“When we met before, you maintained you told the truth, and yet you sidestepped the fact that either one or both of your sons was lying ten years ago. In result, L’Ranja, your trusted adviser, killed himself, and his son vanished. I want to talk further about that.”
“What more remains to be said? I believe I told you that the time for investigation was past. Lusor passed to another branch of the family, the son was gone, and as for my sons, each had his perspective. When the three of us met, I requested Semion to guard his brother’s safety, which Semion vowed to do. And Brandon, I encouraged to find another path to service.”
“Something, no doubt, involving sensory stimulation and little else.”
The Panarch gestured, apparently unperturbed.
Hoping to shake that veneer of tranquility, Anaris said, “I tried to kill Brandon. Several times.”
He watched Gelasaar for reactions, and saw nothing but his own amusement mirrored back.
Anaris waited. Gelasaar finally said, “Are you asking indirectly if I knew about your lessons in manners?”
Surprised, Anaris laughed. “Yes, I was testing you as well as trying to eradicate from existence a weak fool.”
“Not,” the Panarch said, “the last time.”
Anaris half-raised a hand, but Gelasaar’s eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened in awareness. Anaris recognized the hypocrisy in demanding truth from Gelasaar while avoiding it himself. “That was different, yes. Ironic, isn’t it? The only time I ever attempted that particular ritual of my people. Your tutors were successful with me afterward.”
Gelasaar said gently, “I thought Lelanor gained the credit for that. Where is she, may I ask?”
“Dead. My father wished to see my weakness expunged.”
Gelasaar looked away, his sorrow evident. “She was a gentle soul.”
Her name unsettled Anaris; he wished it had not been brought in. Had Gelasaar done that on purpose? He probably had several purposes.
So do I. “You never said anything about my attack on Brandon, either that time, or before. I assumed you did not know, or if you did, you had found him as worthless as I did.”
“Are you asking why I did not punish you for not obeying our social rules? There was nothing to be gained from that. As for Brandon, he had to learn to deal with difficult personalities someday. His safety I entrusted to his guards, both human and canine. And as you no doubt remember, it sufficed.”
Anaris schooled his face to stillness. He still bore scars from the savage, crushing bite Brandon’s dog had inflicted. “Except that after that particular attempt of mine you sent him, and Galen, off to Charvann. I read condemnation of them in the fact that I was the one to remain in the Mandala.”
“There was much you could learn,” Gelasaar said. “Brandon’s learning could as well be done elsewhere. Such words as ‘worthless’ are easy, but I expect better from you. Why did you try to kill Brandon?”
“If you are looking for an answer within Douloi social rules, you could call my efforts an attempt at intimidation.”
“With what result?” Gelasaar asked mildly, his oblique blue eyes on the row of double knots Anaris looped with the dirazh’u in his hands.
Gelasaar knew the what of it: where did his question really lead? To oblige him, Anaris gave the obvious answer. “With no discernible result. Before you sent him to Charvann he continued to harass me with practical jokes exactly as much as ever.”
Gelasaar shook his head slowly, the silver beard, even un-trimmed and un-brushed, neat and composed. “I had hoped that you would cease to be so short-sighted,” he said mildly. “Your attempts inspired him to fresh efforts. Long after he would have cried truce.”
From the control rostrum Margot Ng watched as the gallery high above the Situation Room slowly filled.
From the back rows, Commander Sedry Thetris, former revolutionary and present traitor, commenced her secret recording.
The chamber held perhaps a hundred seats, each with its own analysis console, arranged in ranks rising steeply above the bank of presentation consoles at the front where she sat. She could see most of the seats without turning her head, and for a short time amused herself watching those gathered below puzzling over the new Tenno they saw on their consoles.
But restlessness, that sense of urgency that had possessed her ever since the battle of Arthelion, caused her to check her chrono yet again, then turn to take in her officers: Lieutenant Commander Rom-Sanchez and newly-promoted Sub-Lieutenant Warrigal from the Grozniy (watching the assembled officers’ reactions to her new Tenno with that fixed, unnerving stare of hers), and the tactical officers from the Babur Khan and other ships that had fought at Arthelion. She wished Nilotis could be present, but at least he could listen by com from the surgery.
At her right sat Admiral Trungpa Nyberg, commander of Ares Station.
Two pairs of double doors opened into the gallery. Ng noticed with a surge of impatience that with few exceptions, the ship captains and other space officers invited entered through one, and the civilian analysts and station officers, the latter mostly older men, entered through the other—the visible evidence of the late Aerenarch Semion’s polarization of the Navy.
Then the elegant severity of a Douloi tunic among the blue and white of Naval uniforms drew her eye, the wearer an older man followed closely by a young Naval lieutenant, who ushered him to a console and seated himself next to him. Their similarity of features marked them as father and son—their fleshy earlobes triggered her memory.
The Omilovs. An interesting story: the elder Omilov tortured by Eusabian in the Mandala where that Dol’jharian autocrat had usurped a thousand years of Arkadic rule, the younger credited with rescuing the last Arkad heir from the siege of Charvann.
Admiral Nyberg stirred restlessly, then leaned out to scan the Situation Room. His chair angled her way; accepting the tacit invitation, she followed suit and surveyed the space.
Before them a thick dyplast window revealed a huge three-dimensional projection of the Thousand Suns suspended over the bustle of activity among the banks of consoles far below. A multitude of colored lights and ideograms glittered coldly among the holographic stars, representing the data laboriously culled out of the Rifter chatter from the hyperwave Ng had captured in the Battle of Arthelion, and the less timely reports from the Navy couriers and various civilian craft reaching Ares.
She recognized some of the symbols as versions of the Tenno battle glyphs—tactical ideograms—that had been modified and extended by her tactical officers on the Grozniy to deal with the apparently instantaneous communications enjoyed by Dol’jhar and its Rifter allies. Wherever Eusabian had obtained the hyperwave devices, they had rendered centuries of strategic and tactical experience useless. Much as if her personal icon, Lord Admiral Nelson and his British Admiralty, had faced a French Navy equipped with radio.
Admiral Nyberg squinted at the projection. “I understand you’ve organized a seminar on the new Tenno?” His tenor voice, surprising in a man of his bulk, was mellow, resonant with the concealing singsong of the Tetrad Centrum Douloi.
“Yes, sir. It begins directly following this briefing.”
His expression was typical Douloi, revealing nothing of his thoughts. “I wish I could attend. But the Tenno are of little use to me here on Ares.”
It was a warning, but Ng could not tell how it was intended. She knew that the huge station, the last center of power remaining to the Panarchist government, would inevitably become the site of a battle whose intensity would rival the action in the Arthelion system that had battered her ship into near scrap. But the battle of Ares—whose combatants would all be nominally on the same side—would be fought with words, and gestures, and all the mannered subtlety of a millennial aristocracy.
As Nyberg studied the ever-changing holograph, she wondered if they would find themselves allies. With the death or capture of High Admiral Carr, who had been with the Panarch on Lao Tse, Nyberg was de facto head of the Navy. He was Downsider, old-line, but unlike many of that background he did not owe his appointment to the late Aerenarch Semion.
And that’s exactly as one would expect of the commander of one of the Panarchy’s poles of power. Arthelion, Desrien, Ares: the Arkads, the Magisterium, and the Navy: these were the legs of the tripod that had given the Thousand Suns a thousand years of relative peace.
Until Dol’jhar struck.
A flurry of activity from the rear of the gallery resolved into a cloud of older station officers surrounding a slim, dark-haired young man in a plain blue tunic. At his sides walked two other men, one in the uniform of a Solarch of the Arkadic Marines, the other wearing gray. Ng recognized in the latter the easy readiness of Ulanshu masters. An officer stepped in front of the man in gray and held up his hand, evidently forbidding him entrance, then yielded at a few words from the young man in blue.
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 threat 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.”
She tabbed her console. The dyplast window behind her clouded, then shimmered into a view of space, and the wreckage of the Prabhu Shiva swam into view, echoed on her console. Within minutes, compressed by careful selection and editing, the Battle of Treymontaigne fought again in savage displays of fire and light, kindling a reawakening of her own emotions, from shock to fury.
The replay of Arthelion was even worse. She struggled with the anguish triggered by the raking attack of the Falcomare on the Fist of Dol’jhar, attempting to distract herself by sequencing through the audience consoles to get a sense of what the officers and analysts were focusing on. A rapid-fire flicker of Tenno caught her eye, in an unusual configuration, and she paused, astonished. It was coming from the Aerenarch’s console.
She looked up. The young man’s fingers tapped unerringly across his console, his gaze intent, almost severe. She looked back at the echo of his actions on her console and watched in fascination, her unconscious judgments of him dissolving in the face of his obvious competence. His configurations in the new Tenno were inevitably naive, yes, but no more than those of anyone else who had yet to be exposed to them. Better, she had to admit, than many. He demonstrated an edge that held great promise, needing only the honing of the simulator and finally the stress of battle to bring him to tactical maturity.
And more. Brandon vlith-Arkad was applying the data strategically as well. He’d moved many of his more complex Tenno configurations to a holding matrix where they were evolving through a series of differentiations apparently patterned on the classic tsushima strategic semiotics. The ten years since his dismissal had obviously not been spent in mere carousing and drunkenness, as rumor had it.
He glanced up, and their gazes met; the blue intensity of his regard transfixed her until she noticed that unwinking stare really didn’t see her. His gaze fell away, but her mind remained in turmoil, all her political calculations upset. She now had even more to probe the younger Omilov for. What had he seen in those weeks in the company of the heir?
Her console clamored for attention, and she plunged back into the task at hand; but now, like the soundless thunder of a distant storm, the presence of the young man in the plain blue tunic loomed on the horizons of her mind.
And down in the pit, Commander Sedry Thetris tabbed off the recorder. All right, Tau Srivashti, she thought as she lowered her head and followed the other low-ranking officers shuffling toward the door. You’ll get what you asked for. You had better use it wisely, or I will bring you down.
o0o
“Yes, sir, the numbers are correct.”
Nyberg looked wearily at the young face on his console, seeing his own exhaustion staring back. He knew she had made no mistakes—that she would have double-and triple-checked every number and decimal; he read in that steady gaze that she knew his outburst was not aimed at her, but at the circumstances.
In the short time since Ng’s briefing, the number of refugees had doubled.
And the influx showed no signs of slowing.
He forced himself to thank the ensign, and to sign off, though the urge to rip his console out of his desk and hurl it through the window into space was so strong his heart thundered in his ears.
Ping! “Commander Faseult, sir,” came the voice from the duty desk.
“Send him in.”
Anton Faseult walked in, superficially immaculate as always, but Nyberg’s attention shifted to those revealing red eyes. When was the last time the man had slept?
“Security report, sir,” Faseult said.
“Bad, of course,” Nyberg responded, permitting himself a modicum of relief. He could do that with Faseult, if with no one else. “Tell me this: is there anything you cannot handle?”
Faseult could have barked out the response that the old Aerenarch would have expected: an inhuman Sir, no sir! Faseult did him the honor of considering. “As yet, we’re managing. I’m going to need more resources, though.”
“Won’t we all.”
Faseult’s mouth tightened in an attempt at humor. “You might eventually have to intercede in the questions of chain of command. Certain among the space captains . . .” He gestured toward the Cap, the massive plain of metal, scattered with refit pits, glinted crimson in the light of the red giant whose gravitational field protected the station from skipmissile attack. Almost all of the vessels revealed the raking damage of war.
“I know. Clinging to what was, and never can be again. Short of an actual mutiny, I am going to count on their oaths, and the habit of obedience, to rein them in. The orders of the day are going to reflect that, and underscore that we have a common enemy. I’ll need you to look at the refugee staging. I think that’s our most pressing demand.” Out of too many.
Faseult saluted and left. Nyberg did not have time to reach for the monneplat before that vile ping warned him of yet another set of problems borne in on two legs.
The inescapable truth? The war had transformed Ares Station from a smoothly functioning starbase into an aristocratic madhouse, an overcrowded maelstrom of political infighting, intrigue, and venom. Worst of all, with no constituted government, there was no one for him to share the burden with. The machinery of Douloi governance was gone, blasted by the Dol’jharian hypermissiles. The new Aerenarch was an unknown quantity, virtually powerless, and so a liability; Telos alone knew how long it would be before a new Privy Council emerged from the wreckage. And there were some on Ares now who he would prefer never grasped the reins of power. But that’s Faseult’s lookout.
For now.
Nyberg stared moodily out at the Cap. In the foreground the battered form of the Grozniy loomed, flares of light swarming around it as the crews still labored to undo the tremendous damage inflicted on it in the Battle of Arthelion.
He smiled sourly. That was one bright spot: the arrival of the Grozniy had brought Captain Margot O’Reilly Ng to Ares. He’d put her on open assignment; between her and Faseult he might, perhaps, be able to maintain the Navy against the erosive effects of Douloi infighting.
That was his goal and his duty, to present whoever eventually assumed power with a functioning Navy. It was not for him to judge who that would be, for all that he had his preferences.
The annunciator chimed, the door slid open, and Sebastian Omilov entered, his heavy step soundless on the thick carpet. Not a problem, then, but another possible ally, and one with far more influence in the Douloi world, despite his having retired from politics ten years ago. That in itself was indicative of the man’s potential trustworthiness: that he had given up an influential position at the Panarch’s side rather than, as Nyberg understood it, compromise with the harsh expediency of the former Aerenarch Semion.
And what was his relationship to the new Aerenarch? Former tutor, rescued victim, and now? That, too, needed probing. “Welcome, Gnostor Omilov. Thank you for making time for me.”
“Entirely my pleasure,” Omilov replied, grasping his proffered hands briefly in a semiformal deference, Douloi to Douloi in the context of business.
Nyberg ushered him to the tête-à-tête of overstuffed chairs and low table where he received civilians. “I was sorry to have to spring that introduction on you at the briefing, Gnostor, but I judged it best to give no one advance warning of my intentions.” Nyberg stressed the words “no one” slightly, and saw in the lift of an eyebrow that the message had been understood.
“I quite understand, Admiral. And hoped that your words indicated you might consider me for a place on the project team—”
Nyberg bowed, hands apart, and Omilov stopped, mild inquiry on his face at the interruptive gesture. Nyberg said, “I want you to head it.”
Nyberg saw his blunt statement impact the man before him. Joy, then assessment, and then muted pleasure were clear from Omilov’s countenance: he was now sifting the reasons for the unorthodox approach to appointment.
Retired he might be, but his political instincts were still sharp. He knew, as did Nyberg, that lacking advance notice, there was no possibility that any of the more powerful Douloi on Ares could have promoted their own candidate for head of the Suneater project over Omilov.
Not that there really is anyone here on Ares as knowledgeable about the Ur as Omilov. But Nyberg knew that wouldn’t stop some from promoting a more controllable person masquerading as a scholar.
Nyberg continued. “As far as I am concerned, you have absolute discretion. I expect regular reports, but I will not interfere. I’ve already arranged the highest security clearance for you, and you have the ability to extend a similar clearance, one level lower, to whomever you choose.” He paused. “Do you need quarters? I understand you recently accepted the invitation of the High Phanist to take up residence at the Cloister.”
Omilov nodded gravely. “Yes, I judged it best to let the Aerenarch maintain his own household, without the need to concern himself with my foibles.”
“Splendid,” Nyberg said. “Then the demands of social obligation will be fewer.”
He saw comprehension in Omilov’s eyes: for “social” read “political.”
“The High Phanist has her own concerns. I will be able to devote myself full time to this project,” Omilov said.
Nyberg was pleased. His hint that political involvement be kept minimal had been met with ready compliance, and perhaps even relief.
Omilov frowned slightly, then added, “In any case, Brandon vlith-Arkad must make his own way for his position to take on any real meaning, as I am sure he will.” His tone of voice indicated that further probing would meet with bland generalities.
If he knows what happened at that Enkainion, he’s not going to talk.
Nyberg’s focus returned to his original thread of inquiry. Whatever Omilov thought of the new Aerenarch, it apparently was not disapprobation—which was enough for now.
Deciding that he’d learned as much as he could for the moment, and that the gnostor would not allow himself to be distracted by politics, he guided the talk into specifics about the project, which Omilov suggested be code-named Jupiter. This was the ancient name for the god who had overthrown Kronos, whose name had been attached to the Urian device, lost to Eusabian on Rifthaven, that was apparently the key to control of the Suneater. The general shape of the project rapidly took form, and after a last request that his son, Osri, be made liaison between the project and the Navy, Omilov took his leave with the promise of a report within forty-eight hours.
Nyberg returned to the port and looked out, feeling—however briefly—better than he had in days. Omilov was smart, seemed trustworthy, and Nyberg had gained another grain of information about the anomalous new Aerenarch. It had been a profitable half hour.
The glow of satisfaction lasted until the con chimed again, and his aide’s voice said urgently: “Sir. Two sector-level emergencies, first at . . .”
Nyberg returned to work.