Braxi-Azea - In Conquest Born Part 14

She shook her head sadly. "No, it's not. But that doesn't matter, Lord. There'll be a carriage in a moment; it would do you good to rest, and wait."

Half delirious, he murmured, "I will kill him, I have to. There's no other way. . .

A public carriage approached their call station and slowed to a stop. She pulled him gently from the wall, aware that one of two men had come from the tavern to watch but feeling it better not to tell him. He stumbled once, but with her help he reached the door and fell inside. By the time she had fed the address to the steering mechanism he was sound asleep, so she programmed the alarm before she told the carriage to depart.

Which one of the men watching, she wondered, would wish to taste the woman a Lord chose? Hopefully none of them-but then, Braxin luck was rarely that good.

"And you made a fool of yourself in front of whom? Not the upper cla.s.ses, no, who at least would know you for the racial exception you are! No. You act like an idiot in Sulos, and disgrace our image in front of men who have never seen its glory. Turak, you're going to work hard to outdo this one."

"Father-"

With an angry gesture Sechaveh cut him off. "Don't tell me about your hangover. I don't want to hear it. And don't try to convince me that all this never really happened, either, or that it did but perhaps I'm exaggerating the details, because I know. I set Karas to follow you; he witnessed the whole thing. So!" His eyes were burning with anger; Turak covered his own with a wet cloth. "You," the Kaim'era proclaimed, "are a shame to our Tribe. You are a living example of everything the Braxana seek to deny. I regret the day I chose to let you live to adulthood!"

"I regret the days you keep me in this G.o.d-blessed House! Father, don't you understand?" He raised his face from the cool cloth and with bloodshot eyes pleaded to be heard. "I can't go on like this. I'm thirty years old. My time has come!"

"Thirty, you say! What's thirty years in the face of two hundred? By the Azean calendar you're barely six, and sometimes I think that's more accurate . . . Turak, you are a child. I see in you none of the attributes of manhood. Am I then to inherit you, to proclaim to the world that I consider you a mature independent, when in fact I consider you no such thing? Act like a Braxana and you'll be inherited according to your birthright!"

"As my father was?" he snapped, using the speech mode of irony. It was dangerous to remind the Kaim'era of his own alien upbringing, even with mode- veiled references, and he knew it. But he could not help but be pleased as Sechaveh's face darkened, as his eyes filled with a cold and terrible loathing.

Hatred, pure hatred: the honesty of it was strangely refres.h.i.+ng.

"I overcame my past," Sechaveh hissed. "Could you have done the same, I wonder? Or would you still be a slave of alien women on some festering backVoid planet?" He laughed, his composure returning. "Perhaps that would suit you, Turak." And he turned away, his unguarded back the ultimate insult. "Perhaps that's what you really want."

He stood still for a moment, driving home the lesson of Turak's impotence- great as the younger man's anger was, would he dare to strike?-then strode to the door and pa.s.sed close enough that it opened automatically for him. Then he turned back to his son, smiling as he relished his parting blow.

"The woman-remember her?-is dead."

"And you enjoyed that, didn't you!"

The Kaim'era's eyes sparkled. "That is not the issue."

"You and your blessed-"

"The others will die also; all witnesses to the incident must be disposed of, and quickly. But she died first. Slowly, Turak, very slowly. Does that bother you?"

The dark eyes were fastened on him, seeking entrance to his soul. The woman, the woman . . . what did she matter, except that he had wanted her, had drunk with her, had abandoned her to the Sulosian night? Only that his pleasure had consigned her to a lingering death and had fueled the sadism of a man he despised. "I am Braxana," he answered defiantly.

"Are you?" Sechaveh seemed amused, and that, too, was a deliberate facade, intended to wound him. "Are you really?"

Turak flung the cloth at him in rage, but it caught in the closing doors and was held there, dripping in mid-air, as the Kaim'era exited. "I can't go on," he muttered. "Not like this. If he's going to force me to it. . . ."

The door opened. The cloth remained and Sil'ne, holding it, entered. "Lord?"

she asked gently.

He waved her in.

She was a short woman, black-haired in tribute to her half-Braxana heritage but rendered slim-hipped by the genetic pollution of some less comely race.What makes her stay with him? he wondered suddenly.What makes her willing to serve such a man?

She was carrying a small tray, which she offered to him; on it was a swept-gla.s.s vial filled with a small quant.i.ty of painkiller. It was a general remedy and would be of limited value to him; nevertheless, it was preferable to nothing. He drank it gratefully.

Power. She endured Sechaveh because his House offered her power. No matter how much he hated women, he must have one to run his private affairs; no matter how much he hated her, he must bow-albeit ill-naturedly-to her compe- tence. Braxana custom demanded it.

"Did he really. ... To that woman?" He was unable to voice more specific words, as if by doing so he would make the nightmare real.

She smiled faintly. "A commoner, Lord? I doubt it was worth his time. Probably a guard took care of her, and that swiftly." He knew she was lying, but was grateful for it. "Does it matter so very much to you?"

"He does it to strike at me," he muttered resentfully.

"He wants you to be immune to such things," she pointed out.

"He hates me!"

"As is proper." She took the vial, now emptied, from his gloved hand, and replaced it on the tray. "Is it not, Lord Turak?"

"Yes." He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the raw silk cus.h.i.+ons.

"Of course. Very proper. Always hatred . . . I want to kill him, Sil'ne!"

She was silent for a moment. "If you meant that," she said at last, "really meant it, you wouldn't tell me. You wouldn't tell anyone, not even in jest. Too dangerous. The death of a Braxana . . . that's a serious thing. Lord. So may I a.s.sume that you're not in earnest?"

He looked at her and tried to read her, but either he was too unpracticed or she was too guarded. What manner of woman would choose to serve Sechaveh, and could do so successfully, without falling victim to his wrathful misogyny? "You may," he told her, wondering at her strength as she left him.

If you really meant that. . . .

He had said it a thousand times and meant it as the Braxana always meant such things: not at all, and entirely. He had dreamt endless variations of his father's demise and in all of them it was his hand that held the knife, leveled the stun, cast the bomb . . . but had he ever thought he really might do it? With all the risks that it entailed?

Ah, but it would be sweet!

He fantasized again-a cliff's edge on Matinar-but the vision was foggy. For once his imaginings failed to win for him the cathartic release that he could usually elicit from them. For dreams, in the face of reality, paled in essence and lacked true emotion.

Would he really do it?

Years ago he might have said no and been done with the idea; zhents ago, even mere days ago, he would have discarded it nearly as swiftly, after a brief review of the consequences. Now . . . it was tempting. Sechaveh had driven him to the point of desperation, not only by withholding the status of manhood from him but by toying with him, by feeding on his suffering . . . he was willing to consider anything other than sitting back and taking it all, day after day and year after year, as his father apparently meant for him to do. Revenge would be sweet, after all this humiliation. But how. . . ?

He did not drink that night. It was the first time in many zhents that he faced himself without the false support of alcohol, but he wanted his thoughts clear and so he pushed the chosen bottles aside. With sober awareness he considered the Kaim'era's actions, and hatred burned so strongly inside him that he was almost driven back to his wine in an effort to lessen the blow. But no; this was reality.

For a decade now Turak had been trapped in this House and bound to a man who obviously hated him with all the fury that was appropriate between Braxana adults, yet who refused to allow him to grow to adulthood. Now it was time for his son to harvest his resentment and turn it to action. And if the action was risky and illegal-well, then it would have to be managed carefully.

He considered the nature of the problem: the Braxana, who controlled everything of consequence in the Holding, had long sought to armor themselves against possible a.s.sa.s.sination by careful application of law and custom. There was no more heinous crime than the murder of a purebred Braxana, and none more readily punished. In the face of such an outrage all laws were expendable, and all peoples besides. If a known murderer-even a suspected murderer-were to claim refuge on a planet, and if that planet was foolish enough to have him, then it and its population were forfeit, its inhabitants' lives inconsequential things to be snuffed out in the name of Braxana justice. And woe betide the murderer who was captured. For him were reserved tortures both ancient and modern, blood-bringing and neuro-implanted, delicately timed to strip a man of dignity and strength while never quite robbing him of life. It was a picture so grim that it had often soured Turak's dreams of vengeance and proven them to be no more than impotent imaginings. But not so now.

He began to plan.

How does a Braxana murder a Braxana? The swords of the Braxana are distinctly of that tribe and leave a telling wound; the poison of that people is only available to members of the Master Race and marks the murderer as one of them.

Besides all that, there would be the necessity of some kind of final confrontation, which complicated matters immensely. But Turak was typical of his kind and could not commit himself to vengeance without the ego gratification of forcing Sechaveh to recognize the architect of his downfall. In that lay the greatest danger of all.

There were too many variables; he tried to convince himself of that, but he failed. Long days pa.s.sed, rank with the humiliation of not owning property or women in his own name, days in which he fought the impulse to drink himself into oblivion, as he had so often done in the past. Once he had dreamed of earning his inheritance, as Sechaveh seemed to want him to do. Now at last he knew that to be impossible. His father was tormenting him, deliberately and with the skill born of practice, holding out the promise of independence only to withdraw it time and time again. The Kaim'era had made an enemy of his purebred son; Turak was determined that he must now pay the price for it.

Step by step he considered the problem.

If he killed Sechaveh, it would be clear that the man was dead; that could not be avoided. Another Lord might disappear indefinitely, but not one of the Kaim'eri.

His death, therefore, must appear to be an accident.

But it would be foolish for Turak to bet his life upon such a ruse. He knew all too well how easily the Central Computer could wade through a plethora of unrelated facts and draw from them a simple, clear conclusion which could unmask a man's hidden activities. He had seen it done, and had no desire to be at the receiving end of such action. So: if he killed Sechaveh, no matter how carefully he worked it, it was likely that investigation would reveal him. Unless, he thought, it revealed someone else. It was his introduction to Braxana politics.

He started paying attention to Sechaveh's House, wanting to gain as much information as he could without having to call up the Computer's files-because there would be a record made of that, and any record of any part of this was something to be avoided. It would have been easier if he had been inherited, for he needed extra eyes to help with the watching, anonymous faces to surround and observe his prey. As it was, though, he had to work alone, and it was that much harder.

He compiled a list of Sechaveh's a.s.sets as he knew them. He consulted the House computer for general information and was able to add to his list from that.

He never asked anything directly. Sometimes it took him tenths, even days to work out the exact wording of a request so that no one who reviewed it would be able to determine just what information he had really wanted. Ayyara, for instance-Turak suspected that his father had mining interests there and he was considering the possibility of using the underground labyrinths to entrap him.

But he could not ask the computer directly. Instead he feigned an interest in such things in order to prepare a portfolio of investments for the time when his life would be his own. He reviewed the mineral wealth of a hundred planets and a thousand companies, and only slowly, by asking just the right questions at just the right times, did he work his way around to Ayyara. At last his efforts were rewarded, for the computer informed him of the extent of Sechaveh's interest in the planet, the companies he dealt with, and myriad other details concerning the Kaim'era. Most important, of course, the information was buried under an avalanche of misguiding queries to the point where anyone asking the computer if he had specifically investigated Sechaveh's holdings would receive a negative answer.

That was his first major success. He was exhilarated by it, but not so much so that he forgot to continue the line of questioning until more useless trivia had obscured its other end. It was just as dangerous to end with the true question as it was to begin with it.

Ayarra, alas, was unsuitable, a secure operation with above-ground machinery.

He had overlooked that possibility. But it had been good practice and now he applied himself in a similar manner to the rest of Sechaveh's holdings.

Zhents pa.s.sed. He noticed a change in himself. No longer did he drink to excess, and rarely did he explode in fury before those who should not witness it.

His determination to commit patricide and survive the consequences was an ob- sessive pa.s.sion that colored everything he did. He became quiet on the outside; inside, no one but himself could see, his mind seethed with plots and counterplots, and the organic computer that was his brain struggled to sort diverse and disorganized knowledge into useful categories, and to draw from those a single picture of action that fulfilled all his requirements.

Now, when his father threw his dependence in his face he held in the rage. Now he learned that the face does not have to reflect the heart but the reason, the will, and the intellect. He learned to move without guilt, practicing for the day when his life might depend on it. He learned guile. With one terrible objective burning continually in his mind, he came to perfect a mask of disinterest that disguised his all-consuming pa.s.sion. It was not enough that he was capable of such deception when the time of his vengeance came at last, for then such a change in him would itself be an admission of guilt. No, he must manage the image now and maintain it before the act, during, and after, burying his intent with the same thoroughness that he had used while drawing forth information from the House files.

He noticed these changes and for a brief time wondered if they weren't enough.

Wasn't this after all what Sechaveh had always wanted of him? But the Kaim'era still regarded him with scorn (although certainly with less anger) and his look still clearly said: you are not worthy of the Race, or of adulthood. And Turak's anger burned to new heights, in which any doubts he had entertained were fully consumed and a new man was born-one who would not be defeated by House or custom, or even by law, for the force of his vengeance was stronger than all those things combined and it alone ruled him.

He had gained a reasonable picture of Sechaveh's business dealings; now he needed to find a possible murderer. It couldn't be too obvious a choice, for a man who was known as Sechaveh's enemy would never dare to strike at him this way.

Or wouldn't he? Might not such a man consider himself above suspicion because others would reason it exactly that way? Turak shook his head, discarding the thought. It was a sound idea but too complex for the moment; he was untried in such maneuverings and needed something simpler to work with. Perhaps later, though-when Sechaveh was gone and he had his own business liaisons to protect.

It was harder to research the others than it had been with his father; he was not in their Houses, and had no instinctive knowledge of where to start, such as comes from having lived around a man all of one's lifetime and having that knowledge seep in with or without one's awareness of the process. The other men were enigmas only. Should he chose a Kaim'era? No, that kind would not be so foolish. But a purebred Lord, and one raised in a Kaim'era's House-such would have the ruthlessness and knowledge required to commit murder among his own kind, as well as the requisite recklessness.

This was safer ground on which to tread. His investigations were done using the House computer, which meant that no records would exist in the House of his intended victim. Even so, he was cautious, and was as circuitous in his study of the various Lords of Braxi as he had been regarding his own father.

And at last he was rewarded.

He was not the man he had been. A year or two ago, when he had first conceived of this project, he might have celebrated this success with a night of drunken gaming and doused his death-pa.s.sion in a woman's embrace. Now, when he saw the pieces fall into place there was barely a hint of triumph across his face; a smile, ever so subtle, said that he knew this for the beginning step it was and recognized that victory was still a long way off-and that he could never afford to celebrate openly. He no longer needed to.

On the planet T'sarak there were farms, raised high above the fertile surface, in which Sechaveh had an interest and which other Lords were also considering for investment purposes. The T'sarakene-colonists at first, later citizens of an independent nation under Braxi-had decided to take advantage of their regular climate and plant the delicate plii-ei, whose blossoms yielded the Holding's finest aphrodisiac and whose leaves were medicinally invaluable in treating skin disorders. The vines had never been grown successfully outside of a small fertile band on their native planet, but T'sarak had a similar biochemical base and a minimal change of seasons, and its people decided to try.

Not until their fifth crop of costly vines had withered on their supports did T'sarak realize that they required more than good weather; their native world was a place of high winds, whose velocity tore loose the youthblossoms when their grasp on the mothervine weakened, allowing the secondary flowers to grow at just the proper pace for the priceless nectar to develop its valuable properties.

The plii-ei had never grown well in artificial environments, so a hothouse would be of limited value. Besides, the T'sarakene had a better solution. They built lattice-work vinefarms and raised them high above the ground, into the planet's stratosphere, where the cross-winds of T'sarak might stimulate the plants in their accustomed manner. So were the plii-ei grown and farmed, not to the same perfection that they knew in the wild but very similarly, and in an atmospheric density more similar to that of home than the surface of T'sarak had to offer.

The Braxana mindset was attracted to drugs of pleasure and regarding the plii- ei it responded accordingly. Sechaveh had underwritten the cost of the original farm construction and was rewarded with a share of the profits. A number of other Braxana had approached the T'sarakene, but they had been turned away; Sechaveh had no intention of giving up his advantage, and saw to it that the farmers acted accordingly. Doubtless, there were a number of Lords who would like to see Sechaveh . . . removed. And doubtless the T'sarakene resented that a Central power should have such control over a vital part of their economy.

Turak smiled. Then, with all the care of an experienced Kaim'era, he began to plot the details of his father's demise. Soon, he promised Sechaveh, you will pay the price for your cruelty.

Mashak Vinemaster was a lean, high-strung man. In all his mannerisms there was an underlying chord of tension. His voice was harsh and he gave orders sharply, in a tone of voice that implied they could not be obeyed quickly enough to please him. And in truth they could not. He was one of the few who had dreamed of bringing the vines of T'sarak, and one of the fewer who had held onto that dream when the first imports died without secondflower. Now he was caught in a web of foreign economic intrigue-for the Central Braxins were foreign to T'sarak, though they had supplied the human seed that settled there-from which he longed to extricate himself.

He nodded sharply at the guards of Vineshadow and pa.s.sed into the city. They knew him by sight-they had better. He had little time to waste and had no intention of going through lengthy identification verification at his own border.

Woe betide the guard-or anyone-who got in his way.

The city: refineries, packaging plants, distilleries, and dormitory facilities for the migrant harvesters. There was an agreement among the vinemasters of T'sarak by which the times of planting and harvest were staggered, so that the same men might work each farm in turn. The city was nearly empty now, but soon it would be filled with the heady fragrance of the precious flowers and the pungent odor of the laborers' presence. A few workers remained at the factories and guards were kept at the entrances and exits; other than that, however, Vineshadow was deserted.

Mashak pa.s.sed quickly to the base of the city's Tower and nodded to the guards there. He saw them start-they seemed to be new-but then they recognized him, if only from pictorial memory, and without a word let him pa.s.s. Good. It was nice to see the new men pick up the way of things so quickly.

He entered the lift and slapped the control down.

The cage he occupied hesitated only briefly before beginning its long journey upward through the towershaft. On all four sides of him at regular intervals were the cogravitic anchors that kept the Tower standing upright through its miles of height, balancing the weight of the pseudometal structure at right angles to the planet's surface. Through three sides of the cage he could see his lands; the fourth was filled with tanks of gas-fertilizer, doubtless waiting for the proper hand to come and apply it. Across the valley he could see other vinefarms, three of them his. He was a rich man, despite the ma.s.sive t.i.thes the vinefarmers had to pay to their Braxana patron, and he intended to stay that way.

The cage ascended slowly, so that he might get used to the changing pressure.

There were oxygen masks all along the sides of the cage, but he left them where they were on their hanging clips; he wouldn't be going all the way to the top.

What could it be that the Kaim'era wanted? He fingered the flatrendering in his pocket and wondered, annoyed, at the summons. It was no secret that he hated the Kaim'era Sechaveh and would rather deal with him via third parties; to him the Braxana represented everything that was wrong with the economic system of the Holding, in which a man who risked life and limb to get a project going had to spend the rest of time giving someone else the choicest fruits of his labors. But the message had been clear: Come here, and come here now.

Far be it for Sechaveh to imagine that he had other things to do and could ill afford the time for this little excursion!

The cage drew to a slow stop and Mashak pushed the door aside. Halfway between the surface and the vines themselves was a landing platform for small aircraft, a mode of transportation that most of the wealthy preferred. A simple forcefield acted as railing, and although its faint glow was not now visible in the low-angled sunlight Mashak was grateful as always to know that it was there. He did not mind treading the walkways which wound between his beloved vines, but there the view was not so empty, not nearly so threatening. The open s.p.a.ce of the landing platform and its seemingly sudden drop into nothingness never failed to unnerve him, and it added now to his annoyance at having been called here with no explanation of why.

He tapped his foot impatiently on the pseudometal platform. Between the winds overhead and the noise of his own irritated movement he almost missed the whisper of movement behind him. A shadow moved out of the corner of his eye, out of keeping with what he expected from this place and therefore more confusing than frightening. He turned; that is, he started to. Then there was a flash of sun-on-silver and a tearing pain that burst through every nerve in his body, and in his last moment of consciousness he imagined it was the hated face of his master/enemy that grinned at him with something akin to triumph.

Turak left the cage and went over to the body.

Mashak was unharmed by the stun's discharge but in his fall he had struck his head against the pseudometal platform, and a thin river of blood was wending its way down one side of his face. Turak wiped it away with the edge of his sash and arranged the man's hair so that it would cover the wound. Then, carefully, he hefted the body upright and carried it back to the cage, where he propped it up against the fertilizer tanks in a fair semblance of conscious boredom. He crossed the arms and pinned the sleeves so they remained in place, tacked the man's lids open so they stayed that way, and in general toyed with the unconscious form until only the closest examination would show that anything was wrong with it.

Then he took his place again between the stacks of tanks and waited.

It was but a short time before Sechaveh's shuttle arrived, and seeing Mashak in the cage, the Kaim'era doubtless felt secure in landing. He would have no servants with him, for such was his way in business dealings-Turak knew that.

Nor would he be suspicious of Mashak's presence within the cage instead of out on the platform, as the Vinemaster's distaste for the view was well known on T'sarak, and therefore to him.

His breath held, muscles taut in readiness, Tarak waited.

The small shuttle anch.o.r.ed itself and after a moment of internal adjustment its sides parted, and a ramp spilled forth from it. Shadowed by the small s.h.i.+p's bulk, Sechaveh descended.