I watched them leave, not happy to be staying. But what other choice was there?
I dropped into the Fremont nets. I could use the time until they left the ship to get information to the colony that way. Last time I’d tried this, Gianna had been the willing target of my conversation. She was no longer here. For the first time, the magnitude of Artistos’s losses rang full and clear inside me.
Well, the decision I’d sworn I’d make back when I woke my father was made. I would do everything I could to be sure they lost no more.
53
NEGOTIATION
Wedged between Chelo and Kayleen, I watched the command room screens. Alicia stood behind us, keeping a bit of distance between herself and Chelo. Through the ship’s cameras I watched my father, Liam, and Jenna disembark. They looked tiny beside the ship, but then the mercenaries looked just as tiny. They stood a respectful distance away, near their skimmer, which was parked by the shattered hangar.
Our group approached them, my father leading, his strides sure and even. Jenna put a hand on his arm, exerting force, and he stopped halfway to the mercenaries. Good.
I zoomed in on their faces. Liam stood stiffly stoic. Jenna scanned the environment, her limbs loose and ready, her face a mask of watchful distrust. My father’s jaw was tight, his shoulders back, his eyes set unmoving on his target.
The mercenaries hesitated for a moment, the looks on their faces showing brief shock at seeing my father here.
Dianne said, “The one on the left is Mad Lushia.”
The woman stood taller than all the others, lithe and really quite beautiful. Her golden hair glinted with red highlights in the sunshine. She wore black pants and a bright yellow tunic.
Lushia began moving toward our group, followed by a slightly shorter dark-haired woman and a broad muscular man.
Chelo’s voice shook with anger. “I don’t know the one next to her—it’s not Ghita. Which means Ghita is plotting trouble somewhere. If Lushia’s mad, Ghita’s stark raving.” Her grip on my hand tightened so much that I yelped. “He’s the strong that stole Jherrel.”
Dianne responded to Chelo. “They would not send the First and the Second together to a meeting like this. I am surprised Mad Lushia came herself.”
As the groups approached each other, my father’s voice entered the cabin through sensitive speakers in his captain’s coat. “Captain Groll.”
If his appearance had shocked her, she was fully recovered. “David Lee. I hope you had a good journey.” She smiled. “It is not common for customers to oversee our work.”
His voice was clear and even as he said, “I came here to stop you.”
Lushia regarded him silently.
He continued. “There were flaws in the information I had when I sent you.”
“That your daughter is here?” Lushia’s voice sounded casual, but her loose stance and the way she held her hands by her side suggested battle-readiness. She and Jenna carried themselves so much alike that they might have been dark and light twins.
“But you have killed,” my father continued.
“Isn’t that what you hired us to do? We’ll finish after we’ve decided what to do about your family.”
Chelo’s hand gripped mine.
“I want to cancel the whole contract,” my father said. “And I want you to leave immediately.”
Chelo’s grip on my hand tightened further. I pulled free and put my arm over her shoulder. Would he be able to stop the whole contract? It was his hatred that got us here in the first place. He and I had spent months alone together on the ship, even though I never turned Creator over to him. I’d told him all the good I knew of Artistos. It was even more than I remembered. Perhaps he was changing.
He kept talking. “I believe you are holding two of my family members.”
“We’ve not harmed them.”
Liam visibly relaxed a little.
“Good choice,” Kayleen whispered under her breath.
Lushia laughed softly. “We’ll gladly trade for just one.”
Jenna and Liam exchanged a startled glance. My father blinked at them for a second, and then responded. “I’ll go.”
“Certainly,” Lushia said. “But the babies can only be traded for your son.”
He stood up taller, his face growing angry. “My son was never part of this bargain!”
“No.” Lushia agreed. “But only he can stop this. You can come with us now, or you can do it later. If you wait, we will begin to experiment with the children.”
He glanced up briefly, and I looked for fear or anger in his eyes. All I saw was concern. He stepped toward Lushia.
Liam began to follow and Jenna put an arm across his chest, holding him back. She hissed something the camera microphone didn’t pick up, and he stopped, standing still and watching as the mercenaries led my father away.
For a moment, I nearly ran out and offered myself.
It wouldn’t help.
He walked between them. He didn’t look back.
54
PREPARATION
They took my father! I told myself he went of his own accord, that he asked, that maybe he’d find some kind of release since he had started all of this. But Marcus’s warning that the Star Mercenaries didn’t appreciate broken contracts or lies rang in my head, a loop that wouldn’t end. He didn’t know we lived! He made a mistake! I wanted to scream it at them, but there were other people to tell, people we needed.
I slammed into the Artistos nets, connecting to whoever had an earset. Akashi, Sasha, and Ruth. Ruth, who had once hated us with all of her being, and now didn’t question how I reached her without my own earset but just said, “Hello Joseph,” almost hopefully. More change. Chelo, too, was in the conversation, on her own earset.
I reached through the nets and queried Kayleen, pulling her into it.
We couldn’t use an open line to discuss weapons or plans; it was safest to assume they had Wind Readers who had studied our nets. So I told it straight. “My father came with us. They want me. In return, they would give us back Jherrel and Caro. He went. I didn’t. They promised nothing.”
Akashi broke in. “I’m sorry.”
Chelo’s voice, breaking, edgy with all she’d been through today. “We have to go get them. It’s the only thing we can do.” She must be exhausted, but she hadn’t lost any of her intensity.
From what they’d told me, the last attack directly on the city had been so bad almost no one had returned. Nanotech. That had to be what killed so many so easily. Illegal to use as a weapon on the Five Worlds, but not here. Something they sowed in the soil. How to detect it?
I needed some time to get into their webs and understand them. “Sasha, are you still where you told us you would be?”
“Yes.”
“Wait there.” Maybe the mercenaries knew I meant by the base of the Old Road, maybe they didn’t. The information had been in a regular conversation. But the settled part of Fremont was not exactly big. They might be watching.
A woman’s scream bored through me. “They’re coming!” In the background, a distant voice, someone close to the earset wearer, screaming, “Run!”
Paloma.
Chelo screamed, “Sasha!” so loudly the name stung my ears.
The cameras! By the time I oriented on it, the skimmer was flying up and away from where Sasha, Paloma, and the hebras were supposed to be.
“Sasha!” Chelo called, plaintive.
There was no answer.
Ruth snapped commands. “Stay in the ship. None of you are expendable. We’ll go.” Before I could argue with her, her part of the line went dead, then got picked up again. “Donni.”
I remembered him vaguely from Ruth’s band. A tall young man with dark hair. Probably important now, with so many dead. Nothing more to say over a probably open line. Ruth was wrong—I wouldn’t stay trapped in Creator. But first…I had preparations to make.
“Everyone. I’m closing the connections for now.”
T
hey all went silent without even a good-bye. At least the survivors had discipline.
They also clearly expected me to lead. I’d become the man come from the stars to save them. Even Jenna deferred to me.
If only Marcus had come along.
Chelo’s eyes pleaded with me. “I have to go to Sasha.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving them an opening. They’ve no reason not to take you, too. I can’t lose you.”
Kayleen mumbled, “Paloma Mom.”
I shook my head again. “I need you here, Kayleen.”
I reached for Chelo and held her close to me for a long moment. “It will be all right, Sis. Somehow. We’ll make it all right.”
She looked up at me, her expression pleading. “What about our father. Will he help the kids?”
Her question gave me pause. “I think so.”
I kissed Alicia and turned to Kayleen. “Come with me.”
I led her to a quiet common room, sat her down in one of the two chairs, and said, “Show me what you know about their nets.”
She grinned fiercely.
“Follow me,” I said, watching as she closed her eyes, then dove into Creator’s nets, and through them, out into the wild air of Fremont, now full of strange data. She stayed with me, more agile than I expected.
I turned over the lead to her.
Kayleen’s bright energy strengthened and I followed her from node to node in the Artistos net, marveling at her untutored strength.
Being with Kayleen in the nets was unlike anything I’d experienced, wholly different from the tentative touches we’d managed to pull off before I left. Marcus always seemed bigger than life, inside the data streams and out of them. Being with Kayleen here was like being with Kayleen anywhere…a tad chaotic, always bright and lively.
Kayleen showed me the language of the Autocracy nets. She pulled up short at the edge, showing me what the nets showed her. Her energy-form (what else could you call it?) pulsed doubt. Was she seeing a thread meant for her, a lie?
I sampled it. It tasted true, but thin. Not enough dimension. Surely Autocracy nets, even here, were deeper and richer. More like those on Silver’s Home.
I’d studied the threads of benign information (temperature, location of goods, dinner menus, skimmer statistics), not touching them, remembering the attack outside. “Back,” I told her, and we woke to our physical senses, stretching into our bodies back in the common room. “First,” I said, “let me show you how to shield….”
An hour later, Alicia banged on the door. “Joseph, Kayleen, Ruth’s almost here.”
Kayleen and I scrambled up. We got to the command room just as Ruth-in-the-viewscreen stepped from the Grass Plains onto the landing pad. She led three hebras. Two were riderless, although saddled. On the third, Sand, Sasha sat upright, blood pouring down her face. Paloma lay face down and crosswise on Sand’s back, her long gray-blond hair hanging toward the ground. Sasha’s hands braced Paloma’s unmoving body, helping to hold the older woman on the animal’s withers while protecting her side from the bruising saddle bump.
So she lived.
Sky walked beside Sasha, steadying her with one hand, a grim look on her face.
Kayleen gasped. “Let them in!”
“Let’s go.” I told Creator to open the door. Kayleen and I and Chelo and Liam swarmed down the vertical tunnels.
Tiala and Jenna flanked the doorway as Bryan and Ming walked in, followed by Sky, who gazed astonished at the ship. Sasha leaned on Ming, and Bryan carried Paloma like a baby, slightly folded, close to his abdomen. His shirt was bloody.
Kayleen raced to Bryan’s side. He looked down at her, anger showing in every muscle, dancing in his eyes. “She’s still alive.” Kayleen reached out a hand and stroked her mother’s pale cheek.
“Take them to medical,” Jenna said.
“What about the beasts?” Tiala asked. “Will we need them later?”
At least she was thinking. But then, she didn’t know Paloma or Sasha, or the babies, or really anyone. I smiled at her. “Good idea. They’re hebras.” She and I caught them together, Tiala patient and soothing. We caught Sand, Stripes, and the black-headed one. I should have recognized Tiala had a way with animals, if just because of the bird, Bell.
We put the hebras into the hold that had no supplies anymore, and closed the door. One of them kicked, the sound ringing in the hollow metal ship.
I took Tiala’s hand. “Can you stay with them? I’ll send someone down with water soon.”
I found Kayleen and Chelo in medical, washing blood from a nasty cut on Sasha’s face while Bryan watched, shifting uncomfortably. Jenna moved purposefully around Paloma’s still form, muttering under her breath. Paloma was on her back, blood dripping from a wound on her shoulder. Unconscious, she looked even smaller and paler than when I’d held her outside.
“Jenna?” I asked. “Will she be all right?”
Jenna nodded. “If I stick with her for a while. She’s lucky they missed any vital organs. Lucky they used a projectile and not a beam weapon.” She picked up a cloth and held it to the wound on Paloma’s shoulder.
We needed to plan. “Tiala’s with the hebras. We brought them in. If I send someone else to her, and her up here, will she know what to do?”
Jenna stopped for a moment, looking at me, her arms still pressing down on the cloth, which was stained bright red under her fingers. In spite of the tang of blood in the air, the blood on her hands, the horrible stupidity of it all, she had a small smile on her face. “You go on. You have a battle to plan, and I’ve the most experience here.”
I swallowed, understanding the import of her words. “Do you need help?”
She glanced over at Chelo and Kayleen and Sasha. “Leave me Sasha. She’s not hurt badly, and I’ll finish up with her after I get this stopped. Then she can help me finish cleaning up Paloma. You’ll need the others.”
I stood there another long moment, holding her gaze. She looked back down at Paloma, frowning. “Go on. Tell me later what you want me to do.”
I still resisted. “You’re our best strategist.”
She didn’t lift her head. “You have Induan. And Chelo. And yourself. Go.”
I took a fresh cloth, wet it, and handed it to Sasha, who pressed it against her bleeding scalp. “Will you be all right?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Yes.”
I took Chelo’s hand in mine, gestured to Kayleen and Bryan, and called out through Creator’s system for everyone except Tiala to meet me in the galley.
An hour later, roles had been defined. Eight of us watched Creator’s ramp extend in a camera image on the wall of the galley. Ruth led a black-faced hebra, Night, down the ramp, followed by Kayleen. I squinted, struggling to see the forms that followed them. A few times, I thought I made out flashes of off-color movement. I was sure twice, when the silver ramp met the gray pad, and again, where the Grass Plains struggled to take over the pad.
I wished Alicia and Induan well.
With Kayleen mounted behind her, Ruth rode quickly through dusky light, toward the base of the Old Road. I watched until the cameras could no longer pick them up, imagining Alicia, who she had once hated, maybe still hated, and the strange and beautiful Induan, sliding along unseen beside or behind.
I clutched the data button with my father’s journal on it, the small hard roundness of it a comfort in my palm. I wore the flying pants Marcus had given me, another comfort. Perhaps these things would be all the comfort I would have for a long while.
I looked at the others in the room. Chelo leaned into Liam’s shoulder, her eyes closed. I glanced at Bryan. “Take those two somewhere to rest. You rest, too.”
He nodded at me.
“Sky, can you relieve Tiala? The hebras may have settled enough not to need watching, but if not, stay with them. Send Tiala to help Jenna, and have Jenna rest if she can. I’m going to need her.”
Sky tugged at her braids, looking lost. “How do I get there?”
&
nbsp; “Dianne?” I asked, getting a tired and slightly accusing look in return. She had not been happy with our plans, but she wouldn’t have been pleased with anything short of us leaving immediately. “Can you take her?”
“Sure.” She glanced at Ming. “Come with me.”
I let the three of them go off together, hoping Dianne and Ming wouldn’t cook up something I didn’t want while they were gone. But I had my own work to do, and had to trust them.
I settled back into the nets, questing gently through the strangers’ data. They wouldn’t be able to hold the fiction they’d built for Kayleen. Not against me.
55
THE BATTLE BEGINS
Kayleen’s ghostly presence in the nets waited quietly for me to acknowledge her. I pulled myself up from the depths of the strangers’ nets. “Are you ready?” I asked.
I felt her answer as much as heard it. “Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“Not until we’re done. The others are ready, too. Everyone.”
“Good girl.” I came as close to her as I could, sharing encouragement. There was no way to truly touch in such a virtual place, but emotions traveled well.
She was afraid.
I enveloped her in hope as best I could. “We’ll get Caro back for you. We’ll make these people leave. The six of us will never be apart again.”
A slight lifting of her energy.
“We’ll go at midnight,” I told her.
“It’s a two moon night.”
I remembered the superstition that three moons meant good luck. We’d have to make do with two. “Which moons?”
“Wishstone and Destiny.”
It would have been nice to have Faith as well, but perhaps we needed skill more than faith. “Wish well. I’ll contact you when we’re ready.”
Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) Page 41