The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  He looked at the compad, its face reflecting the countdown. Yes, Barrodagh could read it, if he could divert enough arrays for decryption; but he could never do that without Morrighon knowing. Barrodagh, on the other hand, could never be sure that those under him weren’t conspiring to read his, so he had to use hard copy to hide his thoughts. Morrighon smiled. His opponent was drowning in flimsies.

  The countdown reached single digits, and anxiety shot his heart-rate high again.

  But for a short time after the counter zeroed, nothing happened, save a brief, almost subliminal twitch of the station. There was no apparent response from Anaris. Morrighon was still trying to figure out if he had truly felt something when the lights flickered in familiar prolepsis. The air thickened. The station shuddered, the sonic components suggesting a protracted groan, and the heavy carpet on which the bed lay rippled uneasily like a sea creature awakening from dreams of prey.

  Then Morrighon felt a prickle of uncertainty as nothing further moved. By now, in Norio’s next-to-last attempt, there had been a storm of objects bursting from the furniture. He hadn’t known if the locks would stop this or merely slow the onslaught. But now it looked—

  His throat clenched as he saw the hand-span of air between Anaris and the bed. Anaris lay quiescent, his body relaxing into what Morrighon recognized as the curved posture of free-fall sleep. His body slowly rotated in two dimensions at once until he lay facedown at right angles to the bed.

  The movement brought Morrighon beyond fear to the dynamic seethe of utter terror, like a bomb detonating in his chest as a pucker formed in the wall in line with Anaris’s head.

  Morrighon forced himself to move on watery legs, his compad dangling from its tether. As he emerged from behind the furniture, a spasm of the station unbalanced him and he crashed painfully to his knees, shuddering under a wash of malevolence, brief as the flicker of an eyelid. The pucker dilated with a loud smack and Anaris’s body shot into it.

  But it was too small for his shoulders. The pucker snapped shut, stretching out in an obscene lip-like bulge as Anaris collapsed.

  Morrighon screamed in horror. It had taken his head. But no, he saw as he scrambled to his feet, Anaris was hanging by his head and neck. It was strangling him. Morrighon looked around frantically. Then he noticed the faint asymmetric elliptical shape of the pucker. Like the doors and their control glands.

  Morrighon cursed Anaris’s refusal to have a jac in his quarters: increased political vulnerability was preferable to strangulation by an alien obscenity. He fumbled in his lord’s sleeve, grabbing at his peshakh. To touch the ceremonial knife of a noble demanded death among the Children of Dol, but Morrighon was beyond fear. He ran to the door and jerked the opener down from the scaffold, cutting the ties that fastened its cable to the frame. When he had enough slack, he sighted over it on the minor focus of the elliptical pucker, where the control gland should have been, and groping for the compad with his other hand, tapped the door key.

  A lance of radiation sizzled across the room and flared against the pucker, which dilated with a loud snap, allowing the heir’s body to slump to the floor. His face was red, but he breathed.

  Had Anaris’s TK turned against him, or the station itself? Neither possibility was comforting. Abruptly Morrighon’s legs gave way and he slumped at the side of his lord as if collapsing under the weight of a future he dreaded.

  o0o

  Jaim laid a card down, keeping his voice bored as he declared his score. Across from him, Lokri let out an exclamation of disgust as he sent an inquiring look at Ivard, who sat cross-legged on his bed. Ivard nodded, then closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.

  Lokri’s brows rose as his silvery gaze queried Jaim and Sedry Thetris, who had moved beside the console. Sedry gave a slight nod, Jaim signified his own readiness, and Lokri smiled.

  “I won’t play with you anymore, you slime-sucking chatzer,” he yelled. “In fact, no one will play with you anymore!”

  And he launched himself at Jaim. They grappled lightly, bumping into as much furniture as possible. To aid them, Sedry grabbed up a couple of books and threw them down onto the floor near the telltale.

  At that moment the station shivered, the weird almost subsonic groaning began, and then the room quaked in earnest. Marim, in her corner, stopped sulking—which she’d been doing since Lar forced her to return early from the rec area—and smothered a laugh as she threw a pair of someone’s shoes at the console. One of them hit Sedry. She paid no attention, intent on her work.

  The fight had been Sedry’s idea, meant to fool Barrodagh’s inevitable listeners into thinking the crew too busy to mess with the console, in hopes it would seem that the station’s activity had overloaded the local node.

  Some fast work and she pushed away from the console. “It’s good now.”

  Jaim dropped onto a chair with a sense of relief despite the continued uproar. Lokri flopped down across another chair, his body tense.

  The walls flexed, shimmering in rippling puckers at the back. All Jaim’s senses were clamoring Danger! though Ivard and Vi’ya had both insisted that the weird seismic reactions of the station every time she tried to power it up were not a serious threat. To reassure himself, Jaim turned his attention to Ivard, who still sat on the bed as if oblivious to everything going on around him. His thin young face was tight with concentration, but Jaim did not see fear there.

  Presently the station subsided into quiescence, except for occasional ripples through the walls and floor.

  They all looked at one another; the luxury of being able to speak without considering their words, once taken for granted, now seemed overwhelming.

  “For how long?” asked Jaim.

  Sedry shrugged. “You’ll hear a burst of static from the console when they restore the narks, but from now on, if we keep the intervals random, I can shut them down for a short time whenever we need to talk. This system’s so dirty they’ll think it just more rogue bits.”

  Marim recovered first, cursing fluently. Over it, Sedry said, “I think Lar is beginning to trust me, and through him his cousin Tat, who is perforce Eusabian’s noderunner, under Lysanter’s direction—but she is under Morrighon, not Barrodagh. It could be that Morrighon might be an ally, though in any sense an alliance with him is necessarily limited.”

  “He’s Barrodagh’s enemy,” Lokri said.

  Marim, obviously annoyed at being ignored, said, “Barrodagh’s a blit. You watch what I’ll get out of him, before much longer.”

  Montrose’s mouth tightened, but Sedry sent him a quick look and said calmly, “That would be great, Marim. Whatever freedom you can win for us, whatever privileges, will help us all.”

  Jaim said, “But everything really hinges on Vi’ya.”

  Attention turned his way, and then to Ivard, who stirred slightly, then opened his eyes and lifted his head.

  “That thing I dream about,” he said. “It’s really there, really bad . . . but it’s not the station. The Eya’a hate it but can’t tell us anything.”

  He pressed the bridge of his nose with the fingers of both hands. “Hinders us. Also, she—we—can map the station, or could, I think, but how to get physical control? It’s like being in free-fall, trying to reach a surface.”

  “But Norio is dead,” Montrose said. “Wasn’t he the missing person that the High Phanist told us to expect when we got here? I never in my life thought I’d regret finding out that mindsnake had died.”

  Ivard sighed. “I don’t know how well we could have worked with Norio, for Vi’ya says he was rizzy-bad. But we need one more, someone who can help us . . .” He stretched out his hands. “. . . move.” He fell into abstraction.

  Sedry said, “Why don’t I teach you some of the signals I’ve learned from the Bori? We can use them after they repair the telltale, and you’ll be able to communicate somewhat with the underlings. But you must never let the soldiers or the Catennach Bori see these.”

  “Catennach? How can
you tell the difference? All Bori look alike.” Marim shrugged.

  “The Catennach are the ones who dedicate their lives to a lord’s service,” Sedry said. “They’re easy enough to spot. They don’t wear the gray coveralls that all the other servants must wear. They have gray tunics with belts. Like Morrighon and Barrodagh.”

  “None of them are on our side?” Marim asked. “All goons?”

  “No one is on our side,” Montrose said, his brows furrowed. “Remember that, in case your tongue starts loosening. None of them are on our side. With these people, the choice is simply who one thinks is strongest and will win, and they can change adherence in an eye-blink.”

  “The Rifter Bori want to leave as badly as we do,” Sedry murmured. “Lar’s hints have gotten stronger. I am beginning to think we might be able to rely on them. As long as we don’t increase the danger they are already in.” Sedry regarded Marim gravely. “By the way, in case you didn’t know—I certainly didn’t—one of the marks of the Catennach is that they have been mutilated.” She paused, her face reflecting deep distaste. “The men gelded, the women—”

  Marim squawked in surprise, interrupting whatever Sedry was going to say, then suddenly went crimson-faced with laughter.

  “Don’t tell me you tried to lure one of ’em,” Lokri drawled.

  Marim shrugged, her hand pressed over her mouth.

  Montrose sighed, and everyone else laughed. “You are insatiable, Marim. Simply insatiable. Care to tell us who?”

  She shrugged again more sharply. “Does it matter? Talk about a dead trace!”

  Jaim noticed that she did not meet anyone’s eyes, and felt a twinge of uneasiness.

  Lokri said, “Why? Is this some kind of perverted Dol’jharian fun, dragging off screaming Bori boys and girls, just to prevent them from bunnying?”

  “By choice,” Sedry said. “It is a measure of their commitment to the service of the lords if they choose to undergo it. And of course afterward, they have little inclination to bond with people in any manner considered normal, much less have a family, which supposedly keeps them loyal.”

  “Family structure is important to Bori,” Montrose said in a musing voice.

  “Which is why these service Bori are not permitted to use their family names. They have only one name, like children or slaves,” Sedry said.

  “I can’t imagine Barrodagh ever having had a family.” Marim propped her chin in her hand. “Blits like that are hatched.” The others laughed, and she shook her curls back, then said, “All right, Thetris, let’s have those signs.”

  Sedry began teaching them the Bori hand signals, which kept them busy until the console emitted a burst of static. But Vi’ya returned soon after that.

  As she had been the first time, she was pale with exhaustion. The Eya’a seemed utterly unperturbed; they moved with their accustomed weird energy. Passing by Ivard, they semaphored rapidly.

  Jaim watched Ivard’s fingers sign speedily in return, and then he turned toward Vi’ya, who sank down onto the bed behind him. Their gazes met, held, and blended.

  Then Vi’ya looked up at Jaim, who flexed his hands. Vi’ya’s eyes shuttered, which was all the answer Jaim needed. As she stretched out face down on the bed, Jaim sat astride her and began to knead the muscles connecting neck and shoulders.

  Even considering that Dol’jharians’ muscle tissue was denser than those raised on planets with lighter grav, hers were taut as steel cable.

  But Jaim was patient. And he observed, often without comment. Long ago he had learned the arts of the shakrian, the easing of pain, along with the Ulanshu paths of defense. He had also commenced learning the language of the Dol’jharians, in an effort to understand a terrible episode in his life, and those studies he had continued during his solitary stay in the Enclave on Ares. He now had a fair comprehension, though he had never used the language of her ancestors to Vi’ya before.

  But he did now: “We are on the eve of the Karusch-na Rahali.”

  On the periphery of his vision, Jaim noticed Sedry wince, and then move with graceless deliberation to the other side of the room. No willing eavesdropper there—she was too honest.

  Vi’ya, at first, said nothing. But they had known one another for years, and Jaim stated the obvious only when offering discussion on a controversial topic.

  His fingers worked up her spine and outward to her shoulder blades. He stayed silent.

  She said, “The fear on the part of the Bori and others of low status, and the lust of those in a position of power, probably would have killed Norio Danali if he had managed to survive the station.”

  Jaim considered this answer. Like anyone else, Vi’ya had her moods, and she was never more Dol’jharian than when her own particular ghosts were haunting her. When she was in this mood, a warning—implying weakness—would not be tolerated.

  But he needed to know if she planned to go hunting herself, and more important, if she would permit herself to be hunted.

  He tried a tangential approach. “Speaking of Bori, have either Morrighon or Barrodagh indicated what our fate is to be during this time?”

  “No,” she said. “The weakest are safe. The rest had better barricade the doors.”

  She had not said whether she would be among them.

  Jaim hesitated, his fingers stroking the tension out of her strong, scarred back. Ivard was still seated next to the bed. He lifted his head and met Jaim’s eyes. He said nothing, nor signed, but Jaim sensed his concern. Could he, too, understand Dol’jharian? Or did he get the sense of it from his telepathic rapport with Vi’ya?

  Then, from the far room, Jaim heard the high, weird chitter of the Eya’a, uttering some kind of ritual speech. Ivard smiled, and three of his fingers moved, in a triple rhythm, and Jaim understood.

  He was not alone in looking out for her welfare. The others of the Unity would do their best also, from their shared plane of intangibles.

  For now that would have to be enough.

  ELEVEN

  ARES

  On the big wall screen a short, round-faced man smiled seraphically. Above his snub nose there was a revealing smoothness in his forehead, indicating he was an ajna novosti—an interviewer—but this time Ares 25’s prime interviewer was not wearing his ajna. Instead, the famous Nik Cormoran was the interviewee.

  “This is Residence Five,” he said, pacing along the perimeter of a modest garden. “Until recently, during its seven hundred years of existence, it was known as Detention Five. Unlike the carefully guarded Detention One, which has mostly housed civilian capital criminals, and Detention Two, which is for military capital criminals, the other three detention blocks have hosted an astonishing array of inconvenient individuals, from a Krysarchei centuries ago to more modern political troublemakers.

  “Until very recently, it also housed part of the crew of a ship whose name has become familiar to everyone on Ares—and soon will be to the rest of the Thousand Suns—the Telvarna.” He paused, palming open a door to a modest suite. “Here is where part of that crew was housed. Now it’s temporary quarters for two families of refugees, who permitted us access today.”

  Cormoran paced the short distance to a room, and as the door slid open, he said, “Only part of the crew stayed here. The cook, Montrose, and the drivetech, Jaim, were part of the Panarch’s staff at the Enclave. And then there was the Douloi-born communications tech who called himself Lokri, who until the recent trial had been incarcerated in Detention One under the charge of murder.”

  He entered a starkly bare room containing only a console and a neatly made bed. “Here the captain lived and worked, noderunning deep in the Net, together with an ex-Navy commander, not only to find the real murderers but to topple the highly placed triumvirate who had tried to wrest the government from the new Panarch.”

  Nik closed the door again and passed on to the next. “This room housed the Eya’a, sophonts from a planet that no longer permits humans to land. As far as we know, the two who are part of the Telv
arna’s crew—apparently bonded to the captain through her tempathy—are the only representatives of this race who have left the planet.”

  He passed to a third room. “Here stayed Ivard, who had bonded with the Kelly Archon—Eldest of their race—during the Telvarna’s raid on Arthelion. He’s the first human to experience such a bonding, or the first one to survive it.”

  Cormoran leaned over the back of a chair, his large, limpid eyes earnest and confiding. “For a bunch of outlaws, this crew has managed to associate themselves with some of the most influential . . . governments? . . . in our segment of the galaxy. Governments,” he repeated.

  “Certainly our own.” He walked outside the suite and paused. “They rescued—some say kidnapped—Krysarch Brandon nyr-Arkad then took him to the Mandala, an unlikely place for Rifters to visit. There they rescued Gnostor Omilov, obtained and then lost the mysterious Urian artifact that had been housed for ten million years on the Shrine Planet in the Paradisum system. This much we know. We also know that the Krysarch, during that famous raid on Arthelion, gave to the captain the treasure known as the Stone of Prometheus.

  “Any of these items alone might have assured any normal person security, a fortune, and a position, but this Rifter crew seems to have resisted incorporation into the Panarchy.”

  He smiled, spreading his hands. “And now they are gone.”

  Lieutenant Osri Omilov turned away from the screen, damping the sound to near inaudible. “They got the naval logs somehow, and know that my father sent them, and that you called them back. As yet that’s all they know. Want to hear it?”

  Brandon hai-Arkad, now Panarch of the Thousand Suns, shook his head. “No need.” He turned away from the screen. His blue tunic was neat and unmarked—indicating he meant to stay in the background—and he betrayed no signs of nervousness. “Not necessarily all they know. But it’s all they’re telling.”

  Osri resisted the impulse to smooth his damp palms down his crisp, neat uniform.

  In less than an hour, the scheduled test to destroy the hyper-relay brought in by the Rifter captain Lochiel MacKenzie would reveal whether or not a lance attack on the Suneater would succeed. He and Brandon would both be there: Brandon in the naval test center and Osri in the Jupiter lab, as official naval liaison with his father’s Suneater research project. The outcome meant little to him personally, yet he felt the dry mouth and cramping gut of tension.