The Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin

giving them bored
clearance.
    Inside a small room
on board the ship, one of the four men— the one who had murdered Bosk—sat in
front of a computer terminal. He was working on the terminal and at the same
time speaking into a commlink. He stopped both when the hatch slid open and one
of his subordinates entered.
    “Knight Officer. I’ve
monitored Laskar’s evening’s news, sir.”
    “Yes, and—?”
    “The fire
destroyed the building completely. A single body was discovered in the
wreckage. The body was burned beyond recognition, but only one tenant remains
unaccounted for and it is presumed that the body is that of an Adonian known as
Bosk. The fire was suspicious in origin, believed to have started in the
apartment of the dead man. He was known to have ties with the mob. Neighbors
reported that four men—armed—paid the deceased a visit shortly before the fire
broke out. They described the vehicle the suspects were driving. It was
discovered abandoned a short time later, stripped and burned.”
    “The local
authorities are satisfied that it was the mob?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Case closed,
then.”
    “I would say so.
Yes, sir. The Laskar police will not get involved in mob business.”
    “Very good. Tell
Knight Officer Captain he may depart when ready.”
    The subordinate
nodded, departed.
    The leader
returned to work.
    “You heard his
report, Knight Commander?” the leader asked over the comm.
    “Satisfactory.
Continue. What is it you have found?”
    The voice at the
other end of the commlink was laconic, crisp, and obviously belonged to a
machine. The speaker entered his or her words into the computer, the computer
spoke them aloud. No one, not even the highest-ranking officer of the
knighthood—of which Bosk’s killer was one—ever heard the Knight Commander’s
voice. No one had ever seen the Knight Commander. No one knew his or her real
name. All information was exchanged via commlink—voice only.
    “Contrary to
initial reports, Commander, it appears from Ohme’s files that he actually
constructed a working model of the negative wave device.”
    “Indeed.”
    “The device was
crude, apparently, but operational. Ohme’s records indicate that he performed a
test on a living subject. And that the test was successful.”
    “A living subject.”
Knight Commander mused. “How is this possible? He wouldn’t have dared test it
on Derek Sagan. And if I’m not mistaken, there were no other Blood Royal known
to exist at the time.”
    “That is true,
Commander. This was just prior to Sagan’s discovery of the whereabouts of the
young king. Snaga Ohme did not have a Blood Royal on which to test his device,
but that presented no problem for him. He couldn’t find a true Blood Royal and
so he created one. If you will recall, sir, Ohme had an extensive collection of
weapons dating back to ancient times. Appropriate for a weapons dealer.
    “Among his
collection was a bloodsword. According to the notation in Ohme’s catalog, the
bloodsword was obtained during the Revolution, when most of the Blood Royal
were eradicated. Inside this sword are the micromachines that are injected into
the body of the Blood Royal when they insert the sword’s needles into their hands.
These micromachines connect the body and brain with the sword and are used to
activate both the sword and its shielding device. A certain amount of these
micromachines remain in the bloodstream and are activated every time the sword
is used.
    “Ohme removed the
fluid containing these micromachines from the bloodsword and injected that
fluid into his test subject. He then used the newly created negative wave
device on the subject and recorded the results.”
    “Was the subject
aware he or she was being used for such purposes?”
    “According to Ohme’s
account, no, the subject was not aware. Ohme feared that the subject’s
awareness might influence the test results.”
    “He was probably
right. Did the subject die?”
    “No,