Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy)

by Wren, M. K.

  Too fast, she thought numbly, it was happening too fast, and she wondered if that would make any difference. Naive and ignorant as a child in some ways. But they still had hours before them; half the night.

  A shivering tension radiated along her legs and within her upward as if it were transmitted through her bones along the double curve of her spine. Her perception was blurring. No—focusing. A warmth like fever on her skin, her body racked with random tensions that she knew weren’t born solely within her body. She was presciently aware of everything happening within his body, and conscious of her movements as if they were his, her breath coming faster with his, his heart pounding with hers, and finally welcoming the invasion of cogent, rigid flesh that would be, must be, a part of her, as the child she would carry would be a part of him.

  Alexand, it must be.

  All constraint dissolved in an exalting satisfaction rooted in nerves and muscles, barely reaching the level of consciousness. Something alien within her body, yet she surrendered herself to it, to an insentient, impelling will, testing second by second the limits of physical capacity, and second by second exceeding them. And yet, in the end, there was a sense of triumph rather than surrender, possession rather than submission.

  It must be.

  Half the night, she thought in the languid aftermath, a sweet, nerveless exhaustion loosening every muscle. He kissed her gently, but she didn’t open her eyes, only holding his mouth against hers for a long time.

  “Adrien, never doubt I love you.”

  His voice was a murmuring whisper. She looked up at his face so close to hers, the milky light and shadows soft upon it.

  “Alexand, I never have. I never will.”

  PART 4: EXILE

  PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES: BASIC SCHOOL

  (HS/BS)

  SUBFILE: LECTURE. BASIC SCHOOL 22 FEBUAR 3252

  GUEST LECTURER: RICHARD LAMB

  SUBJECT: POST-DISASTERS HISTORY:

  PANTERRAN CONFEDERATION (2903–3104)

  DOC LOC #819/219–1253/1812–1648–2223252

  In speaking of the Golden Age of the PanTerran Confederation. I’ve emphasized the lack of change in governmental and social structures during and since that period, but I don’t want to give the impression that they’ve been frozen in place all this time. There were certain practices and customs pertaining in the Golden Age that are very different from those pertaining today. Some of the most telling are associated with the scientific and technological explosion that occurred during the period.

  For instance, consider the first Lunar expedition. Unlike the post-Mankeen extrasolar explorations, which were sponsored by the Concord, the Lunar expedition was organized and financed by the House of Selasis in a coalition with Ivanoi, Galinin, and Daro. (The latter two merged a few years later when the first beamed-power satellites were put into orbit.) Selasis at that time was a new House founded on franchises for rocket-propulsion systems, and its alliance with Galinin and Daro, who both held power franchises, is understandable in light of the potential of beamed solar power. Ivanoi, with its rare metals franchises, was one of the wealthiest Houses in the Confederation and had a strong interest in reaching the potential treasures of ore on Luna.

  So, here we have two fundamental premises in Confederation technological development. It was funded and organized by Houses, not by the Confederation, and often entailed joint efforts between several Houses. Those sometimes resulted in House mergers, which tended to balance numerically the new Houses emerging, usually as offshoots (Cognate Houses) of established Houses, based on newly developed devices, processes, or services. Another premise hinted at here is that of speculation.

  A spirit of speculation was necessary to fund and encourage technological and scientific development, and during this period House interactions and attitudes toward franchises tended to promote speculation. It took various forms, and sometimes its motivation wasn’t entirely profit oriented. As a case in point, there’s the laser, which was reinvented (it was, of course, one of the many inventions we owe to the twentieth century) in 3047 in the House of Cobar Wale, which was the franchised weaponer of the Confederation, and therefore one of its most powerful Houses. Lord Vincent Wale financed the development of the laser as a weapon with the intention of setting up his second born, Willem, with his own House based on laser franchises. I wonder if in later years Vincent didn’t regret his benevolence. Apparently he regarded the laser as a rather limited device of war and no more, but he lived to see his own House collapse into bankruptcy while Willem, as First Lord of the new House of Corelis, grew rich and increasingly powerful, constantly discovering new uses and markets for that “limited” device.

  Occasionally a Fesh benefited from this budding process, and Fredric Cadmon is an example. He developed the MAM-An generator for the House of Badir, working from the principles delineated by Ela Tolstyne in her Treatise on Matter/Anti-Matter Interactions—and I’ll get back to her later. At any rate, Cadmon, a Fesh scientist, with the backing of Tristan Badir, was awarded a Lordship and the franchises for electrical field screens, another project he was instrumental in developing.

  Generally, however, Houses speculated on an idea with nothing more in mind than its potential profits. All the industrial Houses had extensive research facilities and eagerly sought gifted people for them. The competition for the gifted was fierce, and the Fesh benefited immeasurably from it. The Guild system, whose origins predate Pilgram, came into its own, as did the University system established by Paul Adalay; its science departments became a prime source of techs. (That term first came into common use during this period, along with University Board of Standards tech grade ratings.) Allegiance shifts of promising scientists and techs could always be arranged. There were also frequent allegiance shifts from one House to another, and in many cases these shifts were literally bought. In the same way franchises were also bought and sold between Houses, which is indicative of the flexibility in the franchise system. The Lords of the Franchise Board inevitably became extremely powerful, and their practices increasingly underhanded until the Board Reform Resolution formulated by Benedic Daro Galinin, the first Galinin Lord elected to the Chairmanship. (Benedic also established the Civil Standards Code of 3065 and the famous Galinin Rule protecting Bond religious practices.) The Reform Resolution established the revolving membership we have now on boards manned by Elite, and guaranteed that no Lord would remain on any board more than five years.

  Speculation was generally the prerogative of the Elite; they had the resources and the power for it and stood to benefit from it. There was one Fesh, however, who profited rather spectacularly on a speculative gambit, and not only made himself wealthy, but a First Lord—the last transmutation of the kind, in fact. That was Orabu Drakon, regarded by historians and even many scientists as the greatest physicist of all time. He was also a very pragmatic man, unlike most of his academic peers. In that regard it’s tempting to draw a comparison between Drakon and Ela Tolstyne, and I won’t resist the temptation.

  Tolstyne was that rarity in Post-Disasters history, a woman of notable accomplishment in her own right. Patriarchy is another part of our feudal heritage we haven’t yet escaped. She was born into the Confederation and her interests and talents inevitably led to her assignment to the University, and she was too brilliant to be relegated to the lower echelons where most women are confined in both bureaucratic and guild hierarchies. She also found a mentor and patron in Orabu Drakon, who served as lector in the University in Victoria for ten years.

  Tolstyne was, incidentally, a very handsome woman, and apparently her male peers found that dismaying, as if a woman of intellectual brilliance had no right to be beautiful. There is a story—or perhaps it’s only a legend—that Lord Tristan Badir’s second born, Stevan, was deeply in love with her and wanted to marry her, but Tristan, who made Frederic Cadmon a Lord, wasn’t generous enough to mak
e Ela Tolstyne a Lady if it meant letting his son marry a Fesh. Obviously, the fact that Cadmon developed the MAM-An generator from her theories didn’t sway him. But Tristan Badir didn’t long enjoy the profits of Tolstyne’s genius. His House was forced into a merger with Selasis in 3093 that was achieved by nefarious, even brutal, means. Lord Gidion Selasis wanted full control of the MAM-An generators that powered his ships, and like later Selasid Lords, he wasn’t a man to let anything stand in his way.

  At any rate, Tolstyne’s Treatise on Matter/Anti-Matter Interactions made possible the MAM-An generator and drive, and that in turn made possible the near-light speeds necessary to SynchShift. Her work also made nulgrav possible, and it was a one-time student of hers, Domic Peresky, who seized upon one interaction of matter and anti-matter, repulsion, to design the first nulgrav mechanisms, much to the delight—and profit—of his Lord, Robert Hild Robek.

  Orabu Drakon, like Peresky, was in Tolstyne’s debt, and to his credit, he always recognized that debt publicly. Synchronal metathesis was only a mathematical abstraction without MAM-An. She undoubtedly appreciated this recognition, but it had little real effect on her life. She continued in a research professorship for thirty years at the University in Victoria after the publication of her Treatise. It was then, at the age of fifty-eight, that she entered a Sisters of Faith convent—not immediately after her frustrated, and perhaps apocryphal, love affair with Stevan Badir, as some vididramatists would have it. She died eleven years later, her passing unheralded, the only ceremony marking the interment of her ashes a funeral canta in the convent chapel.

  Drakon’s career and life ended five years later with an Estate funeral attended by all the Directors as well as most of the Court of Lords, and the eulogy was given by the Chairman, Benedic Galinin.

  But Orabu Drakon was a pragmatic—and audacious—man.

  He looked the part of the scicntist-genius—at least, the general preconception of it. He was lean, as if physically consumed by his genius, with aristocratic features and a lofty forehead. The extant imagraphs of him remind me of Andreas Riis, although their racial heritage is quite different. Drakon was born in Victoria, allieged Confederation—like Tolstyne—but he was of Sudafrikan, and thus negroid, stock, but fortunately for him in that period, it was more obvious in his forename than in his appearance. He was also, from all reports, a man of great wit and charm, and early accounts note, presciently, his “gentlemanly” bearing.

  This gentlemanly genius was not satisfied, as Tolstyne was, to let his work be his reward. He recognized the practical potential of his Theory from the beginning, and deliberately withheld its publication for several years after it was formulated. No doubt the delay was due in part to his recognition of the importance of Tolstyne’s work in relation to his. In fact, he didn’t publish his Theory until after Cadmon produced the first MAM-An generator in 3057, and even then, before making his Theory available to the public—and Lords—at large, he went first to Lord Benedic Galinin and outlined its potentials. Then, with Galinin backing him and overseeing the negotiations, he approached Gidion Selasis, who had a franchised right to any developments pertaining to extraplanetary transport. Drakon offered Selasis a bargain: SynchShift, the ultimate leap to the stars, in exchange for a Lordship and the energy franchises in the first habitable extrasolar system discovered. That meant a concession on Galinin’s part—those energy franchises would otherwise be his—but he made it graciously, and saw to it that Selasis kept his part of the bargain, which was to petition the Directorate to recognize the new House of Drakonis with Orabu Drakon as First Lord, as well as financing—liberally—the new House for fifty years. The first Drakonis Estate—it was actually only a residence, but a palatial one—was in Victoria until that habitable extrasolar system was discovered and the Home Estate was established in Danae on Perseus.

  In 3078 the first SynchShift ship was launched toward our nearest stellar neighbors, and in that same year Drakon married the Lady Rondal, daughter of Simon Ussher Peladeen, who shared Drakon’s high hopes for the colonization of Centauri, and with this marriage made himself a partner in that great venture. Drakon was fifty-three at the time, and I’ve always wondered why he hadn’t married earlier. Was he simply too consumed with his work in his youth, or did he even then recognize the importance of keeping himself free for a House marriage should he achieve his metamorphosis into Lordship?

  The marriage was blessed with two sons and two daughters. None of the subsequent Drakonis Lords have shown anything like his genius, but they have all been remarkably astute men, all noted for their wit and charm, and all exceptionally pragmatic.

  CHAPTER XI

  Januar 3258

  1.

  Alex Ransom left the transit plaza, riding a crowded pedway toward the Planetary Transystem terminal Where the Hild Robek cock-and-serpent crest was displayed over the entry mall. Above him through the soaring escarpments of the buildings, the webs of elevated pedways, the glinting streams of aircars, he could see fragments of Castor’s indigo sky. The height of the buildings still amazed him, and his body hadn’t entirely adjusted to the lighter gravity.

  The morning work shift would begin soon, and he was using the crowds. At the terminal he crossed to another ’way, attracting not even a disinterested glance from the people riding it: Fesh, mainly, with the closed faces typical of city dwellers. The ’way took him into the heart of the terminal, toward the giant subtrain shafts that gave access to the underground sections of Helen where the industrial complexes were located, and where at the deepest levels the Outsider’s district flourished. The meeting with Vandyne would take place somewhere in the Outside.

  He left the ’way and crossed to a row of call booths, grateful for the cessation of sound when he stepped into one of them and switched on the S/V screens. He put his suitcase on the floor and fed a half ’cord bill into the slot. The screen and controls activated, but before he punched the ’com seq, he attached a jambler to the speaker. When he punched the numbers, he turned and looked out into the terminal, watching the Conpol patrol officers lounging around the ramps.

  “Harv Vandyne on line.”

  There was no visual image, and that surprised him; he had no way of making a VP ident here. His visual screen was on, and he felt peculiarly exposed.

  “You must be busy, Fer Vandyne.”

  “I have plenty of time.”

  Alex paused. He couldn’t be sure of the voice, but the code response was right.

  “You’re clear at your end, Fer Vandyne?”

  “Yes, Commander. Where are you?”

  “That doesn’t matter. I won’t be here long.”

  A brief hesitation, then, “No, of course not. Sir, are you all right? We were concerned about the delay.”

  “Yes, I’m all right, and the delay was unavoidable, but we can’t talk on screen. Where am I to meet you?”

  “There’s a float in the Outside; it’s called the Tamborin. Level D-3, on a ’way corner; 47 NS and 115 EW. I’ll reserve a pod in the name of Charles Harris.”

  “What time?”

  “I can be there in an hour.”

  “Very well, Fer Vandyne. One hour.”

  It was always night in the Outside wherever it might be, a night made garish by flashing, glittering signs, crude but imaginative masterworks of light and color designed to draw the Insiders to the floats, serallios, gambling casinos, and other quasi-legal or illicit attractions.

  Alex stood in the shadows of a recessed doorway. A private entrance, apparently; no lights advertised its existence. He was suspended on a tridemensional continuum of light, color, and sound, an illusion typical of an illusory world; the levels seemed to go on indefinitely above and beneath him. He studied the gaudy facade of the Tamborin across the ’way junction with its huge, projected images of barely clad dancers moving with jerking, jarring color shifts; ampspeakers shrieked music to blend with
the blaring sound from competitive businesses. The people moving along the ’ways seemed curiously unreal against the surge of color and sound, living shadows, most of them face-screened as he was.

  He was late for his meeting with Vandyne. but purposely so. He watched the ’way-level entrance of the Tamborin, studying the crowds, wishing he had an Outsider’s nose for Poles and Shads, and regretting that he had no direct means of contacting Jael; his nose would be useful now.

  The focus of his attention shifted abruptly.

  He felt the man’s presence first, and his left hand came up, ready to snap the X1 into his palm. He made no other movement except to turn his head toward the man.

  An Outsider. No face-screen, eyes with the sheen of ten-steel; a tough, ageless face set in a squint of cynical indifference. He stood perhaps two meters away, but now he moved closer until only an armsbreadth separated them.

  Still Alex didn’t move, but every muscle was tensed.

  “Hey!” The Outsider’s voice was a husky whisper. “You eyeing out for Vandyne?”

  Alex felt the hard beat of his pulse. This man wasn’t Phoenix; he was exactly what he seemed, and Vandyne’s name on his lips did nothing to reassure him. He made no response, watching the man, waiting.

  The Outsider frowned, menace behind his annoyance.

  “Listen, tooky, I ast you a question. You want Vandyne, I can line you in on him.”

  Alex asked levelly, “Did I say I wanted anyone?”

  “What the hell’s your gim? You slippin’ the Poles?” He paused and, when Alex didn’t answer, added conspiratorially, “Hey, I can maybe give you a door. You got the passkey? Double-deuce ’cords, friend. That’s all it takes.”

  Alex watched the shadowy figures passing, wondering if the Outsider had accomplices nearby.