Jael thought she felt a tremor pass through the earth below, and she wondered at it. Of the other dragons beware . . . She trembled with emotion. Then let us fly high now, and part in the sun.
The dragon complied at once, soaring upward, toward the inverted lake of sunset crystal above their heads. Jael leaned with him into the wind, feeling it sting her cheeks and toss her hair, feeling the glowing radiance of the celestial ocean overhead, filling her eyes and her soul. As the two suns set, their radiance blazed in full color into the sky. Channels opened in the clouds, and light poured through in great rays, washing over Highwing and Jael, and they flew up one of the beams, into the crystal sea, where colors shifted brightly and the currents of the Flux moved in streams and gossamer strands. And here, she knew, Highwing would leave her, for this was not a dragon's realm.
Highwing shivered, and she thought she heard echoes of weeping. The dragon blew a great cloud of smoke and sparks, and a single brilliant, billowing flame. Jael caressed his neck one last time, and then extended her hands into space and turned them into great webs touching the streamers of light. Farewell, Highwing! she cried softly, scarcely letting the words pass her lips.
Farewell, Jael! said the dragon, and he wheeled and suddenly Jael was no longer astride him but in flight on her own, flying as a rigger once more. Highwing banked and circled around her, and he issued a long, thin stream of smoke in final farewell. Then he banked sharply away and plummeted.
Jael gazed after him, holding back her tears, as he dwindled toward his own world. Friend of Highwing! she cried, and her voice reverberated down the sunbeams, and perhaps she was only imagining, but she thought she heard his laugh echoing in the distance below. And then she set her sights ahead and knew that the tears would flow again for a while, but eventually they would dry; and she looked in the shifting sky for the currents that would carry her to her destination star system, Lexis, to the end of this voyage, to normal-space. And she began to plan how she would tell Mogurn that she was leaving him and his pallisp, and she laughed and cried and turned her thoughts back to the sky.
Until I return, Highwing, she thought. Then she saw the streamer she wanted and caught it in her webbed hand, and with her the ship rose high and fast into the current.
PART TWO
RIGGER FRIEND
Chapter 12
Confrontation
THE MOUNTAINS were well behind her when she at last set the stabilizers and prepared to leave the net. She didn't leave right away, though; in fact, she almost released the stabilizers again and returned to active flying, so reluctant was she to depart. In the end, she knew that she had no choice; she could not stay here forever, and Mogurn had already interrupted her twice, demanding to know the ship's condition. But she couldn't help gazing wistfully astern, where the realm of dragons had long since passed out of sight. Drawing a deep breath, she turned her attention forward, to the clear golden atmospheres ahead and the tiny flecks of distant star systems. At last she withdrew from the net.
Mogurn was in his cabin, smoking. He barely stirred when she entered; his gaze was directed to the wall-holo near the door. Jael was almost afraid to turn her head to see what was on the holo, but when he didn't move, she steeled herself and looked. It was an empty image, a featureless grey-green space like a window into an infinitely deep ocean. She shivered a little and wondered what was making him so still, what he was seeing in that blank holo. Failure? Death? Perhaps she didn't really want to know. Pressing her lips together, she turned to face her captain.
Mogurn gave no sign of noticing her. He puffed, and smoke curled up around his head.
"The ship is clear of danger," Jael said quietly. "We're out of the mountains. We should be entering the final current to the Lexis system in a couple of days, I'd guess. Ahead of schedule."
Still there was no response from Mogurn. Was this the man who had so urgently needed to know what was happening?
"If you have no questions, I request sleep time now." She might as well have been speaking to the wall. With a shrug, she turned to leave.
She was halfway out the door when she heard Mogurn's voice behind her, strained and oddly thin. "There will be no pallisp for you today."
Turning, she gazed at him in cold wonderment. "I do not want the pallisp," she said softly. "Tonight or—" she hesitated "—ever again." If he heard her words, it did not show. Puffs of smoke streamed up past his reddened, unseeing eyes. "Good night," she said, and did not breathe again until his door was opaque and the length of the hallway stood between her and Mogurn's cabin.
* * *
Mogurn did not come out again for the better part of a shipday. During that time, Jael flew the ship well along toward Lexis. And she struggled not to think about the pallisp.
The latter was more easily intended than done. Her friendship with Highwing may have rendered the pallisp unnecessary while she was in the net, but Highwing was no longer here. The memory of the dragon was strong in her mind—but so too was the memory of the pallisp. More than once in the net she found herself caught between the two memories, longing for both, knowing she could not have the one and dared not have the other. She caught herself gazing backward, behind the ship, unconsciously trying to conjure the image of Highwing. With painful determination, she pulled herself back from that impulse, which was not only futile but dangerous; she had to accept the fact that she was alone. To remember Highwing and his deeds was a very good thing, but to wish for something that was impossible would only draw her back into another form of dependence. And along that road lay the pallisp.
She had made a vow to herself—and to Mogurn—that she would have no more of that instrument. She had broken one vow already, just in coming aboard this ship. She was determined not to break another.
Nevertheless, she found it difficult to concentrate in the net. The second time she caught herself drifting off course, she cut short her flying time. She left the bridge with a great emptiness in her heart—an emptiness that she dared not fill in Mogurn's cabin.
She went to the galley instead. Two sweet muffins and three cups of clove tea later, she felt stuffed, but no less empty. Highwing, why couldn't you have stayed with me just a little longer? she thought uselessly, picking at the crumbs on her plate, as though she didn't know the answer.
You will find others, she seemed to hear him say.
It wasn't much consolation.
Cry, "Friend of Highwing!"—and I will hear you, though all the mountains lie between us. . . .
Tears ran silently down her cheeks. Even as she wept, she knew that if she could just keep that one thought clear in her mind, that image of Highwing waiting for her, then perhaps she could resist and defeat the pallisp. She had no choice, really. It was a battle she had to win.
* * *
Mogurn glared at her across the table. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and angry, and his hair was uncombed. He looked as though he had slept in his robe, and probably had. What he had been doing in his cabin, she could not imagine, but it had not calmed his temper. He had emerged for the evening-watch meal, and she had just informed him that she was planning to leave the ship at Lexis starport.
He rose half out of his seat. His voice sounded like an old pipe gurgling. "We have a contract, Jael LeBrae! You are bound to this ship, and to me, until that contract is fulfilled! Until you have returned me to Gaston's Landing!"
Jael stared at him, and could not help thinking of the old sea-travel stories of cruel and piratical ship's masters. Mogurn so clearly fit the image now; she didn't know how she could have missed it, when they first met. He was just the sort of captain that her father, her accursed father, might have hired. Ruthless, uncompromising. She was afraid to answer him, but more afraid not to. She struggled to make her voice steady, as the words came out in a rush. "That contract is a fraud. It did not allow you to use an illegal and addicting device on me. You have endangered the safety of your ship and crew—as I expect you probably endangered your last crew!" And when she w
as finished, she knew she had just indicted him in the worst way possible.
Mogurn's fist slammed down onto the table. Jael jumped involuntarily. "That is a lie, rigger! It is you who have endangered this vessel! And now you refuse the one thing that can redeem you, that can make you a rigger worthy of the name!" He waved a finger across the table, his face contorted by rage. "But you cannot refuse it!"
Sit steady, Jael thought grimly. Do not move or let him gain an upper hand. You need not give in to him. And she sat and stared back at him—though for a long dreadful moment, her fear was almost greater than her determination. Finally she took a breath and said, with anger in her voice, "What did happen to your last rigger, Captain Mogurn?"
Mogurn's eyes bulged, and his gaze broke. He lurched away, while she caught her breath, trembling. For an instant, she thought perhaps she had won. Then Mogurn wheeled back toward her, fire in his eyes. But this time he did not meet her gaze, or even seem to see her. He stalked past her, out of the commons.
Jael peered after him, through the empty doorway. Would he leave her alone now? She hardly dared to hope. Something in his expression had filled her with dread. But perhaps he was going to take refuge in his synaptic augmentor; perhaps he would simply lose himself there, leave her in peace, leave her to finish the flight. She looked down at her dinner. Her stomach was in knots. But perhaps, she thought, the worst was over.
She heard the footsteps in time to turn her head—but too late to dodge the hand that clamped onto her shoulder. Involuntarily, she let out a cry of pain. She shrank from Mogurn's glaring eyes. In his left hand he held the pallisp. "What are you doing?" she gasped, as he tightened his grip on her shoulder.
"I have brought you what you need, Jael!" he crowed, in a voice that quavered between madness and triumph.
"Are you crazy?" She tried to rise, to wrench free of his grip. "Let me go!"
He gazed at her with a queer smile, then released her shoulder. She stumbled out of her seat and backed away, but not fast enough. He struck her in the face with the back of his hand.
The blow sent her reeling across the room. She staggered into the wall and fell to the deck. Stunned, she raised her head as Mogurn strode over to tower above her. "No!" she whispered.
"You'll take your pallisp," he growled. "Whether you want to or not. You will take it."
Jael closed her eyes to slits. For a moment, she felt a cool, calm certainty that Mogurn held no power over her. Not unless she allowed him to.
"Well, Jael?" He bent toward her.
She resisted an urge to spit in his face. "I'll take nothing from you," she murmured. She saw his knuckles whitening around the handle of the pallisp. She tried to scramble away on the deck. But his hands were quicker, and he grabbed her wrist with one hand, while with the other he hooked the pallisp behind her head and jammed it up against the base of her neck.
"I am not threatening you, Jael," he said in a frighteningly controlled voice. "But I have made you a promise. And I always keep my promises." He did something with the pallisp.
Jael shuddered as a wave of stimulation rippled up her spine. "Damn you," she breathed, and then her voice was taken away by a rush of warmth that flooded her body, her mind. The pallisp was reaching deep into her brain, where it could bring comfort or deep shuddering pleasure.
No! she whispered, but the sound never reached her lips.
And then it was stripped away as quickly as it had come—and she gasped and blinked, struggling to focus her eyes. Her hand, under its own control, reached out for the pallisp. She could not help wanting it; she was aware of the folly, but could not stop.
Mogurn's laugh filled her head, and she blinked, realizing what she was doing. She jerked her hand back; she struggled futilely to escape his grip. His breath was hot in her face. "Want it?" he hissed. "Don't want it? Want it? Don't want it?" He twisted her wrist and pressed the pallisp to her neck again . . .
She cried out, shuddering with pleasure and pain. "Damn you! Damn you—"
Once more it was yanked away, and she huddled on the floor, panting. Struggling to catch her breath, she glared up at him. She knew that if she were exposed to enough of this, no matter her resolution, she would become addicted beyond hope of recovery.
Mogurn's expression was a hideous mixture of anger and triumph. She blinked and attempted to form words with her mouth. Her lips and tongue would not respond. Leering at her efforts, he brought the pallisp down again. She ducked her head away and managed to hiss, "You will never get to Lexis without me!"
His hand stopped halfway down, the pearl grey ball of the pallisp inches from her face. His eyes glared into hers, and she held that terrifying gaze, wondering if she had finally penetrated his consciousness. He drew the pallisp to his chest and straightened stiffly. "You," he said, "have taken an oath."
Jael snorted contemptuously.
Mogurn's eyes widened with indignation. "You have taken an oath!" he roared. "An oath to bring this ship to port. You will be nothing if you deny that oath. Nothing! Do you hear me?"
Jael began laughing bitterly. An oath? Yes, she had an oath to fulfill, but it did not extend to this, not to suffering this kind of brutality. Perhaps she could do the worlds a favor by losing this ship, and herself and Mogurn with it, in the uncharted currents of the Flux. Which would be the greater evil—to betray her oath, or to bring this man back to civilization?
Mogurn released her—then struck her in the face again. She crouched, guarding her face against another blow. It didn't come. Cursing silently, she raised her hand. But Mogurn was no longer looking at her. He seemed to have forgotten her completely. He was gazing into space; his left hand, still holding the pallisp, was hanging toward the deck.
Jael lunged and snatched the pallisp and scrambled across the floor with it.
"YOU!" he howled, whirling. "Come back here!"
Jael sprang up to a crouch, holding the cold steel of the pallisp close to her breast. "Don't come close to me!" she warned.
"Give me that!" Mogurn advanced, glaring, hand outstretched.
"Stay away."
"GIVE—IT—"
His hand shot out to grab her left wrist. She twisted away and cocked her right hand back, and without thinking twice, hurled the pallisp with all of her strength.
"NO!" he shrieked.
The pallisp hit the far wall with a thud, and a sharp crackle of broken circuitry. Her breath exploded with a gasp, and she closed her eyes, oblivious to the pain as Mogurn seized her and threw her against the wall. She struggled to stay on her feet, to stay away from him.
Mogurn stalked over to pick up the pallisp. As he rose with it, his eyes were clouded. Jael tensed for another attack. Mogurn's mouth worked to form words. He stared down at the pallisp, the ball of which was now flattened. He sputtered, struggling to speak, and finally croaked, "Bring . . . this ship in . . . you will bring this ship in . . . you wretched little bitch!" And without looking at her again, he strode from the room.
Jael was as astonished as she was terrified. She looked about the galley, where she had been planning to eat her meal. She shook her head and took a few steps toward her cabin. Then she turned and ran instead to the ship's bridge.
* * *
For a long time, she sat in the pilot's seat, not entering the net but merely studying the clustered instruments, monitoring the ship's condition and tracking its movements in the immediate surroundings of the Flux. There was little to be done; she felt like an ancient sailor of the seas on night watch in a windless night, keeping her ship on an even keel and monitoring its drift against the current, but doing little that would significantly affect her course or speed.
It gave her a small measure of comfort to sit here, to eye the empty rigger-couch that could take her into another world, when she was ready, a world that was subject to her mood, her whim. Yet, she wasn't ready to go into the net just now. It would only bring back to life her fury at Mogurn, and her longing for Highwing—and the disruption to her flying could be
perilous. Dear God, she missed Highwing! She thought, too, of her father—of the man revealed to her by the light of dragon magic. She wondered if she ought to have hated him or pitied him. It all seemed less clear now, without Highwing.
Finally, in the gloom and the quiet, she began to feel calmer and eventually she grew drowsy. She kept at it a while, clicking display knobs and studying the abstract images that conveyed technical information. Eventually, she blinked, realizing that she was nodding off and had not understood a thing she had seen in the past ten minutes, and she rose with a sigh, blinked wistfully at the rigger-station, and retired to her quarters. From Mogurn there had not been a sound.
She pressed the LOCK setting on her door panel, then checked it, and double-checked it. She exhaled and loosened her tunic. She did not remove it, but stretched out in her clothes on her bunk. She reached out to wave the light off, but hesitated, and instead left it on at a low level. Sinking back to rest her head on the pillow, she closed her eyes.
Within moments, she was lost to the cottony realm of sleep.
She dreamed of a spaceport peopled by dragons, of a Gaston's Landing where great lizards strode among the spaceships and guzzled convivially at the bars. A spaceport where she, a dragon like the rest, wove spellbinding tales of her flights, embellishing hardly at all.
Chapter 13
Deadly Force
THE AIR had become dense and suffocating, and she struggled to overcome the resistance in her windpipe. Her dream was turning to nightmare; she flailed with her arms, but they were pinned to her sides. There was a sour, gagging breath in her face. Something was close, too close . . .
Her eyes blinked open and she saw shadow. She tried to sit up in a single convulsive lunge. She grunted, still flat on her back. The shadow moved. As consciousness returned, she realized that someone dark was looming over her, pinning her to her bunk. She struggled—futilely—against the other's much greater strength and weight. She tried to cry out, but the weight was pressing down on her so hard, she couldn't get enough breath.
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