by Sharon Lee
"But I do not," she said. "Though I will admit that it is wonderful, how having an alias to hide behind emboldens the weak of character."
"You are harsh," he said, and looked back to the screen.
"Boss Surebleak demands that the Council of Bosses retire Conrad, and the Road Bosses. Children and adults of Clan Korval who were not involved in the invasion and hostile takeover of Surebleak will be allowed to leave the planet. All property of Conrad, and Clan Korval will be confiscated to partially offset the damage deliberately and maliciously done to a sovereign world."
He glanced up.
"All of this to be accomplished within the next two weeks, local."
Natesa leaned back in her chair, frowning.
"Someone," she said eventually, "has been tutoring Boss Surebleak."
"It does seem so, does it not?"
Pat Rin sighed.
"I will invite the Council of Bosses and the Road Boss to a remote conference in two hours. That will give everyone time to refresh themselves, and to become familiar with the terms."
* * *
Data flowed, building airy structures of possibility, which melted under the weight of discovered facts, or formed a core from those self-same facts and thus became, first, interesting, and then useful.
Joyita had quickly uncovered five of Teramondi's previous flight-names—impressive work, and so Jeeves praised it to him. However, Joyita, with his captain in peril, and Bechimo chafing to act, had turned his considerable talents into other channels thought to have more to do with the present emergency.
Jeeves had once spanned a planet, and had long ago developed subroutines—an entire bureaucracy of specialized protocols. He did not have the resources to span Surebleak, thus his planetary oversight duties consumed somewhat more computing power. But the little offices, the small efficiencies, that remained untapped were more than capable of tracking Teramondi down through all nine of the names it had flown under during a fifty-eight year career.
It had come into service as small trader Light Star out of Qwensi, under the command of one Vareta Jigs, captain-trader.
Trader Jigs developed and served a modestly profitable Short Loop for most of fifteen Standards; her fortunes changing when she was boarded by pirates, who presumably spaced the crew, of whom nothing else was ever discovered.
Light Star, however, rose again within the Standard as Ysla out of Waymart. She served the grey and black markets until an error in judgment brought unwanted attention upon her, whereupon she disappeared.
And appeared again not six Standards later, with a registration bought at Edmonton Beacon, for the good ship Lalilokane.
And so it went down the years.
The ship knew hard use by her numerous serial captains. Repair records included replacing damaged pod-mounts; tuning the drive engines; replacing the Struven unit; upgrading weapons systems; hull repair—and a replacement of the internal crisis system.
Teramondi, as she had been known for the last five Standards, had the hatch switches replaced at Selig Hulls. Selig Hulls yards—the company-owned yards, that was—produced competent work. Those yards which merely paid of fee in order to display the Selig Hulls logo, among others, in their advertising, in general, produced less competent work.
Teramondi, which at that time had been Ankhor out of Waymart, no longer even brushed the hems of the light worlds. Certainly, she was unlikely to come across a certified Seilg Hull repair facility.
Nor did she.
Thus, Teramondi had a vulnerability which could be exploited from a distance.
Jeeves considered the report Joyita had forwarded to him regarding Theo Waitley's condition. He would need to coordinate closely with Bechimo and Joyita, and also with the Pathfinders, who he understood were undertaking a rescue mission of their own devising.
Well enough, thought Jeeves. For this, the more confusion, the better. Though Bechimo insisted, and Jeeves agreed, that any action they undertook must wait until Theo Waitley had emerged from the autodoc.
* * *
Miri stirred.
"Won't do you much good, will it?," she asked her lifemate. "Way I heard it from the med tech, that arm's broke pretty good; plus some cuts and bruises; not to mention the gas you got into your lungs wasn't as nasty as it coulda been—but not by a lot."
"I believe that we have the means at hand to remedy many of these inconveniences," Val Con said.
The Tree, he meant. Which they'd talked about, with each other, and the Tree, too, while they were planning for this moment—or one not at all like it. There was just one problem.
"How'm I s'posed to get a pod into you, while you're locked in an autodoc in the Port Trauma Center?"
He blinked.
"Good question."
"That mean you don't have a good answer?"
"I—" Val Con started—and stopped, looking up into the branches above them.
Miri heard it, too, a long rustle, getting louder, as if of some object plummeting from a height through leaf and branch.
She stepped back; Val Con held out a hand. The pod hit his palm with a solid smack.
One pod; and it was his. She could tell by looking at it, and so could he. Even as she watched, the thing fell into quarters in his hand.
Miri looked up into the branches.
"You are an accessory to stupidity," she told the Tree. "And besides that, this ain't real; it's dream-time."
"Are we certain of that?" Val Con asked, dusting pod-shred off his fingers.
She glared at him.
"I sure went to sleep to get here."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that we are only dreaming."
He took a step toward her—and hesitated, eyes narrowing.
"I'm being called back," he said, and closed the distance between them.
The kiss was urgent; rough; then he turned away, walking quickly across the clearing to the path—and was gone.
Chapter Nine
Surebleak Port
"Theo?" Bechimo sounded tentative inside her head.
"Right here," she said.
"You were gone," he said.
"They put me in a 'doc," she said, remembering that much. She opened her eyes, and considered the pale glow a few inches above her face. "Still there, looks like."
"What is your condition?"
"Good question."
She took a deep breath. Some residual ache, but no stabbing pain. The knee was sore, but nothing that would prevent her from walking, running, or even kicking, if it came to that. Her hands were stiff; experimentally, she flexed her fingers, and something heavy and slick ran across her palm.
Anger sparked.
"What is it?" Bechimo asked, sharply.
"Idiot put me into the 'doc with the restraints on. I guess he's not taking any chances." She took another breath; sighed it out.
"Other than that, I'm in good enough shape. I'm going to open the lid."
"Wait!" Bechimo said. "Theo, you must hold yourself ready. We are going to get you off of that ship. You must be ready to run, when I say the word."
"In that case," she said; "I'd better get this lid up."
The strap linking her wrists wasn't tight, but it didn't give her much play, either. She had to move both hands more or less together, which was awkward. With a little wriggling, she was able to reach the right side of the compartment, where the release lever should have been.
But wasn't.
Theo muttered, and squirmed 'round onto her back again.
Some models, she remembered, had a latch on the inside of the lid. She raised her bound hands, groping, and failed to locate a latch. A shove directly against the lid failed to pop it.
She was locked in.
"Theo, your heartbeat just spiked."
"The lid's locked," she said. "I guess they don't want me wandering around on my own. It makes sense, really. I'm in no danger."
Good thing I don't have claustrophobia, she thought. Her childhood best friend, Lesset, had a ho
rror of being confined in the dark; she'd been assigned to take therapy for it. Back then, Theo had a long list of physical disabilities on file with the Safety Office, but she'd never been afraid of small spaces, or the dark.
"We will wait to act until you are at liberty," Bechimo said. There was a pause, and he said, tentatively, "Would you like me to stay with you?"
She wasn't afraid of the dark, Theo thought. On the other hand, it would be good to know that she wasn't alone.
"Yes," she said. "I'd like that a lot."
"All right," said Bechimo; he hesitated, and then asked, "Would you like to listen to music?"
Theo took a breath. The inside of the 'doc hadn't gotten any smaller, she told herself. It was just that the light had faded, a little.
"Tell me a story," she said.
"A story?" Bechimo sounded startled. "I don't know any stories."
"Sure you do. Where did you go, after you'd saved yourself, and before you met Win Ton? You must've seen some interesting things." She paused, and decided to risk teasing him a little.
"You didn't stay in your safe place all the time, did you?"
"Not . . . all of the time," Bechimo said after a moment.
There was another pause, though she could still feel his presence in bound-space.
"Well," Bechimo said then, and his voice had something of Clarence's lilt to it. "Now that you mention it, I do remember the time I was over near the edge of the Dust, and I happened upon another ship, like me . . ."
* * *
A chime was going off in his ear, progressively louder. Val Con opened his eyes to behold a very worried, very Terran, face above him.
"You're healed?" said the face, sounding equal parts disbelieving and horrified.
"The machine seems to think so," Val Con answered; "but it is prudent to be certain of these things. A moment."
He lay still for a moment, taking stock; there was, he noticed, a lingering taste of Tree-fruit along his tongue. Other than that, he felt no pain, nor weakness in his limbs; he breathed easily, with no burning in his lungs.
Carefully, he raised his arms. The face hastily retreated, and he used the momentum of the stretch to pull himself into a sitting position.
He felt perfectly well.
"Apparently," he said to the med tech; "I am healed."
"But it's hours too soon;" the tech protested. He turned away, as Val Con rolled out of the 'doc, landing effortlessly on his feet.
The tech turned back, clutching a diagnostic pad.
"The inventory of injuries, and the projected time to heal," he said, shoving the pad under Val Con's nose.
Politely, he glanced at the screen.
"Yes, I see—a nine hour repair. How long has it been?"
"Five," said the med tech, snatching the pad back and staring at the readout. "Five hours, and you're completely—that's not possible."
"And, yet, it seems to have happened. Perhaps the machine needs recalibration."
"I guess it does! Putting that order in right now!" His attention on the screen, he started out of the cubicle; paused and looked over his shoulder.
"Your wife sent down some clothes that don't have blood and muck on 'em," he said. "They're in the press." He paused, eyes narrowed. "Might be best if you just had something to eat in the caf, here, and stay where we can see you for the next hour. Just in case something's really screwy with that 'doc."
"Thank you," Val Con said. "I will undertake to do nothing beyond my abilities." He thought he heard something very like Miri's disbelieving snort at the back of his mind—gone before he could decide if it had come through the lifemate link, or was merely his supposition of her likely reaction.
The tech, meanwhile, his attention already back on the data-pad, left the cubicle.
Val Con surveyed the area, concluded that "the press" was the small mobile closet, and opened the door.
Very shortly, he was dressed in a dark, high-necked sweater; tough canvas pants; and his own boots, which would need to be cleaned, but would do for the moment. His jacket . . . there was a brush on the shelf at the top of "the press," and he spent a few minutes applying it vigorously. Space leather was tough, and pilots tended to take pride in the scars and stains their jackets accumulated. Sticky alley scum was another thing altogether, and he was pleased that most of it yielded to the ministrations of the brush.
He checked the pockets, finding everything in its place, nothing missing; and was about to swing the jacket on when it—buzzed.
Frowning, he slipped his hand into a semi-public pocket on the inside right, and pulled out a Scout-issue close-range comm unit.
He thumbed it on.
"yos'Phelium."
"Master Val Con, excellent," Jeeves said, sounding positively buoyant. "We are preparing to remove Captain Waitley from her predicament aboard Teramondi. Are you in a position to assist?"
"As a matter of fact, I am. What do you have planned?"
* * *
"Boss Surebleak," Boss Schroeder snorted. "We're s'posed to take this serious, are we?"
"Oh, I think we gotta take it serious," Penn Kalhoon said. "Did a bit o'damage today on my streets, and the fact that we didn't get anything more fatal than a broken arm from it wasn't necessarily in the Boss's plan."
"That's a surety," said Melina Sherton; "assuming it's Boss Surebleak who got them machines walking over Tapout way. They'd've crushed Gapton Village if we hadn't got some friendly intervention from Captain Waitley's comm officer."
"Doin' what?" asked Boss Wentworth.
"Got into the command-line and issued a stop order," said Melina.
"Somebody's smarter'n new snow," said Fortunato. "How'd the machines get started up first off?"
Melina shrugged.
"Remote signal, just like what stopped 'em. There's a set o'manual override keys, but I know where they are, an' ain't nobody touched 'em since the day I come Boss."
"Remote signal," said Boss Vine. "We got so many remote signals flyin' around late days, there's no sayin' but that one of them triggered the machines, accidental."
"Maybe," said Melina. "I'll hold it as a consideration. But my first inclination is to count the machines in with the rest of today's antics. Boss Surebleak hit wide, but, what's specially inneresting to me is that they hit the territories of the Old Bosses who threw in with Conrad."
There was silence.
Melina looked around at the other Bosses, each in their screen.
"Well?" she said; "ain't that so? Penn Kalhoon, me, Ira, Wentworth. An' that's before we get to lookin' at the port—who got hit there?" She raised her hand, fingers extended, and folded down one with each word—"Emerald. Mack's. Road Boss. Portmaster. Conrad and his brother; and their two biggest supporters, portside. Does that look like random to any of you?"
Boss Whitmore broke this silence.
"Gotta assume it's all related, 'til we have more info. Trouble's gonna be gettin' more info before Boss Surebleak turns testy and starts up another round of zample-makin'."
"We don't know there hasn't already been another round," said Schroeder, glumly.
"I think that we would be informed, if there had been another series of attacks," said Conrad gently. "I also think that we may expect no more attacks today. Boss Surebleak has issued demands, and a deadline by which those demands must be met. Therefore, while we may perhaps except a slowly escalating scale of small mischiefs, as the deadline comes closer, I believe that the streets are safe enough for at least the next few days."
"So, what's that get us?" asked Engle.
"We have time to write a letter of our own . . ." Conrad frowned. "No, perhaps, we will take a notice in the newspapers, as Boss Surebleak did not include her direction in the letter."
"A notice in the newspapers saying what?" Penn Kalhoon asked, fair brows drawn together.
"Why, stating that the Counsel of Bosses is in receipt of Boss Surebleak's letter, and wish to discuss the list of demands with the Boss personally at the specia
l working lunch meeting called for mid-week."
Penn blinked.
"They'll come in shootin'," said Vine. "If they come at all."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps not. We can but make the effort."
More silence, as the assembled Bosses each turned the idea over and examined it.
"It's what we gotta do," said Ira abruptly. "That's what people do, they have differences; they try to work 'em out. Give a little, get a little; nobody's happy, but everybody's still standing. If we don't want Surebleak took back to the way it was, then we gotta do different from the Old Bosses."
There was a general murmur of agreement. Conrad inclined his head.
"I will draft a notice for the papers, and send it to each of you no later than tomorrow morning. Comments and suggestions may come back to me before sundown. I will place the approved notice in the papers tomorrow night, and it will run beginning in the daylight editions on the day after tomorrow."
He glanced 'round at each face in its screen.
"Does that meet with the approval of the Council?"
Ayes were given, and Conrad stood.
"In that case, I bid you all good-day. Let us be watchful, and stay in touch. If it comes about that there is more mischief, please contact Penn Kalhoon with a detailed report. He will keep a list and share it with council members."
That, too, gained approval, and one by one the screens went dark as the Bosses signed out of the conference.
Pat Rin sat down again with a long sigh, and met Natesa's eyes.
"Do you intend to retire Boss Surebleak?" she asked.
He gave her a wry smile.
"No. But before you paint me with virtue, it is only because a retirement will not solve the problem. Retire one Boss Surebleak, and a second will arise, stronger than the first. We must find another way. And, also—"
He gave her a light, seated, bow.
"We need to discover who is giving Boss Surebleak her lessons."
* * *
The story had been fascinating as much for the things Bechimo didn't say as those that he did. And apparently the Dust was even stranger that she'd supposed it must be.
"Is that even true?" Theo asked, half-drowsily.
"Of course, it's true!" Bechimo said, doing a really good job of sounding outraged at this impugning of his honor. "I cannot lie."