The Thrones of Kronos (37 page)

Omilov paused. “And it is not a natural phenomenon.”

The image shifted, the perspective moving in on the center
of the galaxy. Outlying star clusters fleeted past like embers on the wind;
ahead, a devouring well of flame opened as if to swallow the viewers.

“Ages before our rise to sentience, the Thousand Suns was a
fraction of that part of the galaxy dominated by a race we call the Ur. How
extensive their domain we do not know. Even the farthest explorations beyond
the Fringes have found Doomed Worlds, the terrible works of art that are the
legacy of the Ur. But we can be certain that even they, for all their power,
held no sway over the center of our galaxy, a region of violent energies and
twisted space where the fires of creation still burn.”

The Star Chamber and all within it fell into the heart of a
maelstrom of fire, a hellish brew of plasma and disintegrating matter trapped
in the eternal descent to destruction in the immense black hole at the center
of the galaxy. Space twisted about them; and they seemed to feel the tides of
that vast singularity wrapping intangible, resistless fingers of warped space
about their bodies.

“And, some ten million years ago, some force, or beings, or
something for which we have neither words nor concepts, emerged from the
galaxy’s heart to the challenge the hegemony of the Ur.”

With a veer of perspective that caused a universal sigh, the
imaged point of view swung about and exploded outward along the galactic plane,
racing out along the Rift amidst a wrack of stars and nebulae and the dust of
shattered planets. To either side, vast walls of stars moved past in slow and
stately silence; nearer, solitary suns whipped past, dwindled, and were lost.

“We do not know who won—perhaps there was no winner—for both
the Ur and the power that opposed them have vanished from Totality. Their
battlefield was what became the Rift, their weapons unknown.”

The walls of stars narrowed and collapsed inward to resemble
the gut walls of some vast beast as they twisted toward a solitary star system.

The motion of the image slowed and ceased. Now there loomed
a bizarre construct of twisting tubes and cones, seeming neither flesh nor
metal, and behind it the flaring glory of a black hole binary.

“Until now. Here the war, if war it was and not
extermination, ended, and with it the Rift ends too, leaving behind only this
Suneater, now in the hands of Dol’jhar.”

Omilov fell silent, a long pause that stretched Houmanopoulis’s
nerves thin.

Brandon held his breath.

Osri’s hands gripped, and he forced himself to relax.

Here it comes,
Ng
thought, amused at how, in his own way, Omilov used the power of suggested
image every bit as effectively as Brandon had used the living image of those
docking cruisers.

Eloatri closed her eyes, the burn in her palm pulsing with
remembered heat.

“The Suneater,” Omilov repeated. “One of the devices that we
now believe created the Rift.”

The word ‘devices’ hit the listeners like an exploding star.

“Of course!”

“Why did we assume that there is only one?”

But as people asked their neighbors that or similar
questions, the answer was apparent: because everyone wanted to believe that
victory in this present struggle would be permanent.

But it never is, no
matter what the circumstances.
Smiling faintly, Sebastian Omilov tapped his
console, and the image of the Suneater dwindled to occupy only a portion of the
dome, revealing the Cap outside and the clouds of tenders flitting about the
newly arrived battlecruisers from the Aleph-Sud octant.

The pause grew to a reflective silence as both factions shot
privacies back and forth. Omilov knew that some who’d urged the salvation of
the Suneater were now having second thoughts, while some who’d sought its
destruction now wondered if that might leave them defenseless against the
discovery of another, similar device.
Or
something even worse.

Houmanopoulis alone did not communicate with anyone, but
frowned at the visual overhead. The harnessing of the Suneater’s technology,
with its instantaneous communications across interstellar distances, would
leave no room for Rifters in the Thousand Suns—there’d be nowhere for them to
hide. On the other hand, the stresses imposed by the adjustment to the new
technology might well tear apart the Panarchy, leaving the Rifter over-culture
free of even minimal constraints.

Is that what we want?
Once he would have said yes without hesitation; many on Rifthaven doubtless
still would.

“Perhaps you could reveal the weight of the various
conjectures that went into that presentation?” A pillar of light singled out tall,
earnest Emmary nyr-Kamdathus, a Privy Councilor with extensive mercantile
interests. “How, for instance, do you know that the Suneater created the Rift?”

Omilov said, “I doubt that it alone created the Rift. There
may have been many devices like it.” He tapped at his console; to one side of
the alien construct displayed above, the image of the red sun of the black hole
binary it orbited appeared. Its surface opened, revealing its inner structure
in cutaway layers of light accompanied by serried ranks of glyphs and numbers.

“But to answer your question, it is apparent from the
spectrum of the companion star in the Suneater system that its evolution has
been interrupted. Something is controlling the nuclear reactions within. The
star should not be stable at this point, but it is. We can only assume that the
Suneater is controlling it, a conjecture confirmed by increases in the star’s
radius since the Dol’jharians began their experiments with tempaths on the
Urian station.”

“An increase that is constant now,” said one of the officers
near Anton Faseult.

That sharpened focus on both military and political
implications. Military: they had little time left to strike, and the cost of
the attack now rose with each day that passed. Political: that a decision by
the Panarch concerning the
Telvarna
Rifters was the proximate cause of this new threat.

Omilov, watching heads turn, mouths move, hands tap at
consoles, enjoyed the bind this put the anti-Suneater faction in—they couldn’t
pound at this point too hard without appearing to criticize Brandon’s judgment.

“There is a difference between controlling and destroying a
star,” interjected Armand Dimugnerushian from Paradisum, a Doomed World, fated
to die in a stellar explosion fifty thousand years from the present. No
question which side he was on.

“True,” Omilov replied, “but the population of black holes
in this part of the Rift, between the galactic core and the Suneater’s present
position, is far higher than can be accounted for by any natural process, while
beyond the Suneater, there are none revealed in any explorations.”

More questions followed, and the discussion slowly
metamorphosed from the strategic to tactical considerations constraining the
two courses of action open to them. Omilov let the military talk flow past as
he watched the people, weighing the tide of opinion in the Star Chamber. The
task was made easier by the apparently sourceless beams of light illuminating
the speakers, and the floating lamps that clustered most thickly over the
densest groups.

Houmanopoulis had never made the mistake, like others he
could name, of underestimating the Panarchists. But his experience on Ares had
convinced him that he’d accepted too easily the stereotype that played a
central part in the Rifter ethos. The people of the Panarchy, at least those
here on Ares, were as individualistic as any congeries of Rifters.

Natural selection,
that, or they wouldn’t have made it to Ares against the odds.

It was the gloss of Douloi control that overlaid all aspects
of their society, even among the Polloi, deny it though they might, that made
them seem so uniform.

Just one more dance to
learn,
Houmanopoulis thought.

“. . . but we can no longer read the
hyperwave transmissions since the Dol’jharians began enforcing strict
encryption on the Rifters and went to one-times in their own codes. Without
that information, a lance attack is foolish! We can’t know anything about their
defenses,” an analysis group leader declared.

“And they can’t read ours,” Commander Jergen nyr-Lirones
replied. The beam of light illuminating him emphasized the seams in his dark
face.

“That is a negative datum, and we need more positive . . .”

(It’s like
Kriegspiel
,)
Ng bozzed to Willsones.

(The ancient form of
chess where neither player can see the other’s pieces? An apt simile.)

Ng suppressed an urge to laugh as Willsones’s precise voice
somehow conveyed irony through the data transfer. But the two plans of action
were not mutually exclusive, she thought, waiting for everyone to see it.

A subtle change in Brandon’s stance signaled his
restlessness. Too many were now restating what had already been stated over and
over, as if not to convince, but to hear their own voices raised. Too much of
that, and normal human reaction would compromise the compromise.

As the current speaker finished her sentence, Ng signaled
her intent through her boswell. The chamber’s discriminators reacted and light
fell on her from above as her rank gave her precedence.

“I believe we have reached a consensus. We will call for a
dual attack: a volunteer detachment of lances to assault the Suneater, backed
by a mixed naval and allied Rifter fleet sowing dragon’s teeth and executing
harassment raids; and high-tac-accelerated asteroids to destroy the device if
the lances fail.”

A sphere of light sprang into being at the apex of the dome,
a motley of yellow and green and red pulsing in it as the discriminators
recorded the pulse of many boswells. Slowly it resolved toward a steady green,
the red subsiding to a yellow tinge that faded but did not disappear.

But Ng barely noticed. The green of approval kindled not
triumph so much as a sense of weight. She was committed.

She bowed to Brandon and he bowed back, gestures of order in
anticipation of deliberately initiating the maximum of disorder: battle, and
with so much unknown and unknowable. She knew that to the others gathered in
the chamber, their bows were symbolic: she handed the decision to him, and he
symbolically accepted it.

But she read in the tightness of his face, his suppressed
breathing, that his acceptance implied more than the course of the attack. He
accepted what she might have to do, and what it would cost her.

For he would be in one of those lances, by her own
contrivance. He would be on the Suneater when the asteroids reached the point
of no return.

And if there was no signal of success from the Suneater, the
choice of destroying the station—and everyone on it—would be hers.

Vi’ya whirled and kicked.

Jaim blocked the kick, feinting toward her face then
stomach. In a blur of concentrated movement, she deflected the feints, then
made her own. The world narrowed to just Jaim.

It was relief . . . surcease . . .

A short gasp of breath, abruptly cut off, broke her trance.
Lifting her hands and backing off a step, she saw a fast-purpling mark along
the side of Jaim’s neck.

He shook his head, his eyes hazy, and leaned forward with
his hands on his knees.

“Pretty hard hit, there.” Montrose moved up to Jaim. “Want
me to look at it?”

“No,” Jaim shook off his hand. “I’m fine—no.” Straightening
up, he faced Vi’ya. “Let’s go on.”

A pang of remorse lanced through the miasma of fear and lust
that blanketed her thoughts, thick and malevolent as a kind of half-sentient
fog. “We’ll stop.” She dropped onto a chair.

It was then she saw how tired he was, and the remorse
enabled her to widen her attention to the chamber. Jaim went to check the pot
of caf on its warmer, to see if any was left. A subtle hesitation in his
movements, a stiffness to one arm, indicated he had worked too long.

But my energy is
undiminished.

She caught a sober glance from Ivard. She had no space to
regret how much her own emotional spectrum must be warping the Unity’s rapport,
which in turn must affect the youth. It was fact. At least when he needed
mental and emotional refuge, the Kelly somehow encompassed him. The refuge was
not perfect, however: his dreams of some evil awareness haunting the station
had increased, but even the Kelly could not interpret what this meant.

A tendril of fear breached her thoughts, vanguard to an
approach. Morrighon.

The door graunched open, and a stinking, nearly
mind-obliterating combination of tiredness, anger, and fear rolled in as
Morrighon entered, his effort not to rush making his movements more crab-like
than ever. The combination of that and the sudden increase in the whine of the
mind-blur outside nauseated Vi’ya, but at least it banished the lust. For now.

Morrighon said, “The heir summons you.”

Jaim’s head lifted, his mouth tight.

Vi’ya fought back the nausea. “I am not going anywhere until
you power down that karra-forsaken mind-blur.”

Morrighon’s head twitched as though he’d been slapped. Vi’ya
felt his adrenals spike like a wavefront from a sun gone nova, and winced.

He fumbled at his compad, tabbed a control code, and a
portion of the pressure grinding Vi’ya’s skull released. Her awareness
sharpened as Sedry Thetris shot a quick glance at the console. The control
codes for the mind-blur—thanks to the intervention of the little Bori tech, Tat
Ombric. For the first time in an eternity, Vi’ya felt a faint urge to smile.

“We will go now,” Morrighon said, opening the door again.

Vi’ya followed him out, sensing Ivard’s unhappiness and
puzzlement, and Sedry’s deep distrust of the situation, and Montrose’s slow
anger at his own impotence; Marim was asleep, after running the rec room for
two shifts.