A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  She touched the trunk, which hummed slightly as it rose on its gravitors. She guided it into the corridor. Srivashti has the power to get Jes free, and if he has spoken true to me, he will have exerted that power already. If Jes is free, then I’ll believe in Srivashti, because I’ll know he believes in me. If Jes is free, then I can entrust Srivashti with Ranor’s chip.

  She rounded a corner just in time to see Ranor’s tall head above a crowd moving into the lock. Hurrying her steps a little, she decided it might be a nice gesture to debark with him.

  She was the last one through, held behind Ranor by an eager group of techs who kept bobbing about and jumping to see over heads. From her few meters’ distance Ranor looked pale but calm.

  The concourse thronged with people, who surged forward when they saw the passengers. Fierin scanned the crowd, and her heartbeat quickened when she spotted Srivashti’s familiar hawk face. So he had come, and had not just sent Felton, as she’d told herself to expect.

  A very good sign, she thought happily, searching for Jes’ head nearby. What a great surprise that would be!

  The first of the passengers reached the greeters, and hugs and cries of gladness rang out. Ranor walked alone.

  No one is here to meet him.

  A wave of compassion for the man’s dead mate made her hurry her steps. At least he could walk with a friend! Maybe Srivashti could find space for him, too, aboard that huge yacht of his.

  She tried to duck around the techs as Ranor reached the front of the crowd.

  Another surge in the press of humanity almost swallowed him up. Fierin cleared her throat to call, but then stopped when she saw Ranor jerk aside, then spin around, his eyes wide.

  Pain and shock flashed through her, reflected in Ranor’s face. Their eyes met for a long instant: the crowd’s roar seemed curiously distant, and time suspended. His brow contracted pleadingly, and she fancied she heard the words his lips shaped: Remember. Remember.

  Then he vanished.

  Shrieks and shouts surrounded her as she pushed past the techs, ignoring their startled words of protest. Concerned people bent over Ranor’s recumbent form; Fierin saw Srivashti use his authority to force the crowd back. Then he bent over Ranor, his long hands competent as they checked for pulse, then slid into the laergist’s robe to seek a heartbeat.

  Ranor was right. He was in danger, Fierin thought, and the chill inside her turned to the ice of terror. She resisted the urge to touch the chip in her bodice: Whatever happens to me will happen to you.

  Still bent over Ranor, Srivashti looked up. “Call the medics, fast,” he said to the people standing frozen near the wall console, and then he met Fierin’s eyes.

  A smile of welcome transformed the tension in his face. He straightened up slowly. “Guard him, will you?” he said to the rest of the concerned helpers gathered around Ranor, and two or three assents came back.

  “Fierin.” Srivashti made her name a caress as he held out his arm.

  She took it, feeling the strength latent there under the smooth fabric of his tunic.

  “There’s nothing to be done for the man,” Srivashti murmured. “We’re better out of the way.”

  She almost said, “Poor Ranor,” except fear kept his name from her lips. Glad to get away, she matched her steps to Srivashti’s long strides as somehow the crowd parted to make way for them.

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear it anymore; sophistication deserted her, and she said, “Is Jes free?”

  Srivashti’s yellow eyes narrowed briefly, then his expression brightened to the tender amusement she was used to from him. “I wish I could tell you that he is, my dear,” he said. “But there appear to be complications.”

  “What complications? He did not kill our parents, I told you that. He wouldn’t have.”

  Srivashti laid his hand over hers, and his fingers tightened, bringing her words to a halt.

  “The Justicials,” he said, “will require proof. Right now, they maintain that the proof indicates that he did. I’ve checked, you see, and I’ll continue to move on his behalf. But my very dear girl—” He smiled down into her eyes. “—shouting it along the corridors here is not going to make my task the easier.”

  She searched his face. So handsome, yet he was impossible to read. Could he be trusted? Again she saw Ranor fall. She knew she would dream forever of the pain and pleading in those eyes before death claimed him.

  “Very well,” she said, forcing her lips to smile. “I’ll wait.”

  And Ranor’s chip will wait, as well.

  PART TWO

  ONE

  THE FIST OF DOL’JHAR, PHOENIX SUD OCTANT

  “You, and most of my tutors on Arthelion, quoted many times from the Polarities of your ancestor,” said Anaris. “But I never understood exactly how Jaspar Arkad intended them.”

  Gelasaar opened his hands. “What do you think?”

  “My father thinks the first one is a prophecy,” Anaris said, snapping the dirazh’u straight. “‘Ruler of all, ruler of naught, power unlimited, a prison unsought.’ From one to the other: your rule is shattered, and in a few hours we embark on the last leg of your journey. Gehenna awaits you.”

  The Panarch laughed. “The Polarities were not prophecy, but your father will understand their true meaning soon enough.”

  “I think the Polarities are a meditation on the limits of power,” Anaris said, winding the dirazh’u into knots.

  “A very un-Dol’jharian concept,” the Panarch observed.

  “Your ancestor grasped an interstellar imperium and found himself limited by relativity. With the Heart of Kronos in our hands, those limits no longer apply.”

  The Panarch shook his head. “Your father will never understand, Anaris, but you should know better.”

  Anaris said nothing; with a twist the dirazh’u pulled free of its knots and stretched between his hands, humming with tension.

  “The greatest limitation on our power has always been the human heart in its infinite diversity,” the Panarch continued. “And against that, no device, no matter what its powers, can give you any lever.”

  Anaris lifted his hand, palm out. “The Urian device that my father now holds lay within your grasp for seven hundred years, and you denied it.” He leaned forward. “With that force, all that was yours will be but the smallest part of my inheritance.”

  “I was ever the ruler of naught,” Gelasaar said quietly. “If your time on Arthelion did not teach you that, your portion shall be even smaller.”

  o0o

  Morrighon shivered in the cavernous, drafty interior of the forward second landing bay, his breath frosting.

  Anaris stood easily in front of him, flanked by his Tarkan honor guard, silhouetted against the view of space afforded by the wide-open bay door. Beyond, only slightly distorted by the energies of the lock field, the waspish shape of a destroyer hung unmoving, so close the blazon on its hull was clear to Morrighon’s eyes: a strange, round-topped, narrow-brimmed hat impaled on the upright of a cruciform, the whole enclosed in an inverted star and pentacle.

  Samedi. God of the dead on Lost Earth. Morrighon wished he hadn’t looked it up. His fundamental rationalism had been eroded by life among the demon-haunted Dol’jharians; he didn’t like the omen.

  From the rear of the bay Morrighon heard the whir of an arriving transtube pod. The hatch hissed open, disgorging a squad of Tarkans. They took up position to either side of the hatch as a group of elderly men and women in prison garb shuffled out. Morrighon noted a subtle change in the Tarkans, an increase in wariness and tension, as the last of the Panarchists debarked into the bay: the slight, upright figure of Gelasaar hai-Arkad demanded and received respect even in defeat.

  Fettered by the heavy gravity, the Panarchists moved with excruciating care, the scuff of their feet echoing. The Tarkans did not hurry them.

  The Panarchists halted on the other side of the bay from Anaris and his escort. A flare of light curved up over the hull of the Samedi, dimming into the
angular form of a shuttle as it came about to begin its approach to the Fist of Dol’jhar.

  Subtle movement drew Morrighon’s eye; though the Panarchists’ countenances were wholly unreadable, some altered their stances. A kind of drawing in, Morrighon decided, and he resolved to consider this instinctive motion to act in concert. Their leader, like Anaris, remained unmoving as he watched the approaching shuttle.

  Again the transtube whirred, and Morrighon did not need to look to know who was arriving this time: the atmosphere of the landing bay changed, the Tarkans rigid with alert tension as the hatch hissed open.

  Eusabian halted between Anaris and the Panarchists, Barrodagh his ever-present shadow. Barrodagh’s eyes flickered to one side; following his gaze, Morrighon saw the cold, faceted glint of an imager complex, recording everything within the bay.

  Another propaganda piece for the hyperwave. Morrighon knew that Barrodagh had placed imagers in what he had hoped would be the right positions to draw the maximum attention to his lord.

  Even while he despises the Panarchists, he is using their predilection for symbol to increase Eusabian’s power. Morrighon wondered if he ought to be thinking along the same lines, then turned his attention to the shuttle, which seemed to hover outside the bay as the deep hum of a tractor beam resonated through his bones. Then the craft eased through the lock field, rings of light fleeing outward from its hull, and settled to the deck with the characteristic spray of coronal discharge.

  After a protracted pause, during which conquered and conquerors stood together in absolute silence, the ramp of the shuttle swung jerkily down and clanged onto the deck. A tall, sour-faced man appeared at the top of the ramp, dressed in a gaudy captain’s uniform, and clutching in bony hands a small box.

  Emmet Fasthand, captain of the Samedi, did not inspire confidence by his appearance. Just as well, thought Morrighon, that most of the Tarkan and service personnel accompanying Anaris as he escorted the Panarch to Gehenna were already hard at work on the Rifter destroyer, thoroughly inspecting it and installing the data locks and other control systems that he, Morrighon, had specified.

  Fasthand began to descend the ramp, his head jerking one way then the other then back again as he stared from Eusabian to the Panarch. Fasthand stumbled on the ramp, flailed helplessly, then went sprawling, barely managing to convert his fall into a roll. He avoided injury only because he was caught by an automatic gee field, but he snarled in voiceless rage, no doubt embarrassed at the misstep in high gee.

  The Avatar’s face showed no reaction as he watched the box in Fasthand’s clutch spring open. Barrodagh’s intake of breath was Morrighon’s first clue that the small silver sphere that flew out was of any importance.

  The sphere fell with blurring speed to the ramp. Its uncanny motion startled Morrighon: when the sphere landed, it didn’t bounce; indeed, its impact made no sound. Instead, it rolled down the ramp and then stopped instantly as soon as it hit the level deck, less than a meter from where Anaris stood.

  The Heart of Kronos!

  Barrodagh made a motion toward the sphere but subsided as Anaris bent down to retrieve it, then paused. His muscles contracted, then he straightened up, moving the sphere about on his hand. All eyes were drawn to its weird behavior—as if it were both weightless and massive at the same time. Morrighon perceived tiny beads of sweat just under Anaris’s hairline.

  Due to the sphere’s properties? Morrighon didn’t think so.

  Anaris bowed to his father, dropped the sphere into his hand, then retreated to his former place. His eyes were somber, and wary, forcing Morrighon to remember the eve of his rise to the heirship, when Morrighon caught Anaris performing psi experiments. The Dol’jharians were ruthless in trying to expunge any traces of the talents of the Chorei from their offspring; though Anaris was now the only heir, Morrighon knew that Eusabian would have no hesitation in having Anaris executed if he knew about those talents emerging in his only living son.

  There must be some kind of psi resonance in the Heart of Kronos, Morrighon thought. The Avatar hefted the sphere, wholly absorbed in its strange motion. Barrodagh watched in fascination, his gaze flickering to the luckless Rifter captain, who rose painfully to his feet. Morrighon let out a breath of relief a trickle at a time; he was glad they would not be anywhere near that damned sphere until it had been taken to the Suneater and put to whatever task awaited it.

  The Rifter limped the rest of the way down the ramp, rubbing his shoulder as Barrodagh met him and spoke in an urgent undertone.

  With one backward glance eloquent of fear and mistrust, Fasthand retreated back up the ramp again.

  Ignoring them both, Eusabian kept testing the odd qualities of the sphere.

  The Panarch is already dead in the Avatar’s mind, Morrighon thought. A lesser man might gloat, but Eusabian had lost interest in the Panarch as soon as his enemy proved too weak to stand against him. Now he was just a means to end a ritual whose final piece had at last reached his hands.

  As if in confirmation Barrodagh motioned for the Tarkan guards to herd the Panarchists up the ramp behind the Rifter.

  Anaris’s reaction could not have been noted. Morrighon breathed easier as he observed the Panarch, who looked up at last, but not at Eusabian; to all appearances each man was unaware of the other. Gelasaar’s reflective gaze rested on Eusabian’s son, then he mounted the ramp and disappeared within the shuttle.

  The huge bay was filled only with Dol’jharians and those who served them.

  Eusabian turned his attention from the Heart of Kronos to his heir. “Anaris achreash’Eusabian, of the lineage of Dol,” he said, his voice resonant in the chilly bay, “complete my paliach, and return to my right hand.”

  Anaris bowed deeply. “As my father commands, so it is done.” He wheeled about and strode up the ramp. Morrighon hurried after, feeling Barrodagh’s gaze bore into his back.

  ARES

  The shuttle lifted off the deck and eased through the lock field in a spray of coruscating light, dwindling rapidly toward the Rifter destroyer. Then the screen blanked.

  As Admiral Nyberg turned away from the display, Commander Anton Faseult observed the admiral’s tense expression with a visceral pang.

  “Do we have enough information to set a deadline?” Nyberg asked.

  Vice-admiral Damana Willsones, head of Ares Communications, inclined her head. “The cryptography section has completely deciphered the message headers on the Dol’jharian hyperwave transmissions. With your permission?”

  Nyberg flipped his hand toward the console, a gesture of informality he used only with those he’d worked with for decades—and trusted.

  Willsones got up with the care of the aged person under too much stress, and walked to the console. The subdued lighting of the admiral’s office evoked subtle highlights from her white hair as she tapped it into life.

  A draft on Faseult’s neck drew his attention to the tianqi in the Downsider Summer’s End mode: cool, almost wintry, carrying a faint trace of burning leaves. It was the customary setting for the three of them, but there was now a fourth person in the room.

  “Our information put the Samedi here, at the Rouge Sud edge of the Phoenix Sud octant.” Willsones worked at the console. In response to her input, lines of light speared across the display. “Gehenna, of course, is here, high in Phoenix Sud toward the Rift, and the Fist of Dol’jhar was coming from Arthelion.”

  She paused and turned to Captain Ng. “Your strategy is working perfectly, Captain. Ship movements in response to our feints indicated that the Suneater must be somewhere in the Rift off Phoenix Sud, and the ship locations revealed by this transmission confirm that.”

  Captain Ng brought her chin down in a nod; if she had any idea how rare it was for Nyberg to include a ship captain in one of these planning sessions, her reply gave no hint of it. “But that still leaves us with upwards of several million cubic light-years to search.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Willsones, “Gnostor Omilov still doe
sn’t feel he has enough information available to narrow it down any more than that.” She frowned at her console, then continued. “In any case, given Ares’ position here—” Another line lanced through the star map on the display. “—our best guess is that we have no more than ten days to launch a rescue effort.”

  “And if not?” the admiral asked, his mouth tight.

  “After that, we would arrive at Gehenna after His Majesty had landed, and since the Dol’jharians will doubtless destroy the orbital monitors, and we know absolutely nothing of the planet, we might never find him.”

  Nyberg faced the port again. He said nothing.

  “Even if the Isolates didn’t first.” Ng’s voice was flat.

  “Meanwhile,” said Willsones, “we know that at least some on the Privy Council are still alive: Banqtu, Ho, Kree, Paerakles, and Admiral Carr.”

  All the more reasons to mount a rescue, thought Faseult, and all the more reason why the Navy, by itself, can’t. With the High Admiral still alive, Nyberg could no more assume command of the Navy than, with the Panarch still alive, the Aerenarch could of the government.

  “Ten days,” Nyberg repeated, his gaze bleak.

  Tension gripped the back of Faseult’s neck. He assessed their fighting power—a lamentably simple task. Another battlecruiser had joined the Grozniy in the refit pits on the Cap: the Malabor, badly damaged in action in the Hellas system. That made three new cruisers, when one counted the Mbwa Kali, now doing picket duty in-system. Three cruisers, a handful of destroyers, and a host of lesser craft—all they had to attack Eusabian’s super-armed force. Unless we can recall the Fleet. Which was the prerogative of the government—or the high admiral, both of whom were on their way to Gehenna.

  “Do you see any signs that a government will have coalesced by then?” Nyberg asked, still studying the port.