The Thrones of Kronos (15 page)

Tat turned around again, her lips compressed. She loathed
the Dol’jharian custom of addressing Bori by full name, with no family
appellation; it felt like a rebuke to unruly children.

But she said nothing as she bent to gather up the data chips
that had scattered across the console. She took comfort in the simple task as
she waited for her heart to slow. The chip labels glinted in the true-spectrum
lighting of the lab, which, along with its abundant stasis clamps, made it feel
like one of the safest places on the station.

Allouette’s Stress
Algorithm for N-Dimensional Integer Fields.

It was like being back on the
Samedi
, whose aged computer had never been properly flushed out.
You had to use read-only chips for critical programs, or they’d get eaten by
the vermin code that four hundred years of operation had accumulated.

Handbook of
Morphological Constants.

Here on the Suneater, it wasn’t age, but the constant data
warfare of the Catennach—and those of lower castes with the knowledge—that made
the station’s arrays so dirty. She wondered why Lysanter, himself an
accomplished noderunner, tolerated it.

Ogelson’s Hypersieve.

Tat breathed deeply as a sense of order gradually
reassembled in her mind, and with it, hope. She was in tight with the Urian
specialist, although she didn’t trust him for a moment.
He’ll do anything for his synthesis.
But he gave her whatever
algorithms she asked for, and accepted her explanations without demur. She’d
told Nyzherian she was using this one to map some patterns she’d seen in the
quantum interfaces. She’d even built some functional structures with it. But it
was in laboriously scavenged hidden space that she used the Hypersieve far more
effectively in its true purpose: cryptography.

Mind orderly, she bent to the task of ordering her workspace,
then turned back to her console, to discover that the pattern discriminators
she’d set up indicated a strange sort of double pattern during the tempath’s
attempt. One died away entirely. The other seemed to persist, although awfully
close to the noise level. As she tried to tease the data out, a
neuraimai
clamored for attention,
announcing a correlation with past data: the persistent trace seemed to be a
transform of patterns seen in all past attempts, in a complex harmonic pattern
based on primes.

Tat almost laughed. Her temkin code using Ogelson’s adaptive
algorithm had actually yielded results. But what did it mean? Regret suffused
her. She’d have to delay her crypto; Lysanter would demand more analysis, and
she’d better get it out of the way now. She dove back into work, mind so
focused she was surprised when the shift ended and the next crew came in to
take over.

As Tat rose to make way for her replacement, he glanced
furtively to either side, without turning his head. Her gaze dropped to his
hands, which semaphored rapidly.

Tunnels-change—new-tunnels.

Then he pushed by her and seated himself in the pod without
once looking up, and Tat knew they were being watched.

She finished stacking her backup work, then departed.

Out in the corridors, she glanced at faces, and when she saw
a friend, she signaled:
Tempath?

Alive
.

Tat was glad. She didn’t know those Rifters—they might well
be as nasty a bunch of scum-suckers as her former crewmates aboard the
Samedi
—but they were Rifters. She wanted
them to win.

So far Lar said they weren’t scum, which made his sudden
reassignment to them feel like good fortune. Something she’d thought impossible
here. Tat knew they owed that to Morrighon, although as yet she didn’t know
why.

Nor would she let it worry her, for now. Morrighon wasn’t
leaving the station before she was, and her main goal was to get away. As soon
as possible.

Back in the tiny room she shared with her cousins, she
unlatched her belt pouch and totaled her work counters. If she was careful, she
would be fine until the next issue day.

Not that she went to gamble, or as the Dol’jharians more
primly put it, “compete in table games”—she went to hear gossip. But it
wouldn’t do to go without something to spend.

With a return of her earlier fear, she scanned the tunnels
on the way to the rec room. They appeared unchanged. Or were the lights dimmer?

Oh, how she longed for real light—even the refracted starlight
from space—instead of this false yellow glare that was never dimmed, someone’s
attempt to overcome the psychological effect of the red-glowing walls.

It doesn’t work.
But it would be suicide to complain. Even full-spectrum wasn’t good enough, and
she couldn’t spend all her time in the lab, anyway. Even if she wanted to,
which she didn’t. The scrutiny of Barrodagh’s minions was too strong there.

The rec room was intact. Two stasis clamps held the door
open; the scaffolding around it looked like someone’s mouth held open with
steel clamps. She winced and dashed through.

Inside, things looked normal. At one side Bori were busy at
consoles and tables, their voices higher and lighter than those of the
Dol’jharian ordinaries who congregated on the side of the room with the most
clamps.

Tat scanned the back, where a segment of wall puckered and
released in a slow rhythm, as if something beneath it was breathing. Those
lowest in status were forced to stay there, and sure enough, she saw Dem
squatting too near that wall, rocking back and forth in a gentle rhythm as he
smiled at nothing.

She rushed straight to him, then careful not to startle him,
touched his hand.

He opened his eyes and turned his face up. “Tat,” he said
happily. Dem was always happy—as long as the authorities ignored him.

She bent down to kiss him, drawing him firmly away from the
undulating wall. Nobody would look out for him. She knew the Dol’jharians would
find it entertaining if he were sucked in.

She sighed, and coaxed him to one of the games, where he was
soon lost in watching the images. She played both sides as she listened to the
talk around her; nobody cared enough to notice that he didn’t play.

An hour or so later, Lar’s fingers slid under her hair and
caressed her neck. She looked up. His thin, expressive brows twitched upward.
Her heartbeat quickened when she recognized in Lar’s huge pupils and his compressed
mouth that he could barely contain his excitement.

“Tatriman!” someone called.

Tat whirled, and relaxed when she recognized Lenorragh, one
of her coworkers at the data center. Behind her walked a handsome Bori she’d
seen infrequently—and had carried hand warnings from. His face was
heart-shaped, not round like most Bori, marked by beautifully articulated
bones, framed by blue-black hair, as glossy as it was curly.

“This is Romarnan.” Lenorragh indicated her friend. “He’s
with the life-support crew.”

Lar said, “Bad one today?”

Romarnan sighed. “Could have been worse. We only had a few
breakdowns—or it would have been doubles for us again.”

They all sneaked quick peeks to see if they had been overheard.
Work counters could be taken away from anyone who complained about double
shifts. With some of the goons, mere mention of extra work was considered
complaining.

But the low buzz of conversation around them did not break
or diminish, so they settled at a table near the game console, where Dem still happily
watched, the colors reflecting on his face.

“New set of tunnels,” Romarnan said in a low voice as Tat
cut the cards. “Mapping expedition next shift, and then we have to light ’em.”

“That’ll make it even worse for Delmantias.” Lenorragh
wrinkled her nose in a quick grimace. “Everyone wants stasis clamps, but
Lysanter’s got the cims for more analysis and quantum interfaces.”

Sudden movement a couple tables away caused them to shift
the subject to the card game. A new player settled at the next table. Tat
recognized him from Barrodagh’s office when she had to go in and rewire his
console. She made the signal for goons, and they spent the rest of the game
talking about their cards. Tat was careful not to win or lose too much.

She trusted Lenorragh, and her instinct was to like
Lenorragh’s friend, who seemed to talk before he thought, which would explain his
low status on a work crew. She worked hard not to remind the other Bori that
she had been a Rifter for most of her life. Made it easier for everyone.

There was only one bad moment, when one of the Lords’
runners appeared, but someone unknown to either Tat or Lar was the unlucky soul
beckoned out, and conversation and movement promptly resumed.

Back in their room, Tat and Lar went first. It looked safe
enough; the dimensions had changed, but the bed had not been swallowed, nor the
messy tumble of storage lockers.

They entered the disposer with Dem and watched over him,
ready to yank him at the first sign of any sucking. He didn’t know he was being
guarded, which was all right. When he stepped into the shower, Tat took her
turn. Her bladder was burning. It was a relief to let go at last.

Lar held her hand, tightening his grip when they both felt
the floor ripple gently. When she was done, Lar had his turn, and as Dem had
wandered off to bed by then, they showered together.

Since Tat hadn’t had time to do her daily sweep for narks,
Lar said under the hiss of water, “Dem found real treasure.”

“What?” Tat exclaimed. Was this the cause of the excitement
she’d seen earlier?

“Ur-fruit. New kind—hallucinogenic. Dem finds ’em by smell.
Manrimac, who leads his work detail, has ’em stashed. We get a cut of sales.”

The timer shut off the water, so that was the end of the
conversation. She dried hastily, too tired to check for narks. So they climbed
into bed, and were soon warm, their limbs tangled up with Dem’s. He was already
asleep.

Lar’s fingers stroked absently at her belly, which made
her—tired as she was—tingle all over. “New duty,” Lai whispered into her ear.
“Have to take the Rifters’ food to them myself.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Montrose—that’s the chef—wanted some of their food from
their ship. Someone said no, of course. Now they get limited choice from the
Lords’ kitchen, but I take it direct.”

“Why, so no one else gets a chance at it?” Tat sighed in
disgust. “Sounds like more of Barrodagh’s twistiness.” To force the workers to
eat the same food every day was a stupid piece of cruelty, and needless. If the
Dol’jharians really didn’t know how to install kitchens, they could strip one
off a ship they’d captured, she thought indignantly. Even the poorest Rifter vessel
had kitchens and monneplats with small bins of frozen meals waiting so you
could order at least a few choices. The big ships had huge frozen storage
lockers, not to mention better synthesizers and hydroponics —and so could
something the size of this station. Of course, they had that for the Lords.

“At least the Ur-fruit tastes are getting better and better,
even if you avoid the expensive ones,” she said.

“The ones that addict you, you mean,” replied Lar. “Those
other Rifters think we’re crazy to eat any of it.”

“Even the tempath?”

“Can’t tell with her. Maybe.” He hesitated.

“You think she knows something?” asked Tat.

He shook his head; she felt the motion next to her. “Too
soon to tell,” he murmured. “But listen. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the
third-shift crew in the recycler is feeding confiscated foods to the walls. So
maybe it’s getting safer.”

Tat sighed. One more thing to worry about. At times she
almost wished she had third shift, though that meant working under the jacs of
Tarkans. That was when Barrodagh and Lysanter and the other high echelons were
asleep.

It was probably better to be on first shift, though it meant
longer hours; Barrodagh had long since taken an hour from rec shift and sleep
shift to add to first. Apparently he always worked through rec shift as well,
which would explain why he had all those rules about complaining.

Tat had also heard rumors of the heir, Anaris, wandering the
tunnels during third shift. But then he could sleep when he wanted and as long
as he wanted.

Which reminded her of a new threat. She sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Lar’s fingers paused.

“Don’t stop,” Tat whispered. As the gentle fingers traced
over her skin, she snuggled closer to her cousin. “You don’t feel it? Tension
in the ordinaries?”

Lar assented with his own sigh. “Heard talk in the kitchens.
Almost time for their Karusch-na Rahali again, isn’t it? But on
Samedi
Morrighon told us we’re safe.”

“From lords,” Tat said. “Unders—who knows? We’ll watch the
other Bori. Do what they do.”

Lar shook his head, and his soft hair tickled her ear.
“Imagine, a life with no bunny.”

“Well, they bunny enough during this Karusch-na blunge, or
we wouldn’t be worrying.”

Lar slid his arm under Tat, his breathing harshening.
“That’s not bunny, that’s war.”

She snickered.

o0o

Ivard found himself napping more and more often. There was
little else to do in their quarters, aside from the Ulanshu Kinesics, and the
room wasn’t big enough for the full series of kata. At first, the emanations of
the station seemed to enhance the directed dreaming that increasingly blended
his consciousness with the growing Unity in a wordless communion of perception.
Many times he visited, in memories not his own, the warm humidity of the
scent-drenched Kelly home world or the frigid wilderness of the planet of the
Eya’a, which resonated so strangely with Vi’ya’s memories of grim Dol’jhar.

He hadn’t dreamed of Anaris and the knife and blood since
he’d finally seen Eusabian’s son in the flesh. As brief as that experience had
been, before the Tarkans tranked them in the landing bay, it seemed to have
discharged the nightmares that had plagued him on Ares.