Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3)

by Shepherd,Joel

  “Yes, I’m aware that she’s barely devoting me a fraction of her attention,” said Trace, stopping by the door to the head. “I’m not completely naive, Lieutenant.”

  “Well no, Major, that’s the thing. Twice, just now when you were talking? All other activity nearly stopped completely.”

  “When?” Trace asked.

  “Not in the technical stuff. Not the religious stuff either. The first time talking about your drone. The kid. When you asked if he was scared. And the second time talking about her children, in Argitori.” A pause. “Of course, she’s well aware she’s being monitored, and is probably just trying to create this effect, knowing we’ll then have this conversation.”

  “Yeah,” Trace said quietly. “Yeah, probably. Thank you Lieutenant.”

  33

  Erik entered the briefing room twelve hours later, still two hours short of a full sleep, and found all the first-shift senior bridge crew present, meaning Shahaim, Kaspowitz and Shilu, plus Trace, Aristan and Romki. Shilu offered Erik an extra flask of coffee as he sat, which Erik accepted gratefully, and sank into his chair before the central circle.

  “Stan, you have something for us?” said Erik.

  “Actually no,” said Romki, looking even more tired than the rest of them… save perhaps for Trace, who was struggling to hide the bleary-eyed exhaustion of someone just awoken from twelve hours straight. She sipped a smoothie, pistol plain in a belt holster, and directly opposite Aristan with a clear line-of-sight that suggested she’d appointed herself as his guard, for this room at least. It also suggested that very few people were allowed in the briefing room on this occasion, if no marine besides Trace was here. “I’m really not qualified to lead this briefing. It really should be left to Styx.”

  Aristan’s eyes widened, and he sat up straighter in his chair. Still he lacked his robe, having lost it on the mission, and wore high collar jacket and baseball cap, like some disreputable figure you’d find skulking in a station corridor, hoping not to be recognised. He’d been asking for new robes, demanding that Phoenix could spare a fabricator for long enough to make such a simple request. But the Engineering techs had been adamant that all the printers were occupied with far more important matters, and Erik had told them that Aristan’s new robes were to be rated the very lowest priority.

  “Very well,” said Erik. So many things he’d wanted to avoid, had become unavoidable. For tavalai Fleet as well, who’d been wishing to hide their involvement far better than they had, but instead had left no one in any doubt. And Styx herself, who had preferred to try and hide her existence, but had now left the remains of a recycled drysine drone, crushed upon the surface of the Kantovan Vault, and various other traces, on Gamesh and Chara, that would surely be added together by State Department’s brightest minds. Just as surely, he thought now, Styx had calculated that such things would likely happen. It demonstrated just how much she was prepared to risk to win this prize. All-in, as the humans said. “Styx, go ahead.”

  “Thank you Captain,” said Styx. Aristan stared at the walls and ceiling in wonder. “I have gained access to both recovered data sets. One is indeed a set of State Department records regarding diplomatic details pertaining to tavalai relations with the species known as the krim. These records are voluminous, and full of typically tavalai convolutions. It appears that the directions tavalai Fleet gave for its recovery were precise, but my understanding of such organic bureaucracy is limited.”

  “Captain Delaganda’s been asking for it again,” said Shilu, over the lip of her own coffee flask. “He’s insisted we don’t read it.”

  Erik snorted. “Too late now, I’m sure Styx isn’t capable of forgetting it if we asked her too.”

  “Correct. Memory deletion is an AI paradox — any attempt by a higher-function AI to delete functional memory only causes that AI to reconstruct exactly the data she is attempting to erase in another portion of her brain, involuntarily.”

  “Humans have that problem too,” said Kaspowitz. “It’s the ‘don’t think about elephants’ problem. You’re immediately thinking about elephants, because I told you not to.”

  “We’ll deal with that later,” said Erik. “Them telling us not to read it will be a bargaining tool for them once they find out we have. They can claim we’ve violated the agreement and thus owe them something more.”

  “Sounds like the tavalai,” Shilu agreed.

  “Styx, have you decoded the other item?”

  “I have,” Styx agreed. “The language is old, but thanks to my recent linguistic efforts with Mr Romki, it is legible. We both agree that it is certainly Drakhil’s diary, the same that we were seeking. Most of its contents are likely to be far more fascinating to Mr Romki than to myself, being of an historical nature. In fact, I believe Mr Romki thinks this could be the most important parren historical document recovered for many thousands of years.”

  Erik glanced at Romki. He looked dazed past the exhaustion, the look of a man who’d been up all second-shift following Styx’s efforts to access the lock, and the past hour or two attempting to read what Styx had finally recovered.

  Romki saw him looking. “It’s…” and he waved a hand, helplessly. “It’s beyond words. It’s Drakhil’s time in power, through the last portion of the Drysine-Deepynine War, and then the Parren Uprising, and the fall of the Drysine Empire. Drakhil’s own words, his own thoughts. Incredible doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  Aristan was staring now at Romki, Erik saw. Such information, unchallenged and undisputed, in the hands of Aristan… He felt suddenly cold to think on it. Parren fluxed, in response to great events, or great revealed truths. Became new people, sometimes en masse. The propaganda victory that such an historical object might represent, could send millions of parren fluxing in Aristan’s direction, and destabilise the entire parren power structure. State Department had feared precisely this, when Phoenix had first sought to meet with Aristan, with the Dobruta’s help. Erik had little liking for anything State Department did… but on this matter, he could not argue with their concerns.

  “That’s very nice,” said Erik, “but it’s all been for nothing if it doesn’t give us a location for the data core.”

  “Eldorat System,” said Styx. “My pronunciation may be imprecise, these things tend to shift across the generations of organics.”

  Erik glanced at Kaspowitz, his heart thumping with something between dread and excitement. Kaspowitz shook his head. “I’ve been staring at parren star charts for weeks, Eldorat doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “The diary is so old, many of these systems have changed names multiple times. But from my analysis of identifying features, I judge Eldorat System to be known today as Cason System.”

  Kaspowitz’s eyes widened. “Cason I have heard of.”

  Shilu frowned. “Isn’t that a part of the Dofed Cluster that no one’s allowed into?”

  “Cason System is the central core to the Dofed Cluster,” Aristan agreed, with great intensity. “The Cluster belongs to House Fortitude. It is a protected zone, off-limits to any but the most house-aligned.”

  “The diary does not directly state the data core’s location,” Styx continued. “But it clearly describes identifying landmarks, some natural features and some artificially constructed, by which the location can be judged. I believe that with this ship’s navigational sensors, and my own calculation abilities, the task should not prove particularly difficult.”

  Kaspowitz looked unconvinced, but excited despite himself. “Yeah, well a lot will have changed in twenty five thousand years.”

  “You will need time to conduct such a survey,” said Aristan. “Time that you will not have, jumping into restricted Cason System upon the feet of those who do not wish you present. House Fortitude’s leaders have no love of Drakhil’s legacy. They will wish it destroyed, and you with it.”

  “I think he has a plan,” Shahaim said drily.

  “Yes,” said Aristan. “My Domesh have a fleet. It is not large,
but it should suffice. A surprise attack will gain you the time you require.”

  Erik’s cold discomfort began to win its battle against his excitement. “You’re proposing to go to war against the greatest House of the parren?”

  Aristan’s indigo eyes glinted. “Not for long.”

  “You’re not powerful enough to survive that war,” Kaspowitz scoffed. “You’ll be crushed, House Fortitude massively outnumbers you.”

  “Not when I have Drakhil’s diary,” said Aristan, his lilting, alien tones lifting several volumes behind the translator's drone. “The flux flows to the Domesh, and the drysine data core will be the final signpost to the final victory of the Domesh, and the restoration of the great old ways.”

  “Aristan,” said Styx, and her voice was suddenly soothing and textured. The change was like bare bread smothered by a layer of honey. Aristan stared to the ceiling, and Erik guessed that Styx must be feeding him a parren translation directly into his earpiece. “Among the many data files recovered from the diary are visual-log entries. Taken by Drakhil himself.”

  Aristan’s mouth worked in a silent gasp. “You have footage of Drakhil? In person?”

  “I do.” Erik looked at Trace in alarm. They already had footage of Drakhil, from their find in the lost temple on Stoya. And there was a very good reason they’d chosen not to reveal the fact to Aristan.

  “Would you like to see it?” Styx asked, with something very close to seduction.

  “Aristan is not security-cleared to see that recording,” Trace said firmly.

  Aristan turned on her, with icy temper. “I am Drakhil’s heir! If I am not fit to see him in person, then no one is! And you shall not have my assistance further if you do not…”

  “Captain Debogande,” Styx interrupted, soothingly. “Please trust me. Aristan should see this. It will be illuminating.”

  Aristan stared at Erik. They all did. Trace too, tired eyes now fully awake, and full of warning. She knew Aristan best, she’d said. She did not appear willing to trust him more than was absolutely necessary. And yet, Erik thought, from the sudden change in Styx’s tone, the silky seduction that she’d never dared with anyone until now, knowing that among all Phoenix crew save Romki it wasn’t going to work…

  And that was it. She respected Phoenix crew too much to try. And so now, with Aristan…

  “Show him the message, Styx,” said Erik. And ignored Trace’s look of wary disapproval, as the holography lights glowed, and the central space between chairs took on shape, and form.

  The face, when it appeared, was Drakhil’s… much the same as Erik and Trace had seen him, an open collar and tight skullcap, and a lean, slim-jawed face that would take far more time among parren for a human to tell apart from other parren with confidence. A younger man in this recording, Erik thought, and seated in a high-backed chair, with a nondescript wall at his back. Perhaps a study, where the leader of the parren of his time, and one of the most powerful organic beings of all time, had sat and compiled his private thoughts.

  He began to speak, calm and thoughtful, as Styx’s newly-adapted Klyran translator followed, a second behind. “This is Drasis, I am commencing this log on the forty-first day of Curon…”

  “You have the wrong recording,” Aristan interrupted impatiently. “This is not Drakhil. See, he even identifies himself as someone else, Drasis.”

  “I assure you,” Styx said smoothly, “this is certainly Drakhil. His name has changed in the pronunciation, over time.”

  “It cannot be him!” Aristan snapped, far beyond the edge of his usual control. His eyes were wide, nostrils flared in obvious disquiet. “A Tahrae man will only appear uncovered in critical circumstances, as I am. This man is in a relaxed circumstance, yet he has chosen to be uncovered, and the Tahrae phase-control will not allow it. Find the correct recording and cease with these games.”

  Styx had muted Drakhil’s words, a slow fade to silence, to allow Aristan to be heard. Now she let the silence deepen, as all about the circle of chairs, Phoenix crew watched Aristan. Trace, Erik noted, was sitting primed upon the edge of her chair, all weariness vanished.

  “Aristan,” said Styx, with a new edge to her smooth tones. “I knew Drakhil. I met Drakhil. I can assure you, this is Drakhil. And in all my recordings and recollections, he has always dressed like this.”

  “LIAR!” screamed the parren, leaping from his chair, followed a split-second after by Trace, pistol out and levelled at his chest. “You attempt to deceive me, why? WHY?”

  He lashed at Trace, who made a fast decision not to shoot him, caught an arm, twisted and dropped them both to the ground. A quick struggle was followed by her gripping the taller parren in a chokehold, as Aristan lashed with furious intent, unable to escape and fading fast. Marines leaped the surrounding chairs between stunned, standing officers, then waited as Trace stayed down, applying further pressure to Aristan’s neck until his eyelids drooped, and his head lolled. Then she released him for her marines to gather up, rolling aside and standing, then checking her pistol with professional habit.

  The marines bore the unconscious parren leader away, and Erik aimed a scowl at the briefing room’s most prominent observation camera. “Styx? What was that about?”

  “That,” said Styx, “was a test.” Her voice had returned to normal, minus the previous seductive charms. “Everything that Aristan knows about Drakhil and the Tahrae is wrong, and his entire Domesh movement is built on a carefully constructed series of historical lies. He would have discovered this eventually. Better that he learns early, in controlled circumstances, than otherwise.”

  Erik took a deep breath, struggling to control his own racing heartbeat, as the implications struck him. “We needed him cooperative, Styx. We needed him working with us. You’ve just made an enemy.” Lisbeth, he thought desperately.

  “He was always an enemy,” Styx said coolly. “And now we can rebuild this relationship anew, in the full light of truth. These old things have not been completely lost, and as they are revealed once more, their nature cannot be denied. I am custodian of a whole galaxy of very old things, which will now surely come again.”

  Lisbeth’s ground car zoomed across the open plaza, paving rims thumping a steady rhythm beneath the tires. There were other vehicles fore and aft, a procession of guards and Domesh functionaries, tail and headlights aglare in the dark. Lisbeth sat in the centre of the rear seat, Domesh guards on either sides, firearms this time on their laps.

  The cars slowed only for a bridge across an intervening strip of green, tall trees and small garden courtyards along a flowing river, then accelerated once more toward the looming temple complex ahead. This was the Incefahd Temple, the center of House Harmony power for the past three hundred years, and several times the scale of the newly renovated Domesh Temple. Most of the Kunadeen Complex temples were joined by underground rails, but though very old tunnels existed to the Domesh Temple, they remained disused, an Incefahd Denomination protest at the Domesh Temple’s reactivation. When the Domesh moved security-sensitive assets from one place in the Kunadeen Complex to another, they used vehicles.

  The Domesh convoy passed between security-screen pillars — a passive set of sensors, Lisbeth wondered, for such an important building. She might have expected heavy armour and obvious, military-grade weapons, but the parren seemed to have subsumed their internal House-conflicts beneath layers of ritualised formality, and did not require such crude displays. Lisbeth suspected they feared what would happen if the endless conflicts of parren life became militarised. Or perhaps the military phase simply came later. Reading her parren histories, she knew it did.

  She no longer felt quite so fearful, at least, as the cars descended entry ramps along the enormous temple-sides. She wore her best parren gown, a fading of light-pink into peach that somehow worked against her brown skin, with gauzy sleeves and a headdress with light veil that perched with surprising comfort atop her pinned hair. The Domesh did not expect her to dress like them — to be Do
mesh was a privilege, and the dark robes were a badge to be earned. She was more than their prisoner — she was a ritual guest, partaker in ceremonial proceedings many tens of thousands of years old. Her circumstance was one of politics, history and psychology, and in truth, it suited her far better than the military conflicts on Phoenix. Here, she doubted Major Thakur or Erik, or any of them, would be any better equipped to deal with it than her. She straightened the gown upon her lap, with surprisingly calm hands, and willed herself to focus. She could not fight like a marine, or crew a warship like a spacer, but this she could do. Surely she could.

  The convoy halted before a vast entry level on her left, an entire floor of high ceilings and rows of pillars, like the front of an old Hindu temple from Earth. The doors swung open, and she left the car with her guards. Confronting them immediately were Togreth guards, identifiable by their gold breastplates and weapon belts. Quiet conversation ensued, tense but cordial, and Domesh guards walked along the row of Togreth, nodding at one, then another, bypassing more.

  “We select the reliable Togreth,” Timoshene informed her, a black-clad sentinel at her side. “As head of House Harmony, Tobenrah has the right to command your presence alone, with only the Togreth for company. All Togreth serve the House without Denomination, but only some are honourable in their loyalties. We will select those only.”

  The head of House Harmony, Tobenrah, had been away. Today, word had arrived of his return, followed quickly thereafter by a summons for the human hostage of the Domesh to attend him.

  “You said the Incefahd want to kill me,” Lisbeth said coolly, looking over the Togreth guards, and the ongoing selection process. “You expect me to feel safe because you parren have formalities to observe?”

  “Our formalities exist for a purpose,” said Timoshene. “Dishonourable acts by the heads of denominations will be seen to be dishonourable, by all parren everywhere. This will affect the flux, to the detriment of the dishonourable. Denominations that make a habit of dishonourable intentions will fade, while the honourable prosper.”