The Wilding

LORD AND KAIM’ERA Tezal, son of Luzak and V’nista, sat at his desk in silence, contemplating the latest bill to come before the Kaim’erate. It was a complex creation, with hands that were thrust into the economic gloves of nearly a hundred planets, but he thought at last he had managed to isolate the parts that mattered most, and (more importantly) to whom they mattered. In that deadly arena of personal rivalries which lesser men called the government, such information could be priceless.

He called up his files on the Kaim’eri Sulas and Zosar, noted other points of confluence in their agendas, and decided that they were probably cooperating behind the scenes, even as they waged bitter war in public. Yet another facet of the ever-changing game which was Braxaná politics. He added a few notes to each man’s file, recorded elsewhere that the pair seemed to be focusing their financial interests on the War Border of late, and then shut the file down.

He had property near the War Border as well. He rarely used it as more than a stopping-point for journeys that were for . . . well, for things that he wished to keep private . . . but if those two were building strength in the sector, perhaps he would be wise to do so as well.

The heavy panels parted and his Mistress came into the room. She didn’t ask why he had locked the door; she had lived with him long enough to know that there was some business he kept secret from everyone, even her. Maybe she sensed, on that primal intuitional level that Mistresses seemed to have, that knowledge of some things could prove fatal to her.

He tapped up a screen from his desktop and gestured for her to come toward him. In a black-gloved hand she held out a slender gold ring. In a black-gloved hand he received it, and dropped it onto his private reader. The one that was connected to nothing outside the room, not even the Central Computer System.

The machine whirred for almost a tenth of a second as it wended its way through encryption as complex and byzantine as Braxaná politics. Then the information began to appear before him: frequencies, planets, people. And last of all the text of a communication, itself painstakingly decrypted, which had been sent from the Central System itself.

He nodded. K’teva might be half Braxaná in blood, and therefore entitled to organize a Great House of her own, but thus far she had not done so. Which meant that those who wished to spy upon her had to wend their way through a tangled maze of information conduits, nothing like the ordered and precise intelligence empire that a true Braxaná would have established. In theory such disorganization made her moves more vulnerable to outside scrutiny, but in fact . . . in fact it was like playing a board game with someone who knew the rules but not the strategy, and therefore was prone to do things so unexpected that it might give them an advantage.

Sometimes, if the element of surprise worked in their favor, such players could defeat their betters in a match. More often, they controlled the board for a very short while and then were soundly trounced.

She was doing it indirectly, and her efforts were not unskilled, but to a man who was accustomed to uncovering the secrets of the Kaim’eri themselves, the trail was clearly marked. The little half-breed was watching Tathas. That meant she knew where he was. She might even know where he was going. For a woman of mixed blood with no House to back her, it was an impressive effort.

“Oh yes.” A faint expression, almost a smile, flitted across the painted face. “Her heart is cold, B’Seth, as cold as winter nights on the Blood Steppes. Ambition burns much hotter in her than the gentler emotions ever will.” He steepled his black-gloved fingers on the desk in front of him. “In that, she is very Braxaná.”

Still studying the screen, he nodded. “She seeks his favor, no doubt. And why not? He could give her the breeding rights she hungers for, without even consulting the rest of us.” Not for the first time, he felt a hard knot of anger rise in his gut, at the reminder of the Pri’tiera’s power. We weren’t meant to be ruled by one man. Not even one of ours. It isn’t our way.

The Pri’tiera was young, shamefully young, they all knew that. Inexperienced. Thus far he had shown himself to have respectable potential—as well he should, given the bloodline he came from—but at his age it might be no more than just that, potential. Was K’teva trying to manipulate him? That was a dangerous game, even with so young a Braxaná. It would raise interesting questions if she could pull it off. About both of them.

“One of our informants reported in,” B’Seth told him. “He was able to tell us exactly what information she’s sending out there. It’s at the end.” She smiled slightly. “I think you’ll find it . . . interesting.”

She shrugged lightly. “The man’s a good contact. He’s been reliable in the past. Even more important . . . what purpose would he have to make up something like this?”

He read again the testimony of a mercenary of the Narren frontier. The man had indeed been a reliable informant in the past, and was well paid for it. He was one of the lynchpins of Tezal’s own Outlands intelligence network.

That’s right, he had written. It was a courier who told me, one out of the Central System. Said there was evidence this Kesserit fugitive was a Shaka. (Pause.) That kind of information’s worth money to the right people, you know. Anyway, he seemed to be spreading it around . . .

Yes. Well organized too, and presented with the clarity and brevity that was B’Seth’s hallmark. The trail led back through half a dozen informants, but it clearly had begun with K’teva. So. The little Kesserit half-breed had sent out word that Tathas was some kind of psychic, to the very people who would want to kill him for that. Did she want to get rid of him, perhaps? No, he decided. It was too convoluted an effort for that. The man was in such disfavor that a simple assassin could cross his path one tenth after he left the Holding and no one would think twice about it. K’teva had the money and the contacts to pay for that ten times over. No, she had something else in mind. Something far more devious and complicated, he was willing to bet.

It was too bad she had not been raised by his people. She would have made a worthy adversary if she had been. Now . . . he was not quite sure what she was. Sometimes he wondered if she knew herself.

His other mission demanded that he have a network of informants second to none. B’Seth didn’t know about half of them, but even half was more than most Braxaná could muster. A man could do no less, when the very fate of the human-explored galaxy rested on his shoulders.

And what part will K’teva play in all this? he wondered. That of an ambitious spectator, who dreams of wielding power but lacks the skill to claim it? Or will she prove to be more than that, perhaps one of those rare women who can set the Braxin system to stirring, a catalyst whom none can predict?

Envision a child, newborn, cradled in its mother’s arms. Light assails its newly opened eyes from all directions, too much data to absorb. Overwhelming. The face of its mother, the form of its own hand, sunlight pouring in the window . . . all these things are but visual chaos, input without interpretation, that its tiny brain cannot yet sort out. A cacophony of data, frightening and fascinating, without meaning or form. How will it learn how to distinguish near from far, large from small, soft from sharp? Its brain lacks even the language to frame such concepts now. All it can do is stare at the light and absorb the chaos, and slowly struggle to sort out which images matter and which ones do not, so that the latter can be ignored . . . while its brain works desperately to create the neural pathways necessary to make sense of it all.