A Prison Unsought (18 page)

“Are you asking why I did not
punish you for not obeying our social rules? There was nothing to be gained
from that. As for Brandon, he had to learn to deal with difficult personalities
someday. His safety I entrusted to his guards, both human and canine. And as
you no doubt remember, it sufficed.”

Anaris schooled his face to stillness. He still bore scars
from the savage, crushing bite Brandon’s dog had inflicted. “Except
that after that particular attempt of mine you sent him, and Galen, off to
Charvann. I read condemnation of them in the fact that I was the one to remain
in the Mandala.”

“There was much you could learn,”
Gelasaar said. “Brandon’s learning could as well be done elsewhere. Such words
as ‘worthless’ are easy, but I expect better from you. Why did you try to kill
Brandon?”

“If you are looking for an answer
within Douloi social rules, you could call my efforts an attempt at
intimidation.”

“With what result?” Gelasaar asked
mildly, his oblique blue eyes on the row of double knots Anaris looped with the
dirazh’u in his hands.

Gelasaar knew the what of it: where did his question really
lead? To oblige him, Anaris gave the obvious answer. “With no discernible
result. Before you sent him to Charvann he continued to harass me with
practical jokes exactly as much as ever.”

Gelasaar shook his head slowly, the silver beard, even
un-trimmed and un-brushed, neat and composed. “I had hoped that you would cease
to be so short-sighted,” he said mildly. “Your attempts inspired him to fresh
efforts. Long after he would have cried truce.”

From the control rostrum Margot Ng watched as the gallery
high above the Situation Room slowly filled.

From the back rows, Commander Sedry Thetris, former
revolutionary and present traitor, commenced her secret recording.

The chamber held perhaps a hundred seats, each with its own
analysis console, arranged in ranks rising steeply above the bank of
presentation consoles at the front where she sat. She could see most of the
seats without turning her head, and for a short time amused herself watching
those gathered below puzzling over the new Tenno they saw on their consoles.

But restlessness, that sense of urgency that had possessed
her ever since the battle of Arthelion, caused her to check her chrono yet
again, then turn to take in her officers: Lieutenant Commander Rom-Sanchez and newly-promoted
Sub-Lieutenant Warrigal from the
Grozniy
(watching
the assembled officers’ reactions to her new Tenno with that fixed, unnerving
stare of hers), and the tactical officers from the
Babur Khan
and other ships that had fought at Arthelion. She wished
Nilotis could be present, but at least he could listen by com from the surgery.

At her right sat Admiral Trungpa Nyberg, commander of Ares
Station.

Two pairs of double doors opened into the gallery. Ng
noticed with a surge of impatience that with few exceptions, the ship captains
and other space officers invited entered through one, and the civilian analysts
and station officers, the latter mostly older men, entered through the
other—the visible evidence of the late Aerenarch Semion’s polarization of the
Navy.

Then the elegant
severity of a Douloi tunic among the blue and white of Naval uniforms drew her
eye, the wearer an older man followed closely by a young Naval lieutenant, who
ushered him to a console and seated himself next to him. Their similarity of
features marked them as father and son—their fleshy earlobes triggered her
memory.

The Omilovs. An
interesting story: the elder Omilov tortured by Eusabian in the Mandala where
that Dol’jharian autocrat had usurped a thousand years of Arkadic rule, the
younger credited with rescuing the last Arkad heir from the siege of Charvann.

Admiral Nyberg stirred restlessly, then leaned out to scan the
Situation Room. His chair angled her way; accepting the tacit invitation, she
followed suit and surveyed the space.

Before them a thick dyplast window revealed a huge
three-dimensional projection of the Thousand Suns suspended over the bustle of
activity among the banks of consoles far below. A multitude of colored lights
and ideograms glittered coldly among the holographic stars, representing the
data laboriously culled out of the Rifter chatter from the hyperwave Ng had
captured in the Battle of Arthelion, and the less timely reports from the Navy
couriers and various civilian craft reaching Ares.

She recognized some of the symbols as versions of the Tenno
battle glyphs—tactical ideograms—that had been modified and extended by her
tactical officers on the
Grozniy
to
deal with the apparently instantaneous communications enjoyed by Dol’jhar and
its Rifter allies. Wherever Eusabian had obtained the hyperwave devices, they
had rendered centuries of strategic and tactical experience useless. Much as if
her personal icon, Lord Admiral Nelson and his British Admiralty, had faced a
French Navy equipped with radio.

Admiral Nyberg squinted at the projection. “I understand
you’ve organized a seminar on the new Tenno?” His tenor voice, surprising in a
man of his bulk, was mellow, resonant with the concealing singsong of the
Tetrad Centrum Douloi.

“Yes, sir. It begins directly
following this briefing.”

His expression was typical Douloi, revealing nothing of his
thoughts. “I wish I could attend. But the Tenno are of little use to me here on
Ares.”

It was a warning, but Ng could not tell how it was intended.
She knew that the huge station, the last center of power remaining to the
Panarchist government, would inevitably become the site of a battle whose
intensity would rival the action in the Arthelion system that had battered her
ship into near scrap. But the battle of Ares—whose combatants would all be
nominally on the same side—would be fought with words, and gestures, and all
the mannered subtlety of a millennial aristocracy.

As Nyberg studied the
ever-changing holograph, she wondered if they would find themselves allies.
With the death or capture of High Admiral Carr, who had been with the Panarch
on Lao Tse, Nyberg was de facto head of the Navy. He was Downsider, old-line,
but unlike many of that background he did not owe his appointment to the late
Aerenarch Semion.

And that’s exactly as
one would expect of the commander of one of the Panarchy’s poles of power.
Arthelion, Desrien, Ares: the Arkads, the Magisterium, and the Navy: these were
the legs of the tripod that had given the Thousand Suns a thousand years of relative
peace.

Until Dol’jhar struck.

A flurry of activity from the rear of the gallery resolved
into a cloud of older station officers surrounding a slim, dark-haired young
man in a plain blue tunic. At his sides walked two other men, one in the
uniform of a Solarch of the Arkadic Marines, the other wearing gray. Ng
recognized in the latter the easy readiness of Ulanshu masters. An officer
stepped in front of the man in gray and held up his hand, evidently forbidding
him entrance, then yielded at a few words from the young man in blue.

The Aerenarch Brandon vlith-Arkad and his Rifter bodyguard.
Ng sustained a pulse of anger, and consciously breathed it out.
I will suspend judgment until rumor is
confirmed as truth or denied.
She transferred her gaze to the Rifter
bodyguard at his side. She knew that only a small percentage of Rifters were
allied with Eusabian of Dol’jhar, but her back still prickled with reflexive
wariness at the sight of one here, at this briefing. The government’s
possession of the hyperwave, won at great cost, was the most closely guarded
secret on Ares.

Then her wariness altered to reflection as the implications
of the Rifter’s garb became clear. He was not wearing the livery of the Phoenix
House, yet his presence indicated he was a sworn man—otherwise even the
Aerenarch could not have prevailed against Ares security regs.
So he’s sworn to Brandon vlith-Arkad, but
not to the Aerenarch.
A personal oath, leaving his Rifter identity intact.
Interesting.

As the Aerenarch made his way down the center aisle, the two
men with him expertly isolated him from the crowd of hangers-on, so expertly
that Ng could not see how it was done. The new Aerenarch seated himself with
the Marine behind him and the Rifter to his right.

Another blow against precedence. The attendant officers
seated themselves nearby, reluctantly leaving space free around him in response
to subtle but unmistakable signals from the two bodyguards.

Ng glanced at Nyberg, aware that he had not stood at the
Aerenarch’s entrance.
Nor did he escort
the Aerenarch here.

That confirmed the anomalous nature of the Aerenarch’s
position on Ares. On the civilian side, he was heir apparent of the Phoenix
House, and with his father imprisoned or dead, the leader
de jure
of the Panarchist government. But rumors of treason echoed
around his unexplained escape from the nuclear atrocity that had wiped out the
highest levels of the government at his Enkainion on Arthelion, and his
reputation as a scapegrace and a drunkard left him with no base of power.

On the military side, he had no standing at all, having been
withdrawn from the Minerva Academy years ago. It was inevitable that he would
be the center of gossip, but she had been surprised at the vehement
polarization of her officers. The majority ranged between anger and a sense of
betrayal at the unexplained escape from the Ivory Hall atrocity; the half dozen
or so who had known him during his brief time at the Minerva Academy maintained
steadfastly that rumor had to be false, or only partly true.

Ng watched the Aerenarch as he set up his console, surprised
at the sureness of his movements. His face was a young version of the Panarch’s
austerity, and a softened version of Semion’s severity.

Admiral Nyberg stood; the Douloi would appreciate the pause
between Brandon’s entrance and the start of the proceeding. Two pairs of Marines
drew both double doors closed and the murmuring of conversation ceased. Ng
sensed the tianqi shifting to a different mode, with a hint of a complex,
faintly pungent scent she knew was designed to promote alertness and analytical
thought.

The Admiral said, “This briefing falls under the protocols
of secrecy as outlined in the Articles of War and under the Silence of Fealty.”

Ng saw the visible signs of heightened alertness from
everyone in the room: Nyberg had formally given notice that disclosure of the
matters discussed here to anyone not present would constitute a capital crime
for both military and civilian personnel.

“All of you are aware of the
general state of affairs, but to focus us, I will restate them. Eusabian of
Dol’jhar, having armed a large number of Rifter vessels with weapons of
unprecedented power, and equipped with apparently instantaneous communications,
has overthrown His Majesty’s government and now occupies the Mandala. This
station, and the Fleet, are likely the only remaining centers of resistance.

“We will consider two topics during
this briefing. First, the provenance of Eusabian’s advanced technology, and
what can be done about it, and second, the effect of this technology on
strategy and tactics.”

The Aerenarch lifted his head sharply, his gaze focused on
Nyberg.
What? Oh yes.
There was to
have been a third topic at this briefing: the fate of the Panarch Gelasaar,
captured by Eusabian on Lao Tse and now, according to Sebastian Omilov’s
report, destined for delivery into the hands of the Isolates of Gehenna.

In the absence of a constituted Privy Council, there was no
one who could order the Navy on a rescue mission to the planet of exile. Nyberg
could not promote himself to high admiral—he was
de facto
but not
de jure
head of the Navy. No one save Brandon vlith-Arkad could make appointments, but
without a power base he lacked authority.

Nyberg continued; Ng was sure the Aerenarch’s reaction had
not escaped him. “But before all this I have some good news to leaven an otherwise
disastrous situation. You have the details of timing before you; permit me to
summarize. Many of you have heard that the object of the battle commanded by
Captain Margot O’Reilly Ng in the Arthelion system was an attack on the Mandala
and the usurper, Eusabian of Dol’jhar.”

Nyberg paused and looked her way. She kept her face
impassive

“If that were true, Captain Ng would
not now be sitting beside me. She would have been shot.”

A buzz of reaction rose, quickly stilled.

“Captain Ng lost two
battlecruisers, three destroyers, nine frigates, and a number of attached
ships. Casualties amounted to almost ten thousand killed or missing, and
another fifteen hundred wounded. Despite that, the judges at her court-martial
commended her for a brilliant success. In fact, she was decorated for her
efforts, but the decoration, and the very fact of its award, are classified.
The judgment of the court is sealed.”

Captain Nukiel smiled at Ng from the space officers’ side of
the gallery, his expression echoed by some of the others around him, not all of
whom she recognized. On the other side she saw only puzzlement or guarded looks
of consideration. Memory brought to mind the face she didn’t see among them; as
always, her heart twisted with grief.

From below, Sedry Thetris watched her own grief reflected in
Ng’s face.

“What the court knew that you do
not know,” the admiral continued, “was that the Battle of Arthelion ended, as
had been intended from the start, in the capture of one of the enemy’s
hyperwaves, the instantaneous communicators that, in combination with some
unknown power source, are the key to Dol’jhar’s success in overthrowing His
Majesty’s government.”

Now the whispered comments crescendoed to a hum of speech,
which Admiral Nyberg overrode without raising his voice. “It is now feeding
data to our analysts, all of whom have been sequestered in high-security quarters
for the duration. You see some of the data represented here.”