Crown Of Fire (25 page)

Uri pressed a final query, and now Brennen saw their abominable plans for Netaia, including the deliberate infection of every Netaian with gene-altering viral agents.

Tallis was in a more conventional danger.

Plainly, it was time to strike. Destroying the Shuhr stronghold would prevent both tragedies.

Uri rocked back on his stool, away from Terza. "Enough," he said. "Terza, unless there are other things you want to show us, we are finished."

She blinked, and Brennen sensed her surprise. "I thought you would take it all," she muttered. "Not just the colony, but my mind, my memories."

"Those belong to you," said Brennen. "We never take more than necessary." Now he recalled one other interrogation, when he
had
been ordered to go deep, to capture the Netaian mindset. Federate needs had led to the fulfillment of his own almost two years ago. That memory warmed the cold chill that had settled on him. "We serve a God of mercy," he added.

"So I hear," muttered Terza.

Uri raised his head, glancing up sharply.

Maybe he shouldn't have said that much. Terza hadn't asked any relevant question.
If I said too much, forgive me.
But in his urge to show mercy, Terza was the nearest in need. She'd done everything in her power to help them.
Accept that as her service to you, Holy One. Give her grace to receive you.

"Pray for me, then," she muttered. "For my... for your child."

Stunned, he rested one hand on her shoulder and let the words come. "Show Terza and this child that mercy, Holy One. If Terza is a danger to herself or to us, protect us all by your power. Dispel her fears with your glory. So let it be." He barely pressed down on her shoulder, a reassuring gesture.

Terza lay motionless, clenching one hand over her chest as if seizing a new sensation. Her lips quivered. So
that,
she subvocalized,
is what faith feels like.

Firebird pulled out of sedation by stages. First she sensed the deep contentment of lying in Brennen's presence. Gradually she became aware of a steady thrumming.

She opened her eyes. Brennen sat on the carpet beside her bunk, leaning against a richly embossed bulkhead, studying a recall pad. He finished making a notation with one finger, then reached up and laid the pad on the pillow of a second, luxuriously deep cot. "Good morning, Princess," he said softly.

"Don't call me that." She kept all venom out of her voice, though. The long, deep sleep had left her feeling extraordinarily refreshed. "Looks like you found quite a ship—" Or was this sense of peace something she felt in Brennen? "What is it?" she murmured. "What happened?"

He carefully released the humming arch and helped her sit upright. "I hardly know where to start."

That brought her fully awake. She stretched, careful not to twist her spine. "Then go from the middle. What happened?"

He told her about mind-accessing Terza, then about hearing the Voice again.

"The call your people have waited for?" she asked, laying a hand on his forearm. "What a relief! Now you can be certain."

"Yes. I made an announcement in the crew lounge. I wish you could've seen the change in attitudes. The new determination, the humility. And there's more." He looked directly into her eyes. "I have my memory back."

"That's why you feel different," she whispered. "You feel. . . complete again." Trying to will her pulse rate down, she leaned against him. "How did it happen? What did you do?"

"Only what I've been doing since Three Zed. I asked. This time, the answer wasn't 'wait for my time.' " His voice fell several notes down the scale. "My other abilities didn't come back, though. And He ... didn't promise either of us would survive."

"Has He ever promised that?" she asked gently. She caught a faint feeling, almost a scent of mastered fear.

Brennen shook his head. "Only that in His country, we would be cleansed and restored. Remade as we should have been."

"With all our atonements made."

His eyebrows knit. "Mari, we don't make our own atonements."

"I know." She clenched her hands into fists on her lap. "But all you went through at Three Zed, doesn't that count for something? What I'm going through now?"

Brennen hesitated. Her Path instructor had explained this.
He
had explained it. Sometimes, she even seemed to understand.

But she'd been raised to believe she must sacrifice herself, and that her own actions must balance her shortcomings. Her willingness to give everything, her determination to serve at all cost. . . those were laudable, but. . .
Holy One, how can I make her understand that you will pay the price for what is inside her?
She'd learned so much . . . and at least the nagging notion of making her own atonement no longer roused her Angelo pride.

"He refines us, tests us, disciplines us. Sometimes He even lets the Adversary use pain, Mari. But we do not make our own atonement. You seemed to understand that, not long ago."

She spread her hands. "I can recite everything they taught me back on Thyrica. But this. . . idea that I have to do it myself, it keeps bubbling up out of my past, and I latch on."

"Don't give up," he murmured, twisting around so he could face her. His lips pressed against hers, warm and strong. Then came the smoky-sweet sense at the back of her mind . . . and it carried the memory of all the trials they'd shared, this time as
he
remembered them. She sensed the way her mental cry of grief over Veroh had sparked his eager curiosity, and she rejoiced in the way that his determination to see her recruited, possibly even converted, had been completed. Their sweet wilderness flight at Tallis, when she leaped off a mountainside into his arms. . . now she felt the passion he'd barely controlled at the time and his ecstasy in its consummation at their pair bonding. In memory, she stood inside his skin to face Phoena's death squad at Hunter Height, and then at the moment when Master Spieth told them they would be parents. She felt his anguished pride in the insane moments when Kiel and Kinnor emerged, and a regret almost as deep as his faith when they parted at Hesed House, as he left for Three Zed.

Truly, he was back! He leaned deeper into the kiss, tangling his fingers into her hair. She raised one arm to slide it around his shoulders, and a jolt of pain made her pull away.

It was only a little jolt, though. She was substantially better. With exquisite care, he helped her to her feet. "Ready to walk a bit?" he asked.

Before coming to the palace this morning, Tel had checked on Clareen Chesterson. Rescued from detention by two servitors, she was back at her own apartment. She'd answered his CT call in high spirits, assuring him she had enough song ideas to last into the next year.

A high-toned bell called the Electorate to order and broke off his thoughts. He stood beside the gold-rimmed table and then watched as a redjacket escorted Bennett Drake, Duke of Kenhing, to the gilt chair at the table's head. Newly sworn as regent, Kenhing held his silver rod along his forearm, close to his chest. Like Tel, he wore three narrow black wristbands. Esme Rogonin, her cheeks pale and her eyes red above her long purple mourning gown, held her head high. Her mother had declined to attend.

Kenhing took his new place. The electors seated themselves.

"Our first order of business," Kenhing said, "is to acknowledge Es-merield Rogonin as Duchess of Claighbro, head of House Rogonin. Our sincere condolences, Duchess. Your father's death was honorable."

"Thank you," she said gravely. "The holy Powers have surely received him into bliss, along with Iarla Second and Princess Kessaree." There was no bliss in her eyes, though, or on her trembling lips. Tel ached for her. Rogonin's allegedly honorable suicide was utterly unnecessary, just like the deaths of so many wastlings, but it had saved House Rogonin the humiliation of an ugly, protracted trial.

Yesterday, Netaia had added mourning bands for Iarla and Kessaree.

Kenhing—regent for whom?—touched Tel's arm. "Prince Tel," he said, looking up the table. "You asked to speak before we deal with the issue of succession."

Tel knew what they expected him to propose. Count Wellan Bowman already was glaring.

Tel laid both hands on the table and pressed slowly back to his feet. "First, my respects and congratulations to Your Grace." He turned to Esme and softened his voice. "My sympathies as well to you, Duchess." He paused, giving them place if they cared to respond.

Esme looked away.

"There are," Tel continued, resting one hand on the table, "unconfirmed reports that Second Commander Angelo Caldwell and General Caldwell are en route to Three Zed, the stronghold of those forwarders who brought this tragedy on House Rogonin. We are hearing rumors of an impending attack."

Young Duke Stroud Parkai swept out his arms. "We could lose House Angelo!"

"No," Tel said firmly. "For one thing, I witnessed her sons' birth. They do exist, under protection at the Sentinels' sanctuary world. They are in deadly danger if they go anywhere else, as long as the Caldwells' enemies have the power to strike."

Several sad stares turned to frowns. They'd never liked the idea of bringing an offworlder's sons into the palace.

"I urge you to ... to pray," he said carefully, avoiding the customary
petition the Powers,
"for Firebird's safe return. Meanwhile, noble electors, I have received a communique from the Sentinels' sanctuary world, Procyel II. You may recall that Carradee and Daithi took up residence at Hesed House there. Daithi has been treated for his injuries."

He fingered the ends of his gold-fringed sash. "Noble electors," he repeated softly, "I have just been informed that Her Former Majesty Carradee is pregnant again. Before Lady Firebird left Netaia, she asked me to propose that the throne be restored to Carradee's line if Carradee conceived." He hadn't contested Firebird's instructions. He'd thought this was impossible.

Esme Rogonin tilted her chin. Winton Stele pushed away from the table, smiling broadly. Kenhing's sober frown faded. "Has Carradee given the child a name?" called the regent.

Tel nodded. "She has. Her third daughter will be Rinnah Elsbeth."
Rinnah,
a small blue Netaian songbird, was also the Ehretan word for
Adoration,
according to Carradee's communique. He shook his head. "I do suggest, for the sake of stability and a more rapid return to status quo government, that we acclaim Firebird instead."

"I would second that proposal," said Kenhing.

Reshn Parkai, Baron of Sylva and DeTar, gripped his writing stylus in a hammy fist. "A convicted criminal, the mother of a mind-crawler's heirs? When we could acclaim an innocent, pure-blooded Netaian?"

"Technically," said Count Quinton Gellison, "Firebird was not confirmed as an heiress. The ceremony was interrupted before that point."

"Rinnah Elsbeth," Tel answered the count, "has not been confirmed either."

Valora Erwin scowled. "Better a known monarch now, a woman who was raised among us, than a someday unknown who will probably grow up on the Sentinels' fortress world."

Tel clasped his hands on the tabletop as the argument heated up around him. This session would probably last far into the night. At one corner of his vision, Esme Rogonin stared in his direction.

He opened his hands, spreading his fingers in a diminutive shrug.

Esme smiled faintly.

Chapter 22

Walking steadily, Firebird followed Uri across a docking tube onto the Thyrian battle cruiser
North Ice.
During her rest intervals, she'd spent hours developing a new visualization to help her stay conscious during epsilon fusion. Brennen had insisted they not try it—yet. From time to time, she caught a new depth, almost a desperation, in the small, kindly gestures he always made. There were hints, too, that he was shielding something from her.

She thought she knew what that was. If he'd been called to destroy the Golden City, his sense of duty had to be struggling with his compassion. Any trained soldier had doubtful moments, and he'd just regained memories of that place and its people. They must be haunting him, she guessed.

They probably ought to be haunting her. Terza had turned from Shuhr ways. Weren't others capable of changing?

"She's different," Brenn had explained. "Most Shuhr children with her disposition are culled in training—killed by their teachers. Either that, or they aren't admitted to train in the Golden City."

Firebird stepped onto the other ship's deck. A woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties, wearing midnight blue and a Sentinel's star, saluted Brennen. "Wing Colonel Janith Keeson, General. I relinquish
North Ice
to your command."

Brennen also saluted. "Colonel, I return
North Ice
to you with thanks. Carry on."

Sentinel Janith Keeson wore her chestnut hair short and curly, and her cheeks bulged like pink snow-apples. She turned to one of the few crewers in the docking bay who didn't wear midnight blue, and she gave a hand signal. Orders passed out of earshot, up the passway and onto a transpeaker system. "Shamarr Dickin sends greetings and a blessing," she added.

Firebird smiled at this news from Brenn's spiritual father.

"There's one important development," Brennen said. "We're called. The Holy One has ordered us to strike Three Zed. There's no longer any question of following the Federate order."

"That's a relief." Colonel Keeson broke a smile, but it quickly faded. Firebird had wanted to see a Sentinel react to this news, and evidently the thrill of following a divine call didn't last long. Next came the sobriety of taking up holy responsibility.

Colonel Keeson stepped briskly up the corridor, and Firebird matched her pace. Under regen, her bruises had faded, muscles knit, and the last nerves were regenerating—though her ribs and spine still ached.

"How quickly can you secure and accelerate for Three Zed?" Brennen asked the colonel. "We're racing an advance scout."

Sentinel Keeson halted beside a wall console and called a string of orders. "How quickly can you prepare for acceleration, sir?" she asked.

Minutes later, Firebird sank onto another bunk, raised her arms as a new set of medics clamped down the regen arch, and then lay listening to the drive engines' pitch rise. Around her private cubicle, the meds anchored everything that was loose. "War is always like this," said Shel. "Weeks of boredom punctuated by minutes of panic, when only solid training means survival."

"Netaia has a similar saying." Brennen had assured her that
North Ice
would have flight simulator booths, and that her assigned Light-Five fighter would have an onboard sim-override program. She must be at her peak for this mission.

Brennen stepped into the small, private cubicle half an hour later, after gravidic compensators restabilized the deck. "Thank you, Shel," he said solemnly. "I relieve you."

The bodyguard slipped out.

"We sent a messenger to Tallis," Brennen said, standing close, "and general alerts to the Second Division. Terza's on her way to Hesed, under guard. There's no need to keep her in harm's way any longer."

"Good," Firebird murmured.

He laid a hand on her forehead. "Colonel Keeson just gave me more good news. When Alert Forces heard that Burkenhamn recom-missioned you, they refitted a full-powered Light-Five for you with RIA and remote-pilot capacity. We're as well-equipped as we could hope."

"Good," she said again. Actually, as badly as she wanted to start her onboard sim training, she was scheduled to rest now. "Help me sleep." She shut her eyes. . . .

When she opened them next, Brennen had gone. A dark-haired woman had taken his place—a slender woman with keen dark eyes and a strong, shapely nose. Firebird knew that face. "Ellet," she exclaimed, tensing. Once, the Sentinel woman had been determined to claim Brennen for herself. Ellet had eventually pair bonded Brennen's friend Damalcon Dardy, though Brennen never adequately explained how
that
came about.

"I won't stay," Ellet said softly. "I only wanted to wish you well. To congratulate you on your new rank, and your survival. You're a tough woman to kill, Commander." Ellet barely smiled. She looked hesitant, unsure how she would be received.

Firebird couldn't resent Ellet any longer. "Coming from you," she answered, "that's a compliment."

Ellet's smile spread to her eyes, crinkling the skin around them. "I didn't just come with compliments." She slid a stool close to Firebird's narrow bunk. "I came to apologize. Firebird, I have been blind to your humanity. I owe you a debt, and I must ask for your forgiveness."

Marriage had certainly changed Ellet! Firebird could've easily gloated, but what would that accomplish? She was finally rid of pride . . . temporarily, she guessed. She would postpone its return as long as possible. She raised her arm, and Ellet clasped her hand. "Thank you, Ellet. What's your job here? Where's Damalcon?"

"I'm military historian for Colonel Keeson. Damalcon's on board the carrier
Weatherway,
and I transshipped over as soon as you arrived. He'll command the second flight, the heavy bombers."

"It's good to have you on board," Firebird said. This five-day slip might be Ellet's first separation. "Look me up if you get lonely."

Ellet Dardy raised an eyebrow. "You put me to shame," she said.

After Ellet left, Firebird checked the time. She had to spend another half hour prone, and she couldn't waste it. She must learn to stay conscious after achieving fusion with Brennen. He'd said that fusion stayed with him for as long as he could hold a turn, like keeping all mental circuits hyperactivated. If she could keep from fading out, then maybe she could actually do things with it, beyond simply setting off the explosion.

Brennen was probably on the command deck or down at Engineering. He'd spent most of his time on board
Sapphira
in one of those places. Struggling against the regen projector, Firebird loaded an off-white audio rod into a player Brenn's engineers had attached to the healing arch. Soft strains of a Netaian
largo
sprang up around her, amplified by net-cloth speakers draped over her pillow.

Before Ellet showed up, she'd been dreaming. Some kind of energy storm had descended on Hesed, and she'd cowered inside, protecting her babies with her arms and her body.

That
dream, she'd be glad to forget.

Then she reconsidered. She'd run out of logical ways to visualize and control fusion. What about seeing it as an energy storm? Medical Master Spieth had warned, months ago, that if she played the wrong games with her epsilon carrier, she could go mad—but she would shortly face a fielding team that used madness as one of its weapons. She needed to stand against it somehow.

Pushing her head into the deep pillow, she tried to set the dream firmly in mind. The slow, somber bass line of the
largo
gave her a rhythmic framework.

Next, she imagined touching her epsilon carrier to Brennen's, and then she envisioned their fusion as a gale blasting over and through her imaginary wall. She heard its howl, smelled on the wind the warm-incense scent of Brennen's access—but hotter, fiercer, wilder—

Yes. She could imagine that.

She had no way of knowing if the image would give her any control, though. Not until she and Brennen actually tried it.

Now
she must hit the simulators!

She rang for a med attendant.

The second slip passed too quickly for Brennen.
North Ice
and its carrier escort,
Weatherway,
hauled every fighter, bomber, or scout Thyr-ica had equipped with RIA equipment. Six light fighters were reserved in
North Ice's
hangar-bay for Day Flight, the first attack wave. He'd ordered both ships' engineers to link the fighters' threat-assessor displays to firing overrides, going beyond standard ID procedure to actually prevent pilots from targeting friendly ships. That was one of the chief dangers of flying a group into a fielding defense. If engineers could make that impossible, Three Zed's defenders would have to fall back on direct mental attacks—amplifying enemy pilots' terrors or trying to induce madness. Those risks were sobering enough without destroying his own support group.

Another danger drove him to complete this project. If the vision he'd seen, the missile-blasted Light-Five, proved accurate—if he was destined to die at Three Zed—then he would do everything in his power to keep the Shuhr fielding team from voice-commanding Mari to fire that fateful missile.

Two days out from Three Zed, Firebird shook off drowsiness and tried to sit up.

Brennen stood over her. Last night, he'd reported on his other sub-commanders' planning session. Sending a field general into combat flew in the face of all rules of engagement, but no other Sentinel would dare to fuse carriers with her.

So Day Flight, including her and Brennen, would launch the moment
North Ice
dropped slip-shields. Protected by their overlapped slip and particle shields, they would fly into fielding and RIA range. Brennen would initiate fusion by quest-pulsing to her, then try to overload the fielding site's circuits with fusion energy. They would have the combined power of two RIA ships, and if fusion left her unconscious, then her modified Light-Five could be flown out by a remote pilot while Night Flight—Dardy's heavy bombers—dropped their payloads.

Another Sentinel had volunteered to fly lead in Day Flight, where the enemy surely assumed Brennen would be. Firebird had to respect that man's courage. She prayed he would be spared.

"It's time we ran our own simulation," she told Brennen firmly. "High time."

"I'm afraid so." He reached toward a bulkhead. "I'll send Shel for a med, in case."

She had explained her new visualization. "Maybe focusing on the storm image will give me enough conscious time to fly out of the thick of things," she said. "You could press your attack while I pull out far enough to feel safe about activating the fighter's recovery cycle. I really don't want to use the remote pilot."

"I wouldn't either." He sank down beside her on the bunk and asked, "Are you ready?"

Firebird pressed her eyes shut, visualizing the wall, the carrier, the storm. "Ready," she whispered.

Brennen reached inside himself for his epsilon carrier. As he focused for access, he felt her carrier flicker, as if she'd been mildly dosed with blocking drugs. Twice, he tried to grasp and fuse with it. Twice, it blinked out of existence.

Had their fusion at the Hall of Charity damaged the ayin complex in her brain? She had managed to turn several times since then, but this was not a good sign.

Her eyes came open, dark and serious. "I can't turn," she exclaimed.

"Sickness or injury does sometimes affect us in unpredictable ways," he said. "We'll try again later."

After Brennen left, Firebird sat clenching her fists. Master Jenner had said that repeated fusion could scar her physical epsilon center beyond the ability to function—eventually.

Not before Three Zed!
she prayed—but she hated the flaming darkness inside her. For all Shamarr Dickin's assurance that she was not actually using evil, but only seeing it clearly, she dreaded watching it spark the evil inside others. . . watching the evil, empowered by fusion, destroy them.

Brenn had been right all along. Epsilon talent carried responsibilities that no thinking person would want.

She hurried downship to her simulator.

A messenger ship's arrival called Juddis Adiyn away from his gene laboratory. Without waiting to hear progress reports from Netaia, he had ordered an accelerated primary fertilization program, enough to make a serious start at synthesizing enough genetic material to modify Netaia's next generation. Gametes were almost ready to be combined.

From his own rounded gold corridor, a gravity lift carried him up to the City's communication center, where he had a clear view of a bleak sunset. This courier should bring word of Firebird's demise and General Caldwell's captivity—or possibly his death. On the shebiyl, Adiyn saw him nowhere in the future. There should be no more Carabohd heirs until those twins grew up, unless his own lab produced them—but the shebiyl did sometimes shift, showing him the only safe course in the cruel nick of time. In those moments it seemed like a living evil, just as the Sentinels claimed.

Under the only sizable viewing dome in the City, he seated himself at a secure station, as the DS-212 pilot requested. He activated its sonic shield. "Acting Eldest Adiyn," he said into the transceiver. "What couldn't you send over general frequencies?"

"They failed." From the messenger's reproachful voice, Adiyn pictured a grimace. "Firebird survived. Caldwell appears to have saved her, and there's suspicion that they may have perfected an antipodal fusion technique. Reference Polar's research, if you don't recall—"

"I remember that project," Adiyn interrupted.

"Shirak orders immediate mobilization. Hit Tallis. Now."

"Slow down, slow down." People who hadn't reached their first century thought everything had to be finished now... or sooner. The shebiyl would tell him what must be done and when. "What exactly is the worry?"

"That Caldwell and his lady," said the irritated voice, "with the fusion ability Polar predicted,
plus
the RIA technology the Federacy just announced, could strike here. We would have no defense against that. Terza thought of the fusion idea. Maybe from a mutation in the Casvah line."

Adiyn rubbed his chin. "Our agents on Thyrica have turned up some RIA data. Its range is still finite, no more than a fielding team's." And yet-Though RIA technology could explain how Caldwell and the lady got through the City's fielding net before, no theory adequately explained the power that blasted Dru Polar into the underground generator chamber's stone floor.