The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  The screams ceased in a muffled, prolonged crunching as the pucker began to fade and sink inward. Esaran collapsed, vomiting until her insides were dry, so drained that even the arrival of a squad of Tarkans moments later aroused no fear at all.

  After all, nothing they could do would be any worse.

  o0o

  Morrighon waited outside Anaris’s door, occasionally catching the murmur of voices from within.

  Custom during the Karusch-na Rahali demanded that the predators hunted their prey, did not summon them, for only the weak would obey. It also demanded that what they did with them be done in the prey’s own house, or somewhere else afield. One’s private chambers were for solitary sleep and meditation.

  Of course, they were on the Suneater, and though there were countless chambers, no one wanted to use them unless the rooms were humanized. Apparently not even Anaris, though of the high-ranking Dol’jharians he seemed less affected by the increasing mutability of the station. Of those who had enough seniority to demand one, he alone did not have an armored disposer.

  Was Eusabian, too, altering custom out of necessity? Morrighon tried, and failed, to imagine the Lord of Vengeance prowling the red-glowing tunnels in search of suitable sex partners.

  Morrighon looked about furtively, though no one was in view, and his compad was not flickering the warning of a hidden imager. Rumor had it the tempath held telepathic converse with those horrible white-furred aliens, and who knew how far was their mental reach? Even thinking such thoughts about Eusabian could get Morrighon killed, for he had no idea if that black-eyed Rifter woman would report him or not. Unlike most people who were not directly under him, she did not treat him as a hideously comic mutant, but neither did she defer.

  Whatever was going on, it seemed the interview was to be protracted.

  As he sped back to his own chamber, he monitored the news on his compad. A gray had been found dead in a darkened corridor. Morrighon knew that this would start rumors that the station had somehow gotten him, but the evidence suggested it had been a same-gender Karusch-na Rahali encounter gone wrong.

  The ‘struggle for progeny’ was supposed to be strictly heterosexual, for the purpose of creating strong children, but Dol’jharians were human, with the same range of human tastes; Morrighon had learned early in his Catennach training that some formed secret relationships with their own gender as well as with the other. These were usually equals in rank. Someone lower in rank was almost always a target, as had happened with this gray. A dead target couldn’t speak.

  The two Bori victims of the lunar struggle had been more fortunate: subsequent rumor had made clear that anyone weak enough to prefer pouncing on Bori had better make certain they were not so damaged they could not return to duty.

  But the grays lacked the savage discipline that restrained the Tarkans, and Morrighon knew the discriminators and correlators would sift the assailant’s identity out of the surveillance records. The offender would meet the mindripper.

  Even between Dol’jharians, such encounters normally did not last long, and they usually played strictly by the rules among themselves: you did not attack anyone on duty. In less fraught moments, contemplation of just how this particular ruling had managed to get around had entertained Morrighon, for of course nothing was posted. Nothing even remotely connected to the lunar custom was ever written down or even discussed in public.

  When Morrighon reached his chamber, his compad lit up with an insistent message from his console. It was an alarm from one of the discriminators Tat had programmed. As the heir’s secretary he had access to the raw feeds from the surveillance net—except for the encrypted material that belonged to Barrodagh—and Tat had given him a module that allowed him to set up various alarm conditions.

  This one told of an illicit gathering in a remote chamber. Another karra-cult ritual, he thought. Idly he called up the feed and confirmed his guess. Lysanter had some fairly horrible theories about the luminous manifestations. “It’s curious about us, now that it knows we have minds,” the scientist had said.

  But he had insisted there was little harm in them. “Maybe it sees it as another form of nutrition.”

  Not a very palatable one, Morrighon thought as he reached for the tab to switch over to automatic record. Then the floor threw one of the people into a suddenly gaping hole in the wall.

  Sickened, Morrighon cut off the sound, but stood watching, helpless to look away. The floor rocked under him, a long shuddering motion, and a deep foreboding gripped him, making his heart slam. He knew he would not be able to save the heir if this happened during the next tempathic probe. The station twitched and commenced a rhythmic shuddering that peaked and died away; he gripped his console until the ground was still again.

  His heart had barely had time to slow its frantic pace when his comm circuit beeped demandingly.

  The accept key windowed up Barrodagh, with Eusabian behind him, his face grimmer than even than customary. Morrighon’s gut twisted. This summons had been initiated by the Avatar himself.

  “Where is the tempath?”

  “The heir summoned her,” Morrighon replied, bowing deeply.

  “Have her brought to the Chamber of Kronos at once.”

  The images blinked out. Eusabian must have been watching the feeds, and thought to use Vi’ya to root out the menace.

  Morrighon’s heart seemed to be hammering its way up into his throat. He would have to be with Anaris during Vi’ya’s attempt—could he return quickly enough after delivering the tempath? And the drugs would not have had time to build to the full effect needed to protect Anaris.

  Morrighon tapped the tempath-experiment code to Anaris and rushed out. This will give him time to be ready for my arrival, Morrighon thought, hurrying his pace.

  He had nearly reached the heir’s rooms again when a new thought caused his footsteps to falter: would Anaris be wearing his belt com?

  A demented combination of fear and hilarity swooped through Morrighon, settling in his gut. The Catennach training had thoroughly eradicated the desire for sex, replacing it with acute nausea, but even the wash of unease did not completely douse an impulse to snicker.

  Shoving back the sleeve of his tunic, he slammed the corner of his compad across his scarred wrist. The lancing pain enabled him to regain control of thought and emotions, for he knew he must be clear-headed for whatever was to happen next.

  Then he reached the chamber and tabbed the annunciator, and when it went ignored, he gritted his teeth and used the code to force the door open.

  And what he saw caused him to stop dead in the doorway.

  The chamber looked as though a bomb had exploded in it. Furniture overturned, objects strewn over every surface, one of the tapestries slashed down the center, as though ripped by a knife. Standing on either side of the overturned desk were Anaris and Vi’ya, both disheveled, clothing torn, faces like carved stone.

  Both heads turned sharply, and Anaris’s teeth showed.

  Morrighon realized his mouth was open, and shut it, his mind shocked empty as the skull in the Avatar’s ritual chamber.

  It was Vi’ya who broke the tableau. Looking about her, she gave a snort of amusement.

  Then a chuckle.

  Then she leaned against the desk, convulsed with laughter.

  Anaris looked at her, and at the room, and in one of his lightning changes of mood, he too laughed as he dropped into his big chair, which was the only piece of furniture still upright.

  The laughter only lasted a few seconds, but it neutralized the atmosphere enough for Morrighon to regain his wits. “Did you feel the station move?” he asked.

  “I thought it was us,” Anaris said, still grinning, then his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  Morrighon said, “Some grays held another Ekhaschen-karr; this time the station ate one of them.” He saw Vi’ya glance at him. “Barrodagh has informed the Avatar, I believe, who has commanded the presence of the tempath in the Throne Room. Now.�
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  Vi’ya’s long hair had come loose, lying across her forehead and over one shoulder in a ruffled fall down to her upper thigh.

  She lifted a hand to brush it back. Morrighon saw that one sleeve was ripped nearly free, revealing her bare arm stippled with marks fast turning to bruises. “Any time for me to change?” she asked Morrighon directly.

  “I—I don’t think so,” he said. “I suspect the Avatar intends you to suppress this menace without delay.”

  She shrugged, sending a wintry smile of challenge across at Anaris, then she walked toward Morrighon, who realized he was still standing in the doorway and backed out hastily.

  Anaris was laughing as he heaved the desk upright again, but the hilarity was gone, replaced by the edge of challenge. Morrighon wondered if Anaris was tasting some of the fear that made his own guts into a boiling of acid: he had to be remembering what had happened during the last attempt. Maybe this time the wall will get him, he thought as the door closed.

  Morrighon had to skip to keep up with Vi’ya’s swift strides, but he did not complain. She said, “I will need the Eya’a.”

  “I will get Larghior to bring them,” Morrighon replied, annoyed with himself for not having thought of it.

  “Just blunt the mind-blurs and have Lar open the door,” Vi’ya said. “I can summon them.”

  So she is a telepath.

  For the rest of the walk, Morrighon’s thoughts ricocheted between the formulation of plans to deal with this new disaster and trying not to wonder what had happened in that room.

  EIGHT

  When the station convulsed, Ivard dropped down onto the floor and shut his eyes, reaching for rapport with the Unity.

  Had he missed a signal? Was Vi’ya in the Throne Room, after all? Questions streamed through his mind, then stopped when he found the Kelly. Aided by their telepathic reach, he tried to connect with Vi’ya—and was shocked to encounter instead a great miasma of malevolence boiling, like a forming tornado, through the station.

  His recoil was so strong he found himself abruptly back in his body, his senses swimming unpleasantly.

  “What is it?” Jaim’s voice sharpened. “Are you all right?” Sedry moved quickly to the console and tapped a code into it.

  “There. That took out the last ten seconds of the loop. They’ll blame it on the ruckus.”

  Jaim turned back to Ivard. “Was it Vi’ya?”

  “Can’t find her,” Ivard replied. His voice trembled. It was hard to concentrate. He recognized that presence—the one from his dreams. But now he’d found it while awake, and it was stronger than ever.

  An inflowing of reassurance came from the Kelly, triplicate and enfolding. Steadying himself within the tripod of support, Ivard forced himself to examine the experience.

  We fear, came the double voices of the Eya’a, so sharp it drilled like jac-fire between his eyes. It was seldom they communicated with Ivard directly. Usually Vi’ya or the Kelly, or both, filtered their communications.

  He remembered Vi’ya’s thought pattern and framed the response: Why do you fear?

  We fear the fang-worm within the Distant Sleeper.

  Confused, Ivard turned his awareness to the Kelly and heard their answering thought: Fang-worm seems to be one of their natural predators, a parasite that enters a body and eats its way out. The only way they “cure” the individual is to kill her.

  Can you reach Vi’ya? I don’t know what to tell them, Ivard thought in despair.

  Ivard felt the away-focus of the tripled green flame, and then it was back. Vi’ya is summoned. We must all join together.

  Ivard opened his eyes and cleared the vertigo from his head by taking cleansing breaths. At once his own fear came rushing back, but he tried to breathe it out.

  Whatever that thing is, it feeds off negative emotion, he thought. If I am calm, it might ignore me.

  Ivard said to Jaim, “There’s something here, but it’s not part of the station. It’s something on its own, and it’s almost sentient. At least, it seems to be feeding off people’s emotions.”

  Montrose cursed, long with an unstinting variety of invective that, in another place, would have made Ivard grin with appreciation. Sitting beside him, Sedry looked worried.

  Lokri’s mouth tightened and Marim shuddered theatrically.

  “Something happened in that direction.” Ivard pointed. “And the thing is hovering there, like some kind of vortex. I don’t know what it is, and the Kelly don’t have words for it that I can understand.”

  A high, weird keening sound was their only warning, and the door to the Eya’a’s chamber sucked open. The beings emerged, semaphoring so fast that Ivard’s temples panged as he tried to read their sign. Already tired, he felt drained after all the extra effort he’d expended.

  “Uh-oh,” he said as the signals started to make sense. “I think—I think Vi’ya is waiting for them in the Throne Room, or wants them—”

  The door scroinched open. Lar jumped through, his face blanched with terror. “The Eya’a,” he said hoarsely. “The Avatar—the Throne Room.”

  “It’s all right,” Jaim said. “They won’t hurt you. They probably won’t even notice you.”

  Ivard shook his head. “Lar,” he said, “it isn’t anything to frighten you—the Eya’a, I mean—if you know this sign. They use it as an acknowledgment.” Ivard pantomimed the We-see-you that the Eya’a used.

  Lar’s fingers repeated it automatically. The Eya’a moved past and he whirled and followed, the door closing behind him.

  o0o

  Vi’ya insisted on waiting outside the Chamber of Kronos for the Eya’a to arrive, but Morrighon’s fear and agonized impatience almost made her nauseous.

  He fears for Anaris. There were no clues to which Chorei talent the heir possessed, only that he was not a tempath. Did it make him vulnerable to the malevolence that haunted the Suneater?

  Eya’a fear, we fear the fang-worm inside the Distant Sleeper. We cannot amend the Sleeper without cessation to all hive-ones and to Eya’a.

  But regardless of its impact on the Eya’a and Ivard’s dreams, despite its growing power, it was not what she touched through the Heart of Kronos: That vast presence, still only dimly perceived, lay deeply dormant—her mind avoided the word “sleep.” The Unity was still too fragmentary to attempt true contact. The fountaining energy of that vast power’s full activity would destroy them.

  And we are missing a member. Before Desrien she would have scoffed at the old woman’s vision, but not now. But she dismissed its import, all the same. The Unity would have to be strong enough without the extra one Eloatri had promised, she resolved.

  When the Eya’a arrived, Morrighon rushed her into the chamber and turned her over to Lysanter before departing. She could see the strain in his body as he tried to avoid arousing Barrodagh’s interest, but Barrodagh no sooner saw the Eya’a than his fear lanced through her head like an ice pick.

  Eager to get physical distance from Barrodagh, Vi’ya began to walk around the dyplast screen toward the terraced mound holding the Heart of Kronos. The mound had changed. It had grown higher, more throne-like.

  Barrodagh stopped her, a crabbed motion from what he apparently assumed was the safety of the other side of the chamber. She felt no desire to let him know how fruitless was his attempt to hide himself from the Eya’a. I hope one day to show him firsthand.

  “We await the Avatar,” Barrodagh said.

  She heard a rhythmic whining above the tread of heavy feet: power armor. Scornful amusement warmed her. Did Eusabian think armored Tarkans any use against fi?

  Then the Lord of Vengeance strode into the chamber, and her amusement vanished at the sight of the two inhuman figures with him, one preceding and one following. They towered over the Avatar, their dark armored bulk dwarfing him. Vi’ya had seen these in one of the history chips Markham had given her: Ogres, the most feared weapon in the Thousand Suns.

  The Panarchists had never used them against humans. Eus
abian had no such compunctions. He had even had them made in the image of the kipango. She suppressed the spurt of fear that welled up from childhood memories. These were only machines.

  But being such, they were immune to fi.

  She reached for the Eya’a to gauge their reaction, to find none. If they even noticed the Ogres, they had already dismissed them as another of the incomprehensible machines made by the one-entities; their worries were still with the fang-worm.

  But a sharp mental tang from the Kelly went straight to her limbic system. The Kelly recognized them—and knew of ways of dealing with them.

  Eusabian spoke directly to Lysanter. “The tempath’s efforts have awakened something. If it is part of the normal function of the station, it must be controlled. If not, it must be destroyed.”

  Lysanter bowed. “I have already diverted all optional computing to the stasis clamps for this attempt.” He escorted Vi’ya around the shield, his movements jerky, his forehead gleaming with moisture as he spoke to her in a low voice. “The stress monitors around your chamber indicate its interest in you. Do you know what it is?”

  She shook her head. So Ivard was right. It was watching them. She had never perceived it but from within this chamber—no doubt another warning of the Unity’s incompletion. “Do you?”

  “No. Though I suspect it is not a normal part of the station.”

  The simple honesty of his statement, and the emotions accompanying it, were like the waft of a tianqi set to Downsider Spring. Moved by a sense of gratitude, Vi’ya added, “That it certainly is not,” and left him standing, excited puzzlement coloring his mind, as she ascended toward the Heart of Kronos.

  Exultation filled her, quickly moderated by the Kelly, as the Unity fell into place around her more surely than ever before. There was little of the sensory distortion of the first two attempts, although the sensation of wading through water remained.

  The silver spheroid bulged from the forward edge of the curved curb-like excrescence that had suggested the low back of a chair. If it grew any more, she would have to stand in front of it with her back to the well in order to reach the Heart. The Eya’a stood behind her, a step out of physical reach. She could hear their quick breathing.