A Prison Unsought (42 page)

Seated below, with the exquisite Fierin close by his side,
Tau Srivashti could appreciate the lovely picture Vannis made as he waited for
the right moment to get to his purpose. On the surface, this was merely a
dinner for friends. The location, a central room on the yacht seldom seen by
any but Srivashti’s intimates: only here could he feel certain of not being
overheard, not even by his own staff.

He wondered what Vannis was thinking, and if she had
divorced herself from the speculation about Brandon Arkad’s miraculous escape
from the dirty bomb in the Ivory Hall because she was bored, or because she
knew more truth than she was admitting.

He looked forward to teasing it out of her.

But before then . . . how long would the
others present hoot questions at one another that no one could answer?

Stulafi Y’Talob leaned forward, his massive form
intimidating. “Did he say anything to you during this game in which you so
thoroughly trounced him?”

“Very little of interest,” Srivashti said. “The Aerenarch is
an intriguing young man. Very pleasant, really. His manner reminds one
occasionally of his mother.” He gestured. “Joking with the hands.”

Srivashti’s tense. No,
he’s angry
, Vannis thought.
What did
he ask Brandon for? Whatever it was, he did not get it.

“I think the Aerenarch’s attractive.” Fierin smiled, toying
with the archon’s fingers.

“A cogent reminder,” Srivashti said, lifting her palms up to
kiss them, one then the other. “Even those without tangible ambition can charm
followers when they choose.”

Amusement flickered through Vannis at Srivashti’s rare show
of weakness. Did he really see subtlety in Fierin’s callow statement?

Is he smitten, then?
His dalliances were usually with the young and inexperienced, as she herself
knew very well, and always with some political end in view. Fierin
vlith-Kendrian was at the outside of his age interest, and she had no political
clout whatever. Superficial but not stupid, Vannis had decided on meeting her;
at first it had seemed foolish for Fierin not to take over her family’s title
and assume legal custody of their considerable holdings. After observation,
Vannis had come to the conclusion that Fierin knew what she was doing—she got a
great deal further on the sympathy engendered by her unorthodox handling of her
faintly sordid past.

The surprise was Srivashti keeping her so close, as if to
protect her from the world. It amused Vannis that Srivashti should exhibit a
sentimental streak at this late date.

Unless, of course, there was more to the Kendrian situation
than met the eye.

The Harkatsus Aegios spoke for the first time. “The
Aerenarch seems remarkably reclusive.”

The rider, unspoken, was clear:
Despite what one has heard
.

“But he’s giving this concert,” Fierin said. “I was told
that he’s managed to get the Kitharee to perform with that consortium from the
Akademia Musika. Don’t the Kitharee have some religious ban on making music
with outsiders? I don’t believe they’ve ever done that before.”

“They will this time.” Srivashti looked around at the
others. “I understand that His Highness has recruited the Navy Band as well.
And that the program will be music of his choosing.”

“Charm indeed,” Fierin said, smiling brightly all around.

“It’s the title,” Kestian Harkatsus put in with a trace of
impatience, his handsome face less handsome behind a pout. “Who will gainsay
him?”

“The Kitharee could,” Srivashti reminded him gently. “They
forswear loyalties to anyone outside their Jephat when they join. And even an
Aerenarch has little authority over the Navy unless commissioned first.”

“So he has bestirred himself at last, for purposes of
entertainment,” Stulafi Y’Talob said. “The question is: has this anything to do
with the deadline?” The Archon of Torigan’s voice was harsh. “We found out only
because we have sources. Would they tell him how long it will take for the
Panarch to be ditched at Gehenna?”

“We should assume as much.” Srivashti sighed. “As for his
entertainment, will you honor me with your forbearance if I invite you to
consider the point again?”

Y’Talob bowed a deference, but his heavy face and folded
hands conveyed his disdain. “I suppose it is possible he will propose a Privy
Council in between concerti and rastanda on the program.”

It’s how he did it,
fool
, Vannis thought, watching Srivashti.

Then the old Archonei from Cincinnatus squinted around the
circle, her voice cracking. “A successfully arranged concert is not necessarily
a sign of leadership ability. However, the timing gives one pause. How many of
us know this young man well?”

Gestures of deferential disavowal presaged exchanges of
glances, a few of which slanted upward toward Vannis—who knew that her removal
from the circle had signified her detachment from the subject. In reality, she
did not want Srivashti’s pale, shrewd gaze discerning her ambivalence.

But the question pulled her in again; she was, they all
knew, the only one among them who had lived at the Palace on Arthelion with the
then-Krysarch for brief periods over the past few years. “We had so little
contact,” Vannis said, informing her pose with polite regret.

Her manner effectively invoked Semion. The power of his
memory could speak for her, and they all understood. Or thought they did.

Srivashti sat back, his countenance benign. “Semion
vlith-Arkad was a strong leader, and in the normal course of events would have
been a strong Panarch. It is to be expected that an heir twice removed would
find it difficult to learn, in days, the vision necessary to one who assumes
authority. The new Aerenarch needs allies who are lessoned in command.”

Vannis’ heart thumped her ribs, then raced
. This is it.

The Archonei pursed her lips and rattled the iced liquid in
her glass. “He talks of the Panarch and the rescue.”

“His heart is there, with his father.” That whisper came
from Hesthar al’Gessinav, the thin, elegant, elderly woman who was praecentor
of the Alannat Anachronics Hub at the heart of the Rouge Nord octant. “But one
does not govern trillions of people with one’s heart.”

“Guidance.” Srivashti’s hands opened. “Can we agree?”

“I’d like to help.” Fierin’s beautiful face lifted, her
expression winsome. “I’ll make friends with him, or try, if he’ll have me.”

Srivashti touched her hand, almost a pat, as the others
exchanged murmurs of assent. It served as a kind of signal; they rose and moved
to the outer room, where Felton patiently awaited the signal to serve the meal.

Srivashti’s gaze reached Vannis over the heads of the
others. He paused, his question unspoken. The rest followed Fierin into the
dining room, leaving Vannis alone with Srivashti.

She had accustomed herself to life with a forceful man who
could, and did, make life painful for any who crossed his will, even at a
distance. She schooled herself into her old manner of neutral repose, for
eagerness, or anger, or any emotion would be used against her. The seeds of a
new government were to be sown this night, then. And she was to be a part of
it, something Semion never would have permitted.

She smiled back, stepped down off the little bridge, and
laid her fingers on his arm. “Tell me how I am to help you?”

o0o

Ivard and Gray ran the last few yards and jumped into the
transtube as the last warning light blinked. The door hissed shut a centimeter
behind Gray’s tail.

Trev was off somewhere. Just as well. Trev seemed to have
fun once Ivard got them going in free-fall, but that dog never got excited the
way Gray was now, trotting with an occasional hopping bound, tongue lolling in
a doggy grin.

Ivard waited impatiently, and when the doors opened again,
he was first out, Gray trotting at his heels. He loped along the rock-lined
pathway, past trumpet-flower shrubs in every shade. Ordinarily he liked sorting
the subtle variations in their scents, but he did not want to be late for his
meeting with Ami. But when he arrived, he discovered she wasn’t there yet.

Gray looked up at him expectantly. Ivard smiled into that
masked face, then said, “Geh!”

Gray launched, front paws stretched out like he was diving,
tail straight, and then ducked his muzzle and paddled his forefeet as he spun
in a roll before landing on a far platform. Then Gray launched again and Ivard
watched, wondering if Gray got his passion for free-fall games when he and
Ivard had been healing together on board the
Telvarna.
Ivard had turned off the gees in their cabin in sickbay
because his wounds hurt less. Later he’d done it because it was fun to play
around. Gray had liked bouncing gently from wall to floor to ceiling.

A voice reached him, familiar, purple-clotty with brag. “. . . and
so my dad said it’s absolutely secret—I shouldn’t have heard him, but you know
that waterfall dividing off the alcove from the salon—anyway it’s
very
secret, but I know I can trust
you
, but anyway Dad has been chosen, out
of everybody here, for the regency council—”

It was that Dandenus blit.

Ivard was about to launch away when Ami answered. “More
government talk,” she said in a disappointed tone. Then her voice changed to
blue: “Dandenus, knowing that blunge can get you
killed
. Everyone is whispering about that laergist. Tell me
interesting
secrets! About people! I
promise I won’t tell, but it’s so much fun to see them, and know, and they
don’t know you know—oh, there’s Ivard’s dog! Where’s Ivard? We’re supposed to
meet.”

“That
Rifter trash?” Dandenus’s voice shot into yellow, acid with jealousy and
anxiety.

Ami laughed. “I
like
him! And nobody’s ever had a Rifter . . .”

She sounded bright and sweet and charming, but Ivard squirmed,
feeling like a thing to be had, and not a person to be known. Maybe they all
felt like that and he was the only one who didn’t?

The blue fire sparked inside him.
They all have their uncertainties
.

Yes. He could hear Dandenus’s, and it was clear that the
nick wasn’t going to go away. Ivard wasn’t in the mood for argument and
jealousy—including his own, because he could hear how much Ami liked being in
the center. She wasn’t going to send Dandenus away.

Ivard launched off the platform in a direction that kept him
out of their line of sight, and kept them out of his.

Gray’s ears turned,
and the dog caught up with him as he reached the exit.
What’s a regency
council?
He asked the blue fire. Not that he really cared, but he hated to be
ignorant, and the nicks obviously knew what it was.

In the human realm it
is a governing body advising a ruler during his or her minority.

Ivard shrugged. “That sounds boring,” he said aloud as he
got on the first tube that came along. Gray gave him one of those alert looks
and then ran off, probably to find Trev, so Ivard boarded alone.

He brooded about what
he’d heard. Why should a boring thing be secret? He asked the blue fire.

Brandon Arkad has not
asked for a regency council.

“Brandon?”
he exclaimed, then clipped his mouth shut when a bunch of Navy blits looked
sharply at him from the seats across the way.

Mentally he said to the blue fire,
He isn’t a minor! He’s older than I am, and on Natsu, at least, I’m not
a minor anymore!

The tube stopped, and Ivard glanced at the window. This was Navy
territory. He was going to look away again, when he caught sight of two small
white figures with huge indigo faceted eyes. They stood on the platform as
people streamed around them in a wide circle.

Both sophonts raised their hands, twiggy fingers moving in
semaphore:
We seek
.

He’d lived aboard the same ship as the Eeya’a for some time,
but until Manderian gave them the hand signs to communicate with, they’d always
been utterly opaque to him. What could they want?

He had to find out. And once again, he shot through the
doors a moment before they started to close, grinning as he cleared them by a
hair’s breadth. It was a little game he played with himself: he lost points if
he triggered the door sensors, freezing them.

The Eeya’a made one of their unsettlingly quick turns and
began walking. He followed, kind of enjoying how everybody gave them nervous
glances and moved hastily away.

Ivard glanced around in surprise, recognizing in the bland
walls partially obscured by decorative willows one of the adits leading to the
Cap, and the military part of Ares.

They all stopped, and the Eya’a’s eyes lifted upward toward
the Cap. Then both sets of indigo eyes turned to Ivard, and two sets of twiggy
fingers semaphored,
We will not go near.

“Then why are we here?” he muttered.

Sometimes he could hear their thoughts, but mostly that was
when he was with the Kelly. A flicker of memory made him squirm: the
blood-smeared cabin walls and two long bodies gripped in a struggle that
crashed between death and passion. He was getting better at shoving memories
down below the surface, even if they would pop up again. Like this one.
Go away.

The Eya’a keened on a high note, and he guessed what they
wanted: to gain proximity to the hyperwave, but the mind-blurs kept them at a
distance. If Ivard concentrated, he could even sense them himself, a faint
subliminal whine that scratched at his brain like a torn fingernail. He
wondered what it was like for the Eya’a. He frowned, concentrating.

Weird energies scraped along Ivard’s bones. He knew what
they wanted, for him to somehow clear the way. Like the Navy would ever let him
past the first checkpoint! He raised his hands:
We go.

And the Eya’a mirrored his movement:
We go.