Burning Bright

by Melissa Scott

  “Where’s Rosaurin?” he shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.

  “I don’t know, Na Damian,” the woman called back. “In the shed, maybe?”

  Damian waved in answer, turned away.

  “Na Damian!” That was Rosaurin’s voice, coming from the head of the dock, beyond the plotting shed. Damian waved to get her attention.

  “Over here!”

  Rosaurin came to join him, the wind whipping her short hair and flinging the skirts of her coat wildly so that they seemed in danger of tripping her. A smaller figure was visible behind her, a tiny woman in loose trousers and a fitted coat, posed so unobtrusively that for a moment he didn’t recognize her. “It’s that hsaia, Na Damian–I’m sorry, the Visiting Speaker. He’s here, and he insists you promised him a tour of the facilities.”

  Ji‑Imbaoa. What would he be doing here, except to bring me the codes? And Cella, too. Damian Chrestil suppressed his excitement and said, with what he hoped was convincing asperity, “And at a time like this. Tell him–I’ll see him in my office, you can bring him in there.” Rosaurin looked warily at him, and Damian smiled. “Don’t worry, there won’t be any tours. I’ll deal with him. And secure that cable, will you?”

  “Right, Na Damian. I’ll bring him to your office.”

  Rosaurin turned away, balancing herself against the unsteady wind, made her way back down the wharf. Damian followed her, more slowly, doing his best to hide his elation. There was no other reason for ji‑Imbaoa to visit the Junction Pool docks, no reason except that he’d finally gotten the codes, and if he had, and Ransome was off‑line, held in the summer house, there would be no one who could stop the transfer. Except–maybe–Lioe, and she was being dealt with, too. He smiled then, unable to stop himself, and Cella smiled back at him.

  “He came to the palazze,” she said. “He said it was important, so I brought him here. Your sibs don’t know he was there.” She paused then, still smiling. “Do you want me to wait with him?”

  Damian nodded, knowing he did not need to wait for an answer. He ducked through the clamped‑open door into the shadows of the warehouse, and stepped back into his office. He glanced quickly at his reflection–his hair was a mess, blown out of its ties by even that short an exposure to the wind, and he tidied it hurriedly–and then settled himself behind the desk. He lit the screens, calling up the plans he had been studying, and leaned back in his chair to wait, struggling to keep himself from grinning like a fool.

  “Na Damian,” the secretary said, after what seemed to be an interminable wait. “You have a visitor. The Visiting Speaker Kuguee ji‑Imbaoa. And Na Cella.” The expensive voice module did a fairly good job with the alien name.

  “Show them in,” Damian said, and this time couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of his voice.

  He rose to his feet as the Visiting Speaker entered, gesturing for him to take the guest’s chair beneath the painted triptych. “Welcome, Na Speaker, it’s good to see you again.”

  Ji‑Imbaoa waved a hand, waving away the need for formality, and Damian did his best to swallow his excitement.

  “Your woman was good enough to bring me here. Time is of the essence now,” the Visiting Speaker said. “We can neither of us afford to waste any more time.”

  In the background, Cella lifted one precise eyebrow, and said nothing.

  “I’ve not been wasting time,” Damian said.

  Ji‑Imbaoa waved away the comment. “No matter.”

  “No,” Damian Chrestil said. “It does matter.” It was a risk, pushing him at this point, but he could not afford to let ji‑Imbaoa treat him like an employee. “I have been ready to fulfill my part of the bargain. The delays come from your end.”

  There was a little silence, ji‑Imbaoa’s hands closing slowly on the arms of his chair. Damian waited, and, as slowly, the hsaia’s hands relaxed.

  “It is so,” ji‑Imbaoa said. “However, that delay has ended. I have the codes.”

  It’s as much of an apology as I’m likely to get. “Excellent,” Damian Chrestil said, and held out his hand.

  Ji‑Imbaoa ignored it. “I have gone to a great deal of trouble to get this information. I had to contact my friends through commercial linkages–at great expense–because Chauvelin refused to allow me the use of the ambassadorial channels. I think I should have some recompense for this.”

  Damian swallowed his first response, said, with careful moderation, “Na Speaker, surely that’s one of the ordinary risks of doing business.”

  “I am not a business person,” ji‑Imbaoa said.

  That’s for certain. Damian said aloud, “You expect me to pay for your connect time to HsaioiAn.”

  The fingers of ji‑Imbaoa’s hands curled slightly, a movement Damian had learned to interpret as embarrassment, but the Visiting Speaker nodded. “I think it would be fair.”

  Damian hesitated, looked down at his screens to cover his uncertainty. This was part of the hsai power games, one more attempt to jostle for status; he himself couldn’t afford to lose, and so drop lower than ji‑Imbaoa, but he wasn’t sure he was good enough to win. The secretary chimed softly, signaling an incoming message, and he seized gratefully on the excuse. “I’m sorry, Na Speaker, I need to take that.”

  “Shall I go?” Cella asked softly, and Damian shook his head before the hsaia could take offense.

  Ji‑Imbaoa gestured acceptance, and Damian leaned back in his chair, touched the string of codes that activated the security filter, translating spoken words to a stream of letters across the bottom of the screen. A second set of codes flared, and he touched a second key to cut in the family’s decryption routines. The screen lit at last, and Ivie’s face looked up at him.

  NA DAMIAN.

  It was disorienting, watching Ivie’s lips move without sound, while the words scrolled past on the bottom of the screen. Damian nodded. “I hope things went well? I’m with a visitor, so you’ll have to make it fast.”

  Ivie nodded, in comprehension as well as agreement. I’M AT THE SUMMER HOUSE NOW, he said. THE FIRST GUEST IS WITH ME. WE’VE HAD A LITTLE TROUBLE WITH THE SECOND, BUT I HAVE HOPES THAT WE’LL BE ABLE TO FIND HER AGAIN SOON.

  So he’s got Ransome, but not Lioe. Damian said, “It’s a start, anyway.” He looked back at ji‑Imbaoa, the germ of an idea forming in his mind. “I’m coming to join you myself, and I may be bringing a guest of my own–a colleague, rather. How’s the weather?”

  Ivie shrugged. DETERIORATING. IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE MORE THAN AN HOUR OR TWO, I WOULDN’T FLY, BUT THEY TELL ME THE ROADS SHOULD STAY OPEN UNTIL DARK.

  “Good enough,” Damian said. “I’ll be there directly.” He touched the sign‑off key, and watched the picture dissolve, then looked back at ji‑Imbaoa. “I’ve had to do some improvisations of my own,” he said bluntly, “thanks to your delays. And suffer some inconveniences. Illario Ransome is off the nets right now, but only because I am holding him in my family’s summer house. I think that is equal to your expenses in getting the codes.”

  Ji‑Imbaoa nodded slowly. “Ransome is your prisoner.”

  “To put it bluntly, yes.” Damian watched him, aware that something had changed, but not certain what it was. It was as though the rules had changed, or even the game itself. Cella was watching him with renewed intensity, as though she’d sensed the change, too.

  “I would like to speak with him,” ji‑Imbaoa said. “I will give you the codes there, once we are at this house of yours.”

  Damian shrugged. There was no reason not to do it, as far as he could see; the nets were too well shielded for work to be interrupted by any but the worst storms, and he could access them from the summer house as well as anywhere. “All right,” he said. “I’ll call my flyer. I assume you have staff with you?”

  Ji‑Imbaoa gestured agreement. “My secretary, and one guard.”

  Damian looked at Cella, who was still watching him with that same unnerving fixity of purpose. “Do you want to come, too?” From the lo
ok in her eyes, it was a pointless question.

  “Yes,” she answered, gently. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Fine.” Damian Chrestil opened a working channel, typed in a quick series of commands, and waited half a second for the confirmation. “The flyer will be waiting for us at Commercial Street in ten minutes.”

  The wind had eased a bit by the time they reached the Commercial Street helipad, but the first fringes of rain had overspread the city. It fell in huge drops that left wet irregular circles the size of a man’s hand on the dusty pavement. Damian ignored it as he shepherded the others into the heavy flyer, but ji‑Imbaoa hissed irritably to himself, and the other hsaia, ji‑Imbaoa’s secretary, huddled himself into an incongruous plastic overcoat. The jericho‑human Magill, who handled security, flipped up the hood of his coat, but made no comment. Cella followed demurely, moving through the rain as though she didn’t feel it. The passenger compartment would seat only four in comfort, and Damian seized the excuse with some relief.

  “I’ll ride with the pilot,” he said, raising his voice over the noise of the engines, and let the compartment’s door fall closed without waiting for an answer.

  The pilot didn’t look up as he climbed into the control pod, already deep in her rapport with the machine, hands and feet encased by the controls, but one of Ivie’s men was riding in the copilot’s space. He scrambled to his feet as Damian opened the hatch, moved back to the jumpseat that folded down from the compartment wall.

  “Thanks, Loreo,” Damian said, and took his place beside the pilot. “How’s it look, Cossi?”

  The pilot shrugged one shoulder, her attention still on the displays that filled the air in front of her, visible only through her links. “Not too bad. The rain’s fading, and on the screens it looks like we’ll have some better air for the next forty minutes or so.” She looked down at her controls again, and Damian hastily fastened himself into the safety webbing. “I have clearance from the tower,” Cossi went on, “so I can lift whenever you’re ready, Na Damian.”

  Damian touched the intercom button, opening the channel to the passenger compartment. “We’re ready to lift, Na Speaker. Please be sure you’re strapped in, this could be a rough ride.” He took his hand off the button without waiting for an answer, looked at Cossi. “Ready when you are.”

  The flyer lifted easily, jets whining as it rose past the warehouse fronts and through the lower levels of sky traffic. As Cossi had predicted, the winds did not seem to be as strong as they had been, though the flyer dipped and shuddered. Damian clung to the edge of the hatchway, peered out the tiny window toward the Old Dike and the cliffs that marked the edge of Barrier Island. Even in the grey light, it was easy to make out the five projecting bits of cliff face that were the Five Points; he could even see the sparkle of lights behind the rows of windows. The Soresins’ palazze looked busy, a swarm of servants and robohaulers clustered around an ungainly‑looking cargo flyer, unloading supplies for the family’s annual first‑big‑storm party. Behind him, Loreo laughed softly.

  “Looks like the party’s on.”

  Damian nodded. “Pity we can’t make it.”

  The flyer lifted further, looking for a clearer path through the updrafts off the Barrier Hills, and for the first time Damian had a clear view of the sky to the south. Wedges of grey clouds piled over and on top of each other, steel‑colored overhead, shading to purple at the horizon; their edges met and meshed, deforming under the pressure of the wind. The light that came in through the flyer’s forward screen and windows was dull, lifeless, dim as twilight. The flyer banked sharply, heading south past the last of the hills, and Damian caught a quick glimpse of the mouth of the Inland Water. The storm barriers were up at last, three ranks of dark, wet metal closing off the channel, and the waves were starting to break against them, grey‑green walls of water streaked with skeins of foam that were startlingly white in the dim light. Damian shivered, thinking of a childhood visit to Observation Point just before a storm. The low, hemispherical building, set on the southernmost point of Barrier Island, on a spur of land that curved out into the sea, had obviously been built to withstand the worst hurricanes, but he had never forgotten the sight of the surf pounding at the base of the cliffs, throwing spray and stones ten meters high. At the height of a bad storm, the man in charge had said, boasting a little but also stating simple fact, the waves broke completely over the station for hours at a time.

  “We’re going to have to land from the southeast,” Cossi said, breaking into his train of thought. “Otherwise we’ll be crosswise to the wind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Damian braced himself as the flyer bucked, dropped several meters, but then Cossi had made the turn, and the flyer steadied slightly, riding with the wind instead of against it. They dropped lower, and Damian saw the scrubby trees bent even farther into the hillside by the wind. The family’s landing strip gleamed ahead of them, the rain‑darkened pavement outlined by double rows of tiny blue lights. The flyer fell the last few meters with a roar of jets, and then they were down, Cossi converting the drop smoothly to forward momentum. The braking fans rose to a scream, and died away as the flyer came to a stop, directly on the markers.

  “Nicely done,” Damian said, and meant it.

  Cossi smiled, in genuine pleasure, then turned her attention to the difficult task of prying herself out of the control links. “Do you want me to wait for you, or do I head back to the city?” she asked, still working herself free of the controls.

  “There’s no point in your flying back,” Damian said. “Put the flyer under cover–the hangar’s rated to stand a class three–and then you can either wait it out here or take a groundcar.”

  “I’ll wait,” Cossi said.

  Damian nodded, and swung himself out of the pilot’s compartment. The others were already standing on the rain‑spattered pavement, ji‑Imbaoa still hissing to himself, his household clustered miserably at his back. Cella was standing a little apart, a little behind them, her eyes downcast, hiding that unnerving smile. Damian managed a smile in return, wondering what she was up to, and waved them on toward the house itself. He could see Ivie waiting in the doorway, light blazing behind him. Shutters covered the windows; he glanced hastily over his shoulder and saw Loreo by the door of the domed hangar, guiding Cossi and the flyer inside.

  “No word yet on the second guest,” Ivie said softly as Damian approached, and stood aside from the door.

  “You can give me the details later,” Damian answered, and went past him into the house. He could feel the floor trembling under his feet, and knew that the household generators were already at speed, ready to cut in when the power grid went down.

  The others were waiting in the main room, the glass that formed the viewing wall now covered by heavy wood and steel shutters. Damian paused at the top of the short stairs, blinking in the unexpectedly warm light of a dozen hastily placed standing lamps. He had never been in the house during Storm, had never seen the shutters from the inside, the almost‑black panels cutting off the view. It was an alien, disorienting sight. One of Ivie’s people had set up a pair of service trays and activated a mobile bar, and most of the group, four men and a pair of women, were clustered either by the food or in front of the communications console. The largest of the screens was tuned to the weather station, and Damian caught a quick glimpse of a redscreen report before one of the women moved, cutting off his view. Ransome sat a little apart from the others in one of the large armchairs, leaning back, a glass of deep amber wine on the table beside him. He seemed very much at his ease, despite the third woman who stood against the far wall, palmgun in hand, and Damian hid a frown. Then he saw the slight, nervous movement of Ransome’s hand, one finger slowly tracing the lines of the carved‑crystal glass, and the way his eyes roved from point to point when he thought no one was looking.

  “So,” ji‑Imbaoa said, too loudly. “Ransome is here. And your prisoner?”

  Ransome smiled, and lifted the glass
of wine in ironic salute. “Not a guest, Na Damian?”

  Damian came down the last two stairs, ignoring both of them, snapped his fingers to summon the bar. It rolled over to him, wheels digging into the carpet, and he poured himself a glass of raki. “Help yourself, Na Speaker, we’re informal here. Will you see to him and his household, Cella?” He looked at Ransome, barely aware of Cella’s politely murmured answer. “You were becoming an inconvenience, you know. This seemed a–reasonable–way to handle the situation.”

  Ransome’s smile widened, became briefly and genuinely amused. “I suppose I should tell you that you won’t get away with this.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Damian said, deliberately brutal. “This isn’t the Game.” He had the satisfaction of seeing Ransome flinch.

  “Na Damian.” Ji‑Imbaoa turned away from the mobile bar, a tall cylinder in one hand. “I have the codes for you, but there is a favor you could do me in return.”

  A favor? Damian barely managed to keep himself from raising his eyebrows in sheer disbelief. That is a change of tune, from the hsaia who was trying to bully me into a subordinate position not an hour ago. You only ask favors from your superiors. “If I may,” he said, carefully casual, and gestured toward the door behind him. Shall we talk in private?“

  “That might be well,” ji‑Imbaoa said.

  Damian led the way into the side room, fingering his remote to switch on the lights. Shutters covered the single window, but he could hear the sudden drumming of rain against the walls. He gestured toward the nearest chair–the room was set up as a communications space, with heavy, comfortable chairs and complex machinery lining the walls–and said, “What is this favor?”