Llyn perched on a cargo box and stared at the cellar’s stone floor. Shelves loaded with multicolored crates lined the walls, shimmed to lean against the concrete. With all windows closed and lamps burning overhead, the air smelled slightly stale. Squeak lay on Llyn’s feet, grooming his black-and-white fur—and her shoes—with his absurdly long, black tongue. Most of Karine’s patients assembled at mealtimes, so Llyn knew most of the faces and voices that surrounded her, but two middle-aged women she’d never seen before sat close by, each talking to herself with Tamsina seated between them. A man who sat alone in one corner had not moved since she spotted him. A child lay on the floor, sobbing.
Watching them as she waited for further news of this afternoon’s bombing, Llyn realized how disabled she’d been when Karine first brought her home. She’d covered a lot of ground.
She wished Karine saw it that way.
The basement mostly held raw materials used for in-home manufacturing, but Llyn had spotted a pair of crates labeled “LLYN/transducer.” They surely contained Rakaya Shasruud’s AR unit, with the gelskin and connectors that once linked Llyn to it. Llyn couldn’t believe Karine had kept it. Nor could she guess why. It was tempting to open those crates and peer inside.
The elevator door opened, and Karine stepped through. She called several names, Llyn’s among them. “Please step into the elevator.”
Llyn crowded in with the rest of them.
Karine didn’t activate the lift. Evidently she simply wanted privacy to speak with a few relatively stable patients. “Here’s the story,” she said. “Several spaceships came through Antar Gate last week. We know now that they were not the Kocaban haulers their markings indicated. Today, they dropped missiles on the University and the Outwatch base and then headed for Antar Gate. We are on an emergency wartime footing.” She glared at Llyn. “We still don’t know if Niklo was at the University when it was hit.”
Niklo! Llyn clenched a fist.
“I need full cooperation. You might as well know that my fuse is going to be very short until we find out if Niklo is all right.”
“Of course.” Elroy filled the corner behind Karine. She craned her neck to look back at him. “Anytime you want to lie down and let us take over,” he said, “just tell us.”
Karine shook her head. “There hasn’t been an all-clear. We’re staying down here until we get one. We will keep busy. I’m going to divide staff and residents into three groups. We are going to restack—”
“Karine.” Elroy took a stern tone. “Don’t you think there will be an all-clear soon if those ships are already on their way out of the system?”
Karine shot him a look that would have withered one of her apple trees. “Until I have heard an all-clear, we will assume that there won’t be one. As I was saying, we will restack all of the cargo crates into three long piles mid-room. We’ll create four large areas, then partition one area with three smaller piles. In case we end up living down here, I need to isolate certain patients and segregate everyone else by sex.”
It sounded as if Karine needed to keep busy.
“Llyn. You’re with me.”
Of course.
Llyn walked to her assigned spot on the cellar’s stone floor. A woman on her left passed her cargo crates by their handles. Llyn handed them to a woman on her right. After slinging only four crates, Llyn could barely grip the fifth crate’s handles. She flung it along and begged, “Wait. Please. I’ve got to rest.”
Karine glowered from her position near a concrete wall. “You think you’re ready for independence? How can you help yourself if you have to quit after only this long? Have you been slacking on the exercise machines?”
Llyn flinched. “Just a little break. That was all I needed. I’m ready to go again.”
The conveyor line restarted. Llyn pushed herself, determined to keep up.
“Oops,” Elroy’s voice sang from one end of the cellar. “Sorry, Squeak.” There’d been no yelp, of course.
Karine turned around. The woman on Llyn’s left stepped in front of her and handed a crate directly to the woman on her right. “Thanks,” Llyn whispered, “but you shouldn’t—”
“Shh.” Fifteen centimeters taller than Llyn, the woman looked as if she could handle crates two at a time. Llyn didn’t protest again.
The third time it happened, Karine caught the big woman in mid-pass. “Llyn!” Karine cried. “Get back in your place, and—”
The downstairs intercom buzzed. Karine lunged for it.
I was in my place! Llyn would’ve shrieked if she’d dared. Her nerves were as frazzled as anyone’s. Couldn’t Karine, the great medical psiologist, understand that?
The big woman dropped her crate. Llyn sat down on it. The big woman sat down behind Llyn and leaned against Llyn’s back. The warmth felt good. The cellar smelled mustier than ever, and the rearranged crates now dampened its acoustics. Her coworkers murmured to each other. Not one group kept working. Llyn could no longer find the crates marked “transducer,” to her disappointment.
Karine spoke into the headset. When she hung up, she looked somber. “That was an all-clear,” she announced. “No further attack looks imminent. The travel ban will remain in place, but that doesn’t concern us today. Stand up, everyone. We’re going to put the crates back.”
Somebody groaned.
Karine ignored him. “Kitchen crew, you’re excused to go upstairs. We’ll need dinner.”
By nightfall, it was clear to Llyn that Karine hadn’t simply developed a short fuse. She was ready to blow. From Tamsina’s head-shaking shrugs, Llyn knew she wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Karine hovered near the main multinet terminal by the kitchen doors, looking frightened—until she spotted Llyn looking back. Then her brow furrowed. She stared with an expression Llyn couldn’t interpret.
Near midnight, Llyn spied Tamsina strolling past her open bedroom door. “Tamsina,” she hiss-whispered. “Come in for a minute. Please.”
The brown woman slipped into Llyn’s room, followed by Squeak. He seemed as blissful as ever. How lovely to be that stupid, sometimes. Tamsina slid the door shut behind her.
“What’s wrong with Karine?” Llyn asked. “Has she gone crazy?”
“Well.” Tamsina sat down on the bed. “She’s worried, of course.”
“She’s angry with me or something. Is it because I didn’t work hard enough down in the cellar?”
“No, she’s not angry.” Tamsina folded her arms. “At least, not that she knows. I think she feels guilty about the time that she spent on you over the last few years, instead of with her son—”
“I tried to get more time to myself—”
“I know, I know.” Tamsina shook her head. “Niklo wanted to escape, too. He told me he needed to do a few things imperfectly.”
Usually, Llyn understood too little of others’ comments to laugh at appropriate times. This time, she understood. She chuckled.
Tamsina spread her hands. “I think Karine wants to blame someone for her tragedy. I don’t think she’ll stick you with it for long, though. She’s too good a clinician not to notice her own symptoms.”
“Will we go back to a regular schedule tomorrow?”
“I’m arranging reduced shifts. I think that you—and the patients who are closest to getting release certification—should keep to your rooms, stay out of her way, and do something productive. You’ve got studies, haven’t you?”
“Always. Not to mention exercises.” Ruefully, she rubbed her thin arms. They actually hurt after all that work downstairs. She’d never been able to exercise that long before.
Time alone, though? Lovely! She had surreptitiously set her personal terminal to download a collection of Nuris University Chorale recordings, back this morning when the world had seemed normal, before she and Karine left for the classroom and war arrived on Antar. Nuris University Chorale had recorded three collections a year for forty-eight years. Before going to bed, she’d checked to see if any recordings had transferred onto her console before the invaders’ attack knocked down the net. Three years’ worth of music, nine collections, already were hers to enjoy.
Tamsina and Squeak left. Llyn snuck out of bed and retitled the choral collections as schoolwork. Then she slipped back into her bed, feeling ashamed … not about hiding her music from Karine, but ashamed that she could feel so delighted about the possibility of lying on her bed tomorrow, listening to music. There had been a disaster. Hundreds of people might have been killed, and more might die. She might die before she really learned to live.
What a time to be growing up.
Filip Salbari smoothed hair back from his face two-handed, rubbed his eyes, and stared at his net board. Damage reports still poured in from Nuris and outlying areas. One of his staff had flown down this morning, returning to the rural Salbari estate with another grim count of seventeen students found dead under dormitory rubble. A list of names followed. Antar’s badly stretched police force, supplemented by Outwatchers, was already notifying next of kin.
Half of the victims’ next of kin were probably victims as well. The private memorial that had been planned for this afternoon must honor many more victims than Athis Pallaton, even if it only commemorated Regents and other empaths.
Filip felt dazed, angry, and old. Tdega still had not claimed responsibility for the Aliki’s destruction, but after yesterday’s attack, it was difficult to see the loss of the Aliki as anything but another act of war. The hope of malfunction was almost universally gone. The Aliki was now considered a target, like Nuris University, of an attack. Filip had already transmitted to Ilzar and Unukalhai, the two other Concord worlds nearest their Gates, for assistance.
Meanwhile, a transmission had arrived from Jahn Emlin in Bkellan. It warned of military preparations in addition to the stockpiling that Antar’s official Ambassador had already reported. Emlin was too young to carry so much responsibility, yet Antar needed him now more than ever.
If only that warning had arrived one day earlier—
No. The Regents never would have evacuated Nuris on the basis of Jahn Emlin’s warning. Who would have believed that civilized humans could do this? Attacking a ship offworld was despicable, but striking a habitable planet went beyond comprehension.
Why? Creator, how could they?
Filip blinked. Another total had appeared on the screen. He had never felt this complex of emotions, hatred among them, except when empathically counseling extremely troubled individuals. He tried to subdue his feelings. He must not distract the other two empaths working in his estate’s nerve center: his younger brother Alcotte, and Alcotte’s twenty-year-old daughter, Rena Tourelle. Rena sat at a map board, calling and keying in data, looking pale. She was strongly gifted, already one of the best nexus empaths on Antar. Among other things, nexus allowed one person to link two, even three others.
Five years back, Filip had been secretly asked by a vote of empaths to head the Order, but not for any grand effusion of psychic ability. The Order had always feared that public announcement of its headship would make the post seem glamorous or cause competition for it. Actually, it was a spiritual leadership that called for restraint and humility. Today Filip felt glad that he was not as gifted as his niece Rena—or as his daughter Stasia, the family rebel. Those young women were suffering. Stasia sat alone in her room this morning, ostensibly angry that she couldn’t work in the nerve center along with her father, Uncle Alcotte, and Cousin Rena.
Another total appeared. This couldn’t be happening in his lifetime: humans slaughtering humans. Antar must respond appropriately, and the responsibility was Filip Salbari’s. His parents’ bodies had been found just after midnight. The deaths down at Nuris elevated him to Head Regency of Nuris University, effectively head of the Concord.
He was trained to administer a learning center.
Antar had no ships to strike back with, and striking Tdega would be wrong. The entire Concord needed Tdega’s produce to survive. If the situation that inspired the Concord to send the Aliki had been ominous, it was critical now. Tens of thousands would starve, here and elsewhere, if the Tdegans cut supply lines.
And why hadn’t they done that—instead of attacking? He couldn’t guess.
The Concord would meet here at the Salbari estate, in Conclave, as soon as the other worlds’ emissaries—those who survived here, plus those deputized to represent the attack victims—could assemble.
Have mercy.
A touch on his shoulder brought him upright. His brother Alcotte stood at his side. “Are you all right?” Alcotte murmured. His brother’s short, neat red beard was gray at the sides, and though his eyes normally twinkled, this morning they looked dull. Filip and Alcotte were now the nearest generation to the grave. Alcotte had confessed that he felt as vulnerable about that as Filip did.
On the other hand, there was someone willing to take that burden off Filip’s shoulders. Filip cast a glance across the estate’s nerve center. Their Uncle Boaden, their father Anton’s younger brother, had heavy cheeks that became jowls at his chin line. Boaden had merely protested last year when Nuris University made Anton Salbari’s son Filip—not his brother Boaden—Second Regent. Boaden should have had plenty of time to contest the confirmation. Now the power shift was a fait accompli. Boaden must either remain content as a Vice Regent or else try to have Filip reduced from the Head Regency during a crisis.
Filip reached up to his shoulder and covered Alcotte’s hand. “I’m all right. But I need to talk to Uncle Boaden.”
Alcotte dropped his hand to Filip’s upper arm and squeezed. “I understand.” He backed away, smoothing his beard.
Filip crossed the busy nerve center, where six multinet terminals surrounded a dead, ceiling-mounted main projector. I-net was still offline. Net administrators had scrambled to cover the gap with c-net. That frequency cluster excelled at carrying casual conversations, but it barely sufficed for today’s data flood.
Boaden stood speaking with a commtech at a terminal. As they finished, Filip caught Boaden’s glance. “Could we talk?”
“Certainly,” Boaden said stiffly. He followed Filip toward the center’s main doors. Motion sensors retracted the doors into stone-lined walls.
Filip turned right. Paved with gray tile, the elongated porch surrounded a sky-lit courtyard edged by tall, fragrant flowers. Roses and jonquils nodded on long stems around a smooth green lawn. Several orchard trees dangled immature fruits. The courtyard flooded the estate’s central halls with natural oxygen, and in here, Filip felt at peace.
A half wall separated lawn and garden from the stone porch, and carved stone pillars stretched up from its top to support the roof. High above, a sheer air dome grew darker and brighter with variations in cloud cover. As soon as he passed the second pillar, Filip clasped his hands behind his back. “I need to know that I can count on your help and advice, Uncle. We both know I’m not ready.”
“We both know you have a reputation as a pacifist,” Boaden answered in a mild voice.
Filip watched his feet swing across lines of tile. “That’s true.”
“The more you long for peace, the more vulnerable you become. Loving peace is no protection unless you back it up with the equipment for war. No one in his right mind wants war.”
Relieved that they could agree on that point, Filip pursed his lips. “And we both know you want to retaliate.”
“Justice is justice. No one attacks my people without learning that he shouldn’t.”
Filip shook his head, but he understood. In twenty years, dozens of empaths had approached him for personal counseling. Empaths understood others’ viewpoints with exquisite clarity, and many struggled to maintain personal boundaries. They entangled themselves in others’ difficulties and forgot to care for themselves.
Boaden, who was no empath and did not know about the other official load Filip already carried, was asking him to extend that wisdom to a planetary scale. Antar’s boundaries had been execrably violated. Justice required retribution. “I respect your experience,” Filip told him.
Boaden stepped in front of Filip. “And I respect your compassion. No one will accuse you of jumping into war unprovoked. You must lead the Concord, though. Decisions will be made in Conclave, and the Conclave requires a strong head. Can you function that way? If not, step aside and let someone lead us who can.”
“I will try,” Filip promised.
“Not good enough.”
Filip looked back over his shoulder toward the bright lights of the estate nerve center. With NU gone, that was Antar’s war room. “I will lead,” he said. “But I need your help.”
“I’ll be behind, pushing.”
“Thank you.”
“And once the crisis passes, I will protest your elevation to Head Regent.”
“I understand.”
Boaden had made no secret of the fact he wanted the Head Regency to pass to his own child. Boaden’s oldest son was admittedly more stable, at present, than Filip’s untrained daughter Stasia. Filip had been too lenient with her, Boaden claimed, and Boaden was probably right.
But Stasia would outgrow this stage, and as soon as the crisis ended, Filip must step down from one office. “All I ask is that we work together for the present.”
“We will do that.” Boaden firmed the jowly line of his chin. Then he strode back toward the nerve center’s lights. They silhouetted his back as he walked.
Filip lingered on the pavement. He inhaled, replacing stuffy, fear-tinged air with courtyard springtime. He planted both hands on the low wall, sprang up, and twisted sideways to sit. There he perched, balanced between pavement and grass, and pulled up his feet. On one side lay heirloom flower beds and some of Antar’s finest pre-Devastator statuary. On the other side, the long stone porch receded like a study in perspective. Together they created an illusion of stability.
He bowed his head and let grief flood out of the pockets in his mind where he had hidden it. He’d just found out how impermanent human habitations still were. In 250 years without Devastator visitations, including fifty years of resettlement, they’d begun to pretend otherwise.
Truly, Nuris University had looked permanent and stable yesterday morning. According to grim maps and virtual projections, two-thirds of the city was rubble. Much of its elderly population, those who had not died in the initial attack, had gone into respiratory failure with the dome ripped away. Those had been souls born shipboard, resettled on a planetary surface they’d hoped to turn back into paradise. They had made incredible adjustments simply to live in a way Filip’s generation called normal.
What would his father have done?
Filip could no longer ask. And Alcotte’s wife Gladwyn, five months pregnant with a surprise fourth child, lay in bed here at the estate, agonizing over the loss of both parents, her sisters, and several young nieces and nephews. She’d begged Favia and Vananda to sit with her, now and at this afternoon’s service. Filip wanted his wife Favia at the nerve center, but hammer blows of Gladwyn’s grief bludgeoned Filip and the other empaths at frequencies no one else felt. He had to let the Hadley sisters calm her. They worked well together, even though Favia was not genetically empathic.
Up the pavement, the nerve center’s door swept open. Bluish artificial light shone even brighter as young Rena rushed out onto the long porch. Rena kept her brilliant red hair ridiculously short, but she had such a sweet, vulnerable-looking face that longer hair might have kept people from taking her seriously as an empath. So she claimed. “Uncle Filip,” she cried, “there’s a message coming through. It’s from a Tdegan ship.”
Filip sprang down. Rena spun in place, and he followed her back through the sliding doors.
Distortion caused by distance cast shadows through the image hovering over the crowd, but Filip made out a black-haired stranger’s long face. His front hair was cropped short, almost shaven, in the Tdegan style.
Filip edged closer to Alcotte, who stood near the image’s edge. From this angle, Filip saw the Tdegan’s queue. “Who?” Filip murmured.
“Bellik Casimir. This is a general broadcast. We put it on ten-second delay so you could get here.”
Filip nodded. Bellik Casimir had been considered a long shot to succeed Aeternum. Why was he transmitting?
Bellik’s image unfroze. His upper lip curled when he spoke. “…the indignity of nationalization. For five decades you have taken the best we could produce. Now you ask to pay even less? If your treatment were not so heinous, it would be laughable. You think you are so strong and that we should feel honored to serve you.
“What is your strength? Numbers? We outnumber you. Knowledge? Our University was already better. Technology? We both know better than to think that.
“Now you see we are determined to end this domination charade. Since you cannot treat us fairly, we withdraw from the Concord.”
Rena gasped. Alcotte tried to lay an arm across her shoulders. She drew away, shaking her head.
Filip took a deep, calming breath.
The image pulled back to display Bellik Casimir’s dark gray military uniform. Two men in black versions of the same tunic and trousers stood at attention behind him.
Bellik Casimir folded his arms. “As of today, Tdega has seceded. Our neighbor systems, Ilzar and Sunsis, have chosen to leave with us. In case you harbor any doubts as to how seriously we take this, let me show you.” The formal grouping blanked out.
As of today? There was a minimum two-and-a-half-day broadcast delay between Antar and Tdega. The message might have been transmitted from a ship retreating to Antar Gate. Or, if Bellik Casimir were not on board, it could be a recording.
Was Ilzar truly seceding? Its transmissions via Gate relay arrived a day faster than Tdega’s. The Empath Order had an operative on Ilzar, at Zjadel. She would send her own report soon.
Filip recognized the golden brown globe that appeared in holo. It was Ilzar, in the system almost directly between Antar and Tdega, scanned through its cloud cover—but two unfamiliar black craters blistered its main continent’s western seacoast. Rena gasped again. This time, she let Alcotte draw her close in fatherly comfort.
The voice intoned, “The city councils of Zjadel and Thark declared yesterday that they would not stand with Syyke in support of secession. Zjadel and Thark were given five hours to evacuate. Then they were targeted.”
The satellite picture zoomed closer. The scene practically smoked at its edges. As Bellik Casimir had claimed, nothing remained of Zjadel but cinders. Filip recalled it as a center of arts and learning. Lives, cities—atmospheric catastrophe—what had this attack cost Ilzar? And had Jay Li Waverly escaped?
“Is that real?” Alcotte whispered. “Tdega has a planetary imaging AR system—”
“Now you see that we are far ahead of your defense technology. We could have used these weapons against Antar. We will, if you attempt to control us. Your day is finished.”
The image faded into a star-and-ring projection that blanked immediately. Two shaken Antaran broadcasters appeared to perform the inevitable recap and analysis. Planetary imaging—and the vital difference between realism and truth—was the first theory they raised and dismissed.
Filip called, “Turn it down.” He backed away from the huddle as Alcotte squeezed into it. Many people stayed, drawing comfort from touching each other while the broadcasters attempted to make sense of the violence.
Over the press, Filip caught another glimpse of Boaden. His uncle frowned and looked away.
Filip rubbed his chin. Tdega had broadcast that ultimatum over public channels. It must have wanted to ensure that the Antaran populace saw it at the same time as its surviving leadership. Discord would favor Tdega. Panic could make any other Concord world’s secession almost inevitable.
Obviously, the Concord had been mistaken in trying to nationalize Tdega’s resources. Yet that had seemed like the sensible request. Concord representatives had believed that compassion and the long view would prevail on Tdega.
Alcotte emerged alone from the press. “All recorded,” he said. “Now we know what they meant to do with those ordnance stockpiles.”
Filip nodded. Should he recall Antar’s ambassador from Bkellan city? And what about Jahn Emlin, undercover? “What about Ilzar?” he asked Alcotte. “I don’t believe that story about two cities refusing to cooperate. It sounds like Tdega browbeat a system it had to count on for mined goods.”
Alcotte nodded. “The city of Syyke has Ilzar’s major ore extractor. It wasn’t destroyed.”
“I noticed. Then our next step should be contacting Ilzar.”
“And Sunsis?” Alcotte suggested.
It was time to make up his mind. Choose a course of action. Set it in motion. “Ilzar first,” he said. The Conclave of University families—from Antar and other Concord worlds that remained—would meet soon, and he would not declare war by himself. Other worlds, whose residents also died at Nuris University, would add their Outwatch forces to whatever remained on Antar. Ancient training and indoctrination devices—and the conversion of surviving Outwatch ships from other Concord systems—would build numbers rapidly if he started recruiting today.
Truly, striking Tdega was out of the question. But emancipating Ilzar seemed possible, even necessary.
Were Gamal and Bellik Casimir laying another trap for the Concord’s aging Outwatch fleet? What would emancipation cost Ilzar’s biosphere? He needed more information from Jay Li on Ilzar, and from Jahn Emlin on Tdega.
Alcotte laid a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right, Filip?”
“Yes.” Creator, please. Give me wisdom. Not just for my own sake, but for too many others. “Yes. We will do what we must.”