A Prison Unsought (65 page)

“Power,” Lar said, his voice
sleep-husky.

“But they don’t all have it,” Tat
protested. “Not just Catennach—how about stone-bones? Ones at the top might
like that life. But most are at bottom. Why don’t they just leave?”

Lar didn’t turn his head, but she could hear his grin in his
voice. “Some do leave. A few even live to make it. But most of them seem to
like it.”

Her mind on the impending Karusch’na Rahali, she burst out, “Why?
It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Not to us. We’re hive people, Mam
told me. Our strength is in our numbers, all working together. Stone-bones,
they fight for place. Grow up angry. Strength is single survival. Anger and
fighting are close to sex for some, certainly for them.” He looked back over
his shoulder and grinned. “Don’t have to risk being turned down. Just take who
they want.”

Tat grimaced. Well, put that way, maybe it made a little
sense. She knew she was certainly too timid to make overtures to any outsider
she felt attracted to, so she’d always kept her sex play within the family.
“Mmm,” she said. “But bunny is fun for us. Can’t be fun when you’re breaking
arms and legs.”

“Oh, I imagine it’s not always a
fight to the death,” Lar said, snorting a laugh. “Bet you: ones that want to be
taken find their way into the path of the hunter—just like crew up-level. Heh.
You want to talk more on that, go find Moob and Hestik.”

“Urrrgh,” Tat muttered, knuckling
the back of his head. “I’m asleep.” She made a face. “But why’d Fasthand have
to get greedy? I want this over. Go back to raiding data.”

Lar sighed, but didn’t answer.

Vi’ya stepped into the chilly cabin and looked down at the
two small balls of white fur. Her breath clouded as the tianqi labored to drive
the temperature even lower; the Eya’a were entering hibernation again. Their
thoughts were far away now, and she sighed, feeling a sense of release, as if
hooks had retracted from her brain.

But then all the other voices crowded into her head: the
weird threefold thought of the Kelly, too complex to comprehend; Ivard’s happy,
distinctive sensory bombardment as he concentrated on a difficult vector
problem. Markham’s voice, from old memory, flickered from Ivard to Vi’ya across
the kilometer of distance between her cabin and the classroom where Ivard sat
with the cruiser’s midshipmen. The voice sparked a pang of grief, which was not
quite drowned out by one other entity: far away on the other side of the ship,
like a star arcing through the void, moved the distinctive psychic signature of
Brandon vlith-Arkad.

He was thinking of her.

She decided it was time to face him. Danger sang along her
nerves, but she dismissed the warning. It was too late. After the encounter at
the old nuller’s, there was no going back.

She opened her eyes, and when her balance had steadied, she
shut the Eya’a into their freezing berth and crossed the beautifully tiled
space between the rest of their cabins.

Marim’s door was open. Her voice came, sleepy with protest,
“Where you going? Anything fun?”

Vi’ya’s lips twitched. “Just going to see what Omilov has
had done to
Telvarna
. You can come,
if you like.” And, as expected, Marim sank back into the bed, looking
disappointed.

Vi’ya added, “Haven’t you already fleeced every slub on this
ship?”

Marim propped her tousled head on one small hand and grinned
unrepentantly. “I think of it as getting some of our own back.”

Vi’ya said, “Their perspective is different. It was Rifters
who destroyed much that was theirs. You might keep that in mind.”

“Piss-bats!” Marim buried her head
under her covers.

Vi’ya left their quarters and paced down the handsomely
paneled corridor past the civilian cabins. Most of these were empty: this
mission was a military one, except for her crew and the few civilians involved
with Sebastian Omilov’s Jupiter Project.

And Manderian, the High Phanist’s representative, the only
other person outside of Ivard and herself who could communicate with the Eya’a
beyond simple signs. She had not spoken to him, except for the merest
commonplace, since he and Omilov appeared at Detention Five with the surprising
request that she fly the gnostor on his mission to the heart of the Rift.

Vi’ya stepped into the transtube and tabbed the key, bracing
against the acceleration of the module.

She sensed the busy focus of the thousands of minds aboard
the mighty ship. Fighting against a sharp longing to see its bridge, and
witness for herself the tremendous capabilities of a battlecruiser, she
composed herself for the meeting ahead.

In the hangar bay housing the
Telvarna
, Manderian studied the two Marines before him. Both young,
both sober and intelligent, both focused, despite physical tiredness that he
could sense like a drug in his own system.

“No,” he said in answer to a
question, “we have not established any semblance of tense in the gestural
semiotics. I don’t know yet whether the Eya’a perceive time as we do. Perhaps
the captain will discuss this more fully with you.”

He sensed presence. He knew it was not a physical presence,
and the proximity was relative: Vi’ya was on her way.

A silhouette appeared in the open hatch in the ship;
Sebastian Omilov descended the ramp, his step booming softly.

“Well, that’s one more thing
complete,” he said, rubbing his hands. He paused, fists on hips, to survey the
ordered litter of equipment on the deck plates of the hangar bay, waiting to be
carried into the Columbiad for installation and stowing. Then he nodded
pleasantly to the two Marines who had been chosen to accompany his mission.
“That’s enough for this shift, don’t you think? I know I’m ready for some
rest.”

The Marines sketched salutes, then moved out.

When they were gone, Omilov said, “How are they doing?”

“Well enough,” Manderian said.
“Solarch sho’Rethven has a degree in xenosemiotics; I think, if Vi’ya is
willing, he might substantially add to our sign-pool.”

“Which is somewhat superficial,”
Omilov added. “Or so the High Phanist was lamenting just before our departure.”

Omilov looked back at the
Telvarna
, permitting himself a long, satisfied breath.

Without his being aware, Manderian observed him, thinking
that it was inevitable that the gnostor’s status would be forever altered.
Everywhere he went, respect, deference, and even fear marked people’s reactions
to him. Omilov did not seem to notice—his focus was entirely on the project at
hand. Yet he seemed decades younger than he had, and although almost
seventy-two hours of unremitting effort had tired the crew and passengers of
Grozniy
, Omilov’s eyes remained clear
and his step firm.
His emergence as
Praerogate Overt has restored his sense of purpose.

“Shall we wrap up for now? I’m for some caf—or even coffee,
if we can cadge it,” Omilov suggested.

Manderian assented, then said, “Vi’ya is on her way.”

The transtube lights signaled an arrival and hissed open.
The tall woman stepped out, her black eyes surveying the hangar.

“Captain Vi’ya,” Omilov said in welcome, too polite to
express surprise at the late hour. “I thought you might want to order the
disposition of these supplies here. You’ll find a compilation on the compad. I
can have them stowed tomorrow—or what serves for tomorrow on this floating
city.”

She nodded, her manner cool and slightly wary as she passed
by and ascended the ramp into her ship.

With a spurt of amusement that he kept strictly hidden,
Manderian remembered the date in Dol’jharian terms: the Karusch’na Rahali, the
Star-Tides of Progeny. Though Dol’jhar and its system were far distant, the
symbolic pull of its four moons was difficult for expatriates to shut out of
their lives. It had taken some twenty years before his subconscious had given
over calculating the next alignment.
She
knows,
he thought, putting energy into shielding his thoughts as best he
could,
and she hates the knowing.

He still could not guess the range of her psi abilities, except
that they were great. He wondered if she had withdrawn to her ship to pass the
night, since it was distant from the sleeping quarters.

“Let’s go find that caf, shall we,
Gnostor?” he suggested.

Omilov straightened up from examining the contents of a
crate and sighed. “Yes, yes, let’s.”

As they waited for the transtube, once again Manderian sensed
presence. It took some thought to recognize the aura, but when he did, his
amusement heightened. He said nothing as he followed Omilov into the module and
tabbed their destination.

That module hissed away; a seldom-used mechanics’ adit on
the other side of the empty bay opened, and Brandon emerged.

Vi’ya waited at the top of the ramp. They had not spoken
since their encounter at Tate Kaga’s. It was the Prophetae who, after telling
her what had transpired in Nyberg’s office, saw to it that she was conveyed
unwitnessed back to Detention Five. In the shock wave propagating through the
station after the failed coup and Omilov’s revelation as a Praerogate, she had
arrived entirely unnoticed.

Brandon arrived at the ramp and grinned up at her.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

Humor in the quarry pits had been confined to the
humiliation of one’s enemies. It was Markham who had taught her how to
joke—with Brandon’s sense of the ridiculous.

“No,” she said, watching him in
expectation. “You’ll have to blast your way in.”

And there it was, the laughter curving his eyelids and
turning up the corners of his mouth, making dimples in his cheeks as his
emotional spectrum impacted her like dropping into a volcanic pool at the peak
of a summer’s day.

“Duel to the death.” He mounted the
ramp with leisurely steps, anticipation heightening his senses to an unnerving
degree. “High-velocity custard flingers at forty paces.”

She smiled at the reminder of his inspired defense against
Eusabian’s forces in the underground kitchens of his Palace Minor. “I wonder,”
she said, “how the Tarkans explained that to Eusabian.”

“Barrodagh will have lied, of course.”
Brandon met her at the hatch, and stood within reach, neither touching: he
contemplated the glimmer of humor in her space black eyes, and she braced
herself anew against his proximity, anticipation wakening in every cell of her
body. “Explained them as some kind of arcane Panarchist secret weapon. And he
probably has teams of experts busy replicating them for defense against us when
we do go back to retake the planet.”

“Then you will have to develop
anti-custard shields.” She touched the stylus to the compad Omilov had left
waiting.

They walked into the
Telvarna
’s
rec room, and Brandon moved to the comestibles console, bringing it to life.
“Hmmm.” He scanned the list of offerings. “Must be Sebastian’s new status.
Look! They’ve put real coffee in the stores.”

“It’s probably yours,” she said.

“Then I believe I’ll help myself.
And add a liberal dose of Montrose’s brandy. Want some?”

“No.” She wrote rapidly with the
stylus as the aromatic scent of coffee filled the still air.

When she looked up again, he had relaxed into one of the
deep chairs, both hands wrapped around the steaming mug. “This is the first
break I’ve had,” he said.

“Briefings?”

“Not briefings.” He smiled wryly.
“Inspections, tours, luncheons, more inspections. Keeping me so busy I won’t
notice the lack of briefings.”

She said, “I thought this Captain Ng was your partisan.”

“Very much so,” he replied. “Which
is why I’m cooperatively not noticing the lack.” He grinned, inviting her to
share the joke.

“I don’t understand.”

“My status is a legal nightmare,”
he said. “Ng, Nyberg, Ares, even Eusabian all know who I am, but as far as the DataNet
is concerned, I am still Krysarch Brandon nyr-Arkad until someone with a higher
level releases certain codes into the system. Until then, there is information
I cannot access, and despite their most ardent wish, they cannot access it for
me. One of those areas is Gehenna.

“Suppose,” he said, gesturing with his mug, “I force my way
into one of those briefings where they’ve brought up files that require retinal
scans. As soon as I enter the room, the system freezes.” He shrugged.

Vi’ya stilled her growing anticipation; she had three
questions. Two, it appeared, might be answered. “Why did you not stay on Ares,
then? Was it not a risk, to establish your position and then disappear so
quickly?”

Brandon frowned down into his coffee. “Aside from my own
inclinations, my absence seemed the best gift I could give Nyberg. He now has
clear orders to act on, the same that I believe my father would issue were he
there: recall the Fleet and prepare for a full-scale attack on the Suneater. My
presence—my anomalous legal status—would be exponentially more a hindrance
there than here. Ares now has a single goal, hopefully one to unite it. Those
orders will not be sullied by any further ones, if I am not there to make them,
that might run counter to what my father would wish when he returns to Ares.”

“So here, there is only one
question, this approach to Gehenna, which will be resolved when we reach it.”

“Correct. You know that much, do
you?”

Vi’ya turned in her captain’s pod. “I know that Captain Ng
has expressly ordered her bridge crew and senior officers to stay away from me.
I have tried to make it easier for them to do that by staying clear of them.”

“But you hear things anyway,” he
said.

She lifted a shoulder. “When the Eya’a are awake, I do, for
they are curious, and afraid. But your captain and her staff will take no harm
of me.”

“Therefore what they
don’t know can’t hurt ’em? Well, I won’t tell,” he said.