by Brian Daley
At the top they were met by heavily armed Celestials in company strength. After some initial confusion, Redlock got everyone moving for the exit.
Just as they came to the mouth of the adit, ground-shaking explosions rolled up from the vault of the Precursors.
Chapter 4
The Very Stuff And Pith
When the surviving members of the landing party struggled from the adit, they were still under cover. Floyt looked up to see King's Ransom hanging low overhead, blocking out a good deal of the sky.
To Floyt, Governor Redlock's flagship would always resemble the fabulous jeweled eggs Carl Faberge made for the czars centuries ago on Terra. But this bauble was six kilometers stem to stern and, all the sparkle and trimming aside, a superdreadnaught that had trounced whole fleets of conventional warcraft.
Landing boats from King's Ransom had encircled the adit's entrance, the Blue Pearl, and the wrecked intruder stealth ship. Aircutters and other vessels from Frostpile maintained close surveillance over the valley; the landing zone was crawling with Invincibles, Celestials, and Redlock's space marines.
Over by one big Celestial landing boat, Charivari and Yumi and some others from the Pearl waited. Floyt went over to speak to Yumi, but a pair of Invincibles, a lieutenant and a captain, barred his way.
Yumi said softly, "Kindly let him by, please."
The Invincibles stepped aside at once; Floyt went to her. Medical personnel closed in on the others who'd emerged. More explosions rumbled from the vault.
It came to Floyt with a jolt that only minutes had passed since he and Yumi had been in each other's arms. It felt more like days, making their time together seem even more unreal. In the middle of the martial confusion of the landing zone, he hesitated to throw his arms around her.
Yumi read it on his face; she hugged herself to his chest, pressing her cheek to his. "You are unhurt? No—you have injuries!"
"What? Yes; Alacrity too. We'll be all right, though. He's just a bit, um, fuddled."
"I feared for you, Hobart. I am glad you're safe."
He was jarred, to inhale the jasmine in her hair again after the smells of gunpowder and burning machinery and blood, and the indefinable odor of eternity in the vault. He glanced around the landing zone. "But what about you? They should've gotten you out of here right away, up to King's Ransom."
She resisted when he would've led her to one of the landing boats; he was surprised at her strength. "I will not be going inboard the governor's ship, Hobart. I must return directly to Frostpile, to rejoin my Daimyo."
"Oh. I'd been hoping—"
"It is his wish. But I couldn't leave until I knew that you were safe."
She pulled his head down to her and kissed him again, a grace note and a good-bye. She pressed something into his hand. "I will always keep you in my prayers, Hobart Floyt." Then she broke away from his embrace. Yumi picked up the small case that contained his blood and said, "I am ready now."
More Invincibles appeared from somewhere. The captain was back with the lieutenant, to salute her smartly, saying, "At your service, Lady Nakatsu," while his men came to present-arms.
She looked tiny and fragile among them, but regal and accustomed to command. She was conducted aboard an air-cutter with a great deal of military courtesy. Floyt watched it lift into the sky.
When he opened his hand, he found she'd left him a small woven wire sack, like an old-fashioned reticule. It was heavy, and clinked as he tossed it on his palm. Tucking it indifferently into a bellows pocket, he kept his gaze fixed on the aircutter as it slid across the sky in the direction of the Weir stronghold, vanishing from sight.
Someone was talking to him; a jowly Celestial field surgeon stood at his elbow. "I've been ordered to examine you, Citizen Floyt. The governor will be very vexed with me if you don't comply. And if I may say so, you look as if you could use it."
Floyt capitulated; his gaze left the sky. "Why, that's very kind of you, Colonel." His nose was grotesquely swollen again, hurting like hell. And the parts of him that weren't bleeding were sore. The colonel held up a medical scanner.
"Just pick a spot, any spot," Floyt invited. "Has Alacrity—Master Fitzhugh—has he been treated?"
"They're working on him, sir. Nothing very much wrong with him but a slice, some contusions, a bit of shock. I'm going to give you both a thorough going-over inboard King's Ransom."
"I'm afraid we're bound for the spaceport."
"Not anymore." The colonel eyed his scanner. "How long have you been anemic, Citizen Floyt? Sir? What's so blasted funny?"
The Blue Pearl had already been limped back to the flagship. Floyt found himself in a landing boat with other members of the original party.
Alacrity, who'd come out of whatever state the harp had sent him into, moved off to one side with Floyt. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"I was going to ask you that. Do you think Redlock would go back on his word? That doesn't sound like him."
"No, but now isn't the time to pester him." The governor sat with Dorraine, watching as his medical people ministered to Seven Wars. The other landing party members were silent; Mourning their losses, Alacrity decided.
The breakabout insisted he wasn't much the worse for wear. "Which is probably more than you can say for the causality harp," he added. "All those explosions."
"What got into you down there, Alacrity?" Alacrity's face went into neutral, and Floyt knew better than to pursue the matter. "All right, then. Tell me who you think those people were—the intruders." There was a slight vibration as the landing craft lifted off.
"Redlock doesn't seem to be sure yet," Alacrity said. "Could be almost any government or independent group, one of the big cartels—almost anybody with real resources behind them. That stealth ship—that's a new one on me."
"But how did they get here? The whole Halidome system's awfully well guarded."
"There was so much traffic coming in for the funeral, maybe they were dropped off by one of the big, legitimate ships. Took guts, you have to give 'em that. They found out about the harp somehow and made up their minds they were going to steal it or study it, duplicate it, whatever."
"But whoa, then they blew up the vault."
"Samson in the temple? I dunno; people play for keeps when it comes to Precursor stuff. They took out the regular guard detail. Redlock said they might've pulled it off if they hadn't tripped that sensor."
The landing craft entered a hypaxial lock and made fast to the flagship. As Alacrity and Floyt moved to the hatch, they were met by Seven Wars. He was on his feet, looking amazingly well, impressing them with the vigor of Severeemish recuperative powers. "I understand I have you lads to thank for slapping that patch on me," the minister boomed. He was wearing a more workmanlike dressing applied by Redlock's people.
Alacrity jerked a thumb at Floyt to clarify the matter.
"There wasn't all that much to it, actually," Floyt assured, feeling heroic for a moment.
"A little less modesty, please, Citizen Earther," Seven Wars implored. "The rescue of a Severeemish envoy is worth a certain amount of fuss and ado." He clicked claws like black iron against his heavy red-gold Inheritor's belt, then indicated Floyt's. "We perhaps owe one another a little something anyway, but this makes the debt rather heavier on my side, eh?"
He winked one dark little gleaming eye, then hobbled through the lock leaning on his son's shoulder, the surviving Corporeal trailing behind.
"You can translate that?" Alacrity inquired.
Floyt shook his head, but Redlock, who'd come up behind, promised, "I'll clarify it for you both later. First, you can clean up and rest, while my wife and I attend to some other things."
"But—" Floyt foundered. His conditioning was stirring within him again.
Dorraine approached, favoring them with one of her most disarming smiles. "Why bother with the Epiphany spaceport when you can ride to Palladium with us?"
"But Dame Tiajo said—you—we—" Alacrity fumbled.<
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"I told the Grandam that I would dump you two at my first port of call," Redlock explained. "This site isn't a port of call, and we're no longer stopping at the spaceport. Now, if you'd be gracious enough to permit my wife and myself to pass, Fitzhugh, perhaps I can get us underway."
Floyt yanked Alacrity aside with his good arm, sparing his rib. Redlock exited into the flagship, an amused Dorraine on his arm. Several high-ranking Celestials entered to welcome their subordinates who'd been on the raid. The bandswomen-Celestials were very proper and proud.
A ship's steward showed up in the wake of the brass and braid. "Pardon me, sirs, but are you the two who'll be needing temporary billeting? Food and bath and so forth?"
"We'll come quietly, officer," Alacrity pledged gravely.
On their previous voyage in the Ransom, the immense Easter ornament of a ship made the intrasystem trip from Palladium to Epiphany in less than three hours. On this voyage, though, there was more time. Departure was delayed until the flagship's role in ground operations was ended and her forces back inboard.
Alacrity and Floyt were shown to a stateroom equivalent to a first-class suite in a five-star hotel. The steward unloaded their baggage from the passageway tram, acquainted them with the appointments, and left.
Floyt began digging through his toilet kit. Alacrity stepped over his warbag, bound straight for one of the two big, soft, turned-down, ground-style beds. He paused only to undo the double buckle and shoulder strap of the Sam Browne.
Flopping on the bed, dirty boots and all, he groaned ecstatically, dropping the gunbelt with a heavy thud. "Chinga, I forgot how heavy that thing is to lug around. Possible hernia. Don't let me sleep through Judgment Day."
"At least take off those bog flatteners." Floyt removed the Webley from his Inheritor's belt and gazed at it. It smelled strongly of propellant and he could still feel the impact it had made on his ears. An hour ago, or so, he'd been in Yumi's arms.
He was aching with fatigue too, but strangely depersonalized, waiting to feel some emotional reaction. He doubted he could shut his eyes. He shook off the memory of the man he'd had to shoot. Concentrating on the smell of jasmine, he headed for the luxuriously appointed head.
Floyt tried to mark the distance in space and time and internal changes since his first lift-off, in the Luna shuttle Mindframe, from Nazca spaceport to the Moon.
Novel plumbing no longer intimidates me, for one, he thought, looking around. He began hunting for instructions and experimenting carefully. He was soon lazing in a hot, foaming bath with concert-hall water jets. He had the scent system add the fragrance of jasmine to the air, then angrily commanded it to stop and change to attar of roses, a scent favored by Balensa, his estranged wife.
Floyt finally emerged clean in pore and follicle, crevice and tooth and nail. If not in thought, he sighed to himself.
Alacrity was sitting on a portable examining table that hovered several centimeters over the wood-plank deck, being attended by Colonel Chase, the surgeon, plus quite a number of fetching distaff medical techs. Floyt guessed that someone—Dorraine?—had passed word that there was one good way to get Alacrity's uncompromising cooperation.
"Intensive care?" Floyt asked mildly.
Alacrity grinned. "We can't pass up a chance like this. The good doctor says he'll update our immunities, free of charge!"
"You don't find deals like that much anymore," Floyt admitted. Particularly if you're an Earther. He had no idea how good or comprehensive the immunization treatments given him by Earthservice had been; that sort of thing was seldom called for on Terra.
One of the techs eyed him calculatingly. "We do noses, sir." It sounded flirtatious.
Several hours later the two rode a tram to an interview with Redlock and Dorraine.
Floyt had accepted repair work on his nose and, once the surgeon had promised that they'd cause no aftereffects, immunizations.
Colonel Chase had also called in a colleague, a specialist named Captain Twain, a very handsome middle-age woman who eclipsed the female techs in her own subtle way. Twain brought a dental unit with her and, in an astoundingly short time, initiated the growth of teeth to replace the ones Alacrity had knuckled loose. She also fit Floyt with a temporary retainer to keep the space open and the surrounding teeth in place until the new ones came in.
Alacrity settled for the immunization updating and another check of his rib. It was doing fine. He cleaned up while the team was seeing to Floyt. Then the two companions tried to doze, but in spite of all they'd been through—"Because of it," Floyt grumped—they hadn't managed to sleep.
Eventually the steward reappeared. Wearing the last clean clothing they had, they trailed the man to a large hatch. He handed each of them a voluminous blue-red fur greatcoat, saying, "His Excellency and Her Majesty are waiting for you in the winter garden."
They already knew King's Ransom was filled with surprises. "But, 'winter garden'?" Alacrity pondered. The steward worked the hatch and stepped aside.
They entered an antechamber paneled in some highly polished wood that looked like pink maple. The hatch closed behind them, leaving them alone. After a few moments—they'd both begun sweating again—the other side of the foyer swung away.
Neither, of them could do anything but bug-eye and laugh with delight. They were in one of the environmental domes that blistered the Ransom's hull, jewels of the Faberge egg. This one looked to be about sixty meters across, but it was difficult to tell, because the center was occupied by a little hill crowned by an octagonal gazebo. Foliage and landscape features hid the dome's base.
Besides, the snow was falling rather heavily.
"Please join us," a voice called. Dorraine and Redlock were sitting together in the gazebo, watching white flakes lazily drifting down.
"It's so quiet here," Floyt said softly. He could just about hear the infinitesimal hiss of snow.
"Everybody knows I have been here and there," Alacrity breathed, "but this is just the cat's posterior!"
Pulling the greatcoats tighter, they picked their way up the hill, their breath fogging in the cold air. The snow was ankle deep but they both had boots on. Their footsteps and breathing sounded unnaturally loud.
Floyt couldn't make out what mechanism produced the snow; though stars were visible out the sides of the unclouded dome, overhead was only blackness. The lighting that softly illuminated the gazebo, the hill, and the rest of the place was so subtly arranged that Floyt and Alacrity couldn't see any of its sources.
And what was falling was genuine snow, big fuzzy crystals of it, not simply sleet or frozen chemicals. Alacrity caught a few flakes on his tongue; they tasted wonderful.
The landscape was winter-stark. There were a few green perennials that neither of them recognized; the rest of the foliage was bare bushes and trees layered with white. There were rocks and even a stump, and what looked to Alacrity like a low stone prayer wall carved in the style found on Llahsa.
The gazebo was draped with withered vines and ivy. It was open to the air, its sides low dividers of white latticework. The roof was low-peaked, covered with several centimeters' accumulation of snowfall. Wooden benches lined the walls, the only furnishings in the place.
The governor and the queen sat close together under a thick fur coverlet the color of their winter garden. Dorraine was all in white as well: stole, cossack hat, and a muff big enough, it occurred to Alacrity in passing, to hold those cute derringers plus a few landmines for luck.
Her husband's greatcoat was a deep, silver-gray; he was bareheaded. He was more at peace than they'd ever seen him.
"Don't ever sell this place, folks," Alacrity pleaded. Dorraine and Redlock didn't seem to mind the familiarity.
"Yes, you can hear yourself think in here; that's why we like it," she said. "In some matters the previous tenant had good taste."
The previous tenant, as Alacrity and Floyt had had it explained to them, was a planetary monarch with the bad judgment to provoke the late Director We
ir and his good right arm, Governor Redlock. The vessel had been called the Versailles in those days; Redlock claimed her as part of the terms of surrender.
"You both look much, much better," Redlock greeted them. "Won't you sit down?" He pegged a snowball out one side of the gazebo. It flattened against a denuded tree with a pok!
"About what happened at the harp—" Alacrity began.
"If you start asking us questions or telling us things you shouldn't, you'll only force us to take official notice," Dorraine warned. "That would ruin everything. Please, seat yourselves."
There was no lap fur for the two companions, but stray snowflakes dusted off the benches easily, and the greatcoats made sitting comfortable.
"We're running out of fingers and toes, counting up what we owe you both," Floyt said.
"Do keep your shoes on, Hobart; you've done us a few good turns too." Dorraine smiled. Alacrity and Floyt couldn't help smiling back; that was just how they felt about her.
"I don't know how those intruders outflanked us," Redlock resumed, "but—am I wrong in saying things would've gone for the worse if you two hadn't been there?"
They both shook their heads vigorously: oh, no-no-no.
"But we really didn't have much choice, once the spitting started," Alacrity pointed out, honesty triumphing for once.
Floyt tried to suppress his excitement, asking himself, Could they possibly be planning to take us to Blackguard? Please, please! He felt a little faint; it seemed too much to hope for.
"I wish we could do more for you," Redlock said evenly. "I have obligations that demand my immediate attention."
"We know how important your alliance with the Severeemish is," Floyt assured him, trying to sound sincere, quashing the impulse to plead for the loan of one piddling little starship, or money for the fare. His conditioning had him queasy, his head was throbbing, impelling him to do just that.
"My options are also limited by certain promises I've made to Grandam Tiajo," Redlock continued. "I cannot give you money. I cannot permit you passage in a Weir ship beyond this point. I cannot offer you assistance of any kind once you debark King's Ransom."