Ruler of Naught (45 page)

Montrose waited, huge and patient as a rock.

She said, “I see little profit in a run to Gehenna.”

Montrose’s indrawn breath indicated surprise.

She was about to remind him of Brandon’s stirring speech at
the Chang banquet, but Montrose spoke first. “Yet he’s done nothing to suborn
your crew. Nothing at all. And he has had the time.”

Vi’ya endured a pang of self-mockery. Montrose was not
surprised at the possibility—he was surprised that she’d seen it.

She said, “He has spent his time with
Telvarna
’s
computer.”

It was a harmless enough statement on the surface. But they
both had been there at the Panarch’s palace, when the Arkad had cheerfully
shown them how as a boy he’d broken into one of the oldest systems in the
Thousand Suns, just to write in practical-joke worms.

Vi’ya watched carefully for the delayed reaction, gauging
from it how much he thought he’d revealed of himself in files buried deep in
the system. They all had secret files—everyone did. She’d set herself to master
the systems they designed, just because it was her ship, and it was cheap
defensive insurance. So she knew just how quickly the Arkad had successfully
breached the system.

“I see,” Montrose said, flexing his hands. “Well.” He stared
fixedly at a wall for a time and then shook his head. He did not want to know
whether she had read any of his. “Well,” he said again. “I’ll be in the galley,
guarding your nicks.”

“Be watchful for only one more shift,” she said. “I must
oversee things from the outside for a time.”

He nodded and she followed him out, her mind already racing
ahead to the work she had set for herself. The preliminary diagnostics showed
a lot more minor things that needed fixing than she and Jaim had counted on.
Impatience warred with prudence. She had to supervise the work, and she had to
get away to visit that vendor with a knowledge of Urian artifacts, but all of
it had to be done swiftly. The longer the
Telvarna
was on Rifthaven, the
greater the danger.

Montrose stepped into the dispensary as Vi’ya passed on her
way to the engine room. But Brandon stepped out at the same moment and they
nearly collided.

Montrose had paused, looking back, his brows raised.

The Arkad gave way with a gesture of deference.

Her orders had confined the nicks to the dispensary only
until Montrose returned. The Arkad’s gesture was just elaborate enough to
convey challenge, diffused by the humorous expectation in the tilt of his
head. In just such a manner, Markham used to tease her to speak.

She moved around him and continued on her way.

Sebastian Omilov was startled out of a deep sleep by
bangings and thumpings elsewhere in the ship. Disoriented at first, he remembered
where he was, and waited with painfully-accelerated heart rate for the sounds
of an attack. Nothing happened, except for the rhythmic tappings, clanks, and
clunks.
Ah. That must be the repair people hired by the captain.

After the fourth time he was jerked out of sleep he arose,
donned his robe, and moved into the treatment room. Montrose was seated at his
console, the light flickering on features lined with tension. He look up, his
expression altering to the familiar one of the assessing physician.

“I cannot sleep,” Omilov said, just as a metallic banging reverberated
through the deck plates below their feet.

Montrose smiled. “A good excuse,” he said, “to break. Shall
I brew up some real coffee? Your son is in the galley preparing a meal—I trust
an excellent meal, as we just received our first delivery of fresh comestibles.
I told him to surprise us.”

Osri is not the one to seek for surprises. He will
prepare what he knows best
, Omilov thought with a flicker of humor as he
sat down, not trying to hide how gravity and age and stress dragged at his
limbs. It was almost a relief not to be asleep, dreaming yet again of the Heart
of Kronos, of getting it back within his governance—and waking up to the truth.

“What do you know of the Kelly?” Montrose asked over his
shoulder as he went about his preparations.

Omilov shut his eyes, breathing in the aroma of fresh-ground
coffee beans. “A little,” he said.

“Did you know the Archon?”

“We were acquainted.” At the reminder of the terrible deaths
suffered by those gathered in the Ivory Hall for Brandon’s Enkainion, Omilov
felt a stirring of never-quite-dormant sorrow.

Montrose sat back. “The Archon is not quite dead, it seems.”

Omilov looked up, startled, as his mind finally made the connection.
The Kelly band on Ivard! It seems my preoccupation with the Heart of Kronos
has dulled me to the obvious.

“Death, sometimes, is relative,” Montrose went on musingly.
“That ribbon around Ivard’s arm carries the Archon’s genetic memories. It has
invaded the boy’s DNA. A Kelly physician I’m acquainted with knew as soon as we
walked into the examining room. But if we don’t get them separated soon, both
will die.”

Omilov tugged his earlobe. “This... creates a complicated
situation,” he said slowly. “What can be done?”

Montrose looked grim. “That depends on the captain.”

The hatch slid open, surprising them both.

Lokri entered, smiling. He wore a silky black tunic, tight
black trousers, high glossy boots, and jewels woven into his hair, the effect
of which brought into the sterile atmosphere of the dispensary an air of
polyphonic music and exotic appetites, of danger and passion. Omilov felt old
beyond his years, for it had been long since he’d been in the company of those
who sought such pursuits. Even while young, knowledge of these things appeared
to have passed him by; he had yet to figure out whether he was to be pitied or
envied.

“Lokri,” Montrose said. “What brings you back here?”

The comtech lounged over to the service console, and paused
to take a deep, appreciative sniff of the aromatic coffee. “It seems I came
just in time,” he murmured.

“Want some?” Montrose offered.

Lokri waved a hand.

“Captain know you’re on board?” Montrose asked, reaching to
pour a cup.

“No,” Lokri said, stepping behind him. And before Omilov’s
horrified eyes, a knife seemed to materialize in the fingers of Lokri’s good
hand. He reversed it and efficiently struck Montrose across the back of the
head.

He moved back as the physician fell heavily to the deck.
Lokri smiled across at Omilov. “Either you join him here, or you retire.” He
gestured toward the cubicle. “Take your coffee.” With a humorous air he
gestured to the cup Montrose had just poured.

Omilov did. He moved slowly, trying to buy time, to think,
but his brain refused to work: this was not a situation that called for words,
but action, and he had always been a man of words.

He did pause in the doorway of his cubicle. “Where is the
captain?” he asked, his mind on the Heart of Kronos.

“Probably still in the office wrangling with the techs over
the redesign of that aft cannon,” Lokri answered, pleasantly enough.

“So why...?”

“Good night, gnostor,” Lokri said.

Omilov stepped into his cubicle as Lokri’s fingers hit the
control. The door closed, and locked from the outside.

Omilov set the cup down, dropped onto the bed, and rubbed
his eyes.

o0o

Anticipation made Lokri’s hand tremble. Montrose and the
gnostor were out of the way; Lokri had managed to lock Schoolboy into the
galley; the brainburners slept, or whatever it was they did in their cabin.

Vi’ya had finally gone off the ship, doubtless to seek more
information on the Heart of Kronos. He had no idea for how long. But that was
what made the risk even more fun.

He flexed his fingers, then keyed the Arkad’s cabin hatch open.

On his long wait for Vi’ya to leave he’d entertained himself
wondering what the Arkad’s reaction would be to his appearance as liberator.
Gratitude or haughtiness? Anger? Fear?

The Arkad sat before the console, his face intent. As Lokri
entered Brandon turned his head, his light blue eyes tired.

Lokri lounged against the wall, smiling. “You’re
free.”Brandon lifted his hands from the console and sat back. “Is that a
philosophical observation,” he asked, “or an invitation?”

Lokri hadn’t expected humor in return. He gestured toward
the. “Go,” he said. “Vi’ya left the ship, and her psi-killers usually hibernate
when we first hit a port.”

Brandon tapped the keypads with an abstracted air, then
looked up again. “Sebastian and Osri?”

Lokri gestured with his good hand. “One’s asleep,” he said, wondering
what was on Brandon’s console. “The other occupied with his cookery.”

“How long would Sebastian last in this place?”

Lokri was about to say,
What does it matter?
but he
knew it did matter: the Arkad wouldn’t leave without those Omilovs. But if he
thought it was a temporary leave?

“Let him sleep,” Lokri said, stepping casually to one side.
“Gain his strength. I’ll give you a tour, and you can always come back to
invite the Omilovs to join you.”

Brandon appeared to consider it, and with a quick smile he
tapped something out on the console, saved and cleared it with a gesture, just
before Lokri walked into range. “Very well,” he said. “What do I need to take?”

“Nothing,” Lokri said. “Unless you have some spare AU.”

“Not a token,” Brandon said cheerfully.

“I thought that might be the case, and I am, unfortunately,
down to my last hundred—” He laughed at the look of surprise on Brandon’s face.
“I only sold one piece of my loot, one of the lesser pieces. The more famous
ones are stashed in a safe place against the possibility of identification. For
now, I arranged a little diversion.”

Brandon looked his inquiry, but Lokri said nothing. He
backed out and scanned quickly up and down the short corridor.

Vi’ya did not appear, nor did they hear the scraping of
twiggy feet on deck plates, or the high weird voices of the Eya’a. He led the
way to the hatch.

Just as they reached it, Lokri put out a hand and the Arkad
halted, looking a question.

Lokri handed him a strip of dark blue velvet material with
pale blue jewels across the top. “Speaking of identification...”

Brandon gave an assenting shrug and fixed his mask on, his
ice-blue eyes glinting out from under sapphire gemstones. The mask covered him
down to his cheekbones, effectively blurring his countenance. Lokri pulled on
his mask, twin to Brandon’s except for color. He waited, but the Arkad did not question
the symbolism of the jewel patterns. Or he was indifferent. Lokri was certain
he’d noticed.

As they walked down the softly booming ramp, he glanced
sidelong at his companion, straight and slim in old clothes borrowed from Jaim:
though Granny Chang had given him an elaborate outfit of the sort one expected
to see on high-ranking nicks, Brandon had never worn it since the banquet at
the asteroid.

He walked with a swinging, easy stride that brought Markham
forcibly to mind, as many of his movements did. Watching the body and not the
face, Lokri could almost believe it was Markham at his side again, just the two
of them alone, embarking on one of their twenty-hour Rifthaven runs punctuated
by laughter and games of risk.

Anger, and something not quite anger, twisted inside him.
Vi’ya’s
a fool.

Brandon did not appear to notice the gazes of the hired
guards as they passed from the hanger to the outer hatch.

He
wasn’t
Markham, whose face had always been easy
to read. This was Markham’s highborn sidekick, apparently willing enough to be
entertained.

Lokri would entertain him.

He hit the hatch control and watched in appreciation as Brandon
recoiled from the barrage of noise, colors, and smells.

The corridor, lined with a confusing array of shops,
branched frequently. The crowd thronging the passage exhibited every imaginable
variation on human genes, dressed—or not dressed—in an overwhelming array of
styles, usually augmented by a formidable display of weaponry.

“This way,” Lokri said, his voice nearly lost in the roar of
shouts, whistles, and jangling, thumping music pouring out from all sides

But Brandon heard, dodging quickly around a group of five
tall, thin humans dressed entirely in fantastical tattoos and weaponry. His arm
came close to brushing against the last of them, and she turned, baring filed,
red-dyed teeth. Brandon lifted his hands in a gesture of deference and the
Draco moved on.

Then he stopped, brought up short by a rare sight. Pirouetting
down the corridor was a Kelly trinity. Lokri started past. he’d seen Kelly once
or twice, and outside of speculation about threir sexual habits had never had
any interest in the short, rotund tripeds with their dense lacework of
fluttering, green tape-like ribbons.

But as the Kelly walked past in a waltz-like movement, the
long eye-crowned proboscis springing from threir torsos twisting in a constant
helical motion, Brandon made finger signals, causing a sudden outburst of
hooting and blatting from the Kelly. Lokri stared as the Arkad began slapping
and poking the Kelly—who swarmed around him, bobbing and writhing with renewed
energy, the gaudy, bejeweled boswells on their headstalks glittering as their
“fingers” patted and stroked the Arkad’s head, arms, and torso.

Several passersby gave them curious glances, and Lokri gestured
quickly, getting Brandon’s attention. “Let’s go.”

Brandon came willingly enough, the Kelly dancing on their
way, soon swallowed in the crowd.

Lokri tried to suppress exasperation and alarm. Danger, he
liked—when he chose to engage. “What was that about?” he said, jerking his head
behind him.

“Greeting,” Brandon said, with an air of surprise.

Lokri shut down the warnings he wanted to utter. What he
really wanted to say was, don’t do anything unexpected again.“This way.
My diversion won’t wait forever.”