distaste. Hypocrite , he thinks. Their rivalry is an old one.
They were assigned to the same mission once, in the dead ages past when
he had been Atrahasis. The job was above and beyond the usual level of Company need-to-know obscurity. They had been sent with troops to an island in the Pacific and told to kill all the mortals they found there. Long before their transport had touched down, Atrahasis had discovered that his partner was no higher in rank than he was, and moreover that Aegeus was pompous, self-important, and crude.
Atrahasis had entertained himself awhile subtly insulting Aegeus with exquisite courtesy. When they finally reached their destination, Aegeus had let him do most of the killing; and this proved to be a complicated affair, for the mortals turned out to be neither the Neanderthal brutes he had expected nor even their cave-painting cousins. And they were rather better at defending themselves than Atrahasis had been advised. Given the hazardous nature of the job, he expected a plum posting as a reward.
So it had annoyed him a great deal when he later learned that Aegeus, rather than he himself, had been appointed the new sector head for Southern Europe.
Labienus has never forgotten the slight.
Both men have built private empires within the Company. Both have made plans to seize power, on that distant day in 2355 when the Company is expected to fall, and both have taken certain drastic and occasionally bloody steps to guarantee supremacy then. Only their methods have differed.
Aegeus has gone for show, for extravagance, flaunting his power base. He has committed tremendous resources to long-range plans. In doing so, he has presented his enemies with an immense target. The question, therefore, is simply one of strategy: which arrow to use, and when, for the most satisfying result?
Labienus tilts his head on one side, considering Aegeus’s image. Smiling at last, he takes a fine silver pen from his desk and dips it in an inkwell of Bavarian crystal. He sketches a beard and curling mustache on Aegeus’s face. Aegeus has his lips closed in the picture, sadly, so Labienus is unable to black out one of his teeth; but he settles for drawing little horns on Aegeus’s head, and adding a pair of vampire fangs over his lower lip. He sets the picture aside, chuckling as he reflects that a petty impulse, properly directed, can do one a world of good.
So, with a light heart, he considers the other Company portraits in the file.
Two immortals. One is a drone, a Literature Preservationist designated
Lewis. The other is an Executive Class Facilitator whose promising career has been oddly derailed. He is designated Victor. Lewis smiles from his portrait. Victor does not.
Lewis is fair-haired, handsome, clean-shaven. There is determination in his features. There is an earnestness that verges on absurdity. There is no doubt he is plucky. Also thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Fool , thinks Labienus.
Victor has white skin, red hair. His neat beard is sharply pointed, his mustaches even more so. His green eyes are as unreadable in their expression as a cat’s. He has posed stiffly, formally. He looks reserved. Unapproachable. Labienus smiles at his picture, almost with real affection.
Hitching his chair closer to the desk, he turns his attention to the documents. Some appear to be transcripts of testimony. He has compiled them over long years, with terrific patience. A lucky find; a careful decryption of private journal entries; an interview with an ancient mortal that had cost him nothing more than a bottle of good wine and a sympathetic-seeming ear.
The topmost stack looks fabulously old, vellum inscribed in brown ink, uncials decorated here and there with flowers and strange tiny marginalia. It is written in a mixture of sixth-century Gaelic and Latin.
The edges crumble as Labienus reads.
When my name was Eogan, I lived in the community at Malinmhor, having gladly embraced my vows for the peace of our
They were assigned to the same mission once, in the dead ages past when
he had been Atrahasis. The job was above and beyond the usual level of Company need-to-know obscurity. They had been sent with troops to an island in the Pacific and told to kill all the mortals they found there. Long before their transport had touched down, Atrahasis had discovered that his partner was no higher in rank than he was, and moreover that Aegeus was pompous, self-important, and crude.
Atrahasis had entertained himself awhile subtly insulting Aegeus with exquisite courtesy. When they finally reached their destination, Aegeus had let him do most of the killing; and this proved to be a complicated affair, for the mortals turned out to be neither the Neanderthal brutes he had expected nor even their cave-painting cousins. And they were rather better at defending themselves than Atrahasis had been advised. Given the hazardous nature of the job, he expected a plum posting as a reward.
So it had annoyed him a great deal when he later learned that Aegeus, rather than he himself, had been appointed the new sector head for Southern Europe.
Labienus has never forgotten the slight.
Both men have built private empires within the Company. Both have made plans to seize power, on that distant day in 2355 when the Company is expected to fall, and both have taken certain drastic and occasionally bloody steps to guarantee supremacy then. Only their methods have differed.
Aegeus has gone for show, for extravagance, flaunting his power base. He has committed tremendous resources to long-range plans. In doing so, he has presented his enemies with an immense target. The question, therefore, is simply one of strategy: which arrow to use, and when, for the most satisfying result?
Labienus tilts his head on one side, considering Aegeus’s image. Smiling at last, he takes a fine silver pen from his desk and dips it in an inkwell of Bavarian crystal. He sketches a beard and curling mustache on Aegeus’s face. Aegeus has his lips closed in the picture, sadly, so Labienus is unable to black out one of his teeth; but he settles for drawing little horns on Aegeus’s head, and adding a pair of vampire fangs over his lower lip. He sets the picture aside, chuckling as he reflects that a petty impulse, properly directed, can do one a world of good.
So, with a light heart, he considers the other Company portraits in the file.
Two immortals. One is a drone, a Literature Preservationist designated
Lewis. The other is an Executive Class Facilitator whose promising career has been oddly derailed. He is designated Victor. Lewis smiles from his portrait. Victor does not.
Lewis is fair-haired, handsome, clean-shaven. There is determination in his features. There is an earnestness that verges on absurdity. There is no doubt he is plucky. Also thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Fool , thinks Labienus.
Victor has white skin, red hair. His neat beard is sharply pointed, his mustaches even more so. His green eyes are as unreadable in their expression as a cat’s. He has posed stiffly, formally. He looks reserved. Unapproachable. Labienus smiles at his picture, almost with real affection.
Hitching his chair closer to the desk, he turns his attention to the documents. Some appear to be transcripts of testimony. He has compiled them over long years, with terrific patience. A lucky find; a careful decryption of private journal entries; an interview with an ancient mortal that had cost him nothing more than a bottle of good wine and a sympathetic-seeming ear.
The topmost stack looks fabulously old, vellum inscribed in brown ink, uncials decorated here and there with flowers and strange tiny marginalia. It is written in a mixture of sixth-century Gaelic and Latin.
The edges crumble as Labienus reads.
When my name was Eogan, I lived in the community at Malinmhor, having gladly embraced my vows for the peace of our
Similar Books
