The Phoenix in Flight (39 page)

With a savage laugh that was frighteningly uncharacteristic,
the Krysarch raised his jac, as if in salute to his opponent, and triggered it
into the air. The beam lanced up into the rocky ceiling far overhead, provoking
a major collapse. The gaunt Rifter emitted a panicky shout and leapt forward
from his concealment as, with a thunderous roar, several tons of rock and
debris fell on him with deceptive low-gee slowness and smashed him to the
floor. Thick streams of blood slowly oozed out from between the rocks; with a
final gentle tapping a few pebbles rattled down the sides of the sudden cairn
marking the Rifter’s demise.

Silence fell, interrupted by the hissing moans of the
injured woman, and gasping struggles for breath from Deralze. Brandon crouched
above the guard’s body as Deralze tried to speak.

The bearded Rifter prodded Brandon with his jac. Osri
blinked in disbelief as Brandon swiveled about, fingers extended, and felled
the man with a high-level Ulanshu kinesic. Then the Krysarch turned back to
Deralze, ignoring the Rifters ranged a few paces away.

Brandon was sheltered one side by the jumble of debris that
had buried the gaunt Rifter—and his weapon pointed at the rocky roof directly
overhead.

Standoff. But only for Deralze and Brandon. Rough hands
dragged Osri to his feet and prodded him into the open.

o0o

Every aspect of the scene around Brandon lit with
sharp-edged clarity as the boiling red rage ebbed. He barely managed to
maintain a grip on his weapon as a wave of trembling seized him.

“Brandon,” Deralze whispered.

“We’ve got your friend,” shouted someone. “Throw down the
jac or we’ll fry him.”

Osri stumbled into the open, a jac-muzzle tracking him from
a crack in the cavern wall. The navigator stared dumbly at Brandon, his eyes
dull with fatigue and shock.

“Brandon. . .”

A peripheral flicker; Brandon whipped the jac over his
shoulder and triggered a blast. A Rifter jumped back into concealment with a
pained shout, his hair smoldering from the near miss.

“Keep them away or I’ll bring the whole damned cavern down
on us all,” Brandon shouted.

“Brandon... you... have... to know.” Lenic pressed both
hands against the charred ruin of his lower chest while blood bubbled between
his fingers. Brandon crouched next to him, tentatively reaching for the big
man’s hands, but Lenic jerked his head in negation.

“No,” he gasped. “If. I let go. Can’t talk.”

Lenic was preventing the collapse of his lungs by main
force.

“Listen. Markham. Asked me. Check on you. Like. I said. But
I... Plot.” His head jerked again. “I’m sorry. Trust him.” His head rolled
back, his lips tightening into rictus. “He didn’t know... Ivory...” His body
spasmed, then he relaxed into death.

Brandon’s vision narrowed, the cavern around him altering
into a shadowy half-existence filled with murmuring shades. Lenic’s face was
peaceful now, as though he had discharged a final obligation, but the half-seen
figures drifting through liminal space were unappeased, some disconsolate,
whispering of betrayal. A woman wept softly: a vision of blue-gray eyes framed
by auburn hair emerged, then faded.

A man’s voice next, cultured, speaking in measured tones
without words, then he was gone. Dark eyes in a dark face—the ring on his
finger pulsed with brief heat—then that one, too, vanished. Lenic’s tall,
broad-shouldered shade merged with the deepening shadows, abandoning Brandon
again, and he was alone.

Then the shadows coalesced into fathomless dark eyes.

Brandon beheld a tall woman dressed in a plain black
jumpsuit. She was dark, with smooth skin, slanted black eyes, and hip-length
black hair pulled back into a tail high on her head; her expression was cool
and composed.

She was not a shade, she was alive, waiting for him to
regain the here and now. Her hands were empty, relaxed at her sides.

“Markham,” he said—tried to say. His lips formed the word,
but no sound.

“Markham is dead,” she said, and meaning drained out of
life, and time, and space.

o0o

Markham is dead
. Osri’s knees weakened, and his back
crawled in anticipation of the blast that would end his life. There was nothing
to stop these savages from burning them down if Markham vlith-L’Ranja was dead,
and Brandon’s face had showed no sign of yielding when Osri’s captors had
shoved him into the open. Beyond action, even thought, Osri waited for death.

Brandon slowly stood up, the forgotten firejac loose in his
fingers. At a shuffle in the shadows the woman made a slight, sharp gesture of
command. The movement ceased.

“Dead?” repeated Brandon, his voice hoarse.

“He was betrayed and shot down a year ago by Hreem the
Faithless.” She paused. “He told me of you, Brandon nyr-Arkad. I will honor his
safe passage.” She gestured at the slowly crusting pool of blood leaking from
underneath the rock fall. “And you have done me a service here.” There was a
faint accent underlying her words, but Osri could not identify it.

The woman lifted the jac from the Krysarch’s unresisting
hand.

“Take Greywing to med and get someone with a dozer to scrape
up this mess.” She spoke past Brandon to the man with the beard, who had
struggled to his feet.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch,” came a husky female voice,
then the commanding one said, “Have someone deal with Paysud. He ran off down
adit three.”

Through his mind-throttling fatigue, Osri comprehended that
the woman had just won some sort of intra-group struggle.

Brandon made an abortive move, as if in protest.

“We will honor your friend as one of us,” she said,
motioning toward Deralze’s body, and Brandon relaxed.

Someone pushed Osri forward.

“Who’s this?” the woman asked. “A servant?”

Osri stiffened and immediately regretted it. “I am Osri
Ghettierus vlith-Omilov, Instructor of Navigation at the Minerva Naval
Academy.” He used his most plangent tone, as if disciplining an erring cadet,
but she showed no reaction.

“Come with me,” the woman said.

She walked out without waiting to see if they followed. Osri
glanced at Brandon, to find his grief smoothing into the bland mask of his
Douloi training.

Then two white figures glided from the shadows into the
light. Osri sustained yet another shock.

Disbelief—terror—recognition of those small figures with
short ice-white fur and huge, faceted eyes. Open mouths with tiny teeth shone blue
inside. The creatures had two arms, but the fingers were webbed at the base and
long and twiggy at the tips. They moved in unison, wearing identical
transparent garments, folded in a complicated pattern over one shoulder and
fastened at the waist by ornate jeweled belts.

Osri had seen them in a holo once: these child-sized
creatures with eyes like jewels were deadly psionic killers. They called
themselves Eya’a—a name chanted rather than spoken, with a glottal stop before
the last sighed vowel.

Osri dropped back a pace or two as the creatures glided
across the cavern and disappeared through the main archway. The woman followed
them. Osri lagged as much as he dared, his mouth dry from fear, and noticed
that the Rifters gave the beings wide berth as well.

When they reached the catwalk, the woman paused. The Eya’a
also halted, and the three stood in some sort of silent communication.

Osri closed his eyes, wishing that the booster had killed
them on impact. It would have been a cleaner death than what seemed imminent
here. Sounds forced his eyes open again. The Eya’a went on ahead.

The woman led Brandon and Osri to a small room rough-hewn
from living rock. The uneven ceiling curved a few feet above their heads, and
the stone walls displayed colorful tapestries from a variety of worlds, some in
patterns, others depicting mythological scenes. Several woven rugs had been
scattered over the melt-stone floor, and a low, carved darkwood table sat in
the center of the room with a bank of riotously embroidered velvet pillows
around it. The three glow-lamps that lit the room were supported by long,
curved, lily-shaped gold rods, and in a corner stood a detailed
jatta-
tooth
carving of a mythical beast, a winged feline of some sort, just taking
flight.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, seeming to have movement
and no weight; anger burned Osri as he wondered who the rightful owner of this
priceless ornament had been.

“Sit down,” the woman said. “I want to
talk before
deciding what’s to be done with you.”

Brandon sank down, stiff and wincing, and Osri reluctantly
joined him. As he did so, he was unpleasantly startled as the Eya’a pair glided
into the room. They shouldered the edge of one of the patterned tapestries
aside and disappeared behind it. The woman paid no attention to them as she
opened a paak-wood cabinet situated in a carved alcove, and brought out a
crystal decanter and glasses.

“Something to drink?” She sat across from them, and set
decanter and glasses on the table.

Osri watched in tight-lipped disgust as Brandon reached for
the decanter and poured out a full glass. The woman turned to Osri, brows
raised slightly. He made a curt gesture of refusal. With a faint, disinterested
shrug, she poured herself some of the wine, which somehow had a green odor, faintly
sweet and fresh.

Brandon drank his down and poured himself some more before
he said to woman, who had waited, her expression as unreadable as his. “Who are
you?” Brandon asked. “You are in command here?”

“I am.” She tipped her head back toward the Eya’a and added,
“They call me Vi’ya.” That peculiar accent was there again, very faint, in the
way she pronounced the name: a nearly voiceless
th
between the
i
and
the
y.
No one else Osri heard subsequently pronounced it that way. They
used the glottal stop. “‘The One Who Hears.’” Her lips curved in a faint smile.

“You assumed command after Markham’s death, I take it?”
Brandon sounded as polite as courtier at a Douloi reception.

“He left his organization to me.” Her dark eyes flicked from
him to Osri and back. “You witnessed the last of the resistance today. Old
Jakarr was a fair pilot but, despite his ambitions, a poor leader.”

“And a poor follower.” Brandon smiled, then sat back against
his pillows as he sipped at his wine.

“And a poor follower,” the woman repeated, her lips quirking
in what might have been taken as a smile. But there was little humor in it, and
none at all in her watchful black eyes.

Osri shifted uncomfortably on his cushion, trying
unsuccessfully to find a position that didn’t hurt. He feared if he sat too
long he’d be unable to get up.

Once again, unbelievably, they had been spared from imminent
destruction. He didn’t trust these Rifters much past his next breath, but it
was unlikely even Rifters would bother talking to people they planned to shoot
out of hand.

So what to do now?

Brandon raised his glass to study the amber liquid against
one of the glow-lamps. Osri shifted again on his pillows, this time in impotent
but growing irritation. Brandon seemed to recollect his presence and said
helpfully, “Have some, Osri. Probably need it,
after that flight.”

“I do not wish for any liquor,” Osri stated shortly.

Brandon transferred his gaze to the ceiling and said
musingly, “Cool... light... not unlike an old mead, but slightly herbal in
flavor. Dark amber color... definitely not synthetic. What is it?” He turned to
Vi’ya.

“It’s called simply Locke, and a number—ILVI, I believe.
From Cincinnatus Secundus. I am told it is regarded highly in that octant.”

“New to me.” Brandon regarded the beautifully cut glass in
appreciation, then drank. “Where’d you find it?”

“Rifthaven.” Amusement narrowed her eyes at the sour look
Osri gave her. She added, “The chef on
Telvarna
bought it for Markham
after his first successful run.”

Brandon promptly launched into a comparison with other fine
wines, as if they were at an afternoon gathering in a
jumba
on
Nyangathanka. Osri gritted his teeth, trying to suppress his growing annoyance.
What was the fool thinking of, nattering about wines? In spite of the jac at
her belt, Osri felt certain he and Brandon acting together could overpower this
Rifter woman before she could unclip it and take aim. And with the weapon they
would have a chance at fighting their way to a ship.

Brandon paused to pour another glass, and Osri found the
woman’s black, slanted gaze turned on him. Warning tightened the back of his
neck, and he remembered those accursed little white-furred killers. Where were
they, in an adjoining room? Listening? He didn’t know if their reputed psi powers
were limited to what they could see—and he was disinclined to test them. Then a
fresh surge of rage burned through him at the thought of these light-abandoned
Rifter vermin with psionic killers in leash.

The woman addressed him abruptly. “The Eya’a scanned you
when you landed, and reported that an extremely powerful psi device was on
board. We searched the remains of your ship after you were brought out of it,
and the device was gone. Now they indicate it is here. What is it?” She held
out a hand.

Osri crouched back against his pillows, arms crossing
protectively over his belt pouch.

She waited several heartbeats, then said softly, “Must I
take it from you?”

“It’s called the Heart of Kronos,” Brandon offered
conversationally. Osri shot him a glare of acute disgust, which he met with a
bland smile before he added, “That’s all we know. We were trying to keep it
from Hreem’s hands, at the request of Osri’s father. The Eya’a should be able
to
tell you more than we can, if they were able to identify it and us.”

Vi’ya said to Brandon, “The Eya’a are not able to identify
it. They merely sensed its presence. Nor did they identify you. They cannot
tell strange humans apart. I know who you are because Markham talked of you
often, and I have seen your image on vids.” She held out her hand to Osri. “If
I give an order,” she stated calmly, “I expect it to be obeyed.” There was no
overt threat in her tone, but that elusive accent gave a subtle and disturbing
twist to certain words.