This is a fan translation of Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.


Chapter 4

Kay woke Tommy up early in the morning, forcing him to wash up and eat quickly and then dragged him to the exit from the underground complex. Several people were posted at the exit, but they'd already received their instructions. They were taken to a flyer pad, where Kay selected a standard Imperial model.

Kay decided that it wasn't worth the risk to take off from the Canyon on manual control. He entrusted it to the autopilot, which had clearly been programmed by someone with taste. First, the flyer rose to the level of the plateau, and then made a circle over the cliffs, within which they had been so recently.

"Kay, who are they?" Tommy asked.

"When your buddies on bikes burglarize an apartment, who gets a twenty-five percent cut?"

"The guy in charge of the neighborhood."

"And who did he pay?"

The boy shrugged.

"Well, here, in this godforsaken place, is the tip of the pyramid."

The flyer set course. Rocky hills passed below them, losing their recent charm under the bright light of the white sun.

"They're not hiding that well," Tommy said.

"Those who need to know about them do. But the planetary government has its own interests, and the Emperor has his."

Tommy pressed his face against the glass. Populated areas were already passing under them: squares of fields, occasional farmsteads, precise strands of roads.

"Have I really met Gray?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so… What did you see down there?"

"Nothing. I've just never been up in a flyer before."


Gorra's aTan facility was large, since a wealthy planet required a lot of immortality. Despite the tradition, it wasn't particularly isolated and was located at the outskirts of the capital city. Most of the services were located in above-ground buildings, which was yet another sign of Curtis's indulgence.

Tamura was handling second-rate clients, a routine and underpaid work. But this small Japanese man was patient, having finally become a full employee five years prior and stoically saving up for his first aTan (with his employee discount, of course).

The day started well: he serviced a nervous woman, who told him a tedious story about her recent death in a plane crash, an elderly entrepreneur, who had died of cancer and suspected that his new body was also predisposed to an incurable tumor, and a young man, who wasn't about explain his profession, which had earned him a laser beam to the back of the head. The guy was just out of aTan and was in a particular hurry; he wanted to see his own funeral and the expression on his friends' faces, who didn't know about his immortality.

Then two clients at once were directed to Tamura: a free merchant from Endoria and his son. The merchant was hesitating, discussing the disproportionate range of prices on different planets, but, ultimately, he agreed that the conditions on Gorra were fairly decent.

With a hand scanner, Tamura checked their neural net numbers, a standard procedure, which was, for some reason, the subject of the boy's keen interest. He filled in the contract forms, clarified special details (resurrect immediately, resurrect after a day, whether to inform relatives), then he accepted Kay Ovald's aTan cred card. There wasn't a lot of money on the account, leaving the Endorians nearly broke; no wonder the merchant had been wavering so much.

"Congratulations on your immortality," Tamura said, giving an almost genuine smile. "I hope that your next visit will happen many, many years from now."

"Just one more request," Mr. Ovald said, shaking his hand. "Is it possible to leave a thank-you note for van Curtis?"

Tamura figured that, when printed out, all the daily thanks to Curtis were thicker than a roll of toilet paper. But the corporation honored its traditions, especially promotional ones. He handed a letterhead to the Endorian.

"Dear van Curtis, our benefactor," Kay Ovald was reciting the fruit of his inspiration aloud. "We live again, and wish you the same. I think our renewal of aTan will not surprise but please you. The Line of our Dreams takes us to distant roads and hard work. Arthur thinks of you as almost his father, and I can only say 'thank you'. If an opportunity presents itself, I hope to pay you back with the same openness and faithfulness to your word that we have found in you. Kay and Arthur."

There were always plenty of idiots among the aTan clientele. But an idiot with money was a very useful and respected thing. Tamura bowed and placed the filled-in letterhead into a special folder, which would be sent in that night's hypergram package.


The flight back seemed to take longer. Tommy was gnawing on a hard ice cream, which Kay had bought him near the aTan facility. Turning on the radio, Dutch was listening to Imperial news. The program was being presented by four announcers, who exchanged jokes and hints, which could only be understood by a local, throughout the broadcast. They mostly smoke of the rising frequency of disasters on factories across the Empire. Someone even compared them to the Darlok terror strikes during the war. Then they gossiped on the new type of testing for implanted weapons, which was being performed by ISS officers at all large enterprises. For some reason, they scanned the back and the cervico-occipital region with special sensors. Occasionally, they would arrest people and, ignoring procedure, stun them without warning.

The announcers weren't smart enough to tie the sabotage to the testing.

"Kay, I'd be resurrected anyway, right?" Tommy asked. "Even without paying for aTan."

"Of course," Kay agreed. "Curtis would have treated your death as Arthur's."

"I see." Tommy fell silent, thinking about something.

"It's not that simple," Kay said, glancing at the boy. "First of all, I promised not to hurt you. And second, Curtis would see right through you after talking to you for two minutes."

"The second is more important," Tommy said.

"Naturally."

They flew the rest of the way in silence.


Lyka Seiker had plenty of things to take care of, which could not be cancelled even by Kay's appearance. Having reduced them to a minimum, she still hadn't been able to see Kay until lunchtime.

"Nothing yet," she informed him laconically.

"I see," Kay replied even more briefly.

There were three of them eating, since Tommy had also been allowed to join the Mother-Keeper's small banquet. The catering would have satisfied the Emperor himself, and the menu had clearly been composed based on the principle of following rare dishes with those even rarer.

Kay wasn't too fond of performing culinary experiments, but he had to pay his due to the Dogarian deep-sea fish fillet and the snow grape and spinach salad, the latter ingredient being extremely rare since the Vague War. The idea to supply the Meklar with disinformation that spinach was a vitally important element of the human diet had probably come from someone with a very strange sense of humor. Over the following seven years, Meklar biologists, some of the best in the galaxy, had struggled with creating an extremely lethal spinach-killing virus. Nearly eight thousand bombers, seeding the S-virus over human planets, had been easy prey to interceptors. When Meklon realized that humanity, completely lacking in spinach, had no intention of dying out, the shock was too great. The cyborgs agreed to peace talks, which ultimately resulted in the Trinary Alliance.

However, since then, it was only possible to grow spinach in hermetically sealed areas with a completely closed ecosystem. The insidious virus continued to lie in wait for its prey, hiding out in wheat, potatoes, and other cultures, which weren't as important as spinach.

Skillfully manipulating silver pincers, Tommy was eating Tasian jelly.

"You are a very well-educated boy," Seiker noted. Tommy, artfully separating the orange layer of jelly from the green, didn't understand what she had meant. As far as he was concerned, this was his first time eating this strange dish.

"How's our equipment coming, Lyka?" Kay preferred to lead the conversation away from this sticky subject.

"We'll visit our armorer after lunch." Smiling tenderly, Seiker handed Tommy an unripe gurange fruit.

"One moment," the boy said, unmistakably selecting a corkscrew tube from among the silverware. He screwed it into the fruit's stem and handed the flavoring to Lyka. Obviously, one didn't eat jelly with gurange, but it was ideal for white meat.


It took them almost twenty minutes to drive through the tunnel to the part of the underground complex that held the armory shops. It was enough time for Kay to realize who was currently working for the Family.

Sevold Martyzenski was a legendary man. He had created nearly half of the weapon designs of the Vague War. He only left his lab three times a year, whenever there was a peace rally taking place in the area. It seemed that he was completely separating his work on deadly weaponry from his peaceful convictions. The demonstrators disagreed and, despite him being protected by bodyguards, people tried to attack him. After these fruitless attempts to take part in the protesting, Martyzenski typically returned to the lab and, disappointed, created even more terrible devices for destroying life in all its manifestations.

If the legends were true, then, during the times of his multiple creative blocks, the ISS staged peace rallies to "unblock" him.

"I thought that he had retired to a farm on a peaceful planet long ago," Kay said. "Or was working under a total ISS cover."

"That almost happened." Seiker liked talking about her successes. "When the Imperial Forces rejected his quark bombs due to their excessive inhumanity, Sevold quit. Imperial Security didn't force him to stay, probably thanks to a personal order of the Emperor. He left for Charisma and became an artist. He illustrated children's books, especially poetry collections for toddlers. All under an assumed name, of course. We convinced him to work a little more."

"What books?" Tommy inquired.

"You can ask him yourself." Lyka seemed to be amused by Martyzenski's recent occupation. "If he's in a good mood, he'll tell you."

Sevold was in a good mood. He was walking through his lab, which was impressive due to both its size and its incredible clutter. There was no one else in there, since the genius preferred to work alone. He greeted his visitors with a friendly wave of his hand, which was firmly holding a sandwich with a thick slice of sausage. His other hand was lying atop the controls for a polymer molder, where an oddly-shaped object was taking form.

"Come in," Sevold shouted amiably. "Are these our customers, Lyka?"

"Yes," Seiker said, sitting down on the only chair in the vicinity. Today, she had neglected neither her makeup nor her expensive clothing. However, Sevold didn't appear to be registering her appearance.

"The armor is ready," Martyzenski informed them. "It's a Seraph, have you heard of it?"

Kay hadn't. But Sevold wasn't planning on discussing such trivialities.

"Let's decide on the weapons…" Sevold muttered, circling Kay and Tommy. He scratched the stubble on his cheek. The genius was fat, a little clumsy, and looked like someone who had never held anything more dangerous than a fork in his hands. "The boy… the boy will be more challenging… you can carry anything… All right."

He sat on a table, filled with flasks of reagents. He frowned. Reaching out, he picked up a large container with a dark brown liquid of some sort without looking and took a gulp. He said, "This is tea. My boy, what do you normally use?"

"A grav-club…" Tommy threw Kay a glance. "I've also fired an algopistol."

"Disgusting," Martyzenski said with a tortuous grimace. "Grav-clubs and neuron actuators are weapons of thugs! Got it?"

"Yes."

"You'll take an Argument 17," the armorer decided. "It's light and you don't even have to aim. We'll just have to enter all your allies into it, so you don't shoot them all."

"Set it to recognize the boy as well," Kay said. Sevold thought about it, "That's a good idea. He might shoot himself by mistake. Disgusting, right? I've sunk so low, I'm equipping people with intelligent guns… and of Ashmaryants's design, no less…"

He immediately lost all interest in Tommy. Under his piercing gaze, Kay felt a rare sensation of complete exposure. Trying to chase it away, he said, "I've used a Chance recently."

"So what? It's crap, isn't it? A museum piece. A weapon of desperation, when schoolkids were being rushed into battle… What haven't you used yet?"

Kay spread his hands.

"Where are you going to fight?"

"I don't know."

"Oh gods… Lyka, this is an outrage!"

"The guilty will be punished," Seiker promised.

"Have you worked with an Excalibur?"

"No, not with that one," Kay admitted.

"You'll learn. Lyka, give him an Excalibur, a Bumblebee-M as a sidearm, a Guardian and a Diana on his armor. That's it, otherwise he'll lose mobility."

"Do you need anything?" Seiker inquired, standing up.

"To be! Left! Alone!"

Tommy didn't risk asking which books Sevold had illustrated. However, if he was able to watch the armorer after leaving, he'd see an interesting picture. Martyzenski took a sheet of thick paper from behind the molder already titled "Games of Grandpa Crimson", placed it against the half-disassembled stationary emitter, which took up half the table, and, leaning down, began studying the still-empty drawing area.

He was in a very peaceful mood today.