Read The Rifter's Covenant Online
Authors: Sherwood Smith,Dave Trowbridge
Tags: #space opera, #space battles, #military science fiction, #political science fiction, #aliens, #telepathy
“I will obtain
samples, lord,” Morrighon said promptly. “The manifest indicates he has more
than enough to spare at his present dosage levels.”
o0o
Several days
later, Norio relaxed in the privacy of his cabin, looking fondly at the hangings
that disguised the numerous stasis clamps that kept it stable.
“Your quarters are
nearly as heavily stabilized as the Avatar’s,” Lysanter had said.
He toyed with the
vid control. He had brought all his treasures with him, memories of especially
savory emotional eruptions fixed in vivid detail by vids, or even, in a few
cases, holos. He brought up his examination of Naigluf, back on Charvann’s
Node, remembering avidly the taste of the skinny Rifter’s sufferings as he
watched, his eyelids paralyzed and held open by clamps, the evocation sequence
of images that Norio had identified as his deepest fears. Spiders and
falling—oh, what a splendid stew of anguish that had been!
Then Hreem appeared
on the screen, with Norio himself, the two of them locked in passion, heedless
of the whimpering Rifter writhing in his restraints close by. The dry arachnid
chittering and the dizzying whirl of vertiginous images in the evocation cut off
abruptly as Norio cut off the holo.
The psychic
pressure of the Suneater muted all affects, especially those of memory.
Sometimes, as now, he was glad of it. Hreem’s abandonment of him for that
obscene sex toy still rankled. But here he was gaining a real power that he’d
never had on the
Flower of Lith
.
Maybe, now that he
had demonstrated his abilities, they would give him someone to play with. He’d
never had a Dol’jharian, with their deliciously savage emotions. And their
fears! He remembered the big Tarkans accompanying Barrodagh when he’d arrived.
He’d queried Lysanter about their anxiety.
“They think of you
as one of the Chorei, demonic figures from the past, adepts of great power they
wiped out at great cost.”
Numinous fear was
the best kind. It made him feel almost godlike. Yes, he would demand a subject
after his next attempt.
He pulled his
pharmacopoeia out of the bedside drawer where he kept it. Lysanter insisted he
reduce the dosage a bit for each experiment, and so far it hadn’t hurt him. In
fact, the last time, his efforts had evoked a tenth-percent increase in the
station’s output and activity. His mind shied away from the memory of the
dizzying strangeness of the Chamber of Kronos and the sphere at its heart. Nor
would he recall the shuddering, like a beast in pain, that commenced each time
he touched the Heart of Kronos.
But the scientist had said nothing about in-between times. Norio busied
himself mixing more capsules from the pure compounds. Oral absorption was
smoother than sprayjecting. He noted a slight tremor in one hand and adjusted
some quantities slightly; it seemed that the constant exposure to the
emanations of the station demanded higher doses over time. No matter, he had
more than enough.
As Ares gradually
returned to normal, or as normal as it could be with five times the population
prescribed by the relevant Jaspran Unalterable, the Panarch requested the Navy
to prepare a summary of the strategic situation, as well as the tactical
implications of what was known about the Suneater.
Margot Ng walked
with Jeph Koestler into the gallery high above the Situation Room as those
officers and civilians invited assembled for the summary’s presentation. The
tall captain moved more easily now; his wound was healing well.
The first step was to
be a situation report from Gnostor Omilov. He was already at the control
rostrum below and in front of the ranks of consoles rising steeply toward where
they had entered. Behind him, a thick dyplast window revealed the huge
three-dimensional projection of the Thousand Suns hovering over the bustle of
activity among the banks of consoles far below. Colored lights and ideograms
far more densely annotated its holographic octants and stars than on her first
visit after the Battle of Arthelion.
How long ago that
seemed! Except when I think of losing you, my love. That pain was yesterday,
she thought, suppressing the instinct to rub the outside of her arms. Among all
the late arrivals flooding in, all the data flowing in with increasing speed
from the DataNet, there was still no word or sign of Metellus Hayashi.
She was going to
have to force herself to believe what she had refused to accept—as so very many
had been forced. How, she thought desolately, could he be gone and she could
not feel it? She had always believed if something happened to him, she would
know. Though her rational mind insisted she accept his death, her dream-self
still insisted on searching for him. From those dreams she woke with grief ever
fresh.
“Naval warfare will
never be the same again,” Koestler commented as they seated themselves.
Ng composed herself
with a quick breath out. “Regret?”
Koestler gave her a
thin, pained smile, almost a grimace. “It’s hard, unlearning a lifetime of
lessons.”
Ng nodded. He was
referring as much to his change of allegiance as to the real-time
communications of their enemy and the new tenno Warrigal had invented to
compensate.
Omilov tapped at
his console, and the huge projection rotated, bringing the chaos of the Rift
foremost in their view.
The hum of
conversation ceased as Omilov stood. “His Majesty has directed me to answer
your questions about the Suneater, so that you may prepare an effective
attack.”
“Not asked.
Directed,” Koestler whispered.
By now everyone had
figured out Omilov’s role in the Rifters’ escape. No one knew what the Panarch
had said to him about it. It was known only that Omilov had been summoned to
the Circle—not the Enclave—indicating an official meeting.
The gnostor
launched into a preliminary description of the Urian station for the benefit of
those who had fallen behind while dealing with the aftermath of the riots. Ng
sensed a certain reticence in his answers to questions, and judged it due to
his reluctance to furnish any more ammunition to the faction determined to
destroy the Suneater. She resolved to do some additional digging into the data
herself, and, having already familiarized herself with this information,
watched the audience instead.
Most faces were
unsurprisingly grim. Uppermost in many minds, no doubt, was the reflection that
the man before them had, in effect, sent a powerful team of psychic
adepts—mostly Rifters, to make it worse—to the Suneater, not to destroy it, but
to attempt to save it. If the Rifters powered up the station, but failed to
wrest it from Dol’jharian control or, worse, joined forces with the enemy, no
place in the Thousand Suns would be safe.
“We believe that
the Dol’jharians have already made several attempts to activate the station by using
tempaths. Recently, decoded transmissions indicated the arrival of a tempath
known to be particularly strong, and following that, the power of the station
has increased at least twice.”
“How much?” someone
asked.
“No more than a
tenth percent each time.”
“Why do you think the
team of Rifters . . . ahh, dispatched . . . from Ares has more of a chance?”
“As you know, they
detected the Suneater from here during the first experiment to test their
combined sensorium. And they were instrumental in locating it, using a sense of
direction that no single adept of any sort has ever evinced.”
A question came
from the back. “How do you know they won’t throw in with Eusabian?”
Ng snapped her head
around but couldn’t see the speaker. Koestler frowned and murmurs rose from the
audience; such a question was bad form, even if everyone was thinking it.
She saw pain in
Omilov’s face. “I don’t,” he said simply.
“More to the
point,” Koestler spoke from beside Ng, “could you explain why you think they may
be able to wrest control from the Dol’jharians?”
The lift to
Omilov’s heavy brows betrayed gratitude. “First, their psychic potential,
though that is largely a matter of conjecture. Second, we know that the
Dol’jharians have obtained a large number of cims from raided naval
depositories, and doubtless from elsewhere as well. It is my opinion that they
are building compute arrays with them.”
“What do you base
that conclusion on?” someone else asked.
“Our inspection of
the disabled hyperrelay brought in by Captain MacKenzie and his Rifter
associates.”
Ng smiled. Omilov
still had some fight left in him; that was a bit of a zinger, reminding the
audience that not all Rifters were with the enemy. Some had decided to throw in
with the Panarchy.
The Navy’s largely
laissez-faire attitude in past times had no doubt helped. Archetype and Ritual and
Moral Sabotage were helping craft new symbology and agitprop to bring more
Rifters over; data indicated it was helping to a minor degree. She suspected
that secret negotiations with Rifthaven would commence shortly, if they hadn’t
already.
“The hyperrelay was
connected to the destroyer Shiavona’s power systems via a set of very clever
quantum interfaces. We still don’t fully understand them, but we do know one
thing: it must have required tremendous compute power to develop them. There is
no reason to suppose that research has lagged to any degree. To the contrary,
the minor successes the Dol’jharians have had appear to indicate the opposite.”
“What does this
have to do with the Rifters’ adepts’ chances?” Mandros Nukiel asked from the
other side of the room.
Omilov smiled. “We
refer to them as a polymental unity, or just the Unity. One of the non-psychic
members of the crew is the former commander Sedry Thetris. Her noderunning
talents, and those of Captain Vi’ya, were responsible for the final downfall of
the cabal and the revelation of al-Gessinav’s treason. The Telvarna’s databanks
have all the information I was able to gather on the nature of Urian systems,
the quantum interfaces, and the likely computer configurations used to control
them.”
It will be data
warfare, then, as well as conventional, Ng thought; she saw thoughtful glances
sent at the display indicating she was not the only one.
So she spoke up.
“Gostnor Omilov, what are the chances we might interface to those systems via
the hyperwave we possess?”
Omilov’s brows
lifted again. “That is indeed a possibility, if the team is able to implement
some of my suggestions. I have already given the monitors the patterns to look
for in transmissions. Though the
Telvarna
is probably not at the Suneater yet.”
Another murmur from
the audience.
“Suggestions?”
Koestler shot a glance at Ng. “How much help did he give them?” He shook his
head. “I’d give almost anything to know what His Majesty said to him.”
Ng was well enough
acquainted with Omilov to suspect that no one would ever hear that from him.
Nor from Brandon Arkad. “Just as well we don’t know, Admiral,” she replied.
“We’ve got enough to worry about without mixing in politics.”
He laughed softly.
“Touché, Admiral, ” He touched his bad arm. “Perhaps when this is healed, I can
return the favor in Phoenix-Gamma-Three.”
She returned his
smile. The bay given over for general exercise was the appropriate place for
their rivalry, whatever the Panarch decided. They were still contending for
command of the Suneater attack, but after the riots and his subsequent
reactions, whatever was decided, she knew that she could trust him to the death
in battle.
Before emergence,
Vi’ya called a strategy meeting in the rec room. Lokri, with nothing to do,
went early. He found Sedry Thetris already there, seated at the console, her
face intent.
While not so long
ago her Highdweller accent and navy-trained habits would have irritated Lokri,
he discovered that he liked the square, unflappable woman, although she didn’t
talk much. Maybe because she didn’t talk much.
Like Lokri, she had
spent nearly all of the first week of skip sleeping. She acknowledged orders
with a quiet nod, and tended to listen to the banter from the rest of the crew
with no change of expression. The only crew member she seemed relaxed around
was Montrose.
She hadn’t even
reacted when the Eya’a walked into the rec room while she was eating, or when
Lucifur occasionally decided to sample her as a bunk partner. He felt a twinge
of—something—when he realized she reminded him of Greywing, Ivard’s sister, who
had died on the Mandala run. They didn’t look anything alike, but Sedry was
quiet like Greywing had been. And observed in the same way. He knew she was one
hell of a noderunner; during the long flight in skip he had found a chance to
talk to her alone and to thank her for what must have been long, hard hours of
work.
She had studied him
with those kindly blue-gray eyes, her best feature. “It was important to find
the truth,” she’d said finally.
“How are you coming
with those parasites Vi’ya requested?” he asked as he crossed the room to get a
cup of caf.
“I’ve been able to
set up an entire ecology.” Her eyes widened with enthusiasm, although her speech
did not alter from its usual flattened cadence. “The
Telvarna
’s compute array is no toy. We’ve got the equivalent of a
modern destroyer’s capacity here, even if it isn’t as well integrated into the
ship.” She ran one hand lightly over the tabs. Lokri was irresistibly reminded
of Montrose making music on his synth: it was the same evocative, almost
possessive caress. “And I have everything the technical banks on Ares had.”
She smiled, which
did not entirely relax the tension in her brow and around her mouth. Lokri
sensed she had difficulty squaring her data theft while still commissioned with
her oath. All he knew was that Eloatri was behind it, somehow.