“All I have to do is sustain doubt and division long enough to solidify my rule. Before much longer, it’ll be too late for them or the Global League to do anything about my conquests.”
“Don’t get overconfident, Basileus. The Federation knows what you’ve done.”
Maltuvis scoffed. “And what can they do about it? They depend on the resources I now control. Besides, they’re preoccupied with their own internal strife, which your Syndicate has helped to exacerbate. The troubles of a world so far from their borders won’t be of much concern to them as long as nothing interferes with their precious flow of minerals.”
Harrad-Sar tilted his head in acknowledgment. “That’s the plan,” he agreed. “Just don’t get overconfident. The Federation takes its notions of ‘freedom’ more seriously than you might think. Best if you don’t provoke them too far.”
“I can bide my time,” he said. “I’ve waited this long for those ships you promised me, haven’t I?”
The Orion caught the implied chastisement and replied with some of his own. “Maybe you should concentrate on conquering this planet before you start going after others.”
“That is the point, Sar. Your concerns about my ability to hold my territory would be moot if I had a fleet of warships in orbit. N’Ragolar would be mine in days.”
“You know we have to proceed carefully with the ships. It has to look like you built them yourselves. We’re training your people as fast as we can, but—”
“I know, I know. Your insistence that there be no proof tying back to the Syndicate. A cowardly philosophy. I may use subterfuge to win, but I do not hide my face, my name, as I gain in power.” He gave a sharp hiss of disdain. “Where would be the point in that?”
Harrad-Sar, predictably, hid his true feelings behind a forced smile. “Rest assured, Basileus, our commitment to your goals is strong. Soon you will rule all of N’Ragolar. And that will be just the beginning.”
Yes, Maltuvis thought, raising his eyes from the globe to the stars in the window beyond. One world is too small an arena for me, now that I know the galaxy is in reach. Soon the M’Tezir Empire will spread across the heavens.
His smile widened. No—make that the Maltuvian Empire.
14
June 26, 2164
Trojan asteroids, Rigel I L5 point
“YOU KNOW,” Samuel Kirk said to Grev, “I really thought Val would be better at hide-and-seek than this.”
Grev patted his shoulder, feeling him tremble despite the heat in their stony cell. “It’s a big system.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to be encouraging.”
If nothing else, Grev and Kirk’s forced relocation had confirmed to them that they were in space. Their new cell was in extremely low gravity; it took several minutes for anything dropped from arm height to settle to the floor. Thus, the artificial tunnels they and their captors now occupied must be within an asteroid. And judging from the oppressive heat that the tunnels’ inadequate environmental systems let through, they must be very close to Beta Rigel itself. Most likely, they were in one of the Trojan asteroid mines, one too new or too small to have gravity plating or effective environmental control. Grev could only hope they were deep enough beneath the asteroid’s surface to be adequately shielded from the subgiant star’s radiation.
Although he doubted Damreg and their other captors were concerned about their long-term health. As soon as Grev had decrypted the archives, he and Kirk would be ejected into space, or perhaps fed into the mine’s waste recycler. Grev hoped it would be the latter. He’d always wanted his remains to be interred in the soil of Tellar or one of its colonies, so that his biomass would sustain new life. This would not be quite the same, but his options were severely restricted at this point.
The problem was, with Damreg’s constant threats looming over Sam, Grev had had no choice but to produce results. He’d reached the point where his decryption algorithms were close enough to accurately translate about twenty percent of any file, but sometimes that was enough to give the Zami what they needed to blackmail an official or sabotage a corporation. Damreg had taken pleasure this morning in telling him how the leak of the proprietary engine designs of a major shipbuilding firm in the Colonies, courtesy of Grev’s decryptions, had already resulted in half a dozen other firms underbidding their contracts and throwing their stock into a death spiral.
At least Grev now had enough of a feel for the patterns of the encryption that he could attempt to target the files least likely to contain seriously damaging information. But there was simply no way to be sure until they were decoded.