Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit

by Owen R. O'Neill

  As unfair as it likely was, ‘Xanthus koi’ had become just another catchphrase used to disparage unconventional therapies ever since. Expert though he was, Dr. King, the head of Mariwen’s medical team, did tend to be conventional in his thinking, and Marc’s assessment of his opinion was probably not much wide of the mark.

  Antoine reached out and tapped the penultimate paragraph of Marc’s summary. “This assessment of the morphological similarities—”

  At that moment, a muted chime announced the arrival of someone on the privileged access list.

  “That would be Barrett,” Marc said without checking the ID, and sure enough, they soon heard the characteristic quickstep advancing from the direction if the south entrance, accompanied by a good-humored cry of greeting.

  “This way,” Marc called back and a moment later a round-faced, cheerfully built, dark-haired man, slightly taller and older than Marc, and a good deal heavier, appeared in the archway. Marc rose, greeted him with a hug and peck on the lips, and gestured at the insulated package Barrett bore in his left hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “We had a surfeit of these at the restaurant, so I decided to bring them home.” Barrett co-owned the restaurant in question with Jorge, his sommelier. He was also the executive chef, so he could do such things. “Andurian scallops and a kilo of genuine English peas. With some heavy cream, Jorge’s special cider, a touch of lavender, and the judicious application of heat, I think we have the elements of an acceptable meal. Oh, yes—topped demurely with a modicum of blond Ossetra caviar. There’s an innocent little Monbazillac that should go nicely.” He shifted his sunny attention to their visitor. “Hello, Antoine. Wonderful to see you. Can you stay for dinner? Not fifty minutes and all is done.”

  “It would be a pleasure, Barrett, but I regret to say I can’t. Early AM meetings at the office.”

  “Oh. Désolé. Hopefully the pleasure will not be too long deferred?”

  “I’ll be more than happy at the next opportunity. Thank you.”

  “You are always more than welcome. Marc, I’ll just put this in the kitchen and cease intruding on your business.”

  “No worries. I’ll be in shortly.” Marc gave him a squeeze and resumed his seat as Barrett took his leave with a bob of his head and parting smile.

  “Barrett’s in one of his chatty moods, I’m afraid,” Marc said, his fair skin coloring slightly at his spouse’s effusions. Antoine replied with an understanding smile. Barrett’s outgoing personality served him well as one of Melbourne’s celebrity chefs, and he was rather less effusive now than in his younger days, when he’d been a leading light among that city’s more raffish set. They made for an unexpected couple, but marriage appeared to agree with them both, and it was one of the happier unions in Antoine’s experience. That both his elder siblings gave every appearance of being confirmed bachelors (though for diametrically opposed reasons) only added a degree of charm to the connection.

  In the pause, Marc smoothed the hair over his temple—a gesture he must have picked up from Rafe—and passed his hand over the documents. “Can I answer any other questions for you?”

  “Not of any consequence.” Checking the time, Antoine stirred, preparatory to rising. He wasn’t all that qualified to discuss morphological details in any case. “I am most inclined to give it a try.”

  His face relaxing with evident relief, Marc gathered up the folders. “How would you like to handle the arrangements then? Setting up the infrastructure is no problem, but as for the staff—I’d recommend a veterinarian and a couple of trainers—we have some excellent people here. I’ll be happy to give you a list. All fully vetted, of course.”

  The last sentence must be the residuum of some prior anxiety, for no one could work closely with any member of the Huron family without passing the most rigorous screening. The Terran Office of Special Investigations, who were responsible for maintaining Mariwen in protective custody, might balk initially—they tended to do that at any proposals they did not originate—but that was merely a bureaucratic obstacle, and not a substantial one.

  “I would appreciate that.” Getting to his feet, Antoine extended his hand to the younger man. “This means a great deal to us.”

  Marc took Antoine’s hand with an affectionate grip. “I only wish there was more we could do.” A beat of hesitation intervened. “Rafe still blames himself, you know. For what happened.”

  “He shouldn’t. Not even he can do everything.”

  “I know.” The corners of Marc’s mouth drew down. “But I’m not sure he’s figured that out yet.”

  Antoine dipped his chin to acknowledge the point, mentally adding: Like father, like son.

  Two: Honor and Policy I

  196 Days earlier

  Washington Province

  Western Federal District, Terra, Sol

  The high-ceiled library in which the two men sat was admirably well appointed and imbued with that special kind of comfort only age can give. Over a century old, it had been spared the periodic renovations that had stylishly denatured most of the rest of the mansion; the north parlor, which overlooked some thousand acres of parkland, all set about with pear, peach, and apple trees, being its only rival for stateliness and ancientry. As venerable as the room itself was, its components—from the hand-milled oak floorboards to the ox-blood leather upholstery to the walnut and cherry that went into the handsome woodwork—were older still. Oldest of all were the many priceless antique books, housed in the tall cases that lined the north and west walls; east and south being given over, respectively, to a granite fireplace with a large polished steel grate below a mantle nearly obscured by curious mementoes, and an imposing doorway with a satinwood console table on one side and a built-in liquor cabinet on the other.

  In winter, an apple-wood fire would often be burning in the steel grate, a minor but prized extravagance, but it was high summer now, and so the eight-foot fan set in the tin ceiling rotated lazily, pressing soft puffs of air, lightly touched with the cool dry scent of old paper and bare boards, down on the two men.

  The visitor, by virtue of his bulk, had been given the sofa. His host took the wingback chair to his left, while between them crouched a broad teak cocktail table, dark-stained by the care of many years and enthusiastically decorated with carvings of what appeared to be mirthful minor deities, variously employed in ways usually only seen on walls of certain Hindu temples. On it, two tumblers of clear liquid reposed on onyx coasters. Above, three plume lights—liberated from their alabaster sconces and the only obvious bit of modernity in the room—cast a warm oval of milky light.

  “God’s blood, Leon! I had not expected to find you so obstinate.” The visitor’s voice, loud in the subdued space, was pitched rather high for so large a man, and now frustration gave it a churlish edge.

  “New leadership for new times,” replied his host, Rafael Leonidas Huron IV, the retired Grand Senator for Terra and former Speaker, plying the needle to his old adversary with droll satisfaction. “Isn’t that what you said when you urged me to go quietly and not oppose Hazen’s nomination?”

  Arthur Bertram Waveral, the senior grand senator for Terra since his host’s retirement, worked his jaw, which was costumed with the ruddy spade beard, a style that was once again in fashion. This, the elder Huron considered, proved the idiocy of the very concept.

  “That was then. Things have changed.” Indeed they had, for Waveral had once been a staunch supporter of Hazen Gautier, the woman who had been elected Speaker in the elder Huron’s place.

  “Next you’ll be telling me an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and a stitch in time saves nine,” commented the former Speaker, prolonging his sport a moment longer.

  “Why can’t you take this seriously? The woman is a menace and her administration’s a fiasco.”

  “For some time now, Bertie. You only just noticed?” He leaned forward to reclaim his drink: water, for his medical team was testing a new therapy to placate the one tr
uly obstinate part of his constitution, his genome, which insisted on rejecting the treatments that would extend the lives of most of his contemporaries well into their second century. He had been strictly enjoined against consuming alcohol by his head physician, and for the moment had decided to humor her.

  “See here, Leon, you know damn well how things have changed. Take the Asylum business—blind luck, no more. Yes, it got us those new treaty terms and looks well enough in the media, but how is it really? Damn shaky, as you know very well. And we—the committee—were not consulted. I had to read about it as a top-line news item, like everyone else! Now we have those bloody Ionians arsing about, ignoring the covenants, levying outrageous tariffs, even boarding merchantmen—”

  “All the tiresome business of diplomacy, yes.” Cradling the squat glass in fragile looking hands showing a blue tracery of veins, he supported it on one knee, which crossed the other under a cashmere throw, for he was always cold these days. “Tell me, has Hazen lost sufficient ground to bring a motion of no confidence to a vote?”

  As incompetent as the new Speaker had proved to be, the Grand Senate had not been eager to change governments in the midst of a war, and now that it had been won, there was little overt desire to cast a pall in the victory. It was true that her wings had been clipped and she was more inclined to be reasonable these days, but she could still count on deeply partisan infighting to maintain her position.

  “She’s losing supporters everyday.”

  “What does Mildred say about that?” He sipped his water. “I notice you didn’t invite her.” Mildred Carter-Burke was the newly elected Terran grand senator.

  “Mildred would go to the gallows before she deserts Hazen.”

  “I doubt that. Hazen has the Chair but a small penumbra. Mildred loses nothing by a show of party loyalty. But if she is capable of such devotion, it would attach to Lysander Gayle. They were what is jocularly called an item, once.”

  “Lysander and Mildred? You’re joking, naturally.” The current Archon of Nedaema, and former grand senator of that Homeworld, was known for the stylish female company he kept, and the best that could be said of Mildred Carter-Burke was that she carried off eccentric dowdiness with a certain panache.

  “Not at all. Things are rarely as they first appear—you are surely aware of that. I mention it merely to illustrate that the loyalties involved are more complex than you might be conscious of.”

  Waveral did not look as though the lesson appealed to him.

  “So,” the former speaker carried on, ignoring the look, “if Hazen really is tottering, surely you needn’t bother yourself to come all this weary way. What is it about this you haven’t yet told me?”

  “Damn, but you’re suspicious, Leon.”

  “Come now, Bertie. If the writing has suddenly appeared on the wall, am I supposed to believe that the Chamber has suddenly become illiterate?”

  “That’s not it at all. Well, there is that business with her hospitalization—”

  “I’d understood that to be merely routine.” Hazen Gautier was known to have a congenital heart defect, and while it would be a simple matter to get a new heart, she had religious scruples in that regard, so the condition was managed with an implanted monitor with an integrated regulator. A few weeks ago, she’d gone in to have the unit replaced, and they’d kept her overnight for observation. Thereafter, she’d taken few days of rest. At Hazen’s age, there was nothing odd about that.

  “So it was. But don’t you see, Leon? All this religious clack against cloning—even organs—it adds just another level of anxiety. If something happens—something unexpected—we’ll have a feeding frenzy on our hands. Better we act now, while we can manage the business.”

  “And you wish me to help you manage the business, as you say. By what means?”

  “The moderates still hang on your every word—don’t bother to deny it. A little pressure—”

  “Applied to whom? The Council? Your committee? Financial interests that may not appear so well in the voter’s eye? Illicit-seeming connections? Revelations of historic interest, that sort of thing?”

  “Not at all. I’m not suggesting we descend into cloak-and-dagger here.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Well, hints—”

  “Hints.”

  “Suggestions. Something to convey that the time is ripe for a change. That’s all.”

  The elder Huron sighed. “Has it occurred to you, Bertie, that the time may not be all that ripe?”

  Waveral picked up his drink and raised it defensively. “What are you driving at, Leon?”

  “Only this”—pausing to sip his water. “There was a fellow once found himself in rather a similar spot: Long period of war just over; unsettled political climate; opponents wanting to make a change, et cetera. He had the change ready too, but his enemies moved first.”

  “How so?”

  “Stabbed him to death on the floor of the Senate House.”

  “Good God, Leon! What are you implying?”

  “Only that an ill-timed change in leadership can be worse than the leadership itself. In that case, it led to civil war and subsequent despotism. Which is to say: the usual.” He paused. “Of course, he was something of a genius, which Hazen decidedly is not, but the point stands.”

  “Who was this fellow?”

  “His name was Gaius. Look him up when you aren’t so busy.”

  To compare Hazen Gautier to Caesar was the height of farce, except in the possible consequences to a premature removal. In truth, he did not expect civil war to break out—quite—but he did think a factional bloodbath likely, and civil war wasn’t as far from total absurdity as some would like to believe. The Meridies were furious that Eltanin sector had finally been pried from their death grip and its prime world, Vesta, given provisional Homeworld status. Eltanin was largely settled from the Meridies and contained many of the League’s oldest and richest colonies: their collective economic power now outstripped that of their parent systems. Its prosperity fueled the expansionist policies of the Meridies governments, and Anson’s Deep, the League’s key nexus, was located there.

  All this made the sector a perennial source of contention. Upon the founding, many had feared the combination of Eltanin’s wealth, the Meridies’ martial prowess, and control of Anson’s Deep, would allow the Meridies to achieve supremacy within the League. Although Sol became dominant instead, the Meridies’ ambitions never abated, and since early in the first League-Halith war, the Belt had been arguing in favor of Eltanin being elevated to a CEF sector command, ostensibly in the name of efficiency and colonial rights, but mainly to weaken the Meridies, with whom it had long been at odds.

  Eltanin welcomed the proposal and the degree of independence it would bring. Politically, the colonies were tight-knit, and in recent decades, they’d often disagreed with their parent worlds. Acting together, they exercised considerable influence in the Grand Senate, despite their lack of veto power and other rights granted only to Homeworlds. The most militant, especially Vesta, viewed CEF First Fleet, which was homeported there (under Meridies Sector Command), more as an occupying force than a legitimate guarantor of their security.

  So setting up a new CEF sector and establishing a fleet in Eltanin upset the military balance as much as promoting Vesta upset the political one. It also largely neutered Hazen’s remaining influence. Her supporters had fought tooth and nail against the promotion, but Bannerman business had swayed enough of the wavering backbenchers to force the measure through. Obviously, the question of full ratification remained, but that looked to be well in hand at this point.

  What mattered more was that on seeing their large expenditure of political capital vanish in the notional smoke of backroom politicking, the Meridies had unwisely resorted to bullying. That opened the door for a quiet word to John Carlos Westover, and when Hazen caved to deftly focused pressure, he graciously accepted the position of Consul General of the new Homeworld for the duratio
n of its provisional status. With that, all the other pieces fell smoothly into place. Joss PrenTalien accepted the post of commander in chief of the new sector, and Rear Admiral Lo Gai Sabr was promoted to vice admiral and given command of the newly established Ninth Fleet.

  Their doorstep now occupied by the former chief of naval operations, the victor of Wogan’s Reef, and an admiral whose enemies had been known to retreat at the mere mention of his name, the Meridies saw no choice but to pull in their horns. The only wonder in the whole affair, the elder Huron thought, was that the Meridies’ delegation hadn’t seen it coming light-years off.

  That, he considered, was what came from believing one’s own legend. It did not, however, mean things were entirely settled. The Meridies might be chastened, but they were far from toothless. There were a good many competent people there, not a few brilliant minds, and there was only so much they would stomach. At present (the more egregious of the old guard having been driven into ignominious retirement), their efforts were bent on getting the Grand Senate to pass a motion to blockade Iona; a motion that the Council would certainly approve.

  As deeply repugnant as he found the idea—his first wife, Rafe’s mother, had been Ionian—there was little hope any such motion would be defeated. Iona had not helped itself with some of its more blatant activities (arsing about, in Bertie’s pungent phrase), the Porte was getting even more edgy, and with their major ambitions fulfilled, no one was going to go to the mat to defend the increasingly belligerent former colony. So small a victory would not do a lot to soothe the savage breasts (especially not among the Messians, who were the most aggrieved) but it would do more than a little. If, however, the government fell and a nasty confirmation battle broke out, all bets were, as one might say, off—