Seats at the Conclave table had been randomly assigned half a century ago, grouped system by system along three arches of a roughly Y-shaped table. Filip Salbari sat at the northern arch’s center.
The table occupied the middle of the estate’s smaller atrium. A sunken pool surrounded the platform, providing privacy even on less solemn occasions. A concealed mechanism pumped water from a fountain at one corner toward a rivulet surrounded by ferns at the opposite corner. Beyond the pool, five steps led up to an outer square of lawn cornered in broad-leafed evergreen trees.
Filip frowned. Alcotte’s wife Gladwyn, plainly past the shocked state of grieving and well into anger, was finishing an impassioned plea that the Concord wreak retribution at Bkellan University on Tdega. She sat as far as possible inside the Antaran arch of the table, away from Tdega’s three empty chairs at the southeast arch’s center. Regents from Crux and deputized delegates representing Kocab sat closer to each other than usual along that arch.
Ilzar’s also-vacant chairs, left of Filip, had been pushed to the east end of the table. That enabled another Antaran to sit with the Salbaris: Asa Sheliak, looking haggard and wearing several cold bandages, had spent twenty-one hours buried under rubble. Filip had just nominated him to one of the vacant Vice Regencies out of respect for his family, but he hadn’t spoken all day.
“There must be justice,” Gladwyn finished. Sonic ridges at mid-table amplified her pained voice. “We cannot allow Tdegans—nor anyone!—to believe that violence against living planets will be tolerated. We all suffered too much from the Devastators.” She spread her hands dramatically. “They are still out there. We must stand together or crumble separately.”
She sat down. Instantly, a thick layer of tears drowned the fire in her eyes.
Filip opened his hand on the table, asking for the right to speak next. When no one else laid out a hand, he said, “I cannot countenance retaliation, but all of you needed to hear that such feelings run strong on Antar.”
Delegates nodded to each other.
“I could favor a blockade,” Filip continued. “Tdega means to take Ilzar and Sunsis, and we have no evidence that either system desires secession. Interfering with Tdegan domination of either world is an option.”
“So is liberating them.” His uncle, Boaden Salbari, spoke without opening a hand. “I suggest a direct assault on Tdegan forces at Sunsis or Ilzar.”
Filip nodded. Boaden had readily agreed to suggest this.
“Blockade?” Dio Liion, University Regent of Unukalhai, spoke up. Her braided topknot was a brilliant copper-auburn. “Do you realize how many ships it would take to blockade a planetary system?”
Far to Filip’s right, Admiral Gehretz Lalande pushed to his feet. As a youngster, he had coordinated war game tournaments on board his generation ship. He had added fifty years and fifty kilos and lost all but a fringe of white hair, but he claimed that he’d lost none of his talent. He had told Filip privately that he refused to let younger men take over now that the Concord was at war. “One shipload of gravel,” Lalande said, “unloaded in orbit around Tdega, would suspend space travel into and out of planetary spaceports for at least fifty years. Minimum expenditure, maximum result.”
Still standing, Filip shook his head. “But then how would we feed our people? We have a two-year store of Tdegan grain to supplement our produce. When that’s gone, we begin to starve.”
“Then I suppose destroying Tdega Gate is out of the question?” Lalande asked.
Sober silence filled the atrium. Straining his ears, Filip could barely hear the false stream trickling behind him.
Destroy a Gate, and strand a system back in the sub-lightspeed universe? It was unthinkable. Anyway, he doubted that even Lalande had any idea how to do it.
Vatsya Habitat kept a Regent in residence on Antar. He asked for the floor. “We must negotiate with Tdega,” he said heavily. “Vatsya will run out of food sooner than Antar will.”
Sal Megred of Crux sprang to his feet. “Never,” he shouted, his round face almost purple. “That is exactly what they want. Do we reward violence?”
Kocab’s newly deputized delegate, a white-haired woman, spread her palm on the table and stood slowly. She glanced left to where two empaths on duty sat between Crux’s station and the empty Sunsisan chairs. Then she looked over at Filip. “How many listeners do we have on Tdega?”
He rose to answer. “Our official Ambassador is not empathic. We have one undercover agent, and he is transmitting regular reports while he can. He was only given a tenpod ship for communicating with us. Five pods remain. We must assume that transmitting out-system has become extremely dangerous.”
The Kocaban woman clasped her hands. “He’d best lie low.”
Boaden sprang up. “No.” When he shook his head, his jowls kept shaking. “We need information now!” Uncle Boaden had never believed in coddling empaths simply because the Concord had so few. Off the record, he had called Filip a mutant to his face.
Filip imagined Jahn Emlin’s predicament on Tdega: he must protect his life and yet draw as close as possible to some of the most dangerous people in the Concord.
Formerly in the Concord.
“What can you tell us?” Dio Liion asked.
“Keep your security clearances in mind, please. A man will die if Tdega learns what I am about to tell you.” Filip paused. “Our agent has taken a job that requires him to live in the Casimir Residence. It is an information-flow position in service to a disabled family member.”
Even Boaden seemed impressed. He nodded slowly.
Asa Sheliak finally spoke, looking shrunken under his bandages. “We can be thankful for every bit of information he gets to the Gate relay.”
“True,” Admiral Lalande said. “Would it be possible, would it be ethical to have him kill Gamal Casimir?”
“From what he has communicated regarding prevailing attitudes,” Filip said with some reluctance, “someone else would step into Gamal’s shoes. There are too many Tdegans in the power caste who want to secede from the Concord. If he’s going to shake their attitude, he must do it in an unexpected way.”
Gladwyn exhaled heavily and laid a hand across the top of her belly. “It’s late. I suggest we adjourn for the night.”
Startled, Filip checked the time. In less than an hour, it would be midnight. He stood. “Does anyone wish to continue?”
Dio Liion’s head shake set her topknot dancing. “Perhaps the morning will bring new developments.” She looked across at Gladwyn and arched an eyebrow in sympathy.
“If we all sleep on it,” Boaden said, “I think we will see the logical path more clearly. We must not hesitate to follow it.”
Filip had no doubt what Boaden meant. “Tomorrow, then.”
A thin-haired man from Miatrix sprang up and walked over to join Sal Megred of Crux. They spoke earnestly in low voices.
Favia joined Filip as soon as Boaden left the chair between them. She looked him up and down with intelligent eyes and laid a hand on his shoulder. “This is hard for you,” she murmured.
Favia was the most empathetic non-empath he’d ever met. She slid her hand down his arm and clasped his hand, and she walked silently beside him down the steps to the atrium’s sunken level. Her sister Vananda had returned to Nuris to help supervise salvage and rescue efforts.
Filip paused beside the water channel. An orange fish lazed upstream, beating the water with transparent fins. Flagstones lay underfoot between green pillows of moss and sweet chamomile. The Salbari estate was teeming with people, both University and military. He and Favia had housed six in each suite—crowded conditions for the estate, but roomier than Vatsya Hab and other high-quality living spaces. No one had complained. Probably no one had slept much, either.
“If you don’t head for the bedroom,” Favia said gently, “I’ll drug your wine.”
Filip squeezed her hand and led her across the watercourse on the nearest stepping stones. “Don’t bother.”
He caught three and a half hours of sleep before a voice in his left ear awakened him. “Message,” it said softly. “Message.”
There would be a ten-second delay before the infernal implant restated itself. He slid off the bed, careful not to wake Favia. He pulled on a robe and got out the door before it repeated. “Message. Message.”
The outer room was as dark as his bedroom, but a motion sensor turned a on dim overhead light before he reached his desk. Efficient instead of ornate, the private office’s only touch of luxury was a set of bookshelves: real wood, from Tdega.
He sat down and said, “Screen on.”
He recognized the junior staffer who appeared. “Sir, a relay message has come in. Cover code indicates that the source is Jahn Emlin, origin Tdega. Shall I feed?”
“Absolutely.”
The message, already decoded from mneme format, appeared in letter type. The first page’s contents shocked him. He had never heard of Luene Casimir nor any kidnapping charge. Gamal Casimir had managed to wreak public-opinion havoc on Tdega without leaking word to Antar. It was an accomplishment Filip grudgingly admired.
Of course, he would cooperate in the attempt to locate her. This might be the unexpected lead he had hoped for. He pointed at another panel to print the gene readout. As letters appeared on the top sheet in his printer box, a thought struck him.
Llyn.
Quickly he reviewed the dates Jahn had sent. They jibed within weeks of Llyn’s estimated age. And Karine Torfinn had reported that when she first saw Llyn, the girl looked as if she’d been recently moved, although—what had been the wording?—her mental involvement suggested years in the AR.
Jahn’s other news detailed military preparations and Casimir family background. Filip keyed the military information to Admiral Lalande’s quarters and put a message alert on his private line. It would serve the old war gamer right, waking him after so little sleep.
Next he checked Rift Station’s medical records. There’d been no gene profiles done on the residents. “Inmates,” internment staff labeled them. He must have Llyn tested immediately.
If his suspicion was correct—and he quickly came up with several more reasons why it might be true, including Llyn’s obvious intelligence—then he must explain this to her himself. Sending a messenger would not show enough respect.
Llyn Torfinn, a Casimir? He couldn’t send her home to a family that murdered each other.
But he could encourage her to broadcast a message to the Tdegan people via Gate relay. The Conclave might also make other suggestions.
He keyed an order for his ground crew to fuel and check the family’s small jet for takeoff, and he requested a single bodyguard. He barely had time to shower and deputize Alcotte to convey this news to the Conclave. Tell them I’ll be back by noon, he murmured into the VTT recorder. With or without her.
Half an hour later, he was airborne. Surface winds required an easterly takeoff, which took him toward Nuris. He didn’t want to see it, but passing this close without surveying seemed counterproductive. He leaned forward and touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Flyover, please.”
There wasn’t much to see. It was still hours before dawn, and the main dome’s big arches lay mangled and twisted. Steam jets lit by construction lamps showed that the magma plume continued to move upward.
What had the Tdegans done to Antar’s fragile crust?
“Enough,” he told the pilot. “South, please.”