The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  “I have told them I will devalue the work counters of anyone who repeats that rumor,” Delmantias finished.

  “Wonderful,” Barrodagh said acidly. Delmantias was behind schedule with the cims, so Barrodagh could afford to indulge himself at his expense. “Without money for gaming, they’ll sit around in their quarters waiting for one of the walls to swallow them. Half of them are already jumping through the doors, despite the fact the recycling room is under guard.”

  “What would you have me do?” Delmantias hid his fury imperfectly, which was one of the reasons Barrodagh didn’t fear him very much.

  “Take away their food bonuses. Tell them if they can’t trust the station walls, then they obviously can’t trust what grows on them. The Ur-fruit will go to those who watch their tongues.”

  Delmantias grimaced, and in that Barrodagh was in full agreement. None of the Catennach Bori trusted the Ur-fruit, despite the rumor of an addictive taste. But there was no denying that productivity had been rising since many of the under-Bori and all of the Dol’jharian ordinaries now competed to earn them.

  “Very well, serach Barrodagh,” Delmantias replied. The minimal honorific there, but Barrodagh didn’t expect more. “Then I will need to assign more workers to harvesting them, since they grow ever more freely.”

  “You know the priorities,” Barrodagh said coldly. Yes, he knows them all too well. With the personal directive of the Avatar backing him, Delmantias was inflexible on the subject of the additional stasis clamps that Barrodagh so desperately wanted for his quarters. Well, Ferrasin’s other worm would help take care of that.

  After Delmantias left, Barrodagh dealt with the rest of the interviews in summary fashion and then told his new secretary, Gilerrant, that he was not to be disturbed unless one of the lords summoned him. Seating himself behind a desk whose clutter was becoming hard to bear, he brought up the records the computers had delivered on the crew of the Telvarna, winnowed from the DataNet and Rifthaven.

  He scanned the summary again. His lips curled. Lower than mediocre, even for Rifters. A rakehell gambler, a cheat, a refugee from the Panarchist hellhole Timberwell, a crazed boy infected by aliens.

  Barrodagh grunted in disgust. The lot of them were barely worth recycling, except for the tempath, and she, being tempathic and Dol’jharian, was a rarity that could only mean deadly danger as far as he was concerned. Even without her alien pets; Barrodagh was thankful the Eya’a had not awakened yet, either. It would be his pleasure to dump the lot into space if Vi’ya didn’t wake up.

  Right now, on the assumption she would, it was the newest member of the Telvarna’s crew he was concerned with: Sedry Thetris, traitor to the Panarchy for a time, now a Rifter. She had apparently been implicated in the disruption of the control of Arthelion’s DataNet before the attack.

  That demanded a closer look. It would be interesting to see how forthcoming she was about developments on Ares and how closely her account corresponded to what the noderunners on the DataNet and Arthelion, and VLDA surveillance of the station itself, had revealed. Being a Rifter, she would be no friend to her former commanders; it might be that her noderunning talents could be turned to his advantage, perhaps even enabling him to dispose of Ferrasin’s assistance.

  He checked the latest recordings from the Rifters’ quarters, then picked up the boy’s flimsy. Bonded to one of the Kelly beasts in some fashion—according to the same Rifthaven source the very Kelly the Avatar’s Tarkans had butchered before the Emerald Throne. Perhaps that’s why he chattered of this Blessed Three, some religious nonsense picked up from the snaky tripeds. He would be the next to interrogate, after the Thetris woman.

  But that would have to wait until the tempath awoke or died. Until then, let boredom, inactivity, and fear weigh on them all.

  His compad beeped. “What is it?”

  “Hreem on the Flower of Lith has arrived in-system.”

  Barrodagh opened his mouth to blast his secretary for ignoring his instructions, then paused. In this case, Gilerrant’s judgment had been correct: Hreem was a very important piece of unfinished business.

  He composed a brief message to Juvaszt on the Fist of Dol’jhar and sent it off, first priority. “Put him through,” he said finally, and tabbed the comm signal to silent mode.

  In the brief interval before the connection was established from the hyperwave chamber to his console, Barrodagh reflected on the situation. He had no illusions about what had really happened at Malachronte, where Hreem had very nearly captured a completed battlecruiser in the Ways. And he had no illusions, either, about what Hreem intended with the Ogres, if he once saw an opportunity on the Suneater. But he would be a useful counterbalance to Vi’ya, if she awoke. And if she didn’t. . . .

  Hreem’s face resolved on the console.

  First to soften him up with uncertainty and find out if the Fist can see whom he has talked to. For Barrodagh was sure that Hreem would not have approached the Suneater without checking out the situation first—he even had a fairly good idea with whom. The battlecruiser’s array might reveal the truth.

  “Captain chaka-Jalashalal.” Barrodagh smiled. “I’ve good news.”

  The Rifter scowled, not hiding his distrust.

  “The Avatar is pleased with your actions at Barca and with your gift of Ogres. You’re to be honored with a personal interview.”

  Hreem stared. Then he smiled slowly. “So the Ogres really tickled his . . . fancy, eh?”

  “Indeed.” Barrodagh expanded on the theme, feeding the Rifter’s ego by appearing to confide in him the uses to which the Avatar intended to put the Ogres.

  Midway through his mendacious litany, the comm vibrated under his palm. The Bori acknowledged with a subtle twitch of one finger, and when he paused to let Hreem speak, he read Juvaszt’s reply on the screen, superimposed under Hreem’s image.

  Transponders along Satansclaw course reveal rendezvous with Flower of Lith at 26:38, duration nine minutes.

  Satisfaction washed through Barrodagh. He had been right. And so Hreem undoubtedly knew of the presence of Vi’ya on the station: Tallis would have been unable to keep that news to himself.

  “And,” he finished, “as you no doubt have familiarized yourself with the devices, there could well be an important role for you in those efforts.” He saw in Hreem’s face that the other had heard the subtle warning. Now to exploit the slight imbalance that had created. “As well, there may be a role here for you. A further reward, as it were.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A certain acquaintance of yours is here.”

  Hreem’s pupils widened slightly, his only reaction.

  “Her name is Vi’ya, of the Telvarna. You have had dealings with her, I understand.”

  Hreem stared—then guffawed. Barrodagh heard the falseness of the sound. He is surprised that I told him. “Burned her mate down right in front of her for jackin’ me,” Hreem replied harshly. “You could call that dealings.”

  Barrodagh nodded. “As you know, like all tempaths she has been promised a large reward if she starts up the station. The reward the Avatar intends, however, is somewhat different.”

  He watched a cruel smile curve Hreem’s mouth as he continued. “And it might be that you will deliver it to her.” Barrodagh also smiled. “Or her to it, as the case may be.”

  But when Hreem demanded approach instructions, Barrodagh stopped smiling. “Ah, Captain, under the circumstances, it would not be safe for you here, nor would it do to engage Captain Vi’ya’s suspicions, as your presence would surely do. For now, the Avatar would have you join the pickets around the system, until a more propitious moment. In the meantime, I will detail a cutter to pick up two of the Ogres, to prepare them for the ceremony.”

  And give the Avatar something to play with, he thought.

  “What about the rest of them?”

  “Those you will deliver.”

  Hreem didn’t argue much, a fact that convinced Barrodagh that the Rifter had believ
ed his little fable. “But none of this spin reactor piss you’ve been pulling with the others. The Lith’s reactors stay on standby.”

  Barrodagh argued for the sake of authenticity, then yielded with a show of anger that wasn’t hard to counterfeit. Once Hreem was off his ship, the matter could be dealt with easily. He turned Hreem over to Juvaszt for instructions, and started sorting through the pile of reports on his desk.

  A fresh surge of rage gnawed at his guts.

  It was merely the official report from the Syndics of Rifthaven on their successful defense against Aroga Blackheart and his fleet of renegades. And on its face, it was unfailingly proper. But between the lines lay the accusation that Barrodagh had ordered the attack, and the stupidity which that implied on his part made him furious.

  In reality Juvaszt had turned their hyper-relays off as soon as the incursion was reported but of course the attackers were by then already within the resonance field of Rifthaven, where they had known they’d be limited to energy weapons and missiles. Aroga had very nearly succeeded.

  What really gnawed at him was that, of course, he would have gladly recognized Aroga’s authority. He couldn’t have been more trouble than the Syndics already were. Barrodagh tried to relax the gritting of his teeth against a renewed tremor of pain in his cheek, fearful it would explode into raving agony again. He scrabbled in his desk for another pill and swallowed it dry, just as the shrilling of an expiring timer announced his regular meeting with Lysanter.

  Barrodagh braced himself for the awful sucking sound, triggered the door control, and left his office. He summoned one of the little transports and curtly told the low-caste Bori driving it to take him to the computer room. It galled him to have to go to the Urian specialist, rather than summoning him, but the scientist was currently riding high in the Avatar’s favor.

  It was more than the partially successful tempath experiments. Eusabian had directed Lysanter to rig a high-level interface for him to the computer systems, which had been a mixed blessing in the Bori’s opinion. It had assuaged the Avatar’s boredom to some extent, but it had eroded Barrodagh’s control, and worse, he had been unable to track what his lord was accessing.

  At least that was now changed, or would be in a few hours if Ferrasin had done his job right. Barrodagh cursed again the accident of fate that had placed Tatriman, who had actually created Eusabian’s new module, in Morrighon’s control. She was too good.

  The computer lab hummed with activity. Lysanter’s desk was wedged into a small alcove, crowded off the main area by rank upon rank of tall compute arrays. Bori techs bustled back and forth, some with tools, some with chips and readers and compads. The warm room smelled of sweat, overlaid by a not-quite-subliminal metallic taint. Barrodagh gazed hungrily at the stasis clamps thickly clustered on every surface of the chamber; no movement at all could be tolerated there.

  Lysanter looked tired. From the appearance of his desk and console, he was as heavily overworked as Barrodagh himself. Amused, Barrodagh settled firmly into the chair and resolved to ask many questions. One of the few pleasures of this nightmarish existence on the Suneater was making the Urian specialist squirm.

  Lysanter sighed at the sight of Barrodagh leaning back in the chair. Another interminable interrogation. At least he comes here, which saves me transport time. “Serach Barrodagh.”

  “Serach Lysanter.” Barrodagh’s cheek twitched. “Your compute-array allocation report is not entirely clear to me.”

  Lysanter tabbed his console, and a pattern comprising solid bars of light sprang out of his desk. “Exploration and mapping, quantum interface control, standard sensoria.” He pointed in turn at the most significant ones. “Oh, and stasis control.” He looked through the display at Barrodagh; the colored light accentuated the tension and exhaustion marking the man’s face, and for the first time Lysanter wondered how old Barrodagh was. He appeared to have aged a couple of decades in the last year alone, while Morrighon seemed no more affected than any other Catennach by life on the Suneater. Less, perhaps.

  Barrodagh’s cheek jumped again, and his right hand twitched as if to touch it. He controlled the impulse by gripping his hand in a fist. “Why so much on the interfaces?”

  Lysanter tapped the key and the light-bars collapsed. “Each attempted tempathic probe has affected the conformation of the station, opening new volumes for exploration. If this tempath recovers, and is as powerful as I expect, I will need much more compute capacity for the areas she may open up.”

  “And what are the chances of her recovery?” Barrodagh tried to modulate his tone, but to Lysanter he sounded like he hoped for the worst.

  Worst for me, that is, Lysanter thought grimly. “Her vital signs are stable. The Rifter physician is monitoring her carefully. He sounds optimistic.”

  Barrodagh frowned. “Have you found out why the heir collapsed? Was he shot by mistake?”

  “No. He recovered far too quickly. But he was the closest to the tempath and the aliens with her. The Rifter physician, Montrose, thinks that a burst of psi energy from the aliens affected the heir. I see no reason not to believe him.”

  Barrodagh looked sour. “But this excess capacity you say is for exploration. You’re not using it for that right now.”

  “No, but it needed to be built in advance and calibrated, so right now I have those banks configured as correlators and discriminators for the monitor interfaces, which may deliver additional information during her attempt.”

  “What if her greater powers provoke a greater response? We could all be killed. Why are you not putting more into stasis control, to prevent that?”

  Lysanter sighed. The Catennach prided themselves on their superiority to the low-caste Bori—his genitals shrank as he thought of the measure of that superiority—but they were prone to much the same neuroses. Barrodagh was clearly as terrified of being swallowed by the station walls as any menial. Maybe more so; the Catennach felt their exalted position gave them a chance at sufficient stasis clamps to mute their chambers’ movements to a comfortable level. The menials had had to accustom themselves to the harmless shifts and flutters that most of the clamps were programmed to allow.

  “Serach Barrodagh, our experiments early in our occupation provoked reactions as great as any of the material the station can produce, according to what the interfaces have revealed over the last fifteen years. We can control any foreseeable reaction in the inhabited areas. And additional emergency airlocks do not cost anywhere near as much compute capacity as do stasis clamps. The control curve is exponential.”

  “So it will be your continued recommendation to the Avatar to scant the stasis clamps?” Barrodagh’s voice was almost a snarl.

  Lysanter spread his hands in placation. The man is almost psychotic on the subject. “You know the Avatar’s will in this matter is unsheathed. Neither of us can afford to defy it. The station is safe as instrumented.”

  “Is it? Surely you’ve heard rumors. There’s a reason half the personnel are jumping through doors, and the other half are constipated.”

  Lysanter stared at him, utterly baffled by the apparent non sequitur. Then a forgotten memory from childhood surfaced, and a bubble of laughter rose in his chest.

  “They’re afraid of the disposers?” He fought the laughter. They think they’ll be sucked down the disposers. The childhood dream image was vivid; shorn of its terror by the decades intervening, it was now only ludicrous. Then a new thought occurred to him and he lost the battle. Now I know why Eusabian and the high-caste Bori have armor-encased disposer chambers.

  Lysanter was helpless to stem the tears streaming down his face, and the rage in Barrodagh’s face just made him laugh harder. I never realized before that his normal expression is one of constipation. He knew he was on the edge of hysteria. The stress is affecting me, too, as much as I would deny it. This place was not made for human beings, and it’s trying to adapt to us using a set of rules we don’t understand.

  The thought sobered him slightly.
“I’m sorry, senz-lo Barrodagh,” he gasped, seeing a hint of mollification in the Bori’s face at the unusual honorific. He was a dangerous enemy, and Lysanter had gone too far. He would have to make amends.

  But there was no reason he couldn’t advance his own agenda at the same time. “Perhaps,” he continued, “if the new tempath does open up new areas, even if we cannot emphasize stasis clamp production, we can divert more compute power to them. Assuming that I do not lose further computer capacity to cryptography and the defense preparations, it would take only a slight overage . . .” He let his voice drift. In truth, this was partly his fault. He should have insisted on greater secrecy for the experiments with the recycling chamber.

  Barrodagh slumped back in his chair, eyeing him consideringly while Lysanter dried his eyes. “Very well.” He brooded, gazed fixed, while Lysanter tried not to fidget. “I have not yet seen an analysis of the new Ur-fruit,” he said finally.

  Lysanter’s mood lightened; the new Ur-fruit were an interesting development. “We’re having trouble getting samples, and what we get are not consistent. The only common factor seems to be psycho-activity.”

  “Drugs, as rumored,” Barrodagh said flatly. “It’s not surprising you can’t get samples. They sell them.”

  Of course, Lysanter thought. The Catennach, like their masters, are deeply suspicious of pleasure, especially in their underlings. “I think,” he replied, “that you are missing the point of this latest manifestation.”

  Barrodagh’s hand moved toward his face, then twitched downward, drawing Lysanter’s gaze to his dry, chafed knuckles, his cuticles ragged. “How did the station know that we—I mean the unders and the ordinaries—wanted to get intoxicated? That’s a mental state.”

  “Why did it have to know anything?” Barrodagh retorted. “You spill blood on it, and it spews blood. The menials are forever fermenting some slop or other into alcoholic concoctions. A simple accident would do it.”

  Lysanter stopped himself, aghast at the misstep he’d almost made. He could not tell Barrodagh his suspicion—that Li Pung’s absorption while alive had given the station an example of a living brain, which had enabled it to figure out how to modify its behavior with drugs. The effect on his research would be disastrous. Barrodagh would go straight to Eusabian, who might do anything. After all, it was the Avatar’s order, following the reaction of the station to Li Pung’s sacrifice, to cut off the heads of all future fatalities and throw them into space. “Perhaps you’re right. That seems reasonable,” he said instead.