Jaran

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,