The Thrones of Kronos (56 page)

She waited sickly for condemnation or threats.

“Do you know what that is?” He spoke as one who did.

Tat had to breathe before she could trust her voice. “I’m
not sure, but I think Ivard knows. Lar says he’s talked about dreams. It’s
something in the station.”

“It’s Norio,” Morrighon said. “Or his . . . revenant.”
He paused. “Do you have any ideas on how to get rid of it? Using, perhaps, the
stasis clamps?”

Of course, their
overlords would tell no one,
Tat reflected—
there’d be widespread panic. But the news will get out, sooner or
later.
“Not me. Not alone. But . . . maybe—if I could talk
to someone else—we might be able to come up with a plan,” Tat said, knowing it
was a risk even mentioning someone else. She did not dare name Sedry.

On the screen bulged the pucker that had swallowed the gray.
It could happen to anyone. Tat did not need to be telepathic to know he was
thinking the same thing she was.

“There have been other incidents as well,” Morrighon said.
“Barrodagh hopes to suppress the news.”

Tat ducked her head in a nod, her hair swinging forward to
stick to her clammy face. She brushed it back with trembling fingers. “I just
heard about things happening to the Bori sent to the surface.”

“Here’s the latest.” Morrighon keyed his compad, and she
stared down at the tiny vid. This time the space was a weird red room with pods
and lumps in the walls: the header named it the New Ship Bay. Morrighon kept
the sound muted, for which she was grateful; she saw hands and even a face
erupt from the walls, driving a terrified gray tech back toward another wall,
which opened a pucker and sucked him in.

“No stasis clamps there,” she said.

“No.”

“I can’t do it alone.”

Morrighon made an impatient movement. “Talk to your . . .
compatriot. I have a meeting with the heir now. Following that, he intends to
summon the tempath to discuss the next attempt to activate the station.”

He knows about Sedry.
“Then
I better get to the crew room fast,” she said, taking another risk.

And Morrighon said, “I’ll handle the telltale. Go.”

o0o

Tat’s coming.

As Vi’ya stepped into the fresher, Ivard’s thought reached
her; she’d been half-conscious of a flicker of communication between the Eya’a
and the Kelly, but she had learned, for the sake of her sanity, to pay as
little heed to this almost constant dialogue as one would the low mutter of a
vid in a room.

The shield she had worked so hard on Ares to erect around
her mental perimeters had disappeared the moment she stepped on this station.
She’d tried to rebuild it, but not until recently—when the cumulative effect of
the sex-driven emotions of the station’s human parasites had faded, sudden as summer
thunder—had she comprehended just how unsuccessful her attempt had been.

Vi’ya threw off her clothes. Regret suffused her as stinging
hot water needled her face.

This was one of the burdens of being a telepath, but the
victim had been Jaim, not herself. Jaim, and perhaps her crew. She could not
imagine what changes her actions would cause in their lives.

She shut off the shower, dried quickly, and pulled her
flight-suit from the cleaner that had been ill-installed against a curved
portion of wall. Hreem. Marim. She was not angry with Marim, she was angry at
the situation that was forcing Marim out; one way or another, the days of
wearing the black of sworn vengeance would end soon.

Vi’ya stepped into the main room.

“. . . gray working in the room with those
Ur-ships got sucked right into a wall,” Tat was saying. She had obviously just
arrived and was still breathing hard. “That skeleton. Hreem believed it was
Norio Danali’s.”

Vi’ya automatically sought Sedry Thetris’s calm gaze, and
saw a nod. The nark had been disabled, then. “That’s correct,” Sedry said. “At
the moment of Norio’s death, the station appears to have imprinted his, oh,
psychic energies in a portion of its substance.” She paused, then continued.
“If it helps any, think of it as a psychic cancer.”

“Morrighon wants us to get rid of it. That’s why I’m here.”

Marim frowned. “How about a trade? If Vi’ya and the others
get rid of Norio, then you get us pass tags so those Ogres don’t zap us when
they do get activated.”

Tat shook her head. “I can’t promise those. I can get the
tags, but without the proper codes they’re useless, and Barrodagh controls the
codes.”

Marim rolled her eyes and cursed.

Drawing attention away from Marim, Vi’ya said, “We cannot
promise to get rid of Norio, though we can try.”

“We’ll need your help, though.” Sedry leaned toward Tat, who
gave a tight nod.

“How?”

“The quantum interfaces let us track him, and it may be that
we could use the stasis clamps as a kind of scalpel to exorcise—excise him,”
Sedry corrected herself with an odd smile.

This was obviously language Tat could understand. “Morrighon
will back us up.” She hugged her elbows close to her body. “I think he’s as
scared as I am. And I’m scared. My cousin Dem is just the sort to get sucked
into a wall.”

Sedry said, “You and I can craft a worm to release control
of the stasis clamps to us. With that, and with the help of Vi’ya and the
others, I’m sure we can eliminate him.”

“Others?” Tat’s eyes rolled fearfully, as if seeking hidden
tempaths in the small room. “Oh! Yes. You mean the Eya’a.” Tat gave a short
sigh. “Why not bring up the Suneater, so we can get rid of this thing from
inside?”

Vi’ya shook her head. “We cannot power up the station now.”

Tat’s already pale skin blanched. “What do you mean, you
can’t?”

“Must not,” Vi’ya said, and looked at the rest of her crew.

Sedry nodded slowly, Montrose as well. Marim merely went on
with the three-way game she’d begun with Ivard and Lokri, who with Jaim all
gave Vi’ya subtle signals of approval. “Two reasons. The most immediate is one
we can tell Morrighon and Barrodagh. If we power the station suddenly, we risk
increasing Norio’s power. We must try to contain him without boosting that of
the station.”

“So we do that now,” Tat said, her voice shaky as she looked
down at her compad. “I can’t stay long. Morrighon is going to come for you
soon. The heir wants to talk before the attempt.”

“I know why,” Vi’ya said. “Do not worry about it.”

But Tat was going to worry, that was painfully clear in the
pucker of question and worry creasing her brow. Vi’ya sustained an upwelling of
pity. Vi’ya had learned that if one projected assurance to those depending upon
one for strength, then it lent them strength.

Tat shook her head. “You said two reasons. If we get rid of
this Norio thing, why can’t you just start the station then? Everyone wants
it—it’s clear the automatic power-up will take forever—and Eusabian will start
getting impatient soon. All the underlings are terrified, and even Lysanter is
nervous.”

Vi’ya said, “Because the nicks are coming.”

“I know that.” Tat’s voice squeaked up an octave. “That’s
why we have to start this chatzer up!”

Montrose shook his head. “You don’t understand. The nicks
are coming to rescue us—we’re in it with them. This is a volunteer mission.”

Sedry added, “I haven’t lied to you, but I have withheld
data that you’ve probably sensed.”

Tat’s face had turned grayish white around her huge eyes.
“That code. I’ve seen it again. That’s the Ares nicks, then?”

“Can’t be,” Sedry said. “If it had originated from Ares, then
it would not have balked at my ID. The fact that my retirement was not logged
indicates it was from Arthelion.” She pressed her lips together, then added,
“And very deep.”

“We have heard nothing from the nicks,” Vi’ya said. “But we
are waiting for them to arrive.”

“They are here,” Tat said softly, her eyes stark. Now she
was sharing her own secrets—ones that would cost her life should she be
exposed. “Traces all over Lysanter’s data. Skip-and-zap raids, transponder
bombs, other blunge. They are here. Now. Barrodagh and Juvaszt goin’ rizzy. They
know they’re out there, but not what they are waiting for.”

The words impacted Vi’ya like a jac-bolt. Added to the
continual stresses, the never-quite-banished exhaustion, the news unhinged her
grasp of time and place as instinct reached across light-years for the
blue-eyed, silent mate she knew was waiting—fighting against his own temporal
and logistical stresses—for her to act. An oath fulfilled, a covenant kept:
faith cleaving unto faith.

She opened her eyes to discover the others watching her in
silence. To Sedry she said, “It is time to send that signal.”

Sedry compressed her mouth to a line as she nodded,
self-possessed to the last. “We can try. Tat, we will need your help.”

Vi’ya faced the others. “This is what we practiced for
during those weeks aboard
Telvarna
.
The Unity is not strong enough to do what needs to be done. This is the
beginning of the end, and I will need each of you to give me your focus.”

“This is the end. And I want to be alive for it,” Marim
said. She seemed bored and restless, but there was no guilt in her face or in
her emotional spectrum; no guilt and no interest. “I don’t see how I can stay
alive if I let things like Norio’s ghost get at my brain—and for what? To be
shot at by Ogres?”

Ivard extended both his hands across the table. “You are
needed,” he said softly, his green eyes utterly serious. “We all need you.”

Marim stared back, her small hand tapping the table near
Ivard’s supplicating fingers. And it seemed as if his plea would prevail. Though
self-preservation and profit had always been her supreme motivators, even above
pleasure, she had never been a coward.

But then Lokri flipped his cards down, and touched her
shoulder, and said, “Ante up, Marim. We’re all in this together.”

Her chin lifted. Lokri’s silvery eyes narrowed; always, in
his own way, preternaturally sensitive, he recognized his mistake the moment
Vi’ya felt Marim’s emotional spectrum change, the ugly anger-laced jealousy
foremost.

“That’s not what I remember on Ares,” she said. “Everyone
except me knew that plan. And the other day, everyone except me was in on the
bunny fun.”

Jaim closed his eyes as Marim slapped down her cards and
rose, looking around in challenge. “Do what you want. I’m off to the rec room
to look for my own fun.”

And without a look backward, she left.

Tat’s hands clutched her elbows, her emotions starkly clear
to Vi’ya. The flicker of imagery from the Eya’a included a brief but vivid
glimpse of Hreem the Faithless. Tat expected Marim to go to him, which meant
she knew about that relationship. Which, in turn, proved that Barrodagh was
behind it.

Anger burned through Vi’ya.

Lokri pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Vi’ya, it
was my mistake. I’m sorry.”

Vi’ya forced her voice to stay calm, steady, unemotional.
“It is as well. If she feels so ambivalent, her strength would be diminished.
Let her be, and chide her not. This is Barrodagh’s doing. He is trying to
divide me from my crew.”

The others made motions of agreement, and Vi’ya turned to Tat.
“If we can successfully send our signal, the nicks will come, and we will do
our best to start the station and turn over control to them.”

“With Eusabian and his Ogres standing right there?” Tat
asked, wringing her hands.

“And Anaris your eighth?” Lokri grimaced.

“Anaris,” Tat repeated. “Anaris? You didn’t say he was part
of it!”

Her fear was so strong that Vi’ya felt it as a physical jab,
like an icicle through her eye into her brain.

How much longer can I
endure this?
She had to endure it, and she had to shut out any thought of
Brandon. No memory, no emotion, no thought.

So what should she tell Anaris? How much to trust him? Would
he be able to exploit the Unity when they were working together and find out
what she wished to keep hidden?

Again, there was no reason to burden Tat with any of this.

“He has a psychic gift that can aid us, although this is not
known,” Vi’ya said.

Tat swallowed visibly and gave a jerky nod. “If you really
can read minds when you’re doing whatever it is you do in that Throne Room,
won’t he be able to read yours as well?”

“We humans cannot read each other’s minds without the help
of the Eya’a,” Vi’ya said. “And they don’t know Anaris enough to read his
well—or to give him access to ours. With concentration purely on the task at
hand, we will be able to convince him we are doing our best.”

Ivard’s gaze flickered.

Tat compressed her lips as she studied Jaim, who was still
bruised along his jawline and temple. One hand rested below wrapped ribs. She
grimaced. “They get him, too?” And when no one answered, she said, “Well, at
least we’re safe from that now.”

“Yes,” Vi’ya said.

o0o

“I would like to review your preparations for defense of
the ship lock,” Morrighon said to Chur-Mellikath, the commander of the Tarkan
forces on the Suneater.

The Tarkan turned to the wall screen. Bright stars of light
lingered where his finger touched it. “I have placed heavy-weapons squads here,
here, and here, backed up by secondary forces in these locations. Furthermore . . .”

Anaris relaxed in his chair, watching the byplay between the
powerful, dour commander and Morrighon. As was proper behavior in the presence
of one who was a single remove from absolute power, Chur-Mellikath did not look
at Anaris directly, but the heir sensed something in the man’s demeanor that
had been lacking in previous encounters. Since the Tarkan would not address him
unless he asked a question, Anaris interrupted.

“What effect might the disturbance—” He used a Dol’jharian
word connoting an annoying but largely powerless enemy. “—have on your
efforts?” He would not call Norio “chorahin.”