The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  She dropped it in his palm. “It’s all yours.”

  His fingers closed over the tile and he sat with his eyes slitted for one heartbeat, two, three—

  He hissed, fingers flying wide. The tile fell to the deck of the cab.

  Cantra threw him a look, seeing true anger on his face.

  “Not impressed, I take it,” she said, and he pointed at the fallen tile.

  “Did you listen to what it was saying?”

  “Didn’t say anything to me,” she answered, “but I’d only had it a couple seconds and I was occupied with something else, besides.”

  “Try it,” he said.

  “If it’s got you this riled, I think I’ll pass. Whyn’t you just tell me about it?”

  He took a hard breath, and then another as their cab leaned sharply to one side, obviously taking a corner at speed. Cantra banged into Jela’s shoulder again, grabbed for the strap and pulled herself right.

  “It asked me to embrace the sacrament of suicide,” Jela said, stringently calm. “It told me to pause to remember those I love, to have compassion and include them in my death.”

  “Oh.” Cantra looked down at the decking, but the tile was out of sight, having doubtless slid away under the bench during the last hard turn.

  “Sheriekas-work, you’re thinking,” she didn’t-ask.

  “What else?” he answered, and turned his attention to the map, and the rapid green line that was the graphic of their journey across the city.

  He tapped the display with a broad forefinger and she bent to look.

  “We’ll be getting off in another couple turns—” A grin, though not up to his usual standards— “if we survive the trip. We’ll walk into the meet place from above, check it out before we go in, right?”

  Relieved that he was being sensible, she gave him a smile, though she had the feeling it wasn’t one of her better efforts, either.

  “Right.”

  So far, the timing was good. They were within a block of the meeting place—a shop called Business as Usual, which rented guaranteed secure meeting rooms by the local quarter-hour.

  His plan was to reconnoiter, then take up a position and watch the front door. He figured he’d be able to spot his contact well enough, and take a reading before committing.

  If it read bad, he had promised himself, or even a little over-risky, he’d back off, retreat to the ship and regroup.

  Having Cantra with him complicated things, but she was fully capable, as she’d demonstrated numerous times, now.

  Besides which, he was just glad to have her with him.

  A soldier, even a thorough rogue of a Generalist, was a pack creature, accustomed to having his comrades about him. It warmed him now to have a comrade at his back, with action maybe looming.

  The streets on this side of the city were thinner and less peopled, the buildings tending to monochrome-colored blocks, rather than the rounded pastels on the northeast side.

  Cantra was walking on his off-side, a long step behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her scanning the street, the buildings, the people.

  Fully capable woman, he thought again, and there was the worry again, because time was getting tight. If he didn’t make a good contact today, it might come down to leaving the tree and his mission, both, in the fully capable hands of a woman who had for so long cared only for herself and her ship that she might not be able to make the leap to a larger duty.

  Leave it alone, he told himself. Mission first. Worry later.

  “Coming up,” he said, pitching his voice so Cantra could hear him, but likely no others. “We want to take the right turn, go down ‘til the second right and take that. That’ll—”

  “Put us on the service alley,” she finished, with more of a laugh than a snap in her voice. “I did take a look at that map, like I said I would.”

  He glanced over and met her foggy green gaze.

  “I thought you weren’t worried,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Having a civilian in it worries old habits,” he said, surprising himself with the truth.

  “Let’s think of this as the pilot backing the co-pilot,” she answered. “That ease old habits, any?”

  “It does,” he said, keeping with the mostly truth. “It’s good to have a comrade at hand.”

  “Strangely easeful,” she allowed. “This our turn?”

  It was and they took it, passing out of full sunlight and into dense shade. Jela motioned and Cantra stretched those long legs to come up shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “If there’s any trouble—and I don’t expect it—what you want to do is get out of it and call for back-up,” he said and gave her as hard a look as he had in him.

  Her face showed bland and pleasant—not a good sign.

  “Cantra?”

  “My idea,” she husked, and her voice did fall sweet on a soldier’s ear, “was to stand as your back-up. That’s why I’m here.”

  “There’s a time when you’ve got to cut your losses, retreat and regroup,” he said, in the easy voice he’d used to coach countless newbies. “If it starts to look bad, remember that I’m built to take a lot of punishment with minimal damage, and get clear of it.”

  “I’ll do that,” Cantra said insincerely.

  He sighed—and gave it up as a lost battle.

  “Next turn upcoming,” she said, and shot him a grin. “Might have some trouble getting those shoulders in there.”

  The alley was thin, but not that thin. It was even dimmer than the shaded street, and crowded with all the unglamourous bits of business—trash compactors, delivery crates, wagons and storage sheds.

  Cantra slipped ‘round the corner, hugging the wall, and paused in the shadow of a recycling bin.

  Jela slid in beside her, arm touching arm.

  “Our target,” he murmured, scanning what he could see of the clutter, “is in the middle of the left side of this alley. Which,” he added as he felt her draw a slightly deeper breath, “I know you know. I’m just checking to see if our info agrees.”

  He heard the ghost of a chuckle.

  “It agrees.”

  “Good. I’ll go first. You cover me.”

  No argument there—which didn’t surprise him. As good as her word, Cantra yos’Phelium. She’d volunteered to be his back-up—back-up is what she’d be.

  So, he eased out from cover of the recycler and moved on down the alley, keeping to what cover was convenient, scanning the likely places and the unlikely ones, too, going soft-foot and unhurried.

  Which was how he managed to come on them unaware.

  Four of them—soldiers all—checking their weapons and settling into quiet positions, not deep concealment, from which he deduced that they were waiting for a sign from inside.

  He hesitated, weighing the odds and the need for info—and the fact that there was a fully capable civilian—a pilot!—giving him back-up, which tipped the balance to retreat.

  Soft and careful, he sank back into the shadows, turned, slipped around his cover—

  And ducked back as three more came walking down the alley toward him.

  JELA SLIPPED AROUND the edge of the equipment and disappeared into the general clutter.

  Cantra counted to twelve, then eased forward, gun in hand, sinking down onto a knee in a relatively dry bit of cermacrete. Cheek against the side of the recycler, she peered out—and bit off a curse.

  Three people, two of the taller new-style soldiers Jela was so impressed with and one probable natural human, some fair bit shorter than the others. The natural was wearing a uniform with enough shiny stuff on the sleeves to make Cantra blink. Women that important were hard to find.

  They were armed, but not at ready, and they were heading straight for Jela.

  “You wanted to do back-up,” she muttered to herself, and went after them, keeping tight against the side of a storage shed. Not that it mattered. From the way they walked, the three soldiers thought the
y owned this alley and everything in it.

  Swaggering, three abreast and looking neither to the right nor the left, they passed a tall stack of delivery crates.

  Which promptly fell on them. Cantra caught a glimpse of trade leather among the back shadows and grinned even as she dropped to her knees, gun up, sighting on the nearer of the two big soldiers, who’d managed to keep his feet, despite the crate wedged over his head.

  The other two were roaring and flailing on the alley floor—and suddenly the second big one was up, throwing a crate with forceful malice and going for his side arm.

  The one on the ground had used her eyes, though, worse luck.

  “That’s him! Take him out!”

  Cantra changed targets, and squeezed off a shot at the one with his pistol already out.

  She’d gone for a back shot—something to slow him down—and for a second she thought she’d missed entirely.

  Then the soldier slapped his right hand to his upper left arm, and spun, staggering as the crates shifted around his legs.

  “Gun at the rear!”

  Great.

  She got her feet under her, snapped off a shot at the second big guy and angled across the alley, keeping low.

  A plentitude of shots, now, more than she thought could be produced by three disoriented soldiers.

  The map she had memorized had the alley intersecting with another side street several hundred paces beyond the current action, so Jela had an out—may have already taken it, for all she could figure from the noise and the movement. Her immediate problem was the three soldiers, all on their feet now and just as irritable as they could be.

  “There!”

  The not-so-tall soldier flung forward, gun out, face grim.

  Cantra brought her weapon up and fired.

  The charge hit the leaping woman in the chest, knocked her off her feet and back into the tumble of crates.

  Cantra sprinted for cover—

  There was a roar behind her, she spun, dodged the big fist descending toward her head, tucked and dove for the floor between his feet, coming up behind him, facing the confusion of downed crates—and the other big soldier, who had his gun out now, and aimed at her.

  She fired at his face, missed, and threw herself backward into a somersault between the first soldier’s legs.

  Close by, there was a shot; she snapped to her feet, spun—

  The first soldier was down, his right leg under him at a bad angle and bleeding copiously. The soldier with the gun moved it, sighting beyond his downed comrade.

  Cantra took her time, sighted and fired.

  The charge took him in the throat. He fell noisily into the crates, his weapon discharging harmlessly into the air.

  Slowly, Cantra straightened. The alley was eerily quiet. Right, then. Jela had taken the back way out and—

  A shout, the voice too familiar, and the sound of more boxes falling with energy.

  Swearing, Cantra moved forward, picking her way across the downed crates with care.

  JELA’D GOT HIMSELF into a bit of a conundrum. He taken up position in a relatively clear spot in the alley, the sides formed by the privacy fence at his back, a storage shed to the right and a heavy-duty conveyer to the left. There was room to maneuver, but not much opportunity to bring firearms into play.

  One of the big soldiers was down already—an added hazard to footing already made risky by the tumble of crates. Three more soldiers were trying to get a grip on the man who kept moving, dodging, feinting, a knife in each hand.

  Cantra slid into the shadow of a lorry and considered the action.

  Watching, it came to her that the big soldiers were operating under a handicap. They seemed to be trying to capture, while Jela was basically pursuing kill-and-maim.

  Right.

  She brought her gun up, checked the charge, and considered her options.

  She’d about settled on the back of the guy nearest her position, when a shadow moved across her vision and she looked up, frowning . . .

  Atop the storage shed was another soldier, stretched long and secret across the flat roof, a rifle against his shoulder.

  So much for the capture idea. Jela’s playmates had just been keeping him busy until the rifleman got into position.

  It was a risky shot with a hand gun. Though even if she missed, her shot would serve as a warning.

  For whatever that was worth.

  At alley level, Jela’s three opponents suddenly let out simultaneous roars and rushed him.

  On the roof, the rifleman took his sighting.

  Cantra brought her gun up, acquired her target—fired.

  The secret shooter jerked, the rifle releasing its round into the blameless conveyer.

  In the alley, the fight was a confusion of movement and shape. She glimpsed Jela, dancing like a lunatic, one knife gone, the sleeve of his pretty trader’s shirt hanging in bloody ribbons.

  There was no possibility of a clear shot, and no doubt but that things were going bad for her co-pilot, built to take punishment or not.

  The time had come to take a more personal interest.

  Gun in one hand, knife in the other, howling, Cantra charged.

  A soldier looked up at her noisy approach, an expression of stark disbelief on his tattooed face, and a battle knife roughly as long as she was in his hand.

  Leaving Jela to his mates, he swung to face her, grinning.

  Fine.

  She stretched her legs, bent nearly double, aiming to get inside that long reach, where she could do some damage and his absurdly long blade would be a handicap.

  He grabbed for her, she dodged, saw the blade, flung an arm up.

  The gun deflected the thrust, and flew out of her hand. Her arm fell, numb, to her side, but she was inside now—inside his guard, and she jumped, using the momentum to drive the knife up between the rib—

  Her legs were in a vise; she was upside down, the knife lost, and she was spinning, her hair whipping across her eyes. She knew with utter clarity that in another frenzied heartbeat her brains would be running down the side of the shed—

  The spinning stopped.

  Her legs were released and she fell, remembering at the last instant to get her arms out and break the fall.

  She was panting. There was no other sound in the alley—wrong. A groan.

  She rolled to her feet, turned, saw her late opponent standing as if frozen, his eyes fixed on something . . . else.

  Across the alley, Jela’s two admirers were likewise frozen in mid-combat, and Jela himself was climbing warily, and none-too-steadily, to his feet.

  “Both of you!” snapped a high, feminine voice. “Come here! Quickly!”

  Slowly, Cantra turned, squinted—and there at the edge of the conveyer unit stood a lady in the grey robes of a philosopher, her red hair blazing in the murk like a torch.

  “Well.” That was Jela arriving at her side. He began a bow, bloody hand outstretched, staggered—Cantra grabbed his arm and yanked him upright.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said hoarsely to the lady.

  “You’re quite welcome,” she replied coolly. “Attend me, now. At the far end of this alley you will find a red-haired man holding a cab for you. Go with him. I’ll finish dealing here.”

  Cantra glanced at the three huge, frozen figures, thought about the dart gun in her inside pocket—

  “Do not kill them,” the lady snapped. “Just go!”

  “Go it is,” Jela said placatingly.

  He turned in the indicated direction, feet tangling, and Cantra got a supporting arm around him.

  “Take it easy,” she said.

  “No time,” he muttered. “I’ll be ready in a few—your board, Pilot.”

  She set a steady, if not precisely brisk, pace, half-holding Jela up—no small weight, that, despite his size. He kept the pace, though he seemed not exactly connected, which got her worrying about how much blood he’d already lost and what she’d do if he went down.

  Wo
rry and stagger aside, they made the end of the alley without disaster, and he seemed a little more alert by the time she pushed him up against a wall and had a long look out into the street.

  All clear on the straight, and on the right, to the left—

  Stood a slender man in formal black tunic and pants, one elegantly slippered foot braced on the floor of an open cab. He was holding a watch in his hand, and smiling at her.

  “I see that all proceeds according to plan,” he said merrily, and stepped away from the cab, sweeping a flawless bow of welcome. “Please. Your carriage awaits you, Pilots.”

  She glanced at her co-pilot, saw his eyes full open in a face paler than she liked.

  “Well?” she asked.

  He sighed and appeared to do some quick math.

  “Not well,” he growled after a heartbeat. “But I think we’d better take the kind ser’s offer.”

  “All right, then.” She eased back and he stood away from the wall, moving with something like his accustomed certainty.

  Good enough.

  She strolled out to the cab, and bowed to the red-haired man.

  “My co-pilot and I are grateful,” she murmured, and stood back to let Jela get in first, then went after him.

  Behind her, the door began to descend. The red-haired man ducked inside, slipping onto the half-bench facing them, his back to the forward screens.

  “Pilots,” he murmured, as the cab hurtled into motion. “I beg you acquit me of poor manners, if I am short of conversation this next while. I am called to aid my lady. There is a field kit under your seat.” He closed his eyes and settled his back against the opaque plas shielding.

  Cantra blinked and rummaged under the bench, locating the field kit and pulling it onto her lap.

  “Do you know who these people are?” she asked, as she sorted out dressings and lotions.

  “No,” Jela said tiredly, holding his arm out so she could get at the worst of the blood. “I don’t know who they are, but I know what they are.”

  “What’s that, then?” Cantra asked, breaking out an antiseptic swab.

  “They’re sheriekas.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  On Port Gimlins

  THE ARM WAS PATCHED as good as she could make it, which wasn’t near as good as it needed.