Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  They passed the worst of lift, launched on an angled ascent that would carry them at last to intercept with station. The deck would slant for the duration. “Rest,” she bade the standing azi, lest they tire, “Half at a time. Sit down.” They settled, by their own way of choosing, but all kept weapons ready, and held to the safety grips, for the sensation of flight was new to them.

  The lift had activated: she saw the indication on the board, and left her cushion, negotiated her way back to it.

  Tallen. An armed azi escorted the man, and waited while he caught the handhold and exited the lift…no pleasant sensation, the personnel lift during flight, and the man was old—not as Kontrin aged, Raen thought sorrowfully, but as betas did. It was sad to understand.

  “Apologies, ser,” she welcomed him. “Are your folk all right?”

  “Our rooms raided, ourselves handled as we were—”

  “Apologies,” she said in a cold voice. “But no regrets. You’re off Istra. You’re alive. Be grateful, ser.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “There are very private affairs of the Reach involved here, ser Outsider.” She gestured him into the corner by the passenger compartment, where they could stand more comfortably, and waited until he had braced himself. “Listen to me: you were not well-advised to have cut off my warning. You’ve Mundy back; you’ve information, for. what it’s worth. But you’ve killed the others. You understand that. It’s too late for them. Listen to me now, and save something. Your spies have not been effective, have they?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do, ser. You do. And the only protection you have is myself, ser. The betas surely can’t offer you any, whatever their assurances to the contrary.”

  “Betas.”

  “Betas. Beta generation. The children of the labs, ser. The plastic civilisation.”

  “The eggs.” Comprehension came to his eyes. “The children of the eggs.”

  “They’re set up to obey. We’ve conditioned them to that. Do you understand the pattern you see now? Your spies haven’t helped you. You’ve dropped them into the vast dark, ser, and they’re gone, swallowed up in the Reach.”

  “These—” he looked about him at the guards. “These creatures—”

  “Don’t,” she said, offended. “Don’t misname them. The azi are quite as human as the betas, ser. And unlike the betas, they’re quite aware they’re programmed. They’ve no illusion, but they deserve respect.”

  “And you go on creating them. You’ve pushed a world to the breaking point. Why?”

  “I think you suspect, ser Tallen; and yet you go on feeding them. No more. No more.”

  “Be clear, Kont’ Raen.”

  “You’ve understood. You’ve been gathering all the majat goods we and the betas can sell you, swallowing them up, shipping them out. Warehousing them—against a time of shortage, if you’ve been wise, taking what you could get while you could get it. But to do that, you’ve been doing the worst thing you could have done. You’ve been feeding the force that means to expand out of the Reach. And worse, ser, much worse—you’ve been feeding the hives. This generation for industrialisation, the next for the real move. And you’ve fed it.”

  He turned a shade yet paler than he had been. “What do you propose, Kont’ Raen?”

  “Shut down. Shut down trade for a few years. Now. The Reach can’t support these numbers. The movement will collapse under its own weight”

  “What’s your profit in telling us?”

  “Call it internal politics.”

  “It’s mad. How do we know what authority you have to do this?”

  She lifted a hand toward the azi. “You see it. I could have handled this otherwise. I could have pulled licenses. But that wouldn’t have told you why. I am telling you now. I mean what I say, ser: that your continued trade is supplying a force that will try to break out of the Reach. That a few years of deprivation will destroy that hope and make a point to them. We’re not without our vulnerabilities. Yours is the need for what we alone supply. But you’ve been oversupplied in these last few years. You can survive a time of shut-down. I assure you, you can’t come in and take these things: trying to take them would destroy the source of them…or worse things…” She looked directly into his eyes. “You would stand where we do, and be what we are.”

  “How can I carry a report to my authorities based on one person’s word? There’s another of your people in Istra. We’ve heard. This could be an attempt to prevent our contacting—”

  “Ah, he’d tell you differently, perhaps. Or perhaps he’d shrug and say do as pleased you. His reasons you’d not understand at all.”

  “You play games with us. Or maybe you have other motives.”

  “Invade us. Come in with your ships. Fire on betas and innocent azi, break through to Cerdin and take all that we have. Then where will you be? The hives won’t deal with minds-that-die; no, they’ll lead you in directions you don’t anticipate. I give you a hive-master’s advice, ser, that I’ve withheld from others. Is it not so, that your desperation is because you need us? Your technology relies on what we produce? And do we not serve well? You’re safe, because we know well what we do. Now a hive-master says: stop, wait, danger, and you take it for deception.”

  “Get my agents out.”

  She shook her head. “It’s too late. I’ve given you warning. A decade or two, ser. An azi generation. A time of silence. Believe me now. We’ll get you to your ships. A chance to run, to get out of here with what lives I can give you.”

  He stared at her. The ship was already coming into release from Istra’s gravity, and there was a feeling of instability. She beckoned him toward the lift.

  “Believe me,” she said. “It’s the only gift I can give. And whatever you do, you’d best get down to your people, ser Tallen. They’ll wonder. They’ll need your advice. See it’s the right advice. My men will let you free, and you’ll do what you please on that dock.”

  Tallen gave her a hard and long look, and sought the lift; the guard went with him.

  Raen hand-over-handed her way back to the cushion, scanned instruments, looked at the crew. “Put us next the Outsider ships. If we need to clear a berth, we’ll do that”

  The captain nodded, and she settled, arms folded, with station communications beginning to hurl frantic questions at them.

  vii

  “It’s settled,” the Ren-barant said.

  The Hald looked about him in the swirl of brightly clad heads of septs and Houses, and at the Thel, the Delt, the Hit and others of the inner circle. Here were the key votes, the heads of various factions. They went armed into Council, remembering Moth, remembering another day. Ros Hald felt more than a touch of fear.

  “I don’t trust the old woman,” the Ilit said. “I won’t feel easy until this is past.” His eyes darted left and right, his voice lowered. “This could as easily be a way to identify us, eliminate the opposition. We could go the way the others did, even yet.”

  “No,” Ros Hald said fiercely. “No. Easiest of all if she gives over the keys we need. She’ll do that. She’s buying living time and she knows it.”

  “When she knows other things too,” said the Delt.

  Hald thought of that, as he had thought of it a hundred times, and saw no other course. The others were filing into the Council chamber. He nodded to his companions and went.

  The seats were filled, one by one, with nervous men and women, heirs of the last purge.

  Doubtless there were many weapons concealed now, within robes of Colour of House and sept.

  But when Moth entered, and all those present rose in respect—even the Hald and his faction rose, because respect cost nothing—she had Tand for her support and seemed incredibly frail. Before now, she had doddered somewhat; now she had difficulty even lifting her head to speak before Council.

  “I don’t trust this,” the Ren-barant whispered, fell silent at the press of the Hald’s hand.
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br />   “I have come to a difficult decision,” Moth began, and rambled on about the weight of empire and the changes in the Council, which had cast more and more weight on First Seat, which had made of her the dictator she avowed she would not be, that none of them had meant to be.

  Her voice faltered and faded often. The Council listened with rare patience, though none of this was at all surprising, for Tand and rumour had spread her intent throughout the Family, even into factions which would not have been powerful enough to have their own spies. There could not be a representative present that did not know the meaning of this meeting.

  She spoke of the hives, ramblings of which they were even yet patient.

  And suddenly she began to laugh, so that more than one hand in the hall felt after a weapon and her life hung on a thread; but her own two hands were in sight, and one had to wonder who her agents were and where they might be positioned.

  “The hives, my friends, my cousins—the hives have come asking and offering now, have they? And the hive-masters divided on the question, and now they’re gone. I’m tired. I am tired, cousins. I see what you don’t see, what no one else is old enough to see, and no one cares to see.” She looked about, blinking in the glare of lights, and Ros Hald tensed, wondering about weapons. “Vote,” she said. “You’ve come here ready, have you not, already prepared, not waiting on me? Not waiting for long debate? You’ve been ready for years. So vote. I’m going to my chambers. Tell me which of you will share responsibility for the Family. I’ll accept your choice.”

  There was a murmur, and silence; she looked about at them, perhaps surprised by that silence, that was a touch of awe. And in that silence, Moth turned off the microphone, and walked up the steps among them, slowly, on Tand’s arm, in profound stillness.

  Ros Hald rose. So did Ren-barant, and Ilit, and Serat and Dessen and all the many, many others. For a moment, at the top of the stairs, Moth stopped, seeming to realise the gesture, and yet did not turn to see. She walked out, and the door closed. The standing heads of House and sept sank down again into seats. The silence continued a moment.

  Next-eldest rose and declared the matter at hand, the nomination of one to stand by Moth, successor to Moth’s knowledge and position. The dictatorship which had become fact without acknowledgement under Lian’s last years, became acknowledged fact now, with Moth’s request for a legal heir.

  Ren-barant rose to put forward the name of Ros Hald.

  There was no name put in opposition. A few frowned, huddled together. Ros Hald marked there with his eyes, the next group that would try for power in the Family, the next that needed watching. Four Colours were not represented today; four Houses were in mourning. The opposition had no leaders.

  “The vote,” next-eldest asked.

  The signs flashed to the board. No opposition, seven abstentions, four absent.

  It was fact.

  A cheer went up from Council, raucous and harsh after the long silence.

  viii

  The shuttle docked, jolted into lock next to one of the Outsider vessels. The azi caught at support, and one fell-shame-faced, recovered his footing. “All right, all right,” Raen comforted him, touching his shoulder, never taking her eyes from the crew. “Squad two, stay with this ship and keep your guns aimed at the crew. They may try to trick you; you’re quite innocent of some manoeuvres, fresh as you are from Registry. Don’t reason. Just shoot if they touch anything on that control panel.”

  “Yes, sera,” said the squad leader, who had seen service before. The crew stayed frozen. She gathered up Merry and squad one and rode the overcrowded lift down to the lock, where the other squads and the Warriors stood guard over the Outsiders.

  They were free of restraint, Tallen and his folk, huddled in a corner with the guns of eighty-odd azi to advise them against rashness. Raen beckoned them to her and they came, cautiously, across the dark cavern of the hold. One of their own men had Mundy in hand, had him calmed, had restored him to a fragile human dignity, and Mundy glared at her with hate: no matter to her. He was neither help nor harm.

  “We’re going out,” she said to Tallen. “Ser, there’s one of your ships beside us and its hatch is open. We’ve warned them. When you’re aboard, take my advice and pull all Outsider ships from station as quickly as you can undock. Run for it.”

  Tallen’s seamed face betrayed disturbance, as it betrayed little. “That far, is it?”

  “I’ve risked considerable to get you here. I’ve given you free what you spent men to learn. Believe me, ser, because from the agents the Reach has swallowed you’ll never hear. If it’s clear they’re not azi, they’ll perish as assassins, one by one. It’s our natural assumption. I’ll give you as much time as I can to get clear of station. But don’t expect too much, ser.”

  Merry was by the switch. She signalled. He opened up to the ramp.

  It was as she remembered the dock, vast and shadowy and cold, an ugly place. Security agents and armoured ISPAK police ringed the area. She walked out, her own azi about her, rifles slung hip-level from the shoulder. She wore no Colour, but plain beige, no sleeve-armour. It was likely that they knew with whom they had to deal, all the same, for all the terseness of the messages she had returned their anxious inquiries.

  Next to them, the Outsider ship waited. “Go,” she told Tallen, whose group followed. “Get over there, before something breaks loose here.”

  He delayed. She saw in surprise that he offered his hand, publicly. “Kont’ Raen,” he said, “can we help you?”

  “No,” she said, shaken by the realisation of finality. Her eyes went to the Outsider’s ramp, the lighted interior.

  To go with them, to see, to know—

  Their duty forbade. And so did something she vaguely conceived as her own. She found tears starting from her eyes, that were utterly unaccustomed.

  “Just get out of here,” she said, breaking the grip. “And believe me.”

  He apparently did, for he walked away quickly then, and his people with him, as quickly as could not be called a run. They leached the ramp, rode it up. The hatch sealed after.

  Raen folded her arms within her cloak, the one hand still holding her gun, and stared at the ISPAK security force, which her own azi faced with lowered weapons. Breath frosted in the icy air.

  “Sera,” one called to her. “ISPAK board has asked to see you. Please. We will escort you.”

  “I will see them here,” she said, “on the dock.”

  There was consternation among them. Several in civilian dress consulted with each other and one made a call on his belt unit. Raen stood still, shivering with the chill and the lack of sleep, while they proposed debate.

  She was too tired. She could not bear the standing any longer. Her legs were shaking under her. “Stand your ground,” she bade the azi. “Fire only if fired upon. Tell them I’ll come down when the board arrives. Watch them carefully.”

  And quietly she withdrew, leaving Merry in charge on the dock, trusting his sense and experience. In the new azi she had little confidence; they would not break, perhaps, if it came to a fire fight, but they would die in their tracks quite as uselessly.

  She touched the Warriors who hovered in the hatchway, calming them. “We wait,” she said, and went on to the lift, to the bridge, to the security of the unit which guarded the crew and the comfort of a place to sit.

  Likely, she thought, they’ll arrive at the dock now, now that I’ve come call this way up.

  They did not. She reached past the frozen crew and punched in station operations, listened to the chatter, that at the moment was frantic. Outsider ships were disengaging from dock one after the other, necessitating adjustments, three, four of them, five, six. She grinned, and listened further, watched them on the screens as they came within view, every Outsider in the Reach kiting outward in a developing formation.

  Going home.

  A new note intruded, another accent in station chatter. She detected agitation in beta voices.

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p; She pirated their long-scan, and froze, heart pounding as she saw the speed of the incoming dot, and its bearing.

  She keyed outside broadcast. “Merry! Withdraw. Withdraw everyone into the ship at once.”

  The dot advanced steadily, ominous by its speed near a station, cutting across approach lanes.

  They would not have sent any common ship, not if it were in their power to liberate a warship for the purpose. Swift and deadly, one of the never-seen Family warships: Istra station was in panic.

  And the Outsider ships were freighters, likely unarmed.

  “Sera!” Merry’s voice came over the intercom. “We’re aboard!”

  A light indicated hatch-operation.

  “Back off,” Raen said to the beta captain. “Undock us and get us out of here.”

  He stared into the aperture of her handgun and hastened about it, giving low-voiced orders to his men.

  “Drop us into station-shadow,” Raen said. “And get us down, fast.”

  The captain kept an eye to the incoming ship, that had not yet decreased speed. Station chatter came, one-sided—ISPAK informing the incoming pilot the cluster formation was Outsider, that no one understood why.

  For the first time there was deviation in the invader’s course, a veering toward the freighters.

  The shuttle drifted free now, powering out of a sudden, in shadow.

  “Put us in his view,” Raen ordered. The captain turned them and did so, crossing lanes, but nothing around the station was moving, only themselves, the freighters, and the incomer.

  Raen took deep breaths, wondering whether she should have gambled everything, a mad assault on station central, to seize ISPAK…trusting the warship would not fire.

  It fired now. Outsiders must not have heeded orders to stop. She picked it up visually, swore under her breath; the Outsiders returned fire: one of that helpless flock had some kind of weapon. It was a mistake. The next shot was real.

  She punched in numbers, snatched a microphone. “Kontrin ship! This is the Meth-maren. You’re forbidden station.”