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what she had helped contrive, so willingly and
high-heartedly, was this Dol’jharian betrayal.
    As the Bori’s speech went on, something about fealty, she
covertly studied the ring of silent viewers in the room.
    The new Aerenarch stood a little apart from the ranked
officers, a straight, slim figure whose reputation largely condemned him for
depravity, stupidity, and cowardice. Would he pretend outrage, while hiding
relief that he was not there with them? Or would he hide behind the
Telos-cursed Douloi wall of politeness, a wall that masked corruption and rot
at least as lethal as this Dol’jharian seated on the throne?
    A gasp from nearby brought Sedry’s attention back on the
holograph. “Bring the beasts first,” Eusabian said as black-clad soldiers
herded a Kelly trinity forward.
    Interest flashed through Sedry at hearing the enemy’s voice
for the first time, then shock radiated through her as Eusabian held up a ball
with something fluttering in it and said, “This is all that remains of your
Archon,” and dashed it to the floor.
    Tarkans with huge broadswords then strode forward and cut
the unmoving Kelly down.
    The viewers around Sedry reacted with twitches and gasps of
horror. She was aware of her own sorrow and rage, and under it all, fear.
    Everyone else in her cell had died after the Dol’jharians
swept in; she was the only one highly placed enough to win free, and she had
turned and fought with renewed passion against the conquerors.
    Nights she had worked the computers, removing every trace of
her plans, old and new, and every reference even to the dead. Haunted by how
they had been so successfully used . . . no . . .
that was not it. . . .
    In the holo, the horror went on as eight or ten men and
women died under the Dol’jharian swords, until the floor pooled with blackly
congealing blood.
    I am haunted by how
easily Dol’jhar identified us to trick us. Had our government known about us as
well?
    She had fought without regard to personal consequences, to
cauterize betrayal. It had taken rescue, removal, and rest to assess how her
position had altered: having subsequently received rank points and two
decorations for bravery, she’d gained the respect of her peers that had never
seemed possible while caught fast in administration in Highdwelling Shelani.
    In those first few heady weeks after rescue, it had seemed
as if the revolution had happened, after all: everyone, Downsider and
Highdweller, Douloi and Polloi, reveled in the freedom and exhilaration of
change. They had only the Dol’jharians to defeat, and government would begin
anew. And with the Aerenarch Semion and his chokehold on preferment gone,
anyone could be a part of it.
    Or so it had seemed.
    She sustained another shock. The tenth person she
recognized: it was old Zhach Stefapnas, Demarch of the community of
Highdwellings in which Sedry had grown up. She was not surprised to see him
shake badly, hesitate, then prostrate himself before the Dol’jharian monster.
    A voice that did not belong to him said, “I swear loyalty to
you, O Lord Eusabian. . . .”
    With a wince of distaste, Sedry blocked out the false
litany. She wondered if his horrible sister, Charite-Pius, probably now dancing
or drinking with those damned Douloi in the Ares pavilion, had any notion of
what had happened to her brother, and wished viciously that she could see this.
    After the Demarch, the rest of the Panarchists responded
with a similar cowardly refrain: Sedry knew that for a few of them it was
expedience, and a desire to fight against the supposed new masters, that
prompted them. Her interest wandered, probing at her own fears, like probing an
open wound.
    Her attention sharpened when the line reached the instantly
recognizable remainder of the Panarch’s Privy Council: all venerable with age
and experience, the tallest of them Padraic Carr, the High Admiral of the Fleet.
Bile clawed at her throat at the way he moved. What had they done to