A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  A difficult blend of emotions accompanied that memory: humiliation and excitement, fear and anger. He had laughed most of any of them at Lokri’s tired old joke because until recently he of all of them knew best that she was, after all, a Dol’jharian: she had attacked Jaim, with rape the intent, one terrifying night not long after her arrival on Dis, and he’d ended up fighting for his life.

  His gaze brushed her dark gaze. Was she remembering as well? Or had it so little meaning to one of her culture she had long since forgotten? She had never again referred to it, and after she had forced a similar encounter onto the hapless Lokri not long ago, she had again behaved as though nothing had happened.

  When they finished, Ivard went off to his room, feinting and jabbing before him at imagined enemies.

  Jaim said to Vi’ya, “Back tomorrow, if circumstances permit.”

  She retreated to her room, leaving Jaim to exit.

  The guard lifted his hand in a casual salute, which Jaim returned with a wave. Jaim retraced his steps through the corridors to the transtube to wait for the next pod. He sniffed the air. It was “morning”; the lighting had been altered subtly to resemble morning light on one of the planets that claimed to be most Earth-like.

  The transtube arrived, a quiet rumble under his feet. He found a seat behind a number of people going off to work. The transtube lurched into motion; Jaim felt the smooth acceleration in his midsection. The pod burst out of the Cap and began its descent to the surface of the oneill. He watched the patchwork of greenery grow into detail as they fell, with the raw scars of newly constructed refugee camps scattered throughout.

  Unlike Rifthaven, there was no ugly place on this habitat. Even the new camps, prefab though they might be, were pleasant to see, albeit crowded. But the surface space of the oneill was limited, since much of it was given over to food crops. He could see construction of new quarters going up at the Cap. Even from a distance they appeared much less pleasant.

  He knew from the Marines that some of the civilians had expressed anger at their displacement; from those sequestered in the Cap for their work with the captured hyperwave, that anger was feigned.

  Jaim remembered the dispassionate gaze of Admiral Nyberg at the Aerenarch’s briefing about the hyperwave. Obviously even so small a detail as exploiting the infighting for living space to cover the sequestration of critical personnel had not escaped his attention. Jaim knew nothing of the station’s commander, but was beginning to understand that the man was as much a master of the political arts as he, Jaim, was of the Ulanshu. And he’ll need every bit of that talent to deal with the likes of these doll-faced Douloi.

  Haze hid the lake near the Arkadic Enclave from this distance. Around that lake the competition among the Douloi for high-status living space seethed; he wondered if Vannis Scefi-Cartano and her friends ever glanced at the scenery. No. They look around to see what those next higher on the rungs are doing.

  And for Vannis, that meant Brandon.

  When Jaim had asked about Vannis, Brandon had said, “We’ll leave the door open once. I owe that much to my brother, I think.” What had he meant?

  I don’t have to understand it. Jaim leaned his head back on the seat, too tired to think.

  o0o

  Marine Solarch Artorus Vahn gasped as his sparring partner’s kick glanced off the side of his knee, jolting him with pain. Anger flashed, he struck back in a whirl of blows, and when his brain caught up he stood over his partner, the side of his hand at the man’s neck.

  Vahn grimaced and straightened up. “Sorry, Reffe,” he said.

  Reffe rolled to his feet, mopping with his sleeve at his bleeding nose. “No problem,” he said thickly, as they all did when someone landed them on their ass. Especially a superior. “An enemy won’t go as easy.”

  They all said that, but Vahn could see the resentment Reffe tried to hide, and his chagrin worsened. Reffe was an excellent inner perimeter man, usually part of Roget’s detail; he’d done two watches back to back while everyone else was cycled through the new training.

  Vahn hated himself for his loss of control. Reffe wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t furious.

  The medic drew Reffe aside, and Vahn forced himself to move away. He took his chagrin (and his own exhaustion) to weapons practice, and when he came out, he was not surprised to find his watch commander waiting for him.

  “You all right, Artorus?” she asked.

  The use of his first name was meant to signal no punitive steps, but nothing could make Vahn feel worse than he did. She fell in step beside him as he headed for the showers.

  “Momentary lapse. I’m fine, sir,” he said. “If Reffe wants to report it, I’ll support his decision.”

  The watch commander shook her head. “Said it was accidental. The vid corroborates, not that I thought it was anything else. Look, you’re all exhausted. I wish I could give you more personnel, but we’re maxed out.”

  “And it’s only going to get worse,” he said. “Roget and I will work something out. Maybe staggered watches. We all need to make sure we get downtime.”

  “Good man.” She ducked her chin, walloped his shoulder, and turned away as he hit the door to the bain. But before it closed, she said, “Speak up if you find yourselves unraveling.”

  He saluted, and the door hissed shut on her worried brown gaze.

  He’d promised, and he meant it, but the least he could do for Reffe was to push his own rec time further back, and take the boring study watch so that Reffe could get his nose attended to.

  A short time later, clean and spruce in a fresh uniform, he stood at the window of the room the Aerenarch had made his study, dividing his attention between the Aerenarch busy at the console and the grassy sward outside where children played, soft lit in “morning” color.

  That clump near the trees, their bodies stiff, their peeks at the sky tentative, were Downsiders. They did not trust the ground-becoming-sky that is an oneill’s substitute for a horizon.

  Those who’d raced straight out to play were Highdwellers. The ones who ran the longest, as if joy-crazed by the wide horizons, were from smaller habitats, or even ships. And those who set up a game in a businesslike fashion had probably been born and raised on a standard oneill, like the civilian portion of Ares, whose size and maximum population were prescribed by one of the statutes known as the Jaspran Unalterables.

  Vahn sustained a flash of memory, the gardens of Arthelion.

  The grim vision of what Dol’jhar must have done to those gardens caused him to turn physically.

  The Aerenarch leaned into his work, utterly focused. Vahn had stepped within sight of the screen. The Aerenarch once again labored hip-deep in what appeared to be a multiple semiotic vector problem; he was working in the new Tenno, a small window indicating the presence of his tutor, probably one of Warrigal’s staff. The Aerenarch’s hands moved with swift assurance over the keypads, and the screen rippled, adapting to his input and then evolving further.

  His actions made no sense to Vahn. The Aerenarch, as a young Krysarch, had been kicked out of the Academy, and now that he was heir, he would never be commissioned in the Navy. Yet he spent all his free time—sometimes late into the night, if the increasing demands of social engagements used up his day—poring over advanced strategy problems and solutions. Vahn sensed he was looking on long habit. In fact, the only reason I’m seeing him at it is that Semion is dead.

  This was not the Aerenarch’s only secret that caused Vahn to speculate on his intent. Though ostensibly the telltale inside of Jaim was for the Aerenarch’s own protection, Vahn knew the real reason was somewhat more complicated.

  Faseult’s orders had been succinct on this point: “When he is alone with the Rifter, you and only you will listen. Do not record anything except details concerning his experiences, from the time he left his Enkainion until he was rescued by Nukiel.”

  Vahn suspected it was the mystery concerning the Enkainion that concerned his superiors most.

  His
boswell pinged, and Roget said: (Jaim’s back.)

  (Report?)

  (Detention Five, Ivard and Vi’ya. Training session, and one of them was working the comp. Discriminators heard nothing. Want a deeper dive?)

  Vahn hesitated. It was still a jolt to remember that the Rifters had known about the hyperwave’s existence before the Navy did. But then Eusabian had armed Rifters as part of his fleet. Anyway, he knew that Jaim had not mentioned it to anybody—had not even discussed it with Brandon after they were both briefed by Nyberg. He reached a decision: (Not necessary.)

  Roget acknowledged and cut the link.

  Vahn activated another signal and waited until Keveth on the outside post had moved to the garden where he could see inside the room. Vahn watched the Aerenarch, and when he was focused on the left side of his screen, jeeved noiselessly; he reached the front in time to intercept Jaim, coffee mugs in his hands. “You’ve been up all night,” he greeted the Rifter. “Coffee?”

  Jaim veered and followed, as Vahn had intended.

  The kitchen was empty, as Montrose did not favor early hours. Another Rifter. Vahn moved to the urn, cursing the difficult position the Aerenarch had put them in with this whim of his. A Rifter bodyguard and another as his chef, the latter a survivor of Timberwell with a cordial hatred for the Archon Srivashti, perhaps the most powerful Douloi on Ares. Jaim sat down at the table, his long face tired, his attitude one of patient waiting.

  He knows this is an interrogation. Jaim’s willingness to comply might mean anything, but his falling in with the fiction of a couple of guards taking a coffee break came down heavily in the credit side.

  Jaim said, “Has he been studying all night again?”

  Vahn nodded, poured fresh coffee and carried it to the table. He sat down opposite Jaim. “Seems to be enjoying it.”

  It was an opportunity to enlarge on what reasons Jaim saw behind it, but Jaim just shook his head, the chimes woven into the long mourning braids hanging down his back tinkling on a minor key.

  “Got some R&R?” Vahn asked.

  Jaim’s smile was brief. “Visited my shipmates.”

  “How’s Ivard recovering?”

  “Looks good, sounds good.” Jaim hesitated, twitched a shoulder in a slight shrug, then offered a piece of information unasked: “Vi’ya asked me to train him Ulanshu.”

  “Expect to ship out together after we finish with Eusabian?”

  Jaim’s brows lifted and he stared into his coffee as if seeking an answer there. “No,” he said presently. “I don’t know why she asked.”

  “But you do it anyway?”

  Jaim smiled again. “She was the captain. It’s a habit.”

  Vahn said, “Two masters? That’s a lot of work.”

  Jaim seemed vaguely surprised, then rubbed his eyes. “Vi’ya is looking out for Firehead’s welfare,” he said. “That was our name for Ivard.” Holding out his hand flat a few centimeters above the tabletop, he added, “Ivard was that small when his sister Greywing brought him to Dis. Greywing died on our Arthelion run. I think Vi’ya sees herself responsible for him.”

  Vahn nodded. Sipped. Said, “I understand they offered her employment, and she refused.”

  Jaim shrugged again, this time more obviously. “Won’t wear telltales.”

  Vahn thought about Detention Five’s current population, people not classifiable as either citizens or capital-crime criminals, who the higher-ups deemed could not be let loose without monitoring. Especially now. “Those telltales are simply that, to monitor where one goes. For most it will be a temporary measure, a necessary one given the circumstances.”

  Jaim flicked his fingers up. “Understood.” He hesitated, then said, “You’d have to know her background.”

  That wasn’t what he wanted to say. Vahn wondered what he would say if he found out that he had a far more subtle—and more powerful—transmitter planted in him.

  “She’s Dol’jharian,” Vahn prompted. “Escaped from the planet young, is what Nukiel’s techs found out under the noetic questioning. There’s a relation?”

  Jaim grinned mirthlessly, taking in Vahn’s casual words, and what they meant. By admitting that they had questioned Vi’ya under noesis, Vahn was as much as confessing that Jaim had also undergone the same. He would consider what this admission meant later, but now: “If you knew much about Dol’jhar, you’d see it. Slaves have old-fashioned trackers planted in their shoulder blades, soon’s they’re sold. Big metal lump, like this.” He indicated a knuckle. “Her first act when she escaped the quarry—she wasn’t much older than Firehead—was to dig it out of her own back with a stolen table knife. Said she’d never bear another, and she keeps her word.”

  Vahn winced in sympathy. Instinct prompted him to trust Jaim (who had reacted sensibly to the Vahn’s technically illegal sharing of noetic information), but duty forced him to remain neutral. Too much was at stake. I can’t trust you wholly, but I can let you know that it would be best if we were on the same side.

  “You’ll need to get some sleep,” he said, finishing his coffee and getting to his feet. He put his cup in the recycler, then turned back. “Unfortunately I have some news that might make it hard to rack up the Z’s. Want it now, or wait?”

  “Let me guess—someone wants our guts for a trophy?” Jaim indicated himself and tipped his head toward Brandon.

  “Already tried. Found it right before you two got in from that Archonei’s earlier this evening.”

  “It?”

  “Helix. On a personal invitation. Clone cells in the tianqi monitors caught it.”

  Vahn was gratified by Jaim’s reaction of unequivocal revulsion. He hadn’t been sure if Rifters shared the civilized abhorrence of the Voudun genetic poison, cultivated from cloned cells taken from the intended victim and affecting only that person. Rare as it was, only the death of the sensitized clone cells in the tianqi substrates—an expensive precaution that Vahn had ordered as part of the routine security for handling physical mail—had revealed the presence of the poison. It only took a few cells, from under a fingernail brushed lightly against the victim’s skin, or a couple of hairs, to supply enough of the victim’s genome to clone the poison.

  And now all his team was going through another crash course in new protocols for poison detection on the move.

  Jaim’s face became thoughtful. “The invitation might have passed through many hands on its way to the Arkadic Enclave.”

  So he understands, Vahn thought. Like Vahn, Jaim had immediately dismissed the issuer of the invitation from his suspicions. No one would be that stupid. Of course, that might be just what we’re intended to think.

  “Right,” Vahn replied.

  Jaim grunted and rubbed his fingers from eye sockets to jaw. “Dol’jhar?”

  Vahn smiled ruefully. “I’d like to think so, but it’s just as likely to be plotters in the government with an eye to their own advantage should the heir die or, better, be disabled. Forensics hasn’t analyzed the poison yet, so we don’t know which was intended.”

  Jaim stared sightlessly into his coffee, and Vahn wondered if he understood how complicated the situation really was. Finally Jaim said, “Arkad know?”

  The name, bare of titles, jarred Vahn; his reaction was mixed. During his days under the former Aerenarch Semion, the old saying was, you could be flogged for relaxing protocols even in your sleep. But the new Aerenarch’s orders had been clear: no protocol enforcement when they were alone in the enclave. “Not yet,” he said.

  Jaim gave that mirthless smile again. “My job, right?”

  Vahn opened his hands. “I may not address him until summoned, or in an emergency.”

  Jaim swallowed his coffee, got up, and went out.

  Vahn remained where he was, and with a distinct feeling of distaste that grew each time he did it, activated Jaim’s monitor.

  “. . . interrupt you?” Jaim sounded loud, god-like.

  The Aerenarch’s voice came, flattened slightly. “What, dawn already?
Can’t we arrange to slow the chrono?”

  Jaim sighed. “Vahn says there was an assassination attempt. Last night. Helix. Found it before our return.”

  After a pause, Brandon’s reaction surprised Vahn: “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t see the utility in a lie.”

  “There might be several reasons, but none of them likely. Well, then, there was an attempt. Events are moving with a speed I hadn’t anticipated. It’s time, I think, to—”

  Vahn had seen the visitor code, but ignored it; very few were on the first perimeter pass list. But this visitor apparently was. As Vahn cursed to himself at the interruption, Keveth’s voice came over the boswell: (Former Aerenarch-Consort Vannis.)

  Over the link, Jaim said, “You want to be alone for this?”

  The Aerenarch replied, “Why?”

  o0o

  Vannis had dressed with careful simplicity. She had abandoned mourning white—indicating, she hoped, sincerity—and only wore two jewels, one to catch up half her hair and the other a clasp on her otherwise unadorned gown, from which Yenef had skillfully removed the lace and ribbons indicative of morning at-home. Vannis’s hands were bare, because she’d noticed that Brandon had worn no jewelry other than the Faseult signet, which (rumor had it) had been quietly surrendered to Anton Faseult, oaths to come.

  The guards at the gate passed her. Surely Brandon’s position had not become so ambiguous that anyone had instant access.

  No. Whatever they were whispering about Brandon, he was still who he was. She had to be on a privileged list; her heart leapt in triumph. Maybe this would be easier than she’d thought.

  She lifted a hand to put aside a huge frond and found Brandon standing a meter beyond, leaning in the doorway. She bowed, not the bow of family but of peers one degree removed; it was for Brandon to make any acknowledgment of relationship. She smiled at the last, hoping that the time—early morning—would impel him to drop formality, so that gallantry could inspire him to the familial response.

  He touched her hand, smiled to the same degree, and gestured her inside. Informal but impersonal, and typically air-brained. “Morning, Vannis,” he said. “Want some breakfast?”