Ruler of Naught (39 page)

“Worthless.” Montrose loomed, his teeth gleaming in his
beard, his wide-spaced eyes amused. He’d entered with silent tread. “You know
nothing at all. It takes years, years, to make an adequate chef. You are only
right about your lack of talent.”

“But what he’s making smells as good as anything we got at
home,” Brandon said.

Montrose sighed theatrically, his shoulders slumping. “Must
you say it in front of him?” He jerked a huge thumb in Osri’s direction. “How
will I keep him appropriately humble?”

Brandon laughed, and Osri shook his head, turning back to
his chore. Brandon leaned over, dropped his onion, and expertly snagged a
chocolate square. “All right. Come on, Gray. Lucifur. we’re not wanted.”

Osri fought back his impatience and returned to his
preparation. Though he never would have chosen to learn anything about cooking,
he hated worse doing any job badly, and he had to admit that the precision
required in complicated cookery was a the sort of challenge he found soothing.

Montrose observed his hands, his silence a measure of
approval. At last he said, “This meal is for my guests in the dispensary, but
you are also invited.”

“Very well,” Osri said.
“She didn’t mention the Eya’a?”
What does that mean?

Montrose shot him a squinty look from under his bristling
brows. But he confined his comments to the cooking lessons, and Osri forced
himself to be patient until at last the meal was finished enough for him to
slip away. He found Brandon in their cabin, busy at the console.

“I have to ask you a question,” Osri said.“What did you mean
by the captain not mentioning the Eya’a?” Osri went on. “I don’t see the
connection between them and where she might go after Rifthaven.”

“I think... ” Brandon leaned back, waving at the console.
“Take a look for yourself.”

Osri stepped closer. Brandon had windowed up the Starfarer’s
Handbook entry on Ysqven V. The warning code for a quarantined planet was the
first designation, and the brief information that followed made the place seem
grim beyond human toleration. Puzzled, Osri scanned quickly past the listings
of the seasons (deep winter and deeper winter) and of the many horrific plant
and animal predators.

At the end of the entry was the header for indigenous
sentients, and Osri was only partially enlightened with what he saw: a brief
physical description of the Eya’a.

Brandon was still waiting when Osri looked up.

A nasty idea occurred to him. “You don’t think she’ll force
us to go there, do you?”

Brandon smiled. “I think she wants us—and them to think so. He
tipped his head toward the rest of the ship.

“But you don’t?”

For answer, Brandon got up and hit the hatch lock. Then he
sat back down at the console. “Watch,” he said.

Osri leaned against the console inset, inches from where he
had secreted the Tetradrachm and the flight ribbon, and waited while Brandon
quickly navigated the ship’s system. He hit several areas that required codes,
and each time, Brandon went past, entering the code with a speed that revealed
what he had been doing with much of his free time.

Then they were in a hidden area, where Brandon had stored
chunks of info. Osri saw that the entire Starfarer’s Handbook entry on Dol’jhar
was listed there, along with the ship’s log for the past several years.

“You broke into the system,” Osri said.

Brandon didn’t answer directly. “Markham designed the present
system,” he said. “And Vi’ya seems to have left it mostly intact. Knowing
Markham as well as I had, it did not take me long to figure out his codes. I’ve
found most of what I wanted.”

Osri almost let that get by in his impatience for Brandon to
get to his point, but this time he saw the point ahead of time, and pounced on
a side issue that seemed more interesting: “Most?”

And it turned out to be the point, after all.

Brandon gave a wry smile. “She has apparently redesigned
certain portions of the system and I can’t crack it.”

Osri was about to observe that this was standard operating
procedure, but Brandon was waiting expectantly. So Osri returned to the
previous track. “What have you not found that you wanted?”

“Captain’s log,” Brandon said. “I found Markham’s. I even
found a file he’d started for me...” He broke off and shrugged.

“What was in it?”

“Observations he thought I might enjoy. Some proof of
Semion’s culpability in his father’s ruin—none of it matters now.”

“But you can’t find the present captain’s log.”

“No.”

“Are you sure there is one? Maybe Dol’jharians don’t keep
logs.”

Brandon shrugged again. “I’m not sure. Except there are
other things I can’t access.” He flicked a hand dismissively. “Now look at
this.”

He punched up the captain’s log, scrolling it back to the beginning
of Markham’s career as the
Telvarna
’s captain. Osri watched as Brandon
flicked through screen after screen of cryptic entries.

“Rifthaven again... Dis. Rifthaven...” Osri looked up. “They
seem to have ranged through different octants without any discernible pattern.
What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Any anomalies here?”

“Anomalies? For Rifters?” Osri said, but even as he said it,
a third reference to Dol’jhar made him stop. “That?” He tapped the screen. A
horrifying thought occurred. “But you don’t think Markham—”

“No. Eusabian seems to have hired his Rifter allies just
around the time Hreem killed Markham. And who knows, that could have been some
of Hreem’s motivation in cutting down competition.” Brandon’s mouth twisted.
“These are raids, pure and simple.”

“I still don’t see the connection.”

Brandon tapped his fingers against the console, then saved
and stored the system. “Let’s go find out if there is one.”

Osri had never seen the captain’s cabin. He followed Brandon
the short distance around to the other side of the ship, expecting anything
from sybaritic ostentation to savage displays of skulls and arcane weaponry.

When they entered, it was Brandon who stopped dead as if
he’d walked into a force field, staring with manic eyes at the eerily real
holographic display of the sequoia park in the Mandala. Osri’s head buzzed;
through it came the familiar trill of birdsong, birds Osri had only heard on
Arthelion.

“Have I made any egregious errors?”

The cool voice belonged to the captain. Amusement blended
with the Dol’jharian twist to the consonants, and amusement matching her tone
exactly was in Brandon’s reply, “It’s too cold in here, the air should smell
like loam and pine, and have the tianqi jack up the oxygen content.” Brandon gestured.
“Then you’ll be close enough.”

Instead, the captain hit a control and the familiar beauty
of the forest vanished, to be replaced by the starkly plain walls of a cabin
whose only decoration was a tapestry and a gemstone that Osri belatedly (and
with a flash of anger) recognized as one from the Ivory Hall.

“You wanted to see me?”

The woman was sitting at the console, which had been obscured
by shadows in the holo.

Osri waited where he was by the hatch, but Brandon advanced
into the cabin. “After Rifthaven,” Brandon said.

Vi’ya said nothing.

He’s right—she knew we were listening
.

Brandon crossed the room, and touched a dark tapestry whose
subject was obscure, and from this distance unpleasant. “Sebastian won’t last two
hours there,” he commented.

Vi’ya’s chin jerked up.

Osri missed her answer because the meaning of Brandon’s
words impacted his brain like a missile.
Dol’jhar? She wouldn’t take us
there!

Brandon smiled, crossing his arms and leaning against a bulkhead.
“Might it be a test? Might it be...” He touched the discreet inlay above the
console. “The same test he faced?”

He? Osri looked at the inlay, which was a tasteful evocation
of the Archaeo-Moderne mode of 150 years ago.
The ship was restored by
Markham vlith-L’Ranja.

Markham. Tested?
A pang of headache shot through
Osri’s temple, compounded by the frigid air, and he rubbed his head, but it did
not dissipate the tension radiating from the two across the room.

Vi’ya stood up slowly and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Eusabian of Dol’jhar is gone from the planet, and with him the worst of his
nobles,” she said. “I know places to hide where you will never be found.”

“But you haven’t answered my question,” Brandon said
lightly.

“It is an absurd question.”

‘Then you did test Markham,” the Aerenarch said, smiling.
“Because you’ve been testing me.”

A pause. Osri felt the pang again. “A game,” Vi’ya said.
“Like this.”

She hit the control behind her, and they were pitched into a
holo of space, with asteroids hurtling toward them. Osri barely had time to
react from the shock when the scene altered, this time to the breathtaking
beauty of a snow-topped peak on a mountain of black stone. A red dwarf sun was
setting on the horizon, bathing the scene with a glory of reddish colors. The
scene was followed by several in succession, each vastly different.

They were inside a gloomy, high-ceilinged cathedral vaguely
familiar to Osri when Brandon reached across and tabbed the kill-pad. “I also
know places where my enemies will never find us.”

A faint chittering noise reached Osri then, scraping along
his nerves: the Eya’a. Brandon glanced aside, his eyes distracted. Vi’ya did
not turn her head.

“Let us go,” Brandon said, so softly it was scarcely audible
above the quiet hiss of the tianqi.

Vi’ya did not answer. Instead, she reached back and tabbed
another key, and the room was replaced by a bleak landscape, with smoldering
volcanoes in the distance, and overhead a storm-torn sky.

Brandon walked out.

Osri followed, glad to turn his back on Vi’ya and her grim
landscape, which he guessed was Dol’jhar.

Back in their cabin Brandon slammed his fist lightly on the
console again, bringing it to life. Tapping rapidly, he straightened up, then
stood looking down the display, rubbing his thumb along his jawline.

Osri, looking past him, saw that the hidden files were gone.
His chest felt hollow. Was that a threat? He hated this sense of powerlessness,
especially under the command of a lawless Rifter who was also a Dol’jharian and
a tempath.

Brandon dropped into the chair and laughed.

The comm beeped. Osri touched it with sweaty fingers.

“We’re waiting for you, Schoolboy,” came Montrose’s familiar
grating voice. “You don’t want your father to eat congealed chzchz, do you?”

“Never,” Osri said hoarsely. And with another look at Brandon,
who sat with his head in his hands, still laughing, he went out.

o0o

“... and I always thought the Arkad dogs could only
understand one language, that one they gave the commands in, on
The
Invisibles
. But Gray and Trev understand me just fine when I...”

Sebastian Omilov leaned back, appraising his son’s face as Ivard
went on talking. The supper that Montrose had presented to them was superlative,
and the man had exerted himself to keep the conversation light and general. But
he’d only been partially successful: Osri brooded in silence, speaking only
when he had to.

Omilov sighed, wondering what to do. Montrose and Ivard
talked on, the surgeon suggesting some chips on animal behavior as he handed
out the next course.

Omilov roused himself to join the talk when it lapsed. His
years of court enabled him to recall the last thing said, and to form a
question along the same axis.

Ivard’s thin face was flushed with fever and high spirits,
and he participated willingly enough—when he did not fall into reveries. Omilov
would not have thought anything of these lapses, except Montrose’s frown when
he observed them.

Omilov left worries concerning Ivard to the surgeon. His own
concern was with his son, who seemed to have left most of his self-righteous
anger back at the asteroid—and replaced it with a much more serious turn of
mind, indicated by the little gesture Osri had used to betray inner turmoil
ever since he was a boy, an absent running of the inside of his index finger
along the knuckles of his other hand. This gesture when Osri was small had
presaged a gnawing of those same knuckles, often until they were raw. When Osri’s
mother had discovered this she had somehow ruthlessly eradicated the gnawing,
but nervous rubbing remained.

At last the meal was over. Omilov had waited patiently for a
graceful opening to get Osri alone, but his son avoided his gaze as well as his
hints. Very well, patience, then. Osri would speak when he was ready.

“What shall it be, Sebastian?” Montrose asked as he stacked
his plates into the cleanser. “A play, or perhaps a duel to the death?”
Montrose offered, waving at the chessboard and smiling.

“Neither, thank you. While I was going through your catalog
the other day, I chanced upon an opera I haven’t heard for years:
The Tragic
History of Macclom Singh
.”

The surgeon paused, then gave a thin, humorless smile. “I’m
not surprised that it had fallen from favor—the late Aerenarch could hardly
have found its message comforting.”

Sadness washed through Omilov.
Even Rifters recognized
the danger that Gelasaar could not see.

“Very well, Sebastian,
Tragic History
it shall be.
There may be a lesson in it for these times. Osri, does that suit you?”

“Thank you,” he replied with slightly absent politeness,
“but I think I’ll retire.”

“My son has never developed a taste for opera,” Omilov said.
“Perhaps we can save it for another time.”

“No, Father. I really do want to retire,” Osri said, and was
gone without a glance—
yes, best to wait
.

Montrose tapped at the console. The lights dimmed as the far
wall of the dispensary wavered and vanished, dissolving to a panoramic
starfield. The view panned down, and a planet in flames rolled into view as the
massive, sorrowful grandeur of Tamilski’s overture filled the room. Vellicor,
still a dead world after six hundred years.
How many have joined it in the
past weeks?