He gave up thinking about it, or tried to, on their last day in hyperspace, and went to fill up his favorite blue mug with fresh cha’a. Fleet Admiral Lachiel was in the common room already, eating freeze-dried winemelon slices for breakfast like a true spacer, without bothering to rehydrate them first.
“Decent rations,” she said. “Better than Fleet issue, if you want to know the truth.”
“Remarquaine. Ferrda picked them up the last time we were there. The Fleet could probably cut some sort of deal with the factory if they tried.”
“I don’t think so—the rules for procurement discourage off-planet purchases. ‘Buy Entiboran’ and all that.”
He looked at the depths of his cha’a, and the pale steam rising in faint attenuated curls. “It’s a good idea, I suppose, as long as Entibor has what you’re after. But winemelon grows on Remarque.”
“And ships grow on Gyffer and Maraghai.” Lachiel put down her last, half-eaten slice of melon. “My lord general, may I speak freely?”
Jos grimaced. “I’m not anybody’s lord—we didn’t do things that way back where I grew up. Hell, unless we’re both in uniform you don’t need to bother with the ‘General’ part.”
“‘Jos,’ then. Were you drunk?”
“Several times in my life, yes. But if you mean at the moment I made the deal with Ferrda, no.”
“There’s no way to back out if you have to?”
“No.” He tried to explain. “Ferrda and I shook hands on the deal. I’m a free-spacer, and my word and a handshake are all that I’ve got. If those are no good, then I might as well go dirtside and become one of those melon farmers.”
“Some people,” she said, “might say that the General of the Armies of Entibor isn’t a free-spacer anymore.”
“They’d better not say that where I can hear it.”
“I’ll make certain the warning gets around.” She picked up the partial slice of freeze-dried melon and started crumbling bits off the ragged edge with her fingers. “I don’t suppose the Selvaurs would keep up their end of the alliance if you didn’t deliver the kid?”
Jos shook his head. “Not a chance. And I wouldn’t blame them, either.”
“Damn.” There was nothing left of Lachiel’s melon now but confetti-sized fragments and a brittle strip of rind. “We’ve got to keep the Selvaurs—if we lose them, there goes our chance of pulling in anybody else. Damn.”
She pushed the plate away and looked him in the eye. “All right, Jos. I’ll back you.”
“How far?”
“As far as it has to go.”
A buzzer sounded, rough-edged and strident.
“Dropout warning,” said Jos. He felt the nervous tension of the past few days changing into the anticipation that came before action. The time for wondering how to do it was over; from now on, what was done was how it would be. “Time to get to the bridge.”
The buzzer kept sounding as they hurried to the cockpit and strapped in. Jos hit the Off switch to silence it, then picked up the link for the intraship comms.
“Places, everyone. Gunners, to your stations.”
Lachiel made a startled noise. “We’re coming into Entibor,” she protested. “There’s no need for—”
“There’s always need for guns.”
“You didn’t have them up at Maraghai.”
“I was trying to make a point at Maraghai,” he said. “And it worked. But don’t think I wasn’t sweating the whole time.”
Lachiel shrugged under her safety webbing. “It’s your call. I make it dropout in plus five, counting.” “Understand dropout in five. Switching to manual control.”
Jos toggled the switch, and the two of them sat watching the navicomp clicking down. The grey, wavering non-stuff of hyperspace swirled outside the armor-glass viewscreens like puddles of oil on top of milky water.
“Three, two, one, mark,” Lachiel said.
Stars burned through the grey in a dazzle of light as normal vacuum replaced the hyperspacial resonance effect. Jos let out a sigh of satisfaction.
“Let’s see how close we got,” he said.
The navicomp clicked on and began to struggle with beacons and angles and star maps. A field spiked, and the navicomp chittered as it tried to correlate an unexpected radiant source with its tentative conclusions.
“What the hell—!” Jos exclaimed.
“Energy flare in system space.”
Jos worked the controls for Warhammer’s sensors and for the ship’s electronic-countermeasures apparatus. A pattering of signal came over the cockpit’s audio—fire-control readings.
“Someone’s shooting,” he called out over the intraship link. “Condition red, weapons tight.”
“Got ’em, Captain,” Nannla replied from the number-one gun bubble. “No targets.”
“Stay passive,” Jos said. “Errec, what’s power look like?”
“Rated max available,” Errec reported from the engine room.
A loud rush of sound cascaded from the console speakers, almost wiping out intraship comms. Jos adjusted the sensors again to bring down the noise.
“That guy’s close,” he said to Lachiel. “And he’s looking for us.”
“Then let’s get going.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m getting a weapons signature on that flare … a Mod Pandemonium.”
“That’s a Galcenian setup!” Lachiel started furiously working the settings for the external comms. “I’d like to go active and see if someone will report to me.”
“Let’s find out what’s happening first,” he said. “We might not want to let on that the fleet admiral and the General of the Armies are out here without any protection.”
“I’m picking up some ship-to-ship comms already,” Lachiel said. Her voice hardened. “And what’s going on is a Mage attack in progress.”
“We knew it had to happen sometime. Where do the Galcenians fit in?”
“Damned if I know. But they’re here.”
“Captain,” said Tillijen over the link from number-two gun bubble. “I have a target showing on the indicator. If I can see them, they can see me. Looks like we’re detected.”
“Hell.” He turned to Lachiel. “Admiral, you have crypto to contact Fleet? Get a message together. Tell them we’re going to be arriving in high orbit and proceeding directly to the surface, at—” He looked at a chrono. “—sixteen sixty-eight, plus or minus ten, and not to shoot at us.”
She nodded. “Tomorrow?”
“No, today.”
He saw Lachiel’s eyebrows go up in disbelief. “It’s not possible. Not in this ship.”
“Make the signal,” Jos said. “Let me worry about getting there.”
He waited a few seconds for Lachiel to begin sending the encrypted message, then keyed on the intraship comm and called down to engineering.
“Errec,” he said. “We’re heading in at a run. I need you to go take a look at the main engineering control board.”
“I can see the board from here, Captain.”
“All right. You should be staring at a row of switches labeled ‘auxiliary heat dispersal.’”
“I’ve got them in view.”
“Flip ’em on.”
“Got it.” A pause. “All the redlines have moved to the right. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we just got another fifty percent rated power.”
“Good,” said Jos. He reached up and flipped two switches on the overhead panel. “Now take the safeties off line.”
“Right.” Another pause. “Safeties off.”
“Now I’m going to give it throttle. I want you to balance the loads, and I want ’em balanced at twenty percent over redline.”
“If you say so.” Errec sounded dubious. “But remember, I’m not really an engineer.”
“After this run,” Jos promised him, “you will be.”
“Captain,” Nannla’s voice cut in. “Target inbound, locked on with fire control, signature looks Mage.”
; “Weapons free,” Jos said. He twisted ship to present a narrower profile, and to put the target inside the covered arc of both the dorsal and ventral guns. The ’Hammer started firing, a steady pounding that made itself known in the vibration of the freighter’s strength members and in the wavering power readouts on the main console.
“Two—one—boost,” Jos chanted, and pushed the throttle levers forward. Acceleration shoved him back against the cushions … but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t reach out and push the levers forward a little bit more.
Rain beat steadily against the windows of the Orgilan Guesthouse. The day was a grey and chilly one—late autumn had never been An-Jemayne’s best time of year—and the heat-bar in the sitting-room fireplace glowed faintly as it warded off the cold. Ambassador Oldigaard sat at a graceful antique desk close by the hearth, watching incoming message traffic on a shielded textcomm.
The screen of the textcomm currently displayed reports sent in by the flotilla that had accompanied him to Entibor. He found them uneasy reading. Already, in the reaches of space beyond Entibor, Galcenian ships fought side by side with Entiboran vessels against the Mages.
“I don’t like it,” he said aloud.
The room’s other occupant turned at the sound of his voice. Master Guislen, a quiet presence in formal black, had been standing at the tall window and looking out at the rain-lashed street. Now he faced the ambassador and said, “What is it, exactly, that you dislike?”
“The Domina,” Oldigaard said. “We should have had her agreement to the proposals by now. Instead, she only smiles and gives excuses for why she has decided absolutely nothing—while my escort ships are fighting the Mages under local command!”
Guislen left his place by the window to stand nearer the hearth. “If that idea worries you,” he said, “then why not direct our ships to withdraw?”
“If I’d had the chance to forbid them in the first place—but I didn’t expect to be trapped in an aircar halfway between here and the Summer Palace at the point when the question came up. Withdrawing now would be a disaster. We’d lose whatever goodwill our ships have earned for us. Our own fleet personnel wouldn’t understand the political necessity.”
“True. Some other kind of pressure, then.” Guislen looked thoughtful. “Her economic advisor, Lord Meteun … she depends on his analyses, I think. Can something be done to break him away from her, or to divert his attention?”
Oldigaard nodded slowly. “You have a point. He’s from Pleyver; something may be possible there. But that’s in the future. We need to apply the pressure now.”
“She’s young,” said Guislen. “Perhaps her husband—”
“Consort. The head of Entibor’s Ruling House doesn’t marry; she names consorts at her pleasure, and dismisses them at will. The old Domina—Veratina—went through hers like some women go through clean underwear, for all the good it ever did.”
Guislen accepted the correction with a look of faint amusement. “Perhaps the young woman’s consort, then, provides a weak point that can be suitably exploited.”
“Metadi?” Oldigaard snorted. “The man’s not an opportunity, he’s a menace!”
“If you say so,” murmured Guislen. “But his political views can’t be popular. He’s Gyfferan, which means he’s probably egalitarian and possibly a Centrist, neither of which is likely to sit well with the local conservative element.”
“As far as our sources can tell, the man has no political views. What he does have, unfortunately, is a damnable amount of charisma—the fire-eaters in our own fleet already admire him too much for comfort.”
“Then take what advantage you can of his absence; it won’t last forever.”
“I have been—”
The textcomm flashed its warning light, and Oldigaard turned his attention back to the flickering screen. He read the message, then thumbed the screen dark again.
“Metadi!” he said. “Even when he doesn’t plan it that way, the man’s timing is impeccable.”
“I take it the Consort has returned.”
“Yes. And if convincing Her Dignity to commit to an alliance on our terms was difficult before …”
Guislen smiled. “I wouldn’t worry. The pressure on the Domina will continue regardless.”
Oldigaard regarded the Adept narrowly. “What do you mean?”
“Entiborans—the common mass of them—are a superstitious lot,” said Guislen. “If the autumn harvests are troubled with blight and crop failure, the people will remember that Perada has as yet no heir, and she will be pushed toward a second attempt well before she apparently desires to make one.”
“Entiborans are also stubborn. And I’m not fool enough to count on blights and droughts showing up when they’re needed.”
“Maybe you can’t trust Entiborans—or Entiboran weather—but I think you can trust the Mages.”
“What do you mean?”
“Their biochemical knowledge is legendary in the outplanets,” said Guislen. Again he smiled. “If unaided nature fails to bring about a useful state of terror, the Mages will assist things until it does.”
The main landing field of An-Jemayne Spaceport was strictly out-of-bounds for unauthorized personnel. Skipsleds scooted back and forth at speed between the ships and the pallets of cargo, throwing up plumes of water from the rain-slicked pavement as they went; heavy machinery—loading cranes, repair booms, catchcradles—worked without regard for spectators. Mistress Vasari had no business being there, standing well inside the safety lines and watching the spaceport traffic.
There was a lot of traffic to watch, even with the Fleet and the Mages skirmishing on a daily basis in the outer system. The field was forested with ships, small and medium-sized ones mostly, though from the vantage point of a person on foot they loomed like giants. The truly big ships never landed at all, but were built in orbit and spent their working lifetimes far beyond any planetary atmosphere. An-Jemayne’s ground facility had enough business without them: couriers and other small Fleet craft, deadly and bright with blue and silver trim; midsize freighters in the colors of the big shipping lines, or in a patchwork of independent hues; light orbit-to-atmosphere shuttles taking off and landing, the flame of their jets making dots of orange against the low grey clouds.
And not far from where Vasari watched, the ship was landing that she had come this far to see.
Warhammer came down in a roar of engines and a tooth-rattling drone of heavy-duty nullgravs. The nullgravs slowed the last stages of the descent, and kept the starship from grounding until the pilot had maneuvered the ship’s bulk into the proper orientation and extended the landing legs. Then—slowly, a delicate balancing of three systems at once—the engines fell silent, the nullgravs faded out, and the hydraulics in the landing legs groaned and took the strain.
Gracefully, for all her awkward shape and size, the ’Hammer settled into position. Vasari waited. A few seconds later, a skipsled arrowed out onto the field from somewhere in the heart of Fleet territory. No cargo rode on the sled for this trip—the load platform held a group of uniformed types, hanging on to the safety railing while the sled’s driver fired it up to unprecedented speed.
They must really want to talk to him, Vasari thought.
Someone aboard the ’Hammer must have been watching the monitors. The ramp went down; the main hatch opened. Figures emerged: Metadi, in mufti—plain shirt and trousers, boots, black velvet. long-coat with silver buttons; a tall woman in Fleet uniform who had to be Admiral Lachiel; two more women in free-spacers’ rig; and last, an unobtrusive figure in a mechanic’s coverall. Errec Ransome.
It only took Vasari a few seconds to realize that nobody else was noticing Ransome at all. She wasn’t surprised when he failed to join Metadi and the others on the crowded skipsled. Instead, he moved off at an angle, threading his way in between the puddles of rainwater and the crates and stacks of cargo, on what errand she couldn’t tell.
Vasari smiled. She’d done her homework before coming
out to the field; she knew where the nearest civilian gate lay in relation to Warhammer’s berth. If she headed straight there, instead of trying to shadow a powerful Adept who already had a head start …
Her gamble paid off. When Errec Ransome, still unnoticed by untrained eyes, had finished making his circuitous way to the civilian gate, Mistress Vasari was able to step out of the shadows into his path.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
He gave a vague shrug. “No place in particular.”
“Fine,” she said. He was probably lying, or at least telling a bit less than the truth, but it didn’t matter. “Because I want to talk to you. Have you been thinking about that discussion we had?”
“Yes. I can’t go back. Not yet.”
“Good.”
Errec looked amused—or as amused as he ever seemed to look these days, more like a man remembering an emotion than like someone feeling it—and said, “I thought this was going to be another one of those interviews where you try to talk me back into the fold.”
“Later. Right now I need your help.”
“What kind of help?” His voice and eyes were both wary—Nothing remembered about that emotion, Vasari thought; it’s all there and all genuine.
“The Mages are active again on Entibor,” she said. “I need you to help me find them.”
“And what then?”
The rain had started up again while they spoke, soaking both Vasari’s working blacks and Ransome’s frayed coverall. Vasari didn’t care; she could tell by the look on Ransome’s face that she had him now.
“After we find them, we pump them dry.” She smiled at him sweetly. “And after that, Errec dear, you can do whatever your bloodthirsty little heart desires.”
The winds of late autumn blew around the Summer Palace of House Rosselin, making the big, airy building unpleasantly chill and damp. The Summer Palace, with its high ceilings and ample cross-drafts, had never been meant for keeping warm, and unlike the Palace Major it had never been retrofitted with advanced environmental controls. Perada wore a half-cape these days when she went for an afternoon’s walk along the graveled paths of the formal garden.
The Gathering Flame Page 31
