House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy) (10 page)

“And is this intended to hide the scars?”

Amik only shrugged. “If you wish to hide them. Alex, in the Outside, scars aren’t
hidden
. A Brother who hasn’t a few scars to exhibit by the time he passes puberty will go out of his way to acquire them. Such things are relative. That leather, by the way, is something quite special, and in rather short supply. That, my friend, is the hide of a creature native to Castor, the belnong. It’s a symbiont with the Marching For——”

“The
belnong
, did you say?”

“Yes. You know of it?”

Alex laughed, remembering the first time he’d heard that creature’s name. In a rose garden, in another life.
Alex, I’m tough as a belnong. . .
.

“Yes, I know of it.”

“So. At any rate, the leather has extraordinary qualities. It’s as flexible as your own skin, and has a slight grain; it will protect your hand without impairing movement or gripping ability.”

Alex wondered if there would ever be much movement or gripping ability to be impaired in that hand, but the thought inspired no resentment now. He pulled on the glove, a slow and cautious process, but even though it was a little tight over the bandages, it didn’t add to the pain once he had it on. He found a curious resolution in it.

“Amik, I’ll never be parted from it. Again—thank you.”

Amik waved that aside uncomfortably. “Don’t weigh me down with more gratitude. I’m too old for such burdens.” Then, with a quick shift of subject, “Jael tells me Ferra Severin has at last accomplished her mission. I assume I’m crossing no lines. In fact, I’m sure I’m not, since my close-mouthed son was my source.” Still, there was a hint of courteous inquiry in that.

Alex eased into a chair, turning his body slightly so he could rest his right arm on his thigh. “You’re crossing no lines, Amik.”

“Ah. Then your Lady is well?”

“She’s well, and she’ll be with me soon in the COS HQ.” Then he added lightly, “We’re a family now, and even if our home must be a cave, it’s fitting that we be together—Adrien and I and our twin sons.” He saw Erica’s eyes flash questioningly toward him. Conditioned or not, neither she nor Jael had presumed to risk trusting Amik with that information, but Alex considered it an offering of gratitude in the form of an expression of faith. Amik deserved that much.

Amik coughed out a cloud of smoke, and even when he recovered, stared blankly at Alex. Then his black eyes narrowed in speculation, that giving way to a wistful smile with only a hint of irony in it.

“So. Well, I’m . . . delighted. Almost in tears, in fact. I’m a sentimental man, as I told you before, and to see two fated lovers reunited and at the same time blessed with . . .
twin
sons, did you say? By the God, it has all the makings of a legendary chan d’amor. My friend, to think that you’re now a father
. . . twice
a father—it staggers the imagination.”

Alex found it so staggering he didn’t want to talk about it further. Perhaps it was becoming more real now; it was beginning to reach him. He welcomed the door chime if only because it would conclude this conversation.

Erica went to check the vis-screen by the door, then switched off the sec-system and unlocked it. She didn’t turn on her face-screen.

“Hello, Jael.”

Alex rose—too fast. He blinked away the fleeting dizziness as Jael came in and, after a quick survey, turned to Amik.

“Wave-offs made, Father? I’m about to take your star guest away.”

Amik smiled wryly at that oblique dismissal as he got himself to his feet. “I’ve had my say, Jael, and I’ve business to attend to.” As he passed Erica, he made a courtly bow. “And you, gracious physician, I hope some day you’ll take supper with me. It would honor me and my humble house.”

She smiled at that. “Perhaps I shall, Amik, some day.”

“The time is yours to name. Alex, rest yourself. And fortune.” Then to Jael, “You, my son, I will see when next I see you. Step light.”

“You, too, Father.” He locked the door after Amik, then turned to Alex. “I just got off the ’ceiver with Val, brother. All clear at Saint P’s. Trans is scheduled for 03:00. Two hours from now.”

Alex took a careful breath. “Thanks, Jael. Now, what about our trans to the COS HQ?”

“Gather up your worldlies. Your escort’s on line.”

Erica started for the bedroom. “
I’ll
gather your worldlies, Alex.”

He nodded distractedly. “Thanks. Jael, did you . . . talk to the exiles?”

“I called a general assembly yesterday. They’re lined in on you and every stray thread of the Ransom Alternative, Your Lady and first and second born are expected and prepared for.”

“How did they react?”

“Well, some of them already had the Ransom Alternative tallied close enough. It hit some as a surprise, but you can rest easy on one thing—no one was unhappy about any part of it.”

Alex had left it to Jael to disclose the Ransom Alternative to the exiles, and perhaps there was an element of cowardice in that. Or perhaps his uneasiness derived from an awareness that he was leaving something behind; something to which he could never return.

“Does it . . . change anything with them?”

Jael eyed him a moment, then when Erica emerged from the bedroom, relieved her of the burden of Alex’s wardrobe.

“Did you think it wouldn’t, brother?” Then, with a short laugh, “Change never was an evil in itself. Now, come on. They’re all waiting.”

Another homecoming.

In Alex’s mind, Andreas’s homecoming was still a recent memory; he had lost most of the intervening five weeks, and as he stepped out of the MT, even the few days he did remember seemed to fade, and this homecoming became an extension of the last, one in which joy was allowed to run its course without being truncated by grief.

Only for a brief moment as he looked around the comcenter chamber did he feel a cold shadow of reminder. That black, impending dome of stone. But the black angel no longer rattled the locks of its confinement. Perhaps it was dead or, sated, had left him in search of other prey. Perhaps it was only quiescent.

That was a matter of indifference to him now. Nothing would spoil this homecoming.

The black dome echoed with laughter and welcome. Andreas was at the MT waiting for him, shouting to the others, as if it were a revelation, “Here he is!”

And Ben, pumping Alex’s left hand, the blunt, tough lines of his face creased into a smile, his words lost in the jubilant confusion as the exiles pressed closer. Alex took their hands, savoring the familiar names, each calling up remembered mutual experiences. Yet something
had
changed. He read that in their eyes, and it became more apparent as the initial emotional charge spent itself. A hint of uncertain deference subtly different from that they had always shown for Commander Alex Ransom.

Change never was an evil in itself. So said Jael the Outsider with the succinct wisdom of an Elder Shepherd, and the real purpose of the Phoenix was to effect change on an entire civilization. They accepted this change, accepted him in his true identity. His problem, as the immediate excitement waned, was to keep Alex Ransom alive. In
their
minds, not his.

It was accomplished more easily than he expected. Commander Blayn initiated it. Another Falcon had been captured; perhaps he’d like to see it. When Blayn addressed him, with only the slightest hesitancy, as “sir,” Alex responded casually, as if he’d never been, or even thought of being, addressed as “my lord.” In the background, Jael deftly reinforced the establishment of a functioning norm with quiet suggestions that reminded the exiles of their duties and sent them willingly back to them.

It became a tour of inspection, and when Alex met the exiles in this context, it was as their commanding officer. Erica, Jael, and Ben accompanied him on the tour, Jael assuming the role of subaltern and guide. No part of the COS HQ was excluded, and Alex could be entirely honest in his expressions of approval; Jael kept his troops in close trim. The tour included the physics lab where Andreas explained the planned LR-MT experiment. It would take place on 6 Octov. Less than a week.

“It’s rather crude, really, Alex. We’ve fitted
Phoenix Two
with some fairly sophisticated observational equipment, however. We’ll send her into the Solar System just outside the Asteroid Belt, I think. Caris, wasn’t that what we decided on finally?”

Dr. Bruce nodded. “Yes. The chances of Confleet observation are a little higher there than in the outer sectors, but we wanted to try it as close as possible to a strong solar gravitational field.”

Andreas said, “I’d like to try it near Sirius A. That would be a better test; a stronger gravitational field. Besides . . .” His eyes seemed to slip out of focus for a moment. “It can—it must—take us to the stars again, you know. Beyond Sirius, beyond Altair, beyond . . .” Then he roused himself, frowning slightly. “However, we have to face our existing power limitations. Anyway, we’re transing a flare. The MT here has already been modified for LR trans, and getting the spare parts for that put us in the larceny business again.” He sighed ruefully.

Alex glanced at Jael. “What has Amik added to his collection now?”

“The Unicorn Chronicle Arras. Twenty-eighth century, the old Ser tells me. School of Fatim-Karma.”

“Lazar Hamid’s most precious possession.” Alex smiled coldly. Legend had it that Hamid’s great-grandfather had broken the House of Kazmirin to put his hands on that tapestry. Perhaps there was justice in this larceny. “Then you’ll simply trans a flare from here into observational range of the
Two
?”

Andreas laughed. “Simply? Well, yes. Our biggest problem was a power source. We need far more power than our generators can produce. Fortunately, we need a very short burst of it, and again we’re reduced to larceny of a sort.”

“What sort? It might get a little awkward at the bargaining table if the Directors find out we’ve been systematically looting the Concord’s finest art works.”

“Not that sort, I’m happy to say. The solar power beams, Alex. Actually, we’ll only purloin a microsecond of Lord Drakonis’s treasurehouse of power. We’ve equipped
Three
with a reflector and built a receptor here on the surface.
Three
will simply intercept one of the power beams with its reflector at an angle to deflect the beam to our receptor dish. The trans will be triggered automatically.”

It was Alex’s turn to question the term “simply.” The mathematics behind that brief encounter between beam, ship, reflector, and receptor had undoubtedly taken up a great deal of comp time, and the tolerances would be measured in milliseconds and micrometers, but to Andreas it was only a mechanical problem.

The tour continued and ended finally in a small chamber opening off the back wall of the sleeping section. Alex remembered it as a natural chamber they had enlarged for storage purposes. A woman of middle age with short, white-streaked hair was waiting there. He knew her. Mistra Jenna Cromwel, medtech, Grade 7. What he didn’t know, until Jael informed him, was that she had specialized in pediatrics before joining the Phoenix. The conversion of the storage room into an apartment and nursery had been entrusted to her.

Alex was feeling the strain. He hadn’t spent this much time on his feet without rest before, and the emotional drain was taking its toll, too. He looked around the converted storage room numbly. Across the middle of the floor a metallic bar was inset for S/V screens that would divide the room into two sections when activated. The right-hand section was furnished with a double bed, a comconsole, and a straight chair placed in front of a low chest over which hung a mirror. There were cosmetic containers on the chest, and he smiled a little at that, sure that the drawers contained feminine apparel. On pegs in one wall, Erica had hung his slacsuits beside three smaller suits; on the floor under them were two pairs of slip-on shoes. He had no doubt they would all be exactly Adrien’s size. A tiny crystal bottle on the chest caught his eye, and he went over to examine it. Perfume; one of the House of Sidarta’s finest: Primaraude.

He looked around at Mistra Cromwel and smiled his appreciation, then finally forced himself to look at the other half of the room.

Heat lamps and thermcarpet, a sink with water outlets, three storage chests, the stone walls sprayed with plasment in a soft yellow; it seemed incredibly luxurious for the COS HQ. In the center of the space were two small, railed beds. Infant cribs.

“Lady Adrien will find everything she needs here for the twins, sir, and I’ll be available at any time if she needs help, or even just baby tending.”

Mistra Cromwel was smiling with genuine anticipation, and Erica engaged her in a brief, bantering exchange on frustrated maternal urges. Alex’s throat felt so dry, he wasn’t sure he could speak, yet he knew he must say something, and knew he should be relieved at the solicitude displayed for Adrien, a nonmember, a First Lord’s daughter, far more an outsider here than Jael would ever be.

But his arm was aching miserably and he felt the warning sensation of looseness at his knees, as if the joints wouldn’t hold unless he concentrated on them.

Those two waiting cribs. It wasn’t fear he felt in looking at them, yet the reactions were very similar, and Mistra Cromwel was smiling at him with a secretive sympathy he found oddly annoying.

She said, “It may seem a bit primitive to Lady Adrien, sir, but I think we’ve supplied all the necessities.”

“And more.” He managed a quiet laugh then. “I was thinking it was rather extravagant. As for Adrien, don’t forget she’s coming here from six months in a convent. Jenna . . . thank you.”

Jael suggested an Exile Council meeting, and Alex knew it was at Erica’s prompting; he caught the nearly wordless exchange between them before Jael deftly delivered him from this room.

Alex accepted the suggestion gratefully, and when they finally reached the conference room, he welcomed the closing of the doorscreens and, above all, a sturdy chair under him. Erica sat on his right, watching him closely, but apparently satisfied; she made no comments. It devolved into an informal conclave among friends rather than a formal Council meeting. Not that their meetings had ever been marked by formality; only a defining structure of priorities that was absent now.