“. . . rely on Lochiel and her lieutenants Bayrut and Messina. They’ve been as steady as Downsider gravity through all this novosti gabble about Rifters,” someone new was saying: Lieutenant Commander Jalal-Alfad. Faseult’s aide.
“They want to be in on the Suneater attack,” Ng commented.
“If they still had access to the high-powered skipmissiles, I’d be tempted to say yes,” Koestler said from the doorway, where he had paused to listen.
“Cameron speaks highly of their performance in combat conditions.” That was Nukiel. When had he come in?
“Oh, Cameron,” someone said on a sigh. “Did what every single one of us wanted to.”
“And paid the price for it,” Koestler said.
Brandon swallowed half his coffee, trying to force his mind to clear. He flexed his wrist to summon Jaim, then remembered with regret that he had given Jaim leave. He needed to talk it through.
Was that it? Something was wrong.
He reached for the silver coffeepot, and caught himself as a wide-eyed steward sprang to pour the liquid for him. Made himself wait, and thanked the young man.
There was nothing wrong with Jaim wanting to celebrate Lokri’s freedom with the rest of the crew. And he knew they were safe, because Faseult had just said so: Omilov and another of his experiments.
The riot . . .
Experiment . . .
What was it Vi’ya said? “There are no regrets behind us, and the future before us is uncharted space. Let us gift one another with the now.”
He realized it was not Jaim he wanted to talk to, it was Vi’ya. Vi’ya—who for the first time had not only initiated their meeting, but had not insisted on neutral ground, but had come within what she regarded as his citadel.
Someone was speaking his name. He looked up into Faseult’s face.
“Your Majesty, they have found Hesthar al-Gessinav,” he said.
o0o
Chatzing Navy Shiidra-scat, Hesthar thought viciously. When this was over she would arrange an accident and vent all their quarters to space.
The thought of Ng and those others bloating their lives out in vacuum made her smile as she emerged from her cramped hiding place and slid into the lift the naval unit had just vacated.
After a long, tense trip, she was very close. She’d shut down her boswell to prevent a locate from being run on her, but that had made it impossible to communicate with Arret. What if the situation had changed?
Only one more stop. She watched the console, smiling when the doors opened onto the verdant greenery and peace of Douloi territory.
Where next? The yacht? Yes. She had coveted Srivashti’s fabulous yacht for years; she’d penetrated its defenses far enough to take it now. She knew that with its weapons and its tremendous engines she had a good chance of getting away.
She stepped out into the flagged pathway. A quick look: no Navy, no security spooks.
And there, waiting with several Douloi, was Arret.
Hesthar frowned when she saw the group. Most of them were familiar, gowned and brocaded for a formal affair. They stood in decorous silence.
Of course, Hesthar thought as they came forward and wordlessly surrounded her. They’d hide her from any patrols on their way to some party or other. Arret’s obedience marked her as abject in Hesthar’s mind. A good tool—really, better than she had counted on. This boded very well for the future.
Silently they ushered her to a transtube nexus. It was Arret herself who programmed it. The pod lurched, grinding slightly.
Hesthar became aware of the people standing at either side, much closer than they ought. Were the seats greasy from overuse? She disliked trespass into her proximate space, but at least they were Douloi, and not filthy, sweaty Polloi or, worse, those Rifters. She remembered the woman who had broken Srivashti’s arm so easily, and the ugly one who then pitched him over the railing.
It might be amusing to dig something up from their past. Someone that strong might be useful.
The pod stopped. The doors opened. Hristo stepped next to her, his arm close to hers but not touching. She could see highlights in his red hair, and smell the pine-tangy personal scent he favored.
“This way,” he said.
Io stood at her other side, handsome in black velvet, courteous and smiling. He, too, did not touch her.
They walked out and Hesthar smiled in triumph when she recognized the lock nearest Srivashti’s ship. Not all these people owed her, or were her clients. Proof again: as the Ultschen taught, power begets power. Wherever they had come from, Arret had found her a protective crowd made up of Douloi. Everything was returning to its proper order, she thought with satisfaction, and began composing an appropriate speech. Not gratitude—that showed weakness. But acknowledgment of their obedience to one of their own kind, and a promise that she would remember this act in her future dealings.
Her thoughts splintered when they rounded a corner and she saw an even larger group waiting. Had the entire guest list of some ball come out to see her safely to the yacht? What a slap at that fool of an Arkad! She suppressed the urge to laugh. In silence they escorted her to the lock’s hatchway. She stepped inside and turned around to make her speech.
But first a young woman came forward: plump, pretty, with soft brown eyes. Rista something or other, some minor Chival. One of Vannis’s friends—a political nothing.
“For my brother,” Rista said, and laid something at Hesthar’s feet.
Hesthar looked down in surprise. A single white rose lay before her shoes, the petals still tightly folded.
Hesthar hid her contempt at the pointless, sentimental custom. One had to be diplomatic, so she bent and picked it up, saying, “A lovely gesture, Rista.”
But Rista had turned away. Another woman came forward, someone Hesthar didn’t know. “For Merryn,” she said. “And Charvann.”
This time Hesthar held out her hand for the rose, but the woman stooped and laid it at her feet.
Then more of them came, still one at a time, but so quickly Hesthar did not have a chance to respond.
“For my mother.”
“For my mate.”
“For Bradford Cloud.”
“For my family.”
Hesthar bent and picked up the flowers. They were not all roses; some were common blossoms, some rare, and a few were not even real plants. Silken orchids, lace petals, and one ancient porcelain lily, with diamonds embedded like dew, all of them white.
She held a huge, fragrant bouquet before she stopped picking them up and began to listen to the subdued voices and look at the somber faces. Sometimes eyes met hers, with straight, soulless stares. Others avoided her gaze.
The Estrasi heir was one of the last. “For Karelais,” he said, compressing his lips for a breath, his mouth white. “For generations of Service families who lived by their oaths: in life and in dying, until death take me or the world end.”
It was then that Hesthar’s heart gave one painful leap and began beating rapidly.
Arret stepped forward, and laid down a tight white rose blossom, barely unfurled. “For my daughter, whose life you held against my cooperation.” She wiped her eyes. “I suppose you had her killed long ago.”
Hesthar glared at her in scorn. If she could sacrifice her own son to prove her grasp of supremacy to Nullity, what would Arret’s puling brat be to her? Nothing.
But then Arret’s meaning sank in. “What is this?” Hesthar demanded. “I demand—”
“For the Mandala,” said the last person, awkward young Geoff Masaud, his silly face almost unrecognizable in its determination as he laid a rose on the pile at her feet.
“This is a ceremony for what?” Any other time Hesthar would have laughed, until a new idea occurred. Her stomach jolted, and she flung away the flowers. “Or do you people assume you constitute a legal body?”
The people had gone back to stand in an orderly, decorous semicircle around her. Hesthar stood with her back to the outer lock, the flowers str
ewn in a moat around her shoes.
Was there a bomb waiting on the shuttle?
Or . . .
What if there was no shuttle outside that lock?
She lunged for the hatchway, half stumbling over the flowers. As she kicked them out of the way, Hristo and another man pushed her back inside. It was the first time anyone had touched her.
Alarm detonated along her nerves, and she began to fight. Hristo and the other man tried to catch her arms—tried to subdue her without harming her. “You soft, worm-stupid fools,” she shrieked.
Several of them crowded up shoulder to shoulder, Rista and NorSothu among them. Women whose lives were ruled by sentiment—who had never faced anything harder than a dance floor, or made any sacrifice more difficult than passing up dessert.
Hesthar slashed out with her diamond-pierced nails and ripped them down Rista’s face. Blood beaded, and ran, but the woman did not flinch as she stood firmly in Hesthar’s way.
Then Besthan nyr-Haesterfaeldt stepped up, her face remote. “You who worship nothing, embrace your god.”
And Io hit the hatch control.
Hesthar fought to keep it from cycling, but the metal circle closed inexorably, the crowd stepping back as the lock engaged. For a long time Hesthar clawed frantically at the door, until her nails were broken and bleeding, then she thought of something, and whirled about, hoping.
The yacht was out there. She could still summon the shuttle. Even if they dared to space her, she knew she could survive for a minute or two.
She yanked up her wrist and activated her boswell.
Flashing red, it wailed shrilly, echoing painfully in her head.
In front of her, the outer lock opened.
A gale of wind blew Hesthar into space, and her god’s empty embrace slowly bloated her body, boiling her lifeblood out of her rupturing lungs while she screamed until the air was gone, and with it sound and light.
FIVE
TELVARNA
“Status check,” Vi’ya said.
The litany of responses echoed from each of the positions around the U-shaped bank of consoles before her, as if none of the crew had ever been away. Only Sedry Thetris at the fire-control console was a visible reminder of how much had changed.
“Lokri,” Vi’ya said, “tell Ares Control we are away from the lock and proceeding.”
“Acknowledged,” Lokri said. Then, “Escort ship away, matching speed.”
“I’ll watch from the engine room,” Marim announced, and skipped out.
On the viewscreen a distant light gleamed, moving on a parallel course.
“Wonder who will get Srivashti’s yacht,” Lokri commented as they passed within a kilometer of its rakish length.
“I’d blow the chatzer up,” Montrose said.
Ivard sat back in silence, his profile reflective. The Kelly were not on the bridge, or the Eya’a. Memory struck Vi’ya. Fi. She had used fi against human beings . . .
And the Eya’a spoke in her mind. Vi’ya amends enraged-ones with fi. Fi causes amendment in Eya’a; we celebrate knowledge of amendment for ones, for Eya’a . . .
Vi’ya was too tired to correct them, too tired even for anger at never being alone in her own mind unless she remembered to erect her inner barrier. She did that now, reflecting that where they were going, it might be good to be able to strike at any moment. Until they could do whatever needed to be done with that Suneater, they would have to guard themselves waking and sleeping.
Bleak memories flooded her exhaustion-stressed mind: the stone buildings and fitful fires of Dol’jhar; the grim-faced people. Equally grim had been the mining planet, though lighter in gravity.
Where they were going was more dangerous than both.
She shut down those thoughts and her hands stayed steady at their task as the Telvarna wound past stationary ships, many battle-scarred.
She could end this war, she reminded herself.
“Grozniy standing by for tractor acceleration,” Lokri reported as they cleared the last of the ships near Ares. Omilov had arranged for the battlecruiser to boost their speed to get them to the radius faster.
“Acknowledged. We’re ready,” she said.
There was no sensation as the gee field seized them and Ares fled sternward, their escort matching pace in the grip of another tractor from the big ship.
‘Three hours and we’re free!” Marim chortled over the engine room com. “For a time there I thought we’d never get out.”
“What are you complaining about?” Montrose snorted. “You still had a few thousand people to cheat.”
“Hah,” Marim grumped. “Got too hot to gamble, last few days. All that yelp about Rifters. And Lochiel made her crew stay on the ship. No liberty.”
“They are on the station now,” Vi’ya said without thinking. She felt a fast glance from Lokri.
Jaim’s voice came over the open com. “If you don’t get that shunt coupled to the plasma feed, then we will not be free in three hours or even three years.”
Vi’ya damped the com on a burst of colorful invective from Marim.
“Can they get the fiveskip up in time?” Lokri asked soberly.
“Should be able to,” Vi’ya said. “I did what I could.” And then, because she couldn’t bear not to, she closed her eyes. She could feel Brandon’s emotional signature, but from a distance that made it feel as if her heart was being pulled out of her chest by hooks.
The Eya’a were delighted to find her returned to their familiar realm. The Kelly, from Ivard’s cabin, added their energy along with a steadying sense of balance.
Let us sort one-patterns, Vi’ya framed the thought. The one who gives fire-stone.
And the Eya’a found Brandon.
“Thank you, Admiral Faseult.” (A flash of gratitude) “Let me know as soon as Felton is found. Send the vids of Gessinav to the Enclave, will you?” (A tendril of awareness, tenderness infused question) “Vi’ya?”
She withdrew so quickly that dizziness nearly overwhelmed her and she had to grab the sides of her pod. She looked up, finding that Ivard had taken over navigation. He glanced back, concern and perplexity obvious. But he said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It will not happen again.”
Ivard shook his head. “I don’t mind, and you’re tired.” He grinned. “And just before I said good-bye, Tate Kaga said I’d better practice scoopin’ behind the menagerie, because I’d find a big one on that Suneater.”
Lokri laughed softly, and Vi’ya welcomed the faint warmth of humor that dispelled her bleak mood, however briefly. She liked the old Prophetae; another time, another place, she would have sought his company, to hear his perspective on the universe.
But here was memory again, not hers: her own eyes closed in peaceful slumber, her hair drifting across Brandon’s chest . . .
Falling into sleep to find the nightmare waiting.
She banished the image of Anaris standing over her, bloodstained knife gripped in one fist, eyes merciless.
The nightmare was hers.
She looked at the chronometer. Never again, she was sure, would three hours seem so long.
o0o
“Thank you for coming, son,” Sebastian Omilov said.
Osri sank into a chair and sighed. “Your summons was so abrupt, I was afraid some of the rioters had come up here.” He waved, indicating the peaceful garden room of the Cloisters. It seemed a million light years removed from the screaming and blood and struggle of the riots.
“I’ve been fine here,” Omilov said, but his pained expression belied the words.
Worry sharpened Osri’s heartbeat. “If you need a medic—”
“My physical state is sufficient, my boy,” Sebastian cut in calmly. “My mental state . . . . What I am asking is for you to help me with a very difficult task.”
Osri fell silent.
His father laced his fingers together, turning them outward as he stared distractedly into space. Finally he said, “Vi’ya and her
crew are on the Telvarna right now, heading for radius. Supposedly they are to perform an experiment for me.”
“Then why aren’t you on the ship?” Osri said. “Or in Jupiter HQ?”
“There’s an escort ship, but I said I wanted them isolated as much as possible from other minds—oh, it doesn’t matter. It is not going to happen. Son, I want you to go with me to the Enclave, to be there when Brandon finds this out.”
Osri sighed. “I will be happy to do whatever you ask, but I don’t know how much help I can be when I simply don’t understand.”
“They won’t be coming back,” Omilov said tightly.
Osri opened his mouth, then shut it as the implications started multiplying through his brain. “No,” he said at last, catching a fact he was sure of. “They can’t. The fiveskip is sealed, the parts locked away.”
“That difficulty has been overcome,” Sebastian said.
Osri shook his head. “How? No—I don’t want to know. There’s going to be real trouble over this. Careers wrecked.”
“Not necessarily. Captain Vi’ya is an exceedingly resourceful individual. Apparently she had been planning an escape anyway, in case today’s trial did not see Kendrian released. She obtained most of her facts by inserting a worm into military dataspace. No one can be blamed for that.”
Omilov stood up slowly and moved to the fountain, staring down at the fish flashing bright among the reeds. “Marim is probably the one who located the parts—at any rate, Eloatri is the one most compromised. She obtained permission for Vi’ya to sleep on the ship and then arranged for the fiveskip inspections to cease. But it is to a purpose. She says that Vi’ya and her crew must get to the Suneater.”
“The Suneater!” Osri exclaimed.
“I don’t know her reasons. It’s enough to know that they fall in with mine. I do not think Ng and Koestler are going to make any effort to preserve that station. If Vi’ya, with the help of the others she is mentally linked with, can start it up and seize control, then there might not be a need to destroy it.”
“What a risk! Under the Dol’jharians’ noses—or more correctly, under their jacs? What did you promise her to get her to do that?’
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