A Prison Unsought (38 page)

“Wrong,” Montrose said.

“You can’t be telling me that the
Arkad doesn’t have any power,” Lokri protested.

Montrose pursed his mouth. “That’s a difficult question. On
one hand, he’s the titular head of what remains of the Panarchy. On the other, there’s
this: Every time he pisses, they hear the splash on every comm from the brig to
the bridge. He can’t scratch his ass without Vahn’s security team running scan
first.”

“So he can’t actually do anything?”

Montrose shrugged. “There’s no government, and there can’t
be one until they either try to get the Panarch off Gehenna or else declare him
officially dead. If the Arkad won’t, then it has to be done by the Privy
Council, but they’re all dead, or with the Panarch, so who’s going to name
their successors?”

For the first time in what seemed a century Lokri thought
past his immediate problems. “Arkad said at Granny Chang’s that he wanted to
run a rescue. That wasn’t just gas?”

Montrose shook his head. “He doesn’t talk about it at all.
Nor—” His black brows slanted sardonically. “—does he talk about how he escaped
that hell-spawned bomb in the Mandala, though the rest of these chatzing
honey-voiced nicks sure whisper about it. Whether because of that or for some
other reason, he hasn’t declared his father dead.” He sat back in his pod.
“Let’s leave him aside for now. As to your sister, and whatever else may be
going on, I will be listening.” His eyes narrowed, his familiar, heavy-boned
face menacing. “I have my own reasons. Meantime, what I want from you is what
happened on Torigan.”

Lokri shook his head. “For whose entertainment?”

Montrose snorted. “You think we’re wired here?” He laughed.
“What an irony—delicious. You’re probably in the only place that is
dead-walled.”

“Don’t you carry some kind of
device?”

“Locator,” Montrose said, touching
his wrist. “Simple location signal. They don’t have enough staff to listen to
the chatter of all the riffraff they’ve got gathered here.” He laughed again,
but it was not humorous this time.

Lokri rubbed his jaw. “All right.” He sighed. “I’ll give it
to you, if you’ll see that it gets to her. If she asks. But first, about the
Arkad. You said he can’t do anything. But—?”

“But the potential is there. Or
someone must think so, anyway.” Montrose’s smile was grim. “Because someone has
tried three times to kill him. Now, then, let’s have that story. Every detail
you can remember.”

Jaim slid Vahn’s palm-jac into his wristband and then
picked up the chip he’d designed himself. He tilted it slightly from side to
side, watching the subdued lighting of his room glint off the ID holo on it,
its simple pattern indicating a custom burn. Then he slipped it into his tool
pouch and picked up the new boswell Vahn had issued him. Bulkier than usual, it
was fitted with a clone-cell monitor attuned to the Aerenarch’s genome, able to
detect any type of poison, including Helix. He grimaced as he slipped the
boswell onto his wrist, and went out.

He found Brandon in the garden room, standing behind Ki at
the central console. Brandon looked the part of the Aerenarch, wearing a tunic
of severe cut, with no decoration—the richness was in the fabric. Dark trousers
and single-seam boots completed the sartorial catalog; as accessories Brandon
added excellent posture, a simmering blue gaze, and the Arkadic bone structure
honed by nearly fifty generations.

Jaim wondered what Vi’ya might make of the energy that he
could feel clear across the room. Though Brandon had not said anything about
the impending visit to Archon Srivashti, the signals were there: this was more
important than an afternoon of Douloi chatter, dancing, and games of chance.

“Shall we go?”

They walked in silence down the pathway to the transtube
portal. Halfway there, in a spot Jaim had already chosen, he waited until
Brandon, who walked a little ahead, turned, and then reached for him just out
of peripheral vision.

If he had trained the Aerenarch properly, Brandon should be
subliminally aware of the change in Jaim’s breathing, the shift of cloth—

And Brandon whirled around, one hand deflecting, body
shifting not to the left, as expected, but to the right. Jaim had already begun
to adjust to the expected defense, and had to shift to accommodate; Brandon’s
speed, his high-voltage defense, was another indicator of the adrenaline spike
caused by this impending visit.

They exchanged a flurry of light blows, both with a care to
their clothing. It would not do to arrive sweaty and disheveled at Archon
Srivashti’s glittership.

The transtube took them to the lock. Jaim checked
everything, then they stepped inside the gig that awaited them.

A glance at the console showed a bank of peaceful green
lights. Still, Jaim inserted his chip, and his nerves flared hot and cold when
the console overlay showed a blinking red light deep within the engine system.

Brandon controlled his own reaction, then he touched his
boswell.
(Request another gig, and we
advertise this.)

(I can disable it,)
Jaim returned. He tapped at the console for a while.
(But it’s locked out; I’ll
have to do it manually.)

(Is it set on a timer?)

Jaim entered a
different code.
(No. It’s set to blow the hull when we are a certain distance
from either ship or station.)

(So we don’t take
anyone with us to hell. Tidy.)

Jaim expelled his
breath, reaching into his pocket for the microtools he rarely was without.

(Want help?)

Jaim shook his head.
(You’ve
never been in the engine of one of these things. Marim would find it a tight
fit
.)

Jaim lifted the hatch
and squeezed his way down into the bowels of the gig. He took a deep breath,
calming the animal part of his mind that yammered in terror at the terribly
cramped quarters, trying not to think about the tremendous energies constrained
all around him by a few centimeters of metal and complex twists of energy. Once
he reached the tampered node, he squirmed around uncomfortably to reach his
tool pouch and set to work. His hands labored automatically, his mind moving
fast.

Four times. Five,
counting that damn Helix.
His guts tightened at the thought of the Helix.
Somehow the attempts to kill Brandon seemed cleaner than that; upon analysis,
the genetic poison turned out to have been intended to disable the Aerenarch
with a nasty form of dementia, but not otherwise harm him. He might well have
lived out his natural span—the perfect setup for anyone aiming at a Regency,
Montrose said when Jaim told him about it. Brandon hadn’t said anything at all.

Archon Srivashti
seemed too obvious a suspect; far more likely someone hoped to lay the blame
for Brandon’s death on Srivashti. Except that anyone who knew Srivashti’s
reputation would never believe he’d try anything that crude.

Again: or so we’re meant to assume,
Jaim thought, and
grimaced. This was getting so convoluted it gave him vertigo.

Nothing untoward
occurred on the short journey to the glittership. They made it in silence,
Brandon looking out in open appreciation at the long length of the fabulous
yacht. Jaim eyed the weapons nacelles, both the blatant ones and those
disguised, and reflected on the utility of visual communication. This yacht was
a moving fortress disguised as a palace.

I’ll know more when I
can see this Archon without the usual crowd of heel-licking blunge-suckers
around.

The gig nestled up against the forward lock of the yacht. A
muted boom and clank, a hiss of air, and the doors slid open.

The Archon waited there himself. Jaim looked past him at the
servant hovering behind, a long-faced man who wore patience as a shield, his
clothing designed for unobtrusiveness. This was Felton, Srivashti’s personal
servant.

Jaim remembered what Vahn had said about him:
He’s a mute the Archon found and rescued
from a hellhole somewhere when they were both hardly old enough to shave. No
one knows anything about Felton except that he’s an expert in the Kelestri
numathanat—the breath that kills—and other neurotoxins.

Srivashti welcomed Brandon with a profound bow, then
gestured the way inside. Jaim missed the first few exchanges as he scanned the
environment, the stances of the Archon and his servant. The light cadences of
Douloi talk penetrated his consciousness.

“. . . demands on
your time,” the Archon was saying. His voice was husky and low, not unpleasant.
“I trust that we can keep you tolerably entertained.”

“Entertainment,” Brandon returned,
lifting his hands, “has been my goal in life.”

“And a worthy one it is.” Srivashti
smiled. “Come this way. Felton! Is the table laid?”

The liegeman bowed, his lank dark hair swinging close to his
face.

Srivashti motioned Jaim ahead, and they descended a spiral
stair into what appeared to be a garden—complete with waterfall.

The gesture was benevolent. By permitting him to go first,
the Archon was acknowledging that Jaim’s liege-bond to Brandon made it
necessary for him to check things out, no matter where they were. The Archon
could have forced a trust issue, making Jaim’s job more difficult.

Heady scents filled the air: arrissa, jumari, swensoom.
Tranquility seemed to be the keynote. Jaim scanned a low, inlaid table set
under a sheltering tree. Silver platters framed a cleverly arranged variety of
delicacies. Jaim recognized some of the many-layered pastries, and a surreptitious
sniff promised mouth-watering complexities of taste: the Archon had a Golgol
chef on his unseen staff.

Jaim moved from dish to dish, glancing at his boswell
unobtrusively. The clone monitor remained quiescent. He knew that he would find
nothing amiss anywhere here.

But he would go through the motions, anyway.

Once Jaim had finished, Srivashti picked up a golden bottle.
“Please, Highness. We’ve a variety of things to offer. I can particularly
recommend the crespec. It was an especially fine blend, laid down by my
grandmother.”

Brandon gestured compliance, and Srivashti poured out amber
liquor into two fragile shells grown naturally in the shape of flutes.

“Aerenarch Semion was my close
associate,” he said, handing Brandon one glass, “and I like to think my
friend.” Srivashti lifted his glass. “In honor of that friendship, behold me
exerting myself to continue that alliance.”

Brandon’s slight bow was polite, his free hand graceful in
deference. Jaim knew enough to recognize it as an answer, but not what it
signified.

They drank. “Come, Highness,” Srivashti said with a
disarming air of appeal. “Shall we speak plainly?”

“Plain speaking,” said Brandon, his
countenance guileless, “is a gift.”

Srivashti laughed. “Let us talk, then, as we play.”

He led the way down a beautifully tiled corridor, to a round
room carpeted with living moss that silenced their footfalls; the tianqi
diffused cool air with a trace of astringent herbs.

Subtly lit plants lined the matte-black walls; Jaim’s
boswell identified them as rare examples from Timberwell’s eight continents.
The ceiling opened to space, or appeared to. Through the window an edge of the
huge station loomed, glinting redly in the light of the giant sun it orbited.

The center of the room offered a billiards table, set on
legs carved of paak-wood, the metal-rich soil of its world of origin showing up
as subtle colorations in the dark wood’s grain.

Felton came last, bearing an ancient silver tray as
Srivashti moved to a discreet console and caused part of a wall to slide
noiselessly aside, revealing a rack of cues.

“Bluff billiards,” Brandon
murmured, looking intrigued. “My older brother played that.”

“I had many a good game with His
Highness.” Srivashti spread his hands gracefully. “Which made the tiresome
necessities easier to dispose of.”

Brandon selected a cue. These, too, were carved from
paak-wood, tipped with gilded metal.

Felton set the tray on a sideboard and refilled the shells.

“Will you break, Highness?”
Srivashti turned his palm up in graceful invitation; to Jaim, it was all as
deliberate as a dance, and as mannered.

Brandon again made the gesture of deference, giving the
Archon first stroke, and sipped at the liquor. Crespec, Jaim recalled, was a
liquor distilled several times from a plant found only on a world far
out-octant. Extremely expensive, it smelled beguilingly of blended wood and
smoke, and it didn’t take much to hit the human system hard; Jaim thought he
could scent the alcohol fumes from where he stood.

Srivashti tabbed his console once again, and a subliminal
hum signaled the activation of gravitic fields. Across the smooth green surface
of the table colorful billiard balls rolled, both holographic and real, to
assemble into a perfect triangle. The computer brought the white ball out last,
positioning it at the other end of the table from the triangle’s apex.

The Archon stepped around the table, lined up his cue, and
with a forceful tap knocked the white ball directly into the triangle.

Both players watched the random scattering of the balls.
Jaim watched as well, trying to note in the veering trajectories of the balls
where they passed through gravitic fluctuations, and at the same time keeping
the white ball in sight, in case it touched any of the real balls or passed
through a holo-ball.

One of the solid-colored balls thunked into a pocket.

“Low balls to me, Highness,” Srivashti
said with an air. “A cosmically appropriate disposition of affairs, no?”

Brandon saluted him with his glass.

Srivashti looked concerned. “The crespec does not suit?”

“It is very fine.” Brandon sipped.

Srivashti bowed, then stepped around the table, his
attention on the balls as he murmured, “Most regrettable are what appear to be
growing tensions between the Navy and your civilians in Service. One wishes
they would perceive how facilitating cooperation would benefit everyone, don’t
you find, Highness?” The title was added just after the Archon bent to line up
a shot.