her instruments 03 - laisrathera (12 page)

“To be accepted,” Solysyrril said, and made a face. “Is that it?”

“I believe so, yes. She has taken the crown in violence; to be bowed to by her enemies as well as her allies will give her the legitimacy she craves, the legitimacy she fears she will always lack because of how she took the throne.”

“Well,” Narain said after a moment. “That makes our lives a little bit easier, anyway.”

“A little,” Solysyrril agreed, but she sighed. Shaking herself, she continued, “So, the three of you, if I can ask: what skills do you have that we can borrow?”

“I’m a pilot,” Sascha said.

“Excellent pilot,” Bryer murmured, surprising Sascha into splayed ears and wide eyes.

Clearing his throat, Sascha said, “Um, right. I’m a pretty good pilot, and can do some engineering. Not much with fighting. Those two fight.”

The Seersa glanced at Bryer. “You’re Eye-trained?”

The Phoenix dipped his head, and her brows lifted. She looked at Hirianthial, still wearing her startled look.

“I am no Eye-trained Phoenix, I fear,” Hirianthial said. “But I have some talent in that regard. I would need a sword to use most of it.”

“A sword we can get you,” Solysyrril said. “What weapon do you need to get the rest of ‘most’?”

“The other I have already,” he said. “I can read minds from a distance.”

Another pause then, but not the appalled silence he’d been expecting. The professional interest with which these aliens regarded him was somehow more comforting; he could almost see them running likely scenarios through their heads.

“How long a distance?” Tomas asked. “Could you read the minds on another ship?”

“I have not made a good test of it, but I doubt it. I would have to try.”

“But do the targets of your mind-reading know you’re doing it?” Jasper asked, curious.

“Not unless I wish them to—or they are similarly trained.”

“Huh.” Narain tapped his fingers on the table. “That could be awfully handy.”

“You with the professional assessments lately,” Tomas said.

Narain grinned. “You got a more accurate one?”

Tomas considered, then offered, “Holy Hell, tell me more?”

Narain nodded sagely. “Very professional.”

Solysyrril snorted. “All right, that’s enough. Sascha-alet, could I trouble you to join Lune in the fore when we’re done here? We’re going to be dropping Fleet-issue repeaters on our way in since your Queen destroyed hers. If you have some expertise in that, the work will go faster.”

“Sure!”

She nodded. To Bryer, she said, “Do you need weapons?”

“Not that you may supply.”

“Fine. Then Lord Hirianthial, if you’ll join me I’ll take you to the armory. The rest of you, duty stations, please. And try not to spill the coffee this time.”

The crew dispersed, and though their movements and conversation remained casual there was steel beneath the affable exteriors, down in the aura where its weight and sharpness hinted at long training.

“They mesh well together, your people,” he commented as he followed the Seersa down the corridor.

She smiled. “They should. It’s how the organization’s designed. Each group’s carefully selected for personalities and skill sets, and then we stay together until we retire, or move to administrative jobs. Our hold’s been together almost ten years, and honestly it feels like ten days. Time just melts away when everyone’s in the proper place, doing something they’re good at with people they like and trust.”

“I am surprised you have attempted to integrate us into that matrix, given how carefully it was fostered.”

The Seersa paused in front of a hatch, aura darkening to a sober gray. “We serve a very specific function for the Alliance, Lord Hirianthial. When you do fieldwork, you’re trained to take advantage of everything to hand. Honestly, it’s a wonderful luxury to have the time to evaluate you all prior to putting you to use; most of the time we’re grabbing for the nearest tool when we’re already in the thick of it. Part of success, then, is being able to improvise.” She grinned and color streaked her aura, confetti-bright. “We get good at improvising in this business.”

“I imagine so.”

“I’m hoping,” she continued, “we won’t need your skills, or the Phoenix’s. But I’m not feeling very optimistic on that count.”

“It doesn’t bother you,” he observed. “What I can do.”

She glanced up at him. “Should it?”

“It has others.”

“Ah.” She shook her head. “Alet, if you really can read minds at a useful distance, you could make the difference between us making a mistake that kills us, and us living. Your talent doesn’t bother me. Very much the contrary.” She smiled. “I suspect the people it does bother assume that you’re interested in what’s going on in their heads… but that strikes me as egocentric. As if you’d be interested in what’s in any one person’s head? And that’s setting aside the impracticality. A person only has so much time. You think he’s going to waste it all going through the infinite number of thoughts passing through the brains of all the people he meets?” She snorted. “It’s fear that talks when people say such things to you, alet. And the one thing we can’t afford in our line of work is to let fear cloud our thoughts.”

As he stared after her, wondering whether it would be his week for the Pelted to bring him up short, Soly stepped into the room. He followed her, and halted there at the threshold, startled at the racks of weaponry: not just the small hand-sized palmers in military-grade editions, but larger rifles, stun and snare weapons, grenades, body armor and shields.

“God and Lady,” he exclaimed. “Do you truly need such things often?”

“Often?” Solysyrril shook her head. “No. But when we do, we really need them.” She went to one of the walls and took down what looked to be a mere hilt. “Here. It’s not a sword like you’re used to, I’m guessing, but it’s what we have.”

“And it operates by some Alliance magic, I presume.”

She chuckled. “I guess it might seem that way.” She turned the hilt to face him and said, “Here, where your thumb and first fingers go… these are the controls. You can get a broad beam or a thin one, a long beam or a short one, and a cutting edge or a blunt one. And you can vary that with the sliders, from most to least of one thing or the other.”

Hirianthial stared at the innocuous hilt. It was unadorned, a slim haft of gray metal with plain grip and guard. It was long enough for his hand, but that was all; it did not have even a pommel for counterweight or decoration, only a socket as if something was meant to be screwed into it. It looked like a toy… but then, so did the palmers, and he knew very well how deadly they were.

“How does one tell?” he asked finally. “What one is wielding? With so many choices?”

“The color,” she said, and flicked it on with a chime. And then there was a blade there, a flattish beam of purple light. “It’s a solidigraph—that’s how it works. Both the visual aspect and the physical. Here, try it.”

Try it! He was torn between an aesthetic horror at the contemplation of this unwanted upgrade to a weapon he’d been trained to use all his life… and a fascination, impossible to quell, at the sheer unlikeliness of the thing. When he took it from the Seersa’s hand, it weighed nothing; felt like an extension of his palm and yet it was a blade. Experimentation with the settings shifted it through the entirety of the color spectrum, widened or narrowed the breadth of it, and changed its shape from very nearly a club to something so thin he lost the sight of it briefly while turning it.

“How before God does one remember all the options while busy with one’s enemies?” he said, astonished.

She chuckled. “That’s what practice is for. We have a room set aside for exercise and training; you’re welcome to use it.”

“I think I must.” He turned the weapon off, noting the chime. “Does it always sing?”

“You can silence it,” she said. “And you can add weights to the grip, if you want to change the heft.” Her ears flagged. “It’s not ostentatious, I know. Consumer models are far prettier to look at. But the Fleet model can recharge by kinetic energy, when you’re swinging it, through induction in a gem grid, via solar power, or by batteries, and the solidigraphic generator is so efficient I’ve never heard of one running out of power. That’s not a weapon that will fail you.”

“I admit to surprise that you even have swords,” he said. “It was not a weapon I thought common to the Alliance.”

She folded her hands behind her back as he tested the controls. “Oh, there are thousands of competitive sword tournaments, and that’s just sports. We have a lot of cultures that prefer edged weapons, and Fleet itself has always issued its command officers swords. It’s a hold-over from the first days of the Pads, which reacted badly to palmers. We’ve since solved that problem, mostly, but we’ve kept the sword habit.” She took down one of the other hilts and turned it, pointing at the empty socket. “You’re issued a pommel based on which service you’re in, and your specialty. So I would have a Fleet Intelligence design, with the dark stars and our motto, but someone from Fleet Naval would have the hawk and stars, and theirs.”

He thought of the ornamentation on the Jisiensire swords and studied the modesty of the Alliance version. No, not modest. Austere, perhaps. Strange how both his culture and theirs obfuscated their steel. One would not look at the haft he was holding and think something so simple could be capable of slicing off a man’s head, and his House set had looked like museum pieces: relics not appropriate to real use, to real blood, to sweat and a man’s hand.

“Thank you,” he said, bowing. “I will take good care of your weapon.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll show you the practice room. You can get to know it better there.”

CHAPTER 9

The new day had not been promising. The confrontation with the Northern Galare contingent yet loomed, and much as she wanted to postpone it, Surela knew it would have to be done today. Thaniet, though sent for the previous evening, had not attended her, and the page she’d sent to fetch forth an explanation for this absence had returned unable to locate her. And now Athanesin had begged a meeting from her, and she could only imagine what new triviality he wanted to inflict on her; he’d been animated by the success of their coup and the receipt of the foreign weapons, and had attempted to sing their praises to her far too many times—men! What did the weapons matter so long as they fulfilled their function? Why trouble her with the details of their operation?

No doubt this would be more of the same, but much as he annoyed her he was still one of her strongest supporters. So after breaking her fast, she summoned him to the receiving room. They exchanged courtesies, as two long-acquainted would, and then she sat in one of Liolesa’s fine chairs in front of a warm fire and waited, with poor grace, for the newest lecture on the possibilities the mortal technologies opened to them.

“My Lady,” Athanesin began. “I know this might not be the proper time for this. But I find it hard to wait any longer, and so I will not.”

The first words, aggressively gilt with the man’s enthusiasm, drew down a cloud of foreboding, and by the end of this recitation, Surela’s teeth were clenched so hard they hurt. Would he really do this to her now? Goddess and Lord, let him be working up to some less ridiculous topic, something less outré—

He went to a knee before her and offered a medallion emblazoned with the Sovenil family seal. “I have admired you all these many years, Lady Surela. I knew then that you were a woman of intelligence and wisdom, as well as beauty and wit. And I know you did not honor my attentions because you were consumed by your plan to fulfill your ambitions. You have done so, as brilliantly as I have come to expect from someone of your quality. I know it is hardly usual to do this, but I put my pledge before you, now. Take me to husband, Lady! How better to consolidate your rule than to take a royal consort and beget yourself a daughter to hold the throne behind you!”

Shocked, Surela gave voice to the first objection she could reasonably speak without revealing the depth of her revulsion. “It is custom to choose a niece for heir, and my sister has a husband—”

“But no daughter, no, nor son yet, and she may never. Why hold to customs that no longer suit your vision for our world? You have taken power for yourself, Lady. You could invest it in your bloodline, direct, and have the training of your heir yourself.”

Of course. Because what she most wanted to do was waste her time raising a child when she should be running a kingdom. Surela said, “Lord Athanesin, this proposal is… is incredible. I hardly know what to say.”

“Say you’ll consider it,” he said, resting the medallion on the table. “I know I am precipitous in advancing it to you, particularly when it is for you to make your interest known. But I feel I can serve you, that I would make a good partner to you, a faithful lieutenant to carry out your aims. In fact, before you decide one way or the other, I beg you, give me leave to prove my worth to you.”

“Prove your worth,” she repeated, numb.

“Let me lead your men to Jisiensire,” he said, his fervor lighting his eyes. “And bring them the news of the change in dynasty. Let me prompt their obedience, and bring back a liege gift from them. Think of how useless rebellion will seem when faced with an entire army in parade dress, banners flying! Just the sight of it will resign them to the inevitability of their surrender. To you, Queen Surela. My Lady. Please, let me do this for you.”

Now she stared at him, finding his vehemence unsettling. “I was planning to lead that army myself. Liolesa would have.”

“You are not the pretender queen,” Athanesin said. “And it would not be seemly for you to ride out yourself. You are above such petty squabbles. I pray you: give this assignment to your truest liegeman. I will make it happen for you, and prove to you my worth. Whatever you answer then, I will accept.”

She considered his bent head. The thought of marrying him was absurd. That was one habit of Liolesa’s Surela thought well worth keeping. Men were troublesome and vain and needed constant attention, and given swords they inevitably turned to rattling them at one another to have something useful to do. And babies! Not that she didn’t find them pleasing, but to spend nearly a full year of her life burdened when she had so much to do already? The whole idea was ridiculous. She would never marry him. Telling him so outright would probably be the easiest course, but… it would also create more instability at a time when she needed all the stability she could foster. Acquiescing to his test would also get him out of Ontine, and away from her, so she might not suffer his constant attentions.