The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  The Uncle t’sked, turned and put the gel-pack down on the cluttered table.

  “I would have thought the military would take a bolder stance,” he said, meditatively. “It is well that we have taken this work to ourselves, I see.”

  “I’d think the work best left alone,” Jela said forcefully. “Unless you have a reason for wanting a world-eater’s attention.”

  “One might,” the Uncle said with a smile. “One might. Think of what might be learned about the nature of the Enemy, should one of their mightiest engines be captured!”

  He raised a hand suddenly. “But stay, I don’t wish to raise such controversial topics so soon in our partnership.”

  Cantra felt a flutter along her nerves, and deliberately reposed herself to stillness.

  “Partnership?” asked Jela.

  “Surely.” The Uncle smiled, cold enough to raise a shiver, though the room was a thought over-warm for Cantra’s taste. “I am offering you a place, M. Jela. Here, your talents will be appreciated and well-rewarded.”

  Well, thought Cantra, specifically not looking at Jela. This might work out all by its lonesome . . .

  “No,” Jela said, shortly.

  Or maybe not. She cleared her throat, the Uncle’s gaze moved to her face.

  “Truth is, Uncle,” she began, and looked casually at Jela where he stood, solid and reassuring and—

  Lose it, she snarled at herself. He ain’t your partner—never was—and while he sat your co-pilot, that ends now, and good riddance.

  Jela shifted at his post, his face tightening, eyes widening and focusing somewhere beyond the Uncle’s room.

  “Tell your operative to stand away from the tree,” he said sharply.

  The Uncle tipped his head. “Your pardon, M. Jela? Do you address me?”

  “I do. Call off your operative. Now.”

  “What operative?”

  Jela didn’t bother answering that, only said again, in a voice nowhere near patient—

  “Tell your operative not to touch the board and not to approach the tree. There’s nothing hidden in the tree, and if she doesn’t stand back, I can’t tell what it might do to protect itself.”

  Intruder on the ship. Cantra gritted her teeth, glanced down at the tell-tales—still jammed, blast it to the Deeps. Dancer was on her own, and if the fool did touch that board . . .

  “Your operative is regarded as a threat, Uncle. Your operative is in danger.”

  “Come now, you can hardly be in touch with your ship, which lies quietly at dock. For our own security we smother all ship communications . . .”

  “I’m not in communication with our ship,” Jela said then. “All my comm systems are dead in here, and I’m betting the pilot’s are the same, or she’d have triggered something unpleasant already, being a lady who isn’t fond of strangers on her ship. However, I am in communication with the third crew member, who stands within striking distance of your operative, and who is prepared to act.”

  An alarm blared, and the Uncle’s robe briefly blazed golden as the smart-strands took receipt of info.

  “What’s that?” Jela asked, perfectly calm.

  The Uncle took a hard breath, and smoothed his hands down the front of his robe, eyes closed.

  “Hydroponics alert,” he murmured, eyelids fluttering. “An anomaly in the release gasses. These things happen, which is why we have alerts.”

  “Ah,” said Jela with a grim smile.

  Cantra concentrated on keeping her breathing even, though her lungs wanted to gasp at the notion that the tree—Jela’s damn’ tree, that he insisted told him jokes and that he talked to like an old friend or comrade-in-arms . . .

  Well, why not? she asked herself, and took another deep breath, specifically not thinking about what was going to happen if the Uncle’s snoop tried to gimmick the board—

  Jela casually tapped his wrist chronometer.

  “You’re the one who has to pass the word. Or take your chance of surviving whatever comes next. It’s all the same to me.”

  It wasn’t quite all the same to Cantra, but there wasn’t anything she could do except wait, and swear, and hope—

  The plant beside the Uncle shivered, and the pink fronds began to curl, as if closing for the night, or . . .

  For a moment, the Batch leader was clearly nonplused; he went so far as to peek at something half hidden in his sleeve.

  He glanced then at Jela, who was studying the plant with a sort of detached interest as the fronds coiled toward the core.

  The Uncle raised his hands, rings glinting, and spoke into the air.

  “Chebei, please do not touch either the piloting board or the tree. Return to your station and inform Arin that we are found to be poor hosts.”

  There was quiet then. Cantra breathed, concentrated on breathing calm and easy, the while keeping one eye on Jela—who was still watching something beyond the Uncle’s study—and the other on the Uncle, who appeared to be in like state.

  “Thank you,” he said abruptly to the air, and sent a sharp glance toward Jela.

  “Chebei has cleared the ship, touching nothing save those things she had already touched. Do you confirm, M. Jela?”

  No answer for a heartbeat . . . two . . .

  The wayaway look faded, the broad chest expanded, and the shoulders rolled.

  “Confirmed,” he said, and sent Cantra one of his more unreadable looks.

  “If you would please to pass my compliments on to your crew member?”

  Jela’s expression was unreadable, but his eyes went distant. A fleeting grin passed over his features, and then is face was like stone again.

  “Understood, Uncle,” he said then, looking not at the Batcher but at Cantra.

  “Business concluded, Pilot?”

  No and yes, Cantra thought. Though she wasn’t such a fool as to refuse Jela’s back-up on a port that had gone from risky to downright dangerous.

  “We did what we came to do,” she said, giving him a smile. “If you got nothing more to say, then we’ll just ask the Uncle for a guarantee of safe passage and be on our way.”

  The Uncle pressed a beringed hand over his heart, his face showing an expression of pained gentility which was notable for its sincerity.

  “Guarantee of safe passage? Dear Pilot Cantra, surely you don’t believe anyone here would seek to harm you?”

  She smiled, seeing his sincere and raising it to wounded innocence.

  “You did send a snoop onto my ship,” she said, as mildly as possible.

  The Uncle looked pained. “A mere inspector, child. We only wished to assure ourselves that nothing overtly dangerous had been—inadvertently, of course!—brought to dock at our poor habitat. And we see you are as careful as ourselves, and could not be more pleased. We count your visit among our most pleasant in decades!”

  Right.

  Cantra gave him another smile, and nodded to Jela.

  “Let’s go.”

  He swung forward a step, clearing her way to the door, and coincidentally putting himself between the Uncle and that same door. Much good it would do, with all the smartstrands the man was wearing. On the other hand, she didn’t think it likely that the Uncle would try to detain them. His habitat was fragile and he couldn’t know what they were carrying by way of plain and fancy explosives, for instance. Nor what that vegetable on the bridge might take into its . . . branches . . . to do if Jela came to harm.

  That being the case, there wasn’t any need to be rude in their leave-taking. She mustered up a bow, just as respectful as she could manage.

  “Uncle, good fortune to you.”

  He smiled and inclined his head.

  “Pilot Cantra, you must come and see me again. In the meanwhile, fair fortune to you.”

  He tipped his head.

  “M. Jela, may I not convince you to enter my employ?”

  “No,” Jela said shortly, and the Uncle smiled, soft and regretful.

  “How,” he said gently, “if you
were to know that even now it is whispered that soldiers are being bidden to forsake the emptiness of this arm for the comfort of the center? You, however, can still indulge your soldier’s soul. You can be here, at the edge of decisive action, where matters of importance to all humankind will be determined. You may be a hero to Dulsey and all her . . .”

  Jela shook his head, cutting off the Uncle in a way that likely wasn’t too polite.

  “This was a waystop for us,” he said. “A balancing of accounts with someone who risked her life for us. I’ve been a hero, and found it far more trouble than you might think. I’ll continue traveling with Pilot Cantra, and we’ll all part safely.”

  The Uncle seemed to take it well, all things considered, and if he thought the warning a bit plain-faced, he hid it well. “Then I will bid you, too, farewell and fair fortune.” He dropped back a step.

  On Cantra’s right hand, the door slid open.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Rockhaven

  THERE WAS NO KARMIN waiting to guide them to the dock, which absence set Cantra’s trouble-meter to twittering.

  Jela came up on her right side, angling his shoulders at an awkward angle, though it wasn’t so cramped as that, his fingers dancing at belt level: Stay close, stay alert, he signed, and passed on, taking point.

  So, she wasn’t the only one who was worried.

  Dutifully, she fell in behind, which gave her a fine view of attentive shoulders.

  The Uncle hadn’t exactly promised that safe passage Jela’d given as his expectation, nor it wasn’t like him to be disinterested in a telepathic talking tree, much less whatever other goodies Chebei had happened to take note of during her tour. The fact that the board was rigged for oblivion, she didn’t figure would give him more than pause. And truth told, there were likely enough pilots ‘mong free and equal Batcher-kind that the rig wasn’t so certain a thing, giving them time to study on the problem.

  The more she considered it, the more nervous she got and by the time they made it back to the hall where the doors had tried to cut Jela off from the rest of them, her palm was outright itching for the feel of a gun.

  She fought the inclination, for the reason that she didn’t know what the station might employ by way of safeguards, and that getting fried by a watch-bot for pulling a hideaway wasn’t likely to improve her mood any.

  Ahead, the big doors were sliding back, and she let herself breathe a quiet sigh of relief. Another few minutes and they’d be aboard Dancer, and fortified, if not precisely safe.

  Jela was through the door, and she was right behind him—

  A shadow moved in the near dimness. Cantra paused between one step and the next, but the movement—if it had been a movement—didn’t repeat.

  Jumpy, she scolded herself and moved on—

  Toward a door that was very nearly closed, with Jela on the far side. She threw herself into a run—and there was noise from the shadows now, the sounds of boots moving fast.

  Swearing, she jumped, got a shoulder through the narrowing crack, felt the pressure of the doors grinding against her chest and her back . . .

  She squeezed through somehow, popping out into the docking area with a yell.

  “Ambush!”

  Weapon in hand, Jela spun, taking his attention off the number of armed people between him and Dancer’s ramp.

  Behind her, she heard the door work.

  “I’ll hold ‘em!” she yelled at Jela, snatching one of her hideaways out of its pocket and thumbing the charge. “Get to the ship!”

  The last thing she saw before her own problems overtook her was Jela charging the half-formed line of attackers.

  Something hissed past Cantra’s ear and she spun, gun rising—and sent a dart into the attacker’s shoulder. Bad shooting: She’d been aiming for the throat.

  His fellows raced past him and Cantra fired again, missing all available targets, as near as she could tell.

  Another dart went by her ear, but the two leaders were on her now, and the gun was useless.

  She fell back, slipping the slim glass blade from its special pocket and dropped into a crouch.

  The first was over-confident—a kick and a thrust took care of her. The second was timid—a kick sufficed there, just in time for the arrival of the rest of the six, and it was a brawl then, with knives and knucklebones, and a nasty something that filled the air with crackling waves of force.

  The owner of that particular toy tended to stay well back, not wanting to catch her mates in the field. Cantra had a singed sleeve out of her near encounter with an energy-wave, and didn’t want to risk another.

  The others were keeping her busy, and it was starting to look bad—then she saw an opening, slid in with the knife, and came out slashing, which took both out of the dance with one move, snapped off a shot in the direction of the energy-bearer, and spun.

  Between her and her ship were four prone bodies. Further on, there was Jela, visible through the transparent walls of the gangtube, wasting no time.

  Behind her, she heard a shout, and looked over her shoulder to see the door standing open and a dozen more combatants racing into the docking area.

  She got her legs moving and bolted for the—

  A wall of fire slammed into and through her.

  She screamed, scarcely hearing her own voice through the crackle of energy, and dropped to the stone floor, rolling. Her ‘skins—her ‘skins were on fire, which wasn’t possible, and she was gagging on acrid smoke, rolling—and then not, as she was hauled to her feet by one arm.

  Karmin grinned, his grip on her arm lost in the other, larger pain, and hefted his knife, the point darting toward her face.

  She jerked back, stronger than he’d been expecting. She broke his hold, the knife notched her ear, and she fell heavily to the floor. She was baking, suffocating; she could feel her dermis crisping in the heat of her ‘skins’ destruction.

  Jela would have made the ship by now . . . she thought with absolute clarity.

  There was a gurgling sound, quite near at hand, followed by yells, shouts, curses, and a peculiar whistling. Cantra was kicked—and kicked again where she lay.

  The heat from her ‘skins seemed somewhat less—or her nerve endings were overloaded; she opened her eyes—and took in the sight of Pilot Jela, three down and bleeding, and himself wielding something that to her dazed sight seemed to be a long ceramic whip.

  As she watched, Karmin leapt back from the hiss of the whip, then feinted in, knife flashing—

  The whip snapped; the knife and a finger fell away.

  Karmin shrieked and whirled aside, the remainder of those still standing following. Jela let them go, and dropped to one knee beside her.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  “ . . . not sure . . .” she managed in a voice ravaged by smoke.

  “Right.” he said. “I’m going to carry you. It’s probably going to hurt.”

  It did.

  She passed out.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rockhaven

  Departure

  CANTRA HAD LOST consciousness, and that was good, since the best he could do for her was a rough-and-ready shoulder-carry.

  The Batcher recon squad was off the field, which was good as far as it went, and he was willing to bet it went less far than he’d like.

  They were in; the hatch was down and sealed against trouble—and that was very good, though an immediate lift was in order.

  Which was a problem, given the pilot’s state and the fact that the board had been closed—and likely gimmicked and he had no idea what she’d done.

  Well, he’d figure it out or he wouldn’t. First order of business was his pilot’s health. He didn’t want to think too closely about the damage she’d likely taken. The energy generated from the shorted circuitry and support systems would, he hoped, have mostly discharged outward, and the fact that she was still breathing was an indicator that her injuries weren’t too serious.

  He hoped.

 
The hatch to the piloting tower stood open, the tower itself on dims. The board was showing a sprinkling of orange stand-bys. The tree sat snug in its corner, leaves still.

  Jela received an impression of wariness as he swept past on his way to the cubby and the sheriekas regeneration unit.

  His boot broke the beam, the door slid back, releasing an eddy of cooler air. Cantra over his shoulder, he sank to one knee by the side of the chill black box, and triggered the release.

  The hatch rose silently to reveal the unsettling green-lit interior. Jela got Cantra down on the pallet as gently as he could, straightened her, and got to his feet as the hatch began to descend—

  Stopped. And reversed itself. The interior green light shifted to an even more unsavory violet, and it didn’t take a Generalist to parse the fact that the unit found the offering not up to spec.

  Horrified, he bent forward, fingers on her throat. If she’d died . . .

  The pulse under his fingers was sluggish, her breathing shallow and raspy—but she was alive.

  “Object to pilot ‘skins, do you?” he muttered, but it made sense. The blasted remains of the internal systems might still interfere with whatever process the regenerator used to effect its healings.

  There wasn’t much room to work, and he had a bad moment when it looked like the magseals had fused, but he managed to get the ‘skins off her. She moaned once or twice during the process, but mercifully didn’t float back to the here-and-now.

  He worked fast—if she went into shock, he’d lose her quick—and tried not to think about the damage he was doing. Not all the energy had dissipated outward. Not nearly all. Tears rose, and he blinked them back.

  “You’ve seen worse,” he told himself, shakily, and kept working.

  Behind his eyes—an image: A halfling dragon stretched along a bed of dry leaves, its long neck at too sharp an angle, one wing twisted and vane-broken, the wide eyes dull.

  “No,” he said, out loud, and the image faded.

  It was done. He threw the blasted ‘skins to the deck and knelt there, unable to look away from the ruin of his pilot until the hatch came down and locked her away from him.