“Are they okay?”
“The Peacock suffered two broken ribs and”—the Bear winked— “much damage to his fancy feathers. I think that bothered him most. But, or so I understand, Her Majesty the Queen has been most helpful in repairs.”
“The queen?” Xris was perplexed.
“A long story and one that I am certain the Peacock will want to tell you. Suffice it to say that the assassin was killed, his heinous weapon destroyed.”
“Warden, wasn’t it?”
“A snake in man’s skin,” Olefsky said grimly. “No disparagement to the noble reptile family.”
Xris nodded tiredly. “I figured as much—right before I passed out. It made sense. He had the necessary contacts in the Navy and in the government, access to the king. It made sense.”
He started automatically to reach for a twist with his right hand. Pain shot through his arm, radiated from his shoulder. He sucked in a breath, grimaced.
Rowan eased his arm back down on the bed. He smiled at her.
She smiled back, tentatively, hesitantly. “We need to talk,” she said softly.
“Yeah. I know. In a minute.”
Xris took a look at his surroundings. There were no viewscreens, but he guessed—from the thrumming sound, the feel of vibrations through the bed—that he was on board a spaceship. He was in a large open area, probably the ship’s hold, that had been hastily furnished with cots and blankets. Jamil was stretched out on one, Quong on another. Harry sat on another, tapping on his ears.
Tycho appeared, hypo in hand. “How you feeling, Xris? Doc says you’re to have this shot. It’ll help the pain.”
“Everyone else okay?” Xris asked.
“Harry is deafer than a bread box,” Tycho reported. “But he will heal. Jamil was not severely wounded. I was not injured. You want a glass of water, Xris?”
“Thanks. What’s wrong with the Doc?”
“Nothing. He is taking a nap. I now intend to join him.” Tycho brought the water and left for his own cot.
Olefsky rumpled his beard. “The doctor worked very hard on you and Jamil there. But you both will be well, thank the good God.”
Xris nodded, chewed contentedly on the twist. A warmth spread through the good side of his body. He felt drowsy, relaxed, content. That was due to the drug. He had no reason to feel content, other than the fact that the young king was safe, the Knights of the Terra Nera thwarted. He himself was still in a hell of a lot of trouble. But that could wait.
He almost slept, then remembered something. Two things.
“Those soldiers that took us captive,” Xris said, waking, looking up at Olefsky. “Yours?”
The big man grinned expansively. “Some of my troops. What the major over there would call ‘Special Forces.’ I call them the Wolf Brigade. I deemed it best to carry you swiftly away from there.”
Xris smiled. “Or kill me if I’d betrayed you.”
The Bear’s expression grew grave. “Aye, laddie. That, too. It was a solemn oath I swore. And one I would have kept. But,” he added, cheering up, “there was no need. For which, again, I thank the good God.”
“We’re your prisoners,” Xris said. “Where are you taking us?”
“Wherever you want to go, friend Xris. You are not my prisoner. I have hidden you away in the hold, but that is to keep the rest of the crew from knowing anything about you. The Wolf Brigade knows, but no torture ever devised could wring such knowledge from their tongues.”
Bear eyed Xris speculatively. “You are a wanted man. Serious charges: breaking into a Naval base, kidnapping Major Mohini, hijacking that drop ship. If you give yourselves up, I have it on good authority, from the Lord Admiral himself, that you and your people will receive reduced sentences. Perhaps even full pardons, due to your prevention of the assassination attempt upon the king.”
“But we’d have to turn ourselves in, go on trial.” Xris grimaced again, gingerly shifted his wounded arm to a more comfortable position. “A highly publicized trial.” He looked over at Rowan.
“We need to talk,” she repeated.
The Bear looked at the two of them, stroked his beard. “Two are company. Three is a rotten egg, as our friend the chameleon would say. I will take a walk.”
He did, managing to nearly garrote himself on a hammock in the process.
Xris looked over at Rowan. “Yeah? What?”
“Don’t do what you’re thinking of doing for my sake, Xris,” she said quietly. “I don’t deserve it. You see, it was my fault.”
For a moment he didn’t understand what she’d said. Then it sunk in. “You’re talking about the factory explosion, aren’t you?” His voice hardened. “Your fault? According to what you told me, Armstrong was the one responsible—”
“He was. That’s not what I mean. Or rather, in a way it is. Don’t you see? If we’d been able to talk about... me—all that was going wrong with me, inside me—then we could have gone past that. But I couldn’t talk about myself. I didn’t know how to say what I had to say.”
The drug must be affecting him, though he felt wide awake now. Xris shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”
Rowan sighed. “If I had talked to you that day before we left. Gone with you to the bar that night. If I had told you. Trusted you enough. Tried to explain.” She spread her hands helplessly. “But how could I, when I really didn’t understand myself? How could I, when I can’t even do it now?”
She brushed a tear from her cheek with a quick jerking motion.
He knew then, realized he’d known ever since he’d first seen her, hadn’t wanted to believe it. He didn’t want to even now.
“So don’t. Let’s leave it, okay?”
“There,” she returned bitterly. “You see? This is exactly what you would have done seven years ago. This is we!” She made a sweeping downward gesture with her hands, a gesture that included her breasts, her small waist, her hips. “Me! As I was meant to be!”
He said nothing, just shook his head again.
Reaching over, she gripped his hand, his good hand. “I didn’t know back then, though I think I suspected. Or maybe I knew and I just didn’t have the courage to admit it. Much less go through with it. All the signs were there. My disastrous relationships with women. How I thought I could buy love like fake diamonds. Pay enough for them and no one will ever know they’re phony. No one except me.
“To make up for it, I put myself into a machine. My work was my refuge. My hiding place. In the excitement, the tension, I could forget. It was only when all that was over, when the undercover work was finished and I was alone and scared—then I understood. I looked in a mirror and I saw myself and I knew myself. And that was the day Dalin Rowan died. I wept for him, Xris. I cried for him as I cried for you and for Ito. I’d lost someone very close to me. But that’s all he ever was. Someone close. And that’s why it was my fault.”
“And if it’s your fault, then that makes it my fault, too,” Xris said harshly. He pulled his hand away from hers. “Because I let you down. Because I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t sensitive enough. You’re saying that if we’d sat down in the bar that night and you said to me, ‘Hey, Xris, old buddy, I’ve decided to get my wienie whacked off and grow boobs,’ that this would have helped us nail Armstrong?”
He thought she’d be angry, maybe hoped she’d be angry. But she only regarded him sadly.
“You don’t understand,” she said in a dull, hopeless tone.
“Damn right I don’t. Why don’t you try to explain it?”
She was silent, wouldn’t look at him. He was about to give up, go to sleep, let her sulk on her own, if that’s what she wanted, when suddenly she began to talk.
“I was so hung up on myself I didn’t recognize the warning signs about Armstrong. All kinds of red lights were going off in my brain, but I ignored them. I should have spotted that bastard, Xris. I should have nailed Armstrong from the beginning.”
“And I shouldn’t have gone into that factory w
hen I knew in my gut it was all wrong,” he said quietly. “I beat myself up with that stick every day for a year. It didn’t help. It didn’t bring back my leg and my arm. It didn’t bring back Ito.”
She was staring bleakly at him.
He looked up at her. “So where does this leave us?”
“Different from what we were. Changed.” Rowan sighed. “You’re right, we can’t go back.”
“Maybe, from what you’ve said, that’s a good thing. Give me a twist, will you?” The mechanical taste was unusually, horribly strong.
Rowan opened his pocket, removed the case, took out a twist, and put it between Xris’s lips.
“And that’s why,” she said steadily, “you have to turn yourself in, Xris. Clear yourself and the others.”
Xris grunted. “And the moment the Hung find out who you are, where you are, you can kiss your ass good-bye.”
Rowan’s smile twisted, but remained. She shrugged. “I fought the Hung before. I’ll fight them again. Who knows? This time I might finish them off for good.”
Xris raised his voice angrily. “You’d never even live through the trial. You know it. So do I. So just shut up about it.”
Rowan said nothing. She stared down at her hands, which were clasped together in her lap.
The others were awake now.
Jamil sat up stiffly, cradling his injured arm.
Harry said loudly, “I can’t hear a damn thing. What’re they saying?”
Quong was up, came over to attend to his patient.
“How do you feel, Xris?”
“Great. Switch me back on, will you, Doc?”
Quong frowned, but—seeing Xris’s dark expression—the Doc did as he was asked.
His mechanical side working again, Xris sat up weakly on the cot, looked around. He chewed on the twist.
“Did you all hear what we’re up against?”
“No, thanks!” Harry boomed. “I don’t smoke.”
“Doc, find a notepad, take this down, and show it to Harry. I want everyone in on this. I’ll explain the situation.”
When he was finished, Xris looked around at each member of the team. “I’ve reached my decision. I can’t give myself up.”
Rowan, beside him, made a small sound of protest. Xris stretched out his hand to her, his good hand.
She hesitated, then clasped his hand in hers.
Xris continued, “Not without leaving Rowan here wide open. But the rest of you can. That would be my advice, in fact. Dixter’ll see to it that you’re treated fairly. You might even end up being heroes.”
The others exchanged glances, with the exception of Harry, who was puzzling over Quong’s handwriting.
“Turn ourselves in? Is that what this scrawl says?” Harry was suddenly on his feet, indignant. “You can’t do that, Xris, goddammit! You can’t let them get hold of Darlene!”
“I’m not going to, Harry.”
“What?”
“Doc, write down— Never mind.”
“I’m not doing it, Xris,” Harry continued belligerently. “I’ll stay with Darlene, if you won’t.”
Quong was writing furiously. He shoved the notepad under Harry’s nose.
Harry read, looked at Xris, blushed. “Oh, sorry, Xris. I’m with you, you know.” He sat back down.
“Me, too,” said Jamil gloomily. “I don’t much like the idea of publicity, either.”
Xris stared at him. “Why not? What have you got to lose?”
Jamil didn’t immediately answer. He tugged irritably on his bandage. “Damn thing’s too tight, Doc.”
“Count yourself fortunate,” Quong returned. “You could be wearing Raoul’s petticoat. And do not loosen it! You will start the bleeding again.”
Jamil scratched at the bandage, saw them all staring at him now. He gave an exasperated snort. “All right, if you must know, there’s a couple of women on a couple of different planets who both think that, well, I’m married to each of them. It’s all perfectly legal. Well, it’s sort of legal. I do right by them both, mind you, but if one ever found out about the other .. .” He shook his head gloomily.
“I am with you also,” Tycho announced. “It has occurred to me that if I am a hunted criminal, I will not have to pay income taxes.”
“That’s because you won’t have any income,” Xris said dryly. “Things are going to be tough. We’ll be spending most of our time dodging bounty hunters, the bureau, military police. With that kind of action, it’s going to be difficult finding work.”
“Nevertheless,” said Tycho, “it would not do to break up the team. One for all, and damn the torpedoes.”
By now Xris was smiling. Rowan was gazing at them all in wonder. Maybe he wouldn’t have to explain things to her, after all.
“You will need a doctor,” Quong said stiffly. “As well as a mechanic. Besides, I want to make a thorough study of the Tongan. I will be the first human doctor to notate their physiology.”
“They might even reinstate you,” Jamil muttered, but he took care to keep his voice low and Quong, fortunately, did not hear.
“We’ll need a computer expert,” Xris said offhandedly. “A code breaker might come in handy, too.”
“Are you sure, Xris?” she asked softly, so softly only his augmented hearing enabled him to hear her.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Rowan squeezed his hand. She looked up at the others. “Thanks. All of you. I know you’re really doing this for me and I ... I—” She choked, covered her face.
Xris lay back down, shut his eyes. The drug was dragging him under.
Where do you want to go, laddie?
Olefsky’s question drifted to the cyborg through a thick, pleasant mist.
Xris shook his head. It didn’t matter. From now on, one place would be as good—or as bad—as another. He shut off his hearing, shut down his battery.
Rowan, seeing him drifting off to sleep, tried to gently withdraw her hand.
Xris tightened his grip, held fast to her.
To Rowan. To his old friend.
He held fast to every one of them. All seven.
His team.
One for all, and damn the torpedoes.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
The Knights of the Black Earth Page 43