Ruler of Naught (73 page)

Ivard looked at the table. The cloth covering it was richly
embroidered. On its surface stood two tall candleholders, intricately worked in
gold and silver.

Ivard blinked as the blue fire leaped so high that it
blurred his vision. Sitting in the center of the table was a battered old
silver goblet, looking entirely out of place. He touched it with one trembling
finger, acutely conscious of his unnaturally pale skin, the rusty blotches and
scattering of reddish hairs.

“If you are thirsty, drink.”

Ivard spun around so fast he fell against the table, pain
shooting through the unhealed wound across his back. A few paces away, an old
man stood.

“I wasn’t going to steal it!” he blurted.

The man smiled. “I know. Drink, if you desire. That, none of
your treasures could buy for you.”

Ivard stared at the old man. He was sure he’d never seen him
before, yet he seemed familiar. But why did he think him old? There were no
lines on his face. His hair was dark and glossy. Yet he was
very
old.
Ivard was sure of that.

Ivard was also thirsty. He grasped the cup. It was cool in his
hand. Inside, the clear water caught the light from the huge window high above,
shimmering with color. The blue fire mounted, but this time it did not swallow
him. A rich scent welled from the cup. He tasted life. He tasted years and
multitudes as a kaleidoscope of flames infused him, voices whispering and murmuring
in comforting patterns.

He drank.

It tasted like the old woman’s fingers had felt on his
forehead, like the approval in Greywing’s eyes when he got something right
without prompting, like the gentle rumble of Markham’s voice, joking and teaching
by turns, like the genuine interest in the blue eyes of the Aerenarch...

Ivard carefully set the cup down. When he looked up, he
gazed straight into Greywing’s eyes.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. She put out her
arms and caught him in a fierce hug.

“Greywing, you were... in the palace... ”

“Hush, Firehead.” She pushed him out at arm’s length,
smiling; like the old man, nowhere to be seen, she looked old, but young, too,
younger than he’d left her, under the palace, her body lifeless... He pushed
the memory away. It didn’t fit here.

“I lost your coin,” he said.

“No, it’s here.” There was her old special smile. “I’m proud
of you, Ivard.”

He understood. In truth she stood a long way off, even as
she was here, now, and when she spoke his name she meant all of him, as he had
been, was, and would be. To the blue-fire part of him it was perfectly clear,
for its memory reached far back in time; but for the part of him that was a
young and tired human boy, it was too much, and darkness shot through the blue
fire like veins of smoke, whirling him away from her smile into an echoing
peace.

o0o

Anaris watched as Juvaszt stretched in his command pod.
Anaris perceived the gesture as the assertion of control that it was and smiled
in response. Juvaszt’s brow furrowed.

The viewscreen cleared from skip, stars fleeing across it as
the
Fist of Dol’jhar
began to come about for the second skip that would
take it back over Arthelion to deal with the lances that
Satansclaw
and
the other Rifter vessels had failed to stop.

“Emergence pulse!” shouted Durriken at the sensors console.
“One-seventy mark 8, destroyer, course 262 mark 33, coming about for
skipmissile attack... ”

“What?” shouted Juvaszt, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Ruptors! Fire at will...”

A savage blow jolted the bridge. The lights flickered and a
wave of gravitational distortion from unstable gravitors threw several officers
off their feet or out of their pods. Gelasaar clutched at one of his Tarkan
guards.

As Anaris clutched at the back of the captain’s pod for
support, he exulted.
Captain Hayashi, your timing is impeccable!

Juvaszt’s mouth snapped shut. He stared at Anaris, eyes
distended as they’d been at the
eglarhh hre-immash
, the ghost-laying
ceremony. Then he slapped at his console.

“Damage Control!”

“Skipmissile impact on radiants, severe damage to engine
one, automatic shut down sequence engaged; engine two destabilized. Skip
aborted.”

“Enemy vessel has skipped out, no other traces detected,”
reported the sensors officer.

“Communications, raise
Satansclaw
and the frigates
.
”

The unexpected sound of laughter turned the heads of
everyone on the bridge. The Panarch gazed at Juvaszt. Anaris very nearly burst
into laughter himself. Morrighon’s lips twitched as well. Juvaszt wore an
expression of utter outrage, almost betrayal.

“He told you the truth,” said Gelasaar, his Dol’jharian
distorted by a heavy accent. “You left him no choice, nor did his oath.”

The Tarkans on either side of him looked confused until
Juvaszt motioned to them with a savage slash of his hand while he issued a
rapid volley of orders to the Rifter defenders of Arthelion on the other side
of the planet. They grasped the Panarch under each arm and marched him toward a
hatch.

Anaris waited until they reached it before he gave in to
impulse and signaled them to halt.

They obeyed, dropping back when he approached, so that he
and the Panarch faced one another alone. Anaris waited, studying Gelasaar’s
face. There was no hint of defeat, only the well-bred inquiry that indicated
tight control.

Anaris pitched his voice so that only Gelasaar could hear,
and said, “Brandon is alive.”

The physical reaction was all he could have wished; the
Panarch’s head jerked up, one of his hands going to his heart before dropping
to his side.

His lips parted, but Anaris waved to the Tarkans, who
stepped forward, one clamping a hand on the Panarch’s shoulder.

But before Gelasaar was taken away, he shook off the
Tarkan’s hand and bowed, graceful despite his unaccustomed weight in the deliberate
deference of unalloyed gratitude.

Then he was gone, leaving Anaris to face the covert
curiosity of Juvaszt and his bridge officers. Anaris knew they would have
misjudged the meaning of the Panarch’s reactions, having only seen him from the
back, they would assume that a bow of surrender, of defeat. They had not seen
the Panarch’s joy.

Anaris examined his own reaction to that, which had
surprised him. Laughing at himself, he began considering ways to use his fellow
Dol’jharians’ misperception.

Margot Ng closed her eyes as the subtle pulse of the ruptors
died away. On the viewscreen another Rifter ship dissipated in shreds and
tatters of glowing debris.

“It’s your empathy that makes you such a good captain,”
Metellus had said to her once.
“You can put yourself in their minds, see as
they see... ”

And feel as they feel,
she thought. Maybe it was the
core of her success, but she sometimes wished it didn’t hurt so much.

“That’s another empty,” grumbled Commander Krajno. “I wonder
if KepSingh or Armenhaut is doing any better.”

“Evidently these FTL coms are less common than those Rifters
thought,” said Rom-Sanchez.

“That’s good news, of a sort,” rejoined Krajno.

“Navigation,” said Ng, “take us to position three.”

As the stars slewed around on-screen, Ng wondered if their
luck, or lack of it, would hold. As the battle progressed, if you could call
such a spread-out, cold-blooded hunt by that name, their information on enemy
positions became older and less accurate. They’d jumped right on top of their
first victim; the second one had taken almost ten minutes to locate. They could
expect an even longer search for the next one, and eventually their chances
would be no better than a random search. And they hadn’t heard from
Hainu
squadron since the third attack commenced.

“Emergence pulse, courier,” said Siglnt.

“Navigation, hold position,” Ng snapped.

“Message incoming,” Ensign Ammant said. “Flammarion’s got
one, a destroyer. Two frigates and a destroyer have already responded.
Coordinates transferred.”

Ng checked the timing on the message, automatically noting
the uncertainty—still not too bad—encoded by the tactical com protocols. The
courier had taken less than ten minutes to find them. She dispatched one of her
own to find KepSingh, just in case the one Armenhaut reported sending didn’t
make it.

“Navigation, take us in, eight light-minutes out at
forty-five degrees, your discretion.” She tapped her console plot-pane to
clarify her request.

The fiveskip burred harshly. The viewscreen cleared, and a
tactical plot windowed up. She studied the information as the Tenno shifted and
stabilized, hearing without attention the twittering from the communications
section as tacponder information flooded in: reports from Armenhaut and others
in his squadron. Rom-Sanchez’s fingers flickered as he sorted the data,
applying temporal filters.

She sighed. Armenhaut was fighting with his usual
parade-ground style, a flourish of bravado as if he expected his enemy to quail
before his righteousness. He’d not yet gotten his lances away. KepSingh’s squadron
should be showing up soon.

“Let’s take this one,” she said finally, tapping at her
plot-pane. A red circle ringed a Rifter frigate. She turned to Rom-Sanchez. “I
want updates to and from the tacponders as often as you can handle it.
Navigation, take us in to these coordinates, three light- minutes out for an
update. Prepare for high tac-level attack. Weapons, charge skipmissile.”

She paused, feeling the lift in spirits on the bridge. Not
for the first time, she wondered at the human preference for danger to boredom,
a failing—if that’s what it was—that she fully shared.
Perhaps it’s that the
waiting for danger to strike is worse than actually dealing with it.

“Engage,” she said, and there was no more time for
meditation.

o0o

Anderic moved his hands over his console, trying to keep up
with the actions of the logos as that cold intelligence fought the ship for
him. It was using the hyperwave masterfully to coordinate
Kali
and
Mojendaro
.
One of the Panarchist destroyers had taken damage, and they’d failed to keep
him away from the third lance attack. On the viewscreen green fingers of light
reached out and clawed at the last few lances, transforming them into bursts of
plasma and debris that shredded away in the upper airs of Arthelion.

His hands ached, both with the tension of keeping up
appearances and with the effort to keep them from trembling. His exultation had
died away. Loathing filled him at his former captain’s stupidity, worse at his
own cowardice.
What credit is there in following the motions of a machine?
I’m just a chatzing puppet.

He was beginning to think that nothing the Dol’jharians
could do to him would be as bad as what he’d done to himself. He was damned, in
inescapable slavery to the machine that haunted the
Satansclaw
.

“ALL ATTACKING VESSELS DESTROYED,” reported the logos in his
inner ear. Anderic slumped back in the command pod, wringing his hands in his
lap, trying to relax them. At least they were here pot-shotting lances, instead
of dueling with Panarchist battlecruisers in the middle system, or sitting dead
in space like the
Deathstorm
.

He was distracted by a long, considering gaze from Lennart
that he found vaguely threatening. Something had changed. He snorted. No
wonder. That image of her and Luri with the chocolate had become a favorite of
every Rifter ship with a hyperwave. Anderic grinned. Some inspired tech had
dubbed in a new sound track with outrageous noises; just thinking about it made
his sides ache all over again.

Lennart turned away as her console beeped. She listened, her
head cocked. “Signal from
Fist of Dol’jhar
. New attack, coordinates
transferred.”

That’s on the
Fist’s
side. Why isn’t Juvaszt
dealing with them?
“Take us around,” said Anderic, his heartbeat
accelerating again.

The fiveskip burred, ceased. The ship came about, then
skipped again. As the screen cleared, targeting crosses sprinkled the limb of
Arthelion below, while above, tiny with distance, the
Fist of Dol’jhar
hung, with vapor leaking from its radiants.

Because they don’t have a logos.

Wearily, Anderic began his deadly charade anew as the logos
mercilessly slaughtered the lances diving toward the surface they would never
reach. He wondered how long the Panarchists could keep this up.

“DEBRIS SIGNATURE INCONSISTENT WITH HUMAN OCCUPANCY,” said
the logos. “INSUFFICIENT ORGANIC TRACES.”

Anderic frowned. That was strange. Were they throwing
empties now?

“Sensors, scan the debris for organic residue again.”

After a moment the tech replied: “Different signature,
Captain. Not enough organic molecules.” He looked up, brows raised. “I think
they’re empty.”

“Communications, signal the
Fist
.”

The harsh features of Kyvernat Juvaszt windowed up.
“Report.”

“Scans indicate the lances are now unmanned,” said Anderic,
too weary even to attempt an ingratiating manner.

Juvaszt stared at him, then the image froze. A few seconds
later it jumped to a new view of the Dol’jharian captain as transmission
resumed. “Cease fire and skip to these coordinates,” said Juvaszt. “You will
cooperate with the destroyers
Hellmouth
and
Bloodknife
and the
frigate
Golden Bones
to destroy the Panarchist battlecruiser attacking
the
Deathstorm
. Stand by for further orders after emergence. Juvaszt
out.”

The screen blanked. Anderic stared at it for a moment, empty
of emotions, and then began issuing the commands that would take them into
battle again, conned not by flesh and blood, but by the crystalline incarnation
of warriors long dead. Did they even care, he wondered, if they died again?