Fever Season

by C. J. Cherryh

  He'd show the poor bastards around the embassy, and watch eyes pop in undernourished faces. Once he got a woman with three teenaged children and he wanted to ask her to move in right there and then, so poor and downtrodden were these people of his homeland.

  In fact, he did say, "M'sera, you've forgotten your incentive payment," and gave her a lune for herself, and one for each child.

  Then he had to make it right, and add the silver give-away to the whole process. Which was going to dent his petty cash drawer. But it could have been worse; he could have given in to his initial impulse and asked the woman if she could cook. She probably couldn't, not from the way those kids' bellies were distended. She hadn't had anything to cook better than rice and garbage, fish guts and heads and seaweed and moldy cheese, for far too long. Not the sort of chef you needed for state dinners. Still, the woman's plight haunted him, and he sent somebody around later that day to see if she'd like a job doing washing or making beds at the embassy.

  Truth be told, the whole head-counting enterprise was having an unexpected result, deep in the armored soul of Chance Magruder. He'd kicked a lot of butt in his time, butt resoundingly in need of kicking, for the faceless masses of the oppressed. It was a rote catechism to him. He'd been through one revolution and it had taught him that the best you could do was rotate the oppressors and the oppressed: there was always an underclass. That was lots easier to accept when you didn't see the gummy eyes of hungry waifs and the hopeless ones of their mothers. Maybe Magruder was getting soft, but it bitched him to see the way refugees from the revolution he'd helped make in Nev Hettek had fared in Merovingen.

  Another reason to bring this anti-tech, pro-superstition regime crashing down, he told himself. And that was fine; that was his job here. But it was a deeper unrest he felt, an impossible urge to do something for these people here, these people of his—as if he were a real ambassador and the Nev Hettek embassy was here for some real purpose, besides the fomenting of a revolution, if not the start of an out-and-out war.

  Which he wasn't. Charitable works were no part of his job. He was a professional, and as one, he was professionally uncharitable. So maybe what seemed an uncharacteristic impulse was an intuition of another sort: maybe he could put together some "program" to aid his supposed constituency here; one he could use against the establishment. He was still thinking about it when Mike Chamoun came in, demanding an audience with an abrupt handsign.

  There were offices and offices in the embassy. It was a big place and the staff was almost entirely Revenantist Merovingian. Magruder had taken to having his real meetings in the stairwell leading to the water-gate, where all sounds were magnified and he could be sure there wasn't somebody listening at a door.

  On pretext of taking Chamoun down to look at the new boat that the embassy had been given by the "grateful House of Kalugin for services rendered under fire during the 24th Eve Ball," Chance led the infiltration agent halfway down the steps. And then it hit him: Magruder could, and would, fire all the help that had come with this place and hire Nev Hettek nationals to do the work—give his own people better paying jobs, and himself a little more security. Sure, the displaced and the descendants of the displaced, who'd fled Nev Hettek for reasons better left undisclosed, might not be the most loyal of staffers, but they beat people handpicked by the Kalugin administration. Beat them to hell.

  "—and then the damnedest thing happened," Chamoun was saying.

  "What thing?" Magruder rerouted the conversation back to its beginning.

  "Well, I was down near Fishmarket and there were three guys following me, I'm almost sure, when out of nowhere comes a boatful of Boregy retainers, sayin' Cassie sent 'em. Climbs up and swaggers over, and whoosh, the guys followin' me disappear into the fog. And these guys, they say they come down t' keep me company on account of the House has heard there's to be an attempt on my life—they're on me like flies on a carcass. So I had kinda mixed results ..."

  "You've got to watch your accent, Michael," Magruder growled. "Really watch it. You've been hanging around with the bodyguard for just one evening, and you sound like one of them." Magruder had to keep the young Sword on track.

  And he had to think. Cassie Boregy trying to prevent Chamoun's assassination? Boregy nerves? Or something real? In the bad light of the stairwell, Chance couldn't tell much from Chamoun's expression. Was the youngster spooked? Or just making apologies for a wasted night's work?

  Chance said, as gently as he was able, "And you? What do you think it means? Besides the obvious, that your wife's in love with you." Give the boy a bit of approval to hold onto— Chamoun's main mission here was to make a good marriage; let him know Magruder hadn't forgotten.

  But Magruder's mission included keeping the boy alive, unless he had good reason not to. And the mess Chamoun had gotten into, carrying messages back and forth for Tom Mondragon and Vega Boregy, Anastasi Kalugin's people, wasn't good enough reason not to. Yet.

  "You didn't answer me," Magruder reminded Chamoun after too long a pause. You couldn't let things like this fester. The boy had come to Magruder with this, so there was still hope. "Come on, Mike, what do you think it means?"

  "I don't think anything." Chamoun's voice was dark and tight, recessed deep in his chest. "I'm askin', that's all." He raised his head. "You finished with me, Chance? 'Cause I'll leave-—go back to Nev Hettek, fake my death, anything you say. I just don't think one mistake's reason enough to—"

  "That's what I thought you'd say. But you don't really believe I'm behind this attempt on your life—if there was one, and we don't know that for sure—or you wouldn't be here asking me about it. Am I right?" Talk to me, kid, before it's too late.

  "I don't know. Yeah, I'm here. So I guess I don't. But I don't know what to believe ..." Chamoun took a step back, as if he could step into the stone wall behind him.

  "Well, neither do I. But you can believe that if your bodyguards came from Vega Boregy, he saw something in it for himself, sending them. You're his boy, he thinks. He doesn't want you dead. Or he does, and he's setting up a smokescreen behind which a later kill will disappear ..."

  The boy's eyes gleamed in the dimness now as he stared straight at Chance. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Act like a good trapped spy; do what Vega tells you. Thank him for the protection, but don't let on that with his men there, you couldn't do what you were supposed to in Merovingen-below. He's got dogs on you, Mike, and he wants to be sure that whatever Tatiana has you doing, he knows about. So you don't do anything about the double cards, you just mind your manners and leave the rest to us. And you come back to me, tomorrow night, same as usual, with your paperwork and your day's report."

  Was it enough support? Enough reassurance? Magruder couldn't risk much more. At any point, the kid could turn over for real, become an Anastasi/Vega agent instead of his. And all Chance would have, to tell the difference, was his own instinct.

  "Right. Thanks," said young Chamoun, and pushed away from the wall wearily. Magruder didn't move back; they were so close that he could feel Chamoun's rapid, warm breath puff against his face. "I'll see you then ..."

  Magruder still didn't move out of Chamoun's way. "Wait a minute, son." A friendly slip of the tongue. Chamoun paused, licked his lips, and looked at Magruder for a moment with a naked plea for help on his face.

  Magruder said, "It's going to take time to get you out of this mess—a tight spot's not too harsh a term. But I'm working on it." Magruder shifted and Chamoun fell in beside him. As if he had the younger man on a leash, Chamoun paced Magruder as he started to slowly climb the stairs.

  "I'm glad to hear that, si—m'ser," Chamoun said, his voice shaking just a little.

  "You're going to do more than hear it. You're going to see it. In a couple of hours, if not sooner. I'd like to explain more. I'd like to have you stay here with me and watch while the Sword teaches this bunch of fanatics a lesson about Instant Karma. But I can't risk it—can't risk you. So you go home."

&nb
sp; "I understand."

  "No, you don't. But you'll do it because I'm telling you. You go home and take your wife and spend some time looking up at the sky tonight—if possible, in Vega Boregy's presence. If not, make sure you're up when all hell breaks loose."

  "An attack? If there's going to be trouble—" "No violence. No bloodshed. Psychwar, Mike. No way of telling what the result will be, beyond the fact it'll be interesting, and to our advantage. I want to know how Boregy reacts to what I've got in store for Merovingen tonight. If you can find a way to be with Vega, so much the better. But don't push it. And I want to know if any midnight messengers come from Anastasi—or from the College, to Boregy House tonight."

  "I don't understand."

  "I know. You will. You know all you need to—all I can tell you without screwing up your reactions. You've got to trust me, Mike. If I wanted you dead, you'd be floating in the Grand by now. We'll turn all this around—you, me, and their own karmic debt." Magruder bared his teeth.

  Chamoun tried to return a wolfish grin, managed only a patently uncertain smile. "I'll let you know, then. Tomorrow night."

  "Good enough. And watch your back—there's no guarantee that there isn't somebody trying to take you out." And I don't want you feeding the fish, and the murder blamed on the Sword of God. When and if it's necessary for you to get dead, I'll do it. Until then, even if you don't realize it, you'll have better protection from now on than Boregy retainers can provide.

  And that was a promise, albeit an unverbalized one, that Magruder could make good on: he called his best man in and ordered a covert escort for Chamoun, to make sure the youngster got home. And to capture and return to the embassy for interrogation anybody caught following Chamoun who so much as picked his teeth with a fishknife or even smelled of foul play.

  There was no reason for Anastasi, or Vega Boregy, to eliminate Michael Chamoun, not while they considered him a compromised player—their player. There was no percentage in scaring the kid, or his wife. At least, not to Magruder's way of thinking, there wasn't. Therefore, either Boregy believed that Chamoun was in danger from another quarter, or didn't believe that Chamoun was successfully compromised. Either way, right now Michael Chamoun was a trouble spot.

  Whether he'd still be one after midnight remained to be seen.

  Ruin al-Banna, agent of the Sword of God, was out in a skiff in deep water, as far out in New Harbor as he could get and still keep Rimmon Isle in sight.

  The skiff had to be positioned so that al-Banna could keep Rimmon in sight, Magruder had been implacable about that.

  Ruin al-Banna hated Chance Magruder, but he loved the Sword of God.

  Sometimes, al-Banna thought he was the Sword of God, incarnate. Especially now, since his twin brother had died in the attack on the 24th Eve Ball, the Sword's aims and his own seemed indistinguishable. And these days, Chance Magruder was Karl Fon's representative in Merovingen; Karl Fon was the man in whose worthy hand the Sword rested; therefore, Chance Magruder must be obeyed. For now.

  But only for now. There were other malcontents among the Sword in Merovingen, and al-Banna knew them all. Men who knew direct action was the only way to conquer the Kalugins, who must be wiped out like vermin in a cleansing bloodbath.…

  Al-Banna shook his head to clear the muddying thoughts of vengeance from his mind and the accompanying snarl from his lips. Later. Later, Romanov would be avenged—Magruder must have done it; everybody in the Sword cell based at Megary knew that. Nobody, however, could prove it. Eventually, they would. Eventually, they'd supplant Magruder. Baritz was sure of it. Baritz wanted to be Fon's new Magruder in Merovingen. So did Ruin al-Banna. But the Sword ran on discipline. The Megary Sword cell also ran its own reporting chain, and that chain was letting itself be used by Anastasi Kalugin to discredit Magruder.

  Soon, Magruder would be no more. Soon, the Sword in Merovingen would rise up and destroy every Kalugin, the entire Boregy House and all the other aristocrats on the Rock and on Rimmon Isle. Soon, Ruin al-Banna would have the blood of Chance Magruder, in exchange for the blood of Ruin's twin brother. Blood that Magruder had shed during the 24th Eve Ball.

  Soon. But not yet. Until the time was right, Ruin al-Banna would follow Magruder's orders. Even when those orders were as obscure as tonight's.

  The skiff rocked gently in the water, pulling on its sea anchor. The night was cold and the fog out here was as thick as cheese. Magruder's ways were inscrutable, but al-Banna knew this was the time for following those orders to the letter.

  The task at hand was dangerous, and al-Banna was proud to be the man entrusted with so difficult a job. He had gone over everything in his mind until he knew the procedure by rote. Now there remained only the execution.

  Before him in the skiff, between his wide-flung legs like a lover, was a great ceramic pot, tilted away from al-Banna, pointing skyward and inland. In the pot was the formula.

  In the pot, Magruder had said with his mirthless grin, was the sharrh. At first al-Banna hadn't understood. Eventually, he had. Magruder had run al-Banna through the drill until the Sword man could have performed his tasks in his sleep.

  He had filled the ceramic pot with gunpowder; he had angled it away from himself so that flying gobbets of sulfur would be less likely to set him afire. He had mixed smaller paper packages of gunpowder, some with copper (for green fire); some with iron (for red fire) and stirred them into the larger mass of powder. He had made the fuse from thick cord, soaking the cord in saltpeter; he had concocted his slowmatch, a long stick of it.

  Now there was only the danger, which al-Banna was proud to endure. Magruder had looked through the roster and realized that only Ruin al-Banna had the intestinal fortitude for this job, the raw courage and the overriding commitment to follow through at great personal risk. Many things could go wrong. A fiery death was not one al-Banna craved.

  The pot of gunpowder could flash and explode in his face; the force of the crude rocket he'd mixed could send packets jumping onto him while they burned. The sulfur gobbets would stick to him like glue.

  Or he could be found out. A patrol boat might come across him. He might have to abandon ship, or sink it with himself and the evidence aboard. Al-Banna was not a marathon swimmer. The shore was far, the water cold; visibility at the water-line would be next to nil.

  But none of these risks were too great to take. If all went well, the sharrh would appear in great flaming ships of red and green, arcing through the sky over New Harbor. The fireworks would shoot as far as forty or fifty feet into the air, above the fog and the mist. From shore, their height and distance would be impossible to determine.

  It would be as if the sharrh had returned. Instant karma, Magruder had said, and even al-Banna, who was slow with words, a man of deeds, had understood.

  So the most important single action taken against the Revenantist oppressors was in al-Banna's hands. His brother would be proud of him. The technophobic, superstition-mongering Revenantists would never figure out that the sharrh were just a chemistry lesson; they had no logic in their souls, just fear and karmic debt.

  With a final look around, al-Banna set to work. He reached over the side and scooped up water, dampening his sleeves and his arms to the elbows—not much protection, but a little. Then he took from its place the slowmatch, still smoldering where he'd wedged it under the gunwhale near the stern, and blew upon it until he had a bright flame, which he shielded with his palm.

  There was no more time to waste. The explosive power of the tilted pot before him was now daunting. The pot was a dragon's mouth, and he was about to plunge a sharpened stick into it…

  But he had accepted this assignment; he must follow through. The sharrh would appear over Merovingen tonight, and the Revenantist College would find itself forced to explain the sharrh's return in terms of karma. Terror was its own reward, all men of the Sword knew that.

  With a sudden, quick motion, Ruin al-Banna plunged the slowmatch into the tilted mouth of the deep pot. Into the loose
gunpowder and the bags of powder and metal sprinkled through it.

  There was a blinding flash, a roar like a waterfall, and the surface of the mixture was a sheet of fire. Then the fire began to rise, and to spit. Packets leaped into the air and exploded, some high, some so low that al-Banna screamed.

  He dropped the slowmatch. He shielded his face with his hands, then his arms.

  Thus he missed the seeing spout that thrust upward, and the balls of colored fire that arced into the air.

  He missed them because more than one packet had exploded too low: he was on fire.

  He was screaming and batting himself, panic-stricken as the sulfurous fire burned him.

  And he was overboard, in the water, by the time the packets that had been rocketed fifty feet in the air started to cascade like the wrath of heaven, exploding the very night and rendering al-Banna and his skiff in sharp relief, culprits against the fog.

  But then an unexpected thing happened: the skiff, burning, began to founder. And as it sank, the fire below was put out.

  The fire above in the heavens seemed to go on forever as the burned and half-blinded Sword operative tried to save himself. First he swam away from the sinking skiff, then he swam toward it, hoping to find a timber to hold onto, hoping to find a way to shore.

  Somehow his feet got tangled in the sea anchor, but by then he was already too exhausted to swim any farther. He was only half aware that he was bound up in the rope, tied to a piece of the skiffs bow, and being dragged with the current. He'd swallowed too much water, breathed too much sulfur, been burned over too much of his body. But he'd seen the sharrh flaming across the heavens, and he'd seen that the evidence was destroyed.

  Unconsciousness came so stealthily that he never wondered whether he'd drown, trussed to the spar with the anchor rope, or be washed ashore. It didn't matter. He'd made the sharrh return to Merovin, made the very sky into an Adventist testament.