A Prison Unsought by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge Page A

understand. She had no standing in the Tetrad
Centrum Douloi forming a new elite on Ares, for no major Ghettierus clients or
patrons were among the Douloi refugees so far. Her diplomatic status was her
only claim to consideration, and it had not been enough for last night’s
reception. The woman’s personality made Omilov’s reluctance to intervene easy
to understand, as well.
    Omilov nodded agreeably, but then he glanced sideways, in
the direction of the Arkadic Enclave, a kilometer or two away spinward along
the oneill’s disorienting curve, looming uncannily above the eaves of the
Cloister’s outer gallery. Another ladder to heaven , thought Eloatri. Why
had he turned down the invitation to stay there?
    Even an upstart Polloi promoted to Gate of Telos couldn’t
ask that question. The novosti would. She suspected they’d have little luck.
    Omilov shifted his gaze from the Enclave floating like a
geometric moon above the roofline, aware of fatigue. Like a moon, its pull—the
millennium-weighted symbolism of the Arkad line—was already raising tides on
Ares. He’d felt their pull at the reception last night. He might have done some
good if he’d accepted Brandon’s invitation.
    But that was immediate. And the very same reason made it
impossible to accept Brandon’s invitation. As an Invisible, he might yet have
to execute justice on his one-time charge. He would not make the betrayal
greater by accepting his bread and salt.
    Omilov’s exhaustion manifested as a longing for the Cloister
library in its fusty, narrow solidity, antonymic to his hallucination in the
cathedral. It was time to make his excuses to his hostess.
    Eloatri watched as Omilov walked slowly toward the wing
housing the library. Her conscience panged again: she’d found a hidden
transtube entrance only steps from this verdant cove; it would have whisked him
right to the elevator nearest his destination. But she wasn’t ready to reveal
that and the other transtubes and similar secrets that were unfolding to her.
She supposed there was some protocol in operation that was slowly accepting
her.
    She glanced up at the Enclave again, wondering if the
smiling, blue-eyed Aerenarch was going through a similar process, and how many
secret egresses he’d found. Was it such that had saved him at his Enkainion?
    Regardless of how he’d escaped death, Brandon vlith-Arkad
was now heir to the Panarchy of the Thousand Suns. At their first meeting he’d
seemed to be as slippery as glass and about as deep, but in the New Glastonbury
Cathedral she had seen underneath his shock a flash of intent, the same kind of
high-energy focus that seemed to reach out from old vids of his ancestor Jaspar
Arkad.
    Last night he had surprised her yet again, when he abandoned
the mask of Douloi politesse to communicate with a dancing trinity of Kelly in
un-Douloi trills, hoots, and slaps.
    Those same Kelly were to perform surgery on Ivard today, the
boy for whom the Graal had apparently manifested on the altar of New
Glastonbury, arresting his ongoing possession—there was no other word for it,
really—by the genomic ghost of the Kelly Archon. But that genetic entanglement
would still kill him in the end unless the Kelly succeeded in removing the
emerald band fused into his wrist.
    She glanced at her chrono. Less than an hour to go.
    Time to try one of her private transtube accesses.
    o0o
    Osri Omilov sat up in bed, fighting a massive headache.
He’d not trusted the dormaivu in his
room—doubtless bugged like everything else—and he’d slept with his boswell on.
The delicate chiming in his inner ear counterpointed the throb in his temples;
he killed it hastily. Two hours of sleep, and less than that before his leave
ended, requiring him to report for duty in the military portion of Ares
Station, known as the Cap.
    The good thing was that he’d be given quarters among the
rest of the Naval personnel. Reminded of the prospect of quitting his mother’s
space, he found the