A Prison Unsought (37 page)

“Unfortunately,” said Willsones, “Gnostor Omilov still
doesn’t feel he has enough information available to narrow it down any more
than that.” She frowned at her console, then continued. “In any case, given
Ares’ position here—” Another line lanced through the star map on the display.
“—our best guess is that we have no more than ten days to launch a rescue
effort.”

“And if not?” the admiral asked,
his mouth tight.

“After that, we would arrive at
Gehenna after His Majesty had landed, and since the Dol’jharians will doubtless
destroy the orbital monitors, and we know absolutely nothing of the planet, we
might never find him.”

Nyberg faced the port again. He said nothing.

“Even if the Isolates didn’t first.”
Ng’s voice was flat.

“Meanwhile,” said
Willsones, “we know that at least some on the Privy Council are still alive:
Banqtu, Ho, Kree, Paerakles, and Admiral Carr.”

All the more reasons to mount a rescue,
thought Faseult,
and
all the more reason why the Navy, by itself, can’t.
With the High Admiral still
alive, Nyberg could no more assume command of the Navy than, with the Panarch
still alive, the Aerenarch could of the government.

“Ten days,” Nyberg repeated, his
gaze bleak.

Tension gripped the back of Faseult’s neck. He assessed
their fighting power—a lamentably simple task. Another battlecruiser had joined
the
Grozniy
in the refit pits on the
Cap: the
Malabor
, badly damaged in
action in the Hellas system. That made three new cruisers, when one counted the
Mbwa Kali
, now doing picket duty
in-system. Three cruisers, a handful of destroyers, and a host of lesser
craft—all they had to attack Eusabian’s super-armed force.
Unless we can recall the Fleet.
Which was the prerogative of the
government—or the high admiral, both of whom were on their way to Gehenna.

“Do you see any signs that a
government will have coalesced by then?” Nyberg asked, still studying the port.

Faseult said to his back, “There are several factions, sir,
among prominent Service Families. Though speculation and social competition are
intense, our reports indicate nothing definite beyond that.”
Which is as neutral a description of the
claws and teeth behind those smiling Douloi masks as I can manage.

Now the admiral did turn. “What about the Aerenarch?”

The commander looked down at the signet ring on his hand.
The ruby eyes of the sphinxes winked in the subdued lighting of the admiral’s
office. “I don’t know. He is active socially, but . . .”

“You have learned nothing more
about his leaving Arthelion?”

Faseult shook his head. “Nothing.”

“We’re running the discriminators
full-time on the data from incoming ships,” added Willsones, “and that’s one of
the top priorities in the search pattern. We’ve turned up nothing beyond what
we already know.” She rubbed her eyes, looking tired.

Nyberg gazed across the room at the official portrait of
Gelasaar hai-Arkad, forty-seventh on the Emerald Throne. Though he was the
admiral’s head of security, Faseult knew there was much that Nyberg didn’t
share with him; he was a very private man. But he was sure that this
uncertainty weighed heavily on the admiral.

“And someone wants it kept that
way,” Faseult added. “Whoever caused the murder yesterday in the South Cap
alpha shuttle bay.”

“The laergist?” asked Nyberg.

“Yes. He was on Arthelion, assigned
to assist one Leseuer gen Altamon, an artist from Ansonia reporting on the
progress of that planet’s petition for admission to the Panarchy. She died at
the Enkainion.”

“And?”

Faseult motioned to Willsones, who returned to her seat.

“As I indicated, there was nothing
new in the ship’s data-nodes,” she replied, “but a search of the records here
turned up a vid about her from the Stella Novostu organization, done a month
before the Enkainion. It shows her equipped with an ajna.”

Nyberg turned to Faseult, who shook his head. “We found
nothing on the body, nor in his cabin on the ship that brought him here. We are
questioning the other passengers, but only as a matter of course: he was killed
with a neuro-jac, which usually implies a professional assassination. Which
might,” he added, “be related to the body we found only hours later in one of
the sub-transits off of Alpha. This one had died of a neurotoxin, perhaps Quartan—one
of the slow and painful ones.”

Nyberg sighed and sat down again behind his desk. He put his
elbows on its surface and rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both
hands.

“I think we can assume the
existence—up until then, at least—of a recording of the Enkainion,” he said
finally. He sat up. “But that does us no good now.” He turned to Ng. “Captain,
have you anything to add?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Except,
oh, an intuition, if you like: the Aerenarch may surprise us all.”

Nyberg merely bowed
politely, and Willsones exchanged glances with Faseult. Alone, they would have commented; before Ng, who was largely an unknown quantity, they maintained the safe shield of strict protocol.

So why is she here?
Despite Faseult’s admiration of Ng and her record, it had taken him aback when
Nyberg attached her directly to his staff, and it surprised him again when she
was invited to this session. Hitherto Nyberg’d had little use for the fiercely
independent cruiser captains, who—entirely within the wide-ranging limitations
of their standing orders—were notorious for their disregard of the careful
infrastructure of Central Command.

“We’ve little time,” Nyberg said.
“We’ll have to force the issue so that a decision can be made, one way or the
other.” He turned to Willsones. “Admiral, can you work up a communication conveying
that deadline, and link it to one of the most recently arrived couriers? I want
to announce it without revealing its true source.”

Willsones nodded, apparently unsurprised. “Not hard at all.
You don’t want an image, then?”

He shook his head. “Too hard to explain, don’t you think?”
He smiled grimly, with a gesture taking in both Ng and Willsones. “And there’s
another reason. Commander Faseult believes there may be a leak in the Jupiter
Project. If we put the right amount of information in this communication,
whoever is at the other end of the leak may reveal a bit too much knowledge.”

Nyberg turned to Faseult. “Commander, I want you to monitor
social affairs in the oneill. Your man Vahn is doing an excellent job with the
Aerenarch, but we’ll need a lot more intelligence about the people he sees.”

Faseult nodded, resigned.

“Captain,” continued the admiral,
turning to Ng, “I’d like you to sound out your officers and crew, and others,
if you like, concerning a mission to Gehenna. But don’t even hint that it’s
being considered—I don’t want to tip our hand.”

Ng said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but I’ve already begun.”

Some of the tension in Nyberg’s face eased. “I thought as
much.” Then it was back again, more focused. “But remember, it may never come
to pass. We cannot defy whatever government may form here—that could shatter
what remains of the Panarchy.”

Now Faseult knew the reason she was there. Whatever
government the civilians managed to put forward could very well be short-lived
if any of Semion’s former cadre of captains showed up.
There’s no room for gloating at the way the civilians are ripping at
one another for position,
Faseult thought as Nyberg dismissed them.
Their ballroom and bedroom skirmishes would
be nothing to the infighting we’d face if either Koestler or sho’Bostian or
Imry survived their battles and suddenly skip in.

Faseult paused at the door and looked back. Nyberg had not
moved; he gazed up at the picture of the Panarch, his thoughts obviously
thousands of light-years distant.

Was any of that man’s
strength of purpose and visionary skill in the one remaining son? Faseult shook
his head and walked out.

“He may surprise us
all.”
I hope for all our sakes that Ng is right.

o0o

Lokri looked down from his ceiling holograph of the black
void of space when the annunciator chimed outside his prison cell.

No one had been to see him since Marim had come a few days
after he’d been locked in this vault. Obviously he was considered too dangerous
for visitors. Either that, or the
Telvarna
crew, quite understandably, had left him to his fate, and were pretending with
all their might they had never known him. He wasn’t all that sure he wouldn’t
have done the same.

He got to his feet, wary though there was nothing he could
do to defend himself; he sauntered toward the visitor’s alcove, because all he
had left was pride, though that was eroding as well.

Instead of some grim-faced interrogator or Naval officer
pretending for the sake of “justice” to be his representation, the face that
appeared was grizzled, ugly—and familiar.

“Montrose?” Lokri dropped into the
pod on his side of the dyplast.

Montrose’s smile was grim. “You were expecting Eusabian?”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone, until
they remember I’m here and haul me out for my mock trial before hustling me off
to summary justice.” His teeth showed on that last word.

“Did you know that your sister is
here?”

Nothing could break the bonds of anger and pain shackling
Lokri since he’d found out that his sister was alive, and on Ares. Not even
being arrested had hit him this hard; that ghost had ridden him since he first
escaped from Torigan.

“Yes,” he said. “They do permit me
a semblance of news. Though no communication.”

“Is that why you’re sulking?
Because she hasn’t been down to visit you?”

Lokri half-rose. “Is there a point? Because I need to get
back to counting stars on the projected field.” He waved a hand lazily
overhead, unable to hide the revealing tremble in his fingers.

Montrose gave an impatient sigh, but he saw that tremble,
and the desolation in Lokri’s thin face that he tried to hide. Montrose knew
the nicks weren’t starving their prisoners, but Lokri was not eating. He said
much less forcefully than he might have, “No, I put up with a search down to my
DNA to come here because two jobs don’t keep me busy enough.”

Lokri expelled his breath. “Your pardon. Speak, I’m
listening.”

“Apology accepted.” Montrose
planted his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “You might not know that
your sister is living on board Tau Srivashti’s glittership. Mean anything to
you?”

Lokri shrugged. “Archon of what, Timberwell? Interesting
rep. I don’t remember anything else.” He laughed. “It has been a while since
nick politics was an interest of mine.”

“Well, it’d better be one now,”
Montrose said soberly. “I came down here to tell you several things. First,
Marim hasn’t been back because she was forbidden. Everyone was; I think Jaim
got the Aerenarch to speak to his guards to let me come, on the grounds that
I’m your physician, and though they look after your physical well-being, I am
in charge of your mental health.”

“What did I do to deserve that?”
Lokri flicked his hand up, an old Douloi gesture that he’d never quite
eradicated from muscle memory. Montrose recognized it because he, too,
sometimes betrayed his own past.

Lokri amended, “I mean, the sudden lack of visitors. Not
your presence, which is a welcome change.”

“You didn’t do anything. It’s
what—I think—someone tried to do to you.”

Lokri sat back. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“This is only a guess. Based on the
absence of information, nothing more, but quite suddenly you were declared
off-limits to all. Vahn, the chief guard at the Enclave, would neither confirm
nor deny my guesses, which I thought revealing.”
As I am certain I was meant to.

Lokri crossed his arms, but his sardonic expression was more
habitual than any indicator of his mood. “Go on. You had arrived at my sister.
Who I scarcely remember.”

“There is evidence she believes
she’s in danger.”

“I can see the nicks wanting to
kill me, but who’d want to kill Fierin?”

“Who wanted to kill your parents?”

“I did,” Lokri said with a bitter
laugh. “Ask the nicks.”

Montrose snorted dismissively. “My job cooking for the Arkad
doesn’t take me but a couple of hours a day—until he starts entertaining. If he
does. So I lend a hand at the general infirmary, where I hear things.” He
paused.

“I’m listening.”

Montrose nodded. “May be no connection at all, but one of
the people on the courier your sister came in with was assassinated when he
walked out of the lock. Another one just got challenged to a duel. Two more
have shown up with a mysterious rash—one that appears as a side effect of a
highly illegal truth serum.”

Hot and corrosive burned Lokri’s anger: at Montrose, at
Fierin, at his parents, at himself. Especially at himself and his total
helplessness. “My parents were killed fourteen years ago. I don’t see how there
could be any connection between that and any of this—including any problems
Fierin might have gotten herself into.”

Montrose shrugged. “All I’m telling you is what I’ve heard.
That sister of yours is walking soft, walking soft indeed. She’s seen
everywhere on Srivashti’s arm, and though I think him the worst sort of
excrescence, I’ll admit he knows how to guard his own. But the rare times she’s
alone she’s been talking to some odd choices. Jaim. Ivard.”

“Crew of
Telvarna
.” Lokri hated the sharp stab of hope. Hope always betrayed
you.

“I’ll know more if she manages to
sit down next to me in a transtube,” Montrose said with a laugh.

Lokri shook his head, the anger dissipating in the cold
glare of logic. “Why would she waste time with you? If she knows who my
crewmates were, she knows the damned Arkad was with us. If anyone can help her,
or me, if she’s even remembered who I am, it’s your Aerenarch.”