Adrienne Martine-Barnes

by The Dragon Rises (v0. 9) (epub)

  The yeoman stood nervously nearby as Gilhame broke the seal and read the enclosure. “Go get yourself something to eat or drink, yeoman. This doesn’t require an answer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ur Fagon give Halba Mordell a quick bow and walked across the room to where Commander E-varit was speaking to Frikard and the yeowoman Ganna Ottera. He noted that she was even more attractive in her formal uniform than in her working one.

  “Gentlemen; Ganna.” He bowed slightly. “Our orders have finally come through. We go, I regret to say, to the Island Worlds. The Admiralty wishes us to dislodge any

  Coalchee colony, politely, and send them home. I am sorry, E-varit, truly I am. It’s a damnable position to put you in.”

  “But hardly unexpected, ur Fagon. If the Island Worlds were less strategic to Kardus . . . but they aren’t.”

  “I can arrange to leave you behind. No one expects you to act against your own people. Or you can precede us to Attira for refitting.” He looked at the Coalchee’s face, trying to discern the man’s thoughts.

  “No. I made an oath to you two days ago and, by proxy, to the Emperor. An oath is an oath, not just empty words. Besides, I am already a traitor to my people. 1 might as well finish the matter.” His voice was sad and a little bitter.

  “ ‘Honor makes hard choices.’ ” Frikard said quietly. “True. But, ‘Oath-breakers die unsalted,’ and I might loose my way to the Overworld without a proper burial. I have never seen the Island Worlds. When do we leave?” “Frikard?” Gilhame asked his second.

  “Eight hours to form, another six to get us to the jump point. Shall I signal general orders now, sir?”

  “No. It will keep a little longer. After the dance is over.” “As you command, sir.”

  Amara, Culiba and Helvira, the so-called Island Worlds, were actually the moons of a gigantic planet orbiting an eclipsing variable star. The total land mass of the three moons did not equal more than a small continent on most worlds, for they were mostly covered with water. Life, such as it had evolved there, was still tied to the seas.

  To the Kardus Temporal Empire, they represented only a strategic outpost close to the Coalchee sphere. To the Coalchee, however, they were worlds of great beauty and desirability—worlds such as the Mother brought forth when she was creating the cosmos described in their legends. Ur Fagon was not surprised that the Protector had jumped at the opportunity to get them under his control, for he was an elected ruler and had to make political decisions or risk losing his position.

  To ur Fagon, looking at the enormous gaseous planet with her escort of seven moons, four lifeless rocks and three sea-covered orbs, there was no emotional response. He sat in his chair on the bridge and looked at the screen. But he knew that E-varit and all the Coalchee in their ships experienced a sense of homecoming he himself associated only with green hills and yellow sunlight.

  He wondered a little at the wisdom of bringing the Coalchee so near to temptation. Still, to have left E-varit and his ships behind or ordered them to Attira would have so dishonored them that all future cooperation would have been impossible. He cursed the Admiralty for bone-headedness and waited for some response to his fleet’s presence. Several radio messages had gotten no response.

  A planet had a curious advantage over a space fleet. Its very vulnerability was a kind of defense. The weapons of a fleet were intended for use in space. In addition to a widely-held reluctance to use such devices against any planetary population, there was the problem that between no action and total devastation there was no middle ground. One carried troopers and marines for planetary encounters, but Gilhame knew that, well-trained as his people were, they would be out of their element on the watery worlds below. And, although there was no indication of any vessels, the system they were in was large enough to hide three fleets.

  His commlink beeped. He touched his headset. “Yes?”

  “Who is this?” said a tinny voice.

  “Give me a visual!” he replied.

  “Who is this?” the voice repeated.

  “This is Admiral Gilhame ur Fagon, commanding the Twelfth Fleet of the Imperial Kardus Empire. Show yourself.”

  Silence followed. “Why are you using a Coalchee hailing frequency?” the voice finally asked.

  “By the Emperor’s beardless face, I’ll see your bowels in a cauldron if you don’t show yourself!”

  He heard a gulp, and a picture began to form on his little screen. A very handsome young man looked out at him. He was dark-haired and was wearing the insignia of the

  Kardus Diplomatic Corps. He also looked about ready to cast up his accounts, so greenish did his pale skin appear.

  “Well? Just what is the meaning of this? We have been hailing you for nearly an hour.”

  “Are you from Governor Mordell, sir?”

  “No. I am not.”

  “Then, why are you here?”

  “Young man, I am here at the bidding of the Imperial Navy. Now, who are you?”

  “I am Coolan Niyarkos, of His Majesty’s Diplomatic Corps. What is your business?”

  “Well, Harvar Niyarkos, my business ... is the Emperor’s business. Why didn’t you answer?”

  “It’s Kentinus Niyarkos, Admiral,” he said, naming himself as a hereditary count.

  “I don’t care if you are the Nabatean Empress. Answer my question.”

  “I answer only to Governor Mordell.”

  “Do you now? Strange. I had not known that the diplomatic corps answered to provincial governors. The memorandum must have escaped my attention. You will have to go a long way to answer him, young man. He’s on Munsor by now, contemplating his sins, one hopes.”

  “In exile? Are you certain?”

  “Since I was instrumental in sending him there, yes, I am.

  Niyarkos turned a little greener, though Gilhame would not have thought it possible. “Why?” he gasped.

  “For treason.”

  “Treason!”

  “Yes. We were given to understand that he had permitted a Coalchee invasion of the Island Worlds.”

  “As you can see, sir, there aren’t any Coalchee here. There must have been some mistake. We’re all Kar-dusian.”

  Ur Fagon pondered this for a moment. The young man was obviously worried to death. What was going on? Krispin’s documentation had been sufficient to convince the court and, unless the Coalchee had developed a method to befuddle the Truth Rod, E-varit had spoken honestly. Had the Protector had second thoughts before the battle about sending his colonists? Still, there had been a curious listlessness about Mordell’s self-defense which had nagged at him.

  “You have not been invaded?”

  “No, sir.” Gilhame sensed that he was being evasive.

  “I see. Well, it seems to have been a false alarm. I am sorry to have disturbed you for no reason. Why don’t you join me for dinner and some wine? I’ll send a shuttle down to get you, say, in an hour.”

  Niyarkos had recovered some of his color, a fish-belly white. He gulped again. “I should be honored, sir.”

  “The honor is mine.”

  Ur Fagon sat thoughtfully in his chair after the screen went dark again, staring up at the larger screen where the Island Worlds circled their primary. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said aloud.

  “Frikard!”

  “Admiral?”

  “Do you know, you have an absolute gift for being here when I want you? Get some scouts across to the area where the Coalchee would have entered the system. I want the area searched . . . very carefully. And send a shuttle down to Helvira to pick up a Kentinus Niyarkos about an hour from now. Tell me, Ven, do you feel . . . as if there’s something looking over your shoulder?”

  “No. But I am sadly lacking in imagination.”

  “You think it’s just my nerves? Perhaps.” He opened the intra-ship comm and punched the number of Alvellaina’s room.

  “Yes?” The screen remained dark.

  “M’alba? Do you think you could ...
do me a small favor?”

  “Do I have any choice?” The screen lit up, and she stared out at him defiantly.

  “Yes, of course you do.”

  “What is it?”

  “I am planning a small entertainment this evening. Do you think you could bestir yourself to act as my official hostess? I have no doubt that you have done so for your father. Put on a pretty dress.” Every night, she wore the same soiled white dress in which he had first seen her, although he knew that her entire wardrobe had been brought aboard. It was a red flag he had chosen to ignore until now. “And ask your sisters if they will also join us. Let me see. You and I are two, your sisters are four, Buschard and Culmeni are six, our guest makes seven. I cannot leave Frikard out. So, eight. That poses a little problem. Shall I make the numbers unbalanced or break precedence?” “Eight is not unbalanced.”

  “No, it is not. But five men and three women is. You see, Frikard’s particular is enlisted, not officer, class. Still, it seems unfair to deny Ven the pleasure of his special friend when all the rest of us have ours. And our guest is of such estate that he probably will not come alone. You’d better plan for twelve.”

  “Who is this guest?”

  “Kentinus Coolan Niyarkos.” He watched her eyes widen. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “By name only.”

  “And?”

  “He’s a neemus-cousin,” she said slowly. She used a term which indicated a relationship by marriage, not blood.

  “Really? He’s the diplomatic representative here. How is he neemus to you?”

  “His mother is Mordell’s sister.”

  “My, it is a small cosmos, isn’t it. Just as well I didn’t plan to invite your aunt and Commander E-varit. Will you do it?”

  “Yes. Since you asked so graciously. Dinner for twelve. When?”

  “In about an hour.”

  “An hour? Curva! You are worse than a husband,” she said and closed the link.

  “Such language, m’alba,” he said to the darkened screen.

  As such occasions go, ur Fagon’s impromptu dinner party was neither a success nor a failure. By that magic of which only women are capable, food appeared on the table, flanked by flowers and wine. When ur Fagon entered the room, leading his ranking officers and escorting Niyarkos, his wife and a sour-faced individual introduced as his secretary, Illnos Caraheen, he found Alvellaina, her sisters and Yeowoman Ottera awaiting them. All the women were wearing gowns, including Ottera. He raised his brows in question and began the introductions.

  When they were done and he seen Niyarkos and his wife safely into the sphere of Derissa Krispin and Buschard, he slipped over to Alvellaina. “Ganna is out of uniform. Why?”

  “Gowns have no rank. It seemed less insulting than presenting him with a yeowoman.”

  “And I thought Derissa had all the diplomatic talent in the family. My compliments, m’alba, on the room, the food and yourself. You look quite lovely.”

  She blushed faintly. Alvellaina was wearing a dark-blue gown embroidered with silver, high-necked and long-sleeved. It was very conservative compared with the Kentinessa’s asymmetrical shift of filmy gold stuff, but he liked it. It made Alvellaina seem older than her years and more dignified. Her sisters were wearing equally unrevealing garb—Derissa in white to match Buschard’s dress uniform, and Armanda in pale lavender. Gilhame was no expert on the vagaries of female clothing, but he knew that Kentinessa Niyarkos was in a recent fashion of the Imperial capital and that the little yeowoman’s was a year or two out of date, but in very good taste. It was a dark burgundy, draped robe which set off her dark hair and eyes to advantage.

  “Did you dump the white dress down the disposal?” he asked.

  “Certainly not. 1 save that for special occasions. Like

  dinner with you,” she answered sharply.

  “You are a jewel among women, m’alba. I thank you most sincerely for your efforts. Everything looks wonderful.”

  She smiled at him. “Your wine cupboard leaves a great deal to be desired, but the ship’s kitchens were very helpful.”

  “Good. Ottera looks a little uncomfortable. I’ll go and set her at ease. Do you think you could . . . uh, engage your neemus-cousin in a little polite conversation? I think Buschard is telling them a tedious story. Or perhaps Niyarkos always looks like a constipated camel. And if he asks you, as I am certain he will, how you came to be here, you may tell him anything you wish.”

  “Why?”

  “The truth is sometimes more disquieting than any falsehood.” He walked across to Yeowoman Ottera.

  “Ganna?”

  She jumped a little at the sound of his voice. “Yes, sir?” “You look lovely tonight. Smile, do your duty and do me proud and I’ll give you a field brevet. I can’t have my chief officers . . . uh . . . consorting with the enlisted personnel. It’s the very devil with precedence, you know.”

  She gave a glance, then a smile. “I would prefer to rise by my own merits, sir.”

  “I see. Call me Gil for this evening and I will let you do so.”

  “Would you be so kind as to define my ‘duty,’ Gil?” “Laugh, be charming, be witty and don’t drink to

  excess.”

  “Should 1 be witty to anyone in particular?”

  “Try that rat-faced secretary of Niyarkos over there. Let me see. Illnos Caraheen. That’s his name.”

  Ganna gave him a curious look. Then she looked at Caraheen. “He should be worth at least two grades in rank,” she said, and drifted across to Caraheen.

  Later, they sat down around the table. A mess servant filled the soup bowls, removed them when they were empty and departed. Ur Fagon watched the platters being passed along the table, smiled at Alvellaina at the opposite end of the table from him, and filled Niyarkos’s glass again.

  As the guest of honor, he had Niyarkos at his right and the Kentinessa Niyarkos on his left. Derissa sat beside Niyarkos, talking charmingly, with Buschard, Ganna Ottera and the secretary Caraheen ending that side. The secretary seemed to have unbent somewhat under Ganna’s attentions and was actually smiling. Frikard sat beside the Kentinessa, with Armanda Krispin and Culmeni beyond him.

  Quite suddenly, Gilhame was depressed. He forced himself to answer some pleasantry from the overbred camel of a diplomat on his right. Then he realized that he had not heard anything the man had said and wondered if his answers had made any sense.

  Ur Fagon looked at the women at the table. The Kentinessa he dismissed as an empty-headed beauty. The three sisters were each making proper small talk with their dinner companions, and Ganna was proving herself worthy of any rank in the service she desired. She had that curious mixture of intelligence and sexuality which is either very attractive or very frightening to men.

  But he was using these people. The depression passed away as anger took its place. It was inward-directed rage, but he saw Alvellaina look at him sharply. While appearing to hang on every word of Caraheen’s, she quirked an eyebrow at Gilhame. He gave her a small shrug in response. He knew she had picked up the anger. Time, always time. He had to buy time, he who had all the time in the cosmos on one level, had spent endless hours of untold lifetimes delaying people, confusing them, always waiting for that moment of perfect balance when all the energies came together. Then he would win. He always found the crux; he always won. Why did he feel so empty now?

  He sighed, recognizing post-conflict doldrums, and stopped himself just before he began to drum his fingers on the table in boredom. If the ladies could endure this tedium, so could he.

  “And then we had this curious infestation of small, flying, blood-sucking mammals. Nobody knows where they

  came from. They just appeared suddenly, hung around attacking anyone who came out after dark and vanished about three weeks later. I tell you, I’ll be glad to get off these damn backwaters. Between the boredom and the strange animals, it’s been hell.”

  “I ca
n see that, Kentinus. Small, flying, blood-sucking mammals, you say. It sounds as if some cargo ship left a zoo crate behind. Those things obviously aren’t native to the Island Worlds. Backwater! Hah! Very good. I missed the joke when you said it.”

  ‘Great bleeding cosmos,’ he thought as he saw Niyarkos’s supercilious smile, ‘I’ve convinced the bastard he’s a wit. Well, perhaps I’ve convinced him I’m an idiot at the same time. I’ve got to know what, if anything, happened to that Coalchee flotilla. Blood-sucking mammals? Bats? On Helvira?”

  “A zoo crate?” yelped Niyarkos. “You know, I never thought of that. There was a small freighter through just before the things appeared. But why did they disappear?” “I suspect they starved to death,” Gilhame answered calmly. ‘If they had to survive on your thin blue blood, I’m sure they did, or died from the contact,’ he thought.

  Alvellaina passed the dessert platter around the table. She smiled at Caraheen in a way that made Gilhame want to break the man’s neck. The thought elicited another hard stare from her. ‘I can’t have it both ways,’ he decided. ‘Either I use her or I don’t, but I can’t be angry when she does what I ask.’ He noticed Frikard silence a beeper and turned his attention to the Niyarkos woman. Frikard arose from the table, bowed gracefully to the women on either side of him and left the room. So, the scouts were finally back.

  “Tell me, Admiral, have you seen the latest fashions from the capital? It’s been months since I’ve heard a word.”

  “Why, yes, Kentinessa, I have.” Anything to shut her up. In addition to being stupid, she had a voice like a blackbird. Just how much outrageousness could he get away with? “The last time I noticed, about six weeks ago, it was all paint and jewels.”

  “Paint and jewels, Admiral?”

  “The very highest fashion leaders, I believe, are shaving off all the body hair, painting their forms in interesting patterns and then covering the whole with electro-nets of gemstones. I was quite shocked the first time I saw a female on a dance floor dressed so, but I’m a bit old-fashioned. I like a woman to have hair on her head. But it sort of grows on you. One must have an absolutely perfect body, of course, but with electro-nets, anything is possible. The head is, I seem to remember, also adorned with a fantastic headdress. The cloth manufacturers are furious.”