The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  As they turned a corner, they were confronted by pair of Ogres.

  “Attend!” Hreem shouted, and relaxed as the jac-ports in the machines’ heads snapped shut. He paused, considering. Three Ogres were certainly enough to ensure his safety.

  “Now we’ll see if that chatzing trog left my little surprise in them,” he muttered, ignoring Marim’s questioning glance. “Ogres, confirm programming Vi’ya.”

  A green light glowed briefly among the sensory clusters of all five machines.

  “Confirm Jaim.” Again, the green light, and so on with Montrose, Ivard, and Lokri, whose IDs Riolo had placed in the Ogres’ programming when Tallis had revealed his enemy’s presence here on the Suneater. When he was done he laughed, then quickly issued instructions for two of the machines to begin hunting for the Telvarna’s crew. They thumped off.

  From time to time, as they made their way toward where he expected to find Vi’ya, or her trace, they encountered more Ogres, which Hreem reprogrammed in similar fashion. All that time Marim said nothing.

  A doubt assailed him, and he turned to glare at the little blonde trotting along between two of the Ogres. She glanced down at another corpse, this one felled by jac-fire, and made a face. Squeamish—yet she’d laughed when he wrote that warning to her captain with Riolo’s blood. And she hadn’t said a thing when he sent the Ogres after her former crew members. Maybe she was concocting some kind of crazy double cross. “What’s in your mind?”

  First reactions were almost always real ones. Her blue eyes lifted, and she looked startled, then confused, then wary. His finger caressed the firing stud of his jac. If he’d seen the wariness first, it would have been Marim’s turn to beg—maybe not now, but in front of her chatzing cold-face captain.

  “What d’you mean?” she demanded. “I don’t like lookin’ at these deaders. So?”

  “You want to see me duff your captain?”

  “No,” Marim said frankly. “I don’t care about the others. Especially the brain-burners. I love the thought of them tryin’ to pull that on your Ogres! I hope Vi’ya skips free, but that’s between you an’ her—heyo! What’s that thing?” She stopped.

  Hreem whirled around as a weird little machine, like an animated spider, scuttled around a corner, followed by two others. Before he could react they sprang at the lead Ogre, spinning a shining web around it that sliced into its armor and swiftly disabled it. Hreem cursed and jumped back as the Ogre’s jac discharged wildly, igniting the cuff of one trouser. He slapped the flames out while triggering his jac. Marim fired, too, and the other two little devices exploded into fragments.

  “What are those things?” He scanned the corridors for more.

  “I dunno,” Marim said. “But I’ll bet they’re from the Marines. Sanctus Hicura! I smell smoke. Fight’s gettin’ closer.”

  Hreem cursed, trying to overcome his shock. He’d thought the Ogres were invincible. If Vi’ya sees these things—

  He was going to kill her. Nothing would stop that. But if he had to do it from one of those Dol’jharian corvettes, fine. He just had to get to the landing bay first, before she could get to her ship. If they found more Ogres on the way, he’d keep them.

  o0o

  Jaim saw the others recoil from the rec room, and he knew it was not empty as the Bori mess hall had been. Lar and Lokri both whirled to shield the room from Dem’s and Ivard’s eyes.

  Montrose growled, deep in his massive chest, then came the sonorous roll of curses, nearly drowning the whisper of prayers from Sedry Thetris. Jaim felt compelled to go in, to see if anyone yet lived. Shock rang in his skull, followed by the sick, numbing ache of disbelief that anyone could perpetrate such savagery. He had not felt this kind of reaction since—”Let us get away from here quickly. There’s nothing we can do.”

  Montrose said, “Where, then? What’s another place likely to have a lot of people holed up?”

  Tat mumbled, “Not the array room. No one will want to go by the mess outside of it.”

  “Communications,” Sedry murmured.

  Montrose snapped his fingers. “Hyperwave. Who knows? Maybe we can even do a little mayhem.” He turned to Sedry. “Unless you’ve taken care of that already, my dear.”

  Thetris smiled slightly, but her eyes looked bruised, and not long after they began walking, she stumbled and began to fall. Montrose lunged, the tendons in his hands standing out but his grip tender. She sagged against him, eyes closing in relief.

  In silence they progressed up several corridors, occasionally passing the remains of people—mostly Bori—who had been shot. Then they reached an intersection where lay several dead Catennach. The rank smell of cooked meat singed Jaim’s nostrils. He held his breath as he stooped over the nearest body, reaching for the jac still lying in the loose fingers. A short exclamation from Lokri brought the new weapon up, and ready—

  —to face not an enemy, but a fresh horror around the curved wall. There lay the pulped remains of someone Jaim did not recognize. The others did not look at that, but at the wall, where a scrawled message in a red smear dealt Jaim another shock, this time propelling him inexorably back to the discovery aboard the Sunflame.

  VIYA! FIRST MARKHAM. NOW YOU.

  For weeks he had dreamed of Reth Silverknife’s tortured body, and finally the nightmares, and the pain, had subsided to a dull ache and a sense of purposelessness. Now the grief was back, tenfold, but with it came intent. “Hreem,” he said.

  Lokri’s head snapped round. “He’ll try an ambush if he can.”

  “One thing at a time.” Montrose turned his back on the bloody message and rooted among the dead Catennach for a weapon. “Let’s get to that hyperwave chamber, then we’ll see.”

  Sedry was not the only one weakened by the extended sessions with brainsuck so dangerously close together. Tat Ombric never complained, but quite suddenly her steps faltered, and then—before anyone could move—she crumpled to the floor. Jaim and Lar lunged toward her, but it was Lokri who jammed his jac into his trousers and scooped her up in his arms. He carried her the rest of the way, his step never slowing; when Jaim offered to take his burden, he shook his head. “Masses no more than a child.”

  Lar led them to the hyperwave chamber. Twice they heard the amplified whine-thump of Ogres. No one spoke. They stopped, pressed together, with Dem and Tat in front. Evidently the pass tags still worked. The machines paused only long enough to scan them, then moved on, their double faces eternally alert.

  They encountered no one, though twice they heard the far-off echoes of heavy fire, and the smell of smoke got stronger.

  Then they reached the hyperwave chamber, and Jaim stared in amazement. It was a vast space, floored with stars, with organic curves of quantum-plast sweeping down from the ceiling to weird stalagmitic protrusions capped with complex structures of flickering, holographic light. In the center of the room a beam of light, coruscant and moiré-patterned, struck down from a gland in the ceiling, dwindling into vanishing perspective among the stars below. As his gaze followed it, he saw a coin of light bloom among the stars, and a fragment of a song returned—so strong was the impression of Markham’s voice that he almost looked for him: “Bright coins in which our lives are paid.”

  People in the room stood still and staring, as if they had frozen in the midst of motion when he and his crewmates appeared.

  A wispy man of indeterminate age in a rumpled lab coat took a tentative step. His pockets bulged. As he took another tentative step, something fell out of one. A data chip.

  “Tatriman?” He clutched a compad as though it were a shield.

  Montrose spoke first. “We’re a rescue mission. Anyone wants off of this Telos-forsaken hellhole come with us. We make it free, we’ll take you to Rifthaven. Or Arthelion.”

  “Or anywhere but Dol’jhar,” Lokri drawled.

  The Bori techs in the room whispered. Lar cleared his throat and said, “Ogres are killing our kind all over the station. The Avatar isn’t going to make accommodation f
or us. You know it, I know it. Come if you like. Tat and I are joining up with these Rifters.” He turned to Jaim. “That man is Duveel Lysanter. He’s the head scientist.”

  Lysanter looked around, a vein beating in his throat. “The Suneater is beyond our control.” As Lokri advanced into the room, Lysanter added in a sharp voice, “Don’t go near that beam!”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps some form of communications interface.”

  Ivard’s chin lifted.

  “Whatever it is,” Lysanter continued, “it overloads the nervous system into total catatonia.” He pointed to a figure curled into a fetal ball.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Montrose said. “The longer we wait, the better the chances of Eusabian remembering you long enough to order someone to finish you off.”

  Jaim watched as the techs sorted themselves out, pairing the uninjured with the wounded to help them along. Two Bori carefully rolled the catatonic one onto a makeshift stretcher, taking either end themselves.

  Ivard drifted around the perimeter of the room, awe rounding his eyes. Jaim wondered what he saw, sensed, felt, but before he could ask, Lysanter gave a short sigh and hefted his compad. “I guess that’s it.” He looked around.

  “Can you brief us on the situation?” Montrose asked.

  “As much as I am able,” Lysanter said as they moved out into the corridor. “Eusabian has fled the station in one of the Urian ships.” He paused, grimacing with an odd expression that seemed to mix awe, wistfulness, and amazement. “I don’t know where the heir is. The Tarkans still hold the landing bay, but the Marines are pressing them hard.”

  “Telvarna is still intact?” Jaim asked.

  “Yes. Good thing, too,” Lysanter said as they reached a corridor nexus. “My instruments report changes in the companion star’s spectrum that indicate higher element ignition—an increase in density. The core is shrinking.”

  “What’s that mean?” Montrose asked impatiently.

  “It means the Suneater is preparing to fulfill its function: creating a new black hole. When that happens, we will find ourselves about a quarter light-hour from a supernova.”

  Jaim saw the impact of this news on the others. “How long?”

  Lysanter shook his head. “No way to tell.”

  They rounded one of the endless curves and came face-to-face with a formation of Catennach Bori. Armed Bori.

  “Halt.” The leader motioned with her jac. “You Bori will return to your duties.” To the Rifters, “You will come with us.”

  “Where to?” Lokri drawled.

  “That’s our concern,” the second Catennach said, his tone nasty. “Do not try our patience. Your deaths, here and now, would only merit indifference.”

  “And ours?” Lar’s voice was so light it was almost inaudible. The Catennach ignored him, but he visibly gathered himself together and said louder, “And our lives, Delmantias?”

  “Are forfeit if you disobey.”

  “Aren’t they, anyway?” Lar demanded. “Lysanter said the Suneater is beyond our control, and the Avatar is evacuating. Are there any orders for saving us? Or . . .” He stepped forward. “What about you? Are you about to evacuate?”

  None of the Catennach moved, then the two leaders exchanged quick, furtive looks, and both yanked up their jacs to take aim.

  Jaim shot them both before they could squeeze the firing studs. The other Catennach began raising their weapons, but then everyone was taken by surprise when Lar flung himself at them. Not alone. First one, then five, then all of the Bori gave screams of rage, of long-repressed, fierce, angry, fear-driven rage, and charged forward. The others threw down compads and chips and equipment and surged in a mass.

  The shocked Catennach got off five or six shots, killing three and wounding one, but the Bori did not falter. They leapt over their fallen comrades, and in moments the Catennach were hidden from view. Jaim thrust his jac into his waistband.

  The sounds of rage slowly diminished as the Bori withdrew, some blood-spattered, talking in sharp voices with angry little jerks of the head. On the ground lay the Catennach, all dead.

  “Get their weapons,” Montrose said. “Anyone who knows how to shoot. Now we might have a chance of making it.”

  Half a dozen Bori stripped the bodies of jacs and communicators and pass tags, then Montrose scanned his little army. “Who knows where there might be others needing a rescue?”

  Jaim dropped back. Something was wrong. He, too, scanned the crowd, and then he realized: Ivard and Luce were missing.

  He turned around to retrace their steps and found Lokri in his way. “In there,” the comtech said, jerking his chin back over his shoulder as he shifted his grip on Tat. “Hyperwave chamber.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you see the way he looked at that damned beam of light?” Lokri’s long silver eyes had lost their cynicism; his handsome face was distraught. “Vi’ya said once that there is no emotional defense against music, but I think there is no defense against regret.”

  “Regret?” Jaim repeated. “Ivard?”

  “No. Me.” Lokri grinned.

  “I don’t understand. We’d better get Ivard and the cat before the others get too far ahead and we’re lost.”

  “He won’t come,” Lokri said. “And if he won’t come, the cat won’t. I saw him hide, and at the last moment, he was watching that beam of light. He’s left us. I think we lost him under the Palace, when his sister was killed, and I congratulated myself on how I’d managed to eradicate regret from my arsenal of reactions.”

  Lokri’s voice had regained its old bitter drawl, but the tears were new. He dashed his wrist across his eyes, and looked upward, lips a thin line.

  In silence they rejoined the others.

  THREE

  It seemed Margot Ng had scarcely laid her head on the pillow when the comm chimed. “Yes?”

  “Phisot here—Astronomy.”

  The tightness in the officer’s voice brought her fully awake. Her chrono showed she’d been asleep for five hours. Better than she had any right to expect, under the circumstances. She got up and began dressing, leaving the image off. “Your report?”

  “We detected a massive blast of neutrinos a minute ago. Off the scale. Core collapse has begun. Supernova, as we feared.”

  The confirmation of the earlier, tentative report was like a blow to her heart. “How long do we have?”

  “No way to tell. This star isn’t anywhere near the right part of the H-R diagram for this.” Phisot snorted—not a mocking sound, but one of frustration. “This is the first time humankind’s been up close to a star on the edge of exploding, and it’s totally artificial. We’ll learn nothing.”

  “Your best estimate, then.” Ng tried to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  “Normally it takes hours for the shock wave to reach the surface and blow the star apart; I don’t expect it will be much different here,” replied the officer. “But with the effect of whatever forces are being used to control the star, the velocity of the explosion from then on is anyone’s guess. We’ll know more when we see the detonation.”

  “What about the Suneater?”

  She could almost hear his shrug. “Who knows? Gnostor Omilov thinks it likely it will survive—after all, this is its function. But the amount of matter dumped into the black hole will power it up beyond anything we’ve calculated . . .”

  His voice trailed off, but she didn’t need him to complete the sentence. The Rifters’ skipmissiles were already at the edge of the shield capabilities of a battlecruiser.

  And still no word from the Marines. Or the Panarch.

  Sitting there alone in the semidarkness of her cabin, she felt the weight of her responsibilities crash down on her with numbing force. Again, again.

  She dismissed Phisot with thanks and left for the bridge.

  She found her alpha crew just arriving, or having arrived, everyone looking as tired as she felt. Their nervous energy
, their wordless support—they knew what this news meant—didn’t help. She stared at the main viewscreen, displaying the ever-increasing glory of the accretion disk, growing brighter as the red giant swelled under the lash of power from the Suneater.

  Again.

  Perthes Krajno cocked a grizzled eyebrow at her; she realized she’d spoken the word aloud. She saw in his expression that he understood. But even that didn’t help. She was alone.

  She drew a deep breath. “Communications: flagship to Fleet. Launch the asteroids.”

  o0o

  Ivard waited until the footsteps of the others died away and then emerged from the shadows. He stood alone in the strange chamber, arms crossed over his chest, his mind bleak with sorrow and grief, yet he still reached mentally for the Kelly.

  The blue flicker of the Archon’s presence within him steadied and contracted to a point.

  An image filled his mind: the impossible verdure of a Kelly forest, background to the delicate stone and steel tracery of a phratry shrine interlaced with vines and flowers, their colors almost fluorescent in the sun-dappled shade. Alien emotions radiated through him, some incomprehensible despite his closeness to the Kelly. The closest analogues were regret, sorrow, a deep nostalgia impossible to human beings.

  So much was memory that the Archon had shared.

  The living contact that had taught him and frolicked with him, refreshed and sustained him, was gone.

  He opened his eyes, tears spilling from them. The blue flicker was a throbbing threnody of loss, and the emerald band around his wrist felt cold as ice. Portus-Dartinus-Atos were dead. He was alone.

  All around him a riot of color sang and trembled as the Suneater came to life. Underfoot another sphere of light blossomed among the stars, and Ivard remembered what Jaim had murmured, apparently unaware that he had spoken.

  “The bright coins in which our lives are paid.”

  He knew what that meant. All the people Ivard loved most were paying out their lives. Would Brandon die, too, and Vi’ya, and Jaim and Montrose? Ivard lifted the bag hanging at his throat and opened it, watching the colored lights wash over the crumpled silk medal and the ancient coin, artifact of a mythical race of warriors from early in human history. The Kelly called me more than human. Did being more than human mean that he could stop the terrible spending of lives?