Which she acknowledged with a matter-of-fact attitude that Tallis found disconcerting. “The nicks allowed us a few news-feeds, but it was mostly filtered stuff about Rifter atrocities and Navy triumphs,” she said.
“Must have been few of those,” Tallis said, snickering.
She lifted one shoulder slightly. “Some of their losses did tremendous damage to Eusabian’s ships, if they didn’t completely lie.”
Tallis remembered some of the rumors he’d heard on Sodality channels and nodded. “True. You think they’ll come on the attack, then?”
She smiled slightly. “They do not discuss their strategy with prisoners, but it seems obvious, does it not?”
She had finished eating. Tallis summoned the steward to bring the dessert. “Did you see anything that can give us a tactical edge?”
She gave her head a single shake, not quite a nod. He’d seen that gesture before, in those chatzing Tarkans. “They took great care to keep us from seeing anything of value. On the way out, though, I noted many badly scarred ships.”
Tallis lifted his wineglass in salute. “We still have the skipmissiles.”
She then posed her own question: “How are the Syndicates holding up?”
He sighed. “Eusabian’s pulling everyone in against this attack. People have made fortunes, but no one can use any of it sitting out here. At least we aren’t on that stinking Suneater.”
“Bad, is it?”
“You’ll see,” he said, trying not to gloat. If it was half as bad on the inside as its outside appearance indicated, it must be a literal hell. But no Rifter knew, for none were allowed on the station. No need to tell her that.
He wondered if the Negus was working. Her face was impossible to read. He hoped so, for he hated the dreams he’d had the one time he’d tried the drink itself on Rifthaven.
Then he went on: “Syndicates are chaotic. Charterly’s dead, I heard. Eichelly and Neyvla-Khan’s entire fleet, gone. Diamond’s dead, too, though she got duffed by the Rifthaven triumvirate. No one is happy—but what’s there to do until this chatzing war is over, the nicks gone, and we can go back and enjoy our take?”
Over coffee they talked some more about different ships and captains. Tallis did not learn much, and he found himself fiddling nervously with his silverware and glass—anything to avoid those black eyes.
It was a relief when she got up to leave. As Tallis followed the tall bodyguard down to the hatchway, he watched their cat-silent walk, their controlled movements.
They’re tough, and they know it, he thought enviously as Vi’ya ducked through the barge lock.
When the lock closed behind them, he returned to his cabin, feeling that, considering everything, it had gone very well. Though she hadn’t asked once about Hreem, and he knew very well they were deadly enemies.
In his cabin, he surveyed himself in his mirror, still holding the image of the gray-clad bodyguard in mind. No weapons, no fancy uniform, but that drivetech still managed to convey an aura of power—he and Vi’ya both.
Tallis frowned at his reflection. By comparison he looked . . . soft. Refined, that was a better way to put it. Yes, refined.
He remembered Hreem—the very opposite of refined—and grinned at his reflection, thinking: Hreem still thinks he killed her at Dis, doesn’t he?
Tallis had long suspected, from the intensity of the opprobrium with which he cursed Vi’ya and her crew, that Hreem was afraid of Vi’ya and her brainburners and her Ulanshu-trained bodyguard.
How nice it will be to tell Hreem that she’s already here, when he shows up, Tallis thought, grinning. He would enjoy, very much, seeing Hreem’s face at this news.
NINE
SUNEATER
Acid washed through Barrodagh’s cramping guts when he saw the serpentine writhing of the dirazh’u in Eusbian’s hands. “Why so long a wait between sessions?” the Avatar asked.
“Lord, Lysanter has set the schedule for the experiments. He has to reexamine the tempath’s physical well-being and run noetic scans. If you wish, I shall have him step this up.”
“Time is growing short,” Eusabian said. “I will proceed with the transfiguration of the Thousand Suns.”
Barrodagh heard, with a sick sense of impending failure, the slight emphasis on the word “will.” The matter of the tempaths was perilously close to becoming an affair of the nar-pelkun turish, the “unsheathed will,” making delay as dangerous as failure. He bowed and said, “I will inform Lysanter, Lord.”
The Avatar reversed the motion of his fingers, and the knots in the dirazh’u smoothed into a straight line. “Summon the heir to me,” he said.
“Lord, it shall be done.” Again Barrodagh bowed, though Eusabian had already turned away, a tall, heavy-shouldered silhouette against the holographic representation of the fire-lit horizon seen from Jhar D’ocha on Dol’jhar.
As Barrodagh hurried from Eusabian’s chamber, he started mentally compiling a list of priorities. He would have to com Morrighon to summon Anaris first thing. Then to Lysanter, to urge him to hurry his everlasting experiments, but he would have to be careful, because he knew Lysanter’s plodding pace was meant to preserve Norio from ending the same way as the preceding tempaths.
If I force him, and Norio dies, he can blame me, Barrodagh thought. And though Barrodagh could probably dissolve the threat by the fact that he had another tempath on the way, he resolved with an inward wince to do everything he could not to have to use Vi’ya. A Dol’jharian tempath—and one who had lived among the Panarchists, and so knew their ways? Too dangerous. Too much like Anaris. She and those terrible little beasts the Eya’a were much better off dead.
So he would mitigate the warning to Lysanter, and then he would have to prepare Norio for a stepping up of the experiments. Then, if they were ready, back to Morrighon to inform the heir—
Inform the heir. Barrodagh frowned, turning aside to stop at his office. For once the ripe lip-smacking noise of the door opening scarcely registered. He checked his log again and turned away, tapping a stylus against his compad.
Why should the heir insist on being notified of each experiment when he had not observed any of them? Of late, neither of them had been there, Barrodagh realized, looking back down at his compad.
Of course it was very possible that this was just another piece of bureaucratic infighting—to be expected as the silent struggle for the succession intensified. The heir could insist on being informed simply because he had a right to, even if he had no interest in the proceedings.
Unless there was something he was doing at the same time?
But what?
It made no sense, but an idea occurred to Barrodagh. The best way to find out would be to simply arrange for the next experiment to occur right away. At the same time, the heir would receive his summons. Barrodagh could monitor both events and see if there was anything to his suspicions—rather than mere coincidence—and no one would be the wiser.
He tabbed his com. When Lysanter appeared, looking slightly harassed, Barrodagh said, “According to your last report, Norio’s physical and noetic scans are back to normal after the last attempt, correct?”
Lysanter nodded warily. “Normal considering the stress he is under.”
What do you know of stress? Barrodagh rubbed his cheek; at least the new drugs he’d stolen from Norio were working. The numbness was gone, and the stabbing tic far less frequent.
“The Avatar desires another attempt to be made immediately. I myself will see that the tempath is ready.”
Lysanter bit off an exclamation and nodded curtly.
Barrodagh terminated the com, then relayed the Avatar’s order to Morrighon, and the required notification.
Then he left for Norio’s chamber, smiling with anticipation, while Norio looked down at his cache in perplexity.
He didn’t remember leaving the Negus extract out of its place in the row like that, but it was possible. But his dreams were getting stronger and more repetitive. Had someone sl
ipped a potentiator into his drugs?
He frowned, trying to think back. One of the side effects of the drugs was that they fuzzed memory unless he had some other kind of sensory stimulation to augment it.
Opening his pharmacopoeia, Norio pulled out the porous test plate. His hands shook slightly as he tapped a few grains of each drug onto the plates and administered the appropriate reagents. The image that returned most often in his restless nights was a remembered fragment of an old poem he’d seen animated once: a giant womb swelling on a beach. The tempath glanced nervously at the gray-painted walls, thickly studded with stasis clamps. He kept expecting something like that to erupt into his quarters, so vividly present it felt.
The tests ended with the viridian-green bloom of the Negus on its plate. Norio relaxed and began to make up some fresh doses; no one had added poisons. But he wished he had a quantitative tester. He wondered if he dared ask for one.
He felt as if someone was always at his shoulder, watching. No one was there. It was this place.
Norio licked his lips. Maybe the latest vid he’d made would help: his Evocation of the menial they’d punished for spitting on her supervisor’s boots by giving her “to the Chorei.” Norio trembled, remembering the blood-thick numinous horror that had poured from the woman’s mind as he conjured her deepest fears out of their hiding places. She’d died too quickly, fear rupturing her heart; he’d thought Dol’jharians would be tougher.
The annunciator chimed, and he moved to the door. To his surprise Barrodagh entered.
Norio waved him toward a seat. He liked Barrodagh; the man was shorter even than he, and he was such a mesmerizing bouquet of anxieties and pains and repressed rage. And now he’d come here, where there was no mind-blur. He must want something very much.
Barrodagh remained standing. “The Avatar wishes the experiments to be stepped up,” he said. “One is being arranged now. The new schedule will be given you tomorrow.”
A wave of irritated pride from Barrodagh washed Norio’s mind as the tempath seated himself in mild defiance of protocol. If they thought he was one of their menials, he would have to disabuse them.
“I need a few minutes to prepare,” he said firmly.
“We don’t have much time,” Barrodagh retorted. “Lysanter is readying his equipment in the Chamber of Kronos.”
Norio flushed in irritation.
Barrodagh’s lips thinned. “There is another tempath coming. I am hoping that this person will not be necessary. Your efforts have been promising.”
Norio sat back, studying Barrodagh’s thin face, his fervid eyes. “Do you have the tempath’s name?”
“Vi’ya is what she calls herself.”
Fear-laced excitement flashed through Norio’s nerves. “Did you capture her from the Panarchists?”
“No. Apparently she escaped. And volunteered, as you did. She will be here in less than two days.”
Norio pictured vividly Hreem’s heady melange of emotions when they had seen the woman last. She had very nearly killed them—very near. If she’d had more ships and more firepower, Hreem’s crew would all be dead.
“Dol’jharians live for revenge,” Hreem had said.
“What will you do if I can power up the station?” Norio asked.
“We will not need two tempaths,” Barrodagh replied. “And the Avatar will not permit outsiders to come to this station and leave alive.”
Excitement pricked along Norio’s nerves. “If she’s to die anyway . . . .”
Barrodagh smiled thinly. “You bring the station to full power, and she is yours. You can experiment with some of our machinery. You might find it interesting.”
Norio shivered. He’d desired a mindripper from the first time he ever heard of it, and licked his lips again, thinking of that cold, beautiful face looking down at him from her superior height. To see her stretched out helpless before him, to have at his mercy all that Dol’jharian rage, to savor the spikes of agony and release . . . .
The emotional aura from another tempath might come very close to killing him, but what an experience to be savored!
“I shall be ready in moments,” he said.
“Good,” Barrodagh replied, and effaced himself.
Norio hurried back into his inner room, reaching for the drug cache with shaking hands.
In another corridor, Morrighon leaned against the wall, trying desperately to compose himself. There was not even room for anger at the way Barrodagh had not bothered to hide his smirk when he said, “The heir is summoned to my Lord’s chamber. And you may inform him at the same time that we are about to commence another experiment.”
They’d cut his head off and throw it into space, and feed his body to the Suneater—but only after protracted agony.
The door to Anaris’s room slid open. The heir was seated at his computer console, but when he saw Morrighon, he stood up, brows contracting. “Another one? Already?”
“Yes, but your father wants you in his chamber. Now.”
Anaris’s eyes narrowed. Morrighon gritted his teeth, his mind wailing: This means either I die or we both die.
“Stop that session,” Anaris said quietly. “At any cost.”
Anaris watched Morrighon’s face blanch as he bowed and went out.
If he panics, we are both dead, Anaris thought, and sprang to his safe-cache.
He looked down at the row of small ampules that Morrighon had brought him the day before. They had come from the tempath’s store, without Norio knowing; Morrighon had replaced the drugs with an inert compound that would not register on the reagent tester he had.
“Negus,” Anaris murmured, remembering what Morrighon had gleaned from Lysanter. He did not know what to balance it with, but hallucinations could be controlled. The sudden and spectacular activation of his TK while he was in Eusabian’s chamber could not.
Hastily he sprayjected the drug into himself, then he replaced it in its hiding place and left.
Eusabian was seated in a deep wing chair sideways before the wall console in his inner chamber. Anaris approached and bowed wordlessly.
Eusabian motioned toward the other chair facing him, and picked up his dirazh’u. Anaris studied the deeply lined face before him. Was he angry? Impatient? No, more like bored. That could be even more dangerous than anger, which would make him predictable.
“The technicians have disappointed me,” Eusabian said. “I had expected this station to be at full power by now.”
Anaris felt obliged to defend Lysanter, who was extremely cooperative. “If the Panarchists had any Urian scholars better than Lysanter, they would have been here by now.”
Eusabian’s eyes narrowed in that expression that was almost humor. “I am aware of that. They will be here in any case. Barrodagh reported that the newest tempath bought the coordinates on Rifthaven. It is very possible that one of our more enterprising allies sold the data, just as we did with the Ares coordinates.”
Images flashed and danced at the edge of Anaris’s vision. “If the station is powered up first, we can dispatch Ares with it,” he said.
Eusabian nodded. “But it can only be one place at a time. This is what I will encompass. After I have dealt with Ares, you will command the Rifter fleets. Organize them and impose a semblance of hierarchy and order. I don’t care if you shoot half of them to do it. Once the Panarchist resistance is finished, we will not need as many anyway.”
This was the Eusabian’s first reference to the future. They spoke rarely; Anaris was free to do what he wanted, and often, as he explored the mysterious passages and cannulaem or examined the reports of Lysanter’s techs on what little they could divine of the Suneater’s hidden functions, he wondered what his father was doing.
He wanted to get back to Arthelion to play with Gelasaar’s palace, Anaris thought as he belatedly recognized the two leather wing chairs, and Negus-driven memory of the library in the Palace Minor almost overwhelmed him with a tide of scent—leather and glue—and sight—the sunlight through
the clerestory panes of ruby glinting from golden titles of the books—and sound—the quiet, hypnotic rustle of turning pages.
“Until then, we have more immediate matters,” Eusabian said. He sat back, his fingers weaving meditation knots, his gaze steady. “You are aware there is another tempath due to arrive shortly?”
“Yes,” Anaris responded, wondering just how much his father knew about this new tempath.
The sardonic quirk under the Avatar’s eyelids was distinctive. As if reading Anaris’s mind, Eusabian said, “Occasionally it is illuminating to explore what these Bori see fit to excise from their reports.”
Eusabian stretched out one hand and tabbed his console. On the screen Anaris saw a small, dart-like ship racing scarce meters above a deep green-blue ocean. He recognized the ship as an old Columbiad, modified with modern weaponry, as it approached the S’lift—on Arthelion, he realized.
With a breathtaking maneuver the ship flipped over and began racing straight up the cable without dropping any speed. It looked to be attached to the cable, so close it was.
Several angles showed the flight. Anaris watched with interest, knowing he was now seeing the visual record of the flight to which he as conditional heir had been denied access at the time. Inside that Columbiad was Brandon Arkad; soon he would escape a second or two ahead of Eusabian’s command to destroy the ship.
For a moment the ship was a Phoenix, racing ahead of the flames that threatened to consume it before its time. Anaris blinked.
“The pilot has been identified as Dol’jharian,” Eusabian went on. As the ship reached the Node, the Avatar tapped at the console again. Abruptly the picture disappeared, and they watched from high angle a spectacular fight in close quarters. Anaris scanned past shelves and boxes and cupboards of what looked like antiques to the struggling figures. A robed man was screaming in one corner as gaudily uniformed guards fought desperately against three people, two men and a woman.
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