The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  The image of New Glastonbury’s organ had to come from Montrose. Ivard remembered how, before Markham died, the Telvarna always seemed full of music. The Kelly band around his wrist throbbed, anamnesis of the music that had pervaded his life as he grew up among Markham and Vi’ya’s crew. The music was still there! It flowed from his fingers, and one of the colored windows glowed brilliantly. It was the Telvarna!

  He heard a contrapuntal sweep of themes weave into his playing, harmonious against a background of dissonance: the heroic chords of Montrose; Vi’ya’s complicated melody, all in minor key; for Lokri a brilliant counterpoint; for Jaim a steady arpeggio of power. And behind them, two other themes, one an echo of the other.

  Nearby were two other windows, other chords, these dissonant and dark, less firmly linked. He sensed Marim: her theme, also embellished with that familiar echo, was entwined with an ugly, stomping rhythm that he knew must be Hreem the Faithless, and grief wrung at his heart.

  She’d bunked them all out, then.

  And from the other window, now nearer to Telvarna, the cruelly deliberate yet subtly woven measures of Anaris, and the lesser themes of his minions. Both were closing in on his friends.

  His gaze leapt to the stops the man had shown him: the defenses of the Suneater. Other windows lit as he manipulated them, and he heard the groaning discord of a dying sun, the cry of the billionfold deaths of atoms devoured by the singularity. Then the driving ponderous themes of incoming asteroids exploded from the deeper pipes. But as he worked, he heard those deep tones falter, as if slowing, and felt the pressure against his fingers on the keys increase. Meaning exploded in his mind.

  Feverishly he sought and found another window, heard another familiar theme, wove it together with Telvarna, brought in Vi’ya’s melody, reached out…

  o0o

  “Lokri, bring up Lar on DC,” Vi’ya commanded.

  Lokri obeyed as Lar struggled to balance the tianqi under the terrible overload imposed by the almost three hundred refugees from the Suneater—far beyond what the Columbiad’s systems had been designed to cope with. The bridge stank of blood and sweat and vomit, and Lokri winced at the thought of what the rest of the ship must be like.

  The urgency of the situation was almost a relief. It kept (for the moment) the rawness of grief from ripping him apart as every meter carried them further from the Suneater, and Ivard.

  “Corvettes are faster,” Brandon said from his seat at Fire Control. He’d shed his armor and now wore only a singlet, sweat-stained and grimy, and a pair of trousers borrowed from Lokri. He triggered a counter-missile strike; Lokri felt the ship shudder, then jolt as they detonated an incoming missile.

  Markham had said once, You haven’t lived until you have been in love. Others had spouted similar words—sophistry, Lokri had thought. Sentiment. No one, ever, had told him how agonizing love was.

  Or maybe they’d tried, in their own way, he thought as he glanced at Vi’ya, who had worn black every day since Markham was shot down. And Jaim, still wearing those mourning braids.

  Vi’ya’s profile was grim as she tried to steer the Telvarna free of the two attacking ships. Only the Colombiad’s superior maneuverability, even impaired as it was by the mass of far too many passengers, and her skill, had kept them intact following the mad scramble into the ships and away from the Suneater after the first asteroid struck. Can she keep this up for two days?

  And beyond it all loomed the swelling red giant, waxing in intensity every moment, reminding them that even if they could outrun their enemies, there was still the coming wavefront of destruction.

  Lokri glanced at Lysanter, who was hunched over a console linked to the hyperwave Anaris had had installed, trying to set up the Telvarna’s arrays for discrimination through the hash of jamming the nicks were throwing out. The scientist straightened up, fists against his kidneys as though his back ached; he became aware of Lokri’s gaze and shook his head. He still hadn’t reached the Grozniy, then.

  Another near miss hammered the ship. From Hreem, according to the glyphs and short interpretation echoed from Brandon’s console. That corvette was following them the closest. Marim had to be conning the ship so that Hreem could handle weapons. I didn’t call her back, he thought bleakly. That wasn’t love. It was at most a kind of possession. And now she wants me dead as badly as Hreem wants Vi’ya.

  “Next asteroid impact in one minute,” Lysanter said.

  Lokri glanced at one of the subordinate screens, which displayed the Suneater. There was no sign of damage from the first strike. The scientist had said the terrible light in the bay had been a fraction of the energy of the impact. Most had been radiated outward, fortunately, or they all would have been vaporized.

  Vi’ya’s chin came up, her fingers hesitating over her console. Lokri felt a strange flutter in his mind, like the one he’d felt when Montrose heard music on the station.

  “Ivard!” she exclaimed, then shook her head. “I still can’t . . .” She stopped, cocked her head, then hammered quickly at her console. The ship slewed around, headed back toward the Suneater at full acceleration.

  “Vi’ya!” Brandon whipped around. “What are you doing? I can’t block Anaris’s corvette on this course!”

  Another missile strike. This time red lights sprang to life on DC, and Lokri joined Lar in trying to cope with the damage.

  “Now!” Vi’ya shouted, and abruptly the air on the bridge turned to syrup: it felt like something enormous was sitting down on the ship. On the screens the Suneater vanished into the center of a red smear of light, while the aft screen displayed actinic brightness as the stars slammed together. There was no sign of the two corvettes.

  Vi’ya tabbed the comm. “Montrose, report.”

  “Eya’a are hibernating, both women are stable.”

  “Jaim?”

  “He’ll live. Insists on coming forward. Mild concussion and a heavy burn. The neosteryl will take care of the first.”

  “I’ll be fine,” came Jaim’s voice, weak but determined. “What was that pressure?”

  Vi’ya laughed. “That’s how the Suneater deals with asteroids,” she said. “It bounced them, and every ship in the energy sink as well. We’ll be at radius in a few minutes, ship time, and rendezvous with the Grozniy as soon after that as we can shed some of our velocity. Jaim, if you can get down to the engine room and help the Marines there, we’ll need the highest tac-level you can give us.”

  She turned to Brandon. “And then I’ll deal with Hreem.”

  o0o

  In the few moments here and there that she could spare from the battle, High Admiral Ng stared at the main screen as if by force of will she could elucidate what was going on at the Suneater. The blip from the Marines confirming their loss of control, shortly after she’d loosed the asteroids, had relieved her agony of regret to some extent; then, two hours ago, came that incredible howl from the hyperwave as the first asteroid fragment struck, and the agony of ignorance increased.

  The hyperwave was still working, but had anything living survived the impact? The only signals on it were from the Fist of Dol’jhar and its Rifter fleet, and the Grozniy’s jamming.

  She’d waited until only minutes before the EM from the impact would reach radius, then brought the Grozniy in close, the sooner to intercept any signals from the fleeing ships.

  Not that we can do anything to help, no matter what we hear. Even if any ships managed to escape, and took the shortest path out, it would be more than two days before they reached radius.

  She looked up as Captain Krajno slid into his pod and silently linked his console to hers, taking on some of the tactical load. He gave her a brief smile.

  She gasped as the screen lit to reveal the red giant, swollen huge as the shock wave from the core collapse blasted its substance into space. Behind that light raced million-degree plasma barely slower—how could anyone escape? She tabbed her comm and queried Phisot in Astronomy.

  “The velocity readings we’re gett
ing indicate the shock wave will hit the black hole in about four hours,” was his response. “We’re refining the measurements right now. Of course, it will hit the Suneater at the same time.”

  Which means that in four hours the Rifter weapons will be utterly unstoppable.

  “Asteroid impact,” Lieutenant Wychyrski sang out.

  But no one on the bridge needed her report. The Suneater flared to blinding brightness, then subsided just as quickly. It appeared undamaged.

  A ship burst from the landing bay, followed by two more.

  “Telvarna and two Dol’jharian corvettes.”

  They watched helplessly the events of almost two hours past as the two corvettes harried the Rifter vessel, slowly closing in despite the smaller ship’s greater maneuverability.

  “Sluggish,” said Rom-Sanchez. “Probably overloaded.”

  Then the Telvarna reversed course, back toward the Suneater.

  “What the hell?”

  Rom-Sanchez’ voice choked off in embarrassment, but Ng didn’t blame him. The three ships had simply vanished without a flicker, while on the main screen a bright ring of bluish light expanded with incredible velocity from a point centered on the singularity. Steaks of light radiated out behind it; the Grozniy’s shield flared.

  “Dust impacts at point-nine-nine cee,” reported Damage Control. “Shields holding.”

  For several minutes the Grozniy rode out an unprecedented dust storm, as though the ship were on a Realtime Run. Ng summoned Sebastian Omilov to the bridge, but he had barely arrived when the Siglnt console beeped loudly.

  “Skip pulse!” Wychyrski shouted. “Tac-level eight, one-point-five light-seconds at 3 mark 7, heading 93 mark 13 relative.” She paused, then continued, moderating her voice.

  “Emergence pulse, same heading. Skip pulse, ditto. ID . . . Telvarna.”

  “That’s impossible,” Ng said, her heart thudding.

  “I think,” Omilov said slowly, “that we’ve just seen how the Suneater deals with incoming objects. Analogous to an immense Tesla Shield, perhaps?”

  Ng nodded slowly. Except that the red giant was unaffected—what kind of force could so discriminate? She shook off the thought. Time enough for explanations later. The Rifter ship was decelerating at maximum tac level; the Grozniy could help. “Navigation, match course and speed. Weapons, prepare ruptors for tractor duty.”

  o0o

  The bridge jolted, and Lokri watched his commlights flicker, then ripple back to green.

  “Tractor engaged,” Lar called out. “They’ve got us.”

  Lokri scanned his data display and added, “They’re all ready for us—including refuel. Should be a fast turnaround.”

  Vi’ya nodded, her face stony. She glanced across the bridge at Brandon, who had been in constant contact as soon as the Telvarna had slowed enough to allow real-time communications with the battlecruiser, then said to Lokri, “Go help Montrose. I want all those refugees gone before the Kelly come in to retrieve Portus-Dartinus-Atos.”

  Lokri slaved his console to hers, glad to have an excuse to leave the bridge. Not that there had been any overt problem—or even covert, he thought as he threaded his way through the refugees sitting on the deck plates along the short corridor.

  It had been a short, simple exchange. As soon as they discovered the Grozniy, Vi’ya had ordered a rendezvous so they could off-load their passengers. Then Brandon had turned around to study her. “You know I can send half the Navy after Hreem.”

  All she said was, “I will go after Hreem.”

  There was no argument, no anger, just a short pause during which no one besides the two seemed to breathe, then Brandon said, “Sedry and Tatriman are not going to be able to help. You’ll need volunteers in the engine room and as backup for DC.”

  Vi’ya had agreed, and from then on there was a ceaseless flow of activity: Brandon spoke to his Marines, chose a squad from among the volunteers, and made a quick round of the refugees while Vi’ya navigated through the dirty system to match up with the Grozniy, then returned when they were in comm range.

  Now Lokri made his way to the dispensary, where he found Montrose busy with a chaos of wounded, stunned people. The place looked like a slaughterhouse, blood smeared everywhere, but Montrose dealt with the chaos with manic efficiency as the silent Bori medtechs he’d rooted from the crowd carried out his orders.

  Lokri was about to turn away, but Montrose saw him and motioned him in. They squeezed by a crowd of patiently waiting Bori and a couple of wounded grays who seemed to be in shock, moved into one of the cubicles, and the door shut. Lokri blinked in the sudden silence as he looked down at Sedry, who was deeply asleep. “She going to recover?”

  “Soon’s I flush the brainsuck toxins from her system. That, and she gets some sleep. She and Tat both.”

  “They staying or going?”

  “Both want to stay, whatever happens. Now, tell me what happened on the bridge.”

  Lokri said, “He goes. She stays.”

  Montrose gave a nod of satisfaction. “As it should be. They’ll each do what they see as their duty—and if no one interferes, they’ll permit one another to do it. Luckily the nicks are too afraid of her to interfere.”

  “Nicks.” Suddenly the long run, the endless tension and lack of sleep, the pain of Ivard’s remaining behind and Marim’s desertion, caught up with Lokri, making him giddy. Yet another ironic nexus in his life: he’d discovered love in time for it to be taken away. He had been able to see it in others, but not comprehend how two disparate individuals could find the common ground to make it work.

  Yet there it was, the evidence that it could happen. There are no precedents for Brandon and Vi’ya—or for any of us. Which means whatever we do will set precedents. “We’re nicks again, you and I, if we want to be,” he said. “But if we don’t want to be, are we still Rifters? Will we go back to jacking?”

  Montrose snorted as he punched at a little console. The monneplat connected with the dispensary hummed, and a glass appeared. “First Hreem,” Montrose said, handing Lokri the glass. “And if we’re still alive, we’ll have plenty of leisure to consider our future careers. Drink that.”

  A shudder and a low booming indicated the ship had landed in the bay. Lokri drank off the elixir, then rushed out to help organize the exodus of refugees.

  Not that much was required; the Marines had taken charge. The dazed people, mostly Bori, didn’t seem to care whether they were escapees or prisoners. Their treatment so far was already so vast an improvement over life on the Suneater that they were beyond question.

  Brandon and Vi’ya left the bridge together, walking side by side. Then she stopped at the hatchway and he trod down the ramp alone, still barefoot, wearing Lokri’s old pants and his grimy undershirt, but somehow he retained all his dignity as the Marine honor guard initiated the ritual of welcome.

  Lokri had paused to watch. He jumped when Vi’ya thumped him on the shoulder with her fist. “We have work to do,” she said.

  o0o

  Just before the Columbiad began easing from the bay, the Panarch stepped onto the bridge. Ng thought about his long journey the length of the cruiser, and how a surprising percentage of her otherwise disciplined crew apparently found work along his path in order to see him with their own eyes and be reassured he had indeed survived.

  Ng watched him nod a greeting to the bridge crew. His face was marked with battle grime and exhaustion, but his presence infused everyone with new energy.

  He stepped up beside Ng, who saluted. In silence they watched the Telvarna slide the rest of the way out of the bay, then accelerate away from the battlecruiser. It vanished in a red skip pulse as a twitter from the navigation console announced an incoming course relayed from the Rifter vessel.

  “How does she know where Hreem is?” Ng asked as the Grozniy’s fiveskip took the huge ship out of fourspace, following the Columbiad. “For that matter, how did she find the Grozniy so quickly?”

  The Panarch’s m
outh quirked. “The music of the spheres,” he said. “She always was a good listener.”

  o0o

  “. . . when the morning stars sang together . . .” Ivard almost turned to look, so vivid had been the impression of Eloatri’s voice, but it was only a memory, one of many flooding him as the song of power flowed through him and out of his hands. She had read to him out of that strange book, during his convalescence on the Telvarna after Desrien, and later, and the language of the book was itself a kind of song that wove itself into the measures that thundered out with urgent joy in that strange simulacrum of New Glastonbury that surrounded him here on the borders of the Dreamtime.

  “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?”

  No human eyes had seen those stars for two millennia, but Ivard laughed aloud, for behind him, like a mountain whose grandeur lies heavy on one’s mind even in the dark of a moonless night when not even a silhouette betrays its massive presence, rose up a Power in increasing strength, who could do just that. Was that the reason for the passing of the Ur, that they dared to imprison a god to power their empire among the stars?

  Ivard sang, adding his voice to the thousand voices of the organ, feeling it alive under his hands and feet, gathering the colors and shapes around him into a glorious synthesis that that encompassed the human violence around the Suneater, an echo of the stellar violence that had been unleashed to free the Presence.

  But that still lay ahead, and until then he would play, and weave into the song success and vengeance for those he loved.

  o0o

  As Juvaszt watched the shuttle carrying Hreem and the other Rifter arrow toward the Flower of Lith, he became aware that the strange music that had begun as an undercurrent to the hyperwave transmissions was increasing in volume. He could see the effect on his bridge crew. Already tense from the filth the Panarchists had thrown at them, they seemed unsettled. He said sharply, “Damp that.”