The Rifter's Covenant (5 page)

o0o

Manderian woke
when a near-blinding light flashed through his dreams. He groped in the
darkness and found the bedside console. Light filled the tiny cabin,
illuminating the chrono: 03:55.

Manderian sat on
the edge of the bed, and though his robe lay within reach, he did not touch it.
To a follower of the Sanctus Lleddyn, dreams carried truth; understanding them
was a matter of intuition and openness to the currents of Totality. He
identified the flash: the Eya’a, moving somewhere in close proximity. The rest
of the dream required little contemplation. It was a warning.

He stepped into the
tiny bain and doused himself with cold water at stinging force until his blood
coursed through his body, heightening his thoughts to alertness. Then he donned
his robe.

Outside his cabin,
he nearly collided with Ivard, clad only in trousers, with a small bag hanging
from a long chain around his neck, one hand resting on the huge wedge-shaped
head of the cliff-cat Lucifur. The bright green stripe bonded forever around
one of Ivard’s arms contrasted with his warm brown skin and red hair. Ivard
fought back a yawn then said, “You awake? Can you punch up the Suneater for the
Eya’a? They’re jumpy for some reason and won’t let me sleep.”

Manderian bowed his
acquiescence. Yawning again, Ivard shuffled back to the cabin he shared with
the Kelly, throwing up a hand in silent greeting to the Marine who glanced out
of the rec room. Wondering if Ivard felt crowded with four beings in a space
meant for two, Manderian moved to the bridge.

The Eya’a waited,
their faceted eyes gleaming. Their attenuated, brittle-looking fingers sketched
out the semiotics for “We see you,” followed by the sign for “Nivi’ya”
(Another-One-Who-Hears), which was their name for Manderian.
Term, not name,
he thought, recalling a
recent conversation with Vi’ya. Though he had spoken little with her since they
left Ares, she had been a lot more forthcoming about what she had learned of
the Eya’a than she had been on the station. “They now recognize us as
individual entities, but they will never understand the arbitrariness of names.
As near as I can describe it, they identify one another with memory images, but
even that doesn’t quite comprehend it. Remember, they are in some sense in
constant contact with their hive. There’s a lot they just don’t consider
relevant, like our genders, time, or distance,” she’d said.

Manderian moved to
Ivard’s console and located a stored image of the Suneater, then studied it on
the viewscreen: mysterious, sinister, yet somehow beautiful.

The Eya’a moved
their heads sharply, tipping them back at a humanly impossible angle, then both
chittered on a high, nearly painful note.

Manderian sensed
disappointment. They raised hands, sketching swift semiotics that Manderian did
not recognize, then they darted off the bridge with eerie swiftness, their
twiggy toes scritching on the scuffed deck.

Manderian closed
down the console again, wondering if the new semiotics were ones they had
developed with the Kelly. Whatever they said, it seemed they still did not
recognize the difference between a real-time link and a stored representation:
they wanted to go back to the Suneater
.

He frowned around
the bridge. The Eya’a were so strange, and humans knew so little of them.
Unlike the Kelly’s, their technology was nothing recognizable by humans, apparently
more art than anything else. So they knew about artificial representations at
least in one form. What exactly were they doing here, so far from their world?

Manderian left. The
ship was not large, and he rounded a corner to discover the Eya’a with the
Kelly, their fingers blurring semiotics at a speed they never used with humans.
As one of the two ubiquitous Marine guards watched, the Kelly honked out a
counterpoint to the keening voices, and Manderian felt the air change—he
sniffed a strange scent like cinnamon and burned cork.

The door to the
dispensary opened. Sebastian Omilov stood there, his heavy brows in a line of
perplexity as he watched the interaction.

Abruptly the Eya’a
stopped the keening and sped into Vi’ya’s cabin. The Kelly fluted on a note
that seemed mournful to Manderian’s ears, then the Intermittor said, “They say
their world-mind wishes them to go to the Suneater.”

There was no answer
to be made to that—and the Kelly did not wait for one. They withdrew into their
cabin, and Omilov sighed.

“So much for
sleep,” he said wryly. “My mind is too full of questions as it is.”

“Shall we take
advantage of the new Panarch’s beneficence and avail ourselves of coffee?”
Manderian asked.

Omilov made one of
those absent gestures of graceful courtesy that seemed inborn to the Douloi.
Wondering what else it might signify, Manderian led the way to the rec room,
which they found empty. He was fairly certain that Omilov knew him for a
tempath. As he tapped up the coffee on the console, he wondered if Omilov had
been granting, in his oblique way, permission to listen not just to words but
to the feelings behind them
.

Silently he carried
the cups to the pair of easy chairs that Omilov had chosen.

For a time neither
spoke. After a few sips of the aromatic brew, Omilov said in a voice of
abstraction, “Whenever I think about the Eya’a I question all our definitions
of intelligence.”

Manderian inclined
his head in assent. “No written language, no political awareness, speech only
used occasionally, no recognizable technology outside of those woven hangings.”

“Yet those are made
in such a way that would require many complicated technical steps for us to
duplicate,” Omilov finished. “And they seem to be developing a language with
the Kelly. Ivard apparently understands it.”

“Vi’ya as well.” As
yet Manderian did not sense any strong emotion from the gnostor, and he did not
comprehend all the stylized subtleties of Douloi usage, but he was patient.

Omilov glanced up,
one of his beetling brows curved in irony. “Vi’ya as well,” he said.

Manderian tasted
the coffee. No bitterness, a blend of several beans—some of which had been
grown precisely the same way for over a thousand years—and precisely the right
temperature. If pressed, he could name the chemical makeup of the coffee and
the reaction of the human body to the brew. Yet there was still an almost
mystical sense of well-being that few things imparted merely by smell, taste,
and warmth. Coffee was one. “Now that you have located the Suneater, does your
job end?” he asked. “Or more correctly, do the authorities perceive your job at
an end?”

Omilov smiled.
“There you have my dilemma. Now that it is located I must hand over the
coordinates to Nyberg, and the Navy will waste no time in carrying the war to
Eusabian.” He paused, adding mildly, “Not that I have a quarrel with the
necessity.”

Manderian had
endured a childhood of nightmares featuring the torturous “arts” of his
mother’s pesz mas’hadni. Omilov had experienced this side of Dol’jharian
vengeance, imprisoned in what had once been the citadel of his liege and
trusted friend.

“What will be the
theme of your report to Brandon, our new Panarch, then?”

As if shadowed by
memory, Omilov rubbed his cheek, then sighed. “Necessity,” he repeated, and
glanced up. “My job now is not my own. I believe my authority comes from future
generations. Eusabian will tamper with that Urian construct, I know that. There
is nothing we can do to prevent it.”

Manderian
acknowledged with a gesture.

“Still, I will
exert every nerve, every influence I can muster, to extract a promise from our
own people not to destroy it. As far as we know it is the only Urian construct
still functioning. And though Eusabian brought out of it the power relay that
makes his skipmissiles so deadly, I cannot believe the artifacts within it have
only to do with warfare, the hyperwave being a case in point. This will be the
theme of my report to Brandon: we must preserve the Suneater for study.” He hit
his flat palm on the tabletop beside him. “It is more than duty, it is a sacred
trust.”

He wanted Manderian
as an ally, or he would not have said even that much.

Manderian comprehended,
and set his coffee down. “Our goals may be contiguous. In accordance with her
own vision, Eloatri has asked me to follow the polymental unity established by
the Eya’a, the Kelly, and Vi’ya and Ivard.”

Vision.
Omilov winced. He’d been a vigorous skeptic until taken yet again by the
Dreamtime previous to their departure from Ares. He still did not know what to
believe, except to take visions seriously, at least in this matter.

Manderian went on,
“If any of the others understand what the Eya’a seek there, no one has spoken.”

“Certainly not to
me,” Omilov said, not even trying to hide his regret.

Manderian
hesitated, searching for words. “This polymental unity’s syntonics constitute
one question. The other is their interactions with others.”

Omilov placed his
fingertips together, resting his chin on the forefingers. “What is your concern?”

“Vi’ya watched the
entire battle with the
Samedi
and the
death of the Panarch Gelasaar through his son’s eyes. That argues a
relationship of intimacy, and of a significant mutual trust.”

Omilov drew in a
deep breath, as though he’d sustained a blow. “Brandon told you that that?
Surely Vi’ya didn’t.”

“Neither of them
has said a word. I know it through external evidence. When we entered the
viewing room, Brandon vlith-Arkad—that is, the new Panarch—acknowledged Vi’ya
like this.” Manderian mimicked Brandon’s subtle movement. “There was no way he
could have known otherwise. He did not wear a boswell, and he stood behind the
captain’s pod, away from all others.”

“Next to me,”
Omilov murmured. “Yet I was certainly not aware of this. So . . .”
Omilov stared straight ahead as he worked through the implications. “So.” He met
Manderian’s gaze. “Your question for me is . . .” He spread his
hands. “Not what their relationship will mean in political terms or in terms of
the war. For that you will go to others. You want to know what it means in
personal terms.”

“I can understand
Dol’jharians, but I cannot comprehend the mysteries of Douloi interactions,”
Manderian admitted.

“In Douloi terms,
their relationship means nothing,” Omilov said. “It may already be mere memory.
Which makes the questions of politics—and war—simple. Supposing they do
continue an intimate relationship, I would be very surprised if either of them
ever acknowledges even a hint of it in public. What does not officially exist
cannot be used by others.”

Manderian sipped at
his coffee again, recalling his dream—and the vision Eloatri had related to
him. “Yet they are bound together by some bond we have not yet perceived. They,
and another as yet unknown.”

Omilov smiled. “If
the bond is an interest in the Suneater, let us hope that the High Phanist’s
mysterious last figure is in a position of some influence. I fear I am going to
need it.”

Sedry Thetris left
the crowded transtube and descended the stairs from the adit to a grassy path
uphill from Lake Illyahin, noting the deepening groove of bare dirt too many
feet had worn in it. She sucked in a lungful of fresh air, shrugging off the
claustrophobic feeling of having been crammed into such a small space with so
many people. Even though the tianqi had been set high enough to both hear and
feel, the air inside the pod had smelled thick.

She breathed again,
her gaze on a distant leg of the lake that gently curved up into the mist
obscuring the far side of the oneill. Here, on the surface where spin-derived
acceleration was a standard gee, she could more easily dismiss the sense of
heaviness that oppressed her, than at the spin axis outside the entrance to the
Cap.

Up there it felt
uncanny. As a highdweller, she knew weight as a function of altitude, and so
the psychic weight of Ares’s ever-increasing population contrasted too vividly
with the microgravity at the rotational axis of the oneill. Sedry dreamt too
often now of the overcrowded habitat bursting open, spewing thousands of bodies
into the void; even more so since the death of Sync Osman had hit the
newsfeeds.

Maybe she wanted it
to happen, she reflected with a bitter spurt of not-quite-laughter. A traitor
twice over, yet uncaught by those she now served, she already regarded herself
as under sentence of death. She never permitted herself to think about the
future, or at least about her place in it: her plans, work, and life were
limited strictly to how many of the enemy she could take with her when she inevitably
got caught out.

And one of them
will be you, Tau Srivashti
,
she vowed,
as she turned onto a narrow-stepped gravel path that wound down to the edge of
the lake through a grove of flowering chimetrees. All the dangling branches
within reach had been plucked clean of flowers.

As she walked, the
image that oppressed her waking and sleeping seized her mind: the eternal ice
of the Ninth Circle, where traitors lay frozen for eternity.

She hadn’t even
thirty pieces of silver to fling in Srivashti’s face. She had been lied to—manipulated—and
her cause had been just, but there was no escaping the truth. Leveraging her
seniority in Naval infonetics at Arthelion, she had inserted false orders for
Captain Armenhaut and the Home Detachment at a critical moment, sending them
off after a manufactured threat and leaving the capital of the Thousand Suns
undefended before the Dol’jharian attack. There was no comfort in the knowledge
that, as the Battle of Arthelion much later had revealed, Armenhaut could have
done nothing to stop the invasion, and in his ignorance of what he would have
faced, might have cost Dol’jhar far less than did his final sacrifice.