“Can the Pilot deny it? If Fanning himself had returned, with the other ships… maybe not. If the airmen of the Severance hadn’t started throwing around impossible amounts of money, displaying rich jewels and gold chains and talking wildly about a pirate’s hoard… Well, you see the problem. Falcon is supposed to be an ally. And the Pilot’s been caught with his pants below his knees, completely unaware of a threat to his nation until after his most popular admiral has extinguished that threat.
“He ordered the crew rounded up, on charges of treason. The official story is that Fanning took some ships on a raid into Falcon and busted open one of their treasuries. He’s being court-martialed in absentia, as a traitor and pirate.”
“Therefore,” said Venera, “if I were to return now…”
“You’d be tried as an accessory, at the very least.” The ambassador steepled her hands and leaned forward minutely in her chair. “Legally, I’m bound to turn you over for extradition. Except that, should I do so, you’d likely become a lightning rod for dissent. After the riots…”
“What riots?”
“Well.” She looked uncomfortable. “The Pilot was a bit… slow, to act. He didn’t round up all of the Severance’s airmen quickly enough. And he didn’t stem the tide until a good deal of money had flowed into the streets. Apparently, these were no mere trinkets the men were showing off—and they’re not treasury items either, they’re plunder, pure and simple, and ancient to boot. And the people, the people believe the Severance, not the Pilot.
“Our last dispatch—that was two days ago—says that the bulk of the crew and officers made it back to the Severance and bottled themselves up in it. It’s out there now, floating a hundred yards off the admiralty. The Pilot ordered it blown up, and that’s when rioting started in the city.”
“If you returned now,” said the secretary, “there’d be even more bloodshed.”
“—And likely your blood would be spilled as an example to others.” The ambassador shook her head. “It gets worse, too. The navy’s refused the Pilot’s command. They won’t blow up the Severance, they want to know what happened. They’re trying to talk the crew out, and there’s a three-way standoff now between the Pilot’s soldiers, the navy, and the Severance herself. It’s a real mess.”
Venera’s pulse was pounding. She wanted to be there, in the admiralty. She knew Chaison’s peers, she could rally those men to fight back. They all hated the Pilot, after all.
She slumped back in her chair. “Thank you for telling me this.” She thought for a minute, then glanced up at the ambassador. “Are you going to have me arrested?”
The older woman shook her head, half smiling. “Not if you make a discreet enough exit from my office. I suggest the back stairs. I can’t see how sending you home in chains would do anything but fan the flames at this point.”
“Thank you.” She stood and looked toward the door the ambassador had pointed at. “I won’t forget this.”
“Just so long as you never tell anyone that you saw me,” said the ambassador with an ironic smile. “So what will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you stay here in the capital, we might be able to help you—set you up with a job and a place to stay,” said the ambassador sympathetically. “It would be below your station, I’m afraid, at least to start…”
“Thanks, I’ll consider it—and don’t worry, if I see you again, I won’t be Venera Fanning anymore.” Dazed, she pushed through the door into a utilitarian hallway that led to gray tradesmen’s stairs. She barely heard the words “Good luck,” before the door closed behind her.
Venera went down one flight, then sat on a step and put her chin in her hands. She was trembling but dry eyed.
Now what? The news about the Severance had been electrifying. She should board the next ship she could find that was headed for the Meridian countries, and… But it might take weeks to get there. She would arrive after the crisis was resolved, if it hadn’t been already.
There was one man who could have helped her. Hayden Griffin was flying a fast racing bike, a simple jet engine with a saddle. She’d last seen him at Candesce as the sun of suns blossomed into incandescent life. He was opening the throttle—racing for home—and surely by now he was back in Slipstream. If she’d gone with him when he offered her his hand, none of her present troubles would have happened.
Yet she couldn’t do it. Venera had killed Hayden’s lover not ten minutes before and simply could not believe that he wouldn’t murder her in return if he got the chance.
She hadn’t wanted to kill Aubri Mahallan. The woman had lied about her intentions; she had joined the Fanning expedition with the intention of crippling Candesce’s defenses. She worked for the outsiders, the alien Artificial Nature that lurked somewhere beyond the skin of Virga. Had Venera not prevented it, Mahallan would have let those incomprehensible forces into Virga and nothing would now be as it was.
Once again Venera took out the bullet and turned it over in her fingers. She had killed the captain of the Rook and his bridge crew—shot them with a pistol—in order to save the lives of everyone aboard. Captain Sembry had been about to fire the Rook’s scuttling charges during their battle with the pirates. She had shot several other people in battle and killed Mahallan to save the world itself. Just like she’d shot the man who had been about to kill Chaison, on the day they’d met…
Either she had killed those people because of a higher purpose, or from naked self-interest. She could admit to being ruthless and callous, even heartless, but Venera did not see herself as fundamentally selfish. She had been bred and raised to be selfish, but she didn’t want to be like her sisters or her father. That was the whole reason why she’d escaped life in Hale at her first opportunity.
Venera cursed. If she flew away from Garth Diamandis and the key to Candesce now, she would be admitting that she had killed Aubri Mahallan not to save the world but out of pure spite. She’d be admitting that she’d shot Sembry in the forehead solely to preserve her own life. Could she even claim to have been trying to save Chaison too?
All her stratagems collapsed. Venera returned the bullet to her pocket, stood, and continued down the steps.
When she reached the street she looked around until she spotted the apartment where at this moment Brydda and the rest of the Buridan trade delegation must be frantically searching for her. Leaden with defeat and anger, she let her feet carry her in that direction.
13
There were plenty of people waiting for Venera at the docks, but Garth was not among them—oh, she had accountants aplenty, maids and masters of protocol, porters and reporters and doctors, couriers and dignitaries from the nations of Spyre that had decided to conspicuously ally with Buridan. There was lots to do. But as she signed documents and ordered people about, Venera felt the old familiar pain radiating up from her jaw. Today’s headache would be a killer.
She had to provide some explanation for why she’d returned early from the expedition, if only for the council representatives with their clipboards and frowns. “We were successful beyond expectations,” she said, pinioning Brydda with a warning glare. “A customer has come forward who will satisfy all of our needs for quite some time. There was simply no need to continue with an expensive journey when we’d already achieved our goal.”