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Now, for the confrontation that Sergi must devoutly be praying for.
For the first time since he had been a foot soldier, Alkirin felt the frisson of physical terror crawl coldly down his back as they marched. The youth was following them. Alkirin knew Sergi had shorted out the security monitors in this section, and had looped a file showing the passage empty. The boy did not know about the secondary cameras that fed into Alkirin’s personal console and Colebridge’s computer. He did not realize his every move was still being watched.
Here. It must be here, Alkirin thought as the guards escorted him onto the private elevator. It was what he would do under similar circumstances.
He was not wrong. The elevator moved downward smoothly, then jerked to a halt. The chief escort barked orders. One guard spoke into his communications link, trying to raise the engineering department. The others pried open the doors to discover that they were nearly level with the second basement floor. The guards decorously assisted Alkirin out and up to the floor when the explosion came.
Head ringing, Alkirin found himself on the floor, covered by the bodies of four of his bodyguards. The others were dead, blown to pieces. Those remaining alive tried to cover him, but they were shot dead by the powerful hunting rifle Sergi held.
Alkirin was not unprepared. From his sleeve he flipped a flash grenade at Sergi. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he ran up the corridor.
The exploding light cast a long shadow before Alkirin. He wondered if Sergi had ducked or if he had been blinded. Ah, footsteps! The boy had protected himself.
The pain came almost at once. The doctors had warned him that his heart was growing steadily weaker. A transplant, they suggested, or perhaps a cloned graft. He had turned them all down. If only his tortured organ would hold out long enough to finish this matter correctly!
He could not stay ahead of Sergi for long. The boy overtook him swiftly. A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, shoved him against a wall.
“Unhand me, boy!” Alkirin shouted. Sergi leaped back. The authority in the old man’s voice made him obey automatically. His handsome face screwed up with petulance. He was still a child in so many ways.
“You!” Sergi burst out. “You were responsible! Why? Why did you make me a prisoner on that island? Why? You tortured me! My physics tutor told me it was you that took me to that island! Why? Why?”
Alkirin remained calm. “Allow me to introduce myself.”
“I know who you are,” Sergi interrupted.
Alkirin held up an imperious forefinger. “You know who I am, but not what I am. Sergi, I am your father.”
The boy let out a snort of disbelief. Alkirin merely smiled.
“Oh, I can give you proof. Your mother could. She is a biologist, but you are also trained in the sciences. You can examine our DNA signatures. We are close flesh and blood, you and I. You are my son and heir.”
It was a lot to absorb. Sergi’s face showed the struggle to understand, to accept, but his mind refused to release the question until it was answered. “But why? Why did you do all that to me?”
“To test you. To make you the strongest man you could be.” Alkirin held up his hands in admiration. “And look at you!”
Sergi gaped for a moment, then pulled himself together. His expression became scornful. “I overcame all your tests, old man. You are not so formidable.”
“Ah, you still think you are the architect of your own rescue. Oh, no. Everything you did, I set up for you. I engineered your opportunities. True, you took them. That was the test: whether you could see and take advantage of situations. I made the pilot leave the departure point in the jet-copter’s memory. I changed the schedules so that you would know when to take advantage of the craft. I left the way in here open so you could take it, made all the rooms and safes the same as you recalled them from when you were a boy. If you had thought about it, you would have realized things do not remain frozen in time. They change. You will learn.”
Sergi could no longer conceal his astonishment. Akirin’s point was made. “Why? Why all this?”
“Because you are my heir, Sergi, but I have no intention of allowing you to live if you are unworthy. I wanted to see for myself. And now, I,” he added, allowing his eyebrows to droop sadly, “I have decided that you are not worth the trouble I have gone to.”
From the sleeve of his tunic Alkirin whipped a slender gun and fired it. Sergi saw the movement of his hand. He dropped and rolled. He was remarkably fast. The explosive charge Alkirin fired blew a huge hole in the wall behind him exactly where his head would have been. The boy sprang up. Looking alarmed, Alkirin took to his heels and ran. Slugs winged past him with a noise like angry hornets. He was ru
He was being steered, Alkirin realized, as he fled down the hallway. Every time he tried to duck into a side corridor, the bullets on that side would increase in number.
Alkirin, too, tried to kill his son, triggering traps that had been set in the ceiling and walls of every room of the fortress. The youth was superbly trained, and his memory of his previous visits was clear. He eluded the weapons that sprang from hidden emplacements where he had not already disabled them.
A lone soldier sprang out of the safe room he had been guarding. Fearing for the life of his master, he drew a knife and rushed at the boy, shoving him face-first into the opposite door. Sergi leaped up, wall-walked upward over the man’s head, dropped down behind him, and shot him before the guard could turn around. Alkirin took the opportunity to flee around a corner. Sergi followed. Alkirin saw his eyes light up with manic pleasure as he saw which corridor the old man had run into. He had not forgotten. He rushed for the controls.
The door slammed downward as Alkirin lunged for freedom. It snapped shut so fast it took the tip off his boot.
“Let me out of here, you brat!” Alkirin pounded furiously on the door with both fists. The steel boomed, but all his blows were in vain. “Let me out! Unlock this door!”
Through the solid wall he heard footsteps retreating hastily down the corridor. Silence. Alkirin turned and collapsed with his back against the wall, gasping at the effort. The pain returned, sending daggers of agony stabbing in his limbs and chest. Without his medicine he did not have long to live.
In a moment, he got his breath back. He rose slowly on hands and knees, then gradually attained his feet. His back proudly erect, he paced to the center of the northern wall and waved a hand across a concealed section the same texture as the wall. Sensors beeped as they recognized his palm print, and a panel slid back to reveal a small comm screen.
His majordomo’s anxious face appeared on it. Alkirin nodded at him.
“He’s done it, Colebridge. He’s on his way up now. You had better intercept him before he tries to leave the estate.”
“I will, sir,” the man said. There was a long pause, as Colebridge’s usually iron jaw quivered slightly. “Sir, good-bye.”
Alkirin smiled. “Good-bye, Colebridge. He’ll do well. Just do for him what you did for me.”
“I will, sir. I promise.”
“Yes, you will. Ah, yes.” Alkirin waved his hand to close the link. He pressed his hand to the square of wall beside the screen.
This time an enormous panel opened. A couch-like easy chair rolled out and opened up. A padded footrest rose. Alkirin sank into it. Comfort, a luxury he rarely allowed himself to indulge in. Very restful for his old bones.
Outside the locked chamber, the staff, led by Colebridge, would be swearing fealty to the new young master, and educating him as to his new place in the world. Sergi would be overwhelmed, but Colebridge would guide him until he had his feet under him. Sergi had proven to be just as intelligent and ruthless as he needed to be, and would make a good master. Once he had calmed down the staff would help him locate his mother. Whether he would believe it when Tamica told him that she had no idea how Sergi had really spent the last seven years or forgive her Alkirin did not know, but that was of no moment. She had no defenses against him, and was no threat to his newly-won empire.