The Phoenix in Flight

by Sherwood Smith

  “She insisted on coming. Said she’s well. And I like having our best scantech with us.” Vi’ya pressed her fingertips to her forehead, then dropped her hands. “But the Eya’a are so loud in my head because of that sphere the Schoolboy brought, I can’t hear if she’s lying or not.”

  Marim said. “I smelled heavy burn when Greywing came to get Ivard. When you put out the word for Telvarna crew.”

  Vi’ya’s black eyes widened. “Burn?”

  “Bad. I bet she’s wrapped herself with synth-skin and swallowed half the med cabinet, because I don’t smell it now, but she’s hurting.” Marim tapped her skull. “I’m surprised you heard nothing.”

  “It would be the meds, damping her emotions.” Vi’ya nodded slowly. “So this is why she wouldn’t face me. I thought she was just watching over Ivard’s first status check and liftoff.”

  “That, too.”

  Vi’ya’s eyes narrowed, then she lifted her chin. “Montrose will know what to do. He’s as good a surgeon as sho-Nguyen with burns and repairs. I’ll send her to him when I see her next. Where are the nicks?”

  “Schoolboy’s gone off to the rack. The Arkad is pouring drink down his gullet so fast I think he’s gonna guzzle us dry by the time we reach Nick World. Though Lokri loaded us up with enough liquor to start a bar.”

  “He did, eh?” Vi’ya’s brows slanted at a wicked angle. But as had become her habit, her expression smoothed right back to stone. “Take the con for a while, will you? I need to see to the Eya’a. I haven’t heard them like this since Augeus IV.” Vi’ya winced and touched her head again, then went out.

  Marim punched the comm to audio, then sat down at her own console to run through her assigned status checks. Jaim was in engineering, as she expected. Between the two of them they tracked down several more of the low-priority glitches that were a fact of life in a 400-year old ship.

  Marim slapped off her console as Vi’ya reappeared on the bridge.

  “Are they still rasty?” Marim asked. “They’re not going to fry our brains or anything, are they?”

  Vi’ya’s lips twitched. “They have gone into hibernation. Your brains are safe for the moment.”

  Marim snorted. “Did you look in on our nick?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m going to,” Marim said, rubbing her hands as she scooted out the hatch.

  The Arkad hadn’t moved, except to lift those glasses. The fourth, the one with the darkest liquid, was nearly empty. The entire rec room smelled like a portside hellhole. Marim flicked the air scrubber on, and regarded the nick, who sat there, blinking slowly, his dark hair hanging on his forehead, which had purpled all the way across where his helmet had whacked him during that landing. Both sides of his jaw showed helmet hits as well. The fun had gone out of watching him act like a blit.

  “You’ve got a watch in six hours,” she said, edging up to his table. “Maybe it’s time to rack up?”

  “Mumble bluh,” he whispered, turning his head. Or was that vlith?

  He swayed, then caught himself against the table, blinking rapidly.

  “Right.” Marim ran out, and punched the door to hers and Lokri’s cabin. He lounged on his bunk, watching something on a hand vid.

  “The Arkad’s drunk himself vacuumskull,” she said. “Help me get him into his bunk.”

  “No,” Lokri said, without moving.

  “Lokri. I can’t lift him, and he’s numb-lipped, I tell you.”

  “I’m not touching him. Let him sleep there. Be good for him.”

  “Blunge-eater,” she muttered, and skipped down to engineering, where she found Jaim going over the main fiveskip monitor panel with Ivard. The red-haired boy looked up guiltily, like he always did. He gave Marim the shillies.

  “The Arkad is drunk,” she said. “I need help pouring him into his bunk.”

  Jaim shut down his console with a swipe. “Get Lokri—”

  “He won’t. If you can take one side, I can manage the other,” Marim said.

  “I’ll help,” Ivard said.

  Marim was about to tell him to shove off but Jaim swatted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Marim followed along, hoping the Arkad would try to fight them off. But he seemed to be asleep on his feet. They muscled his inert body to the cabin, where Schoolboy muttered in protest. Marim ignored him and flicked on the lights. She turned to Jaim. “Let’s get those clothes off.”

  “Gundan,” Jaim muttered, untabbing the Arkad’s clothes. “Whew!”

  The nick’s only resistance was a vague pawing motion with one hand. Marim watched his head roll back, his hair drifting in his face. Even drunk, he sure was pretty to look at, she thought appreciatively as Ivard held him against the bulkhead and Jaim efficiently stripped him down.

  Marim pulled off the counterpane, then cast it over the Arkad after Jaim laid him face down on the bunk.

  Jaim hit the light switch before shutting it.

  Marim retreated to catch some sleep, but she set her bunk alarm so she was there six hours later when Vi’ya came herself to the nicks’ cabin to roust them out for work.

  The captain rapped twice. The door slid open, and Schoolboy stood there, annoyingly fresh, though he fingered the plain gray tunic that Norton had ordered during the days he’d thought that a uniform of sorts would bind together Sunflame’s crew better. Marim could have told Norton that the only people who would wear uniforms were his old crew.

  From the way the Schoolboy twitched his shoulders and examined his cuffs, he seemed to think sleggishins were breeding inside the fabric.

  The Arkad sat up, blinking.

  “Like our Rifter liquor, Arkad?” Vi’ya asked.

  Marim gloated to herself, enjoying Vi’ya’s null-gee understatement.

  But the Arkad just sat there on his bunk, tangled in the covers and looking totally confused. He also, Marim noted appreciatively, had a very nice body underneath that rainbow display of bruises.

  “Jaim’s waiting.” Vi’ya jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

  From the corridor, Marim listened with stilled breath, wondering how the Arkad would take orders. Would he ignore Vi’ya? Get angry? Or maybe would he try to order Vi’ya around her own ship?

  Marim very much wanted to see him try that.

  But he didn’t do any of those things. He threw off the sheet and got up, without caring that he was stark naked.

  o0o

  “Gennation or not, they make those Arkads very well,” Marim said eight hours later, as Lokri lounged against the drink dispenser in the rec room. “I wonder if he knows it—he certainly didn’t seem to care that Vi’ya was standing right there, and me right behind her.”

  “Blit.” Greywing spoke from behind, as she eased into a seat. Marim goggled at her. The freckle-faced scantech looked drugged to the eyebrows, and why was she here and not in sickbay? Her fever-bright, watery blue gaze lifted to Lokri as she said, “Those high-end nicks are never alone from the moment they are born.”

  Lokri. That couldn’t be it! Was poor Greywing hot for Lokri? No, it was far more likely she was afraid Lokri would do something to Ivard, who had a tendency to follow Lokri around like a pet rat.

  Anyway, Lokri was ignoring Greywing. Marim tried to deflect the redhead’s attention. “Whenever he bathed he probably had twenty people waiting to hand him his clothes.”

  Right then Jaim walked in. “What happens when he wants to bunny?”

  “The servants get thrown out,” Greywing said impatiently.

  “And they all watch on hidden vids,” Lokri added. “Jaim, where did you stash the body?”

  Jaim flashed a grin. “That’s about all he was worth toward the end.”

  “Wouldn’t work?” Marim asked, still hoping for some fun.

  “Oh, he did what he was told.”

  “Chatz! That’s no fun!” Marim exclaimed.

  The others laughed, and Jaim said, “But he was moving slower than that ice extrusion on Dis. Captain took mercy on us
both. Said I could send him back to the rack. We’ll wait until he’s slept himself out, and then put him to work for real.”

  Marim hopped to the monneplat, skidding on the smooth deck plates that Markham had had treated so they looked like a wood floor. “Augh!” She scowled down at the soft slippers on her feet. “I hate these Shiidra-chatzing blunge-wipes!”

  Lokri lounged back, his teeth white against his dark face, and his eyes half-closed. “You want the nicks to see those feet?”

  Marim put her hands on her hips and gazed down at her feet. “So I been gennated. You think they’ll try to fry me?”

  Lokri lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Probably.”

  “They’ll report you soon’s they hit the Mandala.” Jaim sank into his usual corner. If he was missing Reth, it didn’t show, but then he didn’t show much. Unless he was fighting. “Panarchists don’t like genetic alteration.”

  Marim slipped her small, square foot out of its slipper and admired it. She had excellent feet. She closed her long toes nimbly around the slipper opening, and flipped it up toward Lokri’s face, but he nipped it out of the air as she rubbed her fingers over the velvety black microfibers on the sole of her foot. “So let them try to stick to a wall in free-fall, and they’ll mouth a different tag.”

  Lokri waved a hand in an airy, elegant gesture. Uh-oh, Marim thought. When he mocked the nicks with those finicky moves of his, he was rasty for sure. “Vi’ya said to wear those,” Lokri said. “You want to argue, argue with her.” He threw the slipper back at Marim’s face, but she caught it and tipped her head toward the galley. “They’ll see Lucifur. He’s gennated.”

  “He’s not human,” Lokri drawled. “You haven’t noticed?”

  Greywing leaned back in her chair, her good hand clutched protectively over her bad shoulder in its bandages, and breathed a soft laugh. “Anyway they seen Lucifur,” she said. “Damn cat’s decided to adopt the Schoolboy.”

  “What?” Jaim’s already long face lengthened in surprise. “I thought he was going to puke when Luce walked over the cook-console, when I went into the galley mid-shift.”

  “Schoolboy hates cats.” Greywing gave them a crooked grin. “Of course Luce’s gonna pick him as a favorite.” She laughed. “Ignores the Arkad. He tried to call Luce like a dog.”

  Marim crowed with laughter. “Betcha Luce’s gonna try to get into Schoolboy’s bunk with him.” She pictured the tilt-nosed Osri trying unsuccessfully to eject the large, noisy cat from his bunk space.

  “More than anyone else’d want to do,” Lokri murmured, his voice lazy but his light gray eyes venomous under their heavy lids. “Hope Luce sticks to his face. Ought to improve it.”

  “Ah, Montrose already done that,” Jaim said. He got up. “Improved his face, I mean. Shift change, slubbers. Vi’ya’s giving me the Arkad again when he wakens, so I’d better have things set up.”

  Marim laughed. “What are you gonna make him do?”

  Jaim scratched his head, thrusting a thin dark braid behind one ear. “Well, I thought I might have him dismantle, clean, and reassemble the tianqi in the Eya’a cabin while they’re out playing with that silver ball.”

  Marim could appreciate that—they’d had to modify the tianqi for the Eya’a, and even so the machinery had to work extra hard to keep their cabin at minus-ten for when they wanted to hibernate. “But we did that on Rifthaven!” she exclaimed.

  Jaim shrugged. “Never know when it might need doing again.”

  “I can think of plenty for him to do,” Lokri said, unsmiling.

  Jaim waved a hand. “You’ll get your turn.”

  Montrose appeared, and gave Greywing a ferocious scowl. “You!” He pointed a finger the size of a firejac. “Captain says you’re to report to sickbay. Now.”

  Greywing’s already pale skin blanched as she got up.

  “Sleep well,” Jaim said as she passed, and Marim added a cheery wish.

  Greywing paused in the hatch to glance back, but Lokri was busy at the console, punching up a game of Phalanx. “Marim,” he said. “What have you got to wager?”

  Was it Lokri? Marim shook her head. No use in interfering, nobody ever gave you anything but blunge if you did.

  THREE

  ARTHELION

  Barrodagh leaned back in his chair, trying in vain to ignore the incessant, melodious chuckle of some kind of bird outside the window of his office in the Palace Minor. He massaged the bridge of his nose, his sinuses still outraged by the heady atmosphere of Arthelion.

  The irony was as inescapable as it was irksome. He had expected to be more comfortable here, for the Mandalic Archipelago, with its mild weather and warm sun, was far more akin to his native Bori than the austere highlands of the Kingdom of Vengeance that had been his prison for so long. But Arthelion was merely a different kind of prison, in spite of its lack of high-gee corridors to afflict his joints and limit his movements. At times he found himself longing for the simplicity of Hroth D’Ocha.

  Especially now. His compad flashed notice of an incoming real-time com. The irritation flared to anticipatory fury as he tabbed it—and the window came up blank.

  It works just long enough to drive us mad. Long habit drove the back of his elbow into the edge of the table he’d taken as his desk, the familiar nerve-wringing pain dislodging the stupid notion.

  Network access was intermittent, that was all. The computer tech, Ferrasin, whom Barrodagh had plucked from obscurity because he’d done his doctorate work on the history of the Mandalic computer system, had made it clear—or as clear as his stuttering permitted—that it was nearly miraculous that they had any communications at all inside the Palace, apart from the laboriously-wired secure access points in offices and critical security areas. “The whole Palace complex is faradayed: only line-of-sight communications are possible without the House network, and lower-chthon security phages keep surfacing and shutting down the access points we manage to open.” Barrodagh grimaced, remembering the shower of spittle that had accompanied Ferrasin’s attempt at the word “chthon.”

  The compad flashed again. This time the window brought up Almanor’s name, then went blank. Barrodagh poked at his compad again. Nothing. He glared at the secure access point on the wall, cabling snaking from it to the hole in the baseboard. The light was green. Useless. If she’d been in range of a secure access point, he’d already be talking to her.

  It had taken some time to get used to the compads. On Dol’jhar, the Catennach had been limited to a primitive mix of fixed consoles and belt communicators both by Dol’jharian paranoia and the reality of their confinement in low-gee offices and quarters. Not so on Arthelion, where the exigencies of the Occupation placed a premium on adaptability and mobility—at least for high-ranking Catennach. Subordinates were still limited to fixed consoles and beltcomms. But Barrodagh already found it hard to imagine going back to the old ways.

  He got to his feet and grabbed his compad, then lunged for the door, lurching back on his heels just in time. All of them had bruises on their faces from walking into doors that refused to open even though moments before they had swung freely.

  He thrust the door open.

  “Dula—” He started to call for his secretary, and abandoned the half-name, the rage intensifying. He hated the necessity of a secretary, but until he had reliable communications, he had to have one. He’d given Dulathor that promotion from Rifter ship duty to the Avatar’s service, which was the highest any Catennach could achieve, and what does she do? Disappear.

  Some insisted that the conscripts and Bori who had vanished were being murdered by a nascent resistance, but Barrodagh suspected she’d gotten a taste for... for what? Certainly not sex. Nor money—the smallest trace of a monetary trail would lead straight to the mindripper. Anyone who ran would know Barrodagh would not stint to find them. Perhaps it was simply the knowledge that, unlike Dol’jhar, with its crushing gravity and extreme climate, on Arthelion one could just walk away.

  The replacement. Wh
at was his name? Danathar. Ordinarily, Barrodagh would never have promoted such into his personal service—his Uni was not fluent, he argued with Ferrasin and his techs, but most of all he never seemed to be actually there. But Barrodagh’s trusted staff was already stressed with the burden of extra, unexpected duties.

  That was it, the unexpectedness. Barrodagh glared around the outer office. Danathar’s desk was scrupulously tidy, but he himself was absent. Again. The urge to consult his compad to locate Danathar was like an itch he could not scratch.

  Barrodagh pushed through the outer door. Even the intensely-conservative Dol’jharian lords accepted the efficiency of automatic doors, except in their personal quarters. Why did the Panarchists insist on manual ones everywhere? As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a single automatic door in the Palace, unless one counted the little hatches that served the bots and dogs alike.

  Just as he poked his head into the hallway Almanor approached, one hand tapping at her compad, her forehead lined with irritation as she looked up, then past Barrodagh.

  The patter of steps from the opposite direction announced Danathar, who halted, saying breathlessly, “Forgive me, senz-lo Barrodagh. I got lost again.” His gaze flickered as he bowed obsequiously, and Barrodagh thought, He’s lying. But there was no way to prove that—not without assigning yet more overburdened staff to the task. And Danathar knew that.

  “Senz-lo Almanor,” Danathar went on. “We’ve lost contact with the detention area.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Almanor said to Barrodagh.

  She was in charge of the sections where the Panarchists were housed: communications to all those areas were highest priority.

  “Is it—” Barrodagh began, then shook his head. Useless to ask the question of two whose ignorance was as apparent as his own.

  Anything even remotely having to do with those prisoners must be investigated by Barrodagh himself. He started off toward the lift to sublevel one, Almanor beside him.

  “Should I...” began Danathar.

  “Stay there. Monitor the office,” Barrodagh called over his shoulder, and to Almanor, “Do you have your map?”