“Duun-hatani, you were a witness.”
“I came in and this woman ran out,” Duun said. “I ordered her to leave. I witnessed an embrace in which the woman struggled and broke free.”
“As you came in.”
“Yes, master Tangan.”
“What else did you observe?”
“Anger on my student’s part, toward me. He said: ‘I wish you had come later.’ The woman said nothing. Later my student said. ‘I wanted to love her.’ I explained the differences would have harmed her.”
“He had no knowledge of this?”
“It’s possible he didn’t understand.”
“Did you?”
“No. Yes.” Thorn struggled for his composure. “I pushed her back, master Tangan. She smelled afraid and I pushed her back.”
“Away from you.”
“He’s lying,” Betan said. “He’s hatani and he’s lying with a straight face.”
“What do you ask for him?”
“Send him back to Dsonan. Don’t let him in the guild.”
“What do you ask for her, visitor?”
“I think it’s a trap,” Thorn said. “I think this is another test and she’s hatani.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She moves like one.”
“You’re wrong, young man. She’s not hatani, free or guilded.”
“She’s ghota,” Duun said. “Or I’m blind. And she’s a fool to come here.”
Betan stood there. (Ghota?) Thorn stared at her. He had expected men with guns. (Betan? Ghota?)
“This is my judgment,” Tangan said. “Leave this house. I’ll not begin a guild war. You have half an hour to reach the airport. Take my warning seriously.”
Betan turned on her heel and walked, carefully, up the track past the hatani on the boulders, up the steps at the end of the hall. Thorn trembled, but it was cold; it was the burns. Where Betan had been, where part of his youth had been, was cold inside.
“One more question.” Tangan said.
‘ “Master?” Thorn turned and looked up at the old man on the rock.
“What have you done today that you take the most pride in?”
Thorn blinked. It betrayed him and he was chagrined, but his eyes stung and his knees wobbled under him. “Getting Duun’s cloak here.”
There was laughter, all round the room, stinging laughter, hoarse and harsh.
“It’s a novice’s trick,” master Tangan said. His face relaxed and kindness came through. “Novices who grow up in the guild house never get caught by that, except the first day they arrive. But you weren’t told. And you honor your teacher. They laugh because you found four pebbles besides the water and the food, That’s very rare. I do fault you on letting the water out. But you made it up the hard way Those burns will scar, young man. I think you should get them treated before we send you back.”
(I’ve lost, then.)
“You’re apprenticed to Duun no Lughn for as long as Duun sees fit. Beyond that point you’ll do as you see fit. You have the wisdom to refrain from judgment where you have no knowledge. That’s very important, Be gentle. Be merciful. Give true judgments. All other rules of the guild flow from these. A free-hatani judges and the guild will not involve itself. When you judge, the guild will shed blood to back you. Always remember that, Haras-hatani.”
“Yes, master Tangan.” And for a moment the master’s face let him see past another barrier. (This is a worried man. The hatani up there see it now. They were startled into laughter. There is anger in this room.) He slid his glance toward Duun and saw the other half of that expression. (They know something. No. Duun knows and master Tangan discovers it.)
“Take him and get those burns looked to. Duun-hatani.”
XIII
“Take care of him,” Duun said in leaving him. These were hatani meds, who took Thorn’s clothes and made him stand on a plastic grating and rest his hands on tables on either side for them to work on. Two more meds with soap and a small clear water hose started with his hair and washed him on down with sponges: gray water spattered down and swirled away into the white plastic grate, smoke and sand, and the knee stung and throbbed, but their touch was quick and gentle. The meds washed his hands too, but in a different way, with greater care. “This will be cold,” one said: something smelled pungent and likely to hurt; it hit his burned right hand with a shock that seemed for a moment to go to the bone, as the med sprayed a clear liquid on. But numbness followed, or the cessation of pain. It was so great a change Thorn knew then how much pain he had been in. The washing went on, and they did the other hand. The right they immersed in something gelatinous; and immersed again in something else, and that hardened to a shiny plasticity while one dried his hair and another saw to his knee and bandaged it. Their touch was kind. So was their manner. “Please, could I have a drink?” Thorn said, meaning from the hose when they could spare a moment. He had wet his lips while they rinsed his hair and face, but was thirsty again. The one drying his hair left off and brought him a cup of water, holding it for him to drink because they were working on his hands. Thorn looked into this man’s eyes and saw nothing but kindness.
“You ought to go to bed,” the med said who worked on his right hand, “but we understand otherwise. That’s finished now. Carry the elbows bent as much as you can, don’t close the hands or lift anything, hear, till the gel peels.”
But the one working on his left hand finished and drew him by the elbow over to ordinary ground. Another brought a flight suit and a helmet, his own. Thorn thought dizzily, because he had scarred one earpiece. They took it up and began to put it on him with as much efficiency as they had used on his wounds.
(So we’re going back.) The meds in Dsonan would take him then and lay him on a table and mutter dark things while they poked and pried into what these meds had done, and they would hurt.
There would be the tapes again. Nothing would have changed. Thorn shivered while they were seeing to the fastenings, and one stopped and felt of the pulse in his neck. “Go straight to bed when you get to Dsonan,” the man said.
“We can’t give him anything,” another said, and looked worried, not the way the meds at home looked, but gentle. “We don’t dare. Hope to the gods he doesn’t react to the gel.” A pat on Thorn’s shoulder. “Are you sick at your stomach?”
“No, not very.”
They went on with their pulling and tugging. The suit grew tighter. “Damn. He can’t manage the helmet.”
(Why this haste? What’s wrong? Why were they worried? Ghotanin? They let Betan go. Did she get to the airport? Did she go?) The thought of Betan dying afflicted him with pain. (Even if she’s my enemy. She was brave to come here.)
“There.” A last tug. “That’s right. Hold the helmet in your arm, don’t use your hands. Call Duun, someone.”
“He’s outside.”
“Thank you,” Thorn said, looking at them. He meant it. And one of them opened the door and called Duun in. Duun was in his flightsuit again and had a gray cloth bag with black straps slung over his shoulder, and his helmet in that arm.
“He’ll manage, will he?” Duun asked.
“Take care of him,” a med said. And to Thorn: “Keep the arms bent. All right? Good-bye.”
That was all, then, Duun waited by the door, threw one look past him at the meds as if to thank them, and let Thorn out into the hall. Hatani came and went, none in their gray cloaks now. Most looked to have business on their minds and some looked to be in haste. Many looked at him and Duun as they passed.
(They don’t hate me.) Thorn was used to that special look people had when he walked in on them. Even Elanhen. Even Sphitti. Especially Cloen and especially the meds. And Betan in the hall just now. (Their faces don’t show it, maybe.)
(But they’re hatani. They know me. They know me, inside, past the skin and the e
yes and the way I look, that I’m like them. True judgment, master Tangan called it. Hatani judgment.) Thorn felt his throat swell and his eyes sting. (I want to know these people. I want to stay here— just a day or two, just that, I want to talk to them and be with them, and live here all my life.)
There was one hall after another, and at last a stairs leading up to the roof. Duun stopped here and took him by the arms to make him look at him.
“Betan made the port. She took off and they’re tracking her. The radar net shows another pair of ghota aircraft just left the ground at Moghtan. The kosan guild is putting planes up from Dsonan.”
Thorn blinked, trying to take this in. (For me. For my being here. That’s impossible.) He felt numb. “What’s Betan up to?”
“She won’t get through to the guild. Missiles ring this place. Hatani are headed for Ellud and Sagot this moment, to protect them. And others whose lives might be in question.”
Colder and colder. The numbness reached Thorn’s heart. “We’ve got to get there!”
“Others are doing that job. We’ve got another one.” Duun let go Thorn’s left arm and pulled him up the stairs in haste. “The first part of it is getting you out of here.”
• • •
It was no easy matter getting into the plane. Duun shoved up from behind the way they had gotten into the copter and Thorn clambered over the rim and into the cockpit. The skin on his knee tore as he tumbled into the seat, wriggled in and groped as best he could for straps; Duun fell in beside him and snatched the buckle from him, jammed it together, took his connections and rammed those into the sockets before he saw to himself. The engines were roaring, pushing them into motion, and the canopy was sliding forward overhead. Pilot and copilot were ambiguous creatures of plastic and metal, moving thin arms to flip switches in the interval of the seats. The plane picked up speed, swung out onto the runway and straightened itself into a run that slammed them back into the seats.
Wisps of clouds poured past; the sun chased reflections across the cockpit and the plane came about and kept on with the sun on its right wing.
“We’re going to pick up our escort in a few minutes,” a thin voice came over the speaker in the helmet. The pilot or copilot was talking on their channel. “They’ll meet us at Delga.”
Duun acknowledged that. The voice came again. “We’ve just got word. We’ve got ghota craft headed our way. Our escort’s going to intercept. Planes are in the air at Homaan. Council’s going into session now.”
Thorn leaned his head against the cushioned seat and stared ahead of him at the milky glare of light, the black, surreal figures of the pilots. There was no world but this, no past or future. He hung motionless above the earth while the sky rushed faster and faster at them and small voices from the ground spoke to the pilots (who themselves could do nothing) and told them that the world was in chaos. Duun spoke of missiles. Of intercepts. Of aircraft which would be lifting from one city and another around the world, across seas and continents. People down there were looking up in fear at planes they could not see, expecting missiles to fall on them. Children standing on that brown rock at Sheon, next the bent tree, would look up and wave at white trails in the sky. (“See us, here we are! Hello!”)— while dreadful missiles roared off in fire and smoke.
(This can’t be happening.)
(There is no can’t, minnow.)
“Someone’s on intercept with us.” The pilot’s voice again. “Bearing 45 low.”
“From the sea,” Duun said. “That’s Betan. I figured. Hang on, minnow.”
The plane turned in flight. Pressure dragged at them, pulled at jaws and eyes and bowels and Thorn’s nose ran; there was a pounding in his ears. The plane rocked. They went into a steep bank. (We’re going to crash. We were hit.) Thorn rolled his head against the seat as his heart went wild and the sun spun up again and over the right wing.
“That’s a miss on their side, a hit on ours. It’s down.”
(What are they talking about? The other plane? Betan?)
The milky light surrounded them again, implacable. On a screen a tiny point of light went out and Betan no longer existed, a plane scattered itself in shards and fragments, lives went out— (“That’s a miss on their side, a hit on ours.”) Their own plane had fired. That had been that shaking. And Betan was dead in a moment, with all her courage and her skill. (“It’s down.”)
“Betan,” Duun said, “headed out over the sea and came back again. Points to her. She might have won it right then.”
“She’s dead.”
There was a silence for a moment. The sky was incredibly smooth. Surreal again.
“There’s a man named Shbit,” Duun said. “A councillor. You know Dallen Oil? You remember your companies?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they’re not only oil, they’re a lot of things. Energy, trade, manufacture. They’ve got a lot of power in council. They saw it slipping. They got Shbit elected: one of their own. Shbit wanted you transferred out of Ellud’s wing and into one where things are more accessible— where you’d be more— public. Where politics could benefit by controversy. Where I could be weakened. They can’t overthrow a hatani judgment. But they can undermine it. They can come at you from so many sides you can’t track them all. Shbit tried that. He had a few ghotanin in his employ. Personal guards. They’re ordinary as rain in private service. He had a few free-hatani he knew where to reach back home. A few kosanin, gods help them. And the fool got Betan past a fool of a personnel supervisor, the security chief, the division chief. Ellud— gods, five years ago: while we were still at Sheon. Brightest young security officer Ellud had. She ought to have been.”
“Elanhen and Sphitti and Cloen—”
“Security as well. Sphitti’s a free-citizen, son of a woman I know. Elanhen and Cloen from the station: kosanin. Damn good kids. Betan: free-citizen, career security. So they said. They left out pertinent details in her case.”
The smoothness continued. The milky light never varied. To one side and the other cold terms like intercept flew on radios; (“It’s down. . . .”) Lives ended. Beyond illusion-forests in city windows missile silos opened like flowers to the sun.
“. . . Betan knew we were succeeding. That was what tipped the balance. She had help, gods know; all of Shbit’s resources, forged records. She made a foul-up of it even so— a free-ghota might be that careless. But she wasn’t working for Shbit. She meant to foul things up. Kill you if she could. Doublecross Shbit. I know it was a possibility. I took my time settling that affair and it was damn near too much time, while I was working on those tapes.”
“You—”
“While you were out. Daily. Constantly. Never mind that. I’d spread myself too far; I’d hastened things, and my time was occupied; and I was held to law. I traced Betan as far as Shbit. When I learned she’d surfaced again in Shbit’s keeping and stayed alive— then I knew either Shbit himself was ghota or Shbit was being worked by one. I saw the pattern.”
Thorn turned his face from the sun a second time and looked at Duun, at a face rendered faceless by the mask, sun reflecting on plastic eyeshields.
“Betan,” Duun said, distant through the speaker, “may have been aimed all her life for what she did. Guild-service. A special kind of ghota. Gods know what the ghotanin had been feeding Shbit for information out of the department. Shbit was up against the ghota guild and totally outmatched . . . playing their moves against me and thinking they were his. Even Dallen Company. I can’t say I didn’t expect guild trouble. But there was law, again— I was trying to keep from destroying the council’s autonomy. Dammit, they gave me too much. I let Shbit live because I knew he was a trigger I could pull, one the ghota would respond to. There’s a spy in Ellud’s office I’ve let stay. Sagot’s mine.”
(Something’s still faithful in this world. O Sagot, one bit of truth.)
“. . . And you did
what we’d been waiting for.”
“What did I do? That tape? That damned stupid tape? The numbers and the pictures?”
“You survived it. You survived it, minnow, and you read it. And the meds would know what you knew in one more day— and the instant they knew, that unstopped leak would send the news straight to our enemies; while Ellud wouldn’t want to let you leave the building— I could overrule him, but he could have fought me on it and fouled things up beyond recovery. He’s a good man; and honest: and he always wants more time than the opposition gives him. Some things I couldn’t even tell Tangan himself. Like guild war. Like the fact I’d pulled the trigger.”
“This Shbit sent Betan when he knew we’d left the city.”
“You’re catching onto it. He gave a ghota a courier plane and never suspected she’d been hired by her own guild to be hired by him. He had to give her a ghota crew: no kosan would fly her to us.”
“Why come here for the gods’ sake?”
“She couldn’t overtake us. For Shbit— she was supposed to go in and wail and howl and put on a good act. Disgrace you. Keep you out of the guild. Create scandal. For the ghota— she was to walk in there just the way she did and deliver a message from her guild. You read Tangan. He wouldn’t bend. That’s clear to you and me— but ghotanin have a guiding belief that everything can be bought if you set the terms up right; she walked in there and saw she hadn’t the right coin . . . by her way of looking at it. It was clear when she said keep you out the way she did she wasn’t talking for Shbit. Tangan knew it then. Read what she was and knew what I’d done to him and knew why. And forgave us both.” Duun was silent for a long while.
And men and women died for them, would be dying, now, in planes which darted and fired missiles no one saw except on screens.
(Damn you, Duun. Is even this a maneuver?)
“I liked him.” Thorn said at last. “I liked Tangan, Duun.”
“I didn’t betray him. I gave him the power he needed. I set him free. Do you understand?”
The Deep Beyond: Cuckoo's Egg / Serpent's Reach Page 17
