From contorted faces and open mouths came the shout “Rifters! Rifters! Rifters!” The crowd spread out in a half-circle. Telvarna’s crew also spread, enough to give one another fighting room. The Eya’a stayed behind Vi’ya, who winced as if from a monumental headache.
“They slagged Minerva!”
“They torched Merryn!”
Shouts rose, “They killed my family—” “They tortured . . .” “They blew up . . .” The accusations came, faster and faster, until the names and atrocities were indistinguishable from noise.
Until one huge roar drowned the others: “Let’s get them!”
The mob rushed forward.
o0o
The only sounds in the Phoenix-level wardroom were the clink of chinois cups, the muted tap of silver on plates, and at the corner table, where Jeph Koestler held court with two of his captains, a low buzz of conversation.
In the opposite corner a newsfeed flickered, the sound damped. Margot Ng had chosen a seat at an angle so she wouldn’t have to see it. She had participated little in the speculations concerning the only trial the enigmatic new Panarch had permitted. She had no idea if the young man from Torigan was guilty of the crimes of which he had been accused. She detested with unstinting passion those who were using this otherwise unimportant young man from a minor family on a backward world to fuel purely political ambitions.
Utterly opaque was Brandon’s reason for permitting it to happen. She’d misjudged him before, and he’d surprised her. She hoped this was not weakness but some kind of political necessity that she couldn’t perceive.
Ng sipped at her coffee, then returned to the pile of reports beside her plate, making notes on her compad. She would rather have been working elsewhere, but she took care to be seen in Koestler’s proximity each day, even if they did not speak beyond greetings.
Where the politics of the civ side were impenetrable to her, those of the Navy were not. To Ng, factions and cliques were not just an embarrassment, they were a danger. Very soon they would all be in battle together, and it might be one of these captains busy toadying to Koestler whom she would have to depend on in a combat situation. They simply had to learn to get along—or at least to trust one another. Or Eusabian had won this one before anyone fired a shot.
She did not know if Koestler came here for the same reason. She was glad that he did, even if it made for slightly uncomfortable social settings—like now, where he sat three meters away, discussing refit progress with several captains, and she was left alone with her work. She stared down at the quartermaster’s report, her eyes scanning columns as her mind considered the problems.
The door zipped open and a tall man in captain’s uniform dashed in: Igac Vapet, another of the Semion cadre. “Riot. At the Kamera,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Sho-Bostian leapt to the console and tapped the controls, transferring the images to the huge wall console. A surging mass of humanity shoved and shouted unintelligibly behind a red-faced, disheveled novosti, whose voice was high and tight. Like we sound on the battle logs, after it’s all over, in spite of our bridge cadence, Ng thought.
“. . . just reported that the Archon of Torigan is dead. We’ll switch you to that area as soon as we have confirmation. But outside the Kamera we have the largest crowd of all, poised on the brink of violence. Some are demanding that the Rifters be handed over to them, and others are demanding Hesthar al-Gessinav, who allegedly is the one responsible for selling the Dol’jharian monster the secret of the Suneater . . .”
The novosti glanced back over his shoulder, then went on to describe how an anonymous sender had given him the proof of al-Gessinav’s perfidy. But then he interrupted himself, and in a voice squealing right up the scale, he said:
“. . . and right behind me now the Panarch has appeared—alone! He’s coming out to face the crowd!”
The view switched to high above the Kamera. A sea of faces filled most of the screen, lurching and shoving violently, like a storm-tossed ocean.
Toward them walked a single figure: tall, slim, dark-haired, and instantly recognizable. He carried no weapon, and no guard walked at his side.
“Show the perimeter,” Koestler muttered.
Ng had been thinking the same thing: had the Marines quietly taken up positions to defend the Panarch if need be? Where was Artorus Vahn?
She realized belatedly that she had spoken out loud when Koestler said, “He’d better be there.”
“Had to split his people,” Vapet said. “Took Torigan, Srivashti, and al-Gessinav into custody right after the trial—”
He was tabbing keys as he spoke. “Oh, hell.”
On the small screen, another channel had reached the corridor where two Marines lay dead, their blackened faces indicative of death by poison. “. . . escaped from this room and fled in this direction,” another novosti said.
The screen flickered again, this time to a blood-splashed hallway. Something lay on the floor of it, barely recognizable as human. It looked like it had been hit square with a ruptor bolt. Ng’s stomach clenched and she transferred her attention to the big screen, where Brandon Arkad had begun to talk to the crowd.
The novosti there was trying his best to get closer, but as yet all that could be heard was the rise and fall of the familiar light voice, his hands moving in controlled gestures.
From somewhere in Ng’s subconscious a quotation floated to the top of her mind.
“Look at his hands,” Koestler said.
“‘In his right hand there is power, and in the left there is peace . . .’” Ng spoke without thinking.
She felt Koestler’s fast glance on the periphery of her vision, but she kept her attention on the way Brandon moved. Was that an innate talent?
“Telos! Those Kelly,” sho-Bostian exclaimed. “I’ve never seen so many of ’em.”
“No one there seems to see ’em,” Vapet said. “That’s strange.”
Koestler leaned forward, intent on the screen as the green sophonts moved in and out of the crowd, which was noticeably more quiet. The front ranks had stopped moving, standing in a solid line facing the Panarch, some leaning slightly forward with the intensity of the passionate listener.
Those in back slowly stopped shoving forward and shouting. Ng watched as a riot turned into a crowd and then became an audience.
“Damn!” Vapet said. “I wish I could hear what he’s saying!”
“Don’t need to—” Koestler started, then he paused, his eyes going unfocused.
Privacy, Ng thought, as he looked up sharply. “Some Shiidra-loving deviant has triggered a baiting crowd aimed at the Rifters.”
Fighting the urge to run to the rescue, Ng kept her seat and addressed sho-Bostian. “Gessinav?”
“Probably,” sho-Bostian said.
Logic prompted Ng to act, but instinct held her back. She glanced at Koestler, who had never betrayed any interest whatever in the new Panarch. Now he stared at the big screen as if mesmerized. “They’ll make a run for Srivashti’s yacht,” he said. “His captain is probably unsealing those chatzing weapons now. Faseult can’t handle all this—Telos! Look at that.”
Ng bit her lip, fighting to keep from activating her boswell. Just a little longer . . .
Koestler stood up, his eyes on the big screen. The Panarch had stopped talking, and was listening to someone in the crowd, who spoke earnestly, with violent gestures.
Brandon’s hands were behind his back, his right hand loose, but if one looked closely, the left hand touched the edge of his boswell.
“He’s giving orders,” Koestler said with an unbelieving laugh. Though his face had not changed, Ng sensed a radical alteration in his perceptions. She could almost feel the last of Semion’s poison leaching away; Semion’s drunken, cowardly, cheating brother could never have faced a baiting crowd alone—and at the same time managed to monitor the entire situation and dispatch orders all at the same time.
Koestler turned, looking across the room at Ng as if they’d been
talking all this time. “Ng?”
Instinct had been right. Now we act together, she thought as she rose to her feet and cast aside her papers. “I can whistle up my Marines. Where to?”
“Spin axis and the civ ports have no Marines,” Vapet reported.
“AyKay,” she said, “I’ll take the spin axis.” She waited for Koestler’s nod and moved out, bozzing poor Krajno, who was probably sound asleep.
o0o
It felt good to be fighting again, Lokri thought, suspended between panic and sheer hilarity. He was desperately tired, and light-headed from not having eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, but he was free again. Free and with his crewmates, who had not let him down.
They faced a crowd more than ten times their number, yet he couldn’t believe they would fail. Gasping with exhaustion, he fell back and Jaim glided in front of him, his movements a deadly dance as he disabled attackers with cold precision.
Four meters away Vi’ya was another whirl of deadly intent, her eyes narrow with concentration as she broke bones, efficiently knocking the wind out of flailing shouters, but she, too, was trying not to kill.
Ivard tried his best—though few got past the Kelly, who stood around him in a triangle. Telos! That boy had really changed. The Kelly pressed protectively about him, and people who touched their ribbons fell to the ground, snoring.
Montrose used his tremendous strength, and even Lucifur helped, slashing viciously with his razor-sharp claws.
Then another crowd erupted from a side tunnel, screaming, “Kill Kendrian! Kill Kendrian!”
Vi’ya’s head snapped up, then she flung out her arm in the “fall back” signal. A high, painful shearing noise resolved into the Eya’a chittering, and people screamed in terror.
Among the rioters a mad, wrenching fight to retreat cleared some space, and here and there bloody-faced people lay on the ground. As Lokri and the horror-stricken crowd watched, Vi’ya pointed at a woman in the front of the new crowd. “That’s who started it.”
The woman clawed her hands down her face, and as she shrieked mindlessly, blood and neural tissue erupting from her eye sockets. She fell, spasming like a hooked fish.
Vi’ya leveled her finger at the rest of the mob, who flowed back like fronds moved by the passage of an undersea predator. The shouting fell to a stunned susurrus of whispers and comments. Vi’ya said clearly, “All those I have killed were hirelings of Hesthar al-Gessinav. They are here to cover her escape from justice.”
“Al-Gessinav, al-Gessinav!” Loud, angry mutters rose.
A sudden wind made everyone look up at the nuller bubble containing Tate Kaga.
“Srivashti and al-Gessinav are at the spin axis, trying to escape,” he said, his voice amplified by some mechanism.
The mob screamed as one loud, monstrous voice, and stampeded toward the lifts.
“Let us go,” Vi’ya said hoarsely.
Montrose shook his head. “Leave me if you have to,” he said through shut teeth, his eyes wide and fingers splayed in rage. “I will not let Srivashti walk away from his crimes again. I swore it on my wife’s grave.”
Vi’ya slid her hand over her eyes and stood, motionless.
Lokri started toward her, then jumped when Jaim caught his arm in an ungentle grip.
“What?” Lokri gasped.
Jaim mouthed the word “Brandon.” And tapped his skull.
A melange of emotions flooded Lokri. Not so long ago he and Vi’ya had fought a silent duel over the Arkad. What had happened since? No one had said. Not even Marim.
Then Vi’ya looked up, squinting as if in pain. But all she said was, “The spin axis is on our way.”
“And that mob will be usin’ the lifts from now until next year,” Marim said, her one good eye wide with excitement. “I know where the maintenance tube is, and I have the code.”
o0o
Hesthar shuffled along after Srivashti and Felton, hating the ease with which they moved in micro-gee, and the uncomfortable, shoving gait that moving in micro-gee required that she couldn’t master.
“There’s a grav ledge here,” Srivashti said, pointing downward. “There must be service lift accesses there.”
They arrived at the ledge as a half dozen people came flying around a corner, slapping cables and extrusions.
“There they are!” a woman shrieked. “We found them!”
Srivashti swung himself down onto the ledge and hit the gees on. Hesthar’s stomach lurched again, then settled as gravity pulled bones and muscles. She stiffened her body, regaining coordination.
The crowd slammed onto the ledge, some tumbling painfully over others.
Srivashti took up a Ulanshu fighting stance. “Touch me and you die,” he said calmly.
Felton edged back, waiting.
Two men ignored his warning. Srivashti met their attack, his teeth bared in a fleering grin: one crumpled with a broken neck; blood foamed from the other, spiraling away in vibrating globules as Srivashti threw him out of gee-range.
The small crowd gathered backed away from the sight of blood splattered across Srivashti’s elegant clothes and down his hands.
“We want to pass peaceably,” Srivashti said to the crowd. “Anyone who cooperates will be well rewarded. I have the wherewithal to reward or to destroy. Which will it be?”
His husky voice was compelling, and the people—most of them Polloi, and obviously followers—looked at one another as if waiting for someone to lead.
More people arrived, including the nuller’s bubble, which hovered just beyond the railing. Hesthar thought about the 4.5-kilometer drop to the inner surface of the oneill—spinning at more than 700 kilometers per hour with respect to the axis—and her insides clenched. She yanked her boswell up. (Arret! Get someone up here now!)
(Get to the lift,) came the reply. (Meet us in 315. Things are quiet here.)
(Of course 315 is quiet,) Hesthar fumed. (That’s Douloi territory. I need aid now.)
(We can’t—the Navy has started securing lifts and pods. If you can escape, come to us here. We will take care of you.)
Hesthar signed to Felton, I need the lift. She smiled sourly, wishing she had a jac despite the Ultschen code. It would feel so good to burn them all into oblivion. But she did not speak; she was content to let Srivashti stay in the front line until he or Felton could gain the lift.
Srivashti began to edge toward the lift, a step at a time, as Felton slid silently to the console and manipulated the controls. An orange light flashed, and Hesthar’s nerves flared painfully. A coded lift? But then Felton tapped without hesitation, and the light greened.
The doors slid open. The crowd muttered angrily, then gasped.
For the lift was not empty. From it stepped Montrose and the Telvarna crew.
Montrose lifted his voice so that everyone could hear, all the way back to the edge of the concourse. “Tau Srivashti, you are forsworn. It is time for you to answer to your—”
Srivashti struck fast.
The only thing that saved Montrose was that Jaim was faster. He yanked Montrose aside, so that Srivashti’s killing throat strike glanced harmlessly off Montrose’s cheekbone.
Jaim whirled to advance on Felton, a green ribbon tied across his forehead. Felton breathed out, the controlled breath of the numathanat—but his poison had no effect on Jaim.
Vi’ya confronted Srivashti.
“A Dol’jharian, aren’t you?” he murmured. “I’ve often wondered what one of you is like to play with.”
She snapped out four strikes—a feint, one deflected blow, and two hits—and bones crunched. Srivashti lay on the deck, gasping through a bruised throat, one arm shattered.
“Felton!” he gasped.
But Felton lifted his hands, palms out.
Hesthar bit back a scream of corrosive laughter. Felton was Ultschen: they only follow leaders, and a leader does not fall. Hesthar slid behind them toward the lift, a step at a time. As Srivashti watched, stunned by the deliberate betrayal of his bo
dyguard, Felton made a sign that could have been regret, or even a signal to wait, stepped into the lift, and the doors closed.
He was gone.
Alone, Srivashti sneered up at Vi’ya.
She ignored him. “He’s yours, Montrose.”
Montrose spoke in a voice of passionate hatred. “You twisted or murdered everything on Timberwell that was good, and I swore long ago that I would deliver justice with my own hands.”
Srivashti looked up, his lips skinned back from his teeth. “Takes a lot of courage . . . to sic your Dol’jharian beast on me first . . . doesn’t it?” His voice was almost unrecognizable. “So . . . strike now, fool . . . if you dare.”
Montrose shook his head, a terrible smile distorting his face.
Last step. Hesthar reached the lift and touched the controls, careful to hit the keys in the exact pattern Felton had used.
Montrose said, “I can’t hit a man who is down.” He stepped forward, and as the crowd watched, he bent and lifted Srivashti from the side with the shattered arm, making it impossible for Srivashti to stop him. Srivashti struggled weakly. “But I can throw him,” Montrose said, and pitched Srivashti over the edge of the railing.
The crowd roared with approval as Srivashti writhed, trying to arrest his slow drift away from the landing. It would take a long time for him to reach the surface. But spin gravity, increasing with every meter he descended, would pull him down in the end.
Hesthar smiled and keyed the doors shut.
The lift accelerated smoothly downward.
FOUR
Felton slipped from service byway to maintenance tunnel, moving invisibly through the lifelines of the habitat. From the first day of his arrival on Ares, he had made himself familiar with nearly every adit and exit. The arrival of al-Gessinav of the Third Circle, who had unlocked the codes for many previously closed to him, had made it even easier to execute undetected the assassinations Srivashti had ordered in his attempt to snuff out all who might know of the Arthelion bomb.
Felton did not assume he knew all the secret byways, or he would have been able to hunt Fierin down. But he knew enough of them to go to ground himself and bide his time until al-Gessinav or another of the Third Circle contacted him.
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