The Thrones of Kronos (18 page)

She snickered.

“What?” asked Caleb. She hoped the unknown nick wouldn’t
make fun of his skip-sickness.

“Just thinking of what some of the pie-flingers do. Gonna be
brown breeches on some ships, I bet,” she gloated.

Caleb snickered. “What I’d like to know is why they’re
called pie-flingers?”

“’Cause nobody could pronounce the Kelly name. They made ’em.”

“The Kelly named them,” Cherlotte said unexpectedly. “But in
honor of something the Panarch did to avenge their Archon.”

“The one Eusabian killed?” Uka’s throat clenched. She liked
Kelly, at least the one trinity she’d met. For her, that was the worst part of
the vid of what Eusabian had done in the Panarchist Throne Room, on the distant
and legendary Arthelion. The rest of that vid was just like a serial chip: it
had taken a real effort to comprehend the fact that it was real. “How do you
know that?”

“Jep Houmanopoulis sent us some Ares novosti ULs before we
left Ares space. Want to see?”

“Navigation,” her father’s voice cut in, “take us to. . . .”

“Captain, skip’s warming up,” Ella at DC said.

“Three more,” Lucan Miph said, still calmly.

Uka admired her father all the more since they’d lost half
the crew—including his mate—and nearly had the ship blown up, helping to defend
Rifthaven from Aroga Blackheart’s attack.

The Syndics had repaired the
Gloire
at their own expense, and there had been plenty of
volunteers to replace the dead crew members. In the past, Uka knew that her
usually easygoing father would probably have taken anyone who seemed to sync in
well after some talk in a club, but no longer.

That was how Uka had gotten promoted, and Caleb was brought
from the distant Nairoba Cloud.

And a couple of crew members had been spaced. What with all
the fighting, and longtime alliances and syndicates breaking up, it had been
too easy for the Dol’jharians to get a spy on someone’s ship—anyone’s ship—who
could sabotage things if they didn’t match Dol’jharian orders. They did it to
everyone, whether part of Eusabian’s fleet or not. But her father and Cherlotte
and Rafe had taken care of that after the battle. Uka was glad she hadn’t seen
it.

The captain turned to Caleb. “Anything on communications?”

Despite the fact that he’d been lounging back in his pod,
probably to ease his stomach, Caleb was doing his job. “Nothing but the usual
noise.”

“Excellent. Navigation, your coordinates. . . .”

Uka plotted the next course and laid it in. This time she
committed without looking for approval from Cherlotte. She was sure—though he
said nothing—that her father was pleased with her speed.

It’s not just
Dol’jhar’s fleet against the nicks,
Rafe Azura had said to her half a year
ago, when he came aboard and encouraged her to start working the sims.
It’s everybody who wants something against
those who want to keep what they’ve got.

Rafe was tall and handsome, his mane of reddish hair like
his son’s, only he wore it sleeked back in a complicated braid. It looked like
he’d be her father’s new mate, and Uka was glad.

Caleb seemed to have been thinking along related lines. He
leaned toward her. “Sure hope when we get to it, we’ll be rizzing enemies and
not friends.”

Uka got that tingly feeling all over. She liked his personal
scent, though she couldn’t name what it was. And she longed to touch his hair
and find out if it was as soft as it looked. “Top of the list is Aroga’s
blunge-suckers that got away.”

Ella glanced back, her white hair glistening. She gave them
a brief smile, then turned back to her work.

For the first time, the captain took note of the
conversation. “We will hit who we’re told to hit,” he said, still calmly. Uka
had never seen him not calm—although the events of the past year had driven out
his laughter, and his love of music.

“They had their chance.” Caleb’s voice roughened. Uka knew
he was thinking of his mother.

The captain said, “Last one. Navigation, here are your
coordinates.”

Kira Lennart lay back in the bed, suppressing a sigh.

“You check out Mavisu on the spin reactors?” Tallis asked.

That didn’t last long,
Kira thought. Sex wasn’t much of an escape for Tallis anymore. Not that it was
for her, either.

As if reading her mind, Luri sat up, her full lips pouting.
It certainly hadn’t been enough for her.

“Yeah,” Kira said. “Done as much as he can without tipping
off the chatzing Dol’jharians. Another inspection coming.”

“I thought you said they’d have to slow down, with the harassment
and so many more Sodality ships coming in.” Tallis’s voice was querulous.

“Maybe they will.” Kira tried not to show her exasperation.
“But if you were Juvaszt, would you trust any of us?”

Tallis was obviously feeling even more insecure than usual. “Two
days, then? Once we decide to make a run for it?”

Blit!
It was just
like Tallis to deal with a problem by forgetting it. But you couldn’t do that
with a logos. She grabbed his balls and squeezed, not gently.

“Oww! What did you—”

She rolled over, silenced him with a rough, unaffectionate
kiss, and whispered into his ear. “Nacking blit! Damn machine’s listening all
the time now.”

“Well, maybe it wants to get out, too.”

“We don’t know what it wants, and we can’t ask. Not without
tipping it off.”

Luri’s small hand slid over Y’Marmor’s belly and traced
insistently down Kira’s body. Kira released the pent-up sigh and shifted her
body so she could caress Luri’s bountiful curves yet still talk to Tallis. She
bit his ear, making him yip, them whispered into it, “Only chance is to wake up
the eidolon and convince it to take over.”

Tallis muttered into her shoulder, “What good is that? It’s
still a Barcan.”

“Yeah, but at least it was human once.”

Though how much it is
now is debatable.
She’d seen something of the environment the logos had
constructed to distract the image of its programmer, leaving the machine free
to pursue its own, inhuman goals. She was sure even Barca wasn’t that weird.

“Well, I’ve told you everything I remember about Ruonn,”
Tallis insisted, referring to the Barcan noderunner whose data-image was part
of the logos. His hair fell forward, hiding his anxious eye; Kira was glad he’d
taken her suggestion and started wearing an eyepatch again. Luri panicked every
time the ill-fitting false eye popped out—which it had done frequently in the
low-gee they favored for sex. “I thought you said you’d already managed to
contact him in there,” Tallis muttered.

Lennart sighed. Tallis was a very wearing companion when he
was fearful. He listened not to what others told him, but to whatever
interpretation his anxiety placed on their words. “I broke the eidolon out of
the shell Anderic’s worm locked it up in, but it fell right back into sex
dreams and ignored me.”

“Sex dreams?” asked Luri, looking up from the proteus she
was idly toying with.

Lennart was tired of the discussion and saw a way out.

“Yeah. Barcan sex dreams. Dozens of women that make you look
flat-chested, and Ruonn with a nacker that would make an Alainean Megathere run
away screaming.”

“Oooh!” Luri exclaimed, her eyes widening. She gave the
proteus a decisive twist; it promptly lengthened and expanded alarmingly. Then
she turned toward Tallis, licking her lips.

“Get that thing away from me,” the captain snapped, his
voice cracking.

“It’s not for you,” Luri cooed, eyeing Kira, who snickered.
Well, she thought, Tallis certainly wouldn’t be ready again for a while. And
Luri, with her single-minded focus on sex, was an expert at judging her
partners’ limits, both psychological and physical. Kira rolled toward Luri,
then stopped as the console lit.

Tallis squirmed over to the console. “What?” he yelled.

“This is the
Fist of
Dol’jhar
.”

Tallis sat up so fast he whacked his temple on a bulkhead.
Luri leaned over and covered his hair and ear with kisses as the Dol’jharian
continued. “A transponder pulse in your sector.” The nav console bleeped as the
coordinates came in automatically. “You are to respond without delay.” The
connection lapsed.

Tallis clutched his head in frustration, accidentally
knocking Luri back onto the bed in a welter of silken sheets.

“He said, ‘without delay.’” Kira pulled Tallis around to
face her. “Let the secondary crew take this one. You can’t be on the bridge all
the time.”

Tallis nodded, tabbed the console, and issued instructions.

The fiveskip burred into action. Tallis sank back and
sighed, and Luri pounced on him, reaching for Kira.

They stopped as the ship trembled. Had something hit them?

Tallis bolted from the bed, his one good eye distended with
terror. “What—”

He slapped the light control, and was answered by a jet of
foam from the firestop in the bulkhead. Cursing loudly, the captain rushed to
the bain to wash the fluid off his face. Through the doorway, Lennart saw him
reel back as a blast of air shot from the spout, splattering the foam in every
direction. Then a foul jet of brown steam erupted from the disposer. Lennart
heard a faint scream from a nearby cabin.

Tallis echoed it with a howl of misery and stumbled back
into the room as the two women watched, dumbfounded. He pounded on the console.
“Bridge! What the chatzing hell is going on?”

A ripe, fruity blat answered him, followed by a maniacal
quacking sound: “Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!”

Then the ruckus ceased as quickly as it had started. The console
came to life with the panicky voice of Esbart on the bridge. “Captain! There
was a sneak-missile waiting—sprayed us with worm-data. You better see the
message it left.”

The screen flickered, revealing the face of a Panarchist
naval officer, craggy and forbidding. Kira recognized him. Any Rifter would
have: Jeph Koestler.

“We could have killed you just now. Next time maybe we will.
Unless you join us.”

The message went on to offer amnesty and how to accept it,
along with a promise of spare parts for the engines.

Kira divided her attention between the screen and Tallis,
who looked terrified. Terrified of choice, she decided. It was agony for him,
being offered a way out of the trap the
Satansclaw
had become.

For it was a very dangerous way, and not only because of the
Dol’jharians. She thought again of the Barcan construct that held the
Satansclaw
in an apparently indissoluble
web of code.
Even if we decide to take
the chance, will the logos allow us?

The message ended. Esbart’s face windowed up again and the
DC-tech commenced a litany of scrambled systems.

Tallis just stood there, apparently drained of volition.
Luri reached up to stroke his arm, but for once he was completely unresponsive.
With a sigh, Luri turned to Kira, her soft hands pulling insistently at her
shoulders.

Kira shook her off. She didn’t want to think about the work
ahead, cleaning up the mess the missile had made of dataspace on the
Satansclaw
. Even worse was what the
logos might have done to take advantage of the scrambling.

Another brainsuck session. The walls already tended to crawl
from her overuse of the drug, but she didn’t stand a chance against the logos
otherwise.

Kira sighed. It was already too long a war, but she didn’t
know what would be worse: more waiting or the real thing.

But I don’t have to
choose.

The nicks would do that for them all.

Barrodagh almost didn’t bother with Marim.

The chef had been surly, the silver-eyed comtech urbane.
They were quite ready to talk about Rifthaven, or how much they loathed Hreem
the Faithless, and they’d offered him endless anecdotes of the chaotic madness
of Ares’s reef of refugee ships. All useless.

The youth with the Kelly ribbon embedded in his arm had been
the worst. He’d talked randomly of sights and smells, until Barrodagh had felt
queasy trying to force some logic onto his cheerful ramblings, and had Lar send
him back.

Marim, the thief, he had left for last. There was nothing in
the records of interest about her—and during the last few days, while the
Telvarna’s
crew members had been trying
to bait him (he was sure) by engaging in lengthy and noisy sexual gymnastics,
it was Marim’s voice he’d heard most when listening to the recordings made by
the telltale.

The rising incidence of Panarchic harassment, Eusabian’s
boredom-induced forays into the computer—Ferrasin’s worm wasn’t fast enough to
warn him real-time, and whatever it was Morrighon was up to had almost moved
him to assign Marim’s interrogation to one of his more trusted functionaries.
But he was nagged by a bone-deep conviction that the slightest deviation from
thoroughness would bring death, or worse.

He tapped into the telltale when Larghior arrived at the
crew’s quarters. “Senz-lo Barrodagh wants Marim this time,” Larghior said. His
voice was even, pleasant, and Barrodagh did not trust him for a heartbeat.

Unlike Larghior, Marim appeared to have no subtlety. “That
chatzing little blunge-eater! Doesn’t he
ever
sleep?”

“It’s now rec period for most of the station.”

“Probably can’t even find bunny-partners for pay,” the
languid comtech said, to raucous laughter.

“Well, he isn’t gettin’ me, either,” Marim said
emphatically. “Too skinny and much too ugly.”

Barrodagh heard the door suck open, which meant Larghior and
Marim were on the way. Inured to insult, he listened for a little longer, in
case the tempath spoke. She did very rarely; Barrodagh wondered if she slept
all the time, or if she, too, had some kind of drug cache. As the crew nattered
briefly, mostly trading insults, he made a mental note to ask Lysanter for the
results of the physical tests on Vi’ya.