The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  "Help me. . . ."

  I took a quick step forward, then paused, trying to think. The fire was close behind; every second counted. "How many are there?"

  There was a long silence. I had almost given up hope of an answer and was starting forward to see for myself when a second, stronger voice spoke. "Three—four alive, I think. Help us!"

  "I'll be right back," I answered. "There's a doctor outside, I'm going for him."

  There was a whisper of protest from behind the counter, but I ignored it. I stooped, setting the handlight on the floor, beam turned toward the ceiling, then backed hastily out of what was left of the aid post. Corol and the doctor stared at me, wild-eyed, and Corol jerked his chin toward the intersection where we'd turned.

  "I sure hope there's nobody there," he growled.

  I looked the way he'd pointed, and a shiver of fear ran down my spine. The buildings edging the intersection were fully engaged now, flames shooting from roof and windows. Huge particles of soot, mixed with sparks, rained down into the street, and the first buildings on our side were beginning to smolder.

  "Something happened in there," I said, biting back my fear, "but there are at least three people still alive."

  "God damn it," Corol said, but swung himself out of the cart. He left the motor running, and after a moment's search, found a broken stub of timber to jam under the driving wheel.

  "Badly hurt?" The doctor ducked through the door ahead of me without waiting for an answer. He checked at the sight of the room, the wreckage made surreal by the upturned handlight.

  "Behind the counter," I said, and stepped cautiously over the two intact bodies.

  There were four people behind the counter, three heavily bandaged, eyes closed, medical packs taped to their bodies. The fourth crouched against the far wall, a blast rifle clutched in thickly bandaged hands. He—no, she—had worn a topknot; her hair fell now in matted strands, hiding her face. She swung the rifle in my direction as I stepped around the end of the counter, and I stopped dead, holding up my empty hands.

  "My name's Maturin," I said. "I'm the Halex Medium." The doctor darted forward around me, heedless of the levelled rifle, and dropped to his knees by the nearest of the unconscious bodies.

  The woman relaxed then, letting the rifle fall from her hands. "Thank God you came," she said, softly. "The grenade took out the transmitter."

  "Grenade?" I asked, and bent to pull her gently to her feet. She stood, wincing, bandaged hands held well clear of my body. Beneath the straggling hair, I could see two deep parallel gashes along her cheekbone and jaw, completely obliterating a Family tattoo.

  She nodded and said, in a voice breathless with pain, "Brandr—live, I think, not ghosts. Broke off the hinge and tossed a grenade in. We were just lucky the medics put us back here out of the way." She touched the counter gently, wonderingly, with one mittened paw.

  "Those bastards." That was Corol, the cart secured to his satisfaction. "Medium, we've got to hurry."

  The woman gave me a questioning glance as I helped her to the door, but I ignored it. She'd see soon enough, I thought grimly.

  And then we were outside, in the sudden, stifling heat. The woman doubled over, coughing, as the smoke caught her. I lifted her bodily then, and put her into the cart. She retained enough control to draw her legs up after her, and waved me away. Still coughing, she curled herself up in the bottom of the cart. The buildings at the end of the street were fully ablaze now; even as I turned to go back inside, a piece of roof tile, one edge on fire, landed at my feet. I stepped on it, crushing the flame, but I could see more fiery fragments whirling through the air. I swore, and ducked back inside.

  "You'll have to carry this one together," the doctor was saying, pointing to a person so heavily swathed in a mummy bag that it was impossible to tell if it were a man or a woman. The hooked nose and downturned mouth could have belonged to either. "The other two aren't as bad."

  I nodded, and stepped around the counter so that I could take the stranger's shoulders. Corol stooped, laying careful hands on the stiffly wrapped feet. "On three," he said, and I could see the muscles tighten in his neck and hands. "One . . . two . . . three."

  We lifted him together, as gently as we could, but even so I thought I heard a breathy moan as we carried him—her?—across the room. We stuck momentarily at the narrow door, but then Corol bent almost double, and we were able to slide out. The sleeve of my tunic caught on some piece of metal, then tore free before I could call for Corol to stop. We laid the mummy-wrapped body in the cart bed and ducked back inside, afraid to look at the sky.

  The two remaining survivors were both small people, light-boned. I lifted the taller easily, and saw Corol lift the other, staggering slightly under the limp weight. As we crossed the room a final time, I saw the doctor kneeling beside the first bodies I'd seen, pulling the man's aside to examine the woman who lay beneath it. Her face was pale, somehow untouched by his blood or the force of the explosion, and I hoped for an instant she might still be alive. Then the doctor rose stiffly, shaking his head. I saw the ripped medical pack lying empty against her thigh, the anti-shock drugs that might have saved her life pooled on the floor beside her.

  Then at last we were outside, battered by a scorching wind that drove burning scraps of buildings ahead of us along the street. Corol lifted his burden into the cart bed—the doctor, scurrying ahead, helped to steady the bandaged body—then swung himself up into the driver's seat. I lifted the person I was carrying over the tail of the cart and pulled myself in after him, hoping we hadn't left it too late. The buildings to either side of us were burning.

  "The chock," Corol shouted, his voice barely audible over the noise of the flames.

  I cursed, remembering too late how he'd wedged the wheel, and dropped back out of the cart to free the length of wood. The cart jerked forward, Corol's hand heavy on the controls, and I dodged back just in time. I caught the side of the cart as it rolled past me, pulling myself aboard, and lay panting in the bottom of the bed as Corol gunned the engine. It coughed—the bad air was affecting it at last—then caught with a roar. We rolled forward, picking up speed, running from the fire.

  By the time we reached Leith's temporary headquarters, the fire following on our heels, she had decided to pull back to the Necropolis wall, and was calling on the force holding the stadthall to find the firefighters and get them working. We joined the retreat, mingling with a mass of Brandr ghosts fighting to get away from the flames, their few belongings carried on their backs. I saw a puppet theater group trying to save their projector, six or seven people hauling at the massive piece of machinery. They quickly fell behind, and were swallowed in the crowd. I never knew what happened to them.

  By clock-midnight, the fire had jumped the Necropolis wall. That was enough to persuade the Brandr firefighters to cooperate, and fighting stopped across the city as Brandr and Halex fought side by side to halt the spreading flames. It did some good, but it wasn't enough. By the tenth hour, when the firefighters finally reported the fire under control, half the city had burned.

  Leith withdrew to the field then, leaving a mop-up crew to keep an eye on the firefighters. Sitting in the field hospital's hatch, I saw her arrive, at the head of a train of ragged and smokestained followers, the survivors of the attack. Somewhere, she had found a battered three-wheeled jigger, and steered it one-handed in a ragged arc across the field toward the grounded freighters. She was carrying something else in her other hand, the crippled hand—a pale brown bundle. As she came closer, I saw it was a baby.

  She brought the jigger to a grinding halt at the foot of the stairs leading to the hatch, looking up at me with cold, empty eyes. I met her gaze, not knowing what to say, not looking at the baby that lay motionless in the circle of her gloved arm. Still silent, she swung herself off the jigger and started up the stairs into the field hospital. At her entrance, several doctors turned, and then the Ansson woman came forward, scooping the baby almost protectively into her own g
rasp. She held it easily, maternally, touching chest and stomach, then turned away, reaching for something on the instrument table. A moment later, the child's arms and legs wriggled, and it gave a feeble, crowing cry. For the second time, I saw Leith's mask crack, and she turned her back on them all, one hand hooding her eyes. I pulled myself to my feet and went to her, blocking the others' stares.

  After a moment, she nodded and rubbed her good hand across her face as though reapplying her soldier's calm. "It's alive, Trey," she said softly. "The mother—I saw her die, but the kid's alive." She straightened her shoulders. "What's the word from Destiny?"

  "Stalemate, up to now," I answered. "Terend's been doing what you said, just warning the Brandr not to interfere if they want to keep the city safe."

  Leith made a face at that. "Such as we've left of it." She sighed, the mask slipping again. "I didn't count on a fire, Trey, I swear it. They always said at school, the thing you don't count on's the thing that's going to screw you." She looked down, pressing gloved palm to bare palm in an almost ritualistic gesture. "But it's happened," she said, more to herself than to me, "and at your choice. Accept it, and go on." She looked up, meeting my gaze, and actually managed something that might have been a smile. She looked dreadful—eyes smoke-reddened, sunk deep in their sockets, the red mark of a flying ember on her chin.

  "Captain Moraghan!" For the first time since I'd met him, Terend Ingvarr sounded frightened. I turned, feeling ice along my own spine.

  "Yes, Terend?" If Terend's voice had startled her, Leith gave no sign of it.

  "Captain Moraghan, Halfrid Brandr is calling from Destiny, and he wants to talk to you and to Himself—he won't talk until you're there."

  Moraghan gave an odd, twisted smile. "I was half expecting this," she said. "Trey, will you come with me?"

  I nodded, and followed them back into the improvised communications room. Alkres was waiting there, as he had been all night, sitting bolt upright in an uncomfortable hanging chair. He was chewing on his lip as we came in, but as soon as he saw Leith, his tense expression eased a little.

  "Oh, Captain Moraghan, I'm glad you're here," he said, with an attempt at adult calm.

  Leith nodded. "Terend said Halfrid wants to talk to us?"

  "Yes." Alkres shivered.

  "Put us on, then," Leith said. As the technician made the adjustments, she glanced at me. "Make sure everything's done legally, will you, Trey?"

  I nodded, just as the technician said, "Channel's open."

  Leith squared her shoulders, facing the sound pickup as though it were another officer. "Halfrid Brandr? I'm Leith Moraghan."

  The speaker crackled slightly—the ship's equipment wasn't really meant for this sort of work—and Halfrid said, "So you're the latest off-worlder the Halex have hired to do their dirty work. This just proves my point. The Ship's Council made the right decision."

  "I'm not an employee," Leith said mildly. "I used to be a Peacekeeper, and I'm acting under the Oath."

  I nodded approvingly. If the other genarchs were listening, that would make them think a bit.

  Halfrid started to say something more, but Leith cut him off. "This can be gone into at a more appropriate moment. If you've got anything important to say, say it; otherwise, I have a proposal for you."

  "And I've got one for you, Captain," Halfrid retorted. "You may hold my city—what's left of it, I heard what you did—but I've still got yours. I hold the power plant, and I tell you, if you withdraw now, I might—might—not blow it up, and half the city with it. Otherwise, it'll be city for city, Captain."

  "I remind you we still hold Madelgar," Leith said.

  "And I hold Destiny," Halfrid answered. "I'll destroy it, don't think I won't. I hold the power plant, remember that."

  "I'd advise against any precipitous action," Leith said, still mildly, and made a chopping gesture to the technician. He cut the power instantly, and she took a step back, circling her gloved wrist with her fingers.

  "Can he do that?" Alkres asked. There was a quaver in his voice, and Leith gave him an encouraging smile.

  "Yes, he could do it," she said, "but so could we. He's just trying to scare us."

  "That means stalemate," I said, unable to hold back the words any longer. "After everything we did, we're no better off than we were. It's all for nothing."

  Leith glared at me. "We have Madelgar," she said, in a voice tinged with restrained anger. "That was the objective, Trey. We're exactly where we expected to be at this point."

  I looked away, ashamed of myself for blaming her. She had never said this would be easy or without risk, had never promised more than she'd delivered. The things I'd seen in Madelgar were as much my responsibility as hers—more, perhaps, since I'd been the one to suggest an attack. She'd accepted her share of it; I couldn't—wouldn't —do any less. "You're right, of course, Leith. I'm sorry," I said. "What do we do now?"

  Leith gave me a twisted grin, her anger gone as quickly as it had appeared. "We wait," she said, simply. "He'll talk, but we'll have to wait for it."

  Chapter 14

  Rehur

  The basement room was cold, despite the camp-heater glowing in the center of the narrow space and the costume racks pulled into a circle for insulation. Rehur slipped his hands into the sleeves of his quilted coat—a gaudy thing, costume rather than clothing—and hugged his knitted tunic closer to his body. The Brandr had ordered para'anin in to remove themselves to other precincts, and when that failed to restore order, had cut power into the Necropolis two weeks before, in an attempt to starve what remained of the population into submission. The ghosts, and those para'anin who'd chosen to ignore the order, knowing the city's byways better than any living person, had managed to smuggle in enough food and fuel to keep themselves alive and angry. The Brandr were forced to content themselves with barricading the greengates from the outside, only occasionally venuring inside the Necropolis wall. And when they did. . . .

  Rehur smiled slowly, remembering triumphs as sweet as stage success. The Brandr soldier foolish enough to cross the wall might well meet a crossbow bolt in his belly—there were plenty of hunting bows and other light weapons in the Necropolis—or he might run into a barrage of stones and taunting shouts, luring him into an ambush from which he would emerge bruised, humiliated, and, most important, weaponless. Rehur touched the blaster that hung at his own belt. He had taken it from a Brandr squad captain, a professional soldier grey-faced with fury at being beaten by a ragtag group of amateurs. That encounter had done much to erase Rehur's shame over his first meeting with Brandr soldiers.

  The portable comunit squawked sharply, and he started, annoyed that he'd let his mind wander. Ume-Kai reached for the breadboarded control box, adjusting its knobs a millimeter at a time, then cautiously lifted the cup-speaker to his ear. He listened for a moment, then leaned forward until his lips almost touched the transmitter pickup. "Acknowledged," he said, very distinctly. "I acknowledge." Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, but then a light winked out among the sprouting wires. Ume-Kai leaned back on his heels, sighing.

  "Well?" Rehur asked, after a moment.

  "Nothing new," Ume-Kai answered. "We're still picking up that broadcast from Madelgar—1 think it's a loop, myself. But that's all."

  "Why didn't they warn us?" Rehur muttered. "We could've been of use."

  The minne shrugged, reaching for the flask of tea. He poured two cups, sliding one across the floor to the younger actor, and wrapped his own hand around the other, trying in vain to warm his fingers. "They probably couldn't get through," he said. "The Brandr've had the gates sealed tight for weeks now."

  "Even so," Rehur protested, but had to admit the other was right. A broadcast message obviously wouldn't've been of any use, and the Necropolis had been disconnected from the Destiny comnet when the area was sealed.

  "Drink your tea before it gets cold," Ume-Kai said, "and be glad we've still got water."

  Rehur made a face, but picked up the chipped cup. T
hey were lucky that Destiny drew its water supply from a dozen different wells—the system had been set up to minimize the chance of earthquake damage—but less lucky in the quantity and quality of their other supplies. The tea was only palely green, and smelled faintly of seawater. Then his mouth curved up into a wry smile. At least it was hot—in the middle of a siege, he could hardly ask for more. He sipped at the scalding liquid, watching Ume-Kai from under his lashes.

  The minne had changed since he'd made himself one of the leaders of the Necropolis. His face had thinned—but then they were all thinner, living on short rations and hard exercise. The delicate line of cheek and jaw was blurred by a day's growth of beard, something that would have been unthinkable a calendar-month ago. His close-cropped hair had started to grow out, too, and stood up in an untidy brush. Self-consciously, Rehur ran his hand through his own hair. It was almost long enough to scrape together into a topknot; lately, he'd taken to binding it back with a short length of cord when he went out into the streets. Only Belit, asleep in one of the upstairs rooms, seemed unchanged by everything that had happened, though Rehur knew she carried a fresh scar along her ribs. The change in Ume-Kai was different, somehow, less a physical change than something more. The new authority sat well on him, brought out the strength a minne must hide or transmute into something more useful to his craft. . . . Or is it that I'm changing, too? Rehur wondered, still staring at the older man. He's taken command, all right, and that's made something new of him, but I've refused everyone who wants me to be a Halex. What's that doing to me?

  He shied away from the thought, mouth contracting into a bitter line. I won't—I can't—play that role any more, he thought. I wasn't suited for it in the first place, and now, when it really matters, I'd only screw it up again. It's better, much better, to let Ume-Kai lead.

  The comunit squawked again, and Ume-Kai reached for the controls. He adjusted them, wincing as he provoked a burst of static, then held the cup to his ear. Rehur watched his expression change from a look almost of boredom to one of surprise, and finally to anger.