Analog SFF, May 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Like Garth, they must have thought she was going to run. So why not let her do it? They didn't appear to be concerned that she might alert Slipstream to the theft of the Key to Candesce because they had let her get this far. That was odd—or not so odd, when you considered that the leaders of Sacrus must be as insular and decadent as any of the other pocket nations on the wheel. But why not just let her go?

  They must have decided that they needed Buridan's stability. She probably shouldn't read too much into the decision. They could just as easily change their minds and have her killed at any moment.

  Anyway, the reasons didn't matter. They had Garth—she had no reason to doubt that—and if she didn't return to Spyre immediately, his death would be her fault.

  As her initial anger wore off, Venera sat down on a divan and, reaching in her jacket, brought out the bullet that nestled there. She turned it over in her hands for half an hour and then as Candesce began to ignite in the distant sky, she made her decision.

  She slid the dagger back into her vest.

  She took the wings from inside the closet and stepped into the hallway. Brydda was asleep in a wing chair under a tall leaded-glass window. Venera walked past her to the servant's stairs and headed for the roof.

  Gold-touched by the awakening sun of suns, she took flight in the high winds and lower gravity of the rooftop.

  Venera rose on the air, losing weight rapidly as the wind disengaged her from the spin of the town wheel. High above the buildings, among turning cables and hovering birds, she turned her back on the apartment and on the trade delegation of Buridan. She turned her back on Garth Diamandis, and flew toward the residence of the ambassador of Slipstream.

  * * * *

  Various scenarios had played themselves out in her mind as she flew. The first was that she could pretend to be the estranged wife of one of the sailors on the Rook. Wringing her hands, she could look pathetic and demand news of the expedition.

  Venera wasn't good at looking pathetic. Besides, they could legitimately ask what she was doing here, thousands of miles away from Slipstream.

  She could claim to be a traveling merchant. Then why ask after the expedition? Perhaps she should say she was from Hale, not Slipstream, a distant relative of Venera Fanning needing news of her.

  These and other options ran through her mind as Venera waited next to the tall scrolled doors of the ambassador's office. The moment the door lock clicked, she pushed her way inside and said to the surprised secretary, “My name is Venera Fanning. I need to talk to the ambassador.”

  The man turned white as a sheet. He practically ran for the inner office and there was a hurried, loud conversation there. Then he stuck his head out the door and said, “You can't be seen here.”

  “Too late for that, if anyone's watching.” She closed the outer door and walked to the inner. The secretary threw it open and stepped aside.

  The ambassador of Slipstream was a middle-aged woman with iron-gray hair and the kind of stern features usually reserved for suspicious aunts, school principals, and morals crusaders. She glared at Venera and gestured for her to sit in one of the red leather wing chairs that faced her dark teak desk. “So you're alive,” she said as she lowered herself heavily on her side.

  “Why shouldn't I be?” Venera was suddenly anxious to the point of panic. “What happened to the others?”

  The ambassador sent her a measuring look. “You were separated from your husband's expedition?”

  “Yes! I've had no news. Just ... rumors.”

  “The expeditionary force was destroyed,” said the ambassador. She grimaced apologetically. “Your husband's flagship apparently rammed a Falcon dreadnaught, causing a massive explosion that tore both vessels apart. All hands are presumed lost.”

  “I see...” She felt sick, as though this were the first time she'd heard this news.

  “I don't think you do see,” said the ambassador. She snapped her fingers and her secretary left, returning with a silver tray and two glasses of wine.

  “You've shown up at an awkward time,” continued the ambassador. “One of your husband's ships did make it back to Rush. The Severance limped back into port a couple of weeks ago, and her hull was full of holes. Naturally, the people assumed she was the vanguard of a return from the battle with Mavery. But no—the airmen disembarked and they were laughing, crying, claiming a great victory, and waving away all talk of Mavery. ‘No,’ they say, ‘we've beaten Falcon! By the genius of the Pilot and Admiral Fanning, we've forestalled an invasion and saved Slipstream!'

  “Can the Pilot deny it? If Fanning himself had returned, with the other ships ... maybe not. If the airmen of the Severance hadn't started throwing around impossible amounts of money, displaying rich jewels and gold chains and talking wildly about a pirate's hoard ... Well, you see the problem. Falcon is supposed to be an ally. And the Pilot's been caught with his pants below his knees, completely unaware of a threat to his nation until after his most popular admiral has extinguished that threat.

  “He ordered the crew rounded up, on charges of treason. The official story is that Fanning took some ships on a raid into Falcon and busted open one of their treasuries. He's being court-martialed in absentia, as a traitor and pirate.”

  “Therefore,” said Venera, “if I were to return now...”

  “You'd be tried as an accessory, at the very least.” The ambassador steepled her hands and leaned forward minutely in her chair. “Legally, I'm bound to turn you over for extradition. Except that, should I do so, you'd likely become a lightning rod for dissent. After the riots...”

  “What riots?”

  “Well.” She looked uncomfortable. “The Pilot was a bit ... slow, to act. He didn't round up all of the Severance's airmen quickly enough. And he didn't stem the tide until a good deal of money had flowed into the streets. Apparently, these were no mere trinkets the men were showing off—and they're not treasury items either, they're plunder, pure and simple, and ancient to boot. And the people, the people believe the Severance, not the Pilot.

  “Our last dispatch—that was two days ago—says that the bulk of the crew and officers made it back to the Severance and bottled themselves up in it. It's out there now, floating a hundred yards off the admiralty. The Pilot ordered it blown up, and that's when rioting started in the city.”

  “If you returned now,” said the secretary, “there'd be even more bloodshed.”

  “—And likely your blood would be spilled as an example to others.” The ambassador shook her head. “It gets worse, too. The navy's refused the Pilot's command. They won't blow up the Severance, they want to know what happened. They're trying to talk the crew out, and there's a three-way standoff now between the Pilot's soldiers, the navy, and the Severance herself. It's a real mess.”

  Venera's pulse was pounding. She wanted to be there, in the admiralty. She knew Chaison's peers, she could rally those men to fight back. They all hated the Pilot, after all.

  She slumped back in her chair. “Thank you for telling me this.” She thought for a minute, then glanced up at the ambassador. “Are you going to have me arrested?”

  The older woman shook her head, half smiling. “Not if you make a discreet enough exit from my office. I suggest the back stairs. I can't see how sending you home in chains would do anything but fan the flames at this point.”

  “Thank you.” She stood and looked toward the door the ambassador had pointed at. “I won't forget this.”

  “Just so long as you never tell anyone that you saw me,” said the ambassador with an ironic smile. “So what will you do?”

  “I don't know.”

  “If you stay here in the capital, we might be able to help you—set you up with a job and a place to stay,” said the ambassador sympathetically. “It would be below your station, I'm afraid, at least to start...”

  “Thanks, I'll consider it—and don't worry, if I see you again, I won't be Venera Fanning anymore.” Dazed, she pushed through the door into a utilitarian
hallway that led to gray tradesmen's stairs. She barely heard the words “Good luck,” before the door closed behind her.

  Venera went down one flight, then sat on a step and put her chin in her hands. She was trembling but dry eyed.

  Now what? The news about the Severance had been electrifying. She should board the next ship she could find that was headed for the Meridian countries, and ... But it might take weeks to get there. She would arrive after the crisis was resolved, if it hadn't been already.

  There was one man who could have helped her. Hayden Griffin was flying a fast racing bike, a simple jet engine with a saddle. She'd last seen him at Candesce as the sun of suns blossomed into incandescent life. He was opening the throttle—racing for home—and surely by now he was back in Slipstream. If she'd gone with him when he offered her his hand, none of her present troubles would have happened.

  Yet she couldn't do it. Venera had killed Hayden's lover not ten minutes before and simply could not believe that he wouldn't murder her in return if he got the chance.

  She hadn't wanted to kill Aubri Mahallan. The woman had lied about her intentions; she had joined the Fanning expedition with the intention of crippling Candesce's defenses. She worked for the outsiders, the alien Artificial Nature that lurked somewhere beyond the skin of Virga. Had Venera not prevented it, Mahallan would have let those incomprehensible forces into Virga and nothing would now be as it was.

  Once again Venera took out the bullet and turned it over in her fingers. She had killed the captain of the Rook and his bridge crew—shot them with a pistol—in order to save the lives of everyone aboard. Captain Sembry had been about to fire the Rook's scuttling charges during their battle with the pirates. She had shot several other people in battle and killed Mahallan to save the world itself. Just like she'd shot the man who had been about to kill Chaison, on the day they'd met...

  Either she had killed those people because of a higher purpose, or from naked self-interest. She could admit to being ruthless and callous, even heartless, but Venera did not see herself as fundamentally selfish. She had been bred and raised to be selfish, but she didn't want to be like her sisters or her father. That was the whole reason why she'd escaped life in Hale at her first opportunity.

  Venera cursed. If she flew away from Garth Diamandis and the key to Candesce now, she would be admitting that she had killed Aubri Mahallan not to save the world but out of pure spite. She'd be admitting that she'd shot Sembry in the forehead solely to preserve her own life. Could she even claim to have been trying to save Chaison too?

  All her stratagems collapsed. Venera returned the bullet to her pocket, stood, and continued down the steps.

  When she reached the street she looked around until she spotted the apartment where at this moment Brydda and the rest of the Buridan trade delegation must be frantically searching for her. Leaden with defeat and anger, she let her feet carry her in that direction.

  * * * *

  13

  There were plenty of people waiting for Venera at the docks, but Garth was not among them—oh, she had accountants aplenty, maids and masters of protocol, porters and reporters and doctors, couriers and dignitaries from the nations of Spyre that had decided to conspicuously ally with Buridan. There was lots to do. But as she signed documents and ordered people about, Venera felt the old familiar pain radiating up from her jaw. Today's headache would be a killer.

  She had to provide some explanation for why she'd returned early from the expedition, if only for the council representatives with their clipboards and frowns. “We were successful beyond expectations,” she said, pinioning Brydda with a warning glare. “A customer has come forward who will satisfy all of our needs for quite some time. There was simply no need to continue with an expensive journey when we'd already achieved our goal.”

  This was far more information than most nations ever released about their customers, so the council would have to be content with it.

  The return of the ruler of Buridan was a hectic affair, and it took until near dinnertime before Venera was able to escape to her apartment to contemplate her next move. There had been no messages from Sacrus, neither demands nor threats. They thought they had her in their pocket now, she supposed, so they could turn their attention to more important matters for a while. But those more important matters were her concern too.

  She had a meal sent up and summoned the chief butler. “I do not wish to be disturbed for any reason,” she told him. “I will be working here until very late.” He bowed impassively, and she closed and locked the door.

  In the course of renovations, some workmen had knocked a hole in one of her bedroom walls. She had chastised them roundly for it then discovered that there was an airspace behind it—an old chimney, long disused. “Work in some other room,” she told the men. “I'll hire more reliable men to fix this.” But she hadn't fixed it.

  Ten minutes after locking the door, she was easing down a rope ladder that hung in the chimney. The huge portrait of Giles Thrace-Guiles that normally covered the hole had been set aside. At the bottom of the shaft, she pried back a pewter fireplace grate decorated with dolphins and naked women and dusted herself off in a former servant's bedroom that she'd recast as a storage closet.

  It was easy to nip across the hall and into the wine cellar and slide aside the rack on its oiled track. Then she was in the rebels’ bolthole and momentarily free of Buridan, Sacrus, and everything else—except, perhaps, the nagging of her new and still unfamiliar conscience.

  * * * *

  The insane organ music from Buridan Tower's broken pipeworks had ceased. Not that it was silent as Venera stepped out of the filigreed elevator; the whole place still hummed to the rush and flap of wind. But at least you could ignore it now.

  “Iron lady's here!” shouted one of the men waiting in the chamber. Venera frowned as she heard the term being relayed away down the halls. There were three guards in the elevator chamber and doubtless more lurking outside. She clasped her hands behind her back and strode for the archway, daring them to stop her. They did not.

  The elevator room opened off the highest gallery of the tower's vast atrium. It was also the smallest, as the space widened as it fell. The effect from here was dizzying: she seemed suspended high above a cavern walled by railings. Venera stood there looking down while Bryce's followers silently surrounded her. Echoes of hammering and sawing drifted up from below.

  After a while there was a chattering of footsteps, and then Bryce himself appeared. He was covered in plaster dust and his hair was disarrayed. “What?” he said. “Are they coming?”

  “No,” said Venera with a half smile. “At least not yet. Which is not to say that I won't need to give a tour at some point. But you're safe for now.”

  He crossed his arms, frowning. “Then why are you here?”

  “Because this tower is mine,” she said simply. “I wanted to remind you of the fact.”

  Waving away the makeshift honor guard, he strode over to lean on the railing beside her. “You've got a nerve,” he said. “I seem to remember the last time we spoke, you were tied to a chair.”

  “Maybe next time it'll be your turn.”

  “You think you have us bottled up in here?”

  “What would be the use in that?”

  “Revenge. Besides, you're a dust-blood—a noble. You can't possibly be on our side.”

  She examined her nails. “I haven't got a side.”

  “That is the dust-blood side,” said Bryce with a sneer. “There's those that care for the people; that's one side. The other side is anybody else.”

  “I care for my people,” she said with a shrug, then, to needle him, “I care for my horses too.”

  He turned away, balling his hands into fists. “Where's our printing press?” he asked after a moment.

  “On its way. But I have something more important to talk to you about. Only to you. A ... job I need done.”

  He glanced back at her; behind the disdain, she could see
he was intrigued. “Let's go somewhere better suited to talking,” he said.

  “More chairs, less rope?”

  He winced. “Something like that.”

  * * * *

  “You can see Sacrus from here,” she said. “It's a big sprawling estate, miles of it. If anybody is your enemy, I'd think it was them.”

  “Among others.” The venue was the tower's library, a high space full of gothic arches and decaying draperies that hung like the forelocks of defeated men from the dust-rimmed window casements. Venera had prowled through it when she and Garth were alone here, and—who knew?—some of those dusty spines settling into the shelves might be priceless. She hadn't had time to find out, but Bryce's people had tidied up and there were even a few tomes open on the side tables next to several cracked leather armchairs.

  Evening light shone hazily through the diamond-shaped windowpanes. She was reminded of another room, hundreds of miles away in the nation of Gehellen, and a gun battle. She had shot a woman there before Chaison's favorite staffer shattered the windows and they all jumped out.

  Bryce settled himself into an ancient half-collapsed armchair that had long ago adhered to the floor like a barnacle. “Our goals are simple,” he said. “We want to return to the old ways of government, from the days before Virga turned its back on advanced technologies.”

  “There was a reason why we did that,” she said. “The outsiders—”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “I know the stories, about this ‘artificial nature’ from beyond the skin of the world that threatens us. They're just a fairy tale to keep the people down.”

  Venera shook her head. “I knew an agent from outside. She worked for me, betrayed me. I killed her.”

  “Had her killed?”

  “Killed her. With my sword.” She allowed her mask to slip for a second, aiming an expression of pure fury at Bryce. “Just who do you think you're talking to?” she said in a low voice.

  Bryce nodded his head. “Take it as read that I know you're not an ordinary courtier,” he said. “I'm not going to believe any stories you tell without some proof, though. What I was trying to say was that our goal is to reintroduce computation machines into Virga and spread the doctrine of emergent democracy everywhere, so that people can overthrow all their institution-based governments, and emergent utopias can flourish again. We're prepared to kill anybody who gets in our way.”