A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  “Numen,” said Captain Ng, “I’m honored to make your acquaintance.”

  “The honor is mine, Captain Ng. But if this is a personal matter, I can withdraw. I hope, however, that you will find time to visit me at the Cloister sometime soon.”

  Captain Ng gestured, the Douloi turn of wrist and fingers including them all. “I only intrude for a moment, and on an entirely civilian matter.” She inclined her head toward Omilov. “At least, it is my intention to keep it civilian. You are acquainted with the Archon of Timberwell, gnostor?”

  Omilov bowed his agreement, his bushy brows betraying faint surprise. Then suddenly, perhaps unwillingly, he smiled. “Yes, and I’ve been invited, and I’d intended to turn it down in favor of my work here.”

  Ng’s amusement blended with sympathy. “I, alas, do not claim acquaintance with the Archon, and would very much like an escort to help me avoid the worst social blunders.”

  What social blunders? Then Eloatri saw it: a civilian escort would make very clear to Srivashti and his Tetrad Centrum Douloi guests that Ng’s presence was a social one only. And, with deeper appreciation: She is a realist, and a skilled one at that—she must know that the gnostor was once tutor to the Panarchist heirs.

  Margot Ng watched Omilov closely. “You know why they’ve invited my undeserving self,” she said, feeling that blunt honesty was the least she owed him for putting him on the spot. “It’ll be a food-and-drink-disguised interrogation on military subjects. Questions I cannot, and will not, answer. I’d rather refight the Battle of Arthelion from a two-seater tug than go. But if you—experienced with the weaponry of the Mandala ballrooms and salons—would run shield for me . . .”

  Omilov uttered a sniff, almost a snort, and smiled. There was no mirth in that smile. But he said, “Were you planning to wear your dress whites?”

  “Yes. I was even going to break out all the medals, to hide behind—no?”

  “A gown. They’ve gone back to the fashions of Jaspar’s day.”

  “A gown? I don’t own such a thing . . .” The implications began to proliferate, and she laughed. “Oh, yes. Oh, you are so right. Do come with me? I couldn’t possibly be better armed.”

  Omilov bowed with surprising suavity. “When you put it that way, I should be honored.”

  Eloatri observed that something in the cant of his head, and the placement of his hands, made the captain’s smile widen almost to laughter. Nothing was said, but they had all, with artistic finesse, conveyed to one another their thoughts about the prospective entertainment.

  o0o

  Despite Vannis’s anomalous position as former Aerenarch-Consort, she had so firmly re-established her position as social leader that retrenchment, so necessary, was now the mode—and no one had to admit how much of a relief it was.

  A great deal of covert sharing was necessary for many, some of it dictated along family or alliance connections, some by speculation. The Navy had been neutral but firm about the limit on resources from the beginning, and those who paid attention knew that the situation was only going to get worse.

  So social activities, most offered by hosts and hostesses who had been used to virtually unlimited resources, were now simple.

  That said, Vannis reflected while inspecting the clever alterations Yenef had achieved in what once had been a semi-formal dinner gown, everyone without exception longed for a return to life as they knew it.

  Thus, although Tau Srivashti’s reputation was sinister, and his political position anomalous after losing Timberwell in all but title, when he and Vannis declared their intention to host a reception for the heroic Captain Ng, everyone in the civilian world wanted to be there.

  Just as Srivashti had predicted.

  Vannis did not have to do anything. Srivashti’s ship was a mobile fortress, with enough supplies to sustain a siege for a significant time. As soon as the word was out, Vannis had seen how everyone expected, anticipated, craved the profligacy of the old days, even if only for a few hours.

  Competition for invitations among the Douloi heightened to duels of innuendo. To no avail. Vannis had given Srivashti her list of those she felt ought to be invited, and he had his own list. They agreed not to argue; the two lists were joined, and with one stroke, they created a new elite.

  And so she sat before her mirror as Yenef set gems into her the elaborate coils of her hair, and prepared for battle on the grounds she knew best.

  At the same time, in her quarters, Margot Ng climbed into the gown that Vice-Admiral Willsones’s niece’s partner had loaned her, and headed out of her cabin with the air of one going to a court-martial.

  Elsewhere, those Douloi lucky enough to be invited put on the best clothes and jewels they had hoarded or borrowed (because tonight, there was no pretense at retrenchment) and converged on the Cap.

  The youngest of them, Dandenus vlith-Harkatsus, stepped off the shuttle beside his father. He couldn’t believe it! He was actually on board the Archon Srivashti’s fabulous glittership.

  His father stood impassively, looking neither right nor left, and Dandenus took his cue from that and kept his head still, though his eyes flickered side to side, up and down, taking in everything possible.

  The lock slid open, and they walked down a corridor that made Dandenus breathe in ecstasy: one side opened over a drop of fifty meters, the other displayed a long mosaic featuring mythological figures from Lost Earth. Underfoot, a living carpet of mosses silenced their footfalls.

  The yacht was much bigger even than any Harkatsus trade vessel, and, Dandenus reflected in delight, probably faster and better armed than any Navy frigate.

  But he was careful to keep his reaction strictly to himself. The other Harkatsus relatives distrusted the Srivashtis, with all the resentment—so Dandenus had discovered since he started delving into the records—reserved for someone who bests you in your own area of expertise. His father, however, loathed the Archon with a depth that hinted at some other kind of defeat.

  But they were here. As relatives by marriage, they had been included among the select number chosen to attend this party, and his father had said that to turn down the invitation would be political as well as social suicide.

  Dandenus wondered if he would see his mother at the party. Though she spent the two months a year required by the marriage adoption treaty at the Harkatsus family Highdwelling, Dandenus scarcely knew her.

  Father and son rounded a corner, stepping under the leaves of a gnarled argan tree. The silvery hand-shaped leaves were open toward the light below, wraith-like and curiously supplicating. In the distance, twelve-tone music played, so soft Dandenus could feel the bass notes more than hear them, but the combined effect of this and the unidentifiable scents in the tianqi stirred his neck hairs. Anything could happen here—and, remembering the rumors whispered around school about his infamous relation-by-marriage, probably had.

  They reached a platform on which stood the beautiful former Aerenarch-Consort, Vannis Scefi-Cartano. Standing next to the tall, much older Archon to greet the guests, she looked like somebody Dandenus’s age. Though Dandenus had never actually met Tau hai-Srivashti, he’d seen plenty of holos. He looked even taller in person, imposing in forest green and gold.

  The Aerenarch-Consort murmured a polite greeting, then turned to converse with the people who’d followed right behind Dandenus and his father. Dandenus paid her no attention; he was fascinated by this man his father hated worse than the Shiidra. Maybe even worse than the Dol’jharians.

  And Tau Srivashti knew it. Appreciating the irony of the moment, he held out both hands and said, “Kestian.” Srivashti’s voice was soft but rough-edged, like a predator cat’s growl.

  Dandenus stared in fascination as his father flushed, barely touched the out-held hands and made a formal bow, which the Archon returned with grace and a gesture of welcome that was disarmingly deferential. Then the man turned to Dandenus, and ophidian-yellow met his.

  Now it was Dandenus’s turn to stare with the fasc
ination of the rabbit before the snake.

  The snake regarded the rabbit with surprise and pleasurable anticipation: Kestian, ever awkward and sullen, had managed to produce a handsome lad who struggled to mask his diffidence with a challenging lift to a well-cut chin.

  Srivashti’s smile widened. “Dandenus. I am delighted at last to meet my young nephew. My sister has much to say in your praise.”

  The words were the usual politesse you expected to hear, but the soft voice conveyed a sincerity that warmed Dandenus despite all the careful coaching and warnings he’d heard since the invitation came.

  Hearing that low, caressing note caused Kestian’s insides to gripe with fury, and deeper, deeper, a roil of old humiliation and desire. He watched in impotent fury as his son performed the correct bow to one of superior age and social standing, his hands at his sides, which would make claims of kinship ambiguous.

  That much Dandenus had been coached to do, but at the end he could not prevent a return smile.

  This seemed to delight the Archon. “Charis tells me you are now the heir—that you were to make an early Enkainion?”

  Gratification suffused Dandenus, though he struggled not to show it. The words—At home, we can make our Enkainion at twenty-one, but only if we’ve earned it—died unspoken. Bragging was weakness, his father had told him over and over. Far better for others to note your successes. So he said only, “I was to go to Arthelion.”

  His brief response seemed to please the tall man, who asked a few questions, still in that soft voice, about his studies. Dandenus was careful to keep his answers brief and his tones neutral, and he sensed his father’s approval.

  Then the Archon—very nearly his uncle—turned to his father and touched his sleeve, the gesture of intimates. “Let the young man wander about. He’ll find compatriots his own age. As our guest of honor seems to have wandered off, permit me to introduce you to her. You will have much in common.”

  Dandenus watched his father’s gratified smile. Remembering his father’s bitter warning that the Archon would scarcely notice them, he followed the direction of the Archon’s gesture toward a woman his mother’s age wearing a flowing, flame-colored gown. If that was Captain Ng, why was she wearing civilian dress?

  More significant, seeing that he’d been ordered to stay at his father’s side while aboard the ship, was his father saying after the briefest hesitation, “Enjoy yourself, son.”

  Dandenus heard the warning underneath the permission, bowed to the Archon first, then to his father, and approached the grand stairway, relief shedding off him with every breath. The hated Archon had been nice to him, and then had chosen to mark his father out as a special guest by his promised personal introduction to Ng, even adding a compliment about Father’s Navy years.

  He wants Father as an ally, Dandenus thought. He wants me as an ally.

  Buoyed with a sense of self importance, he looked about him, delighting in the way the glorious ballroom somehow implied vast spaces impossible on anything smaller than a battlecruiser. Everything about him suggested wealth, power, and fun, and its glory was his glory. As he descended the curved stairway, Dandenus spotted a familiar face among the young people gathered before a convex window that looked out at the distant stars: a pretty girl whose blue hair matched her gown.

  Their eyes met, and Dandenus hesitated from old habit. Ami had always run with the Arthelion-born crowd at school . . .

  “Dandenus,” she cried as if she was overjoyed to see him.

  “Ami,” Dandenus replied, thinking that nothing could ever be better than this moment.

  From the balcony above, Ng watched the two handsome young people meet at the foot of the stairway and walk to the convex window where they stood in a crowd of pretty young Douloi, silhouetted against the stars. She appreciated the sight as she sipped at the liquor a silent servant had just poured. All around her the light, singsong Douloi voices blended pleasantly with the musical plash of a fountain.

  The voices, the jewels, the slow dance of precedence and preference, brought back her early days under Nesselryn tutelage—one or two of the faces here even seemed familiar from then. Though none of the Nesselryns were on Ares (nor had she expected them to be—a Family as old as that had its own well-guarded hidey-holes against trouble), their presence managed to make itself felt.

  The most obvious connection was in the unprepossessing figure at her side. Sebastian Omilov not only knew everyone, as she had expected when she requested his escort, but judging from the genuine deference in these smiling faces, had managed in spite of his decade of seclusion to gain, if not their esteem, certainly their respect.

  And the best of it was, he seemed to delight in deflecting every sally on the part of Tau Srivashti, Vannis Scefi-Cartano, and their guests to lead the conversation into military country. No small part of her delight was in how Omilov was ably assisted—whether by accident or design she could not tell—by the Aerenarch, who had arrived directly behind them, and who consequently managed to turn every oblique question into a superficial inanity, his flushed face and brilliant eyes plainly showing the effects of alcohol.

  What did happen on Arthelion? Who would get the courage to ask him—and would he answer?

  When Omilov does solve the Urian question, I just hope we have a government left to see the project through. The thought brought back old ghosts; she set her fluted crystal glass firmly on the tray of a passing servitor and then followed Omilov and the Aerenarch down to the ballroom floor below.

  “That’s the captain who nearly reconquered Arthelion,” Ami said to Dandenus. “They say she damaged the Dol’jharian flagship so bad that it ran like the cowards they are.”

  Dandenus frowned in perplexity as he watched Ng in her flame-colored gown descending the stairway. He’d heard her set that half-drunk glass down with an audible tink. Did Navy captains not drink while on duty? But she wasn’t on duty, was she? “She’s not wearing dress whites.”

  “When my grandmother didn’t want to be bothered with Navy talk at a gathering, she’d go in civilian dress,” Ami said, eyes narrowed critically. “She even looks like my grandmother.”

  Dandenus blinked away the fog of too much dream-smoke wreathing around their group, admiring the way Ami’s blue hair swung about her shoulders, hiding then curling around her shape. Her gown had slipped down one perfect arm, and her smile held promise.

  The ready desire of youth kindled in them both, for Ami liked the way Dandenus had grown so tall, and she especially liked the way the Archon had singled him out. Just how high were his connections? She’d learned that it was dangerous to be too obvious.

  So she took his hand and ran with him up the opposite stair, where she turned to the railing, leaning out at a precarious angle. “Is the Aerenarch going to dance? I want to watch.”

  Dandenus stared obediently down at the crowded floor, his eyesight blurring, his attempts to focus distracted by the flashes of jewels and decorative metals on wrists, ears, clothing, hair.

  Then he caught the famous profile. “There he is,” he said, hoping he sounded casual. Experienced.

  She leaned out farther, and said appreciatively, “He looks just like an Arkad.”

  Dandenus almost asked if she’d actually met one, but resisted. To ask would be callow; she would have worded her remark differently had she met any of them.

  Instead, Dandenus’s gaze was drawn back to Uncle Tau (he’d decided to practice that in his mind, in case the Archon invited him to use it), so resplendent in green and gold, especially against the fabulous mosaics behind him. Uncle Tau was the center of attention below, not the Aerenarch as might be expected.

  Dandenus leaned out next to Ami, scarcely noticing his own precariousness. His father was a part of that group. Not relaxed—his folded arms indicated that—but nodding and smiling. Certainly there was no hostility in the way he sat, body angled toward his hated second-cousin-by-marriage.

  “He will dance! And it looks like his first partner will be
the Aerenarch-Consort—she’s asking him. I wish I dared! Huh. Her hair is still brown. How dull!”

  “My mother told me last year that Mandala fashion is to appear as nature made you.” Dandenus blinked at Ami: I thought you’d know that.

  “They’ve never let me go back to the Mandala,” Ami admitted. “I wasn’t supposed to visit until my Enkainion.”

  Ami leaned farther, a slight frown between her brows as she listened to the talk below. What could she hear? Half-dizzy with drink and smoke, Dandenus couldn’t hear anything, nor did he want to. He studied his partner, wondering how to get her attention from the adults to himself.

  “Lusor,” she said, her gown slipping down the other shoulder as she leaned close. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Lusor, Caerdhre IV,” Dandenus said automatically, going on to name the principal attributes of the system and its location in his own octant. “My father made me memorize all the Tetrad Centrum systems when I was first chosen heir,” he added, trying to impress her further. “Why?”

  Ami had laid her forearm along the rail, within touching distance of Dandenus. She flicked her fingers toward the knot of people below. “Why should it cause that old man, the one with the big ears, to freeze up?” she whispered.

  Dandenus squinted down at the circle, seeing subtle changes in the adults. The man with Ng was indeed quiet, but Dandenus was relieved to see his father talking to Uncle Tau.

  “L’Ranja Family,” Dandenus said, and then he remembered. “There was some kind of scandal. Someone else has Lusor now.” He remembered having seen those big earlobes. “That’s Omilov, a cadet branch of the Zhigels. He’s a gnostor, and a Chival—Phoenix Gate, I think.”

  Ami tapped her thumbnail on her teeth. “Strange.”

  “What’s strange?” Dandenus said, crushing some of the fragile blooms along the rail in his impatience.

  “How just a name could act like a kind of warning.”