Read The Gathering Flame Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
The Gathering Flame (12 page)
“Veratina’s dead.”
Tarveet made a startled noise. “But she wasn’t even eighty yet—what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Perada said. “‘Natural causes,’ according to the armsmaster, but that could mean almost anything. I’ll find out more when I get to Entibor.” She fixed Tarveet with a challenging glance—the same all-or-nothing look she’d worn back at the Double Moon—and said, “What’s important now is that I’m the Domina. And everything we used to talk about on Galcen is possible.”
Thinking about it afterward, Jos decided that he had to give Garen Tarveet points for guts. It was one thing to have big ideas and spread them out on the table to impress a pretty girl, but something else altogether when the pretty girl showed up later and expected you to follow through.
Tarveet blinked and swallowed hard. “There’s a lot of people we’ll have to talk to first. But I think we can do it.” Perada smiled. The effect was dazzling. “I knew I could depend on you, Garen. But it was a long drive from the spaceport; is there some place I can go to freshen up before we start working?”
“Of course,” Tarveet said. The two of them headed up the steps of the manor house, arm in arm.
Feeling out of place, Jos followed.
In the far western highlands of Galcen’s northern continent, a winter storm howled across the black walls and looming towers of the Adepts’ Retreat. Snow and ice covered the narrow road that led up from the village of Treslin in the valley below; snow and ice blanketed the pocket-sized landing field that linked the Retreat to the outer world by air. Nobody was going to enter the Retreat, or leave it, until the weather broke.
Within the stone walls of the fortress, however, Galcen’s Adepts contrived to keep themselves warm. Force fields shimmered across windows that had once been nothing but open slits hewn through massive blocks of stone; heat-bars glowed on every hearth. In the windowless inner rooms that housed the record-keepers for the Guild, where the winter cold should have penetrated to the bone, heavy-duty climate-control systems kept the area warm—not for the comfort of the Adepts who worked there, but for the sake of the equipment that they tended.
Two of the Retreat’s senior Adepts stood by the main comp console, leaning on their staffs and watching the apprentice who had drawn today’s round of data work. The apprentice was accustomed to working unsupervised—she was qualified to handle the comps, and the task at hand was not an urgent one—and the set of her shoulders as she went from comp screen to keyboard and back again betrayed both annoyance and unease.
A name came up on the main screen. RANSOME, E.; ILARNA.
Another dead one
, she thought. Most of the Ilarnans were, or as close to it as made no difference. But she was too conscientious to mark the owner of any name as dead without a proper check, especially with Master Otenu and Master Faen breathing down the back of her neck. She touched the key to begin the search.
, she thought. Most of the Ilarnans were, or as close to it as made no difference. But she was too conscientious to mark the owner of any name as dead without a proper check, especially with Master Otenu and Master Faen breathing down the back of her neck. She touched the key to begin the search.
Behind her, she heard Otenu murmur, “Ransome. He studied here for a while, did you know?”
“Yes,” said Faen. A pause. “But he was on Ilarna.”
“Are you sure? I always wondered—the dates were so close—”
Too close
, thought the apprentice. The first information had already come up on the secondary screen: records of the Red Shift Line, showing that the spaceliner
Fleeting Fancy,
on a regular run from Galcen to Ilarna, had carried one Errec Ransome as a passenger—putting him on-planet a full day and half a night before the attack.
, thought the apprentice. The first information had already come up on the secondary screen: records of the Red Shift Line, showing that the spaceliner
Fleeting Fancy,
on a regular run from Galcen to Ilarna, had carried one Errec Ransome as a passenger—putting him on-planet a full day and half a night before the attack.
She felt Master Faen leaning to peer at the screen over her shoulder.
“You see,” Faen said to Otenu. “He was there.”
“At the spaceport,” Otenu said. “The Ilarnan Guildhouse was in broad countryside—farming country. I remember him saying so once. He missed it, I think, while he was away.”
The apprentice felt sorry for Master Otenu; it sounded like Ransome had been a friend of his. But another scrap of data was scrolling up onto the secondary screen: the deposition of an Ilarnan refugee and former spaceport worker, who remembered renting a long-range aircar to an Adept fresh home from Galcen, said aircar to be returned at the rental franchise in the town of Amalind Under.
“That’s it,” said Faen. “Unless something happened to that aircar between the spaceport and Amalind Under, he was at the Guildhouse when it fell. And there were no survivors.”
“His body was never found.”
“Neither were half a hundred others,” Faen said. “Remember—everything that the raiders couldn’t take away, they burned.”
Master Otenu moved restlessly. His shifting about made the apprentice nervous, and she wished that he would stop. She had the feeling that the senior Master was the reason both Adepts were here and bothering her at her work—Otenu was looking for something, and she didn’t know what.
Maybe Otenu doesn’t either.
“Ransome makes me too uncomfortable for someone who’s supposed to be dead,” Otenu said finally. “I dreamed about him last night.”
She heard Master Faen draw a sharp breath. “I see.”
“He came to me in my dream and tried to warn me of something,” Otenu said, “but the thing itself I couldn’t hear.”
“How do you know it was a warning, then?”
“It felt like one.” Otenu paused. “And you will admit, I think, that if anyone had the strength and the talents to escape the killing on Ilarna, it was Ransome.”
“I defer to your judgment on that,” Faen said. “You worked with him and I didn’t.” Another pause. “What was he like?”
“Very strong,” said Otenu. “And not always subtle—he came to his talent late, after working for several years as a common merchant-spacer out of his home world. As for his particular gifts—you know as well as I do what Ilarna sent him here to learn.”
No,
thought the apprentice.
What?
But neither Adept seemed willing to pursue that part of the discussion further, and her curiosity had to remain unsatisfied.
thought the apprentice.
What?
But neither Adept seemed willing to pursue that part of the discussion further, and her curiosity had to remain unsatisfied.
“If Ransome
is
alive,” Faen was saying, “then where is he? None of the Guildhouses have reported seeing him, and no Guildmembers. If he were alive and free, he would have contacted the nearest Guildhouse. He has not done so—therefore, either he is not alive, or he is not free. And in either case,” Faen concluded, “he is lost to us.”
is
alive,” Faen was saying, “then where is he? None of the Guildhouses have reported seeing him, and no Guildmembers. If he were alive and free, he would have contacted the nearest Guildhouse. He has not done so—therefore, either he is not alive, or he is not free. And in either case,” Faen concluded, “he is lost to us.”
“You forget one other possibility,” said Otenu. “It could be that Ransome is alive, and does not want to be found. And in that case—”
“I agree,” said Faen. “In that case—unlikely as it may be—in
that
case, it is imperative that we bring him back.”
that
case, it is imperative that we bring him back.”
The apprentice stifled a sigh. The name RANSOME, E., still glowed on the console’s main screen. She hesitated a little longer, then keyed in the necessary commands.
RANSOME, E; ILARNA.
STATUS: MISSING.
SEARCH: ACTIVE.
The interior of the Tarveets’ manor house was as luxurious as the hovercar had been, and even more elaborate. Jos decided after a few minutes’ reflection that the Double Moon back in Waycross wanted to be someplace like this when it grew up. Garen Tarveet, in his dark blue velvet, looked right at home. Perada, however, looked somewhat out of place. Jos couldn’t tell if it was her clothes—she was wearing the pick of the
’Hammer’s
slop chest, along with Nannla’s hat and Tillijen’s spare blaster—or that he’d gotten used to seeing her in plainer settings than this.
’Hammer’s
slop chest, along with Nannla’s hat and Tillijen’s spare blaster—or that he’d gotten used to seeing her in plainer settings than this.
The second possibility made him uneasy. In the privateering life you took the good times as they came, and you certainly didn’t turn down a sporting invitation from a girl whose personal wealth was enough to buy an entire planet on the open market. But you didn’t dare let yourself get used to having someone around—do that, and when they were gone you didn’t just miss them, you hurt all over.
Garen Tarveet and Perada went into a long, open room full of cushioned furniture made of some kind of knotty, light-brown wood. Jos followed—since nobody stopped him, he supposed that as a bodyguard he wasn’t officially there—and took up a position near the entrance, where he could watch the doors and windows while he kept an eye on the Domina and her friend.
The two former classmates had settled down on a couch at the other end of the room, screened from direct view by a small thicket of potted plants and hanging ferns. Jos wondered, briefly, what the room was used for when the family’s son and heir wasn’t occupied in making conspiracies in it. A game room, maybe; he spotted what looked like a four-high pushball cube down at the far end, behind another obscuring mass of greenery, and not far from where he stood was a low table about the right size to display a draughts board and opposing control pads.
Jos was tempted to try out the table himself, but refrained. Bodyguards didn’t do that sort of thing—and besides, he was too busy trying to overhear what Perada and Tarveet were saying to each other with their heads so close together. The young man’s dull brown hair was all but touching Perada’s lighter tresses, and she was whispering something in his ear.
The few scraps of conversation that carried as far as the entrance, however, didn’t sound particularly loverlike:
“ … can you get access … ?”
“ … nominal control of the off-world properties …”
“ … Galcen?”
“No choice. But …”
The talk went on like that for some time. Then, abruptly, both Perada and Tarveet stood and left the room by the inner door. Since he hadn’t been told to do otherwise, Jos followed.
They were going deeper into the manor house, through hallways and corridors that grew more elaborate as they went along. Plain flagstone flooring gave way to polished wood, and then to rugs—if such a homely term could be applied to the precious fabrics that covered the Tarveet family floors. Jos recognized the carpet underfoot as Ilarnan mille-fleur knotwork, exquisite and damn-near priceless—the
’Hammer
had taken a couple of bales of the stuff off a Magebuilt cargo hauler a while back, and the sum Errec Ransome had named as its fair value had staggered everyone on board.
’Hammer
had taken a couple of bales of the stuff off a Magebuilt cargo hauler a while back, and the sum Errec Ransome had named as its fair value had staggered everyone on board.
I’ve seen old spacehands retire rich on money like that. And Errec never would take his share of it
.
.
The corridor ended in a set of heavy double doors, done in dark wood with enameled trim. The doors swung open, and Perada turned to Jos.
“Wait here,” she said, and turned away without pausing for a reply.
The doors closed again behind the Domina and Garen Tarveet, leaving Jos alone. As instructed, like a proper bodyguard, he waited. And waited, staring at the swirls of blue and cream and gold on the door panels, while the evening wore on. He would have checked his chronometer, or started pacing, or gone ahead and pushed open the doors in spite of his instructions, but all of those things were off limits in his current role.
Not that he wasn’t tempted.
You don’t know what’s going on in there. She could be in all sorts of trouble.
Right. Or maybe she and her pal are having dinner with his family, and the last thing she needs is for you to come charging in waving a blaster right in the middle of the salad course.
He’d about decided to open the doors anyway, and to hell with it, when a maidservant in livery approached and said, “Come with me.”
Jos shook his head. “My, uh …”—what was the right word?—“my employer told me to wait right here.”
The maidservant looked amused. Jos found out why a moment later, when she handed him a folded slip of cream-colored notepaper. He unfolded it and saw three sentences, written in a firm, round hand:
You’re as suspicious as your friend Thulmotten. It’s all right. I’ll be with you later.
—
P.
You’re as suspicious as your friend Thulmotten. It’s all right. I’ll be with you later.
—
P.
He refolded the slip of paper and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. “Lead on,” he said.
The maidservant started off down a service passage, narrower and darker than the elegant public rooms that it connected. Jos followed, feeling lighter of heart than he had for some time. The reference to the front page of Sverje’s coursebook had eased a worry that he hadn’t been aware of until it was gone: that the Tarveets or somebody in their employ had seized Perada and tried to fob off her bodyguard with a forged note.
The maidservant led him to a room containing a bed, a chair, and a dressing table—all good quality, but plain.
“You’ll be spending the night here,” she said, and closed the outer door behind her as she left.
Jos looked about the room. It was about the same size as his cabin aboard
Warhammer,
but not as well designed: all the furniture sat in the middle of the floor instead of tucking itself out of the way in nooks and alcoves, and wall space that could have housed useful built-ins was wasted on a window and two inner doors. One door, upon inspection, led to the refresher cubicle; the other proved to be locked from the other side. All in all, the setup was less than what he could have bought for himself in downtown Flatlands after a halfway decent run.
Warhammer,
but not as well designed: all the furniture sat in the middle of the floor instead of tucking itself out of the way in nooks and alcoves, and wall space that could have housed useful built-ins was wasted on a window and two inner doors. One door, upon inspection, led to the refresher cubicle; the other proved to be locked from the other side. All in all, the setup was less than what he could have bought for himself in downtown Flatlands after a halfway decent run.
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