A Passage of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  “And when I went after you, it just seemed—I don’t know—the right thing to do, to bring him.”

  “You’ve bonded him!” Startling him twice was much more than she had expected. He looked, perhaps, more astonished than proud. “That’s quite remarkable, Lily.”

  “Thank you,” she stammered.

  “Remarkable,” he echoed. “And lucky for our side. Tell me how you got here.”

  She told him, as briefly as she could. Bach added a few comments in Paisley’s voice.

  Heredes considered it all. “Realistically,” he said at last, “I doubt there is anything we can do for the Ridani girl.” He raised one hand to forestall her objection. “For now, at least. Consolidate our own rather precarious position first. Then we’ll see. As for Jehane, well, I think we should release these three—ah—foreigners from him. I can’t imagine that a man of his ambitions is pleased to know that a government far, far more powerful than Central exists, especially if it is out of his range, but he is not out of theirs.” His gaze fixed for a space on something invisible to Lily, some thought or memory or speculation beyond what she knew. “‘It is customary,’” he began in a low voice, “‘for there to be modesty about him.’” He shook his head and looked at her. “Indeed. And if your name is erased from records, that leaves us a great advantage, doesn’t it?”

  Lily stared at him. “We’re not going back, are we?” she said, half-unable to believe it, “We’re not going back to Unruli.”

  “Going back?” He raised the box, fingered it. The seam appeared, exhaled as it opened. “I have some investigation to do. And you’ve come much too far to go back now, Lilyaka.”

  10 Queen of the Highroad

  THEY FOUND THE THREE foreigners just around the curve of the hall, in the second cell Heredes opened.

  All three stood abruptly. Anjahar and Maria looked bewildered, in Anjahar’s case succeeded by ill-masked fear.

  But Kyosti, after the energetic rise, merely adjusted his sleeves with exaggerated fastidiousness. “You do take your time, Gwyn,” he murmured. “These barbarians have failed to provide us with chairs.”

  “Hawk.” Heredes gazed at the blue-haired man with admiration. “You look just the same.”

  Kyosti’s expression changed swiftly, and one hand rose toward his hair. “But I’ve worked so hard—is it all for nothing?”

  “This is ridiculous,” snapped Maria. “What do you want with us?”

  “In all honesty,” said Heredes with a trace of asperity, “nothing. I thought I would release you.”

  “Into whose mercies?” Anjahar had backed into the farther corner. “Have you thrown in with this Jehane fellow? You’re well acquainted with his sort of methods.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Heredes. “You must know that my allegiance has never wavered. I had assumed you had some transport you could reach.”

  “I see,” replied Maria. “You expect us to take you along. Or will you simply commandeer us?”

  “I’m simply opening the door,” said Heredes. “After all, we still retain a certain loyalty of a kind to one another, having fought for so long on the same side.” He turned. “Come, Lily.”

  “Gwyn.” Heredes turned back. Kyosti had stepped forward. “I have this sudden uncontrollable urge to tag along with you.”

  Heredes smiled. “Hawk, I don’t need you at my back. I’ve got enough troubles.”

  Kyosti raised both hands, palms up and open. “No knife.” He smiled winningly.

  Heredes laughed.

  “Kyosti, are you out of your mind!” Anjahar’s face had the mottled flush of extreme agitation. “He’s a known terrorist. We’re here to arrest him.”

  “Anja.” Kyosti’s expression remained dispassionate, his voice languorous. Only his eyes glittered with suppressed vitality. “May I remind you that I am myself one of the same breed?”

  “But you recanted.” Maria glared still at Heredes, who to Lily’s eye appeared the mildest of them all.

  “Ah, well,” said Kyosti. “One grows bored of rehabilitation.”

  Maria reached out to grip his arm. “You wouldn’t consider it!” she cried.

  “I fear I would.” He disengaged her hand with deceptive gentleness. “And do.”

  “Lily,” said Heredes. “May I introduce our new companion, Kyosti Bitterleaf Hakoni.”

  Lily gave a slight nod.

  Kyosti swept her a flamboyant bow. “Charmed.”

  “Traitor,” muttered Anjahar.

  “Get out,” snapped Maria. “You can be assured this will go out on report as soon as we reach the ship.”

  “Do convey my respects to Rayonne,” Kyosti replied, unruffled. “Oh dear.” He appeared to have misgivings. “My wardrobe.”

  “Hawk,” said Heredes, motioning to Lily. “We’re leaving.”

  “Sacrifices must be made—” Lily heard Kyosti continue as she edged out into the corridor, where Bach hovered, on guard. As Heredes came out beside her, she leaned toward him.

  “Do you trust him?” she whispered.

  “Of course not,” said Heredes with all appearance of cheerfulness. “Now,” he continued, brisker, but still soft, waving her forward. “We have to get past two sets of guards. Then I got us berths on a merchanter, a bit of a dog-tag, I’m afraid, but it’ll get us to Central.”

  “Central!”

  “Then you’ll go off to Wingtuck, and I’ve got some research to do.”

  “And I, Gwyn?” Kyosti came up beside them. The blank hall curved away behind, the cell doorway already lost around the unbroken bend of grey.

  “You’ll have much to do to refurbish your wardrobe, I expect,” said Heredes, still soft.

  “Dear, dear,” murmured Kyosti, even softer. “And in such unpromising districts, as well.” With an expert flick of the wrist he caught up the end of one of his sleeves. Watching his hands as he toyed with the cloth, Lily saw that their manicured delicacy disguised strength and agility. With an abrupt wrench, he tore the fabric and, insinuating one hand within the folds of the fabric, brought out a short circular rod of black metal, one end swelled into a little nodule. A second flick, and it telescoped out smoothly into a meter-long stick. “I grow old, I grow old,” he sighed, positioning it now to act as a walking cane. “But sadly, trousers have gone out of fashion.”

  “First post,” said Heredes. “We can slip by these.”

  He halted and lifted the metal box. A door wafted open as lights winked on its panel. Kyosti, Lily, and Bach followed Heredes through into a large office. The sound of voices drifted in and they all crouched. Heredes moved forward from desk to desk, concealing his approach to the doorway on the far side. Lily motioned Kyosti to precede her. His smile, barely discernable in the gloom, mocked her distrust, but he went, the cane path finding before him. The slight warm stir of air at her feet heralded Bach’s sinking. As he came to rest on the floor, a small panel on his surface rolled back to reveal a miniature keyboard. Lily tapped a quick message to him before she crept forward after Kyosti. Behind her, air puffed noiselessly at her trouser legs as Bach followed her.

  Halfway across she froze in the shadow of a desk. Bach slid in under it. Three of Jehane’s guards entered the room through the door Heredes was headed for. After a cursory examination of the room, they went out a side doorway into a further complex of rooms. A shadow raised itself in front of the far door and, giving a sign with one hand, sank back into the shadows.

  Lily got to the door just as Kyosti arrived from a different direction. Heredes was keying into the com-panel next to the door. The guards’ voices neared, returning.

  “Take them out, Lily,” said Heredes in an undertone, not looking up from the panel.

  She loped toward the side door, one hand a breadth away from the wall for balance. Bach and Kyosti followed her; she waved them back. As the three guards entered the office, she planted a kick into the temple of the first one. He collapsed. A desk obstructed her, shielding the other two. She vaulted over it, swung out
from the edge, sweeping them both off balance, and pushed off into stance. One of the guards grabbed for his gun, the other for her radio—

  Lily threw a spinning back kick, knocking the female back into the desk before she could reach her radio. Spun back around to tackle the one with the gun. She caught his arms and they both went down, Lily on top. The guard pushed against her. She twisted his wrist and with a gasp he released the gun, but his momentum rolled him up and over her. A sharp impact smacked into the body above her, and the guard went limp. She shoved him off her, got to her feet. Kyosti stood beside her, cane in one hand, holding the female at arm’s length. With a quick snap, he struck the guard in the temple with the rod, then lowered her to the floor and removed the radio from her belt.

  “So sorry to intrude,” he murmured. “As you had them well in hand.” He glanced up. The far door had opened a crack; Heredes straightened from the panel. “But we are in a hurry.”

  “Thanks,” said Lily. She vaulted herself back over the desk. Kyosti walked around it, following her back.

  Heredes had eased the door open manually; he reconnoitered outside with a quick glance, motioned them through. They stood in an ordinary station corridor. The door slid shut behind them.

  “Hawk,” said Heredes suddenly, in the bright light getting an unadulterated view of his companion. “Haven’t you got anything less obvious?”

  Kyosti’s blue hair was not as flagrant as his clothing: a brilliant gold cloth, embroidered with silver and red thread on raised patterns, cut in a floor-sweeping robe with trailing, scalloped sleeves and a high pointed collar. A gem-studded belt caught it in at the waist and a heavy gold chain hung around his neck.

  “It is rather striking,” said Lily, trying not to smile.

  “You’re a hard man, Gwyn,” Kyosti muttered. But he unbuckled the belt and with surprising adroitness slipped the garment off over his head and, kneeling, dismantled and remantled it in rather the same manner as a person takes apart and puts together a puzzle. Lily could not help but examine him with interest.

  He wore now only a light shirt with no sleeves, and shorts. He was slender, but very well formed. His arms and legs, entirely revealed, had not the hard musculature of a well-honed athlete like herself or Heredes but something smoother and equally sensuous. He glanced up, straight at her, and offered her a lazily suggestive smile.

  The provocative intimacy of the gesture took her aback, at the same time as it captivated her. When she realized that she was returning his smile, and his interest, she blushed and looked away. To find Heredes watching her. She flushed deeper and fixed her attention on her boots until Kyosti stood up. He wore a dull gold tunic and trousers.

  “My vanity weeps,” he said, “but I persevere.”

  “Let’s go,” said Heredes with a touch of temper. “One more post, at the lock.”

  Heredes pulled them up just as the curve of the corridor brought the lock into view. Five white-uniformed soldiers, one a tattoo, who stood separate from the others, maintained the guard at the lock.

  “Jehane must not be in this section now,” said Lily under her breath.

  Heredes shrugged a question.

  “There’d be more guards.”

  He considered this. His face bore the same intent look as when he did kata: it must all be exact.

  “We’ve got no cover for ambush,” he said finally. “We need surprise. The composer will have to stay back, but come up fast.” Bach winked agreement. “Lily. Can you give me a prostitute—a station-hopper?”

  Lily made a horrible face. “Must I?”

  “We’ll let this be a lesson,” he said gently, “that sex can always be used as a weapon against those without discipline.” He looked at Kyosti. “And Hawk I have always imagined would do marvelously as a procurer. I’ll come in when I can.”

  “You flatter me,” said Kyosti, but his manner altered subtly. “Come, girl, a little more skin. What’s under the tunic?”

  Lily unbuckled her belt and took off the tunic, which Heredes appropriated. She wore only a thin undershirt; she was painfully aware of the swell of her breasts and the barest suggestion of nipples under the fabric, and most of all of Kyosti standing next to her.

  “Very good,” said Kyosti with much sincerity.

  “Careful,” said Heredes as they stepped forward, and Lily felt with sudden instinct that the command was not directed at her at all.

  The guards noticed them immediately.

  “A tad more sway to the hips,” murmured Kyosti provocatively as they advanced. “That’s better.”

  “This is humiliating,” hissed Lily. For an instant the guards seemed a trivial consideration compared to his compelling, and unnerving, presence.

  “You’re stunning when you’re angry,” he breathed. “Let us hope that when we’re out of this we can find a quiet room sans your watchful guardian. You seem very important to him.”

  “You’re impossible,” muttered Lily, flushing.

  “Thank you,” he said fervently, in a carrying voice. “Gentlemen!” He motioned Lily forward until she came to a halt a few paces from the nearest guard, who cautiously lowered his gun. “Thank you for entertaining such thoughts as you obviously are entertaining about my young protégée.”

  Five pair of eyes slid to examine Lily. Two more guns lowered.

  “Hemmed in as we are by all this security,” Kyosti waved a negligent hand toward them, “my young adept here has had little opportunity to improve her—ah—skills. And I’m sure you gentlemen know”—he favored each one with a penetrating gaze—“how important experience is to mastering a skill.” Another gun lowered. Two of the soldiers smiled.

  “How’d you get into this section?” asked the one with the unlowered gun.

  “My dear boy.” Kyosti’s gaze was withering. “Surely you don’t think the previous tenants were without their little pleasures?”

  The gun wavered.

  “He’s got a point, Gar,” said one of the smilers. “They must of got caught back here. And there’s a room just off to the right here.”

  “Ah!” Kyosti moved forward, ignoring the raised gun, and clapped the speaker on the shoulder. “Such enterprise should not go unrewarded. Will you take the young lady aside?”

  “How much?” said the lad.

  “She’ll arrange the transaction,” Kyosti said generously. “It depends on your—ah—needs.”

  Lily grabbed the young fellow’s wrist and tugged him behind her. “Come on,” she said.

  “Be a good girl, darling,” said Kyosti to her stiff back.

  “Hoo, ain’t she eager,” said one of the guards.

  Gar’s gun lowered slightly. Lily and the lad disappeared past a door. Kyosti began regaling the four left with an obscene story. Gar’s gun lowered completely. Just as Kyosti finished, Lily reappeared alone.

  “Sure,” said the tattoo. “That were fast.”

  “Where is he?” demanded Gar.

  “Putting his clothes on.” Lily’s voice had a clipped tone that might have been mistaken for breathlessness. “You want to be next.” She headed for Gar.

  Kyosti, quick to read the signs, took an unobtrusive step back into the midst of the guards. Even to a man of his experience, Lily betrayed not the slightest signal of the kick that took Gar in the groin. As Gar doubled over, Kyosti laid the meat of his cane with a crack along the back of the tattoo’s neck. Lily was past him; she thrust an open palm out; the two soldiers focused on it, beginning to lift their weapons, and she whipped a crescent kick into the face of one, spun off it into a second to the other’s ribs. They both staggered back. She dropped one with a punch.

  But the tattoo had not gone down and was in fact struggling, gun still in one hand. Gar began to unbend. Lily was grabbed from behind by the fifth guard.

  Heredes arrived. He dealt with Gar and the tattoo summarily, and he and Kyosti moved to find the last guard crumbling at Lily’s feet, victim of a firmly planted elbow. Bach was coding into the lock panel; it b
linked green and opened.

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” said Heredes as the door shut behind them. He handed over her tunic, which she quickly drew on and buckled. “But it seemed most expedient.”

  Kyosti laughed.

  Lily felt a wave of anger rise in her, at his levity, but she quickly dissipated it by rebuckling her belt and ignoring him. “You were right,” she said pointedly to Heredes, “about that lesson.”

  The lock opened.

  “Walk quickly,” said Heredes as they with one step cleared the lock, Bach above them. “Berth Bossuet twelve eighteen.”

  “Bossuet.” Kyosti chuckled, coughed, and chuckled again, but at a sharp glance from Heredes he subsided.

  They split up, walking through several business sections, shops, a scattering of people who seemed, despite the insurrection and the occasional pair of Jehanist soldiers, to be going about their regular pursuits. Bach sank to Lily’s waist level, where he was less conspicuous. A troop of white-uniformed soldiers rushed past, in the opposite direction.

  At the next lock, two soldiers were questioning people. Bach sank to the floor and, as they came up to the crowd, rolled gently in among the mass of feet. Someone was arguing with the guards. Lily recognized him suddenly as Kyosti. He had found a hood somewhere to cover that hair. As she slid past into the lock, Bach a soft gleam at her feet, Kyosti shouted. The soldiers looked up and Kyosti slid in past the closing lock door.

  The lock opened into a docking sector. Lasalle. Dupin. Another lock. Madeline sector. Lafourcade. Another, and at last, Bossuet.

  The alarm sounded, a deep hooting. Another detachment of soldiers pounded past. People shrank to the sides of the corridor. Traffic slowed and stopped. Behind, shouts rang out at the lock. Lily strolled, quick, but not alone—a few other individuals had business more pressing than a general alert. She saw berth 1218, Heredes standing before it talking with a dark woman in mercenary’s garb. Someone came up behind her, too close.

  “A little haste, perhaps,” Kyosti murmured in her ear.

  Lily hurried forward just fast enough to put distance between them; as she arrived at the berth, the mercenary smiled at her with obvious sympathy. The berth lock was open; Lily went in without breaking stride, aware of the noise of confusion and shouting closing in behind them.