The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  "I'm not going far," Alkres answered. "Just to Electra—and I'll be back. Will you wait for me?"

  "We'll wait," Trivally answered fervently.

  It was another scene from the holoplays, and I cleared my throat, breaking the spell. "How soon can we leave? The Brandr were on our heels."

  "At once," Trivally answered, and pushed himself to his feet.

  We followed him from the bar, Sabas, in the rear, voicing some unintelligible protest. As we came out into the corridor, the words came clear.

  "What about Pipe Major, Captain?"

  Leith gave him an unloving grin. "She's all yours, Darah. To my mind, this is a class-one emergency, and I'm still under the Oath. I have to do this."

  "But—"

  Leith turned on him, her stare freezing him in his tracks. "Even if it wasn't a matter for the Oath, do you think I could leave them to manage? I'm needed here, a lot more than I ever was on the ship." She took a deep breath, fighting for control, and said, more calmly, "You have command of Pipe Major, Darah. I'll give you that in writing, if you want."

  Sabas shook his head, his handsome face very sober. "That won't be necessary, sir," he said, with unexpected dignity. "I'll take over til you return. And good luck, sir."

  Leith's expression eased a little, and she said, softly, "I misjudged you, Darah. Take care of things."

  "I will," the pilot answered, but Leith hadn't waited for his reply. We left the pilot standing in the corridor, shaking his head.

  The supervisor led us down another long staircase, and then into the maze of tunnels that connected the port buildings. We walked for some time through the white-painted halls—I had no idea where we were in relation to the main building—and then emerged, with startling suddenness, in the Port Authority hangar.

  It was a huge building, the ceiling at least three stories above our heads, the far wall almost infinitely distant in the poor lighting. Six of the slim lighters stood with their noses to the dock ports, apparently just waiting to be towed onto the taxiway; a seventh ship—one of the squat, conventional tugs—stood on its massive tracked platform at the end of the row. All were attached with multiple umbilicals to installations in the walls. Trivally waved his hand resignedly at the line of ships.

  "Which one do you want, Captain?" His voice echoed oddly in the vast emptiness.

  Leith rubbed her wrist again, staring at the waiting ships. Before she could answer, however, there was the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere in the hangar, and a voice called, "Who's there? Is that you, Triv'?"

  "One of my technicians," Trivally said hastily, in an undertone. "She's a Halex, too." He lifted his voice. "Over here, Nezera!"

  A figure emerged from the shadows, tall and thin like all the Oresteians, and resolved itself into a young woman barely older than Rehur, with a mane of black hair swept up and back into an untidy topknot. There was a wildness in her face that reminded me of Ixora.

  "What's up, boss?" she asked, a little warily, her eyes sweeping over us. "You probably shouldn't be bringing people here in a yellow alert—"

  "Never mind that," Trivally said.

  The woman shrugged, and said, with deliberate malice, "It's your funeral."

  "Nezera," Trivally said firmly, "Himself has asked for my help, and I'm charging you, on guild-oath as well as the blood tie, to help me."

  "Himself?" Nezera's eyes fixed on Alkres, and widened slowly. "I beg pardon, sor, I didn't know you at first. All the pictures are old—" She broke off, flushing, and looked to Trivally. "What do we do, Triv'?"

  Trivally looked at Leith. "Which ship, Captain?"

  Leith didn't answer at once, staring down the line of ships with narrowed eyes. "The best of the lighters, I think," she said, after a moment. "Do I see an Erzulie III in your lineup?"

  Trivally shook his head, and looked for a moment almost embarrassed. "I'm afraid not, Captain."

  "No fear," Nezera muttered.

  "The best one's the Koniko," Trivally said.

  "She's not the newest," Nezera offered, "but we've never been able to get it to work right."

  "I'll rely on your judgment," Leith said.

  "Right." Trivally rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. "Nez'a, run a pre-flight on the Koniko. Fuel her, top the air tanks if necessary, and make sure the other supplies are in order."

  "Got you." Nezera gave a sketchy sort of salute, and trotted off toward the fourth lighter in the line. More than ever, she reminded me of Ixora, and I wondered if the driver had somehow survived the battle. I didn't even know if she had been at the Tower that night. . . . Trivally was talking again, and I pulled my thoughts back to reality.

  "Can you do your own course plot?" the supervisor was saying. "I don't think it'd be good to go through the control tower. I've got a computer in my office, with a pretty good analog of their main program. Sometimes people like to look at it while they're deciding about repairs. . . ."

  "I can take care of that, if you want," Guil offered.

  Leith hesitated only for an instant. "It's your system. Thanks."

  Trivally beckoned, and Guil started off with him toward the closed door of the supervisor's office. Alkres said, quite suddenly, "Can I watch?"

  He sounded like a fifteen-year-old again, which was something of a relief. I nodded. "If Guil doesn't mind."

  "I'll ask," Alkres promised, and darted after them. A moment later, he had caught up, and I saw Guil shake her head. The three disappeared into the office.

  I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly exhausted again. By Leith's chronograph, dangling from her belt beneath the open coat, it was well past the twenty-second hour: it was no wonder I was tired. Leith looked drained, too, strong circles showing under her eyes. There was a clattering from the line of ships, and she looked up sharply, focusing on something I couldn't find, but then she relapsed into her sudden apathy.

  We stood silent for a long moment. Then, glancing sideways at Leith, I said, "I know why I'm doing this."

  The captain looked up at me, and ran her good hand through her hair. She was smiling faintly. "Oh, well. You heard what I told Darah. It's a matter of the Peacekeepers' Oath—and even if it wasn't, I couldn't just leave you here."

  The Oath bound the Peacekeepers—even those who'd left active service, like Moraghan—to intervene in situations that could be called class-one emergencies. It was up to an individual to choose the most effective form of intervention, as the Peacekeepers' Supreme Command quite reasonably held they couldn't dictate specific actions in such an emergency, and the actions prompted by that part of the Oath had varied widely. Jan Migisi, during the bloody uprising on Brigit, had assassinated the leaders of the three radical parties, and persuaded the survivors to call for mediation; Chang Loris, facing a similar situation on Cratos, had settled for rescuing the leaders of the old guard. Both actions had ultimately been sanctioned by the Supreme Command. The only consistent thing was the obligation to act when confronted with the possible destruction of a society.

  "Do you really think things are that bad?" I asked.

  Leith smiled, without humor. "Don't you?"

  The thought was profoundly disturbing. I shied away from it, asking instead, "How dangerous is it really, taking off now?"

  Leith shrugged. "Not dangerous at all, unless there's a tremor just when I'm trying to lift. The Port Authority has to take that chance into account, and they can't afford to run risks on a large scale, but—not really dangerous."

  It took Trivally and Nezera less than an hour to get the lighter ready for liftoff, and most of that time was spent pumping fuel into the Koniko's immense tanks. Guil had the course plotted in about half that time—Orestes and Electra were almost in syzygy, an easy plot to make—and then we all stood around until at last Trivally signaled he was ready to let us aboard.

  The Koniko was an old model, with worn padding on the walls of its cylindrical airlock. Nezera took us in, pointing Leith and Guil toward the tiny command capsule, then led Alkres a
nd me into the empty passenger compartment. There were a dozen first-class couches to choose from—the ones that folded back into truly comfortable bunks—and two dozen of the less luxurious standard-class couches beyond that. Nezera grinned.

  "You might as well sit up front and be comfortable." Her smile faded quickly, and she pointed to a pair of closed compartments, one on each side of the passage leading to the command capsule. "The head's on the left, galley on the right. You'll have to serve yourselves, I'm afraid, but its fully stocked." She paused again, listening to voices in her headset, then said, "Better strap in, now. Trivally's ready to take her out."

  Nezera helped me fasten Alkres into the first couch, then showed him how to work the controls while I fastened myself into the couch directly across the aisle from the ult'eir's. The technician gave me a quick, professional glance, and then an approving nod.

  "You're all set, then, Medium. Screen controls—"

  "Under my left hand?" I asked.

  "Right. Good luck." She glanced quickly at Alkres, very pale against the dark-brown padding. "Come back soon and safe, sor."

  The boy whispered something in reply, but Nezera was already gone. Alkres had never been off-world before, of course, and the first time is always frightening, even in normal circumstances. I wanted to lean across and take his hand, but I was held back by the safety webbing. Instead, I touched the screen controls, and fiddled with the buttons until I'd found the views from the outside cameras. The wall and the retracted umbilicals were slowly receding: I hadn't even realized we'd begun to move.

  The intercom crackled overhead, and Guil's voice said, over the mutter of Leith's checklist, "We're starting the fans."

  The ship shuddered deeply as she spoke, and I was grateful for the warning. Alkres took a deep breath, his hands closed tight on the ends of the armrests, but said nothing. In the screen, the side wall swung away as the pilots turned to face the hangar doors. They were sliding back already, and clicked into place as the ship steadied into the taxiway. A distant voice spoke in the intercom.

  "You're heading directly onto strip three. Pass the yellow line before you start main engines." It was Trivally. He sounded more than a little nervous, usurping Traffic Control's job, but at least there was no other traffic to worry about.

  "Affirmative," Guil answered. Her voice was much louder, and I guessed she'd forgotten to switch off the passenger intercom. I could still hear the sexless voice of the computer, running through the last bit of the pilot's checklist, and Leith's monosyllabic responses.

  "Shouldn't there be another crewman?" Alkres asked suddenly. "An engineer, or something?"

  He looked genuinely frightened again, and I said quickly, "The computer does that on this ship, I think—I'm sure of it."

  "Oh." Alkres leaned back in his couch, trying very hard to relax.

  "It'll be all right," I said. "Remember, this is a low-G planet, so the lift's nothing to worry about. You'll feel the pressure, but the couch will take a lot of it."

  He hunched his shoulders a little under the webbing, and didn't answer. I wondered if it wouldn't be better to leave him alone, and looked back at the screen.

  The Koniko was just passing through the hangar entrance, ground fans whining very softly. Ahead stretched the vast expanse of the taxiway, and then the runway itself, both still outlined with lights, even though the port was officially closed. A yellow band, gleaming in the Koniko's headlights, marked the end of the taxiway and the beginning of the runway.

  Leith's voice said, "Oh, they're getting nervy, aren't they?" Guil laughed, and the captain said, more sharply, "No, don't answer. Let them sweat."

  I guessed she was talking about the control tower. Leith's voice sounded again, once more smoothly professional. "Give me full power on the ground fans, please."

  "Ground fans at full power," Guil answered instantly. The noise in the well-shielded passenger cabin didn't seem to increase, but in the screen, the marker lights began to move past more quickly.

  "I don't like the looks of those vans, Leith," the para'an went on. "Let them play chicken if they want," Leith answered promptly. "I'll overrun them if I have to."

  "If you can," Guil said.

  Leith laughed. "I can."

  The Koniko's cameras were fixed, pointing straight ahead. I would've given anything to be able to adjust them, to see what the two pilots were talking about—or to be able to ask them directly, for that matter—but the intercom was a one-way instrument. The control tower must've sent out its emergency equipment to try to block the runway, I thought. At least I know the Destiny field doesn't have gunboxes—unless the Brandr brought some with them? That was an appalling thought, and I could feel the sweat pearling on my forehead. I could picture the results only too easily: one missile among the Koniko's fuel tanks, and there would be even less left of us than there was of the people at the Tower. I brought myself under control with an effort. Even if the Brandr had equipment to spare for the supposedly closed spaceport—and there had been no word of missile launchers or gunboxes of any kind in the rumors we had heard before the attack—there were still Halex in the control tower who could, and would, stop them from attacking too quickly.

  In the screen, the yellow line had just vanished beneath the Koniko's nose. Guil gave a grunt of satisfaction. "They're dropping back."

  "I thought they would," Leith answered absently. "Computer, commence checklist for main engine start."

  At that moment, the ship shuddered, the entire world staggering drunkenly sideways. Alkres gave a little yelp of fright, and Guil swore viciously. In the background, I could hear the computer droning through its routine. It asked a question, and, getting no answer, repeated it. Leith said, unnecessarily, "Tremor." Her voice was not quite steady.

  "Do we scrub?" Guil asked.

  There was a long silence, broken only by the computer's monotonous voice. Then Leith said, "No."

  "Aftershocks," Guil said, warningly, and Leith interrupted.

  "There haven't been any before. I'll chance it." Her voice faded, as though she'd turned away again. "Feed cock open."

  The computer continued its list as though there had been no pause. At last, I heard its voice announce, "Ready for main engine start. All systems at standby. Brakes full on."

  "Brakes full on," Leith echoed. "Beginning main engine start."

  Guil said, pitching her voice to reach the intercom microphone, "We're beginning the count, people. Main engines're starting—now."

  Her words were drowned in the sudden burst of noise from the tall of the ship. The Koniko shook under the sudden rush of power, and I saw—I could barely hear anything, over the roar of the engines—Alkres's mouth open in another frightened cry. I shouted, not knowing if he would hear, "It's a normal start. Don't worry!"

  Then, quite suddenly, the engines hit their takeoff point, and one of the pilots snapped off the brakes. The Koniko bounded forward, the runway lights blurring almost instantly into a single line. We bounced, and then the Koniko's nose rose steeply, and we were gone. The cameras showed only featureless sky, the stars drowned in Agamemnon's light, but I could imagine the starport dropping away beneath us. The acceleration increased steadily, pressing me back into my couch. The cushions molded themselves around me, taking some of the strain. Still, it wasn't pleasant, and I turned my head with an effort, trying to see how Alkres was handling it. The Patriarch was flattened in his couch, hands still locked on the armrests, face white but set in a stern mask. He was coping in his own way, and I turned my head back toward the featureless screen.

  The pressure and the engine noise stopped together. In the sudden silence, Leith said, "In the groove."

  "Confirmed," Guil answered. "Everything all right back there, Trey?"

  I glanced at Alkres, who nodded. His movements were cautious in the lack of gravity—wisely so, I thought, remembering my own first bout with spacesickness. "So far, so good," I said, and then remembered that the intercom was one-way. Carefully, I unfastened
my webbing and let myself drift up off the couch, feeling my way toward the galley where I knew there would be a crew intercom. It took me a few minutes to get there—I hadn't been in a spaceship that lacked internal gravity in some time, and I had lost my space legs—and another few minutes to find and figure out the intercom system. At last, I pushed the answer bar, and said, "We're all right, thanks. How're things up front?"

  "Pretty good," Leith answered. She still sounded excited, exhilarated by the liftoff. "We're on course, and should reach Electra in about thirty-six hours, give or take thirty minutes—I'll know for sure when we hit the correction point. Nobody's following us—"

  "I'm not surprised," I said, and Leith laughed.

  "No, that tremor would tend to discourage them. And even if someone does decide to risk the lift, we'll have about an hour's head start."

  That head start would increase the longer any pursuers waited, too. I said, "Sounds good to me. Let me know if you want anything from the galley, or if I can spell somebody. If not, I'm going back to the kid."

  "Good idea," Leith said. "I'll let you know if we need anything."

  I took my hand off the answer bar, and started toward the galley door. I had my hand on its latch when a thought struck me, and I turned back toward the row of storage cells. It wasn't hard to find the Koniko's aidkit—the cell was marked with the red cross, star, and crescent—and I pawed through the sterile packets until I found the one I wanted. I tucked it into my tunic pocket, and headed back to the cabin.

  Alkres was very pale, his forehead damp with clammy sweat, but he managed a ghastly smile as I pulled myself back down the corridor. Already, it was getting easier to move in the lack of gravity, and I swung myself into position beside Alkres's couch with a sort of grace.

  "I'm glad everything's going right," the patriarch said faintly.

  "You look awful," I said. "Are you feeling spacesick?"

  Alkres started to nod, and thought better of it. "Yes."

  "Right." I took the packet out of my pocket, and hooked my foot under the grab bar at the base of his couch to steady myself before ripping open the sterile paper. The injection cylinder started to float away, and I caught it awkwardly. "By rights, you should've gotten a time-patch before we left, but this was hardly a well-planned trip. We're lucky the stewards keep these aboard, just in case." Alkres was watching me warily, and I plunged on, hoping to distract him. "The injection will make you feel better almost at once, and by the time it wears off, the patch will have taken over. All right?"