When no one was watching, she broke off half the next piece Chulayen gave her and tucked it into a corner of her pack. She could test it tomorrow; no need to take everything some total stranger told her at face value, just because Gabrel believed him. After all—Gabrel believed her, didn't he? He might fall for any lie—he hadn't trained with professionals, like she had.
That is, she could test it if she was still alive tomorrow. When they finally stopped for a rest and another yummy stone-cold onion pancake, Gabrel had time to translate what Chulayen had been telling him. And it didn't sound good to Maris.
"I thought this guy said the Bashir was storing his pro-tech weapons in these caves we're going to."
"That's what I thought at first," Gabrel admitted, "but you can see that wouldn't make any sense. You don't use some location too remote for anybody but mountain goats as a weapons locker; can you imagine carrying heavy machinery up this trail?"
"Tanglefield generators and nerve dazers aren't all that heavy."
"In large quantities they are."
"So what does he use it for?"
Gabrel's lips tightened for a moment; he looked sick. "According to Chulayen, he uses it for . . . making what he trades for the weapons. He used to do it in Udara, but because of the rumors that somebody was going to investigate, he moved everything to the Jurgan Caves in Thamboon."
"So what do you manufacture in 'some location too remote for anybody but mountain goats,' then?" Maris threw his own words back at him, and the answer came to her before Gabrel could speak. Those bio-shielded cylinders that Johnivans got from Kalapriya, that went out to Rezerval as "medical supplies" . . .
"Bacteriomats," she answered her own question. "He's found a way to culture 'mats outside the coastal caves, and instead of selling them to the Barents Trading Society, he's trading them to . . . somebody . . . for pro-tech weaponry."
Gabrel nodded. "So he can conquer more territory, so he can take more prisoners, so he can culture more bacteriomats, so he can get more arms . . . It's an endless spiral."
Maris thought it over. "I don't quite get the bit about the prisoners."
"I'm not quite sure either," Gabrel said, "but Chulayen insists that they're being used to help culture the 'mats, and that it kills them, so the Bashir needs more and more people. He used to condemn his political prisoners to the 'mat culture caves, but that's not enough anymore; he's taking people from the conquered areas. I don't quite get what's so toxic about the 'mat culture process; our people in Barents do it without dying or even getting sick, and my Kalapriyan isn't good enough to understand what Chulayen is saying. I keep asking how the prisoners culture the 'mats, and he says the prisoners are the 'mats. Something is getting badly mangled in translation."
Chulayen broke in here with a flood of Kalapriyan in which Maris managed to make out the words "wife, son, daughters—everybody, all my family!" and some names.
"His family was taken by the Ministry for Loyalty," Gabrel translated. "Fairly recently. They were sent to the Jurgan Caves before he could do anything. He wants us to get there as fast as possible in case there's a chance of saving them."
Maris blinked back tears, angry at herself for the weakness. So Chulayen had lost his family, so what was that to her? She'd never had a family. But the little clerk's grief made something ache inside her. She focused on practicalities.
"And exactly how are we going to do that?"
"We may not be able to," Gabrel admitted. "We'll have to see what the situation is like when we get there. I'm not going to risk your life in some desperate attempt to save the prisoners in the caves. You're too valuable for that; you're the key to our whole success."
"Who, me? How? I don't feel all that valuable," Maris said. "I mean, I don't want to die, or anything, but . . ."
"Don't you see, Calandra? You're our link with Rezerval! Even if you're not fully trained yet, you're a Diplo intern. You've got contacts with people who can stop this whole filthy business, and they'll believe you. I can't risk going to Valentin with the story, because some of the senior Trading Society people have to be in it, and I don't know which ones. But you can take it directly to Rezerval."
Maris took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The thin mountain air seemed a bit short on oxygen; that must be what was making her feel so dizzy. "Gabrel. Tell me that's not your only plan—having me get help from Rezerval?"
"Can you think of a better?"
"Almost anything," Maris said, "would work better than that." Stop! screamed a voice within her. We never tell outsiders the truth.
So who's more of an outsider than me? Maris argued back at her own protective voice. Johnivans was gonna kill me, remember?
That just goes to show. You can't trust anybody.
But if that was true—if she couldn't trust Gabrel, who had been so patient, so helpful, who had supported her a hundred ways without ever once complaining—well, what was the point of living in a world where you really couldn't trust anybody at all?
"Calandra? Are you all right?"
Maris realized that she had closed her eyes, wrapped up in her internal dialogue for what must have seemed like forever to Gabrel and Chulayen.
"I'm going to do it," she said, half aloud. "And if he hates me, so what?"
"Calandra." Gabrel took both her hands in his. "What's the matter? Of course I don't hate you. I couldn't hate you. Damn it, Calandra, you know how I feel about you."
"You won't anymore," Maris said bleakly, "when I explain." But there wasn't any other choice, now. Somehow, traveling with Gabrel Eskelinen and trying to think with Calandra Vissi's head had fatally messed up her own head. She had become infected with outsider notions about doing the right thing instead of looking after yourself first, last, and always.
"Explain what?"
No way to put it off any longer. No excuse to put it off any longer. "Gabrel, you didn't quite get it right—about who I am—"
"You're not an intern?"
"No."
"But—I could have sworn you weren't a fully trained Diplo with all the implants."
"I'm not that either," Maris said. "And me name ain't even Calandra! I'm Maris! Maris Nobody from Tasman, got that? I'm a damn fake and you been too bunu dumb to catch on, all this time! Calandra's dead, you idiot! I—I needed to get off Tasman real quick, they was gonna kill me, and I had her ID and I used it and I was gonna run off soon's I got away safe only there wasn't never no chance!" Angry tears choked her and she realized she'd been shouting like a Tasman scumsucker. She took a deep breath and let the memory of Calandra Vissi fill her with borrowed calm.
"I didn't kill Calandra," she said, more quietly. "Nobody meant to kill her. It was an accident. But afterwards—" She could not bear to tell him how Johnivans had meant to throw her life away. That she was a person so worthless, her best friend in all the world had no more use for her living self than for her corpse. "Well, I was in trouble. Real bad trouble. And I look a little bit like Calandra, and Ny—a friend," she substituted, "hacked into the databases and fixed it so my DNA and retina scans would go on her ID, so I could use it to get away. That's all I wanted—to get away."
"To Kalapriya?"
"Anywhere off Tasman, and that's where Calandra was s'posed to be going, so I thought that would be easiest. I didn't realize until I got here," Maris confessed, "that the only way out was back through Tasman again. So I was stuck."
Gabrel sat down at the base of a tree and leaned forward, resting his arms on his bent knees.
"I . . . didn't mean to get you stuck with me," Maris ventured after a while, and then, after another silence, "I'm sorry."
Gabrel raised his head and Maris looked away, afraid of seeing scorn in his eyes.
"You've never even been on Rezerval."
"Right."
"You're here because your friends killed the real Diplo."
His voice was flat and dead. He hated her. He had to; look at the mess she'd gotten him into, and how she'd been lying to him since
the day they met. She might as well spell out the whole sorry story. When you had nothing left but pride . . . well, what good was pride?
"I'm here," Maris corrected, "because when the Diplo spaced herself, my 'friends' needed a substitute. If a Diplo'd just disappeared on Tasman, there'd've been a search that could've messed up Johnivans' whole organization. So his idea was to hack into Rezerval's databases and substitute my physical data for Calandra's, then let them find my dead body in her quarters and report she'd died of natural causes. Only when I put the story together, I decided I'd rather impersonate a live Diplo than a dead one. I got out of Tasman one step ahead of Johnivans . . . I don't have any friends," she finished, swallowing hard. "I'm nobody. I can't do you no bunu good." At least she could quit trying to talk toppie now.
She could feel Gabrel studying her face. Maris hoped she didn't look as miserable as she felt.
"You're wrong about that, you know," he said.
Maris lifted her empty hands. "And just what do you think I can do? I'm for sure not your contact with any Rezerval toppies!"
"You have friends now," Gabrel said. "You saved my life in Valentin, and you've been a damned good marching companion all this way. No accredited Diplo could have done better. Don't run yourself down, Cal . . . umm . . ."
"Maris." She folded her arms, as if she could hold on to herself, hold on to her misery. Words cost nothing. If she let herself believe them, it would just hurt worse when Gabrel showed the truth. Whatever he might say, he couldn't feel the same about a Tasman scumsucker as he would've about a Rezerval Diplo. "You always do jump to conclusions too fast," she told him. "When you've had time to think about it, you'll hate me for getting you into this. So why don't we just fast-forward to that part now and skip the nice talk?" And skip the part where she started to feel good again and then it was taken away. The remembered pain of discovering Johnivans' betrayal shot through her again, almost taking her breath away; it felt like a hand squeezing her heart. She couldn't go through that again with Gabrel.
Gabrel sighed. "Maybe we should just forget about personal relationships and decide how we're going to finish the job."
It did hurt.
"Fine by me," Maris said tightly.
"Okay, then."
"Okay."
After a long, tense silence Gabrel finally spoke again . . . in Kalapriyan this time. Chulayen answered, no, asked a question. Gabrel said something that sounded way too short to be a summary of her confession to him. In fact, if she knew Kalapriyan any better, she'd have thought he said, "Go away."
He had; Chulayen turned his back to them and walked down the path they'd come up until he was lost to sight among the trees.
"Wait a minute!" Maris cried. Never mind her personal misery, there was more than that at stake. "You can't just send him away like that. We got to try and rescue his family, don't we?"
Gabrel stood up. Maris dropped her eyes so she wouldn't have to see his face. All she could see was the toes of his boots coming closer until they stopped, inches from her own toes. "This isn't going to work, Maris."
"We could try, couldn't we? Oh, gods take it. Call Chulayen back. Him and me'll bunu try and get in there. We don't need you!" I don't need you. Leastways, not any more than I need air and water.
"I didn't mean that," Gabrel said. "Of course we're going to try. But we can't go in with our minds on other things, and I don't know about you, but I can't forget about our personal relationship and leave things like this. We've got to clear the air."
Maris looked up, avoided meeting his eyes, glanced from side to side at the conifer-studded hills. "Looks plenty clear to me," she said.
"Stop. Playing. Word. Games." Gabrel said through clenched teeth. "Oh, gods . . ." His hands closed on her shoulders and his mouth came down over hers, at first hard, then soft and warm and . . . Maris lost track of her thoughts and everything else. She'd imagined this a million times, only not like this, not with him knowing who she really was—
That brought her back to reality and she wrenched her head away. It hurt to stop. Hurt worse than anything yet.
As soon as his own mouth was free, Gabrel was talking, saying nonsense, not letting her get a word in edgewise. "Maris, I love you, don't you understand? I don't care who you were before, you're mine now."
"You don't love me," Maris told him. "I was being Calandra Vissi. It's her you love, and she's dead."
"Calandra Vissi didn't save my life in Valentin, and ride until her thighs were scraped raw without a word of complaint, and lead pack ghaya up into the hills with me, and make camp in the mountains with me," Gabrel said. "You did. It doesn't matter what you were calling yourself at the time. The girl who made this trip with me is the one I love."
He bent his head to kiss her again, but Maris twisted away. "Wait," she pleaded. "I got to think."
Love her? That couldn't be true. There wasn't anything about her to love. If there had been, Johnivans wouldn't have tossed her life aside so casually.
Unless . . .
Johnivans was a different sort of person than Gabrel, wasn't he?
Actually, Johnivans wasn't up to Gabrel's class at all. Now that she thought about it.
Maybe the problem wasn't that she wasn't worth anything, but that Johnivans didn't know how to care about people.
And Gabrel did.
He knew a lot more than that, too. While he was ostensibly giving her time to think, his left arm was holding her very close and his right hand was roaming in a most distracting fashion. It would be so easy to quit thinking altogether and give in to what felt so very, very good and safe. But she wasn't quite ready yet.
"You always fall in love with girls who drag pack-ghaya up a mountain trail?" she demanded. "Because if so, I'm gonna have too bunu much competition in these hills."
Gabrel tried to look serious, as if he were thinking it over, but the corners of his mouth kept twitching up. "Actually," he said, "I think I fell in love with you when you bullied me into talking to you, that first evening in Valentin."
"Huh! You mean when I listened to you all the way to the meeting hall."
"No," he said, "I think it was when you half crippled me by stepping on my feet during the valsa."
"I never!"
"Oh, yes, you did, my love. You are entrancing, maddening, beautiful, brave, and a terrible dancer. But I'll teach you to valsa properly."
"I am not a terrible dancer!"
"You should have seen the bruises."
"You're making it up, you walked fine afterwards didn't you?"
"A soldier is trained to bear pain," Gabrel said solemnly, "and if you don't stop talking, I'll have to shut you up again."
"Yap," Maris said. "Yap yappity yap. Yap yap ya . . ."
The second kiss was definitely better than the first. She was seriously tempted to keep arguing and kissing, just to see how much better it could get, but they did have a job to do.
She and Gabrel evidently realized that at the same time. His grip on her loosened and he stepped back.
So did she.
It felt like having part of her self torn away.
"I suppose," she said, "we'd better call Chulayen and get on with it, then."
"I suppose so," Gabrel agreed.
When they resumed the council of war, Maris was seated on the ground beside Gabrel, in the curve of his arm. And Chulayen looked at them and looked . . . not happy, perhaps, but less miserable than he'd been since they met. He said something to Gabrel that Maris couldn't follow, but she was pretty sure the word "love"—khariya—came in there.
"Okay," Gabrel said, trying to sound businesslike. "We need to figure out where we are and go on from there, right?"
"Going on" was painfully slow, since he had to say everything twice, once in Galactic for Maris and once in Kalapriyan for Chulayen—they couldn't risk anybody missing anything, not now—but there wasn't that much to say, really. You could only say "hopeless situation," and "forlorn hope," so many ways.
"The way I
see it," Gabrel summarized, "we've got people trying to kill us in Valentin. And we've got people trying to kill us in Dharampal. And we've probably got people trying to kill us in Udara. And that's the good news."
And people trying to kill me on Tasman, Maris added mentally, not that it would make any difference—so why bother saying it aloud?
"I don't think it would work to head back from here to Valentin and try to tell them all that we've decided to drop the investigation. They might not give us a chance to discuss it. They might not even believe us. Besides—" Gabrel gave a wry smile "—I'd really, really hate to have come all this way for no result."
"And besides," Maris said, "we got to get Chulayen's wife and kids out, don't we?"
"If we can," Gabrel agreed.
"After which we'll also have people trying to kill us in Thamboon."
"Ah. But with any luck we'll also have evidence that ties the whole scheme together. Then we try to make it back to Valentin—no, to Rezerval—and take what we've got to . . . whatever authorities we can find."
"You reckon our chances of getting back alive are any better this way?"
"No," Gabrel admitted, "but they're no worse, and at least this way, if we do get back, maybe we can do something worthwhile. Mathematically, it makes perfect sense; our choice is between probably getting killed with no outcome, and probably getting killed with a possible good outcome."
"I can't begin to tell you," Maris said, "how much better it makes me feel to know we've got a mathematician on the job. Makes all the difference. Okay, which way do we go from here?"
After a brief consultation with Chulayen, Gabrel reported that the pilgrim route to the cave was a relatively gentle downhill walk from the glade where they rested.
"Too good to be true!" Maris exulted.
"Well, yes. They're bound to have guards posted. However, Chulayen is almost sure there's another way into the cave complex. When he was there on pilgrimage with his wife he noticed there was a constant slight breeze blowing against his face. Also, the Inner Light Way priests appeared very suddenly from the back of the main cave. He's pretty sure there is a series of chambers back beyond the crystal caves with some opening to the outside, and he thinks he can figure out how to work around the main entrance to that one. So we're going to go that way—" Gabrel pointed at a discouraging rocky slope "—and then around there, and then with any luck there'll be a rope bridge . . ."
Disappearing Act Page 30