To Loren and Heather Coleman.
In the bleakest times, a friend’s true colors are revealed. In one of my family’s darkest hours, you both showed the brilliance within: a hand in aid, a shoulder for comfort, an ear to listen. True friendship is a rare and precious gift, and in that circle, you are both counted highly.
Thank you.
Acknowledgments
To my first readers, for catching some great stuff: Herb Beas, David McCulloch, Jeff Morgan, Oystein Tvedten, and especially Jason Hardy.
To Michael Miller, for the help on the spinning DropShips.
To Loren Coleman, who kept tossing additional writing projects at me during this novel and helped to prove I can do it.
To Jim Long and Janna Silverstein, for going to bat for me when they didn’t need to; I hope the novel is worth the hassles that may have followed.
To Sharon Mulvihilclass="underline" eight years and counting; thanks for the friendship and the constant help along the way in improving my writing.
Finally, to my magnificent wife, Tara, and beautiful children, Bryn Kevin, Ryana Nikol, and Kenyon Aleksandr: I simply couldn’t write without their love, support and understanding… nor, I imagine, would I want to.
Prologue
Clan Sea Fox CargoShip Voidswimmer
Zenith Jump Point, Berenson System
Prefecture VI, The Republic
19 June 3134
The data cube fit in the palm of his hand, its sharpedged, angular realness a harsh contrast to the dark secrets it so jealously guarded.
And the day had dawned with such promise.
“ovKhan.” Petr Kalasa pulled his gaze from the inert object that had swallowed his concentration for long minutes and watched Jesup enter his command cabin. Petr never locked the door. He set the cube on the small desktop and leaned back with studied casualness. The creak of his spine betrayed the length of time he’d been hunched over.
Petr almost commented on the ungainly way Jesup moved into the room, but refrained when he realized it might shame his aide. If he moved so awkwardly in the magnetic slips that kept him attached to the deck, then he truly must be in pain. It seemed the man fought innumerable Trials of Grievance; had his latest trial come close to defeat for Jesup?
“What is your report?” Petr tried to conceal his amusement; Jesup’s burning ears marked his failure.
“The repairs to the Behemoth proceed apace. Senior Technician Pol assured me we will be cleared to make the jump to the Augustine system within the hour.”
“What caused the breach? We sealed the Starmoth more than three years ago; the other two have been attached far longer with no deterioration in their seals.”
Petr stood and walked around the left side of the desk. He refused to glance at the cube, but could almost hear it calling him, a keening siren luring him to return and breathe the flames of life into the banked coals of its contents.
“Pol has initiated an investigation, and assures me any trials required to challenge shoddy maintenance will be dealt with. Personally.”
Petr moved with the deliberate grace of one long-accustomed to gravity slips. If he were claustrophobic, the addition of one more person to the command cabin of the Voidswimmer would have driven him over the edge of sanity. If that were the case, years of being trapped within the metal skin of a vessel 1,508 meters long, adrift in the unimaginable largeness of the galaxy (not truly adrift, of course—Petr’s mind held a laser-lock on the hundreds of coordinates constituting the stellar path Delta Aimag would travel in the next few weeks) would have driven him mad or downside long before now.
“Pol has never lacked in initiative, nor disappointed with performance. I do not doubt by week’s end we will know what happened.” He shifted slightly, his dark blue one-piece body suit undulating like gentle water in moonlight.
“Still, it has given me time to think.” He glanced expectantly at his aide, waiting for the usual acerbic comment, his eyes emerald chips that could cut if he were provoked.
“Beta Aimag?”
“What else?” The man must be seriously hurt if he had abandoned his habitual sarcasm. He must find out who came so close to defeating Jesup in a Circle of Equals.
“Your obsession with ovKhan Sha Clarke will be the death of you.”
“Of course it will. But I will kill him first.”
“Kill?” scoffed Jesup.
Petr laughed out loud. “You are right. I have always said death is too good for the surat. I need only steal from under Sha the deal that would make him a legend, the deal that would guarantee his place in The Remembrance. Then my work will be done and I can pass. My genetic material would be judged superior and used to create a new shiver of Sea Fox.”
Jesup’s laugh echoed down the corridor. “Your humility never ceases to amaze me.”
There is the sarcasm I am used to. Petr pushed away from the wall and stepped back toward the desk. Still he refused to acknowledge the insidious call of the data cube. “Humility is an invention of the weak to salve their egos when they fail.”
Jesup held up his hands. “And you, my ovKhan, are anything but weak, quiaff?”
Silence was the only appropriate answer. Jesup insulted everyone: there were times when Petr believed his aide insulted those around him for the sole purpose of creating the opportunity to put others in their place with a pile drive of his bony flesh. One day, Petr himself would call his aide to the Circle and Jesup would learn there are limits.
This day, like many days before, would not be that day.
“You understand that he will try to beat us to the prize?”
“He will try, my ovKhan. Sha, like you, is simply trying to do what is best for his Aimag. All for the greater good of the Clan, quiaff?”
Petr’s eyes burned with an inner fire. “Neg. You know as well as I that he is a parasite masquerading as ovKhan of Beta Aimag. Spina Khanate would be well rid of him.”
“Do I?” replied Jesup. “Has he not brought great glory and honor to his Aimag? To Clan Sea Fox?”
“Are you trying to aggravate me? You appear to be in no condition to accept a challenge.” His anger overwhelmed his decision to allow Jesup his self-respect. Petr would no longer ignore the man’s pain and the near-defeat it indicated.
Jesup’s eyes widened, yet Petr caught a hint of something more behind his aide’s expression of surprise. “Far be it from me, ovKhan, to provoke a challenge from your august person. I would be destined to lose, for have you ever lost a challenge?”
Rage burned in his chest; a vortex of emotions battered his iron control. He choked on the memories invoked by Jesup’s veiled reference. He took a half step toward Jesup, his hands balled into fists. “I will accept no such reminders of my failures.” Each failure was etched on his soul as a searing brand to goad him to greater perfection. Especially one, whose connection to Sha he ignored.
“Reminders of what, magnificent ovKhan? It would seem I cannot even remember how to fight. How can I remember anything but your glorious victories for our Aimag?”
Though Petr could almost taste a strange undercurrent to Jesup’s response, the man’s tone of voice, his shrug and slightly canted head worked their usual magic, pouring water on the heat of his anger, drowning the flame and leaving only ashes. He permitted a small smile to touch his lips. “One of these days you will not find the words, and I will relish that moment.”
“‘Words spill like solar wind from a star, nearly infinite—the right words, precious commodities to be hoarded and wielded with laser precision.’”
“You quote our Clan’s founder to me?” Petr pretended outrage.
“If I become a small footnote next to Karen Nagasawa, I will be honored indeed.”
Petr couldn’t help sink a barb, so rarely did the other man offer such an opening. “More so than by a Bloodname? How …unClanlike.”
Jesup jerked as though kidney-punched, then assumed a contemplative look for several long heartbeats. “I will take both, quiaff?”
Petr laughed. “Aff, Jesup. Now that is what we need in our Aimag. The determination to seize victory.”
“If that is what we need, ovKhan, then simply challenge him to a trial and remove him. Be done with this obsession.”
Petr grimaced and waited for the flood of anger. It failed to materialize, allowing the memory of his last trial against Sha to rise to the surface. He attempted to distract himself from the memory with a glance at the mysterious data cube, but that further soured his mood. Already he had spent hours trying to pierce the veil of its central riddle, to no avail. One obsession (to himself he would admit that word) was bad enough. Two would be intolerable.
“Jesup, such action could have… unintended consequences.” He met Jesup’s gaze. “The Khanates’ loyalty to Khan Hawker could be considered weak; some may even question the Aimags’ loyalty to each Khanate.” Sha’s name echoed loudly, though unspoken.
“And one ovKhan messing in the affairs of another Aimag might cause a cascading effect?” Jesup finished the thought.
Petr smacked his palm against the desktop, venting his frustration. For the first time in many years, multiple Aimags worked in close proximity, with dozens of JumpShips and multiple ArcShips canvassing the same tracks of interstellar space, covering the same worlds. He feared for the consequences. More important, he feared what ovKhan Sha Clarke might do.
The vehemence of his attack on the desk made the data cube jump, and once again it snared his attention. Could this have something to do with Sha? With the great endeavor saKhan Mikel Sennet marshaled the entire Spina Khanate to achieve?
“Leave me,” he said abruptly.
Silence was the only reponse; even Jesup knew when to abandon a line of questioning and leave his superior.
For the first time in memory, Petr closed the hatch and dogged it before returning to his chair; his mind barely registered the squeal of springs that usually jogged a mental note to chastise the labor casteman assigned the task of properly maintaining his equipment (promptly forgotten). Picking up the data cube, he weighed it in his hand, as though to assess its value simply by tactile senses, and then slotted it into the reader.
A holographic image immediately materialized and the head of an astonishingly ugly woman spun into view from nothingness. Her lackluster black hair (shorn off with a dull knife?), pimply skin and swarthy complexion made Petr wrinkle his nose, as if he were preparing for an olfactory assault that could not exist. He wanted to dismiss this woman out of hand, but her smoky gray eyes held an intelligence that could not be denied. And her message, and the means of its delivery, intrigued him.
“Salutations, ovKhan Petr Kalasa. You are no doubt wondering how this data cube appeared on your CargoShip, when no DropShip has made planetfall for more than five weeks. And beyond this mystery, you must wonder why I believe such a powerful man would agree to meet with such a lowly person as myself. The fact remains that I have information you will find most …valuable. Information that affects your entire Khanate, and possibly the whole of Clan Sea Fox.
“Oh, I know this sounds like hyperbole, but that is for you to decide. If you wish a meeting, I will be on Adhafera when you arrive.”
The image dissolved into the nothingness from which it came. Petr was intrigued by the appearance, as if by magic, of the cube in his cabin. This accomplishment alone, for such an ugly woman, brought admiration.
But in the brief discussion with Jesup, the idea had blossomed that this somehow tied in with Sha Clarke. Could the surat have managed this? Could Sha truly have sunk to such a level that he would use ugly spheroids to accomplish his work?
He stood abruptly, pulled the data cube from its socket and moved to undog the hatch.
It was time to alter their course.