A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  The Aerenarch Brandon vlith-Arkad and his Rifter bodyguard. Ng sustained a pulse of anger, and consciously breathed it out. I will suspend judgment until rumor is confirmed as truth or denied. She transferred her gaze to the Rifter bodyguard at his side. She knew that only a small percentage of Rifters were allied with Eusabian of Dol’jhar, but her back still prickled with reflexive wariness at the sight of one here, at this briefing. The government’s possession of the hyperwave, won at great cost, was the most closely guarded secret on Ares.

  Then her wariness altered to reflection as the implications of the Rifter’s garb became clear. He was not wearing the livery of the Phoenix House, yet his presence indicated he was a sworn man—otherwise even the Aerenarch could not have prevailed against Ares security regs. So he’s sworn to Brandon vlith-Arkad, but not to the Aerenarch. A personal oath, leaving his Rifter identity intact. Interesting.

  As the Aerenarch made his way down the center aisle, the two men with him expertly isolated him from the crowd of hangers-on, so expertly that Ng could not see how it was done. The new Aerenarch seated himself with the Marine behind him and the Rifter to his right.

  Another blow against precedence. The attendant officers seated themselves nearby, reluctantly leaving space free around him in response to subtle but unmistakable signals from the two bodyguards.

  Ng glanced at Nyberg, aware that he had not stood at the Aerenarch’s entrance. Nor did he escort the Aerenarch here.

  That confirmed the anomalous nature of the Aerenarch’s position on Ares. On the civilian side, he was heir apparent of the Phoenix House, and with his father imprisoned or dead, the leader de jure of the Panarchist government. But rumors of treason echoed around his unexplained escape from the nuclear atrocity that had wiped out the highest levels of the government at his Enkainion on Arthelion, and his reputation as a scapegrace and a drunkard left him with no base of power.

  On the military side, he had no standing at all, having been withdrawn from the Minerva Academy years ago. It was inevitable that he would be the center of gossip, but she had been surprised at the vehement polarization of her officers. The majority ranged between anger and a sense of betrayal at the unexplained escape from the Ivory Hall atrocity; the half dozen or so who had known him during his brief time at the Minerva Academy maintained steadfastly that rumor had to be false, or only partly true.

  Ng watched the Aerenarch as he set up his console, surprised at the sureness of his movements. His face was a young version of the Panarch’s austerity, and a softened version of Semion’s severity.

  Admiral Nyberg stood; the Douloi would appreciate the pause between Brandon’s entrance and the start of the proceeding. Two pairs of Marines drew both double doors closed and the murmuring of conversation ceased. Ng sensed the tianqi shifting to a different mode, with a hint of a complex, faintly pungent scent she knew was designed to promote alertness and analytical thought.

  The Admiral said, “This briefing falls under the protocols of secrecy as outlined in the Articles of War and under the Silence of Fealty.”

  Ng saw the visible signs of heightened alertness from everyone in the room: Nyberg had formally given notice that disclosure of the matters discussed here to anyone not present would constitute a capital crime for both military and civilian personnel.

  “All of you are aware of the general state of affairs, but to focus us, I will restate them. Eusabian of Dol’jhar, having armed a large number of Rifter vessels with weapons of unprecedented power, and equipped with apparently instantaneous communications, has overthrown His Majesty’s government and now occupies the Mandala. This station, and the Fleet, are likely the only remaining centers of resistance.

  “We will consider two topics during this briefing. First, the provenance of Eusabian’s advanced technology, and what can be done about it, and second, the effect of this technology on strategy and tactics.”

  The Aerenarch lifted his head sharply, his gaze focused on Nyberg. What? Oh yes. There was to have been a third topic at this briefing: the fate of the Panarch Gelasaar, captured by Eusabian on Lao Tse and now, according to Sebastian Omilov’s report, destined for delivery into the hands of the Isolates of Gehenna.

  In the absence of a constituted Privy Council, there was no one who could order the Navy on a rescue mission to the planet of exile. Nyberg could not promote himself to high admiral—he was de facto but not de jure head of the Navy. No one save Brandon vlith-Arkad could make appointments, but without a power base he lacked authority.

  Nyberg continued; Ng was sure the Aerenarch’s reaction had not escaped him. “But before all this I have some good news to leaven an otherwise disastrous situation. You have the details of timing before you; permit me to summarize. Many of you have heard that the object of the battle commanded by Captain Margot O’Reilly Ng in the Arthelion system was an attack on the Mandala and the usurper, Eusabian of Dol’jhar.”

  Nyberg paused and looked her way. She kept her face impassive

  “If that were true, Captain Ng would not now be sitting beside me. She would have been shot.”

  A buzz of reaction rose, quickly stilled.

  “Captain Ng lost two battlecruisers, three destroyers, nine frigates, and a number of attached ships. Casualties amounted to almost ten thousand killed or missing, and another fifteen hundred wounded. Despite that, the judges at her court-martial commended her for a brilliant success. In fact, she was decorated for her efforts, but the decoration, and the very fact of its award, are classified. The judgment of the court is sealed.”

  Captain Nukiel smiled at Ng from the space officers’ side of the gallery, his expression echoed by some of the others around him, not all of whom she recognized. On the other side she saw only puzzlement or guarded looks of consideration. Memory brought to mind the face she didn’t see among them; as always, her heart twisted with grief.

  From below, Sedry Thetris watched her own grief reflected in Ng’s face.

  “What the court knew that you do not know,” the admiral continued, “was that the Battle of Arthelion ended, as had been intended from the start, in the capture of one of the enemy’s hyperwaves, the instantaneous communicators that, in combination with some unknown power source, are the key to Dol’jhar’s success in overthrowing His Majesty’s government.”

  Now the whispered comments crescendoed to a hum of speech, which Admiral Nyberg overrode without raising his voice. “It is now feeding data to our analysts, all of whom have been sequestered in high-security quarters for the duration. You see some of the data represented here.”

  He gestured at the holograph behind him. “Although communications between Dol’jhar and the Rifter ships equipped with a hyperwave are encoded, and have so far resisted cryptographic efforts, there is an ever-increasing volume of transmissions—both en clair and in Sodality codes that we can read—between Rifter ships.”

  The admiral smiled sardonically. “The undisciplined proclivities of Eusabian’s Rifter allies are a major weakness in his strategy, which the hyperwave will permit us to exploit. The content of these messages enables us to position their ships with some accuracy. In addition, correlation of ship-movements data obtained from these messages with the encrypted communications will eventually enable us to decode the Dol’jharian message headers, revealing what ship each message is addressed to for an increasingly clearer apprehension of the enemy’s strategy. All this information is fully worth what Captain Ng and her detachment paid for it.”

  His tone sharpened. “Needless to say, these messages will continue only so long as our possession of the hyperwave is unknown to Dol’jhar. So far, there is every indication that they do not know we are listening.”

  Nyberg paused and surveyed the still room. “Thus, I reiterate. There will be no mercy for anyone discussing these matters with anyone not authorized. It is unlikely that any communication can pass from this station to the enemy, but we are determined to take no chances.”

  The admiral paused, letting the th
reat settle in. Then his tone shifted to mildness. “Now, before we move on to the Battle of Arthelion, I would like to introduce a man who deserves your utmost attention and respect. He maintained his Oath of Fealty in the face of the worst torture that Eusabian could inflict on him, to conceal information that, in our hands, may yet doom the usurper to failure and death. Gnostor Sebastian Omilov, Chival of the Phoenix Gate.”

  Startled by the sound of his name, and the unexpected formality of his title, Sebastian Omilov stood, feeling the psychic weight of all that attention. He was trying to convince himself it was no different than facing a gathering of students when Admiral Nyberg placed his left hand over his heart and began striking it rhythmically with his right, in the measured cadence of the salute normally rendered only to fellow officers wounded in the Panarch’s service. The shock of emotion was almost physical; Omilov struggled to control himself, knowing that he was failing in the face of this stunning, almost unprecedented encomium.

  Captain Ng and her officers at the presentation consoles rose to their feet and joined in, followed by the space officers present, then, hesitantly, by the station officers.

  Taking refuge in analysis, Omilov noted that the civilians around him stood respectfully, as did the Aerenarch, but quite properly did not join the salute—that was the prerogative of the Navy.

  Omilov bowed in gratitude, breathed deeply, and began speaking. He could not hide the hoarseness of emotion in his voice, so he closed his eyes, reaching mentally for the comfortable surroundings of a lecture hall.

  “Thank you, Admiral Nyberg, all of you. I only wish I had more to tell you—Eusabian probably would have learned nothing from me he did not already know. But I have hopes, thanks to Captain Ng and the many men and women of the Navy who fought at Arthelion, that we may solve the riddle of Eusabian’s power and win through at last.”

  We. He was distracted by the familiar longing to be part of the team Nyberg would appoint to pursue what little was known of the Urian artifact and its center of power. He forced himself to go on.

  “The little I know is this. Ten million years ago the race we call the Ur vanished from the galaxy after a war that lasted for millennia. They left behind those astronomical works of art known as the Doomed Worlds, various artifacts resembling each other only in their degree of incomprehensibility, and the selfsame legend among the few races not exterminated by the energies unleashed in the death throes of the Ur. Humankind calls it the Suneater—and its reputed powers are described fully by its name.”

  Omilov gazed at the hologram above. Perhaps it was the impact of Nyberg’s salute, shaking him loose from the comfortable groove of Douloi formality, but he perceived in that flattened ovoid of stars, distorted by the chaotic emptiness of the Rift, an implication—no, an utter certainty—with tectonic implications: a glimpse of a power beyond anything that humankind was ready for. A force now in the hands of the Avatar of Dol, a man unconstrained by any moral imperative save that of force.

  Omilov swallowed, aware of small stirrings of puzzlement at his unexpected pause. “In fact, it’s my belief that this device created the Rift, that anomalous frontier of the Thousand Suns that has conditioned so much of our history in Exile.”

  No one spoke, or keyed, or even seemed to breathe. One of the nearby space officers glanced down at her console and touched its tabs lightly, as if wondering what human technology could do in the face of such power.

  “I will not go into details now, except to say that I believe Eusabian has discovered the Suneater and, moreover, now possesses the key to its full potential. Our hope is that the full use of this key will evade him until we, too, can find the Suneater and destroy it. If it can be destroyed.”

  He paused again, feeling an odd, complex dissonance of emotions as he studied the hologram of the Thousand Suns. It was as though he were seeing it for the first time, and yet with a sense of familiarity. And, overlaying it a poignant sense of impending loss. And past loss: llara. He’d watched her leave the Mandala twenty years ago on her doomed mission to Dol’jhar. That wound had never healed.

  No. This time Dol’jhar will not win.

  He cleared his throat. “I am a xenoarchaeologist, accustomed to casting my vision into the distant past to decipher the nature of races long vanished and little known. You are warriors, accustomed to gazing into the furnace of the present moment in battle, and into the fog of the future created by your actions and the response of the foe. I know little of the art of war, or of those functions you professionals call SigInt and Moral Sabotage. So I cannot guess how much you will learn from the hyperwave that Captain Ng has brought us. But I am sure that by synthesizing these branches of knowledge that perhaps have never before been combined, the heart of our enemy’s power can be located and wrested from his grasp.”

  As the gnostor opened the proceeding to questions, Margot Ng’s mind raced ahead. No satisfactory hypothesis explaining the creation of that chaotic abyss of sundered stars and fivespace anomalies had ever been advanced by the gnostors of the College of Ontological Physics.

  She shrugged. It didn’t really matter. The important thing was that the Suneater gave the usurper’s forces an offensive weapon an order of magnitude beyond anything the Navy could field, and vastly superior communications.

  Therefore the Suneater’s power was both a strength and a weakness for the enemy. Eusabian would have to sacrifice anything, any plan, to protect it. The Fleet would have to be redeployed in any case—most of it mustered here at Ares for the attack on the Suneater when it was finally found. That movement would inevitably be detected by Dol’jhar, and in combination with carefully crafted intelligence leaks implying that the Navy had already located the Suneater. . . .

  Margot Ng smiled. If they timed it right, after they had broken the message header codes so they could track ship deployments, the motions of the enemy’s ships as he shifted them to counter the coming attack on the Suneater would inevitably point right at its hiding place.

  If specialized knowledge from those like Omilov didn’t lead them to it even sooner.

  She cast a thoughtful glance at the portly gnostor as he reseated himself. Sebastian Omilov had retired from government circles quite suddenly ten years ago; her patrons had implied that he’d been a peripheral victim of the L’Ranja affair. She didn’t know enough about him otherwise to assess the reliability of his professional judgment, but there was no doubt he had Nyberg’s respect. Did he have his backing? Who would Nyberg put in charge of the research project? If one were to consider the scene that had taken place from a purely political point of view, Omilov would be in a perfect position to head that project.

  She sighed. Politics. One’s oath could lead one down some strange paths, but if the Navy did end up dependent on Sebastian Omilov’s expertise, then she had to know if he could be trusted. She would use any source of knowledge to that end.

  She caught her name: Nyberg had begun to speak again.

  “. . . Margot O’Reilly Ng, who will guide our exploration of the battles of Treymontaigne and Arthelion, with the goal of understanding the new tactical reality imposed upon us by the enemy’s weapons and communications. Captain Ng?”

  She got to her feet, and was astonished to see the admiral step down from the rostrum and take his place in the audience. The significance of this act was not lost on the officers and analysts present. She would have their full attention.

  “Thank you, sir. What you will see here is a compilation of the actions at Treymontaigne and Arthelion, assembled from multiple ships’ records. We’ll run through a unified view of each, then each of you may access the segments of interest to you via your consoles. Each of us here on the control rostrum is available to you for questioning and interpretation via the adapted tabs at the top of your consoles.”

  She paused to give them a chance to take in the tabs, then went on.

  “Here’s what we need to keep uppermost in mind. First, and most obvious, what you are seeing here is not the raw data,
but a selection of it by those of us who experienced it. We may be too close to it; I encourage you to investigate the full records on the secure consoles that will be made available to you later. You may well detect subtleties that evaded us, during the battles and later.”

  Another flash of Metellus Hayashi’s face. She paused to breathe against the spasm of grief, the agony of not knowing what had happened to him. Hope hurt nearly as much as grief.

  She cleared her throat and resumed. “I’d also like to remind you that while there have been many secret weapons in the history of human warfare, and many have been decisive in one or more battles, none has ever decided a war. Sometimes the impact of the weapon has been overestimated; other times—and I believe these battles are an example—the side possessing the weapon has not trained enough with it to integrate it sufficiently into tactical doctrine. Dol’jhar’s need to keep the powers of the Suneater secret during his preparation for war crippled the tactical knowledge of his Rifter allies by preventing them from exercising sufficiently with the new weapons and communications.”

  A quick, appreciative buzz quickly stilled.

  “I also believe that what you are about to see reveals that Dol’jhar’s tactician, Kyvernat Juvaszt, whose style is known to many of you, has made a fundamental mistake. His tactics appear to be patterned after what the Urian technology can do. Rather should he have discovered what it cannot do and found a way to accomplish his mission anyway. We can exploit this.”

  Subtle reaction rippled through the space officers.

  “Third. A philosophical consideration. It was pointed out long before the Exile that the unity of control exercised by totalitarian regimes such as Dol’jhar is a recipe for overwhelming technological mistakes. Only the freedom of discussion—and the confusion that sometimes results—found in an open society can prevent that. I don’t know if this will be the case with what faces us now. It is a possibility. The specialists in Moral Sabotage among you will need to consider this.”