A Passage of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  “I’ll drop you,” began Bolyai in a low voice. “Name your system. You deserve that much at least, getting us out of Arcadia system. But all of you have to go. I won’t have trouble on the Virtue.”

  “All right,” agreed Lily. Bolyai let out a held breath, as if her acquiescence came as a surprise to him. “Harsh.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We want to go to Harsh.”

  He turned several new shades of pale. “Void, woman, that planet is a prison.”

  “I know.”

  “There are several fine Stations where a fugitive can find employment, safety, money—”

  “Harsh,” she repeated.

  He sighed, but he did not protest further. “Very well. Harsh it is.” He motioned to the sta. “Start running a route. As short as possible.”

  The sta’s fingers raced over the keypad, setting a course.

  “Harsh? Have you lost your tanks, Lily-hae?” Jenny sat down on the bunk in Lily’s cabin, where they had retreated from Bolyai’s resentment and anger.

  “I’m sorry.” Lily stood by the door, her attention on Jenny, but her glance resting at intervals on Kyosti, who reclined on what little floor space was left. Above, on the top bunk, the sphere that was Bach drifted a finger’s breadth above the mattress. “I’m sorry,” Lily repeated. “I never meant to get you and Lia and Gregori thrown off.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Bolyai’s a coward. I’m amazed he let a tattoo pilot the Virtue, but we were in such a rush to get out of Central—and no one on first shift had Tobias’s idiotic objections—that he had to use what he had. Now that the shock’s worn off, he’ll take it out on whoever’s easiest to blame. When our last pilot tried to fly on ambergloss and almost ran us into the next life, he tossed off our second engineer with her, since they were bunkmates. He looks for someone else to blame for his own nerves. We’ll be all right.”

  “Come with us,” Lily offered.

  “To Harsh? Into the hands of Central’s troops, who would gladly arrest us, lock Gregori and I away in the mines, and send Lia back to her family? I think not.”

  Bach, Lily whistled. Bach rose, lights flashing, and drifted down to hover beside his mistress. Plug into the screen.

  Jenny raised her eyebrows, puzzled, but said nothing.

  Bach began to sing in fine four-part counterpoint. Figures came up on screen and shifted to new figures as he paged through his memory.

  “Master Heredes is dead, Jenny.” Lily’s voice came out flat, suppressing her grief. “Murdered, by Central. That’s why we’re going to join Jehane.”

  “Jehane! I never took you for a revolutionary.”

  Lily hesitated. “I’m not sure I am one. But Central will pay, Jenny. They’re the ones who murdered Heredes. And my friend Robbie—you might know him as Pero—made me. Understand that Central is corrupt. They won’t give up their power voluntarily. I think Jehane’s revolution is the best chance, maybe the only one, that Reft space has to have a fair government.”

  Kyosti, unmoving on the floor, regarded Lily with no obvious expression.

  “I can accept that.” Jenny ran a finger over the tight nap of her hair. “But why Harsh?”

  “Because according to information Heredes sent to me—to Robbie, really—” Lily shook her head. “It’s a long story. But Jehane is moving on Harsh. I fully expect that when we reach there, Jehane’s troops will be in control.”

  “Why would Jehane want Harsh? One blazing inferno of a moon orbiting a methane hell of a planet, producing ore and fuel and tell-chips with what amounts to slave labor working under killing conditions. Or at least that’s what you hear over the nets.”

  “What do you think he wants? He wants those prisoners. They have every reason to hate Central. They’ll join Jehane without a second glance.”

  “Fine army,” muttered Jenny. “I’ll remember not to turn my back on any of them.”

  “Does that mean you’ll come with us?”

  Jenny laughed. “I’m no revolutionary. But why do you want me, Lily-hae? Aliasing and Gregori are more burden than asset, much as I love them.”

  “There must be something Lia can do.”

  Jenny considered this seriously. “She can cook.”

  “There you are. Two reasons, Jenny. First, I have a debt to pay—a girl who got indentured to Harsh because of me. I intend to find her. And second, I’ll join Jehane. You know that I met him once. It’s not so much that I didn’t trust him, but that he—scared me.”

  “Scared you?”

  Lily could only shake her head. “I’m not sure what I mean. Maybe I don’t trust my own reaction to him. He’s very—powerful. In any case, when I join him, I want some negotiating power to set my own assignment. And the more people I have with me who have skills he can use, the more leverage I’ll have. You’re a mercenary—and trained as an Immortal, no less. Pinto’s a pilot—and one of the best, tattoo or not. Kyosti’s a doctor. Lia can cook. And Bach—”

  Bach sang three notes and a three-dimensional star grid, interlocked by a complex interweaving of lines, came up on the screen.

  “The most recent information out of Central’s military intelligence computers. Jehane’s movements. Interpreted by Heredes and by Bach, they suggest that he is moving to take Harsh. And I have barely scratched the surface of what Bach has accessed from Central’s computer-net. I have Bach, Jenny. Therefore, Jehane wants me. That’s what I’ll negotiate with.”

  Kyosti’s eyes had not wavered from Lily’s face. His lips arced into the barest of smiles.

  Jenny grinned and stood up. She examined Kyosti a moment, taking in the studied nonchalance of his posture that revealed instead the complete focus of his attention. Lily waited, expectant, but not tense with it—in control, rather, as if the precise situation of her body illuminated the relationship between these three people and one robot in the room.

  “Lily-hae Ransome.” Jenny shook her head, started again. “You’ve changed.”

  “It’s Heredes now. Lilyaka Ash Heredes.”

  “That must be it.” Jenny gave her a mock salute. “I’ll go pack our bags.”

  As the door closed behind the mercenary, Bach began to -sing

  Schaut hin, dort liegt im finstern Stall,

  Des Herrschaft gehet überall!

  Da Speise vormals sucht ein Rind,

  Da ruhet itzt der Jungfrau’n Kind.

  Behold here: there in a dark stable lies

  the One who has dominion over all.

  Where, before, an ox sought food,

  there now rests the Virgin’s Child.

  2 Old Friends

  THEY SWUNG INTO ORBIT far from the regularly trafficked routes into Harsh Station. An eerie silence had deadened the usual communications channels: what scraps of talk the Virtue caught on comm bore the stamp of patchworked equipment and illicit, brief messages planetside leaking out through Harsh’s killing atmosphere. Other vessels littered the in-system lanes, but whether they were silent by choice, or through destruction, it proved impossible to tell, their orbits being in any case too distant for visual scanning.

  The Virtue drifted at low power for an entire revolution of the planet, a ghost on the fringe of Station’s net, and listened. At last Captain Bolyai gathered up his courage, egged on by his rapidly deteriorating nerves, and decided to shuttle Lily and her people down to the surface and leave them there.

  It was a quiet group that boarded the small shuttle. Jenny came first, in full rig, weapons strapped about her and a pack on her back that contained everything she possessed. She held with one hand the small hand of her son, Gregori, who carried a small replica of her pack; behind them followed the slight figure of Aliasing, Jenny’s companion, lover, and fellow fugitive. Lia wore clothing a little too rich for the Virtue’s faded hull, and carried not a backpack, but a finely brocaded bag of some organic fiber, an obvious relic of wealth in a past existence. Her dark hair framed her piquant face as mists frame a waterfall.

  Pi
nto already sat at the controls of the shuttle, speaking in a low voice to the bridge several decks away. The geometric pattern of tattoos that covered his face shifted color as the lock light blinked on and off with each entry. He turned at the sound of Aliasing’s soft voice, and her gaze caught his, and they both smiled: an expression that illuminated each face in turn, for a moment seeming to brighten the dim interior of the shuttle.

  After Aliasing, Kyosti entered, then Bach, and last, sealing the hatch, came Lily. She went forward to sit beside Pinto, flipping on the comm-station as the engines began to rumble to life beneath them.

  “Jenny,” she said over her shoulder, “which is the broadband link?”

  “Two interlinked circles—”

  “Oh, I see. And the focused beam is the arrow, and I can patch to incoming with the—yes, I see.”

  “What’s going to happen to the shuttle once we’re down?” asked Aliasing.

  Jenny shook her head. “Bolyai is cutting his losses and running as soon as we detach.”

  “But—” Aliasing began to speak, lost impulse to a quaver in her voice, and began again. “But what if the planet’s abandoned?”

  “We know it isn’t abandoned,” said Lily. “We’ve got some radio traffic—but Station is down. I don’t know what’s going on down there, or at Harsh Station, for that matter. We’ll have to play it as it goes.”

  This silenced Aliasing. Kyosti finished stowing their packs and containers and belted himself in at the back.

  “Detach sequence.” Pinto’s voice was cool, but his hands trembled slightly at the controls.

  The shuttle gave a roll, yawed to one side, and then they hit free weight for the drift away from the Virtue. Its colorless bulk receded in the single viewport, and Pinto brought the engines to thrust and pointed the ship into its descent.

  The ride through the upper atmosphere was rough. Lily monitored radio traffic, but kept broadcast silence. Abruptly they hit calm like a sheet of stillness and banked into a smoother descent. Pinto kept up a quiet murmur of altitude checks and Lily began to attempt to get a fix on Harsh Main Block, the center of Harsh’s tight mesh of surveillance and prison administration.

  Through static and the whirring noise of the shuttle’s venting fans voices filtered, scraps of communications passing along the planet’s surface.

  “—sealed tunnel thirty-six from further incursions, but left five cells without—”

  “—regroup to point Alpha. Their resistance may prove too difficult to—”

  “We have complete control of Portmaster’s functions. I repeat. Portmaster’s is now under Jehanist control. Supply and transport ships may now commence landing sequence. Acknowledge.”

  Lily toggled the “static” switch. At the back of her mind nagged some reference, forgotten but familiar.

  “Accepted. This is Vanov, on the Boukephalos. We will be sending an initial track of two supply boats and three transports to land at point two rev intervals. Acknowledge.”

  “Accepted. Block is not equipped to deal with landings at higher than point four frequency. Acknowledge.”

  “Accepted. Will alter the schedule. First boat in close orbit. Will enter Block instrument range in point three.”

  “Accepted. And out.”

  “Finch.” Lily sat frozen in astonishment, static crackling from the speaker at her fingertips, as the voice of the Main Block’s comm suddenly fell into place in her memory. “Finch!”

  Pinto glanced at her, curious, but returned his attention to the controls.

  “Who’s Finch?” asked Jenny, alert to the tone in Lily’s voice.

  “How the Void did he get here?” Lily asked of no one.

  In the back of the shuttle, Kyosti had been resting, eyes closed, relaxed, but now his posture changed abruptly. He sat up, not stiff, but poised on some brink, and opened his eyes to examine with tight intensity Lily’s profile as she reached for a new control on her banks. She opened her stations for broadcast.

  “Lily,” began Jenny, “are you sure—”

  “Main Block. Main Block, acknowledge.”

  “This is Main Block. Identify yourself. All unidentified ships will be considered hostile. We are under Jehanish authority. Acknowledge.”

  “Finch.”

  “Who is—Lily!”

  “How did you—”

  “How did you—”

  There was a slight delay as their signals bounced and returned off each other, and a second as they each waited for the other to speak. At last Lily spoke.

  “Where can we land?”

  A pause.

  “Field Blue. There’ll be tight security measures. Troops. But I’ll meet you, Lily. I’ll leave now. And out.”

  A different voice guided Pinto down to the flat plain where a series of low domes rose like slowly emerging boils from the ground. He landed the shuttle smoothly on a strip lined by blue lights and taxied in to the nearby blue-lit dome. Around them, the air sat free of wind but permeated by a constant downward sifting of some heavy white element, drifting constantly to meld into the sandy surface of the planet. The shuttle’s wheels barely stirred this dust, but its falling made a soft drumming noise on the metal above them.

  The sound of the lock change rang through the hull, and then Pinto rolled back the layer of protective sheeting and they could see the huge cargo hold they now entered.

  The harsh gleam of fluorescent tubing cast unpleasant shadows onto the cluster of white-uniformed troops that had assembled by the loading dock. All of them had guns out.

  Pinto coasted into the berth and turned to Lily. “Should I open the hatch?”

  “Yes.” She unstrapped herself. “I’ll go out first. Find Finch, and explain.”

  “Who are they?” asked Aliasing as Lily passed her.

  “Jehane’s people. Bach, see if you can get any fix from communications on where Jehane himself might be. But do it surreptitiously.”

  Bach whistled his assent. Aliasing settled back into her chair, looking more thoughtful than apprehensive.

  As Lily waited at the lock, Kyosti rose decisively to stand directly behind her. Jenny, alert as any trained mercenary must be, unbelted quickly and followed him out through the lock, loosening a strap on one of her guns as she went.

  Lily descended the hatch stairs as the doors slowly lowered before her. With a sense almost of disorientation, she saw Finch standing, out alone in front of Jehane’s troops, in what might have been the same posture that she had last seen him in, watching as she left Unruli.

  The hatch rang on metal as it hit the floor of the hold, and she and Finch started forward together. He now had a slight grin on his face, bemusement mixed with real happiness, but tempered by some sorrow behind it all.

  “Lily!” He put out his hands as he neared her. Without thinking she stretched hers out as well, so that their hands were closing, almost touching now—

  She did not reach him.

  The attack took her so completely by surprise, with half her attention on Finch and the other half, wary by experience, on the white-uniformed soldiers, that Kyosti was already on top of Finch, choking him with the kind of quiet conviction that is most dangerous, before Lily registered the fact that he had broken past her and thrown himself on her old friend.

  For an instant, the only sounds were of Finch’s struggling, growing weaker. Kyosti said not a word.

  The soldiers had frozen in much the same disbelief as Lily had, their mirror opposite. Kyosti’s hands, long fingered and very pale, fitted neatly about the dark turn of Finch’s neck. Finch’s black hair was longer than it had been; its black ends brushed Kyosti’s taut wrists.

  Lily’s knees gave out, and she threw herself forward. There was a hissing bolt. She sensed in her peripheral vision that Jenny had stepped to one side and shot.

  Kyosti shuddered, stiffened, and fell on top of Finch.

  The soldiers broke forward in a wave.

  Eyes wide with panic, Finch threw Kyosti’s body off him and s
crambled gasping away to one side. As Lily rushed up to him, he leapt up to his feet and jerked away from her, leaving her caught in between the two men.

  She stopped, and turned abruptly around to kneel by Kyosti. White uniforms surrounded them, guns trained on them, and Jenny was shoved through the crowd to stand with arms raised high, away from her weapons, beside Lily’s kneeling form.

  “Just remember,” said Jenny laconically. “I’m the one who shot him. Just stun, Lily-hae.”

  Lily put her hand on Kyosti’s neck and felt his pulse, then rose slowly, hearing the question implicit in Jenny’s tone. A few of the soldiers had lowered their guns, relaxing. Lily quickly picked out the officer.

  “Let me speak with you and Finch,” she said.

  The officer did not take his eyes off of Kyosti’s prostrate form. “He’ll have to go in custody. What is he? A maniac?”

  Behind, Lily could hear Finch’s gasping chokes as he fought to regain his breathing. “I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly cold with a memory of Kyosti breaking a chair that no one of human strength should have been able to break. “But I do ask that you leave Jenny”—she nodded toward the dark mercenary—“with him.”

  “Agreed. Who else do you have in the shuttle?”

  “Three more people and a ’bot. We’re here to join Jehane.”

  “Right.” The officer examined her skeptically and motioned to his soldiers. “Alsayid’s ten take control of the ship—full custody of the vessel and contents and crew until I personally give other orders. Inonu, your ten to escort these two to a holding cell. Strict security. You four accompany me, and the rest—stay with Alsayid.” With his pistol, he waved Lily forward. “We’ll go to the command center, you and I and comrade Caenna.”

  Lily turned to see Finch’s gaze fixed on her with mournful accusation. He rubbed his throat with his left hand.

  “You’ll understand that I take an escort with us,” added the officer.

  “Yes,” agreed Lily. “I understand.” She studied Kyosti a moment more, glanced at Jenny, at the shuttle, and then followed the officer. Finch, walking alongside, kept two soldiers between him and her the entire way to the command center.