by Wren, M. K.
Adrien was looking at Ben, a direct, unblinking gaze he seemed uncomfortable with; he didn’t understand it.
She said, “You know what happened at that meeting, Ben. As Alexand said, Lord Woolf had no choice. Will Alex be . . . surrendered to the SSB when the execution order is signed?”
Erica flinched inwardly and reached for her coffee cup. She saw Ben’s glance of appeal, but avoided it.
He said dully, “Yes, my lady. Probably so.”
“I see. He’ll be stripped of the MT fixes if that happens, so if he’s to be rescued, it must be before he’s transferred from the Conpol DC to the SSB DC. Can it be done?”
Ben tried an offhand smile. “We’ve pulled people out of the Central DC plenty of times. We’ve got four agents in there, monitors and MT fixes on Alex, and time. Seven hours before the Directorate meets.”
Adrien listened, unmoved, and when he finished, repeated her question.
“Can it be done?”
Jael rose and propped his fists on his hips.
“She wants a straight say, Ben. It’s hers to ask.” Then to Adrien, “We don’t have the odds with us. You know about the shock screens in his room. The only way we can turn them off is to get at the central control board, and that’s sealed tight. We can’t even get near Alex; they cleared that corridor and sealed it up, too. We’re lucky we had a doctor inside, or Alex would still be in limbo.”
Her hands were folded in her lap. Erica saw them tighten, one on the other, but that was all.
“The doctor can’t do anything more?”
“He might be able to get into the room again if Alex ran a sick gim, but he can’t touch the shock screens, and that’s Alex’s only door.”
“The doctor couldn’t leave MT fixes somewhere outside Alex’s room so you could . . . trans more men in?”
Ben braced himself to answer that question.
“My lady, we thought about that. We could mount an armed invasion inside the DC, but the trouble is . . .” He needed a deep breath before he could go on. “His room is equipped with cyanide gas sprays. The standing orders are to kill him before taking a chance on letting him escape.”
Erica tensed, seeing Adrien turn even paler, but she didn’t give way; she looked up at Jael as he said, “We gave a long thought to snuffing old Cyclops. It might be a blessing for humankind, but even that wouldn’t turn a ’cord for Alex. In fact, we’d better send up a few prayers that Selasis doesn’t die a natural death in the next few hours. He could choke on a fish bone, and the Directors would lay it to the Phoenix.”
“And cry all the louder for Alexand’s blood.” Adrien nodded, shifting her blind gaze to Ben. “What else is left us?”
He spread his hands, palms up. “We can hope Galinin regains consciousness long enough to tell somebody what really happened, or we can hope Woolf . . .”
“Will have a change of heart?” she asked caustically. Then she frowned. “That would be more likely if he could be convinced of Orin’s vulnerability. Karlis; his golden eunuch.”
Ben nodded. “Woolf’s acting Chairman now—until Selasis makes his bid, and that probably won’t be before Galinin dies. As long as Woolf has the title, he can order a Board of Succession investigation.” His voice betrayed his skepticism, and no hope was kindled in Adrien’s eyes.
“Is there nothing else?”
“Taking Alex by force. If he’s moved to the SSB DC, we might have a chance during the transfer, unless they’re smart enough to use portable shock screens and keep a gun at his head.”
“They’re at least that intelligent, Ben.”
He shrugged wearily. “Well, then our last chance will be at the . . . the execution. With that many people around, shock screens won’t be practical. Besides, once they get him on that stand, they’ll probably depend on the fact that he’ll be surrounded by fifty Directorate guards.”
Adrien’s eyes narrowed. “Won’t they be justified in depending on that?”
“Not if enough of them happen to be Phoenix members.” Then, having finally said something that inspired some hope, he seemed to feel a perverse obligation to dampen it with qualification. “It’s a long chance. He’ll be exposed, and there’ll be plenty of authentic guards around him, all armed.”
She gave a short laugh, devoid of amusement. “Still, planning for that will be more productive than simply hoping for Galinin’s recovery or Woolf’s change of heart.”
Jael looked at his watch. “I’ll have to ex out now. I’m lifting off for Concordia in half an hour.”
Erica saw a tension in Adrien’s features that served as a warning. She rose, facing Jael.
“I’m going with you.”
At that, Ben came to his feet, too. “Uh . . . my lady, I don’t think . . . I mean, the Concordia chapter’s a double ident operation, and—”
“And I wouldn’t be safe?” The mordant meaninglessness of that word was evident. She turned to Erica, a gentle light shining fleetingly in her eyes. “I must leave Rich and Eric in your care, and I know it will be loving care.”
Erica managed a smile. “It will be, my lady. Always. Whatever happens, you may depend on that.”
“I do. And whatever happens . . .” She hesitated, then turned to Jael. “I’ll be ready to leave when you are.”
3.
Alexandra stirred, but didn’t wake. Only dreaming.
04:10 TST. Phillip Woolf pushed back his sleeve to check his watch, then looked again into his daughter’s face, softly lit in the changing light of the lumensa; shimmering warm blues and greens for peaceful sleep. The music shaping the colors was so low it was nearly inaudible. An imp, Mathis called her, a young witch, and she had power to charm, even in sleep. She’d be a beauty one day; Olivet’s fair skin, and the black hair and clear blue eyes of DeKoven Woolf. One day.
But now, Alexandra, two years old, lay absorbed in dreams, dark hair curling against her cheek, and Woolf found himself looking not into the future, but into the past. It might have been Rich, this sleeping child; Rich at two, before . . .
Woolf turned and crossed to the smaller bed in another alcove where Justin lay asleep. So much Olivet’s child, golden haired, his eyes exactly the same deep, lavender blue as hers. It had seemed fitting that this, their first born son, should be so evidently her child.
Olivet Omer Woolf was the embodiment of a second life for him, one he never hoped for when the first ended; a second chance at happiness for himself, and for the House—
Survival.
The word was a black weight in his mind. In the end, was that all it came to?
He heard a whisper of sound and turned. Olivet was standing in the doorway, the brighter light behind her making a diaphanous glow of her robe, sheening the aureate sweep of her hair with silver.
Was survival so much to be scorned?
“Phillip . . .?”
He went to her and put his arm around her shoulders, waiting until they were in the sitting room before he spoke.
“You needn’t have waited up for me, Olivet.”
“I found sleep a little elusive tonight. Phillip, are you . . . are you all right?”
He knew what she meant, and he couldn’t answer the real questions any more than she could ask them.
“Yes, I’m all right. I’ve done what I could to restore order, so I thought I’d better get a few hours’ rest.”
He walked with her out onto the balcony adjoining the sitting room, a favorite personal place of theirs. It looked out over an informal garden scented with acacia and rock daphne and beyond to the lights of Concordia. But in the darkness before this dawn, the air was acrid with smoke, an oppressive layer of cloud containing and reflecting a sickly light.
For a time he stood at the railing, Olivet silent beside him, until at length she asked, “Any news of Mathis?�
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“I stopped at his Estate on my way home. No change. Dr. Perris seems to consider that encouraging, but I don’t think Stel agrees.”
“Phillip, is . . . Alexand really alive?” Then, when he frowned questioningly, she added, “Father ’commed me. He’s worried about the succession; about Justin. As if Justin would even know the difference if he weren’t the first born.”
Woolf paused, struck by the beautiful naïveté of that.
“I doubt Sandro is concerned for Justin’s feelings.” He took a long breath, resenting the caustic smell of the air. “Yes, Olivet, Alexand’s alive. He calls himself Commander Alex Ransom. Of the Phoenix.”
She looked up into his face, then with a sigh turned away.
“Oh, it seems so . . . what a bitter thing, that such a miracle should be turned into a tragedy.”
“A miracle?” The word didn’t seem to make sense.
“Alexand. To have someone you loved and thought dead restored to you. That should be a miracle. Phillip, I’m sorry.”
He nodded numbly. “I know. Thank you.”
“Do you think he really tried to kill Mathis?”
For a moment, Woolf considered the question, seeking within himself for his inner convictions. Alexand could not have raised a hand against Mathis, but Commander Alex Ransom . . .
I don’t know. And the question was totally irrelevant now; he wondered if Olivet would ever understand that. A new era had been ushered in this day; an era in which the savage exponent of violent death had entered the equations of human interaction on the highest governmental level, and the restraints of law and convention no longer restricted the pursuit of power.
Power and survival were synonymous.
In this new era, politics had reverted to the basic natural criterion of success: survival.
Olivet said regretfully, “Forgive me, I shouldn’t force you to talk about it. I was only . . . surprised.”
“Surprised? What do you mean?”
“I just can’t believe it of Alexand. I didn’t know him well, but we were so nearly the same age, we met at quite a lot of social events. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of him when he thought he was unobserved.” She hesitated, looking out toward the smoke-palled city. “How much can you really learn about a person in that sort of situation? I think all I was really sure of was that he was . . . lonely. Profoundly lonely.”
That word, that concept, was entirely unexpected, and so was his response to it. Like a physical blow; his breath caught, and he had to stop himself from doubling over.
She reached out for his hand. “You must get some rest now. Please.”
“You go on to bed. I’ll be there in a short while. I need a few minutes alone to . . . think.”
She didn’t argue, not by word or gesture; she had a gentle capacity for accepting without question even what she didn’t fully understand. Woolf cupped her face in his hands, watching her lips shaping a smile while her eyes brimmed with tears. He kissed the smile.
“A few minutes, Olivet.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He turned to the railing, listening to the silken sounds of her departure, trying to hold on to that; the only sound that filled the vacuum was the rumbling hum of the city, dimmed by distance and disaster.
Can you deny your genes in every cell of his body?
Why can’t I forget? The back of his hand tingled with the impact of a blow struck five years ago.
I am betrayed. Betrayed then as I am now.
Sardonic laughter welled within him. Have I not betrayed Mathis and myself, made a pact with evil? And what is betrayal? An abstraction as meaningless as faith in a world where the only criterion of success is survival. Survival at any cost, because not even the cost is meaningful.
Then, abruptly, his every muscle tensed in alarm.
The hum of the city no longer reached him; someone had activated the sound screens. The artificial silence made him all the more aware of a sound directly behind him. A light footstep.
Orin won’t kill me now. That was part of the pact.
Olivet. It must be Olivet.
He turned, one hand raised, ready to snap the small laser into his palm; he’d worn the spring sheath since the attack in the Directorate Hall. Someone was standing in the doorway, framed in light, but it wasn’t Olivet. He stared at the woman before him, at an apparition, and wondered why at first he thought she was robed in lambent sheaths of pearls. She was, in fact, dressed in a simple slacsuit.
Adrien Eliseer.
His hand groped backward, seeking the support of the railing. She took three steps toward him.
“Forgive me, my lord, but I had no way to warn you of my coming, or of my living.”
He asked haltingly, “What do you want?”
That seemed to surprise her; perhaps she expected him to question her identity. He didn’t. There was only one thing he was sure of at this moment. He knew who she was.
Finally, she answered him.
“My lord, I’ve come to ask for my husband’s life.”
“Phillip? Is something . . . what happened?”
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. There was no light in the room, but the windowalls were clear. The pallid glow from the city sketched Olivet sitting up in the bed. She was frightened. That was in her voice.
“Nothing . . . happened, Olivet. Nothing’s wrong.”
She would hear the lie of that in his voice, but how could he even begin to tell her what had happened? How could he find the words to encompass what was wrong?
He went to a chair near the door and began stripping off his clothes, trying to remember when he had put them on. Yesterday morning. Concord Day. Somewhere in that dim past era of a day ago. Olivet was still waiting, still afraid, but he couldn’t say anything to reassure her. He could only ask for her silence with his.
Dear wife, I just had a little chat with a ghost who told me an enchanting tale of a place called Saint Petra’s of Ellay, of the secret birth of twin infants, and the first born was called Richard. And you, my lady, who haven’t yet seen three decades, are by a magical stroke, a grandmother.
And I . . . am a grandfather.
Then there was a charming little coda. By another magical stroke, it was given unto me the power, by the utterance of a single order, to destroy the great one-eyed ogre, Selasis.
The rumors are true, my lord.
What isn’t true in the enchanted world on the other side of the rainbow?
But dear wife, I had to tell that lovely ghost that I live on this side of the rainbow, where there is no truth, only . . . survival.
She didn’t understand; didn’t understand that I can’t believe her—not in this world, in this new era.
But Alexand is innocent.
She didn’t understand that Alexand’s father couldn’t believe that, and even if he did . . .
He tugged off his boots, let them fall, and sagged against the arm of the chair. Never since Elise’s death had he endured anguish so mordant.
The ghost left me with a curse; a potent curse.
He heard Olivet stirring and forced himself to rise. He tossed the rest of his clothing onto the chair, then stood naked, looking out into the dull glow that should have been the coming of dawn. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, as Olivet’s already had. He saw her there, waiting; she didn’t move except to tilt her head back to watch him when he went to the bed and leaned over her.
“Olivet . . . I love you. Don’t be afraid.”
She reached up and touched his cheek.
“If love were enough, you wouldn’t be afraid.”
But what else do we have?
He leaned closer until his lips touched hers. Trembling. He could feel it in that light touch, and knew n
o other way to stop it, except to seek something else in it. Slowly, savoring the languid distraction of the kiss, he carried her, let her sink with him, down into the cushioned warmth of the bed.
What else do we have?
My lady wife, love me, make love with me. It will be enough.
And yet it wasn’t.
Later, when she lay beneath him, and he lay closed in the soft constraint of her arms and thighs, when the darkness seemed to constrict and beat with a single impulse, he pulled away from her with a harsh cry he couldn’t restrain and lay panting, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut. All that stopped him from weeping for that encompassing realization of failure, even of shame, was some vague conviction that to give way to tears would be an even greater failure, a greater shame.
Never before. Never had this happened. Never.
Even my body betrays me.
Olivet stirred, took a long breath; she spoke not a word, moving in the darkness, drawing close to him, asking no more than his shoulder for her head, his hand in hers.
Here was love, warm and accepting beside him, but it wasn’t enough.
He stared up into nothingness, aware of an incipient nacreous glow. Dawn. It was coming finally.
The first dawn of the new era.
4.
It was 07:30, only half an hour before the Directorate meeting. Still, when Phillip Woolf arrived at the Galinin Estate, he took time to check the security procedures in the infirmary wing and discuss them with Galinin’s Chief of Security. He was satisfied with Master Devron’s efforts, but well aware that total security was an impossibility.
He kept thinking of Commander Alex Ransom’s offhand assurance that the Phoenix could trans a bomb anywhere, even into the Directorate Chamber.
He encountered Galinin’s brother, Emil, and Rodrik, his first born, as they were leaving the infirmary wing, Emil bent and bewildered, too distracted for more than a few words. Rodrik seemed preoccupied, and Woolf noted the pretentious gravity in his bearing. No doubt he thought it appropriate to the probable heir to Daro Galinin.
