I Dare

by Sharon

  The air was full of pellets, snarling and whining, pinging off his scant cover. Pat Rin leaned out, found a target, fired and ducked back, face dusted with concrete. He leaned out again—and froze.

  Natesa lay, exposed and unmoving, on the walkway leading to the house. Even as he stared, disbelieving, a pellet chipped the stone by her head. He could not tell if she were alive—no, her hand! Surely, her fingers had twitched toward her fallen weapon?

  More pellets stormed and he ducked again, measuring the distance with his eyes, ignoring the old, self-taunting voice telling him he was too slow, far too slow. He would not fail in this. He would not leave her out there to die.

  Carefully, he holstered his gun. Carefully, he got his feet under him. The storm of pellet fire lessened; he focused on the still figure lying on the broken pavement, took a breath—and ran.

  Fleet and desperate, he reached her side, lifted her in his arms and hurtled back toward the dubious shelter of broken concrete.

  He almost made it.

  Day 51

  Standard Year 1393

  Lytaxin

  Erob's Grounds

  HE WAS TOO LATE.

  Swearing, Val Con went to his knees beside the still form huddled beneath the curtain edge of the forest. Carefully, he turned her over, wincing as he uncovered the contorted face. Beldyn chel'Mara. She had been a scout, once.

  The wound she had taken in the firefight was serious enough, though not by any means a death-wound. No, the agony recorded in the dead face told the tale: Agent chel'Mara had understood that she was being followed—and by whom. Her Loop would have presented the calculation demonstrating that he would catch her before ever she reached her ship; and would further have elucidated her odds of winning an encounter with him, depleted and panicked as she was.

  So she had obeyed the implanted orders, and accepted the Loop's Final Routine, suiciding to avoid capture.

  Damning the Commander to the torments of twelve dozen hells was futile from this distance—and he had no spare seconds to waste.

  Quickly, fingers swift and steady, he went through the dead Agent's pockets, belt and hidden pouches, stripping out everything, even the coins and her licenses. Cramming his harvest helter-skelter into the pocket of his vest, he rose and backed away. Any moment now . . .

  "Who is it?" Miri's voice was breathless. He held up a hand, warning her away, counting: One, two, three, four, five—

  Beldyn chel'Mara's body blazed into white radiance. Val Con threw an arm over his eyes, felt the heat and the stench of burning flesh wash his face, heard the roar of incineration, and—nothing.

  Cautiously, he lowered his arm.

  The thin grass upon which the Agent's body had lain was lightly scorched. Nothing else remained.

  "Who," Miri repeated, from the approximate vicinity of his elbow, "was that?"

  He looked down into frowning gray eyes.

  "Agent of Change Beldyn chel'Mara."

  "Suicide?"

  He nodded, and hesitated before he asked his own question, seeing once more in his mind's eye the gate slamming open, hearing the first shots snarl over his head as he hit the ground, rolling; the long body crumpling . . .

  "My father?"

  "Clonak's got him in a 'doc by this time. Didn't seem too worried. My turn to worry, I guess." She used her sleeve to mop her damp face.

  "If we're gonna have this lifemate link—and I ain't saying it's a bad thing, necessarily—then we need to fine tune some stuff. All I knew is you was scared, you was mad, and you was gone. Clonak said it was the Department, and I lit out, thinking they'd managed to snatch you."

  "That argues for fine-tuning, indeed. We have a project to embark upon during our unencumbered hours."

  "Of which it don't look like we're gonna have that many for a while. These people ain't gonna give up, are they?"

  "No," he said, slipping his arm around her waist in a brief, absurdly comforting hug. "In fact, Clonak's news indicates that, far from giving up, the Department is moving into Phase Two of the Plan."

  "Phase Two? What's that?"

  "They move more openly, dispose of their enemies, disband the Council of Clans, and establish themselves as a government."

  Miri's eyes widened. "Are they serious?"

  "Very serious," Val Con assured her. "And—much worse—the odds are good that they will succeed." He stepped back and pulled the assorted jumble of Beldyn chel'Mara's belongings from his pocket. "And somewhere in this is . . . ah." He held it up; Miri squinted, and sighed.

  "Ship key. Great. Now all we gotta do is find the ship."

  "That is not a difficulty," he said, depressing the appropriate button. The device came alive in his hand, quivering with the desire to be re-united with its ship. Val Con closed his fingers loosely around it, and spun, very slowly, on one heel. Three-quarters of the way through his revolution, the key lunged against the prison of his fingers.

  "This way," he said softly, and moved off, the key bouncing in his hand, Miri walking silent at his side.

  "NO." SHAN said firmly. "We are not going after them."

  "Shan, the nadelm and nadelmae of Korval are—"

  "What you don't seem to grasp," he said, raising his voice to interrupt his sister and his First Speaker for the second time in an hour. "Is that the nadelm and nadelmae of Korval are extremely fierce individuals. Miri Robertson is a captain of mercenary soldiers. She has within recent memory led soldiers into war, survived several battles, retaken an airfield held by a hostile force—oh, and attached an Yxtrang explorer to her command.

  "You will recall that Nadelm Korval holds rank as a scout commander. While this is not of itself a guarantee of ferocity, I will tell you that I have it on his authority and on the authority of that same Yxtrang explorer that Val Con yos'Phelium bested a soldier twice his size, and desperate besides, in single combat, each of them armed with a knife."

  "Shan—"

  "All of which means," he swept on, making his third interruption on the night, "that the universe is more in peril from them than they are from the universe; and that the enemies they cannot vanquish with a glare and a wave of the hand are no one that we want to meet, out strolling in the dawning forest. Furthermore, Erob has dispatched actual soldiers in pursuit of the remainder of this enemy—who and how many they might be. And I will remind you that you are Korval-pernard'i. As your subject thodelm, referencing Chapter Eight, Paragraph 15 of the Code of Proper Conduct, I forbid you to risk yourself while the nadelm is unavailable to us."

  He took a deep breath, in preparation of even more forceful arguments, if need be, but she stood silent, staring at him out of a face rather paler than usual.

  However, if Nova was speechless, there were others present who were not.

  "Bravo!" Clonak ter'Meulen brought his palms together in appreciative applause. "Well acted, sir! Yes! Well acted! I'll have the tape, by the gods!"

  "Clonak," Shan said, warningly. "I am—"

  "No, no, darling, don't speak! You have delivered yourself of a masterful performance. Recruit your strength. Allow me to carry on in your stead." He came forward and bowed, all correct and very High House: Honor to a delm not one's own.

  "Lady Nova, how delightful to see you again! Did you enjoy the war?"

  She glared, which deflated Clonak not one bit. "Alas, that I missed the more robust episodes. I arrived only hours ago."

  "Is that so? Then you will not have met dear Lieutenant Nelirikk! A jewel of the first water, is Lieutenant Nelirikk. I am persuaded that you will like him extremely. As you have heard, he was defeated by your foster brother, the inestimable Shadow, in hand-to-hand combat, winning, thereby, a place of service to your House. A man of many excellencies—and so fortunate that he was with us, when we picked up the others yesternoon. It is of course too soon to predict their own worth to the House of Korval, but I feel certain that they will strive to give good service."

  "Others?" Shan repeated, stomach suddenly cold. "What others?"
>
  Clonak turned a beatific smile upon him. "Why Hazenthull Explorer and Diglon Rifle, none other, who have only an hour ago given their oaths of service to Lord and Lady yos'Phelium."

  Shan closed his eyes.

  "Tired, darling?"

  "Exhausted, if you will have it," he said, and sighed. "Line yos'Phelium holds service oaths of three Yxtrang?"

  "I don't doubt but they'll be found useful to have about the house. Indeed, Captain Robertson waxed eloquent upon the point." He paused to smooth his mustache. "I doubt it's occurred to Shadow as yet, though it will—awake upon suits as yet undiscovered, your foster brother!—but I'm certain Daav had the possibility of a breeding pair in his eye." He moved his shoulders. "Well, he would, you know. We are all but products of our training."

  "A breeding pair," Shan repeated faintly, but Nova was after other game.

  "If you believe for one moment that I will accept that man as Daav yos'Phelium, no matter what sort of hoax you and he have been able to foist upon my brother—"

  "Ah!" Clonak cried, slapping his hand to his forehead. "Forgive me! You put me in mind of why I had come to seek you out. Wait, I know I have it here . . . " He made a show of searching his pockets, and eventually produced, with a flourish, a much folded sheet of printout.

  "While they had him in the 'doc, I asked the techs to do a gene match. I knew you would care, dear Lady Nova, and sought only to put your mind at rest."

  Frowning, Nova all but snatched the proffered paper, unfolded it—

  "Korval," she read. "Out of Line yos'Phelium."

  "Which is precisely as it ought to be," Clonak said, and turned toward the door. "It has been delightful chatting with you, children, but I must be off now, to find how Shadia goes on. Ta!"

  The door slid closed behind him.

  "JUST A LITTLE arrogant, ain't they?" Miri asked, settling on her belly under the bush they'd chosen for cover. "No guards, no whistles, no man-traps. Just . . . " She waved a hand at the ship nestled against the wooded hillside, in full sight of anybody who cared to look for it, now that Val Con had puzzled out the key combo and turned off the invisibility routine.

  "They depended upon the cloaking device to hide it," he murmured. "And there are no guarantees that the ship itself is free of traps."

  "Huh." She glanced at him. "It's probably set up to report back to base, ain't it?"

  "There will certainly be a trans-light locator, as had been hidden on Agent sig'Alda's ship," he said, brows pulled together in a frown. "Also, it will be programmed to dispatch a distress call, if it is left too long alone. The Commander is not a fool. He will doubtless have discovered by now that Agent sig'Alda's ship never was in orbit about Waymart. It may be expected that he has caused this ship to carry . . . upgraded security."

  "Terrific." Miri glared at the ship, but it refused to dissolve like a bad dream in the brightening sunlight. "We can't just let the damn thing sit there—it's a bomb waiting to go off."

  "Agreed." He nestled his chin onto his folded arms, eyes on the ship. "It might be possible to disarm it," he said eventually. "I have Beldyn's license. Using it, I should easily be able to access maincomp and initiate a complete systems shutdown."

  "The word 'easily' is bothering me, here."

  He turned his head to smile at her. "Of course it is. However, I cannot easily envision another course of action, given that the ship is here, four of its Agents are dead, and it is almost certainly going to apply to the Department for assistance when its countdown is done and no one has reported in." He looked back to the ship.

  "I suggest that you await me here, with the most of Beldyn's belongings. I will use her license to access maincomp. If I cannot trigger a systems shutdown—if maincomp requires two or more licenses to validate the order—perhaps I can at least reset the timer."

  "And give us time to get the other licenses and come back to try again," Miri said. Silently, she went over the plan. It was a nice, simple plan; it had some play in it, and a built-in contingency scheme, which the gods knew wasn't standard for either of them. Still, she didn't like it much and said so.

  "Alternatives?" Val Con asked, which she might've known he would. She sighed and shook her head.

  "I can't even think of a good argument to support us going in together, instead of splitting up," she said. "Must be getting old."

  He smiled. "We are decided, then." He looked at her, green eyes serious. "I will be very careful, cha'trez."

  "You always say that," she complained, and sat up, wary of tangling her hair in the near branches. "Guess we better move on it, then."

  "Indeed. The best path to finish is through begun."

  He came to his knees, fishing in his vest for the stuff he had taken off the dead Agent. Most of it, he handed to her, reserving for himself the ship key, a metal card that was the late Beldyn's piloting license, and a flatish, notched piece of long metal.

  "Interior key," he murmured. "For unlocking chests and inner hatches in times of disrupted power."

  "Right," she said, and pocketed the jumble as Val Con ghosted out from under their bush and moved toward the Agents' ship.

  THE HATCH ROSE in response to the key's command, and Val Con entered the ship of the Department.

  The cabin lights came up as he proceeded, alert for traps and trip-beams. He achieved the center of the piloting chamber without mishap, and paused there to look about himself.

  The board was locked down, screens blanked; the status lights showed all systems at first level standby—primed to leap into complete wakefulness at the touch of a pilot's hand. A prudent measure, Val Con thought, for a pilot who had chosen not to land at a port, where he might command the luxury of a hotpad, and who could not know if he would depart hotly pursued by enemies, or at leisure and in his own good time.

  Well. Quick and silent, he went through the rest of the ship, satisfying himself that he was alone, then returned to the piloting chamber, pulling Beldyn chel'Mara's piloting license out of his pocket.

  MIRI SHIFTED under the bush, her eyes on the ship. The hatch had come up without any fireworks going off and Val Con had walked on in. Inside her head, she saw the particular pattern that meant he was being careful, and thinking in small, tight steps. There was no sense that he saw anything that struck him as odd, or dangerous, or—

  Silhouetted against the wooded hill, the ship's hatch descended, inevitably and with dignity. Miri flung herself to her feet, heedless of the scratches inflicted by her passage through the bush, her shout swallowed by the accelerating whine of engaged gyros.

  The Agents' ship hurtled into the sky.

  HIS HANDS flashed across the board, calling for an abort. The ship ignored him.

  He slapped up navcomp, which obligingly displayed the laid-in and locked course, the coords of which were all too familiar.

  The Department's ship was taking him to Headquarters.

  Val Con bit his lip, letting the force of the ship's rising press him into the pilot's chair. His hands on the board—the very keys had recognized his fingerprints, he thought, and gave a wry mental bow to the Commander, who was, after all, no fool.

  The ship hurtled upward. Maincomp allowed him to activate the screens, so that he could see the ground falling away beneath him, the bush where he had left Miri already indistinguishable in the blur of green.

  Headquarters, he thought, and then thought of the Commander, and of the likely fate of one who had broken training, to the several-times loss of the Department.

  Returning to Headquarters was not an option.

  Val Con reached to the board and opened a comm line.

  A CHIME SOUNDED. Priscilla, more than half of her attention on the systems report cluttering her main screen, reached absently across the board to hit the toggle.

  "Mendoza."

  "Priscilla, this is Val Con." His voice came out of the speaker, calm and clear, immediately recognizable, though she had not heard it for more than three Standards. She sat up, staring.

&nb
sp; "Already?" She demanded. "Shan said it would be days yet—"

  "Shan was mistaken," he interrupted. "Attend me now. There is a ship rising from Lytaxin at longitude 76.51.33 west, 39.24.17 north, at an acceleration of 7.8 local gravities. Acquire it, please."

  Her fingers danced over the board. "I have it."

  "Good. Destroy it."

  She blinked; checked her instruments. "Val Con, you're on that ship."

  "Indeed I am. Fire at will."

  "No."

  "Priscilla, if you refuse, you will destroy the clan. The ship will not obey me and the course laid in will deliver me into the hands of our enemy." Calm, so calm, his voice. It was his very calmness that convinced her that his order was right and necessary, though, Goddess, what she would say to Shan . . .

  "It would be best," he said. "If you fire while we are in atmosphere."

  She smiled. "Yes, of course it would." Her fingers moved on the board again, unhesitant and certain. "Beam up," she murmured. "Target locked."

  MIRI CRANED up into the brightening sky, watching the ship that was taking him away from her. It was at the edge of her vision, now, a speck against the white clouds of morning. Soon—

  Slashing through the white clouds came a slender radiant beam. It touched the speck, surrounded it, pulsed.

  The ship blew up.

  Miri screamed.

  REN ZEL WOKE, suddenly and entirely.

  A glance across the dark room at the glowing ice-blue digits of the clock proved that he had been asleep just over an hour. Despite this, he felt extraordinarily alert, even a bit restless. A walk, he thought, would be just the thing to put him restful once more.

  So thinking, he arose from his bed and dressed rapidly in the near darkness. Stamping into his boots, he reached out and plucked his pilot's jacket from its hook. His fingers caressed the worn, scarred leather, running over the tiny seams that each marked a place where the leather had been torn and, later, mended.