A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  “A trinat! Your Highness, this is threesomely unexpected. Two-thirds three threes of years on Ares wethree’ve been, and haven’t seen one.”

  “It was in the Enclave, buried in a storeroom. The comp indicated the room hadn’t been accessed for over a hundred years.”

  “What’s a trinat?” Ivard asked Jaim.

  “I think it’s a musical instrument,” he replied. “It’s in pieces and still has to be put together—the computer didn’t know how.” He looked around. “Where’s Vi’ya? Vahn said she came with you.”

  “There!” he said, pointing.

  But Jaim didn’t follow his finger; he was distracted by Vahn again, who needed help dealing with the confusion forming around the trinat.

  It was Brandon who gazed into the Gardens, watching Vi’ya’s straight, dark-haired figure accompanying the Eya’a in an invisible bubble of space as they moved among the other guests.

  “Come!” Tate Kaga said. “Let us go inside.”

  Vahn jeeved as their host ushered Brandon to the center of the Gardens, where he began to mingle with the guests. The nuller shot off to talk to the newcomers who had arrived behind them.

  Drifts of music echoed from every surface, adding to the disorientation caused by the presence of various shrubs and trees, some of them obviously quite old, growing at odd angles.

  Vahn might have found it all amusing—anywhere else, any other time. But the Aerenarch had decided to come, despite (or maybe because of, Roget had pointed out) the non-exclusivity of the guest list. It was a gigantic party, in a weird setting. A perfect place, Vahn reflected grimly, for the unknown poisoner to try a little personal mayhem. But “try” was not going to keep Brandon cowering in the Enclave. Worse luck.

  Ivard eeled away from them all. Here he was at last! The Ascha Garden looked even better than Tate Kaga had promised, and the old nuller had also said, “You will find friends there.”

  Friends? He liked most of his crewmates, but he hadn’t had friends since he was small, before he and Greywing escaped starvation on Natsu. He passed straight in, drawn toward those his own age, the dogs trotting at his heels.

  Brandon wandered in another direction, pausing under the central free-fall space as a crowd closed around him. He chose, Vahn was glad to see, a well-lit, open area. Several weird pathways led to it, including one that gave a view of a long concourse that jutted off upward at an acute angle; Vahn motioned his team to take their places, aware from short, stressed subvocal commentary that they could not get line of sight both with one another and Brandon, especially in that crowd.

  Because Brandon was now completely surrounded by social highflyers. A scattering of Naval officers appeared long enough to pay their respects, then they moved off to another area, but some younger Tetrad Centrum Douloi officers lingered, the group swelling by twos and threes until Brandon was the center of laughter and animated chatter that nearly drowned out the drifting music.

  Vahn caught sight of Commander Faseult observing from an adjacent walkway, then did a check with the outer perimeter security team.

  (The youths in the free-fall area are hyper—a bit of the High/Down tension, I think,) Hamun said. Everyone else reported status quo.

  Nyberg and several high brass appeared. The lesser officers gave way, and after a short, polite exchange, the brass moved on, leaving the way clear for the civilian flatterers to close in again. Brandon showed no reaction to the comings and goings; he seemed content to sit and let people come to him, which made Vahn’s task the easier.

  Signaling Roget to take his place on the inside perimeter, Vahn jeeved back into the shadows of a huge argan tree and set out to make visual contact with the Marines watching Ivard and the Dol’jharian captain with the brain-burners.

  He noted Ivard’s guard shadowing Ivard, who was being drawn toward the free-fall zone as if pulled by an electrical current. There, in a huge space, broken here and there by jump pads linked by grab cables, occasional brave figures sailed happily back and forth. They used the strange structures to propel themselves around the central bubble of water, which was suspended mid-air like a living jewel, its surface rippling quietly in the vagrant air currents generated by the surrounding structures.

  Ivard smiled, loving everything he saw.

  Nearby, on a platform jutting from a bulging wall into the huge space, the Kelly busied themselves with the trinat, assembling its complex curves into a graceful, organic, almost tree-like structure. Thrums and squeaks emanated from it, counterpoint to the soft honking of the trinity. Portus’ head-stalk wove in his direction as Ivard blatted a brief greeting passing by, drawn by the nick music.

  On the jump pad platforms, people his own age stood around, the nicks in fancy party clothes, others in less flamboyant garb. Were these the friends Tate Kaga had promised him? Ivard paused, looking around as Trev and Gray sniffed here and there, tails giving a wag when people noticed them.

  How did you make friends, anyway? They didn’t seem to be friends with each other—they were divided into separate groups, further segmented into Downsiders and Highdwellers, obvious in the way they moved and how much personal space they claimed.

  Though they talked a lot to each other, and stole glances at other groups, none seemed willing to make the first move outward. He remembered some of the things Tate Kaga had told him, up in his strange dwelling at the spin axis. Ivard suspected that nobody would move until the nicks did, and that the nicks were watching each other the way nicks always seemed to do.

  That wouldn’t stop Rifters. With a scorch of embarrassment Ivard acknowledged that that wasn’t true. He was the only Rifter up in the free-fall zone, and he wasn’t doing anything.

  But he couldn’t approach the nicks. He’d long ago learned that it wasn’t a good idea to speak to them until spoken to, unless you liked being stiffed. He made an abortive motion toward one of the other groups, until a glimpse of a smile and a cloud of blond hair from a girl in the group recalled the pain of being bunked out by Marim.

  What if they didn’t like him? Or laughed? Or just ignored him?

  He hung there, aching with the years of rejection he’d endured, with only his sister, now dead, to soften it. A few braver civilians moved into the free-fall zone and began air-dancing, flinging themselves from pad to cable to pad with increasing abandon.

  A flash of black and white cut through the crowd beyond the free-fall zones like a knife. It was Vi’ya and the Eya’a and, not letting himself think the word “coward,” he slunk away from the free-fall area and followed them.

  Moving in an opposing vector, Vahn jeeved through the crowds, watching movement patterns as he listened to drifts of conversation. Despite the erratic decor, the sense-mesmerizing jumble of lights and angles and colors, he saw Brandon at the eye of a social hurricane.

  Partly it was the setting, he thought as he sprang over a balustrade onto another gravitational plane at ninety degrees to the one he’d just left. The Gardens were modeled on similar amusements on other Highdwellings; only a nuller could be entirely comfortable in such a place, though they gave Highdwellers a way to be free, if only for a few hours, from the powerful—and necessary—social constraints characteristic of oneills.

  It was almost what he’d imagined the infamous Whispering Gallery on Montecielo to be like. So far he’d managed to avoid the duplicate here on Ares, as Brandon had shown no interest in walking through it. As he moved unnoticed through the crowd, the conversational patterns mixed in a surreal blend.

  The disorienting background and constant undercurrents of music seemed to free tongues; the farther he got away from the central dais under the free-fall area, where Brandon sat with his crowd of highborn sycophants, the more sibilant whispers he overheard.

  “. . . Regency . . .”

  “. . . Isolates . . .”

  “. . . disgrace . . .”

  “Arthelion . . . Enkainion . . . Regency . . .”

  “Gehenna . . . Isolates . . . suicide mission . . .”


  And then again: “Regency.”

  Curious, Vahn identified some of the speakers. The Harkatsus Aegios was the one whose lips seemed to shape the word “regency” most often, but he was not alone, and his auditors did not seem to disagree.

  The continuous music drowned out most of the discourse, even with his enhancers turned up. Vahn did not dare to get closer lest his proximity cause notice.

  And he did not need to hear every word, he thought soberly as he made his way down a long, madly-twisting stairway toward that central pit where the Aerenarch held court. Those fragments were enough to indicate that though Brandon had the name and the title, no one expected him to hold the reins of power. More seriously, the remains of the old government—at least some of the civilian portions—seemed reluctant to make the rescue run that might free his father.

  So who was going to form a new governmental nucleus? The second most obvious focal point was around Archon Srivashti—but that was purely social, and indeed he appeared to be oblivious to the whisperers as he lounged on an elegant platform at an angle between the water ball and the central edifice, exchanging lighthearted chatter and laughter.

  As Vahn returned to the dais, he discovered a part of the reason for Brandon’s fast-growing crowd. He’d missed Vannis Scefi-Cartano, half-hidden among the taller heads. She sat decorously adjacent to Brandon, as if the two were enthroned.

  Brandon quoted a dialogue from a satirical play, to have his quotations capped by Vannis. They dueled verbally, each topping the other’s line, until it broke up in laughter and commentary from the appreciative auditors. Puns, obscure political allusions, and wit flowed like the sparkling white wine.

  Vahn stepped up next to Jaim, whose countenance expressed the patience of endurance. He obviously caught little if any of the references, and cared less. His gaze strayed toward one of the exits, as if his salvation lay there.

  Though he stood a scarce two meters behind the Aerenarch, he seemed by his manner utterly divorced from the proceedings. Most of the guests ignored him as well, except for Brandon, who addressed him from time to time, once raising a slight smile, other times merely requesting this or that delicacy from the table.

  Brandon’s attention seemed equally divided among everyone there. Vannis Scefi-Cartano, the former Aerenarch-Consort, was as skilled in social byplay. But Vahn was an experienced observer, and he noted how closely she gauged Brandon’s reactions, especially when the officers entered the conversation. Once, when the guests shifted to descend on a new course of delicacies, Vahn saw her studying Jaim, her profile reflective.

  Brandon’s attention, like Jaim’s, strayed most often to the concourse with its many adits and exits. When a flicker of white appeared briefly far overhead, Brandon stilled, then rose to help himself from the table.

  Making his way to Jaim’s side, he murmured something, and then drifted along a vine-decorated pathway until he fetched up on the outskirts of the group around Archon Srivashti as he leaned against the table and swirled a new liquor idly in his glass.

  The sycophants seemed to take that as a signal to refresh their own drinks, causing a whirl of movement. Through it all, stolid as stone, Jaim made his way to Vahn. “Wants to leave in an hour,” Jaim said.

  Wondering why he did not use his boswell for that, Vahn acknowledged with a nod and Jaim retreated, weaving his way back through the crowd. Doesn’t seem to care about the niceties of privacies, Vahn thought. But then adrenaline boosted his heartbeat when Jaim’s demeanor shifted to alert.

  He gazed down at Brandon’s empty chair.

  Vahn made a rapid scan, but there was no sign of the Aerenarch. He’d completely vanished. Angry, he turned on Jaim, who reflected his own surprise and alarm.

  “Where is he?”

  Jaim spread his hands. “Said to tell you personally he wants to leave in an hour.”

  While Vahn activated the wide-spectrum call on his boswell and tabbed high alert to his team, adding (FIND HIM), far overhead, Ivard tugged on Vi’ya’s sleeve.

  “Come on, Vi’ya, you have to see this.” Ivard’s voice, however much he had effected physiological change, still managed the plangent note of youth. “You’ll never see a free-fall gym anything like it—better than the one on Rifthaven.”

  She stepped out of his reach “I will see it,” she said. “On my way to an exit.”

  Ivard sighed. “I can’t believe you don’t want to stay here. Hey, even the Eya’a are having fun.”

  She could not disagree; the pair continually looked around them, their necks stretching at impossible angles as they chittered on a high note. Their mental exchange was too fast to follow, but she could read the emotional current of excitement and curiosity, and she sensed an exchange with the Kelly, who had nearly assembled their trinat.

  She could leave them all.

  It was either that or drink until she was blind and deaf to all the lives, faces, voices she did not know, would not know, did not want to know, forming a tidal wave of emotional intent—and at its center, like sunlight on water, the familiar signature. . . .

  “I’m going,” she said. “Now.”

  Ivard’s eyes widened, his emotional current painful. “Kelly want you to stay.”

  She held her breath, exerting herself to leash the ready anger.

  Ivard sighed. With Vi’ya at his side, he could dare those frost-faced nicks. Nobody was frostier than Vi’ya. “All right. Here’s the way out. But just a peek at the dancing first, all right? We’ll be fast.”

  He led her to a doorway and shot off down a long concourse all of whose walls were floors to crowds of people. He dodged past a chattering group of civilians, probably techs from the Cap. She lost sight of him, but followed his emotional signature until she encountered one of those gravitational shifts, a change in direction hidden by a pleaching of white-barked trees.

  The Eya’a had vanished. She could still sense them, their attention absorbed by the trinat.

  Enough. With Manderian’s hand signs, they could make their needs known, if the Kelly didn’t. She could make her escape.

  She pushed her way through the crowds, avoiding contact, noting dispassionately that no one moved aside for her when she walked without the Eya’a.

  Slowly, even through the high-energy tangle of emotions of the people around her, she became aware that someone was matching pace with her. She hastened her steps, ever turning away from the densest clots of people toward relative quiet; but this strategy, born of growing distress, betrayed her as she found herself at a dead end.

  She turned.

  The other manifested into a male silhouette. A latticework of light and shadow masked clothing and face, but not the angle of a cheekbone or the familiar hands. Or the near-blinding focus of his emotional spectrum.

  Brandon Arkad had shed his vanguard and had strayed along the same path. She tried to pass him, cursing the maliciousness of circumstance.

  “Vi’ya,” the Arkad said, raising a hand.

  Perforce she halted.

  “I have a question,” he said.

  o0o

  Only when he finally reached the free-fall area again did Ivard discover that Vi’ya wasn’t behind him. Instead, he found the Eya’a leaping down from the trinat platform, trailed by Gray and Trev, tails wagging.

  What did they want? They stopped before him. They’d never done that before! He wasn’t aware of the crowd edging away, leaving him in a ring of empty space as they approached him, their huge faceted eyes reflecting the distorted architecture in even more fragmented form. From above floated the woody, thrumming triplicated rhythms of the trinat, shimmering high notes playing about at the top, and beneath a galloping beat that was so irresistible that some of the younger guests began to hop, to sway, and to dance.

  Ivard looked away from the Eya’a, feeling cowardly again. Had he really expected Vi’ya to somehow make friends for him? I’m an idiot. He was a Rifter, he wore the best shirt in the place, but he had no idea what to say, to do, so he
just stood there as if he’d taken root.

  The Eya’a chittered softly. One reached out and stroked his face with its long twiggy fingers, so gently that the razor edges on their long thin nails barely tickled.

  Ivard blinked. They had never touched him. They had never touched anyone. Vi’ya had warned everybody to avoid touching them because those nails could shred flesh.

  But inside the blue fire danced, and through it came a high, double-voiced thought: One-in-three fears the unity-in-many?

  The blue fire surged, providing the image of a single Kelly trying to manipulate something complex, and failing, lacking the help of the rest of its trinity.

  The Eya’a lifted their chins in that weird, break-neck way, then they leaped back up to the trinat platform, leaving Ivard standing alone in a wide circle of space. A bunch of nicks stared at him, then one, the girl with blue hair who didn’t look much older than he was, took a tentative step toward him.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” she asked. Her soft voice with the singsong accent of the Douloi gave Ivard a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, which intensified as he noticed how well her shirt and floaty pants modeled her figure, and how her hair matched her eyes.

  “Afraid?” he replied, relieved that his voice hadn’t cracked. “Oh, you mean the Eya’a? No, I’ve been around them for a long time.” He hesitated. “I can even sort of talk to them.”

  A tall, handsome nick standing behind Blue-Hair snorted derisively. “You’re the only person in Ares who can, then,” he drawled. “Are you giving Nyberg and the high council lessons?” He turned to the blue-haired Douloi. “Can you imagine the poetry recitals they must have?”

  “Oh, Dandenus.” She wrinkled her nose at him, but the others laughed, and Ivard got that hot prickly feeling all over him, smelling the burnt orange of shame.

  The blue fire surged, and he remembered that he didn’t have to put up with blushing anymore—he knew how his body worked. He constricted the blood vessels at the surface of his skin and relaxed as he felt the warmth ebb away.