The Phoenix in Flight (38 page)

After the Rifters left, Omilov had tried to straighten out
the bodies of his friends, but Bikara’s body threatened to come apart when he
attempted to move her, and the greasy, crackling texture of her skin made him
sick and faint. He wished there were something to cover them with; he didn’t
want to look at them but it felt somehow disloyal to turn his back on their
bodies, so he sat there trying not to see them, waiting for his captors to
return.

After an interminable wait, the smell of death and burned
flesh thick in his nostrils, contending with the smoke drifting in from the
corridor that dried his throat and expanded his thirst until it filled his
consciousness, he heard footsteps outside his room.

A new Rifter came in, a thin man with large blue eyes and
long hair worn in an old heroic style, with a fastidious air about him. His
uniform was gaudy in an old-fashioned style, and spotless; he moved with a
grace so self-consciously affected it seemed awkward. The gnostor caught a waft
of some dull, sweet personal scent.

The Rifter’s gaze slid past the two bodies, his mouth
pruning with aversion. He kept his back to the dead, and confronted Omilov.

“Good morning, Gnostor,” he addressed Omilov unctuously, the
fingers of one hand resting delicately on his holstered jac. “Did you have a
pleasant night?”

Omilov merely looked at him, schooling his face to stillness
and then focusing his eyes beyond the back of the man’s head in a full-face
cut-direct. The Rifter’s manner was that of a social ontologist, one who got
his sense of existence and self-worth from the people around him. Omilov
resolved that the man would receive not a jot of validation from him.

The man’s face reddened and his hand tightened on his jac.
“What’s the matter, Omilov?” he barked, all suavity gone from his voice. “Wattle
got your tongue?” He laughed affectedly, a detestable baritone hiccup. “You’ll
speak freely enough, once we reach Arthelion.”

Omilov started. “Arthelion!”

“Right. You’ve got an audience with the new Panarch.”

Omilov swallowed painfully, trying to moisten his parched
mouth. Now he was entirely confused. Semion was a harsh man, no doubt, but this
passed all belief.

“What does Semion want with me?”

The Rifter emitted another hiccupping laugh. “Semion?
Somebody drilled a new blungehole in
him.
No, you’ll be speaking to
Jerrode Eusabian of Dol’jhar. The Emerald Throne is his now.” As Omilov gaped
at him in disbelief, the Rifter reached forward and pulled him off the chair by
his tunic. As the gnostor sprawled on the floor the man kicked him to his feet
and prodded him toward the door with his jac. “And he doesn’t like to wait, so
move!”

The powered sleds took Deralze by surprise, sweeping over a
low rise a few hundred yards distant. Osri stumbled backward. Deralze and
Brandon stood slowly, Brandon’s empty hands held away from his body. Deralze
stepped up in guard position.

The sleds pulled up in front of them in a spray of wax.
Deralze turned his head aside, as did Brandon, but Osri didn’t until the wax
smacked his helmet. He attempted to wipe the wax off his faceplate, but only
succeeded in smearing it into near opacity.

Deralze grimaced, hoping Omilov wouldn’t do anything stupid
and worsen the danger they were in, at least until they were recognized. The
figures raised weapons, motioning them into the backs of the sleds.

No attempt at communication was made during the ride toward
a craggy mountain with no distinguishing features. Deralze was grateful for the
delay. Exhaustion and the physical reaction to that landing were making it
increasingly difficult to think, or to move.

He assessed his physical damage. His body ached from skull
to heels, but the only pangs that seemed serious were low in his chest. Broken
ribs? He hoped Markham had a medtech.

He sat back in the sled, forcing his breathing to slow. As
in the near vacuum around them, his thoughts seemed sharply outlined, light
against dark without any shade between.

He stared at the back of Brandon’s helmet. What would the
Krysarch do? Ranked on one side were the ring and the dour certitude of Osri
Omilov. On the other, Deralze and, perhaps, Markham. Deralze smiled grimly—he
could debate the balance all he liked, but the outcome would issue now from
Markham L’Ranja.

Needless to say, he doesn’t use the inheritance
sur-prefix anymore.
Once again they were outside the laws and vows binding
the Panarchy, and Brandon’s desire to go on to Ares to discharge his promise
might not mass at all with Markham.
Or will he, too, find himself bound by
old vows?

Deralze contemplated his own assumption that he would follow
Brandon to Ares, if the Krysarch made that choice.
No. I still have that
decision to make.
If it was a matter of loyalty to the system, the choice
was simple: the system had abandoned him. But if it was a matter of personal
loyalty...

Clear as the light knife-edging the mountain peaks, Deralze
saw the truth underpinning the Panarchy: everything, in the end, came down to
personal loyalty, and the responsibility it engendered in return. Another
of the Jaspran Polarities:
Holder of oaths, in loyalty sworn, the circle of
fealty, a weight to be borne.
It was only when the polarity of loyalty and
responsibility was foresworn—the circle of fealty that Semion had
distorted—that the system broke down. Semion had been so certain that he
embodied justice that he never considered what he owed those who swore
allegiance to him. His only concern was their unquestioning obedience.

That had been the true source of Deralze’s anger; not only
had Semion distorted the truth to serve his ends, but the Panarch had been
complicit. They had failed their part of the oath that Deralze had made when he
first joined their service.

But Brandon never had.

They swerved between two twisted pillars of rock and headed
straight for a rock wall without any abatement of speed. Deralze braced himself
for the smash that seemed inevitable.

They were scarcely a hundred meters from the black stone
rising from the moon’s dusty surface when a camouflaged door lifted. They sped
inside, braking smoothly. The door closed behind them, locking them in
darkness.

Someone pulled Deralze from the sled and pushed him away a
few meters. He gritted his teeth against the protest of strained muscles, and a
sharp pain in his chest caused him to stumble as he forgot his low-gee
discipline. A hand forced him to a halt.

Light flared; they were in a lock. The figures in the dark
suits stood motionless. Brandon’s face was tight with fatigue, and either
anxiety or question. Or maybe just a monumental headache. Deralze had one.

His stomach knotted when Brandon fingered the pouch at his
waist.
He’s decided, then.
Deralze blinked blurred eyes, seeing double,
Gelasaar’s face superimposed on his son’s, and ambivalence seized him. The
circle was closing. He had to decide whether it would close him in or out.
Brandon
never failed. It was he who was failed
.

A green light near an inner door indicated atmosphere. One
of the figures removed its helmet, revealing a man of about forty Standard
years, wearing a close-trimmed beard. His expression was grim as he tapped
Brandon’s helmet.

A loud tap on his own helmet startled Deralze. He stared
into the round face of a woman, repulsed by her atavistically pale skin with
its sprinkling of small splotches of melanin. Her bristly red hair was cut
close to her head in the manner of a lifetime spacer.

She still held her weapon. With her free hand, she motioned
for him to remove his helmet. Deralze moved carefully to comply. He was
relieved when Osri did the same, though his stance radiated resentment.

“Got any weapons, surrender ’em here,” the man said, while
another collected their helmets and their gloves. They were now effectively
imprisoned.

Brandon shook his head, and Osri said in an accusing tone,
“We are not armed.”

Nevertheless, the woman and a big, scar-faced man conducted
a thorough but impersonal search, right down to removing their gloves. Their
briskness exacerbated the pain from Deralze’s numerous bruises, and the
scar-faced man’s whack against his chest made his breath catch against his back
teeth.

The Rifter searching Osri pulled the Heart of Kronos from
Osri’s pouch. His eyebrows shot up. “What’s this?” he asked, jerking the sphere
from side to side.

“It’s not a weapon,” Osri said. “It’s an ancient curio. I
collect such things.”

“Feels weird.” The man started to pocket it, but the woman
said, “Captain wants to see everything they brought with ’em.”

“Right.” The man dropped the sphere back into Osri’s pouch.

The woman searching Brandon held the Archon’s ring up to the
light admiringly, then tossed it back at him with a look eloquent of distrust.
Brandon grabbed it out of the air and slipped it onto his ring finger.

Then the woman hit a control and a door slid open. They
started into a tunnel carved into the dark rock of the moon. The air smelled
clean, with a faint trace of some organic substance, like polish or solvent.
Osri sneezed loudly, and Deralze grimaced at what that must have felt like if
Osri’s head ached anything like his.

Skipnose, eh?
He’d traveled so much since the L’Ranja
affair that he’d ceased to suffer from the congestion and mild allergies that
often attended the transition from one planet or habitat to another. But Osri
no doubt traveled only on commercial flights, which were careful to change the
air gradually during skip to avoid the sudden transition that triggered
skipnose. Somehow the idea of Omilov fighting skipnose after that spectacular
landing amused the hell out of him.

“This way.” The bearded man jabbed Deralze in the shoulder
blade, and he moved to the left, down a long tunnel lit at intervals with cold
miner’s lights.

Deralze was clumsy in the lower gravity of the moon. The
stiffening of his muscles combined with the subtle pulls of the flight suit
made it difficult to compensate. Brandon and Osri were having similar difficulties.

The tunnel widened, marked by doors at intervals, varying in
size and design. Besides the expected dyplast, they passed a carved wooden
door, carefully fitted into the rock. Next to it a tapestry, faded with age.

Occasionally people crossed their path, no two wearing
similar clothing. Some stared at them with interest, but most ignored them. In
the small signs between their guides and the others Deralze sensed a discipline
that he hadn’t seen for ten years, the result of Markham’s Academy training, no
doubt. He wondered what other differences would become apparent.

They entered a huge cavern, and their tunnel became a
catwalk, suspended high above other catwalks crisscrossing the airy cave. At
the ground level a dark stream ran hissing through its millennia-carved canal.

They entered another cavern, this one smaller.

An unseen man snarled, “You can leave the spies here. And
get out.”

Adrenaline shot through Deralze as their escorts tensed.
This was not part of their plan. Brandon was scanning the shadows. Osri also
glanced around, but with the diffuse gaze of bewilderment.

Deralze shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and
edged between the Krysarch and the voice.

The Beard said, “Orders were to bring ’em to Vi’ya.”

“We’re gonna teach Vi’ya who’s giving orders, just as soon
as we—”

The voice broke off as Brandon spoke clearly, projecting his
voice with all the authority inculcated by his Douloi up-bringing.

“Alt L’Ranja gehaidin!”
he said. “We have safe
passage from Markham.”

The resulting silence was broken only by the distant sound
of dripping water. The red-haired woman stared at Brandon, then took a step
toward him. Deralze’s hair rose all across the back of his neck and his senses
intensified painfully as the tension in the cavern sharpened to the cusp of
imminent action.

A wiry, gaunt-faced man emerged from the uneven shadows
across the cavern, riveting the gaze of their escort. Deralze knew this could
not be the main threat—and caught movement in a shadowy alcove. Metal glinted above
the matte-black deadliness of a firejac muzzle coming to bear on the Krysarch.

At that moment a lifetime of service, a decade of angry
intent, and the knowledge that his vows of loyalty to Brandon had been true
kindled in Lenic Deralze a passionate clarity of purpose.

He launched forward, and the circle closed on him in a blast
of burning pain.

o0o

Osri gasped as their bearded escort shoved him down and
triggered his jac off to one side. Energy beams lanced from several directions.
The big guard threw himself in front of Brandon, intercepting a needle-thin
streak of plasma with a hoarse shout of agony; another lance of sunfire brushed
the red-haired woman, who dropped her jac and curled around her wound, her
breathing harsh.

“Lenic!” Brandon’s shout echoed as he crouched above the big
man’s body.

Then he whirled about and snatched up the fallen jac dropped
by the wounded redhead. His low-gee clumsiness betrayed him into a stumble over
the supine Rifter, saving his life as another beam sizzled past. Then he
recovered his footing, twisted and snapped the jac to wide aperture.

The gaunt man who’d challenged them dived behind a rocky
projection as the beam from Brandon’s weapon swept across the Rifter who’d shot
Deralze, blowing him apart in a bloody explosion of steam and viscera.

Osri watched from the ground as the gaunt Rifter popped back
up and snapped off a shot at Brandon, who didn’t even duck as the beam speared
past his head. Brandon returned the fire, splattering molten rock from the crag
sheltering his attacker, while the Beard fired at unseen opponents farther back
in the cavern. Low-gee slowness gave combatants’ deliberate movements the
quality of a deadly dance. Another blast shattered the stone near Osri’s head;
the smell of ozone and burning rock made him sneeze several times, his heart
hammering in his chest.