Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (23 page)

It was cold down here and he was glad
of the coat. The chill deepened as they moved farther on, until
they reached the catacombs themselves. These ancient waterways
beneath the city had been carved by ancestors long ago, for reasons
that stayed back in the past. Their delving had uncovered
weaknesses in the earth and water had eaten through the
instabilities and flooded the work of a generation. Now the
catacombs were a testament to human foolishness.

The next generation, though, had turned
the foolishness to good use. The water that lapped against the
stone walls and pillars never became stagnant and when they
investigated, it was discovered that the catacombs were joined to
the waterways outside the Ivory City’s walls. A discreet and very
secret gate was built and now, anyone who wished to arrive within
the city unnoticed could use the gate…if they knew of it.

Ahead, Kare could hear the immortal lap
of the water against the walls and see the dim light reflecting on
the restless black surface.

But the guard swung aside, toward the
chambers that led off from the slippery dock that had been built to
service the secret visitors. One of the room doors stood open and
empty.

The guard tapped on the second door,
paused, then opened the door.

Who would command such authority that
his own guards would await their command before entering the
room?

Curious, Kare moved into the room.

Heat washed over him. Someone had put a
flame to the bier at the end and the ancient device had taken all
the chill out of the air.

It could only be a woman sitting before
the fire and warming herself. The long, warm gown, dark cloak and
fur-lined hood that was turned away from him all confirmed
that.

“Who are you to demand the Magnate of
the Federation Board dance attendance upon you in the middle of the
night?” Kare growled.

She stood up and turned to face him,
lowering the hood. Silvery hair and a face that owed its smoothness
more to rigid control and discipline than to any modern
therapies.

Nephele.

“Kare Sarkisian,” she intoned in her
musical voice.

Kare looked at the guard. “Leave us.
Lock the door behind you and leave it locked until I say to open
it.”

The guard’s eyes under the head wrap
widened. “But….”

“Move it!” Kare snapped. “Your
insubordination will be reported to your commander.”

The guard snapped to attention, spun
and left the room. The door slammed behind him and Kare heard the
heavy metal bars drop into place.

Nephele smiled at him. “I see you still
rule your empire with benevolence and wisdom.”

Kare scowled. “It’s not an empire.” He
had always suppressed any comparisons of the Federation to old
political regimes like empires. It drew the wrong sort of parallels
and bred speculation.

“Of course.” She inclined her head.

“Why are you here?” he demanded. “In
person? What could you not say in a private link?”

“We received the last recordings before
Shahrazad’s ship jumped through the gates at Drusiss. That was, by
the way, the feeblest effort I’ve seen your ground troops execute
in many decades.”

Kare scowled. “You came to gloat?”

“I come with information so stunning, I
could not risk speaking of it even over a secure link.”

Kare rolled his eyes. “This whole
Shahrazad business is wearing my patience.” This had been the
attitude he had adopted for the last few weeks. A façade of
indifference and boredom, while in private he scoured the data the
College shared.

“We know more about the navigator now.
The one they call Bedivere X.”

Kare laughed shortly. “How
romantic.”

Nephele stepped closer, her jaw tight
with anger. “He’s a computer, Kare. A sentient computer,
transferred into a human mule just like you would transfer to
your
next body.”

Cold gripped him and a sharp spike of
fear. “You’re sure?”

Nephele just looked at him.

It had to be true. She would not have
left the comfort of her cold eyrie to come to him with this if
there had been any doubt. “You have the recordings?” he asked, his
mouth suddenly dry. His head was throbbing.

Nephele held out her hand. Three data
crystals sat on her palm. “I presumed you would need to hear this
for yourself.”

Kare took them. “If this is true, it
can’t be allowed to live.”

Nephele inclined her head in that regal
way that always reminded Kare that he was simply a businessman,
while she had risen through the ranks of her craft and won the
highest position in the College by the acclaim of her peers. Her
sense of privilege was earned.

“Where is she?” Kare demanded.

“In transit.”

“Where will they
be
?” he shot
back impatiently.

“That, too, is in the recordings.
Barros, in five days.”

He made it to the safety of his private
study before the fit of trembling grew so intense he could only
lean against his desk and let it run its course, until he was left
a hollowed-out shell, bereft of feeling.

He closed down security around the
room, until it was an armored shell, with nothing that could come
in, not even fresh air.

Then he laboriously worked the manual
controls on his desk, setting up a one-time untraceable channel to
the fedcore. He didn’t even consider using the private, secure
channels that were provided for his personal use. They were too
well known. Any spy worth his money would have hacked into them
long ago and would be monitoring them.

Once he had the conduit open, he sat
back and drew upon old memories, sorting the data, recalling the
codes. None of them were written down. They had never been recorded
anywhere. He had been told to only remember them. He had. Once he
was certain he had them, he reached out to punch in the first.

His heart was skipping beats and his
mouth was filled with copper-tasting panic at what he was doing.
But he didn’t stop.

Barros IV, Barros System, Aibosian
Cluster. FY 10.070

They made Barros space and found
themselves five hours away from the stationary station there and
the skies empty around them.

“Barros is on the edge of Federation
space, isn’t it?” Brant asked, over Catherine’s shoulder.

“It used to be. But the edges keep
spreading out as new worlds join up.”

“Why are we here?” Lilly asked.

“Because it’s the first place I found
in the Itinerary that was a good long jump away,” Bedivere said.
“And it’s unexpected. None of us has ever been here before and
Barros offers nothing the Federation might guess we would come here
for. Their Federation specialty is textiles.”

“Who would buy fabric when you can
print what you want?” Lilly asked.

“Not everyone uses printers,” Catherine
pointed out. “I suspect Barros does a lot of business under the
table, with fringe worlds.”

“Most likely,” Bedivere said. “That
would be why they struggle to requalify each year. Their real
income can’t be reported.”

“So what happens next?” Brant
asked.

“That’s what we need to decide,”
Catherine said. She turned her chair so she was facing all of them.
“I don’t think it’s up to just me anymore. You all deserve to have
a say. We all have decisions to make, including whether you stay
with the ship at all. I can’t guarantee any sort of future now.
Bedivere
must
stay in Federation space and I will stay with
him, which means we have to find a permanent way to avoid the
authorities. But you two don’t have that restriction.”

“You mean you’re not going to dump me
on a ball somewhere?” Brant asked.

Bedivere laughed. “You heard that?”

“Didn’t have to. You’re both fugitives.
I’m Ammonite. You hired me for two specific jobs, both now
completed. Catherine said she had to twist your arm to hire me,
which means she probably promised to dump me on the nearest rock as
soon as my usefulness came to an end, to keep you happy.”

Catherine scowled. “Past tense, Fareed.
You’re welcome to stay if you want to.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Brant
said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

Lilly said nothing. She looked
troubled. Then she frowned, looking down at her console.
“Wow…that’s weird.”

“What?” Catherine asked.

Bedivere straightened up, looking
ahead. “Private codes. Yours, Cat. They’re old ones. Older than
me.”

Catherine turned back to the console.
“A message for me?”

“It’s masked. There’s all sorts of
security around it,” Bedivere said. “I can’t see who the sender is
at all. Not even a direction.”

“Do you want to accept the message?”
Lilly asked.

Catherine looked at the codes, old
memories stirring. “I think I know who is sending,” she said, “but
it’s impossible. He’s dead.”

“So was I,” Bedivere pointed out. “Take
the message.”

“Everyone, move out from behind me.
There’s no need for him to see you.”

Brant shrugged. “I’m already on the
wanted list. Lilly, too. Besides, I’m comfortable here.”

Catherine hid her smile and accepted
the connection. The heads-up display flickered in front of her as
the connection was made. Then the display solidified and
steadied.

The man looking at her had dark hair,
white flesh and dark eyes. His beard was neatly trimmed, outlining
a chin that thrust out aggressively. His eyes narrowed as he looked
at her. His gaze flickered as he took in everyone ranged behind
her.

“Do you remember me, Catherine?” he
asked.

She nodded. “You called yourself Caris
when we knew each other. I thought you had died in that explosion.”
She remembered the ear-splitting noise, the way the ground shook
and the building had disintegrated around them. How he had pulled
her against him to protect her.

Caris nodded. “That mule did die,” he
said, “and it was expedient to let everyone think that Caris Aklini
really did die in the assassination attempt. When I do move out of
the Ivory City, I always use a different identity to misdirect
assassins.” He paused, pressing his lips together as if he was
weighing up options. “No one outside the city knows what Kare
Sarkisian really looks like except, now, for you.”

Brant made a choking sound and Lilly
gasped.

“The Magnate of the Federation,”
Bedivere said. “Cat, he’ll be trying to trace your position. Shut
it off.”

Sarkisian held up his hand. “I’m not
tracing. This is as secure a conduit as I could build. I’ve become
somewhat skilled at covert communications over the years, so I’m
confident that no one will be able to break into the channel. Not
even the best of my Federation agents.”

Catherine let out her breath slowly, so
he wouldn’t see how shaken she was. “What do you want, Kare?”

His gaze flickered to her left. Toward
Bedivere. “Is this the one they call Bedivere?”

“If your intelligence corps is as good
as they say, then you already know he is,” Catherine said.

Kare nodded. He leaned forward, as if
he was leaning toward her. “Is it true, Katie? Is he really what
they tell me he is?”

She kept her face immobile, struggling
to hide her shock and to find an answer…any answer.

A monitor blipped on her console,
blinking red, catching her gaze.

Lie. Deny it
. The script was
from Bedivere.

But she had hesitated too long. Kare
sat back, shaking his head. “I didn’t believe them. I didn’t want
to believe them. But the more I think about it, the more I come to
understand that this is
just
like you. You always did do
exactly what you wanted and everyone else be damned.”

Catherine swallowed. “That’s not what
this is.” Her voice was hoarse.

Kare sighed. “It was a shock to me to
find out that the Katie I knew on Hakim was the great Catherine
Shahrazad but that, too, makes sense the longer I consider it.” He
gave a forced smile.

Bedivere got to his feet and moved so
that he was standing next to her chair, facing the display. “Now
that you know, what do you intend to do with that knowledge?”

“I will not speak with a proscribed
machine.” Kare looked directly at Catherine. “You must understand,
Catherine, until now I have been protecting you. Slowing down the
flow of information, giving misdirections and conflicting orders.
You may have thought yourself incredibly lucky to have evaded the
most incompetent troops that have been sent your way, but this…”
Again, his gaze flickered toward Bedivere. “You have to
understand,” he repeated. “I can’t stop what is to come. Not now. I
will
not
stop it. This…thing—it is a threat to our very
existence and it must be destroyed.”

“His name is Bedivere and he has as
much right to live as you or I,” Catherine said as steadily as she
could, but her heart was slamming against her chest, making it
difficult to think.

Kare lifted his hand, palm out. Denial?
Refusal, Catherine realized. “I have no intention of debating the
Ammonite scriptures, or the teachings of Glave. I am not a scholar,
but I don’t need to be. That thing is a danger to us all. There is
but one chance you have left to reverse this, Catherine.”

“He’s going to make a deal,” Brant said
softly, his tone derisive.

“It’s not a deal,” Kare said sharply.
“I do not make deals. I’m making a single offer and I do it only
because of our shared past.”

“I don’t think I’m interested in any
sort of deal you could offer me,” Catherine said and reached out to
hit the button to disconnect the display.

“Kill the machine,” he said urgently.
“Kill it now and I can ensure that the Federation does not bother
you anymore. You can have your privacy and your life back
again.”

Catherine shook her head. “Life is
life, Kare.”