The Beauty of Our Weapons

by Jilly Paddock

  “Who is it?” I called brightly, finishing the knot.

  If my caller replied, I didn’t catch it, and when I opened the door Garnet Treebone stood there, a weary figure in a silk paisley robe and a toning plum velvet shawl, with her silvery hair loose about her shoulders. Behind her rosy spectacles she was as pale as mist, looking so frail and frightened that my heart went out to her.

  “What’s the matter?” I leapt to the wrong guess, taking a cue from her inner terror. “Is Miss Amethyst ill?”

  “No, Amy’s fine.” The hand that clutched the shawl at her neck was shaking. “Might I come in?”

  “Please do.” I let her step past me. “What is it? Are you unwell?”

  “Oh, sweet child! Such compassion!” A tear teetered in the corner of her left eye. “No, I’m well enough.”

  That isn’t entirely true. Zenni judged. She looks exhausted.

  Garnet made a slow, distracted circle of the room, stroking the sleek wood of the furniture as if it was a living thing, tweaking a cushion straight here and shifting a flower or two in the vase there. She sighed, turned back to face me and looked as if she might be about to burst into tears. “My dear Miss McVeigh, I don’t know how to say this to you—”

  Belatedly I remembered that I was meant to be Caron. “Have they found Chandre? Oh, please don’t tell me she’s hurt!”

  “This doesn’t concern the lost woman or the child,” Garnet said slowly, as if instructing an idiot. “It concerns you, Miss McVeigh. You are in terrible, terrible danger!”

  “Me? In danger?” I goggled at the woman, overplaying the loopy teenager. “Hey, I mean, let’s sit down and talk about this thing, okay?”

  Garnet drifted over to the sofa and sank gently into its cushions, a vague, aimless quality to her movements, like a sleepwalker. “I don’t as a rule dream true. Although some of my sisters keep diaries of their nocturnal journeys, I was never that disciplined. Last night, however, I was so restless... Perhaps I was worried for Amy and for that poor, lost babe, perhaps I was concerned with the nonsense that malefic sprite had spouted... Oh, my child, when I did fall asleep I had such a disturbing vision!”

  “What did you see?” I didn’t need to ask, it was plain enough in her unguarded mind. She’d seen Caron dead. I shared her image of myself in the green calico dress I’d worn at dinner yesterday, fallen at the foot of a stone wall, limp and crumpled like a broken doll. Garnet saw her vision as nothing less than the truth, believing that it would come to pass before sunset today, and that was the core of her intense fear.

  Zenni whistled softly. If her precognition is as accurate as yours—

  If it were, wouldn’t mine be in volcanic mode by now? I reached down into myself, beyond logic and mundane thought, into the still, quiet depths where my intuition slumbered, finding a frisson of anxiety and nothing more. Zilch! Baseline mission nerves, no worse than usual.

  “My dear child, you are in grave peril!” Garnet took my hand and squeezed it, gazing earnestly up at me over the rims of her strawberry glasses. “Oh, you must be so careful today, so very careful!”

  “Don’t, Miss Treebone—you’re really scaring me!” That was scant exaggeration, as the bruise-purple miasma of the psychic’s terror had raised the hairs on my neck. “Whatever’s going to happen?”

  “Dreams aren’t like that, Caron, not even true dreams. They speak in riddles and symbols. You can’t watch them as you would a film—it’s more akin to peering at things in a tarnished mirror.” She lied well, but the picture in her mind took on more detail; a low roof, a giant, nightmarish shadow to one side of me and a woman’s high-pitched laugh. “Take my advice and go to the Tambou authorities. Tell them that you’re afraid for your life and they must offer you protection—”

  “Are you serious? Protection from what—your bad dream?” I shook my head, dismissing the threat as Caron surely would. “What do I say when they ask what it is I’m frightened of, a bogeyman from inside a fortune-teller’s head?”

  “Listen to me!” Garnet said sharply. “This whole affair is complicated by deceit and misdirection, just as if it were a cruel game. The danger is directed at you—not Madame Marteen nor the child—but you, Caron, and it is a very real danger, believe me. If you aren’t willing to go to the local police then stay close to your friend Lyall today, stay around people. Don’t be alone, and don’t take any risks or chances.”

  “Or else what?”

  She met my gaze with a level crimson stare. “Or else you’ll be hurt, or worse.”

  You can’t fault the woman’s sincerity. Zenni observed. She means it.

  “Am I going to meet with an accident?” I had Caron ask, round-eyed with amazement.

  “No accident. What I dreamt of was a deliberate act of violence against your person.”

  “Are you saying that I might be attacked or perhaps killed? Don’t be ridiculous! Who’d want to harm me?”

  “I don’t have answers,” Garnet said, with a sigh. “All I was given was a warning.”

  “Which you’ve delivered, and thank you for that—”

  “Please don’t ignore it!” Her fingers bit into my wrist. “Promise me you won’t!”

  “Look, I hadn’t planned on abseiling down the mountain today or hang-gliding off the top of it!” I grinned at her with that utter immortal confidence that only the young can lay claim to. “If it makes you feel better, I intend to spend a quiet day with my friends, sightseeing in the city. I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  Garnet released me, sorrow purpling the subdued curtain of her aura. “I do hope so.”

  “But I will, and we’ll laugh about your bad dream tomorrow, you see if we don’t.”

  “Perhaps.” She bowed her head in a brief prayer, the words in a sing-song tongue with an ancient feel to it, then drew herself to her feet. “Goodbye, my dear. I wish you all the good luck this world can spare you, for I fear that you’ll need it.”

  I watched her make her lonely way to the door. “Miss Treebone, do you believe that the future is fixed, or can we change it?”

  She half-turned back to me. “We shape our own destinies, child. There must be free choice, or else why would some of us have been granted the gift of prophecy?”

  “So I can choose to take your warning to heart and live—” I paused for effect. “Or ignore it and die?”

  “I made the choice to tell you of my dream, hoping that might tilt the future enough to set you on the fortunate path.” She watched me, wondering if she’d at last made me see sense. “Yet the final choice is yours.”

  I grinned at her suddenly, not with Caron’s impish innocence but with all my own wicked humour. “Perhaps I’ll magic up a third alternative and weave my future into a more agreeable pattern!”

  Garnet Treebone froze, as still and pale as ice, her rose-tinted spectacles perching precariously on the tip of her nose. Inside her head I saw her thoughts spin in a vortex, upset and confused that she’d misjudged me, shocked that such a simple and shallow child might be more than she seemed. When she spoke it was more to herself than to me. “In my dream I sensed deceit. Could you be the focus of that?”

  “What lies could I possibly have told you?”

  She closed her hand into a fist, her left hand, the one that had fastened about my wrist, remembering the feel of skin under her fingers, of bone under skin, of warm blood singing through both. There was a flux within her brain, the odd twisting of her talent in use, and when it died away her fear had changed colour, now cold violet-blue, seasoned with sparkles of horror. She pulled the hand back, hiding it from me in the folds of her robe, two fingers raised and two down in that ancient sign to ward off evil, then she mastered her shock and pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose.

  “You might tell me any lie you pleased and turn it into the truth,” she said, no trace of a smile on her thin lips, no amusement in her blood-crimson eyes. “I should never have presumed to meddle in your affairs.”

  “What’s wrong
?” I didn’t care for the change in her nor for the fact that I couldn’t pin down the source of it, since there were no discernable thoughts within the soup of her frightened mind. “Have I said something to offend you?”

  “Not at all—I thought that turnabout was the truth.” She lowered her gaze. “Forgive me, lady, and give me leave to go.”

  “Of course you may go, if you want to. You don’t need my permission—”

  Garnet bobbed her head in a fractional bow and, before I’d finished speaking, bolted through the doorway and fled down the corridor, like a deer flushed from cover with all the Wild Hunt on her tail.

  We certainly spooked her! Zenni said, as the wind of the woman’s panic blundered past us.

  Was it something I said?

  She’s a genuine psychic, Anna. Perhaps her talent gave her a glimpse of what you really are.

  And it scared her that much? I shook my head.

  What about her vision—do we discount it?

  I tested my intuition again and, like a sleeping cat, it curled its lip at me and continued its nap. I’m not sure what she saw, but it was false prophecy. We shouldn’t be sidetracked by it.

  Zenni wavered for a second, then accepted my decision. You’d better find Lyall. The noon deadline is fast approaching.

  Neither the telepath nor Meeka were in the hotel or close to it, which didn’t surprise me, as they were undoubtedly still engaged in the required legal paperwork. Lawyers on Tambouret were probably no faster than their cousins on Earth, especially as everything had to be handwritten. I chose a table in the centre of the terrace and settled beneath a striped parasol to await their return. A waitress brough me a tall glass of iced fruit-crush and a note. As soon as I saw the folded parchment sealed with orange wax and the exquisite flourishes under my name on the face of it, I knew precisely who it was from.

  Zenni matched my guess. SantDenis?

  I broke the seal and read the thing, faltering over my translation of the ornate script. My dear, I request your presence at luncheon, at the hour of one in the Vault of the Sky. Be punctual. Your esteemed Herculeon.

  Quite an invitation! The Vault is a restaurant of note almost at Krystallya’s summit, highly recommended, tres chic and rumoured to be grossly expensive. Zenni pulled the data from memory. The investigator certainly lusts after our little Caron, doesn’t he?

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust. It’s a date I’ll have the greatest pleasure in breaking.

  Oh, Anna, he’ll never speak to you again if you stand him up!

  Don’t I wish! I made gurgling noises in my drink with its straw, and that was how my companions found me.

  “I trust we aren’t late?” Lyall sat down, lifting his panama hat and mopping sweat from his brow with a polka-dot kerchief. He’d also gained a silver-handled cane and with its assistance was walking pretty well for a convalescent.

  “Nothing’s happened yet. Do you want some coffee or something?”

  “How can you be so calm?” Meeka glared at me coldly and I knew that if I’d been her daughter I would have been slapped for such rude behaviour. Today she was dressed in stark black and her eyes spoke of sleepless misery. “You really are a machine, aren’t you?”

  I ignored her. “Do you have the ransom?”

  Lyall lifted a small leather cylinder from his pocket. “Seemed to take an eternity to draft out. It’s a work of art, all gilded scrolls and copper-plate handwriting. The man assured us that it’ll stand up on any planet in the known galaxy, so it should be good enough to placate the kidnappers.”

  He beckoned to the waitress and ordered a cold drink, but Meeka would have nothing. Time trickled away towards noon, Lyall finished his lemonade and Jansen’s widow fidgeted like a live sardine on a griddle. At five minutes short of zero hour, I came to a snap decision and stood up. “Let’s take a walk down the terraces.”

  “What about the monkey-thing?” Meeka asked. “Won’t it come here?”

  “It’ll find us.” I glanced at Lyall. “Are you up to a hike in the forest? There’s no telling how far the lemur will take us. You could stay here instead.”

  “I’ll tag along.”

  Stubborn is a mind-set I know well and there was little to be gained in an attempt to argue him out of it. I judged that he was at seventy to eighty percent of his full potential and that would be enough for his part in this charade. I led them to the terrace wall and down into the hotel’s sloping gardens, keeping the pace slow enough for the telepath. Meeka flounced along sullenly, not daring to question me again.

  The sun was strong, its fierceness tempered by a sea breeze and our altitude, and the forest steamed under the heat. It must have rained in the night, for the paving was damp under my toes, and the scent of rich earth and damp shrubbery coiled all around us. The path to the next level wound between shoulder-high stands of jasmine and fuschia, and under arches wheezing under the weight of climbing roses. As I passed under the third arch, the lemur dropped lightly onto my shoulder and Meeka bit back a scream.

  “Hello, little sister.” I stroked the velvety, buff fur. “Have you come to escort us to the appointed place?”

  “This is the unit you encountered yesterday.” Button-bright eyes glittered in the butterfly-wing mask. “Do you wish to recover your missing companions?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lyall said quickly.

  “Do you have the requested tokens?”

  “Yes again.”

  “Then this unit will tell you which path to take.” The lemur settled itself on my shoulder, draping its splendid tail across the back of my neck. “This track will take you down the mountain. Please follow it.”

  We zigzagged across the face of Krystallya, past giant rock-crystal windows, past other hotels and terraced cafés, through garden after garden, each new level planted with a fresh palette of flowers and herbs, all different, all beautiful. As we descended the heat increased and the air became more humid, making Lyall sweat all the more. I was loath to leave the terraces behind, but at last we reached the meadows at the base of the city, arriving at a point a little to the east of the Dreamgate.

  “Take the central way into the forest,” directed our be-furred guide.

  Once under the shade of the trees, we found the air cooler. The lemur was silent, seeking neither to speed our progress nor to slow it, content to let us stroll along at our own pace, as if time had no part to play in the equation. All of us recognised the path Chandre had taken and we all wondered at our destination. We passed the first glade without comment, then reached the second.

  “This is the place,” the lemur said. “To your left there is an oak tree, with a hollow in the trunk below where it forks. Do you see it?”

  I scanned the area, picking the landmark out. “I do.”

  “Please go there.”

  We crossed the clearing, ignored by the handful of tourists, an adult or two, but mostly children playing with the animals. At the foot of the tree, we halted.

  “The tokens must be left in that hollow.” The lemur explained. “They will be collected, taken for examination and, if they are genuine, your companions will be freed.”

  “Where?” Meeka pressed closer to me in an effort to wring information from the creature. “When do I get my baby back?”

  “That is not known. This unit’s task was to bring you here and now that task is complete.” I felt the animal tense for a spring.

  “Wait!” Lyall had also seen the movement. “How are we expected to reach that hollow? It’s at least twelve feet from the ground.”

  The construct measured the distance with a practised eye. “Thirteen point three four, calculated in archaic Terran feet,” it corrected. “If you give this unit the tokens, it will place them in the hole.”

  Before I could stop him, Lyall had passed over the document case. The lemur seized it and leapt for the trunk of the oak, kicking hard enough into my shoulder to throw me off balance. Using three limbs, with the prize safe in one forepaw, it scampered up the tr
ee and, with a sinking feeling, I knew we’d been suckered. The construct side-stepped the hollow, shifted the cylinder to its mouth and brought all four paws into play to vanish down the far side of the trunk.

  Meeka squealed, Lyall shouted and I ducked around the oak just as the creature reached the ground, so I made a grab for it. It eluded my outstretched fingers and sprinted for the base of a neighbouring birch. At its roots, in the grass, was the dark maw of a tunnel, too small for even a child to enter but large enough for a cat, a hare or a thieving lemur. In desperation, I tried a spectacular flying tackle. Tambouret’s extra decimal point of gravity betrayed me, and all I got for my trouble was a faceful of dirt and a tuft of chestnut fur. The lemur let out a shrill cry as I plucked hair from its tail, yet its programming kept its prize firmly in its jaws as it vanished into the hole like Alice’s rabbit. I curled my hand into a fist and thumped the forest floor, loudly cursing the beast’s cunning and my own ineptitude.

  Was I convincing? I asked inwardly.

  Does Terra orbit Sol? Zenni chuckled. I don’t think the notion that you deliberately let her go ever crossed her little mind.

  Where is she now?

  That tunnel leads down at a sharp angle to a passage fifteen feet underground. Our little friend’s headed south like a bat out of hell—now she’s turning east.

  Keep tracking her. I raised my head from the moist soil to face the almost as uncomfortable stares of my companions.

  “Well, Miss Clever-clever, where’s your fine plan now?” Meeka sneered. “You were to follow whoever took those documents, but it seems that you’ve been well and truly outsmarted, by a chip-brained weasel-thing! Jan was right about you—you’re arrogant, conceited, incompetent and dumb!”

  “Lyall, take her back to the hotel and wait for me there.” I held the telepath’s gaze for a moment. “If Chandre and the child turn up, send the news to me, okay?”

  “Is there nothing else I can do?”

  I sympathised with him. Sitting on the sidelines would have bugged me as well, None of us are trained for that. “Take care of Meeka, and I’ll take care of the rest.”