King's Test (6 page)

First, Sagan,
She'd been careless, he might have read her thoughts, come storming
through the ship to stop her.

No, he was
furious at the alien; his mind was in a turmoil. He himself was
endeavoring to proceed with calm. He couldn't waste time on her. What
was she, anyway? Helpless? A prisoner?

Not for long.
Not for long.

Could it be
accomplished'
³
Could she really deal for the bomb? It
would be difficult, but the beginning of a plan, the vague shape and
outline, was forming. Yes, it was feasible. All she had to do was get
away. And that should be relatively easy, in a ship about to die.

The most
dangerous part of her plan would be the next few-seconds, escaping
from her guards, slipping off the bridge. She could fight; she had
the bloodsword. But that would call attention to her and, more
important, she didn't have the time, Sagan was already on his way
back.

Maigrey
concentrated, marshaling her mental forces, summoning the power. The
Blood Royal. Genetically bred over centuries, designed to rule, to
lead. Theirs was a magic capable of logical definition, scientific
mysticism.

What could
you do, if you wanted. my lady?
Dion had asked her once.

What could I
do? I could split the bulkheads open. I could short out all the
electrical systems. I could make each man in this bar rise up and
slay himself.

So she had told
the young man and she'd told him the truth. But none of that would be
necessary right now, not that she had the energy to try bulkhead
splitting or mass murder. Mass hypnosis was far less taxing and would
accomplish the same objective.

Maigrey stirred
beneath the blanket, sighed, and seemed to settle herself more
comfortably. As she hoped, each man near her turned to stare at her.
Fortunately, none touched her. One started toward her. but the
centurion shook his head, gestured him back with weapon drawn.
Admiral Aks glanced in her direction, said something
indistinguishable and unimportant to a lieutenant standing near, who
also looked in her direction.

No man noticed
or realized that when he looked at her he was caught, that he stood
frozen, immobile, hypnotized. The effect lasted only a split second.
No one remembered it afterward. Each man turned away with an image in
his mind of a woman lying unconscious beneath a blanket on the deck
at their feet. So powerful was the image that, when the woman rose to
her feet, the man's mind refused to believe what his eyes insisted
upon. Faced with two distinct and contradictory images, the brain of
each man on the bridge chose the strongest, rejected the seemingly
impossible.

Walking softly,
moving fluidly as a ghost, Maigrey glided away and no one on deck
knew she had gone.

The bridge was
almost completely dark and nearly empty of its personnel. All lights
except for running lights and those on the computers, instruments,
and vid equipment had been shut down. The ferocity of the barrage the
ship was currently sustaining indicated to the Warlord that
Phoenix
was drawing nearer the Corasian vessel with every passing second. A
glance at the instruments confirmed his observation.

Murmured voices
of crewmen relaying information and the pounding of the explosions
that rattled the hull were the only sounds. Most of the crew had been
ordered off. Sagan, glancing at the vidscreen, could see the evac
ships beginning to pull away. He knew the Corasians could "see"
them, as well. He allowed himself a moment of congratulation.

"All
appears to be in order, Admiral. You have carried out your
instructions well. We have less than an hour left in the safety
window. Take the men remaining and proceed to your ship."

Aks was clearly
unhappy. "Are you leaving now, as well, my lord?"

"No,
Admiral. Someone must stay aboard to guide
Phoenix
as near the
Corasian ship as possible. I will take that duty upon myself "

"I
respectfully request permission to remain with your lordship."

"Permission
denied. Do as you are ordered, Admiral. Captain Williams can use some
assistance on
Defiant.
Meet me there. I shall be on board
within the next forty minutes."

Aks started to
argue, caught the Warlord's weary, shadowed gaze, and said softly,
"Yes, my lord." He turned to leave, stopped, and motioned
to a steel tray covered with a white cloth. "Dr. Giesk left that
for you, my lord. A stimulation shot. I believe. "

Sagan's lip
curled in disdain. The Blood Royal needed no such artificial stimuli.
He could retreat into his own being, find the strength he needed
within.

Admiral Aks
bowed without a word and prepared to leave the bridge, taking the
remainder of the crew with him. All were reluctant to go. Many cast
pleading glances at their Warlord, glances that were met with a gaze
as cold and hard as adamant. Soon the bridge was deserted except tor
the two silent Honor Guard standing watch over Lady Maigrey—lying
unconscious on the deck—and the Warlord.

Sagan turned the
ship's outer cameras away from the Corasian ship and onto
Phoenix,
seeing his ship through the eyes of his enemy. It appeared dark,
lifeless—a dead thing floating in space. Most of the evac boats
were speeding away. He saw his own shuttle pulling out. He must
remember to commend his captain, who had ordered the Warlord's crest
on the side of the vessel lighted. Corasians have no "eyes"
but their sensitive sighting devices would be certain to note Sagan's
phoenix emblem. They must assume the Warlord was on board, beating a
strategic retreat.

Sagan made a
slight change in course, giving the ship the appearance of an
abandoned wreck, drifting at random. The Corasians had ceased their
fire on the flagship and were beginning to turn their attention to
the attendant smaller destroyers, intending to cripple them and
salvage what was left, Sagan could picture the Corasians gloating
over their prize. When the battle was ended, they would lock a
tractor beam on to
Phoenix
and tow it back to their galaxy,
take it apart, and use the technological advances to enhance their
own out-of-date fleet.

This prize,
however, had a surprise inside. Sagan glanced at the time, though he
had no need to do so. His inner, mental clock kept it for him to the
millisecond. At a dead run, it would take him fifteen minutes to
reach his spaceplane. His centurions and Lady Maigrey would need to
leave ahead of him. He walked over to his men, who came to attention,
saluting, fist over heart. Their faces were impassive, calm. One
could never have told, from their expressions, that they were the
only ones left on board a ticking time bomb, "Escort the Lady
Maigrey to my spaceplane. 1—" Sagan looked down. The deck
was empty. Aghast, he raised his head, confronted his men. "Where
is she?"

"Right
there, my lord. She never moved, never stirred. We were worried—"
The centurion followed Sagan's angry gaze, blinked, and gasped. "My
lord! I swear—"

"Never
mind! Report to my spaceplane!"

"My lord,
we—"

"Go!"
Sagan roared.

The centurions
fled, booted feet pounding on metal, the echoes sounding unnaturally
loud and eerie in the silence.

Maigrey was
gone. Probably to
Defiant,
planning to rescue the boy, save
John Dixter. Or was she? Something nagged at Sagan's mind. He
couldn't touch hers; the barriers were up, the shadows thick and
heavy. He sensed shapes in the shadows, however, and what he saw
vaguely disquieted him.

He didn't dare
risk a transmission to
Defiant.
He could only-trust that the
Creator was with him,

Sagan slumped
into a chair. He was tired. It was frightening, how tired he was. His
neck hurt, where Maigrey’d struck him down on board the
Corasian vessel. The muscles were beginning to stiffen. The Warlord
closed his eyes, leaned back. Calm. Peace. Serenity. Look within and
find the strength you need.

Only it wasn't
there. He'd tost his ship. Oh, he would win the battle,
this
battle. But there would be another. He knew his foe now. knew the
true foe—an old man in the magenta robes, an old man Sagan had
accidentally glimpsed in a transmission to Peter Robes. The Warlord
understood that the fight with this enemy would be a fight to the
death. And Sagan wasn't at all certain he had the ability, the
strength, the cunning to win.

The Warlord
sighed, raised his head, opened his eyes. He reached out his hand,
slowly removed the white cloth from the steel tray. Lifting the
syringe, he stared at it a moment, then pressed it against the skin
of his upper forearm.

Crouched in a
doorway in the main part of the ship, listening to the drums beating
the retreat, Maigrey watched men dash up and down the corridor. She
wasn't out of danger yet. Dressed in the body armor that outlined
every curve of her form, her long pale hair sliding out of its braid,
she would be easily recognizable in a ship on which no women served.
To say nothing of the fact that the men all knew her, knew her to be
Sagan's prisoner.

Fortunately, it
was dark, emergency lights only were in operation. Harsh white beams
gleamed at intervals, forming pools of light in the corridors,
leaving most of the area in shadow.

Now or never.
Maigrey left her doorway, walking hunched over, her hand to her face.
Keeping to the shadows, she flitted down the passageway, heading for
the flight deck. What she would do once she got there was open to
question.

She literally
stumbled over her answer, tripped over a dead body.

Lying in a
particularly dark portion of the ship, the man had gone unnoticed by
those passing by who might have aided him. He’d been a pilot,
Maigrey noted from the bulky flight suit, the helmet that he'd
dropped when his strength gave out. She refrained from thanking the
Creator—she could never be thankful for a man's death—but
she did bless His guidance that led her down this particular passage.

She dragged the
body into a dark corridor, keeping clear of the pools of light, and
stripped the flight suit from the corpse.

The drumbeats
continued, would continue until the drummers themselves left their
posts. Maigrey heard them, felt them, the vibrations thrumming
through her body. She had no doubt that she would hear them in her
dreams. How much time? Thirty minutes, her mental clock told her. The
corridor rocked, tilted. The ship was drifting, no longer under
control.

The drumbeats
ceased. The ship was almost deserted now. The silence echoed more
loudly than the noise before it. Her fingers, slippery with blood,
shook as she tried to release the clasps on the flight suit. Each
second might be the last. Maigrey grit her teeth, forced herself to
stop thinking about it.

A huge metal
fragment embedded in the man's chest cavity had been his death. He
hadn't sustained that injury flying. He must have been standing in
the wrong place at the wrong time. It made her wonder what the flight
deck was like, what damage it had taken. Still, the evac ships had to
be going out. . , .

Maigrey
struggled into the flight suit, pulled it over her body armor,
fastened it up tightly. It was too big; she felt huge and bulky as an
elephant. Picking up the man's helmet, she started to put it on, then
paused. Reaching down, she closed the staring eyes.

"
'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. "
she murmured softly. " 'Rest eternal grant them, O Lord, and let
light perpetual shine upon them.'"

My lady!
came a voice.

It sounded so
near! Maigrey leapt up in fright, whirled around, Sagan wasn't there.
The voice was in her head, in her being. She drew a shivering breath,
reprimanded herself. The Warlord couldn't be anywhere near. He
couldn't leave the bridge. She should have remembered that.

Ignoring him,
shutting her mind to his probing, she dipped her hand in the soot and
blood and spilled oil that coated the deck and smeared the gunk over
her face. Putting on the helmet, Maigrey hurried back out into the
main corridor.

But she couldn't
shut out his voice entirely.

We will meet
again, my lady, you and I.

Presume not that
I am the thing I was . . .

William
Shakespeare,
Henry IV,
Part II, Act V, Scene 4

Dion landed his
spaceplane on
Defiant
without incident, helpfully guided by
the destroyer's flight controllers.

"Remember,
he told the computer, once they were aboard and the docking bay doors
were shutting behind him, "make certain that fuel light is
malfunctioning. ''

"I'm not
programmed—"

"Think
again. You made certain that the transmitter was malfunctioning for
the Warlord, didn't you?"

The computer did
not respond, but Dion noted that a red light appeared over the fuel
gauge.

The young man
was met by a harassed junior officer. Obviously annoyed at being
forced to cope with a childish prank during a crisis, the officer was
at the same time painfully aware that this child was in the Warlord's
favor.

Apparently,
thought Dion, the man hadn't received updated information.

"Come
along, young man, don't dawdle." The officer was brusque.
Catching hold of the sleeve of Dion's flight suit, he propelled the
boy down a corridor. "I have informed Lord Sagan of your safe
arrival. I was afraid he might have been concerned.'

"I'm sure
he was." Dion kept a straight face. 'Did you speak directly to
him?"

"Of course
not," the officer snapped, shoving his way through a crowd of
men who had just been evacuated from
Phoenix.
"I don't
have the authorization. You've been assigned temporary quarters.
They're in the brig, I'm afraid—"