Crown Of Fire (19 page)

Talumah remained standing beside her, under one of the five globes. She'd been told that they stood for Netaia, two other settled worlds in this system, and its two buffer systems. "Our people," he said, "wish to establish an observation post in this residence." Terza felt a flicker of protest, then the counterflicker as Talumah smoothed away Rogonin's objection and went on speaking. "We are disappointed, of course, that Lady Firebird survived our attack yesterday."

"Disappointed?" Rogonin's cheeks flushed. "You killed sixteen of my subjects. That is inexcusable, unforgivable—"

In that moment, Talumah thrust a breaching probe deep into the regent's alpha matrix. Terza felt the backflash. Rogonin sat motionless, wide-eyed, clutching both arms of his throne-chair. Talumah worked swiftly, manipulating Rogonin's will exactly as he'd mind-altered Princess Phoena.

Exactly as he would manipulate her if they discovered her secret hope.

The silence lasted ten minutes, and Micahel kept his stare on Rago-nion's attendants. Then Terza felt echoes of epsilon activity fade away. Rogonin's contorted face relaxed. He drew a deep breath.

Memory block firmly in place,
she understood.

"We now wish," said Talumah, "to penetrate the Federate military base. Help us only a little, and we will eliminate your Federate overseers."

Rogonin spread his hands. "Gladly. Tell me how."

Micahel stepped toward the long desk's other end. "We want to take the base in two stages, probably an hour apart. First, it is still crucial to kill Lady Firebird and take General Caldwell prisoner. We still assume you would not regret losing
that
subject."

The regent straightened in his gilt-crusted chair, clasping fleshy hands. "No. I would also be pleased to see the lord consort gone, permanently. Terza," he continued, looking back at her, "tell me, and the secret will go no further. What really happened to the young queen whom I serve as regent? Carradee's daughter, Iarla Second."

She glanced up at Micahel, who was deeper inside their father's confidences.

Go
ahead and answer,
he sent.
This is one secret he'll keep.

She turned back to the regent. "Iarla and her sister are dead, Your Grace."

He inhaled slowly, smiling. "Tell me more."

Disgusted by his delight in child murder, Terza used her inmost shields. "Step forward, Talumah." The taller man made a mocking half bow to the regent. "My co-worker," Terza said, "intercepted a Federate shuttle carrying them to the Inisi system. He destroyed it as it reentered normal space." She didn't tell him about the tissue specimens preserved in her laboratory, nor her supervisor's interest in the Casvah genetic line.

Casvah. A thought struck hard. What if... what if it were
Firebird
whose epsilon potential saved them yesterday? Or maybe, some psychic union of the Casvah line with the Carabohds? If so, then those Casvah specimens in Terza's laboratory could have the same potential. They might give her people the powers that had just saved Firebird from certain death.

Talumah stared down over her shoulder. She felt his epsilon probe lick up that thought. He raised one eyebrow, radiating pleasure.
Yes,
he sent,
that is possible!

"And then?" Rogonin asked Micahel. "What about your second stage?"

Enraptured by his own destructive fantasies, Micahel seemed to have missed Terza's exchange with Talumah. "We will destroy Citangelo Occupation Base," he said, "just as we hit Sunton on Thyrica."

Rogonin's fleshy face turned pale. "Yes, we heard about Sunton . . . but... Citangelo ..."

"This time," Talumah said slowly, and Terza felt the calming overlay, "we will not take out the entire city. There is enough distance between the base and this district that the finer homes will be spared."

"How soon will you strike?" Rogonin asked, clenching the arms of his chair. "I want my family sent out of danger."

"There is no danger." Micahel spread his hands.

"How. . . soon?" Terza felt the effort that question cost Rogonin. His will was strong to be able to question them at all.

"As soon as you can give us ships capable of this kind of attack. Sooner, I think, than Lady. . .
Princess
Firebird," Micahel taunted, "and her lord consort can leave the base. She may not be dead, but she shouldn't be moved."

"Excellent." Rogonin finally succumbed, touching a desk control that lowered the large, central globe to just over head-high. Now Terza recognized the coastlines of Netaia's North and South continents. Another flick of his finger created a glowing zone on the globe. An enlargement of the glowing area focused over his right shoulder, on a projection panel she'd mistaken for a wall. "The spaceport district," explained the regent, "is badly in need of urban renewal."

Micahel smiled slowly. Terza choked on the urge to tell Rogonin that his spaceport district, if Micahel got several warhead-loaded ships through, would be the rubble-strewn deep spot of an uninhabitable crater.

"Regarding your first stage," he said, "I have a suggestion. First Marshal Devair Burkenhamn of the Netaian Planetary Navy has gone over into Lady Firebird's camp. I saw them speaking at my daughter's presentation ball, and he just reinstated her into the Planetary Navy. With a promotion," he added, frowning.

"So we heard," said Talumah.

Rogonin nodded. "Since she has reason to trust him . . ."

Terza plainly felt his last struggle for independence. Then he blurted the words, "Could your people use him as an assassin? He lives out in the city, but he works on base."

Terza raised one eyebrow. Ard Talumah wouldn't have planted that suggestion but commanded Rogonin to serve them with full loyalty and his favorite "impossible" ideas.

For all Micahel's murderous skills, Modabah seemed reluctant to let him penetrate the base at ground level. So he would send in Burkenhamn—and Terza.

"That bears consideration," Talumah said slowly.

Rogonin stared down at Terza. "Are you all right, my dear? You look pallid."

"Your Grace is a fine strategist," she said stiffly.

"Obviously, I have employed fine agents." Rogonin spoke firmly now, his alpha matrix reorienting to its newly imposed loyalty. He called up another map projection. "For your second stage, I suggest using Sitree Air Base. I can give you access codes. You can get other information when you . . . when we interview Marshal Burkenhamn."

"Excellent," said Micahel.

Terza looked aside, at Talumah. He paid Rogonin's props no attention at all. She could almost feel his mind racing.

Casvah-Angelo and Carabohd-Caldwell, Terza reflected again. Cas-vah and any Ehretan line, maybe. The Angelo woman might be key to their victory, after all. Firebird . . . and Terza's child, to get them to Caldwell.

Second Lieutenant Aril Maggard dropped into her seat on
Babb's
crowded bridge and entered another tick mark at one corner of her com console. They had been eighteen days in Inisi space and found no trace of the little girls' shuttle. Curious by nature, Aril had studied the Federate register between watches. She guessed she'd learned more about Netaia's customs and its noble families than most other Federates knew about their home worlds.

With this much time gone, though, hope had faded. The diplomatic runner's supplies would have run out some time ago. Aril's best remaining hopes were to see a footnote entered in Netaia's history... or better still, to go back to Lenguad and get on with her life.

She really would prefer someone else found them now, if they were in Inisi space.

The salvage ship lurched as
Babb's
pilot fired braking thrusters. "Almost on sector," he announced.

Aril activated her scanners and leaned back, stretching.

An hour later, the shift's first
ping
brought her upright. The second curled her forward over the scanning screen. "Debris," she called. "Metallic, irregular. Considerable mass."

Major Dunn leaned over her shoulder and ordered, "Block the quadrant and rescan. Transponder check and mass estimate."

"Transponder check and mass estimate, aye." Aril stroked her controls, first defining a scan volume, then collecting data. She read off a mass figure, then craned her neck to look up at Major Dunn. "Transponder confirm, ma'am." This was the missing shuttle.

Could they still be alive?

The officer frowned. "Check life signs."

Aril had already flicked another scanner. A red light glimmered on her board. "Negative, Major." She said it calmly, but her chest went tight. She had several young nieces and nephews.

Maybe they'd gotten away in a rescue pod.

Major Dunn took the command seat. "Helm, take us closer. Scanners, spotlight whatever there is to see. Com, call Inisi base. I'm afraid we may have found them."

Minutes later, Aril's neck and shoulders ached from sitting in one position, staring, waiting to activate the big lights. At last, she switched them on.

The underside of a Tallan courier appeared, rotating slowly. Even from this angle, Aril could see that several steering units had been blown off. "Confirm battle damage," she said. She'd seen this before. It had never affected her quite so deeply.

"Match speed and rotation," the major ordered.

On the main screen, a long, gaping tear with metal and composite hull curled back from its edges drifted into view. The cockpit had taken a direct hit. Aril stayed at her post while two salvage workers donned extravehicular suits and exited the main lock, carrying rescue bags and remote imaging equipment. She touched a control that split the main screen. It continued to display the damaged courier's exterior but added a view from the salvage team's imager.

Avoiding the tear, they approached the main lock.

It hung open.

"This ship has been boarded since impact," said a young male voice on the cabin speakers. The image on Aril's screen bumped and shifted as the imager jiggled, then floated steadily inward. The powerless shuttle had naturally lost all gravidics. "Crew of six on station, no life signs," the voice said dispassionately. He didn't swing his imager around to show bodies. His partner would be taking those recordings, using a different instrument. "Significant toxic residues on the bulkheads."

Aril tried to comfort herself with the fact that there'd been no accident. No mishap would be blamed on Federate ground crews. "Shuhr," she whispered. The fiends! She brushed moisture off one cheek.

"Look for a private compartment," Major Dunn directed.

The image floated up a short corridor. The first starboard hatch hung open, damaged. Aril's chest tightened again as she spotted a soft, brown stuffed animal—some domestic Netaian creature—floating in a corner between bulkheads. This had been a child's private cabin.

"They're not here," the male voice concluded several minutes later.

"Rescue pods fired?" Major Dunn asked.

"Negative."

What could the Shuhr have done with two small children? Aril wondered. The ship had been boarded. Were they kidnapped? Acting on a hunch, she activated one of her other scanners.

Something cold seemed to settle on her chest and shoulders. "Biological debris," she announced. "Eighty meters aft, drifting."

Major Dunn relayed that report. The salvage crew exited the shuttle, and on the main screen, Aril saw the faint red glow of EV suits' steering units.

The remote image remained trained on the starfield.

"Yes," the voice said softly, angrily. "We've found them."

"Com, inform Inisi base." Major Dunn sounded weary. "Tell them to notify Hesed and the Netaian Electorate."

Aril did a quick mental calculation. Because of the relative distances to Hesed and Netaia, Carradee would receive the news first.

Tel pressed the CT earpiece in tightly, then cupped a hand over it. "Yes, Solicitor Merriam, I remember you." The elderly man was the sovereign's legal counsel. "Could you speak louder?"

"I'm sorry, no," said the husky voice. "The regency has been monitoring my office for days. I'm not certain my home is clean. It's urgent I speak with Firebird, but the base is allowing no one through. Can you have her contact me immediately?"

Barely awake and less than half dressed, Tel leaned against one wall of his spacious wood-paneled bedroom and peered at a clock. What time was it—six, maybe seven hundred? "I will try, but I was unable to get through myself. The base is taking no chances." The implications— that Shuhr agents might find and influence him so that he might harm Firebird—were chilling. Still, he had plenty of loyal bodyguards now. He felt safe enough.

"It regards Carradee's will." Merriam's voice—or was it even Merriam?—dropped until Tel strained to catch words. "I am leaving the city for my own safety. I will drop certain documents by Your Highness's estate in half an hour. You must see them delivered."

The connection went dead. Through a force-screened window drifted the song of an awakened bird. Tel replaced the earpiece in its uteh-wood box, then slipped on a pair of warm house shoes. If these documents were genuine, then by the urgency in Merriam's voice, Tel guessed they would cause a sensation—and bring Rogonin's redjackets to his door.

Alarmed on all counts, he picked up the earpiece again and put through a call to base. He still couldn't persuade the staff to let him speak with Firebird—no one wanted to wake her—but Caldwell's bodyguard, Uri Harris, intercepted his attempt.

Tel liked Lieutenant Colonel Harris, who moved and spoke with upper-class grace and self-confidence. "If you could reach my estate in twenty minutes," Tel said, "there will either be extremely important documents delivered that are meant for Firebird, or else an attempt on my life." As he spoke, he stared up at the portrait over his bed. His late wife wore orange, which represented Excellence in Netaia's symbology. Heir-named
Eschelle
for
Excellence,
she had always called that "her own" Power.

The imperious tilt of her head balanced the grace with which she clasped her long fingers. She'd sat willingly, letting him adore her on canvas.

To his chagrin, this morning he could look at that portrait without longing for her. She'd brought Netaia to the Shuhr's attention. Because of that, they threatened to take the world—and they nearly killed Firebird yesterday.

"If this is real," he told Harris, "and if His Grace at the palace is watching the solicitor's home, I will not be secure with those documents in my hands. Please come and take them."

"I can't leave my post," said the Sentinel, "but I can send another courier. She'll be in uniform, with my personal clearance code."

"Again," ordered Modabah.

One of the ship's crew who'd brought them to Netaia toggled a control. Over the media block, the familiar tableau appeared: Firebird Caldwell knelt at center stage with her Sentinel beside her.

The projectile drove her to the floor. Caldwell all but collapsed.

"Not yet," said Talumah. "Keep going. . . ."

Terza watched Talumah watch the tri-D. His eyes fell half shut. The miniature figures huddled—

"Now," Talumah exclaimed. The crewman froze the image.

But they're just lying there,
Terza said.

Modabah occupied the largest chair. He brandished a recall pad. "Listen to this." He read off several paragraphs couched in self-assured prose that reminded her of Dru Polar. "Polar's research," Modabah explained, confirming her guess. "Just before his death, he was working with the idea of fusing two epsilon carriers, one artificially repolarized to an unusual conformation. His theory was that joining two such carriers would release a flood of energy. He called his theory 'antipodal fusion.' "

Micahel spoke first. "Do you suppose Caldwell stole Polar's idea and perfected it? This looks like—"

"How did you say it felt, Talumah?" Modabah demanded.

"Like an explosion of pure energy."

Modabah flung the recall pad against the wall. "That's what they're doing. Caldwell and Firebird, somehow. The Angelos have been isolated here for over a century. There must have been a mutation. Something altered their epsilon potential."

"Kill them," declared Micahel. "Separate them first. Then we can kill them both."

Modabah slicked back his hair with both hands. "We still could take him and use him. But yes, finish her. If she has that kind of epsilon carrier, and she inherited it, then he couldn't do this with anyone else— except Carradee, the one who abdicated."

She would've taken a vanity implant,
Terza pointed out.
Her ayin is probably destroyed.

"Good, Terza," said her father.

It was the first time he'd ever praised her.

Ard Talumah turned his back on the tri-D image, crossing his arms over his chest. "So nothing has changed. Kill her, dart him, and grab."

Modabah scowled. "Something has changed," he insisted. "If our assumption about the Angelo line is wrong, then other Sentinels might be learning this technique. They've undoubtedly studied whatever it is these two have been doing. We can't give them one more day."

"Yes," Micahel hissed. "Hit Thyrica. Take down the college. And I tell you, Hesed can be attacked. All we need is one Thyrian ship with RIA technology—"

"We've tried. They're guarding those ships too closely. Take an order," Modabah called to the crewman, who pulled his own recall pad off his belt. Modabah rocked forward on his chair, clasping both hands. "This is for Adiyn, by fastest courier."

The crewman nodded.

"Adiyn," said Modabah. "Mobilize. Deploy to Tallis," he stressed, glaring at his son. "To the capital city, Castille. I want a crater twice as deep as Micahel left at Sunton."

One side of Micahel's mouth quirked upward.

Modabah gripped air with one hand. "Make it look like a Sentinel attack—use the Procyel-Tallis approach vector, and transmit from Thyr-ica that Tallis's inaction after Sunton could not be tolerated. Turn them on the Sentinels at all cost."

Terza quivered behind her deep shields, staggered by the loss of life he was ordering.

"Second order," said Modabah. "Those Casvah gene specimens could be priceless. Get them into the deep vault under the main chamber. I will follow close behind this message, as soon as Caldwell can be taken. End message." He glared at the crewman. "Get moving."

Then he turned to his son. "The third order is for you. Get on your way to Sitree. I'll transmit specific orders as soon as we have Burken-hamn. Get three fighters. Heavy ones, long-range. Load up, stand out, and await orders. As soon as we take the Angelo woman down and Caldwell out, demolish that base. Pick two pilots from the settlements. You know the drill."

To Terza's surprise, Micahel didn't seem delighted by his assignment. He stood cracking his knuckles. "For once," he muttered, "just once, I would like to be present when Caldwell is brought in. He is mine. So is Burkenhamn, after he roughed me up at that ball."

Terza watched her father hesitate. After all, one day Micahel would lead the unbound. He had the right to take this generation of Cara-bohds. . . .

"I can't promise you Burkenhamn," Modabah said. "But I will say this. No one will kill Caldwell until you arrive."

Firebird woke herself midmorning, thrashing, trying in her sleep to find some position that eased the main weight of that field generator off her chest. It was only twenty centimeters wide and ten thick, with rounded edges, but after just one day, she'd started to think of it as an instrument of torture. It hummed incessantly, not quite a true pitch. She also had a new, nagging itch at her left wrist. The base's chief med, a Tallan named Adamm Hancock, had secured a life-signs cuff. She would be wearing that little bracelet, too snug to be removed, until the surgeons pronounced her fit to fly.

She felt stronger already. Something else had changed, too, back at the sanctum. Along with her pride, that asphyxiating fear... for Brenn, for herself. . . had vanished. There remained terrors to be faced, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Mightier hands than hers, moved by a wiser will and a richer love, controlled her destiny. It was obvious now.

She just wished she felt stronger yet—and more comfortable.

The door slid open, and Shel slipped into her room.

"Where's Brenn?" Firebird asked.

"Uri says he's been up since two hundred. I don't think either of them slept. May I ease you?"

"Yes, thank you."

Shel walked over and locked stares with her. Nauseating otherness swept across Firebird's alpha matrix, but it leveled peaks of discomfort. "Thank you," she repeated.

Though the deep, infuriating itch faded, the generator's weight still tormented her. According to her regimen, in a few hours she could get up for a while. That couldn't happen soon enough. "Did they find any more traces of Shirak overnight?"

Shel took the bedside chair, leaning away from her hip-holstered blazer. "He left a few skin and hair cells on the overhead beam. They took a full DNA tracing and cross-checked the Netaian medical database. That only proved he was offworld.
His
people don't publish referents. Nothing else on the search. Rogonin insists the palace is cooperating, but we have doubts."

Firebird nodded. She did, too.

Shel slipped out.

Only a few minutes later, there was a quick rapping on the door. Firebird straightened her hair over her shoulders and called, "Come."

Uri and Shel pressed through together, along with a third Sentinel Firebird had met yesterday on guard shift, Lieutenant Rachil Mercell. Slender with short brown hair, she'd sat and talked music, describing herself as a lapsed brass player.

Uri held a sealed message cylinder under his elbow. "We've safed this," he said, sounding slightly less composed than usual, a little more tenor than baritone. "Lieutenant Mercell picked it up at the Tellai estate, with instructions from an older gentleman to greet you in the name of Solicitor Merriam."

"Merriam's afraid." Lieutenant Mercell stood against the door. "I've applied to Governor Danton for his protection."

Startled, Firebird forgot where she lay and tried to sit up straighter. The field generator held her down. "Did Solicitor Merriam say what this is?"

"Not to me," the lieutenant said.

Firebird thumbed the seal, and the cylinder's halves fell apart. She fumbled out several sheets of rolled parchment. The smallest, in Tel's hand, dropped free. "I believe you need to know," she read aloud, "that the Ceremonials Committee turned down your request. Your heir name is Domita."
Not Mari,
she reflected,
but at least they shortened Indomitability.
Two years ago, she had hoped to be remembered for indomitably facing her wastling fate.

She eyed the other sheets. "These look like original documents," she began, then she realized, "They are. Heatsealed." She turned over the loose roll. It was illegal to break a heatseal unless authorized, but above the seal was printed, "Firebird Elsbeth Angelo, upon her Confirmation as an heiress of the House."

That looked like Carradee's scribing.

She punctured the seal with one thumbnail. "Testament Upon Renunciation of the Throne," she read aloud. Then, sobered by the realization that these documents were vital family property, she scanned the top page.

By the time she started reading the second, her heart thumped under the field generator and the life-signs cuff gave off a pale green light. The Angelo fortune—the entire wealth of Netaia's most powerful family—was to be placed under her administration, if she were ever confirmed as the heiress.

No wonder Solicitor Merriam feared for his life. She couldn't waste a minute. She could accomplish something for Netaia right here in the infirmary, and pride had nothing to do with it. Carrie had arranged this even before leaving for Hesed. She'd kept it secret, too, and explained why. . . right there in the fifteenth clause. "So that no one might accuse Firebird, now or ever, of monetary motivation in accepting confirmation."

That explained Carrie's delight over her decision to come back here, though. She'd practically shoved Firebird up the shuttle's boarding ramp.

"Uri," said Firebird, "is there a legal consul on base authorized to access civilian programming?"

"I don't know."

"I need to speak with one right away. And can you access him, to make sure he's not under Rogonin's influence?"

"That depends. We're only allowed use of our abilities—"

Under strictly controlled circumstances,
she chorused mentally as he spoke. "All right," she said. "This solicitor is about to be asked to do several things. He must have Tel Tellai-Angelo authorized on these documents as my Netaian representative—and executor, if necessary," she added, determined that whether she lived or died, Muirnen Rogonin would no longer leverage the Angelo fortune.

Her voice rose with excitement. "I also need documents of incorporation, so that moneys I now control can be distributed without certain parties' knowledge or interference. I mean to use Angelo resources to end the electors' stranglehold on Netaia's economy, Uri. Is that circumstance enough?"

She saw a hint of Brennen in Uri's half smile. Second cousins, weren't they? "I believe it is," he said. Then he added in a teasing tone, "Commander Caldwell. I'll send down breakfast, too." He left with Lieutenant Mercell. Shel stayed at the door.

Firebird stared at the far wall. Tel must examine the family portfolio—no, first he would have to
find
it—it was probably at Merriam's office and might have been stolen.

She could withdraw enough funds to build a Chapter house, too, and bring non-Sentinel Path instructors to Citangelo.

Smiling, she shut her eyes and relaxed against the field generator. What
was
the pitch it had hummed all night? Not quite a C-sharp, but a sharp C-natural. . .

Another idea rose to tantalize her. All her life, she'd wished she could be remembered as a patron of musical arts. It would have been lovely to establish a conservatory scholarship in perpetuity. Or an orchestra . . . she'd always wanted to found a new orchestra. This one could be dedicated to diverse programming.