Sword of the Lamb (36 page)

This meeting was an error, but neither she nor Ben had succeeded in convincing Andreas Riis of that. He didn’t understand the capacities of the human mind in the pursuit of power.

Dr. Radek understood them; she was trained for that. Now, as Andreas outlined the situation, she studied the other councilors, analyzing eye movements, gestures, postures. Yet she seemed to be listening attentively, just as she seemed entirely at ease. She wore the practical slacsuit that was standard garb in Fina, and indulged her feminine vanity only in the arrangement of her silver hair: thick, shining braids coiled at the crown of her head, emphasizing her long neck and the patrician features that hinted at uncommon beauty in her youth.

Her gaze rested briefly on Andreas Riis, and she sighed. She couldn’t be angry with him, even recognizing the dangers he courted in calling this meeting. As chairman of the Council, the decision was his to make, and this development was not only unprecedented, but vitally important to the future of the Society. It was reasonable enough that the full Council should be apprised of it.

At least she’d argued him into asking contingency conditioning of the councilors. That would limit their capacity to talk about, or act upon, anything transpiring here.

Half a saint, Rich had called Andreas, and all a scientist in the fullest meaning of the word; the face of an ascetic, his hair white—although it had been dark when Erica first came to Fina, as hers had been—his eyes startlingly black, quick, questioning, yet gently naive; a genius who regularly dealt in concepts far beyond the scope of most minds, yet he didn’t understand something so simple as ambition.

Her eyes shifted to the man who sat on Andreas’s right, separated from her by Ben Venturi’s empty chair. Predis Ussher, Chief of Communications. And perhaps a Lord’s son. She watched Ussher, noting the tight lines around his mouth, the narrowing of the indigo eyes that provided a striking color contrast to his long, red hair. He was on his guard; there was little to be read in his face.

Her gaze moved to Andreas’s left, to Emeric Garris, Commander of Fleet Operations, whose features were all too readable. He was skeptical; a wily old soldier whose face bore the scar of a past battle in a white line angling across his right eye.

On Emeric’s left, John M’Kim sat frowning, arms folded, narrow shoulders tense. The eternal accountant, head of Supply and Maintenance. His thin face displayed suspicion and vague bewilderment. Andreas was talking about something that couldn’t be reduced to orderly columns of figures, and M’Kim was uncomfortable.

They were all uncomfortable, even Marien Dyce, Chief of Computer Systems, whose sturdy figure and matronly features always made her seem immune to uncertainty. A charter member like Andreas and Emeric Garris; half a century in Fina, but the old thinking habits still held. She could only regard this development with misgivings, but no doubt she’d respond with some awe in the Lord’s presence. They were all Fesh at heart. Even Predis Ussher.

Erica looked toward the monitors at Ben Venturi. He stood with the weight of his rangy body balanced equally on both feet. Tense. She’d long ago become accustomed to seeing
Major
Venturi’s black SSB uniform in this stronghold of the Phoenix—he didn’t always have time to change on his way to or from his SSB duties in Leda—but at the moment he looked very much the part: the short-cropped dark hair, the broad, tough face with the slightly flattened nose, the gray-green eyes with their habitual squint of suspicion.

Ben was worried, and with good reason. But it was his nature to worry; it was one of the attributes that made him so successful at his double life. Major Venturi was also Commander of Security and Intelligence for the Phoenix. Erica saw the reactive tightening of his shoulders, the unconscious tilt of his head toward the ’ceiver in his ear.

“Andreas, he’s in contact with the flagship. Emergency frequency.”

Erica said, “Switch it to the room speakers, Ben.”

His hand moved to the console, and the speakers came to life with a shirr of static. It wasn’t necessary to ask for silence; the only sounds emerged from the speakers, a disembodied dialogue interspersed with dots and dashes of static. She listened intently, eyes closed against visual distraction.

The flagship was still in SynchShift, but the Scout was in another continuum, plummeting toward the night-shadowed face of Pollux’s Selamin Sea. It would touch down at a point near the equator, out of range of Fina’s radar screens. Only one of the voices interested her, although she automatically assessed Commander Todd’s for any suspicion or doubt. There was none. Captain Woolf’s performance was faultless, and she smiled to herself, thinking that Master Jeans would grasp avidly at such talent for his theater group.

“Scout to flagship. Are you
receiving
?”

“Yes, Captain. Can’t you hear me?”

“The ejection switch. Commander, it—it’s jammed.”

Not too much fear displayed yet; there was more anxiety in Todd’s voice.

“Your altitude—what’s your altitude?”

“Altitude twenty thousand meters. Dropping. I’m . . . it’s nineteen-five—”

“Captain, you’ve got to establish an orbital attitude.”

“The steering vanes are out. I
can’t
.” The fear was surfacing now. For perhaps thirty seconds, the signal from the Scout was drowned in static, and Todd’s voice became higher pitched with every one of those seconds.

“Captain? Captain Woolf, are you receiving?
Captain
?” And finally the voice from the Scout. “Yes, I—I’m receiving. Reception weak.”

“The ’chutes! Hit the ’chute lever!”

“No, I’ve tried that. It won’t move!”

There was desperation in his voice now. Still, Erica found herself thinking how much like Rich’s it was. She forced the memories back; they disrupted her concentration. Yet they were hard to put down.

Erica, a death pledge. See to my brother. If he needs an alternative, he must have it
. . . .

“. . . ten thousand meters. Commander, the heat shields—they aren’t holding!”

“The auxiliary guidejets, my lord. You
must
slow your entry speed!”

My lord
. The Commander was forgetting himself. But that wasn’t surprising. He was listening helplessly to the death of the first born of Phillip Woolf.

“I
can’t
! The controls—” A burst of static, then the blurred voice, “The controls—they’re all out.
All
of them!” There was a chilling hopelessness in his voice, but with it a defiant rage. What came next was a command, not a plea.

“Commander, tell my father—
sabotage
! I’ve been—”

“My lord!”

“
Tell
him! Selasis!” The name was vicious in its bitterness. “Selasis did this!
Karlis Selasis
—” Abruptly, the transmission ended, but not before the beginning of a cry of agony could be heard.

Erica Radek let her breath out in a long sigh. He had cut it off at exactly the right point. That aborted cry left a great deal to the imagination.

Rich’s words echoed in her mind.
I promised him a cause, but he could be a key for you, a key to unlock closed doors
.

He
would
be a key.

The objective tests of screening would still be necessary, but she knew that data would only support her conviction. It was rooted in that accusation against Karlis Selasis. That hadn’t been in the script.

Ben Venturi switched off the speakers, his quiet words loud in a stunned silence.

“I’ve got a subtug waiting in the touch-down area. I’ll trans out to it and be back within half an hour.”

No one moved except Andreas, and he only nodded.

“Very good, Ben. Bring him directly here.”

Erica caught Ben’s eye. Another error. But Andreas thought it reasonable to let the councilors question this unusual recruit. And again, it
was
reasonable—on the surface.

Erica glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes. She wondered if something had gone wrong. The pickup would be difficult in midsea, and the Scout would have to be sunk, but its ejection capsule kept intact in case it was needed, and it would all have to be done quickly to avoid Confleet observation. But she was most concerned about the stunner. Ben insisted on giving Alexand a short-term stunner for the return trans; he refused to risk revealing the MT to any nonmember, even if he professed to have faith in memory blocks. The stunner was safe enough, and the usual recovery period for this particular drug was less than five minutes. But there was always the possibility of allergic reaction.

Then she forced the thought out of her mind. Nothing had gone wrong. Ben would have let them know.

There had been a period of confusion in the Council room after Ben’s departure. The councilors had been caught up in the drama played out in the skies above the Selamin Sea, even knowing it was a ruse, and she had no doubt it would be entirely convincing to the Concord. A spate of almost aimless querying marked the councilors’ recovery. Emeric Garris was especially interested in the fact that
Captain
Woolf was a Confleet Academy graduate, which didn’t please Ussher, who was cultivating Jan Barret, Emeric’s obvious successor in Fleet Operations. Andreas answered their questions patiently, but when Ussher began dominating the inquiry, he unobtrusively surrendered the floor to Erica.

He had promised her that. She had some leverage; Lord Alexand had asked that only those members who knew Rich’s identity should know his. The only members in Fina who knew about Rich were Andreas, Ben, and herself. Andreas felt a little guilty about revealing Alexand’s identity to the other four councilors, and she’d played on that, forcing on him the demand for contingency conditioning and the promise that he’d let her deal with Predis Ussher.

At first there were a few more questions from the others, but finally it became a dialogue. They talked across Ben’s empty chair, Ussher outwardly cool, Erica noting the indices of tension under the facade. She would not reveal Alexand’s entroit into the Phoenix. Ussher probed and pried, but she wouldn’t give him Richard Lamb’s name. Instead, she concentrated on the voluminous data available in the memfiles on Lord Alexand, noting that he had been under close observation for years and given a CP-One rating.

“He
asked
for an alternative,” she said, meeting Ussher’s direct gaze, “of someone he knew to be a Phoenix member. In fact, he knew of this person’s association with us for the last three years.” She paused to let that sink in. “He didn’t betray this person partly because he hoped the Phoenix
did
offer an alternative to a third dark age; he wanted to find out if there was any truth in that hope. We aren’t dealing with the usual shallow-minded Lordling here. His attitudes are diametrically opposed to those of most of his peers. In that, he’s very much Galinin’s grandson.”

She left the opening purposely, knowing Ussher would leap into it. He raised an eyebrow, sending Marien Dyce and John M’Kim a faint, almost conspiratorial smile.

“I’m gratified that his attitudes are so liberal, considering he
is
Galinin’s grandson.” He turned on Erica, the smile gone. “Not only his grandson, but heir to the Chairmanship, as well as the First Lordship of DeKoven Woolf. Why would a First Lord want to join the Phoenix?”

“Because he
isn’t
yet a First Lord, nor is he Galinin’s heir. Phillip Woolf is Galinin’s heir.”

“Well, it’s the same thing in the end.”

“No, it isn’t. I might note,” she went on, glancing at Marien, who was frowning and on the verge of a question, “that we’ve taken into consideration the fact that Alexand is presently sole heir to DeKoven Woolf. However, Lady Elise is still within her child-bearing years, and we have no evidence that she’s incapable of having more children. We checked that as thoroughly as possible. Otherwise, we couldn’t accept Alexand, nor, judging from his responses to his contacts, would he consider joining us. That ‘dying’ accusation against Karlis Selasis is evidence of his concern for his House. It will put Orin Selasis, the greatest threat to DeKoven Woolf, on the defensive. Woolf and Galinin can keep him reeling for a good year with that. By then the Woolfs can have another heir on the way.”

Marien nodded absently, and Erica turned to Ussher.

“Back to your question. The Lord Alexand is neither First Lord nor heir to the Chairmanship; he’s heir to Phillip Woolf. Unfortunately, he and his father have come to an irreversible parting of the ways. This makes him politically impotent. We knew he wouldn’t accept that. The question we had to consider was
how
he would establish his political potency. Obviously, if he strikes out on his own, he could be a disastrously disruptive factor.”

A tinge of red moved across Ussher’s face.

“And are we reduced to acting as agents in family vendettas now?”

“That certainly isn’t our intention,” Erica replied soberly. “If Lord Alexand expects that of us, it will be apparent in the screening tests. In that case, we can’t accept him, despite the potentials he offers. We’ll have to find other means of dealing with him as a disruptive factor.”

“What do you mean by the potentials he offers?”

“At this point, we can’t even be sure of his acceptability.” She paused; Ussher was waiting for a more specific answer, but she chose not to oblige him.

It was Emeric Garris who said in an awed tone, “Holy God, an heir to the Chairmanship for Phase I.”

Leave it to Emeric to spell it out. Dyce and M’Kim were equally awed, but made no comment. Nor did Ussher.

Erica smiled. “Emeric, as I said, we can’t even be sure of his acceptability yet.”

“No, of course not. Still . . .”

Ussher didn’t move except to turn his head toward Andreas. He wanted an answer from him, not from Erica.

“Dr. Riis, if this . . . latest recruit does prove to be acceptable, what about the Peladeen Alternative?”

She was amazed he put it so baldly, and so were the others. At this point, the available alternatives for Phase I were never discussed, and few members outside the Council were aware of them; it was too early to focus the hopes of the members on any one plan—or person. Perhaps Ussher hoped to catch Andreas off guard, but he was never
on
guard, and the question didn’t even seem to surprise him.