The door slid back and he turned, frowning, to see a young blade, his hair wound into the heavy cords affected by the current crop of Dart pilots.
“Your pardon,” he said, his mind a thread of warmth on a cold day, “but Bonewhite has returned. He wishes to speak to all the masters of the hive.”
“What, now?” Ember frowned at his own question, recognizing its folly, but the blade bowed politely.
“He did say it was urgent.”
Ember glanced over his shoulder at the humans, the one brother still unconscious, the other lost in tending him, and decided they could safely be left. None of the lab equipment would respond to anyone not Wraith, even if they had understood its use. If he had been a master of sciences physical, or a weapons-master, it might have been different — the humans of Tenassa had been trained to understand the rudiments of those sciences — but this was safe enough. “Very well,” he said. “Lead on.”
He followed Thread through the twisting corridors, the blades' direct paths rather than the clevermen's, sanctioned by Thread's escort and Bonewhite's orders, and came more quickly than he had expected to the Hivemaster's quarters. The others were there before him, no surprise, and a stone-game had been laid out on the central table, Precision and the First-Watch-Captain, Ease, idly tossing dice for first-move. Hasten, the shipmaster and master of sciences physical, gave him a nod of greeting, and Ember gave a quick half-bow in return.
“And the Commander?” he asked, shading his thought to reach Hasten alone.
“Still on Atlantis,” Hasten answered. “Still treating with their queen.” He glanced toward the inner door. “I have heard that indeed Snow's daughter is alive —”
“That is true,” Bonewhite said, the door sliding closed again behind him. “And that is only part of the news I bring.”
“Snow's daughter alive?” Precision said. He had been born to this hive, unlike many of the others; for him, this was memory, not rumor and story. “Alabaster?”
“Alabaster,” Bonewhite agreed, and shaped an image of a young queen, a few years older than their own Steelflower, perhaps, pale of skin and scarlet of hair. “And her first-born.”
A son, Ember saw, and felt the same whisper of relief from the others. Bad enough to have two queens demanding Guide's loyalty, but at least they were spared the struggle that a daughter would have made inevitable.
“Guide believes the Lanteans rescued her as an earnest of the alliance they propose against Queen Death,” Bonewhite continued, “and he orders us to bring Just Fortune to orbit Atlantis, pledge in turn of our willingness to keep this bargain.”
There was a moment of silence, no one wanting to be the first to question. To cooperate now and then with the humans of Atlantis was one thing, Ember thought. Hives had always played groups of worshippers against each other, or, more subtly, pitted one human world against another, supporting one in order to hold another back, or to prepare it for a greater Culling. Even if the Lanteans were indeed the heirs of the Ancients, they were not those all-powerful beings; it was no worse to work with them than with any other of their species. But a formal alliance, bound under the signs of truce — a formal alliance directed against another queen — it spoke of desperation. But then, they were desperate: Death was determined to bring all the Wraith together under her command, and she had proven herself willing to do anything, even destroy her enemies' feeding grounds, to bring them to heel. It was against everything every Wraith knew in the crèche, unnatural and dangerous and to be fought with all their strength. Ember lifted his gaze, saw the same reluctant conclusion on Precision's face, and Hasten's, but Ease shook his head.
“This cannot be,” he said. “Hivemaster, the Commander goes too far. Surely our Queen would not wish to a true alliance —”
“She spoke of it herself,” Hasten said. “We all heard her.”
“She said she would treat with any who came under her peace,” Ease retorted, “and that is not at all the same as an alliance.”
Precision cocked his head to one side. “That is so.” He fixed his eyes on Bonewhite, who gave an infinitesimal shrug.
Hasten's mental voice was carefully controlled. "The Commander has every reason to see Snow's daughter safely returned to her people."
That way lay danger. Ember didn't look at him, and schooled face and mind to equal impassivity. The implication was unthinkable — that Guide would betray Queen Steelflower to place his untried, unproven daughter in her place — and yet such things had happened before.
Ease said, cautiously, “Guide was many years the humans' prisoner…." He let the thought die, and Precision let his handful of dice fall with a clatter. They fell all fours and threes, a House of Night, but Precision ignored them.
“For Alabaster's sake.”
There was another, deeper silence, and Ember said, “I do not know that story.”
“When we were attacked, and Queen Snow was killed, her daughter Alabaster had only just quickened with her first child.” Bonewhite's tone was scrupulously neutral. “At the queen's order, she took to a cruiser to escape, and disappeared. After the battle, we searched and found nothing, only the report of an enemy commander that her ship had exploded as it entered hyperspace. The Commander did not find this entirely convincing, and continued to search for any word of her or her ship and crew. A Worshipper brought word of a young queen dead on a human world controlled by the Genii. Despite the dangers the Commander was determined to investigate, and — was taken. The Genii commander held him prisoner for many years before he was able to make his escape.”
With the help of Atlantis's Consort, Ember knew, and was careful to mask the thought. That was the beginning of this road, this peculiar alliance. And the implications — Bonewhite was suggesting, so carefully that it could easily be denied, that Guide was not entirely rational about his daughter, might betray his true Queen to save her. He didn't think it was true, but once raised, the question could not entirely be put aside. He glanced around the room, saw the same knowledge in the others' faces, and took a careful breath. He was Guide's man: Guide had welcomed him, a lone straggler, hiveless, let him earn his place as chief among the clevermen.
“And what is our course, Hivemaster?” The words were not — quite — a challenge, but Bonewhite showed teeth anyway.
“We will do as the Commander bids, cleverman. I will leave Farseer in command here, and we will set course for Atlantis.”
Ember ducked his head, joining in the murmured chorus of agreement. There was an undertone of unease, however, the same doubts he had felt, but he could not identify its source. Oh, Guide, he thought, I hope you're not playing one game too many.
Radek had been in the control room since the last hour of the night shift. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be on duty, but since he'd been taken off the gate team and appointed Head of Sciences, he no longer worked a regular shift. Most of the time, this was a good thing, as it meant sleeping and waking in a pattern that actually matched the planet's day/night cycle. Sometimes, though, he was the person you called when there was a problem, even when that problem turned out to be nothing after all. He looked at the screen again, the display now showing clear, and glanced up again at the young airman who'd been assigned to this console.
"It looks as though it is normal ice build-up," he said, and did his best to keep any annoyance out of his voice. "You see there, on the exterior camera? Watch when I trigger the cameras." He touched keys as he spoke, and light flashed out into the murky water, plankton swirling like heavy snow. The camera panned down and sideways, at the limit of its turn, to show a craggy beard of sea-ice growing down from the edge of the platform. "That explains the unusual mass."