Shadowkill

1

The minute Ginbiryol Seyirshi woke, he knew he’d been moved. They’d drugged him and shifted him from his cell on the planet to a cell on a ship.

He sat up slowly, looked around. Four walls and a floor, empty. Toeup furnishings unsprung except for the cot he’d waked on. Wallslot for food delivery. He placed his hands on his knees, dropped his gaze to the floor, and brooded.

The cell was a twin of the holding cells on his own ship and for a moment he wondered if Omphalos was playing games with his head, sending him out on a vessel they said was destroyed.

No. The reasons he’d conjured for believing them were valid; this was a case of form following function. He suppressed his surge of hope, got laboriously to his feet, and began exploring the resources of the cell.

Betalli smoothed gloved fingers over the back of a gloved hand, watched the monitor a moment longer, then touched it off and got to his feet. Ignoring the side glances of crewmen in dull gray shipsuits and mirror visors, he left the bridge and dropped to the living quarters. He touched the announcer on the Savant Quatorze’s cabin and waited.

And waited.

He folded his arms and prepared to outlast the Savant’s annoyance. This was his nominal superior, but the man had to be aware of the web of support Betalli had throughout the Powers of Omphalos. He’d listen. He wouldn’t do anything, but at least he’d listen.

The announcer chimed, the door slid back, Betalli went in.

His mouth tightened when he saw the Savant was wearing his robe, cowl, and gloves. This was supposed to be a SECURE mission, all ties to the Source carefully erased. This fool… He bowed, waited to be offered a seat.

It was another lengthy wait. The Savant was making sure Betalli knew who ordered whom. Finally a gloved hand lifted, pointed at a chair.

Betalli sat, waited.

“You wanted?”

“Seyirshi is awake.”

“So. It’s time, isn’t it?”

“You don’t understand him. I do. He’s a dangerous man, most dangerous when he looks most helpless.”

“That again.”

“I cannot guarantee to control him if you let him out of the holding cell. Leave him in there until we reach Bol Mutiar.”

“You made that argument to the Mimishay Council. They didn’t buy it, why do you expect me to? I was instructed to start the man working once we were in the insplit. I am going to follow instructions. If you’re so worried, come up with something specific you want done to tighten security. Otherwise stop carping and do your job.”

Betalli got to his feet, bowed, and left.

He was for Omphalos. It was the center of his life, his reason for existing. He believed passionately in what Omphalos stood for, in rule of the masses by a benevolent elite. He believed that ordinary people were incapable of regulating themselves and organizing their own lives. They needed direction, guidance, gentle coercion for their own good. Sometimes not so gentle, if they were resolutely wrongheaded.

He was honored by the Powers of Omphalos and honored them, but at times it seemed to him the lesser brethren had so little grasp of the Soul of Omphalos that they were scarcely better than the sheep they were being bred to rule. He’d met types like Quatorze before, all too often he’d brushed against them in his labors outside the comfortable ambiance of the Home Foci. He worked alone, a Focus in himself, no Brothers for him. The more conventional Brothers resented his self-sufficiency because it stood as a measure of their own limits.

Quatorze was a fool. Betalli walked into his quarters, sealed the door behind him, and sat at his console. He called up his plans and sat frowning at the schematics. Fool. Yes. The man had a small mind and a big grudge. Back on the Council with his armgraft still itching, Tierce had set this crawler over him. Tierce was an enemy. He betrayed Omphalos with every breath he took. Betalli marked that down. Quatorze was too small to bother with, but Tierce, yes. When this is over, I’ve got to do something about him.

Betalli leaned closer to the screen, began going minutely through his surveillance arrangements, trying to discover any place where Seyirshi might find the leverage to subvert the system. Seyirshi would find something, he was sure of it. He knew the man too well, he’d seen him poke and pry at systems until they collapsed in ruins, all the while flaking the destruction he’d set going.

Nothing. Betalli ran the system over and over, poking at it, trying everything he could think of, simple or complex. He found no entry for manipulation, but no comfort_, either. He recognized his limitations; he was a plodder, no way he could follow the eccentric leaps of Ginny’s brain.

He tapped into the monitor, watched Ginny sit slumped on the cot, his face inscrutable, waiting with an iron patience for whatever was going to be done with him.

For nearly an hour he sat watching that stolid motionless figure. Then he called up record flakes of Ginny in his cell; he’d been over them before, over and over them, trying to discover what was happening in the man’s mind, seeing nothing he could put a finger on.

Finally he sighed, shook his head. Quatorze is a fool, he repeated to himself. Passionless words, worn-out litany. Most men were fools, that was the point of Omphalos.

He got to his feet, took off the impermasuit, the gloves, stripped to his skin, and walked into the cleansing chamber he’d had installed beside his workroom.

He sat a long time in the dry sterile heat, disciplining his mind as he disciplined his body. He had to be ready when Ginny went to the workshop, he had to watch the man’s every movement, hope he could spot trouble before it fruited.

Finally he retreated to his secure sleep chamber, lay under the flickering killights and slept, clean inside and out and weary beyond description.