by Peter David
“You bastard!” she whispered hoarsely. “How could you put me in such a position?”
Moke’s head was snapping back and forth so quickly that it looked as if his head was going to fall off. “Ma … ?” he said, his tone low in automatic imitation of the adults. “Ma, what’s he saying? What’s wrong? What’s—”
Then Rheela’s eyes widened. It was as if blinders had been removed from her eyes, and she could only be angry with herself that she had taken so long to figure out that which was so obvious. “You brought him here! The huge green monster! You brought him to our world! You set this up! Set up all of it! All to maneuver me into this position!”
Moke understood that all too well. He looked from Tapinza to Krut and back again. There was a look of stricken betrayal on his face. “You brought him here?” he demanded to know, his childish voice rising in agitation.
“How Krut got here isn’t really relevant,” Tapinza said easily. “What matters is what’s going to happen to Calhoun … oh, just about any time now. And what matters is whether you, Rheela, are going to do anything about it before it’s too late.”
Not discerning the nature of Tapinza’s terms, Moke said urgently, “Do it, Ma! Save Mac! If you can, you gotta!”
Never had Rheela felt more helpless. She was completely boxed in. And every fiber of her being screamed at her to reject the “offer” flat. To make it clear to this … this vomitous excuse for a living being that she would have none of it. That Rheela was not going to knuckle under to pressure, no matter what the odds, simply to save the life of one man who had gotten himself into this situation and refused even to try and find some way out of it.
All that went through her head in an instant, and she opened her mouth to say all that to Tapinza, and a hell of a lot more besides. But at the last instant, just before she spoke, she saw Calhoun still moving warily, still facing off against a behemoth who was very likely going to cut him down any second. And in that instant, every single thing she was going to say to Tapinza disappeared, to be replaced by a simple, “All right.”
Tapinza looked as if he could scarce believe it. “Did … you say … ?”
“I said all right,” she told him angrily. “You win. Happy? Satisfied? But none of it will happen unless you put an end to this, before he puts an end to Calhoun.”
With a lopsided and confident grin, Tapinza called in a loud voice, “Excuse me! Sir! My name is Tapinza, and I am a Maester of this city. I was hoping to speak to you for a moment …”
“Later,” Krut said, never taking his eyes from Calhoun. “I have someone to kill.”
Since she knew beyond doubt now that Tapinza had arranged this entire thing, Rheela’s lips twisted in contempt as she listened to the exchange between Tapinza and Krut. It was so obviously staged, so clearly a “prewritten” conversation that they were now acting out—badly—for the benefit of the townspeople.
Continuing to play his part, Tapinza said, in a manner suggesting utter confidence, “That may not be necessary, sir. I believe we can come to an arrangement that will spare the life of our—”
Krut fixed a deadly gaze on him. “I said, ‘later.’ ”
Rheela felt a small bit of alarm at the base of her skull. Something about the way Tapinza was looking seemed to indicate to her that that wasn’t the reply he’d been anticipating. “You don’t understand, sir. I have—”
“I don’t care what you have,” Krut said. “This man is going to die, and there’s nothing in all this world that you can say or do that will stop that.”
“But … we had—” The Maester almost literally bit his tongue. Rheela, of course, knew roughly what he’d been about to say. They’d had a deal? A bargain? An understanding? Any or all of those. Whatever it was they’d had, however, it was clear that it meant nothing to Krut.
“He … is going … to die,” Krut said very slowly, almost patronizingly, as if reciting the realities of the situation for the benefit of an infant. “Here. Now. At my hand. I don’t like his actions, or his moving about, or his attitude, or his fancy scar, or purple eyes. I don’t like him, and I’m going to kill him.”
Tapinza wasn’t able to say anything. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t think of anything to say, but he was stammering so fiercely that he couldn’t get the words out.
Calhoun abruptly said, “If my moving about bothers you … very well. I’ll stand right here.” Sure enough, Calhoun planted himself stock-still. Krut naturally stopped exactly where he was to face him.
“Tired of running? Wear yourself out?”
“Something like that,” said Calhoun, still not showing the slightest fear. In the brightness of the noonday sun, she could see the small good luck charm glinting in his hand. Whatever properties the charm might have, she doubted that it was going to save him from this.
“I’ll tell you what, Calhoun. I will be fair to you … which is more than you’ve been for others,” said Krut. “I will give you … the chance to draw first.”
“Krut!” called Tapinza, still trying to insert himself into the proceedings, apparently not fully grasping that matters had moved beyond his control. “This isn’t necessary—!”
“Oh, yes it is,” Krut told him flatly, “and unless you shut up right now, killing you is going to become just as necessary as killing him.”
Tapinza choked, as if his entire throat had constricted. His hands moved in helpless little circles.
Rheela wanted to shout out to Calhoun, to beg him, to tell him once and for all how she felt about him … something, anything. But she was afraid to, for she was worried that to do so would be to distract him at a crucial moment. And so she kept her silence. Moke, however, started to move, and she saw it at just the last instant. She grabbed him by the arm, yanked him back, and clamped a hand over his mouth to stop him from shouting Calhoun’s name and drawing his focus away from where it had to be at this critical moment.
“So, Calhoun!” Krut said, as if there was no one else in the street. It seemed to her that Calhoun was separated from her by a gulf hundreds of feet wide, even though he was standing mere yards away in the street. “Do you wish to take me up on my offer of trying to draw first? Or are you going to simply stand there like the coward you are and make no effort at all to defend yourself?”
“Are you sure about this?” Calhoun inquired, his voice steady. “You’re willing to let me have my turn first?”
“Absolutely,” said Krut. “You may have the opportunity to go for your weapon. And I assure you that before it’s even cleared your holster, I will draw mine and shoot you down. But it will not be a killing shot, Calhoun, oh, no. Not a quick kill, that is. I’m going to shoot you in the stomach, Calhoun. Have you ever seen a man die of a stomach wound?”
As if speaking from a land of utter darkness, Calhoun replied, “I’ve seen men die in just about every way that you can imagine.”
“Good. Then you know the fate that awaits you. At least, you think you do. But as you’re lying there in the street, clutching at the blood spreading across your belly, trying to reinsert the innards that are leaking out … perhaps I will walk over to you and have mercy on you.” He grinned in anticipation of the moment. “Will you beg me at that point, Calhoun? Will you beg me to end your misery? Will you pray to me or curse me, I wonder. And what will I do, what will I do? You know … I’m not quite certain I know myself. I might indeed spare you continued misery by ending your worthless life right then and there. Or I may stand there and watch you suffer. Could be a long, drawn-out process, though. Could take you a couple of days to die. I’m not entirely sure whether I’m really willing to stand there for all that time just for the pleasure of watching the light flicker from your eyes. Then again … perhaps it might just be worth it. For to see you suffer from the continued agonies of—”
He was still talking when the explosion erupted under his feet.
It was deafening. Windows shattered up and down the street, people crying out and clapping their hands over their e
ars. The air was charged with the aroma of something burning, and there was a wave of heat so powerful that Rheela felt as if it was going to burn her eyeballs right out of their sockets. And then … came the sounds. The sounds of large, green body parts descending from where they had been propelled, high into the sky. An arm plopped into a water trough. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Rheela groaned. The trough was one of just a small number of water storage locations around the city, and now it was contaminated. What a hideous waste.
A boot thudded to the ground, wisps of smoke still trailing from the end. And then the majority of Krut landed. Head, torso, an arm, his thighs. Where the rest of him was, it was impossible to say. What was not impossible to determine, however, was that Krut was unquestionably not in a position to cause any more problems.
Calhoun walked with measured stride to Krut’s still-smoldering corpse, or at least what was left of it. He stared down at him blandly. “Your turn,” said Calhoun.
It was Moke who broke the stunned silence that followed, and there was nothing but pure joy in his voice. “That was spectacular!” he shouted. “What did you do?”
“Moke!” said Rheela, trying to sound scolding, but, truthfully, the relief flooding over her was so overwhelming that she could barely get the word out.
In response to Moke’s question, Calhoun held up the silver cylinder. “Remember that little excursion we went on, Moke? Those things we found called ‘mines.’ I planted them in the street hours ago as a present for him. This detonated them.” He tossed the cylinder to Moke, who caught it effortlessly.
“And that’s why you kept moving. To get him in position so he’d be standing on them!”
“You—” Surprisingly, it was Tapinza who had the nerve to voice a protest. “You cheated! What sort of Majister cheats?”
“The smart kind,” replied Calhoun easily. “Given the choice, I’ll take living over dying anytime.”
And suddenly, in response to absolutely nothing that Rheela could discern, Calhoun suddenly seemed to be reacting with alarm. His body appearing to move before his mind had even processed the information, Calhoun lunged to one side. The instant he did so, a plaser bolt sizzled through the air and scorched the ground where he’d just been standing.
Calhoun rolled to his feet and ran. His reflexes started to take him toward the office of the Majister, but then he looked straight at Rheela and, apparently deciding that to keep heading toward them would put them at risk, he bolted in the other direction.
There was a screeching of delirious triumph, voices she didn’t know, but it was obviously the men who were shooting at Calhoun. They were shooting from cover, wherever they were, trying to pick off Calhoun without presenting themselves as targets. But Calhoun was not about to make it easy on them. He moved so incredibly quickly that Rheela could barely track him. It was as if he had an inkling of where plaser bolts were going to hit before they struck. At one point he actually skidded to a halt and backpedaled, avoiding a blast by the narrowest of margins.
He swept the plaser through the air, firing off a steady array of blasts, not aiming so much as just trying to create some sort of cover for himself to retreat. Rheela heard screaming and realized that it was her own voice, and Moke was struggling in her grasp, trying to run to Calhoun and help him in some manner. The notion was insanity, of course. One young boy couldn’t do anything.
She glanced around desperately for help, and saw more of the townspeople watching, just watching. Not saying anything, nor doing anything. Just silent spectators to a sequence of events that they were making no effort whatsoever to prevent.
He could have taken refuge in any of the buildings, but once again, his concern for the others in the town was of paramount importance to him. Obviously he was concerned about a shootout occurring in whatever building he sought refuge within, and he had no desire to endanger the lives of anyone else. He looked around desperately, spotted the luukab peacefully tied at the hitching post, and bolted toward it.
For a moment, she thought he was going to hide behind the great beast. That would only last for a few moments, as his attackers would doubtlessly use their plasers to cut the luukab to ribbons where it stood. She momentarily mourned the imminent demise of the creature, and then discarded any such absurd notions. It was Calhoun’s survival, and only his, that mattered to her.
As it turned out, however, even the life of a luukab was important to Calhoun. Before his attackers could fully draw a bead on him, he leaped forward, a vault of such height and elegance as Rheela had never seen. He hit the back of the luukab, which let out a startled grunt in response, and then he was up and over, jumping to the roof of the building next to the luukab. He barely caught the edge of the roof by his fingertips, and Rheela was sure he was going to fall off. But, in an amazing display of dexterity and upper-body strength, Calhoun hauled himself up. One blast nearly tagged him, scorching his left thigh just before he hauled it up and out of the way. There was an impressive array of stone and sculpture work lining the top of the roof, and it provided him cover, as long as he kept low. He crouched behind one of the statues as plaser bolts chipped off pieces from it. Wherever his assailants were, they obviously weren’t able to get a clear shot at him.
Oh, Kolk’r, let him be safe, Rheela kept thinking.
Calhoun did nothing at first; merely crouched there while the plaser bolts continued to strike all around him. Rheela realized what he was doing: He wasn’t wasting time, energy, or ammo. Instead, he was studying where the bolts were originating from, so as to get a bead on his assailants.
And still no one did anything to help him.
Perhaps it was unreasonable of her to believe that someone should be helping. She knew that, intellectually. But even so, she knew that a few of the citizens were armed. They could have pitched in to help. They could have emerged from hiding, tried to sight where the attackers were, pick them off themselves. But no. They were hiding. They were afraid.
A cold fury boiled up in Rheela. She thought about all the effort she had put into trying to connect with the people, to get them to like her, to help them. Help them to prosper, to grow … and even more, to grow up. She felt as if some mission had been imparted to her. Whether it was from Kolk’r or wherever, she had no idea. But it had been her mission just the same.
However, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that it had been entirely in her imagination. They had attacked her, they had scorned her, they had assaulted her home … and yet somehow this, this display of cowardice, rankled her like none other, and brought her flowering ire to full blossom.
“Bastards,” she breathed. “Bloody bastards.”
Tapinza looked at her, as did Moke, temporarily distracted from his struggles by the intensity and fury now evident in his mother. And then, suddenly, there was a scream.
Across the way, on another rooftop, there was a man staggering, clutching his chest. Rheela recognized him instantly, for she had seen him not that long ago … standing trial. It was Kusack, and when last she’d seen him, he’d been walking out of the meetinghouse with a smug expression on his face. The expression was now gone, permanently, along with his continued existence. Smoke was rising from a burn on his chest, left there by the plaser bolt that Calhoun had just fired. His screech ended with a choked, burbling noise, and then Kusack pitched forward off the roof and hit the ground. Rheela winced inwardly at the noise he made when he hit, but at the same time felt a grim sort of satisfaction.
And from across the way there was a howl of such fury that it practically marked the location of the one who vocalized it. Calhoun didn’t hesitate, but fired at the source. The screech was oddly truncated then, and Rheela looked in the general direction that it had come from. As much as she had felt a grim moment of victory before, now a wave of nausea swept over her. She saw a man in a window across the way—or, at least, she assumed it to be a man. It was actually mostly the upper torso, half slumped out the window. There was a plaser in his hand that, at that m
oment, was tumbling from his lifeless fingers. The head was unrecognizable as a head, completely ruined by the bolt that had drilled right through it. Whoever it had been, he had obviously been someone who felt close to Kusack, and had reflexively cried out in anger even as he tried to nail Calhoun. But Calhoun had obviously discerned the general area of his location, and his cry of protest had helped to bring Calhoun’s attention right to him.
And then all was silent.
Calhoun stayed perched upon the roof, looking around carefully. He was studying the area, trying to discern where any other possible threats might be.
He made it … oh, my Kolk’r, he made it, Rheela breathed, unable to believe it. And out loud she whispered, “He made it …”
And as her heart fluttered with relief, that was the moment that Moke pulled clear of her. Crying out with relief and exultation, Moke barreled into the street, shouting, “You made it! You made it, Mac!! Woooohoooo!! You made it!!”
“Moke, get back!” shouted Calhoun from above, “there’s still danger—!”
The words sent alarm racing through Rheela’s veins, but they were completely lost on the enthused child, who just kept repeating, “You made it! You made it! Ma says you made it! You—”
He ran past the water trough, which still had the severed body part from the green man named Krut floating in it. And suddenly there was a great splashing of water, sending the precious commodity spilling to the ground as it slopped over the sides. Moke barely had time to turn, and then a large, sopping arm was wrapped around his throat, the other around his chest, and Moke was being hoisted into the air, pressed against the chest of the man who had just emerged from the trough. A straw fell away, obviously what he’d been using to enable him to breathe while he lay under the water, waiting in ambush as a last resort.
From high above, Calhoun shouted, “Put him down, Temo!”
The man called Temo clutched the struggling Moke more tightly. “Make a clear shot of yourself, Calhoun! That’s all I want! Y’hear? One clear shot’s all I want! S’all I need!”
