The Thrones of Kronos (86 page)

“Let him go,” Vannis ordered.

The children stood there glaring at her, and Fierin’s heart
pounded with fear. One of the dogs tried to thrust a muzzle under Vannis’s
hands; when Vannis looked down, distracted, the dog whined softly.

Fierin held her breath. Despite her weeks of Ulanshu
training, they were just two, and she knew she couldn’t defend herself and
Vannis against a pack of what looked like feral children, unless the dogs would
come to their aid. But Fierin was not sure the dogs would attack children, any
more than Vannis would order them to. Even feral children.

Feral children, in the
Mandala! After we have made peace. When will the horror stop?

Vannis studied the girl who had spoken. She said, “If you
try anything with that child I will order this dog to defend.”

“That’s Angela. She won’t attack me,” Moira stated
belligerently.

“Whom is she heeling next to?” Vannis retorted. “Even a dog
knows what you are doing is wrong. Do you want to try me?”

Fierin did not see a signal given, but the boy was let
loose. He fell to the ground and wiped his face with his ripped, dirty shirt.

“Now,” Vannis said, “the Panarch’s decree about
collaborators was proclaimed days ago. You are breaking the law. Tell me why
you do not deserve to be put into detention.”

“Because we fought against the guks,” Moira stated. “Because
some of us got hurt real bad by them—just for sport—and seven of us got killed,
and a lot of our families were shot and will never come back.”

“Never!” another girl shrilled.

A boy on the verge of adolescence burst out, his voice
cracking and honking, “Why should these chatzers have it comfortable because
they were taking orders from the guks?”

“And they get to be comfortable now?” Moira finished
angrily.

“I
didn’t
have it
comfortable,” the boy screamed, past caring about control. “They said if my
mother didn’t keep doing her job, then they’d kill me and my little brother and
my grandmother in their mindripper and make her watch. And I had to work, too,
but every day people spat on us, and ruined our food, and . . .” His voice was
suspended by tears.

“Very comfortable,” Fierin said wryly, then wished she
hadn’t spoken. The children glanced briefly her way, then back to Vannis, who
rested her hand on the dog’s head. The dog remained still, brown eyes
unblinking.

“You were given orders by Captain Hayashi before we came.
And you have since heard the Panarch’s decree. Why did you ignore their
orders?”

Fierin saw uncertainty for the first time in the children.
They were all too thin, with unkempt hair, and most of them had bare feet. The
old naval shirts were worn like capes—badges of honor.
They’ve created their own little war, and now their own rituals.
And it had happened here, where the Havroy had once sat gazing out to sea and
freedom.

“The Mask—Captain Hayashi only gave us one order,” a boy
said sulkily. “To disband. To report to the medics, and those civ baby-minders,
and we haven’t seen him since.”

“Then I will repeat the Panarch’s decree once more,” Vannis
said. “You may submit a list of names and crimes. They will be duly examined by
the Justicials. Before then, any attempting to take justice into their own
hands will also be submitted to the Justicials, on my order.” She turned to the
boy. “You are free to go. If anyone does anything more to you or your family,
you are to report it directly to me. My name is Vannis Scefi-Cartano. I was once
the Aerenarch-Consort, and the Panarch ordered me to come here and take charge
of the Mandala.”

The boy executed a short, awkward bow, then turned and ran.

Vannis gestured at the crater. “This is another problem,”
she said, her voice lighter. As if she was talking about a summer’s day, or a
party—as if the foregoing scene had not taken place.

The children exchanged covert, unsettled glances.

Vannis walked to the edge and looked down. An unhealthy
breeze wafted up the smell of stagnant water and rot. Fierin glanced down once,
thought of being flung into that murk, and wondered how long one could struggle
against those glassy sides before giving up. She shuddered, hands gripping her
elbows.

“The Havroy is gone,” Fierin said. “Shall we scrape what we
can of her remains out of this crater and recast her?”

Again the children exchanged looks. Then a girl said from
the back of the crowd, “It wouldn’t be the same.”

“No,” Vannis said, her voice musing, her eyes on the
horizon. “I remember coming here when I was twelve, all the way from
Montecielo. The journey to and from took several weeks, and I’d planned for it
ever since I was six.” She faced the children. “What will the girls who’ve
lived through the war have? And their daughters? The Dol’jharians took the Havroy
away and gave you this.” She pointed with scorn at the crater. “Do you really
want their present? If you do, the Dol’jharians have won.”

Moira said, after a long pause, “What do you want us to do?”
She scowled, angry, doubtful. Wary.

“Well, that’s up to you,” Vannis said. “I cannot think of
anyone more appropriate to decide what’s to be done here than you. The
survivors.”

“We’re the Rats,” Moira said proudly, her chin up, though
her lips trembled. “The Rats of the Resistance. We fought the guks.”

Vannis nodded. “Yes. Captain Hayashi has spoken of you.
There will be a place for you in history now. What’s the ending of your story
to be? Are you going to keep the status Jerrode Eusabian forced on you:
savages, living hand to mouth, uneducated and untrained, and pursuing vengeance
like your conquerors?”

No one answered.

Vannis turned back to the air car. “The Panarch will be here
in two days, and you will be standing at the booster field with everyone else
in the Resistance, and all the children in the Thousand Suns will be watching
what happens. What gift can the Rats of the Resistance give to them?”

She climbed into the car and closed the door.

Fierin took her place, and started the air car, grimacing at
the charge hovering just above the redline.

She started out at a sedate, energy-conserving pace as Vannis
sagged back against her seat. “I hope it works,” she said. “How many tragedies
like that one are being enacted all over the Thousand Suns? Peace,” she said,
her voice low and bitter. “Peace.”

The comm chimed.

“Admiral,” came Captain Krajno’s voice. “It’s time.”

Ng acknowledged him, and hastily finished scanning the last
of the priority reports that had come flooding in as soon as they emerged from
skip in the Arthelion system. Then she sealed it all under her code, to be
dealt with after the official landing fuss. She needed to be moving down to the
shuttle bay, unless she wanted to keep the Panarch waiting.

Looking at herself in her mirror, she was satisfied that her
uniform was straight, its lines crisp. But her face looked as tired as she
felt. Except for that first off-shift after the battle, when she had slept
straight for sixteen hours, her rest had been sporadic since. The battle
already seemed a far-distant dream; the reality now was the accelerating
responsibilities of the aftermath.

She wondered what had been in the coded message for the
Panarch that had come through at the same time as her reports, then dismissed
the question with a grateful shake of her head. Doubtless from Steward Halkyn,
or the former Aerenarch-Consort Vannis, or one of the others in charge on
Arthelion, and probably concerning the civilian equivalent of the mess facing
her on the military front.

Now that the alliance was no longer needed, each new day’s
briefing contained yet more reports of greedy prize-grabbing, or enterprising
political maneuvering, or outright cowardice. She did not want to know what the
Panarch had to deal with. She had enough of her own mess to face.

A profound sense of depression hit hard, freezing her in
place. She knew it for what it was: the aftereffects of the stress of battle.
Yet she couldn’t seem to get herself to that door and out.

Then the annunciator chimed, a quiet note in the oppressive
silence. Wearily she tabbed the intercom. “Ng here.”

“May I speak to you a moment, Admiral?”

Surprise brought her out of her chair, at least. She keyed
the door open and stood as Brandon Arkad entered her cabin, dressed in white
and gold: formal mourning, by a Panarch for a Panarch. He wouldn’t be wearing
it much longer, she thought hazily as he stepped into the room, his blue gaze
searching. Despite the odds stacked against him the last time he was in this
space, he would soon be seated in the Emerald Throne, and crowned. Enthroned Panarchs
did not mourn their predecessors, whatever their private emotions.

“I must call upon you once more,” he said, smiling, “for
your forbearance through yet another ceremonial. It is important that the high
admiral be there to greet the leaders of the Resistance.”

“Is there some problem, sire?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s just that I know you are tired and
that—if your own inclinations were to be consulted—you would prefer to land
quietly, out of the public eye, and take up your life with a minimum of
publicity. But you are a symbol, as am I, and we are meeting people who have
become symbols. It is necessary for us to go through with symbolic actions that
will imbue the chaotic lives of our citizens with a shared emotional bond.”

His tone, his attitude, were faintly apologetic, and his
words meant more than they seemed—she knew that by now. But she was too tired
to sort for deep meaning. She knew only that once again she must subsume self
into the greater demands of duty.

“I am ready, sire,” she said.

o0o

“They just hit atmosphere!” Keas was shrieking like a
five-year-old, his face crimson with excitement. He backed out of the dorm room
and dashed down the hall to the boys’ wing, his voice echoing. “They’re here,
they’re here!”

“Hurry up, Moira,” Gweni groaned. “By the time you finish
dressing they’ll land, come in, and be halfway through dinner!”

Moira’s fingers shook as she picked up the last of her
mother’s decorations. “These are going on right,” she said fiercely, fighting
against the
thing
choking inside her
chest and choking her throat. Her eyes burned, and she shook her head as hard
as she could: she would not cry, she would not. But she was so tired, and this
was the last time anyone would ever wear these decorations, and her mother
should have been here wearing them herself . . .

“Oh, I’ll do it,” Gweni said, not angry now. “You’re getting
it crooked.”

Moira closed her eyes, fighting against the thing. Gweni’s
breath was soft on her face, smelling a little of apple and the cheese they’d
eaten at midday, and her fingers were sure and quick as they pinned the
decoration onto the row on Moira’s new tunic. Moira found it soothing to be
taken care of.

“You’re done. Look.” Gweni took her shoulders and turned her
to face the mirror.

Moira opened her eyes and saw her own face staring back,
plain and thin and unhappy above the new tunic. Across her skinny chest gleamed
her mother’s naval decorations, to which she’d added one of her father’s fresh
blooms. He would have had a decoration, too, if there’d been anyone to give
them out to civilians.

As Moira turned away, she wished with a sudden passion that
she had ignored the Masque’s order about the Rats staying away from that last
exercise, and had joined her father in trying to secure the hyperwave in the
Palace computer room.
Though they haven’t
done much lately, those Tarkans still know how to fight. You children are to
stay put,
the Masque had said—and a few hours later, instead of triumphant
word of one last win against the withdrawing guks, the horrible news had come
that everyone in the hyperwave action was dead, Moira’s father among them.

Her mother was still missing, and Popo, her dog.

She might never find either of them.

The something in Moira’s chest welled up and she gave a
deep, hiccupping sob, right in the hallway where everyone could hear her.
Embarrassed, angry, she looked around for smirks or pity, and then the anger
dissolved when she saw several of the other Rats, boys and girls, silently
wiping tears away, Coll with his face buried in his handkerchief.
Oh yes.
The guks had shot his dad the
first week, and his other dad had been at the Node; some said he was the one
who killed the consoles right before the Node was destroyed. Gweni at least had
her little sister.

Most of them had no one left.

The Masque waited out in the Palace school entry hall.
No—not the Masque, for he was not wearing the red cloth that had covered all
his face up to his eyes. Now they could see his lower face, with its livid
purple scarring, though his eyes were still the same. They noticed you. He was
wearing the dress whites of a destroyer captain, and he stood motionless, at
ease, waiting for the whispering to cease.

Then he said, “You have put in two excellent days of work.
Because of what you have done, the site of the Panarch’s reception has been
changed from the new booster field to the bay, and you are to stand with the
survivors of the adult Resistance. Get in the transport. We have very little
time to get there and take up our position.”

The Rats let out a cheer, which they kept up steadily, as
they ran out to the air cars and piled in.

Moira cheered until her throat hurt. She bounced on her seat
like some of the others, as if the cheering and bouncing would take away the
ache in her hands from hauling soil, in her back from the endless hours of
shoveling, and from her heart under its weight of memory.

When they reached the bay and tumbled out of the air cars,
she looked over the flat, featureless land, now covered with fresh soil. A
little pride, and a little contentment, made the ugly thing in her chest seem a
little smaller.