Sebastian Omilov was startled out of a deep sleep by bangings and thumpings elsewhere in the ship. Disoriented at first, he remembered where he was, and waited with painfully-accelerated heart rate for the sounds of an attack. Nothing happened, except for the rhythmic tappings, clanks, and clunks. Ah. That must be the repair people hired by the captain.
After the fourth time he was jerked out of sleep he arose, donned his robe, and moved into the treatment room. Montrose was seated at his console, the light flickering on features lined with tension. He look up, his expression altering to the familiar one of the assessing physician.
“I cannot sleep,” Omilov said, just as a metallic banging reverberated through the deck plates below their feet.
Montrose smiled. “A good excuse,” he said, “to break. Shall I brew up some real coffee? Your son is in the galley preparing a meal—I trust an excellent meal, as we just received our first delivery of fresh comestibles. I told him to surprise us.”
Osri is not the one to seek for surprises. He will prepare what he knows best, Omilov thought with a flicker of humor as he sat down, not trying to hide how gravity and age and stress dragged at his limbs. It was almost a relief not to be asleep, dreaming yet again of the Heart of Kronos, of getting it back within his governance—and waking up to the truth.
“What do you know of the Kelly?” Montrose asked over his shoulder as he went about his preparations.
Omilov shut his eyes, breathing in the aroma of fresh-ground coffee beans. “A little,” he said.
“Did you know the Archon?”
“We were acquainted.” At the reminder of the terrible deaths suffered by those gathered in the Ivory Hall for Brandon’s Enkainion, Omilov felt a stirring of never-quite-dormant sorrow.
Montrose sat back. “The Archon is not quite dead, it seems.”
Omilov looked up, startled, as his mind finally made the connection. The Kelly band on Ivard! It seems my preoccupation with the Heart of Kronos has dulled me to the obvious.
“Death, sometimes, is relative,” Montrose went on musingly. “That ribbon around Ivard’s arm carries the Archon’s genetic memories. It has invaded the boy’s DNA. A Kelly physician I’m acquainted with knew as soon as we walked into the examining room. But if we don’t get them separated soon, both will die.”
Omilov tugged his earlobe. “This... creates a complicated situation,” he said slowly. “What can be done?”
Montrose looked grim. “That depends on the captain.”
The hatch slid open, surprising them both.
Lokri entered, smiling. He wore a silky black tunic, tight black trousers, high glossy boots, and jewels woven into his hair, the effect of which brought into the sterile atmosphere of the dispensary an air of polyphonic music and exotic appetites, of danger and passion. Omilov felt old beyond his years, for it had been long since he’d been in the company of those who sought such pursuits. Even while young, knowledge of these things appeared to have passed him by; he had yet to figure out whether he was to be pitied or envied.
“Lokri,” Montrose said. “What brings you back here?”
The comtech lounged over to the service console, and paused to take a deep, appreciative sniff of the aromatic coffee. “It seems I came just in time,” he murmured.
“Want some?” Montrose offered.
Lokri waved a hand.
“Captain know you’re on board?” Montrose asked, reaching to pour a cup.
“No,” Lokri said, stepping behind him. And before Omilov’s horrified eyes, a knife seemed to materialize in the fingers of Lokri’s good hand. He reversed it and efficiently struck Montrose across the back of the head.
He moved back as the physician fell heavily to the deck. Lokri smiled across at Omilov. “Either you join him here, or you retire.” He gestured toward the cubicle. “Take your coffee.” With a humorous air he gestured to the cup Montrose had just poured.
Omilov did. He moved slowly, trying to buy time, to think, but his brain refused to work: this was not a situation that called for words, but action, and he had always been a man of words.
He did pause in the doorway of his cubicle. “Where is the captain?” he asked, his mind on the Heart of Kronos.
“Probably still in the office wrangling with the techs over the redesign of that aft cannon,” Lokri answered, pleasantly enough.
“So why...?”
“Good night, gnostor,” Lokri said.
Omilov stepped into his cubicle as Lokri’s fingers hit the control. The door closed, and locked from the outside.
Omilov set the cup down, dropped onto the bed, and rubbed his eyes.
o0o
Anticipation made Lokri’s hand tremble. Montrose and the gnostor were out of the way; Lokri had managed to lock Schoolboy into the galley; the brainburners slept, or whatever it was they did in their cabin.
Vi’ya had finally gone off the ship, doubtless to seek more information on the Heart of Kronos. He had no idea for how long. But that was what made the risk even more fun.
He flexed his fingers, then keyed the Arkad’s cabin hatch open.
On his long wait for Vi’ya to leave he’d entertained himself wondering what the Arkad’s reaction would be to his appearance as liberator. Gratitude or haughtiness? Anger? Fear?
The Arkad sat before the console, his face intent. As Lokri entered Brandon turned his head, his light blue eyes tired.
Lokri lounged against the wall, smiling. “You’re free.”Brandon lifted his hands from the console and sat back. “Is that a philosophical observation,” he asked, “or an invitation?”
Lokri hadn’t expected humor in return. He gestured toward the. “Go,” he said. “Vi’ya left the ship, and her psi-killers usually hibernate when we first hit a port.”
Brandon tapped the keypads with an abstracted air, then looked up again. “Sebastian and Osri?”
Lokri gestured with his good hand. “One’s asleep,” he said, wondering what was on Brandon’s console. “The other occupied with his cookery.”
“How long would Sebastian last in this place?”
Lokri was about to say, What does it matter? but he knew it did matter: the Arkad wouldn’t leave without those Omilovs. But if he thought it was a temporary leave?
“Let him sleep,” Lokri said, stepping casually to one side. “Gain his strength. I’ll give you a tour, and you can always come back to invite the Omilovs to join you.”
Brandon appeared to consider it, and with a quick smile he tapped something out on the console, saved and cleared it with a gesture, just before Lokri walked into range. “Very well,” he said. “What do I need to take?”
“Nothing,” Lokri said. “Unless you have some spare AU.”
“Not a token,” Brandon said cheerfully.
“I thought that might be the case, and I am, unfortunately, down to my last hundred—” He laughed at the look of surprise on Brandon’s face. “I only sold one piece of my loot, one of the lesser pieces. The more famous ones are stashed in a safe place against the possibility of identification. For now, I arranged a little diversion.”
Brandon looked his inquiry, but Lokri said nothing. He backed out and scanned quickly up and down the short corridor.
Vi’ya did not appear, nor did they hear the scraping of twiggy feet on deck plates, or the high weird voices of the Eya’a. He led the way to the hatch.
Just as they reached it, Lokri put out a hand and the Arkad halted, looking a question.
Lokri handed him a strip of dark blue velvet material with pale blue jewels across the top. “Speaking of identification...”
Brandon gave an assenting shrug and fixed his mask on, his ice-blue eyes glinting out from under sapphire gemstones. The mask covered him down to his cheekbones, effectively blurring his countenance. Lokri pulled on his mask, twin to Brandon’s except for color. He waited, but the Arkad did not question the symbolism of the jewel patterns. Or he was indifferent. Lokri was certain he’d noticed.
As they walked down the softly booming ramp, he glanced sidelong at his companion, straight and slim in old clothes borrowed from Jaim: though Granny Chang had given him an elaborate outfit of the sort one expected to see on high-ranking nicks, Brandon had never worn it since the banquet at the asteroid.
He walked with a swinging, easy stride that brought Markham forcibly to mind, as many of his movements did. Watching the body and not the face, Lokri could almost believe it was Markham at his side again, just the two of them alone, embarking on one of their twenty-hour Rifthaven runs punctuated by laughter and games of risk.
Anger, and something not quite anger, twisted inside him. Vi’ya’s a fool.
Brandon did not appear to notice the gazes of the hired guards as they passed from the hanger to the outer hatch.
He wasn’t Markham, whose face had always been easy to read. This was Markham’s highborn sidekick, apparently willing enough to be entertained.
Lokri would entertain him.
He hit the hatch control and watched in appreciation as Brandon recoiled from the barrage of noise, colors, and smells.
The corridor, lined with a confusing array of shops, branched frequently. The crowd thronging the passage exhibited every imaginable variation on human genes, dressed—or not dressed—in an overwhelming array of styles, usually augmented by a formidable display of weaponry.
“This way,” Lokri said, his voice nearly lost in the roar of shouts, whistles, and jangling, thumping music pouring out from all sides
But Brandon heard, dodging quickly around a group of five tall, thin humans dressed entirely in fantastical tattoos and weaponry. His arm came close to brushing against the last of them, and she turned, baring filed, red-dyed teeth. Brandon lifted his hands in a gesture of deference and the Draco moved on.
Then he stopped, brought up short by a rare sight. Pirouetting down the corridor was a Kelly trinity. Lokri started past. he’d seen Kelly once or twice, and outside of speculation about threir sexual habits had never had any interest in the short, rotund tripeds with their dense lacework of fluttering, green tape-like ribbons.
But as the Kelly walked past in a waltz-like movement, the long eye-crowned proboscis springing from threir torsos twisting in a constant helical motion, Brandon made finger signals, causing a sudden outburst of hooting and blatting from the Kelly. Lokri stared as the Arkad began slapping and poking the Kelly—who swarmed around him, bobbing and writhing with renewed energy, the gaudy, bejeweled boswells on their headstalks glittering as their “fingers” patted and stroked the Arkad’s head, arms, and torso.
Several passersby gave them curious glances, and Lokri gestured quickly, getting Brandon’s attention. “Let’s go.”
Brandon came willingly enough, the Kelly dancing on their way, soon swallowed in the crowd.
Lokri tried to suppress exasperation and alarm. Danger, he liked—when he chose to engage. “What was that about?” he said, jerking his head behind him.
“Greeting,” Brandon said, with an air of surprise.
Lokri shut down the warnings he wanted to utter. What he really wanted to say was, don’t do anything unexpected again.“This way. My diversion won’t wait forever.”
Lokri led him through a bewildering maze of emporia whose wares, and varieties of promotion, had utterly nothing in common, unless it was the compounded assault on the senses. Music not so much heard as felt through the soles of the feet and the back teeth blended dizzyingly with the light, breathy sounds of bizarre wind instruments. a few meters farther on, the clash and tang of brass cymbals accompanied a weird voice singing in some ancient tongue, evoking the mysteries of the bazaars of Lost Earth.
Light pounded, pulsed, flashed, and dazzled; scents swirled, stung, and singed. Lokri had long ago learned not to discriminate, instead permitting the sensory buffeting to flow over and past him. He glanced at his companion, who showed no reaction.
They moved aside as a procession of Kyresian Devotes in their polychromatic robes passed, hopping first on one foot, then on the other, pounding resonators on their heads and heels and singing monotonously in voices made shrill by the strange drugs of their cult.
A teenaged girl grabbed his arm. “Map to th’ Founder’s Ship? Guarantees you find the treasure—”
“Get lost,” Lokri said pleasantly.
The Rifter vanished in the crowd, then re-emerged farther down, grabbing someone else by the arm.
“Founder’s Ship?” Brandon looked interested.
“Legend. Maybe truth—who knows?” Lokri said. “Somewhere, buried in the chaos of accretions we call Rifthaven, is the original ship. No one knows where or how old it is. I’ve never believed in the treasure.”
They were only approached once or twice more, and always Brandon responded with a quick shake of the head and a half-raised palm in one of those revealing Douloi gestures.
Lokri watched for reactions from the vendors working the crowd, but no one seemed interested in Brandon. The mate-masks merely indicated a pair of slumming nicks.
Once Brandon turned sharply, and a second later Lokri felt a fragile hand touch his side where a belt pouch might have rested. he paused, looking down into a small face. Lokri laughed at the feral snarl the child gave them before it darted away.
“‘Ware the rats,” Lokri warned.
“Rats?”
“Brats. They’re lethal. They start playing war games with each other as soon as they can walk—no adult takes on the packs on and wins. Jaim grew up that way,” Lokri added with a laugh. “Never mind. We’re here.”
They ducked through a low door. They felt the subtle sonic tingle of a scan, and the burly guard at the console held out his hand. Lokri pulled his neurojac out of his boot and handed it over. The door slid open, inviting them into cool, clean air.
Soft music greeted them as they went down a fast lift to a lower level, then entered a wide room with terraces built around a central waterfall. Greenery hung over the terrace walls.
On each of the levels people milled about, involved in games of chance and skill. Lokri led the way to the highest level, having to give another code before they gained entrance.
Here, the men and women were nearly all young, or as young-looking as expensive medtech could make them. Handsome bodies were flattered or revealed by expensive clothing.
“There you are,” a man drawled, his tone arrogant. “I’d begun to fear for your courage.”
“A concern I salute you for, sho-Glessin,” Lokri answered blithely, moving toward a tall, hard-faced man who lounged against the low terrace wall.
Sho-Glessin raise a glass in answer, seemingly unaware of the fifty-meter drop just beyond him.
“We’re all here,” he said. “And ready.”
Another man and a woman moved out from the shadows of a booth and sank into the padded seats around an octagonal bank of consoles. One man already sat there, wearing a full-face mask. ‘Thousand suns per round,” the Mask said.
Lokri shrugged.
“Boring.” The woman’s voice was hard. “Let’s add some fun to it. Hundred sun per ship, and five for supply centers.”
“As you wish, Piriag.” Lokri lounged over to a console. Brandon sank slowly into the chair next to him, his expression pleasantly bland, but his eyes watchful as he punched himself into the game.
The Mask raised his arm and stripped off his boswell, placing it in full view on the top of his console. The others followed his example—except for Brandon, whose wrist was bare. Lokri watched the others noting that.
“Level?” the Mask inquired neutrally.
“Three,” Lokri said.
Brandon gave Lokri a muted glance, and Lokri realized he’d dropped the Rifter tonalities in his speech. Inwardly he cursed, resolving to keep Douloi patterns from marking his words.
Then the consoles before them lit up, and Lokri’s entries flowed across Brandon’s screen, indicating what was about to happen: the two of them were going to play Level Three Phalanx against all these others, for astronomical sums of money.
And now he’s wondering why I didn’t warn him.
Brandon looked up in muted question, to receive a challenging grin in return. The Arkad said nothing, running his hands over the keyboard to imprint its feel.
“Ready,” the man in black stated. “Begin.”
Lokri had played often enough against Brandon to guess where he would lead; still, it was all he could do for the first desperate minute or two to provide a solid backup. Lokri’s throat dried when he paused once, and the weight of the chance he’d taken pressed on his skull, but it was not in his nature to regret it. A chase was only worth commensurate risk.
This first step in this chase was meant to shake the Arkad out of that affable but relentless control, and to do it he had to jam up the stakes. If they lost they’d both be dead, or worse, but he didn’t think they’d lose.
The Arkad dropped the mask of vacuous amiability just long enough to cast him one slightly pained look, which Lokri only laughed at, then Brandon’s gaze went back to his console.
Lokri divided his attention between his board and Brandon, whose fingers danced rapidly across the keypads.
Brandon pulled a coup, fell back, Lokri provided backup, and once again Brandon launched to the attack. Across from them, the fat man gave a short cry of dismay, and Lokri saw his board go dim.
One down.
Piriag took her lip between her teeth. Lokri moved to block her himself, hoping Brandon would not waste the time doubling his efforts. Perhaps I should have discussed a basic strategy with him, he thought, feeling his own control slip. Piriag was not a pleasant loser, but she’d be a dangerous winner. She dealt almost entirely in the slave trade and Lokri guessed where she would send them if she could...
The console beeped softly, and once again Brandon made a desperate maneuver that netted a big win.
Lokri glance covertly at his opponents in time to catch Piriag exchanging a fast look with sho-Glessin. Had they recognized Brandon’s Phalanx style? But their play did not change, as it would have were that the case. No, different worlds. These are gamblers, not tournament players. In any case, as far as he knew, no one except Ivard and Lokri had recognized the famous Constable Murphy in Brandon’s style. Physical recognition was more likely, and that only on sho-Glessin’s part. The man had made and lost a fortune running gambling halls for the Douloi until he’d been caught cheating a few years back.
Lucky, this new fashion for mate-masks. Lokri caught a flickering glance from Piriag, and he hoped his smile unsettled her.
Another attack: a win. The first round ended, and Brandon sat back, flexing his long hands.
“Do we get anything to drink, or do we just dance in the arena?” he asked.
Dance in the arena? Lokri ignored this inanity, lifting a finger to signal one of the hovering waiters. Nothing but human servants in this place; Lokri wondered if the Arkad took this rarity for granted. Brandon showed only mild interest as he surveyed the company. Brandon had no money, no weaponry, no boswell, and he was wearing Jaim’s cast-off clothing, yet it never seemed to occur to him he might not have been permitted entrance.
He knows he’s better than anyone in this entire hellhole. He knows it so well it’s probably never been a conscious thought, and if I were to point it out to him he’d deny it, and mean it as well.
The waiter approached and asked their desire. Lokri ordered drinks and threw his last remaining hundred AU onto the gleaming obsidian of the table.
Their opponents moved away, ostensibly to order, but Lokri knew it was to confer.
Brandon leaned toward him. “I thought you didn’t have anything but a hundred.”
“I don’t,” Lokri murmured. “In fact, less.” He swept up the few remaining tokens and pocketed them.
Brandon’s brows lifted. “What if we lose?”
“Then we belong to the winners.”
The drinks came. Brandon whistled softly. Lokri sipped with care, aware how quickly the alcohol dimmed his speed, but Brandon drank one cup straight off, setting the crystal down with a musical ching.
Lokri saw their opponents take this in, and smile.
Round two...
o0o
Montrose opened pain-blurred eyes and gaze up in uncomprehending silence at the two faces above him. He struggled, wincing, to a sitting position, and discovered he was on the deck plates.
“Eh?” he grunted. His protesting brain reluctantly comprehended similar pairs of beetling brows, pendulous ears, and twin expressions of worry: the two Omilovs.
“Drink this.” Sebastian handed something down.
Montrose sipped one of his own pain-reduction concoctions, laced with good brandy. The resulting fire seemed to cleanse out the pain and restore enough brain function for memory.
“I turned my back on Lokri.” Montrose grimaced in disgust. “No less than I deserved.”
“You were tired.” Omilov’s expression was tight with concern. “And a fellow crew member, presumably trustworthy—”
“I don’t trust anybody,” Montrose said, wincing as he felt over the back of his head. “Damn! Broke the skin. Telos knows I have a hard head.” His feeble attempt at humor brought no answering smile from the Omilovs. “We were making coffee … He didn’t drop you, too, did he?”
The gnostor shook his head, as Osri said, “Locked him in there.” A jerk of his head toward the berth. “I heard noise. By the time I figured out how to unlock the galley, whatever had happened was over.” His voice was dry as he exchanged glances with his father.
“What is it?” Montrose demanded, recognizing that the concern on Omilov’s face had, if anything, increased. “Where’s Lokri?”
“Gone,” Osri said curtly. “And so is the Aerenarch.”
o0o
“Round three, game to the challenged.”
Lokri kept his face bland as they rose from the chairs. Brandon shot him a glance, the mask not quite hiding his question before Sho-Glessin handed him a small chip and said, “If you ever leave this chatzing cheat, you can name your salary with me.” He laid down his share of the money and stalked off.
Piriag gave them a murderous glare but said nothing as she paid up. The Mask noted the proper amounts changing hands, utterly impassive.
“What now?” Brandon breathed, looking amused.
“We get out of here as fast as we can, because they’ll both have friends watching,” Lokri muttered.
Laughter quirked Brandon’s eyes behind the mask.
“Let me show you the Xi games,” Lokri said loudly.
After he retrieved his neurojac, they went a level down in one lift, then he shoved Brandon into the next lift and they went up a level. They stepped out, Lokri motioned downward, and Brandon laughed as they saw a man and woman wearing green, with shiny green eye implants, move close to the lift. Both of them held some sort of weapon in their right hands.
“Piriag’s hired flash,” Lokri said.
Brandon shook his head. He did not seem unduly worried—as if none of this were real to him. “So what now?”
“We buy our way out the back, of course,” Lokri said. “Say nothing, just follow me.”