Voices of Chaos (13 page)

But the Prince was no longer so naive as to believe no one kept spies on the royal island. And others supported various members of the Council--they'd report a Prince where he'd no business being, out of loyalty or for money. Or out of fear. No sense making problems for himself at present; give the spies no reason to suspect him of anything, except too much

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naïveté, and an unseemly fondness for outsiders.

His mind raced as he made a final adjustment to his sleeves and turned away from the mirrored wall. I
wonder who led the attack on that village--and
why?

They might never know, since the Iron Duke would have his own people investigate--and release only such facts as he wanted released. But the end result was the same, no matter why or who had attacked the village: A hundred common, farming, and herding Arekkhi were dead or missing, the land for two parths around the village thoroughly burned--and every Asha in the area had vanished.

That last information had been costly,
Khyriz thought: One of his household who'd proven so clever with his outsider spy-devices would be a long time recovering from his burns, and the device was gone--destroyed lest it fall into the wrong hands.
The Iron Duke may well be aware of such devices; better
that he never learn I have them.

He could obtain more of the devices--all it would take was another journey out to the half-completed jump station, where two of his old friends from the Academy were working.
Odd, how things work out. I went there to be certain
my message would reach StarBridge unaltered. Finding Dana Marshall and
Khenazk' both there--that was pleasant, and useful.

Thanks to them, his two-seat flitter could now cross Zhenu's lands without being detected, and on-board communications to the Prince's estates were likewise safe from interception. Most Arekkhi wouldn't even suspect such devices were possible, let alone in such tiny packages. Khyriz glanced at the glittering little device on his claw, and his whiskers curved forward in a smile.

The smile faded: that poor village. Well, if good fortune was his, he'd know why and possibly who, once his in-place agents were able to make contact.

The Iron Duke would be furious if he knew the Emperor's youngest son--the Alien-Hugger, as he called Prince Khyriz-- had agents planted on his very lands. Extremely skilled agents: In two years, not one of them had been caught.
Yet. Do not grow complacent. But--set that aside for now. Magdalena
will know something is wrong if you greet her in this mood.

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He shoved loose fabric above his midarm joint where he wore the timepiece that had really been Magdalena's parting gift and that he'd finally learned how to set to Arekkhi time-- he didn't want to remember how many hours it had taken with the fat manual and an Arekkhi comp to both work out the numbers and translate the instructions. It should have been so simple: Arekkhi hours were roughly one and a half Earth standard; there were fifteen of them to a day, fifteen divisions to each hour....
Never mind, it's done,
he reminded himself impatiently, and composed his whiskers carefully.

In ten Arekkhi-standard minutes, he could leave his third-level apartments and start down the ramp to the middle floor. The entire old palace had been redecorated ten years earlier, but now the second floor had been remodeled for the CLS team. For Alexis Ortovsky and Magdalena Perez.

Khyriz had personally checked the entire floor for "bugs," as Dr. Rob's old movies called them, late the night before: There hadn't been any.

He crossed his main room, went down the short hallway and into the robe-room, pushed aside brightly colored garments, and checked the little wall-patch hidden behind them. It was a very old patch, from the days when the Emperor and his family still occupied the old palace, but it still worked: If anyone had stepped onto any floor in the CLS apartments since Khyriz had reset the device, it would show here--and it didn't. Except, of course, the two servants assigned to the team: They knew about the patch and wore neutralizing markers.

Who would have thought all the exploring I did as a small one would prove
so useful?
At the time, he'd been young and bored, and permitted nowhere but the new and old palaces, and the grounds between them. The old palace had a wealth of such devices, hidden passages, unnoted doorways--only a few of them had ever been shown on the official plans, and most of them were long forgotten. Like the wall patch.

Thanks to the ancient wall patch, and his nail patch, Magdalena and Alexis would start with "clean" rooms; Alexis knew how to keep them that way.

He emerged from the robe-room, checked his watch once more. Time to go.

But as he moved through the vine-filled

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entry, the portal light flashed and hummed at him. "Zhikna?" he murmured in surprise as he recognized the familiar sound-code. Right now his younger cousin should be with the greeting team for the CLS, standing next to the landing pad with Second Prince Khedan. He reached for the door toggle, jumped as the portal light flashed again. Zhik was always impatient, but even so!

The door slid aside as the toggle activated, and his cousin was inside at once. Khyriz blinked, toggled the door to close as he turned. Zhikna's visible fur was hackled, his whiskers and ears flat and trembling. His hat hung precariously off the back of his head, held on only by the strap, his robe wrinkled where he'd clutched it. And at his feet...

Khyriz's ears flicked in astonishment and then anger. Zhik had brought a pet, one of
those
Asha! "What are you doing-- and how
dare
you, cousin?" he said with a hiss. "You
know
I won't have an
ahla
here!"

"I--Khyriz, I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to go, I need help, your help...."

Zhik's trembling voice faded; the Asha, clad in a blue singlet that matched the youth's robes, crouched on its haunches, pressed against the young noble's legs, eyes all pupil and tail flat to its side. It whimpered faintly, nonstop. Zhik glanced down and his eyes momentarily softened; he touched the Asha's forehead in a gesture meant to be soothing; the little being fell blessedly silent as the young noble swallowed and tried to speak more calmly."Please, I know you don't like..." He couldn't seem to find the right word and finally gestured, taking in the crouching being.

"You know how such--pets--are created," Khyriz said flatly, but he kept his own voice low: It wasn't the Asha's fault, no use in frightening it more.

"I
know!"
Zhik's scream startled all three of them. Khyriz backed down the entry and beckoned urgently.

"Come in here and bring--is it him?" He couldn't bring himself to say "it," as most of those who owned such pets did. The shape of the nose, the darkness of the fur across it, the thickness of the tail, the tuftless ears--all that indicated maleness.

"Him," Zhik mumbled. Khyriz could hear his cousin murmuring 87

reassurances, convincing the little being to rise to full height and its hind limbs, and come into the main room. It wouldn't enter the lowered seating area with Khyriz and Zhikna, but settled warily on the edge of the "pit,"

dilated eyes fixed on the young noble who was supposedly its master and superior. "I
know
how you feel about them, Khyriz, but just
listen
to me!" He was rubbing his hands, palm of one against the back of the other, repeatedly; the fur was damp from sweating palm-leather, a sure sign of distress. "He's Ah-Naul, and whatever anyone says, he's my friend." Zhik eyed him defiantly; the motion of his hands stilled suddenly.

Confrontation,
Khyriz thought angrily. "Your friend, I see! How foolish of me not to realize that! And did the med-techs and your father neglect to give him the full dose of
xhezzik?
Oh, yes, how foolish of me to doubt, clearly there is more to him than blind adoration and total obedience!" Zhik's ears flattened.

"Let that pass, I have no time for this," the Prince snapped. "Just tell me!"

"Father... gave him to me, after you left for the Academy," Zhik stammered; his ears remained flat. "I didn't tell you ...
you
know why," he added accusingly. "I remember every single word you said when... when I offered you an alha-Asha. Khyriz, I still can't believe that... but, but never mind," he added hastily as Khyriz shifted, his eyes angry. "It doesn't matter, Ah-Naul is ...what he is. I didn't... didn't want to... but how could I tell
my
father I didn't want such ... a gift?"

Khyriz ran blunted nails across his forehead; his own finger-pads felt suddenly damp. "I understand that. He would have thought you were going soft on him."

"Softer than he already thinks me," Zhik corrected him unhappily.

"Yes. And he'd have berated you, or punished you."

"And he'd have killed Ah-Naul; he said so. I couldn't let him do that. I've done everything I can to--Oh, what's the use?" he snarled into the cushions; the sides of his hands slammed into them, suddenly, scattering bolsters everywhere. "What you said, about the
xhezzik
--there has to be some truth to it, doesn't there?"

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"I have never lied to you, Cousin," Khyriz said evenly.

"But if you don't really know, either? I mean ... how
could
you know? No one knows that much about Asha, not since the war. But... but I learned something, about the drug ... it's not what he said, what my father said, something to add to his food to keep him healthy."

"He told you that?"

"Yes. But the other Asha, the ones who work the fields in Mibhor, I've seen the records,
they
aren't given the drug, and if
he
needs it, wouldn't they need more? If it's ... if it's just nutrients? And--and why would my father be concerned about Ah-Naul's
health
enough to send that horrid Ulfar at odd times to make certain that he gets the drug?

"But now ..." His voice broke and it was some moments before he could go on. Above him, the ahla-Asha stirred and keened faintly, a high, mewling sound.

Khyriz fought his ears back upright.
No, they don't bother to feed it ephana
once the other drug has taken effect, do they?
he thought savagely. Some who owned ahla-Asha claimed to enjoy the little mewing sounds their "pets"

made.

What had this Asha been before someone fed him poison and deliberately robbed him of everything--including dignity?

The whimpering Asha-sound brought Zhikna to himself again. He slid across silky cushions and bolsters and placed his hand against Ah-Naul's jaw. Khyriz shifted his gaze away at once. There was too much emotion between the two--it made him feel ill.

"Fine, Zhikna. You've had a change of mind, thanks to what I told you about the process. I'm glad to hear that much, at least. But now you have this ... this Ah-Naul, because you didn't want his death behind your eyes when you slept. Didn't you think your father might have kept him, or given him elsewhere?"

"It was a test, don't you see that? Another of his endless tests for me! He would have done it, I know he would. But ...that's past," Zhik murmured; his eartips were trembling again. "It's ... it's the outsiders, the humans. Father came into my rooms early--my new rooms down from yours."

"I know about them; you showed me through them,

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remember? And I said I was surprised he let you move out." Khyriz had been; Zhik's quarters for at least four years had been either in his father's summer palace or a single, barren chamber in the new palace, part of the Iron Duke's small suite.

"He came in just at sunrise, and--he was angry, I still don't know why, not with me this time, just terribly angry. And he said ... said, the she-aliens who come to live on Arekkhi must
never
see Asha; they must not know such ...

such creatures exist. And--and he ordered me to ... to dispose of Ah-Naul."

He glared at Khyriz, terror temporarily buried under fury. "Dispose! As if he were a... a piece of..." He couldn't complete the thought. After a moment he drew a harsh breath and went on. "He said--to go away, far from the island, to do it somewhere the ... the she-aliens would never know."

"The humans," Khyriz corrected him gently, but Zhik was miserably lost in his own memory and didn't hear.

"He said--not to dare turn 'it' loose, that he'd know at once, that I should bring him ..."

"Proof?" Khyriz suggested finally. Zhik gestured assent sharply; his ears were again flat to his skull, and his whiskers trembled frantically.

"I can't--do murder, Cousin!" he whispered. "I...I've never hurt anything deliberately! To even think of it will make me vomit! But... but if I don't... don't do what he asks, then Father will send Ulfar to take Ah-Naul, and how
he
would kill--" The younger male's breathing was a harsh pant.

"Don't!" Khyriz broke in, his voice sharp. "That helps no one, not you, and not---not your friend." The word didn't want to form, but Zhik gave him a grateful look. "Calm yourself and calm him so I can think in peace. Though I can tell you right now, the best thing would be for you to give him a double sleeping-dose and fly out over deep water, drop him unconscious to drown in the middle of the eastern sea, he'd sink to die without fear or pain, he'd know nothing.... I understand you can't do that," he added quickly as Zhik began a wordless protest. "Go, up there, soothe him, and be silent, both of you."

He was vaguely aware of Zhik climbing out of the shallow pit, the alha-Asha coming around to him, standing gracefully on its hind feet to lean against Zhik's caressing hands. Its

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round-eared head came to his cousin's shoulder.
Disgusting,
he thought in a sudden burst of anger. He forced himself to then set his feelings aside.

Some moments later, he coughed gently; faint as the sound was, Zhik turned to eye him in wide-eyed fear.

"This may come back to you later, if the Iron Duke finds out," Khyriz warned.

"I don't care," Zhik replied defiantly, though his ears quivered just a whisker's worth above his skull. "I will chance it."