Chapter 5
DHOMHES
Dhomhes had been trying the same dead channel for so long that when his comm finally sounded, he reached for it before checking the name.
The freight broker looked back at him.
Of course.
“You left seven messages,” the broker said. “Stop saying that name in them.”
Dhomhes could hear a loader warning signal behind him. “I need the incident record from Kerde. A district, a date. Anything I can use.”
“You won't find anything useful.”
“Then I shall be disappointed. I'm prepared to take that risk.”
“You're not the one taking it.”
Dhomhes stopped smiling. “No. I'm not. Send the location. Nothing about who told you anything.”
“And then you leave me alone.”
It would have been an easy promise to make.
“Until I have read it,” Dhomhes said.
The broker swore and ended the call. A set of freight coordinates arrived a moment later.
He saved them, requested the public incident report through an off-world contact, and checked the search channel again.
Nothing new.
His room sat one level above the volunteers' residences. Close enough to reach the guard station by a short flight of stairs, too small for the table he had borrowed from the adjoining office. It stood across the foot of the bed, leaving barely enough room to walk around it.
The bed itself was untouched.
He had set Fiviel's channel to announce any incoming signal, then increased the volume twice. It would have woken someone three rooms away. That had not made him willing to sleep.
On the display, he opened the note he had made in the banquet hall.
“Like it was flushed—is that a word?”
Roemary's words. Exactly as she had said them.
He read them beside the broker's account and the earlier smuggler's report. Sealed charges. Destroyed residue. A smaller explosion before a larger one.
The interval on the platform had been three minutes. Long enough to start getting people clear. Long enough for help to arrive.
He could see Fiviel through the smoke if he let himself. The last glimpse, before there was no longer anyone standing there to see.
Dhomhes enlarged the incident request instead.
He sent the investigator working with Stron's security team the technical comparison, keeping Roemary's account separate. The damage had to establish the method; a witness using a peculiar word could not do that for him.
Then he opened what he had on Senator Loric Vandrel.
Public appearances. Program support. Complaints about his daughter's treatment. A great many photographs of a male extending his hand toward someone less fortunate while another person ensured the image was captured.
Dhomhes knew the type. He had stood beside enough of them.
He still had no verified connection between Vandrel and the Rhysgarrds. He laid the inspection record beside the access logs and began again.
The morning search report contained the word continued four times.
Continued suppression. Continued survey. Continued assessment of ground access.
No survivors located.
Dhomhes worked down through the report. The fire images showed less active burning on the eastern slope. Smoke still hid much of the ground. A terrain specialist had marked two possible descent routes, both awaiting closer inspection.
He opened the equipment appendix to see whether either had been surveyed overnight.
Four drones.
There had been six.
Two drones had been transferred to a security review of the southern terraces. The terrain-mapping team had been sent to Refinery Complex Three for a structural audit.
Dhomhes called the emergency allocations clerk. On the fourth attempt she answered, several displays open behind her.
“The southern terraces requested additional coverage,” she said.
“Requested by whom?”
“It's an approved perimeter review.”
“I can read that. I would like to know why two units were taken from an active search.”
She looked off-screen.
“There may be further devices.”
“Then the southern review needs equipment. So does the search. When are the replacements arriving?”
“I don't have a replacement allocation.”
Dhomhes let out a breath through his nose.
“And the terrain team?”
“Reassigned under the same priority review.”
“To a structural audit that isn't due for another eight months.”
The clerk finally looked directly at him.
“I don't set the audit schedule, Gol-Vett.”
“Who does?”
“The receiving office would have to answer that.”
He knew she had not moved the team herself. He also knew he was a sentence away from treating her as though she had.
He sat back.
“Send me the authorization and the receiving office. Please. I need the team returned or replaced.”
She nodded, visibly relieved to have something she could do.
“I'll put the request through.”
He asked for its number and saved it. Then he forwarded the missing allocations to the search commander and Stron's office so neither would be working from yesterday's figures.
A frightened Coalition member could get equipment moved before anyone asked where it was coming from. Fiviel would have had something insulting to say about that.
The transfer authorization arrived. Dhomhes copied it into the search record before calling his father.
Ruthak answered from the refinery operations floor.
For half a breath, all Dhomhes could hear was the low, familiar machinery behind him. The crushers had been part of the sound of home for as long as he could remember. He used to fall asleep to them. On the rare nights they stopped, he woke.
“You're alive,” his father said. “Good.”
“You could sound less surprised.”
“You could have called.”
“I sent word.”
“Word doesn't have a face.”
Dhomhes had no ready answer to that.
Ruthak looked him over. His gaze stopped at the dressing around Dhomhes's hand, but he did not ask about it.
“The Hawn boy?”
“Still missing. Graecey too. Others.”
His father nodded once.
“I sent your drone request to the shift supervisor.”
“I saw. Thank you. I have another question. Is Complex Three expecting a structural audit?”
“No.”
“A terrain-mapping team was sent there from the search overnight.”
Ruthak turned toward someone outside the image and held out a hand. A data pad was placed in it. He read, scrolled, then read again.
“They haven't reported to operations.”
“Their transfer says they've been reassigned.”
“Transfer isn't arrival.”
Dhomhes sent him the order.
His father studied it with growing displeasure.
“I'll find them.”
“I need them on the slope.”
“I know where you need them.”
Ruthak handed the pad back. A male in the background began speaking into a comm.
“What can you spare?” Dhomhes asked.
“One inspection unit after its checks. Operator with it. The others are in the eastern galleries.”
“Could they come off rotation?”
“No.”
Dhomhes glanced at the search images still open beside the call. “Father—”
“The Adelada protocols don't pause because the light side has a crisis.”
His mother's name brought him up short.
On the display behind Ruthak, an operator waited for a second worker to finish checking a reading before clearing a line for use. Two sets of eyes. Two confirmations. Dhomhes knew the procedure well enough that he watched for the second signal without intending to.
It came. The line turned green.
“No,” he said. “They don't.”
Ruthak looked back at him.
“I'll send what can be sent safely. You won't get your friend home by giving another family someone to search for.”
Dhomhes rubbed at the edge of his dressing. Stopped when it pulled.
“Have the operator report to the search commander. They need clearance before approaching the burn zone.”
“Already in the instructions.”
Of course it was.
Neither spoke for a moment. The crushers continued behind his father's shoulder.
“You're well?” Ruthak asked.
“I'm occupied.”
“That wasn't the question.”
Dhomhes looked at him. The gray at the base of his father's horns was more pronounced than he remembered. Or the light was harsher on the operations floor.
“I don't know yet.”
Ruthak nodded as though that answer would do.
“Eat.”
“A remarkably versatile prescription.”
“Works better if you try it.”
His father ended the call.
Dhomhes sat with the blank screen for a moment, then sent the search commander the promised unit's specifications.
It wasn't on the slope yet. He kept the request open.
He was looking for food when Tivek nearly knocked him down.
A practice weapon caught the corner first. Tivek followed, corrected too late, and collided with Dhomhes's shoulder.
“Dhom!”
“An ambitious greeting. Next time aim for the throat.”
Tivek caught his arms, grinning, then noticed the bandage.
The grin disappeared.
“Did I hurt you?”
“The railing tried harder.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No. You didn't hurt me.”
Tivek released him. Looked at the hand once more, just to be certain, and adjusted the practice weapon hanging from his shoulder.
“Why are you here?” Dhomhes asked.
“Mother has to present the quarter accounts. She brought me before all this happened. She said if she left me alone with the ritual coming up, I'd train myself into a splint.”
“A reasonable concern.”
“I'm much better than I was.”
Dhomhes glanced at the corner Tivek had just struck.
“The architecture will be delighted.”
Tivek shoved his uninjured shoulder. For a moment, Dhomhes wanted to hold him there. Check every limb. Ask him to stay where someone could see him.
Instead, he straightened the twisted strap of the sling.
“What have you heard?”
“Everything. None of it agrees.” Tivek lowered his voice. “Kessin's cousin says the ship was blown apart. Ellon says the captain is still on it, refusing to let anyone aboard.”
“The ship was destroyed.”
Tivek's mouth closed.
“Then what Ellon said—”
“Was wrong.”
“I thought so. But Kessin's cousin also says the off-worlders only eat paste, and they had a whole feast planned. You wouldn't plan a feast for people who only ate paste.”
“Perhaps they had especially fine paste.”
“Dhom.”
“They eat food, Tivek. You'll survive a meal with them.”
His brother glanced toward the gallery where staff were laying out breakfast.
“Were you there when the platform broke?”
“Yes.”
“They said the exits went first.”
“Part of the platform failed. Several ways off it became unsafe.”
“On purpose?”
Dhomhes considered him. Tivek had stopped fiddling with the strap.
“Someone attacked the platform. We don't yet know everything they intended.”
“But if you damage the way out, everyone has to stop and find another.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know where they'll go next.”
Dhomhes looked down the passage. Two attendants carried a tray through the far doors. No one close enough to be listening.
“That is something we're examining.”
Tivek's eyes widened slightly. “Really?”
“Really. You thought it through.”
His brother looked pleased for about a heartbeat. Then the implication caught up with him.
“That's awful.”
“Yes.”
“Are the ladies still frightened?”
“Very.”
Tivek looked back toward the breakfast room.
“Mother says they lost all their things.”
“Most of them.”
“Someone should show them the gardens. The little ones inside, I mean. Away from where you can see the fire.”
Dhomhes followed his glance. There was a courtyard beyond the gallery with a shallow fountain. Someone had left a chair beside it, angled toward the morning meal instead of the view.
“They might like that.”
“I could do it.”
“If they want you to. Ask first.”
“I was going to.”
“And don't lead anyone out of the guarded areas.”
Tivek gave him an injured look.
“I know.”
“Forgive me. I was overcome by a rare fit of being the elder brother.”
“Rare?”
“You have training.”
“There it is again.”
His brother grinned, but didn't leave. One foot moved against a seam in the floor. Dhomhes waited.
“Doctor Havent's office sent Mother a form.”
Dhomhes kept his hands still.
“What kind?”
“Supplementary attestation of lineage.” Tivek said it carefully, as though he had practiced getting through the phrase without stumbling. “For the ritual application.”
“Has she answered it?”
“She's looking at it.” He tugged the sling higher. “Ellon didn't get one.”
There it was.
Dhomhes had been twelve when Sheira put the baby in his arms for the first time. Tivek had caught a finger and refused to let go. No one in that room had needed a supplementary attestation to understand who he was.
“Send it to me.”
“You can't just make it go away.”
“No. But I can make the office explain why it sent it.”
Tivek glanced up.
“Mother says not to turn it into a fight.”
“Then I shall begin with a very polite question.”
“Your polite questions are worse.”
“And yet people keep giving me reasons to ask them.”
Tivek laughed. Dhomhes felt himself smile before he could decide how much.
“I don't need you to get me through the ritual,” his brother said.
“Good. I wasn't offering to carry you down a shaft.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.” Dhomhes put a hand on his shoulder. “You do the work. I will ask why they're putting another form between you and the chance to do it.”
Tivek studied him, then nodded.
“I'll send it.”
“And take that weapon to someone who can teach you to get it around a corner.”
“You were in the way.”
“I so often am.”
His brother went, turning to walk backward long enough to make a rude gesture before disappearing toward the training rooms.
Dhomhes watched until he was gone.
Then he went into the gallery and took some bread.
Sereya sat at a table overlooking the courtyard. She raised her cup, and he caught himself watching her mouth. Heat climbed his spine until his collar felt too close. Under the cuff of his good hand, a ridge of armor pushed against the cloth.
There was no falling platform here. No one was reaching for a weapon. She was drinking tea.
She looked up. He nearly went to her. Then someone at the service door called his title, and he turned too quickly, catching his sleeve on a chair.
He freed it and left with the bread. He had laughed at Khalzin's certainty. He was beginning to dislike how clearly he remembered every word.
Back at the borrowed table, he found no word from Fiviel. The housing report held Roemary's communications requests and a corridor disturbance involving Stron and Adryel. Sereya had opened her door, afraid something had happened. Reassured; returned inside.
He asked for Roemary's official correspondence to join the incident file, then looked again at Sereya's name. He hoped someone had stayed long enough to reassure her properly.
He left the protected notice where it was. If he wanted to know how she was, he could ask her.
The terrain-team query had reached yet another office. He took its acknowledgment downstairs to the search commander.