By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (20 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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Names, carefully recorded in the original language for accuracy’s sake: Jos Metadi; Rosel Quetaya. Place names, too: Galcen, Gyffer, Pleyver, Ophel.
Another flatpic showed pictures of the same woman at full length, nude this time, with the mark of a tight-focus blaster burn in the middle of her forehead.
“No,” Gil said. “This isn’t good. Whether it’s something that matters any longer, I don’t know. Merrolakk—you said there was a prisoner?”
*Yes.*
“Have you questioned him yet?”
*Her. Wearing some kind of uniform. Haven’t touched her.*
“Good,” said Gil. “Don’t. Bring her over to the ’
Pavo
. If it turns out she’s got any ransom value or suchlike, the profit’s all yours. But whatever she knows, is mine.”
 
SUIVI POINT: MAIN DETENTION
RSF
VERATINA
: INFABEDE SECTOR
 
T
HE PRISONER was stocky and dark-haired, with a square, snub-nosed face under a short mop of greying curls. She sat on the edge of her bunk in
Karipavo
’s brig, with the bearing and expression of someone who has been expecting the worst for some time already, and who hasn’t yet been disappointed.
In the office of the ’
Pavo
’s security chief, Commodore Gil regarded the prisoner’s image in the flatscreen cell-block monitor and shook his head.
“I don’t think she’s going to crack without some kind of encouragement,” he said to Lieutenant Jhunnei. “So far, we don’t even know if she speaks Galcenian. If she doesn’t, we’ll have to find somebody on board who talks … what
do
these people speak, anyway, Lieutenant?”
“Eraasian,” his aide said. “Most of them. At least as a second language.”
“How about you?”
Jhunnei shook her head. “Not enough to hold a conversation. I can read a bit of the script, but that’s all.”
“Not very helpful.” Gil sat for a moment with his chin in his hand, contemplating the image on the flatscreen. “So there she sits, unless she suddenly gets an overpowering urge to have a chat. Which I doubt will happen.”
“Your restraint’s all very noble, Commodore. But there’s a war on—we can’t afford to simply wait for answers.”
Gil sighed. “Unfortunately, Lieutenant, I just happen to be noble. A noble, anyway. It says so right on my ID papers. Besides … what’s the point of winning a war if you become exactly like your enemy along the way?”
“What’s the point, indeed?” Jhunnei’s features took on a thoughtful but excited expression. “There could be advantages in becoming a little bit more like the enemy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me finish,” she said. “What I mean is, don’t treat her the way that
you’d
like to be treated—treat her the way that
she’d
like to be treated.”
“So you do have something up your sleeve.”
“Maybe,” said Jhunnei. “For starters, I’m betting that she does in fact speak Galcenian. It isn’t exactly unheard-of on the far side of the Net, especially for the educated and ambitious, and some of the notes on those papers were in Galcenian.”
“Suppose she does have the language?”
Jhunnei looked grave. “Then, Commodore, there is a chance that you can induce her to cooperate voluntarily.”
“Ah.” Gil turned in his chair and looked at his aide, who was most certainly not an Adept and who had definitely not trained under Errec Ransome. “I suppose that you, Lieutenant, have by an odd coincidence studied the Mageworlders thoroughly enough to know how to gain that cooperation?”
“In preparation for my assignment, sir, I felt it best to review the available material on the society we’d be guarding.” She looked back at him with a straight face. “The better to advise you, sir.”
“And did that review happen to take place at the Retreat? No, no, you don’t have to answer that. Advise me, then.”
The lieutenant relaxed a little. “Yes, sir. The Mages—the Circle-Mages and the Magelords—have a distinct code of honor, though not necessarily one that our half of the galaxy finds congenial. Within their Circles, they offer up their lives and energies in ritual combat; succession in the Circles proceeds through formal duels.
“The society that the Mages live in takes its inspiration from their model. Dueling is part of their social interaction.”
“I’m not following you,” Gil said, though he suspected that he was following her all too well. “Spell it out.”
“I mean, fight a duel with her. She’s not a Mage—I don’t think she is, anyway—but the tradition of stylized combat is one of those things that carries over. If you win, then she’ll feel obligated to help you.”
“If I win, she’s likely to be dead.”
“That’s what keeps it honorable.”
“And if she wins, I’ll be dead.”
“That’s right,” said Jhunnei. “Or if you yield, she’ll expect you to take her orders afterward.”
Gil looked back at the picture on the flatscreen. The woman in the cell didn’t look like a combat trooper—more like a specialist or technician of some sort.
“I don’t like the idea of taking on somebody who may not have the training to fight back,” he said to Jhunnei. “Why don’t you fight her?”
“No, thank you—I don’t want to put a Mageworlder under obligation to me. It would set a bad precedent. And besides,” Jhunnei went on, “why should you refuse her the honor of fighting the senior commander? She is the senior survivor from her ship.”
Gil was still watching the flatscreen. The prisoner hadn’t changed position or expression yet so far. “I suppose that if I challenge her she gets to choose the weapons?”
“You’ve been watching too many holovids,” Jhunnei said with a smile. “You’re the one in a position of strength here. You get to choose.”
Gil frowned. “Well, I’m damned if I’ll give her a blaster. Not on shipboard. Too easy to have accidents with one of those. How about a staff?”
“If she were a Mage, maybe. But she’s not a Mage.”
“Just as well. I’m not an Adept.” Gil stared out into space for a few minutes and then nodded to himself. “Lieutenant—what do we have in the ship’s armory by way of edged weapons?”
“Probably not much,” said Jhunnei. “But I’ll bet that the metals shop can run something up.”
“Two sets of something,” Gil said, reaching for the comm link. “Matched.”
 
Beka woke from a thick, unnatural sleep.
For a moment, feeling the hard, narrow bunk underneath her, she thought that she was in crew berthing on the old
Sidh
, making her first long jump from Galcen to the Suivan Belt. Then her vision cleared and she saw the blank metal walls of the detention cell. Her skull pounded; her mouth felt scummy and dry.
Drugs again,
she thought.
A high-pitched buzzing noise broke the silence, sounding loud and unnatural in the confined space of the cell. A force field shimmered into place between her and the door. She made herself sit up on the bunk.
The cell door slid open, and a ConSec guard stepped inside. He was carrying a bundle of pale green cloth, some kind of shimmery rustling stuff that flowed over his arms in glistening folds. There was something hard wrapped up inside the bundle; when the ConSec dropped the armload of fabric onto the floor, it hit the metal plates with a muffled clunk.
She blinked at the pile of green cloth. “What’s that?”
“Clothes,” said the Consec. “Get dressed. By order of the Steering Committee of Suivi Point.”
“I am dressed,” she pointed out. “What do I need to change for—some kind of trial?”
The ConSec grinned. “Something like that.”
“Screw the committee,” she said. “The clothes I’ve got on suit me just fine.”
“Committee says you wear these. Either you put them on yourself, or I’ll fetch a couple of my buddies and we’ll dress you ourselves.”
“All right. If it makes the committee happy.”
“Thought you’d see reason.”
The ConSec stepped back outside the cell and the door closed. The force field went down.
Reluctantly, Beka got off of the bunk and picked up the green cloth. The lengths of slick imitation spidersilk unfolded into a formal gown—a quick-copy knockoff of the dress she had worn to make her holovid broadcast. A heavy object fell out of the cloth onto the metal floor.
Beka picked up the Iron Crown of Entibor and laid it on her bunk. She looked at the tiara of twisted black metal, and felt a sour taste of sickness rise and burn in the back of her throat. She clenched her fists and swallowed.
Damned ugly iron thing
, she thought.
It killed my mother and I wasn’t smart enough to get the message. I had to pick it up and wear it myself.
She unfastened the prison coveralls to her waist and pulled the gown over her head as quickly as possible—the ConSecs were undoubtedly watching her on the security monitors. Recordings, she suspected, would be on sale all over Suivi by evening, to anyone with the interest and the cash. When she started to work on the traditional structure of multiple braids that went with the Iron Crown, a hidden speaker clicked on.
“Don’t waste the committee’s time. Put on the crown.”
She bit her lip and pulled her long hair back into the loop-fastener that had been packed with the gown, a fastener like the one that she’d been wearing when the ConSecs arrested her. The force field shimmered back up as soon as she finished settling the Iron Crown into place.
Three ConSecs came in this time, two of them with blasters and the third—the one who’d brought in the dress—with a set of binders. The two with blasters stayed well back, out of each other’s way. The third one came up to the force field.
“Turn around,” he said. “Put your hands behind you. No tricks or we stun you and carry you down to the studio.”
They would, too, the bastards.
She turned around and stood with her back to the ConSecs. “What kind of trial happens in a studio?”
She heard the faint buzz of the force field going off, and felt the cold metal binders slipping around her wrists. The lock snicked shut.
“They already held the trial,” said the ConSec. “This is the execution. You going to walk like a good girl, or do I have to stun you?”
Her mouth went dry.
A chance
, she thought.
All I want is a chance to fight back. But it’s no good if they stun me.
“Bastards,” she said. “I’ll walk.”
 
The senior officers’ wardroom aboard RSF
Veratina
boasted, among other luxuries, a miniature version of the main battle tank in the cruiser’s Combat Information Center. Dots of blue light—some of them large enough to be seen as tiny wedge shapes, and others appearing only as glowing pinpricks—floated inside the tank in an orderly formation.
Jos Metadi poured himself more cha’a from the silver urn and carried the mug back to the wardroom table, a long, heavy piece of furniture made out of ironwood hand-rubbed to a mirror polish.
Captain Faramon never got all this stuff out of general issue
, he thought as he seated himself in the matching ironwood chair that had also belonged to Captain Faramon.
Commander Quetaya and Colonel—until recently, Captain—Tyche already sat in the chairs flanking him. Both of them had mugs of their own cooling in front of them, on silver coasters with heat-resistant bottoms. Metadi caught the officers’ attention with a quick glance, and nodded toward the blue lights inside the wardroom battle tank.
“There you are,” he said. “We’ve collected ourselves a fair-sized little fleet. The question now is, what are we going to do with it?” He looked at his aide. “Commander—summarize the choices for me, just in case I’ve forgotten or overlooked something.”
His aide looked down at the clipboard she’d brought into the wardroom with her, and then at the dots in the tank. “We don’t have much in the way of firepower,” she said. “Circumspection is always an option.”
“Not now it isn’t,” said Metadi. “We don’t have the time to be cautious. I want live targets.”
“Yes, sir. In that case, our choices are essentially two. We have the original Mageworlds warfleet; but its location, its intentions, and its true capabilities are all unknown. On the other hand, we have Admiral Vallant’s mutinous force. We know Vallant’s strength; we know, in general terms, his location; and we have a pretty clear idea’—thanks to Captain Faramon—of his immediate intentions.”
“That we do,” Metadi said. “We’ll have to fight Valiant eventually; the question is whether now is the best time to do it.” He looked over at the Planetary Infantry officer. “Nat, what are your opinions?”
Colonel Tyche regarded the cha’a in his mug as if he expected to find an answer floating there. When he replied to Metadi, he spoke slowly and carefully. “Vallant is an option, certainly. And as you say, we’ll have to do the job sometime. But if the question is whether fighting him would make the best use of our current resources … well, General, I’m not certain.”
Metadi nodded. “Understood, Colonel. What would you recommend that we do instead?”
“Get a secure planetary base and pick up more units,” Tyche said promptly. “Leave ourselves the option of hitting the Mages or Vallant whenever we want. Keep both of them off-balance.”

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