Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Page 4

  They were given priority take off and soon were speeding beyond the planet’s atmosphere. She didn’t allow herself to breathe easier yet. Too many problems lay ahead of them.

  “Mom,” Lillianne complained. “I’m starving.”

  Her sister joined her in somewhat hysterical giggles. It was most unusual for either of the princesses to lose composure in front of others, but Claire supposed she had to forgive them. They had been through so much in the last few hours.

  She smiled at them. “Give instructions to the galley,” she told Adaeze, “that dinner is to be served.”

  She looked up at the ship’s captain, who was an old friend of her husband’s, a man of unquestioned loyalty to his family. “To Capron,” she told him.

  Dinner was served in the cabin Claire had so often shared with her husband. The first one she’d occupied as they traveled to Aremia had contained a secondary compartment, smaller in scale in both the room and the scaled down furniture meant for the emperor’s always accompanying blood-donor, a role she had served for Mathiah at that time.

  A well-defined part of Gare society, those had been dramatized and at the same time bemoaned as something slightly less than human, but never before had a Gare actually married so disgracefully.

  It was something that most members of the Gare, as well as the Aremian population in general never fully accepted, but for the first time in modern history, Mathiah and his mad father were the only living far speakers. And after the death of the deposed and dangerous former emperor, the people had silently sighed their relief and came close to deifying her husband.

  Mathiah had been revered and she had been tolerated. He had hoped to protect her by naming her regent. Instead his own mother had taken over her position and assumed control of the empire.

  Now, she thought with wicked glee, her daughters’ grandmere had the empire in her slender hands, but she might find the whole too hot to handle.

  And Mathiah, who had been less than trusting of his dear Mere where his little family was concerned, had arranged several bolt holds for them.

  Capron was only one of those.

  Now she watched her daughters forgetting some of their usual dainty manners as they ate hungrily of the delicacies provided for their first meal in a good many hours.

  They had never before gone short of anything they needed or wanted, raised as the most privileged children in the empire. They had always been carefully guarded, but never been truly aware of danger to themselves. Trained in the military arts, they had yet never worked hard at anything other than in practice exercises.

  They had been educated to command, to lead society and government.

  And here she was, taking them to the most barbaric of the Aremian worlds. Capron was so insignificant in the scheme of the imperium that nobody knew much about it or its people.

  For over three hundred years, the prison planet had been allowed to go its own way. The situation had some similarity to a system in the distant past in England when offenders were sent off to Australia or America, a fate considered comparable to death.

  Those sent to Capron were dismissed from society, never expected to be heard from again.

  And it was to that harsh world that Mathiah had planned for Claire and his daughters to seek refuge if worse came to worst.

  Nibbling at food which seemed tasteless, she finally came right out loud and said it. “I’m proud of my girls. The two of you could have chosen to stay with your grandmother in the lap of luxury and I wouldn’t have blamed you. And yet, here you are marching off to the hellhole of the empire with me.”

  “Capron,” Lillianne said dreamily. “I would prefer to go to Blood.”

  “Not much to choose between,” Adaeze told her, then took a sip of a bubbling drink.

  “But we could have met mom’s friends.” From early childhood, they’d heard the stories and now her younger daughter listed the names: “Jamie, Mack and Isaiah.”

  “Can’t bring danger to them,” Claire responded practically.

  Adaeze took another sip as though for courage, a quality she didn’t normally lack. Like her mother, Adaeze was not overly possessed with tact. She blurted things right out. “Looks like it’s already found them.”

  Claire frowned fiercely, feeling her forehead crease in the way that made wrinkles. “What do you mean? Do you know something I don’t?”

  The two girls exchanged a guilty gaze. “It’s only something Grandmere said,” Lillianne finally admitted.

  Claire waited, staring at the two of them in the way they found hard to resist. She might be several inches shorter than them and not able to communicate telepathically, but she was still mom!

  She saw their exchange of thoughts. Then Adaeze spoke aloud, “Grandmere was really excited when she came to see us. It was because Michel was beginning to develop far speaker abilities.”

  “Little Michel?” Claire asked stupidly. This was the last thing she’d expected. The boy, sensitive and frail, seemed the least likely in the family to develop the gift. He didn’t remind her at all of Mathiah with his strength and inborn poise. In fact he was more like her husband’s brother.

  The thought sickened her. Her husband’s older brother had been a tragedy all in himself. Born with the curse of the gift and not its blessings, he had died horribly and shortly been followed in death by his Earther sweetheart and blood donor. She had loved both of them.

  Would Michel be like that, requiring endless supplies of the blood of her people and yet unable to supply the needs of his own kind?

  Then she put it all together. “They’ll be going back to New London to take more of our youngsters.” Strange how she still thought of them as her own, even though they had spent only days together back at the beginning.

  She shivered slightly, remembering those days when they’d begun to vanish one by one until it was herself who was taken away by the Gare.

  Jamie and the others had been captured eventually as well and used as hostages to force the deal she’d made with Mathiah to wed him and produce children with the dual heritage of Earth and Aremia in hope that the gift would be passed on and the curse left behind.

  In return the small colony in New London was to be left unharmed. But now Mathiah was dead and the contract ended.

  “Grandmere planned to use you first,” her oldest daughter said. “You would have died. That’s why we had to flee.”

  She blinked tears from her eyes, brushing them away angrily. She got to her feet, “I must go tell the captain there’s been a change of plans,” she announced and left the cabin without further explanation.

  Jamie couldn’t have been more proud of his friend. Isaiah Michaels, the boy from Washington State who had the most subtle mind of them all, wasn’t always a particularly good speaker. This afternoon, however, he had risen above himself as he presented the accumulated information on the state of the Aremian Empire that so affected them all.

  He was quiet, calm, matter-of-fact, holding tight to his control and refusing to yield when the more bombastic Mayor Kevin Hartley tried to shut him up. He continued quietly making his points even as the chubby, bald-headed mayor shouted for him to sit down, that he was upsetting the people.

  Without raising his voice, Isaiah went on, “With the death of the emperor everything changed. Mathiah the tenth was our powerful protector, but now there is no one in government to fight for our interests.”

  The first words were lost in Kevin’s shouts and the responsive roar of the crowd, but forced to silence by the need to hear what he had to say, the last words were clearly understandable.

  Isaiah went on, his eyes seeming to stand out against his light skin. He used to have freckles, but now his skin was the unrelieved white that would not tan no matter how much he stayed out in the sun.

  His was not a physical presence to inspire confidence, but over the years the people of New London had come to love the gentle leader who worked so tirelessly in their interest.

  Instead of keep
ing his eyes focused on Isaiah, Jamie allowed his gaze to drift to the face of young Alice. A pretty, delicate girl with fine, light-brown hair and her father’s eyes, she was almost as intense as he was. Now she sat unmoving, taking in every word he said.

  He looked back again to Isaiah, who had obviously concluded his presentation. His friend was not one to belabor the issue; he would not go on and on just to sway the crowd. He’d told them the facts as he knew them, trying to force them to logically see the danger coming and react to it.

  Now he quietly thanked them for listening and went back to his seat.

  The people of New London sat in silence broken only by the sound of a wailing infant. Then Alice stood, evidencing her support of her father without a word. Immediately the others of their party—Mack, Karen, their sons and others right around them also rose to their feet.

  Jamie wasn’t quite certain Isaiah would benefit from his support, but after a few seconds passed, he too got to his feet.

  Throughout the crowd only a sprinkling of others did the same.

  Isaiah might be loved and respected, but only a few others of his community were willing to support his militant views.

  Jamie wasn’t exactly surprised. His friends and neighbors liked living in the world as presented to them by Kevin where they could live comfortable lives with no extraordinary fears.

  The people who were now the adults in New London had been removed from beloved homes and families on Earth and deposited on this planet where they were to serve nothing more than a biological function for the Gare.

  Nothing about them, not their personalities, their intelligence, attractiveness, courage . . .none of that had mattered. The Gare wanted them only for the qualities their blood could produce under torture.

  They didn’t want to believe that nightmare could come back.

  As the meeting was dismissed and an excited buzz of conversation broke out across the crowd, Jamie’s eyes met the gaze of his long-time friends. “Time to give up,” Mack said grimly. “I’m thinking about taking Karen and the boys and going to Kyria.”

  Kyria, the pirate planet. Certainly Karen and Mack, strong and self-reliant as they were, would have a chance of surviving there.

  Jamie gave a brief nod, dismissing them from his cause. “You do what’s best for your family. You can’t defend people who are blind to their own destruction.”

  “Want to go along?” Mack asked bluntly.

  For just an instant Jamie considered, than he looked down to here old George and Isaiah stood together. They would never abandon New London.

  Besides, the irrational thought lingered in his brain that Claire, her task with the Gare completed with the young emperor’s death, would come here.

  Like the original settlers who had died so tragically before he and his friends arrived, he suspected she would come back here for sanctuary.

  And, in spite of all that had happened, he wanted to be here when the blue-eyed girl came home.

  SIX

  Claire had intended landing on Capron as planned, but only briefly as a ruse to confuse anyone possibly following them, and then rising again into space to travel on to Sanctuary.

  Without a far speaker, the great empire governed by a little boy and his regent was virtually deaf. Under Mathiah’s leadership, communications technology was in infant stages on the home world, but it was hardly sophisticated enough to reach a distant and disregarded planet like Capron.

  Grandmere had more important matters to concern her than an escaping daughter-in-law who had stolen the two princesses and taken off on her own. She had to keep the young emperor alive and secure the palace and its environs before she had time to reach out in space and pluck Claire and her daughters back into her control.

  Claire closed her eyes, knowing that New London and its residents would be on top of the new regent’s list. Little Michel’s survival depended on a quick and dependable supply of O negative human blood.

  A quick touch-down, refueling and resupply, and then they would be off to the distant planet on the edge of the empire where her friends lived.

  Instead their cruiser had barely been brought into dock when they were boarded by a mass of rough-clad men and women who quickly overwhelmed the small crew and laughed at the attempts Claire and her daughters made to defend themselves.

  She wasn’t surprised when they were shoved and yelled out, though Adaeze quickly hid her dismay and Lillianne stared at these strange Aremians who resorted to audible speech and were inches shorter than those they had known.

  She had always heard that the inhabitants of this unfortunate planet had regressed from the high level of civilization that existed on most of the planets of the imperium.

  They fought to stay alive on this harsh world and their bodies and brains were insufficiently supplied with nutriments and medicines.

  Their use of the Aremian language was not only unacceptably verbal, placing them in the ranks of such low-lifes as herself, but was also a mongrel version of acceptable speech, slurred and mispronounced.

  Their manners were terrible as well. Claire found herself gripped in hairy arms and foul smelling breath nearly knocked her out. She was even more horrified to see her daughters treated with equal indignity.

  Her memory took her instantly back to the time in her youth when she’d been a captive of the pirates of Kyria for a few days. In comparison Captain Henry and his troopers had been gentlemen and women.

  Her crew was held at weapon point. “We made arrangements,” the captain protested. “Protection for my passengers should be available immediately.”

  Several of their captors laughed out loud. “That arrangement was made with the previous government. And we’re not fools here on Capron. You and your people can get right back on your little ship.”

  “That’s a fine little craft,” one of his men protested. “We should just kill them and keep the ship.”

  An individual of less than medium height by Aremia’s standards smiled with thin lips. “That would be very short-sighted, my friend.” He went over and shook Claire free of the grip that held her so tightly. “If I’m not mistaken, and I’m quite sure I’m not, this little lady is our empress.”

  One rough hand brushed against her gleaming black hair. “Bow, gentlemen, before the Empress Claire.” He nodded at Adaeze and Lillianne, and then grinned. “And the two princesses,” he added. “Bow, gentlemen, bow!”

  Several did just that, bending in mock bows and howling with laughter.

  “Seems to me that his almighty greatness Mathiah the tenth will be awful pleased to get these ladies back, so pleased that he’ll pay almost any price.”

  He shook Claire as though she were a rat caught in his grasp. She gathered he wasn’t very fond of the ruling Gare, but then she supposed nobody on this prison planet would be. Though his info was hardly up to date.

  Maybe it would be best not to tell him that Mathiah no longer lived to ransom them. She and the girls seemed to have fallen from fat into fire.

  Nobody seemed to want to talk to her. Instead they addressed themselves to the captain of her ship, who looked as though he could barely stand the indignity. She suspected that the aristo Gare captain would rather have fought to the death than be captured by such degenerates.

  Not to be a snob, but she almost felt that way herself.

  She listened while he was instructed that he would return to Aremia and explain the precarious position in which the members of the royal family found themselves. He was to return with the huge ransom demanded or the empress and the two princesses would die horribly.

  Any movement against the people of Capron and they would meet the same fate.

  Claire’s agile brain ticked away busily. Even if Mathiah still lived, these rebels would never dare let the three of them go. Grandmere might meet the demand to see Adaeze and Lillianne freed, but she would have no such anxiety about her daughter-in-law. She would most likely be pleased to see her so easily disposed, knowing it would be a simp
ler matter to retrieve the needed blood-donors from New London.

  Anyhow it didn’t matter what the regent did. These people would hold her and her daughters forever as the only guarantee they had that the empire wouldn’t blow them out of existence. Surely they knew the prison planet would be considered expendable.

  But then they didn’t seem to be too politically savvy, these people. They hadn’t even figured out that something must be going on for the supposed empress to be landing on their desolate planet.

  Nobody on Aremia was going to save them, not in the midst of a revolt. She had to make other plans that had more to do with finding a way to rescue themselves.

  Mathiah’s captain and friend refused to take orders from his captors and the rest of the crew proved equally loyal. Even though that loyalty was not so much for herself as for her late husband, Claire couldn’t help being impressed.

  No need for them to stay here and die. And perhaps, just perhaps, she could manage a small intrigue.

  “Do as they say,” she said quietly. “You know it’s our only hope of surviving. Go to my home and summon help.”

  She could only hope that their captors would understand this as a call to the captain, who was an exceptionally perceptive man who had known her since her earliest days on Aremia, and would know where her real home lay.

  She was sending him to Sanctuary. Most likely they would barely remember her there, but she was counting on one man not to have forgotten.

  Jamie rolled over in his solitary bed in the well-fortified old town hall, trying to shake off dreams where the youngsters sent to the planet Sanctuary were being picked off one by one, disappearing to an unknown fate.

  He’d been their leader back then, an inner core of responsibility having been instilled in him by the grandparents who raised him, and he’d been bound and determined to rescue all the missing.

  He had been successful with all but one. Claire had chosen to stay with the Gare emperor who had selected her for the honor of becoming his wife, half because she’d come to care for him and half because she made a bargain that safeguarded the youngsters of New London from the predators who would steal away their lives one by one.