Only the Open

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “It might have saved her life,” the Harat-Shar added, low. “She’s so unresponsive that she’s gotten sold a half dozen times already. She only recently got added to our prison, and she’s been with Manufactory-East once. That’s why she’s ripped up. But he hasn’t had much time with her yet to really damage her.”

  “She’ll be responsive before the end,” the Tam-illee murmured. “We all are.”

  “Unless… we’re leaving?” the Harat-Shar looked at her.

  “We’re leaving,” Laniis said. “I promise.”

  Footsteps on the ramp caused them all to look toward it with the exception of the woman being examined by Andrea. The Steward, entering with two guards, considered the grouping, spotted Claudia. No mistaking the expression on his face: distaste, and worry. “Does she-the-alien require the Surgeon?”

  “No,” Andrea said.

  The Steward stared at her for several long moments and she met his green gaze unflinching. Slowly, Emlyn faced the Chatcaavan as well. Dominika folded her arms.

  “You-the-alien,” the Steward said at last to Andrea. “The Worldlord would like you-the-alien to check on the other alien in his apartment in the mornings. Come now.”

  “All right.” Andrea rose. “Laniis, maybe you and your friend can help settle these people in?”

  “Of course.”

  Andrea nodded and strode to the Steward. “Then I’m ready.”

  He eyed her cautiously, then said, “This way.”

  “God!” Emlyn said, brows lifted, after they’d gone. “No leash?”

  “Things, they are a-changing,” Dominika purred.

  “That’s usually my line.” The Hinichi shook himself, turned to the newcomers. “I guess we should start with names, since we’re going to be keeping company for a while. If we’re lucky—” He glanced at Laniis. “—all the way back home.”

  “But how is this possible!” the Tam-illee said, hushed.

  “God is kind,” Emlyn replied. He blew out a breath, ruffling his forelock. “But as He’s your witness, please don’t tell Andrea I said so.”

  The hunt went well. They spent their efforts on the runner herds, not just because Deputy-East liked the taste of them, but because he insisted it was the only way to give Lisinthir any real challenge. “You can bring down anything that attacks you. Running after things, though, you have to work at.”

  Which was true enough. He found himself missing his ugly old cob badly, though what the Chatcaava would have made of a riding beast was anyone’s guess. He’d never seen any sign that indicated they’d tamed anything like a horse… and why would they, when they could fly? It made him wonder if anyone had ever domesticated a flying animal, something large enough to pull… what, an air sled? A glider?

  Fascinating thoughts which he could ask of no one but the Emperor, whom he dared not wake. For reasons both medical and emotional.

  Leaving the game with the groundskeeper, they ambled back for a light meal—in everyone else’s case, for the roquelaure insisted he was dying and needed fuel immediately—and then to their respective suites for a nap or to catch up on work as each of them wished. Lisinthir wished a bath and was halfway through it when Deputy-East called from the suite’s main balcony, “Sword! Where are you?”

  “Soaking.” Lisinthir watched the other male stalk in from where he was barely maintaining his languid sprawl on one of the deepwater benches in the tub. Eating so much was exhausting and made him disinclined to move much afterwards; he had finally begun to act like the large predator Jahir had so often imagined him to be while touching him. “Deputy-East. What brings you here? Don’t you rest? Surely you drink, rhack, and hunt enough to exhaust a dozen normal males.”

  Deputy-East ignored the raillery and said, “He’s up to something.”

  “Manufactory-East? Of course he is.”

  “He’s up to something about you,” Deputy-East insisted, pacing. “He called and said he found something, something big. And that I should be ready for some real entertainment.” The male stopped, folding his arms and settling wings too stiff to fold properly. “What does he know? What are you hiding that he can use against you?”

  “Dying Air knows,” Lisinthir said casually. “And I am entirely certain what he cannot find, he will manufacture.” A faint smile. “Impossible to refute the fictitious, yes?”

  Deputy-East stared at him, wings sagging. “Can’t you take anything seriously? This is important, Sword! You’ve insulted him too many times and now he wants to kill you. Or break a few horns off you and make you live with half a head, like some kind of eunuch. Between the horns and the wing scar you’ll be the object of pity wherever you go. Who wants pity?”

  Lisinthir brushed some water with his fingertips. “Why, Deputy-East. I had no idea you cared.”

  “Cared! This is my life that’s crashing down around me!” Deputy-East strode to the bath’s lip and crouched over it. “Don’t you understand? If Manufactory-East decides to start acting like a rabid animal, he’ll have to be put down. And then I’ll be the next target, because if one Naval contractor’s a dangerous idiot, they all must be.”

  “Somehow I doubt the Worldlord will permit you to come to a bad end.”

  “Fine, so maybe he saves me,” Deputy-East growled. “Then what? I’m stuck with the scramble as everything rushes to fill the void in the hierarchy?”

  “Perhaps you’ll come up fortunate and the next Manufactory-East will be a true huntbrother, rather than a mad thing.”

  “And maybe the next Manufactory-East will be insane, like the current Emperor!” Deputy-East’s wings collapsed against his back and he hung his head, scrubbing at his face with a hand. “I’m sorry, Sword. Coming in here and just yelling at you... ughn. I know this isn’t your fault. It’s got nothing to do with you and everything to do with all these ships pouring in-system every day. There was no way this wasn’t going to come to a head with all the mess upstairs. But I didn’t want to live to see it.”

  “Nonsense,” Lisinthir said. “What you want is not to die before it’s done.”

  Deputy-East lifted his face, incredulous.

  “Come,” Lisinthir said, patting the water. “Strip and join me. You need to cultivate a little more equanimity, Deputy-East. Fluttering does not become you.”

  The other male managed a disbelieving laugh. “Does nothing fluster you?”

  “Oh… some things. Manufactory-East does not rise to that level of importance.”

  “I wish I were you, then.” But the other male plucked his tunic off and started on his footwear. “I can’t decide if you’re a bad influence or a good one.”

  “A dangerous one,” Lisinthir said. “I’m afraid if you throw in with me, huntbrother, you will have many, many uncomfortable moments ahead of you. Some mortifying. Some painful. But you’ll live to see the end of this, and if you are as loyal as you claim… you may even thrive.”

  Deputy-East grimaced. “I can’t say you’re not honest, at least.”

  “Many flaws I have,” Lisinthir said. “But I do aspire to candor in all my dealings. As much as is possible.” He grinned with teeth.

  The male huffed. “I hear a warning, and acknowledge.” He hissed. “Hot water is good after a long hunt.”

  “You stink like blood,” Lisinthir agreed. “With enough water, you will cease to frighten off any females.”

  “Blood is a sign of a mighty hunter…!”

  “And perhaps more ferocious females would appreciate your ripe and victorious bouquet,” Lisinthir said. “But the Worldlord likes his females sweet and giggly.”

  Deputy-East sighed. “Yes. Yes, he does.” And laughed. “Well, nothing wrong with that, really. Is there?”

  “Not at all.”

  Oddly, the Worldlord did not summon them for an afternoon meal, though the Steward informed them it was available. He and Deputy-East ate together and then dispersed to their own entertainments, only to return to the harem in the evening to sit amongst the Worldlord’s fema
les and discuss their host’s absence. When he did not join them, they bid one another good night. Laniis and the Knife awaited him in his quarters; their report on the arrival of Manufactory-East’s slaves and their status was difficult listening and offered no potential explanation for either mystery: Manufactory-East’s absence or the Worldlord’s.

  Lisinthir slept, waking only to feed the roquelaure, and returned to bed wondering when he could stop feeling as if his abdomen had become an empty hole that was never sated.

  In the morning, he arrived at breakfast to once again find Deputy-East and no one else. They were standing, exchanging puzzled looks, when the Worldlord arrived precipitously by dropping out of the sky onto the platform. “Apologies,” he said. “Sword. The alien medic says Gentle is dying. Will you come?”

  “Of course,” Lisinthir said, stunned. “Directly.” And headed for the tower while Deputy-East followed the Worldlord into the sky. He did not arrive much behind them, despite their having the more direct route; it was novel to be among the Chatcaava without being impaired by hekkret and alcohol addictions.

  Nothing visible had changed since he’d last been in the Worldlord’s bedchamber. Simone was still curled in her box, blankets frothed around her like the spill of the surf on the beach. But the smell... there was something sweet and wrong in the air, a powdery scent redolent of sickness. He hesitated at the door and then entered at a more decorous pace, coming to a halt alongside Deputy-East. The Worldlord was standing between them and the box, where Andrea was bent, murmuring softly to the ailing Karaka’An. Finally, Andrea sighed and pushed herself upright. Her shoulders were tight but she held her head up despite the glassiness in her eyes.

  “And?” Lisinthir asked, quiet.

  “It’s moved on to her organs,” Andrea said. “When Beritt’s goes untreated for long enough, it’ll go for the liver, the pancreas, the spleen. You need a real clinic if you want to save her now.”

  “How long?” Lisinthir asked, far too aware of the contradictory information in the corner of his vision. The Silhouette was here, but unreachable....

  “She has to go as soon as possible. Or you’ll have to dig her grave here.” Andrea looked at the Worldlord. “In your little prison garden.”

  The Worldlord flinched.

  “What’s this about?” Deputy-East asked him directly. “Huntbrother?”

  “The alien,” the Worldlord said. “Gentle. My...” He stopped, measured his breath, confessed, “My companion. She is dying.”

  Deputy-East looked from him to the Sword to Andrea and chuffed softly. No humor there. Resignation, perhaps. “And you have called the Sword here to take her away to the aliens to be saved.”

  “Can you?” the Worldlord asked him.

  “You would let me?”

  To that, the other male said nothing, but neither did he look away.

  “Then, we go. But this must end my visit.”

  “I assumed no less,” the Worldlord said. “But you will go in my debt.”

  Lisinthir managed a smile. “Perhaps if I was cannier, I would accept that binding, Worldlord. But in this case, in exchange for the gift of your slaves, I will call us even.” To Andrea, he said, “What do you need?”

  “Stretchers,” she said promptly. “Two of them, if we’re also bringing the Survivor. Possibly three if the new girl can’t be convinced to walk herself.”

  “The new girl?” Deputy-East repeated, puzzled, but the Worldlord was already instructing the guards.

  “Don’t ask,” Lisinthir advised Deputy-East. “What you don’t know, you can’t be blamed for.”

  “Sword...”

  “Don’t ask,” Lisinthir repeated.

  “On the ground floor,” the Worldlord said as he returned. “I’ll meet you there with Gentle.”

  Andrea began to object, but Lisinthir touched her arm, drew her away. “Let him,” he murmured. “Let him say farewell privately.”

  He returned to his suite—in haste—and swept it for anything that needed to leave with him... but the swords were the only possessions that mattered, the swords and perhaps the furs, and he knew a good use for those. Striding into the bedchamber, he found the Emperor somnolent. Lisinthir wrapped his naked body in the stalker pelts, tucking them close. Hopefully, the Emperor would remain unconscious for the duration of this phase of their operation. The success of their flight was uncertain, at best... without the Silhouette’s response to the roquelaure’s hails, he could only guess if there would be someone to pick them up before they were discovered. But this opportunity could not be wasted, particularly as it would bind the Worldlord to the Emperor’s cause, one way or the other: either through blackmail, or through the inexorable change in attitude brought about by the Worldlord’s release of his beloved Karaka’An from a situation he had come to regard as her prison. Lisinthir tenderly brushed a strand of hair away from the Emperor’s human face and then gathered the too-light body into his arms.

  The Emperor opened his eyes, and Lisinthir hesitated. To the question he sensed through their touch, he said, soft, “We are quitting this place.”

  “Safe?”

  “Not at all,” Lisinthir said, for he could not lie to those eyes, not even through misdirection. “But it is our best chance.”

  The Emperor’s eyes lost their focus a moment—thinking, Lisinthir hoped, rather than some artifact of the concussion. Then: “I can walk.”

  “You could,” he said, soft. “But let me do this for you.”

  Another pause. Then a slow sigh, and the Emperor rested his head back against Lisinthir’s chest. Within moments he had sunk back into that not-quite wakefulness that had become his sole refuge, and in that fugue Lisinthir sensed an alchemy occurring, one that stole his breath. Such a welter of emotions, deep anchors in dark waters, and yet they were forming a gestalt of such potential that he found himself recalling the Queen’s whispered words: …became Greatness, became Greatness.

  Maybe you were right, he said to her, hoping, somehow, she would hear. And it only lacked time.

  Down to the base of the tower, then. He found the Worldlord already present, crouched alongside the stretcher where Andrea was settling Simone. Not all the slaves were in attendance yet, though Laniis and the Knife had arrived. He set the Emperor in the second of the three stretchers and joined the two Seersa.

  “Are the rest of them coming?” he asked.

  “On their way up,” Laniis answered. “The new people need to be coaxed. They think this is a trick.”

  “Will they….”

  “They’ll come,” Laniis said. “Emlyn and Dominika have it in hand.”

  Entering through the door to the garden, Deputy-East scanned the hall until he found Lisinthir and jogged to him. “How are you planning to get all these people to the port, Sword?”

  “I hadn’t planned so far ahead, I’m afraid.”

  Deputy-East sighed gustily. “So naturally you’re going to prevail on me. Because you can’t ask the Worldlord to do it.”

  “I can’t?” Lisinthir asked, interested.

  “No, you idiot. It would be cruel. And you know it too.” Deputy-East folded his arms, glowering. “I’d blame you for all this, but he’s been doting on that creature since he got her. It’s unnatural.”

  “It’s entirely natural, as you well know,” Lisinthir said. “But I appreciate your need for circumspection.” He grinned. “So, am I prevailing upon you for transport to the port?”

  “Yes… yes, you are.”

  “Such a good huntbrother, Deputy-East.”

  “And you won’t forget it, I trust.”

  “No. Particularly if we stop at your manor for your slaves…?”

  Deputy-East threw up his hands. “Like a stalker on a bleeding hulk.”

  “Why, Deputy-East! Such flattery! I had no idea you thought of me thus.”

  The Chatcaavan elbowed him. “Stop that. Where are the rest of the… passengers, I guess I have to call them now. Where are the other passengers? The qui
cker we do this, the better.”

  “And what’s this? A party, and I was not informed.”

  They all looked toward the front entrance as Manufactory-East strolled in beneath its arch, flanked by four guards. Four obviously armed guards, with the energy weapons the Chatcaava dismissed for anything other than the work of cutting down thieves, or aliens. At the sight, Laniis and the Knife joined Lisinthir, hovering just behind and to the sides of him. It was the latter who rested a hand on his wrist and whispered, /He would not have brought such things if he had not planned to use them. Beware!/

  The Worldlord rose swiftly from the side of his Karaka’An and strode to the center of the hall, tail and wings stiff. “Manufactory-East. You are a guest and yet you bring insult on your vortices. Why are these guards in my house?”

  “To make an arrest, of course,” Manufactory-East said. “You see, I have had some fascinating news, and on receiving it, I did a little… investigation. You may ask me what that investigation has uncovered.”

  “Is this level of drama necessary?” Deputy-East said. “Just tell us, Manufactory-East.”

  “Not a huntbrother now, am I?” Manufactory-East said to him with poisonous sweetness. “How unsurprising, given you cleave to this stranger. But neither of you know him despite having done everything to ingratiate yourselves to him. Not like me. I… I know your secret, Sword.”

  “Do tell,” Lisinthir said.

  Manufactory-East paused, waiting for signs of fear. Lisinthir gave him back a blank face; just as Manufactory-East was beginning to lean in, scowling, he offered a condescending quirk of a brow. He’d seen this expression enough times on Chatcaavan faces to know the size of their eyes magnified their supercilious looks beautifully.

  With a hiss, Manufactory-East jerked back. Pointing at Lisinthir, he snarled, “This male is an Alliance spy!”

  A heartbeat. Another.

  Lisinthir drawled, “Is that all?”