“The station has lasted for millions of years,” she reminded him.
“But they do not have full control.” He made one of those airy dismissive gestures. “Well, we’ll let the experts thrash it out. In repayment for your service on Omilov’s mission I have tried to make your living situation easier, and you, at least, now have permission to go about freely, without a locator device. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
She would not ask for herself, but she could for her crew. “Lokri is being called to trial by your Archon Torigan,” she said. “Did you know that?”
His mouth tightened, and the spectrum altered dizzyingly. “I cannot interfere with justice,” he said.
“It is not justice when one is accused of a crime one did not commit, and cannot produce proof,” she countered.
The Arkad rose and took a step nearer to her, his gaze on the slowly spinning cylinder stretching out kilometers beyond them. His proximity flayed her composure. “Justice is a process, not a result. I can’t interfere directly,” he said. “I cannot even delay the trial, which would enable the transfer of jurisdiction to Arthelion, where his chance at real justice would be greater and Torigan’s influence minimal.”
His conflicting feelings were strong enough to bring her to the edge of physical pain—as would music played at too intense a volume. “In the eyes of the authorities, Lokri ran from justice and became a Rifter, and with the novosti playing up the Rifter role in the war, any overt interference on my part would severely damage people’s trust in me.”
She worked to keep her voice even. “I thought under martial law the newsfeeds were severely restricted.”
“I revoked martial law as my first act. We need the novosti to set the stage for my accession and to establish symbolic structures of stability. Torigan knows this and is using the growing anti-Rifter bias against me to force the trial. It also enables him to raise again the old questions about my fitness to rule, using the fact that I was on the same Rifter ship as Lokri when I returned to Panarchic governance.”
He turned to look directly at her. “You will need to be careful, too, and the rest of the crew. The novosti will be after you constantly now.” She felt the edge of his resolve, steel-bright. “But I refused Torigan’s petition for Local Justice—Lokri will be tried under Mandalic jurisdiction. And for his defense I will arrange for the best vocat that can be found.”
“Thank you,” she said, rising.
Again his emotions whirled through her. “You do not want to stay awhile?” he asked, smiling and open.
She closed her eyes. He was Douloi, perhaps incapable of anything but mercurial interest. His attraction to her had been sparked by her own anger, and sustained itself with interest in the man they had both loved. He knew she could read his emotions, but he welcomed the honesty this implied—so rare in his social world. His humor—his innate trust in her keeping that knowledge safe—disarmed her completely.
The only gift she could give him in return was to hide the price this one-way communication extracted from her. Eventually he would lose interest, and he would make the parting graceful, because that was what Douloi did. Until then, it was useless to deny both their natures—and it was, she acknowledged, beyond her to deny him anything.
She opened her eyes. “I’ll stay,” she said.
NINE
ARES, SOUTH CAP GAMMA SHUTTLE BAY
Tovr Ixvan hefted his travelcache and stepped off the shuttle into the echoing immensity of the shuttle bay. His long legs took him to the edge of the crowd of refugees streaming off the ship, where he slowed to his usual amble.
At first, he thought it was that contrary motion, and his height, that brought him to the attention of a very young novosti, who hurried toward him, the silvery ajna in his forehead gleaming.
Very young? From a distance the short, slight, round-faced man looked like a youth, but close up that sharp gaze and the faint lines at mouth and forehead belied that impression. He wore a red jewel clipped to the bridge of his nose by a delicate filigree, a glow in its depths indicating a live feed to the Ares local DataNet, and he had a wide, friendly smile.
Ixvan’s fame had been mostly in Ivory Sud Octant, so he’d expected to be anonymous. He paused, half-expecting to have been mistaken for someone else.
“Vocat Ixvan?”
All right, no mistake, then.
“Nik Cormoran. Ares 25, Arbeit Syndicate out of Reginale Cloud. Can you tell us why you, a gnostor of the College of Nomic Universals, were processed through the Reef?”
Ixvan hesitated. Twenty-five. That low a number on the feeds meant influence behind Arbeit here on Ares. And even though information on incoming civilian ships was freely available to help place refugees, a worm that ate enough memory to tease him out of the manifests for incoming ships meant resources. Or something.
“You’ve obviously mistaken me for one of the Douloi.” He was careful to bend over slightly so as to look into the ajna, to avoid the appearance of condescension. Now perhaps he could pay his debt to Ramony, and Phelps, and the others who would never leave the Reef. “As you noted, I study Nomic Universals. There’d be a lot less trouble if people realized what that phrase means.”
Nik smiled wider, pleased to get an answer, any answer—though he had not yet put forward his real question. He obviously wanted to talk. Ixvan decided to let him spew what he needed to spew, then maybe the novosti would spew for Ixvan. “Then are you saying that everyone should be processed through the Reef?”
Had to admit this one was good, Ixvan thought. That would make his obligation easier to fulfill. “No, quite the contrary. No one should have to endure the Reef, or anything like it.” Ixvan suppressed the urge to unload his pent-up rage; the courtroom was the place for flowing eloquence. You fed a novosti in small bites.
“But Ares can’t hold them,” Nik said, letting himself be distracted. A story was a story, even if it wasn’t—yet—the one he’d come to pursue. “Would you send the refugees back, into the hands of the Rifters?”
Interesting that he said Rifters and not Dol’jharians. “Do you yourself know what the true capacity of Ares is?” Ixvan tried to speak through the ajna to the audience. “I doubt that even the gnostors of Commensics agree on that. Perhaps it can hold more. Justice demands that we know with certainty.”
Or whatever degree of that one could expect when dealing with those disciplines that only treated of the falsifiable. Ixvan respected but didn’t understand the descriptive mind-set of science. It was too pale for him contrasted to the prescriptive discipline of nomics, the feeling of shaping the law with one’s own efforts.
“And if it can’t?” Nik asked, looking interested.
“Then it is our responsibility to extend the protection of the law to everyone on the Reef, just as on Ares.” He looked into the novosti’s eyes and spoke in restricted-plural mode, pulling back momentarily from the unseen audience. “They don’t let you out there, do they?”
“No. It’s still under martial law,” Nik replied.
Ixvan suspected the Dol’jharians had released the coordinates of Ares, hoping to overwhelm the last Panarchist redoubt with people, since they couldn’t reach it with any weapon short of an asteroid—which any cruiser could stop as ensign-level tractor practice.
“That should tell you something.” He looked back at the ajna, knowing the feed would translate that into looking straight into the viewer’s eyes. “It’s as close to hell as I ever want to come.” He paused, feeling helpless to convey the true dimension of the hopelessness and rage gripping the refugees trapped in the ever-growing mass of ships bonded together in the distant staging point. They were the friendless, without connection, clients to no one. The forgotten.
Not by him. Permitting some of his passion to infuse his voice, he told the novosti, and through him, the people of Ares about the growing mass of refugees ruled by terror and extortion. He told them of Ramony and Phelps, who’d taken pity on him and brought him into their alread
y crowded quarters, no doubt saving his life in the process.
His eyes misted as he remembered Ramony at work, her stubby fingers ink-stained as she struggled with an unfamiliar art. Her zamzdat in Cloud Eborea of Phoenix Nord had been wildly popular on the local DataNets; on the Reef, she was read-only from arrival, like everyone else. News from Ares was rigidly filtered.
Cormoran held back his questions as Ixvan related how the authorities on the Reef thought her paper vats and printing press were a drugline and distillery. If they’d known the truth, no bribe would have been big enough. Ixvan could see the novosti’s natural sympathy altering his expression.
Given the chance he had not expected, Ixvan transformed the interview into a courtroom; though they stood outside, and not before the masked judges, the judge he wanted to reach now was legion, faceless, and changeable.
He knew that Cormoran’s motivation was to stir people, as well as entertainment. They were using each other, but willingly and aware.
“. . . eventually they banned her and took read-only and even voice traffic away from her,” he said. “She had to rely on personal reports to continue zamzing. That was when the Harpadi stepped in, the so-called ‘duly constituted civilian government’ that was the front for the true rigors of martial law.”
“What did they do?”
“They sent a squad of enforcers to gang-rape her.” He bit out each word, gazing straight into the ajna. “The official record lists her as a victim of multiple assaults, a typically bloodless phrase for a bloody and degenerate act.”
Cormoran took a step back, not hiding his disgust. “You say the Harpadi were a front for the naval authorities on the Reef? So do you think that Commander Licrosse knew it was going to happen and did nothing? Or do you mean that he actually ordered the Harpadi to rape Ramony?”
“I do not accuse him of issuing the order,” said the vocat carefully, “and I can’t speak to what Licrosse knew or didn’t know. But if he didn’t know, it is suggestive of incompetence, and if he did, of gross malfeasance, at the least. However, it was obvious from the first that the authorities had her tabbed as a troublemaker.” Ixvan bit his lip gently, remembering. “She never spoke again, after that, so they got what they wanted. And Phelps let himself out an airlock two days later.”
“Do you think he was assisted in that?”
Ixvan shook his head. “That would be sheer speculation on my part.” He smiled grimly. “That’s your job.”
“So why did you leave?” the novosti asked.
“I wasn’t given a choice.” He took a deep breath. “And the air is better. Perhaps I can do more from here.”
“Thank you, Gnostor Ixvan.” Sensing the finality in Ixvan’s voice, Cormoran switched to his original pursuit. “I’d like to ask you another question off-line, if I may.”
“Of course, genz Cormoran.”
The ajna clouded over; the light in the red gem died. “Can you tell me, are you here to represent Jesimar vlith-Kendrian?
“Who?”
Nik repeated the name, adding, “He’s praecidens, accused of murdering his parents and five others on Torigan fourteen years ago. The Archon of Torigan is pressing for trial and LJO, despite the fact that the government has suspended prosecution for crimes committed before the Rifter attack. Kendrian, or Lokri, as he called himself, was one of the Rifters on the Telvarna, the ship that eventually carried the new Panarch to safety.”
Ixvan raised his eyebrows, tempted to ask if the mysterious Montrose who had contacted him had been associated with these Rifters. But long habit kept him from revealing the name of his contact. Likewise he suspected that Cormoran would not reveal the source of the information that connected him with Kendrian. There were far too many questions here—and there might not be any connection.
So all he said was, “I know nothing of this. Remember how narrow the datafeed from Ares was. That’s what made it so hard for Ramony to smuggle news.”
Cormoran accepted that. “Thank you again, Gnostor.”
“Thank you. Perhaps you will give me your mail drop, if you wish more detail on what I witnessed in the Reef. On that subject, I can furnish plenty of detail.”
A brief subliminal flicker of light linked their boswells, then Ixvan moved on in search of a public datalink to find this Montrose, the man who had summoned him from the Reef. The man had a lot to answer for, it seemed.
Nik Cormoran took off for nearest transit station, reviewing the interview through his boswell as he squashed into the crammed transtube.
A short time later he stood next to his friend and longtime rival on the newsnets, Derith Y’Madoc, watching the downloads mount on the Ixvan interview. Despite the tianqi going full power, the air smelt of electric mustiness, possibly from too many consoles in one small area but more likely from the constant adrenal-boosted breathing of the workers there.
“Seems to be peaking,” Nik said. “If we can’t get out to the Reef, that’s pretty much a dead end, unless my guess about Kendrian proves out.”
“Good interview, though,” Derith said, tossing her dark hair out of her face. “Not your fault 99’s cornered the market on the Rifter atrocities everybody’s DL’ing.” She lifted her chin toward the nearest bank of consoles. “New newspackets every day, best noderunners we could hire, and look at us. Stuck in a me-too orbit while Chomsky and her gang count their points.”
She threw a file of flimsies on her desk, then watched, sour-faced, as they dislodged one of the many piles there, causing all to cascade to the floor.
“Chatz,” she said unheatedly when the avalanche had subsided. She swooped them all up and crammed them into the disposer.
Nik did not need to see the screens of the various consoles. He could tell from the disappointed expressions of his peers that nothing new was coming through.
He sighed. He did not need to remind her that they would eventually be rich; that once the DataNet was up again for outgoing commercial traffic, trillions would be clamoring for edited versions of their reports from Ares. Novosti received a royalty for every viewer download. Minuscule, but over billions of DLs it added up, and one day there would be more than enough points for every novosti on the station.
The problem was in the immediate, where novosti lived and breathed and had their being. Tomorrow was a thousand years away, and yesterday had fallen off the scale of time into oblivion. He and Derith had joined forces soon after their arrival, and had begun doing well the moment martial law was lifted.
But despite their constant effort, somehow the Chomsky team on Ares 99 had grabbed the inside orbit on the Rifter atrocities occurring throughout the Thousand Suns. Feed 25 was losing ground. Even the preparations for the Panarch’s accession and the upcoming trial of Jesimar vlith-Kendrian weren’t enough to overcome the public’s appetite for bad news.
“I still think somebody’s slipping them that data ahead of general release,” Nik said bitterly. “And if we’re not careful, Kendrian’s Rifter background’ll take the trial away from us, too. Chomsky’s already setting that up and we don’t have enough data to stop her. There isn’t anything about the Kendrian murders replicated in the Ares Net, and our research worms back into the DataNet are way down the courier priority list. Whoever that source is, it ran me into a dead end with Ixvan on that score. He only talked to me to get the hellish situation on the Reef revealed.”
Derith wrinkled her short nose in disgust, then her expression brightened slightly. She rummaged on her desk. “Damn! Look, Nik, someone—anonymous of course—thinks we ought to go after the blit’s Rifter friends when the Telvarna gets back. Thinks Torigan is pushing this trial to make trouble for the Panarch. Naturally he’d back Chomsky. She makes a specialty of sucking up to Douloi.”
“Weak, weak,” Nik said, shaking his head. “The old Panarch himself forgave Brandon his Riftskip—if it was a Riftskip. That’s ancient news! Torigan’s an idiot.”
“What if they did something Brandon might regret . . .”
&nb
sp; “But Panarch’s up now. We rizz him, and we’re blunge.”
“Everyone’ll DL it,” Derith said with a grin.
“Yeah, then rizz us. Not worth it. Besides, data-slant’s not Torigan’s style. He’ll use it, sure, but I don’t think he could either plan it or do it. No, somebody else is behind these hints, and I’m going to find out who, and how they are using us, before I follow any more of its leads.”
Derith shrugged. “Well, it’s your call. Trial’s still yours. I’ve got my hands full with the Accession.” She shook her head wonderingly. “You wouldn’t think those bloodless old gnostors in Archetype and Ritual’d be the type to duel, but they’re fighting over symbols and rituals like they were matters of life and death.”
Nik raised an eyebrow at her.
Derith snorted. “Yeah, I know. Strange thing for a novosti to say, right? But we do it for points—that’d be worth fighting over.”
Nik pursed his lips as he watched Derith pack up her things. She was a hell of a good novosti, which was why he’d agreed to share fifty-fifty. But she was a little too focused at times. Why did she think the Panarch had lifted martial law, if not to free the novosti to disperse and popularize the symbols those “bloodless old gnostors” so carefully discovered and crafted? Maybe he should’ve taken the Accession story.
Too late for that. And from his hasty research on Tovr Ixvan before he’d confronted the man, he knew that trouble followed the vocat wherever he went. He’d made the fortune of more than one novosti: in Ivory Sud, Ixvan had been the subject of a Level 2 story more than once—10 to 100 points, with a billion viewers to a point. And his expose on the Reef had been good. Very good.
As for the trial, maybe the other Rifters from the mysterious Telvarna would be a workable angle to try for inside data, once the ship returned. He’d better find out when and where it would be expected, or he’d arrive to find Chomsky already there.
“Telvarna.” While he still had Derith’s attention, he thought out loud. “The old gnostor Omilov won’t talk to us, we know that. Neither will the captain.”
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