Now he could appreciate the wisdom of his ancestors, who had foreseen the necessity for untroubled sleep. Dol’jharian history, bloody and unedifying as it was, did not feature any insurrections led by Tarkans—any successful ones, anyway.
He forced his attention back to the Tarkan commander.
“. . . will have the effect of funneling any attack into an impervious killing zone, away from sensitive installations,” Chur-Mellikath said, his scarred face utterly impassive and black eyes unswervingly focused on the middle distance.
But he did not attempt to hide his distaste as he continued. “Furthermore, the Barcan devices will be disposed as backup to allow more concentration of my forces.”
Anaris sensed his secretary trying to assess his own mood. His amusement spiked, but he kept his own demeanor impassive.
Yet somehow Morrighon knew that his thoughts were wandering. “The Avatar is toying with these Ogres, but when there is a question of guarding his safety, it is to you that we turn,” he said in his insinuating whine. And despite the talk of protection of the Avatar, the thrust of the comment underscored the strengthening bond between Anaris and the Tarkans. “Machines, after all, are just that. Their loyalty and ability is merely a matter of who programmed them last.” Morrighon’s tone indicated that the interview was at an end.
Chur-Mellikath saluted and went out.
“So,” Anaris said.
“The commander reacted oddly to mention of Norio,” Morrighon said. “His reaction could be related to the presence of the Ogres and the Avatar’s obvious preference there. I do not think he knows of your . . .”
“Taint,” said Anaris, amusement flashing. “But you and I may regard it as a skill.”
Morrighon’s lumpy head poked forward in his peculiar nod. Then, as Anaris made no further comment, he began compiling his notes.
Anaris glanced at his chrono. He was restless—and Morrighon knew he was restless. Time hung heavily while they waited for Lysanter to finish inspecting the new areas opened by the last attempt to start the station, and to evaluate what they meant. It is not Chur-Mellikath and his plans that interest me, but you and yours, my scuttler, he thought, watching the secretary work.
What did Morrighon want? Would he say if asked? He had kept Anaris’s secrets—had even saved his life. But that could be pure self-interest. If something happened to Anaris, Barrodagh would take great pleasure in extracting a square centimeter of Morrighon’s hide for every slight, every triumph, and he would take months to do it.
Morrighon knew that his future was entwined with Anaris’s—unless, of course, he was plotting not only Barrodagh’s downfall but Anaris’s as well, so he could take his place at the feet of the Avatar.
After his years as hostage, Anaris had gone back to Dol’jhar not to freedom, but to a life so circumscribed it amounted to imprisonment. During those years Anaris had come to realize that his father lived just as limited a life: alone most of the time in his ancestral fortress at Hroth D’ocha, the person he saw the most was Barrodagh.
A situation not exactly conducive to mental health.
As he watched Morrighon finish his notes, Anaris thought wryly, And the person I want to spend my time with is not you.
Giving into the restlessness, he rose and tabbed his console to life, revealing a spectacular scattering of stars. As soon as the Suneater was fully powered, Anaris would gain his freedom.
He would obey his father’s injunction and force some discipline onto the Rifter fleet, but that was not in fear of the Avatar’s shutting down the power in the ships. Only a fool would not have a secondary power system up and ready for the time Anaris’s fleet would be strong enough to take on the Suneater-powered forces, which would be fewer in number due to attrition during the coming battle. With Eusabian dead, Anaris would, at last, establish himself at Arthelion. Home.
Anaris knew that the steady but incremental increase in the station’s power was testing his father’s patience as well as his own, and any day the Avatar would abruptly command the abandonment of Lysanter’s carefully scheduled attempts in favor of uninterrupted tries until Vi’ya either attained success or died.
It’s time to leave this hellhole. And Vi’ya is going with me. The problem was, his father might well anticipate that—both Vi’ya and himself were Chorei, after all.
“Morrighon.”
The secretary looked up.
“You are having a hyperwave installed on my shuttle.”
“Yes, lord.” The Bori looked faintly offended at the question, since he had already reported that fact.
“Have one installed on the Telvarna as well.” That would give him another means of escape if needed, without losing contact with the Rifter fleet and the Fist of Dol’jhar. Losing contact with the latter would be fatal to his plans.
Morrighon’s mouth fell open and he blinked. Amused at having surprised his secretary, who almost too efficiently interpreted his wishes, Anaris merely smiled.
“I see,” the Bori said finally. “I will arrange to have the ship’s activation codes dug out of the computer, as well, and its weapons on standby. But what about her crew and the Eya’a?”
“They stay here,” Anaris said. “Particularly the brain-burners.”
“And the Kelly? It will be difficult to get them off the ship without alerting Barrodagh.”
“I assume there are ways of dealing with Kelly.”
Morrighon nodded. “I will check Lysanter’s database.” He tapped at his compad with a thoughtful air.
“Spit it out,” Anaris said. “You foresee difficulty?”
Morrighon said, “Does she know?”
“No,” Anaris said, laughing. “Nor will she until I choose.”
“It will make her very angry,” the secretary ventured.
“Of course it will,” Anaris retorted. “The two days of dead time until we get to the flagship ought to be priceless fun.”
Morrighon’s lips twitched.
Anaris waved him toward the door. “Go get her.”
o0o
Tat looked down at her compad, then up, her eyes fearful again. “Morrighon is on his way,” she said. “I think I’d better go.” She moved to the door, then whirled around to face Vi’ya once again. “If—if you are successful, what then?”
“You and Lar and Dem may join us, if you wish,” Vi’ya said. “We would not have told you if we’d meant to leave you here.”
Tat’s face flushed. “You won’t regret it. That I’ll promise. Even Dem—” She shrugged sharply, hit the door control, and walked out, for once not leaping.
Lokri lounged over to the sideboard to pour out caf. He looked back over his shoulder at Vi’ya with a curious twist to his grin. “I’m not intending criticism—if I were you I would be in Anaris’s room right now—but isn’t the sexual link going to make it more difficult to hide our true intent from him?”
“No,” Vi’ya said, and she felt the focus of each person sharpen. “The opposite. There is no talk.” She smiled. “As the Douloi would say, he is merely amorous of my body without being inquiring of my self.”
Jaim sighed.
She turned his way. Because they all depended on her, and in their own ways—even Marim—looked out for her welfare, she added, “Yes. I am also amorous for his body, but his self? For me there is no music.”
Jaim studied his hands, unmoving, but she felt the impact of her words.
Ivard jerked his chin at the door. “Morrighon.”
Sedry dove at the console, then relaxed. The door squinched open.
Morrighon said to Vi’ya, “The heir summons you.”
And from Ivard came a quick thought, electric in its intensity: Anaris is going to make you go with him when the station is powered. Without us.
Fear spiked the anticipation of challenge. Vi’ya wished she could order the Kelly and Eya’a not to repeat anything they probed from Anaris during rapport—it was difficult enough to hide her own secrets without having to hide knowledge
she shouldn’t have. But the connection, and the understanding, were too tenuous. She’d simply have to keep a tight control on her thoughts.
From the Kelly flowed wordless empathy as she followed Morrighon out.
Anaris’s secretary kept silent during the long walk deeper within the Suneater, to the lords’ section where Anaris’s chamber lay.
Instead of finding pairs of Tarkans stationed at various intersections, they passed deactivated Ogres. Usually just one, but occasionally a pair. Down a tunnel near Anaris’s door, she glimpsed a pair of Ogres standing motionless on either side of a door pucker.
Then Anaris’s door squelched open, and she stepped inside to find Anaris working at his console. She glanced past him. The screen showed cryptic ranks of data in Dol’jharian script. With a faint smile and a casual swat of his hand, Anaris shut down his system and got to his feet.
Vi’ya stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed.
“I found your friend Hreem roaming around last night,” Anaris said. “Since there was little else to do, I questioned him at some length.”
He wanted her curious, so she remained silent.
Anaris shot an appraising glance her way. “Until I met Hreem, I’d never heard of anyone who could make sybaritic excess sound banal.”
Vi’ya smiled.
“I want to experiment with your Kelly and the others before we actually go into the Throne Room,” Anaris said. “The more I understand the psychic element of this conjoining, the more confident I am that we will be able to power the station when the time comes. Which ought to be soon. Today, in fact.”
“Not yet.”
His brows lifted slightly. “Why?”
“The Norio entity,” she said. “I am afraid it will increase in power with the station unless we contain it first.”
His chin lifted. “Right. We’ll eradicate it first. Then we’ll power the station.”
“It may not be possible,” she said. “You joined the rapport at the end of a session. You do not know the risk this entails. And the risk will grow directly proportional to the increase in the station’s . . . power.” She would not use the word “awareness,” though that was how she termed it to herself.
He was silent as he considered. She sensed that he wanted to argue, that he had questions that she was not going to answer. He was impatient to start the station—and he knew that the Unity was capable of it.
Time to confuse the issue.
She lifted her head, and raked her gaze deliberately from his head to his heels. Anaris was no telepath, but the station intensified even the smallest talent. He was tempathic enough to get her message.
His pupils dilated; otherwise he showed no reaction. His emotional spectrum rippled, sexual speculation coloring the rest.
“Another question,” he said. “The range of the Eya’a’s psychic abilities. Can they hear us now? Can you reach them?”
“Yes and no.” She braced herself inwardly and concentrated on memory: the striving of powerful muscles, flesh against flesh. The pleasure in using all one’s strength, free of concern for one’s opponent.
Out loud, she said, “They hear me, but they do not know you. Their nature is a mental community. They still do not really comprehend individuals all acting independently of one another.”
“Then you cannot use them to . . . say . . .” He lost his train of thought, then looked up, his eyes narrowing. “You can’t use them to spy on Barrodagh, for example?”
“No,” she said. Feint, touch, strike, dodge. Seize and strive, strength against strength, without surrender . . .
She saw the impact in Anaris, as all down his body muscles tightened. She spoke, knowing that beneath his question was the real question—whether or not she could spy on him. “No. They do not know him, have never linked with him, and could not pick him out of the chaos of monads surrounding them here. They spend most of their time in hibernation.”
His hands flexed, powerful and sure. An oblique look, half-amused, half-irritated. “Then wake them. Let’s experiment.”
“It takes time to waken them,” she said. “Ivard is in the process of doing it now. They will be ready in time for the scheduled attempt.”
Again she focused her will. Do not think of Jaim. Or Marim. Or Brandon, out there somewhere on the high admiral’s ship, waiting for my word . . . though he would comprehend. For of all of them only he understands how one could be forced to use sex to prevent a meeting of minds.
Still, Anaris fought it. “Then let us experiment with your others now,” he said. “You were able to reach them from the Throne Room. How about from here?”
“We can do it,” she said. “But we need proximity for added strength. Witness what happened last time.”
Sweat beads gleamed high on his forehead.
She warded away memories, eddies of emotion, all but the steady, direct, purely physical message.
“I’ll have to come to your chamber. ” His fist crashed down on the desk. “Damn it!”
Strike. Strike now. Who shall prevail this time?
And with a wicked grin slashing across his face, he picked up a huge ceramic tray and pitched it right at her.
She moved only her fist. A thousand shards spun through the air, clattering in all corners of the room.
“Weakling,” she taunted.
FIVE
GROZNIY: SUNEATER STAGING CLOUD
As they made their way down the crowded passage toward the transtube that would take them to the final tactical briefing, Osri noted his father’s sudden, intense curiosity about the workings of the battlecruiser, which had heretofore been but a backdrop to his research into the nature of the Suneater.
“Why is it that every corridor in this ship is always so crowded?” Sebastian asked somewhat peevishly as they stepped aside to let a group of Marines in fatigues jog past. “The ship is huge, and it only has—what?—five thousand crew.”
“A battlecruiser is mostly solid metal,” Osri replied patiently. “For shielding. You wouldn’t want to be closer than half a klick to the ruptors at full power, for instance. The engines are almost as bad.”
‘They could still make the passageways a bit wider.”
Osri laughed, earning a sour look from his father. “Everyone here usually knows where they’re going, and avoiding collisions is second nature. And the Grozniy is overstaffed right now. Many of these people will be leaving when the briefing is over.”
Sebastian grunted, and the rest of their journey passed in silence. That suited Osri, for his father’s attitude puzzled him. He’d seemed more unsettled as the briefing, which would set the time for the subsequent attack, drew nigh. But the decision to attempt to spare the Suneater had been made on Ares. He couldn’t be expecting a change at this late date, after all that planning.
Osri knew that wouldn’t happen; Brandon wouldn’t let it happen. But Osri couldn’t tell his father why. It felt odd, this reversal of their roles: he was the confidant of the ruler of the Thousand Suns, and his father the outsider. He had not comprehended some of his father’s moods when he was a child, the silences and occasional abruptness.
As the pod hissed open, Osri gestured for his father to enter; he knew his facial control wasn’t the equal of Sebastian’s, and might never be. And right now, reflecting on Brandon’s intention, he was uneasy, hoping his conflict wouldn’t be obvious. He couldn’t figure out why Brandon had told him of his plan to accompany the Marines to the Suneater, unless it was a need to share a critically important decision. If so, that was a first: one thing Osri had come to understand about Brandon was how well he had kept his secrets.
The pod accelerated toward the distant conference room, a seemingly endless trip, but it could only have been a minute or so before the pod decelerated smoothly and released them outside the briefing room. The Marines at the hatch passed them through; he wondered why High Admiral Ng had posted them. Maybe it was a not-so-subtle reminder of the irrevocability of what they would decide within.
If so, Osri decided as they entered the room and he saw the faces of those already present, it was a successful gesture. Here was no spatial metaphor of equality, as in the Star Chamber on Ares. Instead, a long table dominated the room, with only one chair at the head of it. The rest of the chairs were already occupied mostly with military personnel, plus two Rifter captains and the Kelly trinity Shtoink-Nyuk2-Wu4. They conversed in low voices, a normal proceeding at a military briefing, and Osri relaxed somewhat . . . until he noticed that his father was the only civilian present.
The conversations ceased as High Admiral Ng followed Brandon in. Osri noted the tension in his father’s back as Ng took her seat at the head of the table, with Brandon to her right; there was no doubt who was in charge of this meeting. My father does not trust the military.
Behind Ng a huge holo-pane lit up with a god’s-eye view of the Suneater system. The bloody light of the dying sun washed across the faces of the assembly as the high admiral began speaking.
“We have very little time left,” she began. “According to Lieutenant Commander Asawar’s observations, the amount of matter infalling to the singularity is increasing steadily.” Behind her, the plot pane flickered. Graphs and vectors flashed into being, illustrating her words. “The latest calculations indicate that if we do not destroy or shut down the Suneater within ten days, our enemy’s weapons will likely make it impossible to do so with the forces at our command.”
This was known to all of them. Osri watched Brandon; his face was still, red-lit on one side by the plot pane.
Osri knew that Brandon, Ng, and himself were the only ones who could hear what was really being said: Vi’ya’s time was running out.
No, they hear that, but they don’t know what it really means.
“It is time for us to commence the final phase of the battle.” Ng turned to Koestler. “Admiral, will you review the results of the harassment campaign?”
Sebastian Omilov watched as Admiral Koestler stood. His movements were easy now, the terrible wounds of his last battle finally healed.
The Thrones of Kronos Page 43
