Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) (23 page)

Amik laughed heartily. “And what would that be?”

“Jael. He’s too much an anomaly as an Outsider. I was never satisfied with his rationale for choosing the Phoenix. I was also curious about his entroit into the Society. Manir Peladeen knew about the Phoenix. We have correspondence from Lord Elor in our memfiles verifying that. He regarded the Phoenix as the hope for civilization and his own immortality. I doubt Lady Manir felt less strongly, or that she’d fail to pass on her hopes and knowledge to her son.”

Amik only smiled benignly. “It
would
seem reasonable. Well, I’m glad you found my tale enlightening, but now—” He looked at his watch, then began maneuvering himself out of his chair, “—I regret to say I have certain business matters I must tend to. I hope you’ll forgive me for ending our conversation so abruptly.”

“It’s for me to ask your forbearance for taking so much of your time, Amik.” He rose, cautiously, relieved to find the afteraffects of the drug almost entirely gone.

Amik brought Alex’s gun and suitcase to him. “Your cloak and ’screen ring are there on the chair behind you.” He waited until Alex had the laser secured in its sleeve holster, his cloak on, and face-screen activated, then nodded. “I’ll ’com Yuba and have him show you to your suite.”

“Thank you—for all your generosity.”

Amik shrugged as he reached for the intercom. “I told you, you’re—”

“Jael’s guest. Yes, you told me. But like it or not, Amik, you’ll have to accept my thanks. There’s no debt in gratitude.”

Amik eyed him speculatively, then laughed. “We’ll speak of that another time.”

Alex leaned back, idly surveying the lavishly furnished guest suite, which was only a little less flamboyant in décor than Amik’s salon, and included a similar colored dome backed with artificial light. He put his wineglass down by his empty plate with a sigh of purely physical satisfaction, a sensation he indulged for the moment.

He might as well. Jael refused to dishonor the chef’s handiwork by detracting from it with any but the lightest conversation. But, at length, he tossed the linett napkin down on a table glittering, even in the ruins of the “small supper,” with platinade, crystal, and gold-embellished porceleen, and asked, “Well, brother, enough?”

“Jael,
enough
would hardly describe that meal. I haven’t eaten so well since . . .”

Jael, dark eyes intent, only smiled. “Since before you saw Fina, I’ll lay. Caffay? Or some brandy?”

“Caffay, please.”

Jael reached for the intercom near his plate. “Hebra, caffay for my guest and myself.” Then he rose and moved to an armchair and relaxed against the velveen cushions. “Your face-screen, brother.”

Alex touched the switch on his ’screen ring as he sank into the chair across a small side table from Jael. The table was Sinasian, he guessed; austere, yet intricately carved, and as rare as it was old. It occurred to him that Jael would adapt very easily to the Elite world; he lived as well as any Lord both in terms of creature comforts and cultural advantages. He even dressed like a Lord on his own ground, with boots and brocaded doublet, although the cut of his clothes leaned to the rakish—and to Outside standards—and the sheathed knife was always ready at his side.

The door opened, and a young woman entered carrying a tray laden with porceleen cups and a gold-inlaid pot. She gave Jael a brief, polite smile as she put the tray on the side table and poured the steaming black brew into the cups.

Jael said, “You can take the dining table now, Hebra. And remember, I give it to you to see to my guest’s comfort. I call this man friend and brother—under blood edict.”

She pulled her breath in sharply at that, then with a nod gave Alex that same polite smile.

“I’ll be on ready any time he ’coms.” She activated the nulgrav control and guided the table out the door.

Alex turned off his face-screen and reached for his cup. “Now that we’ve done justice to your chef’s artistry, perhaps you’ll tell me about the SI meeting.”

Jael nodded. “The whole thing was on script to the last word, Alex, including a gimmy eulogy for Vandyne that would bring tears to a carraminx’s eye. Ian Temple takes over the top seat in SI here, and Ussher pulls the strings on him.”

“Was anything said about me?”

“Not a glim, and I didn’t put it up to Temple. I wasn’t supposed to know about your coming on scene.”

“What about you, Jael, with Vandyne
off
scene?”

He shrugged and sipped at his caffay unconcernedly. “I’m in clear, brother. Upped to number three man—according to script. They’ll keep their blades sheathed with me; I’m not casting any shadows over them now, and anyway, they aren’t sure where I toe up. So maybe I let them think I’m with the tooth-gimmer. I’m a good ear in where I sit, and I don’t intend to toss that.”

Alex commented levelly, “You seem to be well lined in on the situation with Ussher.”

Jael’s hooded eyes flickered with hidden amusement. “You mean this under-cloak face-off you’ve got on? I told you once I read the tooth-gimmer, and I’m good at addition. So I’ve been adding up the signs past what Harv told me. Of course, it wasn’t so hard to tally since I know who you are.”

There was no doubt what he meant by that, and Alex finally had to laugh.

“How did you find out?”

“The old Outsider’s nose, mostly,” he said, touching his nose with a sly smile. “The old Ser must have tallied it, too.”

Alex frowned at that. “What did he say?”

“Nothing to me. It’s what he said to you. You said he told you that spin about my mother. He
never
spills that to strangers—or anyone.”

“Why should knowing my identity induce him to spill it?”

“The old Ser plays every side. Maybe he thought someday you’d have the weight to—well, if you knew I carried some blue Elite blood . . .” He put his cup aside, frowning uncomfortably. “My mother had this . . . dream. Something about exhuming the house of Peladeen.”

“With you as First Lord?”

“One on, brother. The son of the Lord of Thieves. She made a tape, a death testament, addressed to Galinin ‘or his successor,’ no less. She laid it out that I was the rightful heir to Peladeen, since I was her only living son. There are precedents—or so she said—for matriarchal succession, and she carried a little Peladeen blood herself. I guess—damn, it’s for a laugh, really, digging up the House of Peladeen with
me
in the top seat. But she meant it true.”

Alex stared at him, then his annoyance drove him to rise and begin pacing, arms folded across his chest.

“For a laugh! Holy God, Jael, you have a claim to the First Lordship of Peladeen and you didn’t tell anyone in Fina about it? You’re another candidate for Phase I!”

He replied a little stiffly, “I’ve got that tallied, brother, but you’re a hell of a lot better candidate than I am, and I had
that
tallied, too. And there’s a kind of conditioning that doesn’t take Phoenix training; the kind you learn from the time you can make words, and you know if you spill, someone you love is going to die. My mother’s life hung on the shadow of a word. So I didn’t talk about her. Not even after she died.”

Alex sighed. “Nor even under Level 3 conditioning, according to Erica. But, Jael, that little ‘spin’ your father told me does more than establish your claim to Peladeen.”

Jael’s gaze was direct. “If you’re going to call me down because I didn’t hand you the blade to cut
Lord
Predis’s claim out from under him, just sit on it. When I came on scene,
you
were available for Phase 1. You didn’t need a blade. Then, in one month’s time, the whole stat got turned inside out. The tooth-gimmer’s on top, and you’ve got a hand and a foot tied behind you—I can tally that one, too. Bring this face-off out into the open, and the Phoenix will split down the middle and crumble into that much Midhar sand. The old Ser’s spin gives you a blade, but can you use it? And will it hold? You can’t
prove
Predis Ussher Peladeen is buried in the Eliseer Estate unless you dig up the grounds. So do you want to take the chance that Ussher can’t turn your blade into a lie? That’s his gim, Alex, and he’s good at it—turning truth into lies, and lies into truth.”

Alex looked up into the shining, multicolored dome, feeling the weight of six hundred meters of earth above it. He wondered if he’d ever again live where he could look out a window and see the sky. Any sky.

He said dully, “You’re right, Jael. But your claim may still be vital if I ever do have the leverage to help you make good on it.” Jael was on the verge of protesting and Alex added, “If I achieve my resurrection, I’ll need you, and not as the first born of the Lord of Thieves. You may have to accept the role of Lord of Peladeen, and even the role of focus for Phase I if I fail.”

Jael didn’t answer immediately, but at length he nodded. “All right, brother, you call it. I can play any gim you name if I have to, and probably a few you’ve never thought of.” He took a moment for his caffay, frowning slightly. “But there’s one thing I’d like to know about Ussher. How did he gim the Council so well in the beginning? I mean, they wouldn’t even consider running the gant with him unless they thought he had a solid claim to Peladeen.”

Alex nodded and returned to his chair. “His claim couldn’t be
dis
proved, Jael, and the Council was satisfied with that; they had to be. According to his story, he was saved during the Fall by a Fesh nurse—I don’t even know her name—but she
was
a nurse for Predis Peladeen. After the Fall, Ussher said she claimed him as her own child, and no records survived of her marrying or having a child of her own. Ussher also had some jewelry known to belong to Manir Peladeen, and he came up with a few verifiable childhood memories.” He paused, then with a bitter laugh, “Now it’s obvious where the truth lies: He
was
the nurse’s son. The jewelry—she could have stolen it, or Manir might have given it to her. The memories could come from the nurse, too, and it’s even conceivable that she knew something about the Phoenix. If Manir trusted her, she might have told her something about it, or maybe she just had sharp ears. Who knows?”

“The tooth-gimmer does.” Jael picked up his cup, sipped sparingly, then put it down with an air of resolve. “Well, brother, that’s all for the bygone. For the now, we’ve got a few problems to lay out. You’re safe here—at least, a little safer than up in the Inside—but I doubt you want to retire here.”

“Retirement—here or anywhere—is definitely not what I had in mind. I’m sure you’ve tallied my reasons for leaving Fina. I was an open target for Ussher there. But I have a purpose beyond preserving my life—Andreas Riis. I left Fina with only a vague plan of working with loyal members in the Helen chapter to make sure an MT is available—and out of Ussher’s reach—when Ben finds out where Andreas is being held, but that rather naive scheme is out now. Ussher has too strong a foothold here, and I can’t risk any more lives; I already have Vandyne on my conscience. I have no choice now but to go into total exile. That gives Ussher free rein in Fina, but if we can rescue Andreas before Ussher gets too deeply entrenched, we have a chance of cutting him down without ripping he Phoenix apart.”

Jael nodded. “There’s the LR-MT to count in, too. How close was Riis on that?”

Alex’s jaw tightened. He said bitterly. “Within touching distance. That’s what precipitated the sudden reversal of the stat’ in Fina.”

“That puts a light on everything. Alex, even if Ben homes an on Riis, cutting him loose is going to be one hell of a shivvy gim.”

“I know. I need an HQ. I’ll have to equip it with everything we’ll need to free Andreas. An MT, of course, and communication and monitoring systems. And I want to pull Lyden and Bruce out of Fina and set them up with the equipment they need to keep working on the LR-MT.”

Jael objected, “But they’d need a comp system.”

“Only shielded inputs to one.”

“So. You have any particular system in mind?”

Alex laughed. “Of course. Your father’s. I can’t believe the Lord of Thieves runs his far-flung empire without an adequate computer system.”

Jael leaned back, the tips of his fingers pressed together, no hint of amusement in his slanted eyes.

“Alex, you’d better scan one thing straight. Just because adopted for the Phoenix doesn’t mean you can hold the old Ser to friend. If I hadn’t laid edict for you, he’d give you over to he Shads without a quiver.”

“Yes, but your father is a businessman; he deals in goods and services. Is he so particular about whom he does business with that he’d refuse to deal with me?”

“Not as long as he can nudge the price enough to pull the kind of profit margins he’s used to.”

Alex nodded and, finding immobility intolerable, again rose and began pacing.

“Amik will demand quantity, if my mode of exchange is money, or quality, if I can fire his imagination with goods otherwise unavailable to him. The Phoenix has means of larceny open to it even the Brotherhood can’t rival. We can also offer items he can’t find anywhere except in Fina.”

Jael turned palms up, shoulders rising in a shrug. “You can catch his eye, brother, but I’ll lay you a warning. The tax on his goods and services is high, and he’s an old hand at haggle gims.”

“I’ll have to take my chances at that.” Alex turned to face Jael, brows drawn. “The biggest problem is a space to set up my HQ; one that’s as safe as possible from the SSB and preferably out of the Brother’s way. Some of the necessary equipment I can get from Fina through Ben and Erica. Like an MT.” He frowned as he resumed his pacing. “I may have to pirate one of the Corvets when Barret and M’Kim get them outfitted with MTs. Under any circumstances, I’ll need at least three Falcons.”

“Three Fal——that means hangar space, too.”

“Yes, and living space for the crews and techs; I’ll have to bring in some loyals from Fina. And a habitation system as well as basics like water, a food supply, and a power source.”

Jael’s cup came down into its saucer with a clatter. “Alex, you’re talking about
money
. Maybe into millions when you throw in a few Falcons.”