by Sharon Lee
Seeing that he had little chance of approaching the zhena herself, Hakan had gone off in search of Zamir Tang, finding him in his usual place beside the punch bowl, engaged in a heated debate with two students who Hakan recognized as seniors in the aeronautics college.
He’d hung on the edge of that conversation for a time, first waiting for Zamir Tang’s attention, and then because he found himself caught up in the description of the challenges of building a proposed supersonic wind tunnel, until a random remark recalled him to the hour.
Which was . . . late.
And later, still, by the time he had walked across the dark campus, only to find that the trolley to the married students’ housing had stopped running hours before.
By the time he’d walked home, it was no longer late, but very early.
Kem, he thought, using his key on the street door, is not going to like this.
* * *
Nelirikk was not at his post
This was . . . worrisome.
Val Con stood very, very still, listening.
The breeze rattled branches overhead and combed the moist grass with chilly fingers. Somewhere to the left, and not immediately nearby, a night bird muttered. From further away came the sound of measured steps along pavement—the garrison guard, pursuing his duty. Beyond that, there was silence.
“Ain’t like him to just run off,” Miri said quietly from just behind his right shoulder.
“Nor is it.” His murmured agreement had been shredded by the chilly breeze before he remembered that Miri was not covering his offside, but minding the clan’s business on Surebleak.
He took a careful breath, and brought his attention back to the night around him.
From the right—a soft moan.
Cautiously, he moved in that direction, slipping noiselessly through a scrubby hedge. He dropped to one knee and peered about. To the left, a drift of last year’s leaves, crackling slightly in the breeze.
To his right, a shadow leaned over another, and then straightened to an impressive height.
“Scout?” Nelirikk said, softly. “Is it well with the old woman?”
“Well,” Val Con said, exiting the shrubbery and moving toward the second shadow, which remained unmoving on the ground.
“A watcher,” Nelirikk said, as Val Con knelt down. “And an uncommonly poor one.”
Val Con slipped a dimlight from his inner pocket and thumbed it on. The unconscious watcher was unmistakably Liaden; a red welt marred the smooth, golden brow. His hat had fallen off, freeing static-filled golden hair badly cut in imitation of the local style.
“How hard,” Val Con asked Nelirikk, thumbing the dim off and slipping it away, “did you hit him?”
“Scout, I only spoke to him.”
“Oh?” He sent a glance in Nelirikk’s direction, but the big man’s face was shadowed. “What did you say to him, I wonder?”
“Dog of a Liaden, prepare to die,” Nelirikk said calmly.
Val Con bit his lip. Inside his head, he heard the music of Miri’s laughter.
“I see. And then?”
“And then he most foolishly tried to escape me, tangled his feet in a root and fell, striking his head. The guard was at the far end of his patrol, or he could not have missed hearing it.”
“Ah.” Val Con sat back on his heels. “And his pockets?”
“Empty now. According to those protocols the Old Scout taught me, this person is a criminal many times over.”
“As we are. However, our hearts are pure.”
The captain’s aide felt no need to reply to this truth, instead stuffing the downed man’s contraband into a capacious rucksack.
Val Con reached again into his inner pocket, fingered out an ampule and snapped it under the unconscious man’s nose.
A gasp, a frenzied fit of coughing. The blond man jack-knifed into a sitting position, eyes snapping open. He blinked at Val Con, flicked a look beyond—and froze, his face a study in horrified disbelief.
“Galandaria,” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes still riveted on Nelirikk. “. . . an Yxtrang . . .”
“Yes, I know,” Val Con said calmly. “He is sworn to my service, which may be fortunate for you, for he will not undertake to pull your arms off without an order from me.”
The Liaden swallowed, painfully.
“What is your name and mission?” Val Con asked.
The man closed his eyes. Val Con waited.
“Technician Ilbar ten’Ornold,” the Liaden said at last. “We are attached to the Uplift Team, dispatched to the area in order to ascertain if rogue Agent Val Con yos’Phelium . . . ” He opened his eyes with a knowing start.
Gravely, Val Con inclined his head.
“Val Con yos’Phelium, Clan Korval,” he murmured. “Pray forgive my omission of the courtesies.”
Ilban ten’Ornold sighed.
“Field Agent san’Doval and yourself were sent to ascertain whether or not I had left anything of interest to the Department in Gylles,” Val Con said, softly, in deference to the guard still walking his line.
“Yes.”
Val Con paused, head to one side, studying the man’s face.
“You will perhaps not have received recent news of the home world,” he said. “The Department—”
“We had heard that headquarters had been destroyed. That does not mean the Department has been eliminated.”
“Of course not,” Val Con said politely, and stood, taking care to brush the leaves off the knees of his pants. “Nelirikk.”
The Yxtrang stepped forward, flexing his fingers and shrugging the chill out of his shoulders.
Tech ten’Ornold jerked backward, feet scrambling for purchase in the dead leaves.
Val Con turned, as if to leave.
“No! For the—you cannot leave me to this! I—”
Val Con turned back.
“Lead us, quietly, to your base in Gylles,” he said. “Or I will indeed leave you alone with this man.”
Nelirikk paused, and gave the poor fellow a toothy predator’s grin, perfectly discernable in the dark.
Ilbar ten’Ornold stared, as if he would keep him at bay with the force of his terror alone.
“I agree,” he said hoarsely. “Now, for the love of the gods put me under your protection!”
Val Con looked to Nelirikk, who dropped back a step, with a wholly convincing show of reluctance.
“I accept your parole,” Val Con told the tech. “Now, fulfill your part.”
* * *
“The Explorers Club,” Kem repeated, her voice calm and cold. Inwardly, Hakan cringed. He’d thought that telling the truth was the best thing to do, though the truth came perilously close to . . . the thing they didn’t talk about. The very thing that Kem didn’t want to talk about.
Now he thought that he should have lied; invented an impromptu jam session or something else more or less plausible that she could have pretended to believe.
“What,” Kem asked coldly, “is the Explorers Club?”
He cleared his throat, looking around their cluttered parlor, brightly lit at this unhappy hour of the morning, and Kem sitting stiff and straight in the rocking chair they’d bought together at the campus jumble shop. She still wore the exercise clothes she favored when she practiced dance, and he wondered if she had worked at it all the time he was away, again.
“Would you like some tea, Kemmy?” he asked, which was cowardly, unworthy, and wouldn’t work anyway.
“I’m not thirsty, thank you.”
Well, he’d known better.
“The Explorers Club, Hakan,” she prompted, voice cold, eyes sparkling. She was, Hakan realized, on the edge of crying, and it was his fault. His fault, and Cory Robersun’s.
He was, he thought, committed to the truth now. It seemed unfair that telling it was more likely to make her cry than the comfortable lie he’d been too stupid to tell.
“The Explorers Club,” he said slowly, “is a group of people interested in technology
and the . . . future. Of flight, mostly. But other things, too.”
“Other things,” came her over-composed voice, almost sweetly. “Like brewed tea coming out of a flat wall? Or a doctor machine?”
The things she hadn’t believed, when he’d told her. The things Cory’d told him nobody would believe. He’d thought Kem would be different; that she’d believe him because she believed in him.
“Like those,” he said calmly, his hands opening almost as if he gifted her with the information. “Tonight’s presentation was on jet-assisted flight. We don’t have it yet, but the zhena thinks we will, in ten years or less, traveling at speeds three or four times faster than the aircraft we have today—do you see what that means, Kemmy? At those speeds, Basil would only be a day away; Porlint, maybe two. The world would get smaller, but in a good way, we could—”
He stopped because her tears had spilled over.
“Kem—” Hakan dropped to his knees next to the rocker, and put his arms around her, half-afraid she would pull away. To his relief, she bent into him, putting her forehead against his shoulder.
“Kem, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “I—the time got away from me. I was waiting for a chance to speak with the new zhena—”
In his arms, Kem stiffened, and Hakan mentally kicked himself.
Why couldn’t you just stick with guitar, Hakan Meltz? he asked himself bitterly.
“Which zhena was that, Hakan?” Kem’s voice wasn’t cold any longer; it sounded small and tired.
He closed his eyes, and put his cheek against her hair. Get this right, he advised himself, or you’ll regret it every day for the rest of your life.
“A new member of the club . . .” he said carefully. “She’s from . . . away. Nobody seems to know where, exactly. I’m told she’s very knowledgeable, and has a number of . . . creative ideas.” Kem shivered, and he went on hastily. “I saw her tonight, and—Kem, she looks like Cory.”
Kem pushed against him, and he let her go, though he stayed on his knees beside the rocker. She looked down into his face, hers white and wet and drawn.
“Is she Cory’s sister, then?”
“I don’t think so. When I say ‘looks like,’ I don’t mean family resemblance—or I do, but not close family. More like a fifth or sixth cousin, maybe. She’s got the same gold-tan skin—and she’s just a tiny thing, not much taller than Miri, if at all. And when she talks, she moves her hands the way Cory and Miri did sometimes—you remember . . . ” He moved his hands in a clumsy imitation of the crisp gestures their friends had used.
“I remember,” Kem said quietly. “And you wanted to talk to this zhena.”
“I wanted to ask her if she knew Cory,” he said. “And I wanted to talk to her about—” he stumbled against the forbidden subject, took a breath and soldiered on. “I wanted to talk to her about that aircraft of his. If she’s a countrywoman, and an engineer, she might know—it might . . . really exist,” he finished, lamely.
There was a long silence during which Hakan found it hard to breathe, though he kept his eyes on hers.
When she finally, tentatively, raised her hand and smoothed his hair, he almost cried, himself.
“Hakan,” she whispered, “why are you . . . obsessed with these things? You’re a musician, not an engineer.”
“I think,” he said unsteadily, “I think people can be more than one thing, Kemmy. Don’t you?”
Another silence, with her hand resting on his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe they can.” She took a breath. “Hakan.”
“Kem?”
“I would like to go to the next meeting of the Explorers Club with you.”
He stared up at her, chest tight. “I—sure, but I thought you didn’t—”
“I’d like to meet to this mystery zhena,” Kem interrupted. “If she does know Cory Robersun, I have a few things I want to say to her about him.”
* * *
“The captain will have me shot,” Nelirikk said, stubbornly.
He’s said that once already today, but Val Con had dismissed it out of hand and continued preparations. Now, it needed to be addressed more forcefully since it was actually delaying lift-off.
“Indeed, she will not have you shot. Because, as we have discussed, you will begin calling for aid along our private channels the moment you clear far orbit, and you will not stop calling until you have raised either the captain herself, the Elder Scout, or Commander ter’Meulen. Once you have done this, you will report that the situation is far more complex than we had believed. That, in addition to no less than six field teams and four technical teams, there is at least one Agent of Change stationed in Laxaco City, whose intention is to speedily bring Vandar’s technology to the point required by the new headquarters.
“You will report on your prisoners and their condition, and you will say that I have gone to Laxaco on purpose to ensure that Kem and Hakan Darnill are out of harm’s way. I will attempt to locate the Agent, but I do not intend to confront such a one until I have substantial back-up.”
“Yay!” Miri cheered in his ear. He ignored her.
“Scout—”
Val Con sliced the air with his hand, a signal for attention; Nelirikk subsided, though he dared to frown.
“If the captain has you shot, you have my permission to bludgeon me to death.”
Nelirikk snorted. “A soldier’s gamble, indeed.” He sighed. “I will send back-up soon, Scout. Try not to do anything the captain would deplore in the meantime.”
“It is my sole desire to behave only as the captain would wish.”
“Pffft!” Miri commented, and even Nelirikk looked dubious.
But—“Safe lift, Scout.”
“Fair journey, Nelirikk.”
* * *
“There she is,” Hakan whispered into Kem’s ear, mindful of the zhena in the seat behind him. “She’s sitting next to Zamir Tang—the man with the rumpled gray hair—in front of the pudgy man with the wispy mustache.”
Kem took a good long look, her head tipped to one side. Hakan reached inside his coat and tried to adjust the zamzorn so its sharp end didn’t pierce him through pocket, sweater and shirt. Wind, but he was going to be glad when the semester ended and he could put the stupid thing away forever or have it mounted as a trophy for his fortitude.
“I see her,” Kem murmured. “She does look like Cory, doesn’t she? In fact . . . ” Her voice drifted off, and she frowned.
“What?” Hakan asked, forgetful of his voice, which earned him an emphatic sssshhh! from the zhena behind.
“What?” he whispered.
“Do you remember after the invasion, when Cory went off his head?”
As if he’d forget it soon. Hakan nodded.
“Zhena Pelnara reminds me of him like that,” Kem whispered. “I can’t quite—”
“If the pair of you don’t have any interest in this presentation,” the zhena in back of them interrupted in a hoarse whisper, “there are those of us who are.”
Hakan looked at Kem. She was biting her lip, her eyes dancing. He grinned and secretly reached down between their seats and slipped his fingers through hers. She squeezed his hand, and he settled back, happier than he had been in many a month. Not even the zamzorn’s prick against his ribs cast a shadow on his mood.
* * *
Val Con relaxed into the shadows across from the slightly seedy shingled building, the Explorers Club legend blazoned in bright yellow letters over the door. He had done a quick check of the building, looking for alternate exits, of which there was only one, and that one locked tightly. Not that a lock would necessarily stop, or even slow an Agent of Change, but Val Con rather thought she would be exiting by the front door, doubtless on the arm of the untidy old gentleman who had escorted her inside.
The agent, Karin pel’Nara, if the records he had copied were accurate, had been busy this last while, sowing her seeds of forbidden tech in the most fertile ground available to her: the inventors, visionaries and c
rackpots associated with the greatest university in Bentrill. That she appeared for the moment to be concentrating her efforts in Bentrill was a comfort, though a small one. At least Clonak and the hopefully substantial mop-up team would have a relatively small segment of the world’s population to deal with.
On the other hand, the agent had been thorough, to the point where Vandar might not be recoverable. Val Con sighed. The Department’s philosophy regarding young societies had always been one of aggression and exploitation. The death of a few barbarians; the destruction of unique cultures; the upset of societies; or the death of entire worlds—none could be allowed to weigh against the mission.
Well. It was hoped that Clonak arrived soon. A final determination of Vandar’s status could certainly not be made until the pernicious influence was removed.
And, truth told, the agent’s influence was hardly any worse than his own in allowing a native of an interdicted world onto a spacecraft, in telling him things no man of his world and culture had need of.
Val Con sighed again, quietly.
He had tracked down both Hakan and Kem and assured himself of their continued good health. Indeed, it was the need to be certain that they had not fallen under the eye of Agent pel’Nara that had prompted him to infiltrate the agent’s base and copy those very revealing files.
Seeing that Kem and Hakan had not come into the agent’s circle, he had reconsidered his own plan to visit them and drop a word of warning in their ears. Better not to take the chance, in case the agent were after all aware of his presence and interested in his movements.
The breeze freshened, rattling the handbills nailed to the post he leaned against. He wondered, idly, how long the Explorers Club would meet.
He was considering the advisability of moving closer when two figures came ’round the corner, moving quickly, their footsteps noisy on the cobbled walk. Latecomers to the meeting, Val Con thought—and then came up straight in his hiding place.
For the two latecomers were Hakan and Kem. As he watched, they jogged up the sagging wooden stairs and disappeared into the depths of the Explorers Club.
Oh, Val Con thought. Damn.
* * *