A Family Affair - Aftermath
30 Nov 2017Mack Winston
PREVIOUSLY...A family affair - Part 1
A family affair - Part 2
A family affair - Part 3
A family affair - Part 4
A family affair - Part 5
Macmillan Terminal, Achenar
I could never quite shake the feeling that I was out of place in Achenar. There was something about the Empire's capital that made me slightly uncomfortable. Macmillan Terminal seemed to be teeming with the Empire's rich and fashionable, and the Café Central, somewhere I hoped I'd find an oasis of calm while I tried to internalise the events of the last two days even more so. The view from the cafe's observation lounge at least gave me something to look at.
I watched the planet below, a huge storm building over one of the oceans, and it seemed to be symbolic of the direction my life was about to go in. After Norman Mosser's henchman had returned me to his estate, Norman seemed to have gone out of his way not to discuss my uncle or what I had done. He had merely asked if I had done what I needed to. I hadn't gone into details. I probably didn't need to, no doubt Mosser had been watching the whole thing in real time.
I might have felt out of place and more than slightly paranoid, but at least I still blended in, wearing the hand-tailored suit Norman had supplied me with. Through the observation window, I saw the James Prescott Joule glide gracefully out of view and towards the docking slot. The ship looked so incredibly small and insignificant against the backdrop of Capitol. Part of me wanted to get to the dock as soon as possible, board my ship, then point the nose towards the Formadine Rift and disappear. The better part of me thought that breaking into a run right now would just attract unwanted attention. Better to wait for Cal and Horse to get here, have a quiet drink, then slip off into the darkness.
I didn't have to wait long.
"What do you call a Phekdan in a suit?" - it was Cal's voice, all too cheerful, I thought.
"The defendant. Yeah, very droll, and I grew up on Azeban and I'm half Achenarian, anyway," I replied. "Let's get back to the ship, these walls have ears", I added, quietly.
We hurried back to the James Prescott Joule. Horse Hines was already warming up the engines to leave by the time we boarded. I hadn't needed to send a message, Horse had correctly predicted I really didn't want to hang around. By the time I collapsed into the left hand seat on the bridge of the Anaconda, we were already lifting off and heading towards the exit, bound for Kappa Fornacis...
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Cal said, more seriously once we got settled. "We were trying to find where you might have gone and it was slow progress"
"What happened to you after I was kidnapped?" I asked.
"Well, I tried. I was confronted by one of those people after you. A group of three of them were dragging you away, assisted by a fourth, and there was something odd about them. They all looked the same"
"What do you mean, the same? Uniforms?"
"No, they looked the same like identical twins look the same. The fourth one said something distinctly odd to me when we met"
"What do you mean, odd?"
"He said, entirely without emotion, 'Please move out of the way. You would be advised to co-operate or I may be forced to execute you summarily. I would regret this action, as it causes excess paperwork.'"
I pondered this for a moment. Excess paperwork?
"I mean, who says that to someone you're about to murder unless they get out of your way?" Cal asked, rhetorically. "So when I got back to the ship, I searched for that phrase. It kind of stuck out"
"Yeah," I said. Norman hadn't really expounded on where his henchmen had come from, and I hadn't asked.
"Well, there's this conspiracy theory that the Empire during the sixties bred a small force of clone agents, during the height of INRA's activities against the Thargoids. No one believes the conspiracy theorists, of course, except this time the tinfoil hatters actually appear to be right. The people who took you were clone agents"
"Owned by Norman Mosser", I added.
"Norman Mosser? Of Greatest Crime fame?"
"The very same"
"So they took you to him? I mean, why the subterfuge?"
"I was about to be murdered by my uncle," I said, casually.
"What?"
"Remember I told you about my family that time? About Lord Michael Alan Peshiviel Hesketh-Duval, or more informally, my uncle Michael? Well, he found out that I existed and it apparently displeased him, so he sent a reaper after me. It also turns out that Norman Mosser isn't entirely retired, and he has some kind of loyalty towards my father and has been keeping... well, keeping an eye on me"
"He sent you the Deathwreaker?" Cal asked. It must have become immediately obvious.
"Yep, he apparently has a warehouse full of them"
"He could collapse the market in collecting those things overnight"
"Yeah, he said that too"
Horse was lining the ship up for the jump away from Achenar. I watched briefly as the stars and planet faded from view, replaced by the cool witch light.
"So I ended up in Mosser's huge mansion on Capitol. He arranged access to my uncle's estate, and told me I should murder the man"
"Did you?"
"No. I'm not an assassin. I certainly can't kill my own uncle. Norman argued my uncle would try again, and again"
"Norman's right, he will," Cal said, gravely.
"But I'm not going to start murdering people in cold blood"
"Could have fooled me," Cal replied, a bit too casually I thought. "What about the Dragons of Kappa Fornacis? Or that guy you exploded in 34 Pegasi?"
That's funny, that was exactly what Norman had said...
"That's different, that was in defence of others! And in any case, the reaper he sent after me is dead, surprisingly it was accidental"
"Just because he failed this time and he lost a reaper in the process doesn't mean he won't have more. And should that one fail, he will try again, and again, and again. He won't give up until you are dead," Cal said, quietly, showing a bit more concern.
And that...
"That's exactly almost to the word what Norman said. Have you been seeing him behind my back?"
"No!" Cal said, suspiciously quickly. "But Norman's right. I grew up with these people. Look at what my family did, just because they got swindled out of a few million credits. That entire posse from Thosaio, murdered in cold blood!"
"They didn't get Davel Pistorious"
"I believe that was deliberate. I think my brother suspected there was someone behind it all, pulling the strings, so he spared Davel Pistorious, knowing that Pistorious would go after the real mastermind of the swindle"
"So it looks like we've both got the sword of Damocles hanging over us, then. It can't have escaped your family's notice that it was my father who was involved in that, and then it won't take them much longer to follow the breadcrumbs back to you"
Horse, who had been quiet up until now turned to us.
"There's a four month charting expedition that launches next month, perhaps you ought to go on it. Minerva Centaurus Expedition, it's called"
It certainly was an appealing thought. Four months while being over twenty thousand light years away from the Empire may make us somewhat less hot. Or at least give us four months longer to live.
"Anyway," I continued, "I think I frightened my uncle Mike. He got the point of a blade poked in him in his own state room, and also as far as he is aware, his reaper getting killed wasn't actually an accident, just made to look like one. I told him I would personally mail him back the diced pieces of the next reaper he tries to send"
"And my family?" Cal asked
"To be honest, I don't think he's found out. We'd have known it by now and with the entire Thosaio posse being dead there's no one left to link you to them"
The remainder of our journey to Kappa Fornacis continued uneventfully, and I discovered I was rather closer to making the rank of Duke than I had thought. Perhaps the Gutamaya Imperial Cutter was within reach, and perhaps a four month trip in such a luxury barge would do us some good. There was another threat, too - perhaps a much more existential threat to all of us, the Thargoids. Perhaps in four months it would be all academic. If that were the case, living the rest of our lives in a Gutamaya ship at least seemed a tolerable idea.
"It's funny", I remarked idly. "Humanity has been in space for over a thousand years. We've colonised thousands of systems, terraformed worlds, have riches beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors... but for what? We still have people like your family and my uncle who murder with casual abandon. A non human intelligence arrives and what happens? We shoot first and ask questions later"
No one asked my rhetorical statement. At least we were home, as Harvestport hoved into view. Somehow, the EIC canteen's food - consisting largely of greasy unidentifiable things in gravy - seemed hugely appealing.
And so did the Minerva Centaurus Expedition...
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