L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

Eltyn slowly sat up and glanced at Faelyna, who was sitting sideways on the pallet stretcher holding a beaker. She looked better than he felt, but he was very glad to see that. He offered a smile. "Quite an interrogation."

"Torture," snapped Rhyana from where she sat on a straight-backed composite chair against the wall. "Might be better than the riffies, but it?s still torture."

The medical tech stepped toward Eltyn, holding a beaker. "You might want more of this."

Eltyn accepted the beaker and took a swallow. The taste was bearable. That was all he could have said for it.

The door to the chamber opened. Chief Interrogator Bernyt stood there. "Now that you?re all awake with your identities verified, the Administrator would like to begin your debriefing by explaining a few things. This way."

Eltyn saw that Bernyt wasn?t the type for politeness or apologies, even when it would have smoothed things over. He took another swallow from the beaker, before handing it back to the med tech. "Thank you."

"You?re welcome." The man did smile.

Bernyt walked swiftly down the metal-walled corridor-not either of the ones through which they had entered Chiental-to the second side corridor and then to its end, where there was a blue door. She opened it.

On the other side was a conference room with a table long enough to hold five chairs on a side, all upholstered in pale gray.

"Take any chair you want, except for the one at the end." Bernyt stood behind the chair to the right of the one at the far end. "The Administrator will be here shortly." She sat down.

Eltyn took the chair across from the one claimed by the interrogator, and Faelyna settled in beside him. He did reach out under the table and took her hand for a moment, squeezing it gently.

While she didn?t look at him directly, there was a faint smile, and she squeezed his hand in return until he released her fingers.

The four sat in silence. A wall panel on one side of the room slid open, and a small muscular older man in a pale gray singlesuit without insignia stepped into the conference room.

Eltyn leaned forward as if to rise, not that he wanted to.

"Please stay seated. You?ve been through quite a bit," offered the newcomer.

Bernyt nodded to the speaker. "This is TechOversight Administrator Solano. He can explain why we had to put you through so much."

Solano slid gracefully into the seat at the end of the table. "I regret the depth and pain of the interrogation. I can assure you that the effects will pass…if not immediately." He offered a regretful smile. "We?ve had five deep RF plants attempt to infiltrate over the past few days. Fortunately, they made contact with outlying stations so that Chiental?s location was not compromised. Then when you three arrived, everyone feared the worst. That was why Senior Tech Bernyt?s efforts were necessary." He nodded toward the brown-eyed and unsmiling interrogator.

"You two are who you claim to be." Bernyt gestured to Eltyn and Faelyna. "Your records and responses and genetics check, and your brain prints match. The pain and nerve jolts were absolutely necessary, because any brain overlay distorts in a clearly identifiable way under nerve pain. A non-overlaid brain print doesn?t." She looked to Rhyana. "With you, we had a bit more trouble. We had to check consistency there."

The delivery woman glared at Bernyt, but said nothing.

Bernyt looked back at Solano as if to indicate that she had said all that was necessary.

"Now…" continued the Administrator, "I had to admit that your initial story…report…seemed more than fantastic. But we have been able to verify it from a number of unimpeachable sources-the chaos in Hururia alone suggests that you, or whatever entity aided you, managed quite a disruption. All the reports indicate that a brilliant rainbow arched from the south and touched the Ruche dome-which then exploded and collapsed the building beneath. Here we checked the outside scanners. They recorded a rainbow of light, magnitudes brighter than a natural rainbow, also arching from the south over the peaks and down onto the lodge. When we compared the data from our back-channel snoops, the spectra match what happened over Hururia just before the top of the Ruche dome exploded. Many of The Twenty appear to have been inside, but we won?t know who for a time. What we?d like to know is how you accomplished that."

"We didn?t." Faelyna?s voice was resigned. "I told your interrogator that."

"You both told the same fantastic story, and it matches the data, but it would be most useful if we could obtain access to that technology."

"I don?t think that?s likely," answered Eltyn. "The Bridge systems indicated that future access to the canal station-or the Bridge-would not be possible." The keeper hadn?t said anything like that, but she also had been very clear about their departure, even to their taking the dead riffie.

"You couldn?t learn anything about the systems?" asked the Administrator.

"We didn?t say that," Faelyna interjected. "I can give you the design and specifications for the equipment we used to control a few things in the station. I can even give you the practical and theoretical basis for the first-level control system. There are several difficulties, though. The control system is multilayered, and we never deciphered the other levels. The main problem is that we brought the systems on-line by what we did, and they took over, and locked us out. The Bridge systems even challenged us to try to unlock things. We couldn?t."

Eltyn nodded. Faelyna had thought out, better than he had, how to explain what had happened in a way that would be understandable to TechOversight. Whether it would be acceptable was another matter.

He added, "In the end, we didn?t have much choice. The systems did blow off the top of the Ruche dome. We hoped that, and the rainbow, would create a symbol that TechOversight could use as a rallying point to restore The Fifty…or to topple The Twenty and replace them with a system that is less tyrannical."

Faelyna didn?t even blink at his statement.

Solano looked to Bernyt.

The interrogator nodded.

"That?s emotionally rationalizable enough that it might work." Solano paused. "We?d need something that would generate that more frequently."

"A set of tuned lasers might do it," mused Eltyn. "You might be able to focus them on aerogels or water vapor. That?s not my expertise, but I think it would be feasible."

Solano nodded slowly. "It might at that." After another moment, he said, "Tell me more about these Bridge…systems…and how you discovered what you did."

Eltyn looked to Faelyna.

"You start," she said.

"We knew that the doors and windows opened to human touch," began Eltyn. "That?s something that?s been known for years…centuries. No one has ever known how the stone resists all energies or how or why the entry systems worked. We were assigned to see if we could determine that…" From there he went on to describe all their efforts through his failed attempts, finishing with, "…based on that, Faelyna decided on another approach. It was more successful."

He looked to her.

"The key seemed to be recognition and intent…" Faelyna continued.

More than an hour passed, between their reports and the Administrator?s questions, before Solano leaned back slightly in his chair. "Very interesting. We will likely have other questions, but that will do for now."

"What do you expect from us now?" Eltyn shifted his weight. Despite the padding in the chair, every movement still hurt, and probably would…possibly for weeks.

"From you three?" The TechOversight Administrator smiled warmly. "We could very much use your and Tech Faelyna?s technical skills in the laboratories and workshops here. We lost all too many of our higher-level techs."