by S. L. Viehl
“The child is too young.” Xonea’s expression turned to stone. “Thus we will avenge the Jado as the council has ruled.”
No HouseClan on Joren had ever been exterminated before the Jado. The unprecedented slaughter had provoked the Ruling Council to make a horrific decision. If it was ever determined that the Jado had been deliberately butchered, Joren would defend its dead by hunting down every League officer present at the time of the massacre: some forty thousand souls from hundreds of different worlds.
The League had been notified of the council’s decision, and returned one of their own. If Joren ever sought such retribution, the League would consider it as an act of war.
“Other worlds will join Joren.” Squilyp’s voice went lifeless. “Whole systems will be destroyed. Billions will die. Captain, this is not about honor anymore.”
“No, not when saving a single life may cost so many.” Xonea shook his head. “Sometimes when I cannot sleep, I wonder how many millions of future lives ceased to exist when the Jado were exterminated. We will never know.”
“Teulon Jado wanted peace. He died for it.” Squilyp rubbed a hand over his face. “Can the child shield the League?”
Xonea’s voice grew tight. “Children cannot defend, so they cannot shield. It must be a member of House-Clan Jado, of majority age. They all died on the CloudWalk.”
“You are sure.”
“Think you I have not checked a thousand times?” Xonea shouted. Immediately he made a gesture of regret. “Your pardon, Senior Healer. I am warrior-trained, and yet I never thought to face something like this. It makes me feel a coward. It makes me feel trapped.”
“What I ask you now is not a declaration of a threat or an intention, only a hypothetical inquiry,” Squilyp said. “If someone killed Cherijo Torin before she verified what happened to the Jado, what would be the result?”
Xonea cursed. “You cannot ask me—”
“Captain,” Squilyp said very gently. “Please answer my inquiry.”
“That person would be declared ClanKill.” Xonea displayed his claws. “I would hunt that person down, and eviscerate that person before the entire House-Clan.”
“That would put an end of it. There would be no war between Joren and the League.”
“Yes.” The words came reluctantly, but Xonea was clear. “That would put an end to it. I do not wish to divert your path, Senior Healer.”
“Thank you, Captain. I will not give you any reason to do so.” The Omorr turned and hopped away.
NINETEEN
“Raktar of the rebel army,” General Gohliya said as he walked in front of the man chained to the wall of the interrogation room. “I had not thought I would meet you alive. Especially not when I discovered who you were before you disrupted our lives, aroused the Iisleg, and tried to take over our world.”
Teulon watched him through the damp, knotted curtain of hair veiling his eyes and said nothing.
The old man cocked his head. “It was two years ago, but I am certain that I threw you off that platform myself.” He waited for a response before he continued. “Well, slave, you have certainly taken your revenge on your masters. Half my troops are dead; my fleet is virtually crippled. I will yet have my measure, I think. Certainly the Iisleg will be left to starve in the snow.”
A younger man entered the room and spoke in hushed tones to Gohliya, who nodded and sent him back out.
“A pity you did not achieve a complete victory,” the general said. “It would have made you a hero to the League, who despise us for being slavers like their other enemies, the lizards. Still, only one can win in any conflict, and this time, it was not you.”
Teulon knew of two ways he could kill himself while hanging in the chains, but was not sure how quickly the general might try to prevent it. He would attempt it only if they resorted to drugs.
The general sat at the interrogator’s console and toyed with the ornate cuff of his sleeve. At his hand were controls that could inflict ten thousand varieties of pain. “I would give you a soldier’s death if I could, but our ruler has decided differently. You will be displayed during his banquet tonight, while he and his new League friends celebrate the Toskald victory. Then you will spend a very uncomfortable month learning just how our beloved ruler obtains his real pleasures.” Gohliya looked up. “Unless you would like to tell me what your men did with the contents of the armory trenches?”
Teulon thought of the five reserve battalion commanders, each of whom had specific orders. If the Raktar was captured or killed, each would take command of the third phase. Only one of the five had to be successful. The Toskald did not know that the rebel Raktar had stopped being necessary from the moment the trenches were breached.
“Your men will only waste the weapons,” Gohliya said, sitting back in the chair. “Most of them have no idea what a disrupter rifle is, much less how to use one.”
The general lapsed into a longer silence, staring at Teulon, waiting for some sign. As the empty room became a vacuum, Teulon turned his thoughts inward. The Kangal’s promised execution would call on the last of his reserves, but he would embrace the stars with the dignity and silence that his ClanFather had.
“Very well.” Gohliya stood. “We are going down to take over the surface. It will only be a matter of time.” He walked to the door panel.
“I jumped,” Teulon said.
Gohliya glanced back. “What did you say?”
“At the platform, two years ago. You did not throw me off. I jumped.”
The general smiled a little. “Yes. I believe you did. A pity you landed where you did.” He inclined his head and left the room.
“You did not look to see where I landed,” Teulon murmured. “That is the pity.”
Resa did not want to take Sogayi with them to Skjonn, but there was no one else who knew the Toskald city as well as she. She also claimed to know a place to dock and a way into the palace.
“Transport won’t let you dock without authorization,” Hasal had warned them after agreeing to use Sogayi’s knowledge to retrieve the Raktar from Skjonn. “Even if you destroy the ship’s transponder, they’ll scan it for ID. They’ll know it was lost on the planet, and they’ll open fire.”
“I know where to put the ship,” Sogayi insisted. “There is a place the Kangal uses. It is not known to the army.”
“If she’s lying,” Resa murmured later, as she and Jarn walked up the ramp into the cabin of the patrol ship, “we’re all going to die with the Raktar.”
“I don’t trust her any more than you do,” Jarn said as she selected seats close to the helm and sat down. She gathered her dark hair in her hands and began swiftly braiding it. “But if she does not keep her bargain, we have our secondary plan.” She glanced at the pilot, then at Resa. “I checked him twice. He can see well enough.”
“How is it you always know what I think?” Resa asked, turning the palm blade over in her hand.
“We’re both Terran. Too suspicious for our own good.” Jarn secured her braid, covering her head with the soft, shimmering hood of her cloak before shrugging into her harness. “Also, your thoughts show on your face.”
“Yours do not.” Resa clipped her harness into place as the patrol ship’s engines engaged. “It is as if you always wear two masks, Jarn.”
“She will need both today.” Daneeb came out of the lower cargo hold and sat down on the other side of Resa. “I hope this will be brief. The beasts are not happy, especially that silent one.” She looked toward the helm. “No one has yet explained to me why we permit this ensleg to pilot the ship.”
Resa gazed over at Reever again. She could not club him in the head if he did not behave himself this time. “He is the only pilot at camp who has flown the kvinka before now.”
“He is partially battle-blind now, and he crashed the last ship he piloted when he could see perfectly well,” Daneeb pointed out. “Could we have not sent to another camp for someone else?”
Jarn leaned her head back an
d closed her eyes as if exhausted. “Daneeb.”
“Yes?”
“Shut up,” she said in Terran.
Resa smiled at the headwoman’s puzzled look. “She says to fasten your harness.”
When the ship was off the ground, Daneeb left them to sit with the other vral. Jarn remained where she was, as still as a pillar of ice.
“I think I will go and sit in the copilot’s seat,” Resa said, and released her harness. “I may be of assistance to him.”
Jarn nodded without opening her eyes.
Resa was not certain why Jarn had permitted the ensleg to accompany them on the rescue mission. He had come from the hospital as they were deciding which patrol ship to take to Skjonn. Jarn had tried to order him back to his berth, but he had drawn her to the side. No one knew what he said to her, but it was enough to change her mind.
It was not as if he were in the best physical shape, Resa thought, studying his thin, bruised face. He didn’t act as if he was quite right in the head, either. He caught her watching him, and she smiled. “Are you sure you feel well enough to pilot?”
“Yes.”
He was not particularly verbal, either—at least, not with her. He seemed to have a lot to say to Jarn, and Resa wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Well, I did bash him in the skull, the last time we met.
Resa turned and watched as Jarn, Daneeb, and Hasal went through the final preparations with the other vral for the attack.
“No, you must wear it so.” Sogayi bent over to adjust a fold. She looked at another vral. “Too much red, not enough blue. Your brows should be thinner, more arched.”
“Have you ever been to one of the skim cities?” Reever asked Resa, distracting her.
The words were innocent enough, but they made Resa feel suddenly on guard. “No. Well, perhaps. I cannot remember, to be truthful. I suffered a head injury that stole most of my life from me.”
“Do you wish to remember?”
Resa considered that. “Sometimes, yes. It is maddening not to know who I was. But I am not from this world, so there are no answers for me here, and since the war started, it seems more important to live in the day.”
“What if you must choose between who you are, and who you were?” Reever asked.
“I hope I … choose wisely,” was all she could think to say.
The flight to Skjonn took only a few minutes, but Reever stayed well beneath the kvinka layer until the vral had finished their preparations. Then he ordered the cargo secured and the rescue team to strap in.
Resa noticed the Terran had become very pale. “What should I do if you cannot make it through the layer?”
“Say good-bye to the others,” Reever told her. “Quickly.”
The patrol ship jolted as Reever jumped from the temperate zone into the kvinka. The roar of the wind outside filled the ship with an eerie echo, as if it were trying to pry the hull panels apart and get in at them. The view panel was filled with such turbulence that Resa found herself automatically closing her eyes, as if expecting to be struck in the face.
Deeper groans and shudders shook the vessel as Reever maneuvered through the deadly streams of air. Resa saw how he was jumping from place to place, seeking the relatively calm areas and using the more violent currents as conduits to get to them. Behind her, someone was suddenly, abruptly sick.
A final, terrifying jolt made them all jerk in their harnesses, and then the patrol ship was in placid, calm air.
“Skjonn,” Reever said, nodding at the viewer panel.
Once the Kangal had retired to have himself prepared for the victory banquet, and the League’s ambassador retreated to his quarters to rest, General Gohliya invited his counterpart, General Patril Shropana, to his offices in the palace. They dismissed their aides by mutual unspoken agreement and went there together, discussing on the way a few trivial points of interest within the quadrant, and how the military life often made off-duty time a precious commodity.
Inside his private sanctum, Gohliya had his serving drone bring out one of his best bottles of firewine and two servers before he sent it out and secured the door panel.
“Your ambassador is quite impressive,” Gohliya said as he offered Shropana a brimming server of the black red liquid. “Do you have to program him, or does he think up all those polite phrases on his own?”
Shropana was startled into a laugh. “He has had much practice in the art of honorifics and other accoutrements of homage. Fortunate, in this instance. I would have run out of pretty compliments for your Kangal after three minutes.”
“That is why I have Lopaul,” Gohliya admitted. “He thinks up my lip service for me in advance.”
The two men regarded each other for a moment, pleased and guarded.
“How many worlds have had their fate decided in rooms such as these,” Gohliya wondered out loud, “by men such as us?”
Shropana sampled the wine. “Not enough.”
Someone had to make the first foray into the territory of truth, so Gohliya played polite host. “Things have been much better since we captured the rebel leader.”
“I would like a word with this man,” General Shropana said, trying to sound casual. “That is, if he is still alive.”
Gohliya looked over the rim of his server. “Oh, yes, he is. The Kangal reserves the right to inflict the full punishment of the law whenever he desires. He desires this man. No one else is permitted near him, I fear, so I must refuse your request.”
“Indeed. I have the sense our Captain Deyin did not run afoul of your rebels, but of your Kangal.” Shropana shook his head. “You need not comment. We should not have sent him here alone. No, I have the greatest sympathy for you, General. I have gathered the impression that you contend with much here.”
“Motivation, General, is a marvelous thing.” Gohliya set aside his wine and silently produced a scrambling emitter that would prevent their conversation from being overheard by any of the listening devices Orjakis had planted in his offices. He set it out in front of Shropana and activated it. “We will talk about the Terran woman now.”
“She is not a negotiable point.” Anger made Shropana’s eyes small and hot. “Your Kangal promised her to me.”
“Everything is negotiable. He will make promises, our Kangal.” Gohliya smiled. “I believe he made several to Captain Deyin. I would verify this with the recipient, but my guess is that he occupies any number of places in the disposal pits.”
Shropana made a disgusted sound and subsided. “I thought as much. Do you intend to take over as soon as the rebels surrender?”
Gohliya chuckled. “I have already taken over. The Kangal simply doesn’t acknowledge it.”
“A little neuroparalyzer at the banquet tonight, and you can have him in a position to acknowledge anything you wish.”
“The monarchy of the skim cities is hereditary, General,” Gohliya told him. “I am a soldier’s son, as common as an engineer or a sanitation worker. Our people have certain standards in rulers. In truth, I could not take over Skjonn if I had ten armies at my command.”
“Which you could, if I am persuaded to lend them to you,” Shropana said smoothly.
“I do not wish to be the Kangal.” Gohliya removed a transparent crystal from his inner jacket and set it on the console between them. It sparkled like a phantom jewel. “I only wish to control his power base. The most valuable ice on Akkabarr, General.”
Shropana took it into his hands. “Permanently etched?”
Gohliya nodded. “Stored here for centuries. The first exchange of space for crystal began with one world. They gave us the command override codes to control their fleet, etched on indestructible crystal, which we verified. They also agreed to defend Akkabarr should we ever call upon them. In exchange we provided them with safe storage for their ordnance. Once we had proved trustworthy and did not use the crystals to take over their fleet, or sell their weapons, they recommended our services to their allies. Thus, word of our services spread. Our entire
civilization was built on our reputation for safe, secure storage. There is no armory safer than Akkabarr.”
“Or was, until your rebellion.” Shropana reminded him.
“Akkabarr is not a vault so easily defeated. The rebels have no ships, and no experience traversing the kvinka if they did, so they cannot leave the planet.” Gohliya moved his shoulders. “They have done what I could not, however. They took the keys to Akkabarr out of the Kangal’s control.”
“Rebel ice.” Shropana smiled at his own joke. “When you have all of the crystals, will you use them?”
“We already do, to provide the security we crave, by not using them,” Gohliya said. “The rebels don’t know what they are, and even if they have some idea, they can’t use them. I propose to put them back precisely where they were, only with my guard drones in place instead of the Kangal’s. That is where you would come in.”
“You want help getting them back.”
“I don’t know where they are. I will need your men down on the surface with mine to search these rebel encampments.” Gohliya poured more firewine into his server and offered the same to Shropana, who shook his shaggy head. “We have only a short time to find and relocate them. We can supress news of the crystals being taken from the trenches, but not forever. Many of our clients have already made some anxious inquiries.”
“That can be done.” Shropana drained his glass. “In return, of course, you guarantee me the Terran woman.”
“I would like to know more about this woman everyone regards as so valuable.” Gohliya pulled up a data file on his console. “The files Deyin carried were unclassified; they only list the decision to classify her as a nonsentient, and the criminal charges against her. Collaborating with the Hsktskt is the most serious, I presume?”
“She sold me and my fleet to the lizards,” Shropana snapped. “Hundreds of my people were butchered. Some were eaten.”
“Regrettable. I have heard rumors of a bioengineered clone that escaped a Terran laboratory. This clone was female, and allegedly the first true immortal bioconstruct.” Gohliya switched off the viddisplay “Is this the same female?”