The Rifter's Covenant (9 page)

The Kelly
Intermittor said, “That is the essence of it.”

The other two
emitted a sharp scent. Was that amusement at the pun? He wished he knew more
about these sophonts who had adopted so much of human civilization with such
enthusiasm.

“We have word by
way of Rifthaven not only of the Eldest’s relict but of the Panarch’s as well.”

“What!” The plot
room erupted in noise as everyone voiced questions or reactions at once.

Cameron raised his
voice. “The last courier confirmed the death of the two elder sons of the
Panarch and his pending exile to Gehenna. But nothing has been known of the
youngest.”

“The new Panarch,
Brandon hai-Arkad, was taken near Rifthaven by the same ship that carried the
relict of the Eldest. That is why we know wethree must go to Ares, since he was
undoubtedly escorted there.”

“New Panarch?”
Cameron’s throat tightened.

The noise died away,
all attention on the Kelly.

Lochiel blanched,
her expression stricken. “Oh, Cameron, we didn’t think . . . we
assumed—” She stopped.

“There was a
propaganda vid from the Suneater,” Messina spoke, her gray gaze sober. “We
didn’t think it appropriate to include it in our message. We assumed you
already had the news from Ares.”

The Kelly moaned.
The head-stalks of all three stood straight up. “Wethree have trespassed. Not
for us was it to bear that news to you.”

Bayrut spoke up,
his voice rough. “Eusabian’s son Anaris destroyed the Panarch’s ship above
Gehenna. We know nothing more.”

Rufus Bonxer made a
ritual gesture, and others bowed their heads, or looked away as they processed
yet more terrible news.

“We’ll give you the
vid,” Lochiel said in a low voice—no trace of triumph or gloat, underscoring
the differences among Rifters. “There has been no mention of Brandon hai-Arkad
in the hyperwave broadcasts.”

Of course Eusabian
would not admit the failure of his plan to destroy the Arkad dynasty
,
Cameron thought. He dropped his gaze
to his hands, hoping no reaction showed; the little he knew of the new Panarch
was not inspiring.

“We’ll want that
vid, and any other data you have that was relayed via hyperwave,” Cameron said
finally. Then, to the rest of his officers, “As regards His Majesty . . .
I will make an announcement.” He turned to the Kelly. “For now, Elder, please
continue.”

The Kelly extended
their head-stalks again. Was that embarrassment?

“Wethree have
nothing more.” The Intermittor bowed gracefully toward Elena Agenes. “But you
have another question?”

She had the grace
to look abashed. “You have always been carefully neutral in our affairs. Why
change now?”

“We forbore to
interfere because we dared not give offense to any group of humans, lest they,
gaining power in your polity so strange to us, should turn against us. Your
history shows that humans have often exterminated other humans who differed
slightly from them. How much more had we to fear, being so very alien? Had it
not been for the Blessed Three, First Contact might have meant the end of
Anamnesis. But now we see a human ungoverned by morality, grasping power; we
have heard him speak of us as ‘beasts;’ we have seen the fate intended for us.
From the Panarchy we might have fled. From the power of the Suneater there is
no refuge.”

The Kelly trinity
moaned again, a heart-rending sound. “We have no choice.”

Bonxer’s head came
up: the others clearly comprehended the emotion, but only he understood that
simple
we
, unlike the
wethree
that Kelly for individual trinities,
as representing the entire Kelly race. “And nothing will ever be the same
again.”

“True.” Cameron lifted
his voice, drawing everyone’s attention. “And right now, we have to decide how
we’re going to collect the bonus chips on Hreem the Faithless and Neyvla-khan,
which is why my cousin and her mates are here.”

He tabbed his
console and lit up the plot-pane with a view of the Barca system, zooming in on
the planet and its two moons, Shimosa and Avasta. “Cousin,” he said, stressing
the word, “we’ve just gotten Siglnt back from Barca. Tell us what you know and
how we can exploit it.”

She stood. “One
thing first.”

Cameron suppressed
a smile. Lochiel might be nearing fifty, but she still had the habit of
sticking out her lower lip, a habit from their childhood that signaled the
stubbornness that had caused her so much trouble.

She looked around
the room. “We’re Rifters. That’s not going to change, even after this is all
over. We don’t fit into your neat, ordered world, and don’t want to. But we
played fair, and you left room for us. Dol’jhar doesn’t and won’t. If the Lord
of Vengeance wins, there will be no Rift Sodality, for he recognizes no limits
on his power.” She stepped up to the plot-pane. “That’s why we’re doing this.
It’s not a betrayal—it’s simply the only way we can remain loyal to who we are.
Are we understood?”

The officers—not a
few stealing glances at the Kelly—signified agreement.

“Then here’s what
we know.”

“Shuttle away,
Cap’n,” announced a voice from the portside lock.

Norio observed from
the aft hatch, unnoticed as yet by anyone on the bridge, as Hreem acknowledged
the report with a grunt and slapped the comm off. A shiver of anticipation
wormed deep inside Norio.

Dyasil scratched
his raspy chin. “You figure that little trog’s really got a chance down there?”

“If he doesn’t
we’re no worse off, and we get to watch him bloat,” Metije said, the deathsnake
tattoo on her neck rippling as she grinned.

Hreem grunted
again, flexing one foot to extend the heel-claws of his boot. That silenced the
crew. Norio breathed in Hreem’s irritation and the corresponding anxiety of the
crew and stepped onto the bridge, relishing the unease and even fear his
presence engendered in everyone except Hreem. Power was the best aphrodisiac of
all.

Hreem looked his
way, briefly distracted, then returned to brooding. His mood had been grim ever
since the destruction of the unfinished battlecruiser in the Malachronte Ways. The
Barcan Riolo had promised to convince the Matria to give Hreem Ogres, the
battle androids used with such fearsome effect against the Shiidra, but he was
beginning to doubt that promise.

If the little
Barcan with his absurd codpiece didn’t deliver, the poison collar would finish
him off, and furnish a bit of amusement into the bargain. Hreem liked
contemplating that, and—sensing his emotions—Norio hoped that if that were to
be Riolo’s fate, he would make it back to the
Lith
before the collar killed him. The rest of the crew might enjoy
watching his death throes on a vid, but to Norio, that would be as tasteless as
a verbal description of a fine meal, and Hreem would feel cheated.

The fiveskip
blipped again, changing the
Lith’s
position randomly to avoid giving the Barcans a fix on them. Hreem’s tension
peaked, then relaxed as Metije reported, “Fiveskip holding, Captain.” The
frequent short skips were hard on the engines.

The captain
grimaced at the viewscreen as it cleared from skip. The
Lith
was a few thousand kilometers outside the orbit of the
outermost moon of Barca, which hung gibbous to one side of the screen. The moon
vanished as the stars skewed across the screen, stopping with a needle of light
dead center, the real focus of the Rifter captain’s emotions.

As if summoned by
his regard, Dyasil’s console bleeped.

“Signal incoming
from
Scorpion
.”

“
Scorpion
?” Hreem repeated.

Dyasil’s
shoulderblades worked under his thin shirt. “New destroyer. But it’s him.”

Hreem’s mouth quirked,
and Norio’s nerves flashed in echo of Hreem’s flash of amusement. The crew had
learned not to mention Neyvla-khan’s name around him, especially since his
arrival here at Barrodagh’s orders had locked them into a paralyzing three-way
balance of terror, with the heavy weapons the Barcans claimed to have on the
moons balancing the two Rifter fleets.

“That stinking slug
Barrodagh,” Hreem had said to him the previous night as they lay together in
the aftermath of passion. “I wonder if Eusabian’d trade him for the Ogres?”
Norio shivered deliciously at the thought: there was so much he could do with
the Bori, survivor of years of political struggle on Dol’jhar. What a feast of
emotions his downfall would be!

Hreem started to
speak, but Erbee interrupted.

“Cap’n,
Scorpion’s
accelerating. I think he’s
heading lower.”

Trying to get the
inside orbit, of course. And no doubt worried about the shuttle
.
The situation in circum-Barcan space
was enormously complicated, especially with the moons now approaching opposition.
The two opposing Rifter fleets constantly maneuvered for lower orbits between
the two moons, outside the resonance field that interdicted fiveskip. In those
orbits, ships passed between the outer moon and the planet more often, where
the Barcans would have to put the Shield up before firing at them from either
moon. That would give ample warning of their intentions—both the fleets feared
an alliance between Barca and their rival.

Worse than that was
the growing doubt that there were such weapons; but neither Hreem nor
Neyvla-khan could afford to put that to the test. The result was a tension that
increasingly blanketed all other emotions on the
Lith
, making Norio twitchy.

“Put him on,
Dyasil,” said Hreem.

The screen blinked,
and there was Hreem’s deadly enemy, Khamhat Neyvla-khan. Hreem’s jaw muscles
bulged at the unctuous smile already on the other man’s face. Norio breathed in
Hreem’s hatred, an emotion heightened, he knew, by the other’s neat,
close-trimmed beard and pale, narrow face that gave him the appearance of an
aristocratic ascetic.

Neyvla-khan had not
waited for the cee-lag of the tight-beam—neither of them wanted Barrodagh
listening in on their conversations via hyperwave, coded or not. “Brother
Hreem. I thought we had agreed to take no actions without consultation.”

“Brother Shiidra-Suck,”
Hreem muttered. Neyvla-khan’s use of Sodality formality merely underscored the
long-standing feud between them. Hreem forced an equally false smile. “We
agreed to take no offensive action, pending the Barcan negotiations with
Dol’jhar. Unfortunately one of my crew was a fugitive from Barcan justice, and
I judged it wise to surrender him as they demanded.”

Norio used the
ensuing delay to step behind the command pod and lay his hands on Hreem’s
shoulder, probing for the shakrian points. The captain’s muscles had set to the
rigidity of stone. Norio smiled at the screen.

“Hmmm. Hah. I see.”
Neyvla-khan’s skeptical twitch of the upper lip said
liar
. His gaze slid away from Norio’s. “Well, then, surely you will
not object to a minor course adjustment?”

Hreem’s jet of
amusement warmed Norio, who hummed at the slight relaxation in the muscles
under his hands. The captain had noticed Neyvla-khan’s discomfiture as well.
“Not at all, Brother. In fact, it would be our honor to escort you.”

Hreem forgot Norio
as he tabbed off the communicator and began issuing orders. The
Lith
skipped again, and the main
viewscreen gradually filled with windows, echoing the complicated tactical
moves he’d ordered to maintain the balance of exposure to the Barcan weapons,
without yielding the superior position of an inner orbit to his rival.

He began to relax
under Norio’s steady massage as the new tactical position of his fleet took
shape without incident. They hadn’t gained anything on Neyvla-khan, but they
hadn’t lost anything, either—and the two fleets were evenly matched.

Hreem tensed,
remembering unfinished business. “Where’s that chatzing Lochiel?” he grumbled.
“She’s two days overdue.” With another destroyer, the balance of power would be
his, especially with the advantage of surprise. “Dyasil!”

“I’m squirtin’
pulses outsystem whenever I can without any of Neyvla-khan’s gang seeing ’em.
But it’s gonna be hard for her to tightbeam us back with all the skipping we’re
doing.”

Hreem pounded his
fist lightly on the command pod. That was the weak spot in his plan, which he’d
overlooked when he dispatched Lochiel to Charterly’s cache to pick up what
weapons she could. If she contacted him via a ship, Neyvla-khan would get
suspicious. But how would she manage to signal him? The
Lith
was never in one spot very long, and its course was random—it
had to be. A tightbeam would probably miss them, and Neyvla-khan would see a
broadbeam com—it wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t read it.

Norio’s narrow
hands probed harder at the pressure points in his shoulders, and Hreem tried to
relax.

“You will find a
way, Jala,” the tempath said softly. “And perhaps Riolo will come through for
us.”

On the screen, a
last, solitary ship passed the orbit of Barca’s outer moon, heading inward. Now
both fleets were within its compass.

Hreem issued more
orders, more to have something to do than out of any tactical necessity.

Norio felt him
relaxing further, then two blips of light ignited on the screen. No, three—a
red light blinked on the outer moon as well. They formed the apices of an
equilateral triangle, centered on the planet.

Hreem sat upright
with a startled oath. “What the chatzing hell is that?” He poised his hand over
the skip pad, but the light in it died. Erbee’s skinny hands blurred on his
scan console.

“Metije! Where’s
the skip?” Sweat prickled on Hreem’s brow.

“Resonance pulse,
Captain,” Erbee interrupted. “They just popped the resonance field out to the
outer moon.”