The Last Hawk

by Catherine Asaro

  "You'd better." Deha turned to Dabbiv. "And you. Insisting we stop his medication. No wonder he escaped."

  "The drugs were poisoning him," Dabbiv said.

  "If he was in such terrible shape, how did he manage this phenomenal escape? I want him back on sedation the instant he's found."

  "Deha, no." Dabbiv pulled his hands out of his pockets. "There's no telling what cumulative effect the drugs will have on him."

  She forced out the words. "That may be. But we have no choice."

  "My calling is to heal. Not harm." He took a breath. "I'd rather you put me on a city crew than ask me to go against that."

  Deha pushed her hand through the tendrils that had escaped her braid. "Fine. You're no longer on his case. You're reassigned to the city." She glanced at Hacha. "I want reports from the search teams every hour."

  "You'll have them," Hacha said.

  "Very well. You may all go."

  As they left, Deha took a breath, trying to calm the pound of her heart and ease the pain behind her breastbone that radiated into her neck, jaw, and arms. She watched the departing guards bow to a woman who stood just inside the arched doorway.

  "Chankah," Deha said.

  Her successor closed the door. "Dabbiv told me you sent him to the city." She came over to the desk. "Deha, why? He does a good job here."

  "We—disagreed."

  "Do you really intend to dismiss him from the Estate?"

  "No. No, I don't." She exhaled. "Everything is a mess. If Kelric makes it to the port we're finished."

  "There's no way out of Dahl except by air. We'll catch him when he goes for a rider" Chankah paused. "When we do, we must put an end to all this."

  "Lady Death already stole Jaym from me. I won't give her Kelric too."

  "Whether Kelric dies or goes to prison, he will be gone." More gently Chankah said "From what I've seen, he's a good man But that doesn't change the danger he poses us."

  "So. " Deha crossed her arms. "You would lock him up in the Haka prison."

  "That's right."

  "And which Estates are strongest, Chankah?"

  "I don't see how that—"

  "Answer the question."

  "Karn and Varz are strongest."

  "Karn and Varz. The two Estates whose relations define the word antagonism And after them?"

  "Haka and Dahl."

  "Haka. Haka." Deha scowled. "You want me to hand a Quis genius to the most powerful ally of Varz? What other presents would you give Manager Haka?"

  "He'll be in her prison," Chankah said. "Not her Calanya."

  Deha lowered her arms. "A dice player as gifted as Kelric belongs in a Calanya."

  "I hope you're right," Chankah said. So do I, Deha thought.

  Hidden by a moonless night, Kelric leaned against a clump of boulders. Rocks littered a trail that wound down the mountain until it leveled out into cultivated fields far below. Beyond the fields, Dahl gleamed like a sculpture of spires. Lights on the aircontrol tower blinked in the night, beckoning—and unattainable. Too many guards were out searching: in the city, on the Estate, everywhere.

  Hunger gnawed at him. Although crops flourished below, eating them made him sick, as did drinking water from fountains in Dahl. His resources were almost gone. He still had the Jumbler that hung heavy at his hip, but to activate it required that he key his brain to a neural chip in the gun. Designed with his own DNA, the chip picked up waves sent by his KEB and filtered by his biomech web, making them more distinctive than fingerprints. It ensured that only he could fire the gun. But that vaunted safety feature had put him in a no—win situation; using his Kyle senses and biomech would further aggravate his injuries, but if he didn't do it now he might never have another chance.

  He sent a probe to the gun. .

  Contact—no, he lost it.

  On the second try, his probe clicked into synch With the weapon. A menu flashed in his mind:

  Fuel: abiton

  rest energy: 1.9 eV

  charge: 5.95X10^-25 C

  magnet: 0.0001 T

  max radius: 0.05 M

  The menu wavered, came into focus—and melted. Gritting his teeth against what felt like a mental version of ripping his tendons, he yanked his link to the gun back in place.

  Then he set out for Dahl.

  Deha leaned against a rail on the airfield, brooding in the morning sunlight. Hacha stood at her side, watching her guards patrol the hangars. Then she looked up into the mountains. "He can't stay out there forever," the captain said. "He has to come back in sometime."

  And then? Deha wondered. Kelric was a Windstorm they had trapped in a bottle. Cracks kept fracturing the glass, and every time she tried to repair one, two more appeared.

  Balv came out of the tower and walked over to them. "Llaach just reported in. She and Rev are still at the Calanya. Everything is quiet."

  Deha nodded, struck by the irony of having Rev guard her Calanya. In past ages, a dice player with his brilliance would have been in it. His Quis expertise was why she had chosen him for her escort. A Manager could learn much from what her bodyguards picked up in the Quis.

  Shouts came from across the field, as guards converged on a hangar, forming a semicircle. "That's it," Deha said. She took off, flanked by Hacha and Balv.

  At the semicircle, they made their way to the front. Ten paces away, Kelric stood backed up against the hangar with his weapon drawn.

  Hacha stepped forward. "Be reasonable, Kelric. We know your gun doesn't work."

  "It works," he said. "It shoots abitons. Antimatter particle of the biton. And guess what, Captain. Every electron in your body contains hundreds of thousands of bitons. I shoot, you get annihilated."

  Deha glanced at Balv. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

  "I've no idea," Balv said.

  Hacha took another step—and Kelric raised his gun.

  The Dahl guards fired in unison, and though Kelric lunged to the side, many of the shots hit him. Yet it had no discernible effect. Holding his gun in both hands, with his feet planted wide, he fired across the ground separating him from the octets. Orange sparkles lit the air in a narrow beam—and where the beam hit tarmac, the ground exploded in a flash of orange light. Rocks and dust flew into the air. In a second, a chasm stretched the length of the field, with debris crumbling from its edges in miniature avalanches.

  "Winds above," Balv muttered.

  Deha swallowed. Apparently his gun worked much better than they had thought.

  Kelric looked at her. "Order the guards inside the hangar to come out."

  "There aren't any," Deha said.

  He aimed into the building. "You have two seconds. Then I shoot." .

  "Wait." Deha raised her voice. "Unit three, come out of the hangar."

  Three guards walked out.

  "All of them," Kelric said.

  "That is all of them."

  "There are five more."

  "No one else is in there," Deha said.

  Kelric brought his thumb down on the firing stud.

  "No!" Deha raised her voice again. "Unit five out."

  Five more guards appeared. After the octet backed away from the hangar, Kelric motioned at Balv. "Send him over here."

  "There's no way you can leave Dahl," Deha said.

  "Send him here," Kelric said.

  "No."

  Kelric didn't argue, he just fired at a nearby hangar. His target exploded in a blast of orange light.

  Deha swore under her breath. Watching her, Balv said, "I better do what he wants, before he starts shooting at people."

  "We have to stop him, Balv. No matter what it takes. If you're in the rider when we catch it—" Deha left the rest unsaid.

  "I understand."

  "All right. Go." Softly she added, "Wind's luck to you."

  He touched her arm. Then he headed for the edge of the field, where the chasm narrowed enough for him to cross.

  Deha turned to Hacha. "Have the guards block their takeoff. And ge
t the other riders ready to go."

  "I have crews standing by."

  "And Captain. If you can't recapture him—" Deha forced out the words, hearing them as if another person spoke. "Force his rider into a crash."

  Kelric loomed above Balv in the hatch. "Put your stunner on the tarmac."

  Balv set down the weapon.

  "Now climb in here," Kelric said. .

  Balv climbed, acutely aware of the gun Kelric kept trained on him. Inside, the cabin seemed cramped. Dwarfed by Kelric's size.

  Kelric motioned him toward the pilot and copilot's seats in the front. "You fly."

  As Balv sat in the pilot's chair, he looked through the windshield and saw guards running along the fissure. By the time he finished his preflight checks several octets were massed outside the hangar. When he started the engines a line of people solidified in front of the rider.

  Kelric was standing by the seat, his gun poised near Balv's head "Go."

  "I can't. I'll run over the guards."

  In response, Kelric yanked on the throttle. The rider jumped into motion.

  "No!" As Balv grabbed the wheel, people scattered in all directions. Mercifully, he regained control of the craft before it hit anyone. As the area cleared, he taxied out of the hangar and accelerated alongside the chasm. Kelric sat down in the copilot's chair, still with his gun trained on Balv. Within moments, they had lifted off the tarmac and were sailing into the gales of the Teotec Mountains.

  Static burst from the radio. "This is the Dahl Sunrider. Come in, Skytreader."

  "Don't answer," Kelric said.

  Below them, the mountains unrolled in a jagged panorama. In his side mirror, Balv saw a flock of craft rising from the airfield. They looked like specks against the cliffs towering over Dahl.

  "Skytreader." Hacha's voice crackled on the com. "Land now or we'll force you out of the air."

  "Outrun them," Kelric said.

  "I can't," Balv said. A fist of wind grabbed Skytreader and tossed it upward like a child playing with a dice cube. "This is crazy. We have to land."

  Kelric touched his gun to Balv's temple. "We're going to the starport you all claim doesn't exist."

  "You can't shoot that thing in here. You'll destroy the rider."

  "No. Just you."

  "I won't fly." Balv swallowed, wondering if he were about to die.

  For a moment there was silence. Then Kelric said, "Get up."

  Balv stared at him. "What?"

  Kelric flipped over his gun and held it like a club. "Get up."

  "You'll kill us both."

  "You have five seconds. Then you goto sleep."

  It only took Balv an instant to imagine lying unconscious in a craft flown by someone who had never handled a rider, let alone battled the winds of the Teotecs. Then he slid out of the pilot's seat. As Kelric took his place, the rider lurched like a drunk gambler.

  "Let me take us down." Balv motioned to a cluster of cloud-wreathed crags below. "I know places we can land."

  "The only place I'm going is home."

  "We can't make it." As Balv slid into the copilot's seat, he looked back through a window. Painted eyes and wings showed on the pursuing riders. "You know they'll catch us."

  Kelric made a fast scan of the controls. Then, with no warning, he pulled Skytreader into a nearly vertical climb. Pressure built in Balv's ears and he had to, yell to be heard over the straining engines. "You're going too high!"

  Kelric ignored him, taking the rider up in a dizzying half loop, the horizon careening past the windshield as the craft turned upside down. Just when Balv began to fear altitude would finish them as surely as a crash in the Teotecs, Kelric rolled the rider right side up and angled into a descent. Headed the opposite way from their previous direction. Skytreader streaked into the upper ranges of the Teotecs leaving their pursuers far behind.

  They landed high in the mountains, in a pocket of rock fenced by crags and icy patches of snow Balv stared through the windshield at a finger of basalt thrusting into a cobalt sky. "I thought we were going to the port"

  Kelric cut the engines. "So did Hacha. Once she gets turned around. she won't have any idea where to find us."

  It almost made sense; locating a craft up here was virtually impossible unless the pilot wanted to be found. But Kelric had missed one "minor" fact—the starport was in the desert.

  "You're going to fly me there," Kelric said. "When it gets dark."

  "Fly you where?"

  "To the starport." .

  A chill ran down Balv's back. How did Kelric always know what he was thinking? "And ifl refuse?"

  "You won't."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you want to live."

  Balv had no answer for that.

  Kelric loosened the collar of his shin. "Does this craft carry oxygen?"

  "Oxygen?"

  "Air."

  Balv knew a weapon might be stored in the cabin locker. He stood up. "I'll check in back."

  Kelric raised his gun. "Sit down."

  Balv sat.

  "No pilot stores emergency air out of reach." Kelric's voice rasped. "The air. Now."

  Balv heard the edge of desperation in his voice, recognized the danger in it. "The panel is above your head."

  Kelric ran his fingers along the hull until he found the catch. When he clicked the panel open, a mask dropped out. Hanging by a hose. He clamped it over his face and drew in huge lungfuls of air.

  When Kelric finally lowered the mask, his tension had visibly eased. He spoke in a calmer voice. "The air is so thin up here."

  "Thin?" Balv had never heard of thin or fat air.

  "The concentration of oxygen is low for me."

  "Air is an element. Its composition can't vary."

  "It's a mixture of elements, Balv. Oxygen and nitrogen, with traces of other gases."

  Balv had no intention of arguing. "All right."

  "I don't get it." Kelric's voice was growing hoarser "Your science is only in the rudimentary stages, yet you people can build machines as sophisticated as these riders."

  "You sound terrible You need a doctor"

  "What I need is the starport."

  Balv had no response to that. So they sat silent, Kelric periodically breathing from the mask.

  After a while Balv said, "Can I ask you something?"

  "What?"

  "You are a soldier, yes?"

  "That's right."

  "Who do you fight?"

  "Eubian Traders."

  "Why?"

  "We have something they want."

  "Why not trade?" Balv wondered what lSC considered worth more than the lives lost to keep it Wealth? Power? What pushed them, that they ruled so much and still wanted more?

  "You think it's greed?" Kelric said. "If the Traders had found Coba before we did, your life would be a lot different now. I'll tell you what we have that they want. People."

  "People?"

  "They sell them. You want to be a slave? I'd rather die."

  That made Balv pause. It had never occurred to him that the lmperialate lived with its own nightmares. He chose his words carefully. "During our Old Age, the Estates were always at war. Managers made their captives into slaves. Calani were bought and sold like prized goods." He grimaced. "I am glad I live now and not then."

  "I had the impression there wasn't much warfare here."

  "Now yes. But in the Old Age, Managers were warriors. They nearly fought one another into extinction. Now we fight with Quis."

  Unexpectedly, Kelric smiled. "Political hostilities submerged into a dice game. That's quite an accomplishment." He glanced at Balv's wrist. "Is that your kasi band?"

  Balv looked down. He had pulled the gold out from under his cuff and was twisting it around his wrist. "Yes." He wondered if he would ever see his wife again.

  Kelric touched his own shirt where the outline of an armband showed under the cloth. "Why are yours on your wrists?"

  "It's not the same thing. The armba
nds mean you are a Calani." Balv stopped twisting his band. "Of course, nowadays some kasi refuse to wear these."

  "Why?"

  "In the Old Age a kasi was his wife's property. He wore wrist guards with her name engraved on them. Some men feel the bands are a remnant of those days."

  Kelric pushed back his cuff, uncovering his wrist guard with its engraving of the Dahl suntree hieroglyph. "Like this?"

  Balv shifted in his seat. "Well—yes."

  "I take it that means I'm Deha's property."

  "Yes." Balv felt the need to add more. "Many of us consider the Akasi Laws barbaric."

  "I won't argue with that," Kelric muttered. Sweat trickled down his neck.

  Balv wondered why Kelric was so hot. The cabin was cold and all Kelric wore were flimsy old clothes. He ought to be freezing. Balv peered at the skin above Kelric's wrist guard. "Can you roll up your sleeves?"

  "Why?"

  "I want to check something."

  Watching him warily, Kelric pushed up his sleeve—and revealed an inflamed rash of red dots all over his arm. "What the hell?" He looked at Balv. "What is that?"

  "Kevtar's disease, I think. Most of us get it as children."

  "I'm sick?"

  "It's not serious. You'll be fine by tonight." Balv winced. "I should apologize. You must have caught it from me."

  "You don't look sick."

  "I'm not. But Rev and I were at the Med House this morning visiting his children. All three of them have Kevtar's."

  Kelric grimaced "Thirty-four is a little old for me to catch a child's illness."

  "Thirty-four?" Balv stared at him. "You can't be that old."

  "Why not?"

  "The way you look—we all assumed you were younger."

  Kelric shrugged. "It's just biotech. And good genes."

  "Oh. Of course." That made no sense to Balv.

  "Little Kelric," he muttered. His voice sounded like sand scraping glass. "Baby of the Rhon. Youngest and biggest." He wiped sweat off his forehead. "Gods, I'm burning up."

  By evening Kelric's rash had spread until it covered his chest and neck. He paced across the cabin, shivering now, his voice even hoarser than before. "I thought you said I would feel fine by now."

  "You should," Balv said. "I've never seen Kevtar's affect anyone this way. We have to get you to a Med House." "Not a chance." Kelric shifted his Jumbler from hand to hand. "We're leaving for the port."