Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) (47 page)
Read Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) Online
Authors: M.K. Wren
Tags: #FICTION/Science Fiction/General
“They were very careful to keep me in good health. As for my mental state—well, I have a great deal to catch up with, and I don’t even know where I am. But I’m quite clear, Alex. I’m all right.”
“Thank the God . . .” The pain came in a new surge that cut his breath off momentarily.
“Brother, it’s done.” Jael’s voice, quiet but insistent. “Come on, we’ll get you to the old Ser’s infirmary.”
Erica seemed to materialize out of the tidal mists, her gray eyes full of fear now, still wet with tears of joy quenched. Alex was aware of an anxious quiet, the sounds of jubilation silenced, the homecoming spoiled. But it didn’t matter. Not even the pain mattered. Andreas was free—
“Commander!” A voice dim in his ears. “ ‘Zion, its—
Commander
!”
The monitors. Only a few meters away. The voice wafted on the currents, carrying an uncomprehended alarm. Something that had nothing to do with Andreas, or himself, or that arm. It was still covered; no one could see it.
Ron Letz at the PubliCom screen. That was the voice Alex heard. His time sense was dysfunctioning; even sound seemed slowed by the miasma in which he was immersed.
He managed to form the words. “What is it, Letz?”
“A special news brief. It’s the Lady—”
“
You damned fool
!” Ben lunging through the crowd, pushing Letz aside; Ben reaching for the controls, turning off the screen.
But not soon enough. In the split-second before it went dark, Alex saw a face on it; recognized it.
Adrien.
For a moment he blacked out, but didn’t fall. Adrien. A news brief.
Why
?
“Turn on that screen.”
Ben gazing at him in stricken appeal. “Alex, please . . .”
“Turn it
on
!” He started toward the console, but Jael held him back.
“It can wait, brother. For the God’s sake—
Alex
!”
He pushed Jael away, teeth clenched against a cry of pain, swayed the few measureless steps to the console. Beyond the quiet in the cavern he heard a sound. A dull thunder; a beating of wings; black wings. His left hand went out, caught the edge of the console counter, and that was all that kept him from falling.
The switch. His right arm wouldn’t move. He would fall without his left hand braced on the counter, and his right arm wouldn’t move. He would pay any price in agony, but it refused to function.
“Turn it on!” He stared at the black space. “
Jael
!”
Jael was still at his side. His hesitation was brief, even if it seemed endless. Finally, his hand went to the controls. He said nothing.
The image was a blur of color. Alex fought to bring it into focus, finding the effort of simultaneously assimilating the words nearly beyond him.
Concordia. The DeKoven Woolf Estate. He was seeing himself on the screen; himself in that other world, that other time. Adrien was at his side in a gown of gossamer gold, a blue diamond at her throat. The betrothal ball. . . .
It was incomprehensible, as were the next images. The cathedron in Helen. Adrien on Karlis Selasis’s arm, walking down the steps to the ’car . . . falling; fainting.
“. . . her marriage to Lord Karlis Selasis. The Lady Adrien’s tragic death is reported to be a suicide. . . .”
Suicide.
He stared at the screen; a newscaster wearing an expression of earnest concern. The dull thunder was louder now. Black wings beating against steel bars.
“. . . according to sources within the House of Badir Selasis, the Lady Adrien’s last words were, ‘Alexand, wait for me. . . ..’ Referring, it is assumed, to the late Lord—”
“
No
!”
Alex reached for the controls with his left hand and almost fell. Jael caught him, snapped an order to someone. The screen went dark.
Suicide. Wait for me. . . .
That was malicious, sordidly malicious, the product of a malign mind.
He turned, searching the vague blurs for one face, finding it close to him.
“Erica, what . . . what
happened
?”
Unjust, bitterly unjust that he should demand that answer of her. She deserved no part of his grief; she’d already shared too much of it. Perhaps that was why he turned to her now.
“Alex, we’re not sure yet. You must understand—”
“When? When . . . did you . . . ?”
“Only a few hours ago. You’d already lifted off for Pendino. We still don’t have the full story, and we can’t be sure—”
“Val—what did . . .” The pain was pulling at him as if he were in a centrifuge; he could barely hear for the pounding thunder. “What did Val say?”
“One of the novices at Saint Petra’s was . . . killed. But the Conpol investigators took the Supra’s word on the identification without question. Alex, we don’t have positive identification of the victim yet.”
Suicide . . . the Lady Adrien’s tragic death . . . sources within the House
. . .
“But Selasis does, Erica.
Selasis
does! The Moon Princess . . . Elda Ternin—is she alive?”
Erica’s eyes clouded, and it seemed a long time before she answered.
“Our agents couldn’t save her. It happened too fast.”
“She’s . . . dead, then.”
Erica’s voice, aching and tight. “Yes, Elda’s dead.”
“Adrien is dead.” He was surprised he could speak the words, surprised it could be expressed so simply.
“Alex, Selasis might have made a mistake—”
He stared at Erica. Did she think Selasis would order Elda killed if he weren’t sure beyond the least doubt?
It was coming. He heard the rasping clamor under the thunder. He pushed away from Jael, away from Erica, and for a span of seconds or hours or days, time had no relevancy, stood swaying in the wind of those unseen wings, looking up into megatons of revolving blackness.
The Lord is my shepherd
. . .
Adrien is dead.
And why was it that the image that shaped itself against the blackness wasn’t Adrien’s face, but Rich’s?
He leadeth me beside the still waters
. . .
Adrien is dead.
And why was it that the sound of bright laughter he heard wasn’t Adrien’s, but his mother’s? Elise Galinin Woolf with her bronze hair trapping the sunlight.
He restoreth my soul
. . .
Adrien is dead.
A death is one bead on a prayer chain; to read each bead is to read every death you have ever known, every death you will ever know.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
. . .
Adrien is dead.
The last bead is your own death.
Adrien is dead
.
The pain came in sudden, brutal surges, and it could no longer be called pain. It was agony, and he knew it, knew the look of it; he’d seen enough of it. The shuddering of flesh, the wracking muscular spasms, the gaping mouth, every breath a choked cry. The black angel beat at its cage, smashing its pinions against the steel bars. The locks were shivering to powder. They would not hold.
. . . my cup runneth over
. . .
A sanna for my passing, my friends. Gentle hands easing him down, whispering voices floating him into darkness. The wind blew chill through the caverns of his skull. He found Rich; found him lying forever locked in a frozen piece of time, like a sea bird, broken and still.
Where was Adrien?
Did she lie somewhere, a Selaneen doll smashed on some obdurate pavement? All he could see was her hand, that ivory hand that seemed born of the imagination of an artisan of a vanished dynasty.
The locks did not hold.
You’re free! Damn you
—
you’re free
!
He cried out, screamed in terror, but every sound was silenced in vacuum.
ACOLYTE: (Bond Religion) A student and assistant to a Bond Shepherd; acolytes are chosen by the Shepherds and generally succeed them on their deaths.
AGE OF RIGHTS: Age of legal maturity for Elite; it is celebrated on the twentieth birthday.
AIRCARS: Short-range, airborne vehicles powered by nulgrav and generally operated on Trafficon grids. Most personally owned ‘cars belong to the Elite or the Concord or Church, although they may be flown by Fesh in their work. Only fifteen percent of the Fesh own ‘cars, the remainder depending for personal transportation on Robek Transystems air taxis, subtrains, or intercity shuttles.
Types of aircars:
AIRDRAY
: A large vehicle designed for transporting freight. ‘Drays range in capacity from ten to 100 dekatons.
AIRSCOOTER
: A small open ‘car with a maximum seating capacity of four, generally operated within factories, mines, etc.
AIRSHUTTLE
: A vehicle used for transporting large numbers of people. ‘Shuttles range in capacity from fifty to 200 passengers.
AIRTAXI
: Two- to six-passenger rental ‘cars equipped with voice-responsive autonav systems. ‘Taxis are activated automatically when money is placed in a designated slot. Cost of ‘taxi rental is based on the distance traversed.
ALLEGIANCE: A permanent indentureship to the House (or to the Concord or Church) into which Bonds or Fesh are born; that is, the House to which their parents, particularly fathers, are “allieged.” The latter term is generally used in reference to Fesh; Bonds are termed “Bonded” to a House. “Allegiance shifts” from one House to another, or to the Concord or Church, are enacted only on approval of the First Lord of the House.
ALLEGIANCE BADGE: A small cloth insignia bearing the crest of the House (or of the Concord or Church) to which a Fesh or Bond is allieged; generally worn on the left shoulder of an outer garment, such as a cloak or cape.
ALL-GOD: The supreme deity of the Mezionic pantheon.
ANTISEP SHEET: (Medical) A thin plasex sheet chemically treated to act as an antiseptic barrier for the protection of open wounds prior to treatment.
AQ: Aptitude Quotient. A statistical profile, based on standardized test scores, of an individual’s vocational aptitudes.
ARCHIVES: An agency of the Concord authorized to file and preserve historic documents and to serve as a data storage and dispersal center for public records and documents. It has close ties with the University System and its Library, but is a discrete agency.
ATMOBUBBLE: An energy field in which the charged interface forms a “bubble” that contains interior atmosphere while excluding exterior atmosphere (or vacuum); it may also be used to selectively exclude particular radiation wavelengths.
AUTONAV SYSTEM: Automatic computerized navigation and guidance system for ships or vehicles.
AUTOSPENSER: Generally called a “ ’spenser.” An automatic dispenser, usually for food or beverages.
BACTERIOSTATIC GAUZE: (Medical) A porous fabric, chemically treated to inhibit bacterial growth, used for bandaging wounds or incisions.
BARRENGORSE: A spiny-lobed, photosynthetic organism, generally classified as a plant, native to the Barrens of Castor and one of the predominant species in the Marching, or Pygmy, Forests. It is a hydrotropic “migrator,” moving by a process of rapid growth in low-lying, branching tendrils on the surface, and in deep-probing roots below the surface, both of which are abandoned as quickly as new shoots and roots grow, allowing the plant to follow its underground water sources.
BARRENS: The minimally fertile temperate zone of Castor between the icecaps and the equatorial desert, or Midhar.
BASIC SCHOOL: The educational system for Fesh; specifically, a ten-year mandatory program administered by the Houses (or the Concord or Church), generally following guidelines established by the University System’s Department of Education. Additional one- to three-year vocational training programs are also provided by House Basic School systems, although specialized training is often a prerogative of professional Guilds.
BEAMED POWER: Solar energy collected on orbiting satellites (or on surface power-receptor stations on the Centauran Inner Planets), then transmitted to planetside receptors in the form of microwave beams, which power the high-gain kinetic (HGK) generators that produce electrical current.
BELNONG: A vertebrate triped native to Castor, a symbiont with various photosynthetic organisms of the Marching Forests. It is most notable for its capacity to regenerate itself from as little as ten percent of its body, a process that provides one means of species reproduction, although it is also trisexual and reproduces oviparously. The eggs are incubated by certain species of photosynthetic symbionts.
BEYOND: (Bond Religion) The “Realm Beyond the Farthest Star.” The Bond equivalent of the Heavenly Realm, residence of the All-God and Holy Mezion and the saints, and place of reward after death for the souls of persons deemed worthy.
BEYOND SOUL: (Bond Religion) A manifestation of a dead person assumed to reside in the Beyond; a ghost.
BIOMONITOR: (Medical) A device for monitoring vital signs generally fitted in a “biomonitor cuff,” which is attached to the patient’s wrist. Its signals can also be displayed on a “biomonitor screen.”
BLESSED: (Bond Religion)
n
. Living persons regarded as especially favored or in some way singled out by the All-God and Holy Mezion.
BOARD OF CENSORS: A committee made up of ten members of the Court of Lords, each of whom serves a five-year term. Its function is to designate Priority ratings for any material published, exhibited, performed, etc. in the Concord. Its prerogatives include destroying or prohibiting the publication, exhibition, or performance of material it judges subversive or immoral and prosecuting persons or even Houses guilty of publishing, etc., or in any way disseminating condemned material. Penalties range from fines to execution.
BOARD OF FRANCHISES: A committee made up of ten members of the Court of Lords, each of whom serves a five-year term. Its function is to distribute and allot House franchises, and to mediate disputes involving franchises. Its judgments are legally binding, and a Lord found guilty of franchise infringement is subject to fines or even imprisonment and forfeiture of First Lordship.
BOARD OF SUCCESSION: A committee made up of ten members of the Court of Lords, each of whom serves a five-year term. Its function is to oversee House successions and to determine whether they are consistent with the successional restrictions delineated in the Concord Charter. Lords judged guilty of perpetrating illegal succession are subject to imprisonment and removal, with their heirs, from their House’s succession.
BOND: The term refers to the class or to individuals within it. Bonds are the lowest class in the Concord, an illiterate, slave/serf class comprising approximately seventy percent of the population and functioning as an unskilled labor pool.
BOOKTAPE: A lengthy literary work encoded on tape, from which the text and/or illustrations are displayed on a reading screen.
BORASIL: Boron, silicon, and oxygen glass; in spun form, it is used as a protective and insulating coating.
CAFFAY: A beverage brewed by various methods, most of them involving steam, from the roasted beans of the coffee plant. (“Coffee” has come to refer to a beverage made with synthesized flavoring. Like the original, it also contains caffeine.)
CANTAS: Also “High Cantas.” Religious ceremonies celebrated in both Orthodox and Bond Churches commemorating various sacred events or seasons.
CARRAMINX: An organism native to Castor classified in popular terminology as a “plant-animal.” It is photosynthetic and reproduces by seeding, but is rootless and mobile, has a rudimentary nervous system, and five compound eyes responsive to both light and color.
CENTAURI SYSTEM: The planetary system of the star Alpha Centauri A. The seven planets in the system are: Perseus, Dionysus, and Pan, the Inner Planets; Pollux and Castor, the Twin Planets; and Tityus and Hercules, the Outer Planets.
The Inner Planets are all small (Perseus, the largest, has a diameter of approximately 4,000 km), rocky, geologically inactive bodies devoid of atmosphere. The distance between their orbits is relatively small, making them markedly erratic.
The Twin Planets, Castor and Pollux, were so named because they are similar in size (approximately 9,000 and 13,500 km in diameter respectively) and revolve around a common center of gravity in a single orbit. Pollux has an atmosphere similar to Terra’s and is even more an oceanic planet. On Castor liquid water is found under the surface, depending on the season and latitude, but above the surface it is either vaporized or frozen in the large icecaps. Castor’s thin atmosphere is predominantly nitrogen and carbon dioxide with less than 5.3 percent oxygen.
The Outer Planets, Tityus and Hercules, are gaseous giants comparable to the Solar System’s three ringed giants, and the main constituents of their atmospheres are hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia. The diameter of Hercules, the seventh and largest Centauran planet, is only a thousand kilometers less than Jupiter’s. Tityus, Centauri’s only ringed planet, rivals Saturn in the extent and complexity of its ring system. Hercules has ten small, icy satellites; Tityus only five.
CHAIRMAN OF THE DIRECTORATE: The Lord elected by the Directorate (although the position is in practice hereditary) as the presiding officer of the Directorate of the Concord of the Loyal Houses.
CHAN D’AMOR: A legendary love story, sometimes in the form of a poem or song.
CHRONO-SPATIAL EVERSION: A principle of the Drakonian Theory applying to time/space modification.
CIRCLE: In fencing, the area to which combatants are confined in a formal fencing match. The established dimension is a diameter of five meters, the perimeter of which is usually marked with a luminescent, photosensitive line; a bell sounds if a combatant steps on or over the line, and a point is awarded his opponent.
CLARIPIPES: (Musical) A small wind instrument made up of twelve metallic tubes of graduated lengths.
CLAVALIER: (Musical) A large percussion stringed instrument played by manipulating a keyboard. The true clavalier employs no electronic amplification.
COGNATE HOUSE: A House related to another by common ancestry.
COMARIS: An herb used as a seasoning, derived from the leaves of a plant (the comara) native to Castor.
COMCENTER: Communications center. A central terminal through which all communications and information pertinent to a particular type of operation are channeled.
COMCONSOLE: A desk-sized unit equipped with various communication devices, such as vidicom, intercom, lettape screen and recorder, reading screen, memfile inputs, and holojector.
COMMUTRONICS: A term encompassing all aspects of the communications industry.
COMPOUND: (Bond) A housing complex for Bonds providing living quarters, dining halls, and all other basic needs. Compounds are invariably walled and each houses eight to ten thousand Bonds.
COMPSYSTEM: Computer system.
‘COM SEQ: Pocketcom sequence. The number sequence denoting the microfrequency assigned to an individual’s personal pocketcom.
COMSYSTEM: Communications system.
CON-CONDITIONING: (Phoenix) Contingency conditioning. After an initial “set,” and with the consent of the subject, the operator can make a conditioned command without going through the usual process of establishing a receptivity state for conditioning.
CONCORD OF THE LOYAL HOUSES: An alliance of Houses founded in 3105, “Loyal” indicating their opposition to the rebellious Houses of the Mankeen League. It is generally referred to as “the Concord,” which designates both the alliance itself and the administrative institution created by and governing it. The latter is to a great degree independent of the member Houses and wields some authority over them, although its power is ultimately derived from common consent of the Houses.
CONCORD: Also “ ’Cord.” Monetary unit printed on six by ten centimeter vellam sheets in denominations of one-tenth, one-half, one, ten, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, etc., up to one million.
CONCORDIA: Capital city of the Concord, located on the southern coast of Conta Austrail, Terra.
CONDITIONING: (Phoenix) A method of controlling another person’s behavior and memory by means of hypnotic techniques augmented by electronic manipulation of brainwave patterns.
CONFLEET: The military branch of the Concord.
CONFLEET WING: A major Confleet tactical division made up of a Command Unit consisting of one TC Corsair flagship with a complement of ten Corvets and eighty-nine Falcons, plus five units, each of which consists of nine subunits of nineteen Falcons under the command of one Corvet.
CON-LEVELS: (Phoenix) Conditioning levels. Four recognized levels indicating degrees of mental control over another person achieved through conditioning techniques.
CONMED: A branch of the Concord providing medical services and research and training facilities.
CONPOL: The police branch of the Concord.
CON-RAD: (Phoenix) A small transceiver worn in the ear and used for identifying fellow agents; it sets up a signal tone increasing in volume in ratio to its proximity to another con-rad on the same frequency.
CONSCRIPTS: Fesh given compulsory allegiance shifts from Houses to the Concord to fulfill tax levies.
