Ruler of Naught (62 page)

“What?” Hreem snapped. “I thought the engines weren’t up
yet.”

“That’s just it, Captain,” came the scantech’s voice, all
traces of its usual drawl effaced by anxiety. A moment later his face pushed
into view over Dyasil’s shoulder. “It takes hours to bring the engines up
safely, but the cruiser’s are comin’ on-line right now. Somebody’s taking the
Plasma Wager, and I think they’re gonna lose.” He jerked his thumb up. “You’d
better get out of there.”

Before Hreem could reply the image fuzzed and tore across in
a pattern of zigzag lines, re-forming moments later into an unfamiliar face.
Dark, deeply lined, with a high forehead and thin lips compressed into a
snarling smile, the man glared madly out at Hreem and the other Rifters.

“Don’t, Captain,” he said, emotion distorting his speech
into a guttural accent that Hreem immediately recognized. “I want you to join
me for the final voyage of the
Paliach ku-Avatari
.” He glanced down,
evidently checking some instrument not in the imager’s field of view. “The
Avatar’s
Vengeance
, you would say in that puling tongue you Panarchists use.”

The image jittered. A ripple of gravitational energy tugged
at Hreem’s innards, and on the screen, the Dol’jharian’s face distorted in a
flash of agony. Hreem slapped at the console, bringing the yacht about, fear
screaming through his nerves. Norio moaned in pain.

“Now I take my name into the darkness, and with it your
hopes of glory.
Attarh ni-grishun ta nemmir Hreem alia ni-Takha...
”

Hreem slapped the go-pad, cutting off the man’s cursing in
midsentence. The fiveskip burred, then cut out.

“... say in that puling tongue you Panarchists use.”

Hreem tapped at the console with wooden fingers, his mind
numb. The viewscreen flickered to a view of the
Maccabeus
now several
light-seconds distant. Unable to magnify the image as much of the better
sensors of the destroyer Hreem was used to, it also revealed the
Flower of
Lith
stationed nearby. As he watched, the destroyer vanished in a burst of
light as it, too, fled.

The wavefront carrying the curses of the Dol’jharian agent
had caught up with them, but the man did not lapse back into Uni before his
voice cut off with a choking scream. A burst of glaring-bright vapor shot from
the radiants of the cruiser, sending bits of the superstructure of its dock
spinning away into space. Then, in the utter silence of vacuum, a network of
cracks shot through the hull, revealing a growing brightness from within that
grew and grew until the electronics of the yacht refused the overload and
blanked the screen.

When the viewscreen cleared there was nothing left but a
rosette of plasma, churning in a complex pattern that slowly faded against the
stars.

Hreem sat in silence. Norio hovered in a corner, his face
manic. No one else moved; Hreem knew that they all feared his anger.

All except Riolo.

The Barcan approached. Hreem saw his own reflection,
distorted weasel-like in the little man’s goggles. Riolo’s breath was sweet
with some unfamiliar spice.

“I know where there is something that Eusabian needs even
more than a battlecruiser,” he whispered. “And there are no Dol’jharians
there—never have been, never will be.”

Hreem considered this, rage suspended by curiosity.

‘Take me to Barca with you,” said Riolo, “and I will give
you an army of such power that even the Shiidra wailed with fear at their
appearance.”

“Army?” Hreem croaked.

Riolo smiled and pulled his goggles up, his pupils instantly
contracting to pinpoints and tears springing into his eyes. Hreem remembered
Norio commenting that this was the ultimate Barcan gesture of sincerity.

“Yes,” said Riolo. “I will give you the Ogres.”

Mandros Nukiel stared moodily into the depths of the mug in
his hands, grateful for the warmth its gold-green contents radiated into his
fingers. He raised it to his lips and sipped; the tangy, sour-spiced tea
pricked his tongue as he swallowed. His brightly-lit cabin was silent except
for a faint susurration from the tianqi. They were simulating the warmth of
high summer on Sync Ferenzi, balmy breezes carrying the scent of oranges, but
he was still cold.

It was an iciness of the mind, not the body. Soon they would
emerge over Desrien to face—what? Nukiel set the tea down on the table next to
his chair. He had never felt more alone.

And it wasn’t just Desrien. The interception of the Rifter
ship with the Aerenarch aboard had plunged Nukiel into the midst of high
politics, with no precedents to guide him. Had the Aerenarch indeed, as the
Rifters insisted, given them leave to loot the palace? And how had the
Aerenarch escaped death in the Mandala at his Enkainion? Had he been warned, or
had he been running away? One thing was sure, Nukiel couldn’t ask directly,
and risk getting an answer that would force his hand. And behind all that, the
ghost of the Lusor affair, which had touched the very highest levels of both Navy
and government.

He was glad that the Aerenarch hadn’t demanded an interview
and seemed content to wait. But what they found at Desrien would likely mean a
conversation could not be delayed any longer.

It didn’t help that the gnostor Omilov had refused noetic
questioning, as was his right, and although he had spoken freely in their many
conversations since the interception at Rifthaven, he’d said very little about
the Aerenarch. Nukiel had the sense that the younger Omilov also knew more than
he was saying, and although Nukiel could order him to talk (noetic questioning
would require a court martial, definitely a star system too far), he was
content to leave that to the Ares command.

But their silence was also a relief. The Aerenarch had made it
clear that he was on board the
Mbwa Kali
only in the civilian role of
his title, so Nukiel was simply an escort, safely outside of political reach.

Technically safe. When it came to the Arkads, there was no
such safety.

In the meantime, he had the not-very-believable stories from
four of the Rifters, whose noesis, of course, revealed only what they believed
to be true, not the truth itself, and then only if you knew what questions to
ask.

Which left the two Rifters who’d been able to refuse noesis.
The Douloi from Timberwell, whose status couldn’t be confirmed due to the late
unpleasantness there, and the tempath. The Chief Wrangler had pointed out that
if she had the mind link with the Eya’a she claimed—and there was no reason to
doubt it, seeing that they hadn’t slaughtered everyone in the interception lock
when the
Telvarna
was captured—there was no telling what noesis might
provoke. And that being interpreter, as it were, to the little sophonts with
their ambassadorial status, she might actually have diplomatic immunity.

Nukiel groaned.

He rubbed gently at the com button set in the arm of the
chair, aware of the focus of forces it represented. A slightly stronger
pressure on the tab, a few words, and he could loose more firepower than all
the armies in all the wars of Lost Earth. So why did he feel so helpless?

The annunciator chimed, rescuing him from his thoughts.

“Enter.”

The hatch slid open to reveal the slim form of Commander
Efriq.

“Come in, Leontois,” said Nukiel, signaling the informal
nature of their meeting before the other man could salute. “Can I get you
anything?” He waved toward the chair facing his.

Efriq seated himself. His nose above the debonair mustache
wrinkled and he pulled his collar a little looser. “You’re drinking that vile
tea of yours, with the heat up like this?” He fanned a hand near his face.
“Nothing for me, thanks.” Then, looking more closely at Nukiel, “You catching a
chill?”

Nukiel chuckled, a humorless sound. “You might say that.”

“Ah.” Efriq looked around the cabin. The lighting sparked
highlights from his glossy, close-slicked black hair. “The magisters’ll do that
to one.”

They shared a companionable silence.

“You’ve been to Desrien, haven’t you?” Nukiel said finally.

“Low orbit,” replied Efriq, “as close as’ll do for a
lifetime, for this one.” He shrugged. “Not much to tell, really, I was an
ensign on the
Thunderous
when it was assigned to map Desrien.” He
sighed. “The government never gives up, does it? Every thirty years or so, like
a stable orbit.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Well, that’s as it is. They
fitted that old frigate with every kind of sensor you can imagine. I was on the
bridge when the captain hailed Desrien Node and the machinery patched him
through to somewhere on the surface.”

“He asked permission?”

“After what had happened in ‘99, he didn’t dare otherwise.”

“And what did they say?”

“They just laughed. Not jeeringly, no arrogance, just—well,
rather bemused, like they couldn’t understand why we couldn’t get it through
our heads that it just wouldn’t work.” Efriq shook his head. “They told us to
go ahead, but not to attempt to land.” His brows went up. “Not that anyone
wanted to.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, at first. Captain Enneal put us in a low polar
orbit that took us over the entire surface. Everything ran smooth as woven
monothread.”

He fell silent again. Nukiel took another sip of tea. “And
then?”

“And then Siglnt tabbed in the command for the
discriminators to go to work on the data. Everyone was watching the screen for
the first coordinates to come up. Next thing we knew, the lights just flickered
a bit and Siglnt’s console started squealing like a wattle with its tail caught
in a hatch. The computer had crashed.”

He shook his head again. “We kept trying. Got the computer
back up—next time it crashed, the bit-rot somehow spread into Environmental.
Air started to smell like old socks.”

Efriq got up and walked over to the shelf displaying
Nukiel’s awards. He laid an index finger gently against one plaque, and
continued without turning around. “Captain didn’t give up then, either. We
ended up limping home on one engine, with gravitors that couldn’t maintain a
constant gee-force from one section to another, and worst of all, the galley
refrigerators broke down and the food synthesizers would only deliver stale
beer and Pnahian jiggle-cheese.”

Nukiel choked on a swallow of tea and his sinuses stung.
Gasping, he laughed out loud.

“Pnahian cheese? That’s the stuff that—”

Efriq turned around and nodded, his upper lip lengthening in
prim disapproval. “Smells like a corpse’s armpit.”

“Well, that, but the chatzing stuff moved, constantly, right
on the plate, the one time I saw it.”

“It moves even more when you try to swallow it,” Efriq said
with morose humor. “It being all we had, we did try. Now I know why no one but
a Pnahi can stomach it.”

“But I was told they can’t get enough of it.”

“Which is why they are about as popular in small, enclosed
spaces—like a frigate—as a case of Medlybbi Fungusdrool.” Efriq walked back to
his chair. “But we got off easy, compared to some.”

Nukiel nodded, the urge to laugh dissolving like the steam
from his tea. The expedition of ‘99 had simply vanished.

Efriq reseated himself and leaned forward. “Mandros, why did
you order us to Desrien?”

Nukiel carefully replaced the mug on the table. “I was
summoned, I believe—it has something to do with the Aerenarch, and the others—”

The comm chimed softly.

“Nukiel here.”

“Captain, emergence at Desrien, three minutes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pele. Have Communications patch the Node
relay through to my cabin.”

He tabbed the communicator off.

“We’ll soon know for sure. I want you here for this,
Efriq—if I’ve blown up my career, I’d like at least one person to understand
what happened.”

Efriq nodded and settled back in his chair. There was
nothing more to say, until the Magisterium spoke.

o0o

As a fitful summer breeze tossed the branches of the trees
shading the cloister garden of New Glastonbury, a stray sunbeam struck through
the half-open window of Eloatri’s study, refracted by the beveled glass into a
rainbow segment dancing on the polished wood of her reading desk. A portion of
her mind noted the quiet clicking outside the window that marked the progress
of the gardener with her shears, ministering to the gardens with the severe
love of her calling. Then the chuckling mimicry of a mockingbird drew Eloatri
fully out of her book—tick-tack-tick, too-wit, too-wit, birdie, birdie,
birdie—followed by a snatch of amazingly accurate bell sound that made her
laugh.

She put the book down and stretched, inhaling deeply of the
scented morning air, cool yet heady with orange and jasmine, jumari, and hints
of rosemary and less familiar scents from the knot garden outside her window.
Then the bells of Glastonbury clamored in reality, striking eleven times.

One hour before Sext,
she thought. Unbidden, a bit of
pedantry from the book bubbled up:
Sext is the hour of Peter’s vision at
Joppa, in which the universal mission of the church was revealed...

Eloatri sighed. As helpful as the books and chips were, it
was the routine of the Daily Offices that was doing the most to settle her into
her responsibilities in this, regrettably, still somewhat alien faith. She
tugged at her clerical collar, then, aware of the motion, dropped her hand into
her lap and swiveled about to look out the window.

What was the name of that ancient bishop in Rome, that her
clerk had told her about? Peregrinus, Pellerini? Selected bishop by a pigeon
landing on his head when he wandered into a church out of curiosity. She knew
what he must have felt like, and wondered what kind of bishop he turned out to
be.