Liaden Universe 18: Dragon in Exile

by Sharon Lee

  The unit with its red-lit readouts and—startlingly familiar—standard life-gauge, showing a blue bar hovering at well below half, a cat’s whisker above nonviable.

  “He lives because I insist that he do so,” Uncle said quietly behind her. “If I withdraw my hand, he will die. Almost, he did die. It frightens me, how close he came.”

  Stomach stone-cold, she turned to face him.

  “Why do you care?”

  “My dear Pilot Caylon, do you think that I wish to anger Korval by allowing the death of one of their treasured elders, when it lies within my power to preserve him? He can live. He can want to live. I think—I believe—that you can give him that.”

  She swallowed, thinking. The air in this room tasted sharp, like ozone, and it cleared her head wonderfully.

  “Did you wake him?” she asked.

  Uncle bowed.

  “I did, for he was ready first, and I saw that having him alert and informed for your own awakening would be to the benefit of all. Alas, I misjudged. No sooner had the lid risen then he cried out, and the readings plummeted.”

  “You should not have waked him without me,” she said sharply. “I swore to him that I would not leave him alone. He would have felt my absence immediately and known that I was foresworn, and he, abandoned . . .”

  She shook her head, deliberately relaxing hands that had curled into fists.

  “But, there,” she said, more moderately. “You could not have known that, after all.”

  She looked again at the status lights, reading death and disaster there.

  “Wake him,” she said, not bothering to look at their host.

  “Wake him, and then leave us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Jelaza Kazone

  Surebleak

  Ren Zel felt the regard of Eternity, and longed to embrace it.

  No, he told himself, and rolled over in the bed he shared with his lifemate, plumped the pillow, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply in a pilot’s relaxation exercise.

  Golden threads glimmered behind his closed eyelids. His mouth went dry with longing.

  Another breath, another exercise, this one meant to center one to a purpose. He assigned as his purpose a restful sleep, sighed—

  And was bolt-upright in the next instant, a cry trapped between tongue and lips.

  He was hot and shaking, his stomach roiling, and it would be so easy, only to allow himself to open his eyes in that other place, where all was perfect and orderly, and the life-force of the universe flowed through him.

  No, he told himself again, but his resolve was weak. He needed all his defenses, now. He dared not weaken them by trying, again, to sleep.

  He slid out of bed, listening—not reaching for the thread that bound them, but only . . . listening, with human ears, to the gentle sound of his lifemate, breathing.

  At least he hadn’t wakened Anthora. There was no reason for both of them to go sleepless.

  Silent on bare feet, he walked across their bedroom, plucking his robe up as he passed the chest at the bottom of the bed.

  He slipped it on and tied the belt as he crossed their parlor to the door, slid it open and stepped out onto the patio.

  Overhead, the sky displayed its sparse starfield, and Chuck-Honey lay low on the horizon. Below, the darkness was more liberally sprinkled with stars, as the night bloomers opened. Beyond, the tree itself glowed, suffusing the pathways and the gloan-roses with a soft light.

  Ren Zel breathed in, seeking virtue from the tree-informed air. And, indeed, a certain calmness fell upon him. Enough so he could put the compulsion at a distance, and think what he must do.

  For he must do something. As easy as it would be, to succumb to compulsion, that choice was not open to him. Not yet.

  He wished that he knew . . . when. How long, but, really—what matter? The compulsion was wily; it waited until he was at his most vulnerable, then offered itself. If—

  “Ren Zel?”

  He turned from the railing, heart-struck.

  “Beloved, I did not mean to wake you!”

  “And, yet, you are awake yourself.” She slipped onto the balcony, the collar of her robe askew, her sash half-tied, her hair sleep-tousled and tumbling about her face and shoulders.

  “Is it the compulsion again?” she asked him, slipping her hand into his, and pressing against his side.

  He sighed.

  “It is. I . . . doubt I am strong enough to withstand the universe.”

  Anthora looked up at him, then over his shoulder to the garden, and the Tree.

  “It is recorded in the Diaries that, before the death of her body, Rool Tiazan’s lady anchored him to the world through her own essence.”

  He stared at her, breath-caught at what she was suggesting.

  “You would share the addiction. You would share my death, if it comes to that. Anthora—”

  “I would share your life, for so long as you have it,” she interrupted sharply, and sighed, pressing even more tightly against him. “Beloved,” she said, her voice soft, now, “at least let us try.”

  It would not answer. He knew—his gift, and the golden threads that tied everything together—they knew that he could destroy her with a thought. What was one woman’s life to a man who might unmake the universe?

  And yet . . . she offered relief. A burden shared was a burden halved, after all.

  Perhaps . . . perhaps it would answer.

  For long enough.

  He put his arms around her and lay his cheek against her warm, disordered hair.

  “I am in your hands, Beloved. Do with me what you will.”

  Rys had left them, having reviewed the dossiers of each of his four teammates. It had pleased him, to have a director among them; and pleased him even more to find what it was she had discovered.

  “Brother, we will prevail,” Val Con said, as they embraced.

  “I do not doubt it,” Rys had answered, which had been, not quite, a lie.

  Then Rys was gone, the car on its way down the drive, and Val Con weeping where he stood, in Surebleak’s wan sunshine, until he had shaken himself into order and come here, to the music room.

  “Jeeves,” he said quietly. He was alone, and though he had seated himself on the bench behind the omnichora, he had not brought the instrument live.

  “Yes, Master Val Con,” the butler’s voice emanated from the ceiling, which was well enough, Val Con thought, for this.

  “I wonder,” he said, “why you chose to give Tocohl my foster-mother’s voice?”

  There was a small hesitation, as if the question had surprised, which it may have done.

  “It had been my observation, during the time I was privileged to know her,” Jeeves said slowly, “that Anne Davis was able to cast calm upon, may I say, overheated situations, merely by speaking. Analysis indicates that it was not necessarily the content of her comments—which was often quite commonplace—but the timbre and resonance of her voice. As Tocohl was specifically traveling into an overheated situation, I thought it best to give her a tried and tested tool.”

  Another pause; this one very short.

  “Have I offended, sir?”

  Val Con sighed.

  “No offense,” he said. “Merely, I was taken by surprise, and . . . made somewhat nostalgic. Thank you, Jeeves.”

  He turned on the bench, and pressed the switch that brought the omnichora to life.

  His fingers whispered gently over the keys, waking a wispy, whispering rendition of “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” one of his foster-mother’s favorite pieces. She had taught him to play the ’chora, and she had taught him all of her favorite pieces, as well as those which were not favorites, but which she granted a place in her repertoire for reasons nearly as convoluted as those that might accompany the placing of an entry into a Liaden debt book.

  He would, he thought, teach Talizea to play, when she was older. If she showed an interest. He would teach her Anne’s favorite pieces and those which
were not favorites, and he would tell her stories of her Terran grandmother, building onto those stories that Father and Mother would doubtless tell, of their clan-sister, who had been the first to stretch Korval’s boundaries, and make them . . . other . . . than merely Liaden.

  For the story of their arrival on Surebleak began with Er Thom yos’Galan, who had brought a Terran lifemate into the House.

  It was, Val Con thought, adjusting the stops and allowing the sound to build, a shame that Anne had not lived to see the clan’s relocation.

  He thought she would have been amused.

  “I am for the single strike, the target which we all know. That is surest, and we four can well encompass the task,” Bon Vit said.

  “It is a flawed strategy,” Vazineth countered. “As we have seen. It leaves too many at large, with only their last orders to guide them. We must—”

  “We must,” Sye Mon interrupted, “recall that we are all accustomed to working alone. There lies our strength. If a single strike is flawed, four coordinated strikes may . . .”

  “Merely confound for a moment,” Claidyne spoke wearily. “We cannot eradicate the Department in four single strikes—not in forty. The eradication of the Department must be our goal. And that, my friends, can only be done from within the command center.”

  “Four compromised agents, who had been held by Korval?” Bon Vit asked. “An Yxtrang has a better chance of infiltrating Command.”

  “Not—” Claidyne began, and spun, dropping into a fighting crouch, as the door to their private parlor opened wide.

  A man paused in the doorway to look at each of them in turn. He seemed quite ordinary, with a full head of curly black hair, and wearing the same dark sweater and tough canvas pants as the rest of them. He had a leather bag slung over one shoulder, and when he saw that they had seen him, and that those who had been ready to fight had relaxed, he finished his entrance, letting the door swing closed behind him.

  Gently, he bowed to the room, and straightened, hands where they could both be seen. One was broad and businesslike; the other a graceful confection of woven golden metals.

  “I am Rys Lin pen’Chala,” he said, in the mode of comrade-to-comrade. He had an outworld accent, though which outworld was not immediately apparent. “I had been a senior field agent. Now, I am my own man, and I wish, as was said a moment gone, for the eradication of the Department. It was I who gave Korval the means to free you to yourselves.”

  None doubted him. None could doubt him, seeing him there, with the mark of the Department on him, plain enough for those who suffered likewise to see.

  “There are five of us?” Bon Vit demanded.

  Rys Lin pen’Chala turned slightly to face him.

  “There are six of us. The sixth remains apart, to act as diversion, and to stand as the last hope of our children, should we five fail of a successful completion.”

  “We will not fail!” said Sye Mon, and Rys Lin pen’Chala smiled gently upon him.

  “So I believe, as well,” he said, and moved forward, to set his case upon a table, and to sit down in one of the several chairs.

  “Come,” he said, “sit with me and let us hear what each has in our minds.”

  “You have already heard it,” Claidyne said, realizing now that he had been in the doorway for some time before he had allowed them to perceive him.

  “I had heard some of it, but I would like to hear all,” he said, and moved his golden hand, showing her the chair nearest him.

  “Come, sit down. Let us talk together.”

  They hesitated. Then Bon Vit came forward, shoving a chair near to the newcomer, and sat down.

  “Bon Vit Onida,” he said, with a nod.

  “Vazineth ser’Trishan,” she said, placing the second chair at Bon Vit’s right.

  “Sye Mon van’Kie.” His chair went next to Vazineth, and there was only one chair remaining, at Rys Lin pen’Chala’s left, which he had already marked for hers.

  Claidyne sat, keeping herself centered. She met his space-black eyes and inclined her head.

  “Claidyne ven’Orikle,” she said shortly.

  “Yes,” he answered, with a small smile. He looked ’round the circle, and nodded to Bon Vit.

  “If you please, let us hear your plan.”

  “I have the coordinates for Secondary Headquarters,” Bon Vit said promptly. “A concerted, serious strike there will destroy the Commander and the base.” He sat back and nodded to Vazineth.

  “A single strike—” she began, and stopped when Rys Lin pen’Chala moved his gleaming hand.

  “Plans first, if you please. Discussions after. There is no shame, if you do not have a plan, merely allow the topic to go to the next in circle.”

  Vazineth sighed.

  “I have no plan,” she said, and looked at Sye Mon.

  “My plan is similar to Bon Vit’s,” he said, “only I have the recall codes for the old machines that have been deployed. Once they are gathered in one place, we may destroy them.”

  Rys nodded and looked to Claidyne.

  She took a breath, glanced ’round the circle, and felt the familiar urge to hide her knowledge from all of them, and most especially from herself.

  The utter destruction of the Department, she reminded herself. That is your last and your only desire.

  She took another breath, and looked up, seeking Rys Lin pen’Chala’s eyes. He did not look away, he did not urge her to speak. He only waited, calm and quiet.

  His calmness eased her; she inclined her head and spoke.

  “I have the location of the quaternary transfer point. I have the entry codes. We can replace the current Commander of Agents with . . . one of our number. We can do an orderly shutdown of the network, disperse the operatives, and destroy the subsidiary command points.”

  INTERLUDE ELEVEN

  Vivulonj Prosperu

  In Transit

  The hood was raised; ozone-tanged air wafted upward and was dispersed by the air cleaning system.

  Aelliana looked down into a sharp-featured face that at once looked like Daav, and like no one she had ever met. His hair was dark, but very short. She leaned close and stroked it, feeling warm plush against her palm.

  “Daav,” she said, and touched his stark cheek. “Daav.”

  A sharp beep came from the board. Startled, she looked up, saw the blue line descending, into the danger zone, from which even the arts of Uncle could not restore him.

  “No!” she cried sharply, and shoved her fist into her mouth before the next words—Don’t die!—might escape. He would do what she told him to do; he had always done so, allowing for those eccentricities that made him peculiarly himself. Was she a goddess, to deny him death, if he wished for it? Surely, surely, he had borne enough, and she—she was his lifemate. She would be worthy of him.

  She swallowed, blinked her eyes clear.

  The blue line . . . had paused.

  Her knees gave. She staggered, teeth indenting her fist, and collapsed to the edge of the cot.

  Gods, gods, van’chela, don’t leave me.

  She did not say it; she would not demand it, though the pain of perhaps losing him was nearly more than she could bear.

  However, she thought, her eyes on the panel, an explanation was surely in order. She would not have him die thinking that she had lied to him at the last.

  She moved her fist from mouth to knee, and took a deep, careful breath.

  “Daav,” she said again, keeping her voice smooth. “Daav, it is Aelliana. We are separate once more, and appear to be in good order. I believe our situation is for the moment stable, and relatively benign. There are no active enemies within the scans. Your hurts have been healed, and you may take your chair at will.”

  She kept her eyes on the panel, hardly daring to breathe.

  The blue line began to climb.

  She stared up at it, unable to look away. Now and again, barely attending, she used the sleeve of her sweater to dry her cheeks.

&nbs
p; The blue line continued its steady climb. One, two, three of the stranger red lights blinked out. Two others faded to orange.

  She dared to close her eyes, then, and for the second time since waking, ran the Scout’s Rainbow, for serenity, for it would not do to greet him in disorder.

  When the Rainbow was run, and calm imposed, she opened her eyes, bent forward and stroked his face.

  “Daav, it is Aelliana.” Her fingers traced his lips, cold and firm. “Wake, do, and let me see you . . .”

  She spared another swift glance at the board above him, glowing green and orange now, the blue line at the top of its measure. She sighed, and looked down . . .

  . . . into a pair of sharp black eyes, over which strong brows were pulled together in puzzlement.

  “Aelliana?” he murmured, and raised a hand to touch her cheek. “You appear to be . . . not quite yourself.”

  “So I am given to understand. But you must admit it to be quite a trick, that I appear at all.”

  His mouth twitched into a half-smile, even as he shivered, suddenly and comprehensively.

  Aelliana caught her breath, and stood.

  “Come, now!” she said briskly, reaching down to take his hand. “Let us get you up on your feet, and dressed in something warmer than the air!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Galandasti

  Surebleak Orbit

  “What,” Quin asked, staring at the screens, “is that?”

  “Looks like a cruise ship to me,” second board said, which he might have known she would do. Certainly, he had spent enough time in the company of Master Pilot Tess Lucien to gain a fairly accurate idea of her character.

  “Yes,” he said, patiently, “but what is it doing in orbit around Surebleak?”

  “Maybe they need ice,” she said, but she reached to the board and obligingly toggled the IDs.

  “Lalandia, out of Moraldan?”