A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  The others followed suit.

  The wine hit the pit of Margot Ng’s stomach with a rush of warmth, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.

  The others perceived a glitter in Anton Faseult’s black eyes as he lowered his glass; he blinked away the moisture as Damana Willsones drained her goblet with an air of relief.

  They were all working too hard. But they had no choice.

  They seated themselves, and the steward lifted the silver dome off the platter in front of Admiral Nyberg with a flourish, releasing a puff of aromatic steam. On the platter lay a roast encased in flaky pastry.

  Ng’s mouth watered, and she resolved to spend more time at the salon, as Ares actually had a competitive fencing team.

  During dinner the conversation was light, leaping from subject to subject but never touching on the present. Nyberg’s dislike of “working meals” was well known and not even Vice-admiral Willsones, with the crusty fearlessness lent by age and long, distinguished service, tested that. But everyone present sensed that both Security and Communications had news of import to impart.

  And so did Margot Ng.

  Her hand strayed to the chip in her breast pocket, with the Aerenarch’s test result encoded in it. I wonder how their news will fit with mine?

  When they finished the last course, the steward brought them after-dinner cordials with coffee, and Nyberg dismissed him.

  The candles flickered in an occasional draft from the tianqi, which was making the transition from the neutral dining setting to a crisp, slightly cooler phase, filling the room with a faintly bitter herbal scent.

  Finally Nyberg set down his glass and looked around the table. “You all seem to have news, and I hope it’s good—or as good as it gets around here these days.”

  Vice-admiral Willsones laughed. “Here we are,” she said. “The masters of Ares, slaves to duty.”

  Commander Faseult snorted. “Not for long, if the Harkatsus cabal has any say in it.”

  Nyberg cocked his head, picked up his glass, and sipped.

  “Scefi-Cartano, Srivashti, Torigan, Harkatsus, al’Gessinav, Cincinnatus, and Boyar met again yesterday evening, comm-access denied.”

  “Srivashti yacht again?” Nyberg’s smile faded, leaving him looking tired.

  Anton Faseult shook his head. “Harkatsus’s dwelling. But the ubiquitous Felton was in command of security, which meant we did not get an ear in.”

  “Don’t need to,” Nyberg said, sitting back. He flicked a finger over a slim sheaf of papers and printouts at his side. He knew that Faseult’s investigative team had still not located the leak, nor was it likely they would: his people were overextended as it was, a situation that would only worsen.

  For now, however the cabal was getting their information, they seemed to be keeping it to themselves, and so he and Faseult had perforce shifted priorities. “With us invited to the al’Gessinav dinner and all the rest of the Douloi going to the Masaud ball, they’d be fools not to move: they’re aware as we are that time has run out.” He leaned forward. “My question is, where will the Aerenarch be?”

  The commander sat back, hands spread.

  Willsones startled them all with a laugh. “I think I can tell you that. My news is a delightful bit of gossip.”

  Nyberg’s lips quirked. “You’re incurable, Damana.”

  “When you get to be as old as I am,” she retorted, “you realize that people are really the only surprising things in this universe. But it’s gossip to the point: you’ll never guess who came to me—herself, no intermediaries—to rent—at a smacking good fee, I should add—that old lovers’ barge I inherited.”

  Faseult sustained a laugh, the first in weeks. “Why you ever held on to that thing,” he said, “let alone shipped it out here . . .”

  “You never know, Anton. You just never know.” She poked with one gnarled finger at the ice in her glass.

  Distracted, Ng wondered if that green drink of hers might be Shiidra Tears—appropriate in a decorated veteran of the last war against those dog-like beings. Willsones had given them more than enough reasons to weep. “And it has paid off at last. Vannis Scefi-Cartano! She plans an intimate evening on the lake.”

  “Ah,” Nyberg sighed, sitting back. “So that places the Aerenarch.”

  “My question is, has she planned this as a countermove, or is she acting on behalf of the cabal?” Faseult mused.

  Willsones shrugged. “Either way, the end is the same.”

  Ng tapped her nail on the edge of her snifter, listening to the tink. The sense of well-being after a good meal had almost dissipated, leaving a curious sense of unreality. “My experience of Douloi coups being limited,” she said, “bear with me, I beg. The cabal comes out into the open tomorrow, at this ball, right?”

  Nyberg dropped his chin in a slow nod. “If they can get the majority of the Douloi behind them, they’ll march straight to me and start handing out orders. And if everyone complies—” He lifted his fingers away from his glass. “A government is born.”

  “And the Aerenarch?”

  “He’s kept out of the way until it’s too late,” Faseult said.

  “So while he’s bunnying with Vannis on the barge—”

  “Exactly.” Willsones raised her glass in mocking salute. “He wakes up to find a new Privy Council ready to serve him.”

  Faseult said, eyes still narrowed, “If it really is Harkatsus in charge, that’s the likeliest plan. If Archon Srivashti is the backbone, he’ll make certain of the Aerenarch first.”

  Ng considered this. “How? Threats? Do you think they’ve been behind the murder attempts?”

  Faseult shook his head. “At this point it hardly matters. But they’ll use whatever works, whether promises, blandishments, or threats.”

  “I can’t believe they’ll use violence,” Ng exclaimed. “They’d never get away with it.”

  “Agreed.” Nyberg set his glass down. “Srivashti would not be so crude if he could possibly avoid it. Hesthar al’Gessinav even less so. Why, when a more effective threat would be the release of information?”

  Faseult’s countenance sobered. “The dead laergist and his missing recording of the Enkainion? There could be a connection.”

  Damana sighed. “What could be on it? What did he do?”

  Nyberg gestured, a graceful turn of wrist that chilled Ng with its fatalism. “It hardly matters, does it? If Brandon vlith-Arkad can’t seize control, he’s lost. All that remains is the matter of what sort of justice the cabal will demand, or will use to force him into compliance.”

  Ng made herself breathe slowly, releasing what she recognized as pre-battle tension. No, this is worse: there is no enemy to shoot at. Supposedly we are all on the same side. “Do you believe he will comply?”

  “I don’t know,” Nyberg said lightly. “Though a pleasant young man, he is completely opaque to me. I cannot gauge him at all.” He turned to the commander. “What say you, Anton?”

  Faseult sighed. “If you will honor me with your forbearance while I digress into irrelevance?”

  Nyberg deferred with a stately gesture, and Willsones responded with another. Ng smiled into her cup, entertained, despite her tiredness and the tense situation, with the ineradicable ritual of Douloi interactions. Will the Panarch be as polite on Gehenna? The random thought jolted her.

  “Did any of you ever meet the Kyriarch Ilara?” Faseult asked.

  Surprised, Ng nodded. Willsones shook her head, and Nyberg murmured, “I saw her once, but it was at a huge Mandala function. We were never closer than fifty meters.”

  Faseult turned to Ng. “Your impressions, Margot?”

  Ng closed her eyes, calling up the vivid image of clear blue-gray eyes. “It was right after Acheront,” she said. “When I received the Karelian Star. We spoke briefly. . . .” She paused, reliving the intensity of that day: herself a young ensign, about to be decorated and promoted, still grieving over the loss of good comrades; the occasion her only visit
to the Palace Major, for a dauntingly formal ceremony that would be broadcast to the farthest reaches of the Panarchy; her conflicting emotions overridden by her fear that she would fumble and disgrace herself.

  “They both spoke to me. The Panarch was grave and kind, but I was dry-mouthed with terror.” She paused for a murmur of laughter from the others. “But then the Kyriarch spoke to me, and, oh, it was as if we were alone in the room together, just for those seconds.” She lost the image and turned her gaze to the three pairs of eyes watching her now. “She asked a couple of questions, nothing I hadn’t been asked a hundred times since the battle. But she really listened to my fumbling answers. When I walked away, I carried the conviction that she would remember me forever, that I carried her pride and trust with me as my special charge.”

  “Ah,” Nyberg said. “Go on, Anton.”

  Faseult inclined his head toward Ng. “Are you aware of the circumstances of the Kyriarch’s marriage?”

  “I was told by my patrons that she sprang from a frontier family and that the marriage had taken everyone by surprise.”

  “It was a scandal,” Faseult said. “My mother told me the whole story before she took me to the Mandala. This was before I was old enough to go to the Academy; Gelasaar had just succeeded his mother. Since his birth everyone had expected an alliance with the Cartanos—it was their turn, and these things had come to follow a certain pattern of rotation, which kept the most powerful families happy. But Gelasaar broke it, risking the enmity of the Cartano faction.”

  Ng nodded, waiting for the point.

  Faseult smiled briefly. “You may have heard the gossip about the marriage ceremony, and how wars nearly broke out that day. But.” He paused to drink. “What no one appeared to perceive was how, within half a year, Ilara had managed to win them all over. Every one of them. The Cartano candidate had even become her staunchest supporter in government circles. Ilara never had an enemy. Until the end.”

  Willsones sighed, and Ng winced, remembering the doomed peace mission to Dol’jhar. The Kyriarch Ilara had been Eusabian’s first victim.

  “Whatever it was about her, it was innate. One only had to meet her to fall in love. I certainly did,” Faseult added with a wry smile. “Case-hardened fourteen-year-old that I was. To a certain measure, her second son, Galen, inherited that ability, though he was seldom seen at the Mandala.” He paused again, looking around at them, last at Nyberg. “At your request, I have attended as many of these interminable civilian entertainments as duty allows, and I’ve watched the Aerenarch.”

  “Does he exhibit this remarkable trait?” Ng asked, rapidly reviewing her own brief observations of the young man.

  “When he wants to,” Faseult said. “I don’t know whether to be frightened or impressed, but he seems able to cloak it at will.”

  “You’ll forgive me,” Ng exclaimed, “but that makes him sound like . . .”

  “Like a wire-dream actor, making a false front to gain his purpose,” Willsones said, her tone flat with disgust.

  “I expressed myself poorly,” Faseult said, with one of those deferential gestures. “Think about that reception when we first saw him. He moved through the crowds, making all the correct gestures and responses, but leaving little more impression than a stone dropped into a pool. He wore a mask, but after the concert, the mask was lifted, and we’re seeing him as he really is. He’s been winning partisans ever since, mostly in ones and twos, perhaps a family here or there.”

  “Like the Masauds,” Nyberg put in.

  “Exactly, Trungpa. But always social, always within a purely social context. He has not courted us; his single action in our direction was to take the exam. And that he did without any fanfare. Few are aware that he did it.” Faseult turned Ng’s way.

  “Leaving aside the question of his conduct at his Enkainion,” Nyberg said, “one is left with his reputation.”

  “Ah, yes,” Ng said, withdrawing the chip from her inner pocket. “The drunken sot who lives only for pleasure.”

  Nyberg’s brows lifted.

  “I also have my bit of news,” she said, “but it can wait for a moment. I’ve been doing my own investigations. It will not surprise you that one of the hot topics of gossip in our own wardrooms is the truth behind the Aerenarch’s expulsion from the Academy ten years ago. There’s inevitably more speculation than fact but this much seems clear: everyone on Minerva, or almost everyone, knew the true reason behind the Krysarch’s expulsion ‘for irresponsibility and insubordination,’ but no one dared talk openly. The death of Aerenarch Semion,” she said dryly, “seems to have had a remarkable effect on freeing tongues.”

  “Perhaps the former Aerenarch did contrive his brother’s expulsion,” Faseult put in, “but—if I may be permitted to speak freely—Brandon vlith-Arkad’s subsequent record seems to underscore the unsavory reputation.”

  “Yes,” Ng said. “So explain this.”

  Receiving a nod of permission from Nyberg, she tapped at a console, which converted an inset mirror on the wall to a screen. The results of Brandon’s tests appeared. Then she sat back and watched the others’ faces.

  She was not disappointed. Nyberg’s craggy brows rose. Faseult let out a rare and startling whistle. Willsones uttered a crack of laughter.

  “In addition to a gifted individual,” Ng said, “which is entirely to be expected, we are seeing the results of a single-minded focus on one goal. Despite what probably had to be a lethally close watch, if anything I know of Semion is true, young brother Brandon managed to stay with his studies.”

  “To what end?” Nyberg breathed, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. “To what end?”

  “I can’t begin to guess,” Ng said, “but I’ll wager that Karelian Star his father hung on me, that it’s all connected with the events at the Enkainion. His mother gave the impression that she believed in everyone she met and trusted them completely. I suspect that our new Aerenarch might have retained his belief in human potential—the way he interacts with individuals, especially the young, like that poor boy who ended up with the Kelly genome, indicates that—but he does not trust anyone.”

  Nyberg’s brows stayed up; Faseult’s face could have been carved from stone.

  She turned to Willsones. “Back to the Enkainion. Anything on civ or Naval vessels?”

  The communications chief shook her head. “Zottas to the nth power from incoming ships, and not one clue to what really happened on the Mandala that night.”

  Ng turned to the security chief. “If I had a charge that important and he appeared with a Rifter in tow, I’d plant a telltale in the Rifter,” she said, smiling.

  Faseult exchanged a glance with Nyberg, who nodded fractionally. “We did,” Faseult said.

  Ng said, “And I’ll bet you’ve had nothing from that, either.”

  “A raconteur’s delight, according to Vahn,” Faseult replied. “Airs and humoresques, but no substance. The Aerenarch and Jaim talk about everything—music, history, dress, Rifters and Highdwellers and Downsiders—everything but politics.”

  “Which leaves us exactly where we were before,” Nyberg said wryly, “only at a substantially advanced hour. I suggest we adjourn and get what rest we can: tomorrow should be interesting.”

  “So we fall in with the plan,” Damana said. “We all appear at Hesthar’s dinner?”

  “With your permission,” Ng said, “I’d prefer to send my regrets.”

  Willsones looked mildly surprised, Faseult saturnine. Nyberg’s face was unreadable as he inclined his head.

  “Grozniy is almost finished,” Ng said smoothly. “I should like to be there for the final status run-through.”

  “Yes,” Nyberg said, standing up. His smile widened, then he laughed. “Do that, Margot. I’d like to know that Grozniy is ready for orders.”

  o0o

  The tianqi shifted into evening mode as the light outside slowly dimmed. Eloatri sighed and put the chip viewer down; she missed the comfort of the leather-and
-paper volumes in the library of New Glastonbury Cathedral on Desrien.

  A Downsider born and bred, she felt uncomfortable with the gradual dimming of the habitat’s diffusers, unaccompanied as it was by any further change in the angle of the light.

  At least there was weather. Framed by the north-facing window, the strange hook-topped clouds of the oneill gathered, enwrapped on either side by the up-curving surface as they were herded by gravitic fields toward an evening rain shower. There might even be lightning—Eloatri could check the habitat schedule to find out, but that would make it seem less like weather and more like theater.

  It’s a wonder Highdwellers aren’t even more different than they are, she thought.

  A splatter of rain beat against the slightly opened window, filling the chamber with petrichor, a scent different on every planet and Highdwelling, yet somehow evoking the same subliminal response. From the clouds a crooked arc of light traced its way spinward to the surface, confirming her speculation. A few seconds later the resultant sound reached her, strangely hollow compared to planetary thunder.

  No storm could match the fury building among the Douloi factions immured here on Ares.

  The book viewer blinked as, sensing inactivity, it shifted into cover mode. Eloatri stood up and looked down at the title.

  Bearing a Sword: The Christian Church and Politics on Lost Earth.

  Well, now she knew one more reason why the hand of Telos had ripped her out of her comfortable journey along the Eightfold Path and chivvied her toward New Glastonbury, to assume the burden of an alien faith. No religion had a deeper tradition of meddling in the affairs of state. She shook her head in wonder at the depth to which her predecessors in that tradition on Lost Earth had lost themselves in politics, most often to the detriment of their faith. But sometimes, even despite themselves, they accomplished good rather than evil.

  When the time came, would she do as well? Could she? Somehow, despite the desperate struggle building among the Douloi on Ares, she suspected her role lay elsewhere, but she also knew that Telos rarely used a tool for one purpose only.