A Prison Unsought (32 page)

Because Brandon was now completely surrounded by social
highflyers. A scattering of Naval officers appeared long enough to pay their
respects, then they moved off to another area, but some younger Tetrad Centrum
Douloi officers lingered, the group swelling by twos and threes until Brandon was
the center of laughter and animated chatter that nearly drowned out the
drifting music.

Vahn caught sight of Commander Faseult observing from an
adjacent walkway, then did a check with the outer perimeter security team.

(The youths in the
free-fall area are hyper—a bit of the High/Down tension, I think
,) Hamun
said. Everyone else reported status quo.

Nyberg and several high brass appeared. The lesser officers
gave way, and after a short, polite exchange, the brass moved on, leaving the
way clear for the civilian flatterers to close in again. Brandon showed no
reaction to the comings and goings; he seemed content to sit and let people
come to him, which made Vahn’s task the easier.

Signaling Roget to take his place on the inside perimeter,
Vahn jeeved back into the shadows of a huge argan tree and set out to make
visual contact with the Marines watching Ivard and the Dol’jharian captain with
the brain-burners.

He noted Ivard’s guard shadowing Ivard, who was being drawn
toward the free-fall zone as if pulled by an electrical current. There, in a
huge space, broken here and there by jump pads linked by grab cables,
occasional brave figures sailed happily back and forth. They used the strange
structures to propel themselves around the central bubble of water, which was suspended
mid-air like a living jewel, its surface rippling quietly in the vagrant air
currents generated by the surrounding structures.

Ivard smiled, loving everything he saw.

Nearby, on a platform jutting from a bulging wall into the
huge space, the Kelly busied themselves with the trinat, assembling its complex
curves into a graceful, organic, almost tree-like structure. Thrums and squeaks
emanated from it, counterpoint to the soft honking of the trinity. Portus’
head-stalk wove in his direction as Ivard blatted a brief greeting passing by,
drawn by the nick music.

On the jump pad platforms, people his own age stood around,
the nicks in fancy party clothes, others in less flamboyant garb. Were these
the friends Tate Kaga had promised him? Ivard paused, looking around as Trev
and Gray sniffed here and there, tails giving a wag when people noticed them.

How did you make friends, anyway? They didn’t seem to be
friends with each other—they were divided into separate groups, further
segmented into Downsiders and Highdwellers, obvious in the way they moved and
how much personal space they claimed.

Though they talked a lot to each other, and stole glances at
other groups, none seemed willing to make the first move outward. He remembered
some of the things Tate Kaga had told him, up in his strange dwelling at the
spin axis. Ivard suspected that nobody would move until the nicks did, and that
the nicks were watching each other the way nicks always seemed to do.

That wouldn’t stop Rifters. With a scorch of embarrassment
Ivard acknowledged that that wasn’t true. He was the only Rifter up in the
free-fall zone, and he wasn’t doing anything.

But he couldn’t approach the nicks. He’d long ago learned
that it wasn’t a good idea to speak to them until spoken to, unless you liked
being stiffed. He made an abortive motion toward one of the other groups, until
a glimpse of a smile and a cloud of blond hair from a girl in the group
recalled the pain of being bunked out by Marim.

What if they didn’t like him? Or laughed? Or just ignored
him?

He hung there, aching with the years of rejection he’d
endured, with only his sister, now dead, to soften it. A few braver civilians
moved into the free-fall zone and began air-dancing, flinging themselves from
pad to cable to pad with increasing abandon.

A flash of black and white cut through the crowd beyond the
free-fall zones like a knife. It was Vi’ya and the Eya’a and, not letting
himself think the word “coward,” he slunk away from the free-fall area and
followed them.

Moving in an opposing vector, Vahn jeeved through the
crowds, watching movement patterns as he listened to drifts of conversation.
Despite the erratic decor, the sense-mesmerizing jumble of lights and angles
and colors, he saw Brandon at the eye of a social hurricane.

Partly it was the setting, he thought as he sprang over a
balustrade onto another gravitational plane at ninety degrees to the one he’d
just left. The Gardens were modeled on similar amusements on other
Highdwellings; only a nuller could be entirely comfortable in such a place,
though they gave Highdwellers a way to be free, if only for a few hours, from
the powerful—and necessary—social constraints characteristic of oneills.

It was almost what he’d imagined the infamous Whispering
Gallery on Montecielo to be like. So far he’d managed to avoid the duplicate
here on Ares, as Brandon had shown no interest in walking through it. As he
moved unnoticed through the crowd, the conversational patterns mixed in a
surreal blend.

The disorienting background and constant undercurrents of
music seemed to free tongues; the farther he got away from the central dais
under the free-fall area, where Brandon sat with his crowd of highborn
sycophants, the more sibilant whispers he overheard.

“. . . Regency . . .”

“. . . Isolates . . .”

“. . . disgrace . . .”

“Arthelion . . . Enkainion . . .
Regency . . .”

“Gehenna . . . Isolates . . .
suicide mission . . .”

And then again: “Regency.”

Curious, Vahn identified some of the speakers. The Harkatsus
Aegios was the one whose lips seemed to shape the word “regency” most often,
but he was not alone, and his auditors did not seem to disagree.

The continuous music drowned out most of the discourse, even
with his enhancers turned up. Vahn did not dare to get closer lest his
proximity cause notice.

And he did not need to hear every word, he thought soberly
as he made his way down a long, madly-twisting stairway toward that central pit
where the Aerenarch held court. Those fragments were enough to indicate that
though Brandon had the name and the title, no one expected him to hold the reins
of power. More seriously, the remains of the old government—at least some of
the civilian portions—seemed reluctant to make the rescue run that might free
his father.

So who was going to form a new governmental nucleus? The
second most obvious focal point was around Archon Srivashti—but that was purely
social, and indeed he appeared to be oblivious to the whisperers as he lounged
on an elegant platform at an angle between the water ball and the central edifice,
exchanging lighthearted chatter and laughter.

As Vahn returned to the dais, he discovered a part of the
reason for Brandon’s fast-growing crowd. He’d missed Vannis Scefi-Cartano,
half-hidden among the taller heads. She sat decorously adjacent to Brandon, as
if the two were enthroned.

Brandon quoted a dialogue from a satirical play, to have his
quotations capped by Vannis. They dueled verbally, each topping the other’s
line, until it broke up in laughter and commentary from the appreciative
auditors. Puns, obscure political allusions, and wit flowed like the sparkling
white wine.

Vahn stepped up next to Jaim, whose countenance expressed
the patience of endurance. He obviously caught little if any of the references,
and cared less. His gaze strayed toward one of the exits, as if his salvation
lay there.

Though he stood a scarce two meters behind the Aerenarch, he
seemed by his manner utterly divorced from the proceedings. Most of the guests
ignored him as well, except for Brandon, who addressed him from time to time,
once raising a slight smile, other times merely requesting this or that
delicacy from the table.

Brandon’s attention seemed equally divided among everyone
there. Vannis Scefi-Cartano, the former Aerenarch-Consort, was as skilled in
social byplay. But Vahn was an experienced observer, and he noted how closely
she gauged Brandon’s reactions, especially when the officers entered the
conversation. Once, when the guests shifted to descend on a new course of
delicacies, Vahn saw her studying Jaim, her profile reflective.

Brandon’s attention, like Jaim’s, strayed most often to the
concourse with its many adits and exits. When a flicker of white appeared
briefly far overhead, Brandon stilled, then rose to help himself from the
table.

Making his way to Jaim’s side, he murmured something, and
then drifted along a vine-decorated pathway until he fetched up on the
outskirts of the group around Archon Srivashti as he leaned against the table
and swirled a new liquor idly in his glass.

The sycophants seemed to take that as a signal to refresh
their own drinks, causing a whirl of movement. Through it all, stolid as stone,
Jaim made his way to Vahn. “Wants to leave in an hour,” Jaim said.

Wondering why he did not use his boswell for that, Vahn
acknowledged with a nod and Jaim retreated, weaving his way back through the
crowd.
Doesn’t seem to care about the
niceties of privacies,
Vahn thought. But then adrenaline boosted his
heartbeat when Jaim’s demeanor shifted to alert.

He gazed down at Brandon’s empty chair.

Vahn made a rapid scan, but there was no sign of the
Aerenarch. He’d completely vanished. Angry, he turned on Jaim, who reflected
his own surprise and alarm.

“Where is he?”

Jaim spread his hands. “Said to tell you personally he wants
to leave in an hour.”

While Vahn activated the wide-spectrum call on his boswell
and tabbed high alert to his team, adding
(FIND
HIM)
, far overhead, Ivard tugged on Vi’ya’s sleeve.

“Come on, Vi’ya, you have to see
this.” Ivard’s voice, however much he had effected physiological change, still
managed the plangent note of youth. “You’ll never see a free-fall gym anything
like it—better than the one on Rifthaven.”

She stepped out of his reach “I will see it,” she said. “On
my way to an exit.”

Ivard sighed. “I can’t believe you don’t want to stay here.
Hey, even the Eya’a are having fun.”

She could not disagree; the pair continually looked around
them, their necks stretching at impossible angles as they chittered on a high
note. Their mental exchange was too fast to follow, but she could read the
emotional current of excitement and curiosity, and she sensed an exchange with
the Kelly, who had nearly assembled their trinat.

She could leave them all.

It was either that or drink until she was blind and deaf to
all the lives, faces, voices she did not know, would not know, did not want to
know, forming a tidal wave of emotional intent—and at its center, like sunlight
on water, the familiar signature. . . .

“I’m going,” she said. “Now.”

Ivard’s eyes widened, his emotional current painful. “Kelly want
you to stay.”

She held her breath, exerting herself to leash the ready
anger.

Ivard sighed. With Vi’ya at his side, he could dare those
frost-faced nicks. Nobody was frostier than Vi’ya. “All right. Here’s the way
out. But just a peek at the dancing first, all right? We’ll be fast.”

He led her to a doorway and shot off down a long concourse all
of whose walls were floors to crowds of people. He dodged past a chattering
group of civilians, probably techs from the Cap. She lost sight of him, but
followed his emotional signature until she encountered one of those
gravitational shifts, a change in direction hidden by a pleaching of
white-barked trees.

The Eya’a had
vanished. She could still sense them, their attention absorbed by the trinat.

Enough.
With Manderian’s
hand signs, they could make their needs known, if the Kelly didn’t. She could
make her escape.

She pushed her way through the crowds, avoiding contact,
noting dispassionately that no one moved aside for her when she walked without
the Eya’a.

Slowly, even through the high-energy tangle of emotions of
the people around her, she became aware that someone was matching pace with
her. She hastened her steps, ever turning away from the densest clots of people
toward relative quiet; but this strategy, born of growing distress, betrayed
her as she found herself at a dead end.

She turned.

The other manifested into a male silhouette. A latticework
of light and shadow masked clothing and face, but not the angle of a cheekbone
or the familiar hands. Or the near-blinding focus of his emotional spectrum.

Brandon Arkad had shed his vanguard and had strayed along
the same path. She tried to pass him, cursing the maliciousness of
circumstance.

“Vi’ya,” the Arkad said, raising a
hand.

Perforce she halted.

“I have a question,” he said.

o0o

Only when he finally reached the free-fall area again did
Ivard discover that Vi’ya wasn’t behind him. Instead, he found the Eya’a
leaping down from the trinat platform, trailed by Gray and Trev, tails wagging.

What did they want? They stopped before him. They’d never
done that before! He wasn’t aware of the crowd edging away, leaving him in a
ring of empty space as they approached him, their huge faceted eyes reflecting
the distorted architecture in even more fragmented form. From above floated the
woody, thrumming triplicated rhythms of the trinat, shimmering high notes
playing about at the top, and beneath a galloping beat that was so irresistible
that some of the younger guests began to hop, to sway, and to dance.

Ivard looked away from the Eya’a, feeling cowardly again.
Had he really expected Vi’ya to somehow make friends for him?
I’m an idiot
. He was a Rifter, he wore
the best shirt in the place, but he had no idea what to say, to do, so he just
stood there as if he’d taken root.