The Rifter's Covenant (70 page)

Vannis wondered if
the others dreamt as she did: for her, the riot, never-ending, as the backdrop
of Brandon’s silent grief when he discovered the Rifters gone.

Ares was stable
again—or as stable as a terribly overcrowded habitat could be, with more
refugees arriving each day. Brandon had gotten that organized, right out to the
staging points. He had survived the political fallout of the news that one of
his most recently appointed Privy Counselors had been instrumental in bringing
about the war.

Those first few
days carried the whispers of criticism—the fear of loss of control—until the
word spread that Brandon had monitored Hesthar all-Gessinav from the day she
was appointed to the Council, and that it was two of the Rifters who had
undermined Hesthar in her own realm, dataspace. The implication was that a high
position was not proof against the truth being known. And revealed.

On the surface
people were happy to go back to work, to play, to the myriad of entertainments
offered. Beneath this peaceful surface was a new sobriety and a coalescing
determination. The feeds were now full of the war, and gossip ran rife with
speculation about the attack the Navy had to be planning.

And here, at the
Enclave, Brandon was surrounded by those who had betrayed him—out of the very
best of motives—by conspiring to set the Rifters free.

Vannis reached to
offer the silver coffeepot, covertly gauging Brandon as she did so.

She could not read
him. Since the riots he had not referred to the Rifters at all, and tentative,
well-meaning questions simply brought a smile and a deflective comment.

She thought Vi’ya
wise to leave, as the Panarch and the Dol’jharian Rifter belonged to two
irreconcilable worlds, and Vi’ya quite naturally wanted to escape before that
difference killed their love and drove her away.
Vannis was tempted to consider her part of the conspiracy a
tactical error. She ought to have blocked the Rifters’ escape. Made them stay.
Then Brandon could have turned naturally to her when Vi’ya got away on her own
.

Alone and sober in
her new room each night, Vannis had plenty of time to reflect. Time was on her
side, she had decided. Brandon thought he was in love with Vi’ya, but love was
like a new and growing plant, that’s what instinct said. Remove care and
sunlight and water, and it would eventually wither and die.

Brandon laid aside
his napkin, his gaze abstract. Vannis assumed he’d received a privacy, then he
rose, his gesture courteous as he invited them to go inside with him. “This
concerns you all.”

She was right,
Vannis thought. It had to be the Rifters.

The atmosphere had
changed; everyone was sensitive to it. Osri stiffened, and his father’s smile
disappeared; Eloatri’s thumb rubbed absently over her scarred palm.

But Vi’ya was gone,
and she was here, Vannis thought as she followed the others inside. She would
offer the sunlight of good companions, and the water of pleasant surroundings,
and all of her care.

Brandon waved the
High Phanist to the best seat and activated the big screen. Eloatri perceived no
trace of irony in his gesture. The others found seats about the perimeter of
the study. Brandon keyed up the message and sat down in the console chair as
the com light went green; real-time.

“Your Majesty.” It
was Nyberg himself; he had sat there, waiting, in order to speak to the Panarch
face-to-face. “We have confirmation of the Unity’s arrival on the Suneater. The
Dol’jharians put out one of their propaganda broadsides on it.” His eyes
narrowed, indicating perplexity. “Internal evidence suggests heavy editing, and
that it took at least three days for them to assemble it for transmission. We
are unsure what this means. The appended links will indicate the breakpoints
we’ve detected.”

Then he hesitated,
his slight frown conveying the air of a professional man about to commit
personal trespass. “As well, we just decoded the hyperwave transmission that
came from the
Satansclaw
five days
ago. I think you should see them both together.”

“Thank you,”
Brandon said.

Nyberg bowed his
head and the screen blanked.

Brandon tapped at
the keys and brought up the older transmission first. It came in twin windows:
a man and a woman, the latter immediately recognizable as Vi’ya.

The man was dark of
eyes and hair, his pale skin stretched tightly over his bones. A mixture of
terrible emotions seemed carved into that skin, but overlaid was the tension of
stress.

A banner identified
him as Barrodagh, Eusabian’s voice.

“Captain Vi’ya,”
Barrodagh said. “Y’Marmor reports you have volunteered your talents to assist
with our efforts here on the Suneater.”

She said flatly,
“Not volunteered. My skills are for hire. Otherwise, Y’Marmor is correct.”

Eloatri felt in the
tingle of nerve endings and the throb of her burned palm that this moment was
important, though she did not as yet know how.

Barrodagh spoke
again, deflecting. “Shortly after your last visit to Rifthaven you were
captured by the Panarchist cruiser
Mbwa
Kali
, in company with Brandon Arkad, is this true?

Eloatri’s gaze
touched each of her companions in turn. Fierin faintly puzzled; Sebastian
Omilov grave, his son stiff with gathering outrage; the beautiful Vannis, who
until today had been an anomaly, seated gracefully at one side where she, too,
could watch everyone, her graceful body tense and still.

Vi’ya replied, “It
is true. If you desire it, I will be happy to describe in as much detail as you
want the inside of a Panarchist cruiser’s brig and the inside of the Ares
Detention block in which we were incarcerated. We escaped Ares when a riot was
started by refugees trying to force their way onto the already crowded station.”

Eloatri recalled
the moment Brandon entered the terrace, and the instant Vannis looked up, her
eyes revealing despite her formidable Douloi training.
We are all merely human,
Eloatri thought. Blinded by her emotions,
Vannis could not see that the issue between Brandon and Vi’ya was not one of
love, but of trust. Sadness welled in Eloatri and she turned her gaze away from
Vannis.

On the screen,
Barrodah asked, “How did you come to find us?”

“The coordinates
for the Suneater are for sale, just as those for Ares were.”

The verbal fencing
on-screen recalled the even more delicate issue between Vi’ya and Brandon. Even
watching from a distance Eloatri knew by now that neither of them could
communicate on this issue with words. It had to be with action.

On the little
screen, Barrodagh nodded. “Rumor on the RiftNet has much to say in praise of
your talents, particularly as you seem to be psychically linked with two sophonts
called Eya’a. Do you still have them with you, and what is your price?”

“The Eya’a are with
me, but you need not fear them. They only attack if provoked. I learned the
going price for tempaths at Rifthaven. I want double that. I want my crew and
myself to stay aboard my ship when we are not needed for your experiments. And
last . . . .” With cold-faced deliberation Vi’ya switched to Dorjharian.

Most of it was too
quick to follow, but Eloatri heard the last words:
“I-chereb-mi derch.”

Brandon murmured
softly, “On the point of my knife.”

In a tiny window
popped up a Uni translation:
“And I want
the heart of Hreem the Faithless on the point of my dagger.”

Barrodagh smirked.
“Done. Except for your ship. You will be quartered in the Suneater, but all
efforts will be made to assure your comfort. You may leave a skeleton crew
aboard the ship only, and regular inspections will be made. It is also a
requirement of my Lord that you will be under aimed weapons while performing
the experiments, and anytime the Eya’a are with you outside your chamber.”

“I accept,” Vi’ya
said coldly. “Except the inspections. You’ll doubtless have the ship under your
guns as well. That will have to suffice. We will leave no crew on-board.”

Barrodagh gave a
tense nod. “Agreed,” he said, though he did not look especially pleased. “You
will shortly receive a data-burst with instructions for your approach. I myself
will brief you upon your arrival.”

The transmission
ceased. In the study, quick murmurs of comment came from the watchers, all
except Brandon. He did not seem to hear the others, and Eloatri, experiencing
the vertiginous sensation that accompanied the thinning of the borders of the
Dreamtime, did not hear them, either.

Instead, as
happened too often now in times of stress, her internal voice returned, and
with her heightened sensitivity she saw the moment—Brandon not speaking, not
hearing the speakers —as symbolic.
He is
surrounded by those who should be his trusted confidants: myself as the Hand of
Telos; his longtime tutor; his boyhood companion; the woman who, by training
and custom, would seem destined for his kyriarch.

Brow slightly
furrowed, giving absolutely no clue to his thoughts, Brandon stared at the
blank screen until one by one the others fell silent. Then he tabbed up the
second recording.

The
Telvarna
slid through a lockfield in a
spray of coronal discharge and settled lightly to the deck. A cutaway to the
ranks of Tarkans assembled, and then the lock of the
Telvarna
opened. A red diamond blip in one corner of the image,
added by the Ares analysts, indicated each edit.

In silence, from
the comfort of the Enclave on Ares hundreds of light years away, they watched
Vi’ya emerge. She stood tall, straight, and impassive, one hand resting between
the cliffcat’s notched, dark-brown ears. Flanking her, the Eya’a, and behind
them the rest of the crew: Eloatri recognized them from Manderian’s
descriptions, and identified each in her mind. Marim saucer-eyed, Lokri
sauntering with an air of insouciance, Montrose massive and frowning, Sedry
Thetris with no expression, Jaim wary, and Ivard excited.

As Vi’ya moved, the
imagers moved, showing a Tarkan honor guard. Barrodagh was there as well, but
it was not he who stepped forward to greet them.

Anaris
. He was much taller than Vi’ya, and yet they seemed much alike. Too
much. Adrenaline flooded Eloatri, and the Dreamtime opened, suspending her
between two worlds. The room and the people in it remained vividly clear; so,
too, her inner sight.

She saw again the
two Dol’jharians together in her vision of the restaurant where Tomiko had
given her the cup of blood in terrible communion. Had their presence, too,
indicated a communion, some promise of commingled destiny? Then what of
Brandon?

On the viewscreen
the tall man and woman held a quick exchange in Dol’jharian; the translation
popped up, and Osri’s breath hissed in. “A promise? The reward is in keeping a
promise?” he exclaimed. “To whom? She made it clear she hates the Panarchy.”

“That’s not a
correct translation,” Brandon said, his voice and manner remote. “The word
means keeping covenant.”

“With the
Dol’jharians!” Osri exclaimed. “Look at her and Anaris. They are two of a
kind.” He turned, gestured toward Eloatri and his father, his eyes narrowed in
outrage. “Why did you do this? There is nothing to keep her from selling us to
Eusabian. Nothing!”

Eloatri felt as
though any movement would shatter her. She remembered Sedry’s terrible
description of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Now she understood why ice, not fire,
was the fate of traitors.

Vannis looked ill
with tension. One hand moved toward Brandon, in supplication or offered
support, but he did not see it. Alone of them all he sat very still, his
profile intent.

He knew Vi’ya was
speaking directly to him, Vannis was certain of that: Vi’ya promised to keep
her covenant. But what covenant had she made? More important, how could it
stand against what awaited her there in the center of the enemy’s power?

Now, terribly
present to her vision, Hesthar all-Gessinav’s contorted, vacuum-bloated body
floated in a ring of frozen flowers. She had delivered the Suneater to Dol’jhar
in the service of entropy; had Vannis inadvertently delivered the key to its
awakening in the service of Telos?

Would there be
anyone left alive to understand the difference?

Eloatri’s palm
throbbed and burned, but she embraced the discomfort. Again she saw the cup of
blood, but this time tasted it to the dregs.

Her thoughts
splintered when Omilov drew a painfully audible breath. He shook his head.
“We’ve got to save that station,” he said. His tone—his manner—evoked the deep
remorse of one who knew he had committed a mortal error.

Then, on the
screen, Vi’ya’s countenance changed subtly, to surprise and sudden wariness.

A red diamond
blipped in the corner of the image as the scene changed to a close-up of Anaris
and Vi’ya facing each other, with blurred figures in the background. The
playback froze; a linkpoint blinked in the middle of it. Brandon tabbed it.

PHYSIOLOGICAL
EVIDENCE INDICATES A LAPSE OF AT LEAST THREE DAYS HERE.

Again the watchers,
except for Brandon, gave voice to their emotions. He sat very still, studying
the screen, chin on folded hands.

Then he tabbed it
back into motion, and they all watched as Anaris gestured to Vi’ya, smiling
sardonically. In accent-free Uni, he said, “Let us endeavor.”

The Rifter’s Covenant

Exordium Book 4

Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge

Book View Café edition July 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-529-8
Copyright © 1995, 2015 Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge

First published: Tor, 1995

Production Team:

Cover art: Sherwood Smith

Cover design: Pati Nagle

Copyeditor: Sheila Gilluly