He broke off his kiss, letting go of Merovy almost roughly, pushing her back against the wall in the shadow of an overhanging balcony. She blinked her eyes, looking startled and then almost relieved. “Good night, Tammis…” she whispered, groping for the door handle behind her. She opened the door, and went inside. Tammis stood staring at the closed door for a long moment. Then he turned and headed back down the alley, pressing his fingers to his mouth.
He walked the whole distance home, needing time to gather his thoughts, needing to walk off the emotions that filled him with a dark heat, like poison. He had tried once to ask his father about the new feelings stirring so urgently inside him; about his confusion, when they were stirred as easily by the sight of a boy’s body as by a girl’s. But when he had tried to talk about his sexual feelings openly and honestly, his father had lectured him on the ways of the Summer islands, giving him definitions of what was acceptable that he knew from watching his city friends were impossibly rigid. When he had tried to ask if there couldn’t be something more, his father had become furious, and ended the conversation.
He had brooded over it, sure that he had failed to understand something his parents had always found obvious. He had told himself that the casual, indiscriminate sex he saw occurring more and more among his Winter acquaintances only mirrored the emptiness of their minds and the aimlessness of their spoiled existence.
He still believed that, in his heart. And yet, tonight Kirard Set Wayaways had told him that everything he knew was wrong.…
He reached the palace at last, and went directly to his father’s study. He looked in at the door and saw his father alone, sitting on the edge of the silver-gray couch, with his head in his hands, his face buried—sitting as still as stone. Tammis watched him silently for a long moment; and then he turned away and went on down the hall.
He found his mother at work with Jerusha PalaThion in another room. They looked up together as he hesitated in the doorway. “Tammis—” she said, with surprise plain on her face. He saw her glance away at the time, and back at him; saw Jerusha’s gaze measure his expression.
Jerusha finished the mug of whatever she had been drinking, and got to her feet. “I didn’t realize it was so late. We can try this again tomorrow. Maybe something will come to me in my dreams.…” She smiled, weary and wry.
His mother nodded, and looked back at him. Tammis could see the dark fatigue-circles under her eyes, as vivid as bruises against her pale skin. Jerusha went past him, still smiling as she looked at him and said, “Good night.” But he knew why she was leaving so abruptly—giving him privacy, for whatever he had to say.
“Tammis—?” Moon said again, her own face growing concerned. She held out her hands to him.
He crossed the room and took them, felt her warm fingers squeeze his, the feel of her touch, somehow still as calm and soothing as her kiss on his forehead when he was a child. He sat on the table-edge beside her, careful not to dislodge a pile of anything.
“What have you been doing tonight?” she asked him, her voice mild; but he thought he saw a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. He had not disturbed her while she was working in years.
He shrugged. “We were at Elco Teel’s after the Shop closed.…”
“Did you see what happened to Capella Goodventure today?” Moon asked, half curious, half as though she wondered whether that was what was bothering him.
Tammis nodded. “Elco Teel said it couldn’t have happened to a better choice of victims.” He smiled, a little guiltily; saw his mother’s smile mirror his, equally guilty.
“I’ll never hear the end of it. But thank the Lady Tor saved her, or I’d never hear the end of that.” She shook her head and rubbed her eyes.
“I want to learn how to do that,” he said, “what Tor did, I mean. Everyone thought it was like doing magic.” His mother’s smile widened, and she nodded.
He pushed up off the edge of the table again, feeling his resolution falter. “I just wanted to say good night.…” He glanced away as he said it, not able to face her as he spoke the words.
“Nothing else?” His mother’s voice caught at him like an outstretched hand, making him turn back.
He looked at her, seeing her doubled in his mind: his mother … the Snow Queen. “We were at Elco Teel’s, and…” And he told her, all of it, even about the offworlder Police inspector; unable to make himself meet her eyes when he repeated it … afraid of what he might find there. She listened, holding herself as tightly as if she held something that wanted to run away; scarcely interrupting. He saw her whitening with anger, but knew, from her hand on his and the cold distance in her eyes, that her anger was not directed at him. “Why do you think Kirard Set told you all this?” she asked at last, her voice strained.
Tammis looked away, shrugged. “I don’t know.… Merovy said he’d cut off his own ear to hurt somebody else.”
“Yes,” Moon murmured. “I think he would. He did it to hurt you, Tammis, and to hurt us all. I can’t tell you why, exactly…” although something in her voice told him that she could have. “But I can tell you, keep away from people like that. It doesn’t matter why they do what they do; it only matters that you know they will.”
She took her hand away from his; looked down at both her hands together on the tabletop. Her one hand touched the other, almost questioningly. “I am Arienrhod’s clone, Tammis. But I’m not Arienrhod.… The woman who gave birth to me was Lelark Dawntreader Summer. Sparks—your father—” she said insistently, “and I grew up together on Neith, in the Windward Islands. Gran and my mother were our family. Maybe I was Arienrhod’s clone … but Arienrhod didn’t raise me or feed me or sew my clothes or teach me right from wrong. Arienrhod didn’t love me.… That’s what makes someone your mother, or your father. That’s what family is.” She looked up at him, blinking too much. “And as for the rest of it … the Change took care of that, at the last Festival. We all cast our sins into the sea, and the sea washed them away. That’s what forgiveness is.”
He nodded, glancing down.
“Do you think you can forgive me?” she asked softly. “And your father?”
He lifted his head, blinking hard himself; but he did not answer. He hugged her, feeling safe and certain for the brief moment that she held him, before he said, “Good night” again, and meant it this time.
ONDINEE: Tuo Ne’el
“Boss, I think we’ve got trouble.” Kedalion Niburu called the words over his shoulder without looking back, not able to take his eyes off the screen in front of him. It showed him the unmistakable expanding diamond of a pursuit pattern forming in their wake—at least half a dozen craft, still beyond sight but closing rapidly with their own.
“Who is it?” Reede dropped into the seat next to him, peering out with bloodshot eyes across the living-death landscape. Tuo Ne’el had been sliding past below them for several hours now; gradually lightening into the visible as they caught up second by second with the day. Kedalion had never thought he would be glad to see that view again; but, until he had done this last scan, it had almost seemed like he was coming home. They had been in flight for nearly twelve hours straight, coming directly off their landing at an obscure shipping field halfway around the planet, flightlagged and exhausted to begin with. But Reede had ordered it, Reede had not explained why, Reede had simply wanted it done, that way, in secrecy with faked codes and no rest at all.…
And Reede was swearing now, as Kedalion pointed at the displays, letting him see trouble for himself. “Whose are they?” His own hand moved over the control boards, querying, reconfirming, as if he thought he could somehow find a better answer.
But it was an impossible question. “I don’t know,” Kedalion said, “except they’re not Humbaba’s welcoming committee. They don’t respond to any of the codes, and they aren’t talking. I’ve tried all the usual frequencies.”
“Shit. Shit!” Reede hit the panel with his fist, making some system bleat in protest. “We covered our tracks coming in
. How could the Blues have figured it—?” He shook his head. “It can’t be the Blues. They’d just nail us from upstairs.” He frowned, rubbing his face. “How far are we from Humbaba’s?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Can we get there first?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Are we transmitting a distress code?”
Kedalion looked up again, facing Reede’s expression with an effort of will. His own face felt paralyzed. “No one’s answering it, boss,” he said. “Seems like nobody’s home.”
“That’s insane,” Reede snapped, reaching for the comm. He stuffed a remote into his ear, sent out the same call, without even looking down. He got the same results: No answer. Nothing at all. Dead silence. His hand fisted on the panel; Kedalion felt his own hands beginning to sweat.
“You think they’re jamming us?” Reede touched the images on the screen.
“No. We’d get a reading off their beam.”
“By the Render—” Reede tugged at his ear, his eyes searching the featureless horizon for a sign of their pursuit, a sign of salvation. “Get me remote visual on the citadel, as soon as you can.”
“Boss…” Kedalion hesitated, remembering the mysterious meeting he had stumbled on before their departure for Number Four; remembering that Reede had told him to forget it. “Is there anybody else who can help us?”
Reede looked sharply at him; but then he sat back in his seat, actually seeming to consider the question. “Not close enough. Not that I trust. Not with what we’re carrying. Try the citadel again.”
Kedalion tried it. No results.
“Try our tail again.”
He ran a call all up and down the open frequencies. No answer. “You think they want our cargo?” He glanced into the rear of the hovercraft, where Ananke lay slumped across a seat in blissful ignorance, sound asleep. Concealed beneath the seat there was a heavy, unlabeled container—with the key to the universe locked inside it.
“That’s my bet.” Reede nodded. “But why—? The only ones who could possibly know I’m here and what we’ve got know I’m bringing it home for them.” He shook his hair back from his eyes; a muscle in his cheek was twitching.
“I thought Humbaba sent us—”
“No.” Reede looked at him suddenly, with cold disgust. “Humbaba did not send us. Humbaba doesn’t know shit.… I don’t like this, gods, I don’t.… Get the citadel on visual.” He pointed straight ahead.
Kedalion could see nothing. Wondering whether Reede actually could, he upped the resolution factor on the forward visual. A segment of their view appeared in abrupt magnification, showing him the distant spire of Humbaba’s fortress, rising like a beacon from the gray sea of impenetrable scrub. He heard Reede suck in a long harsh breath of relief, let it out again as he saw the citadel still intact. “Why don’t they answer?” he murmured. “Unless someone’s cut their entire power system … and that means no protection.” His knuckles showed white on the panel. “Try them again!” he said. Kedalion repeated the callcode automatically.
As he input the final digit a gout of flame rose from the image on the screen. A ball of white light expanded outward, filling the magnification segment, spilling over into their realtime view, blinding them even through the protected shield of the dome.
Kedalion swore, shutting his eyes. Reede cried out, a sound that was more like despair than pain, as his hands flew up to his face.
An explosion. As his own vision cleared, it let him see that the white light was fading … let him see what it had done. Where there had been an impregnable, shining tower on the sullen plain, there was now twisted wreckage, a splinter of ruin glowing cherry-red, flickering with the starpoint flares of secondary explosions.
“What … what…?” Ananke groaned, stumbling forward from the back seat. “What happened— Hallowed Calavre!” He stopped, clinging to the seatbacks, gaping in disbelief at what showed ahead. A black shroud of smoke had begun to conceal the ruin, as the thorn forest ignited like a funeral pyre. Kedalion could see the forest blazing up now in explosions of its own as petrochemicals caught fire in bark and leaves, setting off a holocaust that would torch the plain for thousands of hectares in all directions. Beside him Reede stared, motionless, his face devoid of any expression, as if his mind had gone completely somewhere else. He twisted the ring he wore on his thumb. Kedalion looked away from the emptiness of his eyes.
The shockwave of the explosion hit them, the hovercraft shuddered and bucked, dumping Ananke on his butt. Kedalion used voice and hands to reintegrate their stabilizers and speed with desperate efficiency. He looked up and out again—saw one of their pursuers glide forward into visual range, pacing them easily as he pushed the hovercraft’s speed to its limit, racing fate toward a destination that had suddenly ceased to have any meaning. He looked down at the specs reading out now on the screen in front of him. Each of the pursuit craft around them was a flying armory.
“Reede Kullervo!” The voice burst out of the comm, through the linkage of Kedalion’s headset, making him wince.
Reede jerked as if he had been shocked. Kedalion saw expression come back into his face. “I’m here,” Reede said, his voice toneless with barely controlled rage. “Who did this, you shit-eating cowards?”
“We are taking control of your craft’s operating systems,” the voice said, as if it hadn’t heard him. “Tell your pilot to activate override sequence.”
Kedalion glanced at Reede. Reede said nothing.
“We are armed. Activate override or we will shoot you down.”
“Copy. Activating override sequence,” Kedalion said, when Reede still did not answer. Maybe Reede figured this was as good a day to die as any … he ususally did. But Kedalion Niburu at least wanted to know who wanted him dead before he took a direct hit.
Reede’s expression was like the edge of a blade; but he made no move to stop anything as Kedalion let their escort take over the ship’s controls. Kedalion lifted his hands from the board in a shrug of resignation, watching data shift as they changed direction and speed. Ananke was on his feet again, peering over Kedalion’s shoulder in stricken silence as they flew on over the thorn forests, the blasted citadel and the raging wildfire falling away behind them like the past.
There was no more radio contact from their escort; they flew on in helpless silence. Ananke didn’t ask again what had happened. Kedalion decided that either he’d figured it out for himself, or he didn’t want to know. He sat down again in the back, stroking the quoll, staring out at the rearward view until there was nothing left to see.
Kedalion tried a few queries of the boards, the databanks. Nothing at all had been left under his control. He couldn’t even change the time on the clock. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the panel; shoved his hand into his pocket. His fingers closed over the huskball. He pulled it out, rolling it from hand to hand, comforted by the motion and its shabby familiarity.
“Can you get a fix on where we’re going?” Reede asked.
Kedalion looked up, and shook his head. “Can’t get a damn thing out of the banks. And it doesn’t look like we’re flying a straight course. Reede—”
“Shut up,” Reede said. “Shut up, Niburu.”
Kedalion shut up.
After about two hour’s flight time he began to see the spine of another tower, gleaming like a needle in the late morning sun. He wanted to ask whose citadel it was, but he didn’t. If Reede knew, he didn’t bother to share the information. A port blossomed in the fortress wall as they approached. Kedalion felt the invisible hand of a docking beam close over their craft, sucking them unerringly, inescapably into its waiting mouth.
Guards were waiting too, as they settled into a dock with a stomach-dropping lurch. Kedalion saw them peering in warily through the dome. The doors popped without his asking: an invitation.
“Let’s not keep them waiting…” Reede said. His voice was full of broken glass. He got to his feet, flexing his fingers like a man with a cramp;
Kedalion was relieved to see that he made no move toward any of the weapons he carried.
“What about—?” Kedalion jerked his head at the rear of the craft, where the container of stardrive plasma lay concealed under the seats.
Reede shook his head, with a leave it gesture. He stepped outside.
Kedalion followed, reluctantly, glancing back at Ananke. Ananke was looking at the quoll, looking around, as if he was trying to decide whether his pet would be safer with him, or without him. “Bring it,” Kedalion said softly. “The gods only know if we’ll ever even see this again—” He gestured at the hovercraft.
Ananke nodded, tight-lipped, and went ahead of him out the door.
Guards moved in on them, searching them by hand and with detectors, with rough efficiency. They had already relieved Reede of an assortment of weapons. Kedalion noticed that Reede’s solii pendant—the one he always wore, the one Kedalion had seen once on half a dozen ill-met strangers in a bizarre back-alley meeting—was dangling free. The solii’s shimmering, hypnotic light looked strikingly out of place against Reede’s nondescript gray coveralls. For once he made no effort to conceal it, wearing it with an almost defiant insouciance. The guards watched him the way they would watch a wild beast, as if his reputation had preceded him. Kedalion felt surprise, and then a wary relief, as he realized they were making no move to put binders on anyone.
Someone entered the docking bay, coming toward them, moving with a ruthless confidence that said he carried some power. The guards looked up at him, and moved out of his path. They were the usual mix of on- and offworlders, wearing the same pragmatic assortment of clothing that Kedalion saw all the time in the streets of Humbaba’s headquarters. The man coming toward them now was no more formally dressed. There was no way to guess who any of them worked for; nothing but the new arrival’s manner told Kedalion that he was in charge. He was close to two meters tall, and heavily muscled. Dark curly hair, dark upslanting eyes … Kedalion figured he was Newhavenese.
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