The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  "Yes."

  I glanced down and saw his hands wrapped tight around the twin grips. Ahead and to my left, the mechanic grinned and gave me a thumbs-up signal. I wondered if he was referring to me or to Rohin. I switched to the external frequency and said, "Ready to go."

  The mechanic nodded again, and stepped back another few meters, beckoning me forward. For an instant, I was tempted to try a flashy start, locking the airbrake and kicking in all the engines together, but the sight of Shemer Axtell still waiting in the center of the garage made me restrain myself. I ran the fans to full power, and waited until the cycle lifted from the stand before touching the throttle. We left the garage under a sedate quarter-power, barely disturbing the packed snow.

  It was still quite dark outside, of course, but as I swung to follow the blue lights that marked the cycle path, I caught a glimpse of the dawn-line edging the mountains above the Garnock Plain. The monotonous voice of the main controller sounded in my ears, giving a mix of traffic instructions and pre-race commentary. I listened with half an ear, following the blue lights through the twisting streets of the Tower settlement. The skycycle was hard to control at such a low speed, the fans whining close to overload. There didn't seem to be much traffic out—everyone was probably already at the grandstand, or ahead of us on the track reserved for the cycles and flying carpets—so I gently increased power. The cycle steadied in the air, and at the same time, the noise of the fans decreased.

  There was a click in my headset, and Rohin said, "Won't we be late?"

  Not likely, I thought, but said, "How much farther do we have to go?"

  "A couple of kilometers, maybe three."

  We had plenty of time. What he wanted was for me to open the throttle, show him what a skycycle could do—and I had to admit I wasn't exactly averse to the idea. We were just passing the last of the hoobey pens, and there was nothing ahead but the snow of the plain. Then my headlight silhouetted a distant shape, bobbing gently in the cone of light. It was another skycycle, but I couldn't make out the passengers at this distance. Still, if it were the Brandr cycle. . . . I touched the short-range switch again.

  "You took a pair of hot glasses, didn't you?"

  "Yes," Rohin answered.

  "Can you make out who it is on that cycle up ahead?"

  There was a long silence, and I assumed he was adjusting the glasses. Then at last he said, "I think its Katel Erling."

  Erling was yet another branch of the Brandr—there were five in all, if you counted the main line. The temptation was overwhelming. "Hang on tight," I said, and hit fan and throttle switches together. The cycle leaped forward, and I heard Rohin grunt as the acceleration threw him against the holds. I kept my headlight fixed on the cycle ahead of us, still bobbing erratically as the Brandr—Katel Erling?—fought to master the trick of controlling fans and jet at the same time, and touched the throttle again, until we were overhauling at nearly twice their speed. It was a game we used to play when I was a kid, made easy by the fact that the driver ahead of me had no idea how to play. I waited until we were almost on them—I could see the Brandr blue-and-gold quite clearly, recognized them for the pair who had thrown the snow on us earlier—then slid hard to the left, and passed them. As I cut back in front of them, thirty meters ahead and still puffing away, I let the cycle drop a little, throwing a plume of snow. In the headset, Rohin gave a crow of triumph.

  "That's shown them. Oh, neatly done."

  "Thanks," I said, already regretting the impulse. It was not my place, as a medium, to indulge in Family quarrels. Worse than that, I'd been acting like an adolescent.

  "They'll think twice before they bother any of our people again," Rohin went on, and laughed.

  The Demi-heir was usually well aware of the dangers of Brandr-baiting, I told myself, so maybe I hadn't made too bad a mistake after all. "Where do you want to watch from?" I said aloud.

  "I don't know," Rohin said, after a moment. "Maybe we could follow the sledges?"

  "We could do that," I said. It would be difficult, controlling the cycle gracefully at that low speed, and after I had shown off so blatantly, I could hardly afford to make a mistake. Still, I told myself, I could do it—and it was a more acceptable form of self-display than playing tag. I swung the cycle in a gentle arc and cut the speed a little, heading back the way we'd come.

  We passed the Brandr cycle again—it was still bobbing—and another cycle whose riders went without Kinship markings. In the distance, I could see the Axtell Tower stark against the starfield, the lights of grandstand and starting line spread out below it like a dim reflection of the sky. I had switched back to the control frequency, and now I turned my attention to the monotonous voice, timing my approach to the starting line. I didn't want to get too close—most of the other cycles and all the flying carpets would be doing exactly what I was doing—but I did want Rohin to be able to see the start. As we passed the five-hundred-meter flag, I cut power even further, and kicked the fan controls to their highest setting. In my earphones, the controller was announcing the race, the first of four. Three sledges would go in each heat, then the winners would race in pairs, and finally, the two winners of those races would compete for the grand prize.

  "Slot one, team Fen Erling," the controller announced. "Slot two, team Ixora Halex. Slot three, team Tasma Fyfe." There was a moment's pause, filled with the rush of distant crowd noise, and then the short-range circuit cut in.

  "Ixora was supposed to be in the third heat," Rohin said. "I wonder what's happened?"

  I didn't say anything, hoping the controller would offer an explanation of the change, but she was droning through the traffic regulations for the tenth time. According to the rules, all vehicles—and especially the skycycles and flying carpets—were supposed to stay at least fifty meters away from the sunken beacons that marked the edges of the course. I intended to obey, but I knew from Rohin's and Ixora's stories that not everyone did, and that the sledge drivers treated flying objects as just another hazard of the course.

  "I can see the line," Rohin cried, and leaned forward until his chin was practically resting on my shoulder. I was reminded of Rehur, and did not look back.

  The starting line was brilliantly lit, bright red post lights defining the three tracks, the hoobeys heaving shadows between the sledges' own headlights. At this distance, I couldn't make out much detail, but from the commentary, it seemed as though they were about to start. I slowed the cycle even further, ignoring the stressed screeching from the fans.

  "The jill-rider's up," Rohin said, and took one hand off the grips to adjust his glasses. "They'll be going soon—they're gone!"

  Even as he said it, I could see the headlights dip and sway, and heard the crowd roar over the headset. I fed power to the jet, and swung the cycle in a wide turn back the way we'd come. I didn't hurry, and then had to feed more power to the cycle as the sledges caught up with me more quickly than I'd expected. The cycle swayed as Rohin shifted in his seat to watch them, and I leaned a little to my right to compensate.

  Beneath and to my left, the sledges thundered through the snow. We were about nine meters up and the full fifty meters away from the course, and I throttled down to match the teams' speed. At this point, barely five hundred meters into the race, no one had the lead. First one jill, then another thrust forward a few meters, and fell back again. In the darkness, it was hard to see individual crewmen; the sledges moved so smoothly that they seemed fully automated, centrally controlled.

  Other skycycles fell into step with us—the Brandr cycle was back, making wide, sweeping s-turns because the driver was afraid to cut power too far—and, when I risked a glance to my right, I could see a steady procession of flying carpets just outside the line of cycles. I felt my skin prickle, surrounded by inexperienced drivers, and turned my attention to the cycle. In the headset, I could hear the controller calling the race, first one and now another of the teams in the lead, but I kept my eyes on the other machines.

  Then we we
re past the thousand-meter flag, a quarter of the way through the course, and Rohin shouted, "Ixora's puffing out."

  I risked a glance to the left. Ixora's team, running in the center track, did seem to be puffing a little ahead of the rest. I fixed my eyes on her sledge for a long moment, letting the other cycles avoid me, and thought the gain was real. So did the controller back at the Tower—and so did the driver of the Brandr cycle. She dropped to less than three meters, and passed the rest of us on the left, a good ten meters inside the fifty-meter limit, throwing a plume of snow. Ixora's jill shied, throwing the rest of her team off stride, and the other sledges surged ahead.

  The controller said, in a bored voice, "Team Ixora Halex seems to have been startled by a spectator's vehicle." Her words were swallowed in an angry roar from the grandstand.

  The short-range communicator clicked, and Rohin said, "Typical. But it won't help."

  You hope, I thought, but said nothing. The other flyers were crowding in around us, jostling for good viewing positions as we approached the turn, and I concentrated on keeping the skycycle airborne. The Branch cycle tried to edge into the line ahead of me, and I took savage pleasure in cutting it off. The flying carpets slid closer, too, their heavier fans throwing up great clouds of snow. I winced as the crystals spattered against my goggles, and lifted the cycle another meter or so to try and get above the cloud. The air was rough, and it took all my strength to hold us steady.

  "There they go," Rohin shouted.

  In spite of the turbulence and the swirling crystals, I had to look. Far below, the sledges skidded toward the tight turn that would take them back to the starting point. The jill-riders had already started to turn their animals, and the rest of the teams were pointing after them. I remembered Ixora clinging to her lines in the driver's turret, could almost hear the crack of her whip urging the hoobeys on again. Then a plume of snow flared from beneath the tail of the outermost sledge: team Tasma Fyfe was the first to put down brakes for the turn. A heartbeat later a similar, smaller plume showed at the tail of the inside, Brandr sledge.

  "Brake, Ixora." Rohin pounded his fist against my shoulder. "Brake, damn it."

  Almost before the words were out of his mouth, the plume appeared behind Ixora's sledge, and the heavy vehicles swung sharply around toward home. In the same instant, the brake plume vanished from behind the Brandr sledge. It straightened, and the tail swung sideways into Ixora's path. The raised drag slammed into the driver's turret, then swept down across the sideboy's cockpit and the steering brake. The impact threw the Halex sledge sideways without tipping it, slammed it against a pair of the Fyfe hoobeys even as their driver struggled to turn them out of the way. One went down, and was overrun by its own sledge. The left runner lifted over the massive body, and tipped the sledge sideways into the snow.

  The Branch sledge was empty now, its crew's bodies littering its path. It swung wildly, brakeless, hoobeys completely out of control. I could see Ixora struggling with her damaged sledge, saw her whip dart out to snap over the heads of her own team, over the heads of the Branch team. The Branch hoobeys shied away, but it was too late. Uncontrolled, the sledge smashed again into the Halex sledge, tangling their runners. Ixora fought it a moment longer, slowing the wreckage even further, and then I saw her crew leap from their places. An instant later, Ixora had jumped, too, and the sledge slid off the prepared track into the softer snow along the verges.

  Rohin was shouting in my ears, had been for some time. "—told you it was too light, damn it. Oh, Ixora!"

  All around me, flying carpets and skycycles were converging on the wreckage. Instinctively, I swung to follow them, not knowing quite what I could do to help. "Shut up, Rohin," I said, and was obeyed.

  The controller's voice crackled again in my headset, the woman for once shaken out of her invincible boredom. "Red Team One, Red Team Two, priority flight, priority flight. All private flights, clear the air immediately. All private flights, ground and wait for instructions. Blue Team, Blue Team, priority."

  Rohin slammed his fist against my back again, and I lifted one hand from the controls to point ahead and down, not wanting to miss anything important from the controller. The snow of the verges would be soft and deep, difficult to fly out of once we'd landed, but the ambulances would need the solidity of the track itself. I brought the skycycle down carefully, shedding height and speed until we grounded almost gently in a drift perhaps twenty meters from the wrecks. Rohin kicked himself free of the cycle even before I'd killed the fan, and fought his way through the snow toward the track. Cursing him and my own lack of medical knowledge, I followed.

  Others were there before us, thank God, and I counted all seven of the crew in the crowd surrounding the Fyfe sledge. They were at least alive, and not too badly hurt, but their animals had not been so lucky. One, the one that had been struck by the sledge, was definitely dead, and at least two more lay quiet in their harness. The others, the jill and the leader, bellowed and fought the lines, and I was very grateful for the headset that cut out the worst of their shrieking.

  Rohin barely gave them a glance, all his attention focused on Ixora's sledge. Other people were floundering through the snow toward it, too, and a couple who wore the Berngard crossed axes were crouched over what seemed to be a piece of the wreckage. I vaguely remembered seeing them astride a skycycle, but saw no sign of the vehicle.

  "Zimri!" Rohin shouted, and threw himself down beside the pair. I lunged, caught his shoulders before he could do anything stupid. The older of the pair, a man of my own age, nodded his thanks, his hands still busy inside Zimri's heavy jacket.

  "Easy, now." That was the woman who held Zimri's head and upper body in her lap. "We have it in hand."

  Rohin made a noise of protest, but the cool competence of her voice seemed to steady him a little. Zimri was unconscious—mercifully, I thought—but there was no obvious injury. Even as I thought that, the man took his hands out of the jacket and pulled it closed again, shaking his head. I opened my mouth to ask, cutting off Rohin's cry of fear, and the woman said, "Nothing obvious wrong there. A broken leg, yes—but he'll hold til the Red Team gets here."

  The Red Team was the ambulance for humans; the Blue Team was for the hoobeys. "Thanks," I said. "Is there anything—?"

  She shook her head, unsmiling behind the thin mask. "He'll hold. See to the others, Medium."

  Rohin was already well ahead of me, and I struggled after him, the hem of my cloak dragging in the knee-deep snow. The twisted wreck of the sledges loomed ahead, brightly lit—someone had had the sense to land a pair of flying carpets so that their headlights threw the whole scene into terrible relief.

  "Ixora!" Rohin shouted, and threw himself out of the deep snow onto the track itself. The driver turned slowly to face him. Blood pulsed from a cut above her left temple, staining half her face mask and covering the clear plastic that screened that eye. She wiped one gloved hand across it as if that would clear it, but couldn't seem to focus on us.

  "Where is he?" Her voice had dropped, hoarsened, become an animal cry, a hawk's scream of pain and fury. "Where is he, murdering Erling bastard, where are you?"

  "Ixora!" Rohin cried again, but she didn't hear.

  "Erling!" Ixora lifted her whip, turning slowly, seeking her enemy.

  "Medium, for the love of Christ, get her quiet." The voice was strangely familiar. I turned, to find Anath Brandr facing me. There was blood on the front of his coat. It was his kinsman who had caused all this, and I felt a killing anger rise in me.

  "Don't give me orders, Brandr—" I bit off the words with an effort, remembering what I was. I am a Mediator of the Conglomerate, sworn to keep the peace. . . .

  Anath ignored me. "I've got the rest of her crew, the ones we could move, in the carpet til the ambulance gets here." He looked up, and I could hear it, too, the heavy beat of rotors. "But get her quiet."

  He was right, for once, and I turned toward her. Rohin had her by the shoulders, trying to lead her away from
the wreck. She was in the grip of a hysterical anger, and fought him, struggling to bring her whip across his face. I sprinted toward them, sliding on the packed ice of the track, but before I reached them, Ixora had fought free, knocking Rohin to the ground. I caught her then, no longer daring to be gentle, and pinned her arms with my off-world strength. She stopped struggling at last, recognizing that she was beaten. Her breath still came in harsh gasps, and her eyes were wild with anger.

  "Get the whip," I shouted. Rohin picked himself up off the icy track, and did it, one hand pressed to his jaw.

  "Oh, God, Tabat," he said, and turned toward the wreck.

  "Rohin," I called, and Anath echoed, urgently, "Don't!"

  The Demi-heir took two more steps toward the broken sledge, until he could see clearly the thing I had been careful not to look at too closely. Tabat had been manning the left-hand steering brake, and his station, unprotected, had been directly in the way of the other sledge's drag. A drag-brake weighed almost a ton—it had to be that heavy to hold the massive sledge. . . . It had swept down into and across the left-hand steersman's post. Rohin gave a choked cry and turned away, retching. I felt like being sick myself, but did not dare relax my hold on Ixora.

  The beat of rotors was much louder now, and the powerful headlights of the ambulances were already on us. Anath squinted up into the light, lips moving as he calculated. "Another minute, maybe," he said. His eyes shifted to Ixora, still tensely furious in my grasp. "Blue Team's just behind them."

  Ixora wailed aloud, this time for her animals, and Rohin said, "They're tended to, cousin, they're tended." He had stripped off his stained face mask, heedless of the cold.

  "What about her crew?" I asked.

  "One dead," Anath answered, with an effort. "You saw. The dragsman, I don't know, I don't have him, but the right-hand brake and the right-hand sideboy and the jill-rider are all right, bruises and maybe cracked bones, nothing worse. The snow's deep, it helped."