The Thrones of Kronos (25 page)

“Any of these items alone might have assured any normal
person security, a fortune, and a position, but this Rifter crew seems to have
resisted incorporation into the Panarchy.”

He smiled, spreading his hands. “And now they are gone.”

Lieutenant Osri Omilov turned away from the screen, damping
the sound to near inaudible. “They got the naval logs somehow, and know that my
father sent them, and that you called them back. As yet that’s all they know.
Want to hear it?”

Brandon hai-Arkad, now Panarch of the Thousand Suns, shook
his head. “No need.” He turned away from the screen. His blue tunic was neat
and unmarked—indicating he meant to stay in the background—and he betrayed no
signs of nervousness. “Not necessarily all they know. But it’s all they’re
telling.”

Osri resisted the impulse to smooth his damp palms down his
crisp, neat uniform.

In less than an hour, the scheduled test to destroy the
hyper-relay brought in by the Rifter captain Lochiel MacKenzie would reveal
whether or not a lance attack on the Suneater would succeed. He and Brandon
would both be there: Brandon in the naval test center and Osri in the Jupiter
lab, as official naval liaison with his father’s Suneater research project. The
outcome meant little to him personally, yet he felt the dry mouth and cramping
gut of tension.

Despite the fact that it meant a great deal to the
Panarch—if a lance attack was impossible, there was no way the Navy could help
Vi’ya and her crew—there was no visible evidence of stress in the steady blue
eyes or the faintly smiling mouth. But as Osri watched him staring pensively at
the blank viewscreen, he reflected that Brandon, who had always looked much
younger than the age they both shared, now looked older. There was no specific
feature to which one could attribute this change; even the tiny lines at the
corners of his eyes had always been there. But the skin molding the bones of
his face—the set of his mouth—the quick, vivid blue gaze, all contributed.

What did my father say
once? “Unlike our ancestors, we prolong our youth almost indefinitely, until
responsibility, and our own depredations, and finally time slow us down.”

Brandon turned his way. Osri, embarrassed to be caught
staring, said, “How can you be sure they aren’t broadcasting all the data they
have?”

“I’m not,” Brandon replied. “Just an instinct for divining
what’s hidden behind information from how the data is presented. That, and a
fair certainty of their sources.”

Osri sighed, glancing at his chrono. Now time crawled. “If
you want me to understand, you’ll have to speak plainly,” he said. “I don’t
have your mysterious ability to extrapolate mountains of data from one or two
obscure and unrelated facts.”

Brandon laughed, and perched on the edge of a chair. “There’s
no mystery here, just wider access plus a well-developed sense of
self-preservation.” He gestured at the console, the High Phanist’s plain gold
ring glinting on his little finger. “What Cormoran and, by now, the rest of the
novosti have probably guessed is that the
Telvarna
was sent to the Suneater. It’s easy enough to guess: they aren’t on Ares or at
any of the staging points, we didn’t shoot them, and they have among their crew
a high-level Kelly trinity and a recently-resigned officer known for her
noderunning capabilities. And they know now, through rumor from the Rifters
joining the Fleet, that the Dol’jharians are seeking tempaths. But they won’t
come out with their guess unless they can get proof. The consequences would be
too great if they’re wrong. The good ones pride themselves on imaginative
illustrations of known facts, but they won’t lie.”

Osri nodded. “And the only people who know for certain are
the command level of the military, my father, the High Phanist, the former
Aerenarch-Consort, and your ward. And us.”

“Also Manderian, Eloatri’s Dol’jharian consultant, but yes,
and the novosti have probably figured this out as well. None of these sources
are known for loose mouths. The novosti don’t ask for interviews, because they
know we’ll only talk around them, but they don’t want to risk angering us by
broadcasting possibly false information.”

“Supposing they do somehow find out,” Osri asked. “Is there
any harm in it? It’s already done, and the military aren’t changing their
plans, I don’t think, despite the Rifters being there.” Osri felt the words
were wrong as soon as they were out, but Brandon did not react beyond a slight
shrug.

“The military won’t change their plans, but I can be forced
to change mine,” he said after a long pause.

Osri nodded slowly. “You’re going. You as much as told me
that some time ago.” He shook his head.

Brandon’s smile twisted sardonically, but the sting was
mitigated by the real humor in his eyes. “Tongue sprained? You used to express
your opinion of my actions, ethics, and motivations with admirable fluency.”

Osri fought against the heat creeping up his neck and making
the stiff collar of his tunic suddenly constricting. “It was different then—”

“Yes, you felt you were my moral superior,” the light voice
went on, now with pronounced humor. “Has that changed? There are plenty who
still maintain that I have no morals at all.”

Since those terrible days on the
Telvarna
Osri had only seen Brandon drunk once, the night after the
Rifters left, and as for sex, there was no gossip but the wildest speculation;
Osri suspected that the truth was that Brandon was—at least of late—more
abstemious than Osri himself.

At the thought of Fierin, Osri could not prevent his face
from flushing with a heat that felt radioactive.

Brandon laughed. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t bait you into
speaking. You won’t, will you? Out of respect not for me, but for the position
events have forced onto me?”

It was then that Osri understood: those words he had spoken
in the heat of rage months ago had had an impact, that despite their positions,
Osri’s opinion in fact mattered.

Osri had recognized weeks ago that he’d been wrong about
Brandon, wrong in just about everything he had said, but he had let it go after
some midnight wrestling with his own blindnesses and prejudices, and a small
sense of relief that at least he had kept his mouth shut since then. Wrong not just
about Brandon, but wrong about Rifters, which had been some of his motivation
in volunteering before the high admiral to be the first to integrate onto a
Rifter ship for the coming attack.

This decision had been partly made because he thought it was
what Brandon, as Panarch, needed done at the time, and it was his own private
acknowledgment to himself that he had been wrong. But he had assumed that none
of it mattered to Brandon, busy scaling new heights in power and prestige—that
the old prejudices had been dismissed and forgotten.

In fact, what it means
is, I owe him an apology,
Osri thought. As he would any friend, social or
military, whom he had wrongfully maligned.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Those things I accused you of when we
were with the Rifters. Even when we were boys . . .”

As an apology it was woefully inadequate, and he tugged at
his collar, acutely miserable. How could he realistically explain? Even worse
would be the coward’s way out, to appeal for mercy from erring subject to
sovereign.

But then he looked up. He perceived that it had been enough.
And for the first time he was grateful for Brandon’s gift of acute observation.

“When I think how hard I worked to make sure
everyone—specifically my esteemed oldest brother—believed all those things, I
suppose I should feel grateful my efforts paid off.”

“Sheer torture, all that indiscriminate drinking and
bunnying was, I’m sure,” Osri retorted.

Brandon laughed, his head back and his hands loose, a
venting of genuine hilarity that made Osri laugh as well.

Somehow it cleared away the residual bad feeling, and Osri
said, “All right, if you’ll have it straight, why do you want to go to the
Suneater? You can’t do anything but watch, and if the ship with you on it gets blown
up, then we’re in worse trouble than ever, win or lose. Your place is here. No
Panarch or Kyriarch has gone to war since—” Osri tried searching his sketchy
historical memory, then shrugged. “Well, doesn’t matter. Your father didn’t go
to Acheront, even though it was Eusabian who murdered your mother.”

Brandon turned his hand over. “You’re thinking like a
Douloi, Osri. And from their point of view, my going to the Suneater makes
little sense. Symbolically it would invest Eusabian with equality, a concession
he would be cognizant of, as his demonstration in the Emerald Throne Room makes
clear. He was very aware of the symbolism of my father staying at the Mandala
while his minions went to swat Eusabian at Acheront, which I am certain added
its mite to the twenty-year thirst for revenge he nursed. But I don’t care what
he thinks.”

He rose, pacing back and forth, his hands clasped behind him
as he talked. “My going to the Suneater would be an equally strong symbolic act
to the Rifters we are slowly and painfully winning over. I have to go to keep
faith with them, something my Douloi supporters and enemies alike not only
don’t understand but will actively resist.”

Osri nodded slowly, his mind racing. “They want you here so
they can continue establishing hierarchy. Even if we go down in defeat, and
there’s only a tiny semblance of the Panarchy left.”

“Forever on the run,” Brandon said, agreeing. “They’d cling
even harder to the old ways. My civilian strategy right now is to integrate the
two views—Rifter and Douloi—enough so that I won’t lose my nascent power base
if—when—I do go. But someone is working just as hard to thwart me. From the Privy
Council to the most frivolous social affairs, I’m finding evidence of this
counterstrategy, and it is steadily gaining strength.”

Osri frowned. “Are you sure you’re not jumping at shadows?
All I am aware of is a general assumption that of course you will stay on Ares,
because it’s traditional.”

Brandon gestured a brief negation, then leaned against the
inlaid console. “It’s there, and it’s active, propagated by someone who knows
the high Ulanshu art of expending the least energy to the greatest effect.
Think back to what you yourself said about my father, and Acheront, and apply
the context to the Rifters.”

Osri did, then looked up, grimacing. How he loathed personal
trespass! But his voice was steady as he said, “The novosti don’t know about
the Rifter alliance. They’re already hinting about your relationship with
Vi’ya. They’re going to think that you’re going—that you’re throwing everything
away—merely to rescue a lover.”

“Exactly,” Brandon said. “And if they do, then my recent
work will be for nothing, and I will lose the chance to build something for the
Rifters who have existed this far, flourishing or not, outside of our law. I
will have to stay behind.”

Osri sighed, looking at his chrono. “Time to go.” As Brandon
straightened up, he continued, “All this is speculation, anyway. You just said
yourself that the people who know for certain are good at keeping their mouths
shut. And they have no reason to want to see you fail with the Rifter alliance.
It’s military suicide—we need every ship we can field.”

“Wrong, Osri,” Brandon said softly, palming the door open.
“There is someone who cares nothing for the Rifter alliance, who feels that my
duty is here, who has a formidable and growing network of influence. And who
knows about the
Telvarna’s
mission.
Who, in fact, was instrumental in sending them off.”

“Not my father,” Osri said hastily. “His only desire is to
save the Suneater.”

“Not Sebastian,” Brandon said as they dropped into opposite
seats in the Panarch’s private trans-tube. “Think!” But Osri didn’t need to
think. His mind ran along a fresh track, connecting personal clues. The answer
made his mouth go dry all over again.

“Vannis,” he said.

o0o

Sebastian Omilov leaned on his console and stared out the
huge port of the lab module, his mood heavy. Beyond, far across the upper
surface of the Ares Cap, dazzling fingers of light shot up from a refit pit,
revealed by the surrounding haze of industrial gas and dust, as tractors eased
in a battered battlecruiser in. Deep pits and gashes marred the ship’s silvery
ovoid symmetry; where one ruptor turret had been there was only a huge hole,
populated by the sparks and flares of several work crews. The flaring light from
its radiants washed huge bands of shadow out from the surrounding structures,
obliterating the fainter shadows from the giant sun whose gravity well
protected Ares from attack.

For now. The gnostor’s gaze lifted away from the immense
ship as he murmured, “Eyes on.” A target square obligingly appeared, outlining
an otherwise undistinguished patch of sky where the testing pad orbited a
light-minute farther out.

Jep Houmanopoulis’s cynical voice interrupted from behind,
edged with impatience: “What do you expect to see?”

As Omilov had not been privy to the latter stages of the
Rifthaven negotiations, this was only his second meeting with the Rifthaven
triumvir, but he was convinced that the cold, cruel eyes and the sardonic smile
were a kind of mask of obviousness that hid a very subtle mind.

“Nothing,” Omilov replied. Regret at his exclusion nagged at
him; not that he had needed the added stress of diplomacy, nor would have
enjoyed it. He turned from the port to the banks of viewscreens that would show
in detail the test-to-destruction of the Urian hyper-relay that the Rifter
captain Lochiel had brought to Ares. “Unless the teams from Energetics are
utterly wrong about quantum-level machinery.”

“You never have explained that to my satisfaction,” said
Eloatri. The array of instruments in the lab module evidently held as little
interest for the High Phanist as the spectacular view; she was, as usual, more
interested in the other people in the room.