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this one was very different, since it excluded all but two of the oligarchy
and had been called, not by a fellow baron, but by
Erica van Sloan the imperial mother herself.
Chapter 11
In Erica van Sloan's world there was a place, a definition and a purpose for
everything and she had spent the better part of the past forty years placing
everything, from people to objects, in their proper categories. She had
decided to make cybernetic science her profession because she was attracted to
the geometric order and pristine immutability of applied statistics. The
lesser educated or the jealous might have called her tendencies anal retentive
or obsessive compulsive.
After her resurrection from cryostasis more than four decades before, Erica
had served as an adviser to the baronial oligarchy in general, rather than to
an individual baron. Like a handful of other predarkers, Erica van Sloan had
been revived when the Program of Unification reached a certain stage of
development.
Erica wasn't assigned to any one barony for an extended period of time. She
was given quarters in Front
Royal and from there she traveled from ville to ville, setting up computer
systems, training personnel in their operation and the troubleshooting
procedures. The systems, although in pristine condition, were not
state-of-the-art, certainly not by the standards of the late twentieth
century.
None of the mainframes employed the advanced biochip features that would have
been commonplace
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had the nuclear megacull not occurred. Most of the software, hardware and
support systems were fairly basic, not much more complicated than the personal
home computers in wide use before the nukecaust.
Erica had always suspected that the truly advanced predark tech was
deliberately withheld so the new baronial society wouldn't become as dependent
on technology as the old one. She didn't disagree with the principles behind
the suppression, but she couldn't deny it made her job more difficult. But,
when distilled down to its essence, her job consisted primarily of
pigeonholing and compartmentalizing.
She never had been able to find the right mental pigeonhole for Front Royal,
since its form followed neither function nor aesthetics. That the barons
preferred to maintain the keep's quaint, medieval architecture, in lieu of
redesigning it to resemble the Administrative Monoliths in the villes didn't
make it more defensible. However, as one of the concessions to modern times,
powerful halogen spotlights were mounted both on the walls and atop the
turrets. Projecting from each corner of the walls were
Vulcan-Phalanx gun towers, the heavy-caliber weapons ready and waiting to fend
off any sort of attack, not that there had been any kind of major assault in
living memory.
Front Royal was occupied only by a skeleton maintenance staff and a garrison
consisting of twenty soldiers. It wasn't a ville in the conventional sense,
but more of a neutral zone, a place where the barons could meet on equal terms
for their annual council.
The main hall of the keep was immense. Its heavy-
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157
beamed ceiling and waxed, oak-paneled walls always danced with the light of a
hundred false electric candles in the wrought-iron chandelier.
The floor was of polished marble in swirling patterns. At the far end was a
hearth big enough to comfortably sleep four barons and two of the security
staff. A yard-long electric log always glowed there.
As far as she knew, none of the barons objected to the installation of a
mat-trans unit within a shielded cubicle complete with stripped-down control
room, on the opposite side of the main hall. Erica didn't think the six-sided
elevated chamber with its sky-blue armaglass walls added or detracted from the
Old
World feel of the big room. It simply stood there, at the far end of the
control room, like an ugly conversation piece.
Sitting in the main hall and facing the control room, she nearly jumped out of
her chair when she heard the characteristic high-pitched drone from the
emitter array within the platform. The sound was an electronic synthesis
between a hurricane howl and bee-swarm hum, dropping down to inaudibility as
the mat-trans cycled through a materialization.
The noise was nerve-racking, but she didn't bother trying to make out the two
vague shapes shifting into corporeality on the other side of the translucent
armaglass shielding. She knew the identity of at least one of the people.
Erica also knew she was undertaking a sizable risk by greeting the arrivals
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alone, dressed as she was. But she followed the imperator's will and she
understood he had his reasons for ordering her to
158 JAMES AXLER
wear the Shakti priestess raiment what there was of it.
Erica van Sloan was clad in a white, floor-length shift composed of about five
percent loosely woven linen. Silver bracelets, a jeweled bangle and a pair of
sandals made up another five percent of the ensemble. The other ninety percent
was all her, but she didn't really mind.
She was tall and long-limbed, with a flawless, honey-hued complexion. Her
long, straight hair, swept back from a high forehead and pronounced widow's
peak, hung in a thick braid down the middle of her back. It was so black as to
be blue when the light caught it. The large eyes above high, regal cheekbones
looked almost the same shade of indigo, but glints of violet swam in them. The
mark of an aristocrat showed in her delicate features, with the arch of brows
and her thin-bridged nose. Her eyelids glistened with narrow stripes of
crimson and silver.
When she heard footfalls, Erica rose, noting absently how her full breasts
swayed beneath their thin covering. She knew the sexual effect would be wasted
on one of the visitors, but she halfway hoped the other man would show arousal
at the sight of her barely concealed charms. As a newly appointed Shakti
priestess, it was only fitting that her body would be one of sinuous
perfection. At least, that was what
Sam had told her when he imparted the information about the Nirodha movement.
During that same meeting, he had imbued her with more of his bioenergy, and
the gray streak in her hair almost immediately darkened. She had been secretly
preening ever since.
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159
Two figures entered the main hall from the mat-trans control room. There was a
formal council room adjacent to the main hall, holding a conference table
twelve feet in diameter. The walls, ceiling and floors of the huge, sprawling
chamber were sheathed with slick, slightly reflective vanadium alloy. Not only
was the shielding for security purposes, but it also provided protection just
in case a Roamer fired a LAW
rocket at the keep.
Erica had decided not to convene the meeting in the conference room, inasmuch
as the primary topic of the discussion was located elsewhere in the fortress.
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