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

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  "If you're sheriekas-made, in order to do the bidding of your makers—" Jela began and Rool Tiazan held up his hand, the carved black stone glinting.

  "Forgive me, M. Jela," he murmured, and his pretty, ageless face was no longer smiling. "You—and also you, Lady—are surely aware that choice exists. We no longer choose to perform these certain tasks on behalf of those who caused us to be as we are. We are alive, and life is sweet. There is no place nor plan for us in the eternity toward which we were bade to labor."

  He moved his hand in a snap, as if throwing dice across a cosmic cloth.

  "We of the dramliz cast our lot in with those who are also alive, and who find life sweet."

  "That's a fine-sounding statement," Jela said calmly, "and you deliver it well. But I don't believe it."

  "Alas." Rool Tiazan tipped his head to one side. "I sympathize with your wariness, M. Jela—indeed, I applaud it. However, I would ask you to consider these things—that my lady and I have preserved your lives, and now assist you to evade those who wish you ill."

  Jela held out his hand, palm up. "The first is probably true," he said, and turned his palm down. "For the second, we have only your word, which I'm afraid is insufficient."

  "You do not trust me, in a word," Rool Tiazan murmured. "May I know why?"

  "You do," Jela said, mildly, "destroy star systems, as and when ordered by the sheriekas."

  "The correct verb is 'did.' I have absented myself from the work for some number of years. However, I understand you to say that there is no ground upon which we might meet in trust because I have done terrible things during the course of my training and my duty. Do I have this correctly, M. Jela? I would not wish to misunderstand you."

  "You have it correctly," Jela said.

  "Ah." He turned his head, and Cantra felt the dark blue gaze hit her like a blow. "Lady—a question, if you will."

  She held up a hand. "Why bother? Can't you just grab what you want out of my mind?"

  He smiled—genuinely amused, as far as she could read him.

  "Legend proceeds us, I see. Unfortunately, legend is both accurate and misleading. Under certain conditions, I can indeed siphon information from the minds of others. It is not difficult, it does no harm to those so read, and may provide some good for myself and my lady. However." He raised his jeweled forefinger.

  "However, there are some individuals whom it is very difficult to read—yourself, for an instance, and M. Jela for another. And even if I could siphon the answer out of your mind, M. Jela cannot, and it is for him that I would ask the question."

  He was good, Cantra thought. And she was intrigued.

  "Ask."

  "You are, I believe, full-trained as an aelantaza, to deceive and destroy at the word of those who caused you to be as you are. I would ask if, in the course of those exercises necessary for you to gain competence in your art, you ever took a blameless life."

  "For Jela, is this?" She faced her co-pilot. "We had—rabbits, they were called. We practiced all our kills on live targets."

  "Rabbits that ran on two feet," Rool Tiazan murmured.

  "Batch-bred?" Jela asked.

  She inclined her head. "What else?"

  There was a short silence, then Rool Tiazan spoke again.

  "M. Jela, do you trust this lady, whose training and acts run parallel to my own?"

  "I do. She's proved herself trustworthy."

  Accidents all, but it warmed her to hear him say it, anyway, praise from Jela being coin worth having—and keeping, if she was being honest.

  "Al," Rool Tiazan murmured. "Then I see I shall need to continue upon my path of candidness. So—"

  He gestured gracefully toward the roof of the cab—or perhaps beyond it.

  "While it is true that I have destroyed star systems, I must confess that those which fell to my thought were chaotic and incapable of supporting life. The more life-force—shall we call it will?" He paused, apparently awaiting their agreement.

  "All right," Jela said, with a shrug of wide shoulders.

  "Will, then. The more will that exists within a system, the more difficult it is to bend the lines of probability into a conformation in which the extinction of the system is inevitable.

  "Similarly, though I may alter probability on a less epic scale, the subsequent ripple of unanticipated changes make the practice somewhat less than perfectly useful."

  Cantra raised an eyebrow. "You're trying to say that the sheriekas made a design error and that you're really not worth their trouble?"

  "Not entirely, Lady. Not entirely. There is, after all, some benefit to be had from the mere reading of the lines, and by observing the congruencies of various energies. Indeed, observation of an anomaly in the forces of what we shall, I fear, have to call 'luck' is what brought my lady and I here to pleasant Gimlins."

  "Just in time to save our necks," Jela commented. "I'd call that lucky—or planned."

  "You misunderstand me, M. Jela. It is neither I nor my lady who are lucky. It is you—" the slim, be-ringed forefinger pointed for a moment at Jela's chest, then swung toward Cantra—

  "And most especially you, Lady—about whom the luck swirls and gathers."

  "Lucky!" Cantra laughed.

  Rool Tiazan smiled sweetly. "Doubt it not. Between the two of you, the luck moves so swiftly that the effect—to those such as my lady and myself—is nothing short of gravitational. We were pulled quite off of our intended course."

  "I'd be interested to hear how you'd rectify our being lucky with coming within two heartbeats of getting killed back there," Cantra said.

  "The luck is a natural force, Lady Cantra. It is neither positive nor negative; it obeys the laws binding its existence and cares not how its courses alter the lives through which it flows."

  "So you—and your lady—" Jela said slowly, "were pulled here against your will."

  "Ah." Rool Tiazan moved his hand as if he would hand Jela a coin. "Not quite against our wills, M. Jela. The dramliz have long been aware that if we are to win free to life, we will require allies. We have further understood, through an intense study of probability and possibility, that the best allies life has against the sheriekas is random action. It is our will to take part in the chaos resulting from your necessities, from your..."

  "Luck, in a word," said Jela.

  Rool Tiazan inclined his head. "Precisely."

  "And you think, do you and your comrades," pursued Jela, "that the sheriekas can be defeated."

  The little man gazed at him reproachfully.

  "No, M. Jela. The dramliz have come to the conclusion—as you have—that the sheriekas may not be defeated."

  "Then what use are allies?"

  Rool Tiazan smiled.

  "Because, though the sheriekas may not be defeated, they can be resisted, they may be confounded, they might be escaped," he said softly. "Life may go on, and the sheriekas may have their eternity, each separate from the other."

  "Escaped how?" Cantra asked, and the blue gaze again grazed her face.

  "There are several possibilities, Lady, of which we most certainly must speak. I would ask, however, that we put the discussion of how and may be into the near future, when my lady may also take part." He paused, his head inclined courteously.

  "Whatever," she said, deliberately discourteous, but he merely smiled as if she'd given him proper word and mode, and turned his attention back to Jela.

  "Regarding your mission, M. Jela. You are aware that the consolidated commanders are effectively defeated, are you not? They have been routed in most of their bases, and are hunted—with more fervor than the proper enemy! Or do you believe the late contretemps in the alley a mere coincidence?"

  Beside her, Jela—seemed to loose some breadth of shoulder. He sighed.

  "I had hopes that my commander..." he murmured, and let the words trail away into nothing.

  Rool Tiazan lifted his head, pointing his eyes toward—beyond, Cantra thought—the roof of the cab.

 
"Your commander is at liberty," he said, in a distant voice. "She has eluded those the High Command sent against her, and commands a small force of specialists. Their apparent course is for the Out-Rim, vectoring the area of increased sheriekas attacks." He blinked and lowered his gaze to Jela's face.

  "I do not find a probability or a possibility, not a likelihood at all, in which she survives beyond the turning of the Common Year."

  Thirty Common Days, as Cantra did the math.

  "If it does not offend," Rool Tiazan said quietly, "my lady and I offer our condolences, M. Jela."

  Silence. Jela's eyes were closed. He took a breath—another. Sighed and opened his eyes.

  "I thank you and your lady," he said softly and with no irony that Cantra could detect. "My commander would wish to die in battle, doing proper duty."

  "So she shall," the dramliza assured him. "That she extends the fight acts to disguise event wonderfully. Your commanders may lose, but your mission... continues."

  Another small moment of silence passed before Jela straightened, visibly throwing off grief.

  "Where are you taking us?" he asked Rool Tiazan.

  "Ah. To your ship, where my lady will meet us."

  "What?" Cantra demanded, but Jela only nodded.

  "Good. I want another opinion of the two of you."

  Rool Tiazan smiled. "We will be delighted to accommodate you, sir."

  * * *

  "If you will excuse me once more, my attention is wanted elsewhere," the dramliz Rool Tiazan murmured.

  He apparently took their permission for granted. No sooner had he spoken, then he was slumped on the jump-seat again, in a trance so deep he hardly seemed to breathe.

  Jela took a moment to consider the extreme vulnerability of the man's situation, then shook the thought away. He looked vulnerable, did Rool Tiazan, but it would be beyond foolish to assume that he allowed himself to be at the mercy of his enemies.

  Or of his allies.

  Jela sighed to himself, and put thoughts of mayhem on hold, pending the tree's judgment.

  He glanced over and saw Cantra watching him. Her fingers moved against her knee, flicking out—Condition is?

  Now there was the question, he thought—wasn't it? Trust Cantra to ask it, and he'd better be accurate in his assessment, because only she knew what course she'd plot from the data.

  Condition is, he signed slowly—double usual rules.

  She gave a slight nod, indicating receipt of the message, and settled herself silently into her corner of the bench. Apparently neither one of them wanted to start a conversation that their host could retroactively snatch out of the air when he came to.

  What thoughts might occupy Cantra, he didn't know, though he might guess it had to do with the prospect of allowing strangers possessed of peculiar talents onto her ship, and strategies for holding them harmless.

  For himself—well, for the first time in his Generalist's life, he had too much to think about—and on subjects he'd rather not consider.

  That the consolidated commanders had been discovered and were in the process of being destroyed—he'd suspected the worst when his usual contacts had failed him.

  The situation of his commander—if he believed the report of Rool Tiazan—and he had no reason, given his own direst fears, to doubt it...

  The report that Commander Ro Gayda would soon be dead in action grieved him more than he could quite assimilate. He had lost comrades before—countless numbers of comrades—and commanding officers, as well. And yet this death, despite that he believed it to be one that she herself would embrace with a soldier's fierce joy—this death pained him in places so deep and private he hardly knew how to deal with it.

  Had his arm been caught in a man-trap, he might have hacked it off and kept on fighting; had his ship been breeched, he might have rushed the enemy and with his last breath made the pain meaningful.

  But this—there was no getting at the wound; no assessing the level of function disturbed...

  A flicker out of the corner of his eye—Cantra's fingers, asking

  Condition is?

  He sighed, and watched his fingers spell out—Old soldier hit bad, which might've been more truth than he would have willingly given, but a pilot learns to trust his fingers—and besides, it was too late to unsay it.

  Cantra reached out and put her near hand on his knee, then leaned her head back against the bench. She didn't say anything else, or even look at him, really, but the pressure of her hand eased the tightness inside his chest. His commander might be dead, her unit destroyed, but he had his duty, his mission—and a comrade. It wasn't much—maybe, maybe. But when had a soldier needed more than his kit and his orders?

  The cab was slowing. He glanced at the map before he recalled that it was off-line, then at the dramliza.

  Rool Tiazan opened his eyes and straightened in his seat, the rich color returning to his face.

  "We will be leaving the cab very shortly and joining my lady," he said in his smooth voice.

  Jela felt Cantra's fingers tighten on his knee, but she unexpectedly held her peace, leaving him to ask,

  "I thought we were returning to our ship?"

  "Indeed we are, M. Jela. But not directly to your ship, I think? Four people walking across the yard may—no, I must say, will be—unremarked. We have not the same assurance of anonymity, riding at leisure in a cab." He paused, head tipped to one side.

  "If your wounds pain you, sir, my lady will be pleased to assist you."

  He meant the arm, and the various other scratches from the late action, Jela thought, to keep the hairs that wanted to rise up on the back of his neck where they belonged.

  "Thank you for your concern," he said politely. "They are hardly noticeable; I've fought long days of battle with worse and not faltered."

  "Surely, surely." The dramliza smiled and moved his slender hand, stroking the common air of the cab as if it were a live creature. "I meant no insult, sir. The prowess of the M Series is legend even among the sheriekas, whom we must thank for the original design."

  The hairs did stand up then.

  "Explain that," he said, and heard the snarl in his voice. Cantra's fingers, still resting on his knee, tightened briefly, then relaxed.

  "Don't tease him," she told the dramliza in the lazy voice that meant mayhem wasn't too far distant. "He's had a trying day."

  Rool Tiazan inclined his head in her direction, his face smooth and urbane. "Lady. It was not my intention to tease, but to inform." He paused.

  "The prototype of the M Series," he said, with, Jela thought, care, "was developed at the end of the last war by those who now call themselves sheriekas. The design was captured, modifications were made, and when the sheriekas returned to exercise their dominion over the Spiral Arm, the M Series was waiting to deny them the pleasure."

  Jela grinned. "I hope they were surprised."

  "By accounts, they were just that," said Rool Tiazan. "They had abandoned the design as flawed, you see." He smiled, as sudden and as feral as any soldier about to face an enemy.

  "Over and over," he murmured, "they make the same error."

  "The dramliz are flawed too, I take it," Cantra said, still in her lazy, could-be-trouble voice.

  "The dramliz," Rool Tiazan said softly, "are multiply flawed, as the sheriekas had no wish to create those with abilities sufficient unto the task of destroying sheriekas without—appropriate safeguards."

  A chime sounded inside the compartment, and the sense of motion ceased entirely. "Ah! We are arrived!" Rool Tiazan moved a hand as the door began to lift.

  "Please, after you, Lady and sir."

  * * *

  They were on a narrow and sparsely populated street in the upper port. The show windows of the stores lining the blue cermacrete walkway were uniformly opaque, the sell-scents and light-banners quiet.

  "Ah, excellent," Rool Tiazan murmured, as he stepped out of the cab. "Our timing holds." Behind him, the cab's door descended, the window darke
ned, and it sped off up the street.

  "Come," the dramliza said, moving down the walk toward the cross-street "my lady awaits us."

  They turned right at the corner, Rool Tiazan walking with something like a soldier's proper stride, for all he looked so fragile. The few people they passed spared them no glance, though surely the three of them were a sight worth—

  Four of them, Jela corrected himself, catching the flutter of grey robes from the edge of his eye as a lady stepped from the doorway of a closed bookshop and fell in silently beside Rool Tiazan, placing her hand lightly on his arm.

  The lady was—diminutive, a fact that had not been readily noticeable in the alley. The top of her cropped red head barely reached her mate's shoulder.

  Her gray robe was embroidered in gray thread. Jela squinted after the design—and found himself looking instead at the shop windows, the traffic, and the few pedestrians they passed.

  "Interesting robe," Cantra murmured from beside him. "I wouldn't look too close, though."

  "I can't look too close," he complained, and heard her throaty chuckle.

  They came to another street, turned right and were abruptly in day port, the walk busy with people, the banners and signs in full attraction mode, the street filled with cabs and lorries and cargo carriers.

  And still no eyes turned their way, even in idle curiosity.

  "Invisibility has its uses," Cantra muttered.

  "But we are not invisible, Lady Cantra." Rool Tiazan's voice drifted lightly over his shoulder to them. "We are merely—of no interest."

  They crossed the busy mainway carefully, and were soon among the ships. Jela felt Cantra growing tense beside him.

  "Pilot?" he murmured.

  She sighed. "This visit really necessary?"

  "Yes," he told her regretfully. "Pilot, it is."

  "Right."

  Dancer was coming up on the next row and Cantra stretched her legs to come even with Rool Tiazan.

  "I'm captain of yon ship," she said. "It's mine to go up first and open her."

  "Of course," he said with an inclination of his bright head.

  His lady lifted her hand from his arm and fell back beside Jela. He looked down into her sharp, solemn face.