She stared at him. “What I believe, or don’t believe, is no business of yours.”
His frown deepened; she saw him searching for a trace of sarcasm in her voice, a hint of it in her eyes. She showed him nothing. “You and the Queen have strained my patience long enough with this harassment,” he said, his own eyes turning cold. “The Police are beginning a sweep even as we speak. I have ordered my people to arrest everyone who refuses to disperse and remain outside of a five-kilometer radius of the city, and to sink their ships. That includes you, PalaThion, if you remain here.”
“More people will take their places,” Jerusha said.
His mouth twisted. “Then we’ll go on arresting them. You can’t keep it up for long. This miserable world doesn’t have enough population.” He hesitated, as her expression did not change. “And what population it has is extremely centralized,” he said slowly. “These ignorant technophobes have no idea what kind of position that puts them in strategically. But I don’t have to tell you what we could do to you, if you give us any real trouble. I’ve been lenient so far. You know that—”
“Commander Vhanu! Sir—” The voice of the hovercraft’s pilot came over her own comm link, even as she saw Vhanu react. “Carbuncle has just lost all power.”
“What?” Vhanu said.
“Everything has gone down there, sir. It’s like someone threw the master switch. They have no lights, no power—nothing.”
Vhanu swore, looking toward the city, his face suddenly naked. Jerusha had never seen him show an emotion as spontaneous as the disbelief, and then the fear, that filled his eyes. The fear frightened her more than any threat. “Take me back to the city,” he muttered, into his own link. He turned away as if he had forgotten that she existed, and climbed into the hovercraft.
Jerusha watched the craft rise, bank sharply, and soar away toward Carbuncle. The city looked unchanged to her, from where she stood, in broad daylight. But that was the thing about Carbuncle—it held its secrets well. She wondered what would happen when night came … wondered if Moon had done this, somehow. She was certain that was what Vhanu must be thinking. Her hands tightened on the rail as she remembered the look in his eyes.
She called on her link, alerting the constables who were out on the sea with the locals, ordering them back to the city. She tried to raise her headquarters in Carbuncle, getting only static; her skin prickled suddenly, as if the sound had invaded her very flesh.
She glanced down over the rail again, searching the water beside her for Silky. The mers nearby had scattered as the hovercraft came down; some of them were returning to fill that gray, restless space now, although suddenly the entire surface of the sea seemed to have grown almost empty of them. “Atwater,” she called, glancing into the ship’s cabin. “Get me a reading on Silky, will you?” She waited, her hands tapping a silent rhythm on the rail as the time stretched and still she got no answer. “Atwater—?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Atwater said, at last. “I can’t trace her beacon. It’s gone.”
* * *
Hegemonic Police Commander NR Vhanu was met at the gates of the Summer Queen’s palace by an escort of two city constables, carrying lanterns. They studied him and his escort with guarded expressions, saying only, “Come with us, sir,” as they led the way back through the heavy doors. He felt their hostility like a wave of heat as soon as they turned their backs on him.
He followed them along the hallway, catching fleeting glimpses of the primitive murals that defaced its walls; struck more profoundly by the complete darkness that surrounded him. He had never even thought about what an immense, dark tomb this city was, without the artificial light and life support that the Old Empire’s technology had given it. The storm walls at the end of every alley had opened, as if in some strange, programmed ritual, letting in the chill breath of the open air, so that Carbuncle did not become uninhabitable when its systems failed—only massively inconvenient. As if someone had planned it that way.
They reached the Hall of the Winds. It was brighter here, because there were windows to let in the bleak silver light of day—although, he realized with some surprise, these windows had remained closed. He remembered suddenly being told how once only these windows remained perpetually open, so that the winds interacted with the sail-like curtains high above, making what was now simply a rather nerve-wracking passage over the city’s open access well into a trial by air.
According to the story, the Summer Queen had caused the windows to close, controlling the city’s arcane, self-perpetuating machinery in a way that no one seemed to understand.… He crossed the bridge almost without being aware that he did, for once; looking up, studying the sealed windows, and wondering.
They climbed the wide stairway on the other side, and entered what was still called the throne room, although its once-elegant decor had been usurped by rude examples of Tiamatan arts and crafts until it looked to his eye more like a village marketplace. He was always secretly surprised that he did not find live animals wandering among the visitors there.
Today, in the unexpected darkness, he felt as if he were entering a cave. It had never struck him before that this room had no natural light source. The Queen was waiting for him, sitting on the crystal throne which was the only surviving relic of Winter’s reign. He had wondered before why she had not had that single striking piece of furniture replaced with some crude native-made chair. Perhaps even she had been awed by the exquisite workmanship of its gleaming convolutions. It seemed almost beyond human design; as if it were a creation spun from ice by the forces of wind and sun.
And now, led by lamplight as he entered the shadow-hung chamber, he saw the throne illuminated by candles and oil lanterns. In the flickering light, it shone as if it held a fire of its own: the patterns of reflection flowing along its undulant surfaces reminded him of the aurora that filled the night sky of his homeworld. The play of light and shadow gave the anemic paleness of the Queen’s face, the whiteness of her hair, a strange, almost unearthly luminosity that his startled eyes persisted in finding sensuous. The Queen’s eyes were no color that he had ever seen before, no color that he could put a name to; they watched his approach with smoldering hostility.
He felt a moment of vertiginous uncertainty as he stopped before the throne; as he found her beautiful in spite of himself, and remembered the silent air in the Hall of Winds. What was it that Gundhalinu had been unable to resist about her, that had transformed a friend into a stranger, a hero into a traitor? For a moment, remembering Gundhalinu and seeing her before him, shining like aurora-glow, he wanted to find out for himself what it was about her, what it was she had made Gundhalinu feel; how it would feel to possess her, to be possessed by such an obsession.…
His sudden guilt and shame suffocated the images filling his mind. He drew himself up, making a perfectly controlled bow. “Lady,” he said, his voice flat.
She nodded, a barely visible acknowledgment in return. “Commander Vhanu. What is it you want now?”
“Two things,” he said harshly. “I want you to order your citizens to clear the waters around Carbuncle. And I want the city’s power restored.”
She raised her eyebrows; her expression was surprised to the point of mockery, but he saw her hands tighten over the arms of the throne, her fingers searching its convolutions. “What makes you think that I can control either of those situations, Commander?” she said softly.
He took a deep breath. “You are the leader of this world’s people, or so you claim. You ordered them out there.”
“I am ‘technically only a religious leader, with no real authority to rule,’ I believe you said, to justify yourself when you declared martial law. I spread the word among my people about the gathering of the mers, because it is a religious matter to them. They chose to make pilgrimages, to witness for themselves this marvel of the Lady’s blessing. How do you expect me to order them not to do that?”
He saw in her eyes that she did not believe anything she said,
any more than he did. He had always taken her for a religious fanatic; it shocked him to realize suddenly that she was an exquisite hypocrite, mouthing religious platitudes about the Lady as an excuse to exercise secular powers to which she had no legal claim. He swore under his breath as the once solid ground beneath his convictions crumbled further. “Then you leave me no choice but to control your people for you, Lady,” he said.
But it was an empty threat. He had had to pull the force back from their task of arresting the protestors to maintain order in the paralyzed city. And there were disturbing reports that the mers were suddenly disappearing from the seas around Carbuncle.
If this went on too long, he would lose his opportunity to show the tribunal the kind of productivity and control he had been so sure he could demonstrate to them. If he could not find out how to get the city’s power functioning again, he would lose everything.
He was a rational man, not a man who liked to take risks. He had gambled on what seemed to be a sure thing; he had put his judgment, his political prowess, his honor, on the line to secure the water of life. If he failed, he would have sacrificed Gundhalinu’s trust and friendship, Gundhalinu’s distinguished career, his own career—all for nothing. All of them would be brought to ruin by this damnable enigma of a world, and its elusive, seductive Queen.
“I suppose you will tell me next that you had nothing to do with what’s happened to the city?” He gestured at the shadows around them.
“I had nothing to do with it,” she said, shaking back her long, silver-lit hair.
“They say you stopped the winds, in the Hall down below. You know things about this place that no one else does—” he thought she stiffened imperceptibly, “and how to control them.”
“I control nothing about Carbuncle,” she murmured. “Any more than you do.”
He felt his chest constrict, as her blind dart struck too close to home. “I may not control the power source for Carbuncle.” he said, “but I control far greater powers, as you know. We have weapons capable of destroying this city completely—there would be nothing left of it, do you understand me?” He thrust the words at her. “No structure, not even wreckage, no human beings left alive. A crater, filled with the sea.”
Her face flushed. “You don’t have the authority. You wouldn’t dare do such a thing. Why would you—?”
“Perhaps because you left me no alternative. Perhaps simply because I could.” His anger fed on her sudden reaction like fire on air. “But if it happens, your last thought will be that you could have prevented it from happening … that you drove me to it—” He forced his voice back under control. “A tribunal committee from Kharemough is coming here to investigate the situation that led to my removing the Chief Justice from office. There will be an inquiry, and it will involve your part in his dishonor—”
“There was no dishonor—” she began.
“—And if things continue here unchanged from how they now stand, the tribunal committee will undoubtedly back any measures I am forced to take against your people.”
The Queen was silent for a long moment, looking back at him with her changeable eyes. “It strikes me, Commander Vhanu,” she said at last, “that we have more in common than simply our roles in bringing a good man to undeserved grief. Gundhalinu is gone because you and I both possess a certain amount of power, which comes to us from some greater source; and we both try to use it to further ends we believe in. Whether we succeed is not always our choice. But it remains our choice how we go about it. I was taught, when I became a sibyl, that my duty was to serve all who needed the power that passed through me; not to use it to serve my own selfish ends.… I am simply a conduit, Commander, which is why I cannot give you what you want. I am a vessel. And you are a hollow man.” She rose from the throne in a motion as fluid as water, and stepped down off the dais into the protective gathering of her advisors and lightbearers, who had waited for her as silently as shadows. She started away toward the far door, leaving him behind without acknowledgment.
But she stopped at the door, turned back to look at him. “Anything you do to this world or any of its people will come back to you threefold in misery,” she said. The stagnant, lifeless air of the throne room gave an unnerving quality to her voice, as if something else were speaking through her. Only a vessel … She turned away, and did not look back again before she disappeared.
He turned, frowning, and pushed a path through the silent stares of his own retinue. He started back the way he had come, forcing the lantern-bearing constables to hurry after him through the unchanged darkness.
TIAMAT: Prajna, Planetary Orbit
Reede Kullervo opened his eyes with the confusion of a man wakened after too little sleep; heard his own slurred voice mouthing sounds that should have been questions, or demands.
“Boss…” someone else’s voice was saying, with more effect than his own. “Boss—?” Niburu. His last memory was of Niburu, fog-gray, melting away. Niburu’s face was perfectly clear in front of him now; his hand crossed Reede’s line of vision to shake his shoulder with hesitant insistence.
“We’re there—?” Reede asked, managing somehow to speak intelligible words this time. He sat up, surprised that his body would obey him; clutched the seat-arms as he began to float upward, until he saw that restraining straps held him in. “Tiamat space?”
Niburu nodded; Reede filled in the slim, silent shadow of Ananke behind him, wearing a headset. “What about—?” He jerked his chin at Ariele’s seat, where the smoke-gray shield still rested undisturbed.
Niburu shrugged, and nodded.
“They’ve closed with us, Kedalion,” Ananke said suddenly. “They’re locking on to our hatch.”
Reede released his restraint harness and pushed up from his seat unsteadily. He clung to the solid support of the seatback until his sense of balance stabilized. “What is it? Have we been contacted?”
“More than that,” Niburu said grimly. “We’re being boarded. They barely gave us time to set orbit before they were on our backs; they must’ve been tracking us since the minute we came out of the last jump. The Hedge’s nearspace security wasn’t this paranoid before we left.”
“Move—” Reede gestured them aft with sudden vehemence. “Clear out of the LB, and seal it up. I don’t want them snooping around in here, fucking with those stasis units and asking a lot of questions. Hurry up!”
They followed him without protest; Niburu sealed the hatch behind them and led the way out of the Prajna’s holds toward the passenger area. Reede worked his way through the serpentine corridors that Niburu had filled with extra cargo storage so that there was barely space for a normal-sized man to pass through without banging his head on something. He swore under his breath, watching Ananke swimming lithely along the passageway ahead of him. His own sluggish body was made dizzy by his every movement. “Damn it, Niburu, why didn’t you turn on the gravity?”
“Sorry, boss,” Niburu said, looking back/down/up at him. “I move faster this way.”
Reede grunted. He had commented, complained, and finally ordered Niburu to get the interior of the ship refitted so that it was more comfortable to a man his own height. Niburu had ignored him, stalled, and finally, standing eye to eye with him from the height of a raised access in the systems center, told him to fuck off. “This is my ship,” Niburu had said. “It has to be my way.” And to his own surprise as much as Niburu’s, Reede had let it go.
He looked down/in as they passed the empty room that was the ship’s real heart, where Niburu navigated and they all endured the brutal passage through Black Gate transits. Its passenger cocoons gave them some protection against the stresses of hyperlight as well, now that the ship was outfitted with a jury-rigged stardrive unit, and the past and the future were fused into one imperfect present.
He went on without stopping through the cramped maze of dayroom, commons, and private sleeping cubicles, with nothing worse than bruises and curses. They arrived in the systems center just as the
access at the other end filled with a cluster of armed troopers in spacesuits.
Niburu and Ananke raised their hands, drifting free, at the sight of the guns trained on them. Reede did the same, reflexively, kept his hands up reluctantly.
“Who are you? Why are you on my ship?” Niburu demanded, the indignation in his voice belying the submission gesture. “We had clearance when we left. You’ve got no reason to board us, let alone threaten us. I’m going to report this—”
“You can report it to me.” The front man in the group of intruders pushed toward them; banged his head on a piece of suspended equipment and pulled himself up short. He swore under his breath, his eyes threatening death to anyone who cracked a smile. “Lieutenant Rimonne, Hegemonic Navy. Tiamat is under martial law, and we are investigating the arrival of all unscheduled ships.”
“Martial law?” Niburu said blankly. “Look, I’m a free trader. I get shipments where I can; I don’t run on a schedule.”
“Our records show you claim to be arriving with the same cargo you were carrying when you left Tiamat. Would you like to explain that?”
Niburu shrugged. “A deal fell through. It’s a hard life.”
“Nice try.” The lieutenant gestured at his men. “We’re taking you aboard our vessel for questioning, and probably detention.”
“Wait a minute,” Reede said, moving forward cautiously, his hands still high. “I’m their return cargo. They brought me here to see Gundhalinu. I have to see Gundhalinu, as soon as possible.”
Rimonne raised his eyebrows, taking in Reede’s bandaged head and torn, bloodied clothing. “The Chief Justice? That’s going to be difficult.”
Reede glanced down at himself, realizing that his appearance didn’t help his credibility any. “Take me down to the surface. Contact him, tell him I’m here, he’ll see me. My name is Reede Kullervo.”
The lieutenant looked unimpressed. “It doesn’t matter—”
“Maybe you’ve heard of me. They call me the Smith.”