“How delicious. Lani,” she purred across the table to her husband, “did you hear what the Admiral said? They’re not wearing anything but paint and jewels in the capital.” She gave Derissa’s simple gown a contemptuous glance. “It’s a shame that . . . everyone can’t wear such finery.”
Gilhame followed her glance, had a pleasurable moment imagining Derissa decked out in the manner he had described and then said very solemnly, “It would be very inappropriate on a fleetship, Kentinessa. What would the Admiralty think? Of course, that raises the question of whether the Admiralty ever thinks at all.”
She leaned towards him, and he got a whiff of her scents. There was perfume, normal body odor and, under all, the faint musky smell of a woman in a rutty frame of mind. She thinks she’s seducing me, he thought. “Admiral, of course one couldn’t have ships’ women dressed like ladies. I must admit I am a little shocked at their presence. Are they all yours?” Her voice was conspiratorial.
“Mine? If you mean, are they all attached to the fleet, yes, but so is everyone in this room except you, your husband and Harvar Caraheen. What do you mean by ships’ women?” He knew precisely what she meant and he wanted to strangle her for it.
The Kentinessa made a moue of her mouth. “You know. Prostitutes.” She said the word as if it dirtied her.
“My dear Kentinessa, how very provincial of you. It is strictly against Admiralty policy to have personnel of that nature on board ship. Oh, occasionally an individual officer or enlisted person is prostituted through the fleet, but as punishment only. Men and women. I cannot imagine how you could leap to the conclusion that persons of such obvious quality as the Krispin halbara and tema Ottera might be anything but what they are—part of the ship’s complement. I am shocked. You must think the fleet is a mobile debauch.”
By the time he stopped speaking, the Kentinessa was red with mortification. “But, I’ve heard ...”
“I consider the matter closed, Kentinessa.”
“Is there something the matter with the Kentinessa’s dessert?” Alvellaina asked from the end of the table.
“No, nothing, m’alba,” he replied before the woman could open her mouth. She was too stupid, he realized, to give up the subject. Nor was her attitude uncommon. Many assumed that all females of whatever rank on fleetships were actually there solely for the sexual convenience of the male complement. He was angry again, at himself this time, for putting Alvellaina and her sisters in an intolerable situation. Still, she had better learn how to handle it, and the sooner the better. “She mistook you for a . . . grand horizontal, and I was just setting her straight.”
The look that Alvellaina gave him would have frozen a steaming swamp. Then she gave a laugh which sounded almost natural. “How droll. Wherever did you get such a curious notion, Kentinessa? With my carroty hair and flat chest, I really am complimented. Redheads are quite out of fashion these days, you know.”
“Yes,” Gilhame cut in. “I was just telling the Kentinessa how all the fashionable ladies are shaving their hair off and painting themselves various colors. You would know better than I, Alvellaina, what is the most fashionable color?” He gave her high points for handling the insult offered her so gracefully, and higher points that she did not laugh at his description of the fashionable female. Her sister Armanda had her lower lip caught firmly between her teeth, and Derissa appeared to be memorizing the pattern on her plate. Ganna Ottera gravely raised her napkin to her lips. “Why, blue, of course,” Alvellaina said solemnly.
“Right, right! It shows off the white stones to such advantage,” he added.
“True,” Alvellaina continued. “A female without white stones is quite out of fashion.” He saw a curious expression in her eyes and realized that she had picked up his mental picture of Derissa wearing almost nothing. Then her face changed subtly. “If we have finished, shall we leave the table? I am certain all this talk of fashion is quite boring to the gentlemen.” She gave Gilhame a slight nod.
He stood up, signaling an end to the meal, and tried to discern what Alvellaina’s nod had meant. Ignoring the Kentinessa, Gilhame walked to the end of the table to pull Alvellaina’s chair out for her.
The portal opened behind him and Frikard returned. Gilhame could see that the man had something of importance to report, and drew him aside.
“Sir, they have a Gamester dreadnaught,” Frikard hissed.
“What?”
“That’s right.”
“But, they’re proscribed, and with very good reason.” Gilhame could feel the hairs on the back of his neck respond to the terror he was feeling. “How?”
“We don’t know yet. Apparently, what happened was that the dreadnaught was placed at the entrance where the Coalchee would exit into the system. They came out, and it gobbled them up. We’ve found some debris, not very much, but enough to indicate that between twelve and fourteen ships were in the flotilla.”
“Twenty thousand people! And that bastard sitting over there acting like . . . Alright. What in the cosmos was Mordell thinking of? The use of a dreadnaught is an act of war. And the very last thing Kardus needs right now is a real war. The man must have been out of his mind. How long will it take a fast packet to get to the nearest Admiralty office and back? I don’t want this to be broadcast.”
“I should think not, sir. Let me see. The nearest is Calma II. That’s two jumps and three hours of maneuvering at each. Presuming anyone can be found capable of making a decision, the packet might return with orders within a day.”
‘A day,’ Gilhame thought, remembering that a day was now thirty hours of fifty minutes each. “Good. I think Buschard better go. Now, what the devil am I going to do about our ‘guests’?”
“We still have no idea who is in control of the dreadnaught.”
“I have a pretty good idea. This is one battle I would gladly walk away from, Ven. I think I’d better end this little gathering right away. Go get a packet ready. Oh, and Ven, I do like your Ganna very much.”
He got one of Frikard’s rare smiles. “So do I, sir.”
Chapter VII
Gilhame sat silently in his now-deserted quarters. The table had been cleared, and he sat at it in his great carved chair, staring down into an empty wineglass. The portal opened, and the pard walked in, sniffed the air and spat.
“You are so refined, my friend,” Gilhame said to the animal. “She did leave quite a stink in here, didn’t she? And since you have learned to open my door, why haven’t you learned to close it?”
“Who left a stink?” It was Alvellaina, still wearing her simple gown.
“The Kentinessa. Or perhaps it was her mate. Anyhow, I can still smell it, and you can see that it offends the pard.” “You were sending the strangest stuff tonight. Are you still angry with me?”
“Angry with you? Do you care?”
“No.”
“Little liar. I was not angry with you. In fact, I was very pleased with you and your sisters. You handled the Kentinessa like a seasoned veteran. I am sorry that you had to be exposed to her malice.”
“It doesn’t matter. My nurse always told me only married women can afford to dress like whores, and it seems she was right. I wonder if she will shave her head and paint her body?”
“Without a doubt. It should look very well . . . where
she’s going.” He didn’t want to speak of the exile world directly.
“That’s the third time tonight I’ve gotten a clear impression from you. Is Munsor really that dreary?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what is going on? I saw you speaking to Frikard. That’s when Derissa dumped her wine all over Niyarkos.”
“A man with you three girls behind him could go far, if he were inclined in that way. You were invaluable. I thank you again.”
“And you are not going to tell me what’s going on?” “Why are you interested?”
“Because you are afraid. I want to know what the great Gilhame ur Fagon is terrified of.”<
br />
“Very few things in the cosmos. A Gamester dreadnought is high on the list.”
“What’s that?”
“A very large, very old, very deadly machine. The Emperor has proscribed their use in Kardus space, but there is one in this system, apparently functioning. It was used to destroy the Coalchee when they entered the system. It is quite capable of taking out half the fleet. And that young popinjay knows it’s here.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Who knows? There have been a dozen or so found, here and there. A few have been operational. The rest were derelict. The Gamesters left a number of interesting artifacts. I’ve never seen one. I don’t wish to see this one. I don’t think I have any choice.”
“Why do they call them Gamesters?” Alvellaina seemed very curious, but he was almost too preoccupied to notice.
“I keep forgetting how little you have traveled. All over this arm of the galaxy there are huge cubes, like dice. They can’t be entered or x-rayed. They are even marked with dots on the sides, like dice. So, we call the makers ‘Gamesters.’ ”
“Why can’t we get into them?”
“I don’t know, not being a technical specialist. I only know that teams of engineers and archeologists have spent
generations trying to get in, with no luck.”
“Why have I heard nothing about them?”
“No nation likes to admit there is anything they cannot understand, do they? I think, personally, the Havassit know how to broach the damned things, and I think they don’t because what is inside those cubes is just too dangerous to have around. The Havassit have been trying to protect us from our worse natures since the curthel invasion. It must be terrible to have the whole responsibility for all our petty little nations.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait until Buschard gets back from Calma with some orders, unless Niyarkos loses his nerve and starts shooting before that.”
“I see. Is it very bad?”
“It could be. We’re rather like fish in a barrel.”
“Then why don’t you attack it immediately?”
“Because I cannot risk the fleet without orders. There are too many lives at stake to do it on my own responsibility. It is conceivable, just barely, that the Admiralty might tell me to leave it alone.”
“Something else is bothering you.”
“Alvellaina, what do you know about the Ten Nations Compact? Or did Derissa take that class for you also?” “My, you are in a foul mood. Let me think. No, I remember. You mean the part that says, ‘No member nation shall use weapons of war which are beyond its capacity to fabricate’.”
“Precisely.”
“And if the Protector finds out ...”
“There will be a war.”
She got a glass and a fresh bottle of wine from the cupboard, sat down at his right and refilled his glass. When she had poured herself some wine, she said quietly, “But . . .1 thought . . . you liked war.”
Gilhame sent the bottle of wine flying across the room to slam against the wall. It did not break but fell to the floor and gurgled its contents out onto the rug. The veins stood out on his neck, and he made a wordless bellow. Alvellaina pushed her chair back from the table and scrambled away.
She ran towards the portal, then stopped short.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Gilhame mastered his rage a little. “Fighting is what I do, not what I like.”
“Then, why do you do it?”
“You might say I have been cursed.”
He could see by her face that she had forgotten or suppressed her knowledge of that part of him which was undying. He did not blame her. If he could have forgotten, he would have also. She looked as if she had been struck. Then she opened the portal and ran out of the room.
The thing was immense. Gilhame, looking at the dreadnought on the overhead screen, wondered what powered it and how it had been constructed. He had spent some of the time while waiting for Buschard’s return studying the available documentation on this and other Gamester artifacts. Buschard had not returned. Instead, a single message had been broadcast from Calma II. “Destroy at once.” It was signed with the name of the sector Vice Admiral.
That was easy for him to say, far away and safe. Gilhame was still trying to decide how he was to accomplish the task. The documentation had been informative but not very helpful. All the indications were that the thing was self-powered and that it “ate” anything small enough to go into its maw. The set of things which would fit into that opening included any ship in Gilhame’s fleet.
For the moment, he kept his fleet out of range. He hoped his technical staff would be able to give him some method of attacking the thing without sacrificing most of his ships. He wondered too if Niyarkos was in control of the thing or if it had somehow been programmed. The whole situation reeked of the kind of careless politics which Gilhame had come to despise over the centuries.
Mordell had assumed that he could use the dreadnought with safety. He must have thought that no one would discover it. Ur Fagon was puzzled how a man capable of masterminding a deal with the ruler of a sovereign nation could be at the same time stupid enough to believe that he could hide the use of a thing like the dreadnought. Still, if he had died at Vardar Straits, no one would ever have been the wiser about the Coalchee in the Island Worlds system. He wondered for a moment if the real Gilhame would have seen the trap.
He decided to do something he knew was dangerous and even foolhardy. Gilhame relaxed and let his memory drift back into the many previous existences of the Dragon. Who were the Gamesters? Had he ever been one? The horrible, wrenching disorientation which accompanied this activity made the sweat pour down his underarms and face.
Floating. He was a speck in the cosmos, a tiny flame surrounded by the screams of dying men. That, of course, was the danger, the courting of madness. The Dragon survived by integrating his personality into that of his host body, by suppressing as much as possible the individual memories of his lives. To remember the millions of men he had led into battle and death, to recall his own body deaths, was more than pain. All the flames seemed to have one question: Why did / die?
He drifted back, hearing the deaths of thousands of years of war and seeing the pale face of his jailer, the Lady of Glass Castle, as she carried him from the field time and again. Her eyes were two tiny blue stars, cold and severe, and her hair was as black as a starless night, long and straight and caught back at the brows with silver brooches in the shape of nine-spoked wheels; her lips were the color of blood, drawn back in a smile of welcome. Always, with each new death, her silent look conveyed to him some sense of failure, of rebuke.
Worlds flowed past—green rolling hills, brown empty deserts, pitching seas; suns of many colors shone on him. Then blackness. Again and again he commanded ships, great arrays of spaceborne vessels filled with men and women. They rose and fell like fields of grain.
Finally, he glimpsed the Gamesters, great, busy men worshiping their machines. These, perhaps, were the greatest engineers of all time. They had perfected a method of chaining the mind to the machine and had created a sort of harmony between the two. The machines, thus, had acquired a kind of sentience. And then the harmony was broken. The man-machines revolted, destroying the Gamester civilization and leaving the remnants in planet-bound barbarism for centuries.
Gilhame saw the little wars that he had fought on worlds with no names. He saw the rise of other cultures, the constant scrabbling to reach the stars. Always the stars, and always the war.
“Sir? Are you alright?” The question brought him back. The return to this time and place seemed to last forever, but only a moment passed in reality.
“Thank you, Ottera,” he said when he focused on the little yeowoman. He realized that he was shaking all over, hot and chilled at the same time. “I will be in a moment. How about getting me a cup of . . . something hot. 1 don’t care what.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Gilhame watched her move off into the semidarkness of the bridge. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and twisted his neck from side to side. Finally the shaking began to subside. He thought of the face of the woman of his vision and hoped that he would never see her again.
Then he looked at the dreadnought on the big viewscreen again and forgot his clammy physical discomfort and his jailer and the voices of the dying. He knew nothing more about the actual technology the Gamesters had used than he did before, but at least he had a clearer idea of what his fleet was confronting. How could he turn that into an advantage?
That thing out there had a mind of sorts, but it must be a very old mind. Senile, perhaps? Had it taken orders from Niyarkos? Should he risk asking the Kentinus if he controlled the dreadnought and, if he did, have him turn it on the fleet? Or was there another way? In fact, if Niyarkos had control of the thing, why hadn’t he attacked already?
Ganna returned with a steaming cup. “Thank you again. Ugly, isn’t it?” he asked referring to the dreadnought.
“I don’t know. It’s just a big ship shaped like a worm to me, sir.”
“A very nasty worm. What the devil are our technical people up to? Running in circles, I’ll bet. Not that I blame them. Take my advice, Ganna, and don’t become an Admiral.”
She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. “No, sir. I won’t.”
“Where the devil is Ven?”
“I think the Commander is harassing our technical staff.”
“At least he has something to occupy him. Tell me, Ganna, do you like him?”
“Why . . . of course, sir.”
“Of course? It has been known that . . . advancement sometimes pursues affection. I had a lover like that once. She climbed on my coattails and hung on until I was forced to disengage her rather—violently.”
Ganna pulled herself up proudly. “Then I must assume your question is from cynicism, not from rudeness.” Gilhame looked at her. Slightly flushed with anger, her eyes fixed him with a stare unbecoming her station but not her person. Her voice had betrayed no anger, only a chilly disdain. He admired her for standing up to him and wished with a faint pang that he could inspire something like it in Alvellaina. “I am, indeed, a confirmed cynic. I beg your forgiveness for doubting your integrity. I should have more respect for Frikard’s judgment than that, shouldn’t I? After all, he chose to serve under me.”
Adrienne Martine-Barnes Page 9