A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Tat chewed her lip as the instructions unfolded. Their very detail was an insult, the assumption being that Fasthand was too stupid to know how to look after prisoners. Tat figured that Anaris had not known about the dirty linen or scarce rations, not until Sundiver’s trick, even though he’d seen the Panarch several times. So the Panarch didn’t complain, and Anaris didn’t ask. Interesting.

  “. . . any questions I can convey to my lord?” Morrighon finished.

  “No. Nothing. I hope,” Fasthand continued with a sneer, “that your own accommodations are not lacking?”

  The insult went wide; Morrighon shook his head. “They are adequate for my purposes,” he said, and he moved toward the door. Then he turned, and added in a softer voice, “But in the interests of mutual cooperation, you might inform your crew that the Karusch’na Rahali are nearly at hand.” He went out.

  Fasthand’s face darkened with fury and confusion.

  Tat knew what was coming next; she did not want to be in her cabin when the summons came. She closed her system down, erasing all traces of the recording, then skipped out and wandered down a randomly chosen corridor.

  Shock panged her in the heart when she nearly ran into Morrighon at an intersection. He was not moving—he might have been waiting. For her.

  Blood sang warning in her ears, then subsided as Morrighon, exactly her own height, motioned to her. His squinty eyes flickered up and down the empty corridor around them, then he spoke. “You know what the Karusch’na Rahali are,” he whispered.

  Nothing about narks or coms or anything. Mutely she nodded.

  Morrighon’s face twisted in a weird smile. “It would do no harm at all,” he said, “to let them think they will be the targets.” On ‘them’ he thrust a hand out, indicating the Rifters’ quarters. He paused, studying her as if to gauge her understanding, and then he went on, his walk a peculiar shuffle that made her think of joint disease and broken bones.

  Her compad burred: summons, to the captain’s quarters.

  She found Fasthand before his console, the Starfarer’s Handbook data on Dol’jhar on the screen.

  “That stone-chatzing worm-sucker was in here,” he snarled. “What’s this Kay’roosh’nuhh . . . something?” He tapped his screen impatiently. “It says something about these brain-bent Dol’jharian logos-spawn duffing each other for sex. What’s that got to do with Rifters?” His face changed radically. “Unless he means—they’ll go after . . .”

  “Us,” Tat finished. And as Fasthand began cursing, pouring out heartfelt invective on a rising note, she thought, midway between laughter and despair, It’s going to be a very long trip.

  o0o

  Gelasaar hai-Arkad shuffled along the corridor behind Morrighon, feeling the ache of high gee in every bone of his body. The long incarceration on the Fist of Dol’jhar had taken its toll on all of them; the standard gee in the quarters on the Samedi had been welcomed as a relief, but old bones healed slowly. These forays into the Dol’jharian part of the ship, and the resumption of heavy grav, as short as they were, did not help.

  Morrighon tabbed the annunciator at Anaris’s cabin. The door slid open and the Bori motioned Gelasaar through.

  As the door hissed shut, Anaris stood up from his console, wiping it clear with a quick motion of one strong hand. He tapped once more at it and turned to face the Panarch; Gelasaar’s stomach lurched as the acceleration in the cabin declined to a standard gee. He sighed involuntarily.

  The Dol’jharian motioned him to a chair and took up his accustomed position in front of it, the familiar sinuous black shape of his dirazh’u in his fingers. Anaris rarely sat except to work, a characteristic the Panarch remembered from the young man’s days on Arthelion.

  “Would you prefer a lower gee setting in your quarters?” Anaris asked.

  Gelasaar shook his head. “Gehenna pulls one standard gee; there is no sense in getting too comfortable.”

  If the Dol’jharian heard the irony in his voice he gave no sign of it. “I was astonished at how little information about your prison planet there was in the Palace computer,” he remarked. “Little more than its location, the orbit of the Quarantine Monitor, and the landing zone.”

  “I know little more than that myself,” the Panarch replied. “Access is controlled by the Abuffyd family, as established by a decree centuries ago. They are closemouthed, and I never had any reason to inquire.”

  “You know nothing of conditions on its surface aside from its acceleration?”

  It is not the surface conditions that matter. “The habitable zone is said to be small.”

  “‘Ruler of naught,’ ” quoted Anaris. “But that is not what I wish to discuss.”

  Nor I, though it is Gehenna that gives me the power to judge you.

  “We are running out of time,” Anaris said. “Gehenna is less than three days away.”

  The Panarch felt a shock of—what? Fear? Anticipation? He let nothing of it show as the Dol’jharian continued.

  “So I have spent some time trying to sum up our conversations since we left Arthelion. I have decided that there are two aphorisms that encapsulate your philosophy of government. We will spend our remaining time considering them.”

  Gelasaar made a brief motion with one hand: I am at your disposal. Anaris evidently recognized it, showing a brief gleam of teeth in an almost-smile before he continued.

  “The first is the statement carved in the stone over the entrance to the Concordium on Lao Tse.”

  “‘Do that which consists of no action and order will prevail,’” Gelasaar quoted.

  “Yes. I remember my tutors on Arthelion telling me that is a fundamental axiom of your government, and you recently tried to convince me that ritual maintains the balance of power. I don’t believe the latter, and I still do not understand the first. If one does not act, how can one govern? Power flows from action.”

  “Lao Tse did not say not to act. He said to do that which consists of no action.”

  Anaris waited.

  If I cannot bring you to understand this, you must die, for your partial understanding will make you far more dangerous than your father.

  “Do you remember what I said about ritual having no contraries? How hard it is for a participant to conceive of going against the flow of a ritual?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it is with political events. The action which is no action is to discern that flow, which contains within itself all possibilities, and then conform to it. . . .”

  As Anaris began to question him more closely, Gelasaar found his thoughts splitting along two tracks: one the philosophical argument he was building, the other a consideration of all he had learned about Anaris since the first meeting in the Chamber of the Mysteries on the Fist of Dol’jhar.

  Eusabian’s son had changed since he’d left Arthelion as hostage, of that there was no doubt. He was less aggressively sure of himself now, which meant he had attained enough wisdom to question his own motives as well as those of others. Yet the savage will bred into him by his culture had metamorphosed into a sophisticated ruthlessness.

  Which would be a lot more dangerous if he had not learned to question as part of his reasoning process, the Panarch thought.

  “I see,” Anaris said. “This much I can agree with: the fewer orders given, the fewer opportunities for defiance.”

  “Exactly. As Lao Tse also said, ‘When frying small fish, don’t stir.’”

  To his great surprise, Anaris laughed. “Whereas the Dol’jharian approach is to use a ruptor on them.”

  “Which leaves you with little more than a nasty smell,” the Panarch agreed, “and still hungry.”

  Anaris nodded thoughtfully. “But I am not yet convinced that your model of government is not due to the lack of control imposed upon you by interstellar distances.”

  Perhaps I have reached him, then.

  “Ah. Control. We return to that again,” Gelasaar said. “Your emphasis on that is not surprising, as a scion of such a
n uncontrollable planetary environment.” He paused, and when Anaris lifted his brow in question, continued. “Was that perhaps the subject of the other aphorism you mentioned?”

  Anaris turned away and walked over to the data console. He laid one hand lightly on the keyboard, not activating it, and spoke without turning around.

  “Yes. It is the same one we have discussed many times: ‘Ruler of all, ruler of naught, power unlimited, a prison unsought.’” He turned back to the Panarch. “Your son Semion did not accept that, did he?”

  “No.”

  “In fact,” Anaris continued, “there have been many Panarchs who did not.”

  “If you know your history that well, then you also know that they were also, almost always, the least successful of my line. The worst of them was literally obliterated; to this day there is a phage running in the DataNet that holds the only surviving record of his face or name—for the sole purpose of eradicating any memory of him that may still exist. Like my son, he forgot that the more power one possesses, the less one can use it.”

  Anaris began to speak, but Gelasaar held up his hand.

  “I grow tired, and would ask that we defer completion of this discussion until tomorrow. But think on this, Anaris achreash’Eusabian. Your father may already have shattered the Thousand Suns beyond recovery: it may be your hands that mend it, or complete its destruction. To decide which it is to be, I suggest you meditate upon the Jaspran Unalterables, which have made us what we are. They are the subject of the second Polarity: ‘Seek not control, nor multiply laws; the cracks in the system are blessings, not flaws.’”

  Anaris stared at him for a long beat, then nodded. “Very well. We will speak again—after the Karusch’na Rahali.”

  Something of Gelasaar’s surprise must have shown, for again Anaris smiled with sardonic amusement as he touched his console. The door hissed open, revealing the Bori secretary, Morrighon.

  “For that is a Dol’jharian Unalterable, which has made us what we are.”

  o0o

  “It’s tomorrow,” Tat said.

  Moob threw back her head and howled with laughter. Tat looked away from those terrible red-dyed teeth.

  “They want a fight, isn’t that what you said?” Kedr Five lounged over to the galley access. “What happens if you don’t fight? If you play dead?”

  Half the crew snickered, and the other half made leering remarks. Tat shrugged. “Don’t know. Look it up yourself. I saw my last Dol’jharian when I was four.”

  “I’ll duff Dhestaer,” Hestik said, making obscene gestures.

  Tat pictured the tall Tarkan woman and thought: She’ll probably duff you, stupid blit.

  “She’s mine.” Kedr Five smirked. “You couldn’t hold off these Bori.”

  They all roared. Tat hid her annoyance, glancing sideways at her cousin Larghior, who went right on with his game.

  Sundiver thrust her long hands through her bright hair. “Take any of those stone-backs you want, just leave Anaris to me.”

  Howls of derision rent the thick air in the rec room.

  “You gonna put a sign on your door?” Moob poked at the silver-haired woman. “Or you goin’ down to heavy grav to smoke him out?”

  “He wants the best, he’ll find me,” Sundiver said, and again the derisive howls, though they lacked conviction. Sundiver could have anyone she wanted on the ship—and often did.

  Problem was, Tat thought narrowly, watching Sundiver admire her own reflection in a polished section of steel inlay, she conquered simply to have more lovers to play off against each other.

  “Hope Anaris crushes her,” Larghior muttered.

  Only Tat heard. For the most part, everyone ignored the three Bori—unless they wanted things done. Or wanted victims who couldn’t fight back. She said nothing, as usual.

  Larghior continued playing Phalanx with Daug, the tough, mustache-chewing old engineer, until the game was done. Tat stood watching with a couple of other crew members, and tried to ignore the speculations that went on and on.

  She was uncomfortable with the acuity of Morrighon’s insight. He did not know the crew, at least he’d scarcely spoken more than a few sentences with any of them. Yet with one suggestion he got most of them so busy anticipating the Dol’jharian sex hunt that they had little time for their usual skip-time pursuits.

  “Think of it,” Moob sneered. “Tarkans chatzing those old withered nick logos-chatzers. Won’t that be niffy to watch?”

  “Ah, they’ll be off-limits. You wait,” Hestik grumped.

  “What I want to know,” Sundiver said, still watching her reflection, “is if that ugly little gug Morrighon will get any.”

  Chill tightened Tat’s neck. Morrighon was a Bori—from him to the Bori in the crew was a predictable connection.

  Unexpectedly Daug spoke up and deflected the subject. “He warned us. Could have kept his tongue fused.”

  “Probably used to it,” Griffic said from across the room.

  “Used to what?” Kedr Five leered.

  As they started again with speculations on sexual variations likely to be preferred by the big-boned, heavy Tarkans, Larghior finished his game and gathered Tat with a quick glance.

  They slipped out of the rec room, Tat experiencing a strong sense of relief. She hated spending rec time with the others in the primary crew, but they were likely to get nasty if they thought someone was standoffish. And if she was there, it was slightly less likely she’d find herself the target of the games they contrived when bored, as ‘surprises’ for anyone not there.

  “Have to check com,” she said to her cousin, who ducked his head and vanished into the transtube.

  Tat took another route to her cabin. She was too tired to listen to the recordings from the captain’s telltales in the Panarchist cabin, so she ran a quick search on the various words the captain had expressed interest in. From the size of the files, the Panarchists had talked and talked, which was as usual. The lack of any even simple key words (war; Eusabian; Infonetics; Fleet) indicated they discussed little of interest. Probably more of their endless philosophy, she thought, clearing her console. Then, throwing her clothes on the bed she never slept in, she pulled on her nightshirt and left.

  Larghior and Demeragh were in Larghior’s cabin, Dem already asleep. Lar looked from Dem’s face to Tat, then he sighed, sitting down to pull off his boots.

  “Will he be safe?” Tat asked, worried.

  Lar gave her a sour smile. “From Tarkan stone-bones, sure. He’s double safe: he’s only a Bori, and there’s the head wound. Stone-bones want a fight first.”

  Tat winced, looking down at the livid purple scar marring the side of Dem’s head. Hit when the brothers’ first ship was attacked, Dem had moved and spoken as if in a dream ever since. Luckily he was as deft as ever in the galley, and no captain minded a quiet, well-behaved slub.

  “How about us?” Tat asked. “This isn’t home for them, it’s ship.”

  Lar nodded. Raised on a Bori refuge, he’d been steeped all his life in history. He even knew some of the Dol’jharian language. “We’re just weak, small Bori, so we’ll be safe,” he said. “Though we’ll stay away from crew.” He grinned. “Ever think you’d live to be glad you were considered beneath contempt?”

  Tat laughed as they got into bed.

  There was no discussion; the brothers sensed that she was tense, so she got the middle, Dem moving sleepily to the back of the bed. Soon, sandwiched between her cousins, Dem’s arm draped over her shoulder and Lar’s soft hair nestled against her cheek, their legs all a-tangle so her feet rested on warm flesh, Tat felt some of her fears drain out.

  She lay silent for a time, then, hearing from Lar’s breathing that he was not asleep, either, she whispered, “What makes them like it?”

  Dem muttered sleepily, “What makes who like what?”

  “Go back to sleep, Demeragh,” Tat said.

  Dem relaxed obediently, his breathing deepening. Tat stroked the inside of his wrist, her af
fection for her cousins acute. “I just hope Lutavaen and Pap are all right,” she muttered. “Do you think Dol’jharians retook Bori?”

  “Don’t know,” Lar whispered.

  “I wish they’d never gone back,” Tat whispered fiercely.

  Lar’s fingers twined in hers. “I miss Lutavaen, too. And your pap.”

  Tat wished, as she had for a year, that her sister hadn’t felt it necessary to go back with their father. But he’d decided he was too old for the Riftskip, and of course he couldn’t go home alone. Bori never went anywhere alone if they could help it.

  A new, chilling thought occurred. “I think I know why Morrighon sleeps with his feet on the wall.” Sundiver and the others had screamed with laughter when they found it out after the Dol’jharians came on board.

  “Of course,” Lar murmured, surprised she hadn’t figured it out already.

  Tat contemplated what it must be like for a Bori to sleep alone—and what the Dol’jharians must have done to wrench him out of centuries of habit. To be totally alone at night, with nothing but cold sheets, and no family around one!

  She winced, remembering the Panarchists’ occasional mentions of Barrodagh, and the things he’d done to them according to reports over the hyperwave. Morrighon all twisted in his body, and Barrodagh all twisted in his mind. What can their lives be like? “Why doesn’t he just leave them? He doesn’t seem to be a prisoner.”

  “Power,” Lar said, his voice sleep-husky.

  “But they don’t all have it,” Tat protested. “Not just Catennach—how about stone-bones? Ones at the top might like that life. But most are at bottom. Why don’t they just leave?”

  Lar didn’t turn his head, but she could hear his grin in his voice. “Some do leave. A few even live to make it. But most of them seem to like it.”