The Thousand Emperors Read Online Free PDF Page B

will
be destroyed. However – and this is the theory – the wormhole should maintain coherence just long enough for a great deal of superheated plasma to come rushing into the
complex.’
    ‘Why? Why not just . . . surrender?’
    ‘For many reasons, Mr Gabion, but chiefly because Cheng would never let me live, knowing the things that I know.’
    Luc shook his head in incomprehension. The inside of his head felt as if it had been hollowed out. ‘What things?’
    Antonov chuckled. ‘You need,’ he said, ‘to make your way back up to that control room where you left your friends, back on the other side of the transfer gate. There are
cryogenic units there – do you understand?’
    ‘No. No, I don’t.’
    ‘Oh, but I think you do. Get yourself inside one of those units, and you should have a decent chance of surviving the inferno.’
    ‘But why ?’ Luc demanded. ‘Why—’
    But before he could say anything further, Antonov reached out to touch the side of his neck with something cold and sharp, and he lost consciousness once more.
    Listen to me, Luc. You’re still asleep.
    Antonov’s voice sounded like it came from everywhere and nowhere. Luc found himself afloat in a dreamless void, unable to determine where he was, or how long it had been since he had been
knocked out. His limbs felt like a distant memory.
    You’re going to wake up soon , he heard Antonov continue. There’s a lot you don’t understand yet, but you will, given time. But first, you must deliver a message for
me.
    What message? Luc tried to say, but he couldn’t feel his lips or his tongue.
    The answer came a moment later:
    After they come and rescue you, I want you to access Archives through your CogNet link. Then open a record with the following reference: Thorne, 51 Alpha, Code Yellow. Do you
understand?
    No , Luc answered. I —
    Once you’ve done that, add the following statement to the text file contained within it: ‘I’m calling in my favour.’ Five words, Luc. That’s all I ask.
    I don’t understand, Luc shouted into the abyss.
    Someone did something a long time ago they shouldn’t have , said Antonov, his voice slowly fading. And now they’re going to repay me for keeping it quiet all these years.
Remember what I said, Luc: ‘I’m calling in my favour.’
    As if a switch had been thrown, Luc had control of his limbs once more, and could feel something hard beneath his back. His eyes flickered open in the same moment he realized his CogNet link was
live once more, and he discovered more than four hours had passed since he had first entered the complex in the company of an entire squadron of Sandoz. Night would by now have fallen across the
crater, meaning it was safe to go back out onto the surface.
    Even more importantly, he was free. The tangled loops of cord that had bound him now floated loose around the chair in which he was still slumped.
    Reaching up, he tentatively touched his head, exploring the contours of his skull. There had been something dreamlike about the whole encounter with Antonov, as if it hadn’t really
happened, but when he touched fingers to his nose he found it crusted with dried blood.
    Updates flooded in through his now-active CogNet: he learned that two more Sandoz squadrons had already entered the complex’s top level, and were working their way down towards him without
meeting any resistance, machine or otherwise.
    Luc pulled himself out of the chair, then stopped, seeing Antonov slumped against the railing on the far side of the bridge, head bowed forward. Luc kneeled before him and touched fingers to the
rebel leader’s wrist. Dead.
    Then he glanced towards the main display and felt a chill form around his heart.
     he sent via the CogNet.
     someone replied.
     Luc responded.