The Rifter's Covenant (59 page)

It might be amusing
to dig something up from their past. Someone that strong might be useful.

The pod stopped. The
doors opened. Hristo stepped next to her, his arm close to hers but not
touching. She could see highlights in his red hair, and smell the pine-tangy
personal scent he favored.

“This way,” he
said.

Io stood at her
other side, handsome in black velvet, courteous and smiling. He, too, did not
touch her.

They walked out and
Hesthar smiled in triumph when she recognized the lock nearest Srivashti’s
ship. Not all these people owed her, or were her clients. Proof again: as the
Ultschen taught, power begets power. Wherever they had come from, Arret had
found her a protective crowd made up of Douloi. Everything was returning to its
proper order, she thought with satisfaction, and began composing an appropriate
speech. Not gratitude—that showed weakness. But acknowledgment of their obedience
to one of their own kind, and a promise that she would remember this act in her
future dealings.

Her thoughts
splintered when they rounded a corner and she saw an even larger group waiting.
Had the entire guest list of some ball come out to see her safely to the yacht?
What a slap at that fool of an Arkad! She suppressed the urge to laugh. In
silence they escorted her to the lock’s hatchway. She stepped inside and turned
around to make her speech.

But first a young
woman came forward: plump, pretty, with soft brown eyes. Rista something or
other, some minor Chival. One of Vannis’s friends—a political nothing.

“For my brother,”
Rista said, and laid something at Hesthar’s feet.

Hesthar looked down
in surprise. A single white rose lay before her shoes, the petals still tightly
folded.

Hesthar hid her
contempt at the pointless, sentimental custom. One had to be diplomatic, so she
bent and picked it up, saying, “A lovely gesture, Rista.”

But Rista had
turned away. Another woman came forward, someone Hesthar didn’t know. “For
Merryn,” she said. “And Charvann.”

This time Hesthar
held out her hand for the rose, but the woman stooped and laid it at her feet.

Then more of them
came, still one at a time, but so quickly Hesthar did not have a chance to
respond.

“For my mother.”

“For my mate.”

“For Bradford
Cloud.”

“For my family.”

Hesthar bent and
picked up the flowers. They were not all roses; some were common blossoms, some
rare, and a few were not even real plants. Silken orchids, lace petals, and one
ancient porcelain lily, with diamonds embedded like dew, all of them white.

She held a huge, fragrant
bouquet before she stopped picking them up and began to listen to the subdued
voices and look at the somber faces. Sometimes eyes met hers, with straight,
soulless stares. Others avoided her gaze.

The Estrasi heir
was one of the last. “For Karelais,” he said, compressing his lips for a
breath, his mouth white. “For generations of Service families who lived by
their oaths: in life and in dying, until death take me or the world end.”

It was then that
Hesthar’s heart gave one painful leap and began beating rapidly.

Arret stepped
forward, and laid down a tight white rose blossom, barely unfurled. “For my
daughter, whose life you held against my cooperation.” She wiped her eyes. “I
suppose you had her killed long ago.”

Hesthar glared at
her in scorn. If she could sacrifice her own son to prove her grasp of
supremacy to Nullity, what would Arret’s puling brat be to her?
Nothing
.

But then Arret’s
meaning sank in. “What is this?” Hesthar demanded. “I demand—”

“For the Mandala,” said
the last person, awkward young Geoff Masaud, his silly face almost
unrecognizable in its determination as he laid a rose on the pile at her feet.

“This is a ceremony
for what?” Any other time Hesthar would have laughed, until a new idea
occurred. Her stomach jolted, and she flung away the flowers. “Or do you people
assume you constitute a legal body?”

The people had gone
back to stand in an orderly, decorous semicircle around her. Hesthar stood with
her back to the outer lock, the flowers strewn in a moat around her shoes.

Was there a bomb
waiting on the shuttle?

Or . . .

What if there
was
no shuttle outside that lock?

She lunged for the
hatchway, half stumbling over the flowers. As she kicked them out of the way, Hristo
and another man pushed her back inside. It was the first time anyone had
touched her.

Alarm detonated
along her nerves, and she began to fight. Hristo and the other man tried to
catch her arms—tried to subdue her without harming her. “You soft, worm-stupid
fools,” she shrieked.

Several of them crowded
up shoulder to shoulder, Rista and NorSothu among them. Women whose lives were
ruled by sentiment—who had never faced anything harder than a dance floor, or made
any sacrifice more difficult than passing up dessert.

Hesthar slashed out
with her diamond-pierced nails and ripped them down Rista’s face. Blood beaded,
and ran, but the woman did not flinch as she stood firmly in Hesthar’s way.

Then Besthan
nyr-Haesterfaeldt stepped up, her face remote. “You who worship nothing,
embrace your god.”

And Io hit the hatch
control.

Hesthar fought to
keep it from cycling, but the metal circle closed inexorably, the crowd
stepping back as the lock engaged. For a long time Hesthar clawed frantically
at the door, until her nails were broken and bleeding, then she thought of
something, and whirled about, hoping.

The yacht was out
there. She could still summon the shuttle. Even if they dared to space her, she
knew she could survive for a minute or two.

She yanked up her
wrist and activated her boswell.

Flashing red, it
wailed shrilly, echoing painfully in her head.

In front of her,
the outer lock opened.

A gale of wind blew
Hesthar into space, and her god’s empty embrace slowly bloated her body,
boiling her lifeblood out of her rupturing lungs while she screamed until the
air was gone, and with it sound and light.

“Status check,”
Vi’ya said.

The litany of
responses echoed from each of the positions around the U-shaped bank of
consoles before her, as if none of the crew had ever been away. Only Sedry
Thetris at the fire-control console was a visible reminder of how much had
changed.

“Lokri,” Vi’ya
said, “tell Ares Control we are away from the lock and proceeding.”

“Acknowledged,”
Lokri said. Then, “Escort ship away, matching speed.”

“I’ll watch from
the engine room,” Marim announced, and skipped out.

On the viewscreen a
distant light gleamed, moving on a parallel course.

“Wonder who will
get Srivashti’s yacht,” Lokri commented as they passed within a kilometer of
its rakish length.

“I’d blow the
chatzer up,” Montrose said.

Ivard sat back in
silence, his profile reflective. The Kelly were not on the bridge, or the
Eya’a. Memory struck Vi’ya.
Fi. She
had used fi against human beings . . .

And the Eya’a spoke
in her mind.
Vi’ya amends enraged-ones
with fi. Fi causes amendment in Eya’a; we celebrate knowledge of amendment for
ones, for Eya’a . . .

Vi’ya was too tired
to correct them, too tired even for anger at never being alone in her own mind
unless she remembered to erect her inner barrier. She did that now, reflecting
that where they were going, it might be good to be able to strike at any
moment. Until they could do whatever needed to be done with that Suneater, they
would have to guard themselves waking and sleeping.

Bleak memories
flooded her exhaustion-stressed mind: the stone buildings and fitful fires of
Dol’jhar; the grim-faced people. Equally grim had been the mining planet,
though lighter in gravity.

Where they were
going was more dangerous than both.

She shut down those
thoughts and her hands stayed steady at their task as the
Telvarna
wound past stationary ships, many battle-scarred.

She could end this
war
,
she reminded herself.

“
Grozniy
standing by for tractor
acceleration,” Lokri reported as they cleared the last of the ships near Ares. Omilov
had arranged for the battlecruiser to boost their speed to get them to the
radius faster.

“Acknowledged.
We’re ready,” she said.

There was no sensation
as the gee field seized them and Ares fled sternward, their escort matching
pace in the grip of another tractor from the big ship.

‘Three hours and
we’re free!” Marim chortled over the engine room com. “For a time there I
thought we’d never get out.”

“What are you complaining
about?” Montrose snorted. “You still had a few thousand people to cheat.”

“Hah,” Marim
grumped. “Got too hot to gamble, last few days. All that yelp about Rifters. And
Lochiel made her crew stay on the ship. No liberty.”

“They are on the
station now,” Vi’ya said without thinking. She felt a fast glance from Lokri.

Jaim’s voice came
over the open com. “If you don’t get that shunt coupled to the plasma feed,
then we will not be free in three hours or even three years.”

Vi’ya damped the
com on a burst of colorful invective from Marim.

“Can they get the
fiveskip up in time?” Lokri asked soberly.

“Should be able
to,” Vi’ya said. “I did what I could.” And then, because she couldn’t bear not
to, she closed her eyes. She could feel Brandon’s emotional signature, but from
a distance that made it feel as if her heart was being pulled out of her chest by
hooks.

The Eya’a were
delighted to find her returned to their familiar realm. The Kelly, from Ivard’s
cabin, added their energy along with a steadying sense of balance.

Let us sort one-patterns,
Vi’ya framed the thought.
The one who gives fire-stone.

And the Eya’a found
Brandon.

“Thank you, Admiral Faseult.”
(A flash of gratitude)
“Let me know as soon as Felton is found. Send the vids of Gessinav to
the Enclave, will you?”
(A tendril of awareness, tenderness infused
question)
“Vi’ya?”

She withdrew so
quickly that dizziness nearly overwhelmed her and she had to grab the sides of
her pod. She looked up, finding that Ivard had taken over navigation. He
glanced back, concern and perplexity obvious. But he said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she
said. “It will not happen again.”

Ivard shook his
head. “I don’t mind, and you’re tired.” He grinned. “And just before I said
good-bye, Tate Kaga said I’d better practice scoopin’ behind the menagerie,
because I’d find a big one on that Suneater.”

Lokri laughed
softly, and Vi’ya welcomed the faint warmth of humor that dispelled her bleak
mood, however briefly. She liked the old Prophetae; another time, another
place, she would have sought his company, to hear his perspective on the
universe.

But here was memory
again, not hers: her own eyes closed in peaceful slumber, her hair drifting
across Brandon’s chest . . .

Falling into sleep
to find the nightmare waiting.

She banished the
image of Anaris standing over her, bloodstained knife gripped in one fist, eyes
merciless.

The nightmare was
hers.

She looked at the
chronometer. Never again, she was sure, would three hours seem so long.

o0o

“Thank you for
coming, son,” Sebastian Omilov said.

Osri sank into a
chair and sighed. “Your summons was so abrupt, I was afraid some of the rioters
had come up here.” He waved, indicating the peaceful garden room of the Cloisters.
It seemed a million light years removed from the screaming and blood and
struggle of the riots.

“I’ve been fine
here,” Omilov said, but his pained expression belied the words.

Worry sharpened
Osri’s heartbeat. “If you need a medic—”

“My physical state
is sufficient, my boy,” Sebastian cut in calmly. “My mental state . . . . What
I am asking is for you to help me with a very difficult task.”

Osri fell silent.

His father laced
his fingers together, turning them outward as he stared distractedly into
space. Finally he said, “Vi’ya and her crew are on the
Telvarna
right now, heading for radius. Supposedly they are to
perform an experiment for me.”

“Then why aren’t
you on the ship?” Osri said. “Or in Jupiter HQ?”

“There’s an escort
ship, but I said I wanted them isolated as much as possible from other minds—oh,
it doesn’t matter. It is not going to happen. Son, I want you to go with me to
the Enclave, to be there when Brandon finds this out.”

Osri sighed. “I
will be happy to do whatever you ask, but I don’t know how much help I can be
when I simply don’t understand.”

“They won’t be
coming back,” Omilov said tightly.

Osri opened his
mouth, then shut it as the implications started multiplying through his brain.
“No,” he said at last, catching a fact he was sure of. “They can’t. The
fiveskip is sealed, the parts locked away.”

“That difficulty
has been overcome,” Sebastian said.

Osri shook his
head. “How? No—I don’t want to know. There’s going to be real trouble over
this. Careers wrecked.”

“Not necessarily. Captain
Vi’ya is an exceedingly resourceful individual. Apparently she had been
planning an escape anyway, in case today’s trial did not see Kendrian released.
She obtained most of her facts by inserting a worm into military dataspace. No
one can be blamed for that.”

Omilov stood up
slowly and moved to the fountain, staring down at the fish flashing bright among
the reeds. “Marim is probably the one who located the parts—at any rate, Eloatri
is the one most compromised. She obtained permission for Vi’ya to sleep on the
ship and then arranged for the fiveskip inspections to cease. But it is to a
purpose. She says that Vi’ya and her crew must get to the Suneater.”