The Kalif's War Read online

  THE KALIF'S WAR

  JOHN DALMAS

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1991 by John Dalmas

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original.

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

  ISBN: 0-671-72062-7

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  First printing, June 1991

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedicated to

  Evert & Doris, Ed & Maida, Paul & Hilde-Marie, Axel, Arnold & Svea, Astrid, Henry & Tressia, Ruth, Otto, Carl, Elaine, Amy, Bob & Etta, Lynn, Lars, John, Anna-Lisa, Tina, Bernice, Ethyl, Agnes, Ann, Fern, Rodger, Mary Jane & Robert, Einer & Florence, Nels, Gust, Marie & Bob, Marilyn & Larry

  And to my other friends in Vasa Nordstjärnan. Ha det roligt!

  Acknowledgments

  Not for the first time, I'd like to thank Bill Bailie and David Palter for their helpful critiques of a preliminary draft.

  One

  Year of The Prophet 4721

  Kalif Gorsu Areknosaamos sat in the shade of a gnarled old voorwa tree, reading briefs. It was somewhat warm and the Kalif was fat. He wore loose shorts that reached his knees, and a crisp, sheer, scarlet shirt. His exposed arms and legs were thick with curly black hair; his beard, scalp, and brows were also curly, and grizzled.

  Several of his hairy fingers bore rings, and a ruby had been set in the center of his nobility mark, a 3/8-inch polychrome star on his forehead. Bracelets of gold filigree dangled loosely on one furry wrist, and a slender gold chain hung from his neck, holding a jeweled medallion in the form of a sextant. The Prophet, the Blessed Flenyaagor, had been a navigator first of ships and later of souls.

  A serving girl stood by the Kalif, a girl perhaps fourteen years old. Now and then she would lift the lid of a refrigerated bowl, take a cube of melon from it with small fingers, and hold it to the Kalif's lips. His mouth would accept it absently, and occasionally he stroked the girl's well-draped buttocks with a chubby hand, appreciating their concealed curvature. His potency had left him years before, but he enjoyed the aesthetics of sight and touch.

  Another person, an aide, stood silently a few yards off, waiting for whatever order might come.

  The Kalif's full lips smiled sardonically as he read. Now and then he chuckled. When he finished a sheet, he'd toss it aside on the grass, from which a ten-year-old page boy picked it up and added it neatly to a stack on a small table.

  The pendant on the Kalif's fat neck concealed a watch. It began to peep at him like a baby bird, and grunting, he handed the rest of the brief to the page. The serving girl picked up his sandals and put them on his hairy feet, then braced herself and helped him stand. Smiling, he fondled her buttocks again. The aide picked up the stack of paper on the table.

  Then, with the aide at his right, the page at his left—both half a step back—the Kalif started across the private inner garden to his apartment, the girl following.

  At first he didn't notice the three men waiting for him there, watching his approach from the edge of curtains that partly draped the open sliding doors. His contact opticals were effective, but he was occupied with thoughts. It was the page's small voice that alerted him. "Your Reverence—"

  The echo was baritone: "Your Reverence." The Kalif's scowling glance took them in: two officers of his personal guard, and a rather tall prelate, still young, in a light tunic with a miniature sextant, unjeweled, on his chest.

  "What is your business?" The words rumbled from the Kalif's thick chest.

  The young prelate held up an envelope. "The message is urgent and confidential. About R."

  Still scowling, the Kalif held out an open hand and the young prelate stepped forward, handing the envelope to him. As the Kalif took it, the young man grasped the fat wrist, the elbow, twisted and thrust, jerking the thick hand behind the Kalif's back. Held it there with his left hand while the right swiftly drew a syringe from an open belt pouch. Meanwhile one of the guard officers had shoved the muzzle of a pistol under the aide's chin. The Kalif's grunt alerted the two inner door guards, but the syringe had moved to his jowl, where it chuffed sharply. The door guards stopped in mid-stride, confused by the sight of another automatic pistol, pointing at them in the fist of a familiar guard captain.

  "He is already dead," the captain told them. "It's too late to save him." The words sounded strangely casual in the quiet room.

  Within seconds the Kalif's weight sagged, but the young prelate kept him upright for seconds more, to be certain, before letting the heavy body collapse to the floor.

  The assassin, the young prelate, looked across the room at the two shocked door guards. "You will not be punished for failing to protect him," he said. "The deed was done at the order of the College of Exarchs, with the knowledge of your commander."

  He turned to the aide. The guard lieutenant had removed his pistol from the man's throat. "I believe you know why this was necessary."

  Dough-pale, the aide nodded.

  "Stay here for now. Until someone comes for the body." The assassin turned to the girl and the page. The boy seemed paralyzed; the girl was shaking visibly. "You stay here, too," the prelate said gently. "Both of you. A sister of the Faith will come for you later. Everything will be all right."

  Then the young prelate and the two guard officers strode from the room, their weapons back at their belts, passing the door guards, inner and outer, without a look. A gray-haired exarch, white robed, waited for them in the corridor, and they left together.

  * * *

  The College of Exarchs waited restlessly in their conference chamber, around the large oval table there. The exarch that entered with the assassin was the eighteenth, completing their number. The Kalif's throne stood unoccupied at one end of the table, an ornately jeweled crown sitting in front of it. A Guard squad stood lined up along the wall behind it, an affectation of the late Kalif.

  The young prelate, the assassin, stopped a few feet from the table, and with a slight bow addressed the secretary of the College. "Alb Deloora," he said, "the Kalif is dead. As you ordered."

  The assassin's glance took in who was surprised and who was not. Roughly a dozen of the eighteen were startled and shocked. Of the four senior members, however, clearly all had known in advance, and this particular squad of guards showed no surprise. It took several seconds before the unwarned exarchs began to yammer, several at once, demandingly. The secretary raised his hands and spoke, stilling them.

  "You know what the Kalif had become. And we have evidence, unequivocal, that he had been plotting the most enormous of heresies. He planned to publish and present what he would call The Book of Kargh! To add to and 'correct' The Book of The Prophet, which the Blessed Flenyaagor gave to mankind millennia ago. He then planned to set himself up as a holy despot. He'd have caused not just insurrection but outright revolution, and quite possibly the fall of the kalifate and College."

  He waited for a moment, and when the hubbub persisted, barked them to silence. "We decided against a bill of impeachment," he went on. "Unavoidably we'd have had to make the whole thing public, with details that would have disgraced and weakened the kalifate for years to come."

  He didn't give another, even more compelling reason: successful impeachment would have required fifteen votes in favor, fifteen of eighteen. And it was impolitic to point out that the
Kalif had five of them in his pocket—could have depended on their votes regardless of his heresy.

  "Thus some of us decided it should be done—the way we did it."

  A casual hand gestured toward the assassin. "We were fortunate to have someone on staff who has served in the military, as an officer of imperial marines. You all know him, Coso Biilathkamoro; he has served us well in more ordinary ways. A man of decision and action. Not only did he subvert the Guard command, the most difficult job of all, and on short notice. He also performed the execution with his own hand. Without him we could hardly have succeeded; he has earned our deep appreciation."

  The secretary glanced around the table, then settled his eyes on the prelate-assassin and beckoned to the guards. "Unfortunately, someone must die for this act of violence against the Successor to the Prophet. Someone must be sacrificed." He pointed at the assassin, and his voice took a tone of command. "Unfortunately, the one by whose hand the Kalif died. Guards, shoot this man!"

  The guards made no move; two or three grinned nervously.

  "Alb Deloora," the assassin said dryly, "it's not I who shall die." Quickly then he strode to the secretary, who found himself trapped between heavy chair and massive table. A body blow half paralyzed him, a strong hand grasped his hair and forced his head back. "It was your idea that the Kalif be killed. Even this syringe was your idea!" It darted, chuffed as before. "I agreed with you that the act was necessary. I also knew you would turn on me. So I made arrangements with the marshal, who chose and briefed these men for duty today."

  He let go the secretary, who sagged onto his chair to dangle limply over an arm. Then the young prelate moved to the senior remaining exarch. "Alb Ikomo, I believe you knew of our late secretary's plan to sacrifice me. Would you care to follow him to the judgment of Kargh?"

  The gray head shook a negative. The young man pointed at the throne. "Then crown me Kalif."

  "But you are not a member of the College! The Kalif is always sel—"

  Coso Biilathkamoro moved swiftly. Ikomo Iiakasomo's eyes bulged with shock as a hand grasped his hair, too, and the syringe flashed again. The gaunt exarch had just time to squawk before he sagged. The young prelate turned to the next in rank. "You too knew our secretary's intention toward me. Crown me!"

  One of the others spoke, a fat man relatively pale among brown. "Teethkar, put the crown on his head! You know what's happening to the empire. It occupies our thoughts more than anything else; more than that mad heretic he just killed. We need someone like Coso Biilathkamoro on the throne now. He can be the strongest Kalif since Papa Sambak." The speaker turned his clean-shaven face toward the killer. "If he proves ruinous, we can rid ourselves of him later."

  A few nervous laughs flashed and died, and after a moment's suspension, the exarchs relaxed a bit. "Crown him!" said another, then others yet. Still others nodded. The exarch ordered by the young prelate stepped to the throne and picked up the crown. The one who'd spoken, the fat one, spoke again.

  "Our new Kalif must be formally elected. Those in favor of Chodrisei Biilathkamoro as Kalif, say 'aye!' "

  Half a dozen said aye almost at once, then another, two more, two more again. More than half.

  "Opposed 'nay!' "

  Three said "nay," defiantly. Several said nothing.

  The speaker looked at the exarch holding the crown, one of those who'd abstained. "As always, abstentions are not counted. The ayes prevail. Crown him!"

  The man carried the crown to the young prelate, who half knelt, and placed it gingerly on his soldierly, short-cropped hair. When Chodrisei "Coso" Biilathkamoro stood again, he was the Successor to The Prophet, and the new ruler of the Karghanik Empire.

  * * *

  Wearing the red cape of his office, the new Kalif stood in his hearing room before the mustered senior officers of the Kalifal Guard: its marshal, the marshal's aide, the executive officer, and the three battalion commanders.

  "I have called you together for two main reasons," the Kalif said. "First there are rewards to make. Your concern for the welfare of the empire, your understanding of the urgent need to remove a degenerate ruler, your willingness to allow and even assist in that removal, have earned the gratitude of the College of Exarchs and myself. Therefore, the empire will reward the Guard, every man in it, with a bonus of 100 gold sovereigns. Each commissioned officer shall receive 300, each of you here 500." He turned to the marshal. "And you," he added, "have earned 1,000. Also, the two officers who accompanied me when I performed the deed shall receive an additional 500."

  He stepped closer to the marshal now, looking him over calmly. "As for the second matter," he went on, "I am told by a reliable informant that you have bragged that the Guard now determines who sits on the throne. Do you deny saying it?"

  The marshal managed no words, merely stood flustered. In that moment his saber, not a syringe, hissed from beneath the Kalif's red cape, and though the marshal went for his pistol, he moved too late. The sword took his gun arm below the elbow, shearing muscle from bone, then thrust upward beneath the ribs. Blood poured. The Kalif stepped back, drew a large kerchief and wiped clean his blade.

  That done, his eyes locked onto the shocked executive officer's. "Major," he said, "I have seen only good reports on you. If you are willing, I am prepared to promote you to colonel and appoint you marshal."

  Somehow his gaze calmed the major, who pulled himself together. "Your Reverence, I am willing."

  "Good. Then marshal you are. As for me—I intend to be the Kalif this empire has needed for so long. And one of the things I demand is your absolute loyalty, yours and that of the entire Guard. There may be disorders as a result of this day's work, and I will be too busy to protect myself. It will be up to you.

  "Now, as the late marshal did not live to draw his bonus, I will have it divided equally among the six of you."

  For a moment his eyes held on the new marshal's again, then he nodded slightly as if to himself, in approval. "I will review your regiment on the parade ground tomorrow morning at nine, to let your men know me. And—I do not plan any more surprises. I much prefer to operate in a regular and orderly manner."

  The Kalif turned his back to them then, and strode from the room.

  Two

  The cruiser and its troopship companion had generated hyperspace and disappeared from the Karnovir System a ship's week earlier, programmed as accurately as possible to return to its home system, nearly three years away.

  They took no victory with them, little booty, and on]y one prisoner, female. One badly damaged prisoner, thought Lieutenant Commander Bavi Ralankoor, He stepped from a lift tube into the Services Section, A-Deck, strode down a gray, uncarpeted corridor to Utility Compartment A-S 04, and opening the door, stepped inside. With all but one table folded into the walls, it seemed almost spacious by ship's standards. Two young women were there. The short one, swarthy like himself, was in charge. She glanced questioningly at the officer.

  He gestured to continue, and they did, exchanging simple sentences—simple comments and questions by the specialist, simple replies by the prisoner. The language program could install vocabulary and grammar in a mind, but not all at once. And with each installment, it was necessary to exercise the new knowledge before another acquisition.

  Ralankoor stood by the door, listening.

  "What is the name of the planet from which this ship came?" asked the dark young technician.

  The prisoner was long-legged, remarkably so, and taller than Ralankoor, with hair the color of pale honey, and violet-blue eyes. Even newly captured, confused, and frightened, she'd been beautiful—exotic, interesting, exciting to look at.

  "The name of the planet from which this ship came is Klestron," she answered.

  The sentences and pronunciations were stilted, the delivery awkward.

  "Good. And what is the name of the Imperial Planet?"

  "The name of the Imperial Planet is Varatos."

  "Good. Please name the other planets in the em
pire."

  "Maolaari, Ikthvoktos, Kathvoktos, Niithvoktos, Kolthvoktos, Saathvoktos, Naathvoktos, Chithvoktos, Veethvoktos."

  "Very good." The tech turned to Ralankoor. He was frowning. "Sir?" she said.

  "Continue. I will listen."

  "Thank you, sir." While he took a seat to one side, she turned back to the prisoner. "If you will count to ten for me, I will then tell you a story."

  The prisoner's face took on a childlike expression of pleasure. "Ik, ka, nii, kol, saa, naa, chik, vee, gaa, tee," she counted.

  "Very good. Now I will tell you something about The Prophet, the Blessed Flenyaagor. You remember that it was he who gave us the words of Kargh the all-master, the all-seeing...."

  Ralankoor was tempted to cut her off. The commodore had ordered him specifically to minimize the information the prisoner was exposed to, consistent with getting her reasonably fluent in Imperial. And Ralankoor had gone to considerable trouble to edit instructional material to comply with that order. The technician was going beyond it.

  But just now he let her continue.

  "The Blessed Flenyaagor was born more than 4,700 years ago—imperial years. He was a sailor, a man who traveled on a small ship that went upon the sea, driven by the wind. He owned that small ship, and at night, on the sea, he would watch the stars, and wonder about them. He also wondered about many other things. In time, Kargh spoke to the Blessed Flenyaagor, answering many of his questions. And began to tell him how men should live on the world, and how they should treat one another.

  "He also told Flenyaagor to write it down. And then to go forth upon the land and tell the people all that Kargh had told him...."

  When the specialist had finished her little story, Ralankoor spoke. "Specialist Zoranjee," he said mildly, "wait in the corridor. After I have spoken privately to our guest for a few minutes I will speak with you."

  The tech nodded. "Yes, Commander," she said, and rising, left. Ralankoor sat down opposite the prisoner, the seat warm from the specialist's body.