Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  The group he was traveling with turned off. He continued toward Miri at a somewhat quicker pace, the skin prickling at the back of his neck, while the Loop gave .99 surety that the agent was following behind.

  sig'Alda identified the tread of the shoe, lost it, found it, and lost it again, which reminded him that he was chasing no mundane Terran politico but a trained agent.

  An agent could not depend on luck. Already, though, he had been lucky in the extreme, for had the knife struck a bare two fingers higher, his body would even now be cooling in the dark shed. The speed! The anticipation! One moment to be beyond even the control of his own thoughts - and the next to conceive and execute that attack!

  His chest hurt from the knife's strike; no doubt he was bruised. That such excellence should be lost to the Department! sig'Alda sighed in irritation. Regret of that had been the source of the second introduction of luck into his mission: that he should have had his target within sight and failed to neutralize him; that he should, instead, have offered the choice, already refused...Had yos'Phelium been carrying a gun, or even another knife, that mistake would have been fatal, too.

  His quarry was ahead, sighted for a half second.

  Ah, but it would not do to catch him too soon, would it? In the open light, with a crowd around?

  sig'Alda slowed, allowing the other a more respectable lead. The Loop gave yos'Phelium a slight edge, if they fought hand to hand immediately. Barely considering the necessity and never doubting the wisdom of it, he took his third dose of accelerant.

  Why was yos'Phelium running that way? Why not back toward the area containing the draft animals and vehicles, to escape to the larger countryside? Why - but wait. He had found the Terran in this general direction - at the base of the hill, by the transmitter; and he had originally found yos'Phelium rushing in that same direction. Now, given options, the man broke again for -

  The transmitter. sig'Alda smiled. It fit one of the models perfectly. The songs had been a signal, deliberately timed, meant to be received by one who knew when and where to listen. The commander's words came back to him, saying that only Clan Korval might mount a military threat to the Department. Suppose the Dutiful Passage, large as a battleship, stood off-planet even now?

  The Loop produced percentages that he did not like. That the songs had been deliberate signals - .97. That they had been prearranged and intended for a particular listener - .93. That they had reached their goal? No percentage.

  Suppose they had not? Or that they had, and that his own advent had required a change in plans, which they were already radioing into space?

  The Loop supported the hypothesis.

  He ran, heedless of complaints, neglecting to follow Val Con yos'Phelium, now that he knew where he must be going. sig'Alda would be waiting at the transmitter when the traitor arrived.

  Miri marked Val Con's progress. He was heading for the train on the far side of the depot, or for her, maybe - it was a little early to tell about details. He was not running a race anymore, which was good, and his pattern had steadied down after going through all those loopy changes.

  As she trudged through the snow she wondered what her pattern looked like just then. Must be shot all to hell, what with the shock of that Liaden...

  She squelched the thought, the packet of Cloud riding like a fifty-pound weight in her pocket.

  Val Con had been running away from something, but she had seen nothing in his pattern that made her think he had killed anybody. That meant the skypilot was still at large, either walking toward her with Val Con, or maybe coming after him. Which meant - Ah, hell, Robertson, who you trying to kid? she demanded of herself. You don't know what it means. She saw the train, steam pouring from the boilers that fed the generators, and heard the occasional hiss of valves above the constant rumble of the huge belts.

  What an arrangement they were. Some kind of cloth and rubber getup, looping between the big power takeoff reel, the generator, and the flywheel. Between them all, they fed the electric power from the generator to an enormous set of old-fashioned wet-chemical batteries on the railcar in front. The radio station drew its power from the storage batteries, which made sense: If the belt broke or the steam went down they would still have power enough to broadcast until the monster could be restarted.

  Miri shook her head. Who would have thought that something so primitive could be so complicated?

  One of the cars way in the back of the train was a studio, duplicating the setup in the music hall. There was no longer any need to invade that, since they had attracted the attention of someone with a ship. All according to plan.

  She sniffed. Carpe diem, eh, Robertson? Now what?

  Up the hill, limned by the reflected glow of the main fair lights, Miri saw someone going quickly toward the train.

  She frowned and checked her pattern of Val Con. Then she faded carefully between the heavy couplings between two of the cars, watching the skypilot approach and taking a rapid inventory of her person, looking for something more potent than the skinny stick-knife and a handful of true-silver coins.

  VANDAR

  Winterfair

  "Cory!"

  Val Con continued hurriedly forward, ignoring the call.

  "Cory!" The voice insisted, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a man moving clumsily to head him off. The man was tightly wrapped against the evening chill, and Val Con frowned, then caught the details of nose and chin: Hakan's father.

  He waved and turned his steps slightly, as if to pass on by.

  "Wait!" Zamir Meltz called, disastrously skidding on a patch of ice. He waved his arms, tottered, and muttered "Thank you," as Val Con caught his arm and held him upright.

  "There you are, sir..." Val Con helped the older man to safer ground and stepped back, only to find his arm caught in a surprisingly strong grip.

  "At least give me a chance to thank you - and to apologize."

  Val Con sighed and forced himself to stay within the man's grasp. "I do not - "

  Zamir Meltz smiled thinly. "I wish to thank you for your friendship and your partnership with Hakan. I've never seen him with so much energy, so many ideas! And I wish to apologize because the judges have done a stupid thing. They put rules before music - before art! I helped elect those judges, and I see I made bad choices." He bowed his head.

  Val Con shifted, seeking Miri in his head. "Zamir, it is a difficult thing that happened. Miri is - distressed. She feels that she led the band wrongly when she called for that last song. That she played the mood of the crowd perfectly - that the performance itself was correct - is something you and I and Hakan know." He shifted again and, with relief, felt his arm loosed. "I am going now to Miri, to try to show her the difference between judges and art."

  The elder Meltz smiled. "You have a good zhena there, young man - bold and full of life. You tell her I know she'll be sensible, and that I respect her art and herself, whether she plays to satisfy their rules or not!" He shook his head. "Next fair, there will be musicians instead of politicians as judges, as the breeze blows the leaves!" He nodded to Val Con and strode off, his spare shoulders square with purpose.

  Val Con checked his sense of Miri once more, hearing a welcome change in her song as it smoothed back toward cohesiveness and became more and more the Miri he had come to treasure.

  The melody went abruptly sharp in an echo of the extreme concentration that she had displayed during the Bassilan invasion. He took a quick fix on her location and quickened his pace to a jog, though his heart argued for more speed yet.

  Carefully Val Con hurried, half searching behind for the agent, half searching ahead for his lifemate.

  Equations flowed and altered as sig'Alda ran; certainties became questions. Assuming that the Terran had been near the transmitter - had been stationed near the transmitter - as part of a deliberate and prearranged plan, the chance that she had taken the drug was markedly less; though, of course, for an addict, such possibility was never entirely eliminated.


  The Loop offered figures that were marginally in favor of her having used the Cloud, noting that she had had none prior to the performance. Cloud was potent; its lure to one sensitized was irresistible.

  The light was uncertain, mostly derived from the glow of the fair behind him and a few lanterns and electric lights set about the train. The red-haired Terran was not where he had left her, and the multitude of tracks about made any attempt to discover her direction hopeless.

  He glanced behind. There was no sign yet of yos'Phelium. sig'Alda sought further and found his quarry still within the limits of the fair light, speaking, it seemed, with a local.

  The conversation ended abruptly, with the local walking back into the depths of the fair and yos'Phelium all but running, in sig'Alda's very direction.

  sig'Alda smiled, admiring the clearness with which he could see that backlit runner. At this distance, it was still a chancy shot with a handgun, depending more on the luck that had saved him twice so far than any amount of skill he might bring to bear. But there was no hurry. yos'Phelium was coming to the transmitter. It remained only for Tyl Von sig'Alda to find an appropriate place to wait until his target ran within range.

  VANDAR

  Winterfair

  Miri crouched behind the flatbed, watching the Liaden watch, fuming and trying to think.

  Val Con had not killed the guy, though she was sure some of the craziness in his pattern had had to do with a conflict between them. Ergo, she thought, half grinning in self-derision. Ergo, Robertson, this monkey's more valuable alive then he is dead. Figure out why.

  The answer was so simple, so pure, that it took her breath away. Spaceship. Damn and hell and blaze it all to cinders! She fingered the coins in her pocket, pulled out the stickknife and flipped it - open...shut - and sighed. The way she saw it, the patrol broke down into two separate options.

  One: Keep an eye on the Liaden until Val Con arrived and gave her some kind of clue to what was going down. And two: If it looked like the target was moving out, stall him - without killing him.

  Always draw the challenging watch, doncha, Robertson? she asked herself sardonically, remembering that Skel had always accused her of deliberately taking the storm shift, as if a body knew when trouble would break.

  The Liaden she was watching moved, reaching into his fancy leather jacket and pulling out a gun. Miri craned around the corner of her protection, trying to sight along his line of vision, and nearly yelled.

  Val Con was moving toward the train, backlit from the main fair - a target even a mediocre marksman could hardly miss. She checked his pattern and found it alive on several levels, encompassing that twist she associated with consciousness of danger. But he was running, all the same. And in another few moments he would be within range of the Liaden's gun.

  All bets're off, Robertson, she told herself. She slid forward, knife out.

  Her melody changed again. It was denser, more brilliant, and intensely alert, as if she had suddenly slipped into a role where intuition, reflex, and intent were inexpressibly more important than thought.

  As if she were - hunting.

  He broke into a run, flat out and danger be damned, as the Loop leapt to full life, elucidating .85 that she was stalking the agent; .35 that she would survive the first encounter by more than a minute; .20 that she would survive at all.

  Miri, Miri, Miri! He flung his will out, trying to speak to her as Shan had spoken to him. Miri, DON'T!

  There was no sign that she heard; her song reached a plateau, drew in upon itself, and formed into a lance.

  Heart wailing, mind cold and certain, Val Con pulled on deep-buried reserves, feeling L'apeleka and override programs and desperation fueling the fresh burst of speed. Hunch prodded him into evasive action, and the next second he saw the flash; he heard one pellet snarl by his ear as another ripped the sleeve of his jacket.

  The Middle River blade was loose in its special arm sheath, ready to slide into his hand in an instant. Before him - still so far away! - he saw the agent turn, gun rising; he saw Miri coming in, low and fast and mean, knife gleaming in her hand; saw the agent take the force of her charge on his gun arm; saw the downward slice and -

  Saw the gun fly away.

  The agent snapped into offensive, missed his setup as Miri dodged and ducked and slashed low, trying to cut his legs out front under him, and recovered enough to slap the knife away, arcing silver into the shadows.

  Miri twisted and landed on her feet, countering the next attack - blindingly fast - with a move he had taught her. The agent was surprised to meet that familiar counter: he slowed minutely, slipped in the snow, and twisted as if to regain his balance, throat exposed and defenseless.

  Val Con drew one last burst of speed from somewhere, not daring to scream and risk destroying her concentration, hoping against all knowledge that the agent's misstep had been real.

  Miri lunged forward and took the bait.

  The agent steadied, accepted her weight and momentum, bent, spun, and completed the kill with the sureness of a man thoroughly trained.

  Miri went up and over his back, arching high into the air - a thin, red-haired doll in a blue hooded jacket - and smashed down onto the hard-packed snow.

  She lay utterly still.

  Val Con heard himself scream even as the blade came into his hand, saw the agent bend over to make certain of his work, then saw him start back, choking and gasping. Ship be damned and kin be damned and Liad and universe and life: the crystal blade caught and held the light as it came to ready, and Val Con jumped forward to close with the murderer of his wife.

  The cannonball hit him just below the knees, pitching him into the snow while a banshee voice howled in his ear, "Stay away from him! It's Cloud - poison!"

  He rolled and came to his feet; one glance showed him the agent snatching something that gleamed black metal out of the snow; saw Miri completing her own roll and diving toward him again, knocking him sideways.

  Heard the cough of the pellet gun and felt Miri's body go stiff, and then slack, against him.

  He was alive. No second shot had been made, either to be certain of the first kill or to set up the next. Val Con shifted Miri's weight, sighted through the splash of her hair across her face. The agent was standing perhaps three feet away, gun held ready, an expression of most unagentlike vacancy on his face.

  Val Con brought his attention to his lifemate, discovering a feeble pulse in the thin wrist under his finger, and a patch of sticky wetness that seeped through, coat and shirt, to his skin, that could only be blood. Her blood.

  Gently, reverently, he slipped from beneath her and came with slow fluidity to his feet and faced the agent, Middle River blade held in plain view, ready for the kill.

  Gun steady, the agent looked at him out of wide, soft eyes, but he seemed inattentive. Val Con hesitated, then walked forward, extended a hand, and plucked the gun away. The man blinked but offered no resistance.

  "I was to have shot someone," he said, the High Tongue registering wondering confusion. "I cannot properly recall...I was to have shot - someone..."

  "And so you have!" Val Con snapped, his own voice taking on the cadence of authority. "Give me your kit!"

  Dreamily the agent reached around his belt, unclipped something from beneath his jacket, and held it out.

  Val Con snatched it out of his hand and spun back to the small huddled shape on the snow.

  The wound was just above the right breast. His hands shook as he sealed the entry and exit holes and sprayed the dressings with antiseptic. Gods, gods - so close. And what he had to give her was rough first aid, though better than the rough-and-ready assistance a local medic might offer. For surety, for complete and quick healing, it was imperative to get her to an autodoc.

  "Is she hurt badly?" the agent inquired from just behind his shoulder.

  Val Con spun on one knee. "Badly enough," he managed with some semblance of sanity. He considered the agent's soft eyes, dreamy face, and careless stance.
Cloud, Miri had said. Memory provided the relevant bit from the Lectures. "...Lethecronaxion, street names: Cloud, Lethe, Now: memory inhibitor; effects lasting from one to twelve hours; physical addiction, as well as psychological need of user to shield painful associations, make Lethecronaxion among the most deadly of the unregulated drugs."

  Val Con sighed. "What is your name?"

  The agent looked startled; covered it with a bow of introduction. "Tyl Von sig'Alda," he said most properly. "Clan Rugare."

  "So." Val Con stared deep into the pupil-drowned eyes and saw nothing but guileless confusion. "Where is your ship?"

  Confusion intensified. "My - ship, sir? I - Rugare is not a...I have no ship - of my own. I am a pilot-for-hire, if you have a ship but do not care to pilot yourself - "

  Val Con cut him off, the High Tongue shaping the words into dismissal. "I see." Miri had to have assistance, and an autodoc was so far superior to a local hospital...

  Gylles itself did not have a hospital, the nearest being in the next town, thirty miles southeast. Too far, mind and heart clamored, while his finger tracked the thready, ragged pulse. He looked again at the agent, trying to recall if there had been a way - any way - known to his instructors to bring an individual out of a Cloud-trance.

  After a moment, he gave up. If the instructors of agents had the key to unlock a mind shrouded in Cloud, they had not shared it with Agent-in-Training Val Con yos'Phelium. There was, however, something else...

  Slowly he came to his feet, careful to keep his body between Tyl Von sig'Alda, Clan Rugare, pilot-for-hire and Agent of Change, and Miri Robertson, lifemate, partner, lover, and friend. The dark, clouded eyes followed him, distant puzzlement plain on a face peculiarly vulnerable.

  "Do you know me?" Val Con demanded.

  The other signaled negation, half bowing. "Sir, I regret..."