“I will not tolerate people rejecting the CCTCN. It is your job to make sure they do not.” Baron Revenant jabbed a finger in her direction.
“I won’t fail,” she said. Sanul gave her a strange look.
“Good,” Baron Revenant whispered.
The door behind her slid open. The rattle of wood on wood startled her and she turned around to see one of Baron Revenant’s famously naked female artificials enter holding a tray. Three tumblers with dark liquid in them rested on its surface. The white robot handed them out among the barons and moved to stand by the desk while they sipped the fluid.
“This will do,” Baron Revenant said. The artificial bowed and left. Meeting Cygni’s gaze he added, “I’m having a dinner party tonight with a very special guest.”
Wouldn’t Pawqlan like to be here, she thought.
“I’d invite you, but I have some doubts about having a reporter at private Barony business.”
“Of course.” She was more annoyed by his specific mention of it than the exclusion itself. She didn’t expect to be invited to Barony parties, she just didn’t want her nose rubbed in it.
“If you were to put that side of yourself away for the evening, however.” He trailed off and took a sip of his drink.
Her eyes widened.
“Um, of course I could.” She was lying, and she could tell that he knew it, but perhaps this dance was what he wanted from her. He didn’t call her out, but nodded instead.
Baroness Altair gasped. “You’re not serious.”
“I’ll have a dress sent over that will be of the appropriate cut. I expect you to take a back seat tonight, but I want you to record it.”
“You do?” She felt her heart rate pick up. Why would he want that if she wasn’t supposed to be a reporter tonight?
“Yes, for my personal library. I have a feeling tonight is going to be something I want to watch again and again.”
Premiere Dorsky rolled his eyes and took a deep draft from his tumbler. A tense silence followed while he stared into his drink and Baroness Altair gazed out the window.
“What about the other matter on the athenaeum?” Cygni asked. She figured the second assignment on the crystal was the real reason for her presence. A discussion of ad strategy did not warrant a trip to Xur’qon Island.
“Oh, yes, of course. Vargas, would you be so good as to fetch it?”
“Of course.” He responded with sarcasm and headed out of the room.
“Since Miss Aragón will be busy preparing for the party this afternoon, I want you to take the canister back to Rega’s lab. The Volgoth can help you,” he said addressing Ila’Anaeriae.
Niu bowed.
“Baron, do you think he will go for it?” Premier Dorski said, drawing a curious look from Cygni.
“Shush, don’t let your frustrations show in front of our guests, Caspian.” Baron Revenant wagged a finger at the official leader of the Confederation like he was scolding a child. “We wouldn’t want to spoil it for Cygni, would we? I think it’ll be so much better when she gets to see it for herself.”
She gave the Premier a thoughtful look, wondering who “he” was and what the hell was going on tonight.
Vargas re-entered the room, carrying a silver canister about fifty centimeters long and about as thick as her arm. It had a tapered base and some kind of sensor in the top just below a square handle. He set it down on the ground in front of her.
“This is the first one. Bring it to Doctor Rega with my expectation for his continued work,” Baron Revenant said.
Haem Ila’Anaeriae bowed again.
“What’s in it?” Sanul asked, drawing a shocked expression from nium.
“Nothing of your concern. No peaking,” Baron Revenant said without humor in his voice.
Sanul shrunk back from the admonishment, but Cygni was left wondering about the container’s contents. As the others were leaving she caught Vargas’ expression, and to her surprise he seemed concerned, too.
“Now,” Baron Revenant said to her once they were gone. “Let’s pretty you up.”
Chapter Eleven
Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter
41:2:13 (J2400:3137)
Cylus loved that exotic, 25th century treat—the smell of old paper. His tower’s library, lined with rare physical editions, was a scaled down copy of the one on Anilon. It had the same white and brown carpet displaying his family’s seven-pointed star crest, and included a copy of his favorite roost, the two-meter wide table of dark Anilonian farber wood beside the tall, French style window. The table was enhanced with the latest in sensors, holographic projectors, and wireless communications, but he appreciated it more for the old style map of his home town, Keltan’s Rest, inlaid into its surface with ivory and mother of pearl.
He reclined in his favorite antique chair, a 19th century Earth model he got at an auction on Cleeb Prime with Sable. The upholstery had long ago been replaced by a much more durable polymer-enhanced fabric, and a small nanomachine bay installed in the chair’s underside insured that the wood would not deteriorate despite constant use. From this seat Cylus viewed the glowing menus floating above the map table in his visual field searching in vain for a message from either Sable or Praetor Graves. Sable should have been on Taiumikai ten days ago. Even with the lag in communications Cylus should have heard something by now. Why hadn’t his friend messaged? Didn’t Sable know he needed him now more than ever? And hadn’t Praetor Graves promised to keep him appraised of his status?
They’ve abandoned you, a voice whispered into his thoughts. Like on the boat, he had the vague impression that the words were not entirely his own—or at least not the ones he would choose—but they did reflect how he felt. How could they leave him so isolated like this? He needed guidance, especially now that he was confused by both Sophi’s behavior and Pasqualina’s kindness.
As he sat contemplating what to do, a memory rose from the darkness of his thoughts.
“You seem kind. I haven’t had much of that in my life, but I want it. I’m willing to take a chance on you, to learn what it’s like to be brought up instead of put down.” The words were Pasqualina’s. She said them to him when they were alone in the corridor outside the engagement party on the Queen Gaia. Had she meant them? Was that a better explanation for her attitudes towards him than trying to deceive him as a spy?
He shook his head and rose from his seat. He needed some air. It was his intent to go out on the roof, but he only made it as far as the library entrance. When the doors slid open Ben was there.
Cylus jumped back.
“Sorry to startle you, master. There is an urgent message for you.”
“You could have just forwarded it to me.”
“I thought you might want to hear this in person. Baron Revenant has summoned you and your betrothed to the Palace of the Just this evening for a meeting with Premier Dorsky. He asks you be there at two hours past sunset.”
“What?” He stopped breathing.
“Shall I notify Heiress Olivaar, Master?”
“Ah, yes, of course. Pick something formal to wear for both of us,” he stuttered.
Ben bowed and headed off beneath the arched marble corridor.
He couldn’t believe it. He thought Zalor was supposed to be leaving for the Helix Nebula. Why would Zalor want him and Pasqualina at the palace? Why was there a change of plans?
He accessed Sophi’s personal address with his implant. The word [CONNECTING] scrolled across his vision a moment before her translucent image appeared before him. Without her robe on she looked like a different person. Her long braids were thrust over her back so that they disappeared just behind the squared shoulders of her white jacket.
“Yes, Cylus?” The edge in her voice sent a chill down his spine.
“Sophi, am I bothering you?” He puckered his lips. Maybe this was a mistake?
She appeared to struggle with something for a moment, then assumed a pleasant demeanor. “No, of course not, my darling. How are you?”
“Zalor’s summoned me to the Palace of the Just.”
“He’s not leaving for Helix?” The corners of her mouth angled downward.
“I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on. Do you?” He was doing a poor job of keeping the panic out of his voice. If Sophi didn’t know what this was about he could be in real trouble. She was supposed to know everything.
“If you had left for Anilon already you could have avoided this.”
He swallowed. “I’m staying.”
“I guess you are.” After a moment, her eyes softened. “Of course, you have to go to the palace tonight. You can’t refuse father.”
He sighed.
“Cylus, you made your own bed with this one. You should have left,” she said, but without vitriol. Her tone was one of regret, and reminded him of the way she used to speak back home.
“But I didn’t, and I won’t.” He heard the regret in his own words, not for his decision but for what this mess had done to them.
“Report back to me when you return. I need to know everything that happens tonight. This could be critical to our plans.”
“Sophi, I don’t want to go,” he said.
Her expression hardened. “You have no choice. This isn’t about what you want. We are committed to our course now. We cannot go back to what we were. We either succeed in our task, or we die trying. Understood?”
The switch back from a soft to a hard tone hit him like a punch in the gut. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was apparent now that he shouldn’t have contacted her. He didn’t need this pain, he had enough of his own already.
“There are things in motion, things father is doing on the Cephalon Sphere worlds that are—odd. It’s possible tonight’s meeting could shed some light on them. Do you understand? I need you, Cy.”
He brightened. She needed him?
“Good, now put on something nice and get to the palace.”
Sophi’s image faded from his sight.
He took five long breaths and summoned his implant’s chronometer to the upper left part of his vision. It was late afternoon. He had a few hours before he had to get ready, so he turned around and headed back into his library to find a book to lose himself in before facing the Wolf.
At night the city’s aegis field was like a giant purple soap bubble, just visible against the backdrop of stars from the top of Keltan Tower. The air was thick and sticky on his skin, and though the night sky looked clear he knew from experience that the heavy smell of ozone and brine meant a storm was nearby.
Ben selected a modest but expensive-looking caramel-brown suit tucked into a pair of calf-high boots for him to wear. The high mandarin collar of his shirt irritated his skin from his collar bones to just below his ears, but a meeting of this type required full neo-enlightenment regalia, so Cylus was condemned to put up with the ridiculous outfit for the evening. It even had a waist-length crimson cape embroidered with his barony’s seven-pointed silver star logo hanging off his left side. The cape was clasped with another logo and a long chain. It shifted about his shoulder in the stiff breeze and he had to right it repeatedly as he walked towards the waiting air-limousine on the landing pad.
The door of the long craft swung open and Pasqualina emerged from its dim confines as he approached. A single-shouldered red evening dress slit from ankle to hip on one side clung to the hourglass shape of her torso, but remained loose around her legs giving him tantalizing glimpses of her trim thigh and calf when she shifted her weight. There was a visible aura about it, just barely brighter than that of the aegis around the city, indicating it was made of kinetic-luminescent fibers. Her silver-blond ringlets hung loose about her neck, held away from her face by a wreath of gold laurels. They accentuated the sharpness of her high cheekbones and the atmospheric blue of her eyes.
“You look stunning.” He meant it.
“You’re looking pretty delicious yourself. I hope you don’t mind me waiting in the limo.” She smiled and reached a hand across the gap between them to touch his chest.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.
She shook her head, brushing the top of her bare shoulder with her hair. She still had the tan from their day on the boat. Her honey-colored skin accentuated the sweep of her collarbone and the tone of her muscles. She smiled as he stared like it was a little secret between them.
“Come on, Cy.” She led him into the craft by his hand.
They took their seats on the “U” shaped cushion of the black leather interior. As soon as the door shut the smell of jasmine permeated the air. Separated from the piloting compartment by a glossy black screen, the only indication he had of Ben’s presence in the cockpit was the shudder and drifting sensation of lift-off. There was a short pedestal between him and Pasqualina in the center of the compartment that projected a list of commands the device could carry out into his mind’s eye. They included drink preparation, displaying a map of the city or the planet, and an up-link to the planet-wide Cyberweb.
“Mind if I put on some music?” she asked.
He shrugged and a soft, string-rich piece filled the compartment. It was a bitter-sweet tune that reminded him of Sophi. The grip of pain around his heart tightened in the crescendo of melancholy notes. After all they had shared and been through, how could she be so cold to him? He shuddered and turned towards the window. The move brought him face to face with the ghostly reflection of a worn-out man buried beneath a mass of wiry copper hair. The lights of the city moved by through his visage like particles in water drifting through a shaft of sunlight.
The sensation of Pasqualina’s hand pressing his into the plush leather bench brought his eyes to her.
“Are you all right, Cy?” she whispered.
He cleared his throat three times before replying. “I haven’t been for a long time.”
She intertwined her fingers with his. Cylus looked into her eyes and found no mockery or malice there. They seemed to hug him from across the seat. In the cabin’s soft illumination, with the glow of her dress casting a light rouge across her skin, it was easy to see her as she was decades ago when they played hide-and-seek in his family gardens. He told her on the Queen Gaia that he hadn’t enjoyed her company, but looking at her now, new memories surfaced. The games they played as children hadn’t been forced on him. He could remember asking her to join him, and chasing after her on the garden paths as they laughed together. It was still true that she made fun of him, but he teased her, too. He heard himself calling her needle-nosed and bow-legged in his head. It was strange that he hadn’t remembered things this way before.
She smiled, dropping her head so that a lock of her gold curls fell between them.
“Sorry,” he whispered. The way she looked at him reminded him of something.
“It’s all right.”
He hesitated, but decided that there would not be a better time to bring it to light. “Pasqualina, were you on Ganymede when Hephestia’s spy broke into your mother’s palace? Aurora mentioned something about it at dinner the night Yoji died.”
She stiffened, squeezing his hand tighter but kept the smile on her face.
“Why did you help him?”
Her eyes flickered between his. She took a careful, measured breath.
“I was very rebellious as a girl. When it happened I had just figured out the reason I had to go visit Brudah so often, and I—” she stopped herself and released his hand. Her eyes closed. “I was angry with her and at Zalor for abandoning me. The spy was a Gaian, exotic, exciting, and young like me. Mother crucified the last spy in the garden, letting him rot on a rusty iron post, but my Gaian was undeterred. The need to do what he came for burned in him like a fire. That kind of thing was very exciting for the girl I used to be. I was drawn to it, and so angry with Brudah.”
He felt his heart clench while she described the Gaian spy. She was still attracted to him, that was obvious. Jealousy was a strange thing to feel when he had no intention of being involved w
ith her. He did his best to ignore it while he watched her get lost in the memories behind the lids of her eyes. Lines of tension appeared and disappeared on her face as though she were physically struggling with something he could not see or hear. It was not until her breath steadied and her demeanor smoothed that she opened her sparkling blue eyes again.
“It was a long time ago,” she whispered.
It was clear that the memory was deeply private to her, and yet she shared it with him. She could have made up a story, but he didn’t think she had. It wouldn’t have affected her the way it did. She hadn’t faked her reaction, he was certain of it. What he was uncertain of was why she chose to tell him, and why her story made him feel—jealousy? He wasn’t sure, but he knew at least that it was something other than misery.
Ben’s voice in his head broke the silence. An icon in the corner of his vision indicated the transmission was shared between he and Pasqualina. “Excuse me, but we are descending towards Xur’qon Island now.”
All right, Ben. Thank you, he messaged back, refocusing on Pasqualina. She was already staring out the window, facing away from him. The moment was gone.
The Palace of the Just sent rays of electric gold light across the water like a beacon for the entire city to see what lay at the center of their lives. Its name was chosen to symbolize the core values of the Confederation, and was meant to inspire hope—which was why it was so revolting, so profane, to have this place controlled by the likes of Zalor Revenant. Cylus sighed, turning away from the window. One day, maybe, this place would be clean again. One day it might be restored to what it was meant to be when the first Cleebians laid the stone upon the isle—but only if Zalor could be defeated.
Lamps placed in strategic locations to bounce their light off of the white marble walls gave the massive courtyard more than enough illumination for him to see by without activating his retinal enhancements. The landing pad was beside the lake on the side opposite the Intergalactic Garden. When they arrived he spied three other air-limos on the pad. A naked artificial designed to resemble a female statue walked towards them as Ben helped Pasqualina from the craft. He crinkled his nose at the android’s approach.
Keltan's Gambit: Chronicles of the Orion Spur Book 2 Page 20
