The Phoenix in Flight (48 page)

“There are several requests for real-time coms for you,
senz-lo Barrodagh,” Danathar said obsequiously. “Beginning with Kyvernat
Juvaszt.”

Barrodagh nodded curtly as he continued through to his
private office, showing no sign of his satisfaction. Juvaszt, with his familial
connection to the Eusabians, had been one of the most dangerous Dol’jharian
nobles with whom Barrodagh had to deal in the run-up to the attack, and had
always communicated through subordinates. But no longer; not since the near
disasters at Narbon and Lao-Tse.

He brought up his queue and touched Juvaszt’s name. In less
time than Barrodagh had expected, the kyvernat’s dark, scarred face windowed
up.

“Kyvernat,” Barrodagh said.

Juvaszt did not speak for a moment. Barrodagh watched his
jaw muscles bunch before the Kyvernat finally said, “I am concerned about the
Avatar’s security. The Panarchists will eventually rally, and I need more ships
for the defense of Arthelion.”

Juvaszt calling the Rifters ‘ships’ was an acknowledgement
that Barrodagh had never thought to hear. Before he’d referred to the Rifter
allies by pejoratives. The only ‘allies’ in his view were the Dol’jharians
dispatched to Narbon and Lao Tse.

That was another deep-reaching problem that Barrodagh had
managed not to think about: just how close they had come to losing the battles
that had erupted after the assassination of Semion and the capture of the
Panarch.

It had been relatively easy to play on the kyvernat’s belief
in the superiority of the Pure Blood—an assumption shared by Eusabian—to limit
Dol’jhar’s nascent fleet to the Fist of Dol’jhar and three destroyers. Procuring
more, Barrodagh had felt, would have risked alerting the Panarchists.

Not procuring more had very nearly lost them Narbon and Lao
Tse. The assassination of Semion had not, as expected, disrupted the Naval
response, and Dol’jhar had lost two destroyers at Narbon, manned with
Dol’jhar’s best, with a third battered almost into scrap. Not to mention the
loss of some of the best-drilled forces among the Rifters. Though the losses the
Navy had taken were tremendous, they had come very close to winning: only the
fact that Barrodagh had assigned an overwhelming force had turned the tide, no
matter how much the Pure Blood despised the Rifters and Panarchists.

It had been very little better at Lao Tse. The battlecruiser
that had brought the Panarch and the Privy Council to the planet had badly
mauled the Dol’jharian destroyer leading the Rifter contingent before being
destroyed. The only functional capital ship actually crewed by Dol’jharians was
again, as had been the case in the long years since Acheront, the
Fist of
Dol’jhar
.

The fact that Juvaszt said he needed “ships” was as close as
the Kyvernat could come to acknowledging the truth of that.

Well, there was no need to exacerbate the Kyvernat’s wounded
pride.

Too much, anyway.

“I will consider our strategic situation with that in mind.”
Barrodagh paused just long enough to allow Juvaszt’s irritation at his apparent
deflection to surface, and then added, “In the meantime, as you know, the
Satansclaw
is on the way from Charvann. I will place Tallis Y’Marmor under your command
once he has discharged his duty concerning the Urian artifact.”

The Kyvernat jerked his head in assent, looking as if he had
swallowed something unpleasant, and cut the connection. Barrodagh closed his
eyes, taking the space of three breaths to enjoy a momentary pause, then opened
his eyes and pulled up the rest of his queue.

o0o

Two weeks into their flight, Marim woke from jumbled dreams
with a sense of anticipation that at first she couldn’t identify. The
subliminal hum of
Telvarna
around her... fuel stash? No! They were going
to the nick planet, with...

She chortled as she rolled out of bed. The nicks! Not that
she’d gotten the drama she’d hoped for.

Whatever was going on with Montrose and the Schoolboy
happened in the galley, and if you nosed around there, Montrose had a nasty
habit of snagging you and putting you to work. As for the Arkad, he’d slept two
ship’s days through. When he came out on their fourth day out, Vi’ya sent him
straight to Jaim, like promised. And he went.

Marim paused to consider that. When he’d arrived, he’d been
the
nick
, or
the Arkad
. Somehow he was turning into Brandon, though she
had never heard him ask anyone to call him that—unlike the Schoolboy, who had
become monotonous with his “My name is Omilov, and I have earned the rank of
Lieutenant.”

It was difficult to believe that Brandon really was an
Arkad; at least, not the kind of royal nick you saw in wiredreams. For one
thing, he talked even less than Jaim. For another, he followed directions like
any other slub, as he was passed from hand to hand to do scutwork both
necessary and unnecessary.

Marim had watched avidly from a distance. After the Arkad
had to strip and rebuild the Eya’a’s tianqi, then the ship’s tianqi, Jaim sent
him under the engine housings to check the wave guides and couplings. Then she
saw young Ivard blushing and stammering as he directed him in shifting and
unpacking crates of supplies. Even Lokri had had charge of him once, though he
seemed to prefer avoiding the nicks altogether: the Arkad had to crawl under
each of the consoles on the bridge, probing circuit nodes, while Lokri lounged,
bored, tabbing lazily at his console.

Those next few days, after his work shift was over Brandon
went straight to his cabin and slept.

Then, the rec shift just before Marim’s snooze watch, for
the first time, the Arkad had stayed after he ate. He sat there at one of the
consoles, reading something, but Marim noticed how everyone was aware of him.
When she’d left to sleep, he was talking to Montrose about music.

Marim dressed and left her cabin. She found Lokri in the rec
room. As she punched up a rice bowl, Greywing appeared.

“Hey,” Jaim greeted her. “Montrose let you out?”

Greywing’s freckled skin blotched with color. “Said I could
be up for rec time.”

Marim had seen Greywing out of sickbay several times,
probably checking on Ivard. As if the boy could get lost! But Marim was not
going to interfere. “Where’s the Arkad?” she asked.

“Montrose has him working in hydroponics, since Schoolboy is
cooking,” Greywing said. “I saw him when I left sickbay.”

“He’s practically cleaned the entire ship.” Marim whistled.
“No squawking, either. Wonder if Vi’ya’s going to let up? Never knew her to be
nasty like that before.”

Greywing snorted. “Not being nasty.”

“What’s the purpose, then?” Jaim asked in his quiet voice.
“No fun when he just does what we tell him, and doesn’t even talk nick.”

Greywing’s watery blue eyes turned Lokri’s way, then she
turned back to Jaim and shrugged. “You figure it out.”

Jaim shook his head, the tiny talismans woven into his six
brown braids tinkling gently. “Rack time for me.” He slouched out.

Lokri got to his feet, lip curled in faint derision. “My
watch,” he said, and also left.

Greywing eased herself down, her short, square body a
contrast to Lokri’s elegant length. She put her hands around her cup of hot
caf, her wounded arm still held close to her side.

Greywing was one of the best scantechs in the Rift Sodality
or out of it. Rumor had it that three of the Rifthaven syndicates had tried to
hire her, shortly before Hreem attempted to obtain her services by more violent
means. She’d somehow known that his lethal pet tempath was coming to abduct
her, and had escaped.

Vi’ya said Greywing was not a tempath, but that she had an
uncanny ability to sniff out traces of ships and figure action-patterns that
not only had saved them again and again but had made them reasonably wealthy.
If
Greywing had not been at the other base, Markham might still be alive,
Marim
thought, looking at the unprepossessing pale, freckled face before her.

Greywing and her little brother Ivard were both ugly,
throwbacks to a time when humans had pale, thin skin, and they had constant eye
trouble. But they were both talented in other ways. Not just good at sniffing
out the intentions of ships, Greywing was also remarkably adept at reading
people. But she didn’t always share what she read.

Marim slid into the seat across the table from her and
smiled. “Lokri hates nicks.”

“So do I—sometimes,” Greywing said unexpectedly.

“But you don’t think Vi’ya does?” Marim prompted. “Or maybe
she thinks it’s funny for the Arkad to be scrubbin’ Rifter engine castings.”

Greywing hunched her shoulders. “‘S what Lokri thinks. Let
’im. Not true, though.”

“So why’d she do it?”

Greywing narrowed her eyes, her lip curling. “Didn’t you see
anything when you gave ’em the tour?”

“See what? The Schoolboy looked like we smell bad, and the Arkad
kept eyeballing things like something was missing. Servants, I thought.”

“Markham, vacuumskull,” Greywing said. “Hit him, sting after
sting. Must have. Anywhere he looked he’d see Markham—don’t you think he’d see
right away who redesigned everything when he took us over?”

Marim’s mouth popped open. “Ha! Didn’t think of that. Even
changed the tianqi scents, maybe those are familiar nick settings. Nasty
thought.”

Greywing sat back, lips pursed in a small smile. “Knows
Markham’s ship now,” she said. “After he been crawling around in its guts it no
longer be a shrine.”

“Shrine!” Marim repeated, laughing. “Greywing, you been
poppin’ hopper. Lost your mind.”

Greywing got up. “You got no mind to lose, Marim.” She
snorted a dry, voiceless laugh, finished her caf, and went out, probably to
check up on her brother.

o0o

In the galley Osri wiped his nose, frowned fiercely, and
resumed chopping onions. “Damn these Rifters,” he muttered on each smack of the
knife, “and damn
squared
that Light-accursed villain Montrose.”

His hand whacked down with increasing violence until a low,
cultured voice startled him into nearly adding four fingers to the pile.

“Even strokes, Schoolboy, even strokes. Lumps are not
acceptable in this dish. Unless your uselessness is repaired, and quickly, I
fear I shall have to request the captain to invite you for a stroll solitaire
out the lock. I can work faster, and more peacefully, alone.”

Osri ached to throw the knife at the old monster, but
instead he forced his lips to acknowledge the command, and his hands to chop
more evenly as Montrose vanished across the short corridor into the sickbay
again, his voice a low rumble as he talked to that red-haired spacer with the
burn.

Osri’s life had become hell ever since that first watch, when
the captain ignored the carefully thought out speech he’d said about his
credentials, and what he felt was appropriate work for one of his training.

She’d led him straight to the galley and handed him off with
a wave to Montrose—this giant, grizzled man with a flamboyant taste in clothing
that a man of his age should long ago have grown out of.

“Chef and ship’s doctor,” Montrose had said, smiling. “And I
can use an assistant.”

Osri had sneered at the obvious barbarity of employing a
cook for health care—and Montrose had only laughed.

Osri paused and savored the image of the knife flying at
Montrose’s bearded face. It would be great to see him panic—except he wouldn’t
panic, Osri reflected bitterly. Being the Rifter murderer and thief he was,
he’d probably just pluck the knife from midair by the handle, put it neatly
away, and set Osri to scrubbing floors and walls again. And if he refused...

Osri winced at the memory of the drubbing that Montrose had
given him on that never-to-be-forgiven first shift. The huge man had
effortlessly swatted Osri’s fists aside with one of those tree-thick arms,
then—squashing him companionably against a chest like a cast of metal
ingots—informed him that, much as he detested violence, a thrashing would be
“good for your soul.”

It had taken two days to recover from that—two days of
feeling even worse than he had after surviving Lao Shang’s Wager.

Ever since then, he’d been stuck in this damn galley, first
cleaning it from deck plates to bulkheads. Then came two entire ship’s days of
exacting rules for tending vegetables in the hydroponics tanks, and the proper
cleaning and cutting of them. After which he graduated to chopping and stirring
and measuring. Then another round of cleaning. Over and over.

Two solid weeks of that, and the fiend finally consented to
instruct him in how to... stir. Osri had put in more training hours before
operating his first in-system aircraft.
Stirring!

Montrose reappeared. Osri nearly jumped, relieved when he
discovered that his hand had returned to the monotonous stirring. Bitter was
his resentment of how habitual some of this cookery slubbing had become.

Montrose’s mighty paw looked incongruous picking up the tiny
tasting spoon. He delicately skimmed the spoon across the top of the simmering
sauce and held it out to Osri, who reluctantly opened his mouth. He knew that
the sauce would be delicious—and that he would have to admit it, or be
castigated as ignorant “as that nullrat Marim.” Much more repellent than
praising his sauces was the prospect of being equated in any way with the
disgusting Rifter vermin infesting this ship.

“Roll it around. Don’t bolt it like one of those
hell-spawned syntho-paks. Now. There should be three different taste levels...
First, the initial pungency...”

Osri swallowed the spoonful and glared at Montrose, who
gazed at the bulkhead in pleasurable contemplation.

When Osri was scrubbing down walls in the dispensary, he had
done some checking on the computer there and found a formidable bank of medical
information, much of it in language Osri found difficult to decipher. If the
man had not gotten a medical degree, he must have studied somewhere.