The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  “And, some ten million years ago, some force, or beings, or something for which we have neither words nor concepts, emerged from the galaxy’s heart to the challenge the hegemony of the Ur.”

  With a veer of perspective that caused a universal sigh, the imaged point of view swung about and exploded outward along the galactic plane, racing out along the Rift amidst a wrack of stars and nebulae and the dust of shattered planets. To either side, vast walls of stars moved past in slow and stately silence; nearer, solitary suns whipped past, dwindled, and were lost.

  “We do not know who won—perhaps there was no winner—for both the Ur and the power that opposed them have vanished from Totality. Their battlefield was what became the Rift, their weapons unknown.”

  The walls of stars narrowed and collapsed inward to resemble the gut walls of some vast beast as they twisted toward a solitary star system.

  The motion of the image slowed and ceased. Now there loomed a bizarre construct of twisting tubes and cones, seeming neither flesh nor metal, and behind it the flaring glory of a black hole binary.

  “Until now. Here the war, if war it was and not extermination, ended, and with it the Rift ends too, leaving behind only this Suneater, now in the hands of Dol’jhar.”

  Omilov fell silent, a long pause that stretched Houmanopoulis’s nerves thin.

  Brandon held his breath.

  Osri’s hands gripped, and he forced himself to relax.

  Here it comes, Ng thought, amused at how, in his own way, Omilov used the power of suggested image every bit as effectively as Brandon had used the living image of those docking cruisers.

  Eloatri closed her eyes, the burn in her palm pulsing with remembered heat.

  “The Suneater,” Omilov repeated. “One of the devices that we now believe created the Rift.”

  The word ‘devices’ hit the listeners like an exploding star.

  “Of course!”

  “Why did we assume that there is only one?”

  But as people asked their neighbors that or similar questions, the answer was apparent: because everyone wanted to believe that victory in this present struggle would be permanent.

  But it never is, no matter what the circumstances. Smiling faintly, Sebastian Omilov tapped his console, and the image of the Suneater dwindled to occupy only a portion of the dome, revealing the Cap outside and the clouds of tenders flitting about the newly arrived battlecruisers from the Aleph-Sud octant.

  The pause grew to a reflective silence as both factions shot privacies back and forth. Omilov knew that some who’d urged the salvation of the Suneater were now having second thoughts, while some who’d sought its destruction now wondered if that might leave them defenseless against the discovery of another, similar device. Or something even worse.

  Houmanopoulis alone did not communicate with anyone, but frowned at the visual overhead. The harnessing of the Suneater’s technology, with its instantaneous communications across interstellar distances, would leave no room for Rifters in the Thousand Suns—there’d be nowhere for them to hide. On the other hand, the stresses imposed by the adjustment to the new technology might well tear apart the Panarchy, leaving the Rifter over-culture free of even minimal constraints.

  Is that what we want? Once he would have said yes without hesitation; many on Rifthaven doubtless still would.

  “Perhaps you could reveal the weight of the various conjectures that went into that presentation?” A pillar of light singled out tall, earnest Emmary nyr-Kamdathus, a Privy Councilor with extensive mercantile interests. “How, for instance, do you know that the Suneater created the Rift?”

  Omilov said, “I doubt that it alone created the Rift. There may have been many devices like it.” He tapped at his console; to one side of the alien construct displayed above, the image of the red sun of the black hole binary it orbited appeared. Its surface opened, revealing its inner structure in cutaway layers of light accompanied by serried ranks of glyphs and numbers.

  “But to answer your question, it is apparent from the spectrum of the companion star in the Suneater system that its evolution has been interrupted. Something is controlling the nuclear reactions within. The star should not be stable at this point, but it is. We can only assume that the Suneater is controlling it, a conjecture confirmed by increases in the star’s radius since the Dol’jharians began their experiments with tempaths on the Urian station.”

  “An increase that is constant now,” said one of the officers near Anton Faseult.

  That sharpened focus on both military and political implications. Military: they had little time left to strike, and the cost of the attack now rose with each day that passed. Political: that a decision by the Panarch concerning the Telvarna Rifters was the proximate cause of this new threat.

  Omilov, watching heads turn, mouths move, hands tap at consoles, enjoyed the bind this put the anti-Suneater faction in—they couldn’t pound at this point too hard without appearing to criticize Brandon’s judgment.

  “There is a difference between controlling and destroying a star,” interjected Armand Dimugnerushian from Paradisum, a Doomed World, fated to die in a stellar explosion fifty thousand years from the present. No question which side he was on.

  “True,” Omilov replied, “but the population of black holes in this part of the Rift, between the galactic core and the Suneater’s present position, is far higher than can be accounted for by any natural process, while beyond the Suneater, there are none revealed in any explorations.”

  More questions followed, and the discussion slowly metamorphosed from the strategic to tactical considerations constraining the two courses of action open to them. Omilov let the military talk flow past as he watched the people, weighing the tide of opinion in the Star Chamber. The task was made easier by the apparently sourceless beams of light illuminating the speakers, and the floating lamps that clustered most thickly over the densest groups.

  Houmanopoulis had never made the mistake, like others he could name, of underestimating the Panarchists. But his experience on Ares had convinced him that he’d accepted too easily the stereotype that played a central part in the Rifter ethos. The people of the Panarchy, at least those here on Ares, were as individualistic as any congeries of Rifters.

  Natural selection, that, or they wouldn’t have made it to Ares against the odds.

  It was the gloss of Douloi control that overlaid all aspects of their society, even among the Polloi, deny it though they might, that made them seem so uniform.

  Just one more dance to learn, Houmanopoulis thought.

  “. . . but we can no longer read the hyperwave transmissions since the Dol’jharians began enforcing strict encryption on the Rifters and went to one-times in their own codes. Without that information, a lance attack is foolish! We can’t know anything about their defenses,” an analysis group leader declared.

  “And they can’t read ours,” Commander Jergen nyr-Lirones replied. The beam of light illuminating him emphasized the seams in his dark face.

  “That is a negative datum, and we need more positive . . .”

  (It’s like Kriegspiel,) Ng bozzed to Willsones.

  (The ancient form of chess where neither player can see the other’s pieces? An apt simile.)

  Ng suppressed an urge to laugh as Willsones’s precise voice somehow conveyed irony through the data transfer. But the two plans of action were not mutually exclusive, she thought, waiting for everyone to see it.

  A subtle change in Brandon’s stance signaled his restlessness. Too many were now restating what had already been stated over and over, as if not to convince, but to hear their own voices raised. Too much of that, and normal human reaction would compromise the compromise.

  As the current speaker finished her sentence, Ng signaled her intent through her boswell. The chamber’s discriminators reacted and light fell on her from above as her rank gave her precedence.

  “I believe we have reached a consensus. We will call for a dual attack: a volunteer
detachment of lances to assault the Suneater, backed by a mixed naval and allied Rifter fleet sowing dragon’s teeth and executing harassment raids; and high-tac-accelerated asteroids to destroy the device if the lances fail.”

  A sphere of light sprang into being at the apex of the dome, a motley of yellow and green and red pulsing in it as the discriminators recorded the pulse of many boswells. Slowly it resolved toward a steady green, the red subsiding to a yellow tinge that faded but did not disappear.

  But Ng barely noticed. The green of approval kindled not triumph so much as a sense of weight. She was committed.

  She bowed to Brandon and he bowed back, gestures of order in anticipation of deliberately initiating the maximum of disorder: battle, and with so much unknown and unknowable. She knew that to the others gathered in the chamber, their bows were symbolic: she handed the decision to him, and he symbolically accepted it.

  But she read in the tightness of his face, his suppressed breathing, that his acceptance implied more than the course of the attack. He accepted what she might have to do, and what it would cost her.

  For he would be in one of those lances, by her own contrivance. He would be on the Suneater when the asteroids reached the point of no return.

  And if there was no signal of success from the Suneater, the choice of destroying the station—and everyone on it—would be hers.

  SEVEN

  SUNEATER

  Vi’ya whirled and kicked.

  Jaim blocked the kick, feinting toward her face then stomach. In a blur of concentrated movement, she deflected the feints, then made her own. The world narrowed to just Jaim.

  It was relief . . . surcease . . .

  A short gasp of breath, abruptly cut off, broke her trance. Lifting her hands and backing off a step, she saw a fast-purpling mark along the side of Jaim’s neck.

  He shook his head, his eyes hazy, and leaned forward with his hands on his knees.

  “Pretty hard hit, there.” Montrose moved up to Jaim. “Want me to look at it?”

  “No,” Jaim shook off his hand. “I’m fine—no.” Straightening up, he faced Vi’ya. “Let’s go on.”

  A pang of remorse lanced through the miasma of fear and lust that blanketed her thoughts, thick and malevolent as a kind of half-sentient fog. “We’ll stop.” She dropped onto a chair.

  It was then she saw how tired he was, and the remorse enabled her to widen her attention to the chamber. Jaim went to check the pot of caf on its warmer, to see if any was left. A subtle hesitation in his movements, a stiffness to one arm, indicated he had worked too long.

  But my energy is undiminished.

  She caught a sober glance from Ivard. She had no space to regret how much her own emotional spectrum must be warping the Unity’s rapport, which in turn must affect the youth. It was fact. At least when he needed mental and emotional refuge, the Kelly somehow encompassed him. The refuge was not perfect, however: his dreams of some evil awareness haunting the station had increased, but even the Kelly could not interpret what this meant.

  A tendril of fear breached her thoughts, vanguard to an approach. Morrighon.

  The door graunched open, and a stinking, nearly mind-obliterating combination of tiredness, anger, and fear rolled in as Morrighon entered, his effort not to rush making his movements more crab-like than ever. The combination of that and the sudden increase in the whine of the mind-blur outside nauseated Vi’ya, but at least it banished the lust. For now.

  Morrighon said, “The heir summons you.”

  Jaim’s head lifted, his mouth tight.

  Vi’ya fought back the nausea. “I am not going anywhere until you power down that karra-forsaken mind-blur.”

  Morrighon’s head twitched as though he’d been slapped. Vi’ya felt his adrenals spike like a wavefront from a sun gone nova, and winced.

  He fumbled at his compad, tabbed a control code, and a portion of the pressure grinding Vi’ya’s skull released. Her awareness sharpened as Sedry Thetris shot a quick glance at the console. The control codes for the mind-blur—thanks to the intervention of the little Bori tech, Tat Ombric. For the first time in an eternity, Vi’ya felt a faint urge to smile.

  “We will go now,” Morrighon said, opening the door again.

  Vi’ya followed him out, sensing Ivard’s unhappiness and puzzlement, and Sedry’s deep distrust of the situation, and Montrose’s slow anger at his own impotence; Marim was asleep, after running the rec room for two shifts.

  Jaim’s unblinking gaze followed her until the door shut.

  As soon as Vi’ya and Morrighon disappeared, Jaim moved restlessly to the sideboard and poured the last of the caf into a cup. The liquid was thick and sharp-smelling from the hours it had sat on the warmer. Holding his breath, he tipped his head back and swallowed it down fast.

  Stalking over to his bed, he flung himself down to hide the shudder he couldn’t control. With wry self-mockery he reflected on how quickly he had become accustomed to premium-grade, blended-to-taste coffee while he was on Ares.

  The crew of the Telvarna had never been stinted on excellent food and beverages—not with a Golgol chef in charge of the galley. But except for occasional binges of coffee when they’d done well on a haul and were feeling flush, Montrose’s culinary gifts had been limited to creative combinations with the stores they bought on Rifthaven and the herbs and vegetables he grew in the Columbiad’s hydroponics tanks.

  At the Enclave, the variety of foods had been unending, and Montrose had been the first to point out that the chef who had been hired while he and the crew were scouting the Suneater was by far Montrose’s superior.

  The Suneater’s fare was a considerable shock to the system. Unvaryingly bland, Dol’jharian food seemed to come in either two consistencies: dry or mushy. Though undoubtedly nutritious, it was nothing one looked forward to, and Jaim, who was apt to see symbols in every aspect of life, contemplated how attitudes toward foods reflected cultures’ attitudes toward the individual.

  We are to be kept healthy as long as we serve their purpose, he thought as he looked around the chamber. Past that purpose we hold no value at all for those in power.

  Those in power . . . he wondered if Vi’ya had reached Anaris yet, then tried to bend his mind away. He turned to Ivard, who had dropped deeply into rapport. Physically Ivard was better than Jaim had even seen him, and he bounced up eagerly to spar when Jaim offered. But the rest of the time Ivard seemed stranger each passing day; he alone was content to be locked up on the Suneater. Aided by the Kelly, his mind ranged freely into unknown paths. The only danger was the terrible dreams that oppressed him.

  Montrose sat on the end of his bed, a comfortably familiar, hulking form. He was desperately unhappy. He hated being helpless, not even being able to cook, much less take action to help his captain and crewmates. Jaim strongly suspected that if it had not been for the growing friendship between Montrose and Sedry Thetris, the big man would have sunk into depression.

  Thetris perched on the end of her bed, chin in hands, frowning at the console. She looked up at Montrose, who murmured something in a soft rumble. Her shy smile in answer smoothed years from her plain, worn face. Being locked up with her in such close proximity, Jaim had come to appreciate her honesty and inner tranquility. She seemed to have no trouble accepting everyone she met on his or her own terms, and she found everything and everyone interesting.

  Lokri was still sleep-tousled and heavy-eyed. He sat near Ivard. He had altered a great deal in the last months—and not just because he had endured a trial for a murder he had not committed. Jaim had never liked him, nor had he trusted him. He still found Lokri’s flippant remarks jolting, but his sense that Lokri would be good to have at one’s back in a fight was increasing daily.

  Marim lay in her bed, hand tucked under her cheek, staring at the wall. She’d woken, but she hadn’t said anything, which was unusual. Something had changed with her, and though Jaim couldn’t define it, he didn’t think it was for the better.

&nbs
p; Vi’ya liked Marim—probably, Jaim had surmised, because Marim had the freedom in personal interactions that Vi’ya’s nature did not permit her to have. It had been Jaim who insisted they not tell Marim about the Suneater plan, during those last desperate days on Ares. Exhausted almost past her limits, Vi’ya had agreed, though she had pointed out that Marim’s inability to keep a secret had always limited itself to personal issues.

  Too late Jaim had seen that this was true, but he’d shrugged it off. Now he had a sense that Marim held a grudge, and he was trying to find some way to assuage the problem without being obvious. Though Marim wasn’t subtle, she was far from stupid.

  Locked as they were all together in this room, with only a refresher alcove and the Eya’a chamber as variety, they were able to observe one another to whatever degree they wished. Marim and Sedry had found ways to get out, Marim’s all the more remarkable as she had no special skills to offer. Although apparently she was increasingly popular with the dour Dol’jharian ordinaries. Sedry endorsed her boasting remarks about how she’d managed to make the rec area fun. Even Lar had added in how much the Bori workers now liked being there.

  Until recently, that is, Jaim thought. Chill tightened the back of his neck when he thought of the Karusch-na Rahali, and how the dark and primeval lusts of the hunter, and the fear of the hunted, imbued every aspect of life on the Suneater with yet more tension. This ritual, so deliberately carried out, was to Jaim more symbolism of the lack of worth of the individual. Which is not something I have been able to discuss with Vi’ya.

  And now she was shortly to be locked up alone with Anaris.

  o0o

  At the other end of the inhabited portion of the Suneater, Morrighon remained silent as he and Vi’ya traversed the corridors. She scanned each intersection: no one was in sight, save one or two scurrying grays, their aspects furtive. Double guards were posted at tunnels that intersected with the recycling area. Even from these Tarkans Vi’ya felt the simmering sexual energy that pervaded the station. But unlike the ordinaries, the Tarkans were alert, battle-ready, their fear and frustration skillfully mutated into anger.