The Thrones of Kronos (53 page)

They’d made a lot of reckless bets, since neither had
anything real to stake. Though as yet neither of them had even pretended to
collect, she had a feeling . . .

He’s interested, all
right. And why not have a little fun on the side? Maybe I can find something
out that will give us an edge.
She rather liked the picture of herself
offering some crucial bit of data, casual like, into general conversation.
She’d love to see the looks on the others’ faces.
Be a nice change from them acting like I left my brains back at Dis.

She might give Hreem a taste of Black Negus and see what
happened. She had a good supply, thanks to Corianor’s addiction to games—and his
being terrible at them.

Weird, how the
twistiest mind in the place at runnin’ free market is the stupidest at games.
Corianor had control of most of the illegal trade in Ur-fruit, and what he
didn’t control, he had a piece of. Black Negus was what she called the rarest
kind of all—it was a little like a blend of the best and strongest liquor plus
a dash of hopper plus maybe some Vilarian Negus, but not enough to ruin your
fun by bringing on those stupid dreams.

She hastened into her clothes. Maybe she could talk Lar into
letting her go over early, when he took the breakfast cart back to the
kitchens. Unless . . .

Lokri was lounging in the doorway, his half-shut silver eyes
too steady. There was something on his mind.

“Doesn’t Vi’ya have to do some kind o’ experiment with that
Lysanter blungebag today?” she asked.

“End of first shift. Soon’s Lysanter calls. Why?”

“Because I plan to spend the time before it in the rec room,
of course,” she said. “In case Barrodagh thinks we gotta be locked in this
closet while she’s with Lysanter.”

“Better to spend a day with Hreem the Faithless?”

She put her hands on her hips. “What d’you mean by that?”

“What do you mean by it?”

“Well, I plan to get him buzzin’ and let him talk just as
much as he wants,” she said. “Which is more than I can say for any of you
blits.”

Lokri smiled derisively. “I wouldn’t waste the time.
Anything he says is either a lie or what he wants you to hear. He’s only here
for one purpose—for Barrodagh to sic on Vi’ya soon’s he possibly can.”

“I know that,” Marim scoffed. “But he’s not the only enemy
here. I don’t see you rizzin’ Vi’ya for bunkin’ with that big bone-crusher
Anaris.”

Lokri looked grim, but his gaze fell, and she knew she’d
scored. She started to pass, smirking in triumph, but his hand shot out and he
said in a low voice, “Whatever she’s doing, I know this: she won’t betray us. I
don’t think I could say the same about you.”

She looked up at him, and the memory of Ivard reaching past
her for him burned right through her. She stuck her elbow out and shoved past
him.

Lar appeared with their food. She grabbed her share and
plumped down on her bed to eat. She didn’t want to sit at the table; she was
tired of the way Montrose and Sedry grinned at each other like a pair of
adolescents.

As for the real adolescent, she was disgusted with Ivard.
People said
she
was fickle—hah! Who
could blame her for bunking him out when he’d been so disgustingly sick from
that Kelly thing on his arm? No one had known what dangers that thing might
have carried. What if she’d caught some kind of disease from it? Now that he’d
changed so much—really, in his own way he’d turned out more handsome than
Lokri—of course she’d want to pair up again!

So then he turns
around and picks Lokri, who’d always treated him and his sister like they were
vermin.

And look at Vi’ya there, acting like nothing was wrong,
nothing had changed. As if no one could see the bruised knuckles on her right
hand, and the finger marks on her temple and cheek. No one said anything to
her.

When they finished and Lar had gathered the dishes and set
the new pot of caf on the warmer for them, Marim said to him, “I’m goin’ to the
rec room. Take me by there.”

Lar nodded as he finished stacking the dirty dishes onto the
transport vehicle. Before he left, he and Sedry held a rapid exchange via hand
sign. Marim felt a flash of annoyance, then she gave a mental shrug. She could
have learned all those signs. She knew some of them—but they weren’t really
worth knowing. Most of them were just warnings of various sorts, about the Shiidra-chatzers
in charge.
Morrighon coming—Barrodagh
listening
—most of the time, who cared? The Bori just plain weren’t that
interesting.

The rec room was almost empty. The third-shift crews mostly
slept during first, and everyone else seemed to work two shifts now, or almost
two. But she didn’t care. She was glad to get away from Lokri’s big mouth and
the rest of them.

Hreem showed up halfway through the shift. She’d been
playing against the computer, trying a new strategy—well, one she’d learned by
watching the Arkad, though it had taken a while to pick apart its components.

A flash of red—so welcome, after all those dull people in
their gray and black—and Hreem strode in, looking like he owned the place. She
rolled her eyes and made a face of disgust, hiding how glad she was to see him.
What really surprised her was how attractive this infamous jacker was. He wore
bright clothes, nice and tight. He was a Rifter—he had flash. He was dangerous,
yeah, but who wasn’t, in this place? At least he wasn’t dangerous and boring!

Maybe I been with one
crew too long. I like Vi‘ya—she kept us safe. But is bein’ safe a good trade
for freedom?

As Hreem sat down in the pod opposite hers, an angry thought
squirted up from deep inside:
I been
honest, more than I ever have before, and look how they trust me. Maybe it’s
time to move on.
And if she could do it while sending a little zap at Lokri
and Ivard, she would
.
Not at Vi’ya.
But those others? Hah!

Hreem said, “You told me you had something special. If it’s
just more of this game . . .” He jerked a thumb at the console and shrugged in
disgust.

She looked around. The three Bori in the room were way on
the other side, busy with their own game.

So she pulled her stash out of her pocket and opened the little
container.

Hreem looked down and wrinkled his lip. “What’s that?”

“Shh,” she cautioned. “Barrodagh goes crazy-bad when he
finds out about this stuff. Call it Black Negus. Take a bite. Tastes like
wine-cooked mushrooms. Effect—” She whistled softly, then added, “Who knows
what will happen?”

Hreem looked wary and then shrugged again, helping himself
to a small amount of the Ur-fruit.

Marim grabbed a bigger handful. She’d already tried every
kind because she didn’t care how rizzed she got. Anything that made the time
pass faster was great.

They started a game, but halfway through she got a fit of
the giggles and couldn’t stop. Hreem kept zapping her ships right and left, and
all she could do was laugh. Zap! Pow! She started making wire-dream noises to
accompany the exploding ships, and when a pucker formed in the wall behind them
and made a long kissing noise, they both started laughing and couldn’t stop.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Make a
little fun of our own.”

She grinned, feeling that great old fire in the pit of her
stomach. How long had it been since she’d had anyone new? Weeks! And this time,
the infamous, wicked Hreem the Faithless! What a story that would make back at
Flaury’s on Rifthaven—particularly if she could get him talking, and he’d
mumble out something he’d really regret later!

She got up, laughing at how unsteady the floor had become.
They had a couple of hours before Vi’ya was supposed to report to Lysanter. They
could have lots of fun in two hours.

o0o

Barrodagh hastened through the last of his own
preparations, so he could be there when Lysanter took Vi’ya to the ship bay to
try to un-imprint the ship the Avatar had touched. There seemed to be no free
time anymore, waking or sleeping.

The latest problem was one he could do nothing about. The
Avatar’s decision to explore the station on his own, guarded only by the Barcan
Ogres, had hit Tarkan morale hard by implying that they were unable to fulfill
the function to which they dedicated their lives. He’d been able to deflect
Chur-Mellikath’s formal complaint with the vid of Anaris’s Chorei powers, but
he wasn’t sure where the balance lay now.

It was a bad sign that the Tarkan commander had already
begun planning for the Suneater’s defense without informing him of the planning
sessions with the heir. Sessions which included Morrighon.

Barrodagh hurried back to his office. For now, Morrighon
seemed unassailable. How had he done it? Ugly to look at—which Anaris surely
would have taken as an insult, and thus been the less inclined to trust
him—with that whining voice, he had been utterly efficient and as utterly
obedient. Totally without imagination, preoccupied with the fussiest details
and rules. He had been so predictable that everyone in the Catennach hierarchy
had regarded him with amused contempt until suddenly he wasn’t.

As soon as the Suneater was powered up and the Avatar in
control, it was going to be time to encompass Morrighon’s downfall. First, Barrodagh
had to find some way to get a telltale into either Morrighon’s room or
Anaris’s. So far his efforts had been efficiently blocked.

At least Hreem is not
as recalcitrant.

Hreem’s room had been prepared with an obvious nark, and one
very painstakingly hidden. It had taken Hreem only a few hours to find and
destroy the obvious one. He seemed to be too arrogant to look for more. So it
was with anticipation that Barrodagh called up the image from that chamber.
Hreem, and Marim from Vi’ya’s crew of rejects—what could be more likely to
yield something useful?

With a brief burst of static, the image cleared, though the
angle was odd, a necessity dictated by the imager being integrated into the
door control.

“. . . more Black Negus?” Marim was saying. “I’m
havin’ another chunk. Maybe it’ll give me more stayin’ power—if you got the
power to make me stay.”

“Let’s see what you got, big-mouth . . .”

On the screen, Marim and Hreem sampled what was obviously
two or three different kinds of Ur-fruit. They were talking like drunks, their
words slurring, punctuated by helpless fits of laughter.

In between they began undressing one another. After a minute
or two of that, Barrodagh was about to let it run into the log, where he could
speed through at his leisure later, when something Hreem was saying cut through
his impatience.

“. . . naw, I nearly had that cruiser.
Nearly. But for a psycho Dol’jharian bent on suicide, I’d have that chatzer
now.”

“Su-uuuure,” Marim scoffed.

“Truth—Sodality oath,” Hreem protested drunkenly. “Was a
brilliant plan. I blew up that nick Highdwelling to force Ozman off the
cruiser, then blew him away with a jiggeree on his ship that Riolo dreamed up.
Except for that psycho, I’d be runnin’ a battlecruiser right now.” The Rifter
shook his head blearily. “Anyway, even though I did lose it, nobody else got it.
And Barrodagh thinks the nicks blew it away.”

“That musta been right after you zapped Dis,” Marim said,
adding plaintively, “Why you had to zap Dis? It was as good a base as I ever
had anywhere. And Norton was such a nice blit.”

“Because I didn’t want that black-eyed Dol‘jharian vampire
you call a captain comin’ after me,” Hreem replied, his voice rough.

“And here we all are.” Marim went off into a long giggling
fit. “And Vi’ya wants to play ring-around-the-spin-axis with your guts if she
an’ the others get this station goin’.”

Others?

“Others?” Hreem asked. “You mean the brain-burners.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Marim said, slurring her words together. “Our
bunch an’ that big chatzer Anaris. Wouldn’t mind a ring around
his
spin axis. Heyo! I thought you
wanted some bunny? A ship with no radiants don’t go nowhere.”

Distracted by the mention of Anaris’s name, Barrodagh
scarcely noticed Hreem’s obvious discomfiture, which ordinarily he would have
enjoyed.

Anaris?
he
thought.
How did he come into this
discussion? He has never been anywhere near the Rifters’ chamber, that I am
sure of.

Or had Morrighon somehow gotten around the imagers?

Frowning, Barrodagh watched the Rifters fumble their way
toward the bed. But it was soon apparent that Hreem was unable to function.

Marim’s mood changed. She got up, cursing Hreem roundly.
Hreem sat there chewing his under lip, then without saying anything, he reached
under the bed and pulled out the long case.

When he opened it, Marim froze, then emitted a squeak.

Barrodagh stared, repelled but fascinated. Despite its
having been halved, the thing had somehow re-formed itself, like a worm,
growing to its old length. Hreem grinned. “So you’re afraid of the real thing?”

“That thing might be real on a Dyzonian dragon, but I ain’t
matin’ with one,” Marim declaimed.

“Suit yourself,” Hreem said. “But you’ll go on the rest of
your life wondering. And you’ll be wrong about what you missed.”

Marim stood uncertainly, then she swallowed down the
remainder of her hallucinogens and flopped back on the bed. Barrodagh’s stomach
cramped as he watched Hreem fit the device onto himself and drop onto the
little Rifter. She began to shriek in mixed delight and astonishment, writhing
enthusiastically. Barrodagh’s eyes widened as a reddish membrane slowly began
to grow up around their sweaty forms. Both of them moaned incoherently, their
motions lax and uncoordinated with the effects of what was apparently
overwhelming pleasure.

Turning away with a shudder of disgust, Barrodagh figured he
could send a squad of Tarkans to practice maneuvers in the room and the two
perverts wouldn’t notice.