Voices of Chaos (33 page)

From the tone of the message, Zhenu at least still believed their joint force to be larger than the Emperor's.

It
was
larger--but the gap was rapidly closing, and Khezahn had an edge in tech. Zhenu was known to dislike computers, certain that anything stored in one could be broken into by

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another, laying bare his privacy. Other than the flitter he'd purchased for his son, most of his vehicles were several years old, and though his

communications equipment was the most recent, it was Arekkhi tech.

The Emperor's corn-banks were also mostly Arekkhi, but some innovation had come with the Heeyoons, and he now had the use of the off-world tech Khyriz had brought home with him, and that he'd added since.

By the fourth day, Khyriz was finding it difficult to eat or sleep.
At least Father
is not keeping me out of sessions,
he thought as he drew on a plain blue zhona-silk robe for the day and hurried toward the Council chamber. He was the only Arekkhi with close knowledge of the outside, the CLS, and their representatives; the Council listened to him.

The Emperor was already seated in his usual chair; baskets of sweetened breadsticks and jugs of herbed water had been placed along the table, indicating Khezahn had ordered another long session. No one else had arrived yet. "Father, I have a request to make."

The Emperor's eyes were tired as his own; he gestured toward the nearest basket and said, "Eat. You do your friends no service by going hungry. What request?"

He took bread, forced himself to bite into it, chewed, and swallowed without tasting and said, "Even when we locate Alexis and Magdalena, it may not be safe for them to return here. Station will be no safer. I ask permission to call the new jump station--I know you wish to keep this secret until everything is resolved. But... if there is nowhere safe for them here, or if war should follow--''

"Unpleasant, but possible. The Prelate shows no sign of unbarring his entry, and now Khedan is missing from his rooms where I had him confined. No doubt he has taken sanctuary, and tells Nijho everything he knows. But the delegates would be safe in the new palace."

"Perhaps, Father. I thought the old palace--this whole island--safe until it was proven not to be. Also, they may-- may not wish to stay here, or to see any Arekkhi ever again." He hoped that would not be the case; he couldn't be certain. Magdalena's exhausted face from that short transmission hung 226

in his thoughts. "There is an outsider FTL ship at the new station, and a woman I know from StarBridge. She works on the computers and she also can pilot that ship. I want permission to call Dana Marshall and ask if she will bring the ship to a point near the station or one of the moons, where a shuttle could meet it and take my friends to safety. Nothing Zhenu has would be a match for the CLS ship."

Khezahn was alarmed. "But Khyriz, what if the Dana-she warns the CLS that their Interrelator has been taken?"

"She might. Father, they will know anyway, from Magdalena and Alexis. Or if the captors find a way to send a message out? That isn't impossible. But CLS will not act immediately. They are far enough away, it would take some time for them to reach us. And I know they would not attack us without hearing what we have to tell them. They would not attack if Alexis and Magdalena were still missing. I..." He gestured frustration. "I worry that...

when we find them, there will be such danger that we
must
send them away at once! Father... I do not trust Zhenu."

"Wise of you, Khyriz." The Emperor closed his eyes and considered this, finally gestured assent. "Yes. To retrieve them safely, only to lose them again, or have them killed... that would be a terrible sorrow, and a dreadful message to send the CLS. But Khyriz, Zhenu may already have ordered them killed."

The Prince wanted to protest that, but he knew better than to underestimate the cold-blooded
zhez.
"I know it. But he planned this, and he is calculating.

He may guess how the CLS would react, but he can't know. He may hope to bargain with you for their two lives, or perhaps he hopes to negotiate directly with the CLS. But Alexis is trained for such... situations. She knows what to say to keep them alive."

The Emperor considered this. "You know the interrelator better than I. And her training. But Zhenu plays his silence as a most effective weapon against us. He surely counts on continued uncertainty to weaken and divide the Council." He picked up a breadstick, wrinkled his nose, and tossed the breadstick back into the basket. "Make your call, Khyriz. Then return; the station satellite begins to operate again, and the

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techs promise we will have new images before midday." Khyriz made a respectful gesture of temporary farewell and hurried out, passing two of the newest members of his father's Council.

Both were between his eldest brother's age and his father's: young to be given such honor and responsibility. And one was distant kin of the Empress, a male who had schooled with Zhenu and had frequent business dealings with him. The choice made no sense to Khyriz, until Khelyu had explained it: Wahhr openly disliked the Iron Duke and his methods of extracting profit from his estates. Also, Wahhr was fascinated by outsider tech; he had hopes of petitioning the Emperor and the CLS for the right to establish a training school in Ebba to teach use, maintenance, and repair of new equipment.

The other, Yuchne, was common, once professed to the Prelatry, but dismissed after years of service on lowland Dagona for performing blessings on all pets and beasts brought for a five-year ceremony. One of them had been an ahla-Asha. The priest had justified his actions by asserting that Asha and Arekkhi were separated from each other, yes; but only by the Arekkhi lack of tails and the Asha lack of spots. And Khyriz knew (as most Arekkhi did not) that many Asha were born with shadow spots, just as occasional Arekkhi were born with vestigial--or even complete--tails.

Yuchne's family had protested the dismissal, and the Prelate had only then threatened to add a charge that Yuchne had violated law by seeking to prove a genetic match between Arekkhi and Asha.

The grown Yuchne had inherited a modest fortune and used it to hire chemists who sought antidotes to the damage caused by the voice-killing drugs.

Once inside his old rooms, Khyriz checked the nail-patch before he keyed on the household computer, then his Star-Bridge portable. The protected com he'd used to betray Ulfar would not reach as far as the half-completed jump station, unfortunately; that meant delay-time, which meant he'd be dealing with an irritated Dana; the always-busy tech loathed the waste of her valuable time. The only other time he'd dared call her from on-planet, merely to check on the scheduled

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arrival time for the incoming ship carrying Magdalena and Alexis, she'd set his ears quivering with her pointed remarks.

It took time to get the call programmed in, to make sure he'd taken all possible safeguards against interception. The call was voice-only: Easier to set up, faster response times, and he was aware how haggard he appeared just now. No point in frightening the woman.

He could picture
her
very well as her voice came over the system, fifteen standard minutes after he'd sent the initial call. Her Mizari was quick and unaccented, but her speech in any language conveyed the same thing: too much to do, and not enough time to accomplish it all. Black hair fell to her shoulders, thick and wavy, surrounding a slender face and a warm, full-lipped smile. Dana had snapping dark eyes and capable, long-fingered hands equally at home on computer boards or that wheeled sitting-conveyance that served as her legs most of the time. "Khyriz? Long time, no hear! What's up?"

"Dana, bad things. A... an insurrection the night of the welcoming ball, rebels entered the old palace and captured Magdalena and Alexis. We have not found them, but have hopes. The ... they may wish to leave Arekkhi for good, or it may be that they must, for safety reasons, and at once. My father permits me to ask if you could bring the FTL to a point where my shuttle could meet it so you could get them safely away...." His voice trailed off; he keyed the transmission and prowled before the corn-system while he waited.

Fifteen standard minutes later, Dana's crisp voice exploded into his apartment. "Damnit, Khyriz! This better not be a joke! You know how much work I've got out here and how screwed up this stupid computer system is?

Half the hardware's been dropped, and the software doesn't even begin to mesh like it should and ..." A deep sigh. "All right, I know you wouldn't pull a stunt like that. It'll take me--let's see--nine hours Arekkhi to check the ship and get to either a point off one of the moons or a point near the station--I'm assuming you don't want me to dock, right?--and it'll cost you. Remember that hover-chair you promised me, back on StarBridge? Well, I'm getting tired of replacing batteries in this mechanical wheeled thing, the gravity-adjusters aren't working, and I don't have

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time to mess with it! And the hand-push chair is as big a pain as walking, out here." Silence. But just as he was about to key in
send,
her anxious voice came on again. "You really think there's a chance we'll get them back? I did all four years at StarBridge with Alexis and if you ever saw Magdalena dance... sure, I know you did. Saw the two of you hugging and swaying in place on the dance floor in the Spiral Arm a few times. Tell me where, I'll be there." He waited, no further transmission came through, and he finally keyed in
send.

"Dana, I will personally arrange for a hover-chair. You should have accepted my offer a year ago, the
ekrhos
to pull you around."

She laughed at that. "Yeah, all I need, a hard-to-train oversized beast with an attitude. I remember what you said about how much they eat! I can't afford that and I don't have the space. Pull strings with the CLS and get me a service-trained dog, would you believe they're still listed as pets? And Earth won't ship pets. Anyway, I'll leave the direct-mail system on, you tell me where and when, and the ship will be there." She cut off before he could even key
send
to offer thanks.

The call to Dana counted as a plus, but that was the only one for the entire day. The station transmissions gave no coordinates and showed only fuzzy images that could have been nearly any part of the vast highlands on either Akkherif or Mibhor. The images couldn't be shapened beyond a certain point; the initial vid had been of bad quality.

One brief vid was intriguing: The satel ite had picked up a low-flying generic shuttle. The machine had vanished almost immediately, possibly beneath a stone-tiled roof. Of course, there were such shuttles everywhere: Most of the noble households owned one, and these days so did the wealthier merchant families and cooperatives. Still: it wasn't often one would be landed in open country. That would take skill.

One member of the Council peered at an enlarged, blurry still of one stubby wing barely visible under the flat stones. "It resembles the old storage barns for steam-flyers," he said finally.

Wahhr keyed up the same image on his screen, enhanced a

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corner of it with a voice command, then gestured agreement. "If the Emperor permits, there are lists in the main clerks' system of old buildings. It may be possible to create from them a shorter list of specific kinds of buildings."

"Go," the Emperor ordered mildly and gestured to his Heir. "Send a message to the chief clerk that the councillor's task holds priority."

But by midafternoon, the councillor was back, a noticeable droop to his ears.

He'd created his list, but there was no data for any of Zhenu's holdings: It had recently all been deleted.

At full dark, the Council was still at work, now over mugs of chill yellow
khref-wine,
spiced meat, and bread; the talk had turned military. Khyriz had listened with minimal interest to his brother Khelyu's reports on numbers, placement of camps and supplies, and finally left with a promise to his father that he'd eat and sleep.

He intended to sleep--but not here. Zhenu must be holding Magdalena and Alexis on his highland Akkherif estates; his own estates weren't very far from the Duke's eastern borders. He couldn't wait here any longer. He had to
do
something.

Alexis looked around carefully before she sat up and stretched. They were alone in the chill little cave with its blocked-off entry. She got stiffly to her feet. The stone floor was hard and the pad under them inadequate; the over-cover thick, but grimy. Half a dozen flattened, grubby pillows completed their most recent "bedroom." She ached all over and couldn't remember the last time she'd been clean.

It was still better than their previous "cell." Once that shuttle had climbed out of the atmosphere, it had immediately returned to the planet--but when they'd emerged, it had been to a place completely unlike where they'd been. The ground was hard, dry, the only growth in sight some stunted, tough-looking bushes. Rocks, boulders, jutting stones--and constant wind. There'd been a drafty hut partway up a dry canyon, three filthy rooms, and a tiny lavatory.

The room they'd been locked in wasn't much larger than the toilet. Their captors had only provided a blanket after Alexis began shouting through the door that they were going to die of exposure. She and

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Magdalena had spent the night sitting up, huddled together for warmth and what little comfort they could get from the physical contact.

She still hadn't seen any faces; only one of the rebels spoke to them directly, and no one said anything
around
their captives. It had frightened Magdalena, almost as much as that rough shuttle flight and the ghastly landing. Or the way they were permitted use of the toilet One at a time, while the other sat under the watchful eye of a stunner-wielding Arekkhi.

Alexis tried not to think what that weapon would do to a face at such close range. It was enough to keep them from trying to escape.
Barefoot, and who
knows where on this planet?
she thought gloomily. If there had been a chance, it would have been in the old palace.