by Kate Elliott
Finch blanched. “He’s your lover. Hoy, Lily. It’s easy for you to say it won’t happen again. And where have you been all this time?”
“Yes, comrade,” said Yehoshua quietly. “Where have you been? And why do you want to join Jehane?”
Lily smiled, shifting her hands to her lap to give herself a more demure, less threatening posture. “I haven’t made a very auspicious beginning, have I?” she asked. The barest smile touched the line of Yehoshua’s lips. As she expected, he did not reply. She returned her gaze to Finch. “But I don’t understand why you’re here, Finch. When I left Unruli …” she trailed off.
“Blame Central for that.” His expression twisted into one akin to hatred: the Finch she had known, easygoing almost beyond belief, seemed lost in that face, as if a stranger now stood before her. “They arrested us—for helping the booters. Came down hard all across Unruli. I don’t know why. Dad they let go, since he never was in on any of our system. But Mom and Grand’mam and Swann and I they shipped here—without a hearing, with nothing! An Grand’mam was sick.” His voice cracked. “She’s dead, Lily. They stuck her in the twenties dig with a bunch of filthy tattoos. They knew the dig was unsafe, unstable, but they had a rich lode in the twenty-eight tunnel, so they sent tattoos, and anyone else they considered worth as little as that, down there. And it blew. They hit a pocket of explosive gas. The whole twenties dig had to be shut down. Almost three hundred people were killed.”
“And some two thousand Ridanis as well, I believe,” added Yehoshua as if in afterthought.
Finch shrugged. “If you count tattoos, I guess. But Grand’mam was down there. They never even got the bodies out.” His lips twisted down with bitter anger. “They didn’t want to risk any of their personnel down there. They could at least have sent some tattoos to check the—”
Yehoshua lifted a hand, a deceptively casual gesture that cut Finch off. “Comrade, I understand your grief. But it is not you who are being questioned.”
“We know each other,” said Lily quietly. “We grew up together. What about Swann and your mother, Finch?”
He glanced at Yehoshua, sat down, like a sigh. “Mom’s in hospital. She got shot in the first fighting, but she’ll live. Swann’s still out in the thirties dig—the last of the old guard sealed it off and now they’re waiting it out, hoping to hold off until reinforcements come. But I don’t think any message has gone out, so it’s just a matter of time.” He grimaced. “All we know is that casualties in the thirties, prisoner and guard alike, have been high. They destroyed the access trains and tubes, just outside the peripheral living blocks. No one knows who’s left.”
Yehoshua frowned. “I think that is enough, comrade Caenna.” He reached into his jacket and removed Lily’s com-clip from a pocket and inserted the clip into a viewer on the stand to his right. “Lilyaka Ash Heredes. That is your name?”
Because he was looking at Lily, he missed Finch’s reaction: a slight start, subsiding quickly into a neutral mask.
Lily, seeing this, merely shrugged. “Yes.”
“You are registered here as an instructor at the Abagail Street Academy on Arcadia. Is that also correct?”
“I did work there, but I resigned. I worked for Pero the last months I spent on Arcadia. He’s why I had to leave. Martial law was declared by Central, and they executed a man they claimed was Pero but who was not. Pero is still alive. This news I know is not yet known to Jehane, because only a military cruiser traveling the direct route here could have gotten here faster than we did.” And they would not have had Pinto piloting, she added to herself.
“I’ve heard of Pero,” said Yehoshua slowly. “Comrade Jehane broadcasts his speeches to the troops.” He frowned. The white scars on his arms were mirrored by a few on his cheeks and at the corners of his eyes, like wrinkles, or echoes of the silver sprinkling his black hair. “Where is your ship?”
“Not our ship. She left. We just got passage off Arcadia because they needed a pilot so badly. They’re a booter, and they dumped us here—gave up a shuttle. We’ve nowhere to retreat now, whatever happens.” She shrugged, as if this situation was of no concern to her.
“We.”
“Five adults, one child, one ’bot. My people have skills and information that will be quite valuable to Jehane. I assure you.”
“Your people.” Yehoshua’s emphasis was careful.
Lily paused, thought back over the impetus that had brought them here. “Well, yes,” she answered slowly, considering. “I suppose they are mine in a way. I’m responsible for them being here now.”
“And why here, comrade Heredes? Why Harsh?”
A certain tone in his voice alerted her, and she chose her words carefully. “Two reasons. I have unfinished business on Harsh: a friend who was unlawfully imprisoned here—not you, Finch, because I didn’t know—I didn’t know, but if I had—” She shook her head, met his gaze fiercely, and had the satisfaction of seeing his face clear, trusting her again, as if the episode with Kyosti had, almost, never happened. “I came here to free her.”
“And the other reason?” Yehoshua was still punching buttons on the terminal, scrolling out whatever information remained on her clip. She knew how little was there, fed in by Master Heredes as a screen to her real identity, and his.
“Because I knew Jehane would be here.”
“You knew?” For the first time, Yehoshua’s careful layer of disinterest cracked, to reveal astonishment. “You can’t have known—we didn’t even know until we got here—” He broke off.
“You’d be surprised at what I know,” said Lily, and she laughed at the absurdity of her comment. “No. What I mean to say, comrade, is that I have a great deal more information that Jehane would like to have—needs to have—but that information goes to him alone. Not through anyone else. My price for recruitment. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you’re pretty damned sure of yourself.” He shook his head. “You can’t meet with Jehane. Impossible. In hostile territory only his personal lieutenants have access to him. But it may be possible for you to speak with my superior officer.” He stood up and went to the door, spoke into a band at his wrist in a low voice that she could not hear.
“Lily.” Finch left his chair to kneel beside her, putting a hand on hers where they rested in her lap, reassuring, needing reassurance. “What happened to Master Heredes?”
She shut her eyes and turned her face away, felt her throat constrict. Still, found it possible to speak, fueled by anger. “He’s dead. He’s the one Central murdered, calling him Pero. Why do you think I’m joining Jehane? For revenge.”
His hand tightened on hers, and she knew at that moment that he shared her sentiments completely.
“Who is Master Heredes?”
Lily released Finch’s hand abruptly. Her gaze jumped to Yehoshua, who still stood by the door but now watched her intently, having recovered his composure completely.
“My father,” she said bitterly.
This time, having both Lily and Finch equally in his sight, Yehoshua saw Finch’s expression of surprise before Finch could disguise it. For a moment he merely examined the two. Finch stood up, twisting his hands nervously in front of himself. Lily stared back impassively. Then Yehoshua turned and left the room, sealing the door shut behind himself.
Lily stood up and began to pace out the dimensions of the room while Finch turned, stationary, to follow her progress around the four blank, encircling walls.
“What do you mean, ‘your father’?”
“Finch.” Her pace did not slacken. “They are undoubtedly listening in.”
He continued to stare as she walked. “You’re different, Lily. You’ve changed.”
Now she stopped. “You’re the second person who’s said that to me. Here.” She shoved a chair against the wall. “Let’s do kata. Do you remember first kyu?”
“Kata? Are you crazy? Hoy, Lil, no wonder you’ve taken up with psychopathic murderers as your—”
“Finch. I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait here, but I don’t intend to give them the pleasure of watching me get progressively more nervous. Kata.”
He laughed suddenly. “Have you spent a lot of time in holding cells, or prisons, lately?”
“Why, yes,” she replied, smiling with sweet irony. “I have. This one’s about the same size as the others were.”
Behind her, the door shunted aside. She whirled and dropped into a fighting stance.
Yehoshua, entering, halted and regarded her thoughtfully as she straightened up. “Let’s hope you really are on our side.” He motioned her outside. He now held his pistol in his left hand, and the four white-uniformed soldiers stood at careful intervals in the corridor outside. “We’re to take you to Records. If you can find your—friend—we’re to do whatever possible to, ah, reunite you with her.” He paused.
“And then?” Lily prompted.
He still did not speak for a moment, like an actor waiting for the prime silence in which to deliver his line. “And then we arrange an audience for you with comrade Jehane.”
She let out her breath, more relieved than she had realized. “That was easy,” she said, more to herself than to him.
“Yes, it was,” he replied, drily. “You seem to interest him. He seems to think that he’s met you before. Under another name.”
In the corridor, the four soldiers shifted, growing restless, and one hissed some complaint to her companion. Lily felt a shiver of fear run up her back, recalling Jehane—a man who appeared mild but hid behind that facade some secret, some intense power, driving his ambition, that she did not care to discover.
“He has a good memory,” she murmured as she followed Yehoshua out. Finch, still looking confused, trailed behind them.
4 Oh Frabjous Day
IT DID NOT TAKE Lily long to find the record of Paisley’s arrest and indenture on Harsh, or her assignment berth: EntOps; tunnel 37; op sector 30-39.
“She’s in the thirties,” said Lily.
Finch, sitting behind her, gave the screen a cursory glance. “She must have some good status record, then. The thirties are the best and cleanest and safest run dig on Harsh. That’s why the old guard retreated there. Swann’s on communications in the thirties surface com-central, tagging incoming ore boats, same job I had here at the Main Block. Or at least, she was.”
“Good status record.” Lily scrolled to the next page of Paisley’s entry, but the incarceration charges were listed as “priority” and not accessible to her at this console. “Right. What does ‘EntOps’ mean?”
Yehoshua answered. “Their division of entertainment. Your friend is lucky. In general, the ‘EntOps’ people get the best treatment—they’re the leisure-time folks. The workers have to buy entrance to entertainment with good conduct and performance.”
“What does entertainment consist of?”
“Vids. News. Singers and live theater and panto. Sports. Lectures and classes. At least that’s how it worked out on the mining stations.”
“You were incarcerated?”
He shook his head. “House miner. In Salah-eh-Din system. Twenty years.”
“How did you end up with Jehane?”
He regarded her quizzically. “Like everyone else. I saw him speak. He’s very persuasive. And he’s right, about Central.”
“Ah,” said Lily, turning back to load the information on Paisley into her clip, which Yehoshua had returned to her. “So the access tubes to the thirties tunnels were blown—completely sealing them off?”
A nod from Yehoshua, echoed unconsciously by Finch.
“Well, I owe her, and I mean to get her out, if she’s still alive. Are you planning an attack?”
“Classified, comrade. You should know better than that.”
“Then let me take three of my people, and I’ll go in and get her.”
Yehoshua laughed. “You’re a cool one. Which three? Or let me guess—the mercenary and the psychotic. Who’s the third?”
“My ’bot. But you haven’t met him yet, or you’d have more confidence.”
“Lily!” Finch spoke as the screen flicked to black, erasing Paisley’s file. “You can’t go in. It would be suicide.”
“How many guards, and how many prisoners?” Lily asked Yehoshua.
He laid a dark hand on the records console, brushing his fingers along the smooth, pale surface as he calculated. His eyes narrowed. “Come on,” he said abruptly. “I’m going to take you to see Callioux.”
“Here’s what we’re dealing with.” Comrade Officer Callioux bent over a table whose lights and illuminated lines marked out in three dimensions a map of the complex on Harsh: mines and runnels and living blocks. “We have Main Block virtually at center, with the numbered section blocks radiating out as spokes, but also linked at underground levels one, two, and three by access tube.”
“Do these tubes include ore trains?” Lily asked, examining the grid with the eye of one experienced in mining operations.
“Yes.” Callioux looked up and beckoned to a slim woman covered with the profusion of tattoos that marked a Ridani out from other humans; she was dressed in a poorly fitting white uniform. “Comrade Rainbow was a guard here, and she can explain the workings better than I can.”
“Do you know ya mining, min Heredes?” Rainbow asked in a diffident voice.
Lily smiled slightly at the Ridani honorific. Beside her, Finch made a gesture of derision, but Lily ignored him. “Yes. I do.” She pointed to a spoke illuminated by a dull red glow. “This is the section that failed?”
Rainbow had moved forward to stand beside Lily. She nodded. “Ya twenties dig. It be abandoned now. It were ya terrible, such destruction.”
“You were here?” Lily eyed her, a woman of middle years whose slightness belied the gleam of strength in her eyes. “I didn’t know Central commissioned Ridani soldiers.”
“Only for ya work with ya Ridani prisoners. I were stationed in ya twenties surface dome, to search ya new Ridani prisoners as come in. Here. I watched as they pulled out all ya guards and ya govinment troops, and left ya prisoners to die. That be ya time I became ya Jehanist.”
In the brief silence following this quiet remark, Lily studied the green-lit outline of the 30s dig, reaching far into the depths of the planet. Red blinking lights showed the areas where the retreating guards had blown the access tubes to cut themselves off from Jehane’s attack.
“Then the only access to the thirties is by the surface dome,” Lily said at last.
Callioux made a negative gesture. “With this atmosphere, we can’t equip our people for a ground assault, and an air assault would be decimated by the dome’s stationary cannons. And we can’t blast through the tubes without alerting everyone, and probably destabilizing the zone and the artificial atmosphere.”
“No,” Lily agreed. “But you clearly have any number of shafts in the twenties dig”—she used a pointer of white light to identify several shafts from the deep levels in the 20s tunnels that reached into and almost overlapped with equivalent shafts from the deep 30s—“that a small group could use to pierce through into shafts in the thirties. Take them from behind.”
There was another brief silence.
“But the twenties dig is unstable,” Callioux protested at last.
Lily shook her head. “Look at these figures for stress placement and tunnel maintenance. They couldn’t have gone down eight—no, nine—levels with that structure if the rock was unstable. Finch mentioned something about explosive gas—I’d bet it was an isolated pocket, or a series of pockets. That would ruin half the operations, or even poison the atmosphere. There must be more detailed data recording the relative strength of the different veins. And in any case, if instability was known to be present, they must have easer drills that can push through with a minimum of vibration. Hoy, those were standard at the House mines.”
By the door into the cavernous operations room, Yehoshua laughed. He was lounging at his ease, eight white-clad s
oldiers standing at intervals around the room. “House miner,” he said. “Wouldn’t you know.”
Lily turned with a grin. “Yes, and I hated every minute of it. Funny that it’s serving me well now. Didn’t you say you were, too?”
“Both my cousin Alsayid and me. Filistia House.”
“Ah,” said Lily, suddenly mindful of her supposed identity, and she turned back to face Callioux. “Comrade Yehoshua said that you are in charge of the force barricading the thirties dig.” Callioux nodded. “Then I volunteer myself to break in. I think you know my goal.”
“To liberate a friend. Yes. And I know that comrade Jehane is interested in you, Heredes. Unprecedented, such interest. Well.” Callioux paused to consider.
“You know, Sura,” continued Yehoshua from the door, “that we are under time constraints.”
“I am well aware of that,” replied Callioux without looking up. “Just as I am aware that we outgun what guards are left in the thirties dig if only we could get past their topside guns.”
“I think it could be done,” said Rainbow abruptly, “getting through by ya shafts into ya thirties.” Her uninvited comment seemed brash, coming from a Ridani, despite her mild voice and the supposed emancipatory purpose of Jehane’s revolution. “Ya main drill engineer were ya indentured Unrulian, and he be in ya hospital.” She swiveled to meet Lily’s interested gaze. “Can you handle ya easer drill?”
“I’ve done it. Not with any precision, though.”
“Hold on.” Callioux slapped the view table buttons so that all the lights vanished except for the red and green 20s and 30s. “Do you propose to go on this expedition alone, Heredes?”
“No. I’ll take two companions, both of whom are trained fighters, and a ’bot. This would be a quick strike.”
“And take what information you’ve gained from us in to the troops holding out in the thirties? I think not.”
“I’ll go,” said Yehoshua abruptly. “I’m familiar with mines. And I’ll ask for volunteers.”