“You, and most of my tutors on Arthelion, quoted many times from the Polarities of your ancestor,” said Anaris. “But I never understood exactly how Jaspar Arkad intended them.”
Gelasaar opened his hands. “What do you think?”
“My father thinks the first one is a prophecy,” Anaris said, snapping the dirazh’u straight. “‘Ruler of all, ruler of naught, power unlimited, a prison unsought.’ From one to the other: your rule is shattered, and in a few hours we embark on the last leg of your journey. Gehenna awaits you.”
The Panarch laughed. “The Polarities were not prophecy, but your father will understand their true meaning soon enough.”
“I think the Polarities are a meditation on the limits of power,” Anaris said, winding the dirazh’u into knots.
“A very un-Dol’jharian concept,” the Panarch observed.
“Your ancestor grasped an interstellar imperium and found himself limited by relativity. With the Heart of Kronos in our hands, those limits no longer apply.”
The Panarch shook his head. “Your father will never understand, Anaris, but you should know better.”
Anaris said nothing; with a twist the dirazh’u pulled free of its knots and stretched between his hands, humming with tension.
“The greatest limitation on our power has always been the human heart in its infinite diversity,” the Panarch continued. “And against that, no device, no matter what its powers, can give you any lever.”
Anaris lifted his hand, palm out. “The Urian device that my father now holds lay within your grasp for seven hundred years, and you denied it.” He leaned forward. “With that force, all that was yours will be but the smallest part of my inheritance.”
“I was ever the ruler of naught,” Gelasaar said quietly. “If your time on Arthelion did not teach you that, your portion shall be even smaller.”
o0o
Morrighon shivered in the cavernous, drafty interior of the forward second landing bay, his breath frosting.
Anaris stood easily in front of him, flanked by his Tarkan honor guard, silhouetted against the view of space afforded by the wide-open bay door. Beyond, only slightly distorted by the energies of the lock field, the waspish shape of a destroyer hung unmoving, so close the blazon on its hull was clear to Morrighon’s eyes: a strange, round-topped, narrow-brimmed hat impaled on the upright of a cruciform, the whole enclosed in an inverted star and pentacle.
Samedi. God of the dead on Lost Earth. Morrighon wished he hadn’t looked it up. His fundamental rationalism had been eroded by life among the demon-haunted Dol’jharians; he didn’t like the omen.
From the rear of the bay Morrighon heard the whir of an arriving transtube pod. The hatch hissed open, disgorging a squad of Tarkans. They took up position to either side of the hatch as a group of elderly men and women in prison garb shuffled out. Morrighon noted a subtle change in the Tarkans, an increase in wariness and tension, as the last of the Panarchists debarked into the bay: the slight, upright figure of Gelasaar hai-Arkad demanded and received respect even in defeat.
Fettered by the heavy gravity, the Panarchists moved with excruciating care, the scuff of their feet echoing. The Tarkans did not hurry them.
The Panarchists halted on the other side of the bay from Anaris and his escort. A flare of light curved up over the hull of the Samedi, dimming into the angular form of a shuttle as it came about to begin its approach to the Fist of Dol’jhar.
Subtle movement drew Morrighon’s eye; though the Panarchists’ countenances were wholly unreadable, some altered their stances. A kind of drawing in, Morrighon decided, and he resolved to consider this instinctive motion to act in concert. Their leader, like Anaris, remained unmoving as he watched the approaching shuttle.
Again the transtube whirred, and Morrighon did not need to look to know who was arriving this time: the atmosphere of the landing bay changed, the Tarkans rigid with alert tension as the hatch hissed open.
Eusabian halted between Anaris and the Panarchists, Barrodagh his ever-present shadow. Barrodagh’s eyes flickered to one side; following his gaze, Morrighon saw the cold, faceted glint of an imager complex, recording everything within the bay.
Another propaganda piece for the hyperwave. Morrighon knew that Barrodagh had placed imagers in what he had hoped would be the right positions to draw the maximum attention to his lord.
Even while he despises the Panarchists, he is using their predilection for symbol to increase Eusabian’s power. Morrighon wondered if he ought to be thinking along the same lines, then turned his attention to the shuttle, which seemed to hover outside the bay as the deep hum of a tractor beam resonated through his bones. Then the craft eased through the lock field, rings of light fleeing outward from its hull, and settled to the deck with the characteristic spray of coronal discharge.
After a protracted pause, during which conquered and conquerors stood together in absolute silence, the ramp of the shuttle swung jerkily down and clanged onto the deck. A tall, sour-faced man appeared at the top of the ramp, dressed in a gaudy captain’s uniform, and clutching in bony hands a small box.
Emmet Fasthand, captain of the Samedi, did not inspire confidence by his appearance. Just as well, thought Morrighon, that most of the Tarkan and service personnel accompanying Anaris as he escorted the Panarch to Gehenna were already hard at work on the Rifter destroyer, thoroughly inspecting it and installing the data locks and other control systems that he, Morrighon, had specified.
Fasthand began to descend the ramp, his head jerking one way then the other then back again as he stared from Eusabian to the Panarch. Fasthand stumbled on the ramp, flailed helplessly, then went sprawling, barely managing to convert his fall into a roll. He avoided injury only because he was caught by an automatic gee field, but he snarled in voiceless rage, no doubt embarrassed at the misstep in high gee.
The Avatar’s face showed no reaction as he watched the box in Fasthand’s clutch spring open. Barrodagh’s intake of breath was Morrighon’s first clue that the small silver sphere that flew out was of any importance.
The sphere fell with blurring speed to the ramp. Its uncanny motion startled Morrighon: when the sphere landed, it didn’t bounce; indeed, its impact made no sound. Instead, it rolled down the ramp and then stopped instantly as soon as it hit the level deck, less than a meter from where Anaris stood.
The Heart of Kronos!
Barrodagh made a motion toward the sphere but subsided as Anaris bent down to retrieve it, then paused. His muscles contracted, then he straightened up, moving the sphere about on his hand. All eyes were drawn to its weird behavior—as if it were both weightless and massive at the same time. Morrighon perceived tiny beads of sweat just under Anaris’s hairline.
Due to the sphere’s properties? Morrighon didn’t think so.
Anaris bowed to his father, dropped the sphere into his hand, then retreated to his former place. His eyes were somber, and wary, forcing Morrighon to remember the eve of his rise to the heirship, when Morrighon caught Anaris performing psi experiments. The Dol’jharians were ruthless in trying to expunge any traces of the talents of the Chorei from their offspring; though Anaris was now the only heir, Morrighon knew that Eusabian would have no hesitation in having Anaris executed if he knew about those talents emerging in his only living son.
There must be some kind of psi resonance in the Heart of Kronos, Morrighon thought. The Avatar hefted the sphere, wholly absorbed in its strange motion. Barrodagh watched in fascination, his gaze flickering to the luckless Rifter captain, who rose painfully to his feet. Morrighon let out a breath of relief a trickle at a time; he was glad they would not be anywhere near that damned sphere until it had been taken to the Suneater and put to whatever task awaited it.
The Rifter limped the rest of the way down the ramp, rubbing his shoulder as Barrodagh met him and spoke in an urgent undertone.
With one backward glance eloquent of fear and mistrust, Fasthand retreated back up the ramp again.
Ignoring them both, Eusabian kept testing the odd qualities of the sphere.
The Panarch is already dead in the Avatar’s mind, Morrighon thought. A lesser man might gloat, but Eusabian had lost interest in the Panarch as soon as his enemy proved too weak to stand against him. Now he was just a means to end a ritual whose final piece had at last reached his hands.
As if in confirmation Barrodagh motioned for the Tarkan guards to herd the Panarchists up the ramp behind the Rifter.
Anaris’s reaction could not have been noted. Morrighon breathed easier as he observed the Panarch, who looked up at last, but not at Eusabian; to all appearances each man was unaware of the other. Gelasaar’s reflective gaze rested on Eusabian’s son, then he mounted the ramp and disappeared within the shuttle.
The huge bay was filled only with Dol’jharians and those who served them.
Eusabian turned his attention from the Heart of Kronos to his heir. “Anaris achreash’Eusabian, of the lineage of Dol,” he said, his voice resonant in the chilly bay, “complete my paliach, and return to my right hand.”
Anaris bowed deeply. “As my father commands, so it is done.” He wheeled about and strode up the ramp. Morrighon hurried after, feeling Barrodagh’s gaze bore into his back.
The shuttle lifted off the deck and eased through the lock field in a spray of coruscating light, dwindling rapidly toward the Rifter destroyer. Then the screen blanked.
As Admiral Nyberg turned away from the display, Commander Anton Faseult observed the admiral’s tense expression with a visceral pang.
“Do we have enough information to set a deadline?” Nyberg asked.
Vice-admiral Damana Willsones, head of Ares Communications, inclined her head. “The cryptography section has completely deciphered the message headers on the Dol’jharian hyperwave transmissions. With your permission?”
Nyberg flipped his hand toward the console, a gesture of informality he used only with those he’d worked with for decades—and trusted.
Willsones got up with the care of the aged person under too much stress, and walked to the console. The subdued lighting of the admiral’s office evoked subtle highlights from her white hair as she tapped it into life.
A draft on Faseult’s neck drew his attention to the tianqi in the Downsider Summer’s End mode: cool, almost wintry, carrying a faint trace of burning leaves. It was the customary setting for the three of them, but there was now a fourth person in the room.
“Our information put the Samedi here, at the Rouge Sud edge of the Phoenix Sud octant.” Willsones worked at the console. In response to her input, lines of light speared across the display. “Gehenna, of course, is here, high in Phoenix Sud toward the Rift, and the Fist of Dol’jhar was coming from Arthelion.”
She paused and turned to Captain Ng. “Your strategy is working perfectly, Captain. Ship movements in response to our feints indicated that the Suneater must be somewhere in the Rift off Phoenix Sud, and the ship locations revealed by this transmission confirm that.”
Captain Ng brought her chin down in a nod; if she had any idea how rare it was for Nyberg to include a ship captain in one of these planning sessions, her reply gave no hint of it. “But that still leaves us with upwards of several million cubic light-years to search.”
“Unfortunately,” said Willsones, “Gnostor Omilov still doesn’t feel he has enough information available to narrow it down any more than that.” She frowned at her console, then continued. “In any case, given Ares’ position here—” Another line lanced through the star map on the display. “—our best guess is that we have no more than ten days to launch a rescue effort.”
“And if not?” the admiral asked, his mouth tight.
“After that, we would arrive at Gehenna after His Majesty had landed, and since the Dol’jharians will doubtless destroy the orbital monitors, and we know absolutely nothing of the planet, we might never find him.”
Nyberg faced the port again. He said nothing.
“Even if the Isolates didn’t first.” Ng’s voice was flat.
“Meanwhile,” said Willsones, “we know that at least some on the Privy Council are still alive: Banqtu, Ho, Kree, Paerakles, and Admiral Carr.”
All the more reasons to mount a rescue, thought Faseult, and all the more reason why the Navy, by itself, can’t. With the High Admiral still alive, Nyberg could no more assume command of the Navy than, with the Panarch still alive, the Aerenarch could of the government.
“Ten days,” Nyberg repeated, his gaze bleak.
Tension gripped the back of Faseult’s neck. He assessed their fighting power—a lamentably simple task. Another battlecruiser had joined the Grozniy in the refit pits on the Cap: the Malabor, badly damaged in action in the Hellas system. That made three new cruisers, when one counted the Mbwa Kali, now doing picket duty in-system. Three cruisers, a handful of destroyers, and a host of lesser craft—all they had to attack Eusabian’s super-armed force. Unless we can recall the Fleet. Which was the prerogative of the government—or the high admiral, both of whom were on their way to Gehenna.
“Do you see any signs that a government will have coalesced by then?” Nyberg asked, still studying the port.
Faseult said to his back, “There are several factions, sir, among prominent Service Families. Though speculation and social competition are intense, our reports indicate nothing definite beyond that.” Which is as neutral a description of the claws and teeth behind those smiling Douloi masks as I can manage.
Now the admiral did turn. “What about the Aerenarch?”
The commander looked down at the signet ring on his hand. The ruby eyes of the sphinxes winked in the subdued lighting of the admiral’s office. “I don’t know. He is active socially, but . . .”
“You have learned nothing more about his leaving Arthelion?”
Faseult shook his head. “Nothing.”
“We’re running the discriminators full-time on the data from incoming ships,” added Willsones, “and that’s one of the top priorities in the search pattern. We’ve turned up nothing beyond what we already know.” She rubbed her eyes, looking tired.
Nyberg gazed across the room at the official portrait of Gelasaar hai-Arkad, forty-seventh on the Emerald Throne. Though he was the admiral’s head of security, Faseult knew there was much that Nyberg didn’t share with him; he was a very private man. But he was sure that this uncertainty weighed heavily on the admiral.
“And someone wants it kept that way,” Faseult added. “Whoever caused the murder yesterday in the South Cap alpha shuttle bay.”
“The laergist?” asked Nyberg.
“Yes. He was on Arthelion, assigned to assist one Leseuer gen Altamon, an artist from Ansonia reporting on the progress of that planet’s petition for admission to the Panarchy. She died at the Enkainion.”
“And?”
Faseult motioned to Willsones, who returned to her seat.
“As I indicated, there was nothing new in the ship’s data-nodes,” she replied, “but a search of the records here turned up a vid about her from the Stella Novostu organization, done a month before the Enkainion. It shows her equipped with an ajna.”
Nyberg turned to Faseult, who shook his head. “We found nothing on the body, nor in his cabin on the ship that brought him here. We are questioning the other passengers, but only as a matter of course: he was killed with a neuro-jac, which usually implies a professional assassination. Which might,” he added, “be related to the body we found only hours later in one of the sub-transits off of Alpha. This one had died of a neurotoxin, perhaps Quartan—one of the slow and painful ones.”
Nyberg sighed and sat down again behind his desk. He put his elbows on its surface and rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both hands.
“I think we can assume the existence—up until then, at least—of a recording of the Enkainion,” he said finally. He sat up. “But that does us no good now.” He turned to Ng. “Captain, have you anything to add?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Except, oh, an intuition, if you like: the Aerenarch may surprise us all.”
Nyberg merely bowed politely, and Willsones exchanged glances with Faseult. Alone, they would have commented; before Ng, who was largely an unknown quantity, they maintained the safe shield of strict protocol.
So why is she here? Despite Faseult’s admiration of Ng and her record, it had taken him aback when Nyberg attached her directly to his staff, and it surprised him again when she was invited to this session. Hitherto Nyberg’d had little use for the fiercely independent cruiser captains, who—entirely within the wide-ranging limitations of their standing orders—were notorious for their disregard of the careful infrastructure of Central Command.
“We’ve little time,” Nyberg said. “We’ll have to force the issue so that a decision can be made, one way or the other.” He turned to Willsones. “Admiral, can you work up a communication conveying that deadline, and link it to one of the most recently arrived couriers? I want to announce it without revealing its true source.”
Willsones nodded, apparently unsurprised. “Not hard at all. You don’t want an image, then?”
He shook his head. “Too hard to explain, don’t you think?” He smiled grimly, with a gesture taking in both Ng and Willsones. “And there’s another reason. Commander Faseult believes there may be a leak in the Jupiter Project. If we put the right amount of information in this communication, whoever is at the other end of the leak may reveal a bit too much knowledge.”
Nyberg turned to Faseult. “Commander, I want you to monitor social affairs in the oneill. Your man Vahn is doing an excellent job with the Aerenarch, but we’ll need a lot more intelligence about the people he sees.”
Faseult nodded, resigned.
“Captain,” continued the admiral, turning to Ng, “I’d like you to sound out your officers and crew, and others, if you like, concerning a mission to Gehenna. But don’t even hint that it’s being considered—I don’t want to tip our hand.”
Ng said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but I’ve already begun.”
Some of the tension in Nyberg’s face eased. “I thought as much.” Then it was back again, more focused. “But remember, it may never come to pass. We cannot defy whatever government may form here—that could shatter what remains of the Panarchy.”
Now Faseult knew the reason she was there. Whatever government the civilians managed to put forward could very well be short-lived if any of Semion’s former cadre of captains showed up. There’s no room for gloating at the way the civilians are ripping at one another for position, Faseult thought as Nyberg dismissed them. Their ballroom and bedroom skirmishes would be nothing to the infighting we’d face if either Koestler or sho’Bostian or Imry survived their battles and suddenly skip in.
Faseult paused at the door and looked back. Nyberg had not moved; he gazed up at the picture of the Panarch, his thoughts obviously thousands of light-years distant.
Was any of that man’s strength of purpose and visionary skill in the one remaining son? Faseult shook his head and walked out.
“He may surprise us all.” I hope for all our sakes that Ng is right.
o0o
Lokri looked down from his ceiling holograph of the black void of space when the annunciator chimed outside his prison cell.
No one had been to see him since Marim had come a few days after he’d been locked in this vault. Obviously he was considered too dangerous for visitors. Either that, or the Telvarna crew, quite understandably, had left him to his fate, and were pretending with all their might they had never known him. He wasn’t all that sure he wouldn’t have done the same.
He got to his feet, wary though there was nothing he could do to defend himself; he sauntered toward the visitor’s alcove, because all he had left was pride, though that was eroding as well.
Instead of some grim-faced interrogator or Naval officer pretending for the sake of “justice” to be his representation, the face that appeared was grizzled, ugly—and familiar.
“Montrose?” Lokri dropped into the pod on his side of the dyplast.
Montrose’s smile was grim. “You were expecting Eusabian?”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone, until they remember I’m here and haul me out for my mock trial before hustling me off to summary justice.” His teeth showed on that last word.
“Did you know that your sister is here?”
Nothing could break the bonds of anger and pain shackling Lokri since he’d found out that his sister was alive, and on Ares. Not even being arrested had hit him this hard; that ghost had ridden him since he first escaped from Torigan.
“Yes,” he said. “They do permit me a semblance of news. Though no communication.”
“Is that why you’re sulking? Because she hasn’t been down to visit you?”
Lokri half-rose. “Is there a point? Because I need to get back to counting stars on the projected field.” He waved a hand lazily overhead, unable to hide the revealing tremble in his fingers.
Montrose gave an impatient sigh, but he saw that tremble, and the desolation in Lokri’s thin face that he tried to hide. Montrose knew the nicks weren’t starving their prisoners, but Lokri was not eating. He said much less forcefully than he might have, “No, I put up with a search down to my DNA to come here because two jobs don’t keep me busy enough.”
Lokri expelled his breath. “Your pardon. Speak, I’m listening.”
“Apology accepted.” Montrose planted his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “You might not know that your sister is living on board Tau Srivashti’s glittership. Mean anything to you?”
Lokri shrugged. “Archon of what, Timberwell? Interesting rep. I don’t remember anything else.” He laughed. “It has been a while since nick politics was an interest of mine.”
“Well, it’d better be one now,” Montrose said soberly. “I came down here to tell you several things. First, Marim hasn’t been back because she was forbidden. Everyone was; I think Jaim got the Aerenarch to speak to his guards to let me come, on the grounds that I’m your physician, and though they look after your physical well-being, I am in charge of your mental health.”
“What did I do to deserve that?” Lokri flicked his hand up, an old Douloi gesture that he’d never quite eradicated from muscle memory. Montrose recognized it because he, too, sometimes betrayed his own past.
Lokri amended, “I mean, the sudden lack of visitors. Not your presence, which is a welcome change.”
“You didn’t do anything. It’s what—I think—someone tried to do to you.”
Lokri sat back. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“This is only a guess. Based on the absence of information, nothing more, but quite suddenly you were declared off-limits to all. Vahn, the chief guard at the Enclave, would neither confirm nor deny my guesses, which I thought revealing.” As I am certain I was meant to.
Lokri crossed his arms, but his sardonic expression was more habitual than any indicator of his mood. “Go on. You had arrived at my sister. Who I scarcely remember.”
“There is evidence she believes she’s in danger.”
“I can see the nicks wanting to kill me, but who’d want to kill Fierin?”
“Who wanted to kill your parents?”
“I did,” Lokri said with a bitter laugh. “Ask the nicks.”
Montrose snorted dismissively. “My job cooking for the Arkad doesn’t take me but a couple of hours a day—until he starts entertaining. If he does. So I lend a hand at the general infirmary, where I hear things.” He paused.
“I’m listening.”
Montrose nodded. “May be no connection at all, but one of the people on the courier your sister came in with was assassinated when he walked out of the lock. Another one just got challenged to a duel. Two more have shown up with a mysterious rash—one that appears as a side effect of a highly illegal truth serum.”
Hot and corrosive burned Lokri’s anger: at Montrose, at Fierin, at his parents, at himself. Especially at himself and his total helplessness. “My parents were killed fourteen years ago. I don’t see how there could be any connection between that and any of this—including any problems Fierin might have gotten herself into.”
Montrose shrugged. “All I’m telling you is what I’ve heard. That sister of yours is walking soft, walking soft indeed. She’s seen everywhere on Srivashti’s arm, and though I think him the worst sort of excrescence, I’ll admit he knows how to guard his own. But the rare times she’s alone she’s been talking to some odd choices. Jaim. Ivard.”
“Crew of Telvarna.” Lokri hated the sharp stab of hope. Hope always betrayed you.
“I’ll know more if she manages to sit down next to me in a transtube,” Montrose said with a laugh.
Lokri shook his head, the anger dissipating in the cold glare of logic. “Why would she waste time with you? If she knows who my crewmates were, she knows the damned Arkad was with us. If anyone can help her, or me, if she’s even remembered who I am, it’s your Aerenarch.”
“Wrong,” Montrose said.
“You can’t be telling me that the Arkad doesn’t have any power,” Lokri protested.
Montrose pursed his mouth. “That’s a difficult question. On one hand, he’s the titular head of what remains of the Panarchy. On the other, there’s this: Every time he pisses, they hear the splash on every comm from the brig to the bridge. He can’t scratch his ass without Vahn’s security team running scan first.”
“So he can’t actually do anything?”
Montrose shrugged. “There’s no government, and there can’t be one until they either try to get the Panarch off Gehenna or else declare him officially dead. If the Arkad won’t, then it has to be done by the Privy Council, but they’re all dead, or with the Panarch, so who’s going to name their successors?”
For the first time in what seemed a century Lokri thought past his immediate problems. “Arkad said at Granny Chang’s that he wanted to run a rescue. That wasn’t just gas?”
Montrose shook his head. “He doesn’t talk about it at all. Nor—” His black brows slanted sardonically. “—does he talk about how he escaped that hell-spawned bomb in the Mandala, though the rest of these chatzing honey-voiced nicks sure whisper about it. Whether because of that or for some other reason, he hasn’t declared his father dead.” He sat back in his pod. “Let’s leave him aside for now. As to your sister, and whatever else may be going on, I will be listening.” His eyes narrowed, his familiar, heavy-boned face menacing. “I have my own reasons. Meantime, what I want from you is what happened on Torigan.”
Lokri shook his head. “For whose entertainment?”
Montrose snorted. “You think we’re wired here?” He laughed. “What an irony—delicious. You’re probably in the only place that is dead-walled.”
“Don’t you carry some kind of device?”
“Locator,” Montrose said, touching his wrist. “Simple location signal. They don’t have enough staff to listen to the chatter of all the riffraff they’ve got gathered here.” He laughed again, but it was not humorous this time.
Lokri rubbed his jaw. “All right.” He sighed. “I’ll give it to you, if you’ll see that it gets to her. If she asks. But first, about the Arkad. You said he can’t do anything. But—?”
“But the potential is there. Or someone must think so, anyway.” Montrose’s smile was grim. “Because someone has tried three times to kill him. Now, then, let’s have that story. Every detail you can remember.”