A Prison Unsought (30 page)

Their eyes met, and Dandenus hesitated from old habit. Ami
had always run with the Arthelion-born crowd at school . . .

“Dandenus,” she cried as if she was
overjoyed to see him.

“Ami,” Dandenus replied, thinking
that nothing could ever be better than this moment.

From the balcony above, Ng watched the two handsome young people meet at the foot of the
stairway and walk to the convex window where they stood in a crowd of pretty
young Douloi, silhouetted against the stars. She appreciated the sight as she sipped
at the liquor a silent servant had just poured. All around her the light,
singsong Douloi voices blended pleasantly with the musical plash of a fountain.

The voices, the jewels, the slow dance of precedence and
preference, brought back her early days under Nesselryn tutelage—one or two of
the faces here even seemed familiar from then. Though none of the Nesselryns
were on Ares (nor had she expected them to be—a Family as old as that had its
own well-guarded hidey-holes against trouble), their presence managed to make
itself felt.

The most obvious connection was in the unprepossessing
figure at her side. Sebastian Omilov not only knew everyone, as she had
expected when she requested his escort, but judging from the genuine deference
in these smiling faces, had managed in spite of his decade of seclusion to
gain, if not their esteem, certainly their respect.

And the best of it was, he seemed to delight in deflecting
every sally on the part of Tau Srivashti, Vannis Scefi-Cartano, and their
guests to lead the conversation into military country. No small part of her
delight was in how Omilov was ably assisted—whether by accident or design she
could not tell—by the Aerenarch, who had arrived directly behind them, and who
consequently managed to turn every oblique question into a superficial inanity,
his flushed face and brilliant eyes plainly showing the effects of alcohol.

What did happen on
Arthelion?
Who would get the courage to ask him—and would he answer?

When Omilov does solve
the Urian question, I just hope we have a government left to see the project
through.
The thought brought back old ghosts; she set her fluted crystal glass
firmly on the tray of a passing servitor and then followed Omilov and the Aerenarch
down to the ballroom floor below.

“That’s the captain who nearly
reconquered Arthelion,” Ami said to Dandenus. “They say she damaged the
Dol’jharian flagship so bad that it ran like the cowards they are.”

Dandenus frowned in perplexity as he watched Ng in her
flame-colored gown descending the stairway. He’d heard her set that half-drunk
glass down with an audible
tink
. Did Navy
captains not drink while on duty? But she wasn’t on duty, was she? “She’s not
wearing dress whites.”

“When my grandmother didn’t want to
be bothered with Navy talk at a gathering, she’d go in civilian dress,” Ami
said, eyes narrowed critically. “She even looks like my grandmother.”

Dandenus blinked away the fog of too much dream-smoke
wreathing around their group, admiring the way Ami’s blue hair swung about her
shoulders, hiding then curling around her shape. Her gown had slipped down one
perfect arm, and her smile held promise.

The ready desire of youth kindled in them both, for Ami liked
the way Dandenus had grown so tall, and she especially liked the way the Archon
had singled him out. Just how high were his connections? She’d learned that it
was dangerous to be too obvious.

So she took his hand and ran with him up the opposite stair,
where she turned to the railing, leaning out at a precarious angle. “Is the Aerenarch
going to dance? I want to watch.”

Dandenus stared obediently down at the crowded floor, his
eyesight blurring, his attempts to focus distracted by the flashes of jewels
and decorative metals on wrists, ears, clothing, hair.

Then he caught the famous profile. “There he is,” he said,
hoping he sounded casual. Experienced.

She leaned out farther, and said appreciatively, “He looks
just like an Arkad.”

Dandenus almost asked if she’d actually met one, but
resisted. To ask would be callow; she would have worded her remark differently
had she met any of them.

Instead, Dandenus’s gaze was drawn back to Uncle Tau (he’d
decided to practice that in his mind, in case the Archon invited him to use
it), so resplendent in green and gold, especially against the fabulous mosaics
behind him. Uncle Tau was the center of attention below, not the Aerenarch as
might be expected.

Dandenus leaned out next to Ami, scarcely noticing his own
precariousness. His father was a part of that group. Not relaxed—his folded
arms indicated that—but nodding and smiling. Certainly there was no hostility
in the way he sat, body angled toward his hated second-cousin-by-marriage.

“He will dance! And it looks like his
first partner will be the Aerenarch-Consort—she’s asking him. I wish I
dared! Huh. Her hair is still brown. How dull!”

“My mother told me last year that
Mandala fashion is to appear as nature made you.” Dandenus blinked at Ami:
I thought you’d know that
.

“They’ve never let
me
go back to the Mandala,” Ami
admitted. “I wasn’t supposed to visit until my Enkainion.”

Ami leaned farther, a slight frown between her brows as she
listened to the talk below. What could she hear? Half-dizzy with drink and
smoke, Dandenus couldn’t hear anything, nor did he want to. He studied his
partner, wondering how to get her attention from the adults to himself.

“Lusor,” she said, her gown
slipping down the other shoulder as she leaned close. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Lusor, Caerdhre IV,” Dandenus said
automatically, going on to name the principal attributes of the system and its
location in his own octant. “My father made me memorize all the Tetrad Centrum
systems when I was first chosen heir,” he added, trying to impress her further.
“Why?”

Ami had laid her forearm along the rail, within touching
distance of Dandenus. She flicked her fingers toward the knot of people below.
“Why should it cause that old man, the one with the big ears, to freeze up?”
she whispered.

Dandenus squinted down at the circle, seeing subtle changes
in the adults. The man with Ng was indeed quiet, but Dandenus was relieved to
see his father talking to Uncle Tau.

“L’Ranja Family,” Dandenus said,
and then he remembered. “There was some kind of scandal. Someone else has Lusor
now.” He remembered having seen those big earlobes. “That’s Omilov, a cadet
branch of the Zhigels. He’s a gnostor, and a Chival—Phoenix Gate, I think.”

Ami tapped her thumbnail on her teeth. “Strange.”

“What’s strange?” Dandenus said,
crushing some of the fragile blooms along the rail in his impatience.

“How just a name could act like a
kind of warning.”

Dandenus had lost interest in the old gnostor, and to catch
Ami’s attention, deliberately broke more of the blossoms hanging over the rail.
Aromatic petals drifted down, resting on the hair and arms of the adults below.
None of them noticed. Ami laughed softly.

“Want to wager who beds whom
tonight?” Dandenus whispered, leaning against Ami. Her hair tickled his ear,
and her breath was warm and smelled enticingly of spiced smoke.

“I can think of more fun than
that,” she whispered back.

Dandenus’ desire warmed into urgency, but not unpleasantly.

Before he could frame
an answer, Ami was gone, twirling about to beckon to two or three more people
their own age.

Because I’m my family’s heir now,
he thought.
Because
Uncle Tau is paying attention to us.

The realization was not a disappointment. This was exactly
the way power was supposed to work.

He smiled inwardly as the others chattered about the Ascha
Gardens and the incredible free-fall gym there, better even than the one
in—their voices fell to whispers—the forbidden Naval territory, where the young
dependents had all the best free-fall sports going. The Gardens had been
recently renovated, and someone—a Prophetae—was going to hold a party there.
They would go as a group to scout it out, so they could commandeer the best
jump pads on the big night.

Dandenus agreed to whatever was proposed, without really
listening. He reveled in Ami’s private smile, and her fingers twined in his.

o0o

Sebastian Omilov bowed a last time to Margot Ng, then sank
back in the transtube seat and shut his eyes.

With the disappearance
of the captain, all his energy seemed to drain out. He breathed deeply,
fighting claustrophobia, knowing it was mere stress. The tianqi in the
transtube emitted the same flat, stress-damping scent found in transtubes all
over the Panarchy. He longed for the freedom of Charvann—the night sky overhead
and the cold breezes bearing scents of loam and garden.

My home is gone.
He
pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, trying to force the
desolation back.

But it would not stay. He heard again the suave voice of
Archon Srivashti at that damnable party: . . .
shortly before Tared L’Ranja and I were confirmed to the Archonate—I to Timberwell and he to Lusor . . .

The subject had been memory, so the comment could have been
random; nonetheless it had sunk like a barb into Omilov’s heart. Might have
been random, but probably wasn’t. Srivashti knew Omilov had also been there;
had led the toasts to his best friend, Tared L’Ranja, on his triumphal night.
What was the purpose?
To warn me off from
political involvement? I’m too old for politics, Srivashti. Too old and too
disillusioned.

Omilov ached at the
memories he was too tired to ward: Tared’s face, so alive in laughter, alight
with honesty and intelligence. The formality swiftly dissolving into hilarity,
as often occurred when Ilara was there.

Ilara, Ilara.
That
grief would never die, but joining now the ever-living image of her beloved face
were those of his comrades, all young together, so full of promise and high
plans, now so many dead.

Nahomi. Tared. Ilara.
Tanri.

The transtube stopped, and Omilov hauled himself to his
feet, feeling old and tired and an utter failure.

He could not even help his old charge; when Brandon snapped
his fingers in the face of the entire government by skipping out on his own
Enkainion, leaving them all to Eusabian’s bomb, he, too, had moved beyond his
old tutor’s aid.

The door hissed open,
but he stood, fighting for composure, for balance. His aching eyes studied the
lights curving overhead. Stars . . .

Stars.
He remembered his work, and a vestige of the old
energy stirred.
He was not a total failure,
he told himself as he walked down
the ramp toward the Cloister. The Jupiter Project, the secrets of the Ur,
waited to be unlocked.

Politics were for the young. The Ur . . .

Leave the ancients to
the ancients,
he thought, smiling grimly. He would bury himself in work and
exorcise the ghosts at last.

Admiral Trungpa Nyberg shut his eyes, waiting for the
first sip of coffee to perform its magic. Warmth spread through him, but the
miraculous regeneration of energy was absent.

Anton Faseult smiled tiredly at him, then tapped the
console. “This one came through last night; I hate to spoil your breakfast, but
I thought you ought to see it.”

Nyberg turned his eyes to the console. An unfamiliar banner
flashed across the screen, evocative of power and wealth.

“The Syndics of Rifthaven,” Faseult
supplied from the background.

Then a stomach-twisting sight appeared: a gutted ship
spinning with lazy slowness in space, against the backdrop of a scattering of
stars. In one corner, the bruise-colored limb of a red dwarf sun identified the
place, not far outside of Rifthaven.

The ship, still glowing with heat, and so twisted and seared
it was difficult to recognize the make, moved with inexorable slowness toward
the viewer, until details appeared. What appeared to be blobs resolved into
human beings, all exhibiting the ghastly bloat of death by vacuum. They were
all tied to the hull by a line clamped to arm or leg.

Nyberg’s stomach clenched. Someone had been to a great deal
of trouble here to make this as vicious as possible.

Abruptly the picture blanked, replaced by a view of a room,
dark-paneled and rich. Three people sat in a row: a skeletal man with red,
filed teeth bared in a feral grin; an enormous woman, decorated with jewels, a
gloating smile, and little else; an old man, dark of visage, with cruel cold
eyes.

“The three most powerful Syndics on
Rifthaven,” Faseult said. “Xibl Banth, Oli Pormagat, and Jep Houmanopoulis.”

The Draco spoke in a hissing voice calculated for the
maximum negative effect: “That ship was the
Sword
of Ahriman
, captained by Teliu Diamond. You saw her floating right near the
bridge viewport.”

Pormagat spoke next, her voice an insinuating whine.
“Diamond had just returned from her raid on Torigan, which apparently was quite
successful.”

“So much so,” Houmanopoulis grated,
“that she ignored our new limitations on entry. Anyone else who wishes to trade
with us will find the new statutes continually posted on the Sodality channel.”

All three smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. “We look
forward to doing business with you.”

The window blanked out.

Nyberg looked up at Faseult, who looked back, brows raised.
“It would appear that Rifthaven is holding its own despite chaos everywhere
else.”

“Isn’t it a law of nature,” Faseult
returned with a rueful smile, “that scum will always rise to the surface?”

o0o

Despite careful planning, Tate Kaga’s party was not a
success.

Or so it was said by some, mostly Downsiders, who claimed
that the regrettable episode that terminated the gathering was almost
inevitable, given the ancient nuller’s choice of the Ascha Gardens as the locale.
Others, among them Highdwellers, seemed to prefer the term “amusing” to
“regrettable.”