The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [153]
And Basil had killed her.
Now Patrick was angry as hell.
When the Gypsy set down on the paved outdoor landing pad, the mansion appeared to be abandoned. Maureen’s staff, servants, and persistent guests had all gone. With the succession of disasters in the intervening weeks, he doubted the Chairman had had time to send his goons to pick through her home and property.
Looking at the large house, he suddenly paused as he felt a lump in his throat. “I suppose this is my inheritance now.”
Using his memorized passcodes to deactivate the security systems, he and Zhett entered the silent home. They carried their belongings from the space yacht into a guest bedroom, which they claimed as their own.
They went to the former Chairman’s media room, a large chamber with comfortable chairs, a minibar, and a coffee-dispensing station. The walls were covered with dark newsnet screens.
“Do you think we can find a way to contact the other protesters?” she asked. “How will we get in touch with them?”
“We can do some broadcasts from here, form our own little self-contained cell. Wait for Freedom’s Sword to track us down.”
“Unless the Hansa finds us first.”
“We’ll scramble our signal, make it look like we’re somewhere out in space — you saw the chaos out there. They’ll never be able to figure it out.”
“Then how will Freedom’s Sword find us?” Zhett activated the monitors and sat back to watch the numerous reports. Many screens reported on the asteroid-roundup efforts or displayed tragic stories of cities obliterated by meteor impacts. On several discussion channels guest speakers railed against the Confederation with various degrees of fanaticism. Conspiracy theorists speculated that King Peter had somehow provoked the faeros attack. Patrick rolled his eyes.
A few sporadic channels voiced genuine criticism of Chairman Wenceslas, how his bad decisions and ineptitude had dug humanity’s grave; those discussions, though, were few. Many once-popular channels, Patrick noted, were no longer broadcasting.
One story was focused on the Klikiss, briefly reporting that General Lanyan had been killed on Pym. After the Moon’s destruction, though, that was old news. Patrick heard the story of Lanyan’s fate with mixed emotions. He had once admired the man, seen him as his mentor and the key to career advancement. How naïve and foolish he had been! Considering how many times Lanyan had thrust his hand into a hornet’s nest, it had been inevitable that he would get stung. . . .
They listened to reports of massive arrests of demonstrators who demanded the Chairman’s resignation. During the state of emergency, King Rory could do little to calm the people. Patrick was sure he would find a way to tap into the Freedom’s Sword network; even if he never found them, he could use their name to gain additional attention. With his revelations, the dissenters would have a lot more things to yell about.
When he used his own ID and thumbprint to access the main household communication center, instead of a blank Ready screen, an image formed. His grandmother stood there looking at him. He was startled to see Maureen Fitzpatrick give him a hard smile.
“Well, then, Patrick, since you’ve accessed this message from my home, and since I’m not there to delete it before you can listen, I must be dead. That pisses me off. Unless I happened to fall off a tree balcony on Theroc — and I’m not that clumsy — I’ll bet Chairman Wenceslas had something to do with it. Bastard,” she muttered under her breath.
“I can imagine what you must be thinking. You’re fired up to take on the Hansa, bring the man to justice, save the human race. You’ve turned into a crusader, Patrick, so listen: There are smart crusaders and stupid ones. That Roamer girl of yours has brought out an altruistic streak in you . . . which I suppose is just fine. I wouldn’t mind, though, if you also wanted to get even with the Chairman for what he did to your dear, sweet grandmother.” She laughed.
Patrick felt a chill to see her talking so blithely