The Rifter's Covenant (30 page)

“Will you join us
this evening, Numen?” Brandon said to the High Phanist.

Eloatri smiled. “I
will indeed, but after I exchange these robes for something a little less
stifling. You did very well today, Your Majesty.”

He returned her
smile. “It isn’t over yet.”

With a pleasant nod
to Vannis, Eloatri tabbed a side adit and disappeared through it, the dogs
scampering after her. And as Vannis waited, Brandon indicated a chair, the
plain gold band glinting on his finger. “I need a drink. Do you? My feet hurt.”

Vannis looked
around, suppressing an urge to clasp her arms. “There doesn’t seem to be a
monneplat,” she said. “Shall I—”

“Sit down, Vannis.”
Brandon moved to the door they’d come in through. He tabbed it open, and as two
Marines saluted, he said, “Roget, Ju-Khun, anything cold around? Thanks.”

The door closed,
and Brandon moved slowly to the chair across from the one Vannis had chosen.

A door opened, and
a white-jacketed steward entered, bearing a fabulous silver tray with a
decanter and two glasses on it.

The Panarch thanked
him, and the steward withdrew. Brandon poured out a finger of liquor into each
glass, then he brought one of them to Vannis and held his up in a wordless
salute.

She matched his
movement, her gaze staying on him as she sipped. The blue eyes narrowed,
preoccupied in expression as he savored the liquor, which tasted of wood and
smoke and fire.

Outside voices
rumbled with the clipped tones of urgency, then dropped in volume.

Brandon’s long hand
lifted. “Protected by an army,” he said with good-natured irony, “when today
I’m probably as safe as I’ll ever be again in my life.”

No one will try to
kill him now, she thought: everyone out there believes they can get something
from him
.

Lowering the cup to
her lap, she regarded him steadily, making certain no vestige of triumph showed
in voice or manner, and said, “I don’t want anything, if that’s what you’re
asking. But while we are alone, I think there’s something you had better know.”

And knew from the
lack of reaction that he was, in fact, as tense as she, or nearly.

He drank off his
glass and set it aside. “Personal matters are best savored when the boots come
off,” he said, rising.

Her lips parted.
His blue eyes flickered once at the walls, and she understood: he did not trust
the room’s integrity.

She was glad she
had not touched her gown. “You’ll have to forgive the impulse to gossip,” she
heard herself say past the singing in her head. “There’s been little else to do
of late.”

‘We can amend that,
I trust,” he said. “Have you seen the list of parties, regattas, balls, and
dinners arranged for my comfort and entertainment? Enough to kill anyone, I
should think,” he said as they walked out.

Drawing on ten
years of Mandalic habit, she responded to his joking sallies about social
affairs as they stepped out onto the concourse. Silent Marines proceeded and
followed, and so they progressed past a blur of Polloi cheering faces lining
the entire length of the walk, and walked up the broad, shallow steps to the
Pavilion.

o0o

Osri Omilov
tugged at his collar and checked his boswell, wondering how soon he could slip
away from the Pavilion and not be noticed. Around him chattered a group of
young officers, drinks in hand. A hundred meters away stood his father,
unfamiliar in the somber robes of a Praerogate Overt, talking to the High
Phanist, and two or three high-titled Douloi. Before him on the vast floor the
Ranks of Service twirled dizzyingly in their interminable waltzes.

Among them numbered
both his half sisters, with his mother watching in grim approval from the
opposite side of the room. Basilea Risiena had dragooned Osri into
introductions the moment he had walked into the Pavilion. To his surprise
Kenzit and Pomalythe still had partners, which probably (he thought wryly)
indicated that their ballroom manners, at least, were better than his.

“Come on, Omilov, I
want to see you dance,” Rom-Sanchez said, elbowing him in the side. “And then
introduce us to some of the pretty ones. I don’t care about a title, as long as
they can laugh a little and won’t trip over my feet.”

“You mean you won’t
trip over theirs,” young Sub-Lieutenant Wychyrski said, her arms crossed and
her curly head at an angle, as others laughed.

Osri shook his
head. “Don’t know anyone.” He was used to socializing mostly with the Navy,
just as these others were; he hated civ parties of any kind.

Some civ parties,
anyway, he thought, remembering the unexpected good time he’d had at a Rifter
bubbloid far from here. The memory made his ears burn, but no one noticed as
someone said, “There they go,” and all the heads turned to watch Brandon go
whirling skillfully down the middle of the floor.

His partner was his
brother’s widow, Vannis Scefi-Cartano. Osri watched her perfect profile and the
exquisite body in Brandon’s arms as she moved with effortless grace to his
quick step. Speculation about her had spread like wildfire since Brandon had
restored her to the dais at the ceremony. Women like her scared Osri. He always
felt that behind those serene faces and the singsong voices they were secretly
laughing at him.

He turned away,
glad when someone changed the subject to the news from the latest courier about
the battle over Barca and the impending arrival of a Kelly squadron, but the speaker
had gotten scarcely ten words into his story when Osri felt his boswell tingle
against his wrist: Urgent Privacy.

Who’d want a
privacy with him in the middle of a chatzing ball? His neck prickling, he
activated the boswell, and cold shock washed through his guts when Brandon
said,
(Need you.)

A quick glance
behind showed his father still talking, his fingers steepled before him, and
not lying in a crumpled heap after a heart attack. What could Brandon want, if
there was no emergency?

(Fourteen minutes, adit three. Wait for the
diversion.)
Though
Brandon’s last word came through with a hint of humor, Osri was not reassured.
He lifted his head. Brandon stood in the center of a group of Douloi, talking
and gesturing as they laughed. How could he manage privacies without anyone
noticing?

Then he remembered
he ought to acknowledge. Fumbling quickly at his boswell he sent a pulse—there
was no chance he’d try subvocalizing in public like this.

Brandon never once
looked his way over the seemingly endless interval. After a minute or two of
paralyzed thought, Osri started a slow circuit of the room, moving as quietly
as he knew how. Not for him those quick, almost magical disappearances Brandon
had become infamous for.

At thirteen
minutes, Osri was distracted by the sight of the Kelly trinity dancing in and
out among the Douloi, some of whom drew apart to make space, looking
entertained.

In a wake rippling
gently outward people turned to watch the Kelly make straight for the surprised
musicians at the midpoint of the room. The music faltered and died, and
everyone stopped dancing and watched as the trinity danced up to two women
playing an Abbasiddhu Double-Bow.

After a negotiation
punctuated with honks, the two musicians yielded the instrument to the Kelly. Portus
positioned her head-stalk along the fret column while Dartinus and Atos each
took one of the bows, and they commenced an irresistible triple ostinato
accompanied by mellow hooning. The other musicians began to improvise, and the
music mutated into an Abbasiddhu triskel.

The Douloi resumed
dancing in the more angular measures of the complex triple dance that, with the
waltz, was the Kelly’s favorite form of human music. Conversation lulled; led
by Charidhe Masaud, with the tall, formidable Tau Srivashti as a partner, the
dancers were concentrating on the difficult steps, and those along the
perimeter watched with interest.

Fourteen minutes.
Osri found the door behind him. Sending one last glance at the strange
interruption, he backed through, turned, and saw a portion of the wall slide
open on darkness beyond. No one else was in the corridor outside.

Deciding it could
not be a coincidence, he dashed through as the door nearly closed on his heels.

He found a narrow
transtube open and Brandon waiting inside, with Aerenarch-Consort Vannis and
another woman. No one spoke. With an increasing sense of unreality, Osri sat
down, rocking on the bench as the transtube squirted forward then stopped again
almost immediately.

The door hissed
open, and Osri stared into a golden-lit room of antique richness. They were in
the Enclave. Another secret transtube. No doubt Ares was riddled with them.

“We have maybe ten
minutes or so, then we will be missed,” Brandon said. “May I have that chip?”

Osri’s dry tongue
moved in his mouth, but he bit back a question. Vannis silently held out a
datachip, her flawless face somber, her green-brown eyes enigmatic.

The other woman’s
long eyes, silvery against her smooth brown skin, were familiar. Osri stared at
her, then recognized the sister of the detestable Lokri, comtech aboard the
Telvarna. Now languishing in prison for . . . murder, wasn’t it?

And wasn’t she
living with Tau Srivashti, notorious Archon of Timberwell?

The silver eyes met
his, their expression queerly blank. Osri read mockery in that refusal to
acknowledge him, and he turned away, then his thoughts shattered at a sharp
intake of breath from Brandon.

Shock panged
through Osri when he saw the grim set to Brandon’s mouth. It was unsettling,
how much he looked like Semion at such times. “There they are—all three.”

Osri looked at the
screen, but he did not recognize the three figures distorted by the grainy
enhancement.

Brandon faced the
two women. “This is definitely a raw feed.” He tapped the line of blue text
overlaying the bottom of the screen; the Enclave console was fitted with the
most powerful discriminators, which would catch the most subtle doctoring. “So
Hesthar al-Gessinav, Tau Srivashti, and Stulafi Y’Talob were indisputably at my
Enkainion, but withdrew before the bomb detonated.”

“Heh—what?” A
second later Osri realized that had been his voice. His ears burned.

Brandon cast him a
brief glance, then he turned back to Vannis. “Thank you,” he said, and she made
a Douloi gesture impossible for Osri to interpret. Then Brandon smiled at
Lokri’s sister and bent down to kiss her hand. “And you, Fierin. Your courage
today will not go unrewarded.”

The lovely face
angled up, silver eyes wide and blank.

Vannis said, “I
only wish I could have spoken to you sooner. I thought my heart would stop when
you put Hesthar on your Privy Council.”

Brandon shook his
head, smiling with sardonic humor. “Think about it: the Privy Council is
actually the best place for her. At least until we have explored what this
means, and can act. Until that time, I must request you not to speak of this to
anyone at all.”

Vannis nodded, and
Fierin bowed low.

Osri cleared his
throat, his mind working rapidly. “Did you want me for something?”

Brandon turned to
him. “Aegios Fierin,” he said, indicating the tall young woman with the wide
blank gaze. “I am very much afraid she is going to disappear tonight. While
Vannis and I go back and dance until morning, you, Osri, will smuggle her up to
your rooms until we figure out what to do next. No one is to see her.”

Osri opened his
mouth to protest, looked from one face to another, then nodded weakly.

“I’ll put you on another
of my handy secret Arkadic transtube pods, and program the access to permit you
to leave. It’ll take you straight to the Cap. From there I leave it to your
ingenuity. Use this code—” He tapped, and Osri’s boswell gave a neural chime.
“—to block the imagers when you reach your corridor. They will loop back one
minute.”

Osri assented.
Anyone looking for that loop would find it; Osri knew that his job was to make
certain no one would have occasion to look.

Aegios Fierin gave
a strange sound, midway between a laugh and a groan, then with a shuddering sob
she crumpled up, weeping soundlessly.

Vannis
Scefi-Cartano dropped to her knees, gathering the younger woman—really she was
hardly older than a girl—into her arms. Osri watched helplessly, feeling as if
he’d wandered somehow into a demented vid.

Brandon took a step
toward them, but hesitated when an amber light flickered on the console. He
keyed the acoustic damper. “Hyperwave transmission,” he murmured to Osri, exchanging
a glance with Vannis over Fierin’s head. “The Cap has a monitor on them for
me.” He flashed a sardonic smile. “Most likely another ukase from the man I
understand every Rifter in the Thousand Suns is calling ‘that slug
Barrodagh’—at least according to the Sodality codes we can read.”

Osri forced a nod
of acknowledgement, glad of the distraction so he wouldn’t have to not-notice
the shattered sobs of that rail-thin young woman, scarcely more than a girl.

Sure enough, Barrodagh’s
pale thin face windowed up in a general broadcast. “The Lord Eusabian requires
the participation of tempaths in the exploitation of the power of the
Suneater,” Barrodagh said, and went on to promise a fantastically large reward
for the delivery of any tempath.

The transmission
terminated with codes added by the analysts indicating that it had been
followed by communications to specific ships that could not yet be deciphered. The
ships and their locations were listed. Brandon stared down at the console for a
long minute, then tapped a quick code. When he looked up, he said, “Panarch’s
Seal. Keep it to yourself for now, would you?”

As he shut down the
console and canceled the dampers, Vannis slowly stroked Fierin’s hair.