The Rifter's Covenant

by Sherwood Smith

  But Anaris also remembered the queasy feel of the Heart of Kronos, the shock of psychic energy that had lanced through him when he picked it up in the landing bay of the Fist of Dol’jhar. Now it lay in what appeared to be its proper place, at the center of the station in a chamber as awesome in its alien way as the Throne Room on Arthelion. He had been there only once. He would not willingly go there again.

  The memory sharpened: the sense of pressure, as though the air were congealing around him; the sudden, almost peristaltic ejection of a gray-clad guard from a suddenly animated side tunnel, provoked by the involuntary release of Anaris’s Chorei talent for psychokinesis; the blinding headache that followed. His head panged again, a final trace from the night’s dream.

  One of his teachers, the strange woman who had finally unleashed the gift of the Chorei in him, had told him of the ancient legend of Morpheus, the god of sleep. “He was believed to send dreams through one of two gates, Ivory and Horn, false and true.”

  But here, for him, it seemed, the poles of sleep were the Suneater and the Mandala.

  When the Hour had passed, he reached for his compad to summon Morrighon, who lay in slumber.

  . . . Larghior and Demeragh fell asleep with their limbs twined around him, while Tat stroked his feet . . .

  Morrighon opened his eyes, and the image fled, but not the sensation: the wall pulsed rhythmically, warm against his feet. A hoarse scream propelled him out of bed.

  He slapped at the console. The lights blinked frantically as the node monitoring this section of the personnel quarters fought the station’s adaptation with surges of paralyzing energy through the stasis clamps Lysanter had invented.

  Finally the alien substance of the wall, disguised with a thick coat of gray like every surface in the room, lapsed into quiescence. But Morrighon didn’t trust it—his chamber seemed to tremble on the edge of movement.

  The blinking light on his console—Anaris’s summons—came as a relief.

  Now he would have to move his bed again, until the walls reacted to the new location. The earliest Dol’jharian occupiers of the stations had had to move their quarters from chamber to chamber, for the Urian construct’s activity increased around concentrations of humans. In fact, its pace of adaptation had been accelerating when the Urian specialist finally figured out how to control its substance.

  Morrighon grimaced. Although the scientist denied it, to him the stasis clamps seemed most like instruments of pain. But Lysanter was not a Dol’jharian. He wouldn’t see how apt that was.

  The Bori watched the walls and ceiling suspiciously as he dressed. He tried not to think about the floor, where the clamps lay thickest. He turned his gaze to the extra stasis clamps the techs had recently installed, his unease intensifying. Inspection of the work logs had revealed that the order had come from Anaris—and the clamps from his quarters. This manner of expressing confidence in an underling was so foreign to Dol’jharian practice that it had taken Morrighon two days to realize what it meant. And he could never say anything to Anaris, for the unspoken message was clear: he was expected to perform flawlessly as his master and Eusabian commenced the ritual duel of succession that would end in death for one of them.

  Morrighon grabbed his compad off the otherwise empty table at the end of his bed. He missed the weight of the coms on his belt, and their whispering to him at night, despite the fact they were designed to force vulnerable acoustic communications. But they weren’t used on the Suneater; Lysanter had insisted that all that RF energy might trigger unusual behavior from the station. The Dol’jharians had perforce to accept the use of compads by their menials, which were far more secure. And powerful, a fact Tatriman was demonstrating almost daily.

  He tabbed the adit control. A flicker of energy lanced against a fistula-like cavity in the Urian portal, which dilated with a nasty sucking noise. He winced.

  The usual scurry of technicians and gray-clad Dol’jharian ordinaries clogged the corridor outside; the station ran on three shifts and was never quiet. He dodged a grav pallet laden with a bizarre tangle of Urian devices dredged from some recess of the station, almost tripping over one of the datacables on the floor.

  Gingerly tabbing the annunciator to Anaris’s quarters, he could not prevent another twitch of revulsion as the portal sucked open.

  Anaris’s chamber had square corners and flat walls, like a normal room, an effect only possible with dyplast panels and many stasis clamps. It was, however, Morrighon noted, less square than it had been. Morrighon held his compad close to his side as he stepped in. Waiting until the door closed, he bowed to Anaris, who looked amused.

  “Well, what do you have for me this watch? You’ve powered up the station in secret?”

  Morrighon ignored the oddness of Anaris’s teasing comment, an increasingly common mode of address that he’d never have expected from a Dol’jharian lord. It had to be the influence of this place. It wasn’t meant for humans, and it was twisting them all into distortions of themselves.

  “An interesting report from Lysanter’s section. Personnel stationed near the Chamber of Kronos are reporting psychic disturbances with increasing frequency.”

  The heir’s eyes narrowed; Morrighon had already sensed that Anaris did not like the Chamber.

  “Disturbances?” One of Anaris’s black brows slanted sardonically.

  “Among the Dol’jharian contingent—insomnia, mostly. Among subject personnel—nightmares, sleep apnea, somnambulism. A further investigation revealed that the frequency correlates inversely with distance from the center of the station.”

  Anaris was silent for an uncomfortably long time. “Dreams,” he said at last. “The place engenders bad dreams.”

  “If I may speak?” Morrighon said carefully.

  Anaris waved a negligent hand.

  “I think the grays and Tarkans dream also, but fear the mark of the Chorei.”

  Despite Anaris’s frequent instructions to speak frankly, Morrighon felt sweat pop out on his forehead. Anaris had come close to killing him when he had stumbled upon the heir practicing t’kinetic imagery. For Eusabian would not hesitate to execute Anaris if he found out his son was tainted with blood of the long-vanished Chorei, psychic adepts whose island had been annihilated by an asteroid strike engineered by the mainland Dol’jharians early in that planet’s space age.

  Finally Anaris inclined his head, and Morrighon breathed again. “What conclusion has he drawn from that? Or you?”

  “He says he does not know what it signifies, but I think he is withholding his conclusions from us for fear of Barrodagh. Unfortunately we have little leverage with him yet.”

  “Then we will have to wait until my father is informed. After that, Lysanter can have no objection to my knowing.”

  After a pause, Morrighon understood that he had been dismissed, and withdrew. But he was sure of it now: whatever it was in the Heart of Kronos that had startled Anaris on the Fist of Dol’jhar was active here even more so.

  o0o

  For Barrodagh, too, the summons from his Lord came as a relief. He had been kept awake for hours by the random lip-smacking sounds from the fistula that had opened in one concave corner. It had only lapsed into silence an hour ago.

  He closed his eyes tiredly, then jerked them open again and scanned the room. He could not control the terror that trembled in his belly when he awoke and the dimensions of the room had altered. If anyone else suffered nightmares about being slowly suffocated in the digestive tract of some monstrous creature, they appeared to control it—and so must he. Lysanter insisted that the Suneater was not alive in any useful sense, merely highly adaptive.

  “It is a homeostatic mechanism, converging on Urian conditions. It’s really just trying to make us comfortable.”

  That was just the problem. They were not Urians. And if this was Urian comfort, what did that say about them?

  Barrodagh sat up and stepped directly onto his shoes in order to dress, avoiding any portion of his flesh encounter
ing the warm give of the construct’s floor, which was undiminished by the thick, rubbery coating over it. As he pulled on his clothes, he renewed with furious determination his vow to contrive, somehow, to annex as many stasis clamps as he could manage. Materials being limited, only the lords had enough of them now, but Barrodagh would find a way.

  Dressed, he slapped the medtab onto his back below his neck and pulled up the high collar of his tunic. He felt a spasm in his cheek; his arms tightened in anticipation of the overwhelming, almost electric pain, but it didn’t come. There was no need for Eusabian to know of the sansouci and other medications he was taking to control the tic. He breathed a fraction easier and left.

  In the crowded corridor he moved in a bubble of avoidance. As he reached the portal to Eusabian’s quarters he noted some warty Ur-fruit sprouting from the ceiling. They were no particular danger, since these ones smelled vile, but the Bori directed a passing gray to have them removed anyway. He still found it hard to believe that anyone would sample such things, regardless of how good they smelled—but the twisted bodies of the victims of such stupidity were convincing.

  The tic threatened again when the portal to Eusabian’s quarters eructated. The Ur-be-damned things didn’t even make a consistent noise. More than anything, Barrodagh hated the changeability of the station.

  He entered Eusabian’s chamber, which was a physical relief from the weirdness of the halls: except for the sound of the door, one would think one had been transplanted to the Panarch’s personal library in the Palace Minor on the Mandala. The two wing chairs, the ancient rugs, the wall hangings, all had been carefully removed from Arthelion and brought here. The only other dissonant note was the holographic window, which did not depict the serene gardens of the Mandala, but a grim vista of Dol’jhar’s volcanic realm as seen from the tower of Jhar D’ocha.

  Reminding Barrodagh of his ever-present danger.

  He bowed deeply. Heavy-browed and brooding, Eusabian glanced his way, then returned to studying that grim vista. “Your report?”

  As instructed, Barrodagh reported new intelligence of Anaris first. But what was to him the most damning information could not be shared with Eusabian: that Anaris had yielded some of his stasis clamps, apparently for the comfort of Morrighon. Barrodagh was not entirely sure it was not a feint portraying a non-existent softness, but in any case, the Avatar would only interpret the report as a veiled criticism of the fact that he had not done the same for Barrodagh.

  Eusabian waved the latest data away irritably as trivial. He was bored again, Barrodagh thought with another gut-eating surge of adrenaline. Well, the latest report from Lysanter would be useful in distracting the Lord of Vengeance from his increasing concentration on the details that attracted his interest.

  “Lord, Lysanter’s latest experiments indicate a psychic component to the station’s activity. He requests the procurement of a tempath for testing this hypothesis.”

  Eusabian looked up sharply, his black eyes reflecting pinpoints of light. “He believes that a tempath can fully activate the Suneater?”

  Barrodagh hastened to mitigate his lord’s high expectations. “He says only that it is the most promising avenue of further exploration.” He continued hurriedly. “I have already identified a number of tempaths. The most readily available is Li Pung of Rifthaven. With your approval I will requisition him from the Syndics.”

  Although he would not put it that way to them. He’d learned the hard way that even though their power had been sharply diminished, the rulers of Rifthaven were more easily dealt with if outward respect was shown.

  “Do so. Procure all you can find. What one cannot do, perhaps many can.”

  Seeking to prolong Eusabian’s interest, in the hopes of keeping him away from the hyperwave, he described several other possible tempaths. He didn’t mention that it was very unlikely that any tempaths they could find would or could work together. According to Lysanter, in proximity tempaths’ focus would be on blocking one another, rendering their sensitivity to outside stimuli the weaker.

  “Very well,” said Eusabian. “Is there more?”

  Barrodagh hesitated fractionally. With the hyperwave digest he had prepared, he judged this new development would assuage the Avatar’s boredom for the rest of the day. So the developments on Barca could wait.

  Anyway, he didn’t want to bring Hreem and Norio to Eusabian’s attention while the matter of tempaths was in the forefront. Barrodagh was not at all sure he wanted Norio on the Suneater, at least not until he was well prepared.

  He bowed again. “No, Lord. Today’s digest is ready for you.”

  At Eusabian’s nod he tabbed on the vid and withdrew. He would detail Anderic to pick up Li Pung while he was at Rifthaven, and more cims with the raw materials to manufacture more stasis clamps. And mind-blurs. Lots of them. Too bad those psionic devices couldn’t be cimmed.

  The thought of a full night’s sleep made him sway with fatigue as the portal sucked shut behind him, then, looking around to make sure no one had observed his moment of weakness, he hurried away.

  ARES

  Eloatri, High Phanist of Desrien, stood at the window looking out into the garden of the Cloisters. Tall spikes of flowers nodded in the light of the diffusers far above; an enormous, fuzzy black bee fumbled among the blooms, buzzing loudly.

  The air breathed with the vigor of spring, but beneath the heady scents she sensed a stale quality, like a room too long tenanted without a thorough cleaning. Either it was imagination or else some kind of psychic reaction to the terrible overcrowding of Ares.

  Her palm tingled, forcing her gaze to the image of the Digrammaton burned forever into her hand. The weight of the true vision that had accompanied the Digrammaton across light-years of space pressed heavily on her now, and she looked back at the console, where a tiny datachip lay near the reader.

  On the chip was the report from Gehenna: the death of the Panarch at the hands of his enemy’s son.

  The annunciator chimed, then Tuan ushered Gnostor Manderian into her study.

  She clasped hands with the Dol’jharian-born monk, noting the impression of tremendous strength held easily in check. She wondered what Vi’ya’s grip felt like as he said, “I did not see Ivard, but Vi’ya reports he is thriving. The Eya’a are still in hibernation.”

  “Coming back to the population increase here must have been overwhelming,” Eloatri said.

  “Vi’ya admitted as much, though she indicated they are ready to reemerge.”

  “Good.”

  “The Kelly seem unchanged. I will visit them all again soon, on the pretext of expanding the semaphore system.”

  “It is well,” Eloatri said. “Please continue to monitor their welfare.” She turned to the console. “Gnostor, I have here the report from Gehenna, which I’ve put off viewing until you could be with me. I hope you can help me evaluate what I see, and draw my attention to what I don’t see.”

  “The vid shows very little of what really happened,” he replied. “And there are those events I witnessed which I do not fully understand.”

  “Then we will ponder them together,” Eloatri said, and he bowed his readiness to comply.

  They seated themselves side by side in comfortable chairs at the console. “What you will not see here,” Manderian said, “are the actions of the Eya’a, a few minutes before this record begins, revealing that Vi’ya had been trying to watch things through the Aerenarch’s eyes.” He paused. “And succeeding.”

  Eloatri’s palm tingled again. She looked at him questioningly.

  “I believe,” he continued, “that this ability is, at least in part, due to a significant change in their relationship.”

  Eloatri nodded slowly. She hadn’t known that. She snapped the chip in and tabbed it on.

  At first the views of the interior of the Grozniy evoked memories of her father’s tales of his Navy years. But Manderian’s voice recalled her.

  “Watch here. The Aerenarch.”

 
The movement was so subtle she might indeed have missed it had Manderian not spoken. Brandon—still Aerenarch at that time—glanced at the imager, signaling his awareness of the watchers.

  Manderian reached to freeze the recording. “You are sure the missing part of your polymental unity is not Brandon Arkad?”

  Eloatri shook her head. “Yes. I mean, I’m sure. He is a part of my need to be in this place, but he was not in any of my initial visions.” Once again she felt the futility of language.

  “Which we thought defined the polymental unity,” Manderian said, his black eyes narrowed. “You thought it was complete but for one: the Kelly trinity, the Eya’a, Ivard, Vi’ya, and a man.”

  Eloatri shook her head, feeling helpless. Whenever she tried to grasp at the Dreamtime—to force it into logical conformity—the meaning blurred. “I still do not understand why I saw them the way I did: the Eya’a as children, the Kelly as a ring upon Ivard’s hand. But Vi’ya’s face was clear, and so was this other man’s face—and it was not that of Brandon Arkad.”

  Manderian tabbed the vid back on. He knows that the power of a vision lies not in what can be communicated to others, but in the actions that flow from loyalty to its meaning, she thought.

  She turned her attention to the vid, which unfolded inexorably to its terrible end. Even though she knew the outcome of the battle with the Samedi, she felt her breath grow short as the Grozniy and the Rifter destroyer sparred between the narrowing wings of energy generated by the fivespace fracture that had guarded the secret of Gehenna for so long.

  She watched as the communications officer reported an incoming signal. “They ID themselves as Acheridol, Anaris achreash-Eusabian, commanding.”

  On the screen, Captain Margot Ng hailed the Dol’jharian corvette. The main screen of the Grozniy, reproduced on the Cloisters’ console in miniature, resolved an image: a very tall, strongly made young man with abundant black hair, and an intelligent black gaze in his sharply boned face.

  Eloatri’s ears rang with shock, and her temples throbbed.