A Prison Unsought (72 page)

Dealing with the Magisterium was worse than High Politics,
she decided, so it was almost with relief that Ng nodded. She owed Omilov too
much: this was a relatively easy payback.

“We’ll do it,” she said. “But they
won’t have to squeeze into your cabin. I’ll close off one of the classrooms, so
they can watch it on one of the big screens. In fact, I’ll give the order right
now.”

Omilov bowed again, this time with unalloyed gratitude.

o0o

“Emergence,” Lieutenant Mzinga sang
out. “Primary plus 37 light-minutes, 40 mark zero. FF data indicates we should
be within a light-minute of a tacponder.”

Their emergence point was a compromise between the most
likely course for the
Samedi
and a
reasonable distance from a tacponder.
Now
to see if we got lucky,
Ng thought. “SigInt. Pop the tacponder net; see if
there’s an emergence pulse recorded.”

Young Sub-Lieutenant Wychyrski, dead serious while on duty,
tapped at her console. “Pulsed.”

Except for the almost inaudible sigh of the tianqi, the
bridge was silent while they waited for the returning pulse of information. Ng
sensed the presence of Brandon vlith-Arkad behind her right shoulder, though he
made no move, no sound.

She blinked tired eyes and forced her attention back on
task. Less than two minutes later the SigInt console twittered as data from the
tacponder flooded in.

“Emergence pulse recorded 16.4
hours ago at primary plus 35 light-minutes, 33 mark 90, signature matches
Alpha-class destroyer. Followed three minutes later by another skip pulse.
Subsequent pulses indicate vessel headed for system two-seventy degrees, which
correlates with current position of Gehenna.”

“Haruban’s Hells,” Krajno rumbled.
“They’re way ahead of us.”

“No further data available,” said
Wychyrski. “The system’s far too dirty to pick up anything until we’re a lot
closer.”

On the other side of her, Rom-Sanchez worked his console.
“Since they can’t know we’re coming, I’d wager they’re making a Real-time Run
to keep from stirring up the Knot. But with all that dust and ice an Alpha
won’t do better than about point-oh-one, which puts them at the planet in about
an hour. Our shields’ll handle about point-oh-three or so . . .”

“So we’ll arrive at Gehenna four
hours or so after they land His Majesty,” said Krajno. “And then we’ve got to
disable and board them to find out where.”

“. . . except that
if we tune the teslas up that high, we’ll perturb the Knot into a dangerous
level of instability.” Rom-Sanchez slewed around to face Ng. “It might be too
unstable to allow us even short tactical skips once we get there—and we can’t
face those skipmissiles with only geeplane maneuvering.”

Ng thought quickly. “Can we safely make a series of short
skips instead to get there faster?” she asked.

Rom-Sanchez shook his head. “No. The
Samedi
’ll have its shields maxed out, so they’re already shaking
things up. We’re stuck in real-time.” He grimaced. “And don’t forget that when
they start firing skipmissiles, even if we don’t, the Knot’ll get even more unstable.”

Ng tapped her fingernail against her upper lip. There was
something from her Academy days. Not the FF simulation. For some reason, she
thought of Stygrid Armenhaut, killed at Arthelion. What had brought
him
to mind?

Then she had it. “Ball-and-chain!” she exclaimed. Armenhaut
had tried to use that maneuver against her in a battle-sim at the Academy,
using his tractors to hold an asteroid behind his radiants to protect the weak
spot in his cruiser’s shields. She’d beaten him, anyway, earning his lasting
enmity and her nickname, Broadside O’Reilly, at the same time.

“What?”

Ng ignored Krajno’s interjection. She tapped at her console,
windowing up a god’s-eye projection of the Gehenna system and engaging eyes-on
mode. A flare of light raced across the image and settled on the inmost gas
giant, just outside the influence of the Knot. “Navigation, plot a course
outside the Knot to the trojan point for Number Six that’s closest to Gehenna
and engage when computed. On emergence, find me an asteroid about four klicks
in diameter and take us to tractor range.”

She turned back to Rom-Sanchez. “Commander, what’s the
maximum safe velocity we can use high-tac to decelerate from when we reach
Gehenna?”

His brows knit in perplexity, but he soon had the answer. “A
single tac-level five maneuver from point-one cee will probably not perturb the
Knot beyond safe levels,” he replied, “unless the Rifters are smart enough to
shake it up while we’re on our way in—in which case we may not be able to stop
and fight.” He looked up at the main viewscreen. “You’re going to use an
asteroid for a shield?”

“Steady-state gravitational energy
won’t perturb the Knot, right?” Ng countered.

Rom-Sanchez shook his head. “It’ll excite it a bit, but the
lobes shouldn’t shift much.” He grinned, looking less like a hound-dog. “Going
to be a hell of a show from the inner system—it’ll look like a supernova
heading straight for them.”

The fiveskip burred into activity as she replied.

“Good. That’ll give them time to
worry about what we’ll do to them when we catch up. There’s no way they can
pull off the same stunt, so they can’t get away.”

She looked up at the screen. “When we’re finished, they’ll
be only too happy to tell us where they landed him.”

o0o

Manderian touched the annunciator outside Vi’ya and
Marim’s cabin. He felt the mental tug that indicated his presence being weighed,
and then the door slid open. He walked into frigid air.

He was relieved to find only Vi’ya and the Eya’a.

The Eya’a semaphored rapidly, first identifying him then
going on to everyone and their setting. It was either a game or a ritual; why
else would they delight in using the signals to state the obvious? Or was it a
way of establishing contact with the physical world?

One of their hangings lay spread over a table. Vi’ya sat
near it, head bent, her mind shielded, but tiredness marked her eyes. The Eya’a
pointed at one of the figures woven into it, semaphored something that he did
not understand, and then pointed at a bulkhead and signed:
We hear.

Then sharp displeasure compounded by distrust assailed him
from Vi’ya, a powerful enough emotional reaction to make him steady himself
against a wall. But then it was shielded, so swiftly it left him feeling oddly
off balance.

He said to Vi’ya, “Is that their sign for the Aerenarch?” he
asked.

“Yes,” she said.

The Eya’a chittered softly. Manderian comprehended that
Vi’ya had been using them to listen, in some fashion, to Brandon vlith-Arkad,
and that Vi’ya hated Manderian’s knowing that. But he had learned patience
decades ago. He said only, “The captain set up a bridge feed for us in a
classroom. The ship will be emerging into the Gehenna system shortly.”

“Then let’s go,” she said.

The Eya’a followed, semaphoring constantly, mostly things
they knew, but then making reference to something unseen and unheard by
Manderian that was deeply unsettling them. Vi’ya walked in silence, her
countenance wary.

How much did she understand? He wondered if she would ever
talk about what she’d learned.

They stepped off the transtube.

Ivard skidded around a corner. “Emergence,” he gasped.
“We’re—”

They all felt the tremor through the ship that indicated the
shift to real-time flight. Ivard turned to Vi’ya, who said, “It’s only for a
moment, so they can pop a transponder.”

She was right; as they walked the rest of the way to the
empty classroom, Manderian felt the visceral shiver that indicated reentry into
skip. Ivard talked with enthusiasm about how impressed he was with the size of
the bridge, and with the uniforms, and with Ng and her crew.

They passed banks of empty consoles to the comfortable
chairs facing a huge screen. Ivard vaulted over the back of a couch and settled
next to the Kelly trinity, who hooted softly, head-stalks writhing in a
mesmerizing pattern.

A sensation midway between fascination and alarm seized
Manderian, as the Eya’a responded, their twiggy fingers flickering in a pattern
similar to that just used by the Kelly. The two groups were developing their
own signal system.

Vi’ya sat. The Eya’a settled near her, staring up at the screen.
Ivard leaned against the Intermittor of the Kelly, his fingers absently
stroking her ribbons. Kelly head-stalks patted him softly as he, too, watched
the screen, which showed the bridge, and just above the captain’s head, the
main viewscreen.

A pang shot through
Manderian as the Aerenarch, standing behind the captain, lifted his chin
fractionally, and his eyes glanced up at the imager. Then away.

He knows we’re here.
He knows Vi’ya is here.

The door to the rec room hissed open, and all conversation
ceased. Lufus Kaniffer turned away from the dispenser and forgot the hot cup of
caf in his hand when Morrighon walked into the room with a strange,
light-footed shuffle, and seated himself at a central table.

Muttering transparent excuses, most of the crew exited with
more haste than dignity, carefully avoiding eye contact with Anaris’s henchman.

Kaniffer tried to follow, but—“Lufus Kaniffer. Stay.” Morrighon’s
voice was unstressed, full of the unspoken expectation of obedience.

Shock quivered down Kaniffer’s muscles.
He knows nobody’s going to challenge him after what they did to Hestik
and Soge.

“And you, An’Jayvan Neesach. Come here.”

As the woman paused, glowering fearfully at Morrighon, the
remainder of the crew made their getaway, crowding past Oglethorp Bugtul, to whom
Morrighon had also beckoned.

“You three have been chosen for a signal honor.” Morrighon pointed
at Kaniffer. “You will pilot the shuttle that carries the Panarch and what
remains of his Privy Council to their final exile on Gehenna.” He motioned at
the other two. “These will be your crew, along with three Tarkan guards. You
will use the shuttle in the starboard bay. We reach orbit in a little over four
hours, at which time you will debark.”

He walked out.

The three Rifters looked at each other as the hatch hissed
shut. Then Kaniffer snickered, the fear replaced by anticipation.
This is the break I’ve been waiting for!

“What?” exclaimed Neesach, her shrieky voice scratching
Kaniffer’s ears.

“That little twister just handed us our ticket off the
Samedi
and a ship of our own,” Kaniffer
whispered, leaning toward them.

All three looked around for imagers, then Kaniffer shrugged.
Fasthand could be watching all he wanted, but Morrighon gave the orders. Kaniffer
sniggered, rubbing his hands together. “Can you imagine what we can get on
Rifthaven for a vid of the Panarch getting torn apart by a bunch of Isolates?”

Neesach’s jaw dropped, then she grinned. “Ya think they’ll
play with ’em a little?”

“Either before they kill ’em,”
Bugtul said, licking his wet lips, “or after.”

Kaniffer grimaced. He’d seen the nacker-chips Bugtul
collected; himself, he preferred his partners still breathing. Then he
shrugged. “Just means more sunbursts for us either way.”

Bugtul frowned. “But those Gehennans—they a threat to us?”

“Nah-h-h,” Neesach scoffed. “That
System FF data says there isn’t any metal down here, ’cept in that big
crater—they can’t have any weapons worth worrying about. Prob’ly just spears
and rocks. The shields’ll handle that.”

“Can you imagine the Panarch
getting it with a stone spear?” Bugtul gloated.

No one answered as the three of them envisioned a future
rich with possibilities.

But we’ve got to stay
downside long enough for the Isolates to find the nicks,
Kaniffer thought,
and poked his finger at the little engineer. “Buggy, you remember that chip of
yours with the nick bitches marooned on the asteroid?” As he spoke, Kaniffer
touched his nose and ear in the universal symbol denoting the possible presence
of a nark.

“Yeah?” The engineer’s voice was
puzzled.

“’Member how they got stuck?” The
drivetech in the vid had sabotaged the engines so he could take his time with
his victims.

“Yeah,” Bugtul replied after a
pause.

“Hell of a thing, getting stuck
like that. Didn’t affect the imagers, though.”

“Ye-e-e-a-a-a-h.” Bugtul dragged
out the word as he comprehended. “Made a good story. I’ll have to check at
Rifthaven next time, see if old Scrogger has anything new like that.”

“Ye-e-a-ah.” Kaniffer matched his
tone and nudged Neesach. “That’s the kind of vid you don’t want to be
interrupted while you’re watching.”

Her puzzlement altered to mirth.

“Nacky,” she said as Kaniffer stood
up. “Real nacky. But I guess we’d better get to the shuttle and check out the
systems. Needs some work if I remember right.”

Kaniffer rubbed his hands together as he followed the others
out.

He could see those sunbursts now.

o0o

Emmet Fasthand paced the confines of his cabin, biting
nervously at a tag of flesh his nails had worried from the corner of his thumb.
He should catch some Zs; they were less than four hours from Gehenna, but he
couldn’t sleep. He felt like he’d snorted a whole pod of Fleegian snow garlic:
his nerves thrummed like an engine in overload.

When his path took him near the data console, he tapped at
the keys, then wiped the command before completion.
If I keep interrupting Tat, she’ll never break through.
It galled
him to be so dependent on the little Bori tech, but it was preferable to being
at the mercy of the other Bori, Anaris’s secretary.

He fiddled again with the tianqi, but decided if he fed in
any more tranquilizing scents he’d put himself in a coma. Then he checked the
feed from the bridge, only to find the system trash thickening. The System FF
simulation he’d got off the MinervaNet said it was due to asteroids perturbed
into the Knot by the system’s gas giants, shattering them to gravel and dust.
Just like it’ll do to the
Samedi
if we’re not careful.
But so far,
Moob’s scans indicated the Knot was apparently not responding to their
presence.