The Zenda Vendetta (TimeWars 4)

With a gut-wrenching sensation, Forrester complied. It was a blow to him to see how strongly Drakov resembled his mother. He had the same lustrous, curly black hair and the same wide mouth. He had the same high cheekbones and patrician nose, the same dusky complexion, even his bearing was similar to hers, proud and languid, self-possessed. Yet the eyes, with their unwavering gaze, were his father’s eyes. Forrester saw that they were a brilliant emerald green, just like his own, deeply set and smouldering. He saw the long knife scar on his son’s cheek and thought of Falcon’s letter, of the taunting manner in which she had written of how he had received it. His knees felt weak suddenly and there was a pressing sensation in his chest. He looked at Drakov, standing by the wall and gazing at him coldly, aiming a laser directly at his midsection. My son, thought Forester. God help me. And God help him.

“Using only the fingertips of your left hand,” said Drakov, “remove your weapon and drop it to the floor; then remove your belt in the same manner.”

Forester did as he was told. He had tried to prepare himself for this, but it hadn’t helped. He felt physically ill. It was difficult to breathe.

“You will keep your hands spread out from your sides,” said Drakov. “I do not intend to risk searching you. If you have other weapons secreted on your person, be advised that if you make even the slightest motion, you will find yourself an amputee. You will move only when I tell you and exactly as I tell you. Is that clear?”

Forester nodded, hoping fervently that his emotions did not show.

“Now, move backward, slowly, until you are against that wall there,” Drakov said, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.

When Forester had done so, Drakov cautiously moved forward and picked up the items Forrester had dropped, placing them well out of reach without taking his eyes off Forrester for an instant. Forrester stood perfectly still with his back against the cold stone wall, his arms spread out as if for an embrace. The irony of this posture was not lost on him.

“What now, Son?” he said.

“Son,” said Drakov, bitterly. “How easily you say that.”

“You called me ‘Father’ easily enough.”

“No, not easily at all,” said Drakov, with a quiet intensity. “I’ve thought of you a great deal over all these many years, but that hasn’t made it any easier to call you ‘Father.’ Still, I have long dreamed of this moment. Falcon will be returning shortly. It should be quite an interesting reunion. Tell me, how does it feel to finally meet your son face to face?”

“It feels very sad,” said Forrester. “I pity you.”

“You can pity yourself,” said Drakov. “I am what you made me.”

“I didn’t make your choices for you,” Forrester said. “I am responsible for you but not for what you have become. I won’t take all the credit. Or the blame. You think your mother would have approved of the way that you turned out?”

Drakov tensed. “Why should you care? She meant little enough to you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She meant a great deal to me. More than you will ever know.”

“Did she?” Drakov said, softly. “Is that why you abandoned her?”

“I had no other choice,” said Forrester, trying to keep his voice level. “I couldn’t take her with me and I couldn’t have remained with her, much as I wanted to. I tried to explain all that to her. I thought she understood. If you think that it didn’t hurt to have to leave her, not knowing what would become of her, or of you-”

“Spare me your rationalizations,” Drakov said, scornfully. “You shamed her, then left her when she needed you the most. Even then, she loved you. She died loving you. Yet, as I look at you now, I see no trace of the man she spoke of. I see only a pathetic old man trying to excuse his actions. You did not deserve her love.”

“I’m not trying to excuse anything, Nikolai,” said Forrester; feeling the sting of his son’s words. “I’m only telling you the truth. Not that I expect it to change anything. I can understand why you hate me. I don’t blame you for it. What I can’t understand is what that hate led you to become.”

“I seek neither your understanding nor your acceptance,” Drakov said with a hard edge to his voice. “I seek only justice.”

“This isn’t justice, Drakov.” Andre said. “I don’t think you realize just what’s at stake here. Falcon’s using you. This is more than a temporal disruption. You’ve endangered the timestream itself. It doesn’t have to be this way. If you’d only listen, if you’d only let us help you-”

“Help me?” Drakov said, speaking to her without taking his eyes off Forester even for an instant. “How would you propose to ‘help’ me? A reeducation procedure, is that what you had in mind? Is that what you mean? Help me to ‘adjust’? No, I don’t think so, Corporal Cross. I have been to your 27th century and I have seen its perversity firsthand. I will not have my mind, conditioned so that I would respond like some happy, brainwashed citizen of your great technocracy.”

“No one’s talking about brainwashing,” Andre said. “I’ve gone through it. It’s more like therapy than anything else. True, there are cases where personalities are altered, but that’s for psychotics. I don’t think you’re psychotic, Drakov. I think you’re just hurt. Reeducation can help you deal with that. It can make you understand why things happened the way they did.”

“I find the very idea obscene,” he said.

“And terrorism is not obscene?” said Forrester.

“Labeling me a terrorist makes it convenient for you to moralize, but otherwise, it’s meaningless. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. History, I have learned, is written by the winners, not the losers. If the losers ever have anything to say, they merely make excuses for having lost, in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. Unfortunately, what history does not say is that if there is obscenity in violence-and I am not denying that there is-there Is far greater obscenity in the fact that it is the only thing most people understand. Particularly your people. Mensinger tried using reason, did he not? Where did it get him? All I do is employ the only means left available to me in making war on war. If what I do becomes historically significant, then history will judge me. You, however, are in very poor position to pronounce judgment on my morality. Violence is your stock in trade.”

“Moses!” Lucas’s voice came over Forrester’s comset. “Damn it, Moses, I’m in a lot of trouble! Moses!”

Forrester could not respond. Drakov was watching him alertly and he could not risk moving to activate his throat mike.

“Moses, I don’t know if you’re receiving me, but if you’re not, I guess it doesn’t matter. They’ve got the whole interior of the old part of the castle rigged with defense systems. They have to be centrally controlled somehow, probably through some kind of remote unit. If you can’t get them turned off, I’ll never make it to the keep. Can you hear me. Moses? Colonel?”