His legs ached slightly from the strain of placing one foot precisely in front of the other; this far from the permanently occupied area the floor had relaxed into its normal curve. Even with the cims the latest ship had brought running full-time, there weren’t enough stasis clamps to control as many corridors as Lysanter wanted. Not and supply all the computer arrays he wanted, too.
Morrighon, at Anaris’s instructions, was doing all he could to encourage the Urian specialist’s appetite for expansion and data. Barrodagh still couldn’t get enough clamps for his quarters. Anaris grinned to himself, then mentally dismissed Barrodagh. He was here for a purpose, alone for good reason. Only Morrighon knew of his tests.
Anaris halted and pulled a handful of shredded packing foam out of a pocket. He threw it into the air, and summoned his will. A ripple ran through the white drift slowly falling to the floor, but that was all. His temples throbbed sharply, then subsided.
His nerves prickling with unease, he remembered the sudden, shocking expulsion of the guard from the tunnel in the Chamber of Kronos. It was true, then. The strength of his t’kinetic ability varied inversely with distance from the center of the Suneater. And Lysanter had found that the dreams of the inhabitants did, too. A pulse of regret that Lysanter could not know about this latest revelation; it would mean instant death the moment the Avatar found out.
He started back, but at the juncture of three corridors he hesitated. The leftmost one would take him back to his quarters most directly, but passing near the Chamber, the middle one by a more roundabout way. The rightmost was uncharted and no one knew where it went.
Anaris forced his steps to the left. He would not let his discomfort rule him.
He was five junctions from the Chamber when the station rumbled, the sound a low groan. Meshes of light flickered through the walls; the lamps the techs had rigged at intervals flickered. A wave of sensory distortion lobbed him toward the floor in what felt like in low gee. An intense pressure scrambled sight, sound, smell, all his senses, even internal ones like proprioception, into a malevolent, hallucinatory pudding.
Then it stopped, and the screaming started.
At first he did not recognize the distant sound. Singing? A siren? But then his mind resolved it: a man in extremis. The flesh over Anaris’s back crawled as he got to his feet. He had never heard a human being make a sound like that. Not even his sister, after her will broke under the flaying knives of Evodh, had shrieked like that. The victim, whoever he was, continued to scream while inhaling, producing a throat-tearing sound.
Then it ceased. He waited.
A few minutes later two gray-clad ordinaries pushed a gurney-float through the junction near where Anaris stood. Walking alongside it, the Urian specialist Lysanter chorded frantically on his compad. Anaris stepped out and stopped them. A short distance back, Barrodagh halted, too, his gaze ferreting back and forth mistrustfully.
Lysanter stumbled to a stop, looked up with distracted impatience, then his face changed instantly to seriousness. “It’s Li Pung, lord,” he volunteered. Anaris saw a slight tightening of Barrodagh’s mouth, but Lysanter didn’t notice. “I think he was caught in some sort of feedback loop. The cephalic sensors went off scale.” The scientist’s expression lightened. “But we got a response from the station. It’s minor, but it appears to be a permanent change. We’re still correlating the reports from various sections.”
Minor? What would it be like if a tempath fully succeeded? Anaris was fortunate to have been alone. He would have to be sure to be locked in his quarters when the next tempath, due to arrive shortly, made her attempt in the Chamber. Fear clenched his belly. His Dol’jharian heritage rejected fear, prompting him to seek something to blame, to kill; his Panarchist upbringing accepted it as an appropriate hyporational response, a foundation for action.
He looked down at the tempath, whose body was tightly wrapped in a sheet, only his head free. Li Pung’s eyes stared upward, distended, his face ridged into a horrible expression that suggested either extreme fear or insane joy, like a mask for some ancient ritual. He did not blink when Anaris snapped his fingers in front of his eyes. The man’s body was still except for the flutter of pulse in his throat, and his shallow breathing. Anaris sensed a fierce tension.
“He looks like he is afraid to move,” Anaris said.
Lysanter blinked, and tapped some more at his pad. “We’ll try some muscle stimulation, lord. Correlate it with various affects. And when the next tempath arrives, perhaps she can probe him.”
“Your pardon, lord,” Barrodagh interposed impatiently. “The Avatar demanded an immediate report of the results of this first experiment.”
Anaris stared at him until his gaze dropped, though he knew Barrodagh had nothing to lose from insolence. He could expect no mercy if Anaris won the succession duel.
Anaris smiled. “Then you have very little time to prepare your . . . report.” The pause was fractional, but he knew Barrodagh heard and understood. Equally he knew that Barrodagh was lying to Eusabian whenever he dared. Which could only help Anaris. And Barrodagh was too intelligent not to recognize it.
Anaris released them with a twitch of his hand, and walked away, reflecting that Barrodagh was resentful as well. The misdirection of giving Morrighon some of his own stasis clamps had worked very well, unsettling Barrodagh and simultaneously frightening Morrighon into greater efforts on his behalf, while ensuring that he was better rested than his Bori opponent.
Anaris laughed, ignoring the buzzing echo returned by the twisting corridors, and walked on, as Barrodagh vented his feelings on the hapless technician.
Lysanter could tell that Barrodagh was annoyed with him for speaking freely to the heir, but what could he do? One did not deflect the question of a Dol’jharian lord. And Barrodagh himself had told him that the Avatar had commanded that information about the station be freely shared with the heir.
As he walked beside Barrodagh, whose suspicious gaze never seemed to still, he contemplated Anaris and Eusabian, and how their differences reflected in their Bori secretaries. The first evidence of those differences had come as a surprise, a message directly from Anaris commanding him to have stasis clamps transferred from the heir’s quarters to Morrighon’s. No such command had ever come from Eusabian, nor could Lysanter imagine it happening.
Even before that, Morrighon had been easier to deal with, right from the moment of his arrival on the station. He actually seemed to appreciate to some extent what Lysanter was doing, rather than dismissing it as beneath his notice as Barrodah did.
Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to remind Barrodagh—without directly challenging him—that there was no reason to withhold information from Anaris.
As soon as they reached Lysanter’s office, the scientist said, “I’m sorry, serach Barrodagh,” not sounding sorry at all. “The Avatar hasn’t forbidden me to speak to the heir.”
Barrodagh smoothed his expression as he eyed Lysanter, wondering what had prompted that. “Of course, Gnostor. But the Avatar expects to be the first one informed of any results.”
“Just so,” Lysanter replied. He inclined his head slightly. “And I thank you for supporting my efforts to go more slowly with the next tempath.”
Barrodagh nodded, remembering Eusabian’s disappointment and impatience at the news the next tempath would not arrive for six more days. “It does no good to waste them.” And keeping the next one alive longer would keep the Avatar interested longer. But for now, he had to devise some other methods of keeping his lord from becoming bored.
“What will you do now?” he continued, stifling a yawn without showing it. He longed for sleep; his new quarters were still relatively quiescent.
“We are proceeding with the attempt to use Li Pung for control via patterning and neural infiltration, bypassing his mind.” Lysanter frowned, shoulders tensing with discomfort. “I don’t expect much of it. Ah!” He lifted his head, his expression clearing. “But here is another interesting possibility.
You remember the blood analogue in the ship bay during the Return?”
Barrodagh’s stomach spasmed. If it hadn’t been for the heir’s inspired improvisation, he didn’t know what the Avatar might have done. He managed a fractional nod.
“The Ur-fruit poisonings have all been via toxins that attacked blood cells in one way or another. I believe that the station is still trying to adapt to us, experimenting with a new homeostasis, but may have interpreted the blood as a waste product because of how it was spilled.”
Barrodagh suppressed his impatience. He could not afford to alienate the man. “So?”
“We have found a chamber, below the central one, which seems to be a sort of recycling organ.”
“How is that?” Barrodagh wished Lysanter wouldn’t use biological terms for the station. Suneater existence here already felt too much living in something’s viscera.
“The air pressure in it is lower than the surrounding areas, so that there is constant circulation toward it. And it, eh, how should I express this? It swallows things.”
Barrodagh held his face still with great effort, but his heart raced. He remembered the sucking fistula that had opened in the sleeping chamber he had recently had to abandon. What if it had been larger—much larger? He hastily suppressed the image.
“Things? What things?”
“We’ve fed it water, sucrose, vatbeef, substances like that. The Ur-fruit nearby seem somewhat less noxious. But I’m not sure the station correlates these substances with us. Certainly, it has no way of understanding their relation to us, that they are food.”
“What do you want to do?”
Lysanter hesitated. “I think we should feed it a human body. Dead,” he added hastily. “And you needn’t kill anyone for it, of course. It’s not that urgent.”
Barrodagh stared at him. The Avatar had commanded them to bring the Suneater up to full power. Did Lysanter imagine he would allow anything so trivial as a life to stand in the way of executing that command? But the scientist was from the Panarchy.
“We could feed it a live human, if you think it better,” said Barrodagh cruelly, enjoying the way Lysanter flinched.
“No, that would be moving too fast.” Lysanter looked straight back at him. “What if it thought it was supposed to swallow living humans? Our quarters might not be safe.”
Not it was Barrodagh’s turn to flinch, and the uncontrollable reflex made him furious. You did that on purpose. The scientist knew about his problems with his room. Oh, Lysanter would pay for that and many other slights, someday. For now, however, he had to accept it.
“Very well. As it happens, there are two corpses available. Two grays got into a fight. One died, the other was executed. They have not yet been rendered down and recycled. I leave it to you to choose. Or take both.”
Barrodagh’s com beeped.
“Hyperwave from Flower of Lith,” came the report. “For you, from Norio Danali.”
Hreem’s tempath. What did he want? To volunteer? The same thought must have occurred to Lysanter, for the scientist’s face brightened.
Not until I have a lot more mind-blurs, Barrodagh thought.
“I’ll be there shortly.” He turned to Lysanter. “Make the arrangements and notify me. I will observe.”
He left, walking swiftly. Having Norio would be two-edged. He was a powerful tempath and the worst kind of mindsnake, from reports; but without him, Hreem would be far more vulnerable. Barrodagh might even finally get someone on his ship.
ARES
Vi’ya stepped aboard the Telvarna and breathed deeply.
The tianqi had been shut down so the air was still and slightly stale, but she breathed it in slowly, savoring the smell of home.
Reaching the bridge, she smoothed her hands over her console before she sat down. Utter quiet surrounded her, outside and inside.
Finally she touched a key and started up life-support. With a subdued whoosh the tianqi started circulating air. She felt a gentle draft on her cheek and smelled the clean scents that Markham had programmed in from his memories of Lusor.
She powered up the automat section of the galley, then sat back, reviewing her plans with painstaking care.
If Lokri was not granted his freedom by legal means, Vi’ya would free him—but she’d have only one chance. Every eventuality had to be foreseen and planned for.
The first step had been taken before they left for Gehenna. Through Marim she had inserted a worm into naval dataspace to scout through the system for the records on Telvarna. That told her where the critical engine parts were stored. Marim identified the ones that could be built by dismantling other devices, and which would have to be stolen from the high-security lockers.
Shortly after her return from the Gehenna mission, Vi’ya activated the second segment of the worm and Marim had begun her work. Before she joined the Dis gang, she had been a thief. Under Vi’ya’s orders, and with the help of the worm, Marim embarked on a series of careful temporary thefts—nothing disappeared, or at least at first.
She took oddments of a weird variety, some on the list of controlled parts, others having nothing at all to do with engines. Each item reappeared some time later, its disappearance traced to a computer error planted by the worm. No alarms had been raised, and soon Vi’ya had seen the result she had hoped for: the harassed quartermaster’s staff detuned the inventory monitors to make them less sensitive to stock fluctuations.
Now Marim had room to work, and she began stealing the engine parts that couldn’t be built from other things, one by one, the least crucial first. And now that they had a few of those, it was time for Vi’ya’s next phase: access to the Telvarna.
She had not known how powerful Eloatri’s influence was until she asked for, and got, permission to sleep aboard her ship.
She had merely mentioned during Manderian’s most recent visit how badly she slept in a building crammed with other human beings, most of whom were under great stress due to the crowding. And what a relief it would be to be aboard her own ship, away from everyone. It was an experiment, no more than the first—and easiest—plan for gaining access to the Telvarna.
Too easy, she had thought. Expecting it to come to nothing, she had not even planned beyond the conversation with Manderian.
But within six hours after that talk, she found a drop waiting, from Eloatri herself. Under the sigil of the Digrammaton was a statement granting permission for Vi’ya to pass through the Cap to her ship any evening she felt the need. No explanation followed, just a route, passcodes, instructions regarding inspections, and a warning that breaching any of the seals on the engine room would result in immediate revocation of the pass.
Now she had to deal with the frequent cursory inspections of the outer seal that were the norm, and the less frequent but more stringent inspections of the inner seal. Breaching the latter would probably have to wait until the judgment had been passed on Lokri at his trial. She sighed, thinking of the two small parts in her pockets. She ought to get those stashed away, but it felt good to sit and blend with the silence for a time.
She closed her eyes. And recoiled when she sensed a familiar psychic signature, sun-searing in its proximity.
She turned, and Brandon appeared, his step slow, his smile contemplative beneath the cobalt-blue eyes.
“Permission to come aboard?” he asked, palms out apologetically, since he was already on board.
Her mouth had gone dry; she dipped her chin in assent.
He prowled from Lokri’s console, silent and dark, to the nav console, then hitched a narrow hip against the pod. The hour was early and he was dressed only in shirt, trousers, and boots, which meant he had sidestepped some Panarchic obligation in order to come here.
“You told me when we first met,” he said lightly, “that you had destroyed all of Markham’s effects.”
“I destroyed everything tangible, which was what you asked,” she said.
He lifted a hand in an airy gesture. “Thus discounting the captain�
��s log, which I found later.” He touched a console. “And a record he’d apparently meant to send to me.”
“They were not tangible effects,” she reiterated. He was angry. When had she seen him so? There had been no hint of it when last they met. It sent her senses reeling in shock, making it hard to think. “And I did not want to give those to you.”
He lifted his head and smiled briefly. “I was to find them, yes? To prove what?”
She said nothing. The two engine parts dug hard into her hip; she forced her muscles to relax.
He walked to Marim’s console. His fingers traced the keys restlessly, bare of intent. “Did you read the one he meant for me?” he asked at length.
“Yes.”
“What message did you see there?”
Where was this leading? “It was a political indictment,” she said.
He moved to Ivard’s console. “It was a political indictment,” he repeated. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No.”
“The question would not seem frivolous if you had been haunted by Semion’s specter, as I have.”
In recent days they had talked enough for her to have noticed a pattern. Brandon could be disarmingly frank about any subject, including himself. At other times the conversation would proceed at right angles to the real question; at those times it felt to Vi’ya like a duel, fought with invisible weapons. Not being able, as yet, to divine the underlying question she had feinted, deflected, and riposted in self-defense.
So it seemed he had come today intending to try with the thrust direct.
“Three of Semion’s captains have managed in a formidably short time to break and scatter my Navy almost as successfully as Dol’jhar’s fleet,” he said. “How doesn’t matter. I am trying to figure out why.”
‘My Navy’. “You have your laws and regulations,” she said. “If your people disobey them, you punish the disobedient.”
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