“Yes,” the woman said. “I am Kamaney. Admiral Kamaney Foster. And you are my newest… ally?”
“An existing ally. Your former contact with our race was found wanting and slain,” Sediryl said. “He was a man, and too interested in watching his brother burn to manage our interests. So I have replaced him with the one person I know I can trust.”
“It is so hard to find trustworthy subordinates.” Kamaney bared her teeth. “I’ve had to kill so many of mine. Isn’t it annoying?”
“Quite tiresome,” Sediryl agreed, ignoring her frozen horror. “But Baniel failed so spectacularly that it was a pleasure to kill him.”
“How?”
“I beg your pardon?” Sediryl asked. “How did he fail me?”
“How did you kill him?” Kamaney corrected, with a look of such innocent interest that Sediryl’s nausea redoubled.
“Beheading,” Sediryl said, remembering the Queen’s account of Baniel’s actual demise. “With an Alliance holoblade. As a reminder that the tools one uses to betray one’s mistresses do not discriminate between their owners.”
“Oh,” Kamaney breathed. “Beautiful.”
“It had a certain symmetry,” Sediryl said. “But that is in the past. I look forward to great accomplishments, now that he has been… dealt with.”
The Karaka’An nodded, eyes shining. “And what… is that, exactly? That you want to accomplish?”
What indeed. Sediryl found herself speaking before she could think the words through, wondered in fact where they were coming from. “The Alliance calls us its ally, but condescends to us. They could have helped us build an empire of our own, but they are jealous of what we might become did we do so. My Queen and I are tired of their smug self-righteousness. They keep us from claiming our rightful place in our galaxy, and if they won’t help us, we will take what we deserve.” She raised her chin and lowered her lashes, looking at Kamaney through them. “And we wouldn’t mind decorating our new empire’s palaces with their people, either.”
Kamaney laughed. “Oh, that’s good.” Her eyes narrowed. “Of course, there’s something I don’t understand.”
“Go on.”
“If this is your aim, why did your last representative sell us Eldritch slaves?”
Sediryl let her brows lift in an expression of faint surprise. “Why, I know you understand. You are not weak of mind like so many others I’ve met.”
The pirate tilted her head. “I’m not stupid, no. I want to see how smart you are.” She grinned. “No offense, but… you’re… you’re just too good to be true, you see? You’re beautiful and strong and exotic and a woman in charge, like me. I want to believe that you’re as smart as I am, too, but… I have to think I’m asking too much of the universe.”
Sediryl snorted. “Shall I trouble you with our internal politics then?”
The pirate looked startled. “You would? I thought you people never talked about… anything.”
“Another thing I anticipate changing,” Sediryl said, reflecting that it was the first true thing she’d said since walking in this room. “Our predecessors feared discovery because they were weak, confined to a single planet and without the wherewithal to build a fleet of their own. They kept silent, hoping not to be noticed. A strong nation that none dared cross need not be hushed by its betters. Yes?”
“You interest me,” Kamaney said, eyes shining. “Go on. Oh, but… you look cold. May I…?” She stood and rifled through the stack of furs on her chair. She lifted one, a silver-tipped white that had belonged to a Seersa, from the tail.
“Beautiful,” Sediryl heard herself say. “Such a sublime coloring.” She held out her arms. “Please.”
That had been the right thing to say, because the pirate softened abruptly in a way Sediryl associated with the gallantry of unwanted suitors, incongruous in one of the Pelted. Kamaney paced to her, set the fur on her shoulders. The legs and tail of the deceased Seersa went over Sediryl’s left arm; the arms over the right. Kamaney tucked the head, eyeless as the pelt of an Eldritch northern marten but too long, oh, too, too long, next to Sediryl’s neck. The pirate’s hands were tender, but her eyes, when she lifted them to Sediryl’s, were a predator’s.
One heartbeat. One heartbeat to shriek in the privacy of her own head, one heartbeat to indulge in the violent nausea, to wonder how this poor man or woman had died. Then her heart squeezed through its next beat and she became, again, Sediryl the criminal, the embittered. And that woman brushed her cheek against the fur’s mane and made a sound more appropriate to a bedchamber. “So soft,” she murmured. Stretching her arms out in front of her, she said, “And it matches. You have an artist’s eye.”
“You like it?” Kamaney asked, ears trembling.
“I love it,” Sediryl lied, making herself think of anything else. Anything. The apiary at Nuera. Hyera’s mischievous face. Her little home in the middle of Starbase Ana’s cropfields. No, not enough. Her cousins. They called one another pretty sobriquets. She imagined Lisinthir meeting her gaze, willing her to stand firm. She thought of Jahir enfolding her in his arms. Would she live to ask him to do it? She wanted him to, suddenly, and desperately. When she spoke again, it was to that future, her voice husky with yearning. “It’s perfect.”
Kamaney stared at her, lips parted, quivering. Sediryl raised her gaze to the pirate’s and said, more calmly, “So, our internal politics.” She took one of the pelt’s legs and tossed it around her throat so it wrapped around her shoulders fetchingly. “It is a bit of a long story. You may want to sit.”
“Of course.” The pirate backed to her throne. “Yes. Go on.”
Sediryl touched the fur’s tailtip, whispered a thank-you to its departed person for helping her win the pirate’s confidence, and began to talk. Her mind raced as she spun her story; she wanted to sound like a useful ally, but not like a threat. She used Baniel’s treachery mercilessly, re-cast him as Surela’s faithless leader, painted the entire faction of anti-Alliance Eldritch as her enemy by intimating that its members thought they could do Liolesa’s job of building an empire better than her, and there was enough truth in it to convince and so many lies riddling it that she had no idea if it cohered as a story at all.
Perhaps that was what made it convincing, in the end. Because the pirate leaned back, so much, much later that they’d both had refreshments, and said, eyes wide, “I didn’t think it was possible for politics on a single world to be that messy, and I guess… it’s inevitable, isn’t it?”
“We have more than enough people to fight one another,” Sediryl agreed, blotting her lips. She’d managed the meal by pretending not to eat it while forcing herself through it. She couldn’t sustain this masquerade without fuel; despair and mood swings were the last thing she needed. “That is why my predecessor sold Eldritch slaves. And why I wouldn’t be averse to selling you some, to select buyers. People I need to… punish. You understand.”
“Oh yes,” Kamaney said, nodding. “Eldritch fetch astronomical prices too. Even with split profits, you’ll have a nice chunk of cash to finance your aims.”
Sediryl laughed. “You make me long to make new enemies, alet.”
The pirate flashed her a sly grin. “A woman like you makes them just by breathing. Jealousy, you know.”
“So true,” Sediryl agreed with a long-suffering sigh. She rolled her shoulders, drawing Kamaney’s eye to the fur. “I find I tire from the journey. Might I stay? I would like to… confer… with you more closely on how we might be of mutual assistance to one another.”
“Oh, you must.” The pirate’s eyes went flat again. “I’ve had them preparing your quarters since they told me you were coming.”
“Excellent. Might I keep this?” Sediryl petted the tail of her Seersan pelt. “I would hate to rob you of it, but it is so stylish.”
“You like presents?” The pirate pushed herself off her throne to join her. “My last guests didn’t.”
“I love presents,” Sediryl said throatily, lowering
her lashes. “Particularly expensive ones.”
The pirate’s smile was flirtatious, but her tone competitive. “I bet no one can give you presents as expensive as I can.”
“If this is a taste of what you can offer… I wouldn’t doubt it.” Sediryl asked. “Am I allowed to ask for specific gifts?”
“As long as I’m allowed to refuse to give them.”
Sediryl laughed. “The game would be no fun if it was predictable. Don’t you think?”
“Oh,” Kamaney breathed. “I like you. You’re so much better than the guests I’ve had before.”
“And far better than my predecessor,” Sediryl said. “You would have found him dull, I pledge it.” She stood on her ridiculous and over-sexualized shoes, stretching to accentuate the line of her spine and the elongation of her limbs. The pirate’s eyes didn’t make it above Sediryl’s chin, which made it unnecessary to meet them. She’d never been more grateful for someone’s insulting appraisal. “Shall we speak again tomorrow?”
“Definitely,” the pirate said. “I’ve assigned you guards, to keep you safe. You… I wouldn’t want anyone mistaking you for merchandise.”
“That would be… regrettable.” Sediryl glanced at her and added with a smile, voice husky, “For you.”
Kamaney shivered. “Tomorrow. I’ll send for you.”
“Good night, alet,” Sediryl said, and strolled toward the door, letting her hips swing under the train. A little tilt was enough; experience with this dress and Hyera’s peals of laughter had taught her just how much it exaggerated her movements.
Outside, she was met by guards—“her” guards—who didn’t speak, and interestingly, didn’t leer. The one she thought was ogling her breasts was in fact staring at the gun, which reminded Sediryl that she not only had one, but that she still had one. Why had Kamaney not ordered it confiscated?
And why had Sediryl not shot her when she had the chance? She’d never traveled armed in her life, but that seemed a poor excuse for not realizing she could have ended the pirate threat now, with a single squeezed trigger. Troubled, she strode in the wake of her escort, down the hall to a set of rooms. “Yours,” the guard who’d noticed her gun said. “You need anything, step outside and ask us.”
“Thank you,” Sediryl replied, pretending she was in Ontine where that was the only way to get anything.
And then she was alone. Probably under watch. But alone, and besieged on all sides, without even her dog to pet to lower her blood pressure. She walked slowly through the receiving room, the dining room, the bathroom, the bedchamber. Sat at last on the bed, her train ruching around her. Ignored the weight of the pelt on her back, wishing she could think of it as an embrace from a departed spirit, rather than the last evidence of its owner’s screaming demise.
“Arii,” Maia whispered in her ear. “Do you hear me?”
“Maia?” she exclaimed, startled, then covered her mouth.
“It’s all right.” The D-per’s voice seemed to becoming from inside her ear. “I’m controlling the feeds in and out of your room. I can’t materialize, though… they’ll notice that for certain. Takes too much power.”
“You’re here?” Sediryl asked, incredulous. “In the base? How are you talking to m—” She stopped and pressed a hand to her earring.
“They’re both telegems,” Maia confirmed. “No one expects them to come in matched sets, so they don’t make people suspicious quite as quickly.”
“Oh, Maia.” Sediryl covered her face. “Did you see… Maia… oh, Goddess.”
“I know,” Maia said, voice grim. “And I can see the pelt on your back. The woman’s a maniac.”
“She’s going to kill everyone I care about and it won’t mean a thing to her.”
“She’s going to try.” Her D-per’s voice held a touch of a growl. “But you’re going to stop her. And I’m going to help you.”
Sediryl forced herself to sit up and discovered she’d been crying when her hand rose to wipe her face. She paused, then completed the motion deliberately, imagining that she was reassuming her shattered mask. “They took Daize. And they appear to have disabled both ships. Am I correct?”
“Yes. I’d mostly fled over the hitch into their ship before they disabled the Visionary, where I laid low until I had the chance to investigate their systems. Right now I have myself spread thin and I’m using the most conservative probes. A dedicated network security team could find me, but they’d have to be looking.”
“And the Visionary did not have any specialized hardware that might suggest to them that they should be?”
Maia’s snort was soft, felt so close Sediryl expected the hair near her ear to ruffle. “No. If ships needed specialized hardware to host us, we’d be pretty useless. D-pers are distributed over the network so they don’t need anything like that to survive. I’m all right; their network’s robust enough for me to ride it. But… we’re in an untenable position, arii.”
“I didn’t shoot her,” Sediryl said, low. “I should have shot her.”
“And accomplished what?”
“Killed her?” Sediryl said, surprised.
“And then what? You’re surrounded in pirates. Disturbingly disciplined and productive pirates. You behead their leader, and what happens to you?”
“I… nothing good.”
“You end up a slave, or dead. Someone else steps into this Kamaney’s place. We have the exact same problem, minus one person. Even if she is some charismatic super-pirate who’s keeping all these people in check, her death would scatter them. Who’s to say they don’t coalesce into something worse? Or decide to go for the Alliance border during the chaos fomented by the Chatcaava? We’re back where we started. Worse, because we have less information about the existent situation.”
“Are you saying there’s nothing we can do?”
“I’m saying we need more data. You just got here, arii. I’ll see what I can learn from the computers. You see what you can get out of the pirate.” Maia paused. “I wish you didn’t have to interact with her.”
Sediryl remembered the first time she’d turned over the leaf of a crop and found its stalk riddled with crawling pests. “It has to be done. Doesn’t it.”
“It’s why we’re here.”
“Why I chose to come,” she said, remembering. “This was all me. I brought us here, chasing the pirates. I said we knew the Empire, but knew nothing of the pirates. And I said, once we reached this place, that we should stay and see what we could learn.” She breathed in until the corset boning stopped her, and still she ached for air. “This was my idea.” Looking up at the ceiling, she said, “Why didn’t they disarm me?”
“I don’t know. Good question.”
“Is Daize still on the base?”
A long pause. “There are… a lot of slaves. Checking via camera will take too long. Let me see… all right, they’re chipped. Mother of Streams, like animals. I’m seeing Faulfenza—that must be the crew she mentioned? No new entries logged since you arrived, though. They might not have put her in the system yet.”
Was it ridiculous to fixate on saving a single individual when so many needed rescue? “The Chatcaavan Queen is here.”
“Yes, I saw her. If the network gets busy enough, I’ll contact her. Or you could get to her first, depends. I’m still mapping the routine here. But yes, she’s here, and in this secure area which appears reserved for senior personnel.”
“That’s something,” Sediryl murmured.
“She’s not chipped like a slave. But she was logged into those quarters the day a ship came in, bringing slaves that were processed and… there’s a Glaseah there. Male.”
Sediryl’s heart skipped. “Vasiht’h.”
“Is there any way you could acquire him?”
“I could… I could manage something.” Thinking of the pirate’s avarice, she said, “This is not going to be an easy game. Seducing someone sane is predictable. Seducing someone mercurial and abusive is…”
“You don
’t have to,” Maia said, low.
“I need to influence her somehow,” Sediryl said. “She covets me. I would be a fool to throw a lever of that magnitude away. It might be the only way I can control her.”
“Just as long as you know that ‘control’ is a relative term.”
Sediryl rubbed her arms. “I know. There’s no making her do what I want, not for certain. But I have to do something to keep myself in play.” She thought of Lisinthir in the Empire. Had this been the choice he’d faced? Permit himself to be abused by dragons, or accept impotence? “So, my priorities are to discover why I was left armed, liberate Vasiht’h and my Faulfenzair, and contrive a way to be alone with the Chatcaavan Queen. While also finding out what I can about the pirate operation from its insane leader.”
“Sounds like a good schedule for tomorrow. You should block yourself out some time for lunch.”
Sediryl almost laughed. “Is this truly an appropriate moment for humor?”
“This is an extremely appropriate moment for humor. We’re both alive. We’re where we wanted to be. More or less. And for now, the mission is still a go. It’s not the most comfortable situation, but war doesn’t do comfortable.”
“If we survive this, I’ll buy you a drink in some more comfortable situation.”
“If we survive this, I’ll even pretend to drink it.”
Sediryl managed a laugh and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “You know what the worst of it is right now, arii?”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“I am in this ridiculous outfit and I have no one to help me out of it.”
CHAPTER TEN
Tempting as it might have been to live in the Emperor’s pocket, Lisinthir knew better than to attempt to recapture the feverish final days on the throneworld. Through their skins he could sense the Chatcaavan’s attempts to patch together the male who’d worn the most exalted title in the Empire with the slave who’d lived through the harem. It remained a delicate exercise, one that demanded patience and solitude. Had Lisinthir himself not sought rustication for similar purpose more than once? He might have hunted at his mother’s distant lodge to put food on the Galare tables, but it had not been duty that drove him there the first time, nor kept him returning when the larders were full. There were times for confession, and times for retreat. As much as possible, he sought to give his lover that space.
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