A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Brandon mimicked the sound of the ritual flutes of the Yssel clans with a hideous droning noise through his nose, alternated with demented tweets, backing up as he did so. The poler paused, his pole suspended in the air as the Aerenarch climbed up on the rail, his arms waving.

  “And you—” He gestured grandly to the lead musician. “—can compose a divertissement for strings, winds, and Karelaisian Mace.”

  He snatched the pole from the steersman, tossing it into the air and catching it with a wide two-handed grip, miming with exaggerated care the actions of the mace bearer, swaying from side to side while banging the ends of the pole on the deck.

  Jaim snorted with laughter and ducked out of the way as the pole narrowly missed his skull. Then, as the other end came down, Brandon seemed to lose his balance. Jaim was fast, moving swiftly to his side, but somehow Brandon escaped his grasp, falling outward and flailing helplessly with the pole.

  And then—Vannis watched it unfold with dream-like slowness, helpless to intervene—the end of the pole swept around and smashed into the control console, which erupted with a flare of light. A wave of nausea swept through her as, with a buzzing screech, the little geeplane used to stabilize the barge overloaded and the entire barge slowly upended, dishes sliding down to crash with musical tinklings against the rail as it tilted with majestic grace toward the spin axis far overhead. The deck slanted steeper and steeper, provoking inharmonious bumps and thumps as the musical instruments slid over the side and splashed into the water.

  Two of the musicians screamed and dived after them; the geeplane gave a final despairing howl and the barge lurched up to a near-vertical stance and then toppled over, flinging them all, with a mighty splash, into the cold lake.

  Vannis caught her breath before the water closed over her, and she found herself entangled in the ripped awning. She fought free of that and then ripped away her skirts, which clung to her legs. Kicking free of her gown, she swam toward the bobbing, cursing heads.

  Screams, high and hysterical, turned out to be Yenef, who insisted some creature had bitten her. A confusion of wildly swinging lights and agitated voices converged on them, and suddenly they were surrounded by the young picnickers, who seemed to have found long rowboats and lights among the reeds.

  A woman gripped Vannis under her armpits and pulled her smoothly from the water. Vannis let her head drop back against the edge of the boat as the picnickers helped fish the others out of the water. She gazed between dripping locks of hair at the distant lights, hovering between tears and laughter; it was such a spectacular disaster! How would she explain bringing a soggy wet Aerenarch to the Masaud ball for their damned coup?

  What a historic moment! she thought, and then: But where is Brandon?

  She flung back the heavy dripping mass of her hair, and scanned the soaked figures for Brandon’s familiar person. Now she noticed what had escaped her before, weapons at the sides of the purposeful men and women. The short, trained exchanges revealed that they were Marines.

  They were all looking for Brandon.

  Curse the darkness, anyway! Vannis’s heart thumped painfully as she squinted over the churned-up waters, dreading the discovery of a floating body. “Was he caught under the barge?” she asked.

  No one answered.

  “Might have swum to the shore, sir,” a man said.

  Another answered in a clipped murmur, too low to catch. Then one of them turned to her, sketched a salute, and said, “Your Grace. With your permission, we will return to the shore.”

  She lifted a hand. “Whatever is best.”

  Srivashti will blame me if he’s drowned. With desolate certainty: Not as badly as I will blame myself.

  Other noises filtered in as her shock dissipated: Yenef sobbing; one of the musicians bemoaning the loss of his instrument; the hiss of machinery, the mess of floating dishes, instruments, and cushions from the barge, with heads bobbing up and down as Jaim and the Marines dove over and over in a fruitless search. Vannis peered at the black waters, seeing greenish-blue lights shifting around underwater.

  “I’ll have to replace the barge,” Vannis said, wondering how she would pay for it.

  No one answered. If they even heard her, they didn’t care. The world had gone crazy—almost enough to make that strange, desperate laughter return. Until they reached the shore, and Vahn, the Aerenarch’s Marine chief of security, ran down the path and slammed Jaim against the landing rail. “Where is he?”

  Jaim shook his head, his long braids splattering water on Vahn’s immaculate uniform. “I don’t know,” he said, hands out wide.

  For a moment it looked as if Vahn would gut the Rifter right there, and Jaim just stood, chest heaving, making no effort to defend himself.

  Vahn released Jaim, addressing the Marines in a clipped tone: he never once looked Vannis’s way. They established that everyone else was accounted for, and then they started the short walk toward the Enclave.

  o0o

  Brandon waited until the door slid shut behind him, melding seamlessly into the wall. He glanced around: bed neatly made, bedside console dark. The bain was empty, and the wardrobe. He had already found and disabled ancient imagers set into the walls. A touch to his boswell, and he was satisfied they were still dead.

  He moved to the wardrobe, stripping off his wet, dank-smelling clothing, then hesitated before the shower; using anything might signal Vahn’s guard in the kitchen alcove.

  Grinning, he pulled out fresh shirt and trousers. Whatever was to come next, he would go to it smelling like a swamp.

  His boswell flashed, an unfamiliar ID. He tabbed the accept.

  (Young Seeker, look you for a bolt-hole?) Though he’d only heard it twice, he recognized the laughing voice immediately: the ancient Prophetae, Tate Kaga.

  (No,) Brandon said.

  The oldster’s laughter echoed weirdly through Brandon’s bones. (So! You have chosen to end your long sleep, eh? But first there’s one here to waken. Will you come?)

  Brandon pulled on his last boot and ghost-stepped back through the bedroom, pausing before the pile of sodden clothing.

  (You’ll have to tell me more than that, Old One. I’ve just skipped one trap, and am probably on my way into a bigger one.)

  Once again Tate Kaga laughed. (Makes-the-Wind never sets bars, but breaks them! I have here the body of Telvarna’s captain. Her spirit is elsewhere. Come! Summon her back. Her last word was “Arkad.”)

  The communication ended.

  Brandon paused before a window, looking up at the lights that hid the Cap. It seemed he had one last chance to bridge that gulf, and he knew he had to take it.

  So he turned his back on the Cap, rummaged in a drawer beside the bed, then signaled the hidden transtube access to open.

  A small portal opened in the mosaic-decorated wall before him. Looking around the tiny pod with its dusty, still air, Brandon wondered which of his trusting ancestors had had these private egresses built into the Enclave—and why. Making a mental note to search the archives more thoroughly when he had time, he sat down and keyed the destination for the spin axis. All those years exploring the Palace Major had taught Brandon and Galen that ancestors inclined to secret passages were also fond of secret records.

  If I lose, there might be nothing but time.

  He had known from the moment he told Lenic Deralze that he would go through with his escape from Arthelion that the consequences would eventually catch up with him, but the reasons had outweighed the risks.

  The problem was, by the time he had reached Charvann, the reasons, and the risks, had changed forever. Yet the action would still exact its price—as it had from Deralze.

  o0o

  Vahn stopped when one of the guards ran down the path.

  “He’s just been inside,” the man gasped. “And now he’s gone.”

  o0o

  Osri would not have blamed Brandon for skepticism or even total disbelief. He knew he would have responded with the latter.

&nbs
p; Brandon had thanked him and signed off before Osri could respond. That was fine. Osri didn’t need to know more; the conviction that he had acted right cleared his head like a week of sleep during better times. He touched his boswell again, this time activating the direct link Captain Ng had given him.

  Again the response was immediate. (Lieutenant Omilov?)

  Osri swiftly outlined everything Harkatsus had said.

  From her end, Ng listened, her mood grim. Shutting out the ritual of systems check on Grozniy’s bridge, she said to Osri, (Who else have you contacted?)

  (Only the Aerenarch.)

  (Well done, Lieutenant. I’ll take it from here. Keep an eye on developments there and boz me if anything changes.)

  Osri sighed in relief, running the water in the disposer to cover the sound. Anything could happen now—it was even possible that Srivashti, or Harkatsus, or whoever had someone planted in communications, would hear of this conversation shortly.

  But it was out of his hands. He had done his duty.

  No, he had done right.

  At her end, Ng bozzed Nyberg. (The cabal is in motion.)

  Admiral Nyberg’s voice came clear and cool and expressionless over the neural link. (Thank you, Margot. We’ll leave this dinner—the exigencies of duty—and I’ll return to the Cap to await events.)

  Margot Ng tapped her boswell off and stretched in the command pod of the Grozniy as her XO, Perthes Krajno, continued to run her alpha crew through systems check.

  She was pleased to see them back on duty although Lt. Rom-Sanchez, now a lieutenant commander, should by rights now be commanding a frigate, and the two ensigns, the irrepressible young Wychyrski and the beautiful Ammant—both now sub-lieutenants—had earned enough rank points to transfer anywhere.

  The nature of the service was, you trained a young set of officers until they were perfect—at which time they’d go on to their own commands, leaving you with a new and younger set of pups. But they’d all confronted Ng as a group as soon after the orders went out for double watches to get Grozniy ready. They offered to turn down promotions that would take them from serving as her alpha crew, and she’d agreed, with one exception. Nefalani Warrigal’s unmatched mastery of the hyper-Tenno she had invented made her indispensable on Ares, especially if the Aerenarch won through and commanded recall of the Fleet.

  He just might, she was beginning to believe. He just might, she thought again, remembering the Aerenarch at the Archon Srivashti’s party, effortlessly playing the complex game of Douloi social maneuvering.

  Social and political maneuvering, she thought. At the time the Aerenarch had given no sign that he was aware of the intent beneath the verbal feints and parries, but she had since been convinced that he had indeed known very well. What had then seemed a teasing game of “Do you remember?” with his old tutor had provided a shield for Sebastian; she was not certain that the gnostor—distracted as he was by his Jupiter Project—was aware of how expertly he’d been warded from the political questions that, Ng was sure, had been one intent of the party.

  It’s now up to you, Brandon vlith-Arkad. The time for feints and parries was past. Either the direct thrust—or the game would be forever lost.

  She rubbed her tired eyes. Should she interfere? Could she interfere?

  Instinct was definite: Yes, and yes. But it must be within the boundaries of her sworn oath, because the Navy could not, and should not, and must not take direct action in political affairs.

  But she could, should, and must be ready once the leader emerged . . .

  And so it begins, she thought. No, it had begun ten years ago, when the ambitions of the then-Aerenarch, Brandon’s eldest brother, Semion, had ruined a blameless family to cut short his youngest brother’s career. All for fear of Brandon’s capabilities.

  Fears well founded, it would appear. The Navy had given up on Brandon, because that was the rules. But Brandon had not given up on the Navy, in spite of the rules.

  If she was right and he was about to act at last, it was time for the Navy to repay his faithfulness.

  She leaned forward and touched the tab that would enable her to address the entire ship.

  “This is the captain speaking. I need volunteers for a mission.”

  She paused, looking up into the startled gazes of the bridge crew. Commander Krajno turned in his pod, while Lieutenant Commander Rom-Sanchez jerked upward from his consultation with a tech underneath a console, uttering a muffled oath as his head banged into the open panel. She smiled at them, and then, still connected to every corner of the massive ship, continued:

  “I’m afraid this mission will set back the exchequer for danger pay . . .”

  o0o

  Kestian Harkatsus noticed the young man with the heavy brows, large ears, and angular jaw only because his movements took him against the flow of the guests in the Masaud ballroom. Then the man disappeared around a corner and Kestian forgot him, reveling in the rapt attention of the growing circle of Douloi as he expatiated on Cooperation, Order, and Service.

  “. . . and when we have once again established a competent government, aligned behind the Aerenarch, giving him the benefit of our many years of service and experience, then it will be time to strike back at the usurper.”

  He caught the eye of the old Archonei of Cincinnatus midway back in the crowd. She gave him a thin smile.

  It was going just as they had planned—in the absence of any Naval personnel, there was no potential center of opposition. Social opposition had already been defeated; no one of any importance danced now, in spite of Charidhe Masaud’s personal invitation to do so.

  Kestian spotted Aristide Masaud standing on the fringes of his group and his smile broadened. Hesthar, it seemed, was right about that family; ambition always outweighed the caprices of personal loyalty. “Without a strong government,” he continued, “the Navy, burdened with the task of managing Ares and the refugee population, cannot effectively prosecute the war.”

  Kestian paused as his listeners reassured one another in their agreement. He spotted Tau Srivashti on the other side of the room, but the Archon did not return his gaze. His face was abstracted as he bent toward the Kendrian heir, Fierin; unease chilled Kestian as he comprehended that neither Srivashti nor Fierin was speaking.

  Has Tau received a privacy he hasn’t shared? Kestian knew that Srivashti was monitoring the actions of the others, especially Vannis and the Aerenarch. But then, so was he.

  (Father?) Dandenus’s voice came through his boswell. Kestian nodded a deferential agreement to a temenarch busy repeating the gist of his words back to him and surreptitiously answered the privacy. (What is it?)

  (There’s something wrong with the barge. It . . .)

  (What?) Alarm burned in Kestian at the worry in his son’s voice. Since the boy had disgraced himself at the Ascha Gardens party he had forbidden him to attend any but the smallest social functions, a fact well known. Which had turned out to be a perfect cover—he’d dispatched Dandenus to watch Vannis and the Aerenarch from a distance.

  (It blew up! No, it tipped over, and everybody was splashing around until a bunch of Marines came to pull them out. I can’t see the Aerenarch.)

  (Get out of there. You mustn’t be seen. Don’t call me again until you are safe.)

  Kestian blinked, to find the temenarch expecting a reply. He bowed. “You make your point very cogently,” he said, as Cincinnatus frowned in Srivashti’s direction in mute question.

  Why hasn’t Srivashti alerted me? The alarm cooled into anger. I am head of the group. They’d chosen him! Why was Srivashti concealing information from him?

  Someone else in the crowd, some heel-kissing Chival, had taken over and was hectoring the crowd, again, repeating everything Kestian said and looking about for approval.

  A privacy: Srivashti! Under cover of the talker, Kestian accepted.

  (Hesthar couldn’t hold Nyberg. She does not think he is on his way here.)

  As the Archonei began answering the Ch
ival in her high, crackling voice, Kestian excused himself from the group with a general deference, modulating it with a humorous lift to his brows to indicate a summons of nature, and made his way to the disposers. He nearly collided with the big-eared young man he’d noticed earlier.

  Privacy assured, he signaled Srivashti. (What is going on?) He was glad of the emotional cloaking effect of boswell communication; he was not sure he could have concealed his anger or his anxiety otherwise.

  (No doubt you already know of the problem at the lake.) Kestian sensed a worrisome implication in that statement, but events were moving too fast to give him the luxury of reflection. (I cannot reach Vannis. She is no longer wearing her boswell.)

  Kestian clutched his head, trying to think as Srivashti continued.

  (We must assume that Nyberg is returning to his office in the Cap to await developments. He will not act on his own.)

  (And the Aerenarch?) asked Kestian.

  (I do not know), replied Srivashti, then went silent. Questions streamed through Kestian’s mind. Why had Vannis removed her boswell? Had she been hurt in the barge disaster? Too bad to be so clumsy; Kestian dismissed her from his mind. (Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? We are ready here, and the Douloi are behind us. The Aerenarch can’t stop us now, and if Nyberg will not come to us, we must go to him and present him with the newly formed council.)

  (You appear to have that well in hand. I will follow your lead. As for the Aerenarch—Felton has a knack for finding those who lose themselves.)

  Somewhat mollified, Kestian left the disposer, in time to see the thin, lank-haired servitor in dull green livery depart through an unobtrusive door. Kestian had not even noticed Felton’s presence.

  Shrugging, he rejoined the group, where Y’Talob was now holding forth, his earlier reluctance evidently erased by the apparently solid consensus now apparent among the guests. With satisfaction, Kestian noted the relative positions of the various players: the cabal were in dominant stances, deference apparent in the crowds circling them. Even Charidhe Masaud had been drawn in, as Y’Talob reiterated everything Kestian had said. They were all repeating his words, in total agreement, exactly as an obedient crowd ought to do.