Pets in Space® 4

by S. E. Smith

  Three figures stood up out of the shadows under the wall of the streambed. Sara recognized Baron Bloodred. His henchmen weren’t the same two as earlier. They moved differently.

  “Moondust this,” Sara said. “I’m tired of games.”

  “This is no Fair game.” Kev’s voice was flat. “The Baron came out of the snow today without the cut you put in his armor. This is a ringer. His men have guns. Get out of here. I’ll delay them.”

  Fright and fury flashed through her nerves. She ran to the unicorn and grasped his mane, meaning to lead him to safety back the way they came.

  The deadfall she’d just noticed crashed into the channel. It was a trap. They couldn’t go back that way.

  There was one last way out.

  Sara sprang onto the unicorn’s back. He shied. She held on, trusting the gravity braces to hold his weight and hers.

  The unicorn gathered himself, leaped out of the channel, and ran. When somebody tried to intercept them, reaching for the hem of Sara’s robe, the unicorn lashed out with his horn. The intruder ducked away.

  There was a sudden sharp sound. Sara felt something graze her leg.

  With a shrill whinny, the unicorn bolted. Sara held on with her hands and knees. The unicorn ran like the wind. He didn’t stop until he ducked through hanging blankets painted to look like part of a rock wall—into a warm, softly illuminated cave that smelled like hay. By then he was limping. Sara slipped off. She found a bleeding wound in his forequarter. “Easy, easy, we’re safe here,” she crooned, and wildly hoped that was true.

  A young woman ran around the edge of a stack of hay. She had a monitor’s hat and a startled expression.

  “There are criminals on the mountain,” Sara said quickly. “They’re threatening someone and they shot this unicorn. Call help. Please.”

  The monitor whipped out her notebook. She stabbed it with her finger.

  Sara desperately hoped that was an SOS and not just an infraction report.

  Seven

  The Standing Stones

  Kev had ugly dreams about blood.

  Blood in a jeweled bowl. Blood in a dented cup. A tall suit of mail red as blood that thrust a sword into Kev’s body below his belt. Blood flowing through the fingers of the hands he pressed against his abdomen. He dreamed about falling down on his knees on stones and cold water with a stunned thought—that was real steel—until thinking was obliterated by pain.

  Then the dream circled around to the bowl of blood again.

  He didn’t like this dream. He wanted out of it. With a hard effort he made himself wake up. Blinking at white walls and blurry people, he wondered if he was in the Monastery getting first aid. The last thing he remembered was hard, dirty fighting on a field of blood.

  The walls joined the ceiling with a fine, straight line, though, and the ceiling included a band of soft light. This really didn’t look like a first aid station.

  The four people standing at the foot of his bed had worried faces. So did the physician in a white coat who leaned over him. “Dr. Desler, do you know where you are?”

  “In hospital,” he mumbled. “In Wendis.”

  A suppressed cheer came from the people at the foot of the bed. He recognized Sara, Paolo, and Jerad-Jon holding hands with Lin-Miri.

  “Sara,” he croaked.

  She leaned in to take his hands. “We’re so glad you’re alive!”

  “Fighting isn’t s’posed to hurt people this bad. D’I fall and break my back?” He had a deep pain in his lower body.

  Her eyes widened. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “No’ much,” he admitted.

  “This man needs rest,” said the Wendisan doctor. “You stay with him, Sara, which will be the best medicine now, as I can plainly see.”

  Kev had better dreams with Sara lying beside him. Slowly, his memory filtered back. He remembered the avalanche and the Feigned Fane. And that it was the Baron who ran him through with a sword. In a period of wakefulness, Sara told him that the Baron was in the hospital too. That is, the real Baron was here, in the cyborg care unit. He’d been replaced by an impostor in the avalanche and nearly froze to death before the Chivvier found him.

  “A search party found you just in time too,” she whispered. “The impostor took what he thought was the Trilling chalice and left you to die.”

  He was glad she held him tight.

  Early daylight streamed through the window of his room when Sara combed Kev’s hair and straightened the collar of his hospital clothing. “You’ve got visitors.”

  The first one was the monitor who’d sent them after one Grail too many. He’d turned out to be the Winterfair security chief, Sara whispered. Next came a tall woman. The doctor followed last, with a stern face. “This needs to be brief,” said the doctor.

  “This is important,” said the tall woman. She had distinctive, silver hair. Kev thought he’d seen her around the university.

  Sara said, “Kev, this is Counselor Courant from the university’s legal office.”

  Kev knew about the university lawyers. This one wasn’t the formidable head of that office but not any of the unimportant junior attorneys, either. She was the one from the planet Azure, an interstellar law specialist with a university reputation for being both brilliant and effective—too much so for some of the academics who’d tangled with her.

  Counselor Courant said, “I bring the university’s best wishes for your quick recovery. Be assured that any medical bills not paid by the Fair will be covered by the university.”

  “Thanks,” he said, wondering just how big the bills were, or in other words, just how hard it had been for the doctors to pull him back from the brink of death. Thinking about that made him go cold.

  “Now I need a deposition from you—answers to simple questions. I understand you came into possession of extraordinary contraband.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you hid it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  Kev briefly closed his eyes. That didn’t make her go away. He sighed. “Under a rock.”

  “Which rock, where?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “It’s entirely common for people to lose memory after injuries like his,” said the doctor.

  “It was a tall rock high up on the mountain,” he said helpfully.

  She put her hands on her hips. “In the area I think you’re referring to, there are seventeen Standing Stones. Five more can move, the ones called the Stalking Stones. You probably got there via a Window—but each of the Stones has a Window terminus. Can you remember something, anything, more?”

  Kev just said, “No.”

  Sara spent most of her time with Kev until he was better. While he slept the sleep of the nearly mortally wounded, she had time to think. After everything, she’d ended up with unicorn blood on her hands. She’d already begun an analysis of it. So she’d gotten what she wanted and more, without doing harm or breaking rules to get it. There was a lesson in that somewhere.

  The university lawyer, Nia Courant, made it very clear what she wanted: the Trilling chalice found. Apparently, reverberations from that thing’s appearance and disappearance went all the way up to the interstellar level.

  It was the Winterfair people who came up with a way to look for the chalice in an expedition back to Winter. The doctor reluctantly agreed and arranged for a levitating chair for Kev.

  The expedition formed up in the Zone called Safe Haven, where there was nothing that could hurt anyone. Kev had refused to go without Sara. She’d insisted on the rest of Team Grail coming too, so they could finish what they started. Jerad brought Lin-Miri. The counselor joined the expedition, dressed sensibly in a warm field jacket and boots. She might not be a fragile hothouse flower even though she was from the icy planet Azure, where everybody lived in greenhouses.

  With the counselor came six campus police officers. The university was taking no chances with everyone’s safety.

 
When the Door from Haven to Winter opened, they were met by the Fair security chief and a small white dog. Sara recognized the Chivvier from the Avalanche Zone.

  By daylight it was obvious that three rings of tall stones stood on a plain below the Domestone Slope. Each ring had five or six very tall stones and more smaller ones still taller than a person. There was a cold wind. Sara tucked the dark blue Winterfair cloak around Kev’s shoulders. It was a nice garment, dotted with silver threads like stars. “Memory any better?”

  “Worse,” Kev admitted. “None of them are what I remember from at night when I crawled out from under it.”

  The Chivvier sniffed his hands, the trailing edge of his cloak, and his boots—not cleaned since his adventure and tucked into a corner of the levitating chair. The little dog had bright eyes and white fur. The dog and the security chief nimbly ran to the nearest circle of stones. Kev, Paolo and Jerad followed them.

  “Sara and Lin, stay here.” Counselor Courant seemed to be expecting something else, in addition to any developments at the Standing Stones.

  To Sara’s surprise, the woman from the unicorn’s stable approached, and with her came the unicorn. He wasn’t wearing gravity braces and his silver hide was flawless except for the bandage on his forequarter.

  Counselor Courant said, “The unicorn trainers are very unhappy about what happened. Consider me your lawyer if they press charges.” She gave Sara a smile that was genuinely warm. Sara suddenly liked Counselor Courant.

  The Counselor said formally, “I understand that you’re the unicorn’s trainer. You’ve already communicated to my office that riding this animal was an extreme violation of the rules, and in addition, the unicorn was injured, although it was a flesh wound and is healing.”

  The trainer nodded.

  “I didn’t know we were leading him into danger,” Sara said with real remorse.

  The unicorn greeted Sara, even letting her rub his ears.

  The trainer softened. “He doesn’t associate you with pain or duress. That’s what I wanted to see. It’s good enough for me.”

  “So noted,” Counselor Courant said.

  Sara asked, “Why was he finding women in the Fair?”

  The trainer answered, “He has a talent for that. He’s a kind of protector who finds lost girls. With the gravity braces, that role in the Fair is usually safe enough for him. His name, by the way, is Prince.”

  Prince regally let Lin-Miri pat his nose. It was Counselor Courant he took a real interest in today. He hooked his jaw over her shoulder. While she tried to gently push him away, he managed to take out her hair clip. She had the silver hair that many Azureans did; it spilled across her shoulders. Sara wondered at how that Azurean hair looked so very much like Prince’s mane in color and texture. Could it possibly be the same ancient genetic engineering. . . ?

  “Somehow he knows when a girl is alone in the forest.” The light in the trainer’s eyes was mischievous. “Or in life.” She told Prince to behave himself.

  No wonder Prince wasn’t paying very much attention to Lin-Miri today: she and Jerad were inseparable. Sara wasn’t at all sure about herself and Kev. He had a future, which was a lot better than being dead, but he didn’t talk about it, and she didn’t know if his future had a place for her.

  Watching Prince nuzzle the lawyer, Lin-Miri said to Sara, “She must be too busy with law to have a love life.”

  The dog seemed especially interested in one of the stone circles. Kev, Paolo, Jerad and a campus police officer went that way. The rest of the police shifted their perimeter to continue to cover everyone. Kev was glad they were there.

  The going was rough for those not in a levitating chair. “Sorry I have it easy and you don’t,” Kev told his friends.

  “We don’t mind,” Jerad said fervently.

  “You’ve become the Fisher King, my friend,” said Paolo.

  Kev remembered what Elzebet Seller had said about the Fair: Your role changes only if you do. Was this what being changed felt like? It was very hard and uncomfortable.

  The women seemed to be having an interesting discussion about the unicorn, which had turned up in the company of another woman who Kev took to be a trainer. Now all of them, unicorn included, started this way. Not content to wait for her to come to him, Jerad went to meet his true love. That left only Paolo standing beside Kev. Now might be the best time for Kev to ask a supremely important question. “Paolo, why does all this happen? The Winterfair with its fights and games, prizes and weapons, a door to the criminal underworld and even a character like the Death Angel. It’s not all about having fun or making money. So why?”

  “Because Wendis is a small world in a dangerous universe. In the last couple of days I’ve read your academic writings,” Paolo said. “Your conclusions are convincing. On this end of history there’s a state on the brink of turning into an empire bent on domination of all else.”

  “Faxe.”

  “That puts Wendis in peril of attack or subversion. If attacked, Wendis will defend itself by all means fair and foul, with military moves or dirty tricks, beam weapons or hand-to-hand fighting with swords and atlatls. May I not live to see the day it becomes necessary.”

  Kev nodded emphatically.

  “All Wendisans—including our unsavory elements, because here they have a home and things more to their liking than anywhere else in the universe—will defend Wendis.”

  Kev blinked. “And Wendis is riddled with pitfalls for unwary invaders.”

  “Very much so.”

  Sara ran to Kev’s side. Paolo smoothly changed gears. “By the way, I pressed the authorities for the right reward for you. You may get it even if we don’t find that chalice, but if we do, it’s certain.”

  “And that is?”

  “Wendisan Citizenship.”

  “Oh, Kev!” Sara said. “That’s incredibly valuable!”

  A secure place in a place more endangered than most people knew but better able to defend itself than anyone guessed. That was valuable, yes. But there was something more valuable to Kev. It was here. Now. Her. “Sara, remember Elzebet’s talk in the Hall of the Mountain King? Can we soon discuss the rules of engagement for us?”

  Smart as she was attractive, she only took half a second to understand what he meant. With a radiant smile, she kissed him.

  The little dog was running around the security chief, who waved energetically. He disappeared under a Standing Stone while everyone else hurried that way. He came out with something silvery on a carry cloth.

  The university lawyer took depositions then and there.

  Sara said it was the same artifact she’d found under the Monastery in Axledoom, and that she’d recognized what it was due to her familiarity with the work of her aunt, Svetlana Tai. The lawyer gave Sara a sharp look. Kev guessed that the lawyer was familiar with Svetlana and might even know which of her exploits were not just rumors.

  Kev described how he’d hidden the Trilling chalice under the Standing Stone. The security chief confirmed that was exactly how he’d found it.

  Paolo, a Wendisan Citizen, witnessed their depositions and attested to Sara’s and Kev’s good character—throwing in as an aside all best wishes for their engagement.

  At that, everyone, even the lawyer, applauded.

  Sara wrapped her arms around him. Kev felt less alone than he’d been in a long time, and less likely to be lonely again. Happiness welled up in him, making him warm.

  The ancient, alien, titanium chalice on the carry cloth gleamed in the winter sun. Everyone was glad it was found for their own reasons—as many reasons as people present. And Prince and the little white dog danced around them.

  About Alexis Glynn Latner

  Alexis Glynn Latner likes to write tales of romantic adventure that touch readers’ hearts and their minds as well. She also writes nonfiction, does editing, teaches and mentors creative writing, and works at Rice University’s Fondren Library in Houston, Texas. For fun and real-life adventure she is a sailplan
e pilot.

  Her science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, and many print and online anthologies including the USA Today best-selling Pets in Space. She’s had stories in a couple of mystery anthologies too. Her science fiction novel Hurricane Moon was published by Pyr (Prometheus Books) in 2007 and again by Avendis Press in 2014 with the sequels Downfall Tide, Star Crossing, and finally Helldive in 2018.

  A new romantic science fiction series begins with Witherspin in late 2019. Witherspin unfolds in the same invented world as Winter’s Prince, with some of the same characters. They find themselves living in interesting and dangerous times!

  Find out more about Alexis’ books and stories:

  www.alexisglynnlatner.com

  www.facebook.com/AuthorAlexisGlynnLatner/

  https://twitter.com/AlexisGLatner

  Also by Alexis Glynn Latner

  The Aeon’s Legacy Series

  Hurricane Moon

  Downfall Tide

  Star Crossing

  Helldive

  Pets in Space Stories

  Mascot

  JC Hay- Heart of the Spider’s Web

  TriSystems: Smugglers Series

  Sheri Tyler had a simple undercover assignment: work the docks at Nobu Station, monitor the illegal trade, and report everything back to Intelligence Command. Now a botched robbery has forced her to hide among a crew of smugglers and put her on the run from the Spider Queen, one of the TriSystem’s most dangerous crime lords. Worse, it’s left her working alongside a brooding security officer who reminds her of everything she shouldn’t desire.

  Rayan Barr only wants three things: keeping his ship secure, his friends safe, and his pet goanna well-fed. None of those include overseeing a dockrat whose stories don’t add up, and who has a mad idea to sell their illegal cargo in one of the largest black markets in the Three Systems. Now his captain has demanded he keep a close watch on her, something his eyes are already all too eager to do.