Darkness swirled around him, and Van stood in the rain before the Parliament House in New Oisin, thunder buffeting him. He watched once more as a tree grew from the center of the building. The oak slanted as it grew, both more angled, and more gnarled.
As quickly as it had grown, the giant tree—towering over the plaza and the city—began to topple. The trunk and roots pulled out of the soil beneath the city with such force that the stones of the Parliament building flew in all directions. Before the topmost branches of the tree struck the scattered building stones, the twisted limbs and shattered trunk had burst into flames, and ashes showered down around Van.
Van rolled over breathing heavily. He should have expected the nightmare. He was tired.
He checked the time. Less than fifty minutes had passed. He got and stretched, walking around the stateroom and cooling off.
He needed the sleep. He knew that, but he was reluctant to lie down again.
In time, he did, and his sleep was dreamless—until he found himself back in the cockpit, in the command couch, wondering how he had gotten there.
Had he been so tired that he had been sleepwalking?
He squinted, trying to focus his thoughts on the shipnet and the monitors. He felt himself frown. Something was off, not quite right.
…thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two…
The numbers, in Trystin’s voice and from the Elsin, stopped. The Elsin had vanished. Energy flared through the cockpit, searing Van.
He sat up slowly in the bunk and checked the time. He’d gotten another two hours’ sleep before the second nightmare.
A shower might help. It might.
Chapter 90
Van had debated going back to Korvel in order to see Sherren Myller, but there was no real reason to do that. She doubtless had the situation in hand, and there were other systems where IIS needed to reestablish its presence. That was why Van had brought the Joyau to Denaria and why Alya was still on board monitoring any possible communications.
Denaria had been one of the systems that Van had meant to check out before the Revenant attack on the Keltyr systems, but he’d never gotten there. Since it had never been under Revenant control, although close to the ill-defined border of the de facto protectorate, it had remained an open system.
Van had not had any trouble in getting cleared into orbit control or arranging shuttle transport, and he was walking out of the shuttle terminal at nine-fifteen on a threeday morning—local. Under a clear blue-green fall sky and carrying just a datacase, he moved toward the line of groundcars for hire, to get a ride to the IIS office in Aureum Plaza, when he was brought up short by the piercing ululation of a siren. Van looked to his left to see an open lorry—filled with men and women—moving down the boulevard. Military vehicles with riot cannons preceded and followed the lorry.
As he watched, he listened to those lined up in front of him for groundcars.
“…last of the Revvie bastards, I heard…”
“…just people, Imri…”
“…can’t trust ’em…would have taken everything…”
“…they have children, like we do…”
The couple entered a groundcar, and Van took the next one.
“Where to, ser?”
“Aureum Plaza, Moon Tower.”
“Moon Tower…You must be out-system.” The groundcar eased away from the terminal.
“Why do you say that?” asked Van.
“That area’s high-trade.”
“How has business been?”
“Much better the past week. Off until the government rounded up the last of the Revvies.”
Van just nodded and sat back, wondering how many Denarians held the same attitudes.
In less than ten minutes, the groundcar pulled into an underground and enclosed reception portico.
“Fifteen, ser.”
Van pulsed the credits and stepped out. He walked through the entry, pulsed an ID to the system. After a moment, a lift door opened, and he stepped inside and rode up to the seventh level.
A dark-haired man with ivory skin stood waiting.
Van recognized him from the holo images when he had set up the appointment. “Director Vincenzio. It’s good to finally see you.”
“And you, Director Albert…” Vincenzio turned to his left, leading Van down a wide corridor floored in highly polished green marble. Vincenzio had a corner office twice the size of Van’s office in Cambria with a view of the city to the south.
“Quite impressive,” Van acknowledged, adding, “I’d hoped to be here earlier, but when I got off the shuttle and was going to get a groundcar, there was a slight delay. A lorry full of prisoners—”
“Those were probably the last of the alien Revenants—the ones who never applied for Denarian citizenship. The government is sending them to an internment camp in the Mysera Islands until they can be repatriated somewhere.”
“Had they caused a particular problem here?”
Vincenzio smiled indulgently. “What didn’t they do? Without IIS and the Ghendi Foundation, Denaria would have been an occupied world under the protectorate.”
“It’s a good thing that didn’t happen.” Van smiled politely. The reports he’d received and reread before coming planetside indicated that there had been recent Revenant investments, but nothing to compare to the sort of problems systems like Islyn had faced.
“Good for us and good for IIS. I have to tell you that next year looks especially good. We put in a bid on Wyal, and the government accepted it.”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with that multi,” Van temporized.
“You wouldn’t be. I should have explained. The Revvies pumped credits into a group of local sympathizers starting about ten years back—not that we knew any of this back then—and they began to acquire smaller formulators in the high-end building supply business, folding them into Wyal. By last year, Wyal controlled thirty percent of the building supply trade…”
“They were Denarian citizens or Revenant citizens?”
“They claimed Denarian citizenship, but the government invalidated it when it discovered the plot to monopolize the industry and run out true Denarian businesses.”
Van forced himself to nod.
“Anyway, IIS Denaria now owns Wyal.”
“I see. Have you
