The Rifter's Covenant (52 page)

“No.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he will
think it his duty to stop us.”

Jaim slammed his
hand down on the console, surprising them both with his vehemence. “Then you
are a fool,” he said in a hard, angry voice.

She did not react.
“You are angry for the wrong reasons, Jaim,” she said. “These Douloi view
interactions differently. It is not in their nature to remain constant. When
they get bored with one partner they part with grace, and gifts, and move on
with light hearts. I cannot be left twice.”

She had never
before said even this much about her emotions. All the anger drained out of
Jaim, leaving him feeling tired and a little sick. “I don’t think you’re
right,” he said, “but I can’t prove it. About this plan. What makes you think
you can get the rest of the engine parts?”

“Eloatri wants us
to go,” Vi’ya said. “I am sure of it, though no words have passed between us.
There have been no inspections of the ship since I began sleeping there—and a
week ago, when I was sure the inspections had ceased, I breached the outer seal
to do some of the preliminary work myself.”

Jaim sighed,
sinking down onto the narrow bed. “And if he does figure it out while we’re in
the course of leaving? He’s fast.”

“If it is
necessary, I plan to ask someone to cover for us.”

“Who?” Jaim asked
with foreboding.

“Vannis
Scefi-Cartano. She wants us gone as well.”

“Of course she
does,” Jaim snapped, his anger flooding back. “She’s probably lied about you as
well—” He bit the words off, and shook his head. Who else was moving them around
the board for their own ends? But he decided it didn’t matter. It certainly
wouldn’t make any difference to Vi’ya, as long as she attained the goal she
sought. But that was hardest to fathom.

“I don’t
understand, Vi’ya. Why do you have to do this?”

“Because it is the
best thing I can do for him,” she said. “It is a parting gift, one fit for a
king.” There was no irony in her voice. “As for Vannis, there is no evil in
her. Her center is no longer self. She wishes to take her place at the side of
a panarch. Let her strive to do so. It will suffice: they understand one
another.”

Jaim sighed again.
“I think you’re wrong.”

She shook her head
slowly.

Outside the door
Lucifur yowled.

“No, I just feel
sick from worry,” Fierin vlith-Kendrian said. “I’m sorry if—”

“Don’t apologize,”
Osri said gruffly. He had been looking at the decking of the transtube pod. He
glanced her way, his cheeks reddening when their eyes met. He added in a surly mumble,
“I suppose Srivashti got you in that habit?”

Fierin bit her lip,
reminding herself consciously that Osri was not angry with her. He never was
angry with her. That scowl meant worry, perplexity, perhaps frustration, and
sometimes he did get angry, but never with her
.
“He hates loss of control,” she said. “Feeling sick from
emotional reaction is a very distasteful loss of control.”

Osri snorted, and
there was his angry scowl. But not aimed at her. “I’d like to make
him
sick. See how he controls it.”

It was such an
unexpected reaction that she laughed. He looked up sharply, then one side of
his mouth curved up in a reluctant grin.

“I think he would
control it,” she said, sobering. “Fiercely.”

There was no chance
for further talk—they had arrived.

The gathering in
the Panarch’s splendid parlor numbered the same people as before. Fierin spied Vannis,
looking cool and beautiful in a deceptively simple lounging outfit of deep
blue. Minute crystals had been sewn over it in graceful patterns so when she
moved toward Fierin, tiny streams of starlight shimmered in the folds of the
flimsy, delicate fabric of her wide-legged trousers and the layered over robe.

“Courage, child,”
Vannis said, both hands out.

Fierin kissed her.
Vannis tasted of fresh mint and smelled of herbs. “I’m so glad the trial is
tomorrow, and it will all be over,” she whispered.

They sat down, and
the huge, ugly man named Montrose—whom Osri had described so vividly—served
coffee and many-layered nutcakes, just as if this were a regular party, and not
a strategy session the night before a trial for a capital crime.

The conversation
was light. Fierin recognized an attempt to ease her own stress. Vannis bantered
laughingly with the Panarch, quoting some obscure poetry about an infamous
dinner. The older woman Fierin knew simply as Sedry—they toasted her
resignation from the Navy. She no longer seemed so dour-faced, as though she’d
left her pain behind with her rank. And Vi’ya watched each speaker in turn, her
demeanor calm and relaxed.

They all believe
Jes will be free by tomorrow, or they wouldn’t be so easy
,
Fierin thought. And with a kind of swooping sensation inside her,
she let herself believe at last that she would see her brother tomorrow night.
Then she could
institute a reversal
of the praecidens decree, and discuss legal control of the business, for he had
been the heir when she went to music school.

If there still was
a business.

Brandon said,
“Perhaps we’d better get to our plans now.”

Fierin tensed, then
leaned against Vannis’s silky-smooth shoulder.

Brandon said, “I
think it appropriate for genz Thetris to begin.”

With a tiny nod
toward Fierin, Sedry murmured, “Breaking bad news is no duty I like, but we’ve
found out who wanted your family dead—and why.”

Then she hesitated,
so Fierin said, “Please. Nothing will bring my parents back, but knowing my
brother will soon be exonerated takes much of the poison away. What did you
find?”

Sedry flexed her
blunt hands. “Vi’ya and I had actually been following different threads of the
same conspiracy, before His Majesty teamed us up. Once we were able to share
our discoveries, our progress accelerated.” She turned to the Vi’ya. “She is
one of the deepest noderunners it’s ever been my privilege to work with. Her
semiotic abilities far exceed mine.”

Vi’ya inclined her
head, saying nothing.

“To continue, it
appeared that someone was systematically destroying the replicates of an
enormous datapacket incoming to Ares from the DataNet, and the other threads we
followed seemed tied into this. Captain Vi’ya believed the interference to be
the work of Hesthar al-Gessinav. When we were finally able to verify that, only
days ago, our work went much faster.”

Thetris sighed,
drank something strong, and blinked tiredly. “What we have proved is that the
Archon of Torigan did indeed arrange to have the Kendrians killed. Along with
all the students on their last expedition. He planned it out, hired the
killers, then had them disposed of. And all this was on the orders of Hesthar
al-Gessinav.”

Fierin frowned,
confused. “Why did she want my parents killed? And the others—I hadn’t known
that,” she added.

Brandon’s
expression had tightened, the uncharacteristically grim line to his mouth
frightening. Fierin was reminded of the history chips of his grandfather, whose
severity and occasional rages had been famed. “Why? For profit. But the result
was the deaths of billions. She sold the Suneater data to Dol’jhar.”

Fierin gasped, the
shock overwhelming the last of her Douloi reserve. As implications bloomed like
deathly roses in Fierin’s mind, the reaction was physical, a deep, sick chill: the
enemy was not light-years away, but right among them on Ares
.

Brandon gestured
for Thetris to continue. “The Kendrians and their students had stumbled across
the Suneater completely by accident during a survey mission. They UL’d the data
at the first Node on the way back, coded as is customary. Unfortunately that
was in Rouge Nord, where the Anachronics Hub had been corrupted by Hesthar. She
found out about the Suneater and later had the students killed to protect her
deal with Eusabian. She knew he would pay anything for data that would aid him
to achieve vengeance.”

Vi’ya’s expression
heightened Fierin’s awareness of Dol’jharians—her oval face as smooth as carved
stone, the slanted black eyes unblinking, and Fierin was glad Vi’ya was on
their side. She hoped never to meet any of the enemy
.

Thetris went on.
“The Srivashti Family had long sought to reestablish the preeminence they
enjoyed early in the Thousand-Year Peace. And Tau Srivashti had nearly
succeeded, but that seems to have left him wanting more. Hesthar used him, apparently
concealing the Suneater information from him, letting him know only of the
Dorjharian attack, which he hoped would destroy the Phoenix House and give him
the Emerald Throne. His assistance was instrumental in the deaths of both Galen
and Semion; it was he who provided the contacts that enabled the inside
attacks. She has struck a mighty blow for her god of nullity,” Commander
Thetris finished, her voice flat with scarcely repressed revulsion. “No
Ultschen in history has ever created such chaos.”

Montrose smiled
grimly. “But now we know. And where there is knowledge, there can be justice.”
He turned Brandon’s way.

Brandon lifted his
glass. The liquid within scintillated with ruby highlights. “To our victory
over Entropy.”

Each person there
heard the multivocal nature of his toast: defeat to their enemies here on Ares
and throughout the Thousand Suns, defeat to evil, to chaos, to ambition that
devoured others as means to its own ends.

“Now for the
strategy,” Brandon said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Tomorrow
at the trial Gnostor Ixvan will bring out the information about the four
hirelings who killed the Kendrians and framed Lokri, and reveal Torigan’s
complicity. But the rest will not be released—”

Montrose growled.
“What? So they go free? Brandon, you just promised me justice—”

Thetris laid a hand
on his arm.

“No. The data about
Torigan, revealed in the course of a capital trial, will be sufficient to
execute a Writ of Nescience against him on the spot.” Brandon smiled sardonically.
“He will be detained for his own protection. But we will have to move more
carefully against al-Gessinav and Srivashti. If their roles are revealed, the
station’s populace will quite simply explode. They’ve already been whipped up
to fever pitch by the Rifter stories. The ochlologists would be able to do
little more than focus the crowd rage—if that.”

Montrose smiled
crookedly. “The appropriate focus would be Srivashti and Gessinav. Wouldn’t
that be justice? Especially seeing how it appears she’s the one stirring up
those stories?”

“How many innocents
would die in the process?” the Panarch murmured.

Fierin felt Vannis’s
body tense and glanced at her questioningly.

Tovr Ixvan rubbed
his raspy chin. “Under the circumstances, it would take very little to turn a
baiting crowd seeking the deaths of two Douloi into a reversal mob that would
sweep us all away.” He turned to Montrose. “All of us, including the very
structure of justice that will exonerate your friend tomorrow.”

“The Phoenix House
will call for a Review Occult of the rest of the evidence,” Brandon said. Then
he smiled. “And where will they go in the meantime?”

Montrose sat back;
sweat lined his brow. Fierin’s heart cramped when she saw his big, grizzled
hands trembling like her own.

“All of these
issues shall be resolved,” the vocat said. “And you may be certain that justice
will be served.” His tone harshened. “Or I would not be here among you. For my
cause is justice, not politics.”

Brandon’s voice was
wry. “If I’d been implicated in any of this, our esteemed vocat would be on the
opposite side of the courtroom from me. And that is why he was hired.”

Montrose released a
long breath as everyone got up to fetch something more to drink, or to move
around in an effort to shed tension.

Vannis moved across
the room to talk to Vi’ya. Brandon stopped by Fierin’s chair and looked down,
concern in his face. “Two more things, one of which may seem very hard. We are
no longer sure of data security where Jesimar is being held. He cannot be told
any of this; if it leaked, the conspirators might panic, and he would be the
first target. Without his trial, we cannot legally use even the information on
Torigan.”

Fierin fought tears,
pitying her brother, forced to spend the last night alone, without knowing anything.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“When you are ready
to emerge from your isolation,” Brandon continued, “if your brother is
agreeable I will have your wardship transferred to me and you can live here.”

“I don’t know what
Jes will want,” Fierin said huskily. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

“There is plenty of
time,” Brandon said kindly. “You do not have to decide at once.” He looked up
at Osri, who nodded. Fierin’s eyes stung, and the voices around her blended and
merged. Fighting for control, she thought, Now is the time to get this
straight. If I haven’t the courage now, I never will. As the Panarch moved away
she turned to Osri, who had not stirred from his seat on her other side. “It is
an imposition for me to stay a day or so longer?”

Osri met her eyes
and looked away. “No,” he said. Then he smiled slightly and muttered, “I didn’t
think I would, but I like having you there. Though it’s damned cramped, and the
food is monotonous.”

Fierin sighed,
closing her eyes. Had she been wrong about him, then? She had sensed from the
start that though he was born Douloi he did not like or trust his own kind. And
I am finding I don’t trust them, either, she thought. At least the ones like Srivashti.
How many of them were just like the Archon? They all moved with gliding care
and spoke in the softly modulated voices, and smiled, smiled, smiled. Srivashti
could lie—and often did—with ease. And Hesthar. So, too, could Vannis, who had
been her ally, but for impenetrable reasons.