The Phoenix in Flight by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge Page B

enough
time to comprehend that he hadn’t been killed before the jet of gas turned his
mind off.

FOUR
DOL’JHAR
    Another storm was building, the worst yet as winter yielded
to what passed for spring on Dol’jhar, yanking savagely at the tower of Hroth
D’Ocha. The motion churned Barrodagh’s stomach into an acid froth that burned
the back of his throat. As the culmination of his lord’s paliach loomed ever
closer, so the pressure on him grew, oppressing him by the constant sense that
he had overlooked something.
    His fingers clenched on the flimsies he was poring over as
his console chimed for attention.
    “Speak,” he said, letting none of his impatience into his
voice.
    “Tellimag reporting, Rifter fleet liaison department.
Tillimar byn-Amal reports a change of command on the Skullwind and
requests the command ciphers for Fleet 10.” The other Bori’s voice lightened.
“There’s an interesting visual, if you like.”
    “Put it on.”
    Barrodagh’s console windowed up a tableau that surprised a
snort of laughter from him. The scene was the bridge of the Skullwind, the
Rifter destroyer posted as the flagship of Fleet Ten, now in position for its
part in the coming attack. The bulky figure of Tillimar byn-Amal filled the
screen, frozen by the circuitry as he held aloft the clumsily hacked-off head
of his father, Amal byn-Serafiny, its face frozen in a rictus of pain and
surprise.
    Barrodagh laughed again as he noticed that the corpse’s nose
had been bitten off. The lurid emotionalism of their Rifter allies was a source
of endless amusement to one accustomed to the cool, almost passionless savagery
of Dol’jhar. He lingered on the picture, trying to decide which was uglier: the
corpse’s disfigured face or the scaly, red-cracked visage of the parricide,
distorted with both triumph and a loathsome skin condition.
    “Give him the ciphers,” he said.
    Barrodagh leaned back in his chair as his subordinate signed
off, leaving the frozen image on-screen. I definitely backed the right chuqath in that fight. He grinned again: byn-Amal’s disease made him the very
image of the scaly chuqaths , the savage scavengers whose battles in the
pits of the work-dorms were a favorite amusement of Dol’jharian laborers.
    Now Barrodagh would activate the sleeper on the Skullwind to make sure he received regular and accurate reports on the true state of
affairs on board, just as he had from byn-Amal while his father was in command.
    He stretched, his stomach easing in spite of the swaying of
the tower; he felt secure in the knowledge that no Rifter was a match for one
who had survived twenty years of upper-level infighting in the bureaucracy of
Dol’jhar. Rifters prized themselves on their independence, but those now allied
with Dol’jhar had discovered how vulnerable a ship dependent on the Urian
hyperrelay for power was to Barrodagh’s displeasure. It had taken only one
application of the savage Dol’jharian technology of pain to an erring member of
the Rift Sodality, combined with the certainty of discovery the episode had
demonstrated, to convince all of them to behave during the long wait between
the refit of their ships with the Urian technology and the promised orgy of
looting that would follow the attack. Byn-Amal’s request was just one more
confirmation of Barrodagh’s total control of the situation.
    The console chimed again. The sense of security made
Barrodagh feel expansive as he leaned forward and tabbed it to accept a vid
connection.
    His good mood vanished when Morrighon’s lumpy face filled
the screen.
    “Senz-lo Barrodagh, Morrighon reporting.” Barrodagh almost
winced. He was beginning to regret having excused Morrighon from reports in
person, since he apparently had little sense of the relative importance of the
tasks assigned him. The pain of traversing the high-gee corridors might have
deterred much of this foolishness.
    “I’m trying to complete the processing of Thuriol’s queue
that you