Nova (25 page)

The sensory recorder had been left on to record and re-record so that the room was crowded with multiple dancers and the ghosts of dancers. Idas played a counterpoint of sounds and images on the Mouse's syrynx. Conversations, real and recorded, filled the room.

"Though all these dance around me now, I make my art for a mythological audience of one. Under what other circumstances can I hope to communicate?"

Tyy stepped from among Tyys and Sebastians. "Katin, the door-light flashing is."

Katin flipped off his recorder. "The Mouse and Captain must be back. Don't bother, Tyy. I'll let them in." Katin stepped out of the room and hurried down the hall.

"Hey, Captain"— Katin swung the door back— "the party's going— " He dropped his hand from the knob. His heart pounded twice in his throat, and then might as well have stopped. He stepped back from the door.

"I gather you recognize myself and my sister? I won't bother with introductions then. May we come in?"

Katin's mouth started working toward some word.

"We know he's not here. We'll wait."

The iron gate with its chunk-glass ornamentation closed on a scarf of steam. Lorq looked about the plants in silhouette against Taafite's amber.

"Hope they still have a party going," the Mouse said. "To go all this way and find them curled up in the corner asleep!"

"Bliss'll wake them up." As Lorq mounted the rocks, he took his hands from his pockets. A breeze pushed beneath the flaps of his vest, cooled the spaces between his fingers. He palmed the circle of the door plate. The door swung in. Lorq stepped inside. "Doesn't sound like they've passed out."

The Mouse grinned and hopped toward the living room.

The party had been recorded, re-recorded, and re-recorded again. Multiple melodies flailed a dozen dancing Tyys to different rhythms. Twins before were duodecuplets now. Sebastian, Sebastian, and Sebastian, at various stages of inebriation, poured drinks of red, blue, green.

Lorq stepped in behind the Mouse. "Lynceos, Idas! We got your— I can't tell which is which. Quiet a minute!" He slapped at the wall switch of the sensory recorder— From the edge of the sand-pool the twins looked up; white hands fell apart; black came together.

Tyy sat at Sebastian's feet, hugging her knees: gray eyes flashed under beating lids.

Katin's Adam's apple bounded in his long neck.

And Prince and Ruby turned from contemplating Gold. "We seem to have put a damper on the gathering. Ruby suggested they just go on and forget us, but— " He shrugged. "I'm glad we meet here: Yorgy was reluctant to tell me where you were. He's a good friend to you. But not so good as I am an enemy." The black vinyl vest hung loose on his bone-white chest. Ridged ribs scored it sharply. Black pants, black boots. Around his upper arm at the top of his glove: white fur.

A hand slapped Lorq's sternum, slapped it again, again. The hand was inside. "You've threatened me a great deal, and interestingly. How are you going to carry it out?" Bearing Lorq's fear was a net of exaltation.

As Prince stepped forward, a wing of Sebastian's pet brushed his calf. "Please .. ..." Prince glanced down at the creature. At the sand-pool he stopped, stooped between the twins, scooped his false hand into the sand, and made a fist. "Ahhhh .. ." His breath, even with parted lips, hissed. He stood now, opened his fingers.

Dull glass fell smoking to the rug. Idas pulled his feet back sharply. Lynceos just blinked faster.

"How does that answer my question?"

"Consider it a demonstration of my love of strength and beauty. Do you see?" He kicked the shards of hot glass across the rug. "Bah! Too many impurities to rival Murano. I came here— "

"To kill me?"

"To reason."

"What did you bring beside reasons?"

"My right hand. I know you have no weapons. I trust my own. We are both playing this one by ear, Lorq. Ashton Clark has set the rules."

"Prince, what are you trying to do?"

"Keep things as they are."

"Stasis is death."

"But less destructive than your insane movements."

"I am a pirate, remember?"

"You're fast on your way to becoming the greatest criminal of the millennium"

"Are you about to tell me something I don't know?"

"I sincerely hope not. For our sake here, for the sake of worlds around us ..." Then Prince laughed. "By every logical extension of argument, Lorq, I'm right as far as this battle goes. Has that occurred to you?"

Lorq narrowed his eyes.

"I know you want Illyrion," Prince continued. "The only reason you want it is to upset the balance of power; otherwise, it wouldn't be worth it to you. Do you know what will happen?"

Lorq set his mouth. "I'll tell you: it will ruin the economy of the Outer Colonies. There will be a whole wave of workers to relocate. They'll swarm in. The empire will come as close to war as it's been since the suppression of Vega. When a company like Red-shift Limited reaches stasis in this culture, that's tantamount to destruction. That should kill as much work for as many people in Draco as the destruction of my companies would mean in the Pleiades. Does that begin your argument well?"

"Lorq, you are incorrigible!"

"Are you relieved that I've thought it through?"

"I'm appalled."

"Here's another argument you can use, Prince: you're fighting not only for Draco, but for the economic stability of the Outer Colonies as well. If I win, a third of the galaxy moves forward and two thirds fall behind. If you win, two thirds of the galaxy maintains its present standard and one third falls."

Prince nodded. "Now, demolish me with your logic."

"I must survive."

Prince waited. He frowned. The frown parted with puzzled laughter. "That's all you can say?"

"Why should I bother to tell you that the workers can be relocated in spite of the difficulty? That there will be no war because there are enough worlds and food for them— if it is properly distributed, Prince? That the increase in Illyrion will create enough new projects to absorb these people?"

Prince's black brows arched. "That much Illyrion?"

Lorq nodded. "That much."

By the great window, Ruby picked up the ugly lumps of glass. She examined them, seeming unconscious of the conversation. But Prince held out his hand. Immediately, she placed them on his palm. She was following their words closely.

"I wonder," Prince said, looking at the fragments, "if this will work." His fingers closed. "Do you insist on reopening this feud between us?"

"You're a fool, Prince. The forces that have pried up the old hostilities were moving about us when we were children. Why pretend here that these parameters mark our field?"

Prince's fist began to quiver. His hand opened. Bright crystals were shot with internal blue light. "Heptodyne quartz. Are you familiar with it? Mild pressure on impure glass will often produce— I say 'mild.' That's a geologically relative term, of course."

"You're threatening again. Go away— now. Or you'll have to kill me."

"You don't want me to go. We're trying to maneuver a single combat here to decide which worlds fall where." Prince hefted the crystals. "I could put one of these quite accurately through your skull." He turned his hand over; again shards fell on the floor. "I'm not a fool, Lorq. I'm a juggler. I want to keep all our worlds spinning about my ears." He bowed and stepped back. Again his foot brushed the beast.

— Sebastian's pet yanked at its chain. Sails cracked the air, jerked its master's arm back and forth— "Down! Down, now you go ..."

— the chain pulled from Sebastian's hand. It rose, swept back and forth beneath the ceiling. Then it dove at Ruby.

She whirled her arms around her head. Prince dodged at her, ducked beneath the wings. His gloved hand struck up.

It squealed, flapped back. Prince whipped his hand again at the black body. It shook in the air, collapsed.

Tyy cried out, ran to the beast, which flapped weakly on its back, and pulled it away. Sebastian rose from his stool with knotted fists. Then he dropped to his knees to minister to his injured pet.

Prince turned his black hand over. Wet purple blotched the nap. "That was the creature that attacked you on the Esclaros, wasn't it?"

Ruby stood up, still silent, and pushed dark hair from her shoulder. Her dress was white, rimmed at hem, collar, and sleeve with black. She touched her satin bodice where bangles of blood had dropped.

Prince regarded the mewing thing between Tyy and Sebastian. "That almost settles the score, Ruby?" He rubbed his hands: flesh and bloody black.

He frowned at his smeared fingers. "Lorq, you asked me a question: when am I going to make good my threats? Some time within the next sixty seconds. But we have a sun to settle between us. Those rumors you mentioned to Ruby have reached us. The protective gauze the Great White Bitch of the North, your Aunt Cyana, drapes about herself, is most effective. It fell the moment you left her office. But we've listened at other keyholes; and we heard news of a sun, about to go nova. It, or suns like it, have apparently been the center of your interest for some time." His blue eyes rose from his stained palm. "Illyrion. I don't see the connection. No matter. Aaron's men are working on it."

Tension rode like pain between Lorq's hips and in the small of his back. "You are preparing for something. Go on. Do it."

"I must figure out how. With my bare hand, I think— no." His brows arched; he held up his dark fist. "No, this one. I respect your attempt to justify yourself to me. But how do you justify yourself to them?" With bloody fingers he gestured at the crew.

"Ashton Clark would side with you, Prince. So would justice. I'm not here because I willed a situation. I'm only struggling to solve it. The reason I must fight you is I think I can win. There's only that one. You're for stasis. I'm for movement. Things move. There's no ethic there." Lorq looked at the twins. "Lynceos? Idas?"

The black face looked up; the white, down.

"Do you know what you risk in this contest?"

One looking at him, one looking away, they nodded.

"Do you want to sign off the Roc?"

"No, Captain, we— "

"— I mean, even if it all— "

"— all changes, on Tubman— "

"— in the Outer Colonies, maybe— "

"— maybe Tobias will leave there— "

"— and join us here."

Lorq laughed. "I think Prince would take you with him— if you wanted."

"Tarred and feathered," Prince said. "Etiolated and denigrated. You've lived out your own myths. Damn you, Lorq."

Ruby stepped forward. "You!" she said to the twins. Both looked at her. "Do you really know what happens if you help Captain Von Ray and he succeeds?"

"He may win— " Lynceos finally looked away, silver lashes quivering.

Idas moved closer to shield his brother. "— or he may not."

"What do they say about our cultural solidarity?" from Lorq. "It's not the world you thought it was, Prince."

Ruby turned sharply. "Does the evidence say it's yours?" Without waiting for answer, she turned to Gold. "Look at it, Lorq."

"I'm looking. What do you see, Ruby?"

"You— you and Prince— want to control the internal flames that run worlds against the night. There, the fire has broken out. It's scarred this world, this city, the way Prince scarred you."

"To bear such a scar," Prince (Lorq felt his jaw stiffen; muscles bunched at temple and forehead) said slowly, "you may have to be greater than I."

"To bear it I have to hate you."

Prince smiled.

The Mouse, Lorq saw from the corner of his eye, had backed against the doorjamb, both hands behind him. Slack lips had fallen from white teeth; white encircled both pupils.

"Hate is a habit. We have hated each other a long time, Lorq. I think I'll finish it now." Prince's fingers flexed. "Do you remember how it started?"

"On Sao Orini? I remember you were as spoiled and vicious then as you— "

"Us?" Prince's eyebrows arched again. "Vicious? Ah, but you were blatantly cruel. And I've never forgiven you for it."

"For making fun of your hand— "

"Did you? Odd, I don't remember. Insults of that nature I rarely forget. But no. I'm talking about that barbaric exhibition you took us to in the jungle. Beasts; and we couldn't even see the ones in the pit. All of them, hanging over the edge, sweating, shouting, drunk, and— bestial. And Aaron was one of them. I remember him to this day, his forehead glistening, his hair straggling, face contorted in a grisly shout, shaking his fist." Prince closed his velvet fingers. "Yes, his fist. That was the first time I saw my father like that. It terrified me. We've seen him like that many times since, haven't we, Ruby?" He glanced at his sister. "There was the De Targo merger when he came out of the board room that evening.., or the Anti-Flamina' scandal seven years ago ... Aaron is a charming, cultured, and utterly vicious man. You were the first person to show me that viciousness naked in his face. I could never forgive you for that, Lorq. This scheme of yours, whatever it is, with this ridiculous sun: I have to stop it. I have to stop the Von Ray madness." Prince stepped forward. "If the Pleiades Federation crashes when you crash, it is only so that Draco live— "

Sebastian rushed him.

It came that suddenly, surprised all equally.

Prince dropped to one knee. His hand fell on the quartz lumps; they shattered with blue fire. As Sebastian struck at him, Prince whipped one of the fragments through the air: thwik. It sank in the cyborg stud's hairy arm. Sebastian roared, staggered backward. Prince's hand swept again over the bright, broken crystals.