The Rifter's Covenant: Exordium 4

By Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge

In this rewritten fourth volume of the series Exordium, the Panarchy is in shambles, coalescing at the military base Ares. Brandon has inherited not only this political tinderbox, but also must face the escalating threat from the invading Dol’jharians and their Rifter allies before they can power up the ancient artifact they call the Suneater.

But moving with secret, deadly precision against Brandon is a traitor who will do anything for power. Meanwhile Brandon has fallen in love, but everyone thinks it’s with the wrong person.

Space battles, political in-fighting, and personal struggles ramp up the stakes in this penultimate volume in the five book Exordium series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book View Cafe
• Release date: Jun 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611385298

Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith started making books out of paper towels at age six. In between stories, she studied and traveled in Europe, got a Masters degree in history, and now lives in Southern California with her spouse, two kids, and two dogs. She’s worked in jobs ranging from counter work in a smoky harbor bar to the film industry. Writing books is what she loves best. She’s the author of the high fantasy History of Sartorias-deles series as well as the modern-day fantasy adventures of Kim Murray in Coronets and Steel. Learn more at www.sherwoodsmith.net.

Book preview

PART ONE

ONE

SHIAVONA: MALACHRONTE SYSTEM

A message from Hreem the Faithless was always a harbinger of death and destruction. Captain Lochiel’s despair intensified as she watched the unfolding tragedy on the viewscreen; her two lifemates watched with equal intensity, Messina in growing fury, and Bayrut with a wary eye not on the screen, but on the shipmoot comprised of the Rifter destroyer Shiavona’s officers and shareholders.

The imager relaying the horror was located about a kilometer up one of the end-caps of the doomed sync. Below it the lush verdure of a forest stretched into hazy distance below hook-shaped clouds, curving up on either side to become a verdigris sky until it was lost from sight behind the sun-bright diffusers. In the foreground a flock of red and black birds sketched a frantic, screeching tracery of protest against the distant landscape where, sixty degrees antispinwise, a deadly haze hid the fatal wound inflicted by the missile from the Hreem’s Flower of Lith.

Silence gripped the shipmoot. Some of the faces mirrored shock, but not enough of them, Lochiel and Bayrut saw. The Kelly trinity, with three votes, was unreadable.

The novosti was still speaking. Lochiel forced herself to listen.

. . . and these Rifters, under the command of the infamous jacker known as Hreem the Faithless, had aimed their missile precisely. It opened a 150-meter rupture in the sync, which ordinarily could have been repaired before the partial pressure of oxygen fell to lethal levels. But the missile also destroyed a crucial valve cluster in the hydrostabilizers and opened a major conduit from a lake, rendering it impossible for the engineers to reestablish dynamic stability.

The image switched to the novosti, his face rigid with horror—and imperfectly suppressed excitement.

He went on in a forced-sounding measured cadence, Even though, in accordance with the Family Ozman’s Orthodox Teilhardian beliefs, the sync was only sparsely populated, it was not possible to evacuate all the inhabitants before the habitat’s rotation entered a chaotic domain as the spin axis precessed toward the more stable short-axis orientation.

The image switched again, and someone sucked in a harsh breath when the screen revealed a chaos almost unrecognizable as the interior of a habitat. Clots of water, earth, and organic material churned, lit by the dim glow of the diffusers as the sync oscillated out of control.

Temenarch Vitessa Ozman refused evacuation, giving her place on the Family yacht to one of the children of the village below the Residence. Fewer than four thousand of the oneill’s inhabitants survived.

A bright haze filled the screen as the habitat, stressed beyond its design parameters, finally ruptured and its atmosphere fled into space. The image flickered, pulled back: against the bright ring of the remaining habitats around Malachronte, the debris of what had been Sync Ozman spread slowly into a trash reef that did not hide the dragonfly shape of Hreem’s destroyer, the Flower of Lith.

The image switched to a group of commentators. As they began describing what they’d just seen, Lochiel cut the sound and turned to face her officers and shareholders.

No one moved.

Bayrut, Shiavona’s first officer, broke the silence; anger flattened his customarily precise tenor: And now we’re taking orders from him. It wasn’t quite a question.

Charterly was a greedy chatzer. Luz-Cremont, the weapons specialist, leaned forward, his eyes blinking rapidly. But he had style, and he knew there were some limits you don’t cross. Not like this Hreem.

Hope penetrated Lochiel’s sick grief. Luz-Cremont was usually a troublemaker; now it sounded like he might support her lifemates and her in their plan to break away.

Things had been so much simpler under Charterly, until he had bought it two weeks earlier in a savage action in the Dolorosa system, where the Panarchist Navy administered a brutal mauling to his fleet, despite the loss of a battlecruiser. The remnants—including the Shiavona—had been posted by Barrodagh to Hreem’s fleet for refitting here in the Malachronte system.

The Dol’jharian influence had caused enough strife in the fleet. But now, with Charterly’s death and the dispersal of his fleet, shipboard alliances and allegiances cracked even further.

Even the Shiidra never fired on a Highdwelling, Messina spoke up, her olive complexion yellowish with nausea. No surprise. She grew up a Highdweller. As did Luz-Cremont.

At least Hreem doesn’t have to worry about LJO, said Vidocq. She shrugged and stretched back in her pod with a semblance of ease, but her watchful gaze and tight shoulders betrayed her.

Lochiel could not look at her, lest her hatred reveal itself. She seemed like a good choice at the time. Bayrut’s unwavering gaze watched for the subtlest clue of betrayal.

The shareholders around them shuffled and muttered; at either side of Vidocq, Dai Gan and Y’Lassian exchanged glances and subtle signals of agreement.

Messina flicked a questioning glance Lochiel’s way. When Lochiel responded with her own questioning brow-lift, Messina said to Vidocq. Nullwit. If there was even one Malachronte Downsider on the sync when it blew, Local Justice applies—if there’s such a thing as justice left, now that Dol’jhar’s in charge.

You call that being in charge? Ambrose’s quiet baritone cut through the background chatter. The taciturn damage-control officer tilted his chin at the screen, still silently relaying further coverage of the Ozman atrocity. You’ve seen the relays from the hyperwave. And no one knows what the ships without a hyperwave are up to, until long after the event.

"We don’t have a hyperwave. Lochiel stated the obvious so she could study the reactions in the faces around her. She stood up and indicated the image-feed. So Barrodagh gets data on us third hand, and Hreem only a bit faster."

Feeling Bayrut’s and Messina’s tension—they were waiting for her to broach the plan the three of them had conceived—she nevertheless permitted a silence to build. Something was wrong. She sensed it, but couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

You maybe suggesting we duck out, Captain? Vidocq’s tone was even, her head cocked so that her flame-colored hair-spikes tilted.

Several of the minor shareholders standing against the bulkhead exchanged glances, and one or two betrayed the signs of privacies, though that was forbidden during shipmoots. But all that was as expected: Vidocq had been building her own clique among them by dividing their interests from the major owners.

Hell of a time to decide that. Y’Lassian’s voice was outraged. So far we’ve had the snot beat out of us, and hardly a sniff of loot. Seems to me that Hreem’s fleet’s done a lot better.

Yeah, said Trono, one of the minor shareholders. And I hear those Barcan nacker-waggers’re stinking rich, bein’ a protectorate and all. She smirked to either side, looking for support from her cronies.

Lochiel grunted in disgust. You saw what Hreem did to that Panarchist sync. Do you think a man proud of the tag ‘The Faithless’ is going to figure he owes us anything once he gets what he wants? Or Dol’jhar, for that matter?

Vidocq sneered. Hreem is generous, I hear, if you’re loyal. Have to be, to keep a fleet. ‘Faithless’ only means religion is blunge, everyone knows that. She glanced around with confidence. You wanna go hide somewhere on the Fringes? Lord of Vengeance has a long reach and a longer memory, I hear. She grinned. Or are ya gonna go to the nicks?

Don’t count the nicks out yet. Ambrose poked his long nose forward in emphasis, the chimes on his chest-long Serapisti braids tinkling. You saw what happened at Dolorosa. Even against our skipmissiles they nearly blew us all to hell. And what we didn’t see in the hyperwave reports that Charterly and Hreem relayed to us tells me that a lot more Sodality ships have discovered the same thing, only worse.

Right, said Messina. There’s more than a few ships in-system that were never part of Hreem’s gang. Leftovers, probably, from fleets the nicks smashed. And if Eusabian’s so sure of himself, why is that little slug Barrodagh pulling more and more of us into the worst part of the Rift to guard that Suneater thing nobody’ll even talk about?

During the protracted pause following her question, some of the minor shareholders shifted uncomfortably. Many were watching Vidocq.

On the silenced viewscreen, the death of Sync Ozman had begun to play again.

Lochiel finally identified what had been bothering her. The Kelly trinity was no longer together; in fact, threy had spread as far from one another as she had ever seen them. Shtoink, the Intermittor, still stood where she had been when the meeting began, but Nyuck2 and Wu4 had drifted several paces away to either side along the bulkheads.

A thrill of fear burned through Lochiel’s nerves, and she saw it mirrored in Messina’s wide gray eyes.

You know we’ve had a good run, Lochiel said finally. Again she stated the obvious, in order to gauge the reactions around her. She had to be sure because there would not be a second chance. We stayed within the Sodality Code, and when we did take on nicks, it was fair dealing. Nothing like that. She tipped her head toward the screen. Result, though the Navy probably knows who we are, they didn’t try too hard to plasma us.

She pointed again at the recorded agony on-screen, being reshown from another angle. What I’m saying—asking—is if we really want to be a part of that.

Luz-Cremont spoke again. Seems to me there’s another reason to maybe think the nicks’d be a better deal.

Vidocq snapped around, arms crossing in challenge.

Lochiel caught a glance from Bayrut; he’d seen it, too.

Luz-Cremont was rubbing his lower eyelids as he talked. I mean, business when the nicks were running things was pretty good, and like you said, they didn’t try too hard to scrag us as long as we ran the line. He dropped his hand and looked up, blinking rapidly again. Business now . . . He shrugged. When the looting stops in the places the Dol’jharians don’t slag, where do the sunbursts come from then?

Lochiel saw a lot of thoughtful expressions, even among some she’d judged solidly with Vidocq. The Rifthaven Syndics had kept a balance between the fleet syndicates, allotting them zones of operation so everyone had a shot at a good living. But word was, they had drawn in tight to keep Rifthaven from being sucked into the war. That left ruthless operators like Hreem and Neyvla-khan free to bludgeon the smaller syndicates.

You’re saying we don’t have any choice, Luz? Dai Gan spoke up, his gravelly voice even rougher than usual.

It’s time. Lochiel caught Bayrut’s eye.

Luz is right, Bayrut interjected, shifting his stocky body to readiness. We might have had a chance if Charterly and half the fleet hadn’t been blown away, but now Hreem will swallow us without a hiccup, and Barrodagh won’t raise a finger.

What I say, Lochiel began, pointing at the atrocity on the viewscreen, is that we may end up involved in something even worse if we join Hreem. You saw what Neyvla-khan did to Minerva. So yes, I propose we go to the nicks. My cousin Cameron’s destroyer detachment operates out of Ixpotl, which isn’t too far off course for Barca.

Vidocq shook her head. If we bring the Navy down on Hreem and Neyvla-khan, you can kiss Rifthaven goodbye.

Rifthaven’s not in charge of the Sodality anymore, Lochiel replied. Eusabian is. She could feel the mood in the room shifting.

Vidocq looked around, evidently sensing the same change; she gave Lochiel an ugly look and clawed her fingers through the front spike of her hair. Too quick. Too controlled. It was a signal. For . . .?

Cameron never wrote me off, Lochiel continued. He told me when I left that the door to the Riftskip opens both ways, as far as he’s concerned. She motioned at the screen again. A lot of you are Highdwellers. What do you think a man deserves who would do that?

Luz-Cremont rubbed a hand over his bald head, which gleamed with sweat. You sure your nick cousin will trade? A shot at Hreem and Neyvla-khan for amnesty?

Only one way to find out, Lochiel answered. And I think I know Cameron well enough to guess what he’ll say.

But will the Navy back him?

They might shoot him, if they don’t like the deal he makes with us, Bayrut put in, but they’ll follow through. A naval officer’s word is law.

So we set up both Hreem and Neyvla-khan? Trono’s voice was doubtful. She was young, eager, and a follower. Who would she choose to follow? Lochiel didn’t want to lose her . . .

That’s up to my cousin Cameron, Lochiel said. Are we agreed?

During the silence, Y’Lassian got up and ambled over the drink dispenser. At a glance from Lochiel, Messina pushed away from the table to free her hands, and Bayrut moved casually to join Y’Lassian at the dispenser, light shimmering over his elegant cobalt-blue paneled coat.

Lochiel suppressed the urge to smile at her lifemates. After nearly two decades, words were seldom necessary anymore.

The pudgy damage-control tech moved aside awkwardly as Bayrut approached him; he was holding the drink in his right hand. He was left-handed.

Vidocq’s eyes darted from side to side.

I call for a vote. Lochiel said finally, forcing the matter.

What happened next took her totally by surprise: a soft putt under the table, followed by a sting in her leg. Her fingers fumbled for her jac when she saw Vidocq’s triumphant sneer, but her muscles locked. She’d thought the violence would come from Vidocq’s two toadies—until now Vidocq had been very careful never to initiate trouble on her own.

She watched helplessly as Y’Lassian threw his steaming drink into Bayrut’s face and drew his jac. Messina was luckier. She got her jac out, then paused helplessly as Vidocq stood: It’s quartan. The ship is mine. She brandished the gasgun in her hand. I’ve got more for anyone who doesn’t want to join me.

Dai Gan leaned down to pluck the weapon out of Messina’s slack hand.

The rest of Vidocq’s allies stepped forward, menacing the others with their weapons. Some of the officers had their jacs out but hesitated.

Tension gripped everyone while Lochiel struggled against mounting horror. The quarter-hour poison was painless—until the last three minutes, when its effect reversed from paralysis to convulsions that tore the victim apart.

You mean to follow Hreem? Ambrose asked quietly, ignoring the weapons trained on him.

I mean to follow the winners, and Hreem has the lower orbit with Dol’jhar, Vidocq said.

Lochiel looked helplessly at Ambrose, who’d retained his jac, carefully pointing it at no one in particular.

Just kill me!

But her vocal cords were locked in the grip of the poison.

Vidocq sauntered up and bent to gloat directly into Lochiel’s face. My first order is, we sit here and watch the show. Another ten minutes, it oughta be a good one. For everyone except your former captain, that is.

The snickers of her closest friends subsided as a strange droning sound filled the rec room.

Shtoink’s head-stalk pointed at Vidocq. The Intermittor’s eyes had retracted into the flesh around her lily-like mouth, which had stretched wide open, its reddish-yellow interior pulsing visibly. With her peripheral vision, Lochiel could see only one of the other Kelly, but it, too, was focused on Vidocq.

What’s this? You greenies don’t understand what’s happening here? Vidocq said as the drone rose to a painful crescendo that blurred Lochiel’s vision with its intensity; her cranial cavities resonated with the noise. Hey! Stop that chatzing squawk! Vidocq’s voice sounded thin and blurred.

She fired her gasgun at Shtoink, but there was no effect. The drone intensified. Vidocq looked back at Lochiel, her eyes wild. She raised the gasgun again.

The human members of the crew on both sides grimaced in pain, some shutting their eyes or holding hands over their ears, so not all of them saw the thin stream of steaming fluid the Intermittor spat directly at Vidocq, who inhaled sharply.

Lochiel heard a brittle, snapping sound as the skin over Vidocq’s sinuses bulged, making her look briefly like one of the ancient pre-human anthropoids of Lost Earth. Then the front of Vidocq’s head blew off.

Helpless to fight it, Lochiel felt gorge rise as the custardy remains of the tech’s brains dripped down her face; she tasted the salt-copper tang of blood. The dead woman crumpled to the deck, the back of her skull a mere empty shell, as all around her the room erupted in a crisscross of plasma bolts, screams, and a haze of hot blood.

Then silence fell, broken only by the groans of the wounded.

Are you all right, Lochiel?

She saw Bayrut leaning over her. She had fallen over without knowing it. The lack of sensation meant she had very little time.

No! I’m not all right, you big nackerbrain! she wanted to shout. She wanted to shout that she loved him, and his talent for stupid questions. She wanted to tell Messina never to leave him, or she’d haunt her forever.

Then they moved out of her field of vision as the Kelly Intermittor pushed them aside.

Her ribbons had fluffed out, and a small patch near the base of her head-stalk was changing color from the normal green to a sort of stripy mauve. Lochiel smelled a sharp chemical tang.

Wethree wondered why Vidocq wanted the quartan, Shtoink said. Her head-stalk looped over and plucked a segment of ribbon from the colored patch. She never thought to wonder where wethree got it from.

Shtoink’s head-stalk darted down like a striking snake and slapped Lochiel hard on the side of the neck, causing warmth to spread upward into her head, and down into her chest. Sensation flowed back into her jaw. Her tongue twitched.

Wh . . . wh . . . whaugh? she managed to gasp. The pain of returning life needled every cell. She welcomed the pain with equal ferocity, blinking blurrily up at Shtoink.

The Kelly Intermittor had made the quartan, and its antidote, in the strange chemical furnaces of its metabolism.

We will join the Navy, said Shtoink. For wethree have been called to Ares.

o0o

Many hours later, Lochiel sighed as she sank down onto her bunk.

The door to her cabin hissed shut behind Bayrut and Messina. Dark eyes and light gray eyes studied her with twin expressions of concern. Although it would be hard to find three human beings who resembled one another as little as Lochiel and her two lifemates, over the decades they had assumed many of one another’s habitual expressions and gestures. Ordinarily it amused them when they noticed. No one was smiling now.

"Shiavona is safely on its way to Ixpotl, Messina reported. I locked in the coordinates myself, as you requested, and Phu is holding down the nav console. She hesitated. I hated to leave some of the others, Al-Riham especially. We may need all the ships we can get. And we may end up looking down the missile tube at them at Barca. But it’ll be half a year before they reach anywhere they can communicate with Hreem."

Bayrut twitched the embroidered cuff of his sleeve. They have stores for a year, but nothing they can use to repair the fiveskip. I hope they get along well. It will be a very long journey.

Can’t be helped, Lochiel said. It’d only take one mouth to kill us all. And they’ve seen what we’ve seen. Which ship did you give them?

Messina grinned. "The Serpent’s Tooth. It’ll be a tight fit aboard that old corvette, but I figured it was the one we’d miss least."

Messina nodded toward Lochiel, and Bayrut obligingly began to rub Lochiel’s tense neck and shoulders as he said, Got a tightbeam back from Hreem just before we left. He bought our story. We’ve been given five days to replenish our stores from Charterly’s cache before we’re to proceed to Barca. I promised to load up with sneak-missiles and gee-mines. And I’ve got Thusama warming up the reactors. Unless we’re very lucky at Barca, we’ll lose the hyperrelay when Barrodagh finds out.

Lochiel saw her own bleakness in her lifemates’ gazes. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the euphoria of the neck rub. If they were lucky, they’d be back to an ordinary Alpha, in a war zone full of enemies armed with the power of the Ur. Unlucky, they’d be dead—or captured to be used as entertainment by Hreem’s twisted tempath Norio.

We have to show up with Cameron before Hreem starts wondering where we are, Lochiel said, and let out her breath. My report: I had Y’Lassian spaced. Dai Gan swears he was blackmailed by Vidocq, which might be true. She tried that on a couple others, it turns out. Anyway, Dai Gan is on probation. One false word and he takes the long walk. Everything else seems to be settled, and the Kelly wish to consult with us when we’re ready. She let out an unsteady breath in what was meant to be a laugh. All things considered, we should do that now, don’t you think?

As Bayrut lifted his hands, she levered herself up. Whether from a residual effect of the poison or mere stress, she felt as if the gravs had doubled. But there was no time to rest until she’d faced the last, and most important, chore.

Messina smiled, holding out her arms. Lochiel walked into her embrace, and Bayrut closed his strong grip round both of them. They leaned their heads together; the three of them breathed together, their pulses in counterpoint. Then they released, all at once.

Do threy want all three of us? Bayrut asked.

I think it has to be, Messina replied. Three is so important to them.

They left Lochiel’s cabin and took the lift down a level. The few crew members they passed were sober of countenance, busy on their tasks.

The three found the door to the dispensary open. A clean scent blew across their faces from the tianqi. Beneath it, Lochiel smelled a faint tang, like burned mint.

The Kelly came out of the infirmary, threir constant movement both clumsy and graceful. Lochiel would never again see threm as comical; she wondered how she could have.

The Intermittor danced forward, her head-stalk gyrating. Captain, she said in her incongruously sweet voice, wethree greet you. Are you well?

Lochiel reflected on how she’d always seen threm as naive, rather silly beings—lethally shortsighted, considering just how sophisticated threir biotech really was. The question now was, how to admit that she and her fellow humans had been ignorant—and now being enlightened, no longer trusted threm? I am fine, thanks to youthree, she said carefully.

And as Lochiel hesitated, searching for the right words, Messina spoke with typical navigator’s directness. We don’t question yourthree summary justice on Vidocq. Her fingers laced tightly into Lochiel’s and Bayrut’s on either side. It’s the method.

Nyuk2 and Wu4 honked and tooted, and Shtoink said, You now see our skills as a weapon, but wethree cannot make the rest of our journey secreted in the weapons locker.

It was a joke, which Lochiel found oddly steadying, as if the Kelly really were simply jolly creatures with absurd names who had a passion for cheap, gaudy human trinkets. Well, maybe threy were, but she’d discovered threy had another side. Which was more human than not.

She didn’t know whether to find that steadying or more unsettling.

Wethree only use our skills for the good of the vessel, Shtoink said. It is a vow wethree keep.

And that, Lochiel reflected, was as good a promise as she was going to get that threy wouldn’t do whatever it was threy did in order to take over her ship.

But did threy need to? This was the worry she’d been debating inside her head as she faced the grim task of Y’Lassian’s judgment and execution, then overseeing the cleanup of the rec room.

You said that youthree were summoned. Lochiel’s voice came out hoarse. She paused to clear her throat. By whom? How?

The question prompted a cacophony of discordant blats, tweets, and weird drones. Shtoink whirled back to her partners, her ribbons fluffing out. A complicated scent tickled the back of Lochiel’s nose—like overcooked gripple mixed with dusty tombs. Bayrut rubbed watery eyes, then the tianqi shifted into max, bathing their faces with cool air smelling of fresh-cut grass.

The Intermittor whirled again, her head-stalk inclining directly toward Lochiel. Be at peace. Wethree have no desire to take control of this ship. And we have no wish to cleave to Eusabian. You saw on the hyperwave what he did to the Eldest. It is to Ares that wethree must go.

Lochiel nodded. And if we had voted against throwing in with the nicks?

"Then wethree would have regretfully resigned as physician to Shiavona’s crew. Another way would have be found to reach Ares."

Lochiel sighed, some of her tension leaching from her. A last question, then. How were you summoned?

Again the frantic dance and fluffing ribbons, but this time the weird sounds coming from the three Kelly reminded Lochiel of giggles. And there was that assumption of childishness again, or rather, Lochiel thought, an unexamined sense of human superiority that caused her to wince inside.

Then the Intermittor said, It is impossible to explain.

Tired and somber, Lochiel shook her head. Then maybe we can go into it another time, when youthree have the right words, and I have a clearer head.

A triple bow from the Kelly, and Lochiel and her mates left. Again, by mutual and unspoken consent they left her to sleep alone. Bayrut would assume first watch.

But Lochiel could not sleep, not yet. When she reached her cabin, she moved directly to her desk. After staring at the blank viewscreen, she tabbed the control to window up a picture of her cousin Cameron, resplendent in the uniform of a naval captain. His eyes seemed to bore into her, calmly appraising. He was the only one who hadn’t seemed surprised when she took the Riftskip, the only one of the MacKenzie Family she’d ever heard from afterward.

Well, cousin, perhaps your familial loyalty will have a payoff, after all.

She’d said that to him before they parted. His reply echoed with renewed force. If that’s how you think of loyalty, you don’t yet know what it truly is.

Let’s find out if I’ve learned, cousin, she whispered.

TWO

TELVARNA: IN THE RIFT

Montrose knuckled his gritty eyes and fought a yawn that threatened to unhinge his jaw. He sank back at the communications console; though he’d adjusted the pod cushions, the seat still seemed subtly conformed to Lokri’s long, lean form. Or maybe it was just the complexity of memory and a vague sense of guilt that Lokri still languished in prison back on Ares.

From the direction of the navigation console came the soft rustle of Kelly ribbons. Montrose smelled the sharp, almost chemical odor that he’d learned was the Kelly equivalent of a yawn.

The Kelly trinity Portus-Artos-Dartinus stood behind Ivard. Dartinus and Atos leaned against Portus, the Intermittor of the trinity, the head-stalks of all three entwined in a complex knot. Ivard slumped in his pod with the boneless grace of youth, his head thrown back against Portus’s body, his fiery red hair a startling contrast against the deep green of the Intermittor’s pelt. The youth was sound asleep.

Portus’s head-stalk rotated gently a few degrees, one of her eyes flickering in an acknowledgment that Montrose suspected was the Kelly equivalent of a wink. Then her head-stalk inclined toward Sebastian Omilov, deeply absorbed in some complex task at the console rigged for him at the back of the bridge.

Perhaps you should mickey him before he wears us all out, the Kelly honked softly.

Omilov remained oblivious. In the captain’s pod, Vi’ya showed little sign of fatigue other than a telltale darkening around the eyes, and tension in the line of shoulder and arm as she tabbed her console. The Eya’a stood motionless nearby, their multifaceted blue gazes fixed on her.

At the rear hatch, Navy Solarch Emras sho-Rethven stood in the relaxed at-ease posture a Marine could sustain for hours. She gave a jaw-cracking yawn, caught Montrose’s gaze, and smiled apologetically at him.

Montrose wondered how Marim was holding up, back in the engine room. Probably catnapping with an alarm on the comm.

Omilov broke the silence. You are sure of that bearing, Captain?

You will have to ask Ivard, Vi’ya replied with the harshening of consonants that indicated irritation.

Omilov glanced at the slumbering youth and shook his head. No need, I suppose. It fits the other readings.

He tapped at his console. An image windowed up on the main screen: a faint blue-white smear, with a spectral band displayed beneath it. All the lines smeared, some out of phase.

A black hole binary, Montrose said, scowling at the screen. Anyone with even a smattering of navigational knowledge knew the spectral signature of a black hole binary, caused by the system’s rotation and the acceleration of matter falling into the singularity, since the results of running up near one in skip were catastrophic. But the spectroscopic display didn’t look right.

Yes, and no, Omilov replied. The widening of the spectral lines and the phase relationships are correct, but there’s an odd pattern of gaps in it. He tilted his head sternwards, toward the storeroom in which the techs on the Grozniy had installed a bank of powerful computational arrays, including a duplicate of the battlecruiser’s science databanks. The computer says that it’s actually a fractal spectrum of dimension 1.7, which may be related to its most anomalous aspect.

Ah. Montrose’s heavy brow cleared. Where are the X-rays?

Exactly. The system is putting out only a fraction of the high-end radiation expected from the accretion disk. Moreover, its position off the main sequence doesn’t correlate with the other stars in this region, nor does its chemical composition match its H-R position.

Portus honked an interrogative, and Ivard sat up, his finger transcribing an arc to mirror that depicted on the display. What does that mean? he asked, his voice clear, as though he’d never been asleep.

Perhaps he hadn’t been. Montrose wasn’t sure any more what the range of Ivard’s consciousness was.

No known process could cause such a spectral signature in a star. Omilov smiled wearily. It means, I think, that we’ve found the Suneater.

The rest of those gathered on the bridge were so tired there was no sign of much more emotion than mild satisfaction.

Omilov turned to Vi’ya. Can you take us in north of the system about thirty light-minutes out for a closer look?

Belay that, sho-Rethven said, coming to the alert. Have you forgotten our orders, Gnostor? No closer than a light-day. We don’t know how thickly they’ve sown transponders around that system—and they emptied three naval storehouses that we know of, so it could be pretty thick.

Omilov rubbed his jaw. Yes. Thank you. I’d forgotten. He paused, and his next words filled everyone with relief. Then I suggest we break for a watch. He began carefully shutting down his console. Let us recuperate. The next stop will be to execute a TDVSA, a temporally distributed . . .

. . . virtual sensor array, Vi’ya cut in. She tapped at her console and a complex geometric diagram windowed up, along with a wireframe of the Telvarna with sensors highlighted on its hull.

Omilov blinked. Ahh. It’s obvious you’ve more experience with them than I. He rose and bowed to Vi’ya in a sincere deference which had nothing of irony in it. You must forgive me, Captain. A lifetime of prejudice is hard to overcome.

Vi’ya inclined her chin, a slight smile easing the somber lines of her face. Granted, Gnostor. She swiped her hand across her console, and the screen went dark. A Z-watch for us all, she declared, and with a glance at the rear of the bridge, she added, Let the Marines keep watch, if they care to.

o0o

Run fifteen completed, Ivard said. Ready for skip to sixteen.

The stars slewed across the viewscreen as the Rifter captain brought the ship about. Solarch sho-Rethven felt the lurch as the Telvarna skipped. The fiveskip was showing the strain of the frequent hops required to create a virtual sensor array large enough to resolve a useful image from a light-day out—it was much easier with the huge baseline of a battlecruiser.

Ivard caught her eye and smiled.

Sho-Rethven smiled back. Ivard’s interest in her was obvious. He was a bit young, but interesting, especially his close relationship with the Kelly. She’d never met a Kelly trinity she didn’t like.

Of course duty came first, but these Rifters were a genial bunch, except for the stone-cold Dol’jharian Captain Vi’ya. Sho-Rethven didn’t trust her at all. The fact that she was a tempath, and maybe even a telepath, made the situation even trickier.

Her gaze flicked to the weird little pair of sophonts, whom she tried hard not to think of as ‘the brain-burners.’ Though that’s what they were. The Eya’a could fry your brains with their psi, and they were apparently in psi-communication with Vi’ya.

One of the pair turned multi-faceted blue eyes sho-Rethven’s way and chittered softly.

The sophont’s weird, twiggy fingers described a symbol. This, she had been told by Ivard, meant We see you. The other added the symbol that they had dubbed her with: The one who waits to kill.

Strangely, there was no sense of threat implied in their attitude. They seemed to accept that as her role, but she had no illusions about what would happen if her duty led her to action against Vi’ya. She only hoped she’d be fast enough to finish the job before they finished her.

The memory of the failsafes implanted in both her and Solarch Zhedong flashed up, and she suppressed it. If one triggered, she’d never know it, and it was best not to dwell on the prospect, especially if the Dol’jharian’s talent actually did shade into telepathy.

The ship shuddered out of skip.

Vi’ya, this better be the last for a while, Marim’s high voice came over the com from the engine space. Marim was almost as old as big, grizzled Montrose, but you couldn’t tell unless you got up close. Small and blonde, she seemed no older than Ivard. The fiveskip is really heating up.

Omilov looked as worried as the others felt: the high-frequency skips required for the extreme precision of a sensor array created by one ship in multiple locations required was taking its toll.

Position sixteen established, Ivard called out.

This is the last one we’ll need, Omilov decided as he straightened up from his console. Then his instruments bleeped. Yes. That’s it. Now the computer will process it, and we should be able to see what we’ve searched for so long a time.

On the screen a fuzzy blob coalesced, slowly sharpening as the huge computer array reiterated the complex algorithms that would resolve an image out of the sixteen sensor readings they had taken from widely separated vantage points around the suspected location of the Suneater.

Finally the image stabilized, revealing the savage beauty of a black hole binary. In the center of the screen was a red supergiant, bloated into oblateness as it overflowed its Roche volume toward the black hole, an immense plume of gas erupting from the oblate prominence on its surface and plunging into the accretion disc around the singularity. The matter spiraling to destruction shaded through the spectrum from red at the edge to the blue-white fury of disintegrating matter at the center, where it fell over the event horizon of the black hole and disappeared from the universe.

The image was familiar, and not familiar. Where are the polar jets? Montrose asked from the back of the bridge.

There are none, Omilov said in a slow voice of scientific wonder. I believe that explains the anomalous spectrum. Somehow, the Suneater is, well, eating them. The amount of energy that represents is enormous.

The image shifted, and a fuzzy shape swam into view. An orbital plot in another window indicated that it was seventeen light minutes out from the mass center of the system.

What in Haruban’s Hell is that? Marim’s voice came clearly over the com as the image slowly resolved.

Something never dreamed of in our engineering, Omilov whispered. Built by a race of which we know virtually nothing. I wonder how humans can even live in it.

Be better if they couldn’t. Montrose’s deep voice rumbled with distrust. Would have saved a lot of trouble.

Omilov didn’t seem to hear him. So that is the Suneater, he said reflectively. At long last.

Sho-Rethven gazed at the tangle of reddish tubes and cones. The Suneater looked like a high-speed collision of brass instruments. Made out of something that looked like somebody’s gums.

Near one of the cones, a smear coalesced into the form of a small ship.

Looks like it just took a dump, Marim commented.

Ivard snickered. What’s it been eating?

Do you need anything more, Gnostor? Viya’s cold tones cut through the banter.

No, Captain. Omilov, tired as he was, radiated immense satisfaction. It’s all in the computer.

Very well. She stood up. Ivard, take the con and set up the return. You handle the skip.

She walked past sho-Rethven without a flicker of acknowledgment and disappeared down the corridor.

o0o

A few hours later Montrose walked onto the bridge. A visceral flash of rightness at the sight of the captain at work at her pod was followed by the jolt of memory. Not so very long ago it had been Markham’s lanky form lounging in the captain’s pod, his blond head bent over the console, that gave the crew the sense that all was well: The Captain Was at Work.

Vi’ya had been so different in those days—a smiling figure in jewel-toned clothing. Markham and she always seemed to know what the other was thinking, a relationship that had had nothing to do with telepathy.

Vi’ya turned his way, dark eyes assessing; that humor was gone, as were the colors she had worn. Montrose suspected she’d picked up his emotions, if not his thoughts. So he said, Absurd, isn’t it? How we can lull ourselves with a false sense of security.

She gave a peculiar shake of her head that was not quite a twist, not a nod. It was characteristic of Dol’jharians, he’d found out. Manderian did the same thing. Though it was a dismissive gesture, he did not find it irritating, as he did the airy, graceful hand motions of the Tetrad Centrum Douloi, the inner elite of the aristocrats that ruled—had ruled—the Thousand Suns. With them a fine sense of condescension, or even of forbearance, was implied toward those who did not know the subtleties of current fashion in unspoken communication.

For this moment, Vi’ya said, we feel in control of our lives. She jerked her chin over her shoulder toward the bulkhead at the back of the bridge, where the two Arkadic Marines were housed. At least they are quiet about their work. Irony brought out the Dol’jharian accent in sharper consonants and guttural ‘r’s.

Montrose sat down in Lokri’s pod. Steepling his fingers, he said, So what do we do?

She shrugged. We return to Ares. And there we stay until justice is served.

Lokri. Montrose knew that the Marines had ears on the bridge, and however cooperative and pleasant these nicks had been so far on this weird journey, if Vi’ya damped their narks they would both come running, weapons drawn. And no one wore boswells, an order Vi’ya had agreed to. He didn’t want to know what arcane nastinesses the Marines were armed with.

So out loud he asked a question about the new sensors the Panarchists had had installed on the Telvarna for Omilov’s use, but with one hand he brought the communications console to life, keying it to text mode and echoing it to the captain’s console. Vi’ya had made it clear that the bridge consoles were safe.

You still plan to free Lokri before you leave Ares?

Her answer appeared on his console: I do. Out loud her voice went on unemotionally about how useless some of the equipment was—but that it would fetch a fair price on Rifthaven someday.

You’ll have to move quickly, then, Montrose typed. Just before we left, Jaim told me that the Archon of Torigan was using his weight to force a trial.

Vi’ya’s eyes narrowed. Her hands paused, tense and still, then she typed: We will use every advantage to delay it, then.

Montrose thought immediately of Brandon Arkad, now Panarch of the Thousand Suns. If he couldn’t delay it, nothing could. But would he?

Vi’ya must have been thinking the same thing. We must find out from Lokri what happened fourteen years ago.

I got it out of him—everything he remembers.

Vi’ya lifted her chin and ended the connection.

Montrose shut his console down and got to his feet. Telling her the story could wait: they still had a long journey ahead of them, and though the Marines had their narks, Montrose knew this ship better than they did—including where his own monitoring sensors still functioned. As he left, he wondered what kind of diversion to arrange, and reminded of the presence of the Kelly as well as the Eya’a, he smiled. Surely they could come up with something highly entertaining.

o0o

Manderian woke when a near-blinding light flashed through his dreams. He groped in the darkness and found the bedside console. Light filled the tiny cabin, illuminating the chrono: 03:55.

Manderian sat on the edge of the bed, and though his robe lay within reach, he did not touch it. To a follower of the Sanctus Lleddyn, dreams carried truth; understanding them was a matter of intuition and openness to the currents of Totality. He identified the flash: the Eya’a, moving somewhere in close proximity. The rest of the dream required little contemplation. It was a warning.

He stepped into the tiny bain and doused himself with cold water at stinging force until his blood coursed through his body, heightening his thoughts to alertness. Then he donned his robe.

Outside his cabin, he nearly collided with Ivard, clad only in trousers, with a small bag hanging from a long chain around his neck, one hand resting on the huge wedge-shaped head of the cliff-cat Lucifur. The bright green stripe bonded forever around one of Ivard’s arms contrasted with his warm brown skin and red hair. Ivard fought back a yawn then said, You awake? Can you punch up the Suneater for the Eya’a? They’re jumpy for some reason and won’t let me sleep.

Manderian bowed his acquiescence. Yawning again, Ivard shuffled back to the cabin he shared with the Kelly, throwing up a hand in silent greeting to the Marine who glanced out of the rec room. Wondering if Ivard felt crowded with four beings in a space meant for two, Manderian moved to the bridge.

The Eya’a waited, their faceted eyes gleaming. Their attenuated, brittle-looking fingers sketched out the semiotics for We see you, followed by the sign for Nivi’ya (Another-One-Who-Hears), which was their name for Manderian. Term, not name, he thought, recalling a recent conversation with Vi’ya. Though he had spoken little with her since they left Ares, she had been a lot more forthcoming about what she had learned of the Eya’a than she had been on the station. They now recognize us as individual entities, but they will never understand the arbitrariness of names. As near as I can describe it, they identify one another with memory images, but even that doesn’t quite comprehend it. Remember, they are in some sense in constant contact with their hive. There’s a lot they just don’t consider relevant, like our genders, time, or distance, she’d said.

Manderian moved to Ivard’s console and located a stored image of the Suneater, then studied it on the viewscreen: mysterious, sinister, yet somehow beautiful.

The Eya’a moved their heads sharply, tipping them back at a humanly impossible angle, then both chittered on a high, nearly painful note.

Manderian sensed disappointment. They raised hands, sketching swift semiotics that Manderian did not recognize, then they darted off the bridge with eerie swiftness, their twiggy toes scritching on the scuffed deck.

Manderian closed down the console again, wondering if the new semiotics were ones they had developed with the Kelly. Whatever they said, it seemed they still did not recognize the difference between a real-time link and a stored representation: they wanted to go back to the Suneater.

He frowned around the bridge. The Eya’a were so strange, and humans knew so little of them. Unlike the Kelly’s, their technology was nothing recognizable by humans, apparently more art than anything else. So they knew about artificial representations at least in one form. What exactly were they doing here, so far from their world?

Manderian left. The ship was not large, and he rounded a corner to discover the Eya’a with the Kelly, their fingers blurring semiotics at a speed they never used with humans. As one of the two ubiquitous Marine guards watched, the Kelly honked out a counterpoint to the keening voices, and Manderian felt the air change—he sniffed a strange scent like cinnamon and burned cork.

The door to the dispensary opened. Sebastian Omilov stood there, his heavy brows in a line of perplexity as he watched the interaction.

Abruptly the Eya’a stopped the keening and sped into Vi’ya’s cabin. The Kelly fluted on a note that seemed mournful to Manderian’s ears, then the Intermittor said, They say their world-mind wishes them to go to the Suneater.

There was no answer to be made to that—and the Kelly did not wait for one. They withdrew into their cabin, and Omilov sighed.

So much for sleep, he said wryly. My mind is too full of questions as it is.

Shall we take advantage of the new Panarch’s beneficence and avail ourselves of coffee? Manderian asked.

Omilov made one of those absent gestures of graceful courtesy that seemed inborn to the Douloi. Wondering what else it might signify, Manderian led the way to the rec room, which they found empty. He was fairly certain that Omilov knew him for a tempath. As he tapped up the coffee on the console, he wondered if Omilov had been granting, in his oblique way, permission to listen not just to words but to the feelings behind them.

Silently he carried the cups to the pair of easy chairs that Omilov had chosen.

For a time neither spoke. After a few sips of the aromatic brew, Omilov said in a voice of abstraction, Whenever I think about the Eya’a I question all our definitions of intelligence.

Manderian inclined his head in assent. No written language, no political awareness, speech only used occasionally, no recognizable technology outside of those woven hangings.

Yet those are made in such a way that would require many complicated technical steps for us to duplicate, Omilov finished. And they seem to be developing a language with the Kelly. Ivard apparently understands it.

Vi’ya as well. As yet Manderian did not sense any strong emotion from the gnostor, and he did not comprehend all the stylized subtleties of Douloi usage, but he was patient.

Omilov glanced up, one of his beetling brows curved in irony. Vi’ya as well, he said.

Manderian tasted the coffee. No bitterness, a blend of several beans—some of which had been grown precisely the same way for over a thousand years—and precisely the right temperature. If pressed, he could name the chemical makeup of the coffee and the reaction of the human body to the brew. Yet there was still an almost mystical sense of well-being that few things imparted merely by smell, taste, and warmth. Coffee was one. Now that you have located the Suneater, does your job end? he asked. Or more correctly, do the authorities perceive your job at an end?

Omilov smiled. "There you have my dilemma. Now that it is located I must hand over the