Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy)

by Wren, M. K.

  Isaks was frowning, still puzzled. “Was that what—” Then, perhaps thinking he was overstepping himself, “I—well, naturally, I asked her what was wrong. I mean, we’ve been working together for four years. All she said was something about . . . voices. It didn’t make much sense.”

  Ussher frowned. “Voices? Oh, dear, perhaps it’s worse than I thought. Unfortunate. Really unfortunate. Well, that’s not why I asked to see you. Ferra Regon’s departure leaves a void, of course, and I was hoping you’d be willing to fill it.”

  Isaks flushed with pleasure. “I’d be honored to try, and perhaps—well, I hope I’ll be able to handle the pressure. Maybe it comes easier for Second Gens.”

  “Yes, I think it does. You’re born to the dream. In that, you’re very lucky. Of course, I’m not a Second Gen, but I know what the dream means to young people like you. In a sense, I was born to it, too.” He smiled enigmatically, then looked at his watch. “Alan, you’ll need some time to finish up any work you have pending. Perhaps by tomorrow morning you’ll be ready to go at your new job full rev.”

  Isaks pulled his shoulders back and came very near to saluting. Ussher smiled privately at that.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Very good. Thank you, Alan.”

  Ussher waited for the click of the doorscreens, then squeezed his eyes shut, fists pressed to his temples. His head was pounding.

  Damn them! Damn them all!

  But he’d pulled out of this one. It looked bad for a while, but Isaks would pass the word. Caren Regon would come out of this looking like a hysterical neurotic, and no one would take anything she said seriously. Voices, indeed.

  Voices. The aching in his head intensified. Think on that, my Lord Peladeen. . . .

  Ransom considered that amusing; Ransom looking down his long, high-born nose, curling his Elite lip in contempt—

  He wouldn’t laugh at the Lord Peladeen in the end!

  The microspeaker. It must be found. Now. Before it activated again, before that voice—

  Ussher jerked out his pocketcom and set the ’com seq with shaking fingers. Three buzzes. Where the hell was Hendrick?

  “Hello?”

  “Rob, get up to my office!”

  A brief hesitation. “Predis, what’s—”

  “Damn it, get up here—now!”

  “All right, I’m on my way.”

  Ussher snapped the ’com shut, then pressed his hands to his aching head.

  They’d pay. They’d all pay.

  PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:

  SOCIOTHEOLOGY (HS/STh)

  SUBFILE: LAMB. RICHARD: PERSONAL NOTES

  6 MARCH 3252

  DOC LOC #819/19208-1812-1614-633252

  I have before me a copy of what is purported to be the last imagraph taken of Lionar Mankeen. It shows him standing alone on a balcony at his Ruskasian Estate; in the background are the foreboding ramparts of the Ural Mountains. There is nothing in the imagraph suggesting the ruin of the city that had borne the House name, nothing of the ruin of the vaunted League military machine, nothing of the ruin of cities shattered and abandoned on the planets and satellites of two stellar systems.

  The ruin is only in his eyes, and the face caught in this imagraph in a moment when he no doubt thought himself alone, only aware of the person—and his or her identity is unknown—who took the imagraph in time to turn to see the lens, that face is one that forever haunts the memory.

  He was fifty-five at the time. A handsome man by any standard, tall and graceful, his long red hair a beacon of confidence. He wore the uniform of the League military command, and even in this private moment the high collar is closed, not a snap or seam out of place.

  But in his eyes everything is out of place. The ruin is there, the bewilderment, regret, resentment, despair—the whole spectrum of defeat.

  Lionar Mankeen from this balcony at the feet of some of Terra’s most ancient mountains looks back at sixteen years, the prime years of his life, of civil war. In those years he has seen war reduce a stellar civilization to savage vestiges of its former grandeur, seen it retreat, step by bloody step, to the mother planet, seen it sink to the edge of a dark age, seen even the tactics of war sink to a nearly medieval level.

  He has seen nearly half the Lords who signed the League Charter with him killed, their Estates confiscated or destroyed, seen half the surviving League Lords turn against him and crawl—in one case, Lord Modo, literally—to the Concord begging clemency. He has seen his wife and two of his sons leave him to seek sanctuary of her House, Lesellen, a Concord House. He has survived an attempt on his life by his son-in-law, Aldred Berstine. He has seen Mankeen Bonds, in irrational terror, attack the Estate garrison and strip the city of its defenses just before the final Concord assault. And that must have been the cruelest blow; the emancipation of Bonds was one of the primary objectives of his rebellion. And he has seen the Confederation transmuted into an institution even more rigid and tyrannous under the goad of his struggle to make it more flexible and humane. He has seen his attempts to make the world into which he was born a better place only succeed in making the world he was about to leave a broken ruin occupied by death and terror.

  He was a proud, even an arrogant, man, and in view of the terrible legacy he left—almost a billion lives destroyed and a civilization very nearly so, and the heritage of fear that congealed the doctrines of the Confederation into the dogmas of the Concord—it’s hard to forgive him, even knowing his intent was diametrically opposed to the results. He wanted, in the words of the League Charter, “to force the Confederation to recognize the rights of individuals to determine their own destinies.” His fatal fallacy is in the words, “to force.” That was his arrogance speaking.

  Yet, looking into his face in this imagraph, into those eyes shadowed with monumental defeat, I can’t hold any of it against him, against the man. I can only pity him.

  It was probably only a few hours after this imagraph was taken that Mankeen with his daughter, Irena, his second son, Leo—the only one of his three sons who stayed with him to the last—and three other League Lords and some of their families, as well as the First Commander of the League’s armed forces, Scott Cormoroi, lifted off in one of the last vessels of the League fleet still intact. They were tracked by Confleet ships, and it was reported that their trajectory took them directly into the Sun. An epic self-immolation, and fitting for a man who once described himself as a modem Saint Ichrus.

  There was a rumored epilogue, a story that was widely believed by his remaining partisans—those who survived the Mankeen Purge. It can be found now only in a few obscure contemporary histories. The story is that Mankeen and his handful of loyal followers struck out toward the Sun only to deceive their Confleet pursuers, that in fact the ship accelerated into SynchShift just within the orbit of Mercury, bound ultimately for Sirius A or another of the nearer stars in the hope of finding a planet suitable for human habitation where they might live, and where their heirs would create the new order Mankeen had envisioned.

  A pretty story, but it ignores the fact that stellar expeditions had discovered no such viable Eden orbiting any star within thirteen light years, and the fact that the MAM-An generators in Mankeen’s ship weren’t sufficiently powerful to take him more than a light year beyond Centauri.

  And, looking into the eyes of the face in this imagraph. I can’t believe Lionar Mankeen’s intended destination was anywhere but the heart of the Sun.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Avril 3258

  1.

  Alex stared at the black hull of the Falcon and the triangle-came motif above the port vanes with the name Phoenix One. It had amused him to name his three-ship fleet and emblazon the Phoenix symbol on them. It had amused him three weeks ago, but nothing amused him now.

  “Dr. Lind, Ben can trans most of the compon
ents from Fina. The standard components I’ll have to get from Amik. Again. Is it feasible?”

  The MT tech shrugged. “There’s no reason it wouldn’t be, but it’ll crowd things a bit on a Falcon.”

  “Look it over and see what your space requirements will be. Tear out whatever you have to. You should have Commander Blayn and some of the crews to help with the work. I’ll send him down.” He turned to the sloping ramp that led to the comcenter. “Ben said he could start transing the components whenever you’re ready for them.”

  Lind frowned slightly, wondering at the commander’s tense mood. But it wasn’t surprising; there was still no news about Dr. Riis, and he’d been in SSB hands nearly five months.

  “We can start degutting this thing today, Commander. Tell them to go ahead with the shipment.”

  Alex nodded and began climbing the ramp; it felt like a mountain. It was hard to concentrate on the smallest task, yet all day he’d been desperately grasping at small tasks, at anything to keep his mind occupied. When he emerged into the comcenter, he stopped, frowning. Most of the staff was gathered at the PubliCom screen, watching in apparent fascination.

  Didn’t they have anything better to do than stand around watching that damned screen?

  But his resentment didn’t take verbal form. It died as suddenly as it was born. What else did they have to do that was so important? Wait for news of Andreas?

  Operating the COS HQ didn’t take up their every waking moment now that the installations were complete. There was work enough: full-time monitoring of the perimeter; monitoring of all vidicom and microwave frequencies, PubliCom, Comfleet, Conpol, SSB, and Phoenix bands. There was also a certain amount of maintenance work and the mundane problem of tending the personal needs of thirty-four people. There were incompleted projects, such as the MT for the One, and an improved VF camouflage screen over the surface access. There were lines of investigation to pursue on Andreas, and there was the physics lab, although Lyden and Bruce seldom required assistance except occasionally from the comptechs. There was work enough to stave off restlessness and boredom—and hopelessness—but not so much that he could reasonably ask them to give up this brief diversion.

  That’s all it was to most of them: a diversion.

  The wedding of Lord Karlis Badir Selasis and Lady Adrien Camine Eliseer.

  He could hear the tinny, blurred voices, the hollow chord of the orchestral organ in the cathedron of Helen, the cheering of the crowds. He remembered the crowds that gathered in the Plaza in Concordia for Concord Day. He had always wondered why they cheered.

  But they were cheering now in Helen. Half the Houses in the Court of Lords were represented, and Helen was proudly, ecstatically overwhelmed with the influx. The high-pitched voice of the female newscaster rasped over the cheers and music, the jubilant Talmach Recessional.

  “. . . the couple will be emerging from the cathedron—oh yes, there they are! The Lord Karlis . . .” The words faded in and out under the onslaught of background sound. “. . . the Lady Galia, wearing a pink satinet gown with brocaded . . . Lord Loren is shaking the groom’s hand now . . . certainly agree that Lady Adrien is the most exquisite bride ever seen . . . gown is made of true Sinasian silk, a gift from her grandfather, Lord Sato Shang . . . embroidered in silver, shiffine panels and veil, koyf brocaded with pearls . . . long sleeves, with a high-waisted bodice, also decorated with pearls . . . .”

  Pearls. She always had an affinity for pearls.

  Alex was startled at the sound of soft laughter from one the women near the vidicom.

  “’Zion, Sinasian silk and pearls. You could run Fina for a month on the price of that little outfit.”

  “At least.” Another voice; he couldn’t see whose. “Looks like a fancy maternity dress.”

  A murmur of laughter in this cavern room melding with the cheering of the crowds; there was something ironic in that. Something bitterly ironic in the fact that he was here in this rock-held cave, and Adrien was only kilometers away in Helen, the bride of Karlis Selasis. The ’caster bubbled on, and he listened only because he couldn’t force himself to move out of reach of that voice.

  “. . . guests for the ceremony. Oh, and there’s Lord Phillip DeKoven Woolf and Lady Olivet. She’s stunning in a gown of pale green velveen with tucking across the bodice . . . necklace of matched aquamarines, a gift from her lord husband on the birth of their son, Justin. . . . Lord Phillip is—uh, striking in a formal suit of black with gold brocade and a sable-trimmed cloak. . . .”

  Alex almost smiled. No one but the Lord Phillip Woolf would wear black to this wedding. Adrien would appreciate the connotations in it.

  “. . . the Lady Selasis seems to have fallen! She’s . . . no, she’s getting into the ’car. The Eliseer House physician is talking with her. Was that—yes, Dr. Lile Perralt . . . switch now to Emly Hargrove in the plaza near the Eliseer ’car. Emily?”

  Another voice, shrill against the louder crowd sounds.

  “Thank you, Jenett. Well, apparently the new Lady Selasis fainted, but she seems recovered now. The ’car is lifting off to lead the procession to the Estate . . . festivities tonight at the ball, including a symphalight concert designed and conducted Master Korim Jasik . . . appearance of the Concordia Cor d’Ballet with . . .”

  “Alex?”

  He frowned. Someone standing beside him. For how long, he didn’t know.

  “Yes, Jael?”

  “Perralt’s sent no word yet?”

  “No. Nothing today, and he had nothing to tell me yesterday.”

  “The show’s past finale. Alex, I’m off line upside now. Anything I can do here?”

  “What? Oh. No, I don’t think so. We’re starting on the MT for the One. I came up to . . . to find Vic Blayn.”

  Jael nodded. “He’s on the comp checking out some tac seqs. You go down to the hangar; I’ll send Vic around.”

  Alex turned to retrace his steps down the ramp, and Jeal watched him until he reached the bottom, wondering what kept his back so ramrod straight.

  But, then, Alex Ransom came up in a hard school.

  2.

  It was an endless gauntlet of faces, of jeweled hands pawing familiarly at her, of grinning mouths offering—again and again—congratulations.

  Congratulations.

  These haughty, self-proud Lords and Ladies knew the Selasids, and only a few didn’t loathe and fear them. Condolences would be more appropriate, and all of them knew it.

  The wide, arched entry was only meters away; beyond that was the columned portico and the broad stairway, decked with heady garlands of roses. At the foot of the stairway, the gleaming Faeton-limos would be waiting. They would also be garlanded with roses. The Lady Galia had chosen roses, the traditional symbol of matrimony, as her decorative theme and imported them by the millions of blooms from Terra.

  The last ceremony, this leavetaking, the last appearance of the nuptial couple with their families. Then the cavalcade of rose-decked ‘cars to the InterPlan port where Lord Orin’s private ship waited for the voyage to Concordia. Adrien choked back her nausea, wondering if the ship would also be filled with roses, wondering, again, how her mother could have chosen roses, if she’d forgotten that morning in the rose garden at the Woolf Estate so many years ago.

  Beyond the portico, beyond the stairway, beyond the ’cars, the other crowd waited; the other crowd that filled the Estate plaza, tens of thousands of grinning, cheering, laughing Bonds sell Fesh. Yet, given a choice, she would face that crowd willingly rather than this pompous, patronizing mob. The Elite. The rulers of the Concord. The aggregate din of their voices, their raspinq laughter, made the very air oppressive.

  “You’re trembling, Adrien.” Karlis, his hand on her arm, guiding her through this tiresome, bitter gauntlet, leaning close to her ear to make that cold observation.

  �
��Don’t be concerned, Karlis. I’m quite recovered now. My lady . . . my lord, thank you.” This in response to yet another inane expression of congratulations.

  The faces and words were blurring, her breath was coming too fast; she was suffocating in meaningless rustlings of words and cacophonous slitherings of silk and satinet, her eyes incapable of focus, recording only a coruscating montage of haloed flashes and shimmers of light.

  Congratulations . . . again and again . . . .

  Lord Orin hovered behind the nuptial pair, a huge, impending shadow. She was intensely aware of him, even though ha was behind her, more aware of him than of Karlis, whose classic, spoiled profile was ever at the edge of her vision, whose mannered responses echoed hers, whose perfume was as cloying as the pervading scent of roses, as repugnant as the feel of his hand on her arm. But Orin Selasis she saw in her mind’s eye, an ominous, chilling presence swathed in furred robes of silent velveen, gliding with that curiously light step, his single eye constantly moving, recording every face and sture.

  There would be nothing but smiles and congratulations for her from this crowd.

  She heard her own voice, as distant and meaningless as those around her, making the expected responses. But she would not smile. Let them blame it on the “illness” that made her faint three times on this wedding day, the illness that was feigned and purposeful, but still too nearly real.