Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  "Drink, " said Priscilla Mendoza. "Electrolytes."

  He managed to get the bottle to his lips, squeezed a healthy mouthful and swallowed with a shudder. He felt the vile stuff hit his stomach, mixing uneasily with dinner and terror.

  "Easy." Priscilla's hand was firm and sisterly on his shoulder; squinting through the haze of golden lines, he made out Nova standing above him; purple eyes holding an emotion he identified as astonishment.

  "Drink again," Priscilla told him. "Then food."

  "And at some point, when you feel it proper," said Nova, "you will tell us what just happened to you."

  "Nova, let be," Shan said sternly, from beyond Ren Zel's vision.

  "Let be? Did he or did he not sit there—frozen and scarcely breathing—for the best part of half-an-hour? Does he have these fits often? I wonder what will go forth, should he have one at the board."

  "Nova…" A clear warning note, there.

  Ren Zel finished the stuff in the squeeze bottle, concentrated and set it carefully on the floor. He looked up into Priscilla's face, squinting a little to bring her into focus among all the pulsating golden threads…

  "Better?" she asked.

  "There is a device," he said, "that eats dramliz."

  Her face hardened. "There have been several such, throughout history."

  "This one is new," he told her. "It—they caught Anthora."

  "What?" Nova drew nearer. "Anthora is at Jelaza Kazone. Not even she would be so shattered-brained as to—"

  "Wait." He held up a hand, agitated. "Wait, I…" He closed his eyes, and memory flowed.

  "The Council—Korval is called to answer—to answer for kinstealing, for murder—and dea'Gauss—dea'Gauss is missing, and he has hidden the dies. They asked her to wait in a Clerk's room and the trap—the trap was there."

  "In a room off the Council Chamber?" That was Shan again, his voice as serious as Ren Zel had ever heard it. "Sister, if the Council itself is hunting us, I doubt the delm's wisdom in returning to Liad."

  "We must," Nova said, but she hardly sounded certain. "At least to orbit—but Anthora is a prisoner!"

  "No, she's not," Priscilla said coolly. "The door was open— you heard him say so."

  "The door opened," he agreed. "But I could not stay with her. I do not know…" It came to him that he might use those glowing lines of power to his own ends. He might, in fact, go back to her, stand at her side and work with her to the destruction of their enemies. He—

  "Gently, friend," Shan said, dropping into his range of vision in a veritable burst of gold. "You have done much this hour. Eat first." He held out a sandwich. Ren Zel took it, suddenly ravenous, despite the food he had already eaten, and wolfed it in three bites. A second sandwich appeared and he accorded it the same treatment, then drained the glass of tea that came after.

  He sighed. "I am glad," he murmured, "to find the gridwork so strong here. Inside the box, one could hardly see the threads, and those that could be seen were pale and fragmented."

  There was a pause.

  "You of course," Nova said to Priscilla—or possibly to Shan, "know what he is talking about."

  "Not…entirely." Priscilla cleared her throat. "Ren Zel, what threads are these?"

  He blinked up at her, seeing the lines so crowded about her that she fairly shone.

  "Why, the lines," he said, somewhat baffled, for surely she could see them, dramliza that she was? "The lines that tie everything together."

  "Oh," she said softly. "Those lines." She exchanged a glance with her lifemate.

  "Can you see these…lines?" demanded Nova.

  "No," Priscilla said, still soft. "No, I can't. But I have it on the authority of those who can that they do indeed exist and perform exactly the function Ren Zel describes."

  "The only difficulty," he said, in an effort to be as clear as possible, and not in any way to complain, "is that they are so plentiful and vibrant here that it is difficult to see beyond them to—to everyday things. I fear that I might put my teacup down on a line and have it smash against the floor…"

  "Now that," said Shan, "I can help with." He leaned forward and held up a broad brown finger. "Focus on my finger, if you please—no, not that way—use your outer eyes! Look as nearly as you like, but only at my finger."

  After a brief struggle, he was able to manage it—and felt something click, as if a relay had snapped into place. The lines of power vanished from his awareness and the totality of the captain's office snapped into being.

  He sighed, as did Nova yos'Galan.

  "Dramliza?" she said.

  "There was never any doubt," Shan said, rising and reaching a hand down to Ren Zel. "Up you go, Pilot."

  The car fishtailed 'round a corner, and fled down an alleyway at a speed that was far from considerate of human sensibilities—even when the human in question was a pilot.

  Anthora had long since stopped crying, and now sat, tense, her hands fisted on her lap. Four times had Jeeves struck out for Jelaza Kazone. Four times, they had been blocked, and nearly surrounded, hounded back into the city.

  "Go to the port," she said quietly.

  "Ms. Anthora, you are Korval's presence on Liad." The robot's voice was shockingly calm as the car careered madly down an alleyway, and swung into another, more narrow, speed, if anything, increasing.

  "If you leave Liad, Korval's claim to its material goods and properties is forfeit."

  "Go to the port," she repeated. "I abandon nothing."

  There was a pause—short for her, long for Jeeves—then a respectful. "Yes, I see. The port."

  Even traveling at speed and with stealth, they arrived at Binjali's barely ahead of their pursuers.

  Anthora had dared one call, and Master Trilla was expecting them. The gate began to open as they came into the approach, and closed after them with a clang. Jeeves gunned the motor, fair flying down the yard to the singleship on its hotpad and the woman in working leathers standing by.

  The door rose, and Anthora leaned forward.

  "Go," she told the robot. "Leave the car."

  "Yes," said Jeeves.

  The control panel went dark as the car rolled to a serene stop. Anthora stepped out onto the tarmac and inclined her head.

  "Master Trilla."

  "Anthora," Binjali's owner said, in her outworld accent. "Ship's ready when you are."

  "Thank you," she said. "Be warned. They are directly behind us."

  Trilla grinned, feral. "We've some surprises, never fear it. Go on, now. Good lift."

  "Safe landing," Anthora returned properly, and entered the ship.

  The ship rose swiftly, breaking a dozen regs in the first six seconds of flight. Grimly, Anthora flew on, ignoring the outraged demands of the Tower, flying by hand, so there was nothing to spill and be captured by Korval's enemy.

  Up, up, very nearly straight up, then a sharp roll, and down, as swiftly as she dared, not quite a scout descent, not quite—but swift enough, as the luck willed it.

  In her screens was the Tree, rapidly growing to enormity. The house screens were active, a blue crackle along the edge of her inner vision. She keyed the short sequence in, sent along the pirate band.

  The blue crackle died, the ship fell through and she slammed on the retros, fighting gravity now—and winning, as the singleship touched nicely down in the center Jelaza Kazone's formal public gardens.

  It had been a grand and busy several days of transit; so busy that Hazenthull Explorer had been able to immerse herself in the various learnings of language and custom—and forget for long hours together that the senior was dead. And why.

  But it came at last that Commander Angela-call-me-Liz Lizardi, to whom the troop had been detached for this portion of the venture, had ordered them to ready themselves for departure. Reluctantly, Hazenthull folded away her studies, found Diglon Rifle in the rec hall listening, with four tens other of the mere common troop, to the turtle Sheather tell of his campaign against the Juntavas upon the world called
Shaltren.

  Returned to the quarters they kept in common, Diglon set about an efficient and orderly weapons check. Hazenthull undertook the same, and likewise made a review of the plan as they had been allowed to know it.

  It was a simple enough plan, on its surface, but Hazenthull believed that a man who had engineered the theft of three Yxtrang fighter craft from the very fields of the Fourteenth, envisioned a more complex undertaking than she, in her youth and ignorance, could apprehend. Still, it would be a welcome thing to close with an enemy—and the scout's plan, simple or complex, promised action.

  Weapons checked and plan reviewed, Hazenthull hesitated on the edge of her next duty—but it was a duty, and one she had shirked, for reasons she did not care to study too closely.

  Squaring her shoulders, she walked across the room, to where Nelirikk Explorer, Hero and aide to Captain Miri Robertson, sworn to the descendants of Jela's blood, sat over a piece of fancy work.

  He looked up as she came forward, his eyes blue and noncommittal, as befit a Hero. Hazenthull hesitated—which was her weakness—steeled herself and spoke in the explorer's dialect.

  "You asked a question, before, and I gave you no answer. We are on the edge of action and I may find glory upon the morrow. I would tell you, now, between ourselves, why explorers marched with the common troop."

  He used his chin to point at the chair opposite him. "Sit and speak."

  Sit she did. Speak—that was more difficult.

  She mustered discipline, aimed her eyes forward and just over Nelirikk Explorer's right shoulder.

  "We—Gernchik Explorer and Hazenthull Explorer—were assigned to march with the common troop in a disciplinary action following Hazenthull Explorer's field report in which Major Shevnir Quartermaster was named as keeping slack discipline, which had lost for us several interesting and irreplaceable specimens. Gernchik—would have written a different report. I believed that an explorer's duty outranked a major's pride."

  She stopped, then finished it, though the section of wall she had been staring at was starting to blur.

  "The senior died because I am a fool, and not worthy—never worthy—of his teaching."

  Silence followed this, which was oddly comforting, though she would not have hesitated if Nelirikk had ordered her to draw her sidearm and shoot herself through the ear.

  "Your answer is heard," he said, which was the old, familiar explorer's acknowledgment. "Now that your senior has gone to glory's reward, it comes to you, as his junior, to perform your duty as he would have performed it. It is no light charge, for Gernchik was an explorer of the first rank."

  Hazenthull blinked. "He was that," she said hoarsely.

  "Go now," Nelirikk Explorer told her. "There is an hour for rest before Commander Lizardi calls us."

  She did not feel like resting, but Gernchik would not have argued the point. Hazenthull stood, saluted and went over to her bunk, where she stretched out beside her weapons and her pack, and closed her eyes to think.

  "You left him!" Anthora shouted.

  On days other than this one, her emotion was such that teacups would have trembled against their saucers and wine glasses chimed their cheeks against each other. It was not entirely impossible that a stool might have become spontaneously airborne.

  Today was a day like no other. Anthora stood in the middle of Jelaza Kazone's back kitchen, dirty and draggled; tears of anguish and of fury cutting rivulets of cleanliness down her grimy cheeks, and was reduced to stamping a foot for emphasis.

  "You left Merlin among our enemies and I ordered you to stop!"

  Jeeves' head-ball flickered soft orange lightnings; his wheels rumbled against the floor as he rolled over to put a kettle on for tea.

  "Miss Anthora, you are aware that I have priorities. The highest of those is the protection of the human lives of Clan Korval. I must insure your safety at any cost, no matter how high."

  Anthora scrubbed at her face, widening the muddy streaks. "But you and Merlin are—friends."

  "Old friends," Jeeves agreed. "Merlin was among the first to make me welcome when I came to be yos'Galan's butler." There was a pause, the flickerings in his head-ball increased in rapidity— and all at once ceased.

  "Perhaps it will ease you to learn," the robot said slowly, "that Merlin has undertaken a task in coordination with Jelaza Kazone. In essence it is a guerilla action, which carry a high factor of risk. But Merlin is old and skillful. I have confidence that he will succeed in taking the war to the enemy."

  Anthora closed her eyes. "You say that Merlin goes ahead, to pinpoint our enemy's location so that more… concerted action may be brought against them."

  "That is the core of our strategy, yes."

  "We have no army to call upon, Jeeves. Only yourself, and me—and the Tree."

  "Well," said Jeeves, lifting the kettle from its ring and pouring tea into a tall, workmanlike mug, "that's a start—and you must not discount your lifemate, who seems, if you will allow me to say so, a wizard to reckon with."

  She blinked, and fell suddenly still, the way of Ren Zel's walking through hyperspace suddenly and most shockingly clear.

  "Yes," she said, softly. "He is a wizard to reckon with. And so, of course, is the Tree."

  Alone in his cabin, Ren Zel staggered and grabbed the wall.

  It came again—a cool, green rippling across his vision, longer this time, deeper, almost displacing the reality of the walls around him. He closed his eyes, and the green resolved into an image of the vast Tree in Korval's garden, seen as if he were looking up into the branches from below.

  Good evening, elder, he heard her voice in his mind's ear. I wish to undertake a journey.

  "Anthora," he whispered, and had the sense that she heard him— though it was impossible that she could, with the Passage in hyperspace and her standing in the free air of her garden. "Anthora, what are you doing?"

  Beloved. Jeeves tells me that Merlin has been sent ahead into the heart of our enemy's territory, to act as our scout and our trojan. I go to his side, to rescue our servant, and to confound our enemy.

  "Our enemy? Who is—" Memory rose and spilled over, flooding him for a moment or a lifetime, and when he at last shook his head free and gasped a deep lungful of air, he knew everything that she knew of the Department of the Interior, of Merlin's probable whereabouts—and dea'Gauss', too.

  Yes, he heard her in his mind's ear, now.

  "No!" Ren Zel yelled, waking echoes from the metal walls, but he was too late.

  The image of the garden and the Tree faded, leaving only gray.

  Clutch Homeworld

  Aelliana walked the circumference of the ship in company with Handler as Daav searched his memories of Diary and scout lore and went over, again, and again, what they had said to the Elders. She admired the home star on the horizon and calculated orbits and probabilities, considered the carefully placed moons, and considered, too, the new crystal knife worn at their hip…

  "Go," the voice had come up from the depths of that strange room buried six thousand paces deep in the hillside. The room's shape was such that whispers could be heard, one end to the other, and half-a-dozen flickering flames enough to give each of the dozens of Elders substance as they…sat…motionless the while. How long that while had been…was difficult to fathom.

  They had asked. They had asked of clan, they had asked of the nature of lifemates, they had asked of the Tree, and of Jela, and of the Tree and Jela, from the Diaries, about Daav's suppositions regarding Jela, about Val Con and Miri, about the Tree, about the seed pods and, once again, the Tree and how it shared—and then they asked about Aelliana and Daav.

  Finally, they had asked about seed pod distributions and the known locations of the children of the Tree…

  And then, they had said, "Go. Thank you for the gift of your time, Elders of Korval. Go."

  "Daav, one comes—"

  It was Edger, moving quickly.

  "Aelli and Daav, you must come with me, " he
said. "The Elders have decided."

  Day 53

  Standard Year 1393

  Surebleak

  It was late. His household, saving the night guards, slumbered about him. He had risen from his own bed some hours ago, taking great care not to awaken his lady. Now, he sat behind his desk, Silk the cat a coiled, heavy warmth against his belly, writing in the log book.

  He had long since given over trying to reproduce the original Diaries—his memory was too desperately incomplete. Rather, he had summarized what he knew of the crisis which had brought Korval-pernard'i to invoke Plan B, related his encounter with the agents of the Department of the Interior; and then meticulously noted down the minutia of Boss Conrad's days, taking great care to show how these actions had bearing upon the finality of the clan's Balance. He was disciplined, and wrote every day, so the book was fully caught up to event.

  Indeed, it was somewhat in advance of event, as he had already written of the departure of four mining ships and a pleasure yacht for the homeworld, there to exact Balance from the enemy.

  He had recorded the names of the pilots who were sworn to fly in this mad venture: Master Pilot Cheever McFarland, First Class Pilot Bhupendra Darteshek, First Class Pilot Andrew Mack, First Class Pilot Dostie Welsin, First Class Pilot Jonni Conrad. He also listed the names of their ships: Diamond Duty, Timonium Core, Crystalia, Survey Nine, Fortune's Reward. He had paused a moment, then, listening to the cat purring sleepily on his lap, and meditating over the list of stalwarts.

  Pilot Darteshek had been a surprise enlistee; Pat Rin had expected him to return to the Juntavas, now that he had delivered his package and satisfied his curiosity. But, no. He had stayed behind while Vilma Karparov returned to their employer, and Pat Rin's inquiry into the matter had won him the pilot's thin smile—and nothing else.