I Dare

by Sharon Lee

  Anthora shook her head. "Going in, the Tree provided the path. Ren Zel showed me the way out."

  Right. The hum from the 'doc was making her twitchy. Miri straightened out of her lean and looked down at the kid in the chair, hating what she was about to ask.

  "So, you can get the Tree to provide a path back in, right? And this time, we'll rig you up with a findme, and—"

  Anthora opened her eyes. Silver-blue, like Shan's, wide-spaced and dreamy-looking—which Shan's weren't. "Val Con said, if I got to safety, to stay there."

  Miri sighed. "Yeah, well. Val Con says a lot of stupid things, especially where it bears on somebody he cares about maybe getting hurt. Figures he's tough enough to take his licks and ours, too. Also figures he's fast enough to outrun most common trouble. Sometimes, he's right; sometimes, he's lucky. This time, he needs help. That's us."

  "You don't understand," Anthora said. "Val Con said, if I got to safety, to stay there. I cannot return."

  Miri closed her eyes, counted to ten, and tried it again. "Val Con's half of one good delm." She reached inside her shirt and brought the Ring up on its cord, so the kid could see it. "I'm the other half. I'll make it an order, if I have to."

  Anthora shook her head. "You do not understand," she repeated. "Val Con—I am forbidden. He has this ability. I cannot return."

  "I just saw you walk through a wall," Miri started—and blinked, as various memories from a young adulthood that was absolutely not hers unfolded, neatly, before her mind's eye.

  "You're talking dramliza talent," she said to Anthora's soft silver eyes. "He can tell you no and make it stick."

  "He can do it to Priscilla, too," Anthora offered helpfully.

  "Great," Miri said, thinking that if there were one person in the universe who had to be a dramliza-brake, of course it would be—

  "Miri." Jeeves' voice flowed out of the room speakers. "You are needed in the control room. A situation is developing."

  THE LAST CHARGE was laid; the last timer set.

  Val Con dropped out of the repair hatch to the floor below, counting in his head.

  Six minutes before the charges blew, burying the ASPS unit in rubble. Three minutes from his location to the rendezvous point. Two minutes to the surface.

  Plenty of time.

  "LORD PAT RIN, your timing is impeccable, sir," Jeeves said—and surely, Pat Rin thought, it was an artifact of the transmission that yos'Galan's butler sounded breathless? "We have a situation. Stand by, of your goodness, while I ascertain . . . "

  There was silence, though the connect light remained steady. Pat Rin recruited himself to patience which was very shortly rewarded.

  "Working," Jeeves announced. "You will understand that control of the planetary defense net resides under the Captain's hand during this present time of emergency."

  Pat Rin all but smiled. "Ah, does it? That will certainly expedite matters, should it become necessary to fire upon the planet. However—"

  "Precisely," the robot said, cutting him off ruthlessly. "It is exactly the subject of firing upon the planet that must now be addressed. The nature of the fleet you chose to field dictates your task. It will shortly be necessary to fire upon Solcintra City. Coordinates and ranging will be supplied."

  Necessary to fire upon Solcintra? Pat Rin closed his eyes. He had, of course, known that it might come to firing upon the homeworld—why else had he brought destroyers with him? Truth told, he had pinned his hope on the Council of Clans, that the all-too-public crying of Balance would flush the Department of the Interior onto the surface, where it might be dealt with as any other transgressor against the Code.

  "Lord Pat Rin?"

  "One moment," he managed, holding up a hand that the robot could not see. "Jeeves, how is it necessary that we fire upon Solcintra, now? There has been no time for the Council to speak, nor time for the Department of the Interior to make answer . . . "

  "The Department has made answer," Jeeves said. "Certain intelligence reports, confirmed by direct observation of trusted parties, indicate that the Department of the Interior has deployed timonium powered weapons capable of overwhelming anything that Liad may bring against them on the ground. The planetary defense net is unable—by its nature—to effect an attack against a target situated upon the planet." There was a pause, then Jeeves continued, hurriedly.

  "It is my estimate that a failure to destroy these weapons in short order will lead to planetary disaster. In fact, it is necessary to fire upon the planet, bringing destruction to a portion of the city, in order to preserve the greater part. Your vessels are uniquely fitted to this task. Dutiful Passage, for instance, may only deploy a broad beam—far more destructive than those precision cutting units borne by your fleet."

  "There are people in that city!" Pat Rin snapped.

  "There are. Evacuation has been sounded. I expect confirmation from teams shortly. In the meantime, steps are being taken to contain the targets." Another pause, then, with a gentleness a robot could certainly never feel—

  "It is our intention to destroy as small an area as possible. However, we dare not err by the application of too little force. People will die, despite the call for evacuation and the best efforts of the teams. But more people will die, if the enemy is not destroyed."

  Pat Rin bowed his head.

  "I understand. I will require data."

  "Uploading," Jeeves said promptly.

  DIGLON RIFLE waited patiently for his next target. So far he had taken seven shots with this light rifle borrowed from Commander Carmody's troop; he felt confident of five hits.

  Nearby, Commander Call-Me-Liz-Lizardi was speaking quietly into a comm unit. His duty was to guard her and to watch for breakouts at the door which was, by now, well shattered, and partly filled with bodies.

  Their position was excellent—they had a large stone monument for cover when they stood, and a stone wall, half buried on the other side with soil, for cover when they sniped . . .

  Hazenthull Explorer had not shot as much as he, but perhaps with more accuracy. The commander had told them to conserve their ammunition, and to be prepared to act as rearguard if need be—and to be rearguard with such as she, whose exploits were writ on books and worlds forever, such was a fate a solider could embrace.

  There came another one of those slight shakes of the ground, and a vibration that was longer. He was leaning against the monument, his face feeling the stone—and . . . there was a shake, a—

  "Explorer!" he called. "Something happens here!"

  Hazenthull gave an assent signal, indicated to the commander that she was moving his way . . . .

  "Feel," he whispered to her, pushing fingers to the stone. "Equipment!"

  She looked at him in startlement, felt the stone herself, then leaned her ear against it.

  Abruptly there was grinding noise close to hand and she jerked back, dragging Diglon with her.

  A seam in the granite shivered, clunked, shrugged—and slid quietly into the rest of the monument, revealing a metal wall. Almost immediately that wall moved aside, and smoke billowed free, carrying the smell perhaps of burnt meat. From within the monument came the scout, Nelirikk Explorer, and another, with blood on his cheek—pushing the Honored One, guiding him into the light . . . .

  The scout was cradling something precious against his chest; gun held ready in his free hand. He looked around, caught Diglon's eye, smiled, and thrust the gray fur ball into his hands, saying in Troop, "Protect this hero from harm. Move away, move away! "

  That quickly he was gone, dashing back to the monument, bending, making some unseen adjustment. There was a repeat of the clanking and grinding; the door shut, and the monument was as it had been.

  "Medic! Medic!" yelled Commander Liz, and waved to him in his new troop-sign: fast march that way . . . .

  They all started running then, away from the monument and the fighting in the street, and when the ground rumbled and knocked them down, the monument swayed and great gouts of smoke and fl
ame blew out of it, into the pale green sky.

  The breeze was fairly stiff, blowing away from the city center and—by extrapolation—away from Jelaza Kazone and Korval's valley.

  " . . . NOT NEVER meant for atmospheric work . . . damn, but look at that!" That was Andy Mack, muttering publicly under his breath.

  Everyone else—including the usually irrepressible Cheever McFarland—remained silent as rug mites, watching their separate screens and the results of their labors. There was fire—not all of Solcintra could be spared, no matter how precise the aiming Jeeves had contrived—and a black spout of soot and ash leaning away from the city. Already there was a darkening that was not mere shadow as the heaviest debris fell in a kind of non-volcanic pumice.

  Pat Rin switched views quickly. Not all of the smoke above the city had its birth in their attack. Portions of Low Port and Mid Port were aflame, and elsewhere there were reports of scattered violence. The portmaster's jury-rigged comm was demanding answers, demanding control of the planetary net, demanding that the mercenary units vacate the planet, demanding Korval's surrender . . . .

  That last had brought a burst of laughter from several of his crew members; then Jeeves had once again brought their attention to the task at hand and they fired what Pat Rin hoped was the last blast at the city he'd called home.

  Jeeves supplied them with several views of the target now. The beams, meant to slice and cut, had done just that, lancing through the atmosphere of Liad in unison from the four mining craft, each cutting its own edge of a box centered on a green park and then crisscrossing toward the center. The initial gout of reflective white smoke had given way quickly to a dense ash-filled swirl, and then when the interior of the buried domain was opened there had been explosions . . . .

  The while, Jeeves had spoken in the background, calmly instructing and coaxing minute beam corrections until at last, for good or for ill, the thing was finished.

  Now, from above, Pat Rin, saw the terminator on the planet clearly as his ship entered shadow. Soon, night would fall on Solcintra. He wondered if anyone there would be able to sleep.

  Day 56

  Standard Year 1393

  Solcintra

  Liad

  "MR. MCFARLAND, I thank you for your care, but I scarcely need security in the very heart of Solcintra."

  The big Terran sighed. "Boss, use your head. Ships under your command fired on the planet not all that long ago." He held up a hand. "Yeah, we did for a good reason and likely saved a buncha folks their hides, if not exactly their homes. And we can take it as given the evacuation missed somebody—probably more than a couple somebodies. And there's a big glassy hole in the planet where we beamed them 'bots into vapor.

  "All of which says to me that there're some who ain't gonna be real pleased to see you."

  Pat Rin closed his eyes. True enough, he thought. Nor would it do to deprive the delm of the honor of dealing appropriately with Korval's erring child Pat Rin by getting himself murdered beforehand.

  "Besides," Cheever said. "Natesa'd chew me out good if I let somethin' happen to you."

  Natesa.

  "Your point is taken, Mr. McFarland."

  He opened his eyes, checked the gun in its hidden pocket, pulled the jacket into seemliness—and paused, his fingers tightening on the leather. Jacket, he thought. This jacket. Before Korval.

  Pat Rin yos'Phelium, you are a fool.

  "Boss?"

  He smoothed the sleeves, feigning a finicky lordling's care, buying time—a few moments, only; long enough for his heart to stop pounding so, and for his face to find the proper expression of cool neutrality. What, after all, was a pilot's jacket, when he already wore a ring?

  "Something I oughta know?" Cheever McFarland asked.

  Jacket settled, he looked up into the face of his oathsworn, seeing worry and . . . care in the strong lines. Gods, when had Cheever McFarland's face become as precious to him as kin?

  He inclined his head.

  "There is something you should know, yes," he said, deliberately cold. "When we are with my cousin Val Con, you will forget that you are armed. You will protest nothing that may happen while he and I . . . converse." He looked closely into the Terran's eyes. "I will not insult you by asking for your oath on this. I will merely remind you that—I am the boss. Is this understood?"

  Cheever's face tightened, but—"Yessir," he said, mildly enough.

  "Good," Pat Rin murmured.

  SOMETHING WAS BAD wrong, Cheever decided as Pat Rin bowed to the young buck from Binjali's who'd won the brief bowli ball game for the right to play taxi, and turned to look at the building where Val Con yos'Phelium had set up a temporary headquarters.

  The slim shoulders rose and fell inside the leather jacket, then Pat Rin was gone, walking steadily across the street, head up, back straight. Cussing softly, Cheever went after him.

  The door was flanked by two soldiers, male and female, each massing about as much as Cheever did. The male dropped his rifle across the door, barring the way.

  "Name is?" the female asked, her Trade carrying a heavy accent that Cheever didn't quite place. "Business is?"

  "My name is Pat Rin yos'Phelium Clan Korval. I have come to speak with my kinsman, Val Con yos'Phelium, on business of the clan."

  "Hah." She snapped her fingers, the rifle was lifted away, and Pat Rin walked on, Cheever at his back.

  They went down a short hallway, following the sound of voices to a room cluttered with people and equipment. Pat Rin hesitated on the threshold, scanning the crowd, maybe. A woman in working leathers pushed by, and ran down the hall. Still, Pat Rin stood there, oblivious to the jostling.

  Suddenly, he moved, striding purposefully across the room toward a knot of people in leathers, uniforms, and Low Port motley. A dark haired man in working leathers turned his head, said a quick word to the group and stepped forward, hands extended, smiling across a face so familiar that Cheever had to shake his head and look again—by which time Pat Rin was on his knees before the younger edition of himself, forehead on the floor, the back of his neck exposed and vulnerable.

  SOMETHING MOVED across the busy room. Val Con glanced aside and saw two pilots approaching, the Liaden walking with purpose; the Terran—

  "A moment," he said quickly to the cluster of scouts, and went forward, hands extended in welcome.

  "Cousin, well-met!"

  Pat Rin flung to his knees, face against the floor. Behind him, the Terran slammed to a halt, openly shocked.

  Val Con looked down at the exposed neck, at the dark hair curling softly, several fingers longer than its accustomed length, and the smooth, unmarred leather of the Jump pilot's jacket.

  "As ill as that?" he murmured and bent forward, checking when he sensed the big man start.

  Looking up, he met the man's eyes. "I will not hurt him."

  The Terran nodded, brusquely. "Right."

  Carefully, Val Con bent and put a hand on a bowed shoulder. The muscles were rock hard. "Come, cousin," he said softly. "You'd best tell me."

  Nothing. Then, slowly, Pat Rin straightened. Val Con dropped lightly to one knee, putting them at the same level. Pat Rin, he saw, had lost weight; his face was chapped, as if he had spent too much time out in the cold; and there were new lines around his mouth and eyes.

  "My lifemate and my oathsworn are blameless," he said, in the mode of transgressor to delm. "I claim all."

  "Ever more terrifying," Val Con returned, lightly, deliberately, in the Low Tongue. "Pray reveal at once the horrific crimes of which they are innocent."

  Pat Rin raised his left hand, on which gleamed Korval's—no.

  "Ah, I see. Very prettily done, too. Though they should have been more careful about the emeralds."

  The edge of a smile glimmered. "Just so." The smile faded, and he moved his hand again; light ran liquid over dragon scale and leaf.

  "Using this, I have subjugated a world to my necessity. I have allied with the Juntavas. I have made promises in Korval
's name. I have put things . . . into motion . . . "

  "As well we all know, having seen that motion work wonders. Very well. And your necessity was—what? Usurpation of Korval?"

  Pat Rin shuddered and closed his eyes. "They came to me," he whispered, and his voice was haunted. "They came to me and they said, all your kin are dead. They said, Korval. They expected that I would be grateful for their care of my interests—and that I would represent them to the Council."

  "They were very foolish," Val Con said softly. "That was at Teriste? Where did you go after?"

  The brown eyes opened. "First, to a Juntavas base. Then to Bazaar, to purchase stock. Finally to Surebleak, where I set up as a boss, and—and began my Balance—" the smile again, slightly more visible this time. "Among other necessary tasks."

  "Ah." Val Con tipped his head. "And these are the crimes of which you alone are guilty?"

  Pat Rin sighed. "I don't doubt there are others—impersonating a pilot comes to mind."

  "Commander?" A voice called from behind. "We have word from the Low Port."

  Val Con glanced over his shoulder. "A moment." He reached out and gripped Pat Rin's hand.

  "Duty," he said. "Quickly now—tell me the name of your lifemate."

  "Inas Bhar," Pat Rin said softly. "Called Juntavas Sector Judge Natesa the Assassin."

  Val Con smiled. "The clan increases." He rose, pulling his cousin up, and embraced him, cheek to cheek.

  "Bide," he murmured. "We will go home together."

  Day 59

  Standard Year 1393

  Solcintra

  Liad

  SPEAKER FOR COUNCIL was enjoying the show, Miri thought. Come to think of it, she'd be having a better time herself if she was sitting behind a high table, with a pretty silver bell to ring whenever she felt like hearing it, and a cup of her favorite brew to hand.

  Unfortunately, Defenders Before Council had to stand on the low floor facing the paid seats stretching up to the ceiling, with the Speaker's high desk behind them. As far as Miri was concerned, the whole set-up was a melant'i trick designed to make the Defenders feel all humble and unworthy. What she mostly felt was annoyed—and she wasn't exactly getting humble-vibes from Val Con, either.