The Rifter's Covenant

by Sherwood Smith

  “A lovely night, Rista.” There was Vannis, her light brown eyes generous and kind. “But time to depart. Dancing till dawn was delightful in youth, before one noticed the wrinkles in one’s gown revealed by the new day.” As the others uttered well-bred laughter at this sally, she gestured to include everyone, her gaze moving about and coming to rest, as if by chance, on Jaim.

  He was startled out of his veneer of invisibility, and he missed the responses as his boswell tingled. It was Montrose. (I just told Brandon my client has information, and to meet us in the park.)

  Jaim flexed the muscle that would send an acknowledgment pulse. He did not look at Brandon or change his stance—in this close-watching crowd, even Brandon would not attempt a privacy—but as soon as the Douloi began stirring toward the exit, Jaim activated his boswell again, contacted Brandon, said (Montrose. Park), then issued brief orders to the team waiting outside the villa to be ready for a change in plans.

  Brandon made his way skillfully through the tide of expensive silks and brocades, speaking briefly to each person before at last he descended the wide, shallow steps. Now that they were alone, he caught up with Vannis and offered his arm. “I’ve offended you, Vannis?”

  She blinked at him. “Your Majesty?”

  “We’re alone, Vannis.”

  She smiled, making an airy gesture with her free hand. “Of course you have not offended me.”

  “Yet everyone but I seems to know that you have reached the limits of your resources. This is easy enough for me to fix. Mine are unlimited. Or had you forgotten?”

  “Your resources might be, but my good name is not.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Everyone else comes to you with pleas, demands, requests. You made a generous gesture at your Accession, restoring my social position. All I have to offer in return is friendship—and loyalty.”

  “And a great deal of wit, grace, and skill at bringing back a semblance of social harmony.” Brandon bowed over her hand, and kissed it. His gesture—graceful, mock-solemn—was answered by her to the exact degree, to the smile.

  “It is my pleasure,” she said. “Good night.” She walked slowly away down the path toward her villa.

  Jaim watched her exquisite figure until it was out of sight, then bozzed his team, who moved out of sight on a vector with the direction Brandon had chosen.

  For a time they meandered with apparent randomness down various pathways. Jaim breathed deeply, clearing the scents of wine and perfume from his head. The lake was quiescent, its surface black except where silver darts of light reflected the faux dawn-light of the diffusers high above.

  Then Brandon spoke. “What,” he said, “did you make of that last?”

  Jaim considered. He could not define the relationship Brandon had with Vannis. They were often together, they complemented one another with unspoken skill at social events. Brandon had made that gesture at the Accession, which the Douloi had clearly not expected. And yet Brandon had not, since that one day, been to her villa alone, nor had he invited her alone to the Enclave.

  “What kind of response will make you angry?” he said, countering.

  “A stupid one.” Brandon bent down to pet a young cat roaming through the tall grasses. Adolescent purring beat on the soft air.

  “Then I think that was planned. The nyr-Kaddes woman meant to run Aerenarch-Consort Vannis down, yet I think Vannis wanted you to hear it. Or hear something, for she didn’t try to bring that group into the whole. And she could have.”

  The answer did not surprise Brandon. “The point being?”

  “You.” Jaim sensed Brandon waiting, and said, “Whenever you withdrew, she vectored the crowd the other way. If you didn’t ask her to—”

  “I did not.”

  “—then she had her own reason. Purpose.”

  Silence brought other sounds: the crunch of gravel and leaves underfoot; the rustle of brush as the cat darted away on the track of a small animal; his own breathing. Jaim tried not to think about Vannis, but that exquisite figure, the subtle waft of her perfume, the quick glance of her greeny-brown eyes under long lashes intruded on his senses. Even his dreams.

  “Before this war, the Douloi had all agreed that she would be the perfect Kyriarch,” Brandon said, looking sideways into Jaim’s face. His gaze in the lifting darkness was opaque, his light voice reflective.

  And that was why Jaim would never tell anyone about the way Vannis glided through his dreams in a elusive way he found both ineluctable and troubling. He alone knew where Brandon went on the nights he could get away, and he had watched, more and more often, the Panarch leave the Enclave with tension limning his body, and return with some semblance of peace and the lingering traces of laughter about eyes and mouth.

  It was not just sex that drew Brandon and Vi’ya together, though the change perhaps had been imperceptible to them both. Sometimes Brandon asked Jaim to join them, and the three talked through an entire night, ranging freely through every subject under the bowl of the universe. Jaim had watched Brandon clown about, exerting wit and ingenuity to surprise a smile from Vi’ya. The two most important people in Jaim’s life had somehow found one another, and the charge in the air when they were together served to dissolve Jaim’s own grief, if for only the short time they were all together.

  Did happiness mean nothing? Were the Douloi so alien to emotional integrity? He could not answer, and then it was too late.

  “Here we are.” Montrose emerged from the trees, his huge bulk nearly concealing a short, square woman whose round face looked blanched in the weak light.

  The woman moved before anyone could speak, dropping to her knees on the gravelly pathway before Brandon’s glossy boots.

  “I am a traitor forsworn, Your Majesty,” she said in a low voice. “Will you hear me?”

  Brandon extended his hands and drew her to her feet. “Come, Commander,” he said. “There is no sentence of death over you now.” He glanced aside at Montrose, who gave a curt nod. “Montrose has told me everything. Eventually you will have to resign your commission.”

  Thetris’s breathing was harsh, her body rigid. “I deserve to be cashiered. Publicly. Before execution for treason.”

  “Commander Thetris,” Brandon said, “we have too sharp a need for people with your talents and loyalty to what you believe is right. Will you work for us now, in hopes of undoing some of the damage that you never sought to cause? When we win free, there will be work aplenty for you as a civilian.”

  “I never expected mercy. I shall do anything you ask,” she whispered, tears leaking from her closed eyes, glimmering in the soft lights reflected from the Douloi domiciles on the other side of the park.

  “So let’s sit here on these rocks, and why don’t you tell me everything, in your own words, right from the start . . .” Murmuring encouragements, Brandon withdrew a short space away.

  Jaim did not need to listen. Montrose had already told him Sedry Thetris’s story. Instead, Jaim checked with the outer perimeter team, stationed well outside of earshot. When they all had reported no one in sight, he turned his attention to Montrose.

  “What has she found?” Jaim asked.

  “Only a little more than I told you, for there hasn’t been time,” Montrose said low-voiced. “But enough. She’s good. Ah. She’s getting to it now.”

  “. . . and I found the wreckage of a huge datapacket,” she was saying, “which I believe to be the one Martin Cheruld sent to Ares. Someone had phaged it, but I was able to piece together one message. It was from Cheruld to Barrodagh, acknowledging messages sent to five key people in your former government. Among then were Tau Srivashti and Hesthar al-Gessinav.”

  Montrose grunted. “About the Enkainion, right?”

  The small woman turned patiently toward him, her movements indicative of tiredness and even pain. “Yes. This got me to a chthonic level completely under Srivashti’s defenses, and I found the message from Srivashti to al-Gessinav.” She shook her head wearily. “People jus
t don’t understand Infonetics. Data never dies, you have to wipe it out. Srivashti didn’t. You can see it here.”

  She help out a datachip. “The gist is, he seemed to believe that the Dol’jharians and the Arthelion forces would negate each other, opening the way for a new government, and new opportunities.”

  “Such as Panarch Tau Srivashti.” Montrose grunted in disgust.

  Sedry Thetris nodded, her hands clasped tightly together. Brandon said gently, “Have you discovered Hesthar’s response?”

  “No.” Sedry dropped her head. “She knows data as well as I do. But I think she’s the one who phaged the Cheruld data before it could reach Ares.”

  Though Brandon’s face hadn’t changed, Jaim sensed anger, much like that he’d expressed when Montrose told him about the Reef. And Jaim knew why. That’s what Semion tried to do to me, twisting the data about me, cutting off my options, Brandon had once said.

  Sedry took a deep breath. “But someone better than me is diving at her defenses.”

  Brandon prompted, “How did you know that?”

  “Because al-Gessinav strengthened the protections, dated two days ago.”

  Stunned silence.

  “And, with the security codes you gave through Montrose, I located the other terminal: it is in your Detention Five building.”

  Vi’ya, Jaim thought, a lazplaz boring through the cold space where his heart used to be. She hadn’t told anyone. Brandon said nothing. But now Jaim could see his anger.

  EIGHT

  “Not another one,” Admiral Nyberg was saying as a young, harassed-looking ensign waved Osri Omilov into the admiral’s office.

  Lieutenant Commander Jalal-Alfad, one of Faseult’s most trusted aides, peered out of the screen. Osri had never heard of her a month ago; now he glimpsed her often, moving around the Cap and talking to people or observing. She was in charge of naval public relations—a job Osri wouldn’t take if the alternative were scrubbing out the recyclers.

  Her square, fine-boned face looked tired, her dark eyes, the color of Osri’s own, narrowed with annoyance. “Almost,” she said. “Almost. If I hadn’t been there, I expect we would have had another duel on our hands. They might still find a way.”

  “And they will be cashiered if we find out about it,” Nyberg’s voice grated.

  “If we find out.” The corners of Jalal-Alfad’s mouth deepened. “You knew, of course, that sho-Bostian’s crew joined Astraea’s this morning?”

  Nyberg sighed. “Is that all, Commander?”

  “For now,” she said, saluting. “I see you’ve someone waiting. Good afternoon, Lieutenant Omilov.”

  Osri saluted and waited as his superior signed off. Nyberg turned to Osri, his back as straight as ever, but his face seemed to have aged ten years in a week. “Have any of these logos-lovers given you any trouble at all?” he asked.

  The epithet shocked Osri. “You mean the crews of Astraea, Norsendar, and Treloar?” he asked carefully, though he suspected Nyberg was thinking of them the same way as he: Semion’s captains. “No. They scrupulously observe regs to the precise degree required when dealing with any of us. And with themselves as well, as far as I can see,” he amended, thinking it over.

  Nyberg sat back, a wintry smile thinning his lips. “As honest as you are nonpolitical, Omilov. The first is refreshingly welcome and the latter . . . a blindness I’d also welcome myself at times. What is Gnostor Omilov’s latest report?”

  “My father needs more time. They’ve tried to dissect Captain Lochiel’s hyperrelay, but can’t find a way to open it without destroying it. What data he’s come up with matches nothing at all except that it correlates with some of the scans from the Telvarna mission.”

  Nyberg raised his eyebrows. “So it’s made of the same material? All right. Tell him he’s got, let us say, some time. I’ve told the Panarch we need more time as well: we’ll need all the ships we can muster in. But eventually we will require the gnostor to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of the Urian metal, or whatever it is.”

  “He has most of that information already by extrapolation.”

  Nyberg cocked his head. “You want to save it, too?” He waved a hand, cutting off Osri’s reply. “Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. I’d support that, if I thought there was a way. But as it is, we will require a live test. Even if he has to destroy it in the process.”

  Osri saluted and withdrew. Of course the Navy could not commit ships to an attack on the Suneater without being sure they had the right weapons to destroy it. Sebastian Omilov would fight that outcome bitterly, but if the Panarch commanded it, he would obey. Therefore, Osri knew, his father would exert every nerve to find a way to avoid having that command made.

  Outside the door, Osri nearly collided with the person waiting to go in next. Dodging, Osri found himself face-to-face with a round-faced novosti, the disconcerting ajna-eye open on his forehead and recording.

  “Lieutenant Omilov,” the man said, “is it true the Panarch saved you, and you didn’t save him, in the flight over Warlock?”

  Rage boiled up inside Osri, but he resolutely kept his mouth shut and pushed on past.

  The man asked more questions as Osri walked away rapidly down the hall. Osri tried to shut them out, and when he reached the nearest adit, he said to the Marine guards there, “Some blunge-eater of a novosti got in. Outside Nyberg’s office.”

  “He has an appointment,” the guard on the left said woodenly, but her expression indicated her distaste.

  Osri shook his head, annoyance mixing with relief. If the blit had somehow managed to sneak in, that would be far worse. Osri winced. They plagued him whenever they could, and though he had refused to say one word to them, he lived in fear they would find out where his rooms were, and corner him there.

  The Marines passed him through. He glanced at his chrono, then took the lift back down to one of the service corridors. When he was alone, he moved slowly along the wall; though he’d used this secret adit twice now, he still had trouble finding the access tab.

  Finally a segment of the bulkhead folded back silently, closing immediately behind him. The pod was not there, which meant someone had used it. Osri waited on the narrow ledge in the semi-darkness as a cold breeze ruffled over his face. He wondered who else Brandon had given access to.

  With a humming hiss and a whoosh of air the pod drew up. Osri sniffed; was there the faint scent of dog? Sure enough, a telltale puff of fur stirred on the floor as the door shut.

  Osri brushed off the bench seat, wondering if those dogs used the secret tubes more often than he did. Then he dropped heavily onto the bench with a deep sigh. One more meeting—his stomach dropped—and back to his rooms.

  Back to Fierin.

  The night of Brandon’s accession still seemed more like a dream than reality. Osri looked at the other bench on the pod, vividly remembering the young woman lying across it, sobbing noiselessly, her glossy dark hair spilling across thin arms, the jewels she’d worn to pin it up lying on the dyplast decking of the pod. Without the Douloi posture and invincible mask, she seemed so very young. Young and rail-thin, though the gown masked that, too; she seemed so fragile, as if her flesh had burned down to barely cover nerve-endings. There was no longer any trace of freezing social command, no air of precedence or high degree; when the pod stopped, she did not speak, and Osri had to touch her to get her attention.

  She’d recoiled as if struck, then made so visible an effort to regain control that the last of Osri’s automatic resentment of her kind melted to nothing.

  Of course when she recovered a bit, she’d probably order him around like a servant, he’d reflected grimly as he helped her out of the pod. If she was too obnoxious he’d throw her back on Brandon and let him worry about her.

  Naval corridors—clean, orderly, pleasing to the eye—had always been his safe haven from the chaos of the Douloi world. But that night they’d been fraught with danger as he smuggled an unknown Douloi female—consort to a notorious Archon—
across what seemed most of the Cap.

  Luckily most of the Phoenix-level officers had been either dancing back at the Pavilion, or at their duty stations. The halls had been completely empty.

  Osri used Brandon’s imager block, and, his heart pounding, got Fierin inside his rooms well within a minute.

  As soon as he shut his door, relief poured through him, and he saw the same in her wide eyes, but then she swayed, vomited down the front of her costly gown, and crumpled bonelessly to the floor.

  If the trip had been unreal, the next half hour was surreal. It seemed that some other man took over his hands and head as he clumsily undressed her, bathed her, bundled her into his robe, and tucked her into his narrow regulation-size bed. She sighed deeply once, then curled up like a small child with one hand under her cheek.

  Then he mopped up the mess, put her gown through the cleaner (wondering too late if it was programmed to deal with jewels), and retired to the couch in the front room, which was comfortable in itself, but he stayed fully dressed and alert to the sounds of her breathing.

  So he was awake when, just before dawn, she cried out in her sleep. When he got to the bedroom, she was sitting up, her eyes stark with terror. Helpless, he just stood there, but she seemed to see him after a time, murmured something that might have been an apology, and lay back down, closing her eyes. He waited until her breathing deepened.

  She was still sleeping when his chrono brought him out of the fitful doze into which he’d fallen. He pulled her gown out of the cleaner, laid it at the foot of the bed for her to find, and put his dress uniform in, got himself cleaned up and into his duty uniform, and composed a note which he left glowing on the screen where she was sure to see it. The composition of the note took longer than the other chores—he tried to make it polite, yet impress upon her how important it was that she not open the door, no matter what.