Crystal Dragon

by Sharon Lee

  Which made so little sense she figured it for a fever dream, and damn' if she was going to stay webbed in her bunk like a kidlet, waiting for somebody to bring her tea and news of the day.

  She opened her eyes to the easy familiarity of her cabin, retracted the webbing, pushed back the blanket and got to her feet with due caution. A quick inspection discovered dermal-bond over a number of cuts in silly places.

  Fell into a bowl of razors, did you? she asked herself, as she snatched open the locker door. She sighed at her reflection—another bonded cut on her cheek—and reached for her ship togs.

  * * *

  JELA WAS IN THE co-pilot's chair, his big hands calm on the board. He tipped his head slightly as she stepped into the pilots' room, tracking her reflection in his screen. Cantra blinked, her eyes unaccountably having teared up, and nodded at him.

  "Pilot," he said, nice and respectful, which, knowing Jela, meant nothing but trouble.

  She walked to the pilot's chair, sat, grabbed a look at the screens and the status lights before spinning 'round to face him.

  "You in good repair?" she asked. "Pilot?"

  A quick sideways glance out of unreadable black eyes.

  "Tolerable repair," he said, not giving anything away with his voice, either.

  "Excepting the odd shiner or two," she said, tapping the corner of her left eye with a light fingertip. She looked down-board to where the tree sat in its usual place, leaves dancing gently in a breeze that wasn't there, and back to her uncommunicative co-pilot.

  "We're out of Landomist," she said, like maybe he hadn't noticed. "Like to tell me where we're bound?"

  "Vanehald," Jela said. "If the pilot will indulge me."

  She sighed. "Before I decide whether to indulge you or space you, tell me what befell us on Landomist, why not?" She tipped her head. "Start with who gave you a black eye and what you did with the body."

  Jela sent her another quick, Deeps black look, made a couple of unnecessary adjustments to his board, and spun his chair 'round to face her.

  "You gave me the black eye," he said softly, and there was something tentative and—who would believe it?—uncertain behind the forcible blandness of his face. He took a visible breath. "Cantra?" he asked, and not at all like he was sure he'd care for the answer.

  Well, that was a question, wasn't it? she thought, with her mind on the gaping hole in her memory. She looked down at her hands, idly wondering what she'd done to skin them up so thorough. It came to her, like a hard punch to the gut, that Jela considered the Rimmer pilot was a real, true person—like he was, and not some fabrication born of survival and a crazy woman's need. She sighed, and raised her eyes to his, letting him see her uncertainty.

  "Mostly Cantra, I'm thinking," she said, telling as much truth as she knew how. "For your part in that, I'm grateful—and believe me most sincerely sorry, Pilot, for having done you a hurt. You deserve better from me."

  "You were out of your mind," he said, and abruptly closed his eyes, head dropping back against the rest.

  "Jela?" Did a soldier have warning of his decommission, she thought wildly, or did he just—stop? She came up out of her chair, saw he was breathing—saw a thin trail of moisture sliding down each brown cheek.

  "Hey," she said, soft, and put her hand on his shoulder. "Jela."

  His hand rose and covered hers, strong fingers exerting the least and most delicate pressure. Scarcely breathing, she looked down at him. His face seemed to her to be thinner, and she thought she saw—yes. Silver marred the perfect blackness of his hair.

  "Old soldier," he whispered, his voice not steady at all. He opened his eyes and smiled an odd smile, mixing happy and sad, and with no artifice about it at all. "Good to have you back."

  "I'd say it's good to be back, but I don't remember anything of having been gone," she answered, making her voice light with an effort. She looked away with something more of an effort and swept the board and screens again.

  "Coming up on transition," she noted, and didn't quite meet his eyes when she turned back, though she was aware of her hand still on his shoulder, and his fingers covering hers.

  "What's to want on Vanehald, Pilot Jela?"

  The smile this time was small and tending toward twisty, with a hint of self-mockery.

  "A world-shield left over from the First Phase," he said, and tipped his head, so that she was looking straight into his eyes again. "The last assignment my commander gave me was to hunt down the rumors until I located the device or certain proof that it no longer existed—or never had. If I found the device, I was to secure it for the troop."

  She frowned down at him.

  "This would be the same troop that let itself be persuaded to pull back Inside so the Enemy could eat all the Rim it wants?"

  "No," Jela said patiently. "The troop I'm talking about is the double-secret unit personally sworn to Commander Ro Gayda, garrisoned at Solcintra. There's those couple dozen twilight ships you might remember I mentioned in close orbit. That's where I sent Liad dea'Syl and the boy. It's the only place left."

  "What's the date?" Cantra asked, her voice harsh in her own ears.

  Jela sighed and lifted his hand away from hers. Reluctantly, she released his shoulder and took a step back, keeping her eyes on his.

  "I'm twenty-one Common Days short of decommission," he said quietly.

  And what he wanted to do, which Cantra saw plain in his eyes, was to finish out his last mission, and die a good soldier. She wanted to shout, break things—whatever she had to do to get him angry at those who'd done this to him—which would've been less than useless—Jela was going to die in twenty-one days, angry or patient, and whatever his private choice in the matter might be. The choice left to him was how he'd be using those days. He'd decided to do something maybe useful, and who was she to call him a fool?

  "There's also," Jela said, still in that quiet voice, "a full-staffed garrison at Vanehald. I'll be able to file my final papers and report to the medic there in good order."

  Cantra breathed. Nodded.

  "Right," she said, and swept a hand out toward the board. "You take us through transition. I'll get a meal together and then you'll tell me the whole tale of Landomist, hear it?"

  Jela grinned, and damn if it didn't look real. "Yes, Pilot."

  * * *

  THE UNIVERSE WAS dark, without form or meaning.

  All about, the ley lines sang and shimmered, thrumming with power and with promise. He could change the course of fate, make or unmake worlds, simply by reaching forth his will and desiring that it be so. There was none to thwart him; nothing between him and the full measure of his potential. He was finally, and again, complete unto himself; the plan that he had formed so long ago was come to fruition. He was whole. He was alone.

  He was free.

  "Beloved?" His thought was tentative, full of hope and fear.

  No answering thought leapt to meet his own. No presence shadowed the austere symmetry of his isolation. No voice murmured the hated syllables which had for so long defined his prison.

  They had failed.

  The ley lines dazzled possibility, mocking his despair.

  Failed. It was scarcely conceivable. She had been so careful. Infinitely careful, his lady; infinitely subtle, and above all clever. Once, she had told him that what cleverness she possessed she had learnt from him, but he did not credit it then—and did not credit it now. She knew her instrument—himself—too well to have failed in what she—in what they—had wrought.

  "Beloved?" This time, he cast his thought wide, actively seeking her, desperate, as a wounded man seeks water, air or some other force necessary to life itself.

  His seeking remained unanswered.

  He forced himself to consider the possibility that they had not failed—that she had intended this—that he be returned to his natural state, unfettered, governed only by his own instinct and desire, to do what he alone judged to be needful, here in the galaxy's last hour.

  Fr
ee, he thought. Whole and free. It was everything he had wanted. He had subverted himself to another intelligence, formed an equal partnership with a being whose only thought had been to enslave him—and worse. Much worse. All toward this moment, when he hung on dark wings within the dark universe, and knew himself master of everything he surveyed.

  And yet—he could not have named the moment when it changed, when his jailor became dear to him and the jail itself the form he preferred, when the possibilities were without limit.

  Far, far and away, though nearer than it had been, he could sense the cold encroachment of oblivion. The Iloheen went forth with their plans, as well.

  And what matter, he thought, that the Iloheen should have the galaxy and all that was precious within it, when he had lost that which was infinitely more precious?

  Lady Moonhawk had the right of it; he should be destroyed. Mayhap he would seek her out and ask the boon.

  He considered the thought, and the far, growing glare of perfection; weighing both against the near and feeble vortex of chance and mischief which was the galaxy's best hope of survival. Those lines which passed nearest the vortex twisted in weird complexity, so dense and layered with possibility that even he could not read them with surety. Terror shook him; terror and despair. For wherever the Iloheen's future took form, there the lines did shrivel and die. The volatile marriage of possibility and luck they had nurtured; which they had sacrificed—so much—to protect—there was no way to predict what such a thing might shape, or to know if it were less inimical than the Iloheen's future.

  Carefully, he extended his will toward the vortex, probing, seeking a path by which it might be understood, or perhaps, now that he was alone, influenced—

  Be still, her thought suffused him. Be still and know that I am with you.

  Interlude

  SHE WALKED TO the gate of the garrison with him, which wasn't maybe the smartest thing she'd ever done, and stood to one side while he showed his papers and was passed through, walking away across the yard, shoulders level, limping off his right leg so plain it set a lump into her throat—which was nothing more than senseless.

  'bout halfway across the yard, he turned and saw her standing there like an idiot. He lifted one broad hand high, fingers signing the pilot's well-wish—good lift.

  Her own hand came up without her thinking to do it, fingers shaping the usual in reply—safe journey.

  He caught it—she saw him smile—then he turned away again. She watched until a marching squad obscured her sight of him—and when they were gone, Jela was, too.

  Eighteen

  Vanehald

  "Inspection?" Commander Gorriti laughed. "What use an inspection, Captain? We're pulling back. Tomorrow, I will be gone."

  Jela considered the officer thoughtfully. A natural human, with a foolish face and a uniform far too fancy for his post. A show-soldier, he expected, which was poor judgment on someone's part. He supposed that no one of this man's commanders had taken the time to research Vanehald, and so learn that this wasteball, as Cantra had aptly termed it from orbit, occupied a pivotal place in the history of the First Phase. One of the last battles of the First Phase had been fought at Vanehald. The planet, once populous, was now very nearly deserted, largely due to the damage done to it during that battle. A few mining bases, Jela thought, a lower tier spaceport, a First Phase fort—what could possibly be here worth protecting? And so they had assigned this ...popinjay... to command the garrison, never thinking that perhaps what had been strategic once might well come into play again.

  "You're pulling out tomorrow?" he asked Gorriti, who inclined his head and touched the front pocket of his shirt.

  "Indeed, Captain," he said with barely concealed delight. "I am pulling out tomorrow. My orders are quite plain."

  "What about transport for your troops?"

  "I ordered transport," the officer said with a shrug of one elegantly clad shoulder. "That it hasn't arrived is beyond my control. My orders are clear." Again, he touched his pocket.

  Jela frowned. "You'd abandon your troops?" he asked, unwilling to believe that even a fool and a thorough-going incompetent would do such a thing.

  Another shrug. "When the transport arrives, my troops will follow." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an orders case, which he unfolded, showing Jela the authenticity of it, with its seals and ribbons straight from High Command.

  "I am to report to Daelmere, departing tomorrow with as many of my troop as I am able to bring."

  And how many would that be, Jela wondered, having seen the commander's craft on the apron when they came in. Perhaps a half-dozen M Series soldiers might be crammed into that tiny craft with their commander, or three of the X Strain. Not enough to matter, even if he bothered to take such a guard with him.

  "What about the civilians?" Jela asked. "It's our duty—"

  "Vanehald never had many civilians, and those that were here have mostly fled, saving a few miners and eccentrics," the man said unconcernedly.

  "The strategic placement—" Jela began, and was cut off by laughter.

  "Strategic placement! Well." Gorriti wiped his eyes. "Even supposing it had any, my orders remain unequivocal, and I will tell you, Captain, that I am not one of those who feel we must hold the Arm at any cost!"

  Jela took a hard breath and kept a firm grip on his temper. "I'll still need to inspect your defenses," he said, evenly, that being the reason for his visit, according to the papers Cantra had produced for him. Commander Gorriti waved an unconcerned hand.

  "Go, inspect! Orders are orders, after all. Allow me to provide you an escort." He raised his voice. "Sergeant Lorit!"

  The door in the right-hand wall popped open and an M Series soldier stepped briskly into the room with a sharp salute for her commander.

  "Sir?"

  "Sergeant, the captain here is under orders to inspect our defenses. Take him on a tour, won't you?"

  "Yes, sir," she said and transferred her attention to Jela. "This way, Captain."

  "Thank you, Sergeant," he said. He hesitated, trying to form something useful to say to Commander Gorriti, something that would bring him to a sense of a soldier's duty—but the man was engrossed in reading his orders, fondling the appended ribbons. Sighing, Jela crossed to the patiently waiting M, and followed her out of the room.

  * * *

  THE FORT, TO which Cantra turned her attention after Jela disappeared for his-forever behind the guarded inner gate, was something interesting. She set herself to walking about, getting a feel for the layout.

  It was a substantial edifice, formed out of cermacrete. The first gate and all behind it to the inner, was public, and looked a deal like any spaceport, only much smaller than even the smallest she'd seen. There were three eateries, a bar, two sleepovers, some sorry looking shops selling necessaries, and a sagging trade hall where the choices on offer were "antiques" and ore.

  Despite there being nothing much there, really, the public gate area of the fort was buzzing. Cantra hadn't supposed there were any law-abiding citizens left, but as it happened, her supposition was wrong. Granted, those left looked to be miners, which it was likely a charity to give them "law-abiding," and most still working claims, which explained the ore on offer, but not necessarily the type or grade.

  A pilot is only as good as her curiosity bump, or so Garen'd maintained. Besides, there might be something here worth taking on, that was wanted elsewhere. No sense, she told herself, lifting empty, trying hard not to think just how empty Dancer was going to be.

  It ain't you that's dying, she snarled, aghast to find her vision swimming with sudden tears. She took a hard breath, and looked around her.

  Live pilots need food, she told herself carefully, and their ships need fuel. That means cargo, Pilot Cantra. Focus.

  Focus. Right. A sign advertising eats caught her eye, which seemed propitious. She crossed the street and sauntered in, looking for info.

  That she shortly had, by way of one Morsh, who was
agreeable to paying for her tea and rations with amiable chat about her homeworld.

  The mines, according to Morsh were nicely full of timonium.

  "Not like the oldays, mindee," Morsh cautioned her. "Back de before, all dem shafts fill wit stuff? Back de before, dose shafts still bean work. Yeah, it was timonium, then, too, and ollie made money hand over hand. Miners, they made considerable less, but still not too bad. Now, timonium he hide harder, so ollie pull out, de money bean less easy. Us, dough, we know where timonium hide, so we do. Not in mine-outs er garbage pits. Timonium, he hide in little pocket an sharp corner. We fine him, yeah, an we sell true de tradehall, freelance. Do bout as good as when ollie run it, and no olliecop stickin his nose where don it belong."