Crown Of Fire (29 page)

Shel caught his stiffly inflated arm. His faceplate was dark. She tried a quest-pulse and felt nothing.

She clenched and unclenched her hands, relieved for Brennen's sake, agonized for Firebird's.
Thank you,
she managed to pray.

"What can I do?" Firebird's interlink voice quavered.

"Anchor yourself to the hull and hold my waist so I don't spin," Shel directed. She wrestled the unwieldy life suit into her crinkly, reflective rescue bag, following standard procedure. Firebird hit the bag's pressurization control the moment Shel sealed it. It inflated swiftly, and then Shel towed the weightless bag back into the runner's airlock. She helped Firebird inside, then secured the silvery bag on one of the med runner's cots. Then she reactivated gravidics. Her feet settled to deck.

Firebird had already broken the bag's seal. She peeled it back, then wrenched off Brennen's flight helmet. Only his upper face showed behind his breath mask. Shel exhaled, deeply relieved. She saw not pain but an uncanny peace, his eyes and forehead relaxed.

Firebird pulled off her own helmet. Shel suspected the truth was finally sinking in.

Determined to play the comforter's role, Shel drew a deep breath. "If that's only tardema-sleep, I'll bring him up in a few seconds. But. . . Firebird ... if I do, you have to be ready for the worst you can possibly imagine. If he's mindless, he could be violent. He might attack us both."

Firebird set her chin. "I understand."

"We can see he didn't suffer at the end." Shel groped behind his neck, found and toggled the deflation switch. The shape shrank to human size. She didn't bother to snug the restraint straps. Instead, she let herself fall into the standard rescue drill. She eyed the med runner's compartments, locating everything she might need for survivable injuries. She turned inward for her carrier, pausing to pray,
Holy One, have mercy on them both.
Then she stretched out an epsilon probe.

Firebird silenced all thought and emotion, trying to sense any change in Brennen. Where the pair bond had been at the back of her mind, she felt only a burned-out vacancy.

Maybe Shel was right. To be past all pain . . .

"Brenn," she murmured. She drew his breath mask away, shuddering as she touched his pale cheek. There was the scar where Phoena had kicked him. She brushed back a strand of light brown hair.

She laid her head on his still chest and shut her eyes.
Thank you, Mighty One. For all you gave us. For almost two years
—

"Firebird," Shel said softly, "I'm afraid—wait—"

Beneath Firebird's ear, Brennen inhaled hoarsely.

"Brenn," she gasped. Her pulse accelerated.

He struggled weakly against the cot's loose security bonds.

Looking horror-struck, Shel lunged forward. "Brennen, lie still," she ordered. "Brennen, can you hear me? Do you understand?"

Firebird seized both of his hands. She still felt nothing back at the Brennen-place in her mind.

What had she done? Because of her selfishness, would he live out his days mindless at Hesed House?

"Lie still," Shel repeated. "Brennen, lie still. You've been EV."

Brennen gasped. His right hand tightened on Firebird's, but his left hand hung limp. He tried to pull it away. "Shel," he said in a ragged voice, "bless you. Did you . . ." He coughed, then managed, "Did you rescue Mari, too?"

Brennen stared up through a medical scanner at Adamm Hancock. Every bone and muscle ached—except in his splinted left arm, both of his shoulders, and his neck. Pain blocks were in place.

Hancock eyed his scanner. "Headache gone?"

Brennen nodded cautiously.

The med finally smiled. "Your fluids are giving normal readings again. Six or seven hours on regen and you'll be free to go, but don't hesitate to call if the headache comes back. We'll fuse that fracture as soon as the swelling goes down."

Mari sat beside Shel on the next cot over, dangling her legs and watching Hancock finish. Pain lines still creased her forehead and cut between her eyes. He could see her worry, but even to him, at short range, the pair bond felt like a ghost of what it had been. Her symptoms—neural paroxysm, unfathomable grief, change in life signs—all indicated genuine bereavement shock.

Sanctuary Master Dabarrah would be able to tell them what had happened to her. For now, he could only thank Shel for showing such deep empathy toward her—and bringing him in before his EV suit's resources ran out.

He managed to smile at them both. Finally, he understood why the One had let him be weakened at Three Zed. His months of fighting irrational fears had taught him to fall completely into the Holy One's power. That strength had held against the fielding attack when his own strength would have shattered. Instead of destroying his own sanity resisting their attack, he'd slipped peacefully into tardema-sleep.

Meds and their assistants bustled around him. He'd asked Uri to stay on
Weatherway
and help debrief returning pilots. A memorial tonight would honor Hannes Dickin and the others killed.

Hearing footsteps, he opened his eyes. Colonel Keeson stepped into his line of sight. He touched his forehead to return her salute, cleared his throat, and asked, "What's the downside status?"

Colonel Keeson took a parade-rest stance at the foot of his cot. "The main city is utterly destroyed, full of magma and gas. Four small domes, which they call settlements, have asked to surrender. I need your authorization to answer. May I accept?"

At the edge of his vision, Firebird straightened her back. He saw fierce joy in her wide eyes and firm lips, and in the determined set of her eyebrows, even if he could not feel it in her mind.

The Holy One had spared his forces from having to slaughter their own kinsmen by destroying the Golden City. Would He not spare them from slaughtering the less guilty?

Brennen covered his face with both hands.
Lord of mercy, let this be the end. The city is burned to bare rock, as we were ordered. Tour hand swept their power away. You spared us from
—

Yes.
His answer came promptly.
You have finished. Well done, my child.

"Yes," he told Colonel Keeson. "Accept!"

Master Dabarrah laid his palm over Kinnor's wrinkled forehead. Immediately, the squirming child stopped bellowing and gazed up into the sanctuary master's face. He grabbed for Dabarrah's white-blond hair.

Firebird relaxed, too. "He dove off that chair like he thought he could fly," she explained, frustrated that after all she'd been through, she couldn't catch one leaping infant. Kin would give her heart failure— again—if she didn't keep a close watch.

"I biotaped this precocious little bird six times while you were gone." Dabarrah fingered the side of Kin's head. "You're right—he wants to fly, like his parents. Only a bruise," he assured her. "Not the first, and certainly not the last."

Kinnor struggled to be set down. Firebird looked around the med center, saw nothing dangerous within the little one's reach, and released him on the stone floor. He raised up on both arms and scooted toward the door.

His father caught him, picked him up by his padded hips, and aimed him into the room, toward the white-haired man in torn drillcloth overalls.

Brennen's spiritual father, Shamarr Dickin, had just come in from the gardens. Knowing that this was always his first stop upon arriving from Thyrica, Firebird had sought him out between rows. She'd bent with him over a pair of shovels and made a heartfelt confession. He assured her she had been forgiven the moment she asked for mercy, and that no one would blame her for the way she took down the Shuhr fielding team.

Now he crouched and held out both hands, beckoning Kinnor. "Since we are all here, Jenner," he said, "tell me the prognosis on this little one's parents."

Firebird edged closer to Brennen. These secrets couldn't be kept for long. Already, Brennen's masquerade had been exposed in Federate circles. Word would return quickly to Netaia, too. A messenger ship was decelerating toward the Hesed Valley with Tel Tellai on board, the only Netaian elector who could be allowed inside Hesed's fielding net.

Firebird had a terrible new respect for fielding technology.

Master Jenner opened a long hand in her direction and told the Shamarr, "Firebird's ayin is completely gone. Prolonged fusion scarred it through. She can no longer even turn."

—Visualization or no visualization! Micahel's blast of power and the repeated kills had damaged that tiny brain complex irreparably. She would do no more fusion lulling, and there would be no further temptation to use evil against evil.

As Master Jenner explained it, the physical injury had traumatized other parts of her brain, combining with the prolonged fusion to disrupt her alpha matrix and interrupt the pair bond, creating genuine bereavement shock. As the trauma diminished, she felt Brennen's emotions again.

The bond had not broken.

"Then fusion," said Shamarr Dickin, "is riskier than we imagined."

Master Jenner answered, "I agree. No one will want to learn to do this, since the danger is so great." As the tall, thin sanctuary master eyed Firebird, a comforting wave of epsilon energy lapped through her mind. She welcomed Dabarrah's consolation, even as she fretted that Kiel or Kinnor might have inherited the reversed-polarity carrier, with its potential power and risk. That wouldn't make itself known for years. Raising that pair to training age would be a daunting job.

"And you, son?" asked the shamarr, eyeing Brennen.

Jenner spread his hands. "Full memory did return while they were en route to Three Zed. I verified that."

Dickin raised a bushy eyebrow. "Then there should be substantial restoration of ES potential."

That's right,
Firebird wanted to shout.

Jenner nodded. "I can't perform fine calibration here, but my rough measurements put him nearly at the Master's range again."

The Shamarr took three long steps and wrapped his arms around Brennen. Brennen's hands clapped the shamarr's shoulders. Only someone who knew he'd been injured, Firebird observed, would see the slight stiffness in his left wrist. "I am glad," murmured Dickin, pushing away. "Well done, Brennen. Well done." He eyed Jenner again. "And I hear you have a fourth patient."

"Carradee?" Jenner smiled. "Yes."

Firebird sat down on a long stone bench. "I told Carradee to have Tel announce her pregnancy on Netaia. Kenhing can restore House Angelo to her new daughter. That shows on the simulations as a stabilizing factor, especially now. Without Rogonin in power, the Electorate can take a more long-sighted view."

"And?" asked the Shamarr. "Their reaction?"

Raising her head, Firebird glanced at Brennen. "Tel should be bringing us a report."

"This also looks significant." Shamarr Dickin pulled a message roll out of his dusty coveralls. "Brennen, this is for you. Tallis."

Brennen took it and thumbed the seal. At Tallis, Regional's First Fleet had wiped out the disorganized Shuhr attackers who fled Three Zed. Other Federate ships orbited Three Zed now, controlling all traffic as a committee of Sentinels oversaw the surviving settlements. Assisted by Shuhr survivors, Federate agents were searching the settlements' labs and data banks for bio weapons or gene materials.

Shamarr Dickin had also decreed that this other Ehretan remnant could be proselytized without waiting for inquiries—though already, Shuhr were registering as inquirers. After all, a Caldwell seemed to have done exactly what the holy books prophesied.

Maybe this union of remnants would bring about the true atonement, the new song ... the Word to Come.

Firebird snatched Kinnor up off the floor and tried to hold him to her shoulder. He squirmed, giving out a groan that started to crescendo. She set him down once more.
It's going to be a battle of wills, isn't it, little one?

She felt Brennen's shock—faintly—before his eyes registered it.

"What?" she asked softly. Shamarr Dickin hadn't given him the message in privacy, so it had to be news that could be shared.

Brennen raised a rolled scribepaper. "With the insubordination episode struck from your record," he read aloud, "the Federate High command has the honor of requesting that you accept the position of Battlefield Director, Federate Regional command . . . Tallis."

Firebird crossed her arms. Regional command, back on track toward his life's dream!
Thank you, Mighty One!
Tallis's MaxSec tower was no place to raise children, but with her new allowance, she and Brennen might buy a piece of prime land . . . something like the home she'd loved on Trinn Hill, in sight of the city but secure and secluded. She could set up her cultural exchange program right there at the Regional capital.

Brennen had told her, though, that he felt they had other priorities.

"Congratulations, Brenn." She slipped her arm around his waist. "Whether or not you accept it, this is a true honor."

He stared at Shamarr Dickin's eyes. "Yes," he said softly, "but I wonder what I could accomplish at Tallis, with the biggest threat to Federate peace ended."

"There will always be conflict," Firebird argued, glancing to the shamarr for support, "until the Word comes in power."

The white-haired man nodded solemnly.

"And this is your dream," she insisted. "If even the Federate bureaucrats are willing to set you back on track, think twice before turning them down."

"That doesn't compare to the need on Netaia," he reminded her. "Thousands of lives are still at stake." He laid a hand on Firebird's shoulder. "And you gave a solemn promise."

As Shamarr Dickin raised one hand, a shadow fell across the door. Carradee stepped inside, carrying Kiel against her shoulder. "He was looking for his brother," she said. "Is Kinnor going to be all right?"

"He will be, if he ever learns his limits." Relieved by the interruption, Firebird picked up her small explorer, raised her foot onto a wooden chair, and perched Kin on her knee where he could see Kiel. They reached for each other's fingers, communicating on some level that even Master Dabarrah couldn't sense.

Firebird didn't care squill for what she had promised First Lord Erwin, especially after he'd laid the Powers' blessing on her, but she
had
promised the rest of her life in service.

She'd come forward when Netaia needed her, but her desire to be a ruler had died with her pride. Even the desire to single-handedly save her people was utterly gone. In the future, if she could spare any attention from Kinnor and Kiel, she would rather develop her musical gifts than study those Federate simulations—and why should she spend her days sparring with the Netaian Electorate when she was no longer barred from proselytizing?

She was alive only because Brennen offered his life in her place. She was a flawed reflection of the divine image, with no cause to be proud.

She set Kinnor back on the floor and crossed the room, halting in front of the shamarr. "I defer to you, Shamarr Dickin. I owe a life to the One who saved Brennen. Please advise me."

The blue candles on both sides of Hesed's chapter room gave off the aromatic scent of kirka trees. Midday sun shone down through its skylight as Sentinels gathered to hear from Prince Tel. At Master Da-barrah's request, she and Brennen had taken seats in front, off to the left. Brennen looked resplendent in his dress whites. Firebird felt only moderately comfortable in her own pale blue sekiyr's gown. They'd let her keep this, even though all hope to train as a Sentinel was gone. From here, she had a good view of Carradee, who sat next to Daithi's mobility chair at far right. Kiel perched on Aunt Carradee's lap, gazing up at the nearest candle sconce. Kinnor had finally curled up on the bench next to them both.

On the third bench back, Ellet Dardy waited beside her muscular bond mate.

Terza sat behind them with Sanctuary Mistress Anna. Terza's silhouette changed quickly these days. According to Master Jenner, who had healed the deep tampering on Terza's mind, she was as content as anyone could be while grieving so many of her people. Though she spent most of her time closed in her room, she did attend Chapter, and she worked in the gardens. Shamarr Dickin had sought her out as soon as he left the med center. Firebird remembered her nightly in prayer.

Behind Terza, the double doors opened. Tel strode in, dressed in elegant white velvette and carrying a papercase up the center aisle. He stepped lightly. Brennen raised an eyebrow, then bent toward Firebird's ear. "Tel seems pleased with himself," he whispered. "There could be a young lady."

... Or else something else that he'd wanted badly, Firebird guessed. Shamarr Dickin's counsel had been gracious but somber. If Tel called her forward, instead of Carradee, then she must accept. Even if she spent the rest of her life wrestling with the electors, she wouldn't face them alone.

Tel mounted the steps and turned toward her. "Lady Firebird," he said, "General, please join me on the platform."

Firebird pushed slowly to her feet and walked forward.
So be it, Brenn.
She felt him follow her, and she steadied herself by staring up at the star on the wall over the altar flame.

Standing beside tall Master Dabarrah, Tel opened his papercase. He plucked out a small, clear presentation box, then a certificate.

A soft, surprised grunt left Firebird's throat, though she tried to hold it back. Netaia's Triple Arrow was the highest military award the Electorate could bestow.
For Valor,
read the certificate.

She took a step backward, to the platform's edge. "Thank you, Your Highness," she said formally, "but the Golden City was destroyed by other forces, and I couldn't have touched its fielding station without Brennen. This was his doing, more than mine. Much more."

Tel reached into his papercase again. "So I've been told," he said. "So for the first time in Netaia's history, General Caldwell, the Electorate has also awarded this honor to an offworld-born recipient."

Brennen stood at relaxed attention as Tel pressed the gold emblem to his dress whites—temporarily, she knew. Sentinels wore only the star. Even Master Sentinels. Surely Shamarr Dickin would give that back, no matter what else Tel announced. Brennen had pioneered a new, spiritual epsilon skill in addition to his recovery.

Firebird stood still as Tel fastened the other emblem near her neckline.

Then Tel stepped to the platform's center, blocking her view of the altar flame. Almost fifty Sentinels and sekiyrra had assembled when Master Jenner called them in.

"Now," he said gravely, "I have been asked to deliver a report from the Netaian Electorate."

Firebird kept her shoulders at a dignified military brace and caught Carradee's glance. Carradee smiled, but Firebird saw a pleading look in her eye.

Tel turned to Carradee and made a dignified half bow. "Majesty, as Firebird requested, the Electorate has acclaimed your daughter, Rinnah, as the next sovereign of the Netaian systems. Kenhing is willing to serve as her regent until she comes of age. It is our hope that you will agree to the acclamation. Will you give your consent?"

Firebird imagined she could feel the weight of a world slide off her shoulders and fall to the red stone floor.

Carradee inclined her head formally. Kiel reached up and snatched a curl of her blond hair. Carradee laughed softly and pulled it away from him. "I consent to the electors' wishes," she said, "as is my duty."

Firebird could barely keep from bouncing on both feet. She seized Brennen's hand instead, and he gripped hers back, flooding her with his own happiness.

Shamarr Dickin rose from the front bench and walked forward, mounting the steps. "Come here," he said kindly, drawing the blue-green vial of anointing oil from his side pocket. "Firebird, Brennen— and you, Carradee. It is time for new blessings."