The Phoenix in Flight (67 page)

o0o

Lokri’s anger flared again when they reached the terminus
under the gazebo and discovered the bot there, the wounded dog supine on its
tray. Next to it the other dog came to its feet, its tail thumping against the
little machine.

“Shoot them,” Lokri said under his breath. He knew it was
not quite loud enough to hear, but Vi’ya’s head turned anyway.

Of course she’d hear, the intent if not the words. And Lokri
knew how cowardly it was to communicate this way, that his out-of-control
emotions had swung through the entire spectrum to settle on spite. Because
they'd actually made it back.

Brandon wiped a streak of blood off his jaw onto his already
gory dun jumpsuit, then rested a hand on the dog as he turned to Vi’ya. “I can
leave them here. At least they’d have a chance,” he said to her.

Nothing more—no commands, no begging, either. Just that hand
resting on the dog with exactly the same absent tenderness that Markham had
once expressed toward all living things.

Lokri watched Vi’ya’s chin lift, and her body tighten. He
hated the inequality of tempathy, particularly in this tempath: they could see
past the shield of tone, of emotion, of the body’s deflections that had nothing
to do with clothing. But no one could read her.

Markham could
.

Vi’ya said, “You take the animal. Lokri and I will bring
Ivard.”

Brandon’s smile hollowed Lokri, and he turned away,
unsettled—angry—and was this grief?
Damn it. Damn.

In silence they got their burdens to the ground level and
hurried out of the gazebo toward the
Telvarna.
Vi’ya’s pace checked
briefly when she spotted the mobile cannon crumpled against a tree.

As they approached the ship its ramp lowered. A dim light
spilled out into the darkness from inside the lock, silhouetting the
deceptively frail shapes of the Eya’a.

Ivard had gradually sunk into delirium. His arm around
Lokri’s neck felt clammy.

Vi’ya slowed again, and Lokri perforce slowed with her. The
forward under-cannon was twisted and seared, evidently unable to retract into
its nacelle, the hull around it discolored and warped. A slight shimmer over
the scorched metal showed that the teslas were up. As they ran up the ramp the
rumble of the engines increased. The trunks of the trees behind the
Telvarna
reflected in umber tones the red glow of the radiants discharging waste
heat.

Vi’ya shifted Ivard’s weight into Lokri’s arms and slapped
the comm key in the lock as the hatch cycled closed. “Montrose, Ivard’s been
hit.”

“On my way,” came the reply.

Brandon followed Vi’ya, the Eya’a closing in behind the
captain. Lokri hauled Ivard toward the dispensary, where he gratefully
relinquished him to Montrose, who picked the boy up and placed him on an
examination table. “Greywing?” Montrose said.

Lokri lifted his finger, imitating a jac. Montrose scowled,
then his brows shot up as Brandon came in and carefully deposited the
unconscious dog on the other examination table without a word. The unharmed dog
took up station next to the table, silent and watchful.

“Well, at least it’s DNA-based,” Montrose said, and then
turned away, intent on Ivard.

Lokri dashed back to the bridge and slapped his console to
life. They weren’t safe yet.

o0o

Osri gritted his teeth as the old monster’s voice erupted
from the comm in his cabin. “Captain wants you on the bridge right now.” He
levered himself off his bunk where Jaim had thrown him after keeping him face
to the deck under a pointed jac until that cannon attack had ceased.

Still seething at the barbaric treatment by that pair of
loathsome no-family Rifter scum, he stalked forward. As he passed the
dispensary, Ivard lunged out, Montrose pursuing him.

“No, Ivard. The captain wants you to stay here.”

The boy’s pale skin was blotchy-green. One shoulder of his
jumpsuit was charred, and something glistened on his back. As Osri paused,
Ivard twitched violently and threw out his arm. Something glinted as it fell to
the deck.

“Greywing. No.” His voice trailed off into incoherence, as
Montrose caught him up bodily and bore him back inside the dispensary. The door
hissed shut.

Osri stooped and picked up a coin wrapped in a bloodstained
ribbon of raw silk. He knew that ribbon! It was the highly-prized,
fiercely-contested Piloting Award from the Military Academy. The other object,
also blood-smeared, shocked him cold when he recognized it from an art history
course: the Tetradrachm, an ancient coin from Lost Earth, the only one of its
kind, part of the Mandalic Collection in the Ivory antechamber.

Righteous indignation turned to rage.
They were not
joking. They really did loot the Palace. The Mandala, fouled by these lawless
scum. Led by a Krysarch of the House Royal.

He straightened up.
I will not let them get away with
this criminal act, even if it costs me my life.
Osri shoved the coin and
the ribbon into his pocket with a convulsive movement and continued forward.
And
the Krysarch, either. There can be no loyalty here, after this.

When he reached the bridge the ship was already hovering
under geeplane.

“—cut away some of the wreckage with a lazjac. I’ve focused
the teslas over it to try’n maintain the streamlining.” Marim ran her hand
through her disgustingly sweat-matted tangle of hair, her attitude subdued and
uncharacteristically grim. “I wouldn’t push it past mach twelve or so.”

On the main screen the giant trees slipped past as the
Telvarna
accelerated out of the forest, slowly at first. Osri noticed that one of
the consoles, the one usually handled by the red-haired woman, was empty.

The Krysarch settled in at the fire-control console and
smacked the console to life. Another shock wrung through Osri when the console
lit with a full tactical Tenno configuration.

The ship left the forest and leapt forward as the plasma
jets ignited with a muffled thump. The ground wheeled underneath as Vi’ya
pulled the ship into a tight turn and headed over the forest, away from the
Mandala. The
Telvarna
shuddered alarmingly as it went transonic; Marim
stabbed at her console and the motion ceased. “Make that mach eight,” she said.

Lokri looked up from his console. “There’s increased traffic
on some bands—coded, can’t read it. Sounds like they’re looking hard for us.”

Finally Osri said, “You called me.” He kept his voice flat.

“You are trained in navigation?” the captain asked.

Osri bridled. She knew very well. It was a deliberate
insult. “As I informed you,” he replied acidly, “I am an instructor at the
Minervan—”

“Fine,” Vi’ya interrupted. “Take that console and plot me a
course to the S’lift. Priority ranking: minimum altitude, minimum concussion
over population centers, maximum speed. Give me an ETA at maximum mach eight.”
As Osri hesitated, Vi’ya added, “Now,” her even tone and lack of expression
adding more emphasis than a shout.

Osri glanced angrily at the Krysarch, who returned his regard
without expression. Why was he all bloody? Osri’s fury reached white heat. Had
Brandon been shooting his own people?

“Now,” the captain ordered.

Osri seated himself stiffly at the console, considering his
options as he tapped at the keys to gain time. As he worked, the meaning of her
command penetrated his consciousness. Minimum concussion? He risked a glance,
but she had turned away to her console. Why did she care about that? This
escapade had already earned everyone on the ship a one-way trip to Gehenna, if
the defense systems left anything for the Justicials.

“I’ve got Ivard stabilized, and the old man as well,”
Montrose’s voice came from the com. “Do you need me anywhere?”

Old man? Did they grab someone for ransom?
A horrid
thought ripped through him and he sent a horrified glare at the Krysarch, who
was absorbed in his console.
No, that’s impossible.

“It’s going to be rough, but if you think they will be safe
unattended, stand by with Jaim on the engines.”

“As long as you keep the dispensary in null gee the old
man’s heart should be all right. Ivard’s in no immediate danger.”

Osri trembled with the enormity of what had happened—and
with awareness of his duty. The captain had handed the ship to him. He
must
turn them all over to justice, and likely death.

Vi’ya transfixed him with a cold stare. “I warned you,
Schoolboy, I am a tempath.”

Shock flooded him again. His fingers hesitated on the
console.
But tempaths can’t read minds.
He struggled to project a
feeling of innocence, wondering if the emotion came across as false as it felt.
Now he knew viscerally why so many people hated tempaths.

“Pay attention to your task. Your anger could kill us all,
including that old man in the dispensary.”

The shock gave way to relief: she must have misinterpreted
his feelings. He still had a chance. A slight miscalculation of their course
would lengthen their exposure enough that the defense emplacements of the
S’lift would ensure a swift end to this criminal endeavor. He wondered if it
would hurt much.

Then curiosity surfaced at the additional reference to the
old man. It couldn’t be, but he had to know.

“What old man?”

Vi’ya’s gaze flicked to Brandon, then she turned her
attention to handling the
Telvarna,
which was now traveling at mach
eight only a hundred meters above the ocean. The rearview showed the sea
boiling in their wake under the impact of their concussion wave.

“Your father, Osri,” Brandon said softly. “We found him in
the Palace.”

Osri’s mind emptied of thought as the Krysarch’s bald statement
cut the world out from under him. He no longer understood anything about their
situation. What was his father doing on Arthelion? How had he escaped the
Rifter invasion of Charvann? Why would they hold
him
to ransom? His
thoughts spun off into nonsense and he merely stared at Brandon.

The Krysarch’s eyes widened slightly. “You don’t know, do
you?”

Osri shook his head dumbly, his fingers and a well-trained
part of his mind still automatically working at his navigational task. Then his
hands fell away from the console as Brandon completed the demolition of his
world.

“Arthelion has fallen. Eusabian of Dol’jhar occupies the
Mandala.” The Krysarch’s voice was light, uninflected by emotion. Only the
subtle hunching of his shoulders revealed to Osri’s Douloi sensibilities the
Krysarch’s well-bred reluctance to be the bearer of bad news. “Your father was
tortured, but Montrose believes he will recover,” Brandon finished.

Osri jumped up. “His heart? I must go to him.”

“There will be time for that when we have escaped,” said
Vi’ya. “How long to the S’lift?”

Osri glared, then turned away from her calm gaze. He fought
the impulse to touch the Tetradrachm still resting in his pocket and flexed his
shaking hands. Tapping at the console a while longer, he reset the course to
avoid the trap he’d tried to set. “Eight minutes,” he replied at last.

Ferrasin half ran, half walked down yet another anonymous
hallway, pausing more and more frequently to catch his breath as his heart
thundered in his chest.

He hadn’t realized how big the Palace was, how confusing the
under-corridors could be. His view had been a neater one, based on the system
interconnections that he navigated so effortlessly on his console. The physical
reality was entirely different. And the flickering shadows didn’t help any. He
was almost certain they were a computer artifact, but the gloomy byways
underneath the Mandala left his certainty ever on the edge of crumbling into
panic, the more when he smelled fresh dog urine. That was another terror,
hiding from Barrodagh the fact that the computer kept overriding his attempt to
keep the kitchens from dispensing dog food, not just at one location, but all
over the palace complex. Why was it was doing that?

He finally spotted a wall console. Overwhelming relief drove
him to it at a dead run. He had to bend down to wipe his sweaty hands on his
knees, as the rest of him was drenched, before he dared touch the console.
Carefully, almost tentatively, he tapped in the combination they had enforced
on the house system after the sensors were destroyed. The screen lit.

Will it cooperate?
They’d only managed to reprogram
for basic housekeeping services. He sent the code for their own housekeeping
staff, adding the directions from the console so they could clean up after the
dog before the Dol’jharians found it.

Then he hesitated, afraid that trying to coax directions
from the system would bring it down yet again.

He tapped with care, then sighed in relief as the console
windowed up a map. He located himself in relation to the service kitchen and
ran off down the hall, one hand clutching his side.

Behind him the console flickered and the map reversed
itself. Then the screen went dark.

o0o

Barrodagh felt a sting in his arm and opened his eyes. A
gray-clad guard with the green knife of the medical service on his uniform was
just withdrawing an ampule from his arm. The medic stood up and moved aside,
revealing a pair of glossy black boots coated with grayish slime.
Oh, Dol!
My brains—!

Barrodagh came fully awake. He was still alive, his brains
intact!

Then his eyes lifted from the boots to the thunderous visage
of the Lord of Vengeance, and he wondered fearfully how long that would be
true.

He scrambled to his feet. “Lord,” he said, bowing deeply. A
dollop of green goo slithered off his head and plopped onto Eusabian’s boot
with a quiet splat.

“Explain this,” said Eusabian. His voice was soft, a low
rumble, like the thunder of a storm invisible over the horizon.