House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy)

by Wren, M. K.

  Maxim Drakonis and Almor, Lord of the new House of Eliseer, were far more equitable in their treatment of the defeated. Eliseer imposed Bondage on none of the survivors, nor did Drakonis. Almor brought his Bonds from the Cognate House of Camine, and Drakonis, who actually had little need for a large Bond workforce, was granted five thousand Bonds from the Concord. In every other way Drakonis and Eliseer were more merciful and reasonable in the aftermath of the War, but unfortunately Hamid was made Lord of Pollux by a Directorate strongly influenced by Jofry Selasis, and most of Centauri’s population was on Pollux.

  Something else I can’t forgive is the treatment of Elor Peladeen by the Concord’s historians. A small thing, perhaps, yet it rankles with me. He has been consistently pictured as a deluded fool acting under the influence of the villainous masterminds of the Republic, like M’Kenzy. Elor Peladeen deserves better. For that matter, so does M’Kenzy. I say Peladeen deserves better not because I think the opinions of the living mean anything to the dead, but because he was a man of intelligence, foresight, and, above all, of epic courage. Such courage is rare in human history, and it’s important that it be recognized and revered. It’s important for the living, for the future living, to know that such courage is within the reach of human beings.

  I only hope for our sake, for that of future generations, Elor Peladeen will one day be justly and truly represented in history. His courage is a vital part of our human heritage.

  Chapter XX

  15 Octov 3258

  1.

  Alexand lay stretched out on the bed scrutinizing the reflections in his boots, his left arm folded under his head, right arm motionless and aching at his side. He’d made himself comfortable to the point of removing his cloak and jacket and opening his shirt. The pursuit of comfort was tolerated in “protective custody,” if not the pursuit of sleep. Even at this late hour, the ceiling was a flat glow of light. Darkness was not tolerated here; it would blind the monitors.

  There were four sensor lenses, one in each corner, and no effort had been made to camouflage them. The audio monitors were a little more difficult to locate only because they were smaller.

  His every move, every sound, was duly recorded.

  Yet he had an oppressive sense of isolation that stirred memories of the Cliff. He’d been carefully searched and stripped of the two monitors that had been his link with the Phoenix. Only the MT fixes in his boots had been overlooked; they didn’t register on the montectors.

  Still, his accommodations were in marked contrast to those at the Cliff. The room was relatively large, perhaps four by five meters. The walls were a soft blue, the floor covered with a sienna thermcarpet; the bed was narrow, but passably comfortable; and he was even provided a wall-mounted clock-calendar. He looked up at it and watched the numbers change.

  24:01 TST. A new day. 15 Octov 3258.

  Concord Day was relegated to history.

  Commander Alex Ransom was relegated to this comfortable cell in the Conpol Central DC.

  But it wasn’t an SSB DC.

  He levered himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, his breath catching at every movement, and surveyed his comfortable accommodations. The bed was placed against one of the shorter walls, the head in the corner. The corridor opening—there was no door; only the shimmer of a shock screen— was directly opposite him. Near the longer wall to his right a round table was placed, suitable, he supposed, for dining. Two chairs flanked it. Perhaps they thought he’d be having guests. He enjoyed the further luxury of a private bath. At least it adjoined the room and was separated by a solid door. No square centimeter here was in fact private.

  He pressed his hand gingerly to his forehead. He’d survived unscathed the lethal rain of debris from the explosion, but somewhere in the struggle with the Guards, he’d taken a blow to the left temple to add to the aching of his arm. But he was probably fortunate to be alive, and he wasn’t sure why he was. The Conpol officers who brought him here made it clear, if only by innuendo, that they considered him condemned in his guilt.

  Yet they wouldn’t tell him whether Galinin was alive or dead.

  Grandser—

  The image of that white-locked head, carmined with blood, leapt out of the dim fragments of memory. It was the last thing he remembered seeing before he lost consciousness.

  He must live. He must be alive.

  Panic. It waited in ambush at every junction of thoughts. He counted out ten deep, spaced breaths until he had it under control, then rose and went to the window.

  It was just beyond the foot of the bed, a rectangle two meters long and one high, affording a splendid view of Concordia from this point on the fifteenth level. He could see parts of the Plaza complex, the shining white shaft of the Hall of the Directorate, and the triple spires of the Cathedron. And he could see the warning lights of emergency vehicles flashing along the traffic grids, watch the Conpol patrols pass in grim formations, and in the distance, see erupting clouds of smoke and fireflies of flame. Probably the Tesmier chemical warehouses. The billow of smoke to the right and half a kilometer beyond probably came from one of the Concord Bond compounds. There were others too distant to identify.

  Concordia was no longer the city of lights.

  Many of its lights were out by order, he was sure. Curfew. The incessant police patrols indicated that. Some, in broad swaths of darkness, were put out by violence and disaster. And over the city as far as his eye could seek, hung a dirty orange pall, glowing hotly under a burdened layer of cloud.

  A cell with a view. A luxury, indeed.

  And this hellish view might cost him his life.

  The warning was spelled out on the sill: “Caution. This window equipped with shock screen.”

  That meant that nowhere in this comfortable cage would he be less than two and a half meters from a shock screen. The limit for safe MT transing was five meters.

  Selasis had found an invaluable ally in Predis Ussher. Alexand wondered when Ussher would discover that he hadn’t been so fortunate in Selasis.

  No stars in this sky. He closed his eyes. Stars always spelled freedom.

  Adrien, if I die, will you live for our sons?

  Perhaps she would, but few human beings could sanely survive the same grief twice.

  Footsteps.

  The spasm of tension translated into pain. The Cliff. His body remembered. Booted footsteps.

  Two booted and one . . . soft-soled shoes.

  At length, they stopped outside his door. There were two Conpol guards; one stayed outside in the corridor and switched off the shock screen while the other escorted the third man in. His white tunic and the red caduceus on his allegiance badge proclaimed him a Conmed doctor. A short, stocky, washed-out man of middle age, he blinked and squinted myopically at Alexand.

  “This the patient? Well . . . uh, sit down. Might as well sit down.”

  Alexand went to the bed and began pulling off the glove, while the guard took up a position a meter to his left, and the doctor looked around helplessly, then brought up one of the chairs from the table. He sat down in front of Alexand, opened his medical case on the bed, then frowned at Alexand’s ungloved hand.

  “This has already been bandaged.” He looked to the guard for an answer to that enigma.

  “Old wound, Dr. Cambry. Captain Edmin said for you to look it over, maybe patch it up.”

  “Oh. Well. Let’s see . . .” He noticed the swollen bruise on Alexand’s temple and squinted at it. “Bit of a lump here, I see.” He fumbled about in his case. “Dizziness? Anything like that? Double vision?”

  “No, only a headache,” Alexand replied.

  “Oh. Well, uh . . . might as well have a look inside.” Cambry gave a short laugh—apparently that was meant to be humorous—and took a stylus light from his case, then crouched over Alexand, shining the light
into one eye, holding his head steady with a hand on the right side of his head. “Straight ahead . . . don’t blink. Good. Well. Now, the other. . . .”

  Alexand was finding it more difficult to control his annoyance than his blinking, until he became aware of a sensation in his right ear so unexpected, he might have jerked away if the doctor hadn’t had such a deceptively strong grip on his head.

  Cambry had just slipped a miniceiver into his ear.

  He was a Phoenix agent.

  The glaring light probing his eye, Cambry’s face so close to his, hid his momentary surprise from the guard and the monitors as effectively as they had the actual placement of the ’ceiver.

  “Well, everything seems to be . . .” The doctor looked at Alexand’s right hand with a sigh of resignation. “So, I guess . . . uh, the shirt. Better get it off. Here, I’ll help.”

  The simple process of taking off the shirt became complicated with Cambry’s help, but it was at length accomplished. He sighed again as he examined the bandaged arm.

  “Well, you seem to have . . . well. That hurt a bit?”

  Alexand was hard put not to laugh. The man was extraordinarily good in his role, but it was an understatement to say his bumbling handling of the arm hurt “a bit.”

  Alexand’s jaw was set as he said, “Yes, it . . . hurts.”

  “Oh. I suppose . . . well, better give you something for that.” He rattled around in his case and brought out a pressyringe. “Allergies to analgesics? Enkephaline?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  As Cambry began the injection into the shoulder joint, Alexand leaned back, making his left arm a prop, reveling in the cessation of pain as numbness enveloped his right arm. Cambry muddled in his case, taking out gauze, tape, scissors, biostatic solution, and ointment. And finally, Alexand heard what he’d been waiting for, preparing himself for; the monitors wouldn’t catch so much as a flicker in his eyes.

  A voice sounded in his ear, a familiar voice.

  “Alex, this is Ben. I’m on a SynchCom interconn through the Concordia chapter on my personal ’com seq. Ussher probably can’t tap into this. Dr. Cambry is on line with me, too. I’ll give you a fast rundown on the general stat. First, Galinin is still alive.”

  It was an effort to control his relief, but again, Cambry’s ministrations made good camouflage. Alexand watched with the vague interest that would be expected while the doctor, in an apparent funk of indecision, finally armed himself with scissors and began cutting away the old bandages.

  “. . . He’s unconscious and in critical condition; got hit with some of the flying debris. A life support unit has been set up in the infirmary at his Estate, and a top cranial trauma expert called in. Woolf is overseeing Galinin’s security, and it’s tight. He brought Dr. Stel from his Estate, and except for the specialist and Dr. Perris, Galinin’s personal physician, nobody else is allowed anywhere near him. Woolf’s taken over at the Hall, too; Chairman Designate, and he’s got his hands full. The news about the bomb leaked out and hit the vidicom screens before he could do anything about it, and set off mass panics and riots in nearly every major city in both Systems. He ordered curfews and closed the public transystems except for emergency use, and he went on the screens himself. That probably did more good than anything else, along with getting a good tight hold on the ’casters. According to them, everything’s under control, both in Centauri and the Hall of the Directorate. . . .”

  Cambry had the old bandages off and was studying the arm with a fastidious frown. Some of the grafts hadn’t held. In accordance with his orders to “patch it up,” he simply closed the reopened wounds with temporary tape sutures. No doubt his superiors would consider more permanent repair a waste of time.

  Alexand watched him, ever conscious of the monitors, the questions in his mind multiplying, straining to be voiced, but he could only listen and hope Ben would answer them.

  “We don’t have much info on what happened in Galinin’s office, Alex. A bomb, of course, and it hit dead center on the desk. It had to come from the private entrance, and one thing that’s been overlooked in the confusion is that the Galinin House guard on duty there has disappeared. But nobody’s interested in that. The case is closed, and you’re the one trapped in it. You probably would’ve been shot down on the spot, or turned over to the SSB, except Galinin did manage a few words before he passed out. An interesting little sidelight is that Selasis just happened to be on his way to see Galinin when the bomb went off. He had Robek with him; wanted a witness from the other side, I guess. Anyway, that backfired to a point. Galinin told Robek he’d granted you amnesty as an envoy, so Selasis couldn’t ignore it.”

  Grandser . . . thank you for my life. And I brought that bomb to you almost as if I delivered it with my own hand.

  “That still hurting some?”

  Alexand focused on the doctor and his indirect warning. “Some, yes.”

  “Oh. Well, I could give you another shot, I guess. Maybe the dosage . . . hard to tell sometimes . . .”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Cambry shrugged indifferently and went on with his work, and Alexand waited for Ben’s voice, for answers.

  “That bomb came from Selasis; you know it as well as I do, but we can’t prove a damn thing, and nobody seems to be interested in looking past you for the guilty party.” He paused, his breath coming out in an audible sigh. Cambry had begun rebandaging the arm, starting, as Erica always did, at the shoulder.

  “Alex, I wish to hell you could answer some questions for me; if you saw something or somebody. At least Galinin is still alive, and he bought us a little time with that amnesty decree. Selasis will have to get a Directorate majority to override that. Meanwhile, we’ve got four agents in the DC, and you’ve still got your MT fixes. Cambry will leave a monitor in the room so we can . . . uh, hold on a second.”

  Alexand waited, his gaze shifting disinterestedly to the guard, whose attention was wandering, his boredom evident.

  Then Ben’s voice again. “Got word through the Concordia chapter—Phillip Woolf just arrived on the landing roof at the DC, so brace yourself. Let’s see what other news I’ve got— oh, our agents in the Selasid Estate say Orin’s hosting a very secret guest in the Security wing with nobody but Hawkwood’s top staff in attendance. It has to be Ussher. No real news from here. Fina’s more or less back in one piece; the recovery’s going well. I—uh, asked Lady Adrien if she wanted to talk to you, but she thought maybe it’d be better . . . well, she said you’d understand. Erica moved her into HS 1’s guest room with your sons. You don’t need to worry about them, and Lady Adrien . . . took it well. About you.”

  Ben paused then, searching for words, Alexand knew, words of encouragement. There was no way to let him know they weren’t necessary; he had faith that the Phoenix would do everything humanly possible to save him. And he knew exactly how little was possible.

  “Alex, just remember, we’re . . . with you.” Then, after a short, unsuccessful laugh, “Anyway, we can’t afford to lose you now. So . . . later . . .”

  The doctor was mumbling to himself as he worked a strip of gauze around the elbow, the guard was tapping impatiently on his holster, and in the distance, the multiple thuds of booted feet echoed.

  Father, this wasn’t the way I wanted it.

  The guard roused himself and went to the door to confer with the other guard in the hall. Dr. Cambry seemed oblivious. It wasn’t until the beat of booted steps stopped outside the door that he finally looked up, sought the guard where he had been standing, then peered around at the door.

  “Oh, dear. What . . . oh . . .”

  The Lord Phillip DeKoven Woolf strode into the room, flanked by two scarlet-uniformed House guards and a perspiring Conpol captain. The doctor stared with sagging jaw, then scrambled to his feet, bowed jerkily, and dropped the roll of gauze; it u
nfurled silently and spent itself at Woolf’s feet.

  The captain snapped, “Cambry! I thought you’d be finished by now!”

  While the doctor nervously made excuses and tried to collect the gauze. Alexand waited silently, looking up into his father’s face.

  It was a mask, perfectly controlled, expressionless, unreadable. Only when he first entered and his eye chanced on Alexand’s arm, still exposed below the elbow, was there a hint of reaction, but it was too fleeting to be interpreted.

  The mask was enough.

  No frown of rage, no glare of chagrin, no accusing stare was necessary. Alexand knew the mask from childhood.

  You’re as much a traitor as your brother.

  He heard the words echoing down the long corridors of memory, while Woolf said quietly to the captain, “Let the doctor finish. I’ll wait.”

  Within a minute, Cambry was back in his chair hurriedly finishing the bandage, the House guards were waiting in the hall, the captain had been sent back to wherever he came from, and the Conpol guard was back in his position at Alexand’s left, rigidly at attention. Woolf was sitting by the table, adding nothing to the silence in the room.

  At length, Cambry completed his task, mumbled vaguely about an oral analgesic as he put a pill bottle on the bedside table, then stuffed his equipment into his case, and fled to the door, bowing repeatedly to Woolf. The guard, at Woolf’s gesture of dismissal, followed him.