"Very good, Doctor," the technician said, his voice professionally imperturbable. "I acknowledge end of transmission."
"Transmission ends," Ran echoed, and the dreadful picture faded from the screen.
No one said anything for a long moment. Alkres was still staring at the blank screen, his long mouth compressed into a tight, miserable line. I wanted very much to take him in my arms, to tell him everything would be all right after all, but I knew better than to offer that false comfort. Ruland cleared his throat, working his shoulders like a man who's been doing heavy labor.
"Doctor's right," he said, too loudly. "Hastain, call around, see if any of the other townships've picked up survivors."
The technician said, "Sor, nobody I've talked to so far has."
"So try outside the UHST link," Ruland said. "Then— The nearest Holder's Yslin Rhawn. Raise the Hold, and see what they say."
"Yes, sor." Hastain turned back to his machines, typing instructions into the boards.
"How could this've happened?" Alkres asked. "The Tower's supposed to be proof against attacks."
Ruland heaved a great sigh. "I don't know, sor. I'd guess most of the damage was done after the fighting ended—explosive charges set on the upper floors, or maybe incendiaries."
He had spoken to Alkres as one adult to another, and the boy knew it. I saw the ult'eir straighten his shoulders, visibly putting aside his own fear and grief. Ruland saw it, too, but gave no sign, continuing gruffly, "But, with all respect, sor, I don't think it matters right now. What's important is what's to be done with your lot."
"Yes." Alkres nodded. "That's right."
He stopped there, and I said, "The children must have kin outside the mainline Family. It might be best to send them to those relatives—maybe Dr. Ran could oversee that?"
Ruland nodded thoughtfully, but he was careful to wait until Alkres had murmured his agreement before continuing. "And then there're the off-worlders to deal with."
"I think I ought to release them from my service," Alkres said. His firmness surprised me, until I remembered the holoplay Meriban. The heroine's first act, after she's been deprived of her station, is to release her long-suffering servants from their contracts, though most of them, of course, choose to remain with her. There are several other plays that use the same motif. Alkres was following the models he knew best. I didn't have the heart to tell him that most of the off-worlders would be only too grateful to be able to leave him.
"If you decide to do that, and I think it would be appropriate," I said, "I trust you'll let me stay until things are settled." After all, I could hardly leave Alkres—who was only a fifteen-year-old boy—to manage on his own; I would at least see him safely into the hands of his relatives before I decided what I would do. And I might yet be of some use: Conglomerate Mediators are trained to salvage the most unpromising situations, and in the confusion, someone might be willing to let me try.
"Thank you," Alkres said. He shivered suddenly. "Do I have to proclaim myself the Patriarch?"
That was another idea straight from the holoplays; the trouble was, those plays reflected the code. I hesitated, knowing why the boy wanted to wait. He was hoping, as we all were, that somehow someone else—Rohin, Magan, Alkres's own mother the pent'eir, Herself, anyone—had survived and would take the responsibility from him. Still, it was time we faced the possibility that Alkres was indeed the head of the Kinship. I looked at Ruland, and saw the same conflict in his face.
I said, feeling my way, "I think you have to let the Kinship know you're alive, at least. I don't know if you ought to do anything else until we know more about what's happened."
Ruland looked relieved. "That makes sense."
Alkres nodded, but before he could say anything else, the technician said, "Sors. I'm not getting any answer from the southern settlements, but I'm picking up a general broadcast from the Rhawn Hold. Shall I put it on?"
"Yes!" Alkres said, and I saw his hands close again on the hem of his tunic, twisting the fabric into a knot.
Hastain did something to his controls, and a booming voice filled the room. He winced, and adjusted the volume. Even then, I didn't recognize the voice, but the words were clear enough.
"—Kinship Tower was attacked this clock-midnight, and destroyed by Brandr raiders. As no member of the mainline Family survived, it falls to me, as senior Holder of the Kinship, to take control. In view of the statement issued by the Brandr Patriarch, I ask—I order—the Kinship to take no action until and unless I approve it." The voice, Yslin Rhawn's, faded in a hiss of static, then began again. "Members of the Halex Kinship, our Kinship Tower was attacked. . . ."
"That's not true," Alkres shouted. "Ruland, Medium, you have to tell him I'm alive."
"Statement?" I said, in almost the same moment. "What statement?"
Hastain had slipped on a pair of headphones and was working busily at his controls. Then he stopped, shaking his head, and pushed the headphones back off his ears. "It just repeats, sors, and I can't raise anyone at the Hold. Shall I keep trying?"
"No," Ruland said, without even a glance at Alkres. "You're right, Medium, we need that statement. Do a broad-scan, Hastain, or try Destiny, but get me a hard copy of that, and of Yslin Rhawn's little speech. Bring them to me in my office. And send the doctor in as soon as she gets back." He gave Alkres a grim look. "Sors, we need to talk in private."
Alkres let himself be drawn, unresisting, back to the foreman's house. Inside, Ulrika took one look at the boy's set, white face, and insisted on bringing us a coffee service. Ruland growled at her for wasting time, but the hot drink, and the food that came with it, seemed to bring a little color back to Alkres's face. A few minutes later, Hastain appeared, carrying several sheets of green-striped paper. Ruland took it, flipped through the closely printed pages, and grunted.
"Where'd you get it?"
"The Brandr statement's coming from the Destiny main 'net station," Hastain answered. "They're overriding any private communications with it."
"Smart of them," Ruland growled. He flipped the sheets across the desk. "What do you make of it, Medium?"
I caught the papers, and turned them so that Alkres could see as well. It was a long document, two pages of close printing, but stripped of the code's elaborate phrases, the meaning was all too clear. The Brandr Patriarch freely acknowledged both that his Kinship and the Fyfe Kinship had combined to attack the Halex Tower, and that they had used off-world weaponry to do so. This was, he said, admittedly a drastic measure, but one that was made necessary by the Halex Matriarch's constant attempts to overturn the code by which Oresteians lived. He used the same argument to justify the destruction of the Tower, and then went on to say that, because the code-breakers were a minority in the Kinship, and almost exclusively of the mainline family, he was prepared to consider the feud ended, and to recognize the Rhawn as legitimate head of the Kinship. I read the statement twice, and then a third time, as though another examination might change the meaning.
"He can't do that," Alkres said. There were tears in his eyes, and he shook them angrily away. "It's not true, what he said about Herself, and even if it were, he can't do this. I'm still head of the Kinship—aren't I?"
"It's completely against the code," Ruland said.
"True enough," I said, "but it sounds like Yslin's listening. I wonder how many of the other Holders will listen, too?"
"They'd better not," Alkres muttered, then seemed to recognize the futility of his words and subsided, scowling, into his chair.
"Hastain," I said, slowly, "see if you can raise the other Holders. Let them know that the ult'eir's alive, but don't tell them where he is. If they ask how you know, say you've heard from people who've seen him, something like that, but don't let them know he's in Federston. I think it's enough to start a rumor, at this point, and a lot less risky."
"You're really expecting trouble," Ruland said.
"Aren't you?" I snapped, and was instantly sorry I'd spoken so sharply. T
he foreman didn't seem angry, however. He nodded slowly. "I think you're right. The whole system's gone to hell."
More information trickled in over the next few hours. Dr. Ran returned at last, but she reported finding no survivors. There were bodies in the ruin, she said, but they were so badly charred that she couldn't identify them without special equipment. She had left them there, and come back to Federston in the hope we'd heard something from the neighboring towns.
We hadn't. Hastain spent most of the clock-morning talking to the other foremen, and then Ruland managed to contact the Ansson and Ingvarr Holders, but there were no reports of any survivors. I wondered bitterly if the Brandr had made sure there would be none, but shied away from mentioning the possibility aloud. It might not be true, after all; the code expressly forbade that kind of killing—but the Brandr had already shattered the spirit of the code, if not its letter. Why should they hesitate at wholesale slaughter? The worst thing of all, for me, was that I was sure the Brandr Patriarch believed everything he'd said in his statement, and would stand by it to the death.
As I'd suggested, Ruland passed on the word of Alkres's survival to the other Holders, couching it as a secondhand report. The response was not particularly encouraging from Asbera Ingvarr—her Hold lay closest to the Rhawns, and was not easily defensible—but Barthel Ansson expressed cautious pleasure. Over my objections, Ruland informed him of the other children waiting in Federston, and Barthel insisted on sending a flyer for them at once. I still didn't like it—after all, admitting that we had the only known group of survivors was tantamount to admitting that we had Alkres—but I had to see the force of Ruland's arguments. The children did need to be with their own families, especially now, and it would be easier to arrange that from the Ansson Hold. Dr. Ran and the Methusalan agreed to go with them, and stay at the Hold until all the children were relocated. The other off-worlders, understandably, demanded to be sent to Destiny, and Alkres agreed.
That left only the question of what was to be done with the ult'eir. Ruland thought he should proclaim himself Patriarch and see what sort of support he gathered, while Dr. Ran argued that he should go with the other children to the Ansson Hold. I couldn't feel happy about that, and even Ruland, himself an Ansson, had to admit that, with things so unsettled, it was probably unwise for Alkres to trust himself to a member of another Branch of the Family. Reports kept coming in of resistance in Destiny—the Ingvarr stadtholder simply would not acknowledge the Brandr Patriarch, while port workers refused to service Brandr ships—and I wondered if it wouldn't be best to take Alkres there. After all, the city had benefited as much as the southern Holdings from the Matriarch's reforms, and the city-dwellers weren't directly under the Branch-Holders' thumbs. Alkres might well find a core of solid support there, and, if all else failed, he would be close enough to the spaceport to get off-world. Alkres made no contribution to the discussion, sunk in understandable apathy. When we asked directly what he wanted to do, he said only that he had always liked Asbera Ingvarr, and lapsed again into silence. We were still arguing the question when one of the UHST station's runners burst into the office.
"I'm sorry, sors, ama, but Hastain says there're Brandr flyers heading this way."
Ruland shot to his feet. "What the hell do you mean?"
The runner, a girl maybe three or four years older than Alkres, caught her breath with an effort. "He's picked up their transmission, sor, on a military band, about twenty-five kilometers to the southwest."
Ruland and I exchanged glances. The Rhawn Hold lay to the southwest of Federston, but so did the Ansson holding.
"They must've picked up our transmission to the Ansson Hold," Dr. Ran said, guiltily. "You were right, Trey. We never should've told them the children were here."
"Nothing so easy," Ruland growled.
I said, "The 'net is supposed to be shielded. They couldn't've intercepted the call; someone had to tell them we were here."
"Like Barthel Ansson," Ruland said bitterly. He shook himself. "Jannah, tell Hastain to go on the 'speaker and warn the town. Tell Teacher to take all the kids into the school basement, that's the safest place I can think of. Then tell Vereck to break out the flyer again." The girl nodded and darted off. Ruland turned back to me. "Medium, we'll have to do it your way. Take the flyer; I'll tell them it's in Monas Major for repairs. You take Himself into Destiny. He should be safe there."
I nodded, and looked to Alkres. The ult'eir—the Patriarch, now—was sitting very straight in his chair, hands folded tightly in his lap. He saw me looking at him, and managed a nod. "All right, Medium, I'll do what you say." He looked at Ruland. "Thank you, foreman, for taking care of us. I just hope—" His face crumpled, but he mastered himself and went on, bravely, "I hope you don't get into trouble for what you've done. I won't forget it."
Ruland touched his forehead. "My duty, sor."
The door snapped open again, and the runner stood there. Ruland's wife stood behind her, my furred cloak and a child's coat in her arms. A battered satchel swung from one hand.
"Sor," the girl said, "the flyer's outside, and Hastain says they're coming fast."
"Right, let's go," Ruland said. He stopped abruptly, an appalled expression on his face. "Medium, you can fly—"
"I can handle a flyer," I said. "Come on."
We left the foreman's house in a clump, Ruland's wife bundling Alkres into the coat as we walked, me shrugging my cape haphazardly onto my shoulders. Ruland handed me the satchel, telling me it held food and money, and I slung it across my shoulder, muttering my thanks. I had no gloves—the scarlet gloves that matched the cloak's trim were ashes now—but at least the cabin would be heated. In the street outside, Teacher was herding a last group of children into the schoolhouse. A child was crying in the distance, the noise almost drowned by the thunder of the flyer's engine. Vereck had taxied the machine from its shed up the main street of town, and held it now directly in front of the station. He popped the canopy as we approached, and I scrambled up and into the pod, fitting myself behind the pilot's board. When he was sure I had control, Vereck levered himself out of the machine, pausing on the edge of the pod to help Alkres aboard, then dropped free.
There was no time for farewells. As the others ran for the shelter of the foreman's house, I fed power to the engine, touching the rudder pedals to swing the ship so that we faced down the metalled street. I glanced quickly across the boards, recognizing with relief the red handle of a quick-start booster, and asked, "Clear?"
"All clear," Alkres answered, twisting in his seat to survey the street around us.
I took him at his word, and cut the brakes. The flyer trundled forward, picking up speed as we went. Then I pulled the booster handle, and we shot forward, almost catapulted into the air. Sixty meters up, still well under the usual scanner canopy, I trimmed ship, and banked onto the line of the UHST tracks, heading flat out for Destiny.
The flight into Destiny was an anticlimax after all. There was no sign of pursuit, even when I lifted the flyer into a normal traffic lane, and no signs of disaster behind us. Still, I followed the UHST line north to the station town of Newforest, and left the flyer at the field there. The local trains were running again, as I'd hoped they would be. We joined a crowd of locals, mostly mill workers, at the station, and caught the next train into Destiny's south terminal.
There were guards in Bradrh battledress at the station barriers, along with the usual policemen. I knew the dark-haired man at the left-hand barrier, and turned in that direction. Alkres slowed, clutching my hand, but I pulled him along bodily.
"Act natural," I whispered. "You're my son; we're off-world workers who've left Halex service." I glanced quickly over him, seeing nothing that would immediately betray us, and was glad my medium's badge was hidden beneath my cloak. Alkres was dark-haired, but at least he hadn't grown into the hawk-boned Halex face. Only the Oresteian accent would betray him, and that only if he spoke. "Let me do the talking," I said, and gave his hand what I hoped was a
reassuring squeeze. Alkres returned the pressure, but his face was very pale.
We were coming up on the barrier now, and I pulled out the double ticket, holding it out for the ticket counter. She took it without a word and nodded us through, but the nearest Brandr said, "Hold it. Let's see your IDs."
I let my Urban accent thicken. "We don't have any ID, thanks to you people. I used to work for the Halex Kinship."
"Name?" Both the Brandr were watching us now, hands on the slings of their blasters.
"Mas Zeeman." I jerked my head at Alkres. "That's my son, Tannis." I had pulled the name out of nowhere, and a characterization with it. Zeeman was an engineer, irascible, bull-headed, and thoroughly fed up with the whole situation. It was an easy part, for all that it was deadly serious. I glowered at the nearer Brandr, waiting for an answer.
The dark-haired policeman eyed me impassively and said, "I know them, they're all right. They come through all the time."
By now, there was a small crowd backed up behind us, waiting to get through the barrier, and I could hear rumblings of discontent. The Brandr heard it, too, and exchanged wary glances. One said, "All right, you can pass."
I nodded grudgingly, staying in character, and pushed through the gate, dragging Alkres with me. A murmur of satisfaction rippled through the crowd. Buoyed by the sound, I didn't start shaking until we reached the street outside. I saw Alkres looking at me, and said roughly, "I have a friend—she's captain of the six-week mailship. We'll go to her place, no one'll trace us there."
"All right," Alkres said, in a small voice. He was looking very young, and very tired, and I made myself relax a little.
"Actually, it's not her flat—it belongs to a friend of hers, a para'an. Don't worry, though, I know they'll help us." I knew I was babbling, but the flow of words seemed to help. "We'll have to walk, I'm afraid. I don't think we ought to risk the trams."
"I can make it," Alkres said grimly.
We reached the address Leith had given me—was it only the day before?—around the supper hour. There weren't many people on the street, and I felt very conspicuous as we made our way along Bluestar Street, glancing at building numbers as we went. I was very glad to duck into the sheltered doorway of Guil ex-Tam'ne's flat. The outer door was locked, of course, but there was a standard guardbox beside the latch. I pressed the code sequence Leith had given me, and waited. Nothing happened, and I pressed it again, hoping they had not decided to go out for the evening. It was still Light, and would be for another six hours, so the businesses in the Necropolis were closed, and I couldn't imagine Leith choosing to leave a comnet at a time like this. Unless, I thought, with a sudden rush of fear, she had already gone back to the ship? I raised my hand to press the buttons again, and the speaker crackled to life.
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