Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

by Lee, Sharon

  “Boss?” Rof Tin waited until the door was completely closed behind him. “There's a lady here to see you.”

  Clarence looked up from his screen. Rof Tin had been in the front office for about a local year; quite a distance from the Low Port honeycomb he'd come up in. His Terran was vernacular, his Liaden low class, and his understanding—usually—quick. There wasn't much that rattled him, but right now, Clarence decided, he looked decidedly uneasy.

  “A lady?” he asked, probing for more information.

  Rof Tin ducked his head, halfway between a bow and a formal inclination of the head. “She says she's a friend.”

  Clarence sat back. On the one hand, the Friendly Lady was an old, old ploy. He thought his various enemies on-world and off had moved beyond the basics, but maybe there was somebody new testing the Boss' defenses.

  There was always somebody new.

  On the second hand . . .

  “It'd be a shame and a discourtesy to keep a friend waiting,” he said, setting his screen to one side, and giving a thought to the hideaway nestled snug up his sleeve.

  He nodded. “Show the lady in.”

  Rof Tin bowed, triggered the door and stepped into the foyer.

  “Please,” he said, in a mode recognizably that of Child-of-the-House-to-Guest; “Boss O'Berin will see you.”

  The lady stepped inside, both hands out in plain sight, good pilot leather on her back, and pretty far gone in a family way.

  The door closed.

  Horror threw Clarence to his feet and into the dialect of his youth.

  “For the love o'space, woman! What's he thinking to let you come down here to me?”

  She tipped her head, green eyes considering. Before he could wrap his tongue around the proper Liaden, she had smiled and inclined her head.

  “From New Dublin you are?”

  New Dublin was a lawful world, as far away from where he'd come up as Rof Tin's honeycomb was from High Port.

  “No, lassie,” he said, gently. “I lived in deeper than that.”

  “Ah. It is you speak as Anne speaks, in Terran.”

  “Not surprising. The Gaelic Union seeded a lot of colonies.” He shook himself and stepped 'round the desk to set the chair more comfortably for her.

  “Sit down, do,” he said, finding his Liaden again in the mode of Comrade. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  That was prudent, at least, he thought, trying to approve her sense. But—

  He sat down again behind the desk. “Aelliana, why are you here?”

  “I have urgent business with you,” she answered, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the galaxy.

  “Very well. But, I advise: If it happens again that you have urgent business with me, send a message and I will meet you at Ongit's. It's not seemly for you to come to me.”

  Also, he added silently, it was damned dangerous. What the blue blazes was Daav thinking?

  “Surely it is seemly, when I must ask you to grant me a boon.”

  He stared at her, suddenly chilly. “What boon?”

  Aelliana inclined her head. “You are the delm of Low Port. I ask safe passage.”

  “I'm not the delm of Low Port, I'm the Juntavas Boss on Liad,” Clarence said, grateful that Comrade allowed one to instruct without insult. “There's no guarantee of safe passage through Low Port, Aelliana. Not even for me.”

  She touched her tongue to her lips, and took a breath.

  “Daav is on the Low Port,” she said, and he could hear the strain in her voice, even under the kindly mode. “He left two nights ago and he has not come back.”

  Which explained a lot of things and confused a few more.

  “His brother wishes to go after him. I—The delm—has disallowed this.” Her lips quirked.

  “So the delm wants to go in, instead?” Clarence shook his head. “I'm not such a fool as to risk both of you—your pardon—the three of you.”

  Aelliana raised her chin. “If you are not the delm of Low Port, can you prevent me?”

  Clarence grinned at her. “Yes. Remember where you are.”

  Her lips tightened, and it gave him a pang, but dammit, she couldn't just come waltzing onto dangerous ground, like—

  “He is alive,” Aelliana said. “I can go directly to the place. I think.”

  “Might be he'll just walk out himself, after whatever business he's doing is done. If you surprise him in the midst, it might . . . disturb the balance, and place all in peril.”

  Aelliana shook her head. “I—he is not . . . well, Clarence. I think that he would walk out, if he could.”

  Ah, hell.

  “If you would grant an escort, someone who is wise in the streets,” Aelliana was saying. “Daav said that two draw the eye in Low Port, but I think that the risk—”

  “You are not going to Low Port,” Clarence interrupted. “I forbid it and I have the ability to enforce my will in this.” He held up a hand, as her lips parted.

  “Allow me a moment,” he said. “If you are likewise lost or taken, to whom does the Ring fall?”

  “To Er Thom,” she said promptly.

  “Correct. As much as I honor him, I do not want Er Thom yos'Galan to wear Korval's Ring. He measures with a far heavier hand than his brother, and I fear the consequences—for Korval, for the Juntavas, and for Low Port itself—if he is required to Balance the loss of three of the Line Direct.”

  She sat quiet for a long time, looking down at her hands folded on her lap. He gave her time, and at last she looked up.

  “I withdraw my original boon,” she said. “But I ask another.”

  Clarence inclined his head. “I hear.”

  She stared into his face as if, Clarence thought, she was trying to read his mind. Almost, he felt as if she could.

  “I ask that you yourself and your most trusted crew fetch Daav home.”

  That was a favor more to his liking, and in fact he had already decided on it.

  “You said you know where he is. Tell me and I'll go in now and pull him out.”

  Aelliana laughed. “I know where he is in the sense that I can go there. Street designations, shop names—those, I cannot tell you.”

  He thought about that. “Map?” he asked, reaching to turn the screen around.

  She rose and came to the desk.

  “It's worth a try,” she said in Terran.

  * * *

  The guard was Terran, and she knew his name—at least, a Terranized form of what might be his name. When he was aware, which he was only briefly from time to time, she had a tendency to chatter.

  She was chattering now.

  “Word's come down that the boss is on the way, David. You'll be glad of that, won't you? Get you in the 'doc, patch that leg up, give you a touch of detox. This time tomorrow, you'll be feeling as spry and as sassy as you were when you broke Jady's neck for him. Providing you're polite. The boss likes everything nice. You take some advice and be nice.”

  He was hazy on which of the four who had beset him had been the late and apparently unlamented Jady. He thought he had accounted for two, but the quarters had been close and the lighting confused. Nor had whoever struck him across the back of the head employed any unnecessary gentleness.

  Not to mention whatever was in the hypo his guard—he thought her name was Kitten—used on him whenever he had been awake too long.

  “Boss said to hold you awake,” Kitten confided. She patted his broken leg, firmly.

  He ground his teeth and failed to scream.

  “Tough guy,” she said, apparently approving. “Bounty's been out on you for a long time—dead or alive. Lucky thing the high price was for alive, or Jady'd just drilled you from the roof 'cross the way and not had us all down to dance.”

  She leaned over, making sure of his bonds. Satisfied, she patted him again, more intimately, laughing when he glared.

  “You liked it good enough when you was under,” she said. “All you got to do now is
take it easy. Boss'll be here inside the hour. In the meantime, if you want anything, just whistle.”

  She left him alone in the tiny alcove that was his prison. In happier times, he thought it had been a closet. It was big enough for the cot to which he was bound, his broken leg strapped to a board in rough first aid. A small mercy, that, and one for which he was grateful.

  Daav closed his eyes. “The Boss” argued for Clarence, though what he could possibly hope to gain by maintaining Daav alive—he took a painful breath.

  If Daav was a prisoner, he was a guarantee of Aelliana's compliance. And if Clarence had decided to expand his operations, as this harvesting of pilots seemed to indicate, then he would very much need Korval compliant.

  If—

  Fire ran his nervous system, and he spasmed against his bonds, gasping—then collapsed, boneless, panting, and soaked in sweat.

  Kitten appeared briefly in the doorway.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That'll be the withdrawal from the drug. You can expect more of the same until you get another jolt of the good stuff, or that detox like the boss might have for you.”

  She vanished, then, closing the door behind her.

  Fire arced through him . . .

  * * *

  They swept in carefully, and this time it paid off. The second-story crew took the gun on the roof across from the place Aelliana had showed him on the map without even raising dust. There were two on the door; one bolted, and fell to a trank gun; the other ran into Rof Tin's fist.

  Upstairs, a burly woman in a faded orange mechanic's coverall drew a gun—and dropped it, jerking her head at a sealed closet.

  “Put her to sleep,” Clarence snapped, remembering the first time, when he and Daav had lost the reaper to a poison tooth . . .

  Standing to one side, gun ready, he triggered the door to the closet. What was inside—

  For a moment, he thought he'd come too late; the form on the cot lay so still. Then he saw the chest move, heard the harsh sound of panting, and yelled for the kit.

  They hit him with a general detox, full-spectrum antibiotic, and got a balloon brace on the leg. It was only then that they turned their attention to the cuffs, Clarence picking one and Sara on the other.

  “Boss.” The word was raw, barely above a whisper. Clarence looked down into half-crazed black eyes.

  “Daav.”

  “It was you, harvesting pilots. She said you were coming . . . ”

  “You,” Clarence said in Terran, “have just spent the last day or two in hell; there's drugs I don't care to think too close on soaking up your blood and your good sense, and you've no business thinking anything at all.”

  “She said—”

  “You'll tell me what she said later,” Clarence said firmly. “I'm here to fetch you home to your wife, laddie, just like she asked me to do. You've been gone too long, and she's having the devil's own time keeping your brother to the High Port.”

  Daav drew a sharp breath.

  “That was my thought, too,” Clarence said comfortably. “Now, listen to me, Daav. You're a fair mess and I don't want to distress Aelliana any more than she already is. We'll make a stop at my office and get you half-patched, then we'll all have a nice chat at Ongit's. Does that suit you?”

  It probably scared the heart out of him, Clarence thought, but Daav yos'Phelium wasn't one to let mortal terror stop him.

  “It suits me,” he said in a raw, rasping voice. He shifted on the bed, newly freed hand groping along his belt.

  “What's missing?” Clarence asked, though he thought he knew.

  “Gun.”

  “Right.” He slid his spare out and put it in the other man's hand. “You're welcome to mine. Have a care; it's loaded.”

  Daav nodded, his arm, with the gun in his hand, stretched along the edge of the cot.

  “Thank you, Clarence.”

  He stood and motioned to Sara that she should take up her end of the cot.

  “No trouble at all, laddie,” he said. “Not a bit o' trouble at all.”

  * * *

  She hadn't told Er Thom where she was going or whom she was to meet. It was foolish; she knew it was foolish and yet she did it. Which was, she thought, taking her seat in the private room deep in the heart of Ongit's, precisely what Daav had done and for precisely the same reason.

  Korval was too thin. The former delm had not gone to Low Port herself, she had sent her heir. His loss would have wounded the clan, but it would not have crippled it. There was no heir or maiden uncle for Korval's present delm to send upon difficult missions. Every life was precious, and the combination of duty and necessity put them all at risk. The delm's duty, to preserve the clan, became the duty to preserve the future of the greater number of the clan, thus increasing the delm's personal danger.

  She could see the graph inside her head; she could trace the lines of causation, and—

  There was a tap at the door, and the elder Mr. Ongit stepped in, followed by Clarence, moving slowly, to accommodate the comrade who leaned hard on him, face drawn, and eyes haunted. Weariness flowed out from him, and a toxic wash of horror, pain, shame, and self-loathing.

  She spun to where the elder gentleman waited by the door.

  “Of your goodness summon a Healer immediately. Say that Korval is in need—wait!” She spun back to Clarence. “Yourself?”

  He shook his head, and offered her a smile so weary it barely curved the straight line of his mouth. “I'm good, thanks,” he said in Terran.

  She nodded and looked back to Mr. Ongit. “One Healer—as quickly as you can.”

  He bowed and was gone. Aelliana turned again, finding that Clarence had gotten Daav seated and dropped into the chair opposite.

  “Well,” she said, taking the last chair, “which of you has the strength to tell me what has happened?”

  Clarence laughed tiredly and shook his head.

  “Short form, there's somebody else trying to set themselves up as boss. Whoever that is has a hit list and a nice crew of reapers. Daav's name was on the list and they took him down for the bounty, as Daav says his keeper told him. I'll know more after I've had a couple of good chats with those we brought home with us. When I do, I'll send the report along by courier, if that suits.”

  “It does,” she said, with a glance at Daav, who was sitting where Clarence had put him, his head against the back of the chair and his eyes closed.

  “He's had a bit of a bad time,” Clarence said, following her gaze.

  “It could have been worse,” Daav murmured, sounding very nearly like himself.

  “That's right,” Clarence allowed, and rose with a wince. “I'll be taking myself off, gentle people.” He bowed. “Aelliana, your servant. Daav—”

  He moved a hand without opening his eyes. “Do not, I beg you, say so, or you will be doing nothing else with your time aside fetching me out of dreadful scrapes.”

  Clarence grinned. “I could branch out into bodyguard.”

  “So you could. Clarence—” He lifted his head with an effort Aelliana felt in her own muscles, and opened his eyes. “Thank you. I am in your debt.”

  “No, now that you're not. There are no debts between us. It's forgotten, and of your kindness you'll do the same.”

  There was a small silence, then Daav sighed, his mouth curving slightly.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Pilot. Yes, that is the course of wisdom. Let it be so. Good lift.”

  “Safe landing.”

  He crossed the room, reaching the door just as it opened to admit Mr. Ongit, with the Healer.

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  Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A clan's treasure is its children.

  —From the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct

  The tree had given several pods, which Daav had eaten without hesitation, and with every evidence of enjoyment. Aelliana was apparently judged well enough, for nothing fell to her hand. That was, as far
as she cared, as it should be. Her concern at the moment was all for him.

  Though he had received benefit from both the Healer and the autodoc, he seemed to her . . . tired; his signal, normally so clear, was subdued. The Healer had said that he might find it difficult to concentrate over the next few days, which was an artifact of the drug his captor had used to enthrall him. Aelliana gathered that there were crueler drugs that they might have used, but not very many.

  She sighed, her back against the tree's comforting trunk, and looked down into his face.

  Almost, she thought, almost, I had lost him. Her heart trembled, and she extended a hand to trace the stark line of his cheek.

  “I love you,” she murmured. “Van'chela, I love you so much that it frightens me.”

  “I know,” he whispered. He opened his eyes and gazed up into her face. “You're weeping. It all came out well in the end, Aelliana.”

  “This time,” she acknowledged unsteadily. “And yet it could have gone wrong in so many ways. They—”

  He raised his hand and pressed his fingers gently against her lips.

  “No. Do not consider what they might have done, nor even what they have done. They failed; we prevailed. That is what we recall.”

  She took a breath; nodded.

  “That is well, he murmured. ”Now, attend me, for I have been remiss and thus placed the delmae into danger. In the past, when the delms of Korval and the Boss of Liad have found it necessary to share information, a message is dispatched and a mutually acceptable time is found for them to meet at Ongit's. There is no reason for Korval to go to the Boss, or, indeed, for the Boss to come to Korval."

  “Clarence said the same,” Aelliana admitted. She laughed slightly. “Truly, Daav, I have seldom beheld someone so honestly horrified to see me.”

  “Clarence has a great deal of good sense,” Daav murmured, and turned his head away, as if listening.

  “Oh, dear.” He sighed. “I believe we are both about to be scolded masterfully.”

  Aelliana frowned. She heard the breeze in the leaves, the repetitive call of a to-me, the bright burst of a rindlebird's song—and footsteps, light and quick, growing more distinct.

  Er Thom appeared 'round the bend in the path, and crossed the grass to them.

  With neither ceremony nor greeting, he dropped to his knees and leaned forward to look closely into Daav's eyes.