Chapter Forty
A secret is never meant to be kept. It is always trying to break out of the box confining it.
—Graffiti, Gaol of Brimrock
The shuttle trip down to the surface of the Mutati homeworld would take longer than his entire cross-space journey to the Paradij pod station, covering millions of parsecs. This seemed incongruous to Giovanni Nehr, but it was the reality nonetheless. Hyper-fast podships were one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, but he had another one with him, in the heavy parcel he carried under his arm.
Boarding the shuttle, he was confronted by two Mutati guards, their large, pulpy bodies draped in black uniforms. They ran the yellow beam of a scanner over his body and the package, to make certain he wasn’t carrying anything dangerous.
During the procedure, Gio smiled confidently. In reality, he was carrying something explosive—but not in the usual sense of the word. Speaking to them in common Galeng, he provided his name and demanded to see the Zultan Abal Meshdi himself.
Surprised, the guards laughed, a peculiar squeaky sound. “Our Zultan?” one of them said. “Don’t you know he hunts down your kind and tortures them?”
“Tell him I am Giovanni Nehr, brother of Jacopo Nehr, inventor of the nehrcom. You are familiar with that device?”
The guards looked at him stupidly.
“Just tell him I’m a very important person,” Gio added.
“Our scanner shows you are carrying rocks,” the shorter of the guards said. “Are they pretty stones?”
“Oh yes, pretty stones for your Zultan. He will like them.”
The taller guard reached out and was about to touch the parcel, when he started to sneeze and sniffle. His companion’s eyes began to water, and he coughed.
In proximity to the Human, both guards were becoming uncomfortable, not having bothered to wear implanted allergy protectors near their own homeworld. Their small fleshy faces reddened and they stepped back, taking seats on the shuttle as far away from Gio as possible. There were no other passengers.
“What sort of a fool are you?” the taller of the guards asked, eyeing him with contempt. His large eyes had become purple-veined and watery.
“A Human fool,” his companion answered. He sniffled and laughed, then sneezed.
After the shuttle landed, four guards replaced the initial pair. Staying as far away from Giovanni as possible, they took him by groundjet to the imposing Citadel.
After a careful security screening and a check of his identity documents, the visitor was escorted through a long portico and then into a maze of interior corridors and lifts that took them to one of the upper levels of the Citadel. The parcel was carried by a guard, who put gloves on before touching it. As Gio’s escort of Mutati men sniffled, sneezed, and wiped tears from their eyes, they spoke to him in Galeng.
“Are you brave or just crazy?” one asked.
“Perhaps both,” came the reply.
“You are fortunate that the Zultan has consented to see you. As the brother of the nehrcom inventor, you are an important person in the Merchant Prince Alliance.”
“Ah, so you know what a nehrcom is?” Gio asked.
“I’ve heard of it,” the guard said, although he did not elaborate.
Ahead of them, two immense doors carved with space battle scenes swung open, revealing a glittering audience hall beyond. An immense Mutati in a jeweled golden robe sat in the center, on a high throne. Curiously, he had some sort of a blue bubble attached to his forehead, a device with internal workings that bathed his face in spinning circles of multicolored light.
Gio took a deep breath, for this had to be the Zultan Abal Meshdi himself. As Gio approached, the Mutati removed the bubble device and handed it to an attendant. With a scowl on his face, the Zultan stared down silently at his visitor as if observing every detail, absorbing information without words.
The hall was nearly empty, except for a few attendants around the perimeter. Gio noticed a hairless alien standing off to one side as well, and judged him to be an Adurian, a race that was said to be allied with the Mutatis. This one wore a black suit and a white cape, and he had a number of colorful caste markings on his face and forearms.
“Greetings, bold Human,” the Zultan said. “You have a gift for me? I like gifts.”
The guards halted Gio at the base of the throne. He felt very small in this immense chamber, like a tiny child in the midst of the oversized Mutatis and furnishings.
Looking up, he bowed and said, “Your Eminence, I bring a gift for all of your people, not just for you personally.”
“What?” He looked displeased. “Not for me personally, you say?”
“Of course, you don’t have to share it if you don’t want to,” Gio added hastily. He glanced sidelong at the parcel held by one of the guards.
“What sort of strange offering do you bring?” Meshdi demanded.
“Unlike anything you have ever seen. It will enable your great kingdom to compete with the Merchant Prince Alliance.”
From his quivering, pulsating mound of fat, the Zultan sneezed and then responded huffily. “What makes you think we wish to compete with our inferiors?” Surveying the fearless Human, he added, “Nonetheless, what is your gift? If it is a good one, I will be pleased.”
At a signal from the Zultan, the guard stepped up to the throne, and handed him the parcel.
Meshdi examined the package, turning it over and over without opening it. “The scanner report says that there are rocks inside,” he said, with a sly expression. “I think you have rocks in your head, too.”
The Adurian, having moved closer for a better view, snickered.
“I have not brought you common rocks, Your Eminence.” Gio motioned. “Please, open your gift.”
Beaming like a fat child, the Zultan tore off the plaxene wrapping, then lifted the lid of a box inside. A wash of green light startled him, and he almost dropped everything.
The guards clicked their weapons, but Meshdi waved them off.
“Jewels?” he exclaimed, looking at them with his eyes wide. “These glitter in ways I have never seen before.” He selected one of the small green gems and held it up to the light. A peculiar fascination filled his face.
“You hold in your hand a great military secret,” Gio said, “the secret of the nehrcom transceiver, sometimes referred to as the Nehr Cannon.”
With a perplexed expression, the Mutati asked, “Instantaneous communication across space? This is the secret?”
“It is.”
He looked confused, but his dark eyes glinted with pleasure. “But how does it work?” He put the gem back in the box, picked up another.
Having penetrated his brother’s computer system to learn the secret of the cross-space transmission device, Gio began to spew forth information, telling how to cut the rare stones and align them for perfect transmission, holding nothing back. He knew it was foolhardy to do this, and perhaps even suicidal, but he didn’t care. After working closely with his brother, and seeing the decadence and debauchery of the merchant princes, Gio had decided it was only a matter of time before the determined Mutatis defeated them, and he wanted to be on the winning side. Even if he never saw that day and these shapeshifters put him to death, he would go to his grave knowing he had knocked the arrogant Jacopo Nehr off his pedestal.
The transmitter wasn’t really a cannon at all, Gio announced. The term “Nehr Cannon” was merely selected to confuse and misdirect the curious. He even told the Zultan how to mine for the deep-shaft piezoelectric emeralds, and that they could be found on a number of planets around the galaxy, including some that had no military defenses. He provided a list.
Finally, Giovanni Nehr fell silent.
“Is that all you know?” the Zultan inquired.
“It is, Majesty.”
“Then of what use are you to me anymore?”
“I assumed you would be grateful.” Feeling a surge of unexpected panic, he added a lie: “Besides, my expertise will still be needed to perfect your own galactic communication system, to work out any problems that you are bound to encounter.”
“But if you betrayed your own people—including your own brother—we cannot trust you, either. Your disloyalty marks you as dangerous and unreliable. If what you have said is true—and we recorded all of it—we have scientists capable of replicating the nehrcom transceiver and dealing with problems. We don’t need you.”
“But I brought you a gift! You should be grateful!”
“You said yourself that it was not for me personally, that it was for my people. Thus, you committed a social gaffe, an unforgivable faux pas in our culture.” His large eyes narrowed. “You should have researched more carefully.”
With a cruel smile, Abal Meshdi motioned for the guards to take the sputtering, suddenly terrified man away. “Foolish Human, you will not live long enough to learn how to bargain.”
* * * * *
Under tight security, Gio was taken to a prison moon orbiting the planet Dij. He recognized the name the moment he heard it. This was one of the worlds stripped of all resources and abandoned by the Merchant Prince Alliance.
He did not know, however, that on the surface of Dij, under the direction of Hari’Adab Meshdi—the Emir and eldest son of the Zultan—planet-busting Demolio torpedoes were being constructed.