A Matter of Oaths

by Helen S. Wright

[Acknowledged.]

  One of the outbound ships folded its vanes and dropped its shields in a single well-planned move. Then it was debris, hit by fire from two directions as it tried to jump.

  [We have surrenders,] Vidar reported almost immediately. [Four. Now six.]

  It had taken those web-rooms long enough, Rallya thought angrily. Gods knew if the webbers who had just died had been the most fanatic or only the most stupid…

  [Nonnegotiable conditions,] she sent. [Dropped shields, folded vanes, cold weapons. Skeleton team in each web, the rest of the web-room in suits on the hull. Group One Commander to take possession. One ship from each group to assist.] And gods help anybody who got in the line of fire if Carher made a break for it, friend or enemy. [Fleet broadcast: status two.] There were still four ships to deal with. [General broadcast: will open fire in five minutes.]

  [Message from Keldir: will surrender at station.] There was a ripple of disbelief in Vidar’s signal, an unnecessary flicker of warning from Joshim.

  [Negative. Conditions for surrender have already been stated. Remaining ships will move away from station before surrender will be accepted.]

  Nobody willing to double-cross Julur would fold so easily. Carher had something planned; every length she moved away from Central reduced the danger that the station would be caught in the crossfire when she tried it. Though gods knew what it was: Keldir was too deep inside a mass-shadow to try for a jump, too outnumbered to fight free. Surrender was the only sane option, but it still was not believable.

  [Conditions accepted,] Vidar reported.

  As Rallya watched suspiciously, Keldir lowered its shields and edged away from the station, tamely copied by the other three ships.

  [Message to Keldir: we will approach you,] she told Vidar, angling Bhattya’s vanes to take them out of formation. The weapons team was still locked on target. The sensor team fed her a heat scan of the approaching ship: shields lowered, cannons cooling, no more activity from the drive than could be explained by the gradual movement. Nothing apparently out of place. Even the vanes were…

  Space rippled with the stress of a ship jumping inside a mass-shadow. Rallya grabbed for the drive controls, slammed Bhattya in Keldir’s wake. The web convulsed in a struggle to adjust; dimly she was aware of Joshim damping the shock waves to allow her to work. The cannons were still primed and aimed where their target had been. She bypassed the weapons team, praying that they had come out of the jump in the right orientation, that Keldir was the blurred image in the sensors that had survived. She fired. The blur scattered into a sparkle of fragments. As it did, somebody—Vidar?—took the ship back into jump space, back through the hole that was closing behind them, back to the fading echoes of their departure.

  There was utter silence in the signal circuits as the web steadied, as if nobody quite believed what had happened, neither Keldir’s insanity, jumping inside a mass-shadow, nor Rallya’s, riding the wake. Gods knew, nobody could expect to survive such insanity twice in a lifetime, Rallya thought, pulling herself together. Luckily, once had been enough. But it had been earned luck, she told herself exuberantly, the luck of having the right team in the web and the right kind of suspicious mind. Although if they drifted much longer in a battlefield, half-blind and congratulating themselves, they would deserve something else.

  Not that there was a battle still going on. Not that there had been a battle at all, only a swift but conclusive skirmish, but the histories would call it a battle, and the web-rooms of her fleet would boast about having taken part in it. Let them, Rallya thought resignedly. Only two ships lost, and those both the enemy’s: it was more to be proud of than a bloody fight with heavy casualties on both side. There was still clearing up to do, guilt to determine in the web-rooms of the ships that had surrendered, but it was a good beginning.

  [Query comms,] she sent crisply to Joshim. First priority was a situation report, to confirm what she was getting from the sensors that were left. The growing activity in the web told her that Vidar was already busy collating a damage report that he would hold against her for years. [Casualty report,] also to Joshim. The damage control teams would have taken a battering in those two rapid jumps. [Well done,] to the rest of the web.

  [No casualties,] Joshim replied. [Message from Group One Commander. Situation stable. All hostile ships being boarded. Fleet moving to defensive formation.]

  Situation stable? Huh. It would be a long time before the situation in the Guild was stable again. [Query Central.]

  [From Central: sending tug to assist us to dock. Council waiting for you earliest opportunity.]

  [Advise accept assistance,] Vidar added accusingly. [Eighty percent sensor loss, sixty percent vane loss, total shield loss. Other minor damage.]

  [Accept,] she sent to Joshim. She could imagine what the Council—or what was left of it—wanted. Help to sort out the chaos their incompetence had brought down on their heads. Well, if that was so, they would take it on her terms or not at all. She had not risked the lives of every webber in Bhattya’s web-room to see the Council throw away what they had won.

  [Take key,] she told Vidar, relinquishing control of the web. Carher had lost because she had not been given enough time to win; the Council were going to learn the same lesson. Hit them now with what was required of them, while they were still reeling from the shock of Carher’s defection, and the Guild would come through this a hell’s length stronger than it had ever been.

  General broadcast from Guild Council

  To all ships and stations:

  The coup instigated by ex-Councillor Carher has been decisively suppressed in a brief battle at Central … Commander Rallya of Bhattya and the Old Empire has been co-opted onto the Council…

  354/5043

  IMPERIAL ZONE, OLD EMPIRE

  “The work would go faster if you had help.”

  Rafe glanced across the floor at Braniya’s feet, all that he could see of her from under the antique web’s casing. “I don’t need help.” He pulled another circuit out of its mounting and inspected it carefully for visible signs of damage.

  “You don’t want to endanger anybody,” Braniya corrected him.

  “It would be a waste,” Rafe agreed. “Especially since you won’t find a tech who knows anything about this.” Not even within the Guild, unless one of the historians had come across something similar in the records…

  “Not even the little that you know?” Braniya asked. “Perhaps not, but would an extra pair of hands not be useful?”

  “This,” Rafe said, sliding out from under the casing and standing up to place the circuit in the test-rig that he had found with the web, “was designed for a single person to maintain and use. An extra pair of hands would just get in the way.”

  What else it had been designed for, he had been unable to discover. Self-contained, even to its power-source, it had no sensors, no control linkages, only a bank of comms circuits to connect it to the world outside. There was a single couch covered by a full-length hood, with web-contacts that would fit his and provision for a nutrient feed. For amusement, Julur had said; somebody had had a damned solitary vice.

  “The Emperor is concerned that your web-cramp is occurring more frequently and with greater severity.”

  “The Emperor is not the only one.”

  The test-rig displayed the symbol for test-in-progress, then the symbol for test-complete-without-errors. They were the same symbols that the Guild’s test-rigs used, produced by equipment of an age Rafe could not guess. The area where the web was installed had been vacuum-sealed; when the guards had unsealed it, it looked as if it had not been visited for centuries. And the web itself—the principles of its construction were familiar, if all the materials were not, but for it to have survived so long without deteriorating … Unless the test-rig was faulty—and he had to trust that it was not—every circuit that Rafe had checked was functioning perfectly.

  “It may be that the equipment will need to be maintained for some time,” Braniy
a said. “Any tech brought in to help you could expect to live for some years.”

  Rafe raised his eyebrows. Braniya was telling him that something had changed in the Guild, something that made it unlikely that Julur would get any cooperation from them for years. For the Guild’s sake, that was good news. For himself? If Julur wanted to keep him alive, he had to preserve his skill in the web; otherwise web-cramp would kill him. The only way to do that was another identity-wipe, which was preferable to the personality disintegration he had been threatened with. Very marginally.

  “I don’t need any help,” he said stubbornly. He would not jeopardize anybody else’s life. And he would not share the excitement of this web with anybody. Working on it stopped him thinking for hours at a time about Joshim and Ayvar and what Julur intended to do with him. And about his web-cramp, except when the spasms took him.

  “The Emperor wishes your work to be checked, to be certain that the web is safe to be used.”

  “Only a webber could tell him that.” Rafe slid back under the casing to replace the circuit he had just tested, to extract the next one. “He’ll have to rely on my judgement. He’ll be questioning me under Gadrine; he’ll know I haven’t done anything deliberate to hurt myself. For the rest, he’ll have to assume I know what I’m doing. It’s my life I’ll be risking when I hook in. If I’m not ecstatic about him meddling with my sanity, I’m hardly going to endanger it by mistake.”

  “Your life belongs to the Emperor,” she contradicted him icily.

  “If you bring a tech down here, I shall stop work,” Rafe told her equally coldly. “Maybe the tech could complete what I’ve started. Maybe you and enough guards could get me hooked into the web without doing permanent damage to my web-contacts. But you couldn’t make me use it.”

  When he stood up again, her lips were pressed into a thin angry line. It must be difficult for her, he thought without sympathy, to have a prisoner whose terms of imprisonment were so contradictory, about whom she was forbidden to ask questions. Almost as difficult as it was to be that prisoner, not knowing when Julur’s indulgence would end.

  “If you want me in this web as soon as possible,” he informed her, “you can stop distracting me. And you can tell Julur that it will be ready for use first thing tomorrow. I’d appreciate it if he’d schedule his question session then.”

  He shrank from the thought of more Gadrine, but if it was the only way to get into this fascinating web … Not just because of the web-cramp, but because he itched to explore it from within. He would never know whose it had been or why it was here in the Old Imperial Palace. He would never share what he did learn with anybody else, but just once while he was still Rafe who had been Lin, he wanted to web again. He wanted a world where he was in control, he admitted to himself ruefully, somewhere where his every breath did not hang on the whim of an Emperor.

  From Central Station News

  …The Council will meet in private session in the Council Chamber at 04:00/355/5043…

  355/5043

  CENTRAL ZONE

  Rallya flung the sheaf of flimsies that she had accumulated during the Council meeting onto the desk in the office she had been allocated. Carher’s office, and noticeably larger than the other Councillors’. The flimsies made a satisfying scatter on the floor as they slid off the highly polished surface. If she could have been bothered, she would have dumped them in the waste disposal.

  Gods and Emperors, it was easy to see how Carher had been able to get away with so much. Half the Council was incompetent and the other half was worse. No, that was unfair. There were one or two brains struggling to remember how to function, Ferin’s for one, and the woman with one arm, Rhonya. The rest of them … If she had needed proof that democracy was no way to choose a governing body, the Council was it, but having been elected, they could at least have the decency not to try to unload their responsibilities on the first saviour that came along. Yes, she was willing to take them by the hand and drag them in the right direction until she was sure they could carry on by themselves. No, she was not going to accept leadership of the Guild, not even until they could arrange for fresh elections.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” Fadir hesitated in the doorway, one foot just inside the office as if he was testing the temperature before venturing in. “Message from the Stationmaster. Khetya is coming into dock and Lord Dhur would like to speak to you as soon as possible.”

  “Who invited him here?” she demanded. “No, don’t try to answer that, Fadir. You might wear your brain out thinking, and you wouldn’t want to be the only one around here with a used brain. Message to the Stationmaster. I’ll see Lord Dhur as soon as Khetya has docked. Let the idiot who calls himself my secretary know too.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lord Dhur obviously thought he did not need an invitation to Central, Rallya thought darkly as she dropped into the high-backed seat. That was one mistake he would not make again. If he thought the loan of his fleet—which he was not going to get back—entitled him to special treatment, he was wrong. And if he thought he could persuade her to besiege Julur, he was also wrong. Blood and hell, the man was stubborn. Joshim stood more chance of changing her mind and at least he knew better than to try.

  “Lord Dhur, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Fadir. Find out if the idiot in the outer office can produce some alcad, and bring it in yourself.” She nodded to Ayvar, gestured at the empty chair. “If you were in such a hurry to be here, you should have stowed away with Fadir.”

  “Fadir didn’t tell me what he planned.” Ayvar took the seat he had been offered. “I came to find out what you plan.”

  “What I plan or what the Guild plans?”

  “For current purposes, the two are the same.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Rallya objected sharply.

  “The Guild Council is ready to accept any suggestion you make,” Ayvar said smoothly. “No,” he added, holding up a hand to silence Rallya, “I don’t have a spy in the Council. I’ve seen the same situation in other places and times—in so many thousand years, there’s little new. You’re strong. You have strong ideas about the Guild. And you’re willing to put them into action. It’s inevitable they look to you for a lead.”

  Rallya snorted. “Well, they are not going to be led into besieging Julur. Rafe’s life isn’t worth what it would cost. And he would agree with me, no matter what Julur does to him.”

  “Is that your final word?”

  “If I can win Rafe’s freedom by negotiation, I will. But I will not throw away the peace of both Empires to do it.” She studied him suspiciously. It occurred to her that there was another potential source of a fleet, the F’sair who had taken Julur’s hire in the past, who might take Ayvar’s hire in the future. Was he so intent on Rafe’s freedom that he would go that far?

  “I think, Lord Dhur,” she said slowly, “that you had better resign yourself to an indefinite stay at Central. I want you where I know what you’re doing.”

  Ayvar looked at her without expression. “You aren’t worried that holding me will provoke the same chaos as besieging Julur?”

  “Not if you make no protest,” she said calmly, “and you won’t, will you?”

  “I’ll give you two days to try negotiating,” Ayvar conceded. “But I warn you, Commander Rallya, I will hold you personally responsible if I lose Lin.”

  Rallya stiffened at the threat in his voice. “Julur might release him in exchange for you,” she suggested provocatively. “One webber—any webber—is worth more to me than an Emperor. No doubt the reverse is true for Julur.”

  Ayvar shook his head. “Even if you offered, he’d refuse. I’ve told you, nothing will make him give Lin up except fear for his own life.” He stood up. “Two days, Commander. And for Lin’s sake, don’t bring my name into it.”

  Rallya called the Stationmaster when he had gone, to warn her not to let him leave on any ship. Then she sat glaring at her reflection in the glossy desktop. If Ayvar was convinced that w
hat she had to bargain with would not gain Rafe’s freedom, then it was not enough. Gods, was she going to be forced to abandon Rafe? She felt sick to her roots at the thought.

  “Alcad, ma’am.” Fadir halted in the doorway, looking in vain for Ayvar.

  “Bring it here,” she said irritably. “He couldn’t wait.” She took one of the mugs off him. “Make it yourself, did you?” He nodded. “Then you may as well drink the other one. And sit down while you do it. You make me uncomfortable standing up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sat so close to the edge of the seat that the weight of the mug should have unbalanced him.

  “Have you been aboard Bhattya today?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. You can tell me how the repair work is going.” She had not been back aboard since they docked. She needed something simple to worry about and damn it, it was still her ship. “Vidar still angry with me?”

  “I think so, ma’am,” Fadir said cautiously. “Although not as angry as he was yesterday.”

  “His temper is directly proportional to the amount of damage still to be repaired,” she said drily. “If you ever make it to command rank, Fadir, remember that all Captains have an unnatural attachment to the fabric of their ship. If you ever want to annoy one, bring their ship into dock a virtual wreck. Even if it is in a good cause, they won’t talk to you for days.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Fadir sounded justifiably uncertain whether that was the response expected of him.

  “How’s Joshim?” she asked.

  “He’s … working very hard. And not very happy,” the apprentice said bravely. “I think he’s worried about…”

  “Rafe. We’re all worried about Rafe,” Rallya said heavily. So much for something simple to worry about.

  From Central Station News

  …The Guild has withdrawn its services in the Disputed Zone from both Emperors…