How were they recruited? After all, everyone who had flown over to Heraldica went there voluntarily. The Imperial observers had watched the streams of colonists closely, making sure no one was being taken against their will. So there had been volunteers for this. And not just a handful of them, not even dozens or hundreds. Hundreds of thousands of people had moved to Heraldica with their masters. It was very unlikely that Earth would have had so many insane masochists.
More likely, everything had looked really nice at first. A small country on a peaceful and abundant world. Wise, aristocratic rulers. A bit of medieval exotic charm—that always had a fantastic power over the human heart. And people, in good faith, would order servant-specializations for their children. After all, what harm could possibly come to them at the hand of a wise elderly lady of a royal bloodline or a sage, poetically-inclined sheik who cared so much about the welfare of his people? Except that generations kept succeeding each other, raising a new crop of rulers who were now used to having only servants around them…
There should be, after all, more limits to specialization, other than the considerations of social utility and genetic compatibility with the naturals. It should be forbidden to encroach on a person’s free will… at least, to this extent.
“Crewmembers, prepare for entry into the channel. Estimated time to entry—plus six minutes, twelve seconds. Set the jump vector for Zodiac. Estimated time to destination—eighteen hours, twenty-nine minutes, eight seconds. I am the first one on bridge duty. Morrison takes over in nine hours, fifteen minutes.”
No one had any objections. No one asked any questions. Alex was also a ruler on his ship, like the people with blue blood in their veins down on Heraldica. Except that his power had different roots… so far, they had been different.
So where was that boundary? Where lay the borderline between a spesh’s readiness to obey those in charge and the slavish submission of a servant? What was the difference between power and tyranny? Why had the very thing that was the basis of life in the Empire degenerated into brutal nastiness on Heraldica?
Here Alex couldn’t suppress a crooked grin. If one took a look at the Empire from the outside, might it look just as nasty? Fighter-speshes, hetaera-speshes, street-sweeper-speshes…
He tossed the threads of control over to Morrison. Watched Xang for a few seconds, as the co-pilot took the ship closer to the mouth of the channel, then switched over once again to the optical scanners.
This time, having received the command to search for people, the computer opened a completely different part of the planet, a part already sinking into night shadows. A river delta dotted with a multitude of small islands. Large houses—here, a truly big city was sprawling. Even the nearby spaceport looked rather up-to-date. In the streets, cars dashed by, pedestrians scurried about, and here and there billboards flashed.
An ordinary city. No dirty fun or mad princelings.
At least at first glance.
Yet this city also lived by the laws of Heraldica. Complete and unlimited power. Non-acceptance of Imperial laws… which, in turn, cut tourists’ access to the planet, except for the most reckless.
What is better—overt or covert coercion?
Mirror entered the hyper-channel, and Heraldica’s world disappeared.
There was something mystical about piloting while the ship was gliding through the inner side of the universe. The gray corridor—the walls, made of the great nothing, rushing towards you—and a complete, absolute, unfathomable detachment from the outside world. Multi-dimensional physics asserted that there was only one hyper-channel, and its existence lasted a mere quantum of time. Therefore, in that one brief moment, all the ships of all times and civilizations would be superimposed—incorporeal shadows, rushing by in all directions at once.
The universe was full of paradoxes. Most of the races had come to use the hyper-channels as the most convenient and inexpensive method of interstellar travel. And now, right at that moment, countless Tai’i fleets were on their way to meet their unknown, utterly obliterated enemies in the decisive battle for the fate of the galaxy… the battle that brought the winners to no good at all. And here also, rushing into the unknown, was Son Hye, Earth’s first interstellar explorer, whose bright fame eclipsed both Magellan’s and Gagarin’s. And here was the strangest bit—the ships of the future were also already here. The last cruisers of humanity, the race that would also fade away someday. The first fragile little spacecraft of alien races that hadn’t even broken the bounds of gravity yet but were destined to rule the universe. And here also was Mirror itself, in all its future flights, with Alex and the others aboard.
Of course, astronaut lore carried many a legend about hyper-channels. There was one about a man who had thrown himself overboard and was delivered by the hyper-channel back to Earth. And one about a ghost-spaceship that appeared from under the stern, majestically passed the astonished observers, and vanished into the distance ahead. And one that said that occasionally, the exhaust of your own ship’s engines could be seen in front of the ship itself…
And, of course, there wasn’t a single grain of truth in all that lore. But it was kind of fun to pretend that you believed it.
Alex wasn’t really sure if he would have liked to actually see anything unusual in the hyper-channel. The spine-tingling stories were good only when you knew they were lies. He was much happier with just the silence and the tranquility. Silence, tranquility, and the warm rainbow of the ship…
Nevertheless, he liked to stare into the nonexistent space of the channel, as if he really did expect to see the stern of his own ship up ahead…
Morrison entered the controls system at exactly the appointed time. He and Alex exchanged a short emotional signaclass="underline" no words to it, just wishes of luck and an expression of goodwill. The rest of the crew was resting.
Alex felt tired, but stepped into the recreation lounge anyway. All alone, he poured himself a glass of dry wine. The ship seemed to be dozing, placidly and serenely… Only the air conditioning was rumbling softly, almost inaudibly. Sensing the presence of a person, a small turtle-like cleaning robot stirred in the corner, licking with its moist tongue the floor that was already squeaky-clean.
Alex still couldn’t chase away memories of Heraldica. That girl, walking away from her rapists. Submissive, uncomplaining, maybe even content to have fulfilled her duty…
He took the vial out of his pocket, and looked at the cloudy suspension. What would have happened had the rape victim taken a blocker? Nothing good, that’s for sure. She would have tried to scratch the aristocrats’ eyes out, resist them… to the great surprise of the entourage and, no doubt, of the rapists themselves.
Alex opened the vial, smelled it cautiously. There was a sharp chemical odor, not exactly pleasant, but not revolting, either. One drop would be enough. Well, two—for a full guarantee. Overdose would not be dangerous…
He tipped the vial over the glass holding the remnants of wine. Looked at the Demon. His shirtsleeve was rolled up, so the little devil was in full view. Except it had closed its eyes, as in terror.
“It is scary,” Alex agreed. “Very scary.”
Surely he wasn’t the first spesh ever to brave a self-experiment with such a substance. And surely, nothing good had come out of such an experiment, otherwise the recipe of the blocker would have spread through the Empire like wildfire, breaking down the established order of things.