Children of Zanar 1: The Zanari Inheritance Read online

  ‘Even Geo,’ Jinny added. ‘He said it was nice to be teaching again and that Kaya was not an unpleasant student.’

  Thea raised an eyebrow and looked at Sienna. ‘Maybe you should check he hasn’t cracked under the pressure. That almost sounds like he likes her. However, the point remains that we need a plan for getting her out.’

  ‘I was unable to detect her in hyperspace,’ Cassandra said. ‘Her or Colder, which means they must both be within null fields. If they were to deactivate hers when they get here, we could teleport her out before they know what’s happening.’

  ‘Yes,’ Thea said, ‘and we should watch for that in case they’re that stupid, but I suspect she’s in restraints and they’ll keep her in them. The highest probability, even if they do plan to give her to the Bowrains, is that they’ll take her to Monteagle’s place. We’re going to need an assault plan for there.’

  ‘We will need more information on the current state of the Monteagle facility and the planet. I can begin a full passive survey as soon as we have reached orbit.’

  ‘How long?’

  Cassandra gave a slight shrug. ‘Twenty-four hours should suffice to get a clear picture. We are going to need an excuse for being here. Teladish has all sorts of traffic moving in and out, but Giltanish does not.’

  ‘I believe,’ Sienna said, ‘that I have a suitable cover, and we can employ it in further information gathering. There is a Sisterhood house on this world.’

  Thea sighed. ‘I guess I’m dressing up then.’

  ‘You are not getting me in a dress,’ Jinny stated flatly.

  ‘We know, Jin. Still, we’ll take the Sword down to the planet while Cassy runs her sweeps. I’ll go talk to the Sisters with Sienna. Jin, you’ll stay aboard the ship for now.’

  ‘Reasoning?’ Cassandra asked.

  ‘I want us on station and ready. When you’ve run your scans and sent us the data, I want you to take the Oracle somewhere out of sight. Fay, when can we expect the Monteagle’s Prize to get here?’

  Fay had, apparently, been expecting the question. ‘It is a Nuberg-class assault cruiser with a class-three hyperspace drive. Nominal transit time is approximately ten days. A good navigator might bring that down to six or seven. To be safe, we should be ready and undiscoverable by the sixth.’

  ‘Yeah, but practically…’

  ‘I doubt we will see them in-system before the ninth.’

  ‘Those are our timescales then. Let’s get ready for whatever we might have to deal with. I just hope Kaya isn’t hurting too much while they’ve got her.’

  Monteagle’s Prize, Hyperspace.

  Kaya was not sure exactly why things had improved, and had entertained the idea that she was being given some sort of psychological rollercoaster treatment, but things had improved. A woman had come to the cell to help Kaya to go to the toilet and then dress in a jumpsuit of some kind. Kaya had been blind the whole time, so she had no idea what the woman or the jumpsuit looked like, but this was an improvement of sorts.

  And there had been food. It had been some sort of nutrient fluid pumped into her mouth through a tube and maybe the fact that she had no way of tasting it since the gag prevented it from getting to her tongue was a good thing. Still, they had fed her and her stomach had greatly appreciated it.

  Aside from that, she had been left alone, in the dark and the not-quite-silence, and she had slept on and off because she just kept drifting away with nothing to draw her attention. Anyway, when she had time to think, her mind would start coming up with doomsday scenarios.

  She had decided that the probability that Jay had been telling the truth about Thea and Jinny was low. They had both been alive too long to fall into some trap laid by a bunch of common mercenaries. Considering their lifestyle, especially Jinny’s, if it was that easy to kill them, Kaya would never have met them.

  On the matter of them figuring out where Jay had taken her, things were a little less certain. Kaya was moderately sure Jay had been telling the truth about the null field. She remembered the term from school, though it had just been a general note on psionic technology. A null-field generator emitted the equivalent of white noise into the Hepps–Montague field around it. The random noise made it next to impossible to use psi, natural or artificial, within its coverage area. That meant that there was no way Cassandra or Sienna could transmit to her, or find her.

  There had to be some way of letting them know where she was. There had to be…

  Haven, Giltanish Prime, 2/2/483.

  There was no equivalent of Down City on Giltanish Prime. The spaceport was twenty-eight kilometres from the nearest city, linked to it via a monorail system which ferried visitors quickly and efficiently to Haven, the principal city of the planet. Giltanish Prime had a population of a little more than three million and just over half of them could be found in the city. Many of the other permanent residents were in agriculture, though that business was heavily mechanised.

  Beyond the white-concrete ramparts of the spaceport, you flew silently along the raised monorail track over a nature reserve which surrounded the city for over five hundred kilometres on all sides except the north where the port was. The track itself passed through a high white wall in order to enter the city, but even so the spires of high-rise buildings were visible in the commercial centre. On the inside of the wall was a broad expanse of parkland, then low-rise residential buildings before the city began to rise toward the centre. It was beautiful, if you were into someone’s idea of an urban utopia.

  The train Thea and Sienna rode in on was far from empty, but the two women had a clear space of several seats around them. To someone dropped in from an alternate reality, that would have seemed quite strange. Here were two very attractive women dressed in almost identical gowns which were both revealing and elegant. The difference between the two was that Thea was in black and Sienna was in wine-red. The dresses fell all the way to the floor and had very full, long sleeves, cuffed tightly at the wrist, but they were also slit to the hip up the front of both legs and they had a neckline which dipped all the way to the waist. The neckline was there, perhaps, to show the necklaces they both wore: silver chains looped around the neck and then through an open, cuff-like clasp before falling to about twenty centimetres above each woman’s navel where they ended in a red jewel. The necklaces looked oddly like the choke chains used on dogs, but far more elegant, and they marked the two women as belonging to the Lanthanari Sisterhood. And no one messed with Lanthanari Sisters if they knew what was good for them.

  Getting off the train at the first stop past the wall, Thea and Sienna walked sedately around the inner pathway of the park to their destination. A Sister did her best to never need to be in a hurry and getting to the chapter house had no particular urgency under the circumstances, even if Thea wished there was a reason for haste. The choice of the gravel path through the greenery kept them away from the early-morning throng of people who were in a hurry to get to their jobs. The only other people in the park were those taking exercise, usually runners who gave the two women a wide berth as they went past.

  Thea always enjoyed the times when she got to play at being a Sister. She was actually an honorary member and had the right to wear the red-jewelled chain. Sienna was a real Sister Advisor, though her status was a little complicated, but Thea had been told that she embodied the personal confidence, strength, and capacity for the subjugation of the will the Sisters strove to achieve as well as any trained Sister. Thea was not entirely sure she agreed, but she understood how someone might perceive her that way, and the ability to officially disguise herself as a Sister was useful; it was one of the few times she would go without her own, blue-stoned necklace since a Sister wore no other adornments than the chain.

  For an organisation with such a broadly known reputation, for good or bad, as the Sisterhood, the chapter house on Giltanish Prime was very understated. It was a two-storey house constructed of the same white-painted concrete as all the others around it and there
was no sign to indicate what it was until you actually got to the door and found a small plaque mounted beside it which announced ‘Giltanish Prime Chapter of the Lanthanari Sisterhood. Resident Teaching Sister: Mirganna Chalford.’

  ‘Know her?’ Thea asked.

  Sienna shook her head. ‘Not one I’ve met. There are over a quarter of a million Sisters, Thea.’

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Hmm.’ There was a comms unit mounted above the plaque and Sienna pressed the button on it. ‘Sisters Sienna and Thea seeking the counsel of Sister Mirganna.’

  There was no answer, but a few seconds later there was the sound of sandals hitting the floor of the hall inside at an alarming rate, followed by a pause, and then the door opened sedately to reveal a pretty brunette with a narrow frame wearing a pale-blue dress and a chain ending in a white jewel. ‘Sisters, it’s an honour to have you visit our humble chapter house. I’m–’

  ‘Sister Mirganna, perhaps?’ Sienna said, indicating the white gem.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ There was a slight pause before Mirganna added, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in?’

  ‘That would be useful. We’ve need of some information on one of the local citizens.’

  ‘I’ll provide what I can, of course. Please sign the book.’

  The interior of the house, at least the hall they entered, was tastefully decorated in pastel shades, primarily of blue with some darker colours. The furniture was white and fairly archaic, perhaps some design from Earth with decorative schemes of the past. Beside the door was one such piece of furniture, a low table with a visitors’ book and a pen. Thea signed it first, using the surname she only ever used when signing the Sisterhood’s books: her real surname, the one she had chosen to drop since the death of her world. Sienna signed second, pausing briefly before signing her own family name. She rarely used it either, though the reasons were more complicated, and apparent when Mirganna glanced at the book.

  The Sister’s eyes widened and she turned her head to look at Sienna with a combination of fear, adoration, and shock. ‘You– You’re–’

  ‘Yes,’ Sienna said, ‘and that’s the last we’ll say about it. Can we go somewhere private? We have matters to discuss.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, of course, Sister Sienna. Forgive me, but I did not realise you were–’ Sienna raised an eyebrow and Mirganna swallowed what she had been about to say. ‘This way, we’ll go to my private rooms.’

  Every time, Thea thought into Sienna’s mind.

  Price of fame, Sienna replied with a distinct grumble in her thought. What I wouldn’t do to erase their memories…

  ~~~

  Mirganna’s private rooms were at the top of the house, at the front. The decoration was tastefully yellow, summery, and there were large windows which let in plenty of light. There was also a privacy-screening system which was guaranteed to keep anyone outside from hearing or seeing anything happening inside; Sisters sometimes entertained very important people who preferred that their activities remained private. There was a saying among the Sisterhood: what happens in the chapter house, stays in the chapter house. Which, of course, was why Thea and Sienna had gone there to find out what had happened there.

  A novice, dressed in white with a black gem on her chain, served coffee to the three senior Sisters before retiring without comment and leaving them to their discussions.

  ‘Do try the coffee,’ Mirganna insisted. ‘It’s a blend Ishara produce on Peladish and it’s one thing they’ve got right.’

  Considering the hour, early whether you viewed it on ship-time or local, Thea had planned to try the coffee. ‘Thank you, I will. Compliments on your novice. Excellent posture and demeanour. How many are there here?’

  Mirganna smiled. ‘Thank you. Nirayla is my best student in years, actually. She’ll be made a full Sister this year. There are currently three novices, but I also have four young people here as students and one of them is leaning toward the Sisterhood, if her parents don’t ship her off-world to get her away when they hear about it.’

  ‘You’ve many Sisters?’

  ‘In the chapter house? No, only two besides myself. I’m here to assist another thirteen Sisters and Senior Sisters in placements around the planet, however.’

  ‘Anyone in the Monteagle estate?’

  Mirganna’s eyebrows rose. ‘You’re interested in them? No, Xaviran lost his wife about twenty standard years ago and has never accepted anyone else into his life in that way. When he has need of companionship, he comes here or, on special occasions, requests that we send a Sister out to the island, so I do have some knowledge of the island and the family.’

  ‘What about Garaka?’

  ‘He’s a strange one. His reputation is worse than his father’s was, as far as ruthlessness and general unpleasantness is concerned, but I’ve never heard a single complaint from anyone about him socially. He’s very respectful of women. We’ve attempted to place a couple of Sisters with him, primarily because of the status the Kraggans enjoy with Ishara, but he seems to enjoy the… notoriety of never being tied down to a single woman. I believe he has a favourite professional in Portishead on Teladish Prime, and a girl in Eagle’s Head who visits with him when he’s there.’

  ‘Probably not for a while,’ Sienna commented. ‘So, the island they own is primarily Xaviran’s home?’

  ‘Primarily. Garaka goes there when he needs a break from running things. It’s got excellent security and he can take it easy there. They have their own houses on opposite sides of the island, but they do get along well.’

  Thea smiled. ‘What kind of security are we talking about, Mirganna?’

  Mirganna returned the smile. ‘We’ve been compiling a list, along with a schematic map. I’ll arrange for a copy you can study.’

  ‘Ah, Sister Mirganna, I believe we’re going to get along just famously.’

  Sword of Zanar, Giltanish Prime Spaceport.

  ‘So,’ Jinny said, her eyes on the data on her tablet, ‘we’ve got high-end passive sensors dotted all over the island, automated turrets covering the jetty and the private landing pad… No indication of what the turrets are mounting, but I’d guess at miniguns of some kind. And there are turrets on the buildings, which are mounting miniguns, and a full-squad barracks of “bodyguards.” Sounds like fun.’ Her tone suggested that she really did think it would be fun to storm the place.

  Thea was less certain. ‘Fun, perhaps, but success would not be guaranteed and we’re no use to Kaya if we’re dead. I can’t screen myself from automated turrets and your luck is likely to run out if several thousand rounds a second are coming in your direction.’

  Jinny pouted. ‘They don’t have anything really heavy we need to worry about.’

  ‘Uh, pardon my interruption, but they might have.’ Jinny, along with Thea and Sienna, turned to look at Nirayla. Mirganna had insisted on sending the novice to see to it that the two Sister Advisors were properly looked after on their visit to Giltanish Prime, and Nirayla was currently engaged in bringing coffee to the table. She looked properly apologetic to be making any form of interjection, but she equally obviously seemed to feel she should make it.

  ‘Go on, Nirayla,’ Thea said.

  ‘Obviously, I haven’t seen it. Novices aren’t sent out to a client’s home, so I couldn’t have. However, Sister Patrisa told us that Padre Monteagle likes showing off the armour he used to use when he was on active service. She said it was a big suit, almost like a robot with its head taken off, and it had a separate helmet which also looked heavy. Neither of us knows much about military technology, but it looked big, heavily armoured, and dangerous. A-and we know it works because he’s very proud of it and says it’s still as good as the day he first bought it.’

  Jinny pursed her lips and frowned. ‘I’m guessing at a warframe. Probably a command model. That’s going to need some specialist weaponry if he brings it into play.’

  ‘Thank you for the information, Nirayla,’ Thea said. Then she smirked at Jinny. �
��And you wondered why we needed a “serving wench.”’

  ‘Well, I was right! We don’t need a serving wench, but I’ll accept that someone with more local knowledge isn’t a bad thing. Still… Sit down, Nirayla. You’re making me feel uncomfortable hovering over us like that.’

  Nirayla blushed profusely, but she settled onto the sofa beside Jinny; she still seemed a little abashed at being in the presence of two women wearing the red gem on their chains.

  ‘It would seem,’ Sienna said, ‘that we need a means of getting onto the island without drawing excessive attention to ourselves.’

  ‘She’s going to say something about subtlety real soon now,’ Jinny said.

  ‘I suppose you’d like to come in riding on the back of a missile and screaming at the top of your lungs?’

  Jinny pursed her lips thoughtfully again, but this time she shook her head. ‘No, not enough pizzazz. I mean, we’d never have time to fit the sound system to the missile.’

  ‘Sound system?’ Nirayla asked.

  ‘For the music! Gotta have something loud and heavy playing for something like that. Otherwise I’d just be some girl riding a missile.’

  ‘Oh. Uh, of course.’

  Thea grinned. ‘You get used to Jinny eventually, Nirayla.’

  ‘Or she drives you to distraction and you jump out of an airlock,’ Sienna added.

  ‘There was never any proof that was my fault,’ Jinny snapped. ‘Anyway, we’ll need to infiltrate, locate, and retrieve Kaya, and then we’ll probably need a distraction to cover getting her out. She’s not exactly a trained combatant after an hour with a hammer gun.’

  ‘We can’t simply teleport out?’

  ‘We need the Oracle for that,’ Thea replied, ‘and if she enters orbit while that cruiser of theirs is up there, we’ll probably have to contend with an expanded military force on the island. They can have troops on the ground in… thirty minutes or less. Probably a lot faster. It’ll be a lot easier if we can get there without drawing a lot of attention.’