House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy) (24 page)

Alexand held up his hand, asking silence, listening intently to something Galinin couldn’t hear, and it seemed to disturb him profoundly. Finally, he turned, eyes narrowed, looking past him to the desk, then around the room.

“Grandser, I’m wearing an earceiver. I’ve just been told that the peripheral shock screens have gone on.”

Galinin became aware again of that prickling sensation of fear that his skin seemed to take up from the air.

“The shock screens? In this room?”

“Does Selig have access to the controls?”

“No one does, except me. Well, there’s the emergency control center for the entire building. But, Alex, why—”

“I can’t explain now.” He rose, a smooth silent motion; he seemed to emanate a feral alertness that only added to Galinin’s uneasiness. “I’ll leave as I came. We’ll have to continue this—”

He had taken two steps toward the doors, but now he froze, staring in the direction of the desk, and Galinin didn’t have time to turn and see what fixed his attention in sudden fearful realization.

A dull thud somewhere behind him.

And Alexand was leaping toward him.

“
Get down! Grandse
—”

Galinin was hurled to the floor, the chair toppling under him. He saw the window glass, reinforced with strands of flexsteel, cave outward and turn frosty with millions of bound splinters.

A lightning bolt had struck the room, the thunder of it a crushing blast; his head and ears seemed to explode with it.

“My lord? My lord? Oh, Holy God—
my lord
!”

Selig’s voice was dim and distant against a rumbling whine that wouldn’t stop, that peaked and ebbed with the agonizing pounding of his heart. Shufflings and murmurings, shouts and pleas. He couldn’t make sense of them, couldn’t hear.

On his back. He was lying on his back. The very weight of his body seemed to press the air from his lungs.

An importunate voice. “Don’t move him! Wait . . . doctor . . . wait . . . doctor coming . . . wait. . . .”

He couldn’t see.

“My lord? Oh, my lord, please, don’t try to move.”

He
couldn’t
move. No. His left arm, reaching across his body, encountering a hand. Selig’s.

Be quiet, Selig. Be quiet.

I must think, remember, understand, I must . . .

Alexand.

What happened to Alexand, Selig?

He turned his head. Lolling like a broken doll’s. But he
could
turn it, and now he could see. At least there were blurred shadows wavering before him.

Where is Alexand? Selig, damn you . . .

He’d forgotten something. Forgotten to make the words into sounds. What if he couldn’t—

There was Alexand, a blur of blue in a clot of black. Struggling. Guards. Damn fools, didn’t they know about his arm?

The image came into focus, and chagrin locked in a burning band around his stuttering heart. He reached out toward the dim shapes with his functioning hand.

“Stop! Let that . . . man . . . go!”

Had he really said the words? Oh, God, if he couldn’t make them understand . . .

Yes, they did understand; the struggle had stopped. But Alexand had fallen.

“Selig, is he . . . alive?”

“I . . . uh, yes, my lord. But, please, you shouldn’t—”

“Listen . . . listen to me. Am-amnesty.” The word seemed so hard to shape. He strained at it, trying to shout it, hearing only a whisper muffled in the shuffling and rumbling.

Two figures came between him and Alexand. Their faces loomed above him at some incredible distance. Still, he knew them. Did they think he wouldn’t?

Orin Selasis.

The waiting vulture.

The other was coming closer. Trevor Robek. Thank the God for that.

“Trevor? Can you . . . hear me?”

“Yes, Mathis. Just rest. You’ll be—”

“No. Selig, you
know
. Docu-mm——’’ Oh, damn, he
had
to get the words out. “Document. I had . . . you draw up—”

“Yes, my lord. The decree of envoy status. Yes, I did draw it up. But, please, my lord, you must—”

“Trevor? Where are you?” It was getting dark in the room. Something had blown the lights out.

“Mathis, I’m here.”

“I charge you . . . witness . . . I decreed—that man . . . I granted . . .”

And finally someone was turning off the noise. Well, that was a kindness.

“. . . amnesty.”

PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:
BASIC SCHOOL
(HS/BS)

SUBFILE: LECTURE. BASIC SCHOOL 18 AVRIL 3252
GUEST LECTURER: RICHARD LAMB
SUBJECT: POST-DISASTERS HISTORY:
THE WAR OF THE TWIN PLANETS (3208–3210)

DOC LOC #819/219–1253/1812–1648–1843252

I’ve always found comparisons between historical figures tempting, and another one I won’t resist is between Lionar Mankeen and Elor Ussher Peladeen. To begin with, they were both the last Lords of their Houses, and both died fighting for the cause of human liberty.

There is even some physical resemblance. Both were tall and fair-skinned, and both had red hair, although Elor Peladeen’s wasn’t the vibrant color of Mankeen’s. And both came into First Lordship of their Houses at early ages with the premature deaths of their fathers, Mankeen at twenty-five, Elor at twenty-four, and both engaged the Concord in hopeless wars.

However, there are equally strong contrasts to be drawn.

Elor Peladeen knew his war to be hopeless even before it began; Mankeen didn’t.

There is also an obvious contrast between the women they married. Mankeen’s marriage to Lady Lizbeth Lesellen was a House union and could never be described as a loving relationship, nor could Lizbeth be described as a true partner and helpmeet. Peladeen’s marriage to Manir Kalister was from the beginning a union of love, and she was very much a partner in his affairs, and a fervent partisan in his cause. She was a descendant of a Kalister VisLord, one of those stranded in Centauri by the Mankeen Revolt, and through various marriages—which I won’t attempt to unravel—actually carried Peladeen blood herself. Elite marriages in post-Mankeen Centauri involved a great deal of interbreeding simply because so few Elite were available for marriages. But although the Elite generally married within their own class, even after the Republic was well established, those marriages didn’t have to be House unions. In this, at least, the Elite were given the gift of choice.

Elor and Manir chose each other when he was twenty-one and she was only sixteen, so it’s said. They were married three years later in 3202, the year Elor was so abruptly elevated to First Lordship. They had only one child, a son, Predis, and I doubt his arrival in a world on the verge of collapsing on his parents’ heads was intentional. He was born in 3208, six years after Elor and Manir were married, and only a month after the onset of the War of the Twin Planets. It’s recorded that Lord and Lady Peladeen were especially loving parents, and I believe that. I’m sure they didn’t want a child—not one who would be condemned by his parentage to an early death—but no doubt that made this child, once born, all the more precious to them.

Of particular interest to us is Peladeen’s aid and encouragement to the Phoenix. He was a man of extraordinary vision, despite his youth, who recognized in the Phoenix a hope for what he knew he would be dying for. Peladeen bore the title of Lord—and with honor and grace—but he was essentially a Republican and far more a proponent of the human right of choice than any of his predecessors in the House, and even more than many of his Fesh contemporaries in the Republic. You know about his funding of the Phoenix, of his vital role in the building of Fina, and the tight cover of secrecy he maintained to protect it. The nonmembers who assisted in the construction had no idea what they were building—they were told it was a military installation—or even
where
they were building. Peladeen told only two people about the Phoenix: his wife and the Prime Minister at that time, Lair M’Kenzy, who was also Peladeen’s closest friend, and it’s a measure of his love for Manir and his respect for M’Kenzy that he shared the hope he took in the Phoenix with them.

But the Phoenix was their only hope; there was nothing else they could rationally take hope in.

In one lettape to Andreas Riis, Peladeen says, and seems to find it amusing, “We’re giving them a hard run, Andreas, harder than they ever expected.” “They” was Confleet, of course, and the Armed Forces of the Republic did indeed give them a hard run. The formal declaration of war was voted by the Directorate on 2 Januar 3208, and that lettape was sent 20 May 3209, and at that point, incredibly, there was still some room for doubt as to the outcome of the War. The Republic’s Armed Forces fought with intelligence, flexibility, and courage that Confleet couldn’t equal. Ultimately, of course, the brute weight of superior numbers shifted the scales, and in the last six months of 3209, the Republic suffered one disastrous defeat after another. Maxim Drakonis had declared himself an ally of the Concord even before the declaration of war, and the Inner Planets served as advance bases for Confleet that were particularly telling in the campaign, since the Republic couldn’t attack them without risking a power outage that would kill millions on Castor and on the Inner Planets themselves. However, it should be noted that Maxim conscientiously maintained the power beams for Castor, although the survival of its population would have had no bearing on his House’s survival, and there is evidence that he had the backing of Constan Galinin in this, although some Confleet commanders wanted to cut off those umbilicals, calling it simply a tactical maneuver.

Peladeen ordered the evacuation of as much of Castor’s population as possible to Pollux, but he didn’t have ships enough to evacuate more than a quarter of its inhabitants. In the last days of 3209, he concentrated the evacuation on Helen and virtually emptied the city, and on 1 Januar 3210, the New Year Day, he and his top military commanders retreated to his Helen estate. Lair M’Kenzy insisted on accompanying him, as did Lady Manir with their son. After the Battle of Helen—which is a misnomer; it should be called simply the
Destruction
of Helen—on 12 Januar, Elor Peladeen’s body was found in the ruins of his estate along with M’Kenzy’s. The bodies of Manir and Predis weren’t identified, but then few of the bodies cast into mass graves after the Peladeen Purge were.

Yes, there was another Purge, and remember, it occurred less than fifty years ago. There are many people here in Fina now who lived through it. I say remember it in order to remind you that the veneer of behavioral codes that make a “civilized” human being is very thin. We are always only the blink of an eye away from bestiality.

There is so much about the War of the Twin Planets and its aftermath that is unforgivable. Perhaps I feel so strongly because it’s so close to me in time. History has recorded worse atrocities. I can’t forgive them, either.

And what justification would I have for forgiving the Peladeen Purge? For the systematic execution of nearly every Republic parlementarian and official, and not only the officers, but every enlisted soldier in the Armed Forces, as well as any Elite even distantly related to the Peladeen or a great many who simply happened to be living in Peladeen’s Centauri? How can I forgive the looting and wanton destruction of the Peladeen Estate, and particularly its museum with its collection of rare art, some pieces dating to Pre-Disasters periods, or the purposeful demolition of the Republic University and its great library? And how can I forgive Kozmar Hamid when on his occupation of the Peladeen holdings on Pollux he declared all surviving citizens of the Republic resident on those holdings—which included most of the inhabited areas of Pollux—his Bonds, whatever their former training or rank, condemning people who had been free citizens, educated and skilled, to a life of brute servitude, and their children to ignorant slavery. Any who objected went before execution squads, and hundreds of thousands chose that alternative rather than Bondage.

Maxim Drakonis and Almor, Lord of the new House of Eliseer, were far more equitable in their treatment of the defeated. Eliseer imposed Bondage on none of the survivors, nor did Drakonis. Almor brought his Bonds from the Cognate House of Camine, and Drakonis, who actually had little need for a large Bond workforce, was granted five thousand Bonds from the Concord. In every other way Drakonis and Eliseer were more merciful and reasonable in the aftermath of the War, but unfortunately Hamid was made Lord of Pollux by a Directorate strongly influenced by Jofry Selasis, and most of Centauri’s population was on Pollux.

Something else I can’t forgive is the treatment of Elor Peladeen by the Concord’s historians. A small thing, perhaps, yet it rankles with me. He has been consistently pictured as a deluded fool acting under the influence of the villainous masterminds of the Republic, like M’Kenzy. Elor Peladeen deserves better. For that matter, so does M’Kenzy. I say Peladeen deserves better not because I think the opinions of the living mean anything to the dead, but because he was a man of intelligence, foresight, and, above all, of epic courage. Such courage is rare in human history, and it’s important that it be recognized and revered. It’s important for the living, for the future living, to know that such courage is within the reach of human beings.

I only hope for our sake, for that of future generations, Elor Peladeen will one day be justly and truly represented in history. His courage is a vital part of our human heritage.

Alexand lay stretched out on the bed scrutinizing the reflections in his boots, his left arm folded under his head, right arm motionless and aching at his side. He’d made himself comfortable to the point of removing his cloak and jacket and opening his shirt. The pursuit of comfort was tolerated in “protective custody,” if not the pursuit of sleep. Even at this late hour, the ceiling was a flat glow of light. Darkness was
not
tolerated here; it would blind the monitors.

There were four sensor lenses, one in each corner, and no effort had been made to camouflage them. The audio monitors were a little more difficult to locate only because they were smaller.

His every move, every sound, was duly recorded.

Yet he had an oppressive sense of isolation that stirred memories of the Cliff. He’d been carefully searched and stripped of the two monitors that had been his link with the Phoenix. Only the MT fixes in his boots had been overlooked; they didn’t register on the montectors.

Still, his accommodations were in marked contrast to those at the Cliff. The room was relatively large, perhaps four by five meters. The walls were a soft blue, the floor covered with a sienna thermcarpet; the bed was narrow, but passably comfortable; and he was even provided a wall-mounted clock-calendar. He looked up at it and watched the numbers change.

24:01 TST. A new day. 15 Octov 3258.

Concord Day was relegated to history.

Commander Alex Ransom was relegated to this comfortable cell in the Conpol Central DC.

But it wasn’t an SSB DC.

He levered himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, his breath catching at every movement, and surveyed his comfortable accommodations. The bed was placed against one of the shorter walls, the head in the corner. The corridor opening—there was no door; only the shimmer of a shock screen— was directly opposite him. Near the longer wall to his right a round table was placed, suitable, he supposed, for dining. Two chairs flanked it. Perhaps they thought he’d be having guests. He enjoyed the further luxury of a private bath. At least it adjoined the room and was separated by a solid door. No square centimeter here was in fact private.

He pressed his hand gingerly to his forehead. He’d survived unscathed the lethal rain of debris from the explosion, but somewhere in the struggle with the Guards, he’d taken a blow to the left temple to add to the aching of his arm. But he was probably fortunate to be alive, and he wasn’t sure why he was. The Conpol officers who brought him here made it clear, if only by innuendo, that they considered him condemned in his guilt.

Yet they wouldn’t tell him whether Galinin was alive or dead.

Grandser
—

The image of that white-locked head, carmined with blood, leapt out of the dim fragments of memory. It was the last thing he remembered seeing before he lost consciousness.

He
must
live. He
must
be alive.

Panic. It waited in ambush at every junction of thoughts. He counted out ten deep, spaced breaths until he had it under control, then rose and went to the window.

It was just beyond the foot of the bed, a rectangle two meters long and one high, affording a splendid view of Concordia from this point on the fifteenth level. He could see parts of the Plaza complex, the shining white shaft of the Hall of the Directorate, and the triple spires of the Cathedron. And he could see the warning lights of emergency vehicles flashing along the traffic grids, watch the Conpol patrols pass in grim formations, and in the distance, see erupting clouds of smoke and fireflies of flame. Probably the Tesmier chemical warehouses. The billow of smoke to the right and half a kilometer beyond probably came from one of the Concord Bond compounds. There were others too distant to identify.

Concordia was no longer the city of lights.

Many of its lights were out by order, he was sure. Curfew. The incessant police patrols indicated that. Some, in broad swaths of darkness, were put out by violence and disaster. And over the city as far as his eye could seek, hung a dirty orange pall, glowing hotly under a burdened layer of cloud.

A cell with a view. A luxury, indeed.

And this hellish view might cost him his life.

The warning was spelled out on the sill: “Caution. This window equipped with shock screen.”

That meant that nowhere in this comfortable cage would he be less than two and a half meters from a shock screen. The limit for safe MT transing was five meters.

Selasis had found an invaluable ally in Predis Ussher. Alexand wondered when Ussher would discover that he hadn’t been so fortunate in Selasis.

No stars in this sky. He closed his eyes. Stars always spelled freedom.

Adrien, if I die, will you live for our sons
?

Perhaps she would, but few human beings could sanely survive the same grief twice.

Footsteps.

The spasm of tension translated into pain. The Cliff. His body remembered. Booted footsteps.

Two booted and one . . . soft-soled shoes.

At length, they stopped outside his door. There were two Conpol guards; one stayed outside in the corridor and switched off the shock screen while the other escorted the third man in. His white tunic and the red caduceus on his allegiance badge proclaimed him a Conmed doctor. A short, stocky, washed-out man of middle age, he blinked and squinted myopically at Alexand.

“This the patient? Well . . . uh, sit down. Might as well sit down.”

Alexand went to the bed and began pulling off the glove, while the guard took up a position a meter to his left, and the doctor looked around helplessly, then brought up one of the chairs from the table. He sat down in front of Alexand, opened his medical case on the bed, then frowned at Alexand’s ungloved hand.

“This has already been bandaged.” He looked to the guard for an answer to that enigma.

“Old wound, Dr. Cambry. Captain Edmin said for you to look it over, maybe patch it up.”

“Oh. Well. Let’s see . . .” He noticed the swollen bruise on Alexand’s temple and squinted at it. “Bit of a lump here, I see.” He fumbled about in his case. “Dizziness? Anything like that? Double vision?”

“No, only a headache,” Alexand replied.

“Oh. Well, uh . . . might as well have a look inside.” Cambry gave a short laugh—apparently that was meant to be humorous—and took a stylus light from his case, then crouched over Alexand, shining the light into one eye, holding his head steady with a hand on the right side of his head. “Straight ahead . . . don’t blink. Good. Well. Now, the other. . . .”

Alexand was finding it more difficult to control his annoyance than his blinking, until he became aware of a sensation in his right ear so unexpected, he might have jerked away if the doctor hadn’t had such a deceptively strong grip on his head.

Cambry had just slipped a miniceiver into his ear.

He was a Phoenix agent.

The glaring light probing his eye, Cambry’s face so close to his, hid his momentary surprise from the guard and the monitors as effectively as they had the actual placement of the ’ceiver.

“Well, everything seems to be . . .” The doctor looked at Alexand’s right hand with a sigh of resignation. “So, I guess . . . uh, the shirt. Better get it off. Here, I’ll help.”

The simple process of taking off the shirt became complicated with Cambry’s help, but it was at length accomplished. He sighed again as he examined the bandaged arm.

“Well, you seem to have . . . well. That hurt a bit?”

Alexand was hard put not to laugh. The man was extraordinarily good in his role, but it was an understatement to say his bumbling handling of the arm hurt “a bit.”

Alexand’s jaw was set as he said, “Yes, it . . . hurts.”

“Oh. I suppose . . . well, better give you something for that.” He rattled around in his case and brought out a pressyringe. “Allergies to analgesics? Enkephaline?”

“Not that I know of.”

As Cambry began the injection into the shoulder joint, Alexand leaned back, making his left arm a prop, reveling in the cessation of pain as numbness enveloped his right arm. Cambry muddled in his case, taking out gauze, tape, scissors, biostatic solution, and ointment. And finally, Alexand heard what he’d been waiting for, preparing himself for; the monitors wouldn’t catch so much as a flicker in his eyes.

A voice sounded in his ear, a familiar voice.

“Alex, this is Ben. I’m on a SynchCom interconn through the Concordia chapter on my personal ’com seq. Ussher probably can’t tap into this. Dr. Cambry is on line with me, too. I’ll give you a fast rundown on the general stat. First, Galinin is still alive.”

It was an effort to control his relief, but again, Cambry’s ministrations made good camouflage. Alexand watched with the vague interest that would be expected while the doctor, in an apparent funk of indecision, finally armed himself with scissors and began cutting away the old bandages.

“. . . He’s unconscious and in critical condition; got hit with some of the flying debris. A life support unit has been set up in the infirmary at his Estate, and a top cranial trauma expert called in. Woolf is overseeing Galinin’s security, and it’s tight. He brought Dr. Stel from his Estate, and except for the specialist and Dr. Perris, Galinin’s personal physician, nobody else is allowed anywhere near him. Woolf’s taken over at the Hall, too; Chairman Designate, and he’s got his hands full. The news about the bomb leaked out and hit the vidicom screens before he could do anything about it, and set off mass panics and riots in nearly every major city in both Systems. He ordered curfews and closed the public transystems except for emergency use, and he went on the screens himself. That probably did more good than anything else, along with getting a good tight hold on the ’casters. According to them, everything’s under control, both in Centauri and the Hall of the Directorate. . . .”

Cambry had the old bandages off and was studying the arm with a fastidious frown. Some of the grafts hadn’t held. In accordance with his orders to “patch it up,” he simply closed the reopened wounds with temporary tape sutures. No doubt his superiors would consider more permanent repair a waste of time.

Alexand watched him, ever conscious of the monitors, the questions in his mind multiplying, straining to be voiced, but he could only listen and hope Ben would answer them.

“We don’t have much info on what happened in Galinin’s office, Alex. A bomb, of course, and it hit dead center on the desk. It had to come from the private entrance, and one thing that’s been overlooked in the confusion is that the Galinin House guard on duty there has disappeared. But nobody’s interested in that. The case is closed, and you’re the one trapped in it. You probably would’ve been shot down on the spot, or turned over to the SSB, except Galinin
did
manage a few words before he passed out. An interesting little sidelight is that Selasis just happened to be on his way to see Galinin when the bomb went off. He had Robek with him; wanted a witness from the other side, I guess. Anyway, that backfired to a point. Galinin told Robek he’d granted you amnesty as an envoy, so Selasis couldn’t ignore it.”

Grandser . . . thank you for my life. And I brought that bomb to you almost as if I delivered it with my own hand
.

“That still hurting some?”

Alexand focused on the doctor and his indirect warning. “Some, yes.”

“Oh. Well, I could give you another shot, I guess. Maybe the dosage . . . hard to tell sometimes . . .”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Cambry shrugged indifferently and went on with his work, and Alexand waited for Ben’s voice, for answers.

“That bomb came from Selasis; you know it as well as I do, but we can’t prove a damn thing, and nobody seems to be interested in looking past you for the guilty party.” He paused, his breath coming out in an audible sigh. Cambry had begun rebandaging the arm, starting, as Erica always did, at the shoulder.

“Alex, I wish to hell you could answer some questions for me; if you saw something or somebody. At least Galinin is still alive, and he bought us a little time with that amnesty decree. Selasis will have to get a Directorate majority to override that. Meanwhile, we’ve got four agents in the DC, and you’ve still got your MT fixes. Cambry will leave a monitor in the room so we can . . . uh, hold on a second.”

Alexand waited, his gaze shifting disinterestedly to the guard, whose attention was wandering, his boredom evident.

Then Ben’s voice again. “Got word through the Concordia chapter—Phillip Woolf just arrived on the landing roof at the DC, so brace yourself. Let’s see what other news I’ve got— oh, our agents in the Selasid Estate say Orin’s hosting a very secret guest in the Security wing with nobody but Hawkwood’s top staff in attendance. It has to be Ussher. No real news from here. Fina’s more or less back in one piece; the recovery’s going well. I—uh, asked Lady Adrien if she wanted to talk to you, but she thought maybe it’d be better . . . well, she said you’d understand. Erica moved her into HS 1’s guest room with your sons. You don’t need to worry about them, and Lady Adrien . . . took it well. About you.”

Ben paused then, searching for words, Alexand knew, words of encouragement. There was no way to let him know they weren’t necessary; he had faith that the Phoenix would do everything humanly possible to save him. And he knew exactly how little was possible.

“Alex, just remember, we’re . . . with you.” Then, after a short, unsuccessful laugh, “Anyway, we can’t afford to lose you now. So . . . later . . .”

The doctor was mumbling to himself as he worked a strip of gauze around the elbow, the guard was tapping impatiently on his holster, and in the distance, the multiple thuds of booted feet echoed.

Father, this wasn’t the way I wanted it
.

The guard roused himself and went to the door to confer with the other guard in the hall. Dr. Cambry seemed oblivious. It wasn’t until the beat of booted steps stopped outside the door that he finally looked up, sought the guard where he had been standing, then peered around at the door.

“Oh, dear. What . . . oh . . .”