Ruler of Naught (58 page)

Meanwhile Osri had grown up with the portrait of Ilara in the
study, never questioning its presence.

And from a conversation long ago, his father saying of
Gelasaar:
He is one of those rarities in our culture, a genuinely monogamous
person. Having had the great fortune to find the ideal, I expect he’d feel that
tarnishing the memory with casual intimacy would be intolerable.

Osri stole a look at his father’s jowly, big-eared profile.
The
Panarch was not the only monogamous person in love with Kyriarch Ilara.

The new insight did not change anything concrete. It
couldn’t even be talked of, Osri suspected. But once again he felt his
perspective on the universe reeling.

“... and we must assume that Eusabian will shortly have it,”
Sebastian was saying.

Osri knew that quirk to his mouth; he could almost hear his
father’s voice, long ago:
The best way to keep people from talking about
what you don’t want to talk about is to get them onto a bigger secret.

“So let me tell you what little I know of the Heart of
Kronos.”

o0o

Marine Solarch (First Class) Artorus Vahn stood guard
outside the Aerenarch’s suite, thinking about the circumstances that had made
him probably the only person alive to have served as an honor guard for all
three sons of Gelasaar III.

Vahn’s post was no accident: the personnel records would
have revealed that he had been stationed on Talgarth before being shifted to
duty on the
Mbwa Kali
. So far as Vahn knew, he was the only Marine
onboard who could say that.

It had been no accident, either, when he’d been detailed from
Semion’s Omega Fleet at Narbon to serve at Galen’s palace on Talgarth, a
posting that had seemed a sinecure until he discovered that he was not meant to
be a guard, but a spy. His subsequent request for transfer had been granted a
year ago. The accident was in his being put on this ship—it could have been any
other ship headed out-octant, into the outer darkness as far as Semion was
concerned.

The door opened and the Aerenarch emerged, followed by the
two dogs, who took up station one at each knee, looking expectantly at
Brandon’s face.

Who looked at Vahn.

“Let’s go talk to the Chief Wrangler,” he said pleasantly.

Vahn nodded and jeeved into step behind him; the Aerenarch’s
boswell would show Brandon the way.

From Aerenarch to Aerenarch
. The ability to jeeve, to
be invisible until required, had been drilled into Vahn during the intensive
training he’d received on Narbon. He knew how to judge to the centimeter just
how far a person’s breathing space extended. To go unnoticed and unremarked was
the highest praise one could expect in Semion’s personal service: if he spoke
to you, it was invariably to your detriment. Galen had been the opposite—it had
been disarming, and sometimes unnerving, the profound interest he took in
everyone around him, rank notwithstanding.

Vahn already knew Brandon was different from them both. The
first time he’d accompanied him, from the surgery where the CMO herself had
treated him, he’d wondered, as they approached a lift, whether Brandon would
emulate Semion and stand a meter away, ignoring him as if he were alone—or
would inquire, as Galen had, into his family, likes, and dislikes?

They reached the lift—the Aerenarch first, and he raised his
own hand to tab it open, instead of waiting for Vahn to perform the service.
One
for the Galen column.

When they got into the lift, the Aerenarch turned to him as
if they’d known one another for years, and said, “Efriq told me you were on
Talgarth.”

“Yes, Your Highness,”
He is like Galen, then.
And he
braced for the personal questions.

But they didn’t come. The Aerenarch smiled faintly and said,
“You must have been in Semion’s private army beforehand.”

It was not a question, so Vahn did not have to answer.
Still, he had felt his heart give one sharp rap against his ribs, then start
racing.

No one ever called it a private army in my hearing, but
that’s what it was.
Vahn had been selected out barely two years into his
Marine career; bigger, stronger, and faster than the other recruits, he’d had
an added knack for arcane weapons. The training on Narbon had been hard, the
punishments harder, with fierce competition for promotion. Such an atmosphere
for someone with ability and ambition was exhilarating, and for a long time
Vahn had reveled in the private slang, codes, and rituals only known to the
special detachment of Marines on Narbon.

All Marines reported through the same chain of command, yet
there came a time when Vahn had perceived the difference between Narbon’s
detachment and those serving elsewhere. Narbon’s Marines were trained to owe
their loyalty to the Aerenarch’s person, not to his place in the greater schema...
and all of the men—and they were only men—had come only from Tetrad Centrum
planets. No Highdwellers, no one from the Fringes.

But calling what had amounted to a private army by “private
army” wasn’t as hard a hit as the assumption that he’d had to have been on
Narbon first: that Semion controlled placement to Talgarth with his own men.

It was a truth that had taken Vahn time to figure out—and
had driven him to dump a promising career and sidestep into the mainstream. At
no time had he ever stated, or heard stated, the bald truth.

Until that moment as the lift opened.

He had felt a strong urge to justify himself, to tell the
Aerenarch why he was here—except one didn’t speak while on duty unless spoken
to. The conviction that an entire conversation had taken place in that brief
exchange unsettled him.

The three days since then had been one of assessment for
Vahn, which was still continuing.
He had me placed on our first meeting, but
I still don’t know what he thinks about it—or what he’ll do with the knowledge.

The interview with the Chief Wrangler illuminated the
Aerenarch’s character from another angle.

“You want to give a pair of Arkad dogs to a Rifter adolescent?
In the brig?” To call the chief’s voice doubtful would be an understatement,
thought Vahn. He was a tall, spare man with a long, bony face and eyes turned
down at the outside corners. Right now he looked even more lugubrious than
usual, but Vahn had never seen him smile except at an animal. Chief Evvyn was
happiest in ports of call, when he could set up the extension clinic that was
but one of the many non-warlike functions of a battlecruiser on an out-octant
patrol.

“If you don’t have time to walk them, any of my wranglers
would be honored.”

“I have nothing but time,” said the Aerenarch lightly, and
Vahn felt the statement was for him as much as the wrangler. “Ivard is infected
with a Kelly ribbon, and having the two dogs—making him a kind of trinity,
perhaps?—seemed to stabilize him on the
Telvarna
,” said Brandon. “I will
still be responsible for their exercise.”

The chief took this in. “How much control does the boy have?
I’ll have to put safety collars on them to prevent him from using them against
brig personnel.”

Brandon nodded. “I understand. Could you have those
personalized, please?”

Evvyn brightened at the mention of something he could easily
agree to. “Kije and Aoka. Certainly.”

“No, if you please. Trev and Gray. We had no way of reading
their chips on
Telvarna
, and that’s what Ivard named them.”

The chief grunted softly. “This really is over my pay
grade.” He looked closely at the Aerenarch with a directness that Vahn had come
to expect from the kind of people who became wranglers. “But I won’t recommend
against it. That big cliff-cat is the healthiest I’ve ever seen, and the
mildest. The dogs could spend time with worse people on board, and I don’t mean
the other Rifters, necessarily.”

It was quickly arranged, permission coming back immediately
from the XO. Both Vahn and the chief were surprised when Brandon insisted on
delivering the dogs himself. “I owe those Rifters my life,” he said simply.

Vahn had little time to consider this statement. A transtube
took them quickly to the brig.

“Level 3, block 5,” the watch officer said. “Here are your
mindblurs.”

A mild expression of distaste crossed Brandon’s face as the
man offered two bracelets. He shook his head. “We won’t need those.”

The officer glanced at Vahn, then shrugged as the Marine
nodded slightly, despite his misgivings.

Vahn indicated the way—the Aerenarch’s civ boswell wouldn’t
work here. As they walked on, the Aerenarch glanced back at the watch console.
“Seems to be a full house,” he commented. “Nukiel’s been busy.”

As so often happened, it was not a question, so no answer
was required. Still, Vahn was glad when they reached their destination, and the
Marines on guard saluted, then keyed the hatch open.

The Aerenarch paused to glance around swiftly. Vahn tried to
see the space the way he did: the main room was much like an ordinary rec room,
slightly smaller in dimension, featuring much the same scattering of tables,
library-and-game consoles, and a holo tank. Two rooms led off either side.
These Rifters had been given first-class accommodations compared to most of
their fellow scofflaws.

The inmates looked up at their entrance. Vahn stood just
inside the hatch at parade rest for just as long as it took for them to scan
him, and then jeeved.

“It’s the Arkad!” An amazingly pale, skinny adolescent jumped
up from one of the game consoles. And Trev and Gray!”

Brandon released the dogs, who bounded over to the boy—
Ivard
—and
gamboling about him in an ecstasy of sniffing. Vahn was startled to hear the
boy sniff repeatedly as well, his upper lip wrinkled up and his mouth agape.

“Come to gloat?” a small blond female asked, her face and
voice edgy. She did not rise from her chair.

Neither did the heavy man by the vid tank, or the tall,
dark-haired woman at another console. A tall man with Serapisti mourning braids
down his back did not move, either, but his posture went still with the poise
of an Ulanshu master, and his gaze was unblinking.

The lack of polite usage jarred at Vahn, but the Aerenarch
did not react, even when Ivard bounced near him, still sniffing audibly, and
reached a skinny freckled hand to pat his face and then his arm.

“Came to deliver the dogs,” the Aerenarch said. “They’ll be
living here with Ivard.”

“Br-r-r-rp! Blat,” the boy gibbered, waving his arms in
fluttering movements. Then he flushed and hunched his shoulders. “Sorry. It
just comes out sometimes.” His face brightened. “Are they really going to stay
here?”

“Really. I’ll come every day to take them for walks.”

“But—”

The Aerenarch gripped the boy by his thin shoulders. “I walk
the halls in perfect freedom,” he said, so softly that Vahn might not have
heard it without the augmentation devices implanted in his mastoids. Vahn felt
a lightning jolt down his nervous system when without any warning two small
white figures glided from one of the rooms, their twiggy feet scratching the
deck plates.

Eya’a
. Scuttlebutt said their sudden appearance had
been the occasion of a heated argument between the Chief Wrangler and the XO. As
newly-discovered sophonts, not yet neatly categorized by the bureaucracy on
Arthelion, the Standing Orders accorded them automatic ambassadorial rank, but
they didn’t stray from the brig. Apparently only the Rifter tempath could
communicate with them.
I wonder if they even know it’s a brig?

The Aerenarch was on the move, and Vahn had to pay
attention. But Brandon just walked around to look at each player’s game set.
Then he turned to the big man—Montrose.

“Anything I can try to get you?”

Montrose shrugged massive shoulders, his ugly face amused. “I’d
ask for a chess set, but no one here shares my enthusiasm. Fortunately, the
ship’s music collection is unclassified.” He waved at the library console.

“Jaim?” The Aerenarch turned to the Serapisti.

The man looked down at his hands, tense and flat on the
table. Vahn felt readiness for action tighten his back muscles; the man looked
on the verge of flight, or fight. But he looked up, and then down again at his
empty hands, and merely shook his head.

“Ask ‘em why we can’t have Lokri with us,” the little blonde
put in. “And what’s this blunge about going to Desrien?”

“I know little more than you right now,” said Brandon. “I
expect I’ll learn more sometime before we arrive.” The captain’s delay in
questioning the Aerenarch about his escape from Arthelion and subsequent
adventures had the ship abuzz with speculation, although the general judgment
was universal: Politics.

The Aerenarch stepped back. “Vi’ya?”

Large, dense black eyes lifted in a face otherwise smooth
and cold.

Vahn had spotted the Dol’jharian the moment he entered the
suite. The woman was tall, with a strong build. There was grace in the line of
her neck, and in one visible hand; he recognized that she, too, knew Ulanshu
kinesics.
And a tempath.
A lethal combination. He wished he’d taken the
mindblur, and then wondered if she’d detected his unease. Her face was as unreadable
as stone

“The Chief Wrangler tells me that Lucifur is well—he’s
adopted the junior officers for the duration,” the Aerenarch said.

“I know.” She turned back to her console.

The Aerenarch faced Vahn, smiling with faint inquiry. They
left.

o0o

It had taken
Grozniy
a while to find the first
rendezvous tacponder at Arthelion. The usual fivespace attractors that made
navigation far easier—of which there were very few this far out—were too likely
to be watched.