The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  He smiled at her, damn him. “Military secret.” He touched the breast of his ‘skins. “I have a datastrip which I request permission to transmit, via secure channel.”

  “No,” she snapped.

  He sighed. “Pilot, the information on this ‘strip will guarantee that Ser dea’Sord will be too busy for . . . some number of years . . . keeping one jump ahead of the peacekeepers and bounty hunters to care about your rep or your life.”

  “That’s some datastrip,” she said, and held out her hand. “Mind if I scan it?”

  “Yes,” he said, which wasn’t anything more than she’d expected he’d say, nor anything less than she’d’ve said herself, had their positions been reversed. Still, the notion of giving Rint dea’Sord enough trouble to keep him occupied and out of the business for years did have its appeal.

  “You’re asking a lot on trust,” she told Jela, “and I’m a little short where you’re concerned.”

  His face hardened. “Am I supposed to trust a woman who carries a can full of military grade ship-brains into such a port as Taliofi, and has a sheriekas healing unit in her ship?”

  She held up a fist, raised the thumb. “You should’ve checked the manifest before you signed on, if you’re as tender-hearted as all that.” Index finger. “You got moral objections to the first-aid kit, you’re free to open the hatch and save Dulsey’s soul for her.”

  “It’s her well-being I’m concerned with.” There was more than a little snap there. She supposed he was entitled, there being the likelihood of a personal interest.

  “Where did you get that healing unit?” he demanded.

  She moved her shoulders and arranged her face into amused lines. “It came with,” she said, and spread her arms to include the entirety of Dancer.

  He stared at her. She smiled at him.

  “Whoever acquired that thing was trading ‘way over their heads,” he said, still snappish.

  She raised her eyebrows, giving him polite attention, in case he wasn’t done.

  He shut his mouth and looked stubborn.

  “Leaving aside ship’s services,” she said after she’d taken a leisurely scan of her screens and stats and he still hadn’t said anything else. “Is there a description of the cargo just off-loaded on that ‘strip you think you want to transmit?”

  “There is.” Right grumpy, that sounded.

  “And that’s going to keep my rep clear with the ‘hunters and other interested parties exactly how?”

  Silence. A glance aside showed him sitting not so relaxed as previously, his eyes closed. As if he’d felt the weight of her regard, he sat up straight and opened his eyes, meeting hers straight on.

  “It happens I’m in need of a pilot who knows the back ways in and out, and maybe something about the Beyond.”

  “I’ll be sure to put you down at a port where you might have some luck locating a pilot of that kind,” she said politely, and spun back full to face her board.

  “I’d rather hire you,” Jela said, quiet-like. “The people who receive my transmittal, they’ll keep any . . . irregularities . . . to themselves, if it’s known you’re aiding me.”

  She let that settle while she made a couple of unnecessary adjustments to her long-scans.

  “I thought you weren’t exactly military,” she said, first.

  “I’m not,” he answered, and while she didn’t have any reason to believe him, she did anyway.

  “What you’re doing here is coercion,” she said, second.

  Jela didn’t answer that one—and then he did.

  “Maybe it is,” he said, slow, like he was working it out as he went. “What I know is I’ve been fighting my whole life and the war’s going against us. There’s a chance—not much of a chance, but I specialize in those kinds of missions—that I can accomplish something that will turn the war back on the sheriekas. Or least make the odds not—quite—so overwhelming. If you agree to help me, then you have that chance, too.”

  “So what?” she asked, harsher than she should have.

  “If we don’t stand together,” Jela said, still in that feeling-his-way voice, “then we’ll fall separately. We need to face the enemy now—soldier, smuggler, and shop-keeper.”

  The war had been a fact of her entire life. The concept of winning it—or losing it—was alien enough to make her head ache. The notion that she might have a hand in either outcome was—laughable.

  When the cards were all dealt out, though, Pilot Jela held the winning hand, in the form of his datastrip. If he could buy her free of Rint dea’Sord and gain her a promise of blind eyes from those who might otherwise be interested in curtailing her liberty—she’d be a fool not to go along with him.

  At least for a while.

  She sent him a studious glance; gave him a formal nod.

  “All right,” she said. “Transmit your data.”

  IT APPEARED THAT Pilot Cantra had levels between her levels, Jela thought as he addressed his board and began setting up a series of misdirections. He didn’t expect such precautions to thwart a determined attack, but then he didn’t except a determined attack, merely a snoop, the same as any pilot who didn’t entirely trust her second might do.

  He’d already established that Spiral Dance’s brain was as familiar to him as her guns—one of the earlier of the Emca units; considerably smarter and more flexible than the Remle refits just off-loaded at Taliofi.

  Fingers deft and quick, he set the transmission protocol: validate, send, validate, wipe original on close of transmission, no copy to ship’s log.

  A glance at the screens—clear all around, scans showing the appropriate levels of busy energies, nothing exotic or overly active, transition still some ship-hours ahead of them—and a look out of the side of his eye at the pilot sitting her board serene, long, elegant fingers dancing on the numbers pad, like as not discussing possible exit points with the navigation brain.

  If it had been his to call, he’d have opted to wait and send closer to transition, to minimize the risk of a trace. The choice not being his, the likelihood of a trace being, in his estimation, low, and the pilot possibly with her attention on something other than on him, he checked his protocols a second time and hit “send.”

  The query went out, the answer came back, the data flowed away. Query again, answer—and the thing was done, beam closed. Jela tapped a key, accessing the datastrip, which showed empty, just as it ought. Good.

  He pulled it out of the slot and crumbled it in his fist. The flexible metal resisted at first, then folded, tiny slivers tickling his palm.

  The sense of being watched pulled his eyes up—and he met Pilot Cantra’s interested green gaze. He waited, with the clear sense that he’d just given information out.

  But— “Scrap drawer’s on your left,” was all she said, calm and agreeable, and turned her attention back to her calcs.

  “Thank you,” he muttered, and thumbed the drawer open, depositing the strip and making sure his palms were free of shred before closing it again and putting his eyes and most of his attention on his own board.

  Screens and scans still clear, timer ticking down to translation. Transition to where was apparently not a subject on which the pilot craved his input. He considered introducing it himself, then decided to bide his time, pending consideration of recent discoveries and events.

  If Ragil’s people up-line moved fast on Rint dea’Sord’s operation, they might even recover most of Spiral Dance’s recent off-loaded and lamentable cargo. He’d handed the man and the cargo to others better equipped to deal with them—nothing more he could or should do, there. He therefore put both out of his mind.

  Pilot Cantra, however . . .

  He hadn’t listened long, being more interested in downloading various fascinating data regarding dea’Sord’s business arrangements, but he’d listened plenty long enough to hear the by-play around the need for an aelantaza.

  It was apparently Rint dea’Sord’s belief that Pilot Cantra, whose ship called
her “yos’Phelium,” was one of those rare and elite scholar-assassins.

  Jela admitted to himself that the proposition explained a good many puzzling things about Pilot Cantra. Unfortunately, it also raised a number of other, equally good and valid questions.

  Such as, if she were indeed aelantaza, was she presently on contract?

  Or, if she were indeed aelantaza and not on contract, who was looking for her and how much of an impediment were they likely to be to his mission?

  Or, if she was not aelantaza, as seemed most likely, why had Rint dea’Sord, a man with access to a broad range of information that he shouldn’t have had, thought that she was—and what did that mean in terms of impediments or dangers to Jela’s own mission?

  And there was, after all, the matter of the name. Cantra yos’Phelium. Certainly, a name. Certainly, every bit as good a name as M. Jela Granthor’s Guard. Exactly as good a name, as it happened. “yos” was the Inworlds prefix denoting a courier or delivery person, and “Phelium” bore an interesting likeness to the Rim-cant word for “pilot.”

  Cantra Courier Pilot, Jela thought. Not precisely the name he’d have expected to find on an aelantaza—contracted or free. On the other hand, what did he know? Aelantaza were known for their subtlety, which didn’t happen to be a trait he’d’ve assigned to Pilot Cantra. But, if the Dark Trader persona was a cover for something else—

  Not that he was over-thinking it or anything.

  He sighed to himself and sent a glance to the tree—receiving an impression of watchful well-being. That would be the tree’s reaction to the sheriekas device in which Dulsey presently slumbered—and he owned that the fact of the thing tied into this ship disturbed him, too. All very well and good for Pilot Cantra to say it had “come with,” thereby loosing another whole range of questions to tangle around the aelantaza/not aelantaza question, and—

  Stop, he told himself.

  Deliberately, he invoked one of the templated exercises. This one restored mental acuity and sharpened problem-solving. There was a moment of tightness inside his skull, and a brief feeling of warmth.

  He’d need to construct a logic-box, assign everything he knew about Pilot Cantra and—

  “Pilot.” Her voice was low and agreeable, the Rim accent edgy against his ear. More of an accent than she had previously displayed, he thought, and put that aside for the logic box, as he turned his head to meet her eyes.

  “Pilot?” he answered, respectful.

  “I’d welcome your thoughts regarding a destination,” she said.

  Just what he’d been wanting, Jela thought, and then wondered if she was playing for info—which found him back on the edge of the aelantaza question, tottering on his mental boot heels. He sighed, letting her hear it, and gave a half-shrug.

  “I thought you might have a port in mind,” he said. “It’d be best not to disrupt your usual routes and habits. At least, not until I’ve seen a chart.”

  “Usual routes and habits,” she repeated, a corner of her mouth going up in a half-smile. “Pilot, I don’t think you’re a fool. I think you know we lifted out of Taliofi empty of anything valuable—excepting yourself and Dulsey, neither of which I gather are up for trade . . . and even if you were, I ain’t in the business of warm goods. One can’s carrying generic Light-goods for the entertainment of any port cops we happen to fall across. That means we can go wherever your fancy takes us, with the notable exception of any of my usual stop-overs. It might be that the two of us’re cozy kin now, but I see no reason to introduce you and your troubles to my usuals.”

  Reasonable, Jela thought, and prudent. Especially prudent if Pilot Cantra expected to dump him and retreat to safety, which had to be in her mind, despite her apparent surrender. He was beginning to form the opinion that the pilot’s order of priority was her ship and herself, all else expendable. It was a survivor’s order of priority, and he couldn’t fault her for holding it, though duty required him to subvert it. Not the greatest thing duty had required of him, over a lifetime of more or less obeying orders.

  Yet, he couldn’t help thinking that it would have been better for all—the mission, the pilot, the soldier if it mattered, and the Batcher—if Pilot Muran had made his rendezvous.

  In point of fact, it would’ve been better for all if the sheriekas had blown themselves up with their home world. While he was wishing after alternate histories.

  He looked to Pilot Cantra, sitting unaccountably patient, and showed her his empty palms.

  “We have a shared problem in need of solving, first,” he said, which was true, and bought him time to consider how best to follow up a rumor and a whisper, lacking the info Muran had been bringing to him.

  The pilot’s pretty eyebrows lifted. “Do we, now. And that would be?”

  “Dulsey,” he said, and the eyebrows came together in a frown.

  “I’m thinking Dulsey’s your problem, Pilot—or no problem. She’s likely to go along with whatever you say.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” he said. “She couldn’t leave me fast enough at Taliofi. You remember she said that she had business, and might not make it back in time for lift? She was so intent on that business she missed the fact that her further services as crew were being declined.”

  A short pause while the pilot looked over her board, and twiddled a scan knob that didn’t need it.

  “You’re right,” she said finally, her eyes staying with the scans. “Dulsey was plotting her own course soon’s she heard we was down at Taliofi. Rint dea’Sord intercepted her before she made her contact, I’m guessing.” She moved her shoulders.

  “Not like him to plan so shallow,” she said slowly. “That favor he wanted—he wanted it from me. Thinking on it, damn if it don’t look like the whole deal was rigged. Easy enough for a man with his connections to learn where my last-but-one was taking me. Dulsey—that must’ve been a vary, cheaper than whatever else he had planned on. Gave him a reserve.” She got quiet then, the picture of a pilot attending her board.

  Jela took a breath, and by the time he’d exhaled had decided on his plan of attack.

  “He thought you were aelantaza,” he said. “Any truth to that?”

  That got him a look, green eyes a trifle too wide.

  “No,” she said, and spun her chair to face him square. “I don’t think I heard what Dulsey has to do with your choice of a next port o’call. She’s a deader wherever she goes, unless she can lose the tats, which you know and I know she can’t.”

  “She can regrow, if she gets to the right people.”

  “She can, but they’re looking for that dodge now. One arm younger than the rest of you—that’s rehab, all legit. Two arms—you’re a Batcher gone rogue, and better off dead.”

  That was, Jela thought, probably true.

  “What else, then?” he asked her. “Not all runaway Batchers get caught.”

  “Well.” She wrinkled her nose. “If they’re willing to limit themselves to the RingStars, or the Rim, or the Grey Worlds, all they need is to hang paper, work up some convincing files, and maybe a dummy control disk. Expensive. No guarantees.”

  “But it can be done,” Jela said, watching her face.

  The green eyes narrowed. “Anything can be done,” she said the Rim accent hard, “if you got money enough to buy it.”

  “Do you—” he began and stopped as a chime sounded from the rear of the chamber.

  Pilot Cantra jerked her head toward the alcove where the first-aid kit sat.

  “Hatch’ll be coming up soon. You might want to be standing by, in case there’s a problem. I’ll take the scans.”

  She spun back to her board.

  Jela got up and walked, not without trepidation, back to the first-aid kit.

  THE HATCH WAS UP, the greenish light giving Dulsey’s pale hair and pale face an unsettling and alien cast. Her eyes were closed and he could see her breathing, deep and slow, like she was asleep.

  She lay like he had put her, flat on her back, ar
ms at her sides, legs straight, the bloodstained coverall—

  The blood was gone, and much of the grime. The green-cast face was evenly toned, showing neither bruises nor swelling; the nose, last seen bent to the left, was straight. Her hair was clean.

  Her eyes opened.

  “Pilot Jela?”

  “Right here,” he said. “You’re in what Pilot Cantra styles a first-aid kit. You’re looking better than you did when you went in. You’ll have to tell me how you feel.”

  She frowned and closed her eyes. He waited, his own eyes slitted in protest of the unnatural light, until she moved her head against the pallet.

  “I feel—remarkably well,” she said slowly. She raised a hand and touched her face lightly, ran a finger down her nose. Took a deliberately deep breath. Another.

  “I believe I am mended, Pilot. May I be permitted to stand up and test the theory more fully?”

  He realized with a start that he’d been hanging over the device, blocking her exit. Hastily, he stepped back.

  “Might as well try it.”

  She sat up slowly, from the intent expression on her face, paying attention to each muscle and bone. Carefully, she got her legs over the edge and her feet on the floor, put her palms flat against the pallet, pushed—and stood.

  “Ace?” he asked.

  She took a step forward. “Ace,” she answered.

  Behind her, the hatch began to descend, hissing lightly as it did. She turned to look at it.

  “A remarkable device,” she commented. “Am I correct in believing that it was constructed by the Enemy?”

  “I think so,” Jela said. “Pilot Cantra doesn’t deny it.”

  “Remarkable,” she said again. She turned to face him and held up her left hand, palm out.

  “Pilot, you have, I believe, very fine eyesight. Do you see the scar across my palm?”

  Her palm was broad and lined. There were no scars.

  “No,” he said. “Was it an old scar? They fade, over time.”

  “They do,” Dulsey said. “But it was a recent scar, still noticeable. Will you look again? It was rather obvious—from the base of the thumb very nearly to the base of the little finger, somewhat jagged, and—”