Keltan's Gambit: Chronicles of the Orion Spur Book 2 Page 6

“What are you laughing at? That’s where the Siren factory is!”

  Cygni tried to query “Siren,” but all that came up was the old-Earth mythological reference and a few romance somarills. Somehow she doubted the baroness was worried the Abyssian would find a bunch of singing sea-nymphs or trashy recorded experiences.

  “Was. He really doesn’t keep you in the loop, does he? Still hasn’t forgiven you for that daughter of yours,” the VoQuana said.

  Baroness Brudah Altair did not have any daughters in the public record, Cygni noted.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “She’s the one who started the Cronuses on Zalor’s trail, isn’t she? Didn’t she hand your data files—files that should have been deleted—to that Gaian operative?”

  “Shut up!” The baroness’ face was flushed red.

  “I’m surprised you and your daughter are still alive. It’s not a mistake my kind would have tolerated.”

  She paused the recording. If Baroness Altair’s alleged daughter had a Gaian connection, and if that connection was somehow involved with the local Gaian Biodome, she might be able to find out about it from her friend, Boadicea. Cygni’s neurons tingled while she imagined uncovering a secret daughter of the high-profile baroness. Pawqlan would be furious about being scooped, and the story could really launch her career into super-stardom.

  “Miss Aragón?” The ambassador’s hand on her shoulder was a little too close to her breast, and drew her attention back to her immediate surroundings.

  “Yes?” She canceled the split in her mind.

  “We are here.”

  She looked to the side, surprised to find the limo’s door open and the way clear for her exit. The chalky smell of pavement flavored with ozone drifted in. It was the scent of the city, the smell of home.

  “I hope you are satisfied with my answers, Ambassador.”

  “Quite, thank you, Miss Aragón. I shall be thinking on them for ages to come.”

  “You’re welcome.” She forced herself to smile and moved to get out, but stopped herself and looked back at the old Nyangari. She was only half-aware of what she said to him after she split her consciousness. “You’ll keep Shkur out of this, right? I don’t want him embarrassed on my account.”

  The ambassador blinked, a serious look coming to his face. “Pain is sweet, but blood is blood, Miss Aragón.”

  It was a Nyangari saying about the difference between playing rough and actually starting a fight.

  “But, as his superior—”

  “He has the right to challenge me by might or wit for my position if he does not like what I do. Guror Ithros is clever and strong, I do not want to be on his bad side, as you Solans say.”

  She nodded. “All right, thank you.”

  “Have a good night, Miss Aragón. The next time you visit the consulate, please remember to drop in and say hello.”

  “Thank you.”

  The guard took her hand and helped her to her feet on the pavement. He gave her a sympathetic look, then disappeared into the limousine. It lifted off on a pink haze of dark energy, leaving her alone on the floor of the urban trench at the base of the towering apartment buildings. The smell of brine and curry drifted past her nose, and she felt a bit of tension drain from her body as a smile formed on her face. When she passed through the cylindrical tower’s glass doors the odor intensified. Her neighbors must be trying to recreate their home culture’s food again. It was amazing how such a small kitchen could odorize nearly a kilometer of apartments just by traveling through the building’s ventilation system. It was more amazing that she missed it so much.

  A delta of fountains filled the air with the clatter of hard-rain in the wide arc of the marble lobby. Four stone benches faced the spraying water in a broad semi-circle. She chose one in the middle and sat down with her eyes on the building’s main entrance.

  Cygni took a deep breath and noted the time in the corner of her vision. It was late, but she was too charged up to sleep. The relief that came from being out of the lecherous ambassador’s limo left her free to concentrate on the recording she made on the Queen Gaia. There was a huge story here and she had no doubt its effects would be felt throughout the Confederation, but she had to handle it right. A misstep while tangling with barons could have her in mortal trouble, especially since she was going to be under the thumb of the most powerful of them all for the foreseeable future.

  She took another deep breath, paying attention to the way the air filled her lungs before moving back out past her teeth. She did this several times, trying to calm her nerves, though they proved resistant to the technique. Unable to relax, she set her implant to alert her when the tower’s front doors opened and dropped her consciousness into it.

  After the usual moment of disorientation and darkness, she uploaded the combined data from the spy-grains and let it play around her as though she was in the suite while the events happened. She moved through the time-frozen scene trying to locate the best vantage point to view the action. Baroness Altair looked harried and miserable with the same sad eyes as her portrait. It was hard to imagine being around her as anything pleasant, and if she was truly like that all of the time, Cygni had a lot of sympathy for her mystery daughter. Her own childhood had taught her that misery always bread more misery at the cost of the happiness around it.

  She took a moment to examine the VoQuana in detail. He was a head taller than her—about the same height as Baroness Altair. His black eyeballs were twice as large as a Solan’s, and angled down at his small nose. His ears were like human ears, but came to rounded-points. His void-black hair had a widow’s peak, and his small mouth was twisted ever-so-slightly upward at the corners. She almost assigned the word “cruel” to them, but hesitated. His lithe, well-defined body did not have the posture of someone who enjoyed menace like the gangsters and murderers she’d met in her career, nor the bent shoulders of someone who was forced into something. In so much as she dared read into an alien’s body posture she decided that this VoQuana did not necessarily want to be where he was, but the absence of a sense of burden combined with the lines of his almost-human face told her he was duty bound to be in the room—if she was reading him right, which was a big “if.”

  Perhaps he’s doing a job, carrying out someone’s orders? she mused. It was another thought to be filed away in the back of her mind.

  The VoQuana spoke when she resumed the playback. “Back to the matter at hand. Zalor dispatched a little surprise for the Abyssian, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him much longer. He shouldn’t have been involved anyway. Daedalus’ attention—”

  “It won’t matter. The opposition’s collapsed in the Barony and it looks like the same thing will occur in the Council as well. Once that happens, Zalor will be the single most powerful being in the galaxy. His election to the seat of Premier next year will be a formality,” the baroness said.

  Is that his game? He wants to be Premier? Cygni paused the playback. She wasn’t convinced. It would fit, but for the bit the VoQuana implied about the Abyssian. Pissing off Daedalus was not going to ensure the stability of any office Baron Revenant might try to take. There had to be something else going on here.

  “—is the biggest obstacle to our plans,” the VoQuana said when she resumed the playback. “It can’t be bargained with, nor can its agents be stopped by conventional means. Even if the Barony revokes its official powers, it will continue to operate in the shadows. It doesn’t help that you humans made its location a secret from yourselves—”

  She put the recording on fast forward. There was something in it she specifically wanted to review that stuck with her when she first went through it.

  “—Do you think it knows about Siren?” Baroness Altair asked, pacing about the room.

  The VoQuana stroked his pointed chin. “If it does, the leak did not come from my end of things. My people do not use AI, one cannot know what those tricky things are up to. Daedalus would have no way of spying on us.”


  “Aside from the spy satellites it has over all of your worlds.”

  “Most,” the VoQuana muttered.

  “Most?” Baroness Altair cocked a thin, blonde eyebrow.

  “Most, and it certainly does not have one over Calemni IIb.”

  “Did it at least work?”

  “Like a dream, one-hundred percent infection. We geared this batch to induce a berserker rage in the subject population. Captain Solus reported one-hundred percent of the population dead. They tore each other to pieces. With completion of this test we will soon be able to move to the next stage.” The VoQuana put his arms behind his back and puffed out his chest.

  Cygni paused the record again. She pulled up a window and told her implant to search for Calemni IIb, but stopped it almost as soon as she did.

  Better play it safe, she thought, and ran her connection through the Spur Herald’s dummy servers to mask her Cyberweb protocol address—her CPAd—before re-running the search. It only took moments for data to stream through her hovering window. Calemni IIb was a moon of the gas giant Calemni II in the system of the same name. It was listed as a colony of the Extra-Terrestrial Mining Corporation—Baron Olivaar’s barony—and served as a refueling station on the edge of the sector the Broghites were invading. It had a relatively low population, being a corporate mining colony where robots likely did most of the work, and she only found miners and technical support staff on its census register. It was as unremarkable as it could be, one of a million like-planets across the Confederation. Whatever the case was with the colony, it seemed this “Siren” wiped it out.

  She resumed the playback.

  “Ugh, spare me the details,” Baroness Altair said.

  “Fine. Yes, it worked. You can tell him that we’re ready to move forward to phase three.”

  “I will.”

  “And now, you might want to take care of that little issue in your sitting room.”

  “What?” The baroness whirled around to face the antechamber doors.

  Cygni braced herself for what came next.

  The doors opened, revealing Baron Keltan crouching like a terrified animal among the furniture. The VoQuana moved forward with confident steps, his focus on the cringing baron. He extended his gray hand and grasped Baron Keltan’s arm drawing his gaze upward. She watched as the baron’s eyes went wide, shifting back and forth as though in some kind of waking REM before his body went limp and fell to the floor like all of his bones liquefied.

  She shuddered.

  “You killed him you idiot!” Baroness Altair screamed.

  “Calm yourself, I did nothing of the sort. He’s asleep.”

  “He knows! How long was he there? How long did you know, Sinuthros?”

  Cygni made a note of the name.

  “He was there for most of our conversation.”

  “And you didn’t say anything?”

  “I didn’t have to. He will be like this for some time, and I assure you I will not waste the opportunity.”

  Baroness Altair went pale. “What do you mean? Zalor wants him alive.”

  “He will live. He will just have a few inconvenient memories wiped from his mind. Maybe I’ll add a few things as well—just in case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know, Baroness.”

  “Zalor—”

  “Will be informed. Now, leave me to my work.” Sinuthros drew the ridges of his brow together.

  Baroness Altair hurried away into a part of the suite that was out of the recording range of Cygni’s spy-grains. Sinuthros knelt down, placed one hand on Baron Keltan’s back, and stared at his head. She could hardly believe what happened next. The baron’s body convulsed for several minutes, sweat soaking his ornate clothes, fists and feet pounding the floor. He moaned, screamed, and cried through it all, and when Sinuthros was finished, Baron Keltan curled up into a ball and sobbed.

  Like most citizens of the Confederation she had heard of the alleged mind-powers of the VoQuana. She marked those stories up to technology the Confederation didn’t understand during the war, and it still might be that, but after watching what this being did to Baron Keltan she felt ready to believe those fantastical stories. The fear they inspired made her sick to her stomach.

  A chime sounded. She looked up, and a new window opened showing the feed from her cybernetic eyes. Shkur had arrived in the lobby.

  Thank the Matre, she thought and raised her consciousness back into her body. She found herself sweaty and cold. For just a moment she considered trying to alert Baron Keltan to what she knew. He needed to know. Morally, she should try and contact him and show him her recording—but if he was somehow controlled or reprogrammed by the VoQuana that strategy would end in disaster. The VoQuana would know what she tried to do and come for her—or worse, they would tell Baron Revenant and then her life would be over. No, she couldn’t do it. She would wait, build her evidence, and chose carefully to whom she revealed the truth. For now, she would just keep on doing what she was doing and hope for the best.

  Shkur took one sniff in the air and hurried to her side.

  “Are you all right? Did he—”

  “It wasn’t—” she stopped herself, unsure of whether or not to share what she knew with her lover. Given his protectiveness, she decided she couldn’t risk it. If he took the information to his government it could go badly for them both. “No, it’s okay. He didn’t do anything I didn’t expect. He didn’t touch me.”

  The petals of Shkur’s nose fluttered. “You smell more than a little upset, pupling. Did he force you—“

  “Shkur, no. It’s not that, not at all.”

  “If he did, I’ll—“

  “Shkur, no.”

  She watched his shoulders drop and his gaze soften.

  “I don’t feel well. I’m tired. Take me to bed.”

  He nodded, a gesture he’d learned from her. “All right, my pupling.”

  She took his hand and let him lead her to the bank of lifts behind them.

  Chapter Four

  Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter

  41:2:9 CST (J2400:3132)

  The Elthroa Staffing Corp offices were situated within a wide spiral building that tapered to a fine point near its eight-hundred meter-high apex. It had an appearance reminiscent of a giant version of something called a “snail shell” that Cylus once saw a picture of as a boy. The building was made of a thick, transparent polymer that allowed a clear view of thousands of the predominantly Isinari office staff working at their desk consoles within. The lack of privacy was only an issue for the individual worker’s physical being. The company’s dealings were piped directly into their brains by cybernetic cerebral implants, so all he could see from his vantage point in the air-limo were green and gray skinned Isinari staring at silver desks with varying degrees of personal effects scattered across their surfaces.

  There were no pads on top of the building so Ben landed the vehicle on the cobblestones of a parking lot beside the forested plaza at the base of the building. When Ben came around and opened his door the smell of the tall, narrow-leafed bani trees filled Cylus’ nostrils. The odor was like peppermint tea, sharp, strong, and invigorating. He inhaled, and the phantasmal fist of stress in his stomach went from a hard pressure to a moderate discomfort.

  Their arrival drew few looks from the sparse population of the park, most of whom were Isinari. Like the office workers he identified them by the ornate ridges running from their foreheads to the top of their spines, the spiral of chambered bone ears, and their elongate arms which put their hands at knee-level. Most wore formal corporate jumpsuits with hatched pinstripes and flower-like cuffs on their humanoid frames. Only a few of the younger ones dressed in the styles of other cultures like the form-fitting, three-piece suits of Solan design.

  Isinari weren’t the only sentient species present in the park. Cylus saw a pair of children playing among the bright-green tree trunks. One was an Achinoi female with a gangling frame, the membrane o
f her wings just starting to fill in between her bronze-scaled arms and legs. The other was a Galaenean half her height and nearly twice her width. Niur skin shifted between the vibrant greens of the trees and the dark gray of the stones as the gender-neutral child, not yet at the age where puberty would start changing niur sex to match the population’s need, chased the Achinoi. Both giggled and laughed in fits as their game played out. The sound was oddly pitched but surprisingly human-like in his ears. It reminded him of better days on his home world with his siblings.

  “Sir, we are to meet Baroness Sophiathena Cronus’ representative in the lobby. I was informed that an Isinari by the name of Clearach’Kul’tearae will be waiting.” Ben said.

  It took Cylus a long moment to pull his eyes off of the playing children.

  “Happier times,” he muttered.

  “What was that, master?” Ben asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing, Ben. Never mind it. Someone's meeting us in the lobby?”

  “Yes, master. Clearach'Kul'tearae, Baroness Sophiathena's personal assistant at Elthroa. The baroness messaged me on the way over.”

  He turned towards the building. The lobby was a two-story open space punctuated with slender columns placed in a staggered array beneath the curved glass walls of the structure. A set of tall double doors leading inside lay open at the end of the path.

  “I guess we better get to it.” He headed towards the open aperture.

  “Yes, master.” Ben was a comforting presence at his right side as they entered the alien structure.

  Cylus felt smaller the moment he passed beneath the Roman-style arch of the entrance. The curved walls gave him the impression he was within the stomach of some mythic beast. The echoing clicks of his heels against the pink-marble floor made the space feel empty despite the presence of at least thirty other sentient beings around him. He took a deep breath, savoring the invigorating smell of the bani trees drifting into the lobby. It wouldn't do to show his nerves in public, so little by little he made himself relax with a mixture of inner admonishments and fears of public humiliation. Smoothing the sides of the jacket he wore over his silver-threaded beige suit, he put on his public face and strode forward with long, bold steps.