Young Rissa

by F. M. Busby

  His voice wheezed. “UET will pay well — I know who you are — Harnain! So does Tendal — he’ll take word for me — “ He coughed blood, but still his crushing grip tightened.

  She felt ribs grate — could he live long enough to kill her? And now came the adrenaline effect — time slowed. For as long as lack of breath would allow, she had time to think.

  Her hands were free. As hard as she could, she clapped both palms to his ears. But the attempt to kill by concussion failed; one hand struck before the other. He bellowed — his ears ran blood. She was certain she had deafened him — but in time to save her life?

  His nose was flattened and blood-clogged; she thought of stuffing a hand into his panting mouth, against the risk of his teeth. No — there was not time!

  She slammed the heel of one hand to the smashed nose — again and again while ribs grated as he bent her backward, trying to break the spine.

  Her pointed nails clawed at the side of his neck as she tried for the carotid artery. The skin tore, but blood made the artery too slippery — she could not grasp or pierce it.

  Timing the wild shaking of his head, she jammed a thumb into his right eye — his head went back — he shrieked and released her. Then she struck again at the larynx and this time caught it squarely. Twice, while she stood and gasped for breath, dal Nardo hit her. Then he fell. For moments he lay, clutching his throat and kicking feebly. Then he died.

  He had dropped her to hands and knees. Now, slowly and with effort, she stood. One down! Shaking legs barely supported her as she said, “I have completed the terms of my challenge to Stagon dal Nardo. Now then, Blaise Tendal — ”

  “No, you don’t!” Tendal’s voice was shrill. “I’ll do the challenging here!”

  An arm around Rissa kept her from falling again; Felcie Parager said, “You did it — you did it! Oh, Tari — I was so frightened for you!” Rissa tried to smile at the girl but was not sure she succeeded.

  Then, almost in her ear, Hawkman spoke. “What you’ll do, Tendal, is wait your turn. There’s another event scheduled here.” He and Felcie helped Rissa outside the circle, where the doctor waited to render aid. She sat; someone gave her a drug to dull the pain, and strong drink to sip, and water for her thirst. She was ministered to — creams and solvents cleaned the grease from hair and body; her ribs were taped and her cheek bandaged; blood was wiped from her lips. She lost track of what was done; she sat dazed. After a time she realized that Sparline was trying to explain something.

  “. . . won’t take long . . . not committed, after this crisis, unless you want to be. Let’s get a robe on you so you look like something before the bushstompers got there. All right?”

  Confused, Rissa could say only, “I won — I killed him — didn’t I?”

  “You surely did. But that’s past, now. Just stand up and say what’s needed.” She stood and allowed herself to be robed. Hawkman took her arm again and led her forward a few paces.

  He said, “To the assembly I announce a marriage. One party is our victor, Tari Obrigo. The other — “ He gestured toward the mask-hooded man. “will not be named publicly at this time. His thumbprint on the certificate is, of course, legal identification.”

  Tugging at his arm, Rissa whispered, “But I am not wearing the Tari Obrigo prints — not for combat — ”

  He leaned down to her ear. “So we’ll make up another certificate later. This one won’t be inspected.”

  “But why — ?”

  “It’s necessary. Trust me?”

  She nodded. “Yes — of course.”

  Hawkman straightened. “If all is agreed, let us get on with it.”

  The unnamed man walked to join them; seeing his movements now, Rissa gasped. To Hawkman she said, “But how can he be here?”

  The man spoke to her. “Oldstyle or freestyle?”

  Hawkman shook his head. “We don’t make that distinction here. Now let’s begin.”

  She heard the ritual questions and made her responses by rote. The drugs suppressed her pain but her mind floated, halfway between adrenaline shock and need for rest. At the end, the mask leaned close to her and she kissed the lips, heedless of pain to her own. Then on impulse she clasped the hooded head to her and touched her tongue quickly to the exposed eyelids. “If this is all you will show — “ she said — and laughed. Her ribs made her regret it.

  “Now if that’s all — “ Hawkman began, but Blaise Tendal interrupted.

  “That’s not all. I challenge the murderer of Stagon dal Nardo!”

  Hawkman tried to hush her but Rissa cried out, “Accepted! I will need five days, I think, to make ready for you. Agreed?” The UET jackal — if only I could do it now!

  Hawkman clapped his hands, drowning out Tendal’s answer. He said, “Your challenge is out of order; you don’t have the status. Tari Obrigo is now a Hulzein connection by marriage, so you don’t qualify.”

  “I think I do. I’m a dal Nardo the same way she’s a Hulzein. The question’s never been decided by review. I demand a hearing!”

  A short man, pale of face, rose from where he had helped arrange dal Nardo’s body. “You won’t need one, Tendal.” He looked to Hawkman. “I don’t know if you remember me, Moray — I’m Talig dal Nardo, next in line after Stagon. As the new head of the dal Nardos, I declare the marriage between Blaise Tendal and my late brother’s daughter null and void.”

  Red-faced, Tendal threw his hat on the ground and stamped on it. “You frunks! You all hide behind status, don’t you? Well, dealing with Blaise Tendal, it won’t help you! I’ll get her anyway!”

  Someone brushed past Rissa; she saw the hood-mask pulled off and tossed aside. But she saw her husband only from behind; she could not see his face as he said, “Tendal! If I headed the dal Nardo clan, I’d kill you this minute. If the new head doesn’t, he should. Because I’m sure he knows, if you don’t, what happens to anyone ever connected with the fool who harms the wife of Bran Tregare!” She watched Tendal’s face twist, and thought, It almost worked — no one could have done it better — but there is no reasoning with a madman.

  She did not see how the knife came to Tendal’s hand — it flashed toward her; frozen, she looked at death.

  A shout — across her view, a hand moved; from it, a blade sprouted. Blood running from his palm, Ernol spun to face her. “Best catch I ever made!”

  A ripping, tearing sound clove the air — red steam bloomed from Blaise Tendal’s chest and he fell sprawling.

  I’m safe now — I’m safe!

  The man twitched once and collapsed. The black-robed referee shook the energy-bolt gun to cool it, and said, “I should have done that when he threw the dirt.”

  Before the doctor could reach him, Ernol pulled the knife from his hand. Wincing, he flexed the bloody fingers. “Lucky — the tendons seem all right.”

  The doctor looked. “Bleeding’s washed it clean. But you’ll need a shot — I have to cut a bit, make sure a tendon’s not hanging by a thread, ready to pop.” Ernol nodded. The work was soon done; then they were ready to leave.

  In the aircar Rissa had the back seat to herself, lying down. The extra passengers followed in another car. When they landed, Hawkman and Tregare helped her get out; then she said, “I can walk unaided, I think. Let me?” And they did.

  Movement came hard, but she managed it. Tregare stayed close; as they entered the hall he said, “On the ship I took you when I had no right to. Now I’ve got the right — but I won’t come to you until you say so.”

  She touched his arm, then the tattoo on his cheek. “Be with me now.” His brows raised. “No — only to talk — while I soak out some of the hurt in a hot tub.”

  Liesel, approaching, nodded. “Yes — go with her, Bran. We all need to talk, but that can wait.” She looked at Rissa. “I’ve seen you looking prettier, but right now you look damned good to me!” Gently, for a moment she embraced the girl, then turned and said, “Come tell me what happened, will you, Hawkman? I want to hear all of it.
”

  The stairs taxed Rissa’s waning strength; she leaned on Tregare’s arm. In the room she dropped her robe onto a chair. Tregare went ahead and began running water into the tub; she followed him and stood, waiting.

  She stared into a mirror. “I look like a gargoyle!” Her lips were grotesquely swollen; blood still oozed from the cuts. Above her bandaged cheek the right eye was swelling and purplish. She touched her upper front teeth and winced. “He’s loosened a few. For some days I shall not chew well.”

  She turned away and cautiously got into the tub, sliding down until only her face appeared above water. She said, “Tregare — in the other room is a brandy flask. Would you pour its cap full for me, please?”

  He brought it and she sipped. He sat on a chair beside the tub; for a time, neither spoke. Then he said, “You ever marry before?” Lazily she shook her head, making the water lap against her cheeks. “Neither have I,” he said. “It feels . . . odd.”

  “Do not worry — Sparline said we need not be bound, after this crisis — whatever that may be.”

  “You don’t know? Bleeker on the hook, Fennerabilis still pushing — the oligarchs throwing fits at learning I’m a Hulzein? And now the dal Nardo succession — that’s not as cut and dried as the little man seems to think, the one that claimed it — ”

  “Tell me no more, just now — I cannot rouse interest for such things. Say instead how it is that you are here. Inconnu was not at the port — did you land elsewhere and travel overland?”

  She was kneading lather into her hair. “Here — let me do that.” She hitched herself a little higher and let him massage the foam against her scalp. He said, “Inconnu’s on her way to orbit one of the outer planets — almost a gray dwarf — about two weeks from here. How I got back — well, armed ships are built to carry scout craft. I used to have two, but one time UET nearly trapped me and I had to use the second as a drone decoy — lost it. Anyway, three days out — past detection range for anything that size — I took the scout and started back. Came down over the Pole, but somebody spotted me anyway. Landed at a place I have, the other side of the Big Hills, and called Hawkman to come parley.”

  “That is where he has been?”

  “Right. Now hold your breath and duck your head; this is ready to rinse off.” Rubbing briskly, he held her head under until she ran short of air, but lifted it before she needed to resist.

  She gasped. “Not so long a submersion next time, please.”

  He laughed. “Sorry — just being thorough. It’s done now.”

  “So am I, I think.” A sudden pain made her wince; she looked at her hand. “I had not noticed, but in the combat I tore my thumbnail.”

  “Let’s see — yes, I’ll have to cut it back. And I might as well file down those other claws — we need any more fighting done around here, I’ll do it.”

  “No! The one, yes, but leave the others. No one has to do my fighting for me. And you forget — at least, you did not answer — we are not bound. Sparline said the ceremony was political in purpose.”

  Trimming the broken nail, he scowled. “Forget politics. The thing is — you want free of me so soon, without even trying the marriage? Without seeing what it’s like?”

  She looked at him, thinking what it had been like on Inconnu. “I cannot know, Tregare, what I will want later. But I recognized you, mask and all, before the ceremony, and for now I am in no hurry to dissolve the bond. There will be time for us to decide what we both wish.

  “Now — will you help me out of here? My muscles have turned to wax.” He grinned, a spontaneous smile that made him look suddenly younger, and aided her to clamber out, and stand. He handed her a large, heavy towel, and with a smaller one began blotting the water from her hair.

  Drying herself took longer than usual; each touch found soreness she had not noticed earlier. Tregare finished with her hair; he stood back, and she saw him watching her. She tried to smile, and said, “How can I have such hurt from blows I do not remember?”

  He took the towel and helped her into a clean robe. “I don’t know — how could anybody your size stand up against dal Nardo and kill the bastard?”

  “Dal Nardo was not trained by Erika Hulzein.”

  His arm around her, they walked into the bedroom. She half sat, half lay on the bed; he took a chair alongside. “Something I didn’t know before,” he said. “Any day, on Inconnu, you could have killed me. The way I treated you, why didn’t you?”

  She sat up enough to shrug. “At first, because a stranger who kills a captain on his own ship does not long outlive him. Later — as I told you before landing here — I ceased to hate you.”

  “Ceased to hate? Is that all, Tari?”

  Briefly, the realization shocked her — that she had married a man who did not know her name. She shook her head — that question would have to wait. “Oh, more than that, Tregare, but not, probably, what you would like to hear. Toward the end I felt a kind of sympathy, a precarious comradeship — but also, that you were a dangerous man who might still be useful to me.”

  Blank-faced for a moment, he said, “You still feel that way?”

  “After what you said to Tendal before he threw the knife? Ah, no. Tregare — whatever happens between us or does not, I will never try to use you. Can you say the same to me?”

  His fist pounded into his other palm. “Peace, yes! But I can’t speak for the rest of the family. They — ”

  “They have treated me well — I begrudge no advantage they gained in the course of helping me. I know little of their future plans, but — well, what is your opinion?”

  “Oh, they’ll use you! They — we — use everybody, including each other. In the main, you won’t suffer by it — they’ll value you the same as the rest of us.” Now his laugh was harsh. “But if the stakes are high enough, we’re all expendable. I sure as peace was.”

  She leaned toward him, wincing as she put weight on her taped side. “Do you still resent it, that they had to leave you on Earth?”

  “I did for so long — maybe I haven’t broken the habit. But I’ve listened to Hawkman and I believe it — that they had to leave me in hell to save my life.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe what UET does to young kids, to weed out all but the very toughest. Either you turn into a kind of monster, or you die.”

  His eyes looked past her. “I didn’t die, Tari — I didn’t die.”

  She touched his hand. It jerked away from her, then reached back to take hers. “There — you see? Thinking back to that, any touch — even yours — is a threat.”

  “But only for a second — then you recovered quickly enough.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s been years, and still — ”

  “I know. You have not been able to let go of old hurts. There are methods; I can show you if you like — if you will let me.”

  “Maybe — if we ever have time for it — maybe I will.”

  “And I — “ But she could not say it aloud. She took her hand away.

  “And you, what? Tari?”

  Her violent headshake tumbled her hair. “No — not now, Tregare. I thought of something I must do, perhaps. But until I have done it, or failed — “ And why had she never attempted what she knew, in the cause of her own sexuality? Because until now, perhaps, she had not really wished to?

  She forced a laugh. “It is hours short of dinner time, but I have not eaten since morning — and that seems very long ago. I do not want to leave here to dine, anyway, this day. Would you eat with me here, now, or wait and join the others?”

  “Here and now’s fine. You want me to call and order for us?”

  “I would like that. But — “ She touched her swollen mouth. “ — remember, I cannot chew well. Get me soft foods, please.”

  He nodded, then spoke over the intercom. Finished, he said, “Five minutes, maybe ten. All right, Tari?”

  “Yes — that long, I can resist starvation.” She paused, frowning. “Tregare? As married p
ersons, should we not know one another by our true names?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah — Hawkman mentioned you’ve been running on a switched ident.” He grinned. “That’s why that photolock wouldn’t open

  — right? Plastic eyecaps? Funny — I never thought of it, at the time.” “You are right, Tregare; that is how it was.” She waited. He looked at her, then smiled. “You want me to ask, don’t you? All right — I’m not married to Tari Obrigo. Who, then?”

  “I am sorry it makes little difference to you. To me, it does. I am Rissa Kerguelen. Now, I suppose, we can talk about something else.”

  His eyes widened; he looked away, at nothing, then back to her. “Sure!” He snapped his fingers. “I remember now — the kid that walked off with twenty million and left UET chasing its own tail. Hey — I was on Earth then, last time I risked that! — trying to promote a hijack, but it didn’t work out. Anyway, I saw you, on the news!”

  “You did?”

  “Sure. Blank in the face, at first — bald-headed little dummy, I thought. And then — peace from a pump! — you reared up and told off the whole lot. I loved that! And when you disappeared, that was even better, because the Underground knew UET hadn’t caught you.” He slapped a palm to one knee. Then his smile went away, and he said, “On the ship — I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have — ”

  “Ease your mind, Tregare. You did me no damage.”

  “Maybe not. But still — ”

  “No. If you are in dire need of something to regret, I am sure we can find a more worthy subject.”

  “But — well, all right — I — “ A knock interrupted him. He answered it, thanked someone and brought the service cart to her bedside. For a few minutes he was busy arranging food on a tray for her. “Soup all right? And fruit paste, and this meat pulped with lerta juice and sour tubers before baking. And some salt-tart pudding — “ She did not answer. He fell silent and looked at her. Then he said, “Does my order suit you? Does it — Rissa?”