.’

  ‘Can’t I connect here, before we leave?’ I asked. I knew the procedure. Though I would later be able to communicate with the Imperial Mind wherever there were available priests to relay, my first connection needed to be from within the inner sanctum of a temple.

  ‘It is forbidden for Princes to enter the sanctums of temples other than temples of their own service when on duty, or on direct Imperial orders,’ said Haddad.

  ‘But I go to the sanctum here often . . . ah . . . when I was a Prince candidate I went there . . .’

  ‘Exactly, Highness. The optimum possible node now is the Temple of the Aspect of the Noble Warrior on Kwanantil Nine, which serves the Kwanantil Domain Naval Academy of the Imperial Navy.’

  ‘But you said a Prince can only enter the sanctum of a temple of their own service, or with direct orders,’ I said. My augmented and accelerated brain clearly wasn’t working as it should.

  ‘Yes, Highness,’ said Haddad.

  ‘You mean I’ll have to join the Navy.’

  ‘Yes, Highness.’

  My dream of a slender space yacht, lavishly appointed and crewed by suitably attractive mind-programmed servants, disappeared, driven away by the fresh, sharp memory of the flower-trap’s sunbeam going over my head. Next time, there might be more than one assassin, more than one sunbeam. . .

  ‘In addition to connecting to the Imperial Mind, the Navy would also offer you a high level of protection, Highness. Apart from the vacation period, cadets at a Naval Academy or officers on active service may not be assassinated. Not legally, though accidents do happen. You must always be vigilant.’

  ‘It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?’

  Haddad nodded. I wasn’t sure if this was in agreement or just some kind of punctuation.

  ‘What are the alternatives and the probability of success?’ I asked as crisply as I could. This line was straight out of one of my favourite Princely biographies, a Psitek experience of thirty-nine episodes entitled The Achievements of Prince Garikm, which I had lived through numerous times. Garikm was always snapping it out, or some variation, like the immortal short form, ‘Alternatives! Probabilities!’

  ‘Without a priest to calculate the probabilities I cannot say exactly, Highness.’

  Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that when Garikm said the line, he had about fifty fawning priests standing by to figure out probabilities. All I had was one Master of Assassins and a lot of problems. I had also just begun to realise that the ‘biographical’ Psitek experiences were probably a load of crap. At least, none of them ever showed Princes just killing each other or organising assassinations. It was all formal duels and clever outmanoeuvring that left one Prince looking stupid. Not lying headless on the ground with a burning wound where their neck used to be.

  ‘Despite the lack of probability analysis, I believe a fast transit to Kwanantil Domain Naval Academy and entry into the Navy provides the optimal path for your survival.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. For a moment I adopted my ‘Prince Garikm thinking’ pose, but unlike when I’d posed in a Psitek simulation, it just felt silly now. Resting your chin on two bunched fists is pretty unnatural. Instead I paced around my room. I didn’t even notice I was flicking my fingers nervously until I hit my own leg and flinched.

  What the hell was I going to do? Haddad knew far more about my situation than I did, and obviously had a much better grasp of what could be done. But could I trust him? Maybe there were some other alternatives, but how could I find out what they were in the twenty-odd minutes before we got kicked out of the temple? The temple that was the only place I really knew, though I would never call it home . . .

  ‘We must move soon, Highness,’ said Haddad as I continued my pacing.

  I stopped and looked at him. He’d saved me once already, maybe twice.

  ‘Okay, damn it,’ I said. ‘I’ll join the Navy. So let’s go to Kwanantil Nine.’

  I paused, then added, ‘Uh, how do we get there?’

  ‘I have an idea, Highness,’ replied Haddad. ‘But I am afraid it will not be a comfortable journey.’

  He quickly outlined his plan, which of course I approved, given that I had no other ideas. Then he gave me two of his many weapons: a three-shot deintegration wand that went into two loops on my inside left sleeve, and an egg-shaped phage emitter that I had to initialise with a lick of my tongue so the Bitek agents inside would not act against me. That sat in the top of my boot, in a pocket that had always seemed extraneous frippery. My clothes had many such loops, pockets, and pouches. I had never wondered why they were there before.

  ‘I am ready,’ I pronounced.

  But I wasn’t, not at all.

  2

  WE TRAVELLED TO Kwanantil Nine aboard the largely automated museum ship Beyond the Veil of Time, positioned within a diorama depicting a scene from ancient Earth, a sporting contest of two pugilists surrounded by a crowd. Apart from Haddad and myself, the actors were all mind-programmed lackeys who, even while in the vast hold of the ship without an audience, performed their parts on the hour, every hour. Without alteration, save for the occasional replacement of one or both of the pugilists when they became too damaged, new ones being brought out of the exhibit’s internal cold store.

  The diorama was contained within a crystal hemisphere some hundred meters in diameter. In addition to the arena where the pugilists fought, there was a tavern, where Haddad and I remained, disguised as drunken patrons. Should anyone enter the diorama, we needed merely to slump in our corners.

  I was impressed that Haddad got us aboard without anybody noticing. The hour we spent sneaking through the temple, with Haddad circumventing various monitors, dodging guards, and then boarding the ship through a supposedly one-way waste umbilical, was very educational. At least after I got cleaned up I appreciated the educational aspects.

  Perhaps the most important lesson for me was not to accept what I saw or heard at face value and to look beyond the official description or information to see if there was something I could use.

  I had been a bit concerned that someone would come and look at the diorama. After all, you’d think if the show was constantly on, it was because some Prince wanted to come and see it.

  But again, Haddad had chosen well. There was no Prince aboard, and the only crew were a bunch of priests who never strayed from their command- or engine-room shrines. The exhibit was just being kept in tune for delivery to its intended owner. It was the property of a most senior Prince,
Governor Prince Achmir XII (the numeral referring to his eleven deaths). Achmir was the governor of the Kwanantil system, which I learned was an important fief of fourteen tek-shaped worlds and large moons.

  So the ship was going to the Kwanantil system, and since there was a Naval Academy there, that’s where I was headed too. To sign up and wave goodbye to my long-held plans for frolicking about the galaxy without a care in the world.

  Unfortunately the diorama was destined for Kwanantil Four, the capital world of the system, and the Naval Academy was located on a planet in the ninth orbit. Haddad said we could not risk a transit through Kwanantil Four, so we had to get off the ship before it arrived there.

  But just as he had chosen the ship well, Haddad had also planned for this eventuality. He set it all out for me, just like Garikm’s own Master of Assassins did in the beginning of each episode of The Achievements.

  The wormhole exit for the Kwanantil system lay beyond the eleventh orbit. Exiting it, the museum ship would slow for boarding and inspection, purely a matter of form given that it was operating under the aegis of Prince Achmir. Following that administrative check, it would begin to accelerate toward the inner worlds, but on a spiralling path that would take us close to Kwanantil Nine.

  At the point of closest approach to the ninth planet, we would leave the ship.

  I had approved of this plan in general, until the detail emerged that we would not be leaving in a lifeboat or smaller vessel, for any such craft would be fired upon by the guardships of the Naval Academy unless we could get prior authorisation. But I could not seek that authorisation as I had not yet connected to the Imperial Mind, and in any case, I had no household priests to relay my communications.

  Instead of safe passage in a lifeboat, we would equip ourselves with protective suits and stealth mantas that would not be picked up by scanners until we were very close. The mantas were Bitek personal vehicular and reentry organisms that Haddad had been growing in the cellar of the tavern from molecular templates, feeding them with the biological material of the dead pugilists and sand from the arena. Shaped like the marine rays of Earth, they were some five metres long and four metres wide when fully deployed, containing pressurised gases in directional glands for manoeuvring in space, and their undersides were a heat-resistant ablative material to allow a gliding reentry into atmosphere.