In Conquest Born, page 39
She steers through the rubble, her hands trembling. They should never have tried to stop her. They should have left communication to their computers, sexless machines that disguise their pilots’ identities with mechanical monotones. What could she do but destroy them?
“Taz’hein,”she whispers, her voice shaking, “what have I done? I’ve killed men, I’ve killed Braxins, all to bring him to shame. . . .
My Mistress—wrote Zatar—you’ve done well, and I am pleased.
I’m sorry to hear about Yiril. It surprises me to feel this way, for we were rivals, but my respect for him ran very deep and I would have wished him a cleaner death. As for D’vra? There has never been anything between her and Yiril other than their House to my knowledge, and I knew him well. Even their sexual tastes differed so drastically that they never shared pleasure, outside of one Seclusion. Yiril had an extensive and powerful House and D’vra was a proud, capable woman. Still, that was all, and it’s not much in the face of a Plague, my Mistress.
But the ramifications of what she’s done, if she has indeed abandoned his Household and if he survives, are very grave. I don’t need to tell you how much we depend upon the Mistresses of our Houses; you know it better than I could ever express, We have no contracts, no binding agreements, it’s true—even so, she’s set a dangerous precedent. If he should manage to live through this (and without a House to return to, I don’t know if I’d wish that on him), she would be well advised not to return to Braxi, or any planet in the Central Region, for a long time to come.
Regarding Lerex, I would not be surprised if the matter were not already out of our hands. He has many rivals and his enemies are fanatic; I would not be surprised to hear of his “unexpected” demise. Forbidden things can become suddenly possible, under cover of Plague-time.
We are working toward a Peace; I am keeping a diary of our conferences, in order to go over them in detail later. The Azeans suspect something—she suspects something—but ten millennia of Plagues have taught us the value of secrecy, and no certain news has reached her. It is to our advantage also that the Plague has come so early this time; in another ten years, when it was due, she might have refused us any conference at all.
Feran has been invaluable. He knows them well and has more patience than I at playing their word-games; in addition, the fact that he and I both speak Azean is not without its benefits when they wish to argue among themselves.
Oh, but to see her again, to be so close and unable to act! My blood rages within me at the sight of her, and surely she can feel it; but what can we do, bound by the chains of necessity? I long to fling the blessed treaty in their faces, to call for the death we both hunger for . . . but the Plague ties my hands and I force myself to act for the good of my people.
There is hatred between her and Feran, Ni’en. I can feel it at the conference table, as thick and as cold as though ice had grown between them. And there is also something else, which I had not expected. Fear. A terror that hides inside her, almost invisible beneath her facade of unfeeling competence; a trembling within him, so poorly concealed that I can feel its substance within myself, undermining my confidence along with his own. Are these things apparent to me because I know her so well, or because proximity reawakens that link which was once between us, allowing me to share her psychic vision? Or is it really that obvious? At any rate, there is more between them than I had anticipated. And I must understand it, if I am to use them both.
Be wary of Sechaveh; in his mind we were lone rivals until Venari struck at the Citadel, and he will always hate me for it. His House is the most deadly because he doesn’t need to strike for power, merely for vengeance —and thus is dangerously adaptable. Take a look at Korov’s holdings on Suzeran. I seem to recall he had some problem there. Do not only be cautious, but take advantage of the Plague for all it’s worth. It’s not only death to the Braxaná, but a call to Central politics that can make or break a household. I think you’re beginning to see that.
Go for the augmented transmission if you can; I trust our relay in the military far more than the secretaries who man the B’Saloan guard station. But either way, be circumspect. Once our business goes through the hands of strangers we must be careful to speak little and avoid details. Any man can be bought, and prices are paid quickly in Plague-time.
She sits still for a minute, gathering her courage. She smoothes her gloves for the twentieth time, checks the position of her scabbard for the tenth. The mirror reveals an image which is thin and alien to her, but which should overwhelm any man unaccustomed to Braxaná splendor. She is tired, uncertain. She sways in coming to her feet and longs to relax. But the time for that is far distant; as she hears the footsteps approaching her lock from the station she has docked at, she stiffens automatically into the image of perfect arrogance. For once, it is false.
The outer doors, then the inner, slide open. And he enters. “Lady D’vra?”
He speaks her language poorly; his Azean tongue is ill-suited for it. Nevertheless, that was one of the conditions of the bargain. A Braxaná does not study in order to communicate with lessers.
Haughtily, she steps aside. A minimal gesture indicates the man in the alcove.
The medic steps into the ship and approaches the body. “Alive?” he asks.
“If not, I wouldn’t be here.”
He seems startled by the icy coldness of her voice; what a pity, she thinks, he should have known to expect it. He leans over the body. In that moment she hates him and all his kind with such a mindless fury that she almost draws the sword at her side and ends the charade then and there. But she dares not. She forces her hands to obedient stillness and promises herself: later. For now she must pretend. It does not come naturally, this kind of pretense—but she will have to learn.
He signals with a control box and a stretcher wheels itself into the ship’s small confines. She moves forward to help him but he doesn’t require it, and quickly he transfers the feverish body from one resting place to the other. He looks up at her and smiles; doubtless he is tying to be reassuring. “It’s not too late,” he promises.
“How fortunate,” she says dryly. And she thinks: For both of you.
Walking behind the suffering Kaim’era, she follows them into the station.
My Lord and Master—wrote Ni’en—I have tried to carry out your orders well. The zhents are endless and each day the deathlist grows longer and longer. All three ports on the moon have been closed to incoming and outgoing traffic, and both Braxi and Aldous are effectively quaranfined.
By now you must know of the revolutions on Erengarr and Tziri. I have heard that Tziri will be destroyed as a gesture, being the least valuable of the two. The Kaim’eri believe that a reminder of Braxi’s willingness to destroy an inhabited planet at a moment’s notice will suffice to abort other potential problems.
What I do not understand, my Lord, is why this weakness hasn’t destroyed itself? Those who have it the worst die of it; why haven’t the centuries bred stronger survivors?
News has come that Lerex suffered Plague delirium on Astargall and plunged to his death from an airborne platform. Given what you told me and what my research has turned up regarding his House, I’m not surprised—and no one else seems to be, either. But what proof is there for prosecution? And more important, in Plague-time who cares enough to bother?
I’ve managed to waylay some funds going from the House of Sechaveh to certain black marketeers. They’re bitter, evidently, being denied their regular market, and he meant to bribe them into complacency; instead I will bring them under your wing, when the time is right. At the moment Sechaveh knows nothing, and if he should check into it he’ll find out exactly what has been done—by the House of Lerex.
Lenar, of your House, has managed to get himself assigned to the Station and is acting as our go-between. I assume this is satisfactory?
Oh, and also—there have been three attempts to break your monopoly on the Darkon silk market, by Korov, Saran, and Memek. All have failed. You should have told me this was going to happen, my Lord. I could have made more ambitious plans.
She looks up. As soon as she sees him enter she ceases to wring her hands, letting them fall with a false ease to her lap.
“You’re done quickly,” she ventures. It is a question.
“The process is complicated—”
She interrupts the coming explanation; she wants none of it. “But you can succeed.”
He is startled, unaccustomed to such abruptness. “Yes, Lady. I believe I can.”
“And you’ll do nothing but what we agreed.”
He looks puzzled by that. “Of course, Lady, if that’s what you want. But once I have a carrier prepared and the body is ready to receive it, it’s little enough trouble to add a bit more encoded information—”
She stands; she is trembling with rage. “His person is not to be toyed with, Azean. Bad enough I have to subject him to your meddling in the first place! Do you realize that he would kill himself rather than submit to your science willingly? And I would agree with his reasons.”
“I don’t pretend to understand. . . .”
“I don’t ask you to understand. I don’t care if you understand.” She points toward the treatment room, where Yiril’s Body is being irradiated. “You touch one codon more than I’ve bargained for and you’re a dead man. Understand that?”
There has never been a man she couldn’t intimidate, and this one is no exception. Unnerved by her vehemence—and the obvious sincerity of her threat—he nods. “And when the time comes for your end of the bargain, you’ll be equally cooperative?” His voice is uncertain but hopeful.
She nods curtly, hating him and his science and everything that’s caused her to come here. Submit to his tests? Before that she would die, and take Yiril with her. And the man is a fool who thinks otherwise!
The Azean accepts her reassurance.
My Mistress—wrote Zatar—we have our Peace, for the duration. I think she knows the truth. Who can say what was in her mind as she signed? If she pressed forward in War to defeat our nation she might have cost me my House, and that wouldn’t be a clean death. In the end our k’airth may have saved Braxi. Yet that alone does not seem as if it would be enough. Unfortunately, that very Peace which I longed to win keeps us apart from each other; the treaty is binding to her Azean soul and while it’s in effect we can’t meet in personal combat, as I think we both long to do.
Feran was invaluable and I tried to convince him to stay here with me, but he insisted upon returning to B’Salos, or at least its environs. I think, being foreign to our background, he underestimates the horror that his home has become. But the man is free and can do as he chooses. It would be a pity, though, to lose him now.
Can you even ask how this happened? Can you, who have lived among us for so long, doubt for a moment our ingenuity in engineering our own destruction? At this very moment the Zarvati, myself included, are cowering in the far corners of the Holding, waiting for the storm to pass. It will eventually, and we will return. Simultaneously, those bloodlines more likely to survive contact with the Plague are still on Braxi, fighting to maintain their household power and contracting the tsank’ar in the bargain. A good number of them will die of it. So you see, Ni’en, interstellar travel and the nature of our society combine to breed the weakness in, not out. And in truth, could anything but our own stupidity have brought our numbers down from the hundreds of thousands it once was to a mere—but no, I will not commit that to print.
I heartily commend all your actions. Dare I say, in the midst of this tragedy, that you seem to be enjoying yourself? Little did I know when I took you out of Sulos that time would mature you into such a worthy adversary! When I installed you as my Mistress I did so for reasons that had nothing to do with politics, but your growing acumen is commendable and the reports I have of your business dealings are impressive. For a man who cannot come home during the Plague, everything is in the hands of his Mistress. I consider myself very fortunate in you. We will conquer Braxi yet.
Blood—rivers of vengeful crimson flowing free on the sterile white floor, the stuff of life spewing forth from its owner; the smell and color of Death.
D’vra steps back from the body. Her Zhaor dripping spots of red about her feet, she surveys her work. Except for the human blood pouring from him, her victim looks like a badly gutted fish—a long gash cleaving him from above one ear through the face, throat and chest, across the stomach and, halfway through a thigh. After a moment she takes a bit of his cleaner sleeve and wipes her sword blade with two swift motions, then sheathes the weapon. The killing required no effort, merely a moment’s release of that deadly hatred which had focused on him ever since her arrival. Was he psychic; did he see it coming? Or did he find it hard to distinguish between the desire to kill and the act of doing so, when there was only the barest thread of self-control separating the two?
She stands still for a moment, exulting in the simple animal pleasure of the kill. She hungers for a man, too, to finish it; somehow the action is less than complete without a man inside her to drive her raging blood to climax and fulfillment. It is unfortunate that the circumstances are unobliging.
The interior of the mobile station is still; only she and Yiril breathing and the slowing burble of Azean blood break the Void-bound silence. She steps over the warm body and notes that the face—what remains of it—looks surprised. Well. He was stupid, after all.
The flush of the Plague-fever is fading from the Kaim’era’s brow. For a moment she is overcome with wonder, and placing a gloved finger to his temple she thinks: they have changed him; they have altered his essence; they have made him something he was not meant to be. If the True Name reflects the soul and the soul is altered, must the Name also be changed? She lets her finger drop away, then her hand. You were meant to die, she tells him wordlessly. And I changed you. Grateful as man is for life, could you do anything other than hate me for this?
She lifts Yiril—if it is still Yiril, of which she is philosophically uncertain—and carries him with little difficulty, as the station’s gravity is minimal. With care she lays him out in her ship’s alcove, folding his strong hands over his chest. Already he is breathing more easily. She hears the Azean’s voice again in her mind, his last words. “It’s done—he’ll live.”
Once more the rage of indignation comes over her. Did they really think she would contribute her Braxaná genes to their hated science, and undergo—what was it?—psychic testing? Enraged even by the memory, she stiffens with anger. But no, the promise had bought her Yiril’s life. And if they wanted a purebred Braxaná badly enough for their tests and experiments, well, it would do them good to keep trying. The warrior is strengthened by repeated efforts, and no one suffers from practice.
She refuels the transport from the station’s storage and then puts dark space between her and the site of her kill. After a moment’s consideration she fires at the other vessel, again and again until its forcefields collapse and it succumbs at last to the purging vacuum of space. A final shot disperses even the remains, so that nothing is left but minute debris to bear witness that there ever was a meeting here—and nothing at all to tell of its nature.
Only then does she set a course for home. Home? She laughs bitterly. No longer for her. She knows her kind and she knows the Plague, and since she can never tell Yiril what she did in those days of her absence she can never expect anything but the most vehement enmity from him. That is as it should be, but no less painful for it.
She sinks to the floor beside him. Only after these many days does the exhaustion come to claim her, and she lets it . . . and the tears come, and she gives in to them. It will be a long flight home for him—and a much, much longer one for her.
My Lord and Master—wrote Ni’en—they say the worst has passed now, and to tell the truth I’ll be glad to see it ended. On the whole your House has gained, in all but population; in the latter, I’m afraid, all Houses suffered greatly. Nevertheless, I think you will be pleased by what has been done in your absence, and—every bit as important—by what was not done.
Have you heard of the disaster on Klune? The planet, you may recall, was only recently brought into the Holding, its first extrastellar contact. Unfortunately this tsank’ar proved more than they could handle; such a proportion of the population has died that there are serious doubts about whether the local culture will survive. But then I think of the Braxaná, and I realize that a culture doesn’t die for lack of numbers, only for lack of strength.
The official toll of Braxaná life brings the number of purebred to slightly under nine thousand. I’m sure that when you return you can get more detailed statistics than I can; for all that I’m a Mistress on Braxi, I’m still of the common blood, and—let us not forget it—a branded traitor.
I hear that some newsmonger on Tey declared that the true number of Braxaná is much smaller, perhaps even half of the publicized total, and that carefully prepared propaganda keeps the Holding from knowing how few of its rulers are really left. He was executed, I believe, and there may have been repercussions against his city of origin; I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with it. On the whole, only three civilizations rose up during the time of trouble and had to be obliterated. I’m told this isn’t too bad for a Plague; however, by what standard is that judgment made?
I fear for you, and although I want you here I would rather you be gone forever than risk the death I have seen. I’m glad, Kaim’era, that I’m old enough not to expect to see this again. I am glad to do you service, and more than a little pleased to better those men who have despised me from my first days on Zhene, but the constant death and the almost tangible sense of fear have worn me down. I am very, very tired, and will be glad when it’s all over. Please come home when you can.
