Venera planted her hands on her hips and glowered. "Your solution."
"It would have been better than what's coming."
"But Inshiri--"
"My plans for her are another story, but as I said, the key is still in play. --Anyway, from the way you're shifting from foot to foot, I'd say you don't have the time for that particular tale."
"Urm, yes, the water closet--"
"Is that way."
* * *
NICOLAS REMORAN, GENERAL Secretary of the Virgan Home Guard, braced himself in the hatch of the battleship, watching its mighty engines settle it close to one of Kaleidogig's spidery docking arms. When he spotted the distant shapes of Inshiri Ferance and Jacoby Sarto waiting there, he turned and said, "Remember your orders. Observe only."
Antaea nodded, and unconsciously smoothed the black material of her new uniform. She knew she only wore it because Remoran wanted to keep her close and in line; still, every morning when she awoke, the first thing she did was go to the closet to check that it was really there.
"General Secretary, how good to see you," Inshiri called. As the ship inched closer to the dock she turned her head to take in its immensity, and said, "I'm somehow glad I never knew that the Guard had forces like these. It would have given me nightmares." Then she noticed Antaea.
"Argyre! I see you've regained your rank," she said as she reached out to take Antaea's hand. "Or," she squinted at Remoran, "was she yours all along?"
"She's been demoted, actually," said Remoran. "We could hardly justify her expulsion after we admitted that Gonlin's plan had been the right one. But her blind acceptance of his orders was a problem."
"Ah." Ferance looked down at her toes, which were together and pointing into the black abyss that lay beyond Kaleidogig's red light.
"I'm placing Argyre with you as an advisor," continued Remoran. "She's spent time in the enemy camp, after all."
Inshiri arched an eyebrow, but didn't complain. "Jacoby?"
"You can trust her judgment," he said, which nearly made Antaea guffaw out loud. Who're you to talk about trust! she wanted to say; but she kept her expression neutral.
They boarded the battleship and Antaea found herself in an echoing, warehouse-sized hangar lit with unwavering electric light. Dozens of missile-festooned attack ships hung from cranes here, and airmen swarmed around them, working, cursing, and throwing tools back and forth.
Inshiri pinwheeled slowly, taking it all in. "Wondrous," she said. "You could kill so many people with this thing."
"Hopefully we won't have to," said Remoran. "I'm still expecting the Last Line to come to their senses. No segment of the Home Guard has ever revolted--at least, never on this scale." He shot Antaea an ironic look. "They've swallowed the propaganda that Lacerta brought back from Aethyr, but the internal contradictions will bring them around soon. There are already cracks."
"Ooh," said Inshiri as they hand-walked along a cable to one of the many corridors that opened out of the hangar. "Defections?"
"Well, no, not yet. But let's call them 'reliable signs of unrest.'" He pointed down the corridor. "My office is this way."
"Oh, in a minute, thank you," said Inshiri. "One of your men can direct me. I just have some orders for this lot." She nodded to her servants, as well as Jacoby's other men who trailed her and the general secretary.
"As you will." He disappeared down the corridor. Inshiri turned to Jacoby.
"Your men stay behind," she said levelly.
"What? But I need them to run my communications net--" But Inshiri was shaking her head.
"I've coopted it, I'm afraid. Had to kill a few of your men to do it thoroughly." She laughed at the expression on his face. "Oh, don't act as if you weren't expecting this, cousin. You've had far too much autonomy, and I need you close and controlled for now. Your network is now my network, and you are useful because you know its logistics better than anyone. You can have it back--and I'll throw in a country or two--when we're done."
He glowered at her. "Not a good way to guarantee my loyalty."
"Loyalty? Don't make me laugh. You'd have made your move against me sooner or later." She smiled sweetly and flew off after the general secretary.
Antaea met Jacoby's eye, and smiled.
He pulled himself straight and frowned at her with all the dignity of his years. "It's all right," he said. "I did see this coming." Turning to his men he said, "I'll see you all at Rendezvous Point B. But leave the luggage."
"And what did she mean with that crack about giving you a country?" Antaea continued. "The plan is to tune down Candesce and give the people of Virga more technological capacity. Not to take over the world."
Jacoby shrugged. "Your plan, my plan ... everybody's got plans. Yours is also the Guard's plan, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Inshiri talks a good line, but even she can't control your people. Now, who do I call to help get our bags to our cabins? It'll be a day or two before we rendezvous with the outsiders."
She watched him go, troubled, and uncomfortably aware that some of the airmen were watching her. They know who I am. Well, let them stare. Winter wraith; traitor; turncoat. She'd played them all, and the stares had always been the same.
But as she hauled her own luggage and it began to slowly move, she couldn't help but think about Inshiri's jabs and insults. The woman liked to keep people off balance; you could never tell when she was telling the truth or lying. What if she really did have some way of capturing Candesce? --Via the outsiders, perhaps?
Antaea would have to watch Ferance; though as she traversed the endless corridors of the giant battleship, the vast scale and obvious power of the vessel led her to concede that Jacoby was probably right.
Nothing inside Virga could successfully oppose the Virga Home Guard--not even its own rebellious Last Line. And surely not Inshiri Ferance.
22
TEN YEARS BEFORE, a single ship could have slipped into Candesce on any given night. An entire flotilla could have--and hundreds of ships did, every time the sun of suns shuttered its blazing eyes and retreated into sleep. The first visitors were always the scavengers: well-insulated, mirror-clad, and fast, they ventured in even before the last of Candesce's fusion engines had gone out. Braving incandescent air, they competed to find castoff and broken parts from Candesce's intimidating furnaces. The scavengers believed from firsthand experience that Candesce deliberately seeded its trash with intact machinery, for they often found vital components for the construction of suns among the flotsam. They snapped up this bounty, fought amongst themselves for it, and the winners retreated back to the principalities ahead of the dawn, to sell their prizes.
After them came the funeral ships. They were not here to pick up, but to drop off. Bodies from all over Virga made their final journey here, to be consigned to the dark, hot air by loved ones or the trusted funerary castes of a hundred nations. As Candesce began to rouse itself, these last ships departed, leaving roses and songbooks, the precious treasures of the beloved dead, and thousands of white-shrouded, silent figures hanging suspended in the air. Those who looked back as the sun of suns awoke might see light well past the throng, lighting the paper wings they wore. Dawn was an inferno of angels.
So it had been for centuries. But ever since the outage, the Last Line of the Virga Home Guard had tightened their defenses. They had long believed the last key to Candesce lost; so there was never any reason to board and inspect the funeral ships, nor to stop the scavengers from approaching the mysterious, closed blockhouses that nestled in Candesce's heart. Now that the key was loose again, everyone was suspect--even ships from other arms of the Guard.