Read By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 Online

Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (33 page)

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3

11.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

“Anyone in this compartment might become the senior survivor at almost any time, and have to carry out the remnants of whatever plan we’re using. Start your presentation.”

“Sir,” called out a sensor tech, “farspace probes show energy releases. Possibly more than one location. Attenuation medium.”

“Closer than the last group,” Metadi said. “Things are heating up. Commander, let’s get the briefing started—we may need those battle plans sooner than we thought.”

The library of Adelfe Aneverian’s country estate was a spacious, well-appointed room, its walls paneled in polished ocherwood, its windows curtained in thick, sound-muffting velvet. The books in the tall, glass-fronted shelves were all printed antiques, leather-bound and paper-paged; if Aneverian or any of his guests ever indulged in textchips or holovids, the evidence was tucked well away out of sight.

A vast ocherwood desk filled up one end of the room, but nobody was sitting behind it. There was a library staircase—a masterpiece of the woodworker’s art, done in yet more polished ocherwood—at the other end of the room, and Tarnekep Portree was sitting on the top step. If Commodore Gil wanted to make eye contact with the Mandeynan, he’d either have to crane his neck awkwardly upward, or stand well back.

If the situation weren’t so serious, Jessan reflected, it would have been amusing. Beka’s choice of incognito hadn’t really taken him by surprise. Captain Portree was considerably plainer spoken than the Domina of Entibor could afford to be, and the one-eyed starpilot had the further advantage of making respectable people like the commodore distinctly nervous.

The rest of the
’Hammer
’s crew were scattered about the room. Ignaceu LeSoit stood warily with his back to the paneled wall. Owen Rosselin-Metadi sat motionless and black-clad in one of the big, high-backed chairs, with his staff across his lap; his apprentice, equally immobile, stood at his right hand. Jessan himself, his legs stretched out before him, lounged in a wing chair near the library staircase, where he could get a good view.

Commodore Gil stood gazing at Tarnekep Portree for a moment, then chose for himself a comfortable armchair a carpet’s width away from the library staircase. His Eraasian prisoner of war, silent and nervous-looking, sat rigidly upright on one of the uncushioned ocherwood side chairs a foot or so away. The commodore’s aide, Jhunnei, had taken a stance near the door—like Ignac’ LeSoit, and like Jessan himself, she’d picked a position affording both a good view and a clear line of fire.

I couldn’t have set it up better if we’d been playing at Living Pictures, Jessan
thought.
Subject of tableau, “The Three Pillars of the Republic”—the Space Force and the Adepts and the Old Nobility, all of us armed and dangerous and watching each other like cardsharps. And this, Fortune save the galaxy, is supposed to be a
friendly
gathering!

Nobody said anything for some time. Finally Commodore Gil closed his eyes briefly—praying, Jessan suspected, for patience—then opened them and said, “Captain Portree.”

The Mandeynan nodded. “That’s me.”

“Can I assume that you’re empowered to speak on the Domina’s behalf?”

“You can.”

“Very well. Captain Portree, I will be honest with you: I need the Domina’s ships. I would rather have them with her good wishes than without, but I
will
have them.”

Tarnekep leaned back against the staircase railings. “I figured that out already,” he said. “You’ve got to be careful, though, if you’re doing this as Baronet D’Rugier.”

“A necessary role, though it has its limits,” Gil said. “Would you be more impressed if I changed into my dress whites?”

“No—your aide in the glittering wonder of her uniform is more than enough to impress me.” Tarnekep paused. “But ships aren’t the only item on the agenda tonight. The Domina has to know what’s in this deal for her.”

I hope,
Jessan thought,
that the good lieutenant passed on the advice I gave her. Otherwise, this is where the discussion gets sticky.

But before Gil could say anything, there was movement at last from the other side of the room. Owen Rosselin-Metadi halted Captain Portree with a gesture, turned to Gil, and said, “A moment, Commodore.”

Gil turned away from Captain Portree with what Jessan read as barely disguised relief. “Master Rosselin-Metadi?”

“Commodore,” Owen said, “I must object to the presence of your—guest. If you’re inviting Mages to our councils we have no hope of success at all.”

The Eraasian woman didn’t move, but seemed all the same to draw herself closer together. Her grey eyes, which she’d kept on Commodore Gil all this time, had gone wide and dark. The commodore regarded Owen coldly.

“Master Rosselin-Metadi,” he said, “Doctor syn-Tavaite is neither Mage nor Magelord. She is a medical technician from Eraasi, and as a prisoner of war she is under my personal protection. If you have any problems with that—”

“He doesn’t,” Tarnekep cut in. “Lay off the nice man, Owen. Gil’s prisoner doesn’t bother me. Besides, the gentlelady may have some important information for us—considering that she replicated General Metadi’s aide some time back before the war.”

If that information startled Beka’s brother, he didn’t show it. He only said, “Did she, then?” and continued looking at Gil. “Commodore, I’ve heard reports of mutinies all over the galaxy—and now I hear that your personal prisoner was responsible for planting a spy on my father’s staff. The question is: Who are you loyal to?”

“A good question,” Tarnekep said, before Gil could draw breath. “But the Master of the Adepts’ Guild isn’t the one who ought to be asking it.”

“What do you mean?” Owen asked. He’d relaxed a little, Jessan noticed, as he turned his attention from Gil to Tarnekep Portree. Not the usual reaction people had to the Mandeynan starpilot—but then, Adepts weren’t the usual sort of people. Tarnekep, though, wasn’t looking particularly amused.

“I mean I heard something strange and interesting a little while ago,” the starpilot said. “Someone told me, ‘If you want to know what happened to the Domina Perada, go ask the Master of the Adepts’ Guild.’ He was talking about the old Master and not the new one—but you were Errec Ransome’s confidential agent as much as his apprentice, and you’re the Master now. So I’m asking you: how much does the Guild know about what happened to Perada Rosselin?”

“I don’t—”

“Gentles, I must insist,” Gil said. “The first order of business is those ships.”

Ignaceu LeSoit moved slightly away from the paneled wall—drawing all eyes to him by the unexpected motion. “No,” he said. “I want to hear what happened to the Domina Perada.”

There was a long pause, with Owen Rosselin-Metadi caught between Tarnekep Portree’s challenging, oddly piebald gaze—one blue eye, one red patch—andLeSoit’s tense regard.

“Odd that you should ask,” Owen said finally. Nothing in his voice or manner implied that he was yielding to pressure. “Perada Rosselin came to my attention earlier this evening. I went looking for something, but what I found was something other than what I expected.”

He looked again at syn-Tavaite and—with the air of someone who has arrived at a desired destination—turned back to Gil. “Tell me, Commodore, can your ‘guest’ explain to us who a certain lord sus-Airaalin is?”

But it wasn’t syn-Tavaite who answered. Lieutenant Jhunnei spoke up instead from her place near the door.

“The ’sus’ prefix would put this person in the Eraasian equivalent of the upper nobility.”

Owen looked at her directly for the first time. The lieutenant met his gaze straight on. There seemed to be some kind of communication taking place between them, but Jessan couldn’t begin to guess at its nature.

“Thank you,” said Owen finally. “Lieutenant.” He looked back at Gil. “Commodore—please ask your guest to respond.”

syn-Tavaite looked at Gil.
Damn
it, Jessan thought,
the poor creature’s white as a sheet. There’s probably something in the regs about not scaring prisoners to death … .

“It’s all right, Doctor,” said Gil.

syn-Tavaite knotted her hands together in her lap, and began to speak. “I have heard the name. There is a Grand Admiral sus-Airaalin who commands the fleet of the Resurgency.”

Odd
, Jessan thought,
why’s LeSoit tensing up?
He noticed that LeSoit’s weapon was loosened in its holster.
I wish I could remember whether it was that way when we came in here.

“Now, that is fascinating,” Tarnekep said. “But I don’t think it has anything to do with either the Domina Perada or those seven ships.”

“Bear with me,” Owen said. “I won’t ask Doctor syn-Tavaite for a description of the man. Let’s just assume that the Grand Admiral heading our opposition is a middling-sized gentleman—shorter than me, but taller than, for example, Gentlesir LeSoit over there. Lean, wiry, with curly black hair going to grey.”

Now Jessan was sure that LeSoit was holding his hand just above the grip of his blaster.
This will present an interesting choice. If etiquette requires that I shoot someone, where should I aim first?
Still thinking, he withdrew a lace handkerchief from his shirt cuff and flicked at a speck of lint on his over-robe. When he replaced the handkerchief, his hand came away concealing the miniature blaster that lived in the grav-clip up his sleeve.

“Yes,” syn-Tavaite said. She kept her eyes fixed on her hands; just looking at Owen seemed to frighten her. “That could be him.”

“Indeed,” Owen said. “I want to get back to this sus-Airaalin. I have it on excellent authority that he was at some point oath-sworn to my mother Perada Rosselin.” He glanced over at Tarnekep. “I don’t know what tale your source of information thought the Master of the Guild was going to give you—if the source is who I think it is, any truth that escaped his lips was purely by coincidence—but I’m the Master of the Guild and that’s all I’ve got.”

“Wonderful,” said Tarnekep. “Wonderfully useless, too, since the Domina Perada’s been dead for these two years and more.” He turned back to Gil. “Let me see if I can keep all this straight. One, General Metadi is at Gyffer.”

“An assumption,” Gil said. “But—probably, yes. Another assumption I’m working with is that this Grand Admiral Whatever is at Gyffer as well.”

“That’s two, then. And three, Metadi’s very own aide is a Magebuilt replicant. One created by your guest, in fact.”

“Yes,” said Gil. “So far, though, the General appears to have escaped from any Magish plot against him.”

“That’s a hell of a big assumption, Commodore. How do we know what the plot was, or how many replicants there were?” Tarnekep turned his gaze on syn-Tavaite. “You replicated the aide. Did you replicate anyone else?”

“Answer the question, Inesi,” Gil said in a quiet voice. “It’s okay.”

“Yes,” syn-Tavaite said, her voice so low that it could hardly be heard. “Replication is slow and difficult, and few have the knowledge to perform it. The risk … for everybody involved, getting the needful things from this side of the Gap Between … but I was able to create another successful replicant.”

“Well, who?”

“One whom you all know.” She looked up and straight at Tarnekep. “I replicated the Domina.”

VI. GYFFERAN FARSPACE: LDF #97

GYFFERAN NEARSPACE:
NIGHT’S-BEAUTIFUL-DAUGHTER
INNISH-KYL: COUNTRY ESTATE OF ADELFE ANEVERIAN
GYFFERAN FARSPACE:
SWORD-OF-THE-DAWN

A
T THE far limits of the Gyfferan system, in an area roughly in line with the home planet’s north polar region, LDF Cruiser #97 and the rest of the Fast Response Task Force came out of hyper.

“Dropout,” said the 97’s TAO. He stifled a yawn. They’d been running the string-of-pearls reconnaissance pattern—drop, scan, jump; drop, scan, jump—all through the watch, and for over a Standard day before that. Like everyone else aboard #97, he’d been fighting off the combined assault of boredom and jump-sickness for almost that long. “Sensors?”

“Empty,” said the duty sensor tech.

The TAO wondered if another cup of cha’a would help, or a bit of food. The pastries in the 97’s galley had been stale since yesterday morning. “Commencing run-to-jump.”

“Roger,” said the sensor tech. “Full scan on dropout.”

The cruiser blipped into hyperspace, and back out again. The TAO swallowed hard. Food would be a bad idea.

“Dropout,” he said. “Sensors?”

“Empty.”

“Reports coming in, sir,” the comms tech broke in. “Scouts in grid two zero tack five seven report enemy scoutcraft spotted at extreme sensor range.”

“Maintain present realspace course and speed,” the TAO ordered. “Put the contacts up in the tank and pass the word to the captain.”

The 97’s captain showed up a minute or two later, holding one of the stale pastries in his hand. “What’s the situation?”

The TAO indicated the display in the tank. “Enemy scoutcraft, extreme range.”

“Do you have backtracks on them?” the captain asked.

“Working,” said the duty comptech. “Looks like they’re doing an expanding-globe search of their own, Captain.”

“Find the main mass of the formation. Find it now.”

“Working.”

The comms tech broke in again. “Message from Central—Gyffer is sending out additional units, this time with Adepts aboard for searching.

“Adepts.” The captain frowned. “I never did like the spooks. We’re going to find the Mages on our own, the old-fashioned way.”

The silence in Aneverian’s library thickened and congealed. Beka became aware, as though from a great distance, that she had Tarnekep Portree’s blaster out of its holster and ready in her hand. On the other side of the room, the Eraasian medic was so pale she looked grey.

“I wouldn’t, Captain Portree.” The commodore also had a small hand-blaster out and aimed.

Jessan cleared his throat. Beka saw that the hand which had brought out his handkerchief earlier now held a miniature blaster much like Gil’s.

“Neither would I, Baronet, if I were you.” He smiled at Doctor syn-Tavaite—
Nyls
,
you’re amazing,
Beka thought dizzily;
I didn’t know there was anybody alive in the galaxy who could manage to look reassuring and hold someone at gunpoint at the same time
—and said, “You can relax, gentlelady. The good captain means no harm, I assure you.”

“I can take a hint when I hear one,” Beka said, and slammed the weapon back into its holster. “But indulge my curiosity, Doctor syn-Tavaite:
which
Domina?”

“Not y—Not the young Domina, Captain. The one who was dead.”

“Perada Rosselin.” Owen was almost as pale as syn-Tavaite; Beka couldn’t tell if it was with anger or with fear. “You made a replicant of Perada Rosselin.
When?”

“Before now, three … I think … of your Standard years.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” It was Lieutenant Jhunnei who spoke. “The timing is all wrong. Why would they replicate her just before they killed her?” syn-Tavaite shook her head violently. “No, no … not before. I remember—even on our side of the Gap Between, we heard that news. After.”

“Tell the story,” Gil said. He put his blaster away. “From the beginning. Who asked you to replicate the Domina?”

“One of the Masked Ones,” syn-Tavaite said. “He came to me at my place of work and said he had a task for me elsewhere, on another world. I went with him—there was a fine house where he stayed, like this one but much bigger, and all empty except for machines that moved and spoke—and he gave me the … the laboratory, I think you call it … and the tissue samples for seeding the replicant. When I had done, he left the replicant empty and returned me to my home. That was all.”

Jessan was looking curious; it was the medic in him coming out, Beka supposed.

“‘Empty’?” he asked syn-Tavaite.

“Yes … a person must give up the old body and fill the replicant, or the new body is nothing, a shell. But this man had no living person to fill the Domina. At least, not while I was there.”

“This guy who fetched you,” Beka said. She was beginning to feel the first stirrings of an uneasy suspicion. “Did you ever see his face without the mask?”

“Yes, my I—Captain.”

Beka leaned forward. “Tell me what he looked like.”

“An old man,” syn-Tavaite said. “Not tall … and thin, with grey hair. He had kind eyes, but sad. He spoke with a strange accent, in old-fashioned terms, but always very politely. He carried a Great Lord’s staff, made with silver ornaments after the antique style.”

“The Professor,” Beka said. “My old copilot. It has to be.”

Owen leaned forward. He’d gotten his color back, and his hazel eyes were full of anger and surprise. “Mistress Hyfid’s report to Master Ransome never mentioned any of that!”

“Maybe she thought it wasn’t any of Master Ransome’s business,” Beka said. “The Prof was dead by then anyhow, and Llannat had his staff—I gave it to her, if you want to know how she got it. I was there when he died.”

Commodore Gil had been whispering rapidly to Jhunnei. The lieutenant nodded, then pulled a comm link out of her uniform pocket and began talking over it in a low voice.

Gil turned back to the room at large. “Records are scattered,” he said, cutting off whatever anyone else might have said next, “but in my private files I have a copy of a report I prepared for General Metadi some time ago. I’ve asked my aide to call up a part of it.”

He walked over to the library fireplace and took down a controller from the mantelpiece, where it had lain in the shadow of a heavy brass candlestick. A touch of the keypad, and one of the glass-fronted bookshelves vanished: it had been a projection concealing a holovid tank.

“There, if you please,” he said to Jhunnei.

“Yes sir,” she said. “Patching through from
Karipavo.”

A moment later a flatpic appeared in the rear of the tank—a shot marked as being from a security camera on High Station Pleyver. The picture showed Tarnekep Portree, complete with eye patch, and behind him a slight, grey-haired man in a Mandeynan long-coat with silver buttons.

“Him?” Gil asked syn-Tavaite.

She nodded.

“There you are, Captain Portree,” Gil said. “Positive identification, for whatever it’s worth.”

Beka smiled at him—one of Tarnekep Portree’s better smiles, the kind that tended to make law-abiding citizens suddenly remember urgent business elsewhere.

“Whatever it’s worth,” she said. “I’ll tell you what it’s worth, Commodore. It’s worth a fleet. Domina Beka Rosselin-Metadi will give you all of her ships, except for
Warhammer.
In exchange, the Domina wants a hostage against their safe return.”

She pointed at syn-Tavaite. “Her.”

Married life would be ideal, Ari reflected, if only there didn’t happen to be a war going on.

The task force to which
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
had been assigned took formation in the outer orbits above Gyffer. The TF lifted as a group and headed in column for a jump point marked by a temporary beacon. They accelerated at the rate of the slowest vessel in the formation, then jumped in sequence, vanishing one by one into the grey swirling mists of hyperspace.

“Short transit,” Lieutenant Vinhalyn said to Ari. They were in the
Daughter’s
cockpit with the Deathwing’s pilot and copilot, waiting for the dropout. “Action close to Gyffer.”

Ari watched the navicomp’s timer—a Gyfferan model, recently installed—tick down toward zero. “What’s our tasking, exactly?”

“We’re a ‘special application unit,’” Vinhalyn said. “And communications relay.”

“In other words, we have to stay out of the fighting.”

“It’s just as well,” Vinhalyn said. “With an antique configuration like this, the comps on both sides are going to evaluate our sensor profile as ‘probable enemy.’ The
Daughter
needs to be preserved for study as an orbital museum, not refitted and sent out into combat—if the Mageworlders kept any such relics from the early days, the Republic destroyed them long ago.”

He sighed. “But we all do what we must, and at least the reports of my preliminary investigations are on file with the faculty of history at Telabryk University.”

The navicomp beeped. “Stand by,” Vinhalyn said over the general announcing system. “Dropout.”

The stars came back, bright and glorious.

“Report navigation fix,” Vinhalyn said.

“Working,” the pilot replied. “Working. Complete. In position; in formation; on track, course, and speed.”

“Very well. Send to TF leader, ‘Alpha Station.’”

“Making the signal now.”

“And now,” Vinhalyn said to Ari, “we stand by and await orders.”

They walked back from the cockpit to the sensor area. The Magebuilt Deathwing didn’t have a common room as such, and nothing else was where a Republic-trained spacer would have expected it to be. Still, both men had spent enough time aboard the
Daughte
r to be comfortable with the odd architecture.

A speaker in the bulkhead clicked on. The voice of the pilot came over the Deathwing’s general announcement system. “Captain, we’ve got new position orders.”

“Very well,” said Vinhalyn. “Maneuver to comply.”

“Roger.” The speaker clicked off.

Vinhalyn turned to Ari. “Do you want to check on Mistress Hyfid?”

“Because she’s the ‘special application’?” Ari shook his head. “No. Let her rest.”

Doctor syn-Tavaite looked at Gil. “My lord baronet—no. You cannot send me out among the Adepts. You promised me a place amid your crew, and I hold you to your word.”

“Captain Portree,” Gil said. “Please ask the Domina—”

“No,” said Beka. “Those are the terms. You’re heading into battle; she’ll be safer with me.”

syn-Tavaite shook her head. “My lord baronet, the danger is no matter. I am combat-sworn to you, not this other.”

Beka sighed. “Gentlelady, I promise I won’t let the Adepts hurt you.”

“And how exactly are you planning to enforce that?” Owen was still angry; his usually calm face was flushed with the emotion. “You’re planning to bring a Mageworlder onto the
’Hammer—
somebody who admits to working in forbidden technology and doing the bidding of the Magelords!”

“Knock it off, Owen,” Beka said wearily. “Your own mother wasn’t too proud to talk with a Great Magelord, so you can damned well put yourself out to be polite to a medical technician. And if you don’t like it you can
walk
home from Innish-Kyl.”

She turned back to syn-Tavaite. “Don’t worry about the Adepts, Doctor syn-Tavaite. I own the ship, and what I say, goes. A regular place in the ship’s crew, and if I ever get around to paying them you’ll get the same cut as everybody else.”

“Good but not sufficient,” Gil said. “She is still a member of my complement. As such she would be on detached duty on your ship, and answerable only to me, should I choose to assign her there. Further, she will travel armed and under arms, and will not be assigned any duties without her consent.”

“Done,” Beka said. “My word as the
’Hammer
’s captain. Friend Jessan over there is a medic—he’ll swear it on the healer’s oath for you, if that’ll help.”

“That’s right.” Jessan, bless him, spoke up without needing any more prompting. “No danger to you that isn’t also danger to all of us.”

syn-Tavaite looked at Jessan. “As a healer you swear it?”

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3

11.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads