The Rifter's Covenant (50 page)

“And will she?”

Eloatri turned her
gaze to Manderian, who put his cup down. “The meeting of two tempaths is always
problematical,” he said. “In fact, one reason there are so few of us is that we
seldom mate with each other; the feedback created by sexual congress can be
fatal.” Manderian’s gaze was distant. “It was not always so, long ago on
Dol’jhar, but the rituals of the Chorei are lost.” He met Omilov’s gaze.

“I tell you this so
that you may understand why my knowledge of Vi’ya’s motives can be
simultaneously certain and ineffable. Each tempath meeting another accepts a
certain blunting of his or her perceptions to avoid that overload, yet much
still comes through. From our discussions, for she has come to trust me to some
extent, I know that she has learned of the call for tempaths. She not only will
go to the Suneater, but desires that course of action strongly. This is, to
her, both an escape from, and a gift to repay a personal obligation stronger
than she has ever felt before.”

Manderian
hesitated, visibly seeking words. “It is more complex than that. She is
evidently dealing with a relationship that is not . . . usual . . . to Dol’jharians.
That all lies in the parts of her soul not open to me; nor, I suppose, could I
understand it if they were. But the sense of obligation is very strong. It is
perhaps a sublimation of these other feelings.”

Omilov felt his
understanding floundering under a welter of imprecision. He tried to pin down
the meaning. “You say obligation, and relationship, and feelings. Do you mean Brandon?”

“Yes. That is the
difficulty,” said Eloatri. “I fear he will not let her go.”

Omilov blinked. He
had not known the relationship had continued. Brandon was being properly
discreet about it
.
“I think,” he said
carefully, “that you may be assigning this relationship more significance than
it will bear.”

“Perhaps,” Eloatri
replied, but Omilov could hear no doubt at all in her voice. He found he
couldn’t entirely dismiss her certainty, even if it was most likely based on
some gnosis he couldn’t follow. “But can we afford to take that chance?” she
continued.

“No,” he agreed.
The irony was painful. As his sole act as Praerogate, he had given Brandon the
means to enforce his will on Ares. Now, if Eloatri was correct, Sebastian must
join her in plotting to defy his will.

“We cannot inform
Vi’ya,” Manderian said. “She will not trust anyone but herself in this matter.
We can only offer her opportunities that she can turn to her own advantage.”

They sat in a
silence broken finally by the faint tick of Omilov’s cup on the table.

“I was thinking of
a new experiment,” Omilov said, “that would bring them all together on the
Telvarna
. I wanted to see what their
combined sensorium was capable of if isolated from the noetic noise of Ares, or
of any other humans not of their unity. Of course, with the fiveskip disabled,
there would have been no question of their escape, even lacking Marines on
board.”

“She has already
received permission to sleep on board the
Telvarna
,
distant from the storm of emotion that otherwise surrounds her,” Manderian
said.

“And I have
arranged to deflect the routine engine inspections.” Eloatri’s voice was firm,
and Omilov wondered how far she would go in the service of Telos and the triune
god she now served. He wondered how far he would go to preserve the Suneater.

The High Phanist
continued. “I expect as soon as she notes their abeyance she will breach the
outer seal and go to work. Her light-fingered DC-tech, Marim, is doubtless
already obtaining the parts she needs to repair the fiveskip. Tuan found her
looking for booty at New Glastonbury cathedral.” Eloatri chuckled. “She found
more than she sought and carried it away with her against her will.”

“Then,” said
Omilov, “if I can arrange for them to carry out this experiment beyond the
radius of Ares Primary, and Vi’ya is able to repair the fiveskip, there is
nothing to stop them.”

o0o

“We have a few
minutes before that fool Torigan arrives,” Hesthar said on entering the garden
room on Srivashti’s sumptuous yacht. “I arranged for his shuttle to be delayed
by some problems with the bay systems.”

Srivashti bowed and
gestured toward a chair. “I’m very much afraid that Stulafi’s alacrity at
obtaining the Omori complex, spacious as it is, has left him vulnerable.
Shipboard life is much more predictable.”

Hesthar smiled,
acknowledging the riposte as she seated herself on a settee next to a
reflecting pond whose still surface was dotted with tiny flowers basking in the
tree-filtered sun. “You do have better weather than Ares. Even in the oneill
the air reeks of Polloi now.”

Srivashti was a
fool, too, if he thought his defenses that good
.
His ship was realtime-linked to Ares; his threads to the DataNet
would be useless otherwise. True, she’d found she couldn’t touch ship
functions, but the walls around his dataspace were otherwise porous, and his
protections shallow. If need be, Srivashti’s deepest records would be open to her.

But no need to
alert him just for the sake of curiosity. Not yet. And there was much useful
information in the shallow levels of his databanks, including his Familial link
to Tate Kaga. That was quite interesting—and worrisome.

“I’ve noticed,” Srivashti
said, moving to a side console. “What will you drink? The chef has made up some
Vilarian Cloud.”

“Appropriate to the
mood,” she said, smiling. “Extravagance is an inspiration to the senses.”

He returned smile
for smile. “Why not call it profligacy?”

He wouldn’t
apologize for the ship or his tastes, and he knew she coveted the former.
And—she had to appreciate his subtlety—he
knew she knew.

“I find it
inspirational as well,” he said as he brought her the tall, cobalt-blue glass.
The sides were already clouded with moisture. She sipped at the creamy vapors
wisping up. The chill shocked her; the taste zinged her palate.

“Less inspiring to
contemplate is Torigan’s handling of the trial,” she said, lowering her glass.

“He seems to have
assembled the best team possible under the circumstances,” Srivashti said
mildly, sipping from his own fluted glass. He did not drink the Vilarian Cloud;
she wondered why, and when he sipped again she shot a look at Felton, glancing
down at her glass, and he shook his head fractionally. No poison. Not that she
had expected it. Srivashti needed her too much.

“His team is not
the point,” Hesthar said, permitting none of her impatience to reach her voice.

Srivashti lifted a
shoulder. “His record is brilliant, but it does seem odd that Tovr Ixvan is
handling this himself, without so much as a clerk.” He seated himself on a
circular bench surrounding a large tree, whose green bark was deeply fissured,
with glints of phosphorescence deep in the cracks. “Although I’m surprised you
haven’t told me about the people the Panarch has no doubt directed to assist
him.”

Hesthar frowned. It
rankled to admit failure. “I cannot discover anyone of note. The Enclave is
opaque to me. But neither is that the point, Tau.” Her use of the familiar obliterated
the hint of a smile on his lips.

He gestured
gracefully for her to continue. She sensed the restraint in his motion.

“The point is that
no vocat, however talented, can run a modern defense without a host of
specialists. Three just to model the presiding Justicials’ minds from past
decisions and personal data, another to do the same for the prosecutor, nomic
eidetics, noderunners.” She let her voice trail off and sipped her drink,
feeling its coolness penetrate her sinuses. Srivashti need not know about the
noderunners that someone had put on her own threads and webs of data. Were they
Ixvan’s or someone else’s? They were consuming more and more of her time.
“Ixvan has none of those, which implies that he knows he doesn’t need them.”

“Which implies that
he knows something he shouldn’t,” Srivashti said. “Unless it’s a colossal
bluff.” He smiled. “Aimed at provoking just this kind of conversation.”

“Perhaps.” Now was
an opportune moment to probe the relationship she’d discovered with the old
nuller. “I wonder if Tate Kaga has been in communication with him?”

She saw from Srivashti’s
eyes that she had scored a hit, but she couldn’t interpret its effect. “You
seem fascinated by him,” he said.

Of course, fool,
she thought: you would fear him more if you knew how invisible he is on the
Net. No one lived nearly seven hundred years and left so little data behind;
not without formidable talent. Was he among those digging at her in the Net?

Srivashti sipped at
his drink, his poise recovered. “If the nuller knew anything, he would have
used it earlier.”

Hesthar smiled
faintly, enjoying Srivashti’s reluctance to refer to the abortive coup. He maintained
his poise in public, but with one who knew the truth of how horribly awry that
had gone, he was more circumspect.

“No doubt. But all
this would be meaningless to Stulafi, and I propose we not trouble him with
it.” If it hadn’t been for the Covenant of Anarchy, someone would have gobbled
up Torigan long ago.

“He is somewhat
less effective away from his own domain,” Srivashti agreed, signaling his
willingness to sacrifice Torigan if necessary, and Hesthar relaxed
fractionally. But she needed more.

Srivashti stood up
and moved to replenish her glass. “He does have his strengths, one of which is
tenacity,” he said.

The remark brought
a stain of red along Hesthar’s thin cheeks. She glanced at him, a look so full
of loathing she looked away quickly again, back at her drink, and as Srivashti
waited, she flickered another glance, snake-like, at Felton.

Srivashti caught
that quick, covert glance and hid his disgust. Had they been playing with their
religious foolishness again? Hesthar really seemed to think it would give her
power, and for all her vaunted far-sightedness did not appear to perceive that
he permitted Felton to indulge it only to monitor her.

When she spoke
again, it was to alter the subject. “Stulafi’s team is probably adequate, but I
believe that the more aid we give him, the better the outcome for us all.”

“The novosti?” Srivashti
said. “It’s you who is feeding 99 all the Rifter data, is it not?”

“A public service,”
Hesthar said with her thin, smug smile. “Their ratings are high—higher than
25’s, with their contrarian attitude. Who does that Cormoran fool think they
will get as patron?”

“They don’t need
one. Contrariness gets them good ratings,” Srivashti said.

Felton bowed and
slid noiselessly from the room. When he returned with Torigan, Hesthar was
talking of Privy Council politics.

They’d been there
for some time, Torigan thought as he entered to the sound of her voice. Irritation
surged at his conviction that they’d been talking about him. “What have you
decided?” he said, hoping to sting them with his irony as he sat down.

“Merely that the
air in the station is lamentable these days and that Hesthar prefers to drink
Vilarian Cloud to the Negus.”

“It’d be madness to
drink Negus,” Torigan said with a snort. “Unless you have the time to spend a
night gibbering about flowers growing out of hats and other nonsense. I
certainly don’t.”

“True: you’re a very
busy man,” Srivashti said, bowing. “Will you honor us with a report?”

When Srivashti went
formal like that, it was a sure sign he was annoyed. Probably at Hesthar;
Torigan smiled privately at the thought. She kept looking around at the
chatzing yacht like she could hardly wait to start redecorating it
.
“I feel that the trial will be a
triumph,” he said. “Hesthar warned me that someone was digging deep in the
Net—” He bowed in her direction. Better throw a compliment the ugly snake’s
way—she had a damn long reach these days.

Hesthar inclined
her head, like a logos-loving kyriarch.

“And I’ve put
together the best prosecution team ever seen in that Kamera. I’ve got the
judges covered, all the data from the murder site, everything in the Net on
Ixvan’s tactics, plus a sizable datafile on Kendrian’s activities as a Rifter,
and Chomsky is foaming at the mouth to get her hands on those. She’s still
angry about that chatzing Whoopee story 25 put out.”

“You know that
Ixvan is running the defense solo,” Srivashti said.

Torigan laughed.
“Well, the Rifter can’t afford anything better, can he? And if the Panarch buys
him a team like mine, it’s as much as admitting complicity in his guilt, and he
knows it. He’s looking the other way, and Ixvan solo is as much as an admission
that we’ve won before it starts.”

“I do hope you are
right,” Srivashti said.

“I have to be,” Torigan
said, sitting back. “There’s nothing for them to find that I don’t let them
have, and all of it is damning. It’ll be a very good day for us. A very good
day.”

Hesthar raised her
glass to them both and drank it off.

o0o

When Jaim
answered the Panarch’s summons, he found Brandon seated before a comscreen
showing the wizened face of Tate Kaga.

“I shall expect
you, then, young Arkad,” the old nuller said, and the screen blanked to a
pleasant abstract pattern.

Brandon swiveled
his chair around and stood up. “You’ve never been to Tate Kaga’s palace, have
you?”

Jaim shook his
head. He still didn’t understand the nuller’s place on Ares, or in the larger
field of Panarchic politics. All he knew was that Tate Kaga was very likely the
oldest human being in the Thousand Suns, and he took an inordinate interest in
Brandon Arkad.

“I’m going to have
a talk with him,” Brandon said. “Do you come with me, or shall I vanish and
make this visit solo?”