It’s like that vanishing trick of his turned inside out, she thought. Making himself more visible, instead of less. If he tells people he’s an Adept, they’ll believe him, even if he doesn’t have a staff and a fancy black outfit to back him up.
She stayed close, hoping that some of the effect would rub off on her—making her look like a proper Guild apprentice, or at least an honest farmer’s daughter instead of a ten-times-a-night punchbroad. She blessed the stupid-stubborn pride that had kept her from ever working the port; nobody in this crowd was likely to recognize her and spoil the game.
Inside the terminal, more people thronged the counters and the ship’s-status displays. Klea followed as Owen made his way through the press with the same ease as he had outside, and somehow drew the attention of the man sitting behind the main information desk. The official looked them both over and, apparently satisfied, said, “Okay, you’re next. What’s your business at the port?”
“I need to reach Galcen as quickly as possible,” Owen said. Whatever he was doing to impress the official, it was strong stuff; Klea could feel the power of it moving in the air around him and making the hairs on her arms and neck rise up. “I have urgent business at the Retreat.”
But the man was already shaking his head. “Nope, nothing going out of here to Galcen. Not for love or money.”
Seeming undismayed, Owen glanced out through the armor-glass back wall of the terminal. The window gave a good view of the landing field and the one ship in port. The vessel, a freighter, was already loading for lift-off; crew members and port robots swarmed about its gaping cargo bays.
“How about that one?” he asked. “Where’s she going?”
“Lady LeRoi? She’s heading for the outworlds, and as far’s I know she’s not coming back.”
“What’s her next port of call?”
“Flatlands Portcity, on Pleyver,” the official said. “But if you’re planning on getting to Galcen from there, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
The man stared at him. “You haven’t heard? I thought you Adepts were supposed to know everything. The Mages are back, they’ve taken Galcen, and they’re sweeping everything before them. There’s nothing left of the Republic, and as soon as Lady LeRoi is loaded up and gone the port is shutting down until the Mages get here.”
“I see,” said Owen. His voice was as calm and unruffled as before, but Klea could tell that he was shaken: he’d gone paper-pale under the cold white glare of the terminal lights. “Where’s the nearest planet-to-planet voicelink station?”
“That’s down, too.” To Klea, the official seemed to be enjoying his role as the purveyor of such dire news. “So what’s it going to be—do you still want to go dicker with the Lady’s captain for a ride out of here?”
“Not now,” said Owen. “Perhaps later.”
He turned to Klea. “Come,” he said, and strode off through the crowd without looking back to see if she was following him.
It was late evening when Karipavo’s shuttle touched down on Ophel. The embassy had a hovercar waiting at the spaceport, and the Republic’s military attaché met Commodore Gil and Lieutenant Jhunnei on the landing field. The attaché eyed their dress uniforms with approval and led the way to the gate.
“Sorry about the hurry, Commodore,” he said over his shoulder as he walked. “But we can’t afford to waste any time—the ambassador wants to talk with you at once.”
Gil nodded. “Understood, Major.”
He waited until they were safely inside the hovercar and on the road into the Opheline capital city of Sombrelír before saying anything more. Soon the lights of the port were dwindling away behind them, and Gil felt free to ask, “What word do you have from Galcen these days?”
“Just rumors,” said the attaché. “But Ophel’s always got rumors. The ambassador will fill you in when you meet him.”
Gil took the hint and devoted the rest of the ride to studying the local architecture. The spaceport buildings had been of modern construction in an uninspired panga-lactic style. As the hovercar took them into the diplomatic section of Sombrelir, however, they began passing older buildings, fantastic edifices of painted pastel brick and dark wrought iron, along broad, clean streets illuminated by warm amber lanterns. One of the houses had its doors flung open, so that the light from inside spilled out onto the portico and the plaza beyond.
The hovercar purred up to the front steps of the house, where a footman waited. Belatedly, as the attaché handed over the vehicle, Gil understood that this must be the embassy.
Gil and Jhunnei followed the attaché up to the open door. They passed through a gilded foyer into an enormous reception room—Gil estimated that it took up most of the ground floor of the embassy—filled with men, women, and assorted nonhumans, all wearing fashionable evening dress. In one corner a Khesatan harp quintet played gentle, rippling music; in another, long tables covered with white damask held elegantly arranged food on dishes of crystal and silver.
I don’t believe it, Gil thought. We came all the way from the Net, after fighting every Mage warship in the galaxy and damn near getting ourselves blown to pieces in the process, and the Republic’s ambassador to Ophel is throwing a party.
At least he and his aide wouldn’t stand out too much in this crowd. The Space Force full-dress uniform had enough glitter and panache to let them blend right in—and if the hand-blaster in its grav-clip up Gil’s tunic sleeve was nonstandard it was at least invisible. Whatever Lieutenant Jhunnei was carrying didn’t show either, though something about his aide’s demeanor made Gil certain that she hadn’t come down to Ophel unarmed.
Instinct born of long service—and of five years on Galcen as aide to General Metadi—already had Gil turning toward the refreshment tables. Firmly, the attaché steered him in the opposite direction. Gil left the canapes to Lieutenant Jhunnei and followed dutifully toward where the harp quintet played amid a small forest of potted plants.
At Gil’s approach, a portly gentleman in full evening dress stepped forward out of the shelter of the greenery. From his medallion and his sash of office, Gil realized that this must be the ambassador himself.
“Thank goodness you’re here, Commodore,” he said quietly as the attaché moved off into the crowd. At the same time, Gil caught the almost inaudible humming noise that meant a privacy screen was in operation; the generating unit was probably concealed somewhere among the potted plants. “Please tell me everything you know concerning the Mageworlds situation.”
Lines of worry and fatigue marked the ambassador’s round face. Hastily, Gil began revising his earlier opinions about the nature of the evening. If the ambassador to Ophel was throwing a party, it was for the same reason that Gil and Jhunnei had worn their best and most impressive uniforms: to make certain the galaxy at large knew that nothing had changed, that the Republic was still a force to be reckoned with.
“I don’t know anything beyond what happened at the Net,” Gil said. “Everything was normal—no sign of military activity in the Mageworlds, nothing. Then a freighter came from the Inner Net with word of a Mageworlds warfleet bound for Galcen, and at the same time we discovered that our hi-comms had gone down.”
He paused a moment, considering his next words carefully. “The freighter was a known ship, and her captain was one of our agents. I passed them through the Outer Net on a jump-run for Galcen Prime, and kept the Net up behind them for as long as I could. Then I took what was left of my squadron and came here.”
“Only three ships?”
“Shaja and Lachiel were the only other ships within communications range,” Gil said. “Until hi-comms come back up, there’s no way to rally the rest of the Net Patrol Fleet, or even find out how many made it through the fighting.”
The ambassador regarded him gravely. “Still, if three vessels were fortunate enough to survive, perhaps others have as well. And you yourself are here tonight, which is very good.”
“We try our best,” said Gil. “What
news do you have from Galcen—or do you have anything at all?”
“Rumors,” said the ambassador. “Rumors, and nothing else. A merchant coming from Galcen said that he’d left just minutes after hearing over the open net that Prime was under attack. But he was on a run-to-jump at the time, and he might not have been paying proper attention. Certain people in Sombrelfr who have—how shall we put it—‘connections’ on the other side of the Net have been making a lot of wild statements, claiming that Galcen has fallen and the Space Force is disbanded.”
“It may be true about Galcen,” Gil said. “But about the Space Force—no. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still here.”
“That’s why I wanted you at this reception,” said the ambassador. “To refute the rumors. People in the street are starting to look at us askance, and the local holonews reports are beginning to ask some awkward questions.”
“We can’t have that.”
“No,” the ambassador agreed. “I’ve issued a statement saying that I intend to keep the embassy open until my government directs me to do otherwise.” He paused. “And what exactly are your intentions, Commodore?”
Gil straightened his shoulders. “I intend to repair my ships and prosecute the war against the Mageworlds to the best of my ability.”
“Good,” said the ambassador, with a firm nod. “Then we’re agreed. If you like, I can give you letters of marque and reprisal; they should let you increase your options somewhat, regardless of subsequent political events.”
“They certainly should,” Gil said. “I’ll take them.”
With the ambassador’s offer, the difficulties ahead of him became a fraction less insurmountable. Operating under letters of marque, he could legally attack not just military vessels belonging to the Mageworlds, but their merchant shipping as well—and the shipping of neutral worlds who traded with them. Jos Metardi had started that way, as a privateer out of Innish-Kyl, before the Domina had called on him to build the Resistance a warfleet instead.
“Our immediate problem, though,” Gil went on, “is going to be carrying out the necessary repairs.”
“Major Karris will work with you on that,” the ambassador assured him. “He’s got the local knowledge you need. They like to boast about their shipyards here, but frankly, some of the companies are no better than thieves. You’ll be wanting one of the orbital docking facilities, I suppose?”
“Yes. All three of my ships are space-only. I’ve got some shot-up fighter craft that can get repaired in orbit or on the surface, wherever’s cheapest … that’s going to be the main difficulty, in any case.”
“The money, you mean?”
“That’s right,” said Gil. “I haven’t got a government contract to offer anybody, so it’ll have to be cash-up-front.”
He frowned, remembering the task he had set the officers of his little squadron before leaving for the Opheline surface: to itemize and prioritize all the necessary repairs, both for the squadron as a whole and for the individual ships.
“Failing anything else,” he continued, “I’m prepared to break up Lachiel and sell her for scrap in order to finance repairs on Shaja and Karipavo. A shame, after all the work Lachiel’s crew put into bringing her in, but if we have to, we have to.”
The ambassador smiled for the first time since Gil had met him. “I have hopes, Commodore, that you won’t be required to destroy a third of your force. There’s someone here tonight that I want you to meet.”
“I’m at your service, naturally.”
“Good, good; we’re all in this together.” The ambassador gave his sash of office a tug, settling it more neatly across his immaculate shirtfront. “Time for us to find you something to drink and a bite to eat—and let all our guests have a good look at you, of course.”
He cast a cautionary glance in Gil’s direction. “No need to let anyone know that those three ships are all we’ve got … as far as anybody here knows, the rest of the Net Patrol Fleet is undamaged and carrying out its mission.”
“Given the lack of hi-comms,” Gil said, “for all we can tell, that’s the truth. Life must have been a lot easier back when ships and communications moved at the same speed.” An idea came to him as he spoke, and he asked, “Tell me, do you have any courier vessels available to you?”
The ambassador shook his head. “Not if you mean assigned Space Force craft. But something could be arranged, I’m sure—Major Karris is very resourceful. Do you require a vessel?”
“I could use one,” Gil said. “If I had a good fast ship, I’d send it back with orders to run the length of the Net in microjumps. Doing that, we’d have a chance of making contact with undamaged units who still haven’t gotten the word that an attack took place, or with survivors who may be unsure of their instructions.”
The ambassador was looking interested. “I see. You think that the Mage breakthrough might be of small scale?”
“Mmm … let’s just say that I suspect they had to concentrate all their force at one point in order to succeed.”
“Interesting. We’ll see what we can do about getting you that ship. Meanwhile, Commodore, let’s circulate … .”
They began a stately progress throughout the reception room, pausing at the refreshment table to provide Gil with a caramel meringue and a glass of sparkling pink punch—the puff-pastry angelbirds, regrettably, had long since vanished. The ambassador nodded affably to everyone, but kept on scanning the crowd as if he searched for one person in particular.
Finally, his eyes lit up and he changed course, drawing Gil after him in the direction of a frail, ancient-looking man in evening dress of an old-fashioned but impeccable cut.
“Adelfe!” he exclaimed. “How delightful to see you here! Adelfe, I know you’ll enjoy meeting my good friend Commodore Jervas Gil. Commodore, this is Adelfe Aneverian, the Hereditary Chairman of Perpayne.”
Gil gave his best formal bow. “I’m honored, Chairman Aneverian,” he murmured.
He was also immensely relieved. Perpayne was a proprietary world, officially neutral but in practice a long-standing friend of the Republic (and a regular trading partner—but no friend—of Ophel); and Perpayne’s Hereditary Chairman of the Board was widely reputed to be the richest private individual in the civilized galaxy, someone who could refit Karipavo and her sisters out of the loose change he found in his pockets at the end of the day.
And if the Republic’s ambassador to Ophel was intent on charming Adelfe Aneverian into becoming the source of money behind the Net Patrol Fleet’s continued existence—why, then, Commodore Jervas Gil was more than willing to help the ambassador do it.
By the time Klea caught up with Owen, he’d gone beyond the crowd at the doors of the terminal and out of the port entirely, and was striding down Dock Street fast enough that she had to run if she wanted to stay even with him. What frightened her was that she didn’t think he knew where he was going.
She grabbed at his sleeve. “Hey!”
He stopped and turned. From the expression on his face, she would have thought he didn’t see her, until he spoke. “What is it, Klea?”
“Look,” she said. “I know the news is bad, if what that man said is really the truth—”
“It’s true.”
“Okay, it’s true. That doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got a problem—a whole bunch of problems, starting with a dead body lying on the floor outside my apartment. We can’t go back there, and we’ve got to go somewhere.”
She was still holding on to the fabric of his sleeve; keeping her grip, she looked frantically about Dock Street for some place that might provide a temporary haven. The gaudy holosign and bright interior lighting of an open-front noodle shop caught her eye.
“There,” she said. She headed in the direction of the shop, pulling Owen after her. “We can sit in there for a while and talk.”
The shop had an an empty table close to the street; she took off her day pack and dropped it into one of the chairs. Then she pushed Owen in the dir
ection of the empty seat and stood watching him until he sat down.
“All right,” she said. “You told me you’d take care of the money; do you have enough on you for noodles and some ghil?”
“Yes,” he said finally.
“Good. Then give me some cash and stay right there until I get back.”
She took the smudged and crumpled credit chits he pulled out of the breast pocket of his coverall, and went with them up to the counter. Five minutes later, she carried the tray of noodles and ghil back to the table.
To her relief, Owen was still there. She set the tray on the table and pushed her day pack off the chair onto the floor, then sat down across from him.
“Eat something,” she said. “Nothing is ever quite as bad as it looks when you’re hungry.”
For a moment he seemed as if he might refuse. Then he shrugged and picked up a fork. “And there’s no point to not eating, either … what is this?”
“Noodles and eels,” she said, feeling almost giddy with relief now that he was talking to her again. “Good farmer food. Don’t you have eels back on—where do you come from, anyhow?”
“Galcen,” he said.
The ghil in the cup she was holding spilled out over her hand. She let the scalding liquid drip onto the table.
“Oh, damn. Owen, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. It has nothing to do with you. Except that you need to be studying at the Retreat, and with Galcen fallen into the hands of the Magelords there is no Retreat, and no Guild either for all I can tell … .” His voice broke off, and he seemed to shudder all over. “I should have been there when it happened.”
“What good would that have done? I mean, you’re hot stuff, but nobody’s so hot they can stop an invasion single-handed.”
Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Page 35