Penelope's Secrets

Chapter 5
The Owl Broods

Scythia... Jacko's mind.

For Jacko this has been an eventful night. An owl by nature , much of his business is arranged in the hours of darkness. So in this crisis when everyone else is tired and likely to make decisions that may not seem so good in the morning, his alertness and energy seem even more impressive to his nocturnal audience. Most of what he has needed to arrange has been obvious and routine.

Item. One confirmed alien claiming to come from somewhere outside the Imperium has arrived on Scythia, and has fortunately been picked up and is now in good hands. But could there be others? It would be a mistake to rely on Carlos' own testimony that so far he is the only one. A general alert has been set in progress, with additional security presence assigned to the gates of the major cities. In Scythia itself this will cause major congestion tomorrow because on a games day, there are always more people coming in from the surrounding districts. It may be necessary to delay the start of the games for a few hours to avoid the possible rioting that could occur if people thought they were likely to miss the start of the main events.

Item. He had looked forward to the planned conference with Hector on locating the alien space-ship. He had already decided to let Hector take the lead in this operation, because it was a natural navy operation. But Jacko had a few ideas of his own that might come in useful. Games of cat and mouse were his speciality. Working closely on a security operation with Penelope's heir would be a good opportunity to start the kind of practical relationship that might one day be necessary for them both. But it came as something of a shock when he found that Penelope had revealed to Hector the truth about his father, in contravention of the imperial secrecy edict.

Naturally, as the family's chief of security he had always known the truth, and had played an active part in making sure that nobody else did. The fact was, it had been many years since he had given this matter any thought. For all practical purposes Hector's father Julius might as well be dead in reality. There had been no trace or signal from him, since the time 25 years before when he and his closest companions had gone off on what (at the time) Jacko had privately considered to be a hare-brained and futile chase in search of harmless ghosts. But Julius, who had once been regarded as a possible Imperator to-be of the imperial forces, had little difficulty in persuading the emperor of the merits of his mission. A cynic might say that the argument which had convinced the emperor to give Julius the resources he had asked for was not the stated one of protecting the imperial interest but the unstated alternative of what might happen if he didn't go. A long voyage would remove Julius from political circulation for a considerable time, and possibly, given the risks, forever. It had certainly averted the dangers of a power struggle between the pro and anti Julius factions in the navy which might otherwise have led to a civil war. And this in itself would have been sufficient justification for a civilized man of honour such as Julius to fabricate the whole thing...

At the time Jacko had felt an emptiness because many of those who had been secretly chosen to go with Julius had been the close companions of their youth, and Jacko was the only one of this close circle who remained. The hardest part about covering up the true reason for their disappearance had been the necessity to cast a shadow over the reputations of this most loyal group of friends.

The cover stories for each disappearance had been deliberately contrived to be implausible so as to leave no doubt in most people's minds about the "real" reason. So Labienus, who had never been greatly interested in hunting dragons, was made out to have been killed during a dragon attack which conveniently wiped out several other companions. And Heraklion, whose detestation of hunting was only surpassed by his dislike of boats, was apparently drowned while fishing. The clumsiness of these stories and the disappearance of the closest circle of Julius' friends all within the same week or so after his "assassination" left no doubt in most minds that there had been a conspiracy, and that retribution had been swift and final. In the case of the men with families, Penelope's clemency towards them had been interpreted at the time as a weakness of her sex. The wives of those who had gone, were grateful for this mercy and were left to wonder how it was that they had remained so ignorant about the conspiracy of which they themselves of course knew nothing.

Such a lot of problems caused by the salvage of some old junk in space...

As an agricultural world, Scythia's propensity to salvage, make-do and mend technological systems in preference to buying new ones was often the object of humour on the more sophisticated worlds in the Imperium. But such thrift had helped over the generations to create a wealthy standard of living that would not have been possible given the burdens of debt incurred by many of the industrially dependent worlds. On Scythia it was true that the main forms of transport were horses and sails rather than cars and hydrofoils but this meant you could breathe sweet air, see green fields and sail on clean water. Scythian vineyards produced the empire's best grapes and wine. Only the second best was ever exported. For emergency use, the rocket ships of the Scythian defence forces were as fast as any off-world. But rarely used.

One day a salvage expedition had discovered an old hulk, which had been destroyed in the Scythian-Etruscan wars hundreds of years before. After such battles, if there was time and energy the common practise of the victors was to gather up the major wreckage and bundle it together it for future cannibalization. There were pockets of old ships all over the galaxy tagged and grouped against the day of future economic or historic need. If for no other reason, it was at least better to know where they were from the viewpoint of safe navigation.

Well, this particular ship only narrowly avoided being converted into raw material, because the reclaimer's captain was unable to tell from its appearance what model it had been. Identification prior to salvage was necessary to ensure that the work proceeded safely. A naval ship even hundreds of years old could still have weapons systems on board that might be partially operational and capable of causing serious damage if accidentally triggered. The boarding party discovered that the vessel wasn't of any known imperial design. The navy investigation, headed by Julius concluded that the ship was of alien origin, and had unfortunately arrived at a time and place where it had got mixed up in a fire-fight. There was no evidence to show where it had come from. But the fact that a space-going human civilization, unknown to the empire had made contact hundreds of years ago (although this had not been recognized at the time) posed interesting questions.

Having a suspicious nature himself, and never having seen the evidence first hand, Jacko had been inclined to think the idea was somewhat fanciful. It might be possible to read any interpretation into scraps of metal. But the empire and the navy had decided it was worthwhile equipping an exploration vessel to take a look at the most probable sources of the ship. Which basically meant anywhere, in unexplored space outside the empire. Such an expedition hadn't been assembled for over a thousand years. Because there was no point in wasting resources and wealth looking for unknown worlds far away when there were plenty of known ones close to hand which were habitable and wealthy. The investment in ships of war had always provided a better economic return than the gambles on ships of exploration.

Penelope obviously thought the appearance of the alien visitor Carlos might be somehow connected to this old fragment from history or the departure of her husband. At this stage it was impossible to tell. But Jacko could think of no other explanation for why she would disclose this to Hector. Imperial secrets were intended to remain unknown.

However, the session with Hector had gone well. It was agreed that Jacko would retain responsibility for looking after the alien, and intercepting and trying to decipher any of the signals he sent. In the meantime, the navy would start a search pattern to try and locate the parent ship or ships. In this matter, Jacko suggested that in addition to a random systematic search, which could take a very long time, they should also try to put themselves in the place of these people who were trying to remain hidden and apply some resource to look at places suggested by intuitive guesses where they might be. Hector and Jacko together managed to come up with a short list of about 15 different types of hiding strategy. Given the amount of time it would take to complete a systematic search, it was agreed that nothing would be lost if the intuitive locations were prioritized.

The meeting with Ireny had not gone so smoothly. Normally when Jacko, as head of security, instructed one of his agents about an assignment the expected flow of the briefing would centre around what was needed to be done, how it was going to be achieved, and when the objective was expected to take place. The question of "why?" was one which never arose. He considered Ireny to be his best female operative. All her training and fieldwork had been designed to prepare her for one major diplomatic mission, which had still to take place. During all this time, her true identity had been protected and was unknown to any outside the small circle of the royal family. She had never appeared in public except in the role of a capable but anonymous servant. Now, he had to tell her that she was assigned to looking after the alien. This meant she would be seen in public with Helen and Carlos. And although most people regarded their bodyguards as being invisible, she would inevitably become known to the enemy as one of his special agents. She would thereafter become useless for the project she had prepared for, for so many years.

If any other agent had objected to an assignment or asked why someone else couldn't be sent in their place, their judgement, loyalty and aptitude would have been seriously in doubt. In fact their career would have been terminated within a few minutes of such a conversation having taken place. But Jacko had a problem in this case. Ireny was not just another agent. She was part of the family, that he was sworn to protect. Although not a genetic member of the family, she had been secretly adopted by Penelope when her true parents were killed by enemy assassins following the upheavals of Julius' disappearance. Ireny was a childhood friend of Helen (Penelope's true daughter) and had been staying at the palace while her parents went on a short diplomatic mission to Perusia which was part of the Etruscan system bordering Scythian space. The mission was to inspect some naval facilities which were due to be handed over under an imperial order as part of the resource shuffling that took place to equip Julius's exploration ship. The Etruscan governor at the time didn't know the background, and didn't much like the idea of handing over everything they had. The timing was unfortunate, because they were visiting the system at the time the news broke of Julius' assassination and the "clean-up" which followed. Sensing an opportunity too good to miss, the Etruscans removed most of what they wanted to keep for themselves and arranged a fatal accident for the visiting couple. Due to the other upheavals at the time, the murder of Ireny's parents was publicly accepted at face value. To protect the child, the story was put that when she had got the news about her parents accident she had gone out for a ride, had fallen off her horse, and broken her neck.

Penelope, who genuinely liked the best friend of her daughter, used the secret adoption of Ireny as her way of expiating any guilt from the troubles of that time. When Ireny became old enough to guess the truth about her parents she had gone straight to Jacko and asked what she needed to do to get her revenge. By that time, her parent's murderer, Caligula, who had started out as the nephew of Etruria's ruler, had used similar talents to install himself as head of the Etruscan system, due to a series of convenient accidents and illnesses that had taken off the heirs more closely in line to the succession. Jacko remembered explaining patiently to the fourteen year old Ireny why it might be rather difficult to have her revenge on someone who had been surviving assassination attempts as a way of life, and was installed in a fortress cocoon existence that made Penelope's security systems seem wide open by comparison. Unlike Penelope, Caligula didn't even bother with the pretence of being liked by his people. And the Etruscan system was larger and intrinsically more militarily minded. This had not deterred Ireny. For the next few months she kept asking what she needed to do. The constant pressure from this young girl that he couldn't ignore or dismiss out of hand made Jacko realize that she was really serious.

When he broached the matter one day, with Penelope, he found that she already knew all about it. They decided to wait and see if her obsession with revenge would diminish. It didn't. In the end they decided that for her own safety she should be given some rudimentary training in personal defence in the hope that the rigours would bore her, or help her realize just how difficult it would be to prepare adequately for what she had in mind. It turned out that the frail young girl fired by her strong motivation developed an aptitude for this type of thing that was hard to deny. By the time that Jacko and Penelope capitulated, and decided for Ireny's own good to give her the best possible training for what she wanted to do, they were dealing with a headstrong tough young woman.

By this time, Ireny and Helen were no longer as close as they had been. Helen's interests had developed into the natural hedonistic preoccupations of wealth and youth. Her sociability and rank led her naturally into a public lifestyle that was not always centred around the palace. Meanwhile Ireny's chosen path meant that she was often far away in the secret training establishments of the security services. And even on the rare occasions when she had any free time in the vicinity of the capital, the moments spent with her adoptive family would have to be in the privacy of the palace in the areas reserved for the most trusted servants and attendants. Despite the long absences, he knew that Hector and Cato were supportive of their youngest sister. They could understand and admire the fierce passions that placed revenge of a wrong done to one's family above all other considerations.

In a way Jacko had become a surrogate father to the young girl whom he had first regarded as a nuisance and then finally came to respect. He had made life as difficult as he could for her, initially expecting that she would quickly give up her ambition. But when he loaded her with dull and difficult physical training she willingly took up every burden and would not be satisfied till she had overcome every obstacle he could put in her path. Finally he came to realise Ireny would not be dissuaded, and he had changed his focus to ensure she got the best possible preparation for her self appointed mission. The need to preserve her anonymity while developing her practical skills and self reliance meant she was several times assigned to obscure outposts of the Scythian region. She once spent a couple of years in a lowly role in a desert patrol unit doing tours with the caravans, and sharing in the risks of fighting off bandits and tracking down runaways. Penelope had disapproved, but she had given way to his judgement.

"If we are soft on her now, then how will she ever learn to survive on her own?" He had said. There was no need to press the point. Her ultimate destination was going to be a place where no friendly hand would be close to help her. And on a mission from which there could be little chance of return. It was hard therefore to tell her that her life's ambition was to be cast aside at a stroke. In the end, the argument he had used to win her over was to point out that the present threat unquantified but nonetheless real, posed by the presence of the alien was a danger to the family she now had, and protecting the living had to take priority over avenging the dead.

Because Ireny was a close member of the family he felt justified in explaining to her that very shortly they would be surrounded by multiple threats. In addition to the unknown threat posed by the alien's rocket-ship and intentions, there would soon be the presence of the imperial fleet which had been summoned to protect the imperial interest. No doubt as soon as their enemies found out about the situation they would try to find a way to exploit it to their advantage. And even if relations between the empire and the alien civilization proceeded smoothly there would a certain amount of economic and civil shuffling and adjustment that would occur, which could be used as a cover for removing the ruling family from their present position or assassinating individual family members. The largest part of the local hub fleet was composed of Etruscan ships and although these would not normally be welcome in such close proximity they would have to be greeted and entertained as if they came from the central imperium of New Rome itself because in theory they would be coming as part of the imperial response. As an imperial fleet summoned to deal with an imperial emergency they would have to be welcomed as friends. Any other response would not be tolerated. But in the guise of friendship they would actually be in a position to do much harm.

For Ireny, who had dreamt most of her life about going to Etruria the land of her parents' killers the thought of large numbers of Etruscans coming soon to Scythia, fully armed for war and likely to cause mischief to her living family while under the cloak of imperial allies was a weighty argument. She could not be happy about the situation, but she would accept her new role for the emergency that was coming.

Jacko explained what she had to do, as he had agreed earlier with Penelope. Ireny's job was delicate. In one sense her mission was to be a diplomat. To show Carlos whatever he might want to see, and answer whatever he might want to know but in such a way that it showed Scythia and Penelope in the best possible light. So her communications and diplomatic training would in fact come in very useful. On the other hand, in her role as guardian she would have to make sure that Carlos didn't accidentally get lost or come to harm. Underlying these more obvious requirements in a sense she was also his jailer - because she must never let him get out of her sight or hearing as long as he was outside the palace. But she must somehow manage to make her presence not only unobtrusive but positively desired. Ireny had been trained in the political arts of using her feminine charms to best advantage. The fact that she was physically attractive, young and intelligent meant that she naturally possessed most of the attributes that others might have to exaggerate and little artifice would be required to persuade most young heterosexual men of the advantages of remaining in her company.

But her most important role, and that is why it had been necessary to choose her in preference to any other agents, was to protect the interests of Scythia's first family. Valuable as Carlos was to their trade and to their politics he represented both opportunity and threat. While he was in their custody he should be treated as a privileged guest. Anything he asked for should be his within reason. If he asked any questions he should be told as much of the truth as any friend of the family and potential ally should know. But if unforseen circumstances should arise when it looked as though he might pose a serious threat.. She would have to use her own judgement, and she would be supported in this whatever happened. But it was just possible that she might have to become his executioner...