The Phoenix in Flight

by Sherwood Smith

  But not any longer, he thought, and shook off the mood as the POV seemed to dive toward the planet, ending at another stock shot of the Palace Minor on Arthelion, the residence of the Panarch.

  Hreem wedged a handful of fruit into his mouth, and wiped the juice off his hand onto the front of his tunic as he settled back for the show.

  The room was long and windowless, with a high ceiling, and walls paneled in a richly grained wood with faded battle flags and heraldic blazons hanging on them. The imager that had recorded the scene was evidently at one end of the room. Hreem could look down the length of the table at the high-backed chair that stood empty at the other end. Seated on either side of the table were eight men and women, dressed in a variety of styles whose only shared element was elegance, conversing amongst themselves in low tones. In front of each sat a stack of papers, a compad, a glass, and a carafe.

  Pili’s lips twisted sourly. “That’s the old Concordium on Lao Tse. I toured it as a schoolboy.”

  Dyasil glared at him.

  So they’re not on Arthelion, thought Hreem. Trust Dyasil to chatz it up.

  Hreem singled out two of the Privy Councilors: one a very tall, gaunt woman dressed in severe black, the other a shorter, bulky man in a Naval uniform. They were leaning over a document, their heads almost touching, the woman tapping the paper forcefully with one long finger.

  Hreem frowned, and Norio placed his hands on the Rifter captain’s shoulders. There on the screen were the two of the most dangerous people in the Thousand Suns, as far as he was concerned: Nahomi il-Ngari, head of the Invisible Services Bureau, and Padraic Carr, High Admiral of the Fleet. Nicknamed “The Spider,” il-Ngari’s webs of information were everywhere, and if you touched them, death often followed, frequently delivered by one of Carr’s deadly predators.

  Almost as one, everyone at the table stood and turned as the door at the other end of the room opened. A white-haired man entered, moving with the neat, graceful control of the high Douloi. Hreem’s hatred surged as the man walked toward the imager, a large brown and black dog trotting alongside.

  The man paused behind the empty chair. His face was familiar—of the lineage Hreem saw almost every time another looted sunburst passed through his hands, minted in bold relief on gold, silver, and platinum or staring from the surface of a dyplast note: Gelasaar hai-Arkad, Panarch of the Thousand Suns, forty-seventh in succession to the Emerald Throne of Jaspar I.

  Norio squeezed his shoulders and whispered, “Woof.”

  Hreem chuckled, remembering Rathbone, the former captain of the Lith, who’d called Norio Hreem’s “Arkad dog” just before he died in one of Hreem’s early entertainments. Norio had merely smiled and replied, “Yes, but my teeth are sharper.” He was right, for it wasn’t the body but the soul they flayed as the tempath teased out and exposed his victim’s deepest fears for Hreem to play with.

  The Panarch surveyed his assembled council as they sat back down. The silence was heavy enough to be felt on the bridge of the Lith. His was a hard, commanding face, with the saving grace of a smile in the wrinkles around his blue eyes.

  He was not smiling now.

  When he spoke, his voice was unexpectedly light, almost melodious, but shadowed by fatigue.

  “I apologize for the new and rather drafty venue on the last day of our meeting, but we have a consultant coming in to help us with one of the two bits of business we deferred until now.” He smiled wearily and gestured to one of the men at the table. “It’s a connection of your cousin, Teodric, and I fear the informality of our usual arrangements would shock his Gessinav traditionalism.”

  A fine-featured, slender man smiled back at him, easing the tension.

  Hreem felt Norio’s breath on his ear as the tempath whispered, “I suspect that whatever has been arranged is going to shock somebody else a lot more.”

  Hreem chuckled with anticipatory joy.

  “But before we get to that,” the Panarch continued, “perhaps Nahomi and Padraic will speak on the first topic for today.” He seated himself as the woman in black rose to her feet. Hreem could no longer see the dog, but the Panarch dropped one of his hands to the side of his chair, and his shoulder moved slightly, rhythmically, as he listened. Norio began kneading Hreem’s shoulders.

  “We have no conclusions to report, only questions,” she began. “Two in particular. First, over the past two years or so, we’ve lost track, one by one, of most of the armed Rifter ships or squadrons that are entirely outside the law, like Neyvla-Khan and the Resurrection Traders, and many of those whose Phoenix Writ is in litigation, like Charterly and Eichelly.”

  Hreem grinned. He’d torn up Rathbone’s Writ, which had given the old man the legal basis for the Flower of Lith as an agent of the Panarchy, right after taking the ship away from him. Lots more profit in jacking glitterships and other prizes inside the Thousand Suns than in picking off Shiidra and other raiders, escorting merchants, and similar operations out-octant where human settlements grew thin.

  “If it were just one or two ships or squadrons,” il-Ngari was saying,” that might be normal attrition, but even then we’d expect news. It’s as if they just vanished. And many of them—Hreem the Faithless and Arvann Templar are good examples—are running too lean an operation to stay covert as long as they have.”

  Norio’s hands paused briefly in their ministrations. Hreem grunted unhappily, noting quick glances from some of the crew. The sequestration after the Lith was fitted with the Urian tech had been too long to begin with. Thanks to Barrodagh, they’d been forced to wait even longer in the Charvann system’s Oort Cloud—on the watch constantly for one of Hreem’s deadliest enemies, whose main base was rumored to be somewhere in this system—while others who had joined Dol’jhar’s war were growing rich, and the crew had become increasingly restive.

  “. . . and there are far too many missing now—you have my summary in hardcopy.” The Spider touched her compad. “There’s more in your DataNet pools. Padraic and I have had our best people working on it, and all we have is rumors.”

  “Rumors?” a man with a dark, seamed face interjected. He pulled his compad toward himself and began tapping at it.

  “Rumors.” Carr’s voice rumbled with disgust. “The usual idiocy. The coming Rifter Domination that we hear about every generation. The return of the Ur.”

  “And strong hints of Dol’jharian involvement,” said il-Ngari.

  Hreem laughed. “Hints. I’ll give you a hint, right up your buju.” He slapped the now-inactive fire-control tab on his pod and thrust his groin at the screen.

  The crew whooped and cackled; the mood on the bridge lightened.

  On screen the Privy Council had broken up into puzzled discussions, while the Panarch watched, his face impassive. Only fragments of the animated conversations came across: Shiidra... Gehenna...madness... executed after the Trucial Murders...

  Hreem laughed again. These were the people behind the ships that sought the destruction of the Flower of Lith and the death or exile of everyone on board. A glow of delight and confidence pervaded him as confusion confounded his enemies. The delight was shared by the crew, who laughed and made comments.

  Their delight surely mirrored that felt on every Rifter ship with a hyperwave, sparking a sobering thought: Eusabian had to know they were watching.

  Norio leaned in and whispered, “Dol’jhar is stroking us, just as the Panarch is stroking that dog.”

  Hreem’s mood soured, then he shrugged. So what? He turned back to the screen as the man with the dark face hefted his compad. “Nahomi, there’s something odd about these reports. Unless I’m misreading the source data you’ve linked, some of the correlations are outside each other’s light cones.”

  The Spider frowned. “That’s the second question. It’s obvious that someone’s been tampering with the DataNet.”

  “Either that,” replied the man with a wry grin, “or they’ve discovered a means of FTL transmissions.”

  The tiny woman acr
oss the table from il-Ngari laughed. “That’s right up there with the Rifter Domination and the return of the Ur.”

  There was a murmur of laughing agreement from the rest of the Privy Council, which caused a chorus of gloats and insults from Hreem’s crew.

  Dyasil gestured at the Urian communicator. “Nicks got it wrong three ways! Ur came back, sort of, we got FTL comms, and there’s Rifter domination goin’ on like they never dreamed.”

  The crew gave that the whoop it deserved, but Hreem leaned forward. There was more information in this vid than needed for Eusabian’s propaganda. Could this be a rogue vid? That had interesting implications for Barrodagh’s control of the situation. Maybe he could find a way to use it for leverage in the Malachronte situation.

  On the screen, the Panarch made one of those Douloi hand gestures at the dark-faced man. “Trust a Centripetal Gnostor to spot that, Mortan. This DataNet tampering ties in to our second topic for today, and our consultant, who was kindly seconded to us by the Praecentor of the Alannat Anachronics Hub when the tampering came to light in a different context.”

  He flexed his wrist and Hreem caught the glint of a boswell. A few moments later a man walked into view: short, pudgy, and balding. He was dressed in what Hreem guessed were his best clothes, but they looked shabby compared to the subdued elegance of the Douloi around him.

  “One of their tame Polloi,” said Pili at Fire Control, his voice harsh. Like many Rifters who’d started out as citizens of the Panarchy, he scorned what he’d once been.

  “Welcome, genz Oldrich,” said the Panarch as the man approached the head of the table.

  Oldrich bowed deeply, his face flushed as if with embarrassment. Hreem heard a faint rhythmic thumping; the Panarch glanced down next to his chair, smiling faintly. The dog?

  “Teodric,” said the Panarch. “Perhaps you would honor us with a summation of what Infonetics has been working on as a preface to genz Oldrich’s presentation?”

  “Something odd is going on with the PanStellar Bourse,” the slender Douloi began. “What has come to light, prompted by Nahomi’s inquiries on her own line of investigation, appears to be part of a series of small transactions going back many years that, like the communications Nahomi speaks of, seem to correlate events outside each other’s light cones. Since this is impossible, it’s apparent that someone has tampered with the records, but we have not yet discovered who or why.”

  “I thought you were happy at Infonetics,” said the dark man, looking up from his compad. “You angling to join the Centripetals? Good job of putting all that together.”

  Teodric bowed in his seat, smiling.

  Norio leaned over to whisper into Hreem’s ear. “There are only thirteen Centripetal Gnostors in the whole Panarchy. It’s the smallest of the Colleges, and the most dangerous. They see connections even the Spider misses.”

  Hreem shrugged. He still couldn’t figure out where this was going. “Dyasil, why’d you leave all this blunge in?” he said. “If someone sold me a wiredream like this I’d cut his balls off.”

  Dyasil turned around, obviously flustered. “The good stuff’s comin’, Cap’n—there’s a cut coming up. But nobody’s ever seen a real Privy Council meeting before, not ever. And me’n Erbee’ve been tryin’ to figure out how to use our hyperwave to play the Bourse, so I thought you’d like to know where Barrodagh got all the money he’s been throwin’ around.”

  Understanding crashed in on Hreem. Dol’jhar had been dirt poor since the Panarchy smashed their little empire twenty years back. They still had a few planets, but the Rifters who raided them didn’t get much, and he’d heard reliably that Dol’jhar itself was a hellhole. He’d never thought about where the money for Eusabian’s revenge was coming from.

  Then anger surged in him. Was Dyasil trying to show him up in front of the crew? He glared around the bridge, noticing that there were several off-duty crew come to be in on the viewing.

  Norio whispered in his ear again. “He’s honestly puzzled. I’m sure he thought you’d see it right away. But nobody else here did except Erbee.”

  “I got it, I got it.” Hreem flicked his hand at the rest of the crew. “But there’s no use letting it go on for the rest of these chatzers, who just want to see some action.”

  Hoots of agreement rose, and Metije, Alluwan’s second, smacked the bulkhead with her fist. “Get to the blood!”

  Norio sighed happily. Hreem knew he was enjoying the play of emotions on the bridge.

  Feeling generous, Hreem said, “Good job, Dyasil, but bump it forward.”

  Dyasil shrugged and tapped his console. The viewscreen blurred, then cleared. The little balding man was answering questions from the Privy Council. The Douloi weren’t pressing the man, but his face was redder than ever, and he was sweating; a drop of liquid dropped off his face onto one of his hands.

  At that moment the Panarch pulled his compad toward himself. Oldrich fell silent, and the Douloi around the table looked at the Panarch, except for Nahomi and Carr, also studying their compads.

  The two got to their feet, the Spider flushed with anger. They spoke simultaneously.

  “Jerrode Eusabian!” Nahomi said viciously.

  “Let me take a fleet back there and finish the job!” shouted Carr.

  The Panarch looked up, his anguish clear. “Nahomi,” he said, his voice rough. “Please.” He gestured at the rest of the Douloi, whose confusion was apparent. “Share this with them.” He settled back in his chair, staring at the compad, both his hands now on the table. Hreem heard a faint whine; the dog again, he guessed.

  The Spider tapped her compad and then spoke slowly. “The Aegios of the Qoholeth Anachronics Hub—a self-confessed traitor come to his senses—has informed us that Eusabian arranged the assassination of all three of His Majesty’s sons: Brandon at his Enkainion, the other two at the same time.”

  Her voice slowed even more. “The turncoat dispatched warnings to Arthelion, Narbon, and Talgarth as well as to here, but...” Her voice dwindled away.

  One of the Douloi looked up from her compad. “The spacetime graph doesn’t look good,” she said. “The Enkainion was today. If the plot proceeded as planned...” She too did not go on.

  “The fool,” the Panarch murmured. They would not have heard him if the room hadn’t gone completely silent, everyone intent on their compads. “Is he truly that blind?” He lifted his face. “We will not know for some time.”

  The Panarch then rose to his feet. Hreem could see him collecting himself, and despite his hatred for the man and everything he represented, he could not help being impressed by the Panarch’s control.

  “Obviously,” said the Panarch, “this is not our last day.”

  Oldrich stepped forward, and the Panarch turned his way, his brows lifted in question.

  “But it is,” said the little man. He inhaled deeply, then hissed like a snake, turning his head from side to side, his face purple with effort.

  The Panarch fell forward onto the table as though boneless, followed moments later by his councilors.

  “A numathanat!” Hreem exclaimed. He shot a glance at Metije standing beside Alluwan at the Damage Control console. The deathsnake tattoo on her neck, symbol of the outlawed Ultschen cult whose priests could project poison with their breath, stood out starkly against the sudden pallor of her flesh as she stared back at him, wide-eyed.

  Norio inhaled sharply, and Hreem felt his hands on his shoulders shiver. “Oh, Jala,” he whispered. “She is so frightened.”

  Hreem tore his gaze away as snarling erupted from the screen. Metije was no numathanat. Norio would have found that out.

  In the vid, the numathanat was screaming now, desperately backing away from the table and beating at the dog hanging from his arm with his other fist. The animal ignored his blows and refixed its jaws on his arm with a lightning movement, jerking its head from side to side. Hreem could hear the bones snap, see blood spurting. Then the little man mastered his panic and breathed out violen
tly, leaning toward the dog. It stopped moving abruptly, but did not release its grip.

  The numathanat knelt and pried the dog’s jaws open with his other hand, gasping with pain. Blood ran freely down his ruined arm onto the floor as he fumbled out a pocketcomm with his other hand and spoke urgently into it, his voice thready with shock. The scene faded out...

  The white-mottled blue-green curve of a planet loomed vast on the screen. A caption rolled up over it—Abilard—as the dragonfly shape of a destroyer slowly passed under the camera’s vantage point, its radiants flaring as it accelerated away. The angle of view accentuated the long missile tube projecting forward from the angular main hull. Emblazoned on its superstructure was the figure of a cross on a grave, with a strange-looking hat—narrow-brimmed with a rounded top—smashed down on the cross, so that the upright broke through the crown of the hat. This symbol was surrounded by an inverted five-pointed star.

  “The Samedi,” said someone. “That’s Emmet Fasthand’s ship.”

  Around the destroyer could be seen smaller, more aerodynamic vessels, falling away toward the planet’s surface at tremendous speed. Then the lights of a vast city at night were framed in the viewscreen, seen from a great height, the rumble of a ship’s engines and the screech of high-velocity atmospheric flight forming a loud accompaniment.

  The lights twinkled peacefully below. Without warning, from just below the edge of the picture, the garishly green lances of a cluster strike of laser-boosted missiles arrowed out. Their screaming roar could be clearly heard. As the green beams winked out, a series of actinic blue-white domes bloomed in a crooked path across the center of the city, lighting up vast sections of it—and the city lights went out.

  “Bad luck for Abilard.” Pili leaned back in his console, grinning at the screen in front of him which repeated the image above his head. “Emmet hated them after they caught him with his pants down in that raid in ’58—made him the laughingstock of the Rift Sodality.”