"You all right?" Mondragon yelled at her.
"Fine," she yelled back, and got to the door. Opened it from ground level, and that was a good idea—shots came out, and Mondragon's bullets came past her, right inside.
So did Mondragon, damn man was in there, down those steps in the dark and punching buttons on the panel before she could get her wobbly knees to carry her down to him. He said, "Damn thing!" and she figured it was like a barge, different kind of start, and held one button down and pushed another and heard the engine turn over.
Cal's voice then: "They're coming up from the west!"
And a whole volley of shots. She just kept pushing. Engines both caught. 'Ye got those cables, yet?"
"Go!" Mondragon said.
Two throttles, two engines, she remembered that about this boat. She throttled up easy, feeling it out, had, beyond the glass, a shadowy view of Borg North picked out against the night-glow and the smoke. Signeury Bend was right at Borg, and you made it smooth or you'd stove her in on the triple pilings of Signeury Bridge.
Mondragon was trying to keep her down low. She needed to see. She upped the engines, the yacht straining and getting nowhere.
"They're coming!" Cal said. "Hurry, dammit, Rif!"
Stern was swinging out, bow was still tied and they were like to ram the shore. She reversed the screws. Then the bow cable went, all of a sudden, and Jones throttled to neutral, spun the wheel over hard to correct, and throttled up, as a shot splintered the wall.
She said, on a breath, "Here!" and hauled the detonator out, laid it on the counter. It slid off and he caught it, didn't have to ask what to do with it.
Whump!
Too close, she thought. Whole ship lurched, God hope it didn't get the screws. And she was steering hard, the way you had to when you didn't dare carry enough way. But she was bow on to the Grand, didn't need to back, just get round that damn Signeury Corner and take her on.
"I can't make the bridges," she said, thinking of those pilings that you had to skin this huge ship by, and she heard the panic in her voice. "I can't handle her, Mondragon, I'm going to crack her up, you better get ready to jump, better warn 'em—"
"Give you a damn boat and you want to complain, steer it, Jones, you know the currents, give her some way and steer!"
Man was shaky-voiced himself. She punched buttons. She got deck-lights. She didn't want that. She got the warning horn, and, God, she wanted that one. No knowing what boats might be in her way if she got to the harbor. Running lights. Yey, mama, bow-light's all right, but I run all my life in th' dark. Cut 'er out and use the eyes.
Signeury Bridge. A scrape there. Terrible scrape.
Need more way for Bucher-Borg. Engines throbbed like her heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump. Blast of the horn, let whoever know she was coming.
You carried way or the currents got you. Carried way enough to crack your bow and sink you. Mondra-gon's hand was on her shoulder, fingers pressed.
"You got it, Jones," as bridge shadow passed with so little to clear overhead it stopped your heart.
"Scrape this damn deck-house right off and stove us with it—let me stop this thing—"
"Keep going. You're all right."
"The damn overheads are tight, they ain't even, Mondragon, if I miss a center I'm going to rake this bridge an' us right off, won't know what hit us—"
"Keep going, Jones. We're all right, we're—"
God!
She shut her eyes. She felt the current, she opened them and she was on. Right under Foundry. Fishmar-ket ahead, treacherous deep wash in the middle pilings, but that was where this big wide boat had to go, with its deep draft. Right through the current. Little whip at the end.
Big ship powered right through it, hardly felt it. Slow up, now, Mantovan corner coming, couldn't chance this big boat there—big push where the Gut let out. . . .
"You got it, Jones. You got it."
She blew the horn. She eased right out into harbor and slowed down, scared of hitting some poor skip freighter. There she was, Altair Jones, in 'Stasi Kalug-in's big black yacht, reversing the screws to stop and letting the boat toss in the stirred pot that was the harbor—
Had Mondragon's arms around her and she didn't mind she was soaking wet and sweating weak, and being kissed out of the breath she had. She held onto him and gave it back, good as she got, the two of them like fools in the dark and the toss of an unhan-dled ship.
He said, out of breath, "You made it, Jones."
She said, "Figured where t' find ye." Then she thought about her skip, mama's skip, blown to hell out there, and felt sick. "I lost my boat—"
"I got you another, Jones, what're you complaining for?"
"Let us off," Rif said; and Cal. "We got work to do."
And what they were going to do or when or how, the Lord knew, but they said this morning that Tatty was governor up in the Signeury, Lord only knew about papa Iosef. And Jones didn't say a thing about what was under Dead Marsh, wouldn't say it even to Mondragon, that was the way she felt about it: they'd bought her silence with what she couldn't get, else, and she had him back and for her mind, they were just going to pull out a while and let the winds blow clean.
"Go fishing," she said to Mondragon.
Odd things turned up in the dawn. There was Min Fahd in a fancyboat, with an old hightowner man, the both of them like kids, Min waving and calling out to all her friends.
Waved up to the big yacht, too, and laughed and laughed, her and Mondragon leaning over the side. It was m'ser Elgin with her, the Lord only knew how— seein' what was to be seen, Min said.
But came the rush of folk to Eastdike and the cry of blacklegs coming to the harbor, it seemed time to start the engines up and put a little distance between them and Tatiana Kalugin.
"Ain't gettin' my man," Jones said, and said to Rat and her Pavel fellow, the Falkenaer, "Better get off if you're goin'. We're goin' out a ways."
"Wot's y' course?" the Falken lad asked, blue-eyed and interested.
"Dunno," she said honestly. "Just keep in sight of land and out of trouble, all I know t' do."
Mouth pursed, head shook. "Na, na, ye want f’ keep her t' good len'th out, ye got a shoal t' sout'. . . ."
"Ye know the coast?" she said.
Lad tapped his head. "All th' charts. Fuelin' stations. 'Ell, I do. Secont navigator, I was on th' Coldsmith."
"Ye're stayin'," she said, with a jab of her finger. And to Rat's objections, "Ye're th' bribe, Ratliff. Ye're comin' with. Just a little fishin' trip. We'll bring ye back, eventu'ly."
"Jones!" she heard Mondragon yell. "Jones, better get us out of here! Launch is coming, they don't know us from 'Stasi!"
He came running. Heavy gun boomed out. But she was throttling up by the time he got inside.
"Ain't no problem. How's th' Chat sound for winter?"
"Fine. The Rim's fine, right now. Somewhere that launch can't reach. Thing's got a deck gun of some kind—"
"Chat." She looked aside at him as the ship gathered way. "Think I can find 'er. There or somewheres. What d' ye say?"
"Just kick her up a bit."
She did that. Right out harbor-mouth, and straight on as she bore.
Index to City Maps
Table of Contents
Title Page
GET OUT!
C.J. CHERRYH invites you to enter the world of MEROVINGEN NIGHTS!
Title
ENDGAME Copyright © 1991 by C.J. Cherryh.
CONTENTS
Maps
ENDGAME
LOST SONG
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
PROVING GROUND
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
BOOKWORMS
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
FAMILY TIES
ESCAPE FROM MEROVINGEN
FAMILY TIES (REPRISED)
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
ESCAPE FROM MEROVINGEN (ACT ONE REPRISED)
FAMILY TIES (REPRISED)
ESCAPE FROM MEROVINGEN (ACT ONE RE
PRISED)
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
ESCAPE FROM MEROVINGEN
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
ONCE WAS ENOUGH
ONCE WAS ENOUGH (REPRISED)
ENDGAME (CONCLUDED)
Index to City Maps
Endgame Page 26