“Silence,” said Eirene. “Let me think.”
Her father caught Sun’s eye and tapped two fingers to his lips with a scolding tuck of the head. She could not shake the sense she was merely a potentially useful tool in her parents’ personal tool kits, a piece held in reserve within the larger game they were playing. But she knew better than to protest when they were thus arrayed against her.
Eirene studied the images of her consorts’ faces with a meditative frown. Something was going on behind Eirene’s always-intense expression with its quirks: a pinch of the lips, a squint of her flesh eye, a glance at the deck as her right boot traced a straight line like the path of a thought. But Sun could not have guessed what it was, and the lack of any handle to grab on to irked her mightily.
“After all perhaps you are correct.” Eirene took a turn around the room, pacing off a burst of energy.
“I’m correct? In what way?”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m giving your project the go-ahead.”
João eyed her suspiciously. “What brings on this abrupt change of heart?”
“The realization that if it’s true, and if you manage to do what you claim can be done, then the Conclave of Royals and the Gatoi clans will owe me.”
“How like you, Eirene. So be it. Whatever it takes.”
“It will have to be done in complete secrecy, totally off the grid. Do you understand?”
“I’ll need a venue.”
“I know of a venue that will work. I’ll release funds from my private treasury. And I’ll put out word that our raiders and operatives must send any captured Gatoi to my central authority immediately.”
“There’s a way to give cover to it, Eirene. You can say it’s a prisoner of war camp.”
“We’re not going to say anything because it’s going to be kept secret from everyone except you, me, and the people working there. My enemies in the court and the assembly will have a field day if they find out. To that end, you will disappear. I’ll put it about that I exiled you in anger. That way no one will question why you’re absent from court. You will vanish. You and your people will be allowed no net presence, no communication with the outside world.”
“Not even with me?” Sun demanded. “Am I not the heir? Am I not to be privy to this sort of information?”
Incredibly, her father was nodding so eagerly that he ignored Sun’s question. “You’ll see how valuable this is, Eirene.”
“It had better be. I’m staking a great deal of reputation on your gamble. Because there’s another serendipitous piece that came in with the battle report. An entire arrow of banner soldiers was unexpectedly captured intact and alive on an orbital station above Na Iri Terce.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” said Sun.
“How was that managed?” João asked eagerly, ignoring her.
“They got trapped in an inert engine well and were gassed into unconsciousness. They’re still in stasis while the high command decides what to do with them. I’ll have them officially declared dead on arrival and delivered to you instead.”
He laughed, rocketing from combative suspicion to ecstatic glamour so quickly it took Sun’s breath away and set her off balance. She hated being off balance. “An entire arrow! Lady Chaos smiles on us. And with more to come.”
“There won’t be many, João. You know they’re cursedly hard to capture alive.”
“Where are you going, Father?” Sun twined her fingers together as uneasiness washed through her. She wasn’t dependent on him while navigating the shoals of court, of course not, but she was used to having him at her back at all times.
“Your mother will explain.” Grasping Sun’s arm, he kissed her on each cheek, squeezed the hand on which she wore the ring he’d given her, and released her.
The main hatch opened. Eirene followed him to the threshold and, after a moment nailing a stare to his back, shouted angrily into the antechamber in his wake for all waiting in the outer chamber to see and hear. “And don’t come back until you’ve learned not to flout security and my authority!”
The hatch hissed shut. Eirene turned to face her daughter.
“Sit down, Sun.”
To remain standing in protest at this high-handed treatment would only provoke Eirene. Sun grabbed a chair set off to one side and guided it to the big oval network platform that doubled as a meeting table.
Stay focused on what lies ahead.
“I see you’ve learned some self-control,” remarked Eirene as Sun sat.
“What is this project?”
“Stop asking. I won’t tell you. And don’t try to cajole your father. I’ll instantly withdraw the funding if he tells you or you make any effort to dig out information on your own.”
“Why am I not allowed to know? I’m your heir. Haven’t I proven myself worthy? Isn’t it time for me to be given more responsibilities? Assigned to an active duty station on a ship like the Boukephalas?”
Eirene leaned on the edge of the platform. The pinprick red light in her eye winked a reflection back at itself from the platform’s glossy surface. “You followed my battle plan well enough to push the Phene garrison fleet out of Na Iri System. My plan. That’s not the same as being ready for independent action.”
“Then what is it ready for?” Sun asked in the evenest tone she could muster as her hands closed into fists.
Eirene looked up. In the domed space above, virtual stars shone. The view zoomed out from the star systems that made up the republic to become a wider perspective.
“Tell me what you see,” said the queen-marshal.
Without the beacon network, built long ago by the now-vanished Apsaras Convergence, each star system would be an isolated island of humanity separated by months or years of travel. Sun traced the routes between worlds and alliances—the Republic of Chaonia, the Yele League and various small independencies hanging on its skirts, the Phene Empire, the wealthy city-states of Karnos and their Hatti cousins long under the thumb of the Phene, the fractious Hesjan cartels and shifting Skuda factions, sacred Mishirru and its outlying dependencies, the isolated Ring of Ravenna, and the terminus frontiers. These routes had seamlessly knit together all inhabited systems until an unexpected and shocking collapse had destroyed every beacon in the central region of the network, leaving in its wake what was now called the Apsaras Gap, a vast, beaconless expanse at the heart of inhabited space. At that time, eight hundred years ago, tendrils of destruction like cracks had splintered out along the outer network to randomly rupture individual beacons, which meant some routes were left more or less intact while others had broken links. The now cut-off star systems weren’t wholly lost. They could still be reached by the venerable Argosies, powered by knnu drives and still in motion throughout the region even though their passage times were so much slower than beacon travel. Meanwhile, between the stars, the nomadic Gatoi fleets ran dark and cold, also powered by knnu drives and thus difficult to trace by anyone not born on one of the eleven clan wheelships, as Sun had not been.
“You recite names, and histories, as any citizen can do,” said Eirene. “But what do you see?”
“After the collapse of the central routes, Chaonia’s three main systems were left in the most direct path between the Phene Empire and the Yele League. Although they weren’t yet an empire and a league, back in those days. They grew in power because the changes in the beacon system benefited them more than others.”