The Phoenix in Flight (60 page)

“Ivard.” Greywing loomed out of the shadows. “Why can’t you
go faster?”

“The things I got—” he gasped, then felt her hand run over
his body.

“Dump some of it. You got enough to buy the
Telvarna
twice
over.”

“Not mine—got some for Marim...”

He winced when she yanked his zipper down, but then the
worst of the pricks and jabs disappeared. He closed his eyes. Even sounds hurt.
The clinks and
ching
s of the treasures being set down on the cement sent
tiny green and orange needles through his ears.

He shook his head and opened his eyes. Greywing had
carefully lined up the art objects along the wall behind the door.

“There. You leave Marim to me,” she said grimly. “Now
run.
”

She put her hand on his shoulder and pushed, and he nearly
fell down the spiraling stairs in his effort to speed up. He and Greywing
caught up when the Krysarch had to stop at another passage access.

Brandon tapped at an inset console, then turned to the crew.
“Weapons ready?” he said softly. “Let us endeavor.”

o0o

“Why haven’t you found that ship yet?” Barrodagh snarled at
the miniature image of Rifellyn on his compad. He carefully kept his right hand
out of sight of the pickup.

“I told you, pesz-ko Barrodagh, I don’t have enough techs to
manage the Node as it is. Most of the Panarchists refused to cooperate, and
those that did were worse than useless. If they weren’t incompetent, they were
busy committing sabotage. I shot twenty-three of them before I decided to expel
them from the Node entirely.”

Barrodagh gritted his teeth at Rifellyn’s insulting use of
the minimal-difference mode of address. He had encountered it elsewhere and
knew the motivation behind it: an attempt by suborned officials to disassociate
themselves from the realities of Dol’jharian power. Specifically its
punishments.
It doesn’t work that way, Rifellyn. I think one of you is going
to have to serve to demonstrate.

But with everyone so overworked, that would have to wait.

“Go on,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard the insult.

“With the resonance and Shield systems destroyed, my first
priority is monitoring cis-lunar space and keeping an eye on our so-called
allies,” the woman continued, her dark brown gaze cold with dislike. “As for
that ship of yours, all we know is that it came down somewhere near you. The
discrimination circuits were destroyed by one of the saboteurs and we’re having
to inspect the satellite images manually.”

“Near?” he repeated. “Can you be more specific?”

She made an impatient gesture. “Somewhere within 150
kilometers of you.” Rifellyn paused, looked away from the screen for a moment
at someone Barrodagh couldn’t see. “I’ll notify you as soon as anything turns
up. Right now, I’ve got more important things to attend to.”

The screen blanked and Barrodagh jumped to his feet.
Just
wait, Rifellyn. The time when I am the most important thing in your life will
come. And sooner than you think.

He paced around his office, the quiet elegance of his
surroundings making no impression on him. Not only had that ship filed for
landing at a port that pre-attack intelligence had associated with covert
Panarchic activity, but it had persisted in approaching the Palace even after
its encounter with the
Fist
. Were they Panarchists or Rifters? No, the
question was, what were they after to be landing almost in the midst of
Eusabian’s personal security perimeter?

He realized he was twisting at the Emasculizer on his thumb
again and pulled his hand away hastily. No one had yet been found who knew how
to remove it.

His face burned as he remembered Evodh’s sarcastic laughter
when he’d asked him to extract the secret from Omilov along with the information
about the Heart of Kronos. “Your
tusz ni-synarrh
is no concern of mine,”
he’d said, using an extremely vulgar Dol’jharian term that translated literally
as “lonely hand-sex.” Then, compounding the insult, he’d refused Barrodagh
permission to watch the gnostor’s transfiguration.

One of the Panarch’s sons is here.
The memory came
with a jolt of adrenaline, and he knew it had been triggered by thoughts of the
mindripper. How very, very close he had come! Well, he didn’t have to worry
about
that
anymore, but there must be no more surprises.

Barrodagh sat down again and tapped Ferrasin’s name on his
compad.

The round, sweaty face of the computer tech appeared on the
screen. “Yes, senz-lo Barrodagh.”

“Report your progress.”

The man struggled with his stutter. “We’ve got the wall
consoles accepting queries now. So personnel can access maps. And basic
services. Almost anywhere.”

“I don’t care about that,” Barrodagh snapped. “What about
security?”

Ferrasin swallowed nervously. “The neuraimai have traced
most of the security algorithms. But we have not yet tried to
p-p-p-penetrate...” Barrodagh forced himself not to close his eyes at the spray
of spittle the vid pickup relayed to his console as the man struggled to get
the word past his lips. “... the lower chthons. For the actual surveillance
data. That would give us the coverage you want. We must proceed slowly. To
avoid t-triggering another worm.”

“It didn’t take you half this time to deal with the sensors
here in the Palace and in the detention area,” snapped Barrodagh.

The tech flushed and the stutter worsened. “That wa-wa-was
accomplished manually. Even so, the system c-c-continues its attempts to
reestablish the connections. This is much more d-duh-deca—delah, delic-c-c-,
hard,
but I’m c-confident that—”

Barrodagh grimaced at the man’s mangled speech, which had
gotten worse since the decimation of the conscripts in the garden.
Rifellyn
is more arrogant and this one more witless
. “Call me when you have
something more than excuses. And don’t make me call you again.”

Barrodagh cut the connection and leaned back wearily. His
resources were stretched perilously thin, and reinforcements from Dol’jhar were
slow to come. The cursed treaty had forbidden them to build ships, and they
were dependent on their Rifter allies for transport.

He reviewed the situation, looking again for any weak spots.
The Panarchists who had not evacuated the Mandala during the first phase of the
attack, after the decapitation of the government in the Hall of Ivory, were
confined to the other three quadrants, with detection systems wired into every
exit and adit they could find. There had been no problems there.

He glared at the console, which tied him to his office as
effectively as the brutal gravity of Dol’jhar had. Compad communications were
still spotty, and the personnel recognition systems kept coming back online and
locking door and lifts. He still wasn’t satisfied with the density of the wired
access points in sensitive areas, especially around the detention cells occupied
by the Panarch and the remnants of his Privy Council, which he’d ordered
stripped to the bare walls to ensure isolation. Until Ferrasin and his techs
tamed the computer, security would be thinner than Barrodagh liked.

Even now, manual access to basic services was enforced by a
delicate tampering with the programming that the techs warned him could still
come unraveled at any time.

“You must remember,”
Ferrasin had said with his
irritating stutter,
“that this system has been running in its present form for
centuries. It’s an enormously complicated patchwork of algorithms and adaptive
systems—so complex and multilayered that I doubt anyone has really understood
it for centuries.”

He had continued with an almost fearful expression on his
face.
“In fact, if it weren’t for the Ban, I’d say it was conscious.”

Barrodagh didn’t care about the Ban, no matter how the tech
felt about it. He just wanted the system to work, and without problems. Until
then, lacking automatic surveillance, he had to post conscripts throughout the
Ivory quadrant—in addition to those already backing up the Tarkans guarding the
Avatar in the Palace Minor as custom demanded.

Danathar tapped at his door. It had better be good news.
“What now?”

“The Rifter from the
Satansclaw
is here.”

Barrodagh straightened up in his chair and hid his right
hand in his lap. With his other hand he picked up a report and began to read
it. “Send him in.”

The door opened to admit a tall, slender man with a vulpine
face, dressed in a loose silk shirt and baggy trousers gathered into scuffed
boots. The Bori ignored him until he sensed that the Rifter’s nervousness had
grown sufficiently.

“Sit down.” He stared at the man until his gaze fell. “So,
Anderic, what is so important that you had to tell me in person?”

“It’s about Tallis—”

“I already know what happened over Charvann, fool,”
Barrodagh interrupted. “Tallis’s incompetence is the only reason I’ve wasted
any time at all on you over the past year, but all you’ve had beside what I get
from other sources is lurid tales of low-gee sexual antics and reports of his
unflattering comments about me.” He tapped the pages of the report into
alignment on edge. “Let me warn you—though it is already too late—that if this
is a similar waste of my time—” The Bori reached over and dropped the papers
into the disposal slot in the desk. There was a slight flash and a muted hiss
as the disposal field vaporized them. “—you will not be returning to the
Satansclaw.”

As Anderic began to speak, Barrodagh held up his left hand.
“Let me also tell you not to take too much comfort in the fact that Tallis has
not yet returned to the ship. There was some question in the Avatar’s mind
about his performance in the affair of the nyr-Arkad’s death. However, my naval
liaison interviewed a number of the
Satansclaw’s
crew and reviewed the
records of that encounter. It is his opinion that Tallis handled the ship
brilliantly, so even his incompetence is in question.”

“That’s just it,” blurted Anderic, now sweating freely. “It
wasn’t Tallis.”

Barrodagh raised his eyebrows and stared at the Rifter.
“What do you mean, it wasn’t Tallis?”

An odd expression crossed Anderic’s face; to Barrodagh’s
eyes it appeared to be a compound of nausea and fear. The Rifter’s voice was
strained.

“He has a logos installed in the
Satansclaw.
That’s
what was running the ship.”

“A logos? What is that?”

Anderic swallowed. “A... a machine intelligence. Like an
Adamantine. Banned.”

The Bori shrugged. Like Dol’jhar, his world had been little
affected by the Adamantine Wars. The Ban was merely words to him.
Still, it
does mean that anyone can run that ship, so Tallis is expendable when and if
the need arises.

“So he has a logos. You don’t imagine that the Lord of
Vengeance cares about the Ban, do you?”

Anderic gaped at him. Evidently it hadn’t occurred to him
that observance of the Ban wasn’t universal.

Barrodagh let him squirm for a while, then relented. The
information was worth something, after all.

“But that might be useful knowledge. You may return to the
ship.” Barrodagh began shuffling through the welter of papers and record chips
on his desk, indicating that the interview was over, then saw with horror that
he’d revealed his right hand with the damnable sphere leeched onto it.

He snapped his gaze up to find Anderic staring at his hand
in fascination.

“Is there more?” he barked, restraining the urge to hide his
hand.

“How did you get an Emasculizer stuck on your hand?” asked
the Rifter.

Now it was Barrodagh’s turn to gape. After a moment he
asked, very quietly, “You know what this is?” No one else in the Dol’jharian
contingent had ever seen one.

Anderic nodded, and Barrodagh found himself warming to
him—he was the only person the Bori had encountered since the sphere attached
itself to him who didn’t appear to find his predicament amusing.

“Yeah. The captain on a ship I slubbed on when I first
skipped out had a collection of things like that.” His face twisted in
recollection. “He used to use ’em for punishment.”

Barrodagh swallowed, almost afraid to ask the next question.
“Do you know how to get it off?”

“Yeah. I figured it out one day when it was my turn for his
twisted fun and games.” He came around the desk. “Here.”

Barrodagh mutely held it out. The Rifter positioned his
hands around the sphere with his fingers in a peculiar pattern and pushed
inward. There was a muted click and the sphere expanded and fell off his thumb
into Anderic’s hands. The Bori flexed his thumb as feeling returned. It
appeared unharmed.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” asked Anderic.

“No,” said Barrodagh fervently. Then, curious, he asked,
“Why did you put up with such a captain? I thought you Rifters prized your
freedom from authority.”

“Ship’s gotta have a captain,” replied Anderic laconically.
His success in freeing the Bori’s thumb seemed to have reestablished a sense of
equality, and Barrodagh was too relieved to object. “But we didn’t, finally. He
tried his little tricks once too often and the crew mutinied.” The Rifter
turned the sphere over and over in his hands, looking down at it musingly. “We
tied his hands behind his back and stuck that chatzing Emasculizer on his
tongue.” He laughed. “And then I triggered the reward circuit. Blunge-sucking
thing tried its damnedest to bring him to orgasm—he finally choked to death.”

Barrodagh shuddered.
Omilov wasn’t making it up.
He
looked at his thumb with a new sense of appreciation.

“I guess I’d better be going now, senz-lo Barrodagh,” said
Anderic.

The Bori looked at him sharply. “You speak Dol’jharian?”

“Just a little. I’ve been studying it. Makes sense to be
able to talk to the winners, after all.” He grinned. “And I understand you
Dol’jharians are really stuck on titles and such, even more than the nicks. It
never hurts to get that sort of thing right when you’re talkin’ to the one who
pays the tab.”