Though Hell Should Bar the Way - eARC

by David Drake

  Their vehicle was a six-place ground car, manufactured on Pleasaunce twenty years ago. I learned that from the parts orders—parts were a huge problem. The chauffeur seemed to be the mechanic also. He regularly put in reimbursement requests for locally made alternatives to the Pleasaunce originals.

  There was almost nothing about the Alfraz, however. It could be that there was a computer sector I couldn’t find or even a separate computer dealing with the ship. More likely, the Alfraz was simply rusting somewhere in the harbor.

  When I originally thought of bribing Platt to get me and Monica off planet, I’d thought it would be expensive. That was all right—I could make a one-time theft of at least twenty thousand piasters.

  The amounts I was getting at present could never be discovered with the palace records in such a jumble. Nothing recorded was actually going into my pocket, and an inventory of purchased goods would be wildly off, as much through incompetence as embezzlement and sales by divisional officers. Nobody but the suppliers knew that I was getting a small rake-off, and they had no reason to complain.

  A big chunk would mean writing a series of large false invoices, which associates of Abram would present. Even here that wouldn’t go unnoticed, but I hadn’t worried about anybody uncovering the theft in anything less than a month. By that time I’d be off planet, or I’d have worse problems than being uncovered as a thief.

  Platt was running so close to the edge, however, that I’m pretty sure I could have bought him for less than I’d paid his employees to betray him. Platt couldn’t be any part of the escape plan now, though; or at any rate, he couldn’t be aware of the part he’d be playing.

  Abram’s reappearance startled me as it always did when I was concentrating. Which, come to think, was most of the time I was alone.

  “A good time for a break at Etzil’s?” he said.

  I shut down the console. “A really good time,” I said.

  We walked down to the seafront in silence, as usual. I think it would’ve been safe to talk. We weren’t going to say anything that two or three words would’ve gotten us attention, and nobody would hear more as we passed them, but Abram was busy watching our surroundings and neighbors as though he expected an ambush.

  There were certainly places in Salaam that a stranger shouldn’t enter, especially after dark, but broad daylight on the central boulevard wasn’t one of them. Still, if it made Abram more comfortable to do it his way, that didn’t hurt me.

  We got a table, as usual. “Lal’s going to meet us here soonest,” Abram said. He grimaced and added, “Say, that other thing we were talking about? You still want it?”

  I nodded. “You have it?”

  “I can get it,” he said. “But it’s three hundred pi.”

  I drew the money out of my belt. I didn’t know what I might need a pistol for, and I hoped I wouldn’t need one at all. I certainly wouldn’t need three hundred ben Yusuf piasters if I got off planet.

  Lal joined us as Abram wrapped the money into his tight-wound turban. The boy set wine around and left. I said, “What can you two tell me about the Alfraz?”

  “Me, nothing, so I looked up Lal,” Abram said. “I’m a slave and none of the boatmen will take me out to a ship. They lose both hands if they help a slave escape.”

  Lal looked at the glass of wine with a sour expression. “Abram got me a bottle to carry out with me,” he said. “That was the ticket with the watchman, Ahmed, but I had to drink with him.”

  He shook his head. “It’s awful stuff, just awful,” he said. “I’d give a lot for a drink of fresh palm sap from Kashgar…but it has to be fresh, or it’d be worse than this,”

  He tapped the glass.

  “What about the Alfraz?” I said. I didn’t disagree about the wine in places like Etzil’s, but it didn’t matter.

  Lal shrugged. “Two thousand tonnes,” he said. “One antenna ring. In bad shape on the outside, worse on the inside.”

  He grinned at me. “About the same as the Martinique. Maybe even a little worse. There’s electric cables running over the cabin floor, I guess because the console’s been rewired.”

  “Can it lift?” I said.

  “I guess,” Lal said. “Platt put a watchman aboard, so I guess he thought so, at least. I didn’t touch the console, let alone light the thrusters.”

  “How did you get aboard with the watchman?” Abram said. “Just trying to figure it out in case I need to do something like that myself.”

  “I told Ahmed I’d been a crewman on the ship who just wanted another look for old times,” Lal said, grinning. “But mostly, I waved the bottle when I’d banged on the float so he stuck his head out the hatch. That did the talking for me.”

  “Is Ahmed a spacer?” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” Lal said. “Also from the way he talked, he’d been a doorkeeper before Platt hired him to live on board the ship. He’s got a little skiff to paddle himself to shore for supplies.”

  Lal grinned again. “From the way Ahmed talked,” he said, “he hasn’t been paid in near six months. He’s sold everything loose in the cabin for his upkeep, and if he knows about the outside tool lockers, he’s cleaned them out too.”

  I took a deep breath and asked the big question. “How large a crew would the Alfraz need?” I said. “Could we work her with two? That’s you and me?”

  Lal’s expression was a lot like the one Abram got when I insisted on interfering in the Wives’ Wing. “It’ll be slow,” he said. “You know the rig isn’t going to work worth a damn, and that means recalculating every course. We’ll be hopping all over the cosmos to get where we’re trying to go.”

  I nodded. “I agree,” I said. “I think I can plot us a better course than the console alone can, but that’s not going to help the ship hold that course if the rig won’t go into place.”

  “I guess we could do it,” Lal said. He gave me his grin again, this time with a very sad tinge. “You saved my life, Roy. There’s ways I’d rather spend it than dicking around the Matrix in a tramp spaceship—but that’s still better than floating the rest of my life in a crap air suit.”

  “Deal,” I said, offering him my hand. We shook.

  “If you’re not going to drink this,” said Abram, picking up Lal’s untouched wine, “I guess I am.”

  He tossed it down.

  * * *

  Abram and I spent the afternoon on our rounds of the suppliers. Not only would an influx of cash feel good—I wasn’t short, but there’d been enough outgo to make me uneasy—but it was important not to change my regular behavior now. Anything that made people wonder about me was dangerous, because they might start looking more closely.

  By now, the suppliers smiled when we came in. Balian even took me into his office while his nephews drank with Abram.

  “You know, Roy…” Balian said as he poured the wine. “I was worried when you showed up. The palace, they think they can squeeze and squeeze and little businessmen like me, we’ve got to pay. But if they squeeze too hard, they’ll kill us. They wouldn’t like that, and I really wouldn’t like it.”

  “There’s plenty to go around,” I said between sips, “if everybody’s reasonable.”

  “I appreciate how you took care of Mehmet when he got drafted,” Balian said.

  “One of Bashir’s sergeants had decided to go into business for himself,” I said. “I explained to Bashir that if Mehmet”—one of the nephews in the front of the shop—“wasn’t released from conscription immediately, the Admiral was going to muster the entire army as listed on the pay records. It turned out that wasn’t something Bashir wanted to have happen.”

  Bashir collected the pay of nearly twice as many soldiers as were actually in the palace. That was in addition to what he stole on equipment.

  “Could you have done that?” Balian said.

  I shrugged. “Bashir thought I could,” I said. “I’d never want to swear to what the Admiral was going to do.”

  Balian began to laugh. “Myse
lf, I would not bet against you, Roy,” he said. “It is much better to be your friend.”

  We chatted a little longer. Then I left with Abram, on the way to the next vendor on my list. The nephews had put the week’s payment into the satchel over Abram’s shoulder. Its thin fabric was woven from the roots of a local plant and would turn a knife slash.

  I thought of what my disappearance would mean for Balian and the other suppliers. They didn’t all like me—Ali son of Ali, the main local wine supplier, didn’t like anyone, as best I could tell—but they were all better off for my presence in the equation, and I think they’d all admit it. Their lives were going to get worse when I was gone, whether that meant off planet or dead.

  I liked them, mostly. Even Ali son of Ali kept his word. To me, that is; his invoices to the palace were as false as everybody else’s.

  I would feel sorry for people who were harmed by my leaving, but my duty lay elsewhere: to the Republic of Cinnabar; to Captain Leary, who’d given me a chance when nobody else had been willing to. And just maybe to Roylan Olfetrie, a kid who’d never consciously done anybody harm.

  Our way out of the market took us to a coffee bar at the intersection of the aisle we were following with a cross aisle. I gestured to it and said, “I want some coffee. And I want to talk.”

  My drink at home was beer or the bitter chocolate beverage that was more popular on Alliance worlds than in Cinnabar space, but I thought the coffee might clear my head. Balian hadn’t been the only supplier who’d chosen to be hospitable while paying over my commission.

  We moved cushions to an open space and the proprietor brought a little three-legged table to set beside us. The coffee came in tiny glasses. You had to drink it carefully or you’d choke on the grounds that half-filled each container.

  “So,” I said to Abram. The racket in the covered market hid our words from anybody who wasn’t seated with us. “Are you coming with me?”

  “I don’t know anything about spaceships,” Abram said sullenly. He wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  “I didn’t ask if you’d join the crew,” I said. “Frankly, I don’t have time to train you, so you’d be more trouble than you were worth. But”—I carefully tasted my coffee. This wasn’t going to change my opinion of the beverage—“though there won’t be anything from me linking you to what’s going to happen, I don’t have to tell you that if I’m not around to talk to, they’ll be talking to the folks who knew me best.”

  I smiled, because I’d thought of something funny. I said, “You know, Giorgios is going to be lucky if he just loses his job. Well, he chose his side when he bought me.”

  “I got family in the Kabylia,” Abram muttered. “They don’t like me much, but if somebody from the city comes out to the farm, they’ll be lucky to get farther than the bottom of the cesspool.”

  “You’ll have plenty of warning,” I said, taking another taste. “But I wanted you to know that you’ve got a choice.”

  “I came here from the farm,” Abram said. His hands began to shake and he put his cup down. “I never been anywhere else. Not even Eski Marakech.”

  He swallowed. “Look,” he said to his cup on the table, “I’ve talked to spacers plenty. I’m not yellow, I’ll fight anybody, I will. But it scares me, all that nothing. It scares me and I’m sorry but it does.”

  Abram’s eyes were tight shut, but tears were leaking out of them. I put down my coffee and leaned forward to hold his shoulders. “Hey, buddy,” I said. “No sweat. Look, I’ve been in space myself and I don’t disagree with you.”

  I held Abram until his body stopped shaking. When I released him, he blew his nose violently on his sleeve and looked up at me.

  “The thing is,” I said, “you know the things I’ve been doing. How much longer do you think I’m going to get away with it?”

  “Yeah,” Abram said. “Well, let’s get your ass off planet before you wind up with a stake up it, hey?”

  * * *

  When we got back to the palace, I found the Admiral at the console again. I swallowed and went down to the main courtyard where I played a game of checkers with one of the regulars there.

  I desperately wanted to get off ben Yusuf.

  But my stomach turned every time I thought of the Admiral and Monica. I wanted her out of this place even more than I wanted to be out myself.

  CHAPTER 24

  When I was sure that the Admiral had gone back to the Wives’ Wing, I checked the cameras myself. Monica was in the garden. I thought twice about what I was going to do next, but I really wanted to talk to her. I headed down for the alley door.

  Abram had gone off “on business,” without telling me what that was. He carried the satchel. We’d transferred the takings from it to my money belt.

  I brought a heavy broom, as I’d taken to doing. At Martial’s at lunch one day, a yard man who’d seen me leaving the palace with it asked what the broom was for. I told him Giorgios had told me to sweep the alley, I guessed because the Admiral had said something. Did he want me to tell Giorgios that the yard man was wondering about what was going on?

  The yard man didn’t, and that ended the discussion for good. I thought of Giorgios as a pompous joke, but he frightened people on the bottom rung of the palace. He made a point of bullying those whom he could, and the fact he reported directly to the Admiral gave him a certain amount of real authority.

  Mind, what I’d told Balian was true: You could never count on the direction the Admiral’s whim was going to take him. I couldn’t think of any situation in which I didn’t believe I’d be better off going unnoticed than I would be for enlisting the Admiral’s help.

  I walked into the alley whistling. There were two men farther down. I began to sweep enthusiastically, keeping my eyes on the job. The men moved off in the other direction. There was nothing they could do about my plans, but I didn’t want spectators.

  I pulled the door open and slipped inside. It was getting easier to swing the door every time I used it. The electronic locks remained in place until the moment I was ready to leave the console. It was likely enough that somebody passing through the alley would tug at the handle in a vague hope of finding something to steal inside.

  I walked quickly to the inner end of the passage. I realized that I’d better have a light with me when I fetched Monica. Somebody who didn’t trust that the tunnel was clear wasn’t likely to stride along in the dark at the speed I wanted us to be showing then.

  I’d picked up a fist-sized lamp from Bryce that glowed when I twisted the top. Balian hadn’t been sure how long it would stay lit, but the two of us plus Abram and the nephews couldn’t find any way to change batteries. I might get a nasty surprise, but it was still a better choice than bringing along an oil lamp.

  I opened the grating cover. “Thank heaven,” Monica said. “Thank heaven.”

  “Things are moving along,” I said. “I think it may be very soon.”

  “It can’t be too soon,” she said fiercely. “I think I’m going to go mad if I have to stay one more day!”

  I grimaced, an expression which she couldn’t see. “Look,” I said, “this is really dangerous. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff I can’t check ahead of time.”

  I tapped lightly on the grating.

  “Even opening this door,” I said. “I’ve been oiling the hinges but I don’t dare risk opening it before we’re really going.”

  “Roy,” Monica said, leaning forward in her seat. “You’re not guaranteeing me a happy future. You’re just making it possible for me to have a future that I’ll want to live.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah, well, I’ll try,” I said. “Ah, Monica, could you be ready to go tonight? To be out at this door at eleven thirty?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Can we go then?”

  I’d considered the possibilities. I didn’t see any reason not to do it immediately, though it scared the crap out of me.

  “We’ll go tonight unless something comes up, and then I’ll try to tell you,”
I said. There wasn’t any way to tell her anything except by coming to the grate. What if something happened to me? Maybe Abram would be willing to take a message?

  “Look, I’ll go off now,” I said. “There’s stuff I need to set up. But we’ll try tonight.”

  I closed the grate, running through the number of people I had to see immediately.

  I grinned. If I waited another month it’d still scare the crap out of me. This way, I didn’t have as long to worry.

  * * *

  I knew the day Monica had entered the Wives’ Wing. Through that date I’d found the Admiral’s first approach to Platt. I crafted my own to echo it:

  Most excellent colleague and friend!

  I have been fortunate in finding another quantity of fine Saguntine vintage—equal and perhaps superior in quality to that which we shared six months ago. This has a beauty which blazes like the very sun, and I am convinced it has never been uncorked.

  If at midnight tonight you will appear at the alley entrance as before, a trusted servant will conduct you to where I wait with the vintage. We will throw dice, you and I, for the privilege of the first sip from the bottle. Then, man and man, we will take turns throughout the night.

  Yours in truest fellowship

  Mustapha Reis

  I sent the message off, then leaned back and let out my breath. I must have closed my eyes.

  Abram jolted me alert by saying, “Did you just bloody die?”

  I jumped upright. He was standing beside me, looking disgusted and angry. The satchel was over his shoulder. He glanced down at it and said, “I got something for you.”

  “Let’s go down to Martial’s,” I said. It struck me that there were a lot of people on Salaam whom I was going to miss, which I never would have believed when I arrived here.

  Martial’s was busy. Abram and I picked up pasties and wine and carried them farther up the side of the palace to where we were alone. We squatted with our backs leaned against the stone. I wasn’t in the mood to eat, but I needed to get something in my stomach. The next few hours were just going to make me more nervous.