Serpent's Reach (11 page)

Game, for the winner.

She offered him the dice. She led; the courtesy was mandated by the custom of the game. His hand was sweating; he wiped it on his chest, took the dice again, and cast: six.

She took up the cubes for her own turn, threw.

Seven.

“Game,” she said.

There was silence. Then those in the room cheered…save the azi, who faded back, reminded that escape was not for their kind. Jim blinked, and fought for breath. He began to shiver and could not stop.

Kont’ Raen gathered up the wands and, one by one, broke them. Then she leaned back in her chair and slowly finished her drink. Quiet was restored in the room. Officers and azi remembered that they had duties elsewhere. Only the Istran couple remained.

“Out,” she said.

The couple hesitated, indignant, determined for a moment to stand their ground. Then they thought better of it and left. The door closed. Jim stared at the table. An azi never looked directly at anyone.

There was a long silence.

“Finish your drink,” she said. He did so; he had wanted it, and had not known whether he dared. “I thank you,” she said quietly. “You have relieved my boredom, and few have ever done that.”

He looked up at her, suicidal in his mood. He had been pushed far. The same desperation which had kept him from withdrawing from the game still possessed him.

“You could have dropped out,” she reminded him.

“I could have won.”

“Of course.”

He took a last swallow from his glass, mostly icemelt, and set it down. The thought occurred to him again that the Kontrin was quite, quite mad, and that out of whim she might order his termination when they docked. She evidently travelled alone. Perhaps she preferred it that way. He was lost in the motivations of Kontrin. He had been created to serve the ships of Andra Lines. He knew nothing else.

She walked over and took the bottle from the Istrans’ table, examined the label critically and poured again, for him and for her. The incongruity of the action made him sure that she was mad. There should have been fresh glasses, no ice. He winced inwardly, and realised that such concerns now were ridiculous. He drank; she did, in bizarre celebration.

“None of them,” she said, with a shrug at all the empty tables and chairs, the memories of departed passengers, “none of them could dice with a Kontrin. Not one.” She grinned and laughed, and the grin faded to a solemn expression. She lifted the glass to him, ironic salute. “Your contract is already purchased. Ever borne arms?”

He shook his head, appalled. He had never touched a weapon, seldom even seen one.

She laughed and set the glass down.

And rose.

“Come,” she said.

Later, high in the upper decks and the luxury of the Kontrin’s staterooms, it came to what he thought it might.

“Commercial,” Moth muttered, and steepled her wrinkled hands, staring at them to the exclusion of the several heads of Houses who surrounded her. She laughed softly, contemplating the reports of chaos strewn in a line across the Reach.

“I fear,” said Cen Moran, “I lack your perception of humour in the matter. This involves Istra, and the hives, and the surviving Meth-maren. I see nothing whatsoever of humour affordable in the combination.”

“Kill her,” said Ros Hald.

Moth turned a chill stare on him, and he fell silent. “Why? For trespass? I don’t recall that visiting Istra is grounds for such extreme measures.”

“It’s a sensitive area, Istra.”

“Yes. Isn’t it.”

The Hald broke eye contact. Moth did not miss that fact, but glanced instead at Moran and the others, raised querulous brows. “I think some Kontrin presence there might be salutary, provided it’s discreet and sensible. The Meth-maren’s presence is usually quiet toward non-Kontrin.”

“A hive-world,” said Moran, “another hive-world, and critical.”

“The only hive-world,” said Moth, “without Kontrin permanently resident. We’ve barred ourselves from that…sensitive…contact point, at least by custom. Depressing as Istra is reputed to be, I suspect we simply lack enthusiasm for the necessary privations. But majat don’t seem to mind being there, do they? In my long memory, only Lian had the interest to visit the place after the beta City was set down there—and that was very long ago. Maybe we should reconsider. Maybe we’ve created a blind spot in our intelligence. Reports from Istra are scant. Perhaps a Kontrin should be there. It surely couldn’t hurt their economy.”

“But,” said Kahn a Belo, “
this
Kontrin, Eldest? There’s been trouble across the Reach. And the Meth-maren, of the hive-masters—of
that
House—the simplest prediction would tell us…”

“We will let her alone,” Moth said.

“If it were put to a vote,” said Moran, “that sentiment would not carry. Than would be the logical choice, trustworthy. The Meth-maren, no.”

Moth looked at him steadily. A measure would have to be written up formally: some one of them would have to put his name on it as proponent. Someone would have to risk his personal influence and the well-being of his agents. She did not estimate that Moran quite meant it as an ultimatum: he was simply kin to the ineffectual Thons. There were more meaningful, more inflammatory issues on which opposition could rise. When challenge came, if it came in the Council at all, it would not be like this, on a directive for assassination; such things did not make good rallying points. Assassinations were usually managed by House or executive order, quietly and without embarrassments.

“Let her alone,” Moth said, “for now.”

There was a small and sullen silence at the table. Talk began quietly, drifted to other matters. There were excuses made early, departures in small groups. Moth watched them, and noted who left with whom, and reckoned that not a few of them were plotting her demise.

And after me
, she thought with a taut, hateful smile,
let it come
.

She spread upon the table the reports which had occupied the committee, all the various problems with which the Council had to deal: over-breeding of azi, population stresses and economic distress among underemployed betas, turmoil in the hives, killings of greens and the lately-recovered blues by reds and golds on Cerdin. The Thon House, hive-liaisons in the place of Meth-marens, proved ineffectual: the reports skirted that fact and covered truth with verbiage.

And, persistently, reports that reds sought out Kontrin and made gifts, trespassed boundaries, turned up in beta areas.

There was a proposal put forward by the House of Ilit and the econbureau that this surplus be consumed by the modest ship-building industry of Pedra. It gathered support; it was very possible that it would pass. It would alleviate conditions that created discontent on several worlds.

Moth studied it, frowning—remembered to push a button, to summon the young man waiting—and sat leaning her mouth against her curled hand and staring moodishly at the persuasive statistics on the graphs. The Hald entered; she was still pursuing her train of thought, and let him stand, the while she read and gnawed at her finger.

At last she shifted the reports into three stacks and then into one, and put atop it a dry monograph entitled
Breeding Patterns among the Hives
.

“Commercial,” she chuckled again, to the listening walls, and looked up sharply at young Tand Hald. “Kill her, you would say too. I’ve heard that Hald point of view until my ears ache. You’re nothing if not consistent. Where’s Morn?”

Tand Hald shrugged, stared at her quite directly. “I’m sure I don’t know, Eldest.”

“Pol with him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know that either. Not when I left him.”

“Where did you part with them?”

“Meron.” He failed to flinch. The eyes remained steady. “Pol involved himself with amusements there. Morn went his own way; I went mine. No one controls them.”

She gazed at him steadily, broke contact after a moment. “You want her taken out”

“I give the best advice I have.”

“Why are you so apprehensive of this one subject? Personal grudge?”

“No. Surely your agent who watches your other agents would have turned up any personal bias in this.”

She laughed softly at the impertinence. The youngest Hald had been with her too long, too closely. She was not diverted. “But why then? What interference has she ever attempted in Family business? She’s never made an economic ripple; she only—
travels
, from time to time.”

“Is she your agent?” Tand asked, a question which had taken him live years to ask.

“No,” Moth said very softly. “But I protect her as if she were. She is, after a remote fashion. Why do you fear her so, Tand?”

“Because she’s atypical. And random. And a survivor. She ought to have grudges. She never exercises them…save once, but that was direct retaliation. She never pursues the old ones.”

“Ah.”

“Now she’s chosen a place where there’s potential for serious harm. There are Outsiders directly available; there are hives, and no one to watch her, only betas. Her going there has purpose.”

“Do you think so? She always seems to proceed by indirection.”

“I believe there is reason.”

“Perhaps there is. Yet in all these years, she’s never reached back to Cerdin.”

“It was a mistake to have let her live in the first place.”

“The Family has searched for cause against her ever since she left Cerdin. We’ve found none; she’s given none.”

“So she’s intelligent, and dangerous.”

Moth laughed again, and the laughter died and she sorted absently through the reports, shifting them into disorder. “How long do majat live?”

“Eighteen years for the average individual.” Tand seemed vaguely annoyed by this extraneity. “Longer for queens.”

“No. How long do majat live?”

“The hives are immortal.”

“That is the correct answer. How long is that?”

“They calculate—millions of years.”

“How long have we been watching them, Tand?”

The young man shifted his weight and his eyes went to the floor and the walls and elsewhere in his impatience. “About—six, seven hundred years.”

“How long would a cycle take—in the lifespan of an immortal organism?”

“What kind of cycle? Eldest, I’m afraid I don’t see what you’re aiming at.”

“Yea. We don’t, do we? We lose our memories with death. Individually. Our records record…only what we once perceived as important, at a given hour, under given circumstances. The Drones remember…everything.”

Tand shook his head. A sweat had broken out on his face. “I wish you would be clear, Eldest.”

“I wish I had a long enough record at hand. Don’t you see that things have changed? No, of course not. You’re only a third of a century old yourself. I’m only six hundred and a half. And what is that? What is that experience worth? The Pact used to keep the hives out of human affairs. Now reds and golds…mingle with us, even with betas. Hives are at war…on Cerdin, Meron, Andra, Kalind… On Kalind, it’s blues and greens against red. On Andra, and Cerdin, it’s blues and greens against red and gold. On Meron, it’s blues against reds and greens, and gold is in hiding.”

“And Istra—”

“One can’t predict, can one?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Eldest.”

“Until you do—spread the word among the Houses that Moth still has her faculties. That killing me would be very unwise.”

“The matter,” Tand said tentatively, “the matter is Raen a Sul, Eldest.”

“Yes, it is isn’t it?” Moth shook her head. Blinked. At nigh seven hundred, the brain grew unreliable, too full of information. There were syntheses which verged on prophecy, cross-connections too full of subtle intervening data. Her hands shook uncontrollably with the effort of tracing down these interloping items. Self-analysis. Of all processes, that was hardest, to know why the data interconnected. Her eyes hurt. Her hands could not feel the papers they handled. She became aware that Tand had been speaking further.

“Go away,” she said abruptly.

He went.

She watched him go, without doubt now: her death was planned.

The azi had settled finally, his world redefined. He slept as if the luxury of the upper deck staterooms were no novelty at all. Raen gathered herself up quietly, slipped past the safety web which shrouded the wide bed, and stretched, beginning now to think of departure, of the disposition of personal items scattered through the suite during the months of voyaging.

Now there was the azi…help or burden: she had not yet decided which. She had second thoughts of her mad venture, almost changed her mind even on this morning, as often of mornings she had had doubts.

She put it from her mind, refused to think of more than the present day; that was her solution to such thoughts, at least for the hour, at least to pass that tedious time of waiting and solitude. The voyage itself had promised to be unendurable; and it was done; there had even been moments of highest enjoyment, moments worth living, too rare to let finality turn them sour. She refused to let it happen—yawned and stretched in deliberate self-controlled luxury—went blindly to the console and keyed a double breakfast into the foodservice channel.

A red light blinked back at her at once, Security advisement. Her pulse jolted; she keyed three, which was the channel reserved for ship’s emergencies and notices.

MAJAT PASSENGER HAS AWAKENED. PLEASE VACATE VICINITY OF SECTOR #31.

On schedule—alarm to the ship, none to her. She punched in communications. “This is 512. I advise you take extraordinary care in emergency in 31. This is not a Worker. Please acknowledge.”

They did so. She cut them off, rubbed her eyes and sought the shower, her social duty fulfilled.

The touch of warm water and the smell of soap: some things even tile prospect of eternity could not diminish. Water slid over a body which bore only faint scars for all that was past, spare of flesh despite all her public self-indulgences. She endured heat enough to make her heart speed, generating a cloud of comfortable steam within the cabinet, combed her hair and punched the dry circulation into operation.