Jaran

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

That night after supper, Tess went back to her room and waited. When the moon had set, she strapped on her saber and both her knives and slipped out into the corridor, closing the door carefully behind her. The latch clicked softly into place.

She stood for a moment, one hand resting against the cool stone of the wall, until her eyes adjusted to the new blend of shadows. Then she set off.

In the eating hall, Garii waited for her in the shadows. A soft, dreaming silence lay over the shrine, lulled by the distant swell and ebb of a melodic chant sung over and over by a wakeful priest. Garii turned and, even in the darkness, he bowed, knowing it was she. He crossed the hall to her, bowed again, and led her into the maze of the palace.

Tess was soon lost. Had he abandoned her, she could not have retraced her path. For all she knew, he was leading her in circles. Then they passed through the entry hall, walked down a broad flight of steps, rounded a corner, and she found herself in a room she knew she had not seen before. A pale light washed it, the barest gleam. About the same size as the eating hall, the room had ebony floors and was ringed with two rectangular countertops, one inside the other, freestanding within the room. By this door and next to the door at the far end stood two tall megalithic structures that reminded her abruptly of the transmitter out on the plains.

Garii walked across the hall to the far door. She followed him, and he slid the panel aside and waited for her to pass through first. She hesitated. Should she trust him? But what choice had she now?

She found herself in a blank, white-walled room that was unfurnished, empty. The walls were as smooth as glass, and it was bitterly cold. She rubbed her arms and turned, only to see Garii removing his knife from his belt. She grabbed for hers-but he pointed the knife at the far wall. A sigh shuddered through the air, and the far wall fell away before them.

A dark gap lay beyond. He gestured. She passed through into the tunnel, and he followed her. The gap shut seamlessly behind them.

The darkness hummed. Putting out her hands, one to each side, she felt walls on either side. Light winked on ahead. A brief chime startled her. She took ten steps forward, and the dark passage opened out into a room. Amazement stopped her in her tracks.

A bank of meter-high machines circled the walls, a gleam of metal in the dull light. By the scattering of red panels on their surface, she could guess they were some kind of computer and environment system for the palace. In front of her, above the bank, hung a huge screen, perhaps five meters square. The screen showed a three-dimensional star chart with a huge territorial area that she did not recognize demarked in red. But she recognized the placement of many of the stars.

Hon Garii crossed beside her and went forward to the counter. He examined a small screen set into the machinery. Leaning forward to press a long bar, he spoke at last.

"Lady Terese, I have done as you commanded and brought you here."

"What is that chart?" she asked.

Without looking up, he touched another bar. "The program now running will overlay the current territorial boundaries of the Empire onto the Mushai's chart."

The Mushai? The traitor? Garii straightened. The screen changed. In the second before he turned, she understood.

A second territory was now demarked in blue. This territory was much smaller than the first, was entirely contained within the first. This territory Tess recognized immediately: the Chapalii Empire, including its subject states. It was a map she knew very well, having seen it often enough in her brother's study when she was a child. But what territory did the first one-that huge expanse of red-demark?

"What information do you desire, Lady Terese?"

She stared as the screen scrolled forward through its data banks. "Leave this on."

A planet, twisting in the void. The continents of Rhui traced in brown. Da-o Enti, the screen displayed. Type 2.7.14. Subsector Diaga 110101. Property of Tai-en Mushai.

Tai-en Mushai. The Mushai, the mythical Chapalii traitor who had destroyed the legendary first empire of the Chapalii-an empire ten times the size and power of the one her brother battled. A legend, the Chapalii said, because of course their empire had never fallen, could not fall. A legend about the fall of a mythical Golden Age. So they said.

The screen scrolled forward: graphics, shipping charts, energy centers, trade and military tables, statistics, all in the same archaic but recognizable script she had seen on the arch. As the data fed across the screen, she knew it was no legend. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, the Chapalii Empire had been twice the size of the empire Earth and her League were subject to now. Tai-en Mushai had broken that empire, had gathered together the information necessary to destroy it. And that information was here, in this computer.

Garii stepped forward, full into the backlight generated by the screen. "Lady Terese. We must not linger here. If Cha Ishii should arrive, he will not be pleased to discover you here."

Tess drew her knife but kept it pressed hard against her thigh, hiding it from him. "Do you expect him?"

"No."

' 'I need a copy of everything in that data bank.'' Her grip tightened on the knife. This was the real, the final, test of his loyalty to her.

He did not answer for a moment. It was too dim to tell his color, but his face shadowed, as if something were passing above him. "As you will, Tai-endi," he said, so softly that she almost did not hear him.

He turned to the bank under the screen. She approached, close enough to watch him work but not too close. But he did not hesitate. He pressed a small cylinder into a round slot and two red bars on the counter shuddered and changed to orange. On the screen appeared the upright black cylinder that stood for "memory." In such a static culture, evidently some Chapalii standards had not changed over the centuries. Figures scrolled on beneath it. Garii stood silent, hands on the bank, neither looking at her nor speaking. She could not begin to guess what he was thinking.

When three chimes sounded in sequence, he lifted his head. A circle appeared around the cylinder sign on the screen: finished, saved.

"Take it out," Tess whispered, but he was already pulling the cylinder out of the slot. Four Chapalii glyphs had been burned in red onto the cylinder's shiny black surface, but the cylinder was too small and she was too far away to read what they said. In a few seconds, the letters faded to a dim outline, and at last to nothing, dissolved into black.

Garii lifted up the cylinder, pivoted, and, bowing, offered it to her as easily as if the information contained in that cylinder was nothing more than a ship's menu for the week. She resisted the temptation to snatch it out of his hand and instead stepped forward carefully and halted an arm's length from him.

Standing so long in one place, she had forgotten how cold the room was. The floor burned like ice on the soles of her feet. Garii watched her, his skin as pale as frost. He said nothing, but he blinked once, a thin membrane like an inner eyelid flicking down over his opaque eyes. She put out her hand. He gave her the cylinder. It was still warm.

"Now, erase the transaction."

He turned back to the bank and leaned forward to touch bars. She took a step away from him. Taking advantage of his attention being turned elsewhere, she slipped her hand down the neck of her tunic and tucked the cylinder securely into her understrap. Straightened her tunic. Garii continued keying bars in some complex configuration. Above, the screen scrolled more slowly now through its data. As she stood, taking slow breaths in and out, in and out, trying to calm her racing heart, she looked up and caught in her breath again.

Rhui was on the screen. An Imperial catalog number appeared below it. Obscure. So primitive that it would be expensive to exploit. The sector of space it lay in had been assigned to the ducal holdings of Tai-en Mushai. Except that the League Exploratory Survey had discovered Rhui. The Chapalii had never disputed the claim.

The Mushai's private records came up. Points of light appeared like lonely beacons at a few places on the planet. Building sites? Landing points? New figures appeared, humanoid figures, cross-screened with a second planet. Tess drew in her breath sharply. That second planet was as familiar to her as her own hand.

Sites, indeed. Dispersion sites. Seeding sites. The Tai-en Mushai had seeded this planet with human stock. Earth stock. An obscure, barbaric planet, unwanted by the First Empire. What better place to contemplate, breed, and commence rebellion? What better material to do it with?

But the Mushai had died, perhaps in battle. The First Empire must have fallen with him, leaving Rhui to the ancient cycles of human civilization. And his center of operations, well-hidden, had remained lost, untouched until the Second Chapalii Empire-centuries? millennia? later-had ceded this unimportant planet and system to the rebel they wished to placate. Until the Second Empire realized what it had overlooked. How long ago had it been?

Rhui's image turned. A bright rectangle flashed, the site of the great lord's palace: the shrine of Morava. Tess pressed her free hand to her chest, feeling the cylinder where it lay between her breasts. It was no longer than her fingers, not more than three centimeters in diameter. Garii still examined the counter, not watching her.

Tess raised her hand. With the flourish accorded only to those of the very highest rank, she bowed to the Mushai's screen, to the rebel, long dead. With respect, and with ironic gratitude for the gift he had given her, his human heir.

As if in answer, a chime rang from one of the consoles. A bar of white light over the screen clicked on then off. Garii straightened abruptly. Tess heard the scrape of a shoe on the hard floor.

She whirled. The passage behind was so dark that at first she could only see a dim shape against blackness. It stepped forward, thin, almost awkward in its delicate, long-limbed slenderness.

It was Cha Ishii. He held one of their laser-knives in his hand, its bores shining red. It was pointed at her. "This is indeed a surprise, Lady Terese." He inclined his head deferentially but the knife did not waver.

"Did you know I was here?" she asked.

"Yes." He took one step toward her, and his gaze flicked to Hon Garii and then back to her. "I was so informed." His face colored, but in the dimness she could not make out the shade. A moment later she was blinded by a flash of light.

She flung up one arm to cover her eyes. Behind her, something heavy fell to the floor. She felt its impact shudder through her feet. The barest wisp of burning touched her senses and then dissipated into the chill air. She lowered her arm and turned sluggishly, afraid of what she would see.

Garii lay crumpled on the floor in front of the console. A tiny hole pierced his tunic, low in the chest, ringed with an outline of black. Above him, the screen flashed a new image, and then another.

"Doubly a traitor," said Ishii in his flat monotone, startling her out of her stupor. "That he should attempt to better his station by breaking his pledge to my house and attaching himself to you is deplorable but such shameful actions are not, I fear, unknown among the lower classes. But that he should then betray you in turn." For the first time, she heard clear emotion in his voice. "Such infidelity must be so repugnant to any of our rank that I beg your pardon for mistaking his character so much as to allow him this expedition and thus force you into this unfortunate association. I am deeply ashamed."

Tess could only stare at the laser. The thin, dark opening, sparked with red, was now directed at her abdomen. Doroskayev's body had been laid open as if a butcher knife had sliced him wide-how had Garii been killed so neatly? Or was a clean death reserved for one's own kind? Ishii examined the body with a grimace of distaste, as if he had just eaten something offensive. Finally, she found her voice. "He alerted you?"

"Indeed, such behavior must be pathological in origin. I had begun to hope that we could perhaps conceal all from you, Lady Terese, and thus finish our journey with no further incident. I regret that you found this room."

"Why did you come to Rhui now, Cha Ishii? Why not earlier? Why did you ever give this system to my brother?"

He took another step toward her. His face reflected the light of the screen, a constant shifting as data scrolled out, the accumulation of a life's work. "I fear that was a significant oversight, which I was sent to rectify. We only recently learned that this palace existed. And now that the duke is conducting ethnographic surveys of the native populations, he is bound to find it eventually. It must not be here to be found. I am sure you understand."

"But unless you blow it up, he'll find it someday."

Ishii's lips twisted, as much of a smile as she had ever seen from a Chapalii. "The Mushai himself encoded a false set of data so that it would appear that this was merely a hunting lodge, an eccentric noble's secret playhouse, seeded with species from other planets for his amusement. Your brother will find nothing to comment upon. The Emperor cannot control every lord's whim, or his far-flung travels. I am only sorry that the Mushai did not live to trigger the false codes into the system."

Blue from the screen colored Ishii's face, then red, like a sweep of blood. "How did the Mushai die? How long ago?"

"Time uncounted, years beyond years it was. His ship was blown up in battle. According to my best calculations, we passed its graveyard on our journey here. His death would have been instantaneous." He made a clicking noise with his tongue and took another step toward her. He was a body's length away. "I will do my best, Lady Terese, to make yours painless as well."

A low humming filled her ears, but it was only the undertone of the machinery, amplified by her fear. He held light that could slice through air, sear flesh. There was not even space here to roll aside.

"Cha Ishii, I outrank you. You cannot kill me."

He sighed. "Be assured that I and my family will do penance for your death. I regret its necessity deeply. But you have seen too much. Now, please drop the knife."

She had been holding it back behind her leg, hoping he would not see it. Now she lifted it. "We are at an impasse, Ishii. Both armed."

"I hope you do not believe that I did not know of this dead one's offering to you? I am not so blind as that, Lady Terese. But only my weapon is programmed to kill one of my species."

While he was talking, she slid her thumb over the hilt: light streaked out. Nothing happened but for a brief echo glittering off the screen.

"You see, Lady Terese, that I have always told you the truth." He blinked, his inner eyelids flicking down and up The pistol lowered slightly, like a reprieve. "Violence is such an inelegant transaction. Perhaps we could bribe you." Was it her imagination or had his voice taken on a coaxing tone? "Leave this palace, Lady Terese. Forget what you have seen. Forget this journey. And we will take Bakhtiian off planet with us. We will give him the treatments that will make him live one hundred of your years, and you can have him." He lowered the pistol even further, gaze hard on her as if he was trying to measure some attribute in her character. "Does that tempt you?"

Tempt her? To have Ilya for a hundred years. To show him the stars.

The stars, where the jaran, a name that could-that would-resonate across a continent, meant nothing. Lord, it would kill him.

The pistol rested at Ishii's side, but his finger still touched the firing lever.

"I fear, Cha Ishii, that you will make me laugh. Of course, he might make a sensation for a time, which would be diverting enough, I suppose, but when it wore off, I would have to dispose of him. That would be tiresome." She took a step toward him and casually rested her hand on her saber. His hand did not move. "But I think you will find that there are other commodities that might persuade me."

"Other commodities?" A flash of many lights on his face as the screen changed, then a sick, brilliant white. "I do regret this hasty, slovenly solution, Lady Terese, for you would do so very well at court. But I am not a fool. The sister of a mushai, a traitor, cannot be bribed." He raised the pistol to point straight at her heart. ' 'Please remove your belt and the weapons."

Her hands shook. She slipped the tongue of her belt free of the buckle and took another step toward him. The harsh light had drained all color from his face. He looked as if his skin were painted on. "The duke knows I am on this planet. I left him a message. A letter." Her voice broke. It was her last play. "You will be ruined."

"Unfortunately, the message to your brother was destroyed. The duke never received any letter from you. I must assume that he believes you still on Earth. There is no reason to trace you here." His finger-

She lashed out with her hand, the instantaneous reaction of cold fear. The buckle of the belt smashed into his hand. He cried out. The shot seared into a bulk of metal, a high, harmless crack. She whipped the belt back. The hard metal caught his fingers. His knife fell to the floor. Tess kicked it away. It skittered across the smooth surface and slid under Garii's slumped body.

The impetus of her kick brought her forward, and she plunged into Cha Ishii. Without even thinking, she knifed him in the abdomen. He screamed and fell.

Caught in his falling, she lost her balance and came down with her knees in his stomach. He made a sound, a cry. She scrambled forward, pulling out the knife, tripping on the belt, stumbling, getting up. Then she was in the passage, slipping on the smooth floor, hitting her knee hard as she went down, catching herself one-handed, pushing up. She got her balance and drew her saber, holding the belt in her other hand. Glanced back. Ishii was gasping as he struggled to get up. She ran.

Her hand, thrust in front of her, came up against sheer wall. It fell away. She tumbled out into the empty, white room. As the door slid back into place behind her, she stuck the knife into the crack. The door shut with a sharp grinding noise, not quite closed. She shoved at it. It did not move.

"Jammed. Please, God, jammed." She ran to the other door, paused there, trying to stop breathing so loudly. A tear snaked down her cheek to dissolve, warm and salty, on her lips. The door was shut. She gave it a gentle push, and it slid open a handsbreadth. She saw nothing, heard no sound at all from the chamber beyond. She slipped into the room with her saber preceding her. The two megaliths framed the doorway like sentinels at a tomb. A scraping noise sounded behind her. She ran.

She got no farther than six steps. A figure emerged from a megalith. Like the strike of a snake, a hand gripped her right wrist, twisting it so her saber fell, a brilliant clatter on the floor, and pulled her in. An arm closed around her back. Her hands were trapped, one in back, one in front of her, her legs constrained by space. Her hair rested against a head. Head. Neck. Throat. She ducked her head, got it under the chin, and pushed up; lunged with her teeth for the throat.

It happened so fast that she only knew that both her arms were jerked painfully up behind her back. A hand locked on her chin, holding her head bowed back, fingers pressed tight on her jaw. His face held a breath away from hers.

"Try that again," he said, his eyes two points of blackness, "and I'll have to-" Abruptly, he jerked her chin to one side, as if he could not stand to look at her. His beard tickled her cheek.

"Oh, God," said Tess. She would have fallen if he had not been holding her.

"By the gods." Bakhtiian looked past her to her saber, a gleam on the ebony floor. "I think it is time for you to tell me the truth."