The Rosetta Codex Read online

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  BOOK TWO

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  INTERLUDE

  BOOK THREE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  BOOK FOUR

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Rosetta Codex

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2005 by Richard Paul Russo

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0845-8

  AN ACE BOOK®

  Ace Books first published by The Ace Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: December, 2005

  Ace Books by Richard Paul Russo

  CARLUCCI

  DESTROYING ANGEL

  CARLUCCI’S EDGE

  CARLUCCI’S HEART

  SHIP OF FOOLS

  ROSETTA CODEX

  for Candace

  PROLOGUE

  Disguised as a freelance star freighter, the Exile Prince entered the Costamara System and made for Conrad’s World, the system’s only habitable planet. Like any other freighter, it approached Conrad’s World with loaded holds and formal trade contracts, but was also outfitted with weaponry and defenses no freighter was ever authorized to carry, and passengers who would normally never travel on such a ship.

  Two days out from Conrad’s World, the Exile Prince transmitted its manifest—legitimate and accurate, if incomplete—along with encrypted registrations and certifications from the Independent Traders Collective. The orbital docking station returned a preliminary authorization.

  One day out, Captain Jan Olveg had two long conversations with the station master. After the second conversation, the station master transmitted final authorization codes to dock and unload the Exile Prince’s cargo.

  Four hours out from the station, three combat fighters emerged in battle vectors from the shadow of Ambrose, Conrad’s larger moon, and attacked the Exile Prince.

  Although they were still in zero gravity, Sidonie and Cale sat strapped into their acceleration couches, the woman’s outstretched hand resting on Cale’s arm. Just five years old, Cale did not understand what was happening, did not understand why they were strapped in, but he felt safe with Sidonie. She’d been taking care of him since he could remember; sometimes he accidentally called her “Mother,” and though she would gently correct him, she always smiled and didn’t seem to mind. Now she softly squeezed his arm and smiled at him, but it wasn’t her normal smile and he wondered what was wrong.

  The couches jolted from an explosion, and Cale stared at her, eyes wide, but remained silent.

  “It’s okay, Cale,” Sidonie said in a hushed and soothing voice. “We’ll be okay.”

  The stateroom door slid open and Cale’s father moved into the cabin, bringing with him the sharp tang of burning plastic and distant electric cracks of sound.

  “Papa!” Cale cried. “What’s happening?”

  His father was tall and stocky and his thick black hair was more than half gone to gray—a handsome man with lined skin. His clothing was a rich indigo, undecorated except for the family crest of gold and crimson just above his heart—a hooded falcon gripping a world in each set of talons against a background of stars.

  “Someone’s attacking the ship,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned to Sidonie and said, “Take Cale to the Kestrel. It’s too dangerous here.” She nodded and immediately began unstrapping herself from the couch. “I’ll have Captain Olveg launch decoys,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “I’ll have him do any damn thing I can think of.”

  Sidonie pulled herself to Cale’s side, released the restraints, and helped him out of the couch.

  “There’s only one real city on Conrad’s World,” Cale’s father said. “Morningstar. The Kestrel is programmed with flight paths, evasive maneuvers, access codes. If anything happens to the programming and you have to fly the Kestrel manually, head for Morningstar. Don’t land anywhere else on Conrad’s World. The air space above Morningstar’s restricted and aggressively protected.” He wrote something on a pocket slate and handed it to her. “Verbally transmit these emergency access codes if necessary.”

  Cale tried to move forward and tumbled through the air, limbs flailing until Sidonie caught and steadied him; he still wasn’t used to zero gravity.

  “Aren’t you coming with us, Papa?”

  His father shook his head. “Later,” he told his son. “I have to stay with the ship and help.” He looked into Cale’s wide, deep green eyes, then wrapped his arms around his son, pulling the boy tightly to him. “I’ll follow as soon as I can,” he said. “You go with Sidonie, all right?” Cale nodded, and his father looked back at Sidonie. “Once you get to Morningstar, find Adanka Suttree. Remember that name. It’s important.”

  “Adanka Suttree.”

  “He’s my brother. That’s the name he’s using here. Find him, and stay with him. He’ll protect you both. If I . . .” He stopped, released Cale, and straightened. “When this is over, I’ll come for you and Cale. If I don’t come soon, Adanka will know what to do. Whatever he tells you, treat his words as if they come from me.”

  Sidonie nodded, then took Cale’s hand in hers. Cale’s father looked once more at him. “Cale, you must remember something. It’s very important.” Cale nodded, his brow furrowing. “Do not tell anyone your last name. Never mention the name ‘Alexandros,’ not until I see you again. If someone asks you what your last name is, say you don’t know. Your last name’s dangerous now. Do you understand, Cale?”

  “Yes, Papa.” He paused and added, “My name’s Cale. Just Cale.”

  “Good. Now go, quickly.”

  “Bye, Papa.”

  “Goodbye, Cale. I’ll see you soon, I promise.” Then, with a halting voice said to Sidonie, “Take care of him.”

  “I will.”

  She gripped Cale’s hand tightly and led him out into the passage, and Cale looked back at the tense and hard face of his father, afraid he would never see him again.

  Gusting winds and turbulence b
uffeted the Kestrel; the wing-jet dipped and bucked, shimmied sideways. They could see little more than dark gray. Thick storm clouds engulfed them. Sidonie turned to Cale. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.

  Cale shook his head, regarding her with complete confidence. “I’m not.”

  But Sidonie seemed to be afraid. She turned back to the now nearly useless controls, pulled and twisted at the stick, and punched light panels with her fingers. The roiling clouds continued to rush past them, and she said quietly and tautly, “We’re dropping too fast.”

  A break in the clouds opened to their right. Cale craned his neck around and glimpsed the towers of tall buildings in the distance behind them: a big city, glass and metal reflections like flames in the rising sun. Far, far away and getting farther every second. He thought they were trying to get to that city and all those bright buildings. He thought his father was going to be there soon. But not his mother, she was back at their home and he hadn’t seen her in a long time and he didn’t know when he would. The clouds enveloped them again and they continued to hurtle farther from the city.

  Suddenly they were beneath the clouds, and the land below them appeared. Mountains stretched endlessly in all directions, broken by plains and valleys, large tracts of blue-green forests; a river snaked through a jagged shadowed canyon then widened and meandered through golden flat grasslands; far ahead and to the left sprawled a vast dark blue lake like a giant gas nebula. All of it coming up at them much too swiftly.

  Sidonie struggled with the controls, hissing out words that Cale couldn’t quite understand. The wing-jet passed over a peak of black rock and continued to drop. There was no place to land. They cleared another peak, this time with a far smaller margin, and a flat and barren mesa spread out below them, networked by gullies and ravines, pocked with dry and spindly scrub. Steep rocky slopes rose to one side, and the mesa dropped precipitously away on the others. Sidonie worked at the controls, and the Kestrel dropped toward the earth. “I’m going to try to land us here,” she told Cale.

  She twisted around and checked once more to confirm that Cale was securely strapped in, tugging at the harness clasps. “Hold on tight,” she said, then returned her attention to the controls. Sand and rock in striated reds and yellows rose up to meet them, mercifully flat and even. Mere seconds before impact, the ground opened up and became a narrow and jagged ravine. The Kestrel bucked violently twice and then dropped into it. Sidonie cursed and pulled at the controls. Cale’s stomach lurched as a pocket downdraft hammered the wing-jet to the earth and they were both thrown forward against their harnesses as the Kestrel tore along the bottom of the ravine. Cale cried out, metal squealed, objects crashed and shattered, the straps cut into his skin, something crushed away his breath, and his vision silvered. . . . The pilot’s chair broke free and tumbled past him, Sidonie screamed, the fingers of one hand scraped Cale’s face as he spastically reached out for her. Everything slammed to a halt, silver went dark, and he blacked out.

  They came over the ragged rise, boots scraping rock and scrub as they shuffled their feet. They numbered seven—five bearded men and two women—and the sky above them was a bright pale blue with blossoming white clouds. The hot and gold sun beat down on them, baked the earth beneath them.

  The lead man saw the wreckage, stumbled, then halted, holding up a hand. Charred and smoking metal lay scattered along the ravine, with the largest section wedged between a cracked boulder and an uprooted tree. He worked his way carefully down the unstable slope, and the others followed.

  Cale watched them approach, standing shaky and nauseated and stunned amid shattered steelglass and crumpled flooring, no memory of getting out of his seat. Blood ran from two gashes in his forehead and he blinked at the men and women; he opened his mouth, but closed it again without making a sound. Sidonie was only semiconscious behind him. She was covered in blood streaked with viscous black fluids, and she moaned, eyelids fluttering like the wings of a dying insect.

  The men carefully pulled him out of the wreckage, freeing him from a tangle of blue fabric bands that clung to his skin and clothes, and gave him into the care of the two women. Then they cut the fabric bands from Sidonie and dragged her carelessly across jagged metal, ignoring her cries as they scraped fresh wounds across her side and legs. They laid her out on the ground beside the torn and twisted wreck.

  Discussion ensued over what to do with the wreckage. Cale listened intently, as if their decision was important. One of the men suggested they tie ropes to the main section of the wreckage and drag it back to the village. The others looked at him, spat, and laughed. Another suggested they torch it. The leader finally decided—they would shuttle back and forth over the coming weeks, routing by on their scavenging runs, and take whatever was useful back to the village a little bit at a time.

  As Cale watched from between the two women, who held him in place, the men gathered around Sidonie. They dragged her down the scraggy ravine until they came to a flatter section of earth sparsely covered with grasses. For a minute or so they stood wordlessly over her, looking down at her motionless form, then they stripped off her clothes, tossing them into the dirt as if she would never have use for them again.

  The men then lay atop Sidonie, humped and thrashed against her, one after another. One of the women dug her fingers deeper into Cale’s shoulder, holding him back. At first Sidonie’s semiconscious cries intensified, and her hands and arms flailed weakly, uselessly. But it wasn’t long before she stopped moving; soon after that, a final wheezing gasp broke weakly from between her lips; then the only sounds were the grunts and coughing sounds made by the men.

  When they were done, and the last had fastened his belt tight around his waist, the leader, who had gone first, kicked Sidonie in the side of the head. He found a large, flat stone nearby, and with the help of two of the others picked it up and carried it over toward Sidonie. They held it over her head and Cale cried out, some awful and wordless sound. The men looked at him, then casually released their grip and dropped the stone onto her face.

  The five men turned and, without a glance back at Sidonie’s body, made their way toward Cale and the women. Cale’s harsh cry had subsided, but his mouth remained open. He felt paralyzed, unable to move his feet. The leader of the men smacked Cale’s ear and barked something. The men climbed out of the ravine and the women followed, dragging Cale between them.

  BOOK ONE

  ONE

  They came across the water at night. There was no moon, but the sky was cold and clear and the stars were bright slivers of shining ice. The strangers came in four boats, six to each, and they rowed as quietly as possible; oars dipped gently into the cold black water, pulled deep and through, then carefully rose and swung forward, water dripping invisibly, almost silently from the dull wide blades.

  Shivering, the boy watched from the shelter of rocks. He wanted to warn them, but he was afraid of what Petros and the others would do to him. They had beaten him regularly over the years—because he had no father to do it, they said, no mother to scold him or slap his face. He worked hard for them, did whatever he was told, but it never seemed to be enough.

  The boats were headed for the short, narrow strip of sandy beach. The boy crouched out on a spit of land that jutted into the lake, a clutter of rocks and driftwood and dead grasses. The boats would have to pass by on their approach to the beach. He could hear the creak of wood, the faintest splash of water, and he could see shards of starlight reflecting from metal and shining eyes.

  The boy was tall for his age—thirteen or fourteen, no one knew for sure—and lanky. He crouched lower behind a large rock. The first boat slid past, so close he could have jumped into it. He counted the people—two rowing and facing backward, four staring fixedly forward—and looked for weapons, but the floor of the boat was too dark. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be enough for what they were about to encounter.

  The second and third boats passed, then the fourth. So quiet. Tiny splashes and flashes in the black
of the water. Their stealth was futile.

  The first boat slowed as it neared the beach and the rowers pulled in their oars as wood hulls scraped against sand and gravel. Moments later the beach lit up with a burst of flames.

  Petros and the others had ignited a string of fires just back from the water’s edge, wood coated with oils and resins. Orange and scarlet flames roared and cracked and spit into the night sky like some great malevolent beast. Unable to stop in time, the second and third boats landed on the beach beside the first as a volley of flaming arrows shot between the fires, across the open sand and into the midst of the attackers. Some of the arrows missed their targets completely or deflected away and fell into the water with loud hissing, but others dug deeply into the wood or clattered still aflame inside the boats.

  One arrow plunged into the back of an oarsman. He lurched forward in stupefied amazement, then jerked back with a harsh cry, the arrow tail lodging in the boat as he fell, the head driving up and through him until the shaft broke apart as he rolled onto his side and dropped from view.

  The boy remained motionless on the point, huddled in a coarse blanket, watching, listening to the screams that tore the night. More arrows flew, now accompanied by shouts and burning spears and flaming, oil-filled glass vessels that burst on impact and spread thin sheets of blue and orange flames, engulfing the boats.

  The fourth boat had managed to stop just before beaching, and now moved slowly in reverse, the rowers frantically and awkwardly shifting direction, pushing the oars instead of pulling, struggling against the resistance met by the flat stern. Go, the boy thought at them. Go!

  The people in the first boats scrambled for weapons, for clubs and blades, long staffs and bolas, stumbling into each other, unbalanced, panicked and confused. Leaping and howling, Petros and the other men rushed through the gaps between the fires and attacked with spears and knives and cudgels. Blades bit deep into flesh; knotted wood cut the air and crushed bones. The beach became an inferno of smoke and screams and flames and blood, the bitter stench of burning flesh, and cries of victory; rising above it, strings of burning embers climbed toward the sky like the dying swarms of lantern bugs in the late summer nights. Sickened, the boy turned away.