The Rifter's Covenant (8 page)

Fierin paid scant
attention to the political converse. Surely Ranor would not be killed for the
same sort of chatter the novosti had broadcast through the Thousand Suns? At one
point the woman was approached by a Kelly trinity—the Archon of that race,
whose genome was now embedded in the arm of the Rifter boy Ivard. Threy
congratulated Leseuer on her own trinity—She’s pregnant, Fierin realized
belatedly. No. Was.

Though she knew
that a bomb was going to explode it was still a shock; again she paused the vid
to watch children play. She’d yawned twice before she tabbed it on again. The
screen filled with a weird light Fierin knew she would have nightmares about
for the rest of her life.

And then the Douloi
reverted to normal human behavior, some panicking, some taking charge and
giving directions with sharp voices and trembling hands. Movement was quick and
chaotic; the ajna swept from side to side, as if Leseuer wanted to record
everything she could. One by one, then in clumps, people fell in agonized
death. The angle of the lens dropped finally, and was still.

Fierin frowned,
then went back again, and this time kept her emotions under strict control as
she forced herself to watch. Not one but several people had died because of
this chip, and to get his hands on it, Fierin’s own lover had lied to her and
had violated her privacy by ordering her things searched repeatedly. Why?

Moving the vid so
slowly it was like looking at ancient stillpics, Fierin scanned every portion
of the Hall visible. She did not know what to expect. Some threatening person?
An attack?

When at last she
did find the anomaly, it was so subtle she almost missed it.

At the beginning,
after Leseuer’s conversation with the Kelly, three figures caught her eye from
the among the crowd, briefly distinct in the way they all backed a few steps
toward a discreet door and slipped out.

Fierin would not
have caught it if it had been one person, for anyone might need to leave discreetly,
but three of them, and just before a key part of the Enkainion for a member of
the ruling dynasty?

Freezing the vid on
the clearest view of the three, Fierin forced the enhancer to bring them
closer, until the picture was on the point of dissolving into a fractal
nightmare. But there they were, distinctively recognizable: Hesthar
al-Gessinav, Tau Srivashti, and Stulafi Y’Talob.

He was there
.

Fierin looked up at
the children without seeing any of them. Hesthar’s voice, from one of the cabal
meetings, came back in memory:
Our
problem is that none of us were there. Regrettable: I was to have represented
our family, as my cousin was on Lao Tse, but my yacht would not cooperate.

Ice flowed through
Fierin’s veins, nerves, and brain.
They
were there. And they left.

They knew about the bomb.

The understanding
exploded inside her, a silent bomb. She had no idea how long she sat there
until fear returned, her closest companion of late: how long had she sat there?

Feeling brittle as
ice about to shatter, she forced herself to move slowly. Calmly. Normally as
she snapped the chip out and slid another into its place. Breathe in, and out,
though her eyes saw nothing of
Meet Genz
Hydroponics
burbling cheerily on the vid. Instead, she saw, over and over,
those three figures stepping back and vanishing through the service door, one
by deliberate one.

She watched all the
way through, ran her hands through her hair again and secured the horrible
chip. Now she knew the purpose of Srivashti’s searches, the questionings. His
having prevented her from going to Commander Nyberg as Ranor had urged her.

Now she knew why
Ranor and those other people had died.

Then she took out
the hydroponics chip, set it on her pile, and rose to her feet.

She began another
circuit as her gaze moved from object to object. Ah. She caught her foot on the
edge of a desk, and fell full length.

The handset flew
out of her grasp and smashed against the sturdy support of the climbing set.
Nothing could be recovered from it now.

Several children
jumped; another staff member appeared, his face full of concern. Fierin
twittered in apology, gabbling about being so tired she couldn’t see her feet
in front of her, as she and he picked up the broken bits and restored
everything to order.

She then went on
with her job of viewing and cataloguing chips, moving like an automoton.
Nothing she saw or said or heard stayed in her mind. Instead she saw over and
over Hesthar al-Gessinav’s smug face, Tau Srivashti’s yellowish gaze coolly
assessing the scene, and Stulafi y’Talob’s open gloat before the three escaped
a cold-blooded massacre.

“In short, we’ve
been handed an opportunity to strike a mortal blow against Dol’jhar and at the
same time clean out two of the worst gangs of Rifters in the Thousand Suns.”

Captain Cameron
ban-MacKenzie paused, taking in the plot room of the destroyer
Claidheamh Mor
.

“And we owe
Neyvla-khan for Minerva,” he added.

The officers assented
at that, though some looked troubled, even ambivalent.

They were Navy. They’d
follow his orders. He was now senior officer, brevet commodore of the little
fleet that had coalesced around his three-destroyer squadron in the Ixpotl
system, and he knew he’d get obedience. But he wanted their understanding, too.

“Ally with
Rifters?” Captain Agenes’s gravelly voice belied the delicacy of her features.
“I understand that your Captain Lochiel is kin, but is blood thick enough in
this case?”

Next to her,
Captain Bonxer nodded slowly, almost rocking back and forth, as if in deep
thought. Across the table, Meliarch Refren ZiTuto, commander of the Marine
detachment, sat like a statue, his night-black face impassive. Cameron still
hadn’t learned to read him, but he had come to rely on his straightforward
loyalty.

“You saw the vid my
cousin sent over. She’s been under the command of a Rifter named Charterly,
whose bonus chip has been clear of atrocities. And you can see the updated information
we’ve gathered on his fleet. After seeing the brag session their ‘brethren’—”
Cameron deliberately employed sarcasm, hoping to underline how little unity
there was among the Rifters “—sent of their atrocities at Asampir and Ombhul
IV, not to mention Malachronte, I think Lochiel, at least, has reached her
limit.”

They’d all seen the
vid, comprised of scenes from all over the Thousand Suns relayed via the
Dol’jharian FTL comm—
hyperwave
, he
reminded himself, wincing inwardly. It felt like he’d walked into an adventure
chip, and any moment Ivard the Star Fighter would pop out of the rec room and start
declaiming against the Evil Shiidra Queen.

But the hyperwave
existed. The resultant vid had confirmed their worst fears, showing in graphic
detail atrocities that had only been rumors or the subject of terse reports
carried by the couriers that reached them at widely spaced intervals from Ares.
Popping the DataNet still yielded little so far, although there were signs that
Ares was reestablishing its links to the Thousand Suns at large.

“And without the
Shiavona
we haven’t a hope in hell of
surprising Hreem and Neyvla-khan in the Barca system,” added Kor-Mellish,
Cameron’s first officer.

Agenes spread her
hands and shrugged. “Bring them in, then, as you suggested. Let’s get a reading
on them.”

Cameron tabbed a
control.

“Too bad she
couldn’t have brought one of those hyperwaves with her,” Bonxer commented, his
teeth showing as he said the word ‘hyperwave.’

The others muttered
in agreement. The last courier, overheated near to failure by the many skips it
had made, had brought a training course in the new non-relativistic Tenno
semiology from Ares. It would be a help, but not much.

The door slid open.
Two Marines stepped into the room and took up station to either side as Lochiel
entered, followed by her two lifemates, Messina and Bayrut. Cameron was
relieved that his cousin had taken his hint; they’d dressed plainly, and as all
were middle-aged, they looked like respectable civilians, not like swaggering
Rifters.

Then he forgot them
when the first Kelly trinity he had ever seen in the flesh waltzed into the
plot room.

His curiosity
turned to surprise when Meliarch ZiTuto stood up and gobbled a greeting at the
Kelly trinity. He broke off, coughing, but the effect on the Kelly was
starting. Threy swarmed across the room and surrounded him, the tall Marine and
the three Kelly slapping and poking at each other as the trinity’s honking and
hooting rose to a crescendo and died away.

Elena Agenes’s fine
eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Where did you learn that?”

ZiTuto cleared his
throat. “I spent three years on the Kelly homeworld,” he replied hoarsely.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t attempt the name. I was in the honor guard of the
Panarch’s Rogate Plenipotentiary.”

He turned back to
the Kelly and coughed a phrase; in the middle his name was embedded. The Kelly
hooted back. Cameron heard the word “Shtoink,” and other sounds that conveyed
nothing to him.

Not so to the meliarch,
who executed a profound deference, which was triply echoed in lesser degree by
the trinity. Cameron glanced at his cousin, who shrugged. She and her lifemates
were as mystified as he was.

ZiTuto braced up to
formal attention. “It is my honor and privilege,” he said, “to make known to
you Shtoink, Nyuk2, and Wu4, second of the trinity of the High Phratry, Lesser
Anamnesis of the People and Regent-in-Waiting to the Eldest, whose Memory is
the People and the People the Memory.”

The resultant silence
broke when Lochiel finally spoke. “I don’t understand. Are you telling me—?”
She stared at the Kelly trinity as though she’d never seen them before.

“A Rifter Kelly
is—” said Rufus Bonxer simultaneously.

Shtoink interrupted
with melodious sound, as though clearing her throat. She said to Lochiel, “Ourthree
name was a clue, but being Rifters, you took it as mockery of the Eldest and
the Blessed Three of Lost Earth.” Her head-stalk swiveled toward Cameron. “It
is not our custom to keep three eggs in one nest, especially—you will forgive
my frankness—when dealing with as dangerous a species as you humans.”

Another of the trinity
hooted briefly.

“Thus you have
never seen, and never will, the third of the trinity of ourthree phratry. A
precaution whose wisdom, you will agree, is confirmed by the lamentable news
from Arthelion.”

Captain Agenes said
to Cameron, “How do we know that threy are who threy say threy are? I mean,
threy’re Rifters, or threy’re with Rifters.”

“There has never
been a Rifter Kelly,” Shtoink said. “Not in the sense you humans take the
Riftskip. We can no more leave our phratry than we can go singleton. To be
forgotten by the People, that is the true death for us.”

“Like the Faceless
One,” ZiTuto said, and the Kelly trinity shuddered, all three of them moaning a
threnody that raised the hairs on Cameron’s arms.

“No Kelly has ever
suffered so—nothing you humans have done has ever terrified us so much as what
you did to your own ruler for his transgression.” The Intermittor arched her
head-stalk, drawing attention to the gaudy boswell clasped midway along its
length. “To your question: wethree have credentials.”

Cameron tabbed his
console. A flicker of light washed the room, answered by a jewel-like glint
from the Kelly’s boswell. A green light glowed on his console, followed by the
dispassionate voice of the computer.

“IDENTITY
CONFIRMED.” A long, melodious trill followed, triply echoed by the Kelly.
“SUBJECT TO BE ACCORDED SOVEREIGN DEFERENCE AND RIGHTS.”

Cameron rose and
repeated the deference Meliarch ZiTuto had given the Kelly, his astonishment
prickling through his nerves as awe. This Kelly was second eldest of the race,
possessor of genetic memories older than human intelligence. And, following the
death of the Kelly Archon at the hands of Eusabian of Dol’jhar, the ruler of
the Kelly race.

“Be welcome,
Elder,” he said. “We appreciate yourthree candor.” He hesitated, then added,
“My cousin reported yourthree wish to be conveyed to Ares.”

“Yes. There is to
be found the relict of the Eldest, who awaits rebirth.” The Intermittor’s
head-stalk looped in a sinuous movement that somehow conveyed the sense of a
smile. “But we will not insist that you abandon your present plans. It may be
that we will be of some assistance, although not personally.”

“How do youthree
know this? How can you know what’s happening on Ares?” Captain Agenes’s voice
was doubtful. “The couriers we’ve received had no such news.”

Cameron frowned,
wondering if her persistence was based on a latent strain of xenophobia, and,
if so, how that had gotten past the gnostors of Noology at the Academy. Then he
forced himself to relax. It’d be a wonder if worse things didn’t pop up, with
what they’d been through
.
At least,
he thought wryly, this sudden revelation had distracted everyone from their
distrust of Lochiel and her shipmates. One thing at a time.

“Your pardon, Elder.”
ZiTuto made a deference, then turned to Agenes. “The Kelly can express
virtually any concept via biochemicals, so any surface anywhere a Kelly has
been can be like a newsfeed for those who come later. I would guess that is how
threy know; certainly enough time has passed since the war began for all sorts
of news to spread via any ship that has ever been even briefly boarded by a
Kelly—or via humans in contact with threm.”

They’re the most
trusted doctors in the Thousand Suns
,
Cameron thought. Lots of opportunities to plant messages. And they have threads
on the DataNet as well.