Chapter 4

4.

Ambrozy had been following Yuri around for quite some time. He had paid attention to those who had been taken into the cave and noticed the confused stragglers coming out early on, and he had wondered if they would take Yuri there too, the bond between him and these tribesmen seemed to be quite strong, much more so than Yuri apparently realized. After they had taken him away, Ambrozy had placed himself in the crowd to a spot where he could see the exit from the cave more clearly and he had not been waiting long before Yuri stumbled out just as intoxicated as the others, but of course he had to have taken it all to the next level. Screaming and screeching Yuri had run all about the plains tripping out of his mind, taking all his clothes off one by one and throwing them as far as he could, vomiting so copiously and continually that it was as if a huge snail had traveled through the steppe. Ambrozy had patiently walked after him, picking up his filthy and soaked garments whenever he happened to find them. He was happy to get out from the middle of the suffocating crowd and the winds of the plains for once felt cool and nice, the camp behind them shining warmly into the night. Ambrozy could not but chuckle at the hermit's sudden wild bender and Yuri tired himself out eventually, collapsing into the ground, talking in his sleep loudly and incoherently. Ambrozy was pretty sure that no animal would come and eat him, most of them must be pretty scared of the noisy camp and not come anywhere near the place, so Ambrozy walked all the way back to where their gear was, emptied the hoversled, took a few blankets and went to get Yuri. Yuri was a big fellow and lifting a limp body is always hard so it took some doing for Ambrozy to get him on the sled. The pungent grime of the vomit on Yuri didn't help either and Ambrozy took extra care of not touching his own face before he could wash his hand thoroughly. He covered Yuri in blankets and with the sled the way back was easy and pleasant. The music of the festival had not died down at all even though the sun was going to rise soon. For now, it was still dark. Once they had arrived at their spot, Ambrozy put one more blanket on Yuri, disinfected his hands and went into his own sleeping bag to catch a few hours of sleep before the next day. Back at home he had sometimes had trouble sleeping but out here in the fresh air of the outdoors he slept every time like a log.

Ambrozy woke up late in the noon and Yuri was still snoring away. The whole camp was drowsy and hungover too and there was little movement there. Only a few servants were out and about, cleaning up the results of the celebration. Ambrozy wasn't hungry at all, he had eaten so much at the festival, but he boiled up some water for the instant coffee. Yuri seemed to wake up to the bubbling of the water purifier. "You had a better party than I did." Ambrozy said. Yuri got up into a sitting position on the hoversled like a ninety year-old man and he looked like hell. He happened to touch his bare chest and he looked at his hand in disgust once he realized how sticky he was. "Go clean up." Ambrozy said as he opened up an instant coffee package. Yuri growled something incoherent and wobbled to the camp buck naked to find some water. Yuri opened another package and poured its contents into Yuri's mug. He stumbled back after a while, his skin glistening with water droplets. Ambrozy pointed at the water purifier in an asking way and Yuri nodded as he wrapped himself back into the blankets. Ambrozy poured some hot water into Yuri's mug too and gave it to him. Yuri held it like it was the most precious thing in the world.

"So, what, they kept all the good stuff in the cave then? They have some sort of rule about intoxicants, these tribesmen?" Ambrozy asked. Yuri shook his head lightly. "No, not like that. They usually buy booze from the city folk when they come and trade, other than that they dry and chew on leaves of a certain bush that grows all over the plains, but it's more of a stimulant and pretty mild. That's why so many of them have black teeth in case you noticed, they use it all the time." Yuri croaked. Ambrozy took a sip from his coffee. "So they made you drink something?" he asked. "No, no, it was... gas or smoke, I don't know." Yuri answered. "They made you smoke a pipe?" Ambrozy asked. Yuri shook his head again. "It came from the ground, just like that. It seemed like some sort of a natural phenomenon, but I've never seen that before. I didn't know that the Herd even had a ceremony like this." Yuri was quiet for a while. "It was... horrible." he managed to say and he looked like he was about to cry. Ambrozy was a little surprised by his reaction. They sat together silently with the warm mugs in their hands. Ambrozy saw that some groggy tribesmen had gotten up and they went to tend to the livestock, the sun clearly hurting their eyes.

But he knew exactly what was wrong with Yuri. The hermit needed a cause: his type of person would not be any more satisfied or any less anxious no matter how much worldly success they could amass unless they could find something bigger to strive for, a holy mission and a sacred task, something that could make all the suffering in the world worth it. Ambrozy's great uncle had been like that: he had been an officer in a colonial world much like Llapus but on the other end of the galaxy. On the campaign he had slept on the floor of the armored personnel carrier for a few hours at a time in his damp uniform and the story told that he had remained a virgin, so single minded had he been in his crusade. Once wounded, he didn't accept any painkillers, but once he reached the age of retirement, he had used all the stimulants and strength enhancers to get himself back in shape to get into the fray once again. He had died in combat and even though he had been greatly admired, many quietly thought that he had a few screws loose. But mad he hadn't been: it was just his nature. Yuri had been kept so much an outsider – or rather he had made himself into one – that he had not been indoctrinated into any ideology. What the tribal ceremony yesterday had most likely been probably had something to do with men being initiated as full-fledged members of the tribe, or maybe they were revealed the mystery of their religion through the use of psychotropic substances. Maybe the shaman had just glanced at Yuri and seen how obviously uncomfortable he was in his skin, a fact that had become painfully obvious once Yuri had stepped out of the jungle, and had decided to heal him. Within the temple system shamanism was seen as primitive as religion can be, something to be dealt away with as fast as possible once the colonization process had advanced enough, but they often missed the fact that the seeming mumbo-jumbo of the witch doctors consisted of psychological and social tools and cures for the problems and ills of their tribe. Ambrozy had plans to study the methods of different aboriginal peoples in detail since there was bound to be useful insight in there but he hadn't yet had the time for such a project. As of right now, what Yuri needed was indoctrination. He had proven himself too useful and capable to be left to roam in the woods like a demented derelict, something he was bound to become if things continued like this for him. Ambrozy wanted Yuri to work for him.

He cleared his throat and thought about the words he wanted to say carefully. Yuri looked defeated inside his blanket, the coffee mug in his hands. The sun was softly warming the upcoming day. For once the wind wasn't blowing.

"You had been dealt rough cards. I can see that." Ambrozy started. Yuri looked at him, taking his depressed gaze away from the mug. "The cycle of the state is such that once a dynasty breaks, chaos can ensue. The progress of the empire has been stagnant, even backwards at points, especially in the last few decades, so it seems. You ended up on being born on this backwater planet where colonization has not advanced from the initial stages and corruption reigns. Then you got the worst end of that too. What you have seen your whole life around you has been poisonous and corrosive, and that's what you perceive the world to be. That's no surprise. Many others would too." Ambrozy took a better position where he was sitting and leaned more towards Yuri with a serious look on his face. Yuri seemed confused, but he listened. "But you haven't seen the rest of it. What you have seen is the reason for the birth of the empire. It was just like this in the beginning as it is on Llapus right now, before the space travel had even been invented. An idea of strong statehood was conceived. The depravity of humanity could only be washed away by unity, by the joining of the better angels of our nature through the deliberate civilizing project led from a strong center. The start of it was ugly, that is true, since so many others wanted to pursue their personal gain through the subjugation of others, and they didn't want to give in. Wars were fought, bloody ones, long ones, but in the end it was all worth it. You haven't seen the gardens of the Eternal City, the astounding technology the imperial universities have conceived, the long periods of peace never before seen in history. Once we found that our brothers and sisters had not been bound only to a one home in the galaxy but could be found even among the remotest stars of the cosmos, the course of the humanity became instantly clear: they must not be left to suffer in barbarism, away from their kind, away from what they could let themselves become if they just would be allowed to. This process will often be ugly, the things that need to be done for them to be given that chance, but like doctors witnessing a case of grotesque disfigurement and the rot of a disease, we must hold steady and not flinch away from giving the treatment, even if the initial pain of the procedure would seem cruel and inhumane. For in the end, it is the best." Ambrozy drank greedily the rest of the remains of his coffee.

"The ideal of the empire, what it has proven itself capable of, must be upheld at all cost. In these unstable times, we need to grit our teeth and even do things that in other times would be inconceivable. Men must not be let to fall back to this stage of maximizing one's profit and gain, sacrificing everything else for individual greed. The great imperial spirit transforms us, each and everyone of us, into small and subordinate parts of this great organism, and it fills us with the feelings of strength and immortality. Whatever it may require, whatever suffering or deprivation it may be, we are paid back hundreds of times over. As lonely souls we are but a speck of dust, an insignificant blip in the cosmic wheel of time, but together, through unity, through empire, this means something. It matters. All of it." Ambrozy fell silent and as there was no more coffee left, he reached for his water bottle, opened it and took a sip. "You're suspicious of me, I know it and I understand it. You're a good person for helping me for so long and through all these troubles. But I've been pushing through these difficulties because I have a reason, a good reason. What I'm trying to accomplish can be of great importance and I must not fail." He looked straight into his companion's eyes. Yuri looked back intently. "You're exceptional, in so many ways that you don't even realize. You can't waste it here, not like this. When the time comes, I would wish that you would come with me on that journey. You have so much to give. Think about it." Ambrozy looked into the camp, realizing that people were finally up and the servants had started to grill meat for a late breakfast. "You think it would be okay for me to get in that line? I think they are cooking more of the same stuff they did yesterday. I'll bring some to you too." Yuri nodded absentmindedly, deep in thought. Ambrozy got up and went to the line. The Great Plains felt serene and pleasant.

The Herd stayed put for a few days, then they started to move again, although to the opposite direction where Ambrozy and Yuri were supposed to go. Ambrozy saw Yuri hesitating about visiting the shaman one last time, but at one point the shaman was passing by their spot, talking with a male member of the clan. Yuri's and the shaman's gazes met each other, and the shaman just nodded ever so slightly, then he kept on going and resumed the discussion he was having. That was that. They bought some dried meat to supplement their monotone rations, packed their things and left. There was more pep in Ambrozy's step, the small break and real food had rejuvenated him. Yuri was just as quiet as he had been on the Great Plains, but now the silence was of a slightly different variety.

They trekked along for another week, this being so far the easiest portion of their journey so far. Ambrozy wondered about the stark difference between the steppe and the jungle, how one could be so full of life in all of its forms and the other be so seemingly empty. He hadn't seen any animals on this whole stretch, not counting the creatures of the Herd, and nothing tried to crawl into his sleeping bag at night either. Either huge areas of this open space were truly empty, devoid of anything with a heartbeat, or whatever was here avoided them like the plague. There were batches of gray grass, as if it was tinted with metal, and spots with taller plants that resembled hey, in a washed out light brown hue, reaching a height of a grown man's waist. Some of the boulders located here and there resembled obsidian, but their texture was nothing like it. Watching the sun rising and setting Ambrozy started to notice that the morning glow and the twilight of the evening were not completely what he had been used to. The red wasn't as vivid and sometimes he seemed to have woken up to a day that started with shades of blue, like he was watching the world from the bottom of the ocean. Ambrozy started to doubt his senses and he was puzzled that he had not noticed any of this before. He must have been too occupied with the physical struggle of each day and focused on keeping his cool in the face of all the obstacles of these last couple of months to take in anything that wasn't relevant to his survival or the success of his plan. Now he was the most relaxed he had been in a long while and walking in an easy pace in this environment that resembled things that he recognized but was just enough off from what was normal for him made Ambrozy feel like he wasn't completely awake and the line between reality and dream and blurred, if just a bit. Maybe the water filter wasn't completely washing out everything that it should have and slowly he had been ingesting something he wasn't supposed to, and now he was feeling the effects of it. Maybe the gas that had assaulted Yuri's faculties in the shaman's cave emanated from the ground all over the place but not such large quantities and Ambrozy was having a taste of it too. Whatever it was, psychological or chemical, it seemed to be the case that Ambrozy's perception was altered just a bit, and he seemed to fade away into the canvas of the planet, becoming a part of it just as much as the gray grass of the cold ground or the wind that blew through the steppe, unopposed neither by nature or man. Maybe the shamans felt like this all the time. Maybe this was their secret.

The spell was broken once they spotted a military outpost on the horizon, but Yuri knew that it was empty and abandoned. The capital of Llapus 884 was near, Yuri told Ambrozy, as the city was located to the edge of the jungle just like Anegend, but the city had expanded into the jungle side, leaving the steppes empty. Apparently the jungle soil was fertile and very little grew from the ground of the steppe, but there were few of these old checkpoints left, spotting the nearby area of the capital. There was absolutely nothing worth scavenging left and so they pushed on, and in a few days Yuri and Ambrozy saw the tall buildings of the city grow and the green of the jungle peek at the root of it. The closer they got Ambrozy realized how much this place resembled Anegend, as this city, too, was surrounded by walls and the shacks of the ghettos spread to all sides of it, not counting the openness of the Great Plains. Yuri pointed towards the one side of the shacks. "I was born somewhere in that part, I think. I don't think that there is anything left there that I would recognize from my childhood though. At any rate, we'll have to go to any part where there are people. You can't get into the city from the steppe side."

They headed to the eastern side and suddenly being in the middle of all the unwashed masses of Llapus 884 was simply overwhelming after such a long time. Ambrozy felt that he had once again ended up on a different planet. They couldn't walk fast since there simply were so many people and the air was thick from the stench from the nonfunctional sewage system: pipes leading nowhere stuck out from the ground and slowly dripped brown water into big puddles, their surfaces floating all sorts of trash. People were mostly dressed in rags and the street vendors sold very questionable looking meats, most of the stored meat still alive and squirming in claustrophobic cages behind them, all stacked on top of each other, the ones in the bottom receiving all the dropping of their upstairs neighbors. Gangs walked about, groups of rough looking young men, their handlers slightly their senior, and they seemed to be stopping at different shops and businesses to collect protection money, snatching all sorts of items they fancied into their pockets as the shopkeepers kept their gazes focused on the floor. The gangs noticed Ambrozy and Yuri quickly, but they didn't bother them yet. "Let's just get inside the city as quickly as we can, if we have to stay in the slums we're going to get visitors sooner or later. I'd rather avoid the fight. We'll have to look for the soldiers at the gates to the city, if we go to any that patrol this area they'll probably just try to hustle us. The officer at Anegend bought your story hook, sink and liner so it should work here too." Ambrozy said that he wanted to change back into his monk outfit since that would most likely better his standing in the eyes of the imperial soldiers, so they stopped at an alleyway to change while Yuri kept a lookout. After Ambrozy was done, Yuri changed to a regular shirt and pants from his stolen military outfit and as he started to pack the clothes and the pieces of imperial armor into the hoversled, he noticed somebody trying to snatch something from one of the bags. Yuri flattened the man immediately with a punch, a right cross to the temple of the man's head, and the thief hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, groaning incoherently and not getting up. Nobody on the street batted an eye, but two other young men looked at Yuri intently. Yuri glared back at them and they went the other way. Ambrozy and Yuri finished packing and left, leaving the thief on the ground where he was still collecting himself.

They arrived at the city gates and Ambrozy had his passport ready, happy that he at least had been able to take something essential of his meager possessions when he had stormed for the escape pods when his ship had been invaded. There was a line of people at the gate, all presenting their documents to the soldiers standing there . One of them noticed Ambrozy straight away and seemed to immediately realize what had happened to him, and he waved for Ambrozy to come talk to him and skip the line altogether. Ambrozy followed with Yuri in tow and the soldier was already waiting for the passport with an extended hand. "Another emergency landing, eh? It happens around these parts, holy brother. The embassy is in the middle of the city and the mission is pretty close to it, just go straight once I get the paperwork cleared out." He whistled once he flipped through the passport. "Core Sphere, wow. The lengths your types are willing to go to come preach the good word into shit holes like this one. Takes guts. I wouldn't do it myself though. Don't have the conviction for it." He typed something into a military-issue computer he was carrying with him and put three stamps into the passport before giving it back to Ambrozy. "I'd tell you to enjoy your stay at Llapus but there's a fat chance of that. Besides, it seems like you got a dose of its hospitality already." the soldier said and snickered at his own joke. Ambrozy mumbled his thanks. "Could you bring your superior here? I'd need to meet Lieutenant-Colonel Khairullin, it's the reason I came to this planet?" The soldier frowned, very surprised of what he was being asked. He was already packing his stuff to go do other tasks someplace else. Maybe he was waiting for his break. "Khairullin? Why?" he said, clearly puzzled. "It's classified and very urgent." Ambrozy answered. The soldier scratched his head, asked for Ambrozy's passport again, told Ambrozy to wait and went to get somebody. He walked a few meters away and addressed a sergeant with a salute, then showed Ambrozy's passport to him, explaining the situation as the sergeant leafed through it carefully. The soldier pointed at Ambrozy when the sergeant clearly asked about him and their gazes met. After a minute or two of discussion they went inside to a building that was just behind the city walls. It took a while before the soldier and the sergeant came back. He gave back the passport. "Alright, follow me," he said. Ambrozy nodded towards Yuri. "What about him? He's with me, can he come too? His papers did not survive the crash, but his mission is the same as mine," The soldier groaned. "You should have said so at the start. Normally we don't let anybody through these gates without proper papers, not even if they claim to be the reincarnation of the emperor. How about it, sergeant? We will let him through?" he said, addressing the sergeant standing behind him. The sergeant shrugged. "If he is on the same business as the good monk here, the bosses want to ask questions, papers or no papers. He can come." The soldier nodded and he led Yuri and Ambrozy into the same building where he had been with the sergeant. The hoversled was left outside but inside the city walls.

Yuri and Ambrozy were led to the second floor and after a few corridors the soldier knocked on a door and then stood in attention. After a few seconds the permission was granted. Three officers sat around a mahogany desk, a status item that had to have either been a gift from somebody with extraordinary means or somebody on Llapus had mastered the art of corruption to such a degree that he could get virtually anything from the black market. Ambrozy found himself wondering if the mahogany was genuine and why it was put into this dingy office on the edge of the city. Apparently the officers had been having a meeting about something and the atmosphere was that of a sleepy colonial outpost, a place where those without a career had been placed but, if they were smart, they could basically start their retirements early and enjoy the lazy hedonism that was readily available to them from Monday to Sunday. One of the officers, a balding Major with small eyes and fat cheeks was leaning back in his chair with his jacket open and a glass in his hand, apparently drinking despite the time of the day, and he was looking at Yuri and Ambrozy without any interest in his eyes as the soldier delivered them and left the room, closing the door behind him. The second officer was a skinny Lieutenant Colonel with a crew cut and glasses, his crossed hands leaning against the desk, his uniform neat and clean, as if he was always on the job and there was nothing else in his life except the military. The third one, also a Lieutenant Colonel, was somewhere between the two of them, somebody who had always done what he had been told to but who now was starting to realize that he had been shelved and who had halfway accepted it, his uniform clean but the top button on his shirt was undone and his tie was nowhere to be seen. In a sense it was a peculiar sight to Ambrozy, as he had been accustomed to the professionalism and seriousness of all the soldiers in the imperial capital, whether they were high in rank or not. The major took a sip from his glass and he snorted. "So, are you boys gonna tell us how the wind is rising?"

Ambrozy was displeased. "The wind is rising" was the code for the people in the Black Rose so that they could recognize each other and he had doubts that these has-beens would have any serious aspirations or interests for the future of the empire. Ambrozy stayed quiet for a second as he wasn't sure how to proceed and what was the relationship between these people and Khairullin. The Major chuckled as he saw Ambrozy's hesitation. "Don't worry son, we heard all about the great plans for the empire from the mastermind Khairullin ad nauseam during these last few years, not much else was on that poor bastard's mind, bless his heart. He couldn't change his mind and he couldn't change the subject, and that was the end of him." The Major lifted his glass into the air. "To the best that Llapus could offer!" he said before he emptied his glass. Ambrozy was confused. "Sir, did something happen to him? Where is Colonel Khairullin?" Now the neat Lieutenant Colonel talked. "Khairullin is dead, they caught him in the imperial capital last week. We had no interest in his schemes and whatever you had to report, that's not for us. We remain loyal to the empire and the imperial family." The third officer was looking greedily at the bottle that the Major had taken from an office cabinet to refill his glass but he was controlling his urges for now. "You'll have to try your luck elsewhere, boys." he said, parroting what the previous one had said, as he probably had done all of his life. "We wanted you here so we could tell you that Llapus has nothing to do with any coup attempts or secret society nonsense. Tell that to your buddies." The fat Major was goofing around and he was holding his arm in front of his face like he was holding a cape and on the other hand he was doing stabbing motions. The parrot-like Lieutenant Colonel laughed, the neat one didn't find it funny. This seemed to be their day-to-day dynamic.

Ambrozy was disappointed. It seemed that all of his efforts had been for nothing. He was back to square one. The soldier that had led them here came to the room once one of the officers called for him, and Ambrozy and Yuri were led out of the building. They were told that Ambrozy could stay in the city but Yuri would have to leave, unless he could provide his papers. The bitterness of failure burned inside Ambrozy's stomach like he was having heartburn. He asked Yuri if he knew any place where they both could stay safely and Yuri answered that it was probably in the western ghetto, since that wasn't as bad as the others. Ambrozy needed time to think. This had been a horrible waste of time.

Ambrozy followed Yuri through the narrow streets of the slums and his foul mood seemed to be made flesh in the unwashed masses all around him, coughing and fighting and arguing with each other about the smallest of issues, clawing for a drop of clean water or a morsel of edible food, so many of them strained to their utmost limits. Even in this bitter state Ambrozy realized how cornered these wretches were, how overpopulated was the bottom rung of society here on Llapus. If they would be able to organize even just a little bit they surely would express their discontent in dangerous ways. He wondered if those three stooges and their underlings really had the handle on them or if they didn't realize the possible trouble brewing. Yuri stopped at a bigger and a sturdier shack, went to talk with the person behind the counter and then he came back to fetch Ambrozy, saying that they had a room for the night. "I know the guy, I sell some of my stuff to his brother from time to time at the northern edge of the slums and the jungle." The room was basically just a storage without even beds, but they could close the door with a padlock if they wished. Yuri said that he had specifically asked for a room for this kind since the hoversled fit into it.

They disinfected their hands, boiled some water for tea and ate crackers and meat they had gotten from the nomads. Ambrozy could feel his disposition brighten with each bite, his mind working again after sips from his hot beverage. He had taken big risks with this gamble with Black Rose and Khairullin and Llapus 884, but he was alive and in good health. It would be stupid to expect smooth sailing in the turbulent times the empire was in, anything could happen at any time and the universe had promised him nothing and owned nothing to him. Who was to say that he could succeed no matter what he did? But he had seized the moment, negotiated through the obstacles to the best of his ability, and hadn't flinched at the face of danger and discomfort. He still had the valuable information, the knowledge of the location for the red menicite, and it was possible that he could get Yuri to leave this stinking rock with him and have him work for him, so valuable were the skills and strength of the jungle hermit. There would be many other groups and factions who would be interested in his information, for now he had just had the misfortune of picking the wrong one. Things weren't so bad. Tomorrow Ambrozy could start looking at the possibilities of leaving Llapus and seeing if he could talk Yuri into coming with him. They went into their sleeping bags after they had finished their meal, both of them falling into sleep the instant they closed their eyes.

A loud banging on the door startled Ambrozy awake in the middle of the night. He sprang upright immediately, realizing that Yuri was already standing and that he probably had sensed that somebody was coming way before the banging began. A voice came behind the door. "Monk Ambrozy Broniec?" Ambrozy and Yuri glanced at each other. "What is it?" Ambrozy answered. "Major Taban wants to speak to you. I was ordered to take you to meet him. Frowning, Yuri took the ceremonial sword out of its sheath and unlocked the padlock, opening the door just a bit to see who was talking, keeping the sword behind him so it could not be seen. An imperial soldier stood behind it, his hands resting on his belt, looking sleepy and bored. Yuri looked at Ambrozy, waiting for his answer. Ambrozy shrugged. Might as well go see what this was about.

They packed their things and the soldier waited patiently, clearly just trying to do his best to stay awake. The streets weren't as busy as they had been during the day, but the people around them seemed even more sketchy than the vermin he had seen just a few hours before. Still, they left Ambrozy and Yuri alone, clearly conscious of the imperial soldier who was leading them on. Ambrozy wondered just how bad the other parts of the slums were if this, the western side, was supposed to be the safest of them. It seemed that Yuri was noticing this too, and Ambrozy was guessing that it hadn't been just this bad when Yuri had been living here.

In a short while Ambrozy and Yuri found themselves in the same building inside the city walls they had been during the day, but now they were led to a different office. After the soldier knocked and they were given permission to enter, inside waiting was indeed the same fat and alcoholic Major that had made fun of them the day before. However, this time there were no others and no mahogany desk, just a regular standard issue one that could be found in any office on any corner of the empire. The soldier left and the Major looked at Ambrozy and Yuri thoughtfully, resting his plumb cheek on his right hand. "Sit, boys." he said, and Yuri and Ambrozy sat down on the chairs in front of the boring office table. The major tapped it with his fingers rhythmically. "I looked at the computer to see when you arrived on Llapus, monk Broniec, but I didn't find any info on when you landed here." He went silent and waited for an answer. Ambrozy had no reason to lie. "My passenger ship was attacked by pirates when I arrived and I chose to try my luck in an escape pod. It landed in the middle of the jungle. I never got my papers stamped by any official." The Major just looked at him patiently, still tapping the table. "When was this and where did it land, precisely?" Ambrozy looked at Yuri since he had no idea. "About three months ago, about a hundred miles north of here. I was the one who found him. I'm local." Yuri answered. The Major lifted his right eyebrow. "It took you three months to get here? And you came here straight from the crash site?" Ambrozy answered this one. "No sir. I had a notion that Khairullin would be in a city called Anegend, so we went there first. I'm sure you heard that it was attacked and we ended up there just then. I managed to find out that he had left anyway and then we traveled here. We had to go through the Great Plains since we wanted to avoid the androids." The Major whistled. "Wow. That place really went to shit, huh?" he said. Ambrozy could just nod. The Major leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin with his right hand, now really looking Ambrozy and Yuri from top to bottom. He seemed to believe them. "So you went through all that just to get to Khairullin? It just hasn't been your day, boys." He got up and paced around the room a bit, then stopped and leaned against a filing cabinet, looking through the window into the night of the slums, spreading as far and wide as the eye could see. "The old Colonel took too many risks and was too hasty, too careless, so he bit the dust. Maybe he had used up all his patience being cooped up in this armpit for so long, but he really should have strengthened that muscle, become the grand champion of waiting games. That's what you need if you want to have anything done in this world. My father was a poor son of a gun, so poor that he had to spend all of his time working on menial jobs from sunrise to sunset, skipping meals for a day or two every now and then so his wife and I could get a bite to eat. But he had an artistic bent, a love for painting, something that he just never could get into, lacking the money for such frivolous activities and the time of day to dedicate himself to something like that. After I graduated from the military academy I sent my parents money every month, and at the age of sixtyseven my dad could finally retire. He could afford the things he needed. He died at eighty and he never got anything into art exhibits, but those thirteen years he painted every day. I never saw a happier man every time I visited home." Ambrozy was just listening quietly, wondering where this rambling was going to lead.

"What Khairullin would have wanted to happen was bound to take so long that it was not going to happen in his lifetime, that was guaranteed, no matter how long he would have lived. Even though he died now, his task continues on, and in a sense nothing has changed. Khairullin's plans were in the end going to be based on creating a substantial power from a bunch of Outer Rim worlds that are rich in resources and start fresh here if it really starts to look like the empire isn't going to hold. Already this is starting to happen: The trading has almost completely ceased and they are not even coming here to fetch the raw materials we produce. There's almost a complete civil war in the Core Sphere and the victor is not going to be decided any time soon. Those who are responsible of different regions of the empire of any size are now feverishly trying to decide if they should establish their own regions as autonomous units right away or wait to see how things are going to stand in the imperial capital, but if they wait too long some regions are bound to start devouring their neighbors and try to become the new center of a new empire, or at least become as strong as they can. There needs to be a reason for the old status quo to survive, there needs to be a system that rewards the leaders of different regions to be subservient to the imperial core and also keeps them in check, but if this situation goes on too long – and it very likely seems to go on and on – there is no reason for the empire to stay together."

The Major wasn't lying. It indeed had been the plan of the Black Rose that the true followers of the imperial heritage should start anew if the integrity of the system would be too compromised to save and fix, and Ambrozy understood the dilemma of local colonial masters in the different corners of the empire. Whatever this Major or other of the leading officers on Llapus thought about Khairullin in general, it did not change the fact that they were facing an opportunity – or a threat – for independence. "After Khairullin was caught, we were peppered with doubts of our loyalty by the aristocrats of the Core Sphere. You're from such a lineage, monk Broniec, even if it is a diminished family, so we wanted to show no interest in your supposed report. After thinking about it, though, I now start to believe you. You're dirty and your gear has seen better days, your face is starting to show signs of malnutrition, and your friend here definitely is a local. I sent people to follow you and then you went to spend your night in the slums, and there is no way that the aristocrats that could have sent you would have thought to make your case so believable. So you did what you say you did, traveled as long as you did, so the next question is - why? What could possibly be so important to report that such a pampered boy like you would go through all that?" the Major said. He had turned to look at Ambrozy. "Whatever is left of Black Rose and the plans of Khairullin, all of it now has to happen through Llapus, and I very much doubt that there is much possibility anymore to try to arrange things in the imperial capital in a favorable way, that ship has sailed. So tell me: what were you supposed to tell Khairullin? I'm all ears."

Ambrozy thought about his options. No matter who he was going to approach with his information about a mining location for red menicite, he was always going to be at the mercy of the other person. Number one, they would need to find his information useful and valuable and it wasn't going to be that for everyone, and two, the information at best would only give him a chance to climb the ladder at the faction he was trying to work for, the politics would still need to be played out. This was a chance, not a winning lottery ticket. No matter who he met with this, this situation would not change. There could have been a possibility that the Major here was trying to set him up and then sell as a traitor he caught for some favor in the eyes of the aristocrats, but in the crisis the empire was in, there was no way that this was a reliable scheme. So fine. Might as well try here, Ambrozy thought.

"I just want to see the vision of Khairullin to completion. I want to participate and be part of it to the bitter end. I don't want to be sidelined." Ambrozy said. The Major nodded, whether or not he really appreciated Ambrozy's supposed show of loyalty. Ambrozy reached into his robes and pulled the dossier out that contained the report and the coordinates for the red menicite deposit. It was all crumbled up in the ziplock bag that had stored it, but there were no tears and it wasn't wet. Ambrozy had memorized all of it but it was better to have some paper to show, it made him more credible. "As far as I've understood, building pulse ray-weaponry is not that demanding but the problem is the red menicite that is needed as the energy source. A deposit exists on a planet called Dolustea." The Major was leafing through the documents and he stopped to stare at the page with the coordinates. You could see that the gears were starting to turn in his head. "If Llapus is ever going to be a new home for the empire, those with the pulse ray are in a favorable position. Acquiring this technology should be a top priority." Ambrozy said. The Major hadn't sat down but kept reading standing up. "As long as the pulse ray can fire once or twice, it becomes a deterrent. I know that building a one that can last longer is much more demanding, but a poorer one for now will serve its purpose well." Ambrozy continued. The Major hadn't taken his gaze away from the papers. "I'll get you two a room to sleep in. This demands careful thinking." He called somebody with his phone, and Yuri and Ambrozy were led to a room with two beds and a shower. Yuri was snoring in seconds, but it took time for Ambrozy to relax. He wondered if his undertaking was starting to pay up or not.

In the morning they were woken up by a knock on the door and they were told that they could have breakfast in the cafeteria with the other soldiers. Ambrozy was groggy after sleeping so little, so when he staggered up suddenly found himself in a brightly lit and crowded cafeteria with clean and orderly soldiers, he was almost completely disoriented after all these weeks of roughing it out and facing danger. The food wasn't of the best quality but suddenly tasting the familiar flavors of the cuisine he had been eating since childhood was just bizarre. If his body wouldn't have ached so much from all that walking his trip might have happened to somebody else, like he had telepathically absorbed someone else's experience. The coffee was fresh and not made from instant powder. It was the most delicious thing Ambrozy had ever tasted.

After eating they were a bit at a loss of where they were supposed to go. They hadn't been given any identity cards or badges they could carry to show that they had a permission to be here, and the soldier who had brought them to the cafeteria had vanished, not that Ambrozy could identify him anyway, he had just followed the man like a robot. He and Yuri went on a little expedition to the building. They needed to find the front desk or an office where they could get proper clearance papers, and it took a while to find anything like that. The clerk looked at them like they were two bums that had somehow slipped through the gates to the city and he apparently found it a little hard to swallow that Major Taban had given them special permission to be here. After calling several places in order to verify this to be true he grew more and more suspicious as no one seemed to have gotten the info about Yuri and Ambrozy at all and they were asked to wait in a room until their case had been solved, and a soldier was placed to watch them. They were basically under arrest and apparently the Major was still sleeping even though it was Tuesday and almost 10 am. After about thirty minutes the soldier that had fetched Yuri and Ambrozy from the slums came to their rescue and the proper paperwork was processed. Each of them got plastic identity cards that were supposed to be always visible. They clipped them on their chests, Yuri on the right side, Ambrozy left. "You are to stay inside the building but other than that you guys can wander around pretty freely. Your rooms are in the northern part of the building complex, the library is in the west and if you want to get some fresh air, there's a small park in the middle. You'll get three meals in the cafeteria, if you want a fourth one you'll have to write your names and the ID numbers of your cards to a list near the cafeteria door before 5pm, they'll get pissed if you show up and your names are not there. I'll come get you when you are needed. It's probably going to take a few days for the brass to reach a decision." the soldier said, looking just as sleepy and bored as he had been last night. He sniffed and rubbed his nose. "You guys should go and have a shower first, though. You stink." he said, turned around and left Yuri and Ambrozy to their own devices. They now had free time. The concept felt modern and peculiar compared to the sempiternal jungle that seemed to have been the cradle for all life and to the ancient nomadic ways of The Herd.

Nothing happened for four days. Ambrozy spent the days in the library, reading whatever he could find on the pulse ray, concentrating more on literature that examined the revolutionary strategic capabilities of the weapon rather than to the technical aspects of it, but there were lots of important matters on that side of the subject too. It was true what he had said to the Major: the material and technology to build the weapon was not terribly demanding, it was more about using familiar concepts in somewhat different ways, but no other substance could release such energy as the red menicite. Building a weapon that could fire one or two blasts before completely disintegrating was considerably easier than making a machine that could be repeatedly used, but the point was to get the deterrent up and running as quickly as possible. A most important city, industrial zone or strategic point could be wiped out by the touch of a button, crippling the enemy without him being able to protect himself from the blast and without even noticing the threat before it was too late. The pulse ray even could penetrate the shields that were generated around important locations to protect them from attacks from outer space. As insidious as the weapon was, it was going to be the great equalizer of the future. What would happen, however, when everybody or most of the players around would get the pulse ray was anyone's guess and fiercely debated. The important thing was to be ahead of the curve. Ambrozy wondered how many realized this. It felt good to be back in his element, between the bookshelves in a library, deep in thought.

Amusingly, Yuri followed him everywhere like a duckling. He could have left when Ambrozy got inside the safety of the capital, done some business with his contacts in the slums and headed back to his hideout, enriched by the sword he got from Ambrozy and all the stuff he had gathered during this trip, but he wasn't going anywhere. He didn't even ask about the cash Ambrozy had promised him when they had met at the crashing site of the escape pod, and Ambrozy was pretty sure that he remembered the deal but just didn't care about it. Ambrozy was pleased that he had been right about Yuri and he would not have to leave with empty hands. As of right now, Ambrozy tried to pick books for him that he might find interesting, but it was quickly evident that Yuri was becoming too restless to just sit and read. In an effort to try to entertain his companion, Ambrozy found a chess set and other similar games in the library, and in the evenings he started to teach Yuri how to play. Grasping the abstract reasoning of it was evidently hard for him, but Yuri was engrossed in the game and he calmed down a bit. Ambrozy had done the same thing with his brother when they were little and he found it peculiar to find himself in the same position all these years later.

On the fifth day the familiar soldier fetched Ambrozy and he went to see the Major into an office in a separate building a few blocks away. The Major had a pile of paperwork on his desk and he had just put the phone down when Ambrozy arrived. The Major lit a fat cigar and he puffed on it with satisfaction. "I checked the data you gave me and it's solid. It took a while to convince the other numb skulls here but I made them see reason. I'm going to lead a mission to secure that red menicite site and start mining as soon as possible. It has to be done stealthily since if others see that there is suddenly a lot of activity in a place like that they will get suspicious and there will be serious repercussions. We take with us as little as possible and we will make as few trips as possible between here and..." the Major shuffled through his papers. "... Dolustea, that's right. Most likely we will be fine since if Llapus is considered periphery then I don't know what Dolustea is supposed to be." The Major looked at Ambrozy. "You said you're all in, and if that really is true, you'll want to come with us, right?" the Major said. Ambrozy just nodded. "Good, because otherwise I'd just keep you under house arrest here until the end of time. The less people know about that mining site, the better. You can go. We'll be ready to leave in about a week." The Major picked the phone up to make another call and Ambrozy left the room. Nobody was waiting to pick him up so he headed to the street to make his way back to the building where his room was. Looking around he realized that he basically could have been in any mid- to small size city back in his home planet Yebiri, and it was as if he had just taken a train from the imperial capital to any direction and was just stopping for lunch while waiting for the next train. Ambrozy was pondering what to say to Yuri when he heard yelling. "Young master, finally! Praise the heavens!"

Ambrozy looked around to figure out who had yelled, noticed who it was and became thoroughly dismayed. The main servant of his family, Roch Nowak, stood on the other side of the street in disbelief, teary-eyed and so relieved that he almost hyperventilated. He tried to cross the street but vehicles kept coming and he almost was run over, but Roch pressed through and the drivers yelled at him for his recklessness. Roch seemed to have very suddenly become older and his hair and beard had started to noticeably become gray, even though they had always been as black as night despite his advanced age. Out of breath he grasped Ambrozy's shoulder but let go when he saw the face Ambrozy was making and realized that he was breaching a barrier that had always been there. In his excited state he didn't know what to do with himself, so he wrung his hands in front of his chest. "I've been looking all over you, young master! When the terrorist attacks started in Yebiri and you vanished so suddenly, your father became almost unhinged from grief and I've been looking for you ever since. Once we realized that you had withdrawn so much money from the bank after the attacks and a fellow monk from your temple told me that he had seen you at the train station when he was fleeing the violence of the capital, we at least knew that you hadn't died in the attacks, but then we lost your trail completely. After looking into all the major temples and monasteries on the continent, your father was pulling straws and wanted to check if you had actually left the planet, even though we could not think of a single reason for you to do so. He asked for favors from his friend in the Bureaucracy of Interplanetary Transportation to look for your name in any trip that had left the planet after the day of the attacks, and we could not believe it when he reported that you had left to Llapus of all places!" Roch rubbed his sweaty forehead with his shaking right hand, flinching from the noise of the loud traffic that sped by on the road behind him. "When we then realized that your ship had been seized by pirates and there had been ransom notices from almost all the important passengers they had taken hostage but your names were not there, I asked the officials here in Llapus if any escape pods from that ship had landed here and there had been three, but the radar showed that one of them steered from its course and landed somewhere in the jungles of this cursed rock. Your father rented a commercial two-person spacecraft and bought a locator module for it so I could fly over the jungle to look for you. I've been at it for weeks." Roch went silent, bit his teeth together and inhaled strongly through his nose twice, like he was trying to stifle a wave of emotion coming over him. He looked at Ambrozy pleadingly. "Young master, please come back. I don't know what drove you to come here but your father is anxious beyond belief and your brother sends me queries every day if I have found anything. Everybody will be so relieved."

Ambrozy frowned. With the money his family had, renting a spacecraft for weeks and - for the emperor's sake! - buying a locator was immensely expensive, and in times like these Ambrozy would need that money in the future. In general, his father had always been an annoyance to him. A petty bureaucrat in the Ministry of Customs and Revenue, Ambrozy's father had taken on all the superficial aspects of being a member of the noble class, such as attending the opera, getting an education from a decent university with good marks, reading widely and fussing about every detail of their meager estates, but the man was devoid of any actual ambition or greater plans to better the lot of his family lineage. Despite his outer shell, Ambrozy's father was conservative to a comical extent, narrow-minded to the point of anti-intellectualism, incapable of understanding motivations and characters of other people since there was only one and proper way of doing anything in life. The rest of the society he viewed with contempt, but the irony was that he possessed nothing that really would have separated him from the sweaty masses he so much loathed: if one brought up in conversation any of the classics of literature or theater, the only thing he ever managed to say was that he liked one piece more than some other, but no reasoning ever followed these statements. If, on one of those thankfully rare occasions, he was inspired to say more about art of any sort, out came such a bungled mess that the listener had serious trouble deciphering if they were speaking of the same thing at all. On politics and affairs of the empire, Ambrozy's father wasn't much better: he seemed to have such underlying assumptions and theories about everything that probably no other man in the empire had, and whereas any other person would get from point A to point B in one way or another, Ambrozy's father went A to C through X and M, so it was true feat that he ended up in a any sort of conservative position. Every now and then, though, he might blurt out something relatively insightful, apparently in complete absent-mindedness, but it was very much the case of a broken clock being right twice a day. On the level of everyday affairs, Ambrozy's father wasn't as clueless and he could arrange mundane things fine, but he was like a gardener who had a few square meters to grow things on and that was his whole life, but he elevated it to snobbish extremes. To all this Ambrozy could only frown upon, and his brother had inherited too much of his father's characteristics to transcend much beyond this meager level, although he wasn't a complete carbon copy of his father. If anything was ever to change, it was up to Ambrozy.

"I still have things to do and I don't know how long it will take, but it won't be anytime soon. Where I am going I can't say, but as few ears as possible can know that I am here." Ambrozy said without bothering to mask his irritation. "I'll contact you when the time is right, but you'll have to be patient. Father too." Roch looked like he couldn't get a word out of his mouth, but when he managed to gather himself to question and protest, Ambrozy lifted his palm up to silence him, so he could only stand quiet. Ambrozy turned his back on him and left to find Yuri, already forgetting all about this brief episode. Roch stood at the same spot and watched the back of his master as long as he could, losing sight of him once Ambrozy turned a corner.

Ambrozy found Yuri in the library. He had the chess set in front of him and he had arranged the pieces into one of the puzzles from a chess book he had open on the right side of the desk, but it was clear that he was not really playing as he sat watching out the window, his arms crossed and legs open, tapping the floor with his right foot. There were other books on the table and Ambrozy noticed one on the Cult of Kai, but Yuri had evidently not progressed very far in it. Yuri was in uncharacteristically deep though since he didn't even notice that Ambrozy had arrived until he sat on the other side of the table.

"I was talking with the Major. The plan I've been trying to deliver got the green light. We'll be leaving in a week, give or take." Ambrozy said, and there was a brief silence between them. It was time to see if there would be another success here today too. "If you want to come with me, you're more than welcome. Your other option is to go back to the life you've been leading so far, but it is very likely that another chance like this will never come. I can't promise you anything, very likely my journey will be just as dangerous as it has been so far, but it's more than Llapus 884 can ever promise you." Ambrozy said. He decided to keep his pitch short. "So what do you say?" Yuri turned to look outside of the window again and his foot had stopped tapping. He seemed to think for a few seconds, but it was clear that he had already made his mind on one of the past days or weeks. "Alright." Yuri said. Ambrozy extended his hand to Yuri, who shook it. Then they went to have coffee in the cafeteria.