Pawn

by Timothy Zahn

  There was indeed another set of train tracks hidden beneath them. They were buried a little deeper in leaves and grass than the first set, which made them a bit harder to follow but also lowered the risk of banging her knee on one or the other rail as she crawled along them. It was, she decided, a fair enough trade-off.

  She passed two splits in the tracks along the way, one set heading back toward the Micawnwi hive, the other angling in the direction of the stone building. Each time, she made sure to pick the branch heading closest to the exit.

  A few minutes later she reached the end of the rails and the bushes, and found herself no more than twenty yards from the door.

  For a minute she crouched beneath the last bush, testing the tenderness of her ankle and wondering if the joint was up to a mad dash across the mostly open ground between her and safety. It was also entirely possible that the emissary had returned and was watching from cover, either alone or having brought a few Cluufes along to keep him company.

  Whatever the situation, there was nothing to be gained by waiting. She pulled out her inhaler and tucked it into her palm where it would be ready. Then, taking a deep breath, she lurched to her feet. A burst of fresh pain shot up her leg as she put her weight on it, but the ankle held. Hobbling as quickly as she could, she made for the door.

  There were no shouts of anger or triumph. Even better, there were no arrows or thrown halberds. She reached the door, throwing one hand up against the metal to brace herself and taking a good jolt from the inhaler with the other.

  Exit the arena with the code three-four-nine-two-seven-six-one.

  So he had changed it. Clenching her teeth, hoping the Fyrantha hadn’t screwed this one up, she punched in the numbers.

  And with the most gratifying sound she’d heard that day, the lock snicked open. Gasping out an unexpected sob of relief, she threw her full weight against the door.

  Ten seconds later, she was back on her side of the ship, with the arena door once again closed behind her.

  For a minute she leaned against the metal, shaking with reaction. Only now did it suddenly occur to her that if the Masters were smart they would have planted someone outside each of the arena’s doors where they could capture her with ease.

  But the hallway was deserted. Either her break for freedom had been faster than they’d expected, or else the Masters weren’t very bright.

  Either way, luck like this never hung around for long. She cleaned herself off as best she could—luckily, the dirt along the tracks had been dry, and it and the bits of leaves and grass were easy to brush off—and started limping down the hallway. Time to find Carp and the work crew.

  And to come up with a good story as to where she’d been all morning and how she’d turned herself into a walking basket case.

  There was a slim chance that they hadn’t actually missed her, in which case all she would need to explain was her ankle. Or, if she was really lucky, hide the fact that anything at all had happened.

  She reached the first cross-corridor and looked down it. No one. She continued to the next, trying to work out the best way back to their current work sites. The next corridor, she decided, and then the first right-hand turn off of that one.

  She reached the corridor and turned into it, wincing with each step. No way she was going to hide this, she realized now. She’d better come up with a good story, and fast. She reached her next turn and started around the corner.

  “Nicole!” a voice snapped from behind her.

  She jerked and spun around toward the shout. Or rather, she tried to turn. Midway through it her bad ankle collapsed beneath her, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Through the sudden haze of fresh pain she saw Levi running up—“I found her!” he called, his booming voice hammering into her ears. “Carp?”

  He dropped to his knees beside her, curving his arm around behind her shoulders to support her. “You all right?” he asked, his face taut as he looked her up and down. “My God, girl. What did you do to your head?”

  “I was…” Nicole trailed off, letting her eyes drift away from him and putting some confusion on her face. With her attention focused on Hunter and the Cluufes, not to mention her twisted ankle, she’d completely forgotten about the double bump she’d taken to her head.

  And that bump might be exactly what she needed to get out of this. Sometimes, if you could pull it off, the best story was no story at all. “I was heading to the hive, to the doctor,” she said slowly, looking around the corridor as if seeing it for the first time. “Then…” She trailed off again.

  There was the sound of running footsteps, and suddenly Carp and Jeff were towering over Levi, gazing down at her. Carp looked angry, his irritation visibly changing to concern as he spotted the knot on her forehead. Jeff just looked worried. “There you are,” Carp growled. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been looking all over the damn ship for you.”

  “I was…” Nicole started to point toward one of the doors lining the corridor, then paused and looked back and forth. “I don’t know,” she said. “It was … it was a room. I’m sure it was a room.”

  “Damn,” Carp said under his breath. “It can’t be this soon. It’s never this soon.”

  “Everyone’s different,” Levi said, his face and voice grim. “But she might pull out of it. Kuri did—remember?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Carp’s nose wrinkled. “We need to get her to the doctor. And make sure she gets there this time.”

  “I’ll take her,” Jeff volunteered, stepping to Nicole’s side and crouching down. “Can you walk, Nicole? I can carry you if you can’t.”

  “No, I can walk,” Nicole assured him. “I—Ow!” She broke off, peering down her leg. “What happened to my ankle?”

  “Feels swollen,” Jeff said, touching her bad ankle carefully. “Maybe you twisted it and fell and hit your head. Maybe it’s not—”

  “That’s for the doc to figure out,” Carp cut him off. “You need any help?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jeff said, helping Nicole to her feet and slipping his arm around her waist. “Lean on me. As much as you want.”

  Nicole tried it. He was stronger than she’d realized. She leaned a little more, grateful to get her weight off that ankle. “Is this too much?” she asked.

  “No, it’s fine,” Jeff assured her. “We’re okay, Carp. I’ve got it.”

  “Then get out of here,” Carp ordered. “Hold it—wait a second.”

  Maneuvering around Jeff’s arm, he slipped Nicole’s vest off her shoulders. “It’s past lunchtime,” he said, checking that the food bars and water bottles were still secure in their pockets. “Okay, get going. And let me know what the doc says.”

  eleven

  Nicole had hoped that Allyce would be on duty at the med center. Unfortunately, Sam turned out to be the doctor on call.

  And the doctor wasn’t happy with her at all.

  “Tripped and hit your head, like hell,” he bit out as he carefully wrapped Nicole’s ankle. “You went back into the arena, didn’t you?”

  Nicole threw a quick look at the door. But Jeff was already on his way back to the work site, and there was no reason for anyone else to be in this part of the hive right now. “You said Bungie had disappeared,” she reminded him in a low voice, squeezing the edge of the table as a jolt of pain shot through her ankle. She was not going to gasp or cry or make any other sign of distress. Not in front of him. “I thought he might have gone inside.”

  “Had he?”

  “Not that I ever found,” Nicole admitted. “But it’s a big place. He might have gone into hiding somewhere. It’s possible he fell asleep and didn’t hear what was happening.”

  Sam grunted. “What was happening, I gather, was you getting yourself beaten to a pulp. I hope you learned your lesson.”

  “What lesson is that?” Nicole countered. “That the next time I go in I should be better prepared?”

  “That there’d better not be a next time,” Sam shot back. “Whatever�
��s going on in there is none of your business. Or mine, or anyone else’s. Got it?”

  Nicole looked away from him, glowering into a corner. He was right, of course. Whatever the Masters or Shipmasters or whoever were doing with the Micawnwi and Cluufes, it wasn’t her job to get involved.

  Especially since, judging from today’s performance, it wasn’t a job she was very good at. She’d do well to take a deep breath and just forget the whole thing.

  Only she couldn’t.

  Mispacch and her children were starving. Amrew and his fellow dominants didn’t seem to have a clue about how to get more food for them. Hunter and the Cluufes, in contrast, seemed calm and professional. They also seemed perfectly happy to let every last Micawnwi starve as long as they had plenty for themselves.

  And on top of that, the Fyrantha had sent her in there. Practically ordered her to go, in fact. Nicole still had no idea why, but it had.

  “What about Bungie?” she asked.

  “What about him?” Sam countered. “Come on, he’s fine. His injuries weren’t life-threatening, and I patched them up properly. Wherever he is, he’ll come back when he gets hungry or bored.”

  Nicole didn’t answer. Especially since he was probably right.

  Sam finished his work in silence, sealing her ankle inside something he called a pressure-retention cast, cleaning and dressing her two head injuries, then treating the abrasions, bruises, and scratches on her palms and knees where she’d crawled over the rails and through the undergrowth.

  She could tell he was particularly intrigued by that last set of injuries, especially the tiny cuts she’d picked up from the dead leaves. But he didn’t ask how she’d gotten them, and she wasn’t in the mood to volunteer explanations.

  Because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the images of Mispacch’s children out of her brain.

  It was maddening. She didn’t want those faces in her mind, staring up at her with hope or desperation or whatever the hell emotions their alien minds had been generating. Sam was right: what was happening to them wasn’t her problem.

  Not only was it exasperating, it was also mystifying. She’d seen plenty of hopeless children on the streets of Philadelphia, and she hadn’t lifted a finger to do anything for them. Why was she suddenly feeling pity for these kids who weren’t even her same species? Because their mother had graciously not squashed Nicole like a bug when she’d had the chance? Because they’d said please so nicely?

  Or was it because there might actually be something she could do to help them?

  “Finished.”

  With a start, Nicole dragged her thoughts back from her broodings. Sam had finished with her hands and was collecting his equipment together. “You’ll want to use those for the rest of the day,” he went on, nodding toward a pair of crutches resting against the other side of the table. Nicole frowned—she hadn’t even noticed him getting them out of storage. “But you shouldn’t need them after tonight. It’s only a strain, should be fully healed in a day or so.”

  “Thanks.” Nicole got a grip on the crutches and hauled them over to her side. They were much lighter than she’d expected. Certainly lighter than the weapons the Micawnwi had been trying so hard to figure out. “You said that thing Bungie brought back was a halberd, right?” she asked. “What do you know about them?”

  Sam gave her an odd look. “What do you mean, what do I know?”

  “Function,” Nicole said, silently cursing herself. Why was she even bringing this up? “How do you fight with them?”

  Sam snorted. “How should I know? Do I look like a Renaissance Fair weirdo?”

  There were a dozen possible ways to respond to a question like that. Nicole resisted all of them. “I just thought that since you knew what they were you might know how to use them,” she said instead.

  “I know what they are because my brother had a book on weapons and armor when we were growing up,” Sam said. “He liked the thought of breaking things. I liked the thought of fixing things. End of story. Now, stop talking nonsense and hobble back to your room.”

  “I’d rather go see how the team is doing,” Nicole said stiffly. He could at least try to be cooperative.

  “Then hobble back to your team, I don’t care,” he said, turning his back on her as he returned the unused bandages to their drawers. “Go anywhere you want. Just go.”

  A dozen retorts flashed into Nicole’s mind. Again, she choked them back. Setting the crutches under her arms, she swung her awkward way across the room and out into the hall.

  And nearly ran straight into Jeff. “Whoa!” he warned, catching her shoulders in a steadying grip. “Easy, there.”

  “Sorry,” Nicole apologized, taking a moment to get her balance back. “What are you doing here? I thought you were back with Carp.”

  “I was.” He let go of her shoulders and pulled a food bar and bottle of water from his vest pockets. “I just realized you never got any lunch. Thought you might be hungry.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks.” Nicole shifted her grip and her crutches and reached out a hand.

  “That’s okay—I can carry them,” Jeff said. “And no, you’re not going back to the work site. We’ve got enough to do for today, and you need to get off that ankle. Your room. Now.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Nicole murmured, starting up her awkward walk again. “How long were you standing there listening to us?”

  “Not long,” Jeff assured her. “Sam can be touchy sometimes, and I didn’t want to interrupt. So what’s this about halberds?”

  Nicole felt her breath catch. He’d heard that part too? “What?” she asked.

  “I heard you and Sam talking about halberds,” Jeff said. “That’s a medieval weapon that combines a spear and an axe, right?”

  “Right,” Nicole said cautiously. “You know about them?”

  “A little.” He grinned suddenly. “I was one of those Ren Fair weirdos Sam mentioned. Or my girlfriend at the time was. She liked the pretty dress-up stuff. I was mostly interested in seeing how the combat lined up with my martial arts training. And the open-fire barbecues, too. Those were really good.”

  “You did martial arts?” Nicole asked, frowning. He’d never mentioned anything like that before. “You mean like karate and stuff?”

  “Not karate per se,” he said. “It was an Okinawan system that taught both unarmed combat and the use of weapons—bo staffs, sais, and a few others. The weapons part was what I was mostly interested in.”

  “And you used halberds?” Nicole asked, trying to sort through the unrecognizable words.

  “Oh, no, our stuff was a lot different,” he said. “But some of the staff forms could probably be adapted to halberds. A lot of the moves are more for sweeping and deflection, though there’s also stabbing involved.” He waved a hand. “Plato doesn’t like us talking about this stuff, by the way, so don’t tell him.”

  “Not a word,” Nicole promised, chewing at her lip. She had no idea whether the Cluufes or the Micawnwi were better fighters. But throwing a few new moves into the Micawnwi side of the mix might be exactly what Amrew and his crew needed.

  Of course, the best solution would be to get the food dispenser fixed. But there was no guarantee Nicole would be able to get back there without getting caught, or that the Masters wouldn’t unfix anything she did.

  In fact, she might not even be able to get to the door on that side of the arena anymore. Depending on how mad the Masters’ emissary had been at her disappearance, she might find that door blocked by a bunch of very hostile Micawnwi.

  Offering to teach them some new fighting moves might buy her way to the door. And even if she couldn’t fix the dispenser, those new moves might let them push the Cluufes back long enough to get the extra food the children needed.

  Neither of those options struck her as all that good. But if she could get one of them to work, the Micawnwi would at least have gained a little time. “Do you think you could show me some of the techniques?” she asked.
/>   “You have a spare bo staff lying around?” Jeff asked dryly.

  “No,” Nicole admitted, wondering briefly what he would say if she told him that there was a spare halberd lying around the Fyrantha. “How about one of these crutches?”

  “They’re pretty short,” Jeff said, eyeing the crutches dubiously. “But I guess I could at least show you the principles. Not out here, though—if Plato caught us there’d be hell to pay.”

  “Well, I’ve been sent to my room anyway,” Nicole pointed out. “Not a lot of space in there, but we could try.” She frowned. “Only you’re supposed to go back to work, aren’t you?”

  “Eventually,” he said. “But not until Levi misses me. I can certainly spare you a couple of minutes.”

  He was as good as his word, a rare quality among Nicole’s usual circle of acquaintances. He got her settled on her bed, comfortably propped up against all of her pillows, then spent five minutes showing her a couple of routines he called katas before excusing himself and heading back to rejoin the crew.

  But those five minutes were enough. The dizzying display of spins, jabs, and sweeps clearly showed that there was a lot more that could be done with sticks than just spearing and axing. If she could teach the Micawnwi some of those moves, they might be able to counter the Cluufes’ extra speed and agility.

  If she could teach the tricks. And if she could first learn them herself.

  She spent a few minutes after Jeff’s departure trying to do just that. But it was quickly clear that the maneuvers were harder to do than they were to watch.

  But that was all right. Once the workday was over, she would get Jeff to teach her the most useful of the techniques. Then, in a day or so when her ankle was healed, she would go back into the arena and give the same lessons to Amrew and the other Micawnwi men.

  If she could do that, or figure out how to fix the feeder—or both—she’d have done everything she could. Maybe then she’d finally be able to get Mispacch’s kids’ faces out of her mind.