The comm officer started as if from sleep, slapping at his console. The music softened but was still discernible.
“It’s too strong, Kyvernat,” the officer said apologetically. “If I damp it any more, we will start losing data from the fleet.”
Juvaszt glanced sideways at the heir—no, the Avatar now—but he could read no reaction in his profile. Anaris Eusabian watched the tactical screens intently, apparently unaffected by the depravity issuing from the Panarchist hyperwave.
“Very well,” he said, watching the crew bend to their tasks.
He sat back in his pod, breathing slowly and rotating his head to ease his neck. Some of his own tension leached away. He scanned the screens: the battle was going well for them, their weapons very powerful.
The viewscreen flickered to a close-up of the Rifter destroyer as the shuttle eased through its e-lock. Juvaszt had issued no orders for Hreem. Anaris was in command now. After the reports he’d received from the Tarkans of the new Avatar’s feats on the Suneater, he was loath to cross him in even the smallest particular.
But do the karra obey him away from the Suneater? A little shocked by the thought, the kyvernat put it firmly aside. Anaris didn’t need TK to enforce his will anymore; any who wished to find out whether or not he still possessed it would likely die in the process.
He turned to the Avatar. “Lord, your orders for the Lith?”
Anaris smiled faintly. “Regardless of what you send, Hreem will pursue the Telvarna. Give him the last coordinates you have and let him hunt. The Telvarna will want to rendezvous with the Grozniy. We will follow and put an end to them both.”
“It will be done, Lord.”
Juvaszt issued the orders and returned to his task of tactical coordination, his mood apprehensive as he considered the nature of this new Avatar, and his unexpected penchant for what had to be humor. Twisted by the Panarchists or not, he is now the Lord of Vengeance.
Juvaszt wondered where Anaris would lead them.
o0o
Marim breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when the hatch of the Dol’jharian shuttle swung open to reveal the landing bay of the Flower of Lith. She hadn’t really expected Anaris to let them go after the Fist of Dol’jhar caught up with the two corvettes, hurled away from the Suneater on similar courses by whatever Urian tech the asteroids had triggered. Especially since two of Hreem’s Ogres on the ship had killed several Tarkans trying to board the corvette during the firefight that followed his attempt to kill Vi’ya.
Hreem pushed past her and stomped down the ramp, not looking to see if she would follow. The shuttle lock slammed shut and the little ship eased out through the e-lock in a spray of iridescence, dwindling rapidly toward the huge battlecruiser looming only kilometers away, the growing light of the supernova flaring from its silvery hull.
A thin, long-nosed man hurried toward them. “What happened on the Suneater, Cap’n? Did the Ogres work like you said they would? Did you get any vids from them?”
Hreem’s grip on his jac tightened, then he lunged out and hammered the smaller man to the deck with the weapon. He stood over the cringing figure, absently scratching at his other, bandaged hand with the jac-butt. “You see any chatzing Ogres, Dyasil?”
Dyasil shook his head, terrified. Hreem turned away, jerking his head at Marim. A waft of stench from him made her eyes water, a mixture of old blood, spoiled food, and sweat. “C’mon, yellowhead,” he said. “You did pretty good on the corvette. Now we’ll go hunting in a real ship.”
Marim hid her sigh of relief. Hreem seemed to have calmed down from the peak of fury that had possessed him when the two Ogres lapsed into quiescence once the lock closed and he’d been unable to command them further. When she’d commented that at least the chatzing machines weren’t going on the rampage against them, he’d backhanded her into a bulkhead.
She shuddered slightly; she hadn’t even seen the blow coming. No wonder he’d managed to shoot Jaim down despite the explosion of his compad. And Markham never had a chance—
She fought that memory away as the trans-tube carried them toward the bridge. What was the use? That part of her life was over. Trying to steady herself, she started whistling a tune.
“What’s that chatzing noise you’re making?” Hreem demanded.
“Oh, just something Ma—” Appalled, she stopped herself. Something Markham used to play. Telos! Get away, memories! “Nothing, just something I picked up somewhere.”
Hreem eyed her, his expression ugly. “Well, shut up.”
She did, but the tune kept running through her head, sparking other memories of music from her days on the Telvarna. She grimaced and kept her mouth slightly open so she wouldn’t forget and start whistling them.
When they reached the bridge, the sounds of dataflow on many consoles and the hush of the tianqi greeted them. A bulky man hastily jumped out of the command pod. “Juvaszt’s orders just came through, Captain,” he said. “I set them up on Nav for you.”
“Flush em, Pili,” Hreem snarled. “We’re goin’ after the Telvarna.”
Pili’s eyes widened. “But that’s what his orders are. Says he expects you’ll find it with the Grozniy. He sent coordinates.”
Hreem laughed, settling himself in the command pod. “Right. Carcason, take us out. Blondie, you take his secondary console, and give me tactical feedback on that black-eyed killer.”
The Lith shuddered into skip as Marim settled down at the console and familiarized herself with it. Around her the spacious bridge of the destroyer sang a subtle song of power, and she wondered why Markham, and later Vi’ya, had not chosen to obtain one, despite the fact that after their best runs they could have afforded an Alpha. She didn’t want to be rich hard enough. And so I wasted all those years on that little Columbiad.
Well, not anymore. She watched covertly as Hreem issued more orders, feeling a growing excitement. Hadn’t somebody once said that power was the strongest aphrodisiac? Well, she had power, too, and she knew how to exercise it. The kind of take Hreem could deliver was worth a few blows now and then.
o0o
“Emergence in ten seconds,” said Vi’ya, her voice even. “Jaim, ready a missile strike, these coordinates.”
Lokri watched Jaim’s steady hands on the fire-control console, his calm profile. The drivetech was clad only in his bloodstained trousers, a makeshift bandage around his bruised, burn-splashed torso. Jaim’s face gleamed with sweat, highlighting the tightness of his muscles as he fought to stay upright. As the music streamed through the bridge, Lokri could feel the effort Jaim made.
Abruptly they emerged from skip. The Flower of Lith was only kilometers away as Vi’ya said, “Fire.”
The missiles flashed away, then the Telvarna dropped right back into skip. Montrose, I hope your painkillers outlast this battle, Lokri thought soberly as Jaim readied another strike.
o0o
The swelling tide of music from the hyperwave seemed to energize Margot Ng’s primary crew. In spite of the many long hours they’d been on the bridge, their movements became crisper, quicker, taking up the rhythm of the complex melodies. The Grozniy had never before been conned so efficiently; it was as if they read one another’s minds, so attuned were their movements from one console to another. But who was playing the music? She knew the youth Ivard had stayed behind, in the part of the Suneater devoted to the hyperwave, but never had she heard that he had such a talent. And if not him, then who? Or what?
But despite the efficiency of the crew, and the great power of the Grozniy’s computers, the ship always found itself several light-seconds behind the Telvarna, watching events already past. Even had that not been the case, there was nothing they could do: the little Columbiad emerged so close to the Lith each time it struck that a ruptor barrage would destroy both of them, and Ng was wary of risking her ship against the now-irresistible power of the Rifter destroyer’s skipmissiles.
So they followed, and watched as Vi’ya taught Hreem that skipmissiles are no goo
d against a stinging gnat—the Lith couldn’t turn fast enough to bring its launch tube to bear on the Telvarna.
Ng could see a sheen of perspiration on Rom-Sanchez’ forehead as he worked his console, setting up complex tenno systems to try and anticipate the Lith’s movements. In effect, he was conning the ship—Ng could do no better, and she could not abandon her tactical coordination of the ongoing battle, as badly as it was going.
“Missile strike against Lith, minor damage aft port bay,” Wychyrski reported. And, again, “Telvarna skipped. Lith skipped.”
Ng thumbed her aching eye sockets, realized what she was doing, and forced her hands to relax on her pod arms as she sat up straight. Memory nagged at her, something about that music.
“Emergence,” Navigation sang out.
And Wychyrski reported, “Lith emergence pulse,” then, a few seconds later, “Telvarna emergence, missiles away, Telvarna skipped. Missile impacts on aft port side, minor damage to Lith.”
Again, despite the fact that the Columbiad’s navcomp was a fraction of the size of the cruiser’s, Telvarna had managed to pinpoint precisely where the destroyer would emerge.
The music, damped but still audible, changed again. Ng’s mind pitched back to the concert hall on Ares. KetzenLach, she thought—no, not quite, but something very much like his music. There were other styles and themes, evoking other emotions. But the influence of KetzenLach was unmistakable. Why was that important?
“Emergence pulse! Cruiser!” Wychyrski’s voice sharpened. “177 mark 32, 28 light-seconds.”
“Tactical skip, now,” Ng ordered.
As the fiveskip burred, Siglnt continued, “Signature ID’d: Fist of Dol’jhar.”
So Anaris is using the Lith as a tracking drone. Ng turned to Brandon, who stood beside her pod, hands behind his back.
Well, if the Grozniy was lagging the Telvarna, the Fist was lagging the Lith even worse. That pulse had been two skips behind them. She’d have to be on guard—it was very unlikely that Juvaszt could get a solution on them, the way they were jumping around. And we’d lag if Vi’ya didn’t send those updates.
Emergence pinged again and the ship came about to a new heading, then skipped once more. The screen flickered as the Telvarna stung the Rifter destroyer yet again, this time striking square at the radiants, the weakest spot, the fire-lance wakes of the missiles forming a visual counterpoint to a merry cadenza from the hyperwave as the strange music built toward a climax.
o0o
The link to the Telvarna never wavered, remaining clear to Ivard as the Columbiad slipped in and out of fourspace. But the link to the Flower of Lith through Marim was different, slippery.
Finding the ship each time it skipped was easy, for he would never forget Marim’s theme. He marveled that he had never seen the darkness in her, now so clearly to be heard. He could feel Marim’s response more strongly each emergence as the music evoked memories in her that beaconed out.
Each time, he wove the destroyer’s position into the music and harmonized it with Vi’ya’s theme; but he found another link there, along which flowed the power from the Suneater, and this he could not trace back from the ship to where it joined his keyboard before the Lith skipped out again and he lost the thread.
Ivard knew that he could shut down all the ships dependent on the hyper-relay, and the hyperwave as well, for now he understood that it was only his presence in the beam of light that energized those functions of the Suneater. The Presence had withdrawn, readying itself for long-awaited freedom. He wished he could do it, remembering the coins of light he’d seen, but to do so would trap the Presence here, and that would be the greater crime. So, patiently as he played, he traced the thread again and yet again, unraveling it toward the Suneater that powered it.
And finally, as once more the Lith emerged from fivespace and he heard Marim again, the link lay in his hand, complete from end to end, and Ivard remembered the Kelly trinity on Rifthaven, Atropos-Clotho-Lakisas. He’d looked up the meaning of their names long after: one who spins, one who measures, and one who cuts.
He knew which one he was. Tears gathered in his eyes as he touched the Tetradrachm and the ribbon in its pouch. Goodbye, Marim.
o0o
The music was just barely audible on the bridge of the Lith. Hreem would have liked to cut it totally, except they might miss something important from either side. But it itched at him internally, worse than the damned itch of his logos-chatzing clothes, and when he saw Marim’s small hand tapping out one of the musical rhythms, he restrained himself from leaping up and smashing her to the deck.
“Emergence,” Carcason’s voice was reedy with tension.
“No traces,” Erbee reported, his fingers rasping his face in time to the music.
“Where the chatzing hell is that—”
“Emergence pulse!” shouted Erbee, fists hitting his console.
Hreem slapped the skip pad, but not before the ship jolted to a missile strike. The harsh thrum of skip rumbled through the deck, and Hreem sat back again.
“Missile impact, aft port bay, minor damage,” Metije snarled.
Marim looked up at the screens, shaking back her hair. Hreem also glanced at the screens then back at her. Maybe he should just throw her off the bridge until this was over, except he wanted to watch her see the Telvarna vaporized. How she handled herself would tell him how much she could be trusted.
The music changed. Everyone on the crew ignored it—everyone except Marim. She waggled her head in time to the rhythm, her bright yellow curls bouncing.
Hreem took the Lith out for a look-back, watching the action just completed from a few light-seconds out. How did Vi’ya manage to emerge so closely each time? There was no clue on the screen.
“Emergence pulse!” Erbee shouted again. Another hit.
“You logos-loving idiots!” Hreem yelled at his crew, waving his jac. “Act sharp! It’s only a chatzing Columbiad!”
He calculated quickly from the vectors revealed by the look-back, jumped the Lith, and grinned ferally as the destroyer emerged only a few light-seconds from the Telvarna, with the missile tube vectored almost straight on.
He slapped the missile pad, but on the screen the Telvarna skipped once again and the skip-missile’s reddish chain-of-pearls wake lanced out into empty space, a clean miss. Hreem pounded his fist on his pod arm. How could she do that? It was like she was reading their—
Reading our minds.
Then, before he could conn the ship after the little vessel, it emerged behind the Lith and struck at his radiants.
“Missile strike, radiant quadrant four, efficiency down ten percent,” reported Metije.
The Telvarna vanished, but its vector was advantageous, as was almost always the case in a stern strike by a vessel whose main missile launchers faced forward.
Hreem snapped out a new course and as they shuddered into skip again, he glared at Marim. Then he had it: Suneater, his chamber. Marim in bed, yelling, “Get out of my mind!”
With a bellow of rage he leapt out of his pod, grabbed her around the throat, and threw her to the deck. Shock silenced the bridge; Marim lay at his feet, her blue eyes distended.
“She’s getting it from you!” he yelled.
“No!” Her mouth opened, pink and round, but before she could speak again—could make up some lie—his jac was in his hand, and he aimed right at her face and fired.
The bolt sizzled, filling the air with the stink of burned flesh.
Then the bridge lights went out, and flickered back on in emergency mode. Cursing in rage, Hreem vaulted back into his pod, slamming his hand on the comm. “Engineering, get the chatzing power back on-line!”
“They’ve shut us down! The hyper-relay’s down!”
Hreem cursed louder, looking for someone to blame—to kill.
He stopped mid-curse when the screen flickered to life, and Hreem stared up into Vi’ya’s merciless black eyes.
o0o
It took no thought for J
aim to control his breathing. This was one of the first lessons taught one who walks the difficult path of the Ulanshu. Wreathing through his disintegrating consciousness was KetzenLach’s music, its themes binding him through memory to the here and now. Pain fire-lined every movement, but he kept the physical reaction in a distant part of his mind as he concentrated on the task at hand.
At last he looked up into the screen, watching the terror in Hreem’s crew, the rage in Hreem’s face.
Unheeded, the music rippled through both bridges, and Jaim felt the close presence of his Watchers: Reth Silverknife, Markham, and now Marim. Behind, stretching into the darkness that smeared the edges of his vision, he sensed a host of others; whether this disembodied crowd was real or a delusion caused by his drugs and wound no longer mattered.
Hreem snarled, “So what’s your price, piss-for-brains? You want me to beg?”
Jaim glanced sideways at Vi’ya, sensing waves of fiery pain flickering at the edges of his control.
“I want you to die,” Vi’ya said, and nodded at Jaim.
He lifted his hand one more time and tabbed the key.
The music had stopped. In silence he watched the missile speed away. In silence the million-degree nuclear detonation tore into unprotected hull metal, and the Lith disintegrated, blooming into a final, lacy beauty, an ironic epitaph for the ugliness that had been Hreem’s life.
And as the rose of plasma faded, so, too, did Jaim’s sight, but it no longer mattered, and he slid from his pod into the welcome embrace of darkness.
SIX
The music from the hyperwave rose to a crescendo and then subsided. Margot Ng groped for the difference she heard: too complex to be called a mere key change. No, a theme was missing, and the subtraction of its dissonant, compelling tones sounded like a transition to a major key.
“Power loss on Flower of Lith,” sang Wychyrski.
With immense satisfaction Margot Ng watched as the Telvarna came about and launched a single missile against the now-helpless destroyer. As the nuclear fireball dissipated, the Columbiad skipped out. Had Vi’ya detected, by whatever occult means she had, the emergence of another threat?
The Thrones of Kronos Page 61
