“But they don’t disobey,” he said.
She sat back, trying to appear relaxed. “You told me some days ago that Koestler is maneuvering politically to try to secure command of the attack on the Suneater.”
“Yes.”
“Have you made a decision?”
“Yes. Based on military reasons. But for political reasons I haven’t said anything yet.”
Vi’ya nodded. “Ng.”
“Why do you say that?”
This, at least, was a straightforward enough subject. “I have watched several times the combat logs you gave me. Though it is dangerous to say what-if about battle because too much depends not just on the moment but on where one happens to be, and—”
“And one’s angle on the action,” he said. “Given. Go on.”
“They are both experienced, courageous, excellent commanders. But Ng has the edge for two reasons. One: she brought to battle the new tenno. Two, she figured out the weakness in the Dol’jharians’ dependence on the Urian weapons and communications.”
“Intellectually,” Brandon said. “Koestler seems to have figured it out kinetically but was just too late to use it. About the tenno: Ng did not invent them.”
“One of her officers did. But she sought that officer out, for the same work Semion’s captains, or at least Semion, had dismissed as frivolous. Within the context of battle she gains the credit.”
Brandon moved back to Damage Control, his fingers still restless. “Think about their styles of command.”
Vi’ya closed her eyes, trying to bring back images of the often-viewed logs of their recent battles. She remembered the bridges of the cruisers—so much alike, orders given in much the same language.
“Can you see Warrigal on Astraea’s bridge?” he asked.
“Yes . . .” But as she spoke the word, she knew the picture would not resolve. “No.” She looked up. “No one offered Koestler information, much less observations, which Ng did permit. So Koestler selects for obedience, not initiative, yes? And perhaps shuts out those whose mentalities do not match his own?”
“Not Koestler,” Brandon said.
Vi’ya had not moved from the captain’s pod. Brandon also stayed where he was, the width of the bridge between them.
“Semion,” she said. The surface question fell into place then. “He built his own Navy, did he not? Within the superstructure of the Panarchic Navy, and completely according to its rules. Yet their allegiance was to Semion. Not as the heir-symbol, but to his person.”
“Right,” he said. “He put twenty years into creating a highly-trained elite guard that would obey him without question.”
So this is a question of allegiance? she thought.
“My task is to bring them back—if I can,” he said. “But trust has to go both ways.”
A month ago Vi’ya had had three questions. The first two had been answered: Brandon had chosen to return to the world of his ancestors, and he knew that Vi’ya, a Rifter, would someday leave his world.
The third question remained: Would he try and stop her?
She said, “What do you have to offer them in place of their old covenant?”
“Only the truth.” He opened his hands. “That allegiance to a single individual produces a bond only as strong, or as wise, as that person. But a covenant with a position, a role, a symbol, if you will, draws greatness from each member’s talents and wisdom. If it is kept by everyone, of whatever status or degree.”
The superficial subject was Panarchist politics. The subtext was Panarchists vs. Rifters. The true question was Panarch vs. Rifter captain. “But everyone does not keep it,” she said deliberately. “Or we would not be having this conversation.”
And watched the impact of the unspoken in his eyes.
All of the intensity went out of him, no longer hiding plain human exhaustion. The duel was over. He had disengaged, and thrown aside his weapon.
The radical alteration in his emotional spectrum left her, as it often did, fighting for balance. Reaching back for the superficial topic, she asked, “How much time do you have?”
“Until Omilov has his Suneater data ready to present, and until the admirals know how many ships we will have for an attack,” he answered with a slight smile. She braced herself against the sense of regret that he could not hide, and below that self-mockery. “In the meantime,” he went on, straightening up and walking slowly toward her console, “there is Lokri’s matter. I would like you to meet with Sedry Thetris, who has been datadiving for Ixvan.”
Which was his way of telling her that her efforts had been detected.
Revealing, at last, the motivation for this meeting.
The two small parts were in her hand. As she slid them into a storage bin below her console, she said, “It could only benefit Lokri to have two lines of investigation conducted.” You trust in your laws, she thought, but my crew trusts in me. And we both have to honor our own covenants. And she saw again, in the lift of his chin, the widening of his pupils, its impact.
She had thrust one last time, after he had set aside his sword of command. He was no longer facing her as the Panarch. This was just Brandon, whom she loved, had loved before she knew him, whom she would always love. So she said at last, “I have found evidence of the Archon of Torigan’s complicity in the murder of the Kendrians. But I don’t know who actually ordered it, or why.”
TEN
SUNEATER
The air stank of carrion, sometimes faint and at the edge of perception, other times an overpowering waft. And the Ur-fruit were changing. Barrodagh refused to look at them anymore. He tried to remember the Dol’jharian ordinary that Lysanter had fed to what seemed to be the Urian equivalent of a recycler. Had he had blue eyes?
A thick patch of coarse, curly hair had emerged on the wall near Lysanter’s office. Barrodagh shuddered. That was even worse than the fleshy stalactites and mounds of slimy connective tissue sprouting from surfaces here and there like giant hemorrhoids.
Lysanter was absorbed in a bank of graphs slowly mutating on his console. He didn’t seem to notice the belching noise as the door dilated; he merely froze the display and turned, inclining his head, but not rising from his seat.
“Serach Barrodagh.” He was high in the Avatar’s favor since the second tempath experiment had improved the station’s power incrementally, even though it had killed the woman.
Barrodagh sat, irritated by Lysanter’s assumption of additional status. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He stared expectantly, willing Lysanter to speak first.
He did. “I believe we have a solution to the environmental problems. The nature of the new anthrogenomic manifestations is the clue. The more common ones, such as hair or skin, are from portions of the body that were still viable when it was ingested.”
Barrodagh’s cheek twinged warningly through the slowly growing numbness the drugs were inducing. Lysanter no longer made any attempt to avoid bio-analogies for the station’s activities.
“The less common ones, such as the eyes, appear to be genetic experiments of some sort. Usually incomplete: the eyes had no retina, just a smooth reflective membrane, like the tapetum of various predators.”
Barrodagh remembered the way they had caught the light, their pupils glowing. His stomach lurched. “But why does the air stink?”
“We’re fortunate that the Ur apparently needed an atmosphere close to human norms.” Lysanter waved his hand in a circle on the word ‘close.’ “Not to mention gravity. It could have been much worse. I see too many people without breathers. That’s still potentially dangerous.”
Barrodagh’s irritation flared into anger. “Are you telling me how to serve the Lord of Vengeance?” A colored fringe danced around the edge of the lights above Lysanter: another migraine building. His patch must be depleted.
The scientist jerked his head and blinked. “No, serach Barrodagh. Your pardon. It was merely an observation, offered for your information.”
What f
rustrated Barrodagh most was Lysanter’s apparent lack of fear, as though he could not sense the weight of terror barely held in check that ruled everything Dol’jharian. Or as though it was but another datum in an experiment. Someday I will arrange for you an experiment with the mindripper, he thought viciously.
“Very well. What do you propose to do about it? The Avatar is impatient for the return of clean air.”
“The subject was dead when ingested. The processes of autolytic decay were well advanced.” Lysanter’s words slowed. “So the station is reproducing those as well as living tissue.”
Barrodagh smiled slowly despite the pain building behind his eyes. “So you want to do what I suggested at the outset. Feed it a live body.” This was an unexpected bonus.
Lysanter nodded reluctantly. “I believe it will then, well, understand what we are and stop attempting to reproduce human parts. I do not think it can reproduce a living body.”
Red banged painfully behind the Bori’s eyes.
The scientist sighed and went on. “As well, the experiment with Li Pung using a mindripper—” He pronounced the word with distaste. “—for stimulation and control is yielding no results at all. His mind is so badly damaged that we are not sure his tempathic abilities survive.”
And there was the fool’s weakness, Barrodagh thought. Lysanter’s compassion would eventually destroy him. But let him have Li Pung’s release from whatever hell the station had plunged him into. Maybe the air would stop stinking.
‘Then use him. Do it immediately.”
“It will take some time to prepare. And I will have to notify the heir, as well.”
“The Lord Anaris has requested notification of attempts to activate the station with a tempath. This is different. You will leave any such communication to me.” Barrodagh saw that the man understood him. “Notify me when you are ready.”
After satisfying himself that Lysanter was also giving the utmost priority to producing more stasis clamps, and discussing the optimal placement of the new mind-blurs that would arrive on the ship carrying Norio, Barrodagh left, a growing nausea hurrying him toward his quarters and the surcease of pain. He only wished he could leave anxiety behind as easily.
o0o
Anaris sat alone in his quarters, his hands lying palm-up in his lap. A circle of bearings, each a centimeter sphere of metal, spun in front of him. Willing the glittering whirl of metal to tilt up and behind his head, he watched in the mirror he’d propped up on the floor before him. The effect was dissonant, the steel halo reminiscent of religious images he’d seen in the Palace Minor during his fosterage, surrounding a face graven with Dol’jharian rigor. He smiled wryly; the dissonance faded.
No more the agonizing headaches, not since the second tempath had made her attempt to activate the Suneater. Li Pung’s failed attempt, which left him a mindless puppet, had merely strengthened Anaris’s t’kinesis. The woman’s death had done that and also transformed the usual pain of psychic effort to a dull ache of tension.
Her experiment had evoked the same trembling from the station and flickering of the lights. But it had added a t’kinetic tempest in his quarters, leaving objects strewn about with such abandon that it had taken him two hours to clean up. He clenched his teeth, remembering his total lack of control.
He let the bearings pour into his right hand and closed his fingers over them, forcing himself to relax. The ache dissipated swiftly. Perhaps the lack of control was just the result of being stronger.
And the next tempath was reputed to be very strong. Deciding that he would have Morrighon procure a more powerful sedative before this Norio arrived, Anaris wished again that he could talk to Lysanter. At the least, Morrighon would need to know of this latest intensification of his abilities.
The annunciator chimed: Morrighon’s report. Anaris tabbed the door open, and Morrighon hardly noticed the ripe sucking noise. He’d made a horrible mistake; his life might now be measured in minutes.
The heir was more relaxed than Morrighon had ever seen him. The only tension showed in his right hand, lying on his lap, closed around something.
Anaris looked up, not moving from his cross-legged position on the floor. Morrighon noted the mirror in front of him. Chorei exercises again. But where are the foam bits?
There was no time for that. “Lord,” Morrighon said. “Lysanter is attempting a new experiment.”
Anaris eyed him askance, wondering why Morrighon had gone pale as death. “Yes. So observe it.”
“You told me to notify you of experiments with a tempath,” Morrighon said swiftly, past aching teeth. “They are going to feed Li Pung to the Urian recycler.”
Anaris recoiled, his color leaching away; the shock almost buckled Morrighon’s knees. He had never seen fear in the heir before.
“When?”
Morrighon looked at his chronometer. Why were the numbers changing so fast? “Ninety seconds.”
Anger hardened the heir’s face back to normal. “Why didn’t you know sooner?”
Morrighon swallowed. “I told Barrodagh that you required notification of any attempts to activate the station with a tempath.”
And Barrodagh had observed the literal meaning. It was mere spite. The Avatar’s secretary could have no suspicion of the transformation Anaris was undergoing. But mere spite could be enough to kill him.
Morrighon stuttered on, his terror mounting parallel to the rage narrowing Anaris’s gaze. “This experiment is merely to monitor the station’s response to the ingestion of a living human body. In fact, Lysanter does not believe Li Pung still possesses tempathic capabilities.”
Anaris came to his feet without apparent effort. Morrighon stumbled back, clutching his compad. “Do not fail me again,” the heir had said, back on the Samedi when Fasthand trapped them in their quarters and left them floundering in freefall. But he had.
Anaris towered over him, countenance transformed by the prachan, the fear-face, his white teeth showing in a rage-filled rictus. Then his eyes widened and he looked through Morrighon.
The station groaned. The deck trembled underfoot. Morrighon heard rapid clicking from the tianqi console, and a faint buzzing from the stasis clamps, growing louder. The lights flickered.
The heir swayed, uttering a low guttural sound. Morrighon’s hair stood on end, not a physiological reaction, but static electricity.
The room erupted in a violent blizzard of objects. Books, reports, and datachips swirled round the heavy carved wooden desk, which creaked weirdly. Bureau drawers shot open and disgorged their contents into the growing vortex around Morrighon and Anaris. The dark-imaged woven rugs underfoot humped and flapped like weird sea creatures.
Without warning, the mirror at Anaris’s feet darted into the air and swooped at Morrighon edge-on, as if to decapitate him. Somehow he grabbed it, its momentum wrenching his arms up over his head so that it stood on end directly above him. The mirror quivered in his hands, growing heavier, pressing down like a blade aimed to split his skull.
Terrified, he shrieked, “No, lord. No! Please!” Anaris’s eyes were bloodshot, the bulging veins in his temples pulsing. His nose dripped blood, drips that increased to a trickle.
The pressure in the air intensified excruciatingly and the station shuddered around them.
A loud ripping noise tore the tough dyplast mirror out of Morrighon’s hands as a streak of metallic light shot out of the Dol’jharian’s right hand. The mirror shattered to dust, which whirled around the chamber and impacted the walls.
Then it was over. The trembling underfoot ceased abruptly; the groaning cut off as though by a switch. Anaris staggered back. He opened his right hand, and a few shiny metal spheres fell to the carpeted deck. He reached out toward Morrighon, opening his mouth, but no words came. He crumpled unconscious to the floor. Morrighon looked down at him, his emotions gone full circle to a weird calm. Shock, a portion of his mind noted. Anaris had tried to kill him with TK and had saved him the same way. Morrighon felt an unfamiliar emoti
on, left behind so long ago that it took him several breaths to identify it: pity.
Poor hybrid. Anaris, too, was caught between two worlds. As he bent to check his lord’s pulse, Morrighon hoped Anaris was more successful at integrating them than he had been.
He set about cleaning up the room.
ARES
The newsroom looked worse than ever, desks littered with food packets and sticky, dried-up cups of caf and Alygrian tea. Drifts of discarded flimsies and empty brain-suck ampules covered the floor. Over it all floated the reek of ozone and sweat.
But Nik and Derith didn’t notice that anymore. Nik’s image on the screen was speaking; Nik noted with relief that his image team had erased the lines in his face, and the pouchy circles under his eyes, preserving the round, boyish face that nature had given him. Nik believed that boyishness, and the fact that he had to look up into most adults’ faces, had been responsible for launching his career.
It was his wits that kept it going.
“This chamber, here at the center of the Kamera, has seen many trials since the Temenarch Y’Lissa vlith-Illyahin gifted Ares to the Navy in the reign of Brossinav I.”
The imager panned across the high-ceilinged hall, the dark, age-blackened wood of the furnishings stark against the white marble walls.
In a small window on the screen the DL readout mounted.
As the POV settled on the high, three-bayed desk in the center of the back wall, Derith turned to Nik. “You really called this one, I’ve got to say.”
“Well, your sequence on the Kelly and the Rifters that brought them in sure helped,” Nik replied, feeling quite magnanimous. It was beginning to look like virtually everyone on Ares was DL’ing the trial coverage now, and he had the low orbit. Tovr Ixvan was being very cooperative, and many other doors were opening to him as well.
“Yeah,” Derith said with evident satisfaction. “With Lochiel on exclusive to throw right up against 99’s Rifter Rumor Hotfeed, everybody’s arguing about Rifters. The more Chomsky bangs away at atrocities, the more people DL us—she’s doing our work for us!” She grinned at Nik, tossing her tousled hair back. “That interview I snagged with the Firehead boy sure didn’t hurt, either.”
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