Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  had friends at home, they said, who would hide them while they figured out what to do. Davor made no attempt to argue; he said that he had no friends himself, wished them luck, and left them. They were all captured and crucified within the next few days. Davor came to the Northwest Sector, to the High Plateau, and began his career.

  It started with two loaves of bread back in Tammas District. And that's why he was called Stereth Tar'krim. Rice thief.

  Being in an outlaw fort in the Northwest Sector is a little like being in the army. You meet a lot of people from a lot of different places, and learn any number of personal histories. And somehow none of the personal histories, however different from your own, weighs as much as the fact as you are all stuck in the same present situation.

  I woke up on the women's side of the sleeping quarters. If Ran hadn't come up with that story about our just being business associates, we could've slept together in one of the little rooms off the hall and it would have been comforting.

  I sidled up to Ran while we were waiting on line to get access to the waterjars for our morning wash, and mentioned that fact to him.

  "It was a good idea. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of time to think." Ran shivered in the early morning cold. His chest was bare. "Somehow I never anticipated standing in a ruin in the Northwest Sector, being offered a retainer by a killer with glasses."

  "Pardon," said a voice nearby, and the gorgeous youngster who'd been cleaning his short sword last night walked past Ran, this time carrying one of the tall waterjars.

  Ran turned to watch him. "Did you catch his accent?" he asked me.

  "What accent? He didn't have one."

  "That's what I mean. If he wasn't born out of the Six Families, he was damned close to it. He talks the way you and I do, Theodora."

  People have claimed before that I've picked up Ran's high-toned accent. I have to take it with a grain of salt, because I've never been entirely clear that Ran had one. The boy came back past us empty-handed, on his way to get another jar. He paused and bowed to us both.

  "I'm making up the water schedule," he said courteously, "and if you have any preferences, I would be happy to incorporate them."

  "Preferences?" I asked.

  "As to which days you would rather be on water-carrying duty. The well is out back. This bunch seems to require a great deal of washing, not to mention drinking."

  Ran blinked. "Water-carrying? Me?"

  The boy regarded him.

  Ran said, "I thought I was a guest."

  The boy said, "A long-term guest. You might say we're all long-term guests."

  "I've never carried water in my life. Don't you have people to do that?"

  "There are no servants here, Sokol. You'll find that we're all equals before the law, all liable to equal execution. I carry water twice a month, and they call me Sembet Triol."

  Sembet Triol—nobly born. That put him one up on Ran. The Cormallons weren't one of the Six Families, they were one of a dozen or so that claimed to be the "seventh."

  "You have a preference, Tymon?" he asked me.

  "Any day is fine."

  "Sokol? It means getting up before everyone else."

  "Any day is equally vile."

  "Very good, then. Glad to have you with us," he finished, bowing yet again, and then he went off to fetch more water.

  When I got to the front of one of the lines, a woman who said her name was Carabinstereth, with an extraordinary heart-shaped face and slanted blue eyes, upended a jar over my head. She did it with enthusiasm and grinned when I yelped. "Cleanliness is one of the Eight Virtues of Private Life," she pronounced, mischief in those alien eyes. Her hair was cut like a round cap on her head—shorter than I'd ever seen a woman wear it on this planet.

  "Discretion is one of the others," I said, when I could talk again.

  She clapped me on the shoulder. "A scholar," she said happily. "We're going to get along fine, Tymon." She wiped my face and handed me the towel. "Run along and don't miss breakfast."

  I used to really be a scholar, you know. No, dammit, I still was one, in spite of not quite making the doctoral

  requirements. Wasn't my Riddles, Proverbs, and Folktales of Ivory being suggested for the Cross-Cultural Myths and Legends program?

  Thoughts like this popped up from time to time like armed guerrillas in my path. Here on the High Plateau they seemed particularly alien and foolish. And pathetic.

  Breakfast was outside in the damp grass, where a great slab of meat was roasting over an open cookfire. I thought I recognized the carcass from our wagonload. People were standing about talking, sitting on rocks or on one of the low, crumbling walls of gray stone that went all over the grounds. I spotted Ran eating alone and sat next to him.

  "Maybe if we told these folk our House name they would offer us for ransom," I said.

  He shook his head, his mouth full of breakfast meat. A minute later he said, "I don't want the Cormallon treasury losing any more money because of me. And think what it would do to my reputation."

  "Still, living out our lives in the Northwest Sector has very little appeal for me."

  "It's more serious than that. We were mistaken for Stereth Tar'krim and Cantry back in Shaskala. If I call attention to us now—well, I don't want the Cormallon name associated with treasonous activity in the Northwest Sector."

  "Maybe we could turn this band in. You'd be a hero then, wouldn't you?"

  "I don't want our name even to be in the same sentence as treason in people's minds. You don't know how nervous the Prime Minister can get. Entire Houses have been destroyed before this."

  I looked around at the outlaws chatting over breakfast. "Do they consider this treason? I thought it was simple robbery and murder."

  "When it comes to the Northwest Sector, there's a very fine line in people's minds. Armies have come out of here before. Annurian started quite a fine little revolt before he was captured."

  "Well, and he went on to have a good career, didn't he?"

  Ran dropped his bone on the ground. "Annurian was bought off with an army post because he was too successful. Nobody anticipated he'd go on to become Prime Minister." An argument broke out near the fire between Lex na'Valory

  and a tall woman in violet trousers. Ran continued, "And I suppose his ex-comrades were less than pleased when he began arresting them. No, the whole issue is one we're well out of."

  "Except that we're not."

  "Not yet."

  I ripped into a small leg bone, thinking that there was a time when that sort of thing had really disgusted me. I said, "When is Cormallon going to find us? Before Stereth gives up on us, I hope." Ran pursed his lips. I said, "What? Won't they be looking? Don't tell me the First of Cormallon can disappear and nobody will notice."

  He said, "We might have gone anywhere from Shaskala. Even assuming we'd be traced to Shaskala to begin with— we did use assumed names there. The last time anybody from Cormallon heard from us we were in the capital."

  "But they knew where we were going!"

  He looked sour. "What did you tell them?"

  "I told Herel not to expect us back for several weeks, and to have Spet handle the household accounts. And I told Kylla we were going away on a project… and a honeymoon."

  "I told Jad to take care of local matters and consult my cousins in Mira-Stoden if anything difficult came up. I did give him a number to leave messages at in Shaskala—but Jad is good about these things. Shows proper initiative. Short of an armed revolt, I don't think he'd disturb me." Ran brightened. "There's a full family council meeting, all branch heads required, on the fourth of Dumare. If I don't show up for that, it'll definitely draw attention." Then his face fell again. "But that's double-edged. If I don't show up, the representatives will start to wonder about my reliability. Particularly in view of my jaunt to Athena. Not to mention the… trouble… I was in before."

  "But when they see it wasn't your fault, that you were kidnapped—"

  "Careless, then, a
s well as unreliable."

  We pondered this in gloomy silence.

  "Dumare is three months away," I pointed out.

  "And we definitely have to escape by then."

  "You don't think it can be sooner?"

  I must have sounded ready to strike out over the hills

  there and then, for he crooked a smile. "I'm only telling you what it can't be later than."

  I pictured us out on the plateau, in the rain and wind, with a troop of bandits on our heels. And no sense of direction, no knowledge of safe streams or safe people, no money, leagues from anywhere… and with some angry police waiting at the end of the Shaskala Road. Assuming we could even find the Shaskala Road.

  Carabinstereth appeared. She tossed her bone toward the fire in a perfect arc and said, "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

  The dawn mist had mostly dissipated and the afternoon mist had not yet closed in. It was still fairly cloudy, though, and I'd become used to clear skies and straw sunhats on this planet. I said, "I can't wait to see what your bad weather is like."

  She grinned. "Sokol, I had the honor of dousing your companion this morning in the wash line. If you'll both come with me now, I'll have the honor of showing you our mounts so they can get used to you. Stereth says you're to join us tonight."

  Ran's eyes were wary. "Join you in what?"

  I don't know if you—my imaginary average Standard reader of this—can tell, but if these don't sound like normal Ivoran names, it's because they're not. They're "road names," identifiers that all Sector outlaws pick up along the way. Using birth-names is considered bad manners, and sometimes grounds for being killed. Partly this is blind tradition, and partly it's due to the fact that the Imperial cops are not above threatening people's families when they feel it's appropriate. If Ran didn't want his real name coming to anybody's attention, you can imagine how people felt who had more to hide.

  Here then are the outlaws I came to meet over the next few days—the names of the cantry tar 'meth, or "companions of the road."

  The "Companions of the Road"

  Stereth Tar'krim—grain thief or stealer of rice Cantry—sidekick or companion Des Helani—cheater at cards

  Mora Sobien Ti—late-night woman (Prostitution is not a crime on Ivory, though—I found out later she'd been arrested on murder charges, but still don't know the story.)

  Carabinstereth—hell on wheels (won't even try to translate this)

  Grateth Tar'briek—escaped four times (from the army, now under death sentence)—literally, "four times of captivity"

  Komo—bad breath

  Lazarin—too clever for his own good

  Paravit-Col—more lucky than smart (nickname from Ivoran traveling theaters, usually given to third son in plays)

  Sembet Triol—nobly born

  Clintris na'Fli—"too tight-assed to dance"—perhaps the worst of any of these nicknames. This was not used to Clintris' face. In the second person she was called "Natavrin," or "record-writer." She did have the neatest handwriting of any of the companions.

  And last and least: Sokol—anonymous Tymon—foreign barbarian without manners

  I suppose Cantry's name was the most generic, but it was also the most mysterious. She'd appeared with Stereth soon after he came to the Sector, and since they were always together, and nobody knew who she was—Cantry.

  I'd wondered about translating these road-names into Standard in writing this—calling Stereth Tar'krim "Rice Thief" or Cantry "Sidekick"—but I'm afraid that would give you a more colorful idea of things than what really existed. Some of them may have had an anecdotal basis, but these were mostly just used as names, like Linda or Edward back home.

  I did notice that there weren't any nicknames like "Killer"—nothing about murder. But then, Lex and Komo

  and Grateth had apparently killed any number of people in their combined fifty years of service, and I suppose it wasn't really worth mentioning as far as they were concerned. Besides, Ivory tends to treat crimes against property more seriously than murder.

  As it turned out, what Stereth had in mind for us was a cattle raid. Cattle raids are the bread-and-butter of outlawry, or so they explained it to me. The company had robbed any number of homes, towns, and travelers, but they weren't wealthy because money is only good in how far you can spend it. People who sold to outlaws inflated their prices hundreds of times. Somewhere someone was getting rich, but it wasn't in Stereth Tar'krim's company.

  Ran's two-thousand tabal retainer would not have done him a lot of good—not on the plateau, anyway. Cattle, however, would bring an adequate price at one of the temporary market towns set up all through the Sector; and what you didn't sell you could eat.

  It was all very practical, they explained to us, as they helped us up on those huge mounts and we rode out into the mist and moonlight. Lex na'Valory rode behind me, and the mount behind Ran carried Grateth Tar'briek. Ran turned to look at me just before his mount disappeared behind the two twisted trees at the head of the outlaw's valley. They're trying to get us too involved to get out, the look said.

  They're doing a good job of it, too, my look replied.

  Smell, and confusion, and trampled grass; mostly smell. Sector cattle are mods, like our drivebeast and like Stereth Tar'krim's mounts; designed for life on the plateau, able to live on the short, moist grasses; and docile, with every trait of aggression removed. Ready to be led, literally, to the slaughter.

  Actually, the relationship to the mods I'd used as drivebeasts in the past went farther than I'd thought. We reached the edge of an isolated ranch where twenty or thirty head of cattle appeared and disappeared in the mist, impossible to count. Now and then I could see the lights of a house, very far away in the distance. I sat on my mount, uncomfortable and uncertain of what to do, as the other

  outlaws moved forward into the herd. Deep, unhappy lowing came all around us. Lex na'Valory rode closer to me. In his hand was a length of rope whose other end was around my mount's neck. I supposed I should be grateful it wasn't around my own. When his head was near mine he yelled, "You're going to switch!"

  "I'm going to what?"

  He jerked his chin toward the herd. "We'll spot one of the leaders, and you'll ride it out."

  The hell I would. "Why not kill me back at the fort?"

  He looked disgusted. "They won't hurt you, they don't know how. You get on, you grab the horns—we've done it before. If it's one of the dominant bulls, they'll follow him out."

  "You think I'm going to steer those horns like a groundcar? You're out of your—"

  "We've done that, too. But you don't need to. When you're settled, I'll hand you this."

  He held out a small drivebox in one hand.

  Now I was really worried. Stereth had saddled me with an escort who was mad. "They're not implanted," I said, trying to state the obvious as forcefully as possible.

  He nodded impatiently. "They were designed by the same company as your drivebeast. Most implants are only amplifiers. If you're on top of the animal, this works as well. I'm telling you, we've done it!"

  I looked at the drivebox. It was very tiny for its type, able to be palmed in one hand, or even part of one hand. Simple directionals, and stop and go.

  I looked back at Lex distrustfully. Of course, you could never tell what these Tellys imports were like; maybe the company had marketed all its mods on the same general design.

  Three steermods came out of the mists toward us. Cara-binstereth was beside them on a mount. "Take the lead one, Tymon!" she called. Far behind her, in the distance, the mists parted and I saw the lights of the ranchhouse snap off. My eyes must have widened because she turned and looked. "And hurry!" she yelled. She dug in her heels and moved out past us.

  Maybe the people in the ranchhouse were just going to bed.

  Still, there was probably a price on everyone's head here, and no harm in hurrying.

  Lex maneuvered close to me, and when he judged we were in sync with the lead steermod he lifted me
out of my saddle and held me on his own mount. This was unexpected, and my involuntary kicking made my mount gallop ahead, apparently what he'd had in mind. Then he pulled in closer and dumped me on the steermod. "Grab the horns!" he yelled.

  I flailed for them and just got hold, after winning a long scrape down my forearm from one tip. "Are you ready for the box?"

  "No!"

  I held on for dear life. The beast moved like an earthquake. I wailed, "If I let go my knees for a second, I'll fall off!"

  "I know!"

  "If I fall off, I'll get trampled!"

  "So be careful!" He kept holding out the box, and eventually I reached out one hand and grabbed it.

  I was up around the mod's shoulders, one hand on one horn, my bare legs wrapped compulsively around him and my robe flying behind. I maneuvered the tiny drivebox up into the top of my palm and first joint of my fingers so I could at least partly get hold of the other horn. I could reach the buttons, barely, and tested the directionals.

  They worked! If I'd had the attention to spare, I would have let myself be more relieved than I was. I did waste a second glaring at Lex. Who cared how docile these cattle were if I got killed under their feet?

  "Come on," he said.

  Hadn't there been some ancient Earth queen who'd ridden home from a cattle raid on a bull or a pig or some other legendary animal? This alien raid was an hour's wild ride, under the mists and the moons, through sudden clear pockets of small valley, to the two bent trees that marked home territory. Eight head of cattle were on my heels the whole way. We did all the outlaw tricks, riding through the poison streams and leaving clues that pointed in other directions.

  It may sound romantic, but some things are best experienced secondhand. My legs were crying with pain in the

  first five minutes, but I didn't dare loosen my grip. My back joined in the general torture shortly thereafter. And of course, it's never pleasant to think you might die at any second. I paid no attention at all to those clever outlaw tricks; I just longed, wished, dreamed that I could be back at that damp fort, the site of my kidnapping.