Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [78]
Data said nothing. The only expression of personality was the poignant lack of it, and perhaps the sheen of soft lightning, reflected off the velvet, casting a glow that turned his metallic complexion herbal.
“You needn’t have brought so many medical supplies, Dr. Crasher” Iavo told her as he took one of the duffels from Data. “We have eight major hospital complexes in the city, which will bring anything you require to treat the empress.”
“Mr. Iavo, when I say I want security, I mean absolute security. I want nothing delivered from anywhere as of right now. Nothing comes into the palace. Not medicine, not food, not people, not weapons.”
“There are no weapons here, madam” the Sentinel assured. “The palace is completely energy-secure. Our security office constantly monitors any active energy, and would instantly identify an armed disruptor or phaser-“
“Hmm. I wondered why all your guards carried daggers,” Crusher recalled. “I thought it was just traditional. Where’s the empress?” “This way, please.”
Another corridor. An obviously private series of chambers, more guards, one more short corridor… finally, Iavo cleared Crusher and Data into the empress’s bedchamber.
And what a place it was. Draped in soft green velvet embossed with ancient symbols, softly lit by unseen fixtures, carpeted with something that seemed like rabbit fur, the room was warm and thick with the scent of burning herbs. In the center of the room was a sitting area with a generous couch and an oblong blackwood table with a single chair.
There were two female attendants hovering near the bed, and four imperial guards, each in a uniform and helmet, standing near the bed posts. The bed had six posts, each as thick as a full-grown man’s body and carved with angular features of hands and faces, each hand holding one of the faces and pushing it toward the ceiling. Each face grimaced hellishly, and in its teeth held a carved skewer that stuck out from the totem, so that the bedposts bristled like a bottle brush with wooden spikes. Some of the spikes were broken off, yet the blunt ends darkened and showing no wounded wood, hinting that the bed was very old. The wood had never been stained, it had just blackened with sheer age.
And in the bed, bundled in velvet and fur, was the young empress. Her eyes were closed, but not in rest. Her hair was meticulously combed yet lusterless, almost crispy from her long fight to stay alive, as her body sapped whatever healthy cells it could draw back into itself in its last desperations.
All over the empire, members of the royal family looked like that, or had, or soon would.
Crusher approached the bed, aware that Data was right behind her, maintaining a student-like silence. She listened briefly to the empress’s respiration, looked at her complexion, noted her skin color, an obscene russet-very wrong-but did not touch her.
“Communications relays have been set up all over the empire for you. Attending physicians are standing by for your instructions.”
“Are they willing to cooperate with a Federation physician?” she asked.
Iavo seemed embarrassed, or perhaps hopeless. ‘They have tried everything they know.” Crusher folded her arms. “Yes… I suppose they have.” And she simply stood there, a hip cocked, said nothing more, and did nothing, while the harp music plucked the draperies.
Data’s amber eyes flicked between her and Iavo, but he also said, as she had instructed, nothing.
Iavo watched as his empress moaned softly, unattended. The two female attendants peered uneasily. The helmeted guards remained at attention, but their eyes shifted. “Are you going to treat her?” Iavo finally asked. “Yes, but I’ll need something from you,” Crusher said. “What do you want from us?” Iavo asked. Now he got it.
She took one step toward him, then locked her stance. “I want Ansue Hashley. Bring him here, alive.”
“All right, Mr. Hashley, I’ve heard enough.” “But I