A Choice of Treasons (79 page)

Soladin voiced a quick command to the room’s computer to blank the vid, then turned back to York. “Those vid people are quite impressive, aren’t they? Amazing what they can do with a few properly staged scenes. They’re going to draw this out for several days before convicting you.”

York walked over to the window and looked out on the landscape below. “Where are we?”

Soladin joined him at the window. “Beautiful, isn’t she. We’re on Terr, the large planet that’s Luna’s primary. It’s not all wilderness like this. There are the ruins of a rather large civilization spread all over the planet, though the archaeologists need shielded radiation suits to get near them. Apparently the civilization was well into space when they were burned off by some fairly extensive bombing about two or three thousand years ago. In fact, many of the scientists believe this was the cradle of our own civilization.”

“What are we doing here?”

Soladin raised an eyebrow. “To the point, aren’t you?” He shrugged. “I suppose you deserve a straight answer.”

York decided he liked Soladin far more than his son.

“This is a private reserve,” Soladin continued. “I keep it stocked with game for hunting, and there’s a wonderful countryside out there for all sorts of activities, though you have to stay away from the contaminated areas. We felt it would be a good place to hold you incognito during your court-martial.”

York couldn’t hide a skeptical frown. “I’d think you could just stuff me back in a cell on Luna Prime, let Sierka finish the job he started.”

“Yes, that,” Soladin said uncomfortably. “Listen Ballin, I do apologize for that. We had no idea Sierka would resort to such barbaric tactics when we asked him to interrogate you. We felt that since he’d been able to predict your return here, he must know you well enough to learn whatever else you knew. But we’re not cruel, and while I confess I have no qualms about brutality if it serves a purpose, I don’t condone it purely to satisfy the sadistic whims of a fool like Sierka. Your life may be forfeit, Lieutenant, but there is no need for plain and simple barbarism.”

“Nice speech,” York said. “Knowing all that will greatly ease my mind when you execute me.”

“Yes,” Soladin sighed. “Nice speech. Tell me something, Lieutenant. You don’t strike me as a fanatic, but only such a man could have withstood Sierka’s brutality without cracking. And yet you refused to answer a single question.”

York looked carefully at Soladin, was on the verge of telling him Sierka hadn’t asked any questions, but bit back the comment, realizing that Sierka had been sent to interrogate him, hadn’t done so, had merely sought his own form of revenge. But when faced with providing answers to his superiors he’d had to lie to save his own neck. He’d told them York was a maniacal fanatic, when in fact York had broken, would have answered any question he asked, if only he’d asked one. Well, as long as they were misinformed, there was no sense in setting them straight. “I don’t think I could explain it to you.”

Soladin nodded. “You know, Lieutenant. At another time, had our paths not crossed as enemies, I would have valued a man like you in my personal service. Perhaps you could have taught my son a few things, turned him into something other than a fop.”

York looked out over the beautiful green landscape. “But it’s not another time. And our paths crossed the way they crossed.”

“Let me see him,” Sylissa shouted.

“I’m sorry, Your Ladyship,” the receptionist said mechanically, looking crisp and neat in her black AI uniform. “Colonel Juessik is a busy man, and without an appointment—”

“Then give me an appointment and I’ll come back.”

The receptionist turned to her computer screen, touched a few keys. “We could schedule you in next month—”

“Next month! He’s been putting me off for more than a ten-day now. You tell Juessik I want to see him right now. Tell him I’m going to sit down right here until I do. Tell him—”

Suddenly the receptionist glanced down at her console, touched a key and said, “Yes, sir.” Sylissa decided to wait. The receptionist listened intently for a moment, nodded, then said, “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” She looked up and smiled. “Colonel Juessik will see you now.”

Once in Juessik’s office, Sylissa waited only for the door to close behind her before she demanded, “Where is my son? I did your dirty work for you. Now give me back my son. You promised.”

Juessik stood from behind his desk and stepped around it casually. “Calm down, Lady d’Hart. May I offer you a drink?”

“To hell with your drink. I want my son, and I want him now.”

“Now you’ll have to be patient—”

“I’ve been patient. We had a deal.”

She let that hang, let the silence draw out and watched Juessik’s face as he considered his next words. He was uncharacteristically uncomfortable, and that made her heart sink.

“He’s hurt,” she shouted. “You’ve done something to him, haven’t you? What? What is it?”

Juessik spread his hands, and her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. “I’m sorry,” he said. “One of my people was a bit over-zealous, overstepped his orders . . .”

She waited for more, realized there wasn’t more. Her words barely escaped her lips. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Juessik nodded, pretending sorrow. “I assure you, the man has been punished most severely.”

Sylissa didn’t remember attacking Juessik, didn’t remember crossing the few paces between them and going for his eyes. But she found herself on top of him on the floor, tearing at his face while he struck back at her frantically. She didn’t see the fist that caught her on the side of the head.

Rear Admiral Lord Stephan Tarkoff looked carefully at Abraxa’s image. “We’re still four days out, Your Grace . . .”

“And the Kinathin armada is only three days out, Stephan.” Abraxa was frightened, and doing a poor job of hiding it.

“I don’t know what else we can do, Your Grace. I’m pushing the fleet at maximum drive now.”

“Maximum drive for your slowest ships. You do have ships that can go faster.”

“Yes, Your Grace. But that would string Seventh Fleet out over several parsecs. We’d be easy pickings for a united force like the Kinathin armada. Have Home Fleet hold them off for just one day, then we’ll be there in full strength.”

“No.” Abraxa dismissed the idea without even considering it, and that made Tarkoff mad, though he wasn’t foolish enough to say anything. “Get your fastest ships here soonest so they can support Home Fleet.”

There were rumors everywhere of the
Cinesstar
affair, and the mutinies in Third Fleet. Tarkoff hadn’t understood it until he’d received a coded transmission from Tzecharra only seven days ago. Third Fleet was disbanded, not by royal or Admiralty edict, but because there was no Third Fleet left. Her officers were all either dead or mutineers. And with good reason, after the way the Admiralty Council had betrayed them. Tarkoff wondered if he were about to be betrayed in a similar fashion.

Over the next two days York spent many hours at that window, looking at the strangely beautiful landscape. At night the bright orb of Luna floating above the horizon lit up the landscape And during the days it was green and clean and healthy. He spent hours glued to the vid watching his own trial, which proceeded in fits and starts due to constant interruptions. Sometimes he’d call up a book from the library, sit down at the reader, though he often found he let his mind wander, and after reading for several hours he could remember nothing of what he’d read, not even the title of the book.

Sometimes he became so wrapped up in his trial, he watched the latest development intently as if he didn’t already know the outcome. A secret little part of him hoped it would turn out differently, that somehow, somewhere, there was a great surprise waiting to happen, perhaps a last minute reprieve due to new evidence. When they did finally convict him, it deeply disappointed him. The court decided to show him no mercy for all his crimes, and sentenced him to slow death in a low gravity gallows.

He slept very little, slept between sessions of his court-martial, between hours standing at the window, between the nightmares. Sometimes he slept on the bed, sometimes seated at the reader, sometimes seated in a comfortable chair at the window. The nightmares never let him sleep for long, so he slept at random, whenever he could, and he always woke screaming, though he could never remember the dream itself.

He felt empty, though he brightened a little after the chief justice pronounced sentence, for after that he felt oddly refreshed, and free of the responsibility for this whole mess. They would execute him, and there was nothing he could do about it. They probably wouldn’t even give him the traditional spacer’s burial at space, probably just cremate him. He thought about it a lot, and he just wanted to get it over with.

CHAPTER 35: THE FRUITS OF BETRAYAL

Sylissa followed the AI guard up the corridor, marveling at the deathly stillness of the immense ship. The silence was eerie, and she realized why these people thought of their ships as if they were alive, almost sentient beings in and of themselves.

The guard stopped abruptly and Sylissa nearly ran into him. He turned into an open room, large for a ship, though small by planetary standards. She recognized the room, had visited it in the company of Martin Andow, what felt like an eternity ago. It seemed wrong that there was no marine standing guard just within the entrance, no group of marines off to one side cleaning some sort of weapon, no one doing whatever it was these marines were always doing. Like everything else about
Cinesstar
, the room felt dead.

The guard marched up to a door, pulled his sidearm, pressed the small portable terminal he carried against the lock and stepped back warily as the door cycled open. Keeping one eye on the door he stepped aside and nodded with his head. “He’s in there. Go on in. I’ll lock it behind you, then you got one hour, and all the bribes in the universe won’t buy you a minute longer.”

He waited. She stepped past him, stepped into the small cabin and clamped her hands together to keep them from trembling visibly as the door closed behind her.

The cabin was empty. The guard had lied to her. He’d taken her money and lied—

“And what can I do for Yer Ladyship?”

She gasped, jumped back and came up against the closed door. She looked up, saw Palevi lying in his grav bunk like a fly sleeping on the wall. The bunk was several feet off the floor, and he was laying there casually with both hands behind his head as if he had not a care in the universe. He looked down at her, suddenly spun his legs downward, slapped at a switch with his hand and, with practiced ease, landed on his feet on the deck. “Well?” he asked.

“I want you to look at something,” she said, reaching into a pocket, retrieving a small card and holding it out to him.

He didn’t move, stood there looking at her. Not so much as a muscle twitched. Finally, he said, “I ought to just kill you right here. I’ve got a whole hour to do it, right?”

Her hand, holding the card out to him, trembled. “Yes. You ought to. But as you say, you do have a whole hour. So first you should look at this. You’ll still have plenty of time to kill me afterward.”

Again he regarded her, his face lifeless and unmoving. Then he reached out, opened a hand palm up, made her cross the small room and hand him the card. He closed his fingers over it, but didn’t lower his hand and continued to stare at her. Then he turned the card over in his hand and examined it as if he’d never seen one before. Finally, he turned, crossed the room in one step, pulled a seat and a small shelf-of-a-desk out of the wall and sat down behind the desk. He reached out, swung a reader into place, inserted the card into it and pulled on the earphones. He positioned the reader between them so he could look at it and watch her at the same time, then he touched a switch.

He watched in silence, no sound from the reader escaping the confines of the earphones. While he watched and listened she stepped backward slowly until her back pressed against the plast of the bulkhead behind her. She relished its coolness, closed her eyes, tried to forget so many things, tried to forget everything.

After what seemed like far too long she opened her eyes again, realized he’d already finished playing the card, had been sitting there in silence staring at her. “So it’s another double-cross,” he said. “So they’re going to kill us all, make it neat and convenient.” He shrugged. “The whole thing’s been a double-cross from the beginning, and you were the biggest double-crosser of the bunch. So?” He let that question hang in the air.

She said, “We can save him. I can help you, so you can save him. There are rumors all over Luna about a coup, about a revolt in the Fleets; some of the rumors are absolutely ridiculous, some, perhaps, factual. There’s enough confusion that we could succeed.”

“And do what with him?”

“Free him. Get him away from here. Thwart them in that if nothing else.”