Crown Of Fire (3 page)

Laying a hand on the car's fender, he stared at the metal-spiked energy fence surrounding this parking zone. He caught an odd epsilon savor at the edge of his new, limited range. Something felt wrong, almost hazy, as if someone were epsilon-shielding their own presence.

Brennen clung to his masquerade, resisting the urge to react. He had to convince the Shuhr he'd lost more ability than he actually had. He'd planted disinformation in the Sentinel College's records, rating himself barely psi-competent. No ES 32 would notice that vague presence. Hardly daring to hope his trap would bring in a Shuhr this quickly, he gripped his duffel strap and forced himself to play the concerned but unaware husband, depending on Shel and Uri for protec-tion. They knew the real extent of his injuries, of course. Special ()perations agents had to trust each other.

Firebird leaned close to Tel, speaking softly. The slight young nobleman was half a head taller than Firebird, and her plain gray traveling suit was an elegant contrast to his gaudy outfit.

Shel grabbed her sidearm. Uri hit an alarm on his belt at almost the same moment. They must have finally sensed the intruder.

Brennen curled his hand around Tel's small defense blazer. A brilliant green energy bolt splattered on the door arch behind him, and a foul presence slid into the edge of his mind. He couldn't resist the probe without compromising his masquerade, and so—as planned—he let it take his arm muscles. Controlled from a distance by a lawless stranger's epsilon power, his own arm swung toward Firebird. His thumb slid against his will toward the firing stud.

He seized his right wrist with his left hand and choked, "Get in, Mari." That was his private name for Firebird. If the Sentinel infiltration team was still in the area, this could be their chance—

Where were they?

He forced his rebel fingers open. Tel's little blazer clattered to the pavement.

Uri, Shel, and the plainclothes guards fanned out. As Firebird scrambled into the passenger compartment, Brennen rose onto the balls of his feet and looked around. From some distance away came a pulse of gloating, of shields dropped to reveal epsilon power, a Shuhr agent tossing down a gauntlet. In that instant, Brennen saw himself through other eyes as an easy mark.

He kept anger out of his surface thoughts, where the Shuhr might sense it, but deep in his heart he answered the challenge.
No. This time, we will take you.
Ingrained habits, such as that confidence, proved how deeply he had relied on his own powers, instead of the One he served.

Uri covered a spot near the gate with his own blazer.
No one's close enough to assist,
he subvocalized into Brennen's mind.

"Who was it?" Firebird demanded. On the pair bond, he felt her tension as she peered out of the car's second door.

"Can't tell," he muttered, scooping up the small blazer. "Uri, Shel. Recognize him?"

"No," Uri answered. "We'll see if we can get him to follow."

Firebird tingled with adrenaline as she slid across the seat, making room for Brennen. Tel's chauffeur slammed the car's first door. Tel lumped in front, too, then climbed between seats into the rear lounge. Shel eased around Firebird to take a window seat while Brennen pressed against her side. She hoped she'd acted her role as well as he'd played his. He'd almost convinced her he was helpless.

Uri took another back-facing seat while Danton's men joined Tel's driver up front. "Home," Firebird told the driver, "but not too quickly. We want him to follow."
As if he could lose this monstrosity in traffic!
Danton's plainclothes people would come about half a klick back.

The chauffeur, a lumpish man with shoulders too narrow for his indigo jacket, steered out the base's main gate and turned north on Port Road. Firebird heard a soft trill from the control panel as Central Guidance took over. She almost asked Uri to confirm that the Netaian driver could be trusted, then changed her mind. Tel surely screened his staff. 1 ven if he'd missed a sleeper, Uri knew his job. He'd guarded several high-ranking Federate dignitaries.

She did feel slightly cheated, denied a good view of Citangelo, but she had to get used to moving inside a guarded circle. "Anyone following?" she muttered.

Uri frowned. "No."

One chance lost.
Disappointed, Firebird studied Uri's face a little longer. He was Brennen's second cousin, and she saw a resemblance in their fine chins and cheekbones. He had been raised in political circles, which explained his impeccable manners.

Tel fingered a touchpanel on the side console, and the glasteel panel separating them from his driver darkened. "We're privacy shielded now," he said. "What can you tell me?"

Firebird glanced at Uri, then Shel. Shel paused a moment, eyeing her hand-held scanner. "Go ahead," Shel said gruffly. "The car's not transmitting, and the driver didn't react when Prince Tel asked."

Firebird drew a deep breath. "You've probably heard that the Shuhr are raiding again."

"Did Governor Danton show you the Codex simulation?" Tel asked.

Firebird nodded grimly. "Of course. And you do know that the Fed-eracy just announced its new RIA technology."

Tel frowned. "Why?" Tel had gone with her to Three Zed, helping to run an RIA apparatus. Tel already knew most of what the Federacy just revealed—that Remote Individual Amplification would enable a Sentinel to influence other minds from planetary distances, instead of the traditional room's width. It had passed its first combat test when Firebird and Brennen escaped Thyrica, pursued by a Shuhr attack force. Later, it enabled Brennen, then Firebird, to land undetected at Three Zed.

"But RIA was top secret." Tel sounded plaintive'. He'd even submitted to voice-command before he left sanctuary, to ensure he wouldn't inadvertently reveal RIA's existence.

Firebird glanced aside at Brennen and caught a glint of keen blue eyes, sober under dark eyebrows.
Do you want to explain,
she thought at him,
or shall I?
Their deep pair bond didn't let them send words, but they were learning to communicate from context and emotional clues.

He opened one hand, gesturing her to go ahead.

She leaned forward on the cushioned seat. "Sentinels have policed the Shuhr for decades," she said. As recently as two years ago, most Netaians hadn't even heard of the Shuhr. There weren't many Shuhr, but it didn't take many to frighten the Federates. "But they've pulled off three raids in the last month."

"Against military ships." Tel glanced up, as if he expected another suicide flight to plunge through the gray cloud cover. Obviously, he'd seen the Codex tri-D.

"Exactly," she said. "They have no military manufacturing. Why bother to build what they can steal?"

Tel nodded again.

"Regional command hopes that announcing RIA might buy us all a few weeks' reprieve. If that slows down their next strike, we might find out where they're headed in time to preempt it."

"Is the Federacy going to attack Three Zed?" Tel asked, looking directly into her face. "Before they can steal RIA, too?"

Again she thought of those sealed orders. She guessed, but she didn't know.

Besides RIA, they would take another dangerous new weapon to Three Zed . . . if those were the orders. Ever since Firebird and Bren-nen escaped from the Golden City, Sentinel College researchers had observed the unique fusion of their epsilon carrier waves. Under certain circumstances, that fusion of mental energy released virtually uncontrollable power. Using fusion, Brennen had sent a swordlike crystace pommel-first from high over Dru Polar's head, down through his body, and into Three Zed's stone floor, blasting out a small crater and filling it with . . . Polar.

Unfortunately, that fusion had sent Firebird into deep psychic shock. The college researchers had also learned that each fusion left scar tissue on the ayin complex deep in her brain, where her epsilon carrier arose. Genetically created by the Sentinels' ancestors, the mental-frequency epsilon wave gave rise to all their unusual abilities.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "We're not allowed to discuss that possibility."

Tel leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. Two years ago, Firebird had thought him dull-witted. What sensible person would marry Phoena? In the last four months, she'd seen Tel's courage and intelligence, and his loyalty—one of the highest Netaian virtues.

If the Federacy thought Brennen would lead an attack on Three Zed, why would Tel think otherwise?

She barely smiled at him, then turned aside.

Beneath the shroud of clouds, an elevated maglev rail paralleled Port Road through Citangelo's high-tech manufacturing zone, then bent west toward the fastrans station. Laser-straight avenues and narrow roadways that dated back to colonization crossed Port in the shopping district. An elegant stone bridge vaulted the Etlason River.

"There it is," murmured Shel.

Firebird pressed forward. From this vantage on the Etlason Bridge, she spotted a cubical building at one end of a park: the gold-sheathed Hall of Charity, where her confirmation ceremony was planned.

She might have to leave Netaia before her scheduled confirmation if Brennen made his catch soon enough. Still, if she helped disempower the Shuhr, Netaia might proclaim her a hero even if she left Citangelo prematurely.

. . . Might. There was no predicting the Netaian Electorate.

They passed on into traffic, skimmers and groundcars, mostly controlled by central guidance. Brennen pressed a data chip into the media block on the car's side console. Another half-meter hologram glimmered into existence between the forward- and back-facing seats. Firebird knew every cranny and corridor of the building that appeared. The three-hundred-year-old palace had seven klicks of passways, more than a hundred stairwells and gravity lifts, and two dozen entries. Its governmental and private wings framed formal gardens behind the broad public zone. Behind that columned front, the sovereign—a regent, at present—and other public officials had day and night offices.

Squarely centered between the palace's backswept wings, an elliptical chamber shone off-gold. It was the electoral chamber, heart of power on royal Netaia. Behind it were meeting rooms, galleries, and ballrooms. . .

Firebird glared at the sovereign's night office. In that curtained chamber, her regal mother had given her a last gift—poison, in case she was captured in battle.

Now that Firebird was a mother herself, she could not understand. Back at Hesed, her twin sons were probably fast asleep or enjoying a midnight feeding, Kiel a tiny mirror image of his father, and strong-willed Kinnor with those tight auburn curls, that impish face. How could her own mother, Queen Siwann, order Firebird to poison herself?

Brennen reached into the hologram, creating a double swath of shadow that blacked out several servitors' chambers and the uplevel library. Dozens of small human figures stood inside the two-level image. Nearly all the figures shone the scarlet shade of House Angelo livery, but twelve had been switched to midnight blue. He pointed silently to several.

"You'll have help," Tel observed.

Brennen waved off the media block and retrieved the chip. "That information isn't public knowledge, Tel. I wanted to reassure you."

"Then how do you intend to get a Shuhr in custody?" Tel demanded.

Firebird glanced at Brennen and barely nodded.
Tour turn,
she thought at him. Tel had better not hear this from her.

He dipped his chin. "They measure the emotional impact of every action they take," he explained. "As long as they have a chance of catching us in the public eye—"

She sent him a wry half smile. Her confirmation would be public, all right!

He returned a pulse of amusement that only she could feel. "They aren't likely to settle for a quiet assassination," he finished.

Tel dropped his plumed hat. "You're not hoping to lure Shuhr agents into the Hall of Charity."

"To save Netaia or another Whorl world," Brennen said, "we'd pre-fer to take one quietly, in the palace. But if that fails—yes, Tel. We'll try."

Firebird glanced from one man to the other, hoping Brennen didn't need to put Tel under another voice-command to keep him from inadvertently revealing that information. She hated the idea of violating another person's volition, even for his own protection.

Tel nodded slowly and said, "Now I understand why you came back to Citangelo. The entire Federacy is at risk."

Firebird sensed Brennen's unspoken nudge. "That's part of the reason," she confessed. "There's also the confirmation itself. It is a peacemaking gesture."

Tel smiled wryly. "Well, you've certainly earned it. You've given up more, risked more, for Netaia's sake than any three confirmed heirs."

She agreed, but she couldn't say so. "And I'll be speaking to the Electorate tonight."—Hopefully before the developing Shuhr emergency could call her away!

Tel raised an eyebrow. "I'd thought that tonight's special session was Rogonin's chance to tell you he opposed your return."

"I'm sure he won't miss the chance," she murmured. "But I have more to say than he probably expects."

The car turned north on Capitol Avenue. Fayya trees drooped along the meridian, their leaves winter-dark and rustling in air currents created by traffic. Firebird couldn't see much sky, but she sensed a cold front coming in. It felt good to know she hadn't lost her Citangelo weather sense.

In one way, she hoped the trap didn't spring too soon. If she had to go back to Three Zed, she would love to first rub a few noble noses in her new status as an heir, to face down the young counts and countesses who'd despised a doomed Angelo wastling. She would outrank them now.

It shouldn't matter after all she'd been through, but she couldn't help feeling this way. For all their graceless cruelties, Netaia's noble traditions shaped her life.

On the other hand, she had rejected its strictly external state religion. She'd found mercy in a Singer beyond human comprehension, and she'd seen the evil deep in her own soul, a darkness she could only partially blame on Netaian traditions. That darkness made divine mercy necessary. She hoped she might introduce her beloved common people to something beyond the state-enforced service of Charities, Disciplines, and nine allegedly holy Powers.

"Well." Tel retrieved his hat and replaced it over his dark hair. "I hope you catch your Shuhr and find out what you need to know. But I hope there isn't a pitched battle inside the Hall of Charity."

"It's also possible," Brennen said, "that they might send in an agent who knows nothing important and who could injure anyone who attempted to mind-access him. Or her."

Firebird nodded. They just didn't know enough about the Shuhr's actual capabilities. They needed information on Three Zed's defenses and where the Shuhr hoped to strike. The Federate fleets simply couldn't be deployed to defend twenty-four star systems.

Meanwhile, the new crater on Brennen's home world hadn't finished filling with groundwater. Peaceful, easygoing Sunton, near the single continent's eastern shore, was now a saltwater lake.

Brennen barely swayed with the groundcar's motion, staring as if he were waiting for Tel to speak. He still could sense other people's tension when they prepared to raise uncomfortable subjects. His worst losses were in memory and kinetic skills.

Tel met that stare. "What about Iarla and Kessaree?" he asked.

"Nothing yet," Brennen admitted. Firebird's Angelo nieces— daughters of her eldest sister, Carradee—had been sent away under Federate protection, to be safer from the Shuhr. They never arrived.

Tel frowned and forged ahead. "Some people are concerned that RIA technology could put you people in charge of the Federacy."

Brennen returned Tel's sober frown. Previously, projecting a Sentinel's epsilon carrier wave long-distance could only be done by a planetary fielding team with several rooms full of subtronic gear. Like fielding, RIA's range was planetary. Unlike fielding, an RIA apparatus could be mounted on a single-seat ship.

"People are scared," Tel continued. "After what the Shuhr did to Sunton, every raid is considered a warning. It's that many more suicide ships they could throw at Federate worlds. We need you Sentinels now more than ever."

Firebird wanted to assure him. "The Federacy believes in preserving everyone's freedom. But the Shuhr's freedoms have to end at the point where they threaten other lives. The Sentinels see that as their duty, since they share similar abilities."

Another bridge rose in front of them. To the left and right, hedges marked the boundaries of Angelo property. She sat up straighter as Capitol Avenue crossed the Tiggaree and the chauffeur hit his override. Released from central guidance, their vehicle glided through massive gates tipped with golden spear points.

Firebird bent low to peer ahead as they cruised through a public festival square toward a grand edifice. Six bulky pillars, three left and three right, framed a short flight of wide white marble steps. Two electoral policemen marched down toward the car.

Firebird drew back from the window, almost overwhelmed by her aversion to that uniform. Electoral police, redjackets, enforced the cruel customs that guaranteed the wastlings' martyrdom. Supposedly, she didn't need to dread them anymore.