It had taken all the entire morning for Roland to finally batter his way through Lord Chen’s defenses. At one or two points Chen had been on the verge of calling the servants to have Roland flung from the house.
Even now he could barely believe that he had given away his daughter—no, he corrected ruthlessly, not given.Sold.
To a man who was no doubt laudable in his way—ingenious,that was the word for him, a clever sort of person who had done well in his chosen sphere—but who was in no way worthy of marriage to a Chen. Just because a man wasuseful didn’t mean that he was entitled to father the next clan heir. Who were his ancestors, after all? How many palaces had they owned in the High City, and for how many centuries?
Terza had taken the news well, simply tilted her head, pondered for a moment, and said “Yes, father,” in her soft voice. The sight of Terza in her room, given such news while she sat in her elaborate gown with the mourning ribbons for Lord Richard still in her hair, had almost broken Chen’s heart.
Lady Chen had been far less reasonable. She had screamed, wept, and threatened, and when none of that worked she shut herself in her room and refused to go to the Yoshitoshi wedding. Lord Chen had the feeling that it would be all he could do to get his wife to her own daughter’s nuptials.
It was a matter of luck, Lord Chen thought as he took his place at the board room’s broad midnight-black table. The Martinez clan was lucky, and Clan Chen was not. He needed the Martinezes’ luck.
But some day, he swore, the luck would change. Clan Chen would be restored to its former glory, able to stand on its own without assistance.
Then his daughter would be free. She would no longer be a hostage to his ill fortune, and would then be able to rid herself of her embarrassment of a husband, and to have a life worthy of the heir to one of the great families in the empire.
This Lord Chen promised himself. And, in the meantime, if Captain Martinez failed to treat Terza with the utmost respect, if he treated her ill or raised a hand to her or caused her misery, he would see Martinez dead.
There were still a few things a high-born Peer could arrange. There were clients of Clan Chen whose occupations were less than legitimate, and who would be willing to do favors for the clan head. A son-in-law, dead by mysterious means—it would be easy to arrange.
He took note of the other board members as they entered the room. He had been quietly lobbying them for the adoption of the plan to evacuate the capital—the plan of thatuseful man Martinez—and Chen had made headway with his peers. There were three besides himself who were willing to urge the plan on the Convocation, but three wasn’t enough. They were balanced by the three votes that Lord Tork could count on.
That would produce a tie vote. If Lord Said would only appoint Lady San-torath’s successor, then the issue might be resolved, but the Lord Senior seemed in no hurry to do so. The delay made Lord Chen grind his teeth. He could almost feel the pressure wave of the advancing Naxids on the back of his neck.
Lord Tork entered, and with him a group of three Fleet officers in full dress uniforms. The leader was a Lai- own in the uniform of a senior captain; the others were aides, a Terran and a Torminel with heavy dark spectacles comforting her large eyes.
Lord Chen studied the newcomers carefully. Black collar tabs, he thought, that meant the Intelligence Section. Before the war the Intelligence Section had been perhaps the smallest division of the Fleet—there was no enemy, after all, on which to gather intelligence, and the section’s rival, the Investigative Service under Lord Inspector Snow, which investigated criminal activity within the Fleet, had thrived at their expense. But the Investigative Service had received a black eye in their failure to discover the rebels’ plans, and the Intelligence Section had found a new purpose and new funding. It was trying to come up with imaginative ways to monitor the enemy and even to insert spies into Naxid-held territory, but most of its work at this point consisted of analyzing rebel capabilities. The board regularly received briefings from the Intelligence Section and the other intelligence services, but the group that had entered with Tork contained none of the usual faces.
The two aides softly closed the doors, leaving the Fleet Control Board and its guests isolated in the hushed, dimly lit room. The board’s Cree secretary took up his stylus and cued recorders that would transcript the meeting for history. The Torminel aide removed her spectacles.
The scent of dying flesh wafted from Lord Tork as he took his place at the head of the table. His unblinking eyes looked left and right as if he were slowly counting the members present, and then he rapped the table with his pale knuckles.
“My lords,” he said, “I should like to introduce Captain Ahn-kin, of the Intelligence Section, who yesterday sent me a report that I realized was of profound consequence. The captain has made a discovery with grave implications for the war, and I decided to bring him here before you so that we may respond as a body to this information.”
Ahn-kin stepped forward—he was not offered a seat—and adjusted his sleeve display so as to send information to each of the board members’ desk displays. Lord Chen looked at the desk before him and saw, glowing in the ebony surface of the table, a document with the titleAnalysis of Premiere Axiom and its Role in Rebel Force Structure.
Premiere Axiom? he thought. He had heard the name before, but he couldn’t remember where. Ahn-kin soon refreshed Chen’s memory.
“Some of you may remember Premiere Axiom as a shipping company created by rebel plotters in order to secretly move resources from one place to another prior to the rebellion,” Ahn-kin said. Without any clear place at the table he was hovering awkwardly above Tork’s left shoulder, shifting his weight from one leg to another in his discomfort. “Premiere Axiom was created in the Year of the Praxis 12,477, four years before rebellion, and is privately held. Its principal shareholders include Lady Kushdai, Lord Kulukraf, Lord Aksad, and other rebels. Lady Kushdai serves as chairman.” Chen’s display showed the company’s organizational structure.
“On the day of the rebellion,” Ahn-kin continued, “three Premiere Axiom cargo ships were inbound to Magaria.” Names and manifests flashed across Chen’s displays. “We believe they carried personnel sufficient to crew the ships captured by the Naxid rebels on that first day, thus enabling their subsequent victory at the Battle of Magaria. Nineteen other ships had been purchased over the years by Premiere Axiom, and probably carried legitimate cargo in addition to any cargoes intended to aid the rebels. At the time of the rebellion most of these were in five other inhabited systems in the reaches between Naxas and Magaria.”
Chen’s display showed planetary systems, all systems that hadn’t been heard from since the rebellion had begun. Ahn-kin shifted from one foot to the other, then continued his briefing.
“We suspect these ships held soldiers that captured critical sections of the ring stations, possibly with the help of rebels already on the station. Though we have heard nothing of any of these Premiere Axiom cargo vessels since the rebellion began, presumably they continue to serve the rebel cause.”
Lord Chen jumped as Ahn-kin gave a convulsive explosion that Chen only belatedly realized was a sneeze. The poor Lai-own stood directly behind Lord Tork, Chen realized, and was breathing in the scent of Tork’s perpetually decaying flesh with every inhalation.
“I beg your lordships’ pardon,” Ahn-kin said, and took a few steps to the side, where the odor was not so strong. He took in a deep breath, then continued.
“Our investigation into enemy capabilities initially concentrated on military equipment, organization, and facilities, and then only gradually began to take in civilian facilities and capabilities as well. Approximately a month ago we became aware that Premiere Axiom had commissioned ten new cargo vessels from civilian yards on six different worlds, all of which were in one stage or another of completion at the time of the rebellion. We assumed the Naxids wanted to add carrying capacity to their fleet, and these new ships were added to our estimates of rebel inventory. It was only in the last few days, however, that our analysis unit acquired a specialist in ship construction, Lieutenant Kijjalis here”—the Torminel braced, chin high—“who was able to examine the vessels’ plans in any detail, and we reached,” he took another deep breath, “certain conclusions.”
Ship schematics, data from the Imperial Ship Registry, flashed on the board’s displays. Lord Chen, who owned ships, leaned closer to take a careful look. A lean merchant craft, he saw, with small capacity for cargo. It would be useful, he supposed, for carrying high-value, high-priority cargo, but otherwise could scarcely be operated at a profit.
Built to carry urgent war materiel, he thought, from one base to another, and given the capacities of the engines, to carry it fast. The cargo would be missiles, perhaps, or key replacement personnel, or information so critical that it could not be trusted to the usual channels…and at that point his imagination flagged.
