Starquest: Catburglar of the Constellations by John C. Wright

Author:John C. Wright [Wright, John C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tuscany Bay Books
Published: 2025-05-12T16:00:00+00:00

No further words were spoken as Napoleon and Robolone made their way, silently and rapidly, from servant's lift to security corridor to the private wing of Napoleon's senatorial suite.

Napoleon entered his office from the side door. He seated himself at the desk, unlocked and opened a sliding control panel hidden beneath the ornamental coping. Rapidly he toggled the switches and checked the status lights: no eavesdropping devices, no spy-rays were detected. The protective force fields hidden in the walls, and counterespionage circuits were fully functional and armed.

The next toggle opened a hidden wardrobe. A false section of wall slid aside, and the wardrobe rotated into view. With a pneumatic sigh, the armored, spy-proof vault doors of the wardrobe swung open. With a click, the vanity table lights came on, glittering on mirrors and Kirlian mirrors set in either leaf of the door.

At the same time, an almost inaudible hum of servomotors came from underfoot. The trapdoor panel hidden beneath the desk jacked itself up, and slid grandly aside, carrying the desk with it. Beneath Napoleon's feet was a full-scale medical coffin, programmed to guard the health of comatose or hibernating space travelers. The lid hissed open and the internal lights came on.

He checked the appliances lining the inner surface: Breathing gear and intravenous blood-nutrition lines were supplied and ready, as were the stimulus emission units meant to pass low-level energy pulses through the flesh to massage the muscles and prevent atrophy.

After the invention of stardrive, such units were used most often by Adepts to guard the body of an astral traveler: as such, they had been outlawed by the Empire, and destroyed when found. Napoleon, in his capacity as Second Assistant Sub-Secretary to the Field Mission Chief of the Central Sector was able to acquire such a rarity using black budget funds, off the books; and able to approve a request from Senator Lone to improve the security systems in his office, adding such equipment as needed; and then, in his role as custodian, he assigned himself the task to oversee the robotic workmen who installed the unit.

These particular robots came from CQRT 2L and Sons, Limited, a robot-owned firm that specialized in security projects, for the military or for noble families wary of rivals. With the Empire fallen, these emancipated workmen could not be ordered, but could be paid, to take a contract stipulating that each erase his own short-term memory banks after task completion.

For this reason, such a firm could command higher wages than their living counterparts: and the robotic owner might not recall what he or his adopted 2L-model worker-robots sons had done to earn such rewards, but he could spend it.

Napoleon had these and other precautions, hidden passageways, and secret gear installed, and, when the work was done, he filed the proper report to the Naval Intelligence Service, which he then classified as ultra-top secret, and sent it to himself, in his capacity as Section Chief. He then mislaid the file.

The whole thing was done without

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.