Braxi-Azea - In Conquest Born Part 40

My Mistress-wrote Zatar-the news from Montesekua is good at last: the Plague, as the Braxana know it, is over. The virus still holds sway on a few backVoid planets but simple quarantine will hold it there until it comes to its natural end.

Your numbers cause me great dismay, but I would rather not commit my reason to ring. Soon enough we can discuss them directly.

I am coming home.

The house of Yiril is empty; one can feel it from the approachway, and even though physically nothing has changed, the aura of death is strong about the ancient stonework.

Zatar pauses to notice details: the lawn has been kept under control, the landing platform is empty of starships, there is a noticeable lack of people about. Then he steps up to the door and places his hand beside it.

It opens. There is a guard stationed behind it, although not one that Zatar remembers. "Kaim'era." He bows. "Please enter."

The Kaim'era holds up his forefinger, displaying the message-ring nestled over his glove. The gesture is a question.

"Your curiosity will be satisfied," the guard promises. "Please follow me."

He does so. He is puzzled by the message he wears. Please come to the House of Yiril at your earliest convenience. No explanation, no signature, only the address of the mansion in question and that one simple sentence.

The guard pauses before a pair of doors; his distance and his position far to the side of them indicate that they will open automatically if approached. Zatar is too curious to have misgivings, and steps forward confidently.

The doors part. The interior of a dimly lit room is revealed, and- "Yiril!"

He steps quickly forward and the doors slide shut behind him, sealing them off in privacy. The older Kaim'era is gaunt and tired, with deep circles under his eyes that the best of cosmetics cannot disguise. But still. . . . Zatar walks to where he sits and clasps a hand to the other man's shoulder. Not till now has he ever expressed the closeness between them-perhaps because not till now has he admitted its existence to himself.

Fully in the mode of sincerity he says, "I'm glad to see you alive, Kaim'era."

"Surprised, though."

"I heard you were dead."

"Rumors." The older man smiles but it is a weak expression and, like all his gestures, speaks of the terrible illness and its toll on his health. "Wine? Food?"

"If you're up to it," he says cautiously.

Yiril looks vaguely amused. "The House is up to it." He summons the computer's attention and orders refreshment. Somehow that bit of mundane business makes him seem more alive to both of them. "And yours?"

He answers carefully. "Satisfactory."

Yiril looks at him curiously. "An understatement, as I understand things. She's done you proud, that little bit of 'gutter-slime'-your father's words, not mine.

How he hated her! How he hated you-all very Braxana, of course. It hasn't exactly set you behind to have a commoner running things when the Plague hit.

More than one commoner, as I understand your House. How they all laughed at you, until now!" He studies the younger man, and his look is strangely paternal.

"You surprised them."

"But not you."

Again the faint smile. "No. Not me."

A servant enters, humbly, with a tray of wine and delicacies. Although he lacks the grace common in forehouse staff his att.i.tude is commendable. When he leaves Zatar raises a gla.s.s in toast. "To our enmity. New staff?"

"Nearly all of it. You seem no worse for the experience."

"Traditional Zarvati cowardice. The Plague never reached me. But you-Yiril, the last I heard-"

"I was in a coma," he says quietly, putting his goblet down. "Apparently for a long time. I remember only bits and pieces of things, and none of them makes any sense. Dreams, maybe. Most of the staff that cared for me then is dead, and those few who remain won't answer my questions."

He has to ask it. "D'vra?"

He sighs. "Off on Vikarre. Seclusion with Feran, believe it or not. Better for the moment that way."

"For the moment?"

Yiril looks at him, considering something-perhaps the extent of his confidence.

"For the moment," he repeats. "How bad was it this time? I haven't been up and about long enough to request the real statistics."

Zatar hesitates. "Very bad," he admits, his speech mode that of doom and finality.

"The public figures range about nine thousand."

Zatar puts his drink aside and inhales deeply. "Would you like it all at once?"

"Please."

"There are five hundred and forty-one of us left."

Yiril is visibly shaken. "Men?"

"Men, women, children, and social misfits. Five hundred and forty-one purebred Braxana, period. And, just to put things in their proper perspective, we have also lost a noteworthy portion of the common population. It's been bad for all the human worlds, but for us, it was devastating."

'What about the Kaim'erate?"

"Fifty-one at present-I'm sorry, fifty-two-including new members. We'll be hard put to fill out the roll at all, much less do so with the quality we need."

"So you'll need to move quickly."

Zatar freezes. "Kaim'era?"

"What if the Council were full-what then? We'd go on another eighty, ninety years just as we've been doing and then the next Plague would come and that would be the end. The real end, Zatar, because these political infants, these flounderers who weren't fit for the Kaim'erate until we had to have them, aren't going to become leaders just because they're the only ones left. The Holding will consolidate or fall in this generation; it has no other options. And you will be at the forefront of that change." He coughs, dryly. "Am I wrong? How I misjudged you?"

Zatar's dark eyes flicker momentarily, in response to his thoughts. "Perhaps."

The elder Kaim'era reaches out and clasps his arm with surprising strength.

"Take the throne, Zatar. Now. While the Kaim'erate's in chaos."

"There is no throne," he says evenly. Basic Mode: I reveal nothing.

"There has to be. I will create it myself, if I must-out of my own flesh and bone, if that's what it takes!"

"The Kaim'era will never allow it."

"Then force them!" He coughs again, phlegm loosened by his vehemence. "Are you telling me you can't?"

Zatar watches him, cautious, silent.

"Very well." Yiril nods. "I bow to tradition. Were the universe to end tomorrow, we would still not trust each other; perhaps that's the only way." He hesitates. "I will put myself in your power, Zatar. Will that bring you out? If you know for certain that in no way can I possibly prove a threat to you?"

"Perhaps," he answers.

Yiril settles back in his chair. His features, although noticeably strained by the illness, have regained something of their customary animation. He is clearly as amused by his coming confession as he is disturbed to be making it.

He says it simply, and in the Basic Mode."I'm taking D'vra back."

"You're doing-"

"If she'll come back. Of course, she'd be a fool not to, the way things stand right now."

"She betrayed your House!"

"She abandoned it-and me-for dead. Although I do concede the point: that is, technically speaking, betrayal."

Zatar is clearly astounded. "But why?"

He laughs softly. "Hard to say in our language, isn't it? We've been together since I was first made Kaim'era, over a century ago. I know it's foolish to say the whole thing can't be as simple as it seems, but I believe that. I know D'vra.

Whatever she did, it was not simple treachery."

"The fact remains."

"No. The image remains. And that's what concerns you. She'll be off with Feran for a few years at least, and I'll work on pulling together what's left to me. When that's done, when I tender her an invitation to return to Braxi, I will forfeit my influence among the upper cla.s.ses. Whatever you're thinking right now, Zatar, others will think a thousandfold. What would my chances be then of leading them?"

"Nonexistent," he says softly.

"So you see? A threat to you no longer." He shakes his head, smiling sadly. "I never was, you know. I told you once that to be the second most powerful man in the Holding would satisfy me. You never believed it. You and Sechaveh, competing for the galaxy's record on political paranoia."

"Why, then?"

"You? Vinir? Because I governed Braxi, and I was trying to do it well. And I saw in you something that most of us lack-an ability to reach out and grasp hold of the popular imagination. We can't rule if our subjects won't be ruled by us. That's where Vinir failed. He was of overwhelming influence in the Council, but outside of it he was nothing. That was enough a thousand years ago. When there are only fifty-odd Kaim'eri, it isn't enough any more. Now tell me: if you needed a revolution tomorrow, could you start one?"

For a long while Zatar sits as still as ice, considering. Then, very slowly, very slightly, he smiles. "I don't know about a revolution. Maybe a little trouble out on the Yerren front-a planet or two, here and there-and of course, six or seven talons out at the War Border."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite."

Yiril nods his approval. "Somehow I didn't think you were wasting all those years in combat. Civilian?"

"Possibly. But a civilian revolution is meaningless. It's the military that always breaks it up, destroys planets of instigation . . . you know."

"Sound reasoning." He waits. "Well? Could you do it?"

"By tomorrow?"

"A zhent?"

"Make it three."

Yiril nods his appreciation of the fact; he had guessed it, but the magnitude of it is still impressive. "You lied to us all."

"Didn't you expect that?"

"All that nonsense about a revolution from within!"

"They believed it. Sechaveh believed it. They're all so tied up in their little world of power-plays and internal pecking order that they forget we're outnumbered centillions to one. All that ever a.s.sured our power was the strength and loyalty of the military, and its willingness to act without hesitation. They never even considered what would happen if the fleets turned against them."

"And the fleets will?"

"When the time is right."

He hesitates. Yiril looks closely at him, then asks, "Is it her? Is that what's holding you back?"

"Nonsense!" he says quickly. "I have plans-"

"Did your plans allow for a Plague this early? Or one this devastating? No, I thought not. Whatever timetable you had before needs to be sc.r.a.pped in favor of immediate action. As for the k'airth, I understand how-"

"It's not that," he interrupts.

"No?" He studies Zatar, then asks softly, "What is it, Zatar? The woman? Or the power she represents?"

"They are one and the same." He looks away, not sure of his control over his own feelings. Why does it hurt so much? There should be frustration, yes, the loss of a hunter who has seen his prey go free . . . but not this pain, that tears at the very center of him. Not sorrow. "I've known all along that I would have to leave the fleet when the time was right. I'm more than ready, I a.s.sure you."

"That's fortunate, because the time is right. Not for you alone. Braxana law is a problem, since it forbids you from initiating any legislation involving yourself.

You would have had to work around it, and I don't doubt that you were planning to. But with the help of another . . . you can move now, and do so within the law.

The damage to our system will be minimal; the benefit to yourself is obvious. I'm offering."

"You're asking for trust," he says quietly.

"You're asking for change. Let it start with you."

It is a valid request, but the very concept of trusting another man goes against his Braxana grain. "I thought you were the great traditional Braxana."