Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [252]
Basil wasn’t just crumbling as a leader; he was dangerous. After seeing the drugged-senseless Prince Daniel and hearing Basil command Estarra to terminate her pregnancy, what choice had Peter had but to seek a means of fighting back? So why had the Chairman not reacted to the leaked rumors about the Queen’s pregnancy?
Together they entered the grotto where the dolphins played. The walls were made of coral and lava rock polished smooth, draped with ferns and lush vegetation. The water stood in deep pools connected by passages through which the dolphins could swim and frolic.
As soon as he stepped into the chamber, the smell struck Peter. Estarra screamed.
The stench of blood and violence hung thick in the humid air. Peter stared, and his feet seemed frozen to the ground. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak. Estarra pressed herself against his chest, sobbing.
In the calm, warm waters of their sanctuary, every dolphin had been butchered. The mangled gray and red carcasses floated in the crimson water like so much discarded meat.
Peter’s knees felt weak, and he clung to Estarra while she shuddered. Perhaps the Chairman had learned of his surreptitious conversation with Deputy Cain, or perhaps this was merely his blunt response to the pregnancy itself or the release of rumors about the baby.
He held Estarra, rocking her as much to comfort himself as her. Burgeoning anger turned his vision as red as the blood-murked water. His quiet, private clash with the Chairman had passed utterly beyond the bounds of schemes and skirmishes. The King and Queen could no longer remain safe by exercising restraint where the Chairman was concerned.
As his head pounded with the force of his fury, Peter realized that many more options were available to him than he had previously considered. And he would not hold himself back—even if it meant killing Basil Wenceslas.
Chapter 129—MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
While the recaptured warliners remained at Hyrillka to mop up the results of the rebellion, Adar Zan’nh took the rest of the cohort to Dzelluria, Alturas, and Shonor to break the mad Designate’s other strongholds.
With Rusa’h gone, the misled populace was easily shaken loose and restored to the thism that bound the Empire together. The rebels had been unwillingly subsumed by warped mental powers, and the Mage-Imperator chose not to impose dire punishments on them. The deluded kithmen would remember what they had done, and their guilt would be enough.
Jora’h could not stay in the Horizon Cluster. One terrible crisis had been dealt with, but another remained unresolved. He returned swiftly to the Prism Palace, hoping to receive word about Osira’h’s mission to the hydrogues.
When he reached Mijistra after his struggles on Dobro and Hyrillka, he learned only that the girl’s crystal bubble had descended deep into the clouds. Yazra’h had been forced to withdraw her warliners to avoid a confrontation with a group of EDF battleships, and Osira’h had never made another response. Days had passed now, and the hydrogues had not returned her.
Jora’h tried not to despair though he feared something had gone terribly wrong with her mission. It had been too long, much too long. He could sense Osira’h was still alive...or at least he hoped so. Her presence was so strange in the thism, he couldn’t be sure.
At the Palace, Jora’h received one bit of good news: The human skyminers on Qronha 3 had risked their own lives to rescue Ildiran miner kithmen, and the survivors had all been brought back to Ildira.
That hopeful note was a bright counterpoint to news of the tragedy suffered by the skeleton crew on Maratha Prime. For weeks, Jora’h had sensed dark events occurring there, but the splinter group was too small and the thism connection with his distant brother Avi’h too weak to provide a detailed picture. Only the human historian and Rememberer Vao’sh had survived, and the revered Ildiran storyteller was comatose. After hearing the story from