The Thrones of Kronos (14 page)

“My contact on the Reef, the one Ixvan gave me during the
cleanup there, finished her trace,” Nik said. “They’re not on the Reef. Any of
them.” He leaned back in his pod, folded his arms, and looked at them
expectantly. “They’ve all disappeared.”

“Hunh.” Jumec grunted. “Interesting. Also, no one has seen
the Kelly trinity Portus-Dartinus-Atos, who were the official ambassadors to
Ares, since the riots.”

“You think maybe it’s another mission?” asked Derith. “Like
the first one? The Kelly were gone then, too, as I recall.”

“So why the fancy misdirection this time?” Nik asked. “Last
time, the Navy said nothing until we found out the
Telvarna
was gone, then stiffed us with ‘no comment.’ Same when it
returned.”

“Maybe they figured this was easier,” Derith said.

Nik shook his head. “I might accept that, but for one bit of
evidence. One of the DC-tech’s drinking friends said she’d let slip something
about an experiment.”

A spurt of excitement made Derith grin.
He really is onto something.
“An experiment! That would mean
Omilov, right?”

Nik grinned. “The Rifters are gone and he’s in disgrace.”

“This is good! Just when we’re needing something, too.”
Derith’s fatigue dropped away like a set of old clothes. “Digging dirt on the
al-Gessinav monster is getting tougher.” She glanced up at Omplari, whose dry
lips twisted.

Omplari was their best noderunner, and of late he’d been taking
dangerously frequent doses of brainsuck in order to delve into yet deeper
layers of the DataNet. There were still traces to be found of the work of
Hesthar al-Gessinav—head of Infonetics before testimony at the Kendrian trial
revealed her betrayal of the Panarchy in selling the location of the Suneater
to Dol’jhar.

“We’ve done what we can,” Nik said. “What do we try next?”

“Blow it open?” Tovi rubbed her hands. “Guaranteed points.”

“Not yet.” Derith began to pace the perimeter of the crowded
room, kicking aside caf cups and flimsies. “It’ll make everyone who can tell us
anything seal up. That’s for later, if we need it. Most of us are going to do
some Net-spelunking.” She turned to Omplari. “Mog, you’ve been running hard on
that al-Gessinav blunge. You want to bail out? You deserve first choice here.”

To her surprise, he shook his head. “Think I better stay
with it,” he said, his voice rasping. “Stuff is coming up less often, but what
I do find is ripe—”

“And stories on al-Gessinav are going to net sure points for
a century to come,” Nik added. “Biggest betrayer of the Panarchy since the
Faceless One. I wonder if they’ll do that to her, too?”

Omplari shrugged. “Maybe. What I know real well by now is
the stink of her trace. And it looks to me like she planted bombs all over the
Net, deep enough to shake loose some bad bones. All I have to do is trigger
them and make sure I’m not traced doing it.”

Nik whistled. “Never know what might float to the surface.”

Derith smiled. “We just want to be sure we net it first.”

But Nik was paying no attention to her. He looked straight
at Omplari, his brown eyes worried. “How bad are these bombs?”

“Can’t tell for sure. Some’ll make some pretty big holes.”
The noderunner laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to go poking around in the
environmental nodes.”

“You blow up something in Navy space, might end up breathing
vacuum all the same—you and the rest of us.” Nik’s voice tightened. “So don’t
trigger anything big without checking with me. We’ve got to be sure it’s worth
the risk.”

Omplari nodded, wiping his thin, lank hair off his high
forehead.

Derith waved her hand, taking in Nik, Tovi, Liet, and the
others who, equipped with ajna lenses in their foreheads, specialized in
interviews. “What about our eyes? Time to hit the Douloi?”

Nik grinned again, the old Nik, and Derith saw how the
others relaxed. “They’re aware of our digging. Signs are Chomsky and the others
on 99 have got something big. Another diversion, I’m going to wager.”

Derith grinned back. “Right. So we put on the pressure.
Eventually it’s got to be to someone’s advantage to talk.”

“We cannot wait for the Eya’a to awaken. Our hosts are
growing dangerously impatient,” Vi’ya said.

“You should tell them you’re not ready,” Jaim insisted.

She sensed a greater protectiveness in his emotions than
ever before, but she was too tired from enduring the blanketing darkness of the
Suneater’s emanations to probe. Instead, she steadied herself by assessing
physical detail: the small room; the close, slightly too-warm air; the thick
gray paint that imperfectly muted the strange texture of the glowing red walls.

“I would rather walk than be dragged,” she replied. “We will
adjust the balance more in our favor when we have something to bargain with.”
But she sensed doubt and fear in the other crew members, which was
reasonable—she felt it herself. The Suneater had killed three tempaths already,
and Norio had been as strong as she had been before she met the Eya’a.

Ivard’s dark blue gaze radiated concern. “Perhaps it’s time
to experiment. Maybe those other tempaths tried too hard too fast.”

Lokri frowned at the console.

Montrose said, “You’re physically recovered from their
tranks, so if you need to do it now, do it. But be careful.”

“I do not need that warning.” Vi’ya forced a smile, trying
to project confidence. “I intend to live to enjoy the reward. Ah. He is here,”
she added, the jangling resonance of Eusabian’s secretary approaching.

The door puckered with a wet, kissing sound to reveal
Barrodagh. His cheek jumped; Vi’ya clenched her teeth against the echoing wash
of agony. How could he live like that?

Barrodagh said nothing as they rode in silence toward the
Chamber of Kronos. Vi’ya was content to be left to sort the emotions of those
they passed, despite the queasiness this induced. It was painful knowledge, but
it might save her life if, as seemed inevitable, she faced one of these people
as an overt enemy.

o0o

Inside Lysanter’s lab, Tat Ombric glanced at the chrono
again, trying to ignore her insides trying to squish into a ball. She eyed the
bracing on the towering compute arrays near her station: it was just about time
for the new tempath to make her try in the Chamber of Kronos.

She saved her work and looked up. Barrodagh’s two goons were
nowhere to be seen. Tat grimaced in disgust, imagining Fasarghan and Nyzherian
crammed into the armored disposer chamber they’d procured, ostensibly on behalf
of Lysanter, who never used it. Only way anybody would want to get close to
Nyzherian. He was avoiding the showers as well as the disposers as much as
possible.

She could see and hear her fellow Bori saving their work; a
discriminator in her node reported the same. Tat braced herself. The silence
pressed in on her; how she hated waiting. Even the whisper of the conditioners
ceased. It seemed no one in the data center was breathing at all.

A Bori near the door made a hand sign:
She comes
.

o0o

To Vi’ya’s surprise, Barrodagh halted the conveyance at
the nexus before the Chamber of Kronos. They walked down the long, twisting tunnel
in which Morrighon had initiated their startling conversation. Vi’ya sensed the
waiting, watching, fearful Bori techs, though no one spoke.

Perhaps complex mechanics were unsafe during a tempathic
probe: she’d seen a vid of the TK manifestation during the first tempath’s
attempt. That was the only one she’d watched. Lysanter had been fascinated by
Vi’ya’s explanation that watching a vid of a tempath was, for her, the same as
him watching a vid without the sound. He’d ducked his head as he scribbled notes;
he appeared free of the discomfort most people manifested around a tempath.

Another surprise awaited her in the chamber itself. Neither
Anaris nor Morrighon were there.

“Captain Vi’ya, right on time!”

“You must thank Barrodagh for that,” she replied. She
couldn’t help liking Lysanter, for he was one of the few people she’d met on
the Suneater whose proximity was not unpleasant. But he, too, might soon be an
enemy, so politeness was all he would get.

How very Douloi.
The
thought nearly made her laugh.

“Go ahead, then,” the scientist said, waving his hand at the
clear dyplast shield that blocked direct access to the Throne of Kronos.
“Approach it however you wish. If the previous attempts are any indication, you
will know you’re on the right course before we do.”

Vi’ya braced against a surge of hateful anticipation from
Barrodagh, with the subtle undercurrent that indicated the memory of a vid
image. Was he remembering a vid of Norio’s death? Just as well she hadn’t seen
it. Perhaps Barrodagh was also the one who had sequestered Norio’s chips. She
wondered if he had any idea how much money a recording of Norio’s death would
sell for; the tempath had made many enemies. Almost as many as Hreem.

She dismissed these thoughts as she rounded the shield and
walked slowly toward the high, stalagmitic mound that held the Heart of Kronos.
This would be the first time she’d seen the little silver sphere since she lost
it to Giffus Snurkel on Rifthaven, and she’d learned much with the Eya’a in the
months since. Perhaps that was why her emotions seemed so fluid, why music and
images flickered at the perimeter of her awareness.

Vi’ya stopped at the edge of the Throne. She cocked her
head, listening. Voices? No, nor memories, nor the perception of emotions, nor
thoughts. There were no words, not even concepts, only dark and light,
approaching and receding, up and down, rough-smooth, red-green . . .

The world dissolved into a synesthetic pastiche. She reached
out for the Eya’a—and found nothing. Then a tripled blue flicker laved her consciousness,
carrying a sense of confidence. The chamber resolved once more into red-glowing
walls and smooth organic lines.

She stepped over the subtle demarcation and set her foot
down. The unmistakable signature of the Heart of Kronos seared her mind, stronger
than she had ever felt it before its loss, smashing her back into limbic
fragmentation.

But faster still was the blue radiance of the Kelly, which
surrounded her, providing a boundary of safety. Gradually the blue coalesced
into a bubble, drawing her inward again until her surroundings reassembled and
she slipped back into her body as if pulling on a suit. Sight, sound, smell. Touch.
Breathing. Her body swaying: she straightened upright, and took another step.

And another, until she was ascending the steepening surface
of the Throne. Despite its smooth appearance, its material seemed to grip the
soles of her boots. She found it impossible to think of it as a machine:
nothing she sensed corresponded with any machinery she knew.

Abruptly she stood at the top; her memory felt like a badly
edited vid. Or had she teleported? Vi’ya shook her head, struggling to hold
control of the here and the now.

She looked down at the Heart of Kronos, mounted in the
center of a low, curved verge that suggested the back of a chair. Her face
looked back at her in spherical distortion, sparking laughter. Her reflection
looked like she felt, her head distended by the weighty aura the station
seeping into it.

Slowly, feeling almost like she was moving underwater, Vi’ya
brought her hands down and gently touched the Heart.

Time stopped.

For a moment longer than her entire life, her awareness
swelled, flashing out along hidden conduits to encompass the entire station and
the manifold emotions of its inhabitants in a dizzying, directionless mélange:
the dark, prideful control of the Lords, the bright glows of her crew, the
strange complexity of the Kelly, and above it all, the pervasive fear that was
the engine of Dol’jhar’s ambitions.

And malevolence. Startled, she jerked her awareness away
from a bubble of darkness that gave the impression of concealed eyes, as
something within the Heart of Kronos seemed to stir. It began to unfold in a
fashion that plucked at her mind with limitless power, something she was not
ready to confront or even to understand.

For Tat, who could not see into the Chamber, her first sign
was a faint shudder from the air around them, which rapidly intensified.

That was the worst of it, she thought, gripping the edge of
her console and closing her eyes. It started just like the earthquakes she
remembered when she was very small. That first moment, you didn’t know if it
would be small or grow with that horrible accelerating intensity, causing
things to jiggle and then crash. But this motion was different, like a gigantic
beast twitching its muscles to dislodge irritating mites.

Was the station groaning?
No! It’s just the stresses in the station’s material!

But holding onto rationality didn’t lessen her fear one bit.
The shaking seemed to go on forever; an array brace split with a shocking crack
as the ceiling flexed, chips and papers spilled, and someone screamed in terror
as a pucker no one had ever seen before appeared in a wall and opened with a
loud
scroinch
.

With the last vestige of volition, Vi’ya pulled her hands
away. She swayed, aware of the fathomless depths not far in front of her, and
then, recognizing safety in the quiet darkness that was rising up around her,
she turned around and let herself slide to a seated position against the back
of the Throne, and fell gratefully into unconsciousness.

For Tat and the techs, the motion stopped. No one moved or
spoke.

Tat turned her head a tiny bit, as if her own movement might
set it off again, and met the terrified gaze of the Bori tech at the next pod.
His eyes were black dots surrounded like white. She was sure she looked just
the same.

“To work, Tatriman.” A dry alto voice spoke from the end of
a row of compute arrays: Barrodagh’s head goon. The tension in Fasarghan’s body
made a lie of her confident posture.