Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy) (39 page)

“My fellow members, I’m going to make a prediction. A few years ago, none of us would have believed this could come so soon, but history has its own laws of inertia; history is moving faster and faster, and it’s moving for
us
. This is my prediction, and I know in my soul I’m right. In half a year’s time, the Lord Galinin and the Directors will be meeting with a representative of the Phoenix. The proud Lords who brand us pirates and traitors will be coming to terms with the Phoenix, and by the God, they’ll be grateful to give us anything we ask for!”

Ben could never explain what triggered him; he’d listened patiently to rhetoric in the same vein before, heard Ussher twist and select facts, heard him use the name and goals of the Phoenix callously, even heard similar predictions of ultimate victory.

Ben couldn’t explain it, and neither could he control it. His chair crashed backward as he came to his feet. Ussher’s head snapped around, and Ben was beyond hiding his contempt; it was all he could do to restrain the urge to drive his fist into that mouth that sagged with surprise.

“Predis, you unmothered fool! Who the hell do you think you are?”

Rob Hendrick sprang to his feet, glaring hotly at Ben. “Listen, you have no right to—”

Ben’s hands closed. “Hendrick, stay out of this, or so help me, I’ll smash that pretty face of yours to a pulp!”

Hendrick sagged back into his chair while Marien Dyce chimed in with a shocked, “Ben, now, really!”

Then M’Kim, “For the God’s sake, Ben, calm down! This is no time—”

“Calm down? After that rousing oration? John, don’t you realize that speech was supposed to overwhelm us with enthusiasm and confidence?” Ben turned on Ussher, the meeting of their eyes a palpable clash; he almost expected a shower of sparks. “That speech was supposed to make us forget everything the Phoenix stands for and has sacrificed so many lives for. That speech was supposed to make us overlook the fact that, in spite of the Concord’s internal problems, it is
still
capable of smashing us in a military confrontation; to overlook the warning in the General Plan ex seqs that bargaining
without
the LR-MT is hopeless. And we’re supposed to forget that the Phoenix has worked for over fifty years to
prevent
the Bond revolt Predis is proposing.
My fellow members
. . . is it so easy to forget? Is it so easy to forget the
real
aims of the Phoenix? Is it so easy to forget Andreas Riis and all he stands for? To forget that he’s still alive and waiting to be freed?”

“
Andreas Riis is dead
!”

For a moment Ben could only stare at Ussher, stunned by the terrible conviction in those words. Then his mouth twisted sardonically, shock swept away in renewed anger.

“And what about Alex Ransom, Predis? Is
he
dead, too? You tried hard enough to kill him. You made three tries for him, but you failed on every one!”

Ussher’s fist smashed down on the table.

“Ransom
deserted
the Phoenix! He betrayed Riis and deserted! He’s a traitor! A deserter!”

He believed every word of it. Ben was silenced again. Perhaps on some level, Ussher still recognized the truth, but now, at this time and place, he believed his own lie with a conviction that would not be shaken, and that conviction was more frightening than all his self-serving ambition.

Ben said softly, “The God help us, Predis, you’re
insane
.”

The air seemed to vibrate in the sudden silence. No sound, no movement, no one seemed to breathe. Ussher went white, his hair blazing against his pallid skin, his body taut, as if it would snap at the slightest touch.

“Venturi, no one says that to
me
! You’ll swallow that one day, I promise you. You’ll
choke
on it!”

“If I do, Predis, everyone will know who garroted me.”

He turned away and looked down at Erica, vaguely surprised to see a brief, wistful smile where he might have anticipated recrimination for his loss of control.

“I have business in Leda, Erica. I’ll be back tonight.” He didn’t wait for her response, but turned on his heel and strode to the door.

And Predis Ussher’s eyes never strayed from him until the doorscreens snapped on after him.

Ben paused at the windowall, looking out at the glittering night vista of Leda; the gibbous Castor made a golden path across the waters of the Pangaean Straits. A beautiful view, and an expensive one, but an SSB major could afford such luxuries. Still, it was a waste of ’cords; he had little time to enjoy it.

He turned and surveyed the bedroom carefully. The “body” was tucked in the bed, set to radiate the proper amount of infrared, as well as sounding alarms and activating hidden vidicams if its delicate “skin” was touched. The comconsole was programmed to detour all incoming calls to his quarters in Fina or his pocketcom. The sensors that surrounded and filled the apartment were all activated.

He glanced at his watch. Mike Compton would be on the MT now. Before he darkened the windowall, he took a last look out, wondering what the view of Leda would be like after Ussher’s full-scale military offensive.

Six months. 1 Januar. A new year.

Ussher
was
insane. It had been foolish to tell him so, but it was true.

True or not, Ben thought irritably as he waved off the lights, it had been an error to lose control. He must talk to Erica tonight. He took out his transceiver as he crossed to the inner wall and felt along the plasment for the faint depression. Then, when a section of the wall slid back silently, he stepped into the chamber behind it and switched on the ’ceiver.

“Mike? Are you clear?” He set the timers on the shock screens and closed the door while he waited for the response.

“Clear, Ben. Ready for trans?”

“Yes, go ahead—”

He froze, every muscle springing taut; his hand flashed to the holster on his hip.

The answer to his first question should have been, “The weather’s fine.”

He had his laser out when he felt the faint shock of the trans, then he was blinking in the blaze of light in the Fina MT chamber.

There were two of them, face-screened, one turning away from the control console, the other in front of him, between him and the open door into the corridor, an X
²
in his hand.

Ben fired, aiming for the gun, even as he ducked and lunged, head down; the heat of a beam breathed lightly over his shoulder. They hit the floor together, and Ben felt the air crushed out of his lungs. He rolled with his attacker, straining to bring his gun up, his hand exploding in pain as the second man kicked it away.

The corridor—the fire alarms. . . .

He gripped clothing and flesh, fumbled for leverage, and heaved his assailant’s body between him and the other man, heard an angry cry of pain.

“You hit me! You hit
me
!”

Ben scrambled to his feet and plunged into the corridor, only to be thrown down as a hurtling body leapt on his back. He tried to turn, to pull the man under him, and took the impact of the fall on his shoulder.

A hand closed over his mouth, stifling his cry at the pain in his left side, a pain so intense, his body jerked in uncontrolled muscular spasms, and he knew he had only a few seconds of consciousness left him. He thrust his elbow back, felt flesh smash against bone; the momentary loosening of his assailant’s grip was enough. He twisted free, his right arm snapped down, the X
¹
was in his palm, and his finger closed on the firing button.

The hall echoed with screams of agony, but Ben only understood that the threatening shadow had fallen away. He moved the beam in a searing arc upward, toward the ceiling, toward the heat sensors. The fire alarms began shrieking; the very air shivered with the sound as he swayed to his feet and staggered across the hall to put his back to the wall, ready for the next attack.

But there was none. A blurred shadow; a man running into the MT room. Ben held the gun in both hands, the beam hissing until his trembling muscles failed, and the gun fell to the floor.

Shouts and footsteps moving toward him, the sounds dim against the alarms. He felt himself sliding down the wall, one hand at his side, blackened with charred cloth and flesh, and he thought the shrieking was his own. His vision was gone; he wasn’t aware of hitting the floor except for the intensification of the pain. The footsteps and voices were close, but he couldn’t move.

He wondered if Ussher had sent someone to finish the job.

“Ben! Holy God—somebody call a medsquad!”

Haral Wills . . . thank the God. . . .

“Willie—”

“Don’t talk, Ben. We’ll have a medsquad here in a few minutes.”

“Willie, take care of . . . Erica. . . .”

Alex Ransom walked slowly up the hangar ramp, thinking that he was exchanging one black vault for another—the black vault of space for a vault of stone.

Halfway up the ramp he stopped and looked down into the hangar. It was silent now; the crews and techs had retired for a well earned rest, the flurry of excitement occasioned by their homecoming had died, and the COS HQ staff returned to their duties.

The foray had been productive as well as distracting. His eyes moved over the black hulls of the Falcons. There were four of them now. Capturing the fourth with a meager fleet of three had been no small feat. There was personal satisfaction in that, and more in the knowledge that eventually he could return Amik’s ships with no concern for rent or farther bargaining.

He looked up at the rock walls and ceiling, knowing he should be in the comcenter. Jael forwarded only high-priority news to him when he was away from the COS HQ; there would be endless minor events and decisions to consider. But he didn’t move to answer the imperative of duty; not yet.

It was a paradox that he felt less confined here than in the comcenter which, if smaller, was still more open. The sheened hulls of the Falcons overwhelmed this space, making the chamber seem cramped, and in spite of the helions mounted around the ceiling, making it seem darker. Perhaps these shark-sleek black hulls had a smell of space about them, a residue of voyages in unconfined dimensions of space and time.

Andreas Riis had become a prisoner of the SSB five months and two weeks ago.

It had the weight of eons in it.

And one month and twenty-eight days ago, Adrien had disappeared, for all intents and purposes, into vacuum.

It was beginning to tell on him, these multiple anxieties accruing endlessly over days and weeks and months. It was a medieval torture; an emotional rack.

All the exiles felt it. It was a miracle that the thirty-four men and women confined in these rocky chambers could even tolerate each other by now. But there had been no clashes, no flares of temper, no hints of dissatisfaction. They were a select group, separated in the centrifuge of doubt and dissension in Fina. They understood the Phoenix; they knew why they were part of it, and why there were here.

And they had faith. He felt the pull of tension in his shoulders. They had faith in Commander Alex Ransom.

As if to bring that point home, his ’com buzzed, and it both startled and annoyed him. The face in the small screen was Jael’s.

“Alex, I’m in the comcenter. You’d better get up here.”

A moment of paralysis; fear and doubt. No hope. Jael’s tone left no room for that.

“On my way, Jael.”

He took the remainder of the ramp in long strides, then crossed the comcenter, acknowledging the greetings of the monitoring crew with only a brief nod, his eyes automatically scanning the screens. Jael was at the microwave console, headset on.

“Yes,” he said into his mike, “all right, Erica, but Alex is right here. You’d better line him in.”

Alex reached for a headset from the counter and hurriedly hooked it over his ear, signaling Jael to stay on.

“Erica? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Alex . . . thank the God you’re back.” That voice, farther away than distance, sounding in the hollow of his ear; it had a ragged edge to it now. “It’s Ben, Alex, he—”

“Ben? What happened to him?”

“I’ll explain, but first, he’ll be all right. He was badly hurt, but he’ll recover. He has some broken bones in his right hand and a laser wound in his chest. It’s serious, but not critical. An ambush was set up for him in the Fina MT terminal.”

Alex reached blindly for a chair and sank into it, and it was a moment before he could even speak.

“Erica, I’m coming to Fina. Ussher’s going to kill both of you if—”

“If
what
? What do you intend to do—come back to Fina so he can make a clean sweep?” Then her tone softened. “I’ve been in surgery with Ben for two hours, and I haven’t the strength to argue now. Please, just stop and think.”

He let his head sink into his hands, closing his eyes. “Are
you
all right?”

“Yes, and Haral Wills is taking over security for both Ben and me. We have loyal medtechs on tap to be with Ben full time.”

“I hope Willie’s looking out for himself, too.”

“He is. Have you talked to Jael since you returned?”

“Not yet.”

“He’ll fill you in on the Council meeting this afternoon. I gave him the full story a few hours ago. The would-be Lord of Peladeen is about to declare war on the Concord.”

It had the leaden feel of inevitability. There was no sudden shock, only enervating numbness.

“When does this war begin?”

“I Januar, if he sticks to his schedule.”

“I’ll get the rest from Jael. Tell me about Ben.”

“Well, he finally blew up at the Council meeting, and among other things he told Predis he’s insane. Since it’s so close to the truth, it rankled with him.” She hesitated. “I should have warned Ben. Predis was too quiet when he threw that at him; I knew there’d be a strong reaction. I didn’t expect anything
this
strong, though. I haven’t heard Ben’s side of the story yet; he’s still unconscious. Mike Compton was on the MT, but he was knocked out, and all he knows is that two men in face-screens came in about half an hour before Ben was due. But, in spite of the odds, Ben managed to kill both his assailants and set off the fire alarms with his laser. Willie was the first to reach him, thank the God. He told me Ben was late and he was on his way to check with Mike when the alarms went off.”