Barrodagh stared after the Avatar as he strode out of the library. Then he tabbed his compad and queried Juvaszt on the Fist of Dol’jhar, who confirmed his suspicions. There was no point in embarking immediately: they would merely wait in space for several days to rendezvous with the Samedi—the ship closest to Rifthaven, which Juvaszt was dispatching to pick up the Heart of Kronos.
Well, he would explain that to the Avatar tomorrow. Despite Eusabian’s boredom, Barrodagh doubted he had extracted all the pleasure to be had from possession of his enemy’s palace—and he would be even more bored, and thus more dangerous, while confined on the Fist waiting for the rendezvous. And the delay would be useful: it seemed that Ferrasin was making great progress toward extracting critical information from the computer.
The computer! His gaze snapped to the table next to where Eusabian had been seated. He bent over the data socket, trying to decipher the faint writing on the datachip.
Unable to make it out in the dim flicker of the firelight, he reached down to pry it out of the socket.
There was a faint pop and the datachip disintegrated with a spurt of flame which stung his fingers. Barrodagh whispered a curse as he snatched his fingers away and stuck them in his mouth.
A faint glow caught the periphery of his vision, and he whirled around to confront the ghost of Jaspar Arkad, not an arm’s length away from him.
Its eyes seemed to focus on him. Barrodagh’s breath caught in his throat and he stepped back; the arm of the chair caught him behind his knees and dumped him sprawling across it, unable to retreat further as the phantom slowly advanced toward him.
The ghost stopped in front of him, too close, and slowly, a terrible, sly smile possessed its face. It bent over; Barrodagh could see clouds of darkness moving behind its eyes.
“Willa-Drissa-Will!” the ghost hissed, and its face distorted as its lips shot out on the end of a glowing stalk and lunged at Barrodagh’s eyes.
Warmth flooded Barrodagh’s breeches and he gave a strangled shriek. The ghost stood back as if surveying the effect of its attack. Then, once more the stern founder of the Arkad dynasty, it chuckled quietly and glided through the wall.
Furious, Barrodagh pushed himself out of the chair and sent the carven table spinning across the library with a vicious blow. “I hate you!” he cried, then stopped, appalled.
Just so had he screamed at his horrid sister when she locked him up those nights so long ago. But she was long dead, his first victim when he had come into power in the Dol’jharian bureaucracy. There was no reason to remember her now.
He exhaled shakily and looked down at the stain spreading across his crotch. Something would have to be done about that Ur-be-damned palace computer. It must have known he was Bori, known the legends...
Then he shrugged. It doesn’t matter now. Soon they would leave for the Suneater, away from the Mandala and its hateful machines and verminous dogs. Then things would return to normal.
But as Barrodagh left the library to change his clothes, he thought he heard a chuckle from the air behind him—a sound and a memory he could not escape.
o0o
Morrighon didn’t know at first what had awakened him. With the facility born of long practice, he scanned the whispers coming from the communicators on the table near his bed as he gazed up at the ceiling, faintly lit by the glow of false dawn. There was nothing but the normal chatter of the channels he’d chosen to monitor this night—no. The Tarkan channel was more active than usual.
Then he caught a single word: karra. Another haunting, then. Perhaps it had been a mistake to monitor that channel. He didn’t need to know about Tarkan encounters with the computer-generated hologram that was making their duty such a misery. He closed his eyes.
False dawn?
His eyes snapped open. Barrodagh had transferred him to a lower level of the palace after Anaris’s first meeting with Eusabian, as an indication of his displeasure. There were no windows in his quarters.
He rolled over, propping himself on his elbows and looking over the end of the bed into the room. His breath stopped.
The faintly glowing form of an old man in a Panarchist uniform gazed at him from against the opposite wall. Morrighon recognized the face from the first bust in the Phoenix Antechamber: Jaspar hai-Arkad. Though he knew there was no such thing as ghosts, a chill of awe crawled along his nerves.
It must be the computer. This was a new level of manifestation; he had to contact Ferrasin. The thought didn’t help: he found, with a mixture of fear and disgust, that he still couldn’t bring himself to move.
The ghost—It is not a ghost, his mind insisted fiercely—smiled at him and faded back through the wall, leaving behind a faint pool of light that shivered and crawled along the surface for a moment before fading out.
Morrighon flung back the coverlet and padded into his work room. The lights came on in response to his movement, banishing the darkness and with it much of his disquiet. He seated himself at his desk, laying his palms on its smooth, cool surface. Then he tabbed his compad.
“Ferrasin here.” The response came more quickly than he expected, and there was no trace of sleep in the technician’s voice.
“This is Morrighon. The apparition... ”
“We are working on that now, senz-lo Morrighon,” interrupted Ferrasin, the faint emphasis on the word “we” a warning that the technician could not speak freely.
A light glowed on Morrighon’s compad, indicating a download waiting. He tabbed the accept key as Ferrasin said, “We will have a full report by morning.”
“Very well,” Morrighon acknowledged, and brought up the file that Ferrasin had sent him under cover of their conversation.
A few minutes later, frightened to the edge of nausea, he yanked on yesterday’s clothes and summoned a Tarkan escort to take him to Anaris.
o0o
The chiming of the annunciator brought Anaris out of restless sleep. He fought away confusion and looked at the chrono: 02:38. Alarmed, he reached for his wrist and then his hand fell back when it encountered bare flesh. He’d been dreaming of his years as a hostage among the Douloi of the Panarch’s court, but he was among his own kind again. Annoyance mixed with amusement as he remembered tossing his own boswell into the disposer just before he returned to his father: what Dol’jharian would ever entrust his thoughts to a machine that could be taken away?
Leaning over, he tabbed the comm. “Who is it?”
“Morrighon, lord.” The Bori’s voice was fearful. “You told me to... ”
“Come in.”
Anaris sprang out of bed and threw on his dressing gown as Morrighon entered, looking even worse than usual; he trembled, his clothes were rumpled and smelled faintly, his thinning hair stuck out in wispy spikes in every direction, and the paleness of his face exaggerated his bad complexion.
“My lord,” he said as the door slid shut behind him, “we have received word from Rifthaven.” The Bori stopped, swallowing convulsively.
Rifthaven! Had Snurkel been right, then? Was Brandon there?
Better, was he now captive? Anaris suppressed a smile of anticipation. He wanted some fun with his old enemy before he was disposed of. And, in completing his father’s paliach, would take another step toward the throne.
Morrighon’s expression became even more woeful, and some of Anaris’s exultation faded out of him. “Widespread fighting has broken out on Rifthaven among the Syndicates, even within some. It appears to have been triggered by the discovery of the Aerenarch, as suspected by our primary contact there.” Morrighon stopped again.
“And?”
Morrighon’s words emerged in a rush. “In the confusion, the Aerenarch escaped. His ship was intercepted by a Panarchist battlecruiser. We can only assume he is now on his way to Ares.”
Rage replaced triumph. Anaris felt his face distorting into the prachan, the fear-face, as, once more, the laughing Arkad third-son evaded him.
Morrighon stepped back, pressing against the wall, his face a sickly hue.
Then a tendril of fear stilled Anaris’s rage. What report had been made to his father? He forced himself to relax. “What does the Avatar know?”
It took Morrighon a moment to find his voice, his larynx working. “Snurkel recovered the Heart of Kronos,” he squeaked at last. “The Avatar has accepted his explanations concerning the Aerenarch. No hint of our role has emerged: Snurkel’s position on Rifthaven is precarious and depends entirely on the Avatar now. He cannot afford any suspicion of double-dealing.”
Anaris’s anxiety began to fade. With what the Avatar regarded as his key to complete victory now in his hands, Eusabian would have a mind to little else. Still, it might be best to arrange accidents for the seconds that he and Morrighon had suborned, especially Snurkel—from now on Rifthaven would be of little importance, and they could only be a source of embarrassment.
Then a thought struck him: his machinations on Rifthaven, through Morrighon, had been the key to the Aerenarch’s escape. Savoring the acidic bite of irony, he relived the many times Brandon and his brother Galen had used his Dol’jharian instincts against him in their despicable games, until he finally learned to think as they did.
It was you, as much as your father, who taught me to think as a Panarchist. The realization shocked him; with a kind of perverse pleasure he recognized that Brandon was becoming a worthy foe.
And they were not finished with each other.
He regain the present, becoming aware of Morrighon staring in utter horror. He realized that he was smiling, a rictus that made his face ache.
“Sit down,” he ordered. Morrighon flopped bonelessly into a chair, staring up at him, still fearful.
Anaris looked at him thoughtfully. It had taken some courage to bring him that news. Fear, the underpinning of the Dol’jharian state, was often as much an impediment to knowledge as a lash to efficiency. He had sensed that between Barrodagh and his father—he could not afford that between Morrighon and himself.
“You did well to awaken me, and you need not fear my wrath. I bear the blame for this.” He saw the astonishment replace fear as he continued. “We are not finished on Rifthaven...”
Just as he finished outlining his plan the room comm chimed, signaling the deposit of a recorded message. He tabbed it on.
“This is Barrodagh, speaking for the Avatar. The Heart of Kronos has been recovered. Preparations are beginning for departure to the Suneater. The Panarch and his remaining councilors will be transferred to the Fist of Dol’jhar. Your father desires you to hold yourself in readiness to accompany them.”
Anaris tabbed acceptance and looked up. “He was rather vague about the schedule.”
“He probably doesn’t know it yet,” replied Morrighon. “That will be for Juvaszt to figure out.”
Anaris nodded, his thoughts running ahead, following the implications of the Avatar’s decision. His father would be the last to leave the planet, as required by Dol’jharian custom. But the face that filled his mind’s eye was not Eusabian’s, it was Gelasaar’s. Did his father intend them to meet face-to-face? What would he say to him? Barrodagh’s message had been vague—deliberately, he was sure—concerning the nature of his escort duty. Would he see the man who had fostered him or not?
As he turned his attention back to Morrighon to plan for this new development, Anaris didn’t know which he would prefer.
o0o
Anderic’s fingers jerked spasmodically. He forced himself to control his hands as he sidled a glance around the bridge. Most of the pods were empty, their monitors on Z-watch. He’d promised sho-Imbris extra points in whatever action they might meet if he’d do longer hours, and Ninn didn’t seem to mind being in his pod most of the time. Neither looked up.
His fingers snaked out and he tabbed the keys to make certain the logos was turned off.
Then he tried to calm his slamming heart as he watched sho-Imbris lay in the new heading that Anderic had just required—a course suggested by the logos.
But did I turn it on first or not?
He couldn’t remember. He squeezed his eyes shut, but there was no refuge there, the dark behind his eyelids marred by the kaleidoscopic frenzy of another visual migraine. He wondered if he was going mad—or maybe Tallis’ eye, transplanted into his body against his will, was forcing him into madness. Three times, now, he had spoken to find the logos on already, and he did not remember turning it on.
He’d begun to convulsively tab it off every few minutes, trying to make certain. And what about the flickers? It had to be the guilt imposed by his Ozmiront upbringing creating those half-seen movements, like disapproving faces, that thronged the corners of his vision when he was fatigued, which was most of the time now.
If I could only sleep. Anderic was sleeping in his uniform—he’d had some of Tallis’s stripped of most of the bric-a-brac. He couldn’t afford to be away from the bridge when the inevitable Panarchist counterattack came. He’d programmed an immediate tactical skip away from Arthelion in case of an attack, to give him time to get to the bridge and maintain the illusion that he was fighting the ship. But he wasn’t sure the logos wouldn’t just start fighting the ship without him instead.
The logos... and the crew. The uniform seemed to keep discipline better, but it just accelerated his isolation from the crew, which he feared was daily more under the sway of Kira and Luri. It seemed lately that everyone on the Satansclaw was involved in the secret orgies—everyone, that is, but its captain.
A pang in his eye reminded him of one of the reasons they shunned him. The main reason? He flickered another look around. How could the crew not know about the demonic presence of the logos haunting him, waking and sleeping? Especially Kira Lennart, who must be puzzled by her inability to overcome Anderic’s control of the computer, despite her greater experience.
That was the logos’s doing, but its inhuman perspective couldn’t help him deal with the increasing chatter on the hyperwave. It was getting harder and harder to sift useful data out of the flood of rumor and braggadocio flooding the system.
Lennart could, though.
Jealousy burned in Anderic. Too bad if he interrupted her usual fun and games. She was the worst of them, the ugly toad—seemed like every time he spied on one of his crew, he interrupted bunny fun, and she was almost always in it.
He smiled meanly. Too bad, Lennart. Time to work.
He tabbed the locate.
o0o
Luri’s full red lips parted in a soft laugh. She hefted the pot she’d brought out from the galley, and Kira Lennart smelled the scent of fresh-melted chocolate.
“What’s that for?” she said.
“You shall see,” Luri whispered. “Luri has fun in mind.”
Kira laughed, her heart squeezing inside her. She couldn’t help it. She knew Luri was not even remotely constant. In fact the only reason why she saw as much of her as she did was that Kira participated willingly in Luri’s plots to get rid of Anderic, but she didn’t care.
When she bunks me out I’ll hurt, and the rest of my life I’ll probably bore people with the tale of my one great romance, she thought with rueful irony as they hurried down to the bilge area. But until then, I am going to build those memories.
Tallis looked up with painful expectancy in his one remaining eye when they entered. Luri set down the pot carefully by her side, and as her perfume and the chocolate chased away the faint, unpleasant tang of bilge pervading the room, Kira realized why she must have brought the chocolate.
It certainly had no part in their plans.
Kira tapped her boswell, and it flashed green. No monitors active in the room. “It’s clear. I’ve finally gotten through some of Anderic’s coding—I don’t know how he got so good. But now, if he runs a locate, we’ll have a few seconds’ warning. I haven’t been able to do anything about the spy-eyes yet.”
Luri touched Tallis’ cheeks. “Tal-lis must remember that he doesn’t want Luri here, hmmm? If Anderic spies.”
Tallis sighed as the woman’s hands ran down his body, then caressed the metal ball hanging on his member, hidden by the thin fabric of his trousers.
“Luri will find out how to remove that,” she added softly.
Jealously stabbed at Kira, and to banish it, she said, “Should we get to our planning? Tallis, you said next time you might have something to tell us.” She added doubtfully, looking around the bilge chamber which Tallis was unable to leave, “What have you found out?”
Tallis Y’Marmor rubbed his forehead. “It’s nothing I’ve found out, it’s something—” He stopped, then said abruptly, “There’s a logos on board.”
“A what?” Luri asked.
Nausea roiled Kira’s insides. “A what!”
Tallis looked from one to the other, then said to Luri, “It’s a—an artificial intelligence.” He got it out quickly, avoiding looking at Kira. “I had it installed. One of the ways it communicates is through an eye implant, which is why Barrodagh did that to me.”
Kira fought back her revulsion, thinking quickly. “Anderic’s an Ozmiront,” she said. “He won’t use it—”
“He already has,” Tallis said.
“How do you know that?”
Tallis shrugged, indicating his console. “I think it has tried to contact me,” he said, looking distinctly greenish around the jowls.
Kira suppressed a shiver. Only Luri seemed supremely undisturbed; whether because she was ignorant of what the logos was capable of, or merely because anything which did not relate to her immediate plans was automatically insignificant to her, Kira did not know.
“This makes things different—” Kira began. Then her boz’l buzzed against her wrist. “Locate.”
Luri laughed, stood up, and in one magnificent gesture ripped her gown free of her body. “Kira, you too.” As Lennart complied, excited and confused at once, she turned to Tallis. “We shall return,” she murmured to him, leaning forward to kiss him. “Now, remember: you are miserable, we are teasing you with what you cannot have.”
She picked up the chocolate pot and held it in both hands. Kira felt another buzz from her boz’l; the imager had now activated.
“Tal-lis,” Luri said in her breathy singsong. “We are here to alleviate your bore-dom. You get to watch while Kira and Luri have fun.” She lifted the pot and spilled the half-congealed dark liquid down the front of her naked body, then stepped forward and spilled more on Kira, who jerked as the liquid flowed down her chest, kindling an answering warmth. “You get to watch and see if Kira and Luri can lick each other off in... would you like to guess how long it will take?”
Tallis gave a low whimper.
o0o
Anderic groaned. Again! He watched, fascinated, his nacker painful as the two women writhed, glistening with streaks of chocolate in fascinating accents against Luri’s amber and Lennart’s coffee-colored flesh, in front of the miserable one-eyed Tallis. Anger, jealousy, and lust burned in him; he might as well be down there in the bilge with Tallis, a dyplast ball on his nacker, for all the bunny he was getting.
Then a thought struck. Quickly he tapped open a record bank and started storing the image from the bilgebay, ignoring the curious looks from sho-Imbris and Ninn.
Then he waited until Luri and Lennart reached the climax of their chocolate romp, squealing with delight.
Smiling, Anderic sealed the record under his own personal code and then patched it into the hyperwave for random replay. Lennart would find it and cancel it despite the coding, he was sure, but by then someone—several someones, no doubt—would have recorded it, and made certain it would become staple entertainment on the Rifter bilge-banging session that formed an increasingly large part of the traffic on the hyperwave.
Then he tabbed the call key. “Lennart, I need you on the bridge.” He cut the connection without waiting for an acknowledgment and returned to his command pod.
He was looking forward to Lennart’s reaction to her newfound fame.