The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  Guil led us toward the port by the back streets, through the residential precincts, paralleling the High Street, but never venturing onto its dangerously well-lit width. Once, as we passed through the Loxian Market, crowded now with people from the neighboring precincts, we saw a group of Brandr soldiers, but they seemed more concerned with the trio of enterprising shopkeepers who had chosen to set up business out of pushcarts at the entrance to the square, and we slipped through without being noticed.

  As we got closer to the port, Guil's pace slackened, and I saw her exchange glances with Leith. The captain nodded thoughtfully. "You're thinking of the bridges?"

  "Yeah." Guil frowned, and drew us to a stop in the lee of a windowless warehouse. There hadn't been any tremors for some time now, but still I had to make a real effort to keep myself from stepping out of that looming shadow. I turned my back on the brick walls, but that was worse. I could practically feel their potential weight, a breathing, hovering menace.

  "They're bound to be watching," Guil went on.

  Leith rubbed her gloved wrist. "You and I both have business in the port, and we can prove it. Trey's obviously an off-worlder—or you will be, Trey, if you take off that cape of yours. You said you managed to pass Alkres off as your own son?"

  "Yes, but that was before they were sure Alkres was alive," I answered. "They must've gotten a photo of him by now, sent it to all the troops."

  "Not necessarily," Leith said. "They're pretty disorganized." Alkres tugged at my sleeve. "The last formal picture I was in was taken a couple of calendar-years ago. I've grown a lot since then." That would make a difference, I thought, and nodded. Children change quickly, especially at his age.

  "I think you can pull it off, then," the captain went on. She took a step back, surveying us with narrowed eyes. "Let Guil wear your cloak, and take off those gloves."

  Reluctantly, I did as I was told, handing the cloak to the para'an and stuffing the gloves into my pocket. It was very cold without them—I had been spoiled by the heavy furs. Leith nodded to herself, still staring, then bent and rummaged one-handed through her campaign bag. At last she straightened with an exclamation of triumph, and held out a battered leather hat, brimless, with an almost unreadable unit pin clipped to one side. Alkres took it warily.

  "Wear that," Leith continued, "and get rid of your gloves and belt—here, I'll take them."

  Alkres complied without protest, and Leith stowed his belongings in the depths of her campaign bag. Almost as an afterthought, she pulled out her service blaster and belted it around her waist beneath her coat. She glanced again at Alkres, and tugged the hat a little lower over the boy's eyes.

  "Well," she said, "you look a little more like a off-worlder now."

  I studied the ult'eir with less confidence. Even in Oresteian dress, I have the bulk to make any origins pretty obvious—unless, of course, I'm wearing something as loose-fitting as my furry cloak—but Alkres was slightly built. Even letting the heavy tunic hang unbelted didn't give him the needed breadth of shoulder. Leith saw my expression and shrugged as if to say, "What else can we do?"

  Guil said, "We'd better get going." Even as she spoke, the ground trembled underfoot. It was a weaker tremor than the others had been, barely strong enough to be felt, but we all stepped hurriedly out of the warehouse's shadow. Guil gave Leith another quick glance. "Can you lift under these conditions?"

  "I told you, yes," Leith answered, and smiled. "Trust me."

  "I do," the para'an muttered, but not happily. She pointed toward the cross street ahead of us. "We'll have to take the main bridge."

  The High Street was less crowded than the other streets we'd passed through: we had left the residential precincts behind. Still, there were a few people camped out on the pedestrian strip that edged the tram line. The trams themselves had stopped running. One was stopped just below the bridge turntable, and I could see people stretched out in its uncomfortable seats. The end of the bridge was bathed in the harsh light of a portable searchlight, and there were people in battledress in the shadows beyond. Fortunately, they weren't preventing traffic across the bridge—why should they, when the port itself was closed?

  I caught Alkres's hand in mine, and whispered again, "Don't say anything if you can help it. Act shy."

  "I will," the ult'eir whispered back, and tightened his grip on my hand.

  Leith advanced on the bridge as though she hadn't seen the soldiers, and we followed, Guil hanging back a bit. As we stepped into the circle of light, a voice said, "Hold it."

  The speaker stayed just out of the light herself, was little more than a long shadow distorted by the harness and power pack of an electric rifle. I paused at the edge of the circle, keeping Alkres a little behind me.

  Leith said, "What's the problem now?" Her voice held just the right mix of impatience and worry.

  "What's your business at the port?" the guard asked again.

  "My ship's there," Leith answered. "Look, who are you to be asking?"

  Alkres's hand tightened on mine, and there was an indistinct mutter from one of the other soldiers waiting in the shadows. The woman—presumably the officer in command of the detail—made a curt, chopping gesture, one hand flashing briefly in the light.

  "We're supplementing the regular police force," she said smoothly. "You know the port's closed?"

  Leith nodded. "My name's Moraghan. I'm captain of Pipe Major—the six-week mailship. We're not in our usual dock, and I'm worried about how she'll handle the shaking." Without being asked, she proffered her ID disk.

  The guard officer took it examined it for a moment, then passed it back again. The rainbow whorls of a Conglomerate-forces ID are supposed to be impossible to duplicate. She turned her attention to me. "Are you with her?"

  Leith said, "They've asked for hardship passage out. I said I'd see if we had cabin space."

  "Is that right?" The guard officer's eyes didn't waver from my face.

  "That's right," I said. I fell back into the persona I'd used to enter Destiny, without stopping to think if it would be recognized. "My name's Mas Zeeman; this is my son Tannis."

  "Your papers?"

  I scowled. "I've told you people before, I don't have them any more. They burned up with the Halex Tower—no thanks to anybody we didn't burn with them."

  The guard officer eyed us for a moment longer, then motioned us forward into the light. I did as I was told, drawing Alkres after me. The boy had the sense not to try to hide his face, but he shrank against me. I put my arm around his shoulders, feeling his tension, and wondered if he could hear my heartbeat. Leith had her hand very deep in the pocket of her coat—and then I realized it was no pocket, but a gun slit, and her hand was on the butt of her service blaster. It would be suicide, against half a dozen electric rifles. After a moment, Leith seemed to realize that, too, and very slowly eased her hand out of the pocket.

  "Well?" The guard officer spoke without turning, but it was clear she wasn't talking to us. Another soldier leaned forward, saying something in a low voice. I caught only a couple of words—"photos," and then, "don't know"—but the officer shrugged, scowling.

  "All right, all right. Much use you are." She put her hands on her hips, still frowning. "You three, you can pass. You, blondie, give me your name and business."

  "Guil, ex-Tam'ne, para'an of Tam'ne in Orillon," the pilot answered, rather wearily. "I'm a tug pilot with the Port Authority. My instructions are to show up when we get a yellow alert from the Geo/Met Office."

  It took all my strength to not look back as I followed Leith through the knot of soldiers onto the bridge itself. Guil's tone suggested she didn't particularly care whether she made it to the port or not and I hoped the guard officer would accept her story.

  "Captain!"

  I was close enough to Leith to hear the sharp intake of breath. When she turned, however, face and voice were under perfect control.

  "Yes?" She was polite, but there was a hint of the Peacekeeper's steel in her tone.<
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  "Do you know her?" the guard officer asked, and jerked a thumb at Guil.

  Leith gave me one sidelong glance, then took two steps back down the bridge toward the searchlight. "Yeah, I think so. Yes, she's brought Pipe Major in a couple of times." She waited with ostentatious patience while the guard officer gnawed her lip.

  One of the soldiers muttered something, and the officer snapped to her decision. "All right, you can pass, para'."

  Guil gave a sigh, and hurried through the patch of light. Leith said loudly, meaning to be overheard, "If you're going to the port, Guil, why don't you walk with us?"

  "Thanks, Captain," Guil said, as loudly, and we walked on.

  The bridge seemed very dark after the brillance of the searchlight. Agamemnon's cold light reflected eerily from the fencing that curved up and over the walkway, closing us off from the river, and from the tramline to our left. The strip-lights that hung at intervals along the fence itself barely seemed to affect the ghostly radiance. The Ostlaer was very loud beneath us. I hoped there wouldn't be any more tremors while we were on the bridge.

  Then we had passed the midpoint of the bridge, and started down the slope toward the port. Another tram was halted on the line just beyond the protective wall, its lights pointing ahead to the port's main entrance. There was no sign of any guard there, and I gave a sigh of relief.

  "I didn't really think there would be," Leith said, "not with the Authority worried about off-world traffic all the time, but I'm glad to see I was right."

  "You and me both," I said. We negotiated the turnstiles at the base of the bridge—the Port Authority preferred people to enter the port area by the tramlines—then followed the line toward the open gate.

  The tram was empty, abandoned, and the access roads and taxiways beyond were free of traffic. It was very different from the situation in the city itself, and I frowned.

  "Where is everybody?"

  "Inside, I hope," Leith answered.

  "The port buildings are supposed to be earthquake-proof," Guil said, with only the lightest emphasis on the word "supposed." She looked at Leith. "Should we check the pilots' lounge first?"

  The captain nodded. "And then transients' quarters. I want to find my crew."

  The main lobby, with its uncomfortable pressed-foam chairs, was comparatively empty, occupied mostly by people waiting to use the autobank in the far corner. The upper floor, with its maze of offices, waiting rooms, and private lounges, was far more crowded. Off-world crews and off-worlders alarmed by the attack on the Tower mingled with Guil's colleagues from the tugs and the short-range lighters. Most of the crowd seemed to have resigned themselves to a long wait. The lucky ones, the ones whose guild or union maintained apartments in the complex, would be able to sleep there, in comfort if not in privacy; the rest—the vast majority, from what I could see—were considering themselves fortunate to stake a claim to one of the padded benches that dotted the corridors. I wasn't too surprised. The Oresteian trade would be very small compared to the usual Urban runs, except during the brief wool season. It wouldn't pay the smaller unions to keep quarters here.

  We turned a corner, stepping around a dice game that was overflowing a cleaner's alcove, and Leith swore. "So much for getting to check the boards."

  I looked over her shoulder, and ducked hastily back around the corner, almost tripping over one of the dice players. There was a crowd outside the main scheduling office, a crowd that held any number of familiar faces: the other off-worlders who'd worked for the Halex were still on-planet, stranded by the earthquakes.

  Alkres said, "What's wrong?"

  "People from the Tower, the other off-worlders," I said, keeping my voice low. "Leith, we can't risk being seen."

  Already, a couple of the dice players were looking up at us with something more than idle curiosity. The captain nodded abruptly. "Right, this way."

  We retraced our steps through the crowded corridors. When Leith hesitated, Guil took over, leading us down a flight of stairs and through a series of badly lit maintenance corridors. Finally, we emerged from that tangle at another stairway, and Guil nodded to it.

  "The pilots' lounge's at the top," she said. "Just who are you looking for, Leith?"

  "A man named Trivally Rhawn," the captain answered, and started up the stairs. "He's the maintenance supervisor for the tugs—"

  "I know that," Guil growled.

  Leith went on as if she hadn't spoken. "We're decent friends, though he's a better friend to my pilot, and he owes me a favor or two. I think I can talk him into letting me take a ship."

  Alkres stirred at my side, then stopped abruptly, staring up the stairs. "He's a Rhawn," he protested.

  "He's a spacer first," Leith answered, cutting off Guil's automatic answer.

  Alkres looked dubiously at me, and I nodded, projecting all the confidence I could muster. "Leith knows the port. I think we should do it."

  "Very well," the ult'eir said, with unconscious arrogance. Guil's lips thinned, but Leith gave a lopsided smile.

  "Right, then," she said. "Let's go."

  The pilots' lounge was busy, which I had gathered from Leith was an unusual state of affairs. We paused just inside the doorway, pretending to look for a table while Leith scanned the crowd. The darkly paneled room was dimly lit, shutters closed tight against the cold of the Dark. After the bright corridors, it was hard to see.

  "Captain Moraghan!"

  I saw Leith jump: clearly, it wasn't the voice she'd been expecting. She controlled herself instantly, and turned toward the speaker, saying, "Darah? What're you doing here?"

  "Same thing you are, I bet, sir." The speaker was tall, for an off-worlder, and very dark. The plate and rosette of an artificial eye almost filled one side of his face. "I was worried about how the Major'd stand the shaking."

  "How is it?" Leith asked.

  "Pretty well. The shocks and gyros're holding nicely." He was looking us over with frank curiosity, greeting Guil with a smile and a nod, and Leith sighed.

  "Darah, I want you to meet some friends of mine. Guil, you know already—"

  "How could I forget her?" the stranger murmured, with a thoroughly sexy smile.

  Leith ignored him. "—and this is Trey Maturin, a Conglomerate Mediator, and Alkres Halex. People, this is Darah Sabas, my chief pilot."

  The smile had vanished from Sabas's face. "Alkres Ha—" He broke off abruptly, glancing over his shoulder, and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "The kid— You haven't gotten mixed up in local politics, have you, Captain?"

  Leith ignored that question, too. "Is your friend Trivally around?"

  "Yeah." Sabas shook himself and tried to recover his earlier bantering style. "He's right here—at the corner table. We were hoping for some privacy."

  "I want to talk to him." Leith gave Sabas a measuring look. "And I'll need your help, too, Darah."

  "You got it, sir," Sabas said, for once without pretense. "Over here."

  The man at the corner table looked up, frowning, at our approach, but then he saw Alkres, and his expression changed to one of appalled recognition. He started to say something, but Sabas cut him off.

  "You remember my captain, Triv'—Captain Moraghan? She wants to talk to us."

  Trivally glanced from Sabas to the captain, then fixed his eyes again on Alkres. "What about?" he asked warily. "The port's closed."

  There was a single empty chair at the next table. Leith appropriated it with a word of apology—the couple at the other table, locked in a lingering kiss, hardly seemed to notice, but then the man gave an offhand wave and the woman broke free long enough to murmur an agreement—and swung it around to face the Oresteian. She seated herself and leaned forward, both forearms on the table, right hand pinning her left arm in place. Trivally, a brown-skinned, flat-faced man, watched her with a sort of fascination.

  "I need your help," Leith said, quietly enough that her voice did not carry to the neighboring tables. Guil leaned casually against the back of the ca
ptain's chair, ice-blue eyes slitted in menace. "I want a ship."

  "The port's closed," Trivally said again.

  In the same instant, Sabas said, "A ship?"

  "Shut up, Darah," Leith said, and was obeyed. She turned her attention back to the supervisor. "All that means to me is that you've got lots of ships on the ground, Maintenance Supervisor Rhawn. I want one of them—emergency business."

  Trivally's eyes slid again to Alkres, standing now at my left hand. Leith nodded. "That's right," she said. "You know who he is."

  "I can't do it," Trivally said again. "I'm sorry, Captain, its just not possible. It's as much as my job is worth—and you're not even one of us."

  Leith frowned, and I said, "Leith." The captain quieted instantly, and Guil gave me a curious look. I kept myself from smiling with an effort. This was a situation well covered by the code, and one that I could interpret to my—to Alkres's—advantage. It was a very pleasant feeling.

  "Trivally Rhawn," I said, deliberately, "my name is Maturin. The Halex Medium. I call on you in the Kinship's name to help your patriarch."

  Trivally looked at me with slowly widening eyes. I was implicitly threatening him with an accusation of code breaking—with death—and while there might seem to be little I could do to enforce my sanction, I was his Kinship's senior Medium, protector of his genarch. The code gave me rights and powers I didn't think he would be able to withstand. After a moment, he looked away, and I felt a surge of elation.

  "The port's still closed," the supervisor protested. "I can give you a ship, sure, but you can't go anywhere."

  "Oh, yes, I can," Leith said with a savage smile, and Trivally threw up his hands.

  "On your head, then." He looked at me. "Medium, I—" He broke off abruptly, sighing, and bowed his head in submission. "As Himself wishes, Medium. So be it."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Yes, thank you," Alkres said. "You do a lot to make up for Yslin."

  "Yslin!" Trivally's mouth contorted as though he were about to spit. "Sor, not all of us follow him, not even in the Rhawn Branch. Don't go off-world. We need you, to fight back."