"It has already begun," was all he said.
He left them there, signaling for Hobbes to follow.
Executive Officer
As they walked toward the cell, Katherie Hobbes's hand went to the flechette pistol strapped to her wrist.
She had intended to visit the prisoner once her duties permitted. The commando was a fabulous physical specimen, a captive unique in Imperial history. She was the only Rixwoman ever captured alive and conscious by Imperial forces over a century of armed clashes between Empire and Cult.
For the Rix, fighting to the end was the rule, suicide the alternative to victory. Hobbes's researches had found only a single previous example of live Rix prisoners. At the end of the First Incursion, sixteen Rixwomen had been taken while in coldsleep, their long-range small craft intercepted by an Imperial raider deep within Cult space. One by one, they had been awakened, but each died within seconds of consciousness. Imperial doctors had attempted to discover and neutralize the mechanism by which the prisoners had ended their own lives, but no amount of medical intervention could keep them alive. Their bodies rejected sedatives, resuscitation, even--it was rumored--the holy symbiant. It seemed that the Rix had conscious control over their vital functions. For a Rixwoman, breathing was an option, the actions of the heart a voluntary choice.
Suicide, simply a decision.
Maybe, Hobbes thought, they actually believed their own propaganda. If human life was inherently meaningless, then one's own might be ended by a whim.
Here was a Rixwoman, however, an elite commando of the Cult, who had apparently decided that life in captivity was worth living. But was it her own decision that kept her alive, Hobbes wondered, or the purposes of the comoound mind?
The marine guards snapped to attention when the executive officer and Captain Zai reached the cell. Hobbes had sent an extra fire team here when the priority signal came through; there were five marines present in all. One was Private Bassiritz, the man she'd drafted to help foil the mutiny. Hobbes had personally chosen him for this duty. If anyone could react quickly enough to meet a Rix commando on her own terms, Bassiritz could.
A living initiate of the Apparatus--the woman's name was Farre-- also stood by. The captain grimaced at the sight of her. The politicals had kept a close watch on the Rixwoman and Rana Harter since their arrival on the Lynx. An Imperial writ gave them absolute power over the two prisoners.
"Captain."
"Initiate," Zai responded and turned to Bassiritz.
"She actually said something to you, Private?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Asked for you, sir."
Hobbes looked at the prisoner through the false transparency of the hypercarbon. The commando sat in one corner, as dirty and forlorn as some forgotten madwoman in an asylum. She hadn't spoken in her months of captivity--only those nine words when she'd been captured, a lament for her dead lover. Why would she wait until now to reveal a message?
"Can we two-way this transparency?" Captain Zai asked.
"No, sir. There's no hardscreen inside."
"Then let's go in."
"Sir!" Hobbes protested. "That's a Rix commando, restrained or not."
"She appears to be wearing a shock collar. Private, you have the remote?"
"Yes, sir." Bassiritz held the little hardkey up.
"Keep it handy."
"Captain," interjected the initiate. "I will take the remote, if you please."
"Initiate Farre," Zai said, "this man's reflexes are far quicker than yours. You'll put our safety at risk."
"The Emperor is concerned about secrets supplied to the prisoner >68 by the compound mind on Legis," the initiate said. "Is this cell secured?"
Zai glanced at Hobbes.
"The cell has no particular data security, sir. But it's pretty blind in there. No camwall or synesthesia projectors. And she's hardly been spilling secrets."
"Ma'am," Bassiritz offered nervously. "There's an extra remote, for watch changes."
They would only be safer with two remotes, Hobbes realized. She nodded, and the marine produced another of the black hardkeys. He handed it to Farre.
Zai gestured, but the door failed to open. Hobbes recalled that it was purely mechanical, cut off from automatics and even decompression safeties. She nodded to the ranking marine, who ordered two of the fire team to muscle it open. Chain of command in action, Hobbes thought.
Bassiritz went through first.
Captain Zai waited for a moment, watching for the commando's reaction. The Rixwoman stood, but kept to her corner. Hobbes saw now that her movements were strangely disjointed, as sudden as a nervous bird's.
"Executive Officer," Zai said.
Hobbes's finger brushed the reassuring bump of her concealed flechette pistol before stepping through the meter-wide door. The room was bright, lit by a ceiling full of dumb, spray-on filaments. It smelled of confinement, but without overwhelming rankness. The Rixwoman's sweat had the scent of milk about to turn.
Zai and the initiate came after her. The four of them remained in the opposite corner from the Rixwoman. Her eyes shone violet in the harsh light, her face as still as some ancient lizard's.
"Captain Laurent Zai," she said. Hobbes recognized in her accent the long vowels of Legis XV's far northern provinces.
"Yes. And your name?" Zai answered.
It had never occurred to Hobbes that she would have one.
"Herd." Her accent slipped into some native phonology, and the vowel was inflected by a zuzz at the back of the woman's throat.
"And you have a message for me?"
"From Alexander."
Good god, thought Hobbes. The compound mind had a name.
Zai just nodded. "What is it?"
The commando cocked her head, as if listening to something. Then shifted inside the straightjacket, rolling her shoulders.
"Alexander wishes to give you a weapon."
"A weapon?" Zai asked, finally unable to keep surprise from his voice. "Technology?"
"No, Captain. Information," she said. "To use against the Emperor."
Farre raised the shock remote.
"You see, Captain? She has classified information."
Zai was silent for a moment, stunned by the Rixwoman's words. Hobbes glanced toward Private Bassiritz. The commando might be trying to create a moment of confusion before launching an attack, and the old initiate would never react quickly enough to stop her. The marine seemed completely alert, however; he was shutting out the words. His eyes were fixed on the commando fiercely, as if she were some childhood monster come to life. Hobbes swallowed, and again touched the shape of her flechette pistol through the wool of her sleeve.