Through Fire (Darkship Book 4)

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Fortunately, he had no authority over me. No one did. First I had to get out of this room. Unfortunately, it seemed whatever was happening out there was definitely a revolt against the ruling classes. That meant that being known as the Patrician’s special friend told against me. I had to figure out how to make myself less remarkable-looking, less memorable, if I was going to move unremarked through Liberte seacity.

  In my mind, I had only the vaguest idea of what I could do once I got out of here. Rescue Simon, of course, both because I owed him for his hospitality and to pay him back for trying to protect me, as though I were helpless without him. Pay him back in more than one sense.

  I hated to admit that Alexis Brisbois had a point, though. When going against one enemy, force and intelligence sufficed. When going against a multitude, one must manage anonymity and surprise. And anonymity was going to be a problem.

  It’s not that I think I’m beautiful, or that I know I am. I do, both. And it’s not personal opinion. Like everything else about me, it’s a certainty—what I was designed to be. No choice or opinion involved.

  The men who created me had thought themselves if not gods, something very close. And though I’d been created to be the female version of one of them—built in a lab, protein by protein, gene by gene—they’d made me both beautiful and memorable. I looked as close as anyone living could look to the central figure of Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” My eyes were a little less innocent, I suppose, and I kept my hair long enough to hit the middle of my back, not falling in a red-blond mass almost to my knees, as the hair of the painted Venus did. But I did look like her. I knew.

  Simon had taken me to where the painting was kept, in a vault to which it had been moved after the destruction of Florence. I think he believed the resemblance would flatter me. Instead, it had made me shake my head at the folly of the man from whose genes I was created and his old friend who’d helped him to make me. I’d known his friend. He’d been a sort of an uncle to me growing up. Until I saw that painting, I’d never realized he was insane. Broken, divided, lost, yes, but not mad.

  So in that cheap hotel room, looking at my all too memorable reflection, I thought I must dye my hair brown. I must have said it aloud, because Alexis made a sound from the door. When I looked at him, I found him glaring back at me, over his shoulder. “You’re going about it all wrong,” he said. He looked disgusted or perhaps pitying. His face was hard to read.

  I lifted my eyebrows at him, in an enquiry I didn’t know how to phrase, then said, “But I can’t stay here,” I said. “You must understand, I wasn’t made to sit and watch. I was told—”

  He sighed. He sighed as though he were faced with all the stupidity of the world. He shook his head, shrugged. “I can’t convince you to be sensible, can I? At least allow me to represent to you that going out there, like this, with no idea of what you face and no more ability to move unnoticed in this world than a twenty-foot butterfly, is little less than suicide. If the whole seacity has decided to turn against the Good Man and anyone associated with him, you can’t fight them alone. If, on the other hand, it’s a small group causing all this, we can plan and overcome them.”

  I was about to argue but stopped. I wasn’t completely stupid. It was just his assumption of mastery that bothered me. But he was right.

  Alexis’s voice was low and raspy, and had just the edge of an accent. “Let me go and reconnoiter. I’ll bring you more clear intelligence, which you can use in your decision. You might still choose to risk yourself, but you’ll do it under advisement and that might fulfill what the Good Man meant by keeping you safe.” For some reason, unlike the edge of an accent that made Simon sound aristocratic and intriguing, it made Brisbois sound like a peasant, slow of thought. I realized the hands holding the burner were large and rough-looking, as if he tilled fields or built houses by hand in his spare time. “I doubt this entire riot is targeted at you specifically, but it doesn’t need to be particular to be fatal. And if you have to disguise yourself, dyeing your hair brown is all wrong.”

  I looked back at the glass, and spoke to his reflection in the glass.

  “What do you think is happening?” I said. I scanned his face for a hint of alarm, a look of…something that would give me an idea of what was likely to happen what the limits of possibility were. He was of Earth and more likely to understand better than I. I didn’t want a disaster to take me by surprise. Not again.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t like to say. I can’t be sure. I suspect, but…” He took a long, deep breath. “Only, in this situation, acting on a suspicion and being wrong might land us in worse trouble than we’re in already.”

  “Right,” I said. “But not acting can kill us too, no? We can’t hide here until they track us down!” He’d lowered his eyebrows over his dark eyes, as though in deep thought. “Look, people broke into the palace. Into the ballroom. They weren’t the troops of the Good Men.” I remembered people in everyday outfits, normal looking people. I remembered blood and fire. “They can’t be that powerful. We should be able to do something, to rescue Simon.”

  “No,” he said. “No. I’m almost sure they were…just people. And the people who fired at our flyer were the same. People from—People from here, people from Liberte. The transports never left the water, and I’m sure the Good Men aren’t behind this. But I’m not sure…” He made a sound of exasperation, as though his mind refused to formulate the words he needed in this situation. “I’m not sure who they’re hunting for, you understand? If it’s a list of names, I’m on that list or you are. Or are they just trying to kill a certain type of person? Or it might just be a spasm of rebellion against anyone perceived as wealthier or more powerful. I don’t know, and neither do you.”

  “Simon said to get me out of there, but he didn’t come with us. He thought I was in danger and he was not, clearly.”

  “No,” Alexis said. “I don’t think he thought he was in no danger. Don’t you know the Good Man would be gallant enough to rescue you while sacrificing himself? I do wonder what Good Man St. Cyr knew that—” He stopped. I didn’t say anything. Neither of us were sure of anything about Good Man St. Cyr, including being sure that he was still, at this moment, among the living. Remembering the invaders into his house and ballroom, the explosions, the destruction of what seemed like immutable order, I doubted it. On the other hand, I had the very strong impression that the ci-devant Good Man, by his own words Protector of the People, was not that easy to kill.

  A long silence fell. Alexis kept his ear against the door. After a while he sighed. “Do you trust me?”

  I wanted to say yes, but did I trust him? Define trust. I’d learned from the earliest age that I was different, and that trusting other people—even my adoptive parents—to know what was best for me could be bad. Very bad. I’d learned early on to make my own way, to forge my own path.

  I’d trusted one person in the world. Len, the pilot of my darkship. I’d married him too. And then I’d had to kill him, because the alternative was far worse.

  But here, on this strange world, with this strange man I’d been thrust upon, what was trust? Could I trust him as I’d trusted Len? No. Could I trust him to not try to overpower me and take me away from danger, as he’d been ordered to do?

  “You have orders,” I said. “From the Good Man. Would you lie to fulfill them?”

  Alexis laughed, a mirthless cackle. “Let me rephrase that,” he said. “Do you trust me to tell you the truth if I promise to do so?” He seemed to search my face. “Yes, I promised to protect you to the best of my ability, but the Good Man transferred my loyalty to you. That means I protect you, but tell you the truth and let you decide what course you take. I don’t think I could overpower you forever.”

  I thought of Simon ordering him to protect me. In the same way that I felt Simon would be very hard to kill, I had a strong feeling—belied by Simon’s effete, frivolous appearance—that the ci-devant Good Man would be a very bad person to c
ross; and that Alexis, being his servant, would know that at an instinctive, deep-set level. On the other hand, I suspected Simon was remarkably intolerant of the lower classes giving him their opinions, and he would have trained this man to know that. So why was Alexis talking of having transferred his loyalty and of telling me the truth? “Who are you?” I asked. “And don’t tell me Alexis Brisbois. Who are you? What are you to the Good Man St. Cyr?”

  “Head of his security force,” Alexis said. “If he’s still alive, and if not—” He stopped. “Do you trust me to scout for you and do my best to protect you in whatever course of action you choose to take? If I promise to report to you faithfully, to help you rescue Simon and anyone else we can if at all possible?” He nodded at me. “Come. Surely you don’t think I want everyone I worked with, my colleagues, my friends, my subordinates at the palace to die? If I hadn’t been ordered to get you out and protect you, I’d be up there fighting. If we can save anyone, I’ll accept your help. Do you trust me?”

  It took me a moment, and I confess the answer came more from gut instinct than from reasoned thought, but I said, firmly, “Yes.”

  He pushed the safety on his burner, handed it to me. “Then, trust me to disguise you. I can’t stand to be here and not be sure what’s happening out there, nor how much danger we’re in,” he said. “Or the danger everyone else is in. Nor what to do about it.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going out. You stay here. If anyone—anyone at all—knocks, ignore them. If anyone manages to open the door and it’s not me, shoot them. If…It might be better if they don’t capture you alive. If I don’t come back in…in two hours or so, you’re on your own. Try to make your way out, and Que Dieu—And try to be safe.”

  I appreciated his not spelling out that if the burner was almost out of juice and I was out-shot, I should off myself. It was clear enough from what he didn’t say, but he didn’t say it. I’d made that decision of “better dead than captured” for Len once. I might have been wrong. Could I make it for me?

  “When I come back, I shall knock this way,” he beat a distinctive rhythm on the sideboard by the bed. “Do you understand?”

  My eyes might not be as innocent as those of Botticelli’s Venus, but they clearly had a way of looking startled and not fully sure of anything much. I knew this because throughout my life people had asked me if I fully understood unpleasant things and tried to prevent me from fulfilling my duty.

  I nodded at Alexis, with a touch of impatience. “I understand,” I said. And I did. I might not understand the precise danger we stood in, but I understood that I was in danger.

  He looked dubious, as though something in my look failed to reassure him, but he put his ear to the door, then opened the door a crack and looked out.

  Turning back, he said, “I’ll try to be back. If I’m more than two hours, you’re on your own.”

  And he left.

  I stayed by the door, burner at the ready. The clock embedded into the wall above the mirror worked. Surprising, given the state of the rest of the lodgings. Looking at it, reminded me that time could pass much slower than any objective measurements showed.

  It lacked five minutes to two hours since Alexis had left, when the knock came. I’d been considering what to do on my own and had almost decided I’d leave and search for a derelict building that I could occupy and from which I could range out to figure out what I could do to prevent more chaos and death.

  Alexis knocked and I opened. He came in and tossed a bag onto the bed. “I got you hair dye. And an outfit. They’re in the bag,” he said, gesturing.

  “But I want to know what’s happening out there.”

  “I’ll tell you. We’re going to have to leave. It’s…madness. Chaos unleashed out there. We’ll have to get away. Clear away from Liberte. There’s revolutionary guards; there’s organized patrols. And then there are unorganized mobs, out for the blood of anyone who—of anyone connected with the administration.”

  “But Simon—” I said.

  “We can’t save him on our own,” Alexis said. “Not against this. We’ll need help. Remember I told you that you couldn’t fight a multitude all by yourself? You can’t. There’s mobs, but behind them there’s covert and implacable organization. I have some idea who is behind this, but no way to get at them on my own. They are seeking anyone connected to the Good Man, anyone who is—Anyone they can eliminate. The Good Man has friends outside the seacity. We must reach them and ask them for help.”

  “He could die while we do that!” I said.

  “Then he’d be dead already,” Alexis said. “But I don’t think he is. I think the chaos is just dressing on the real action. I think this is a planned revolution; I think there are people in charge, people who’ve been waiting for an opportunity, and they know that the Patrician is worth more alive than dead.”

  “More?”

  “As a hostage.” He sounded impatient.

  “A hostage to whom? The Good Men?”

  He shrugged. “Them, or anyone else. The Good Men don’t like their kind killed, not visibly, not even if they’re rebels. They certainly don’t like their kind killed by anyone but themselves. It might give people ideas. As for the Usaians, they don’t like rebels killed, and they might intervene to save him just because of that. They might be willing to pay or sign a nonaggression pact in exchange for Simon. First we need to get out of here. Then we’ll figure out how to save him. We’ll find outside help.” And then, “You should be disguising yourself.”

  “I thought you said there was a better way than dyeing my hair!”

  “You’ll see.”

  I took the bag into the attached fresher and saw. Or thought I did. The hair dye he’d got me was not brown, but a cheap, obviously fake red. The bag also contained just as cheap, and equally obviously false makeup, contact lenses that changed my eyes to dark brown, and a dress that appeared to be made of some sort of plastic. It felt uncomfortable against the skin, but it changed my look completely. I’d been considering dyeing my hair brown or black and wearing a unisex suit of the sort that manual laborers used to cover up their real clothes. I now realized that would have made me stand out like someone who was trying to disguise herself.

  This, though—from the obviously fake hair color, to the overdone makeup with my now-unremarkable brown eyes surrounded by black liner and highlighter, and with the cheap, but ruffled and ornamented pastel-pink dress—looked like I was trying to call attention to myself and had nothing too remarkable to make note of.

  As I put the makeup on, it occurred to me that Alexis’s competence in this particular situation was very odd. It didn’t strike me as something people could simply think their way into. But who would the head of security of the Good Man St. Cyr have conspired against? And why and how would he have needed a disguise?

  Whatever he was, whatever he had been, Alexis seemed like he had a lot of experience with conspiracy.

  Limiting Factor

  “Not particularly experienced,” he said, as I came out of the fresher and asked about his experience with undercover work.

  He too had got dressed in the same sort of cheap-but-gaudy attire, in his case an aping of the tight pants with broad-shouldered jackets that Simon’s circle wore—also made of plasticlike fabric in an unlikely sky-blue color. I noted that his gaze barely flicked over me, more as if verifying I’d done the job properly than with any prospective interest, no matter how remote. I wasn’t used to indifference. Not that I minded it.

  “It’s just that I have some idea how to survive underground,” he said. He shrugged again. “The Good Man Simon St. Cyr picked me out of death row. Insurrection. Activities against the state.” He must have seen the expression on my face, as I was thinking these were strange qualifications to become the main chief of security to the Good Man. He grinned, a surprisingly attractive expression that made him look ten years younger, almost boyish. “Well, you see, his father had just become incapacitated and Simon—St. Cyr was replacing his father’s secu
rity force with his own, so that, well…so we’d be loyal to him.”

  “And he was, of course, involved in rebellion himself. one of the Sans Culottes.”

  Alexis nodded. I got the impression that there was something more he wanted to say, but when he spoke again, what he said was, “I got us broomer suits. Used. Cheap. Pray we don’t have to use them.”

  “Why?” Broomer suits were the padded leather clothes one had to wear when riding the antigrav wands that were forbidden in most places on Earth, but which people still rode anyway—either as a safety measure to escape from a crashing vehicle, or when they were up to something they didn’t want the all-pervasive authorities of Earth to know about. Being illegal, brooms didn’t have built-in trackers that were on every other vehicle.

  “Because if we have to use brooms it means that we already botched all sane escape plans.” He looked at me, as though he were upset that I hadn’t picked up on the subtleties of the situation. “They’re monitoring traffic. Patrols and…every other way, even possibly infrared. I don’t want to travel long distance on a broom, but we might not be able to use a flyer. Flyers are much easier to trace.”

  “Are you sure we have to leave the seacity to look for help? Can’t we contrive a plan to rescue Simon on our own, if it’s so difficult to leave?”

  It seemed to me the longer we took to fight back the more people would die. It was well and good for Brisbois to say Simon was too valuable to be killed, but, as far as people knew, his family had ruled the seacity for years. Fearing him had been a matter of survival. They might not feel free until they killed him. I vaguely remembered it had been like that in old France. The king had had to die.

  For the first time he showed a normal human emotion: there was raw fear in his eyes. He put his ear to the door again, as though to confirm there was no one outside. He turned around to face me, and his broad, homely face looked pale and haggard. “I…you’re going to think I’m insane, but it looks to me like we’re in the middle of new Turmoils.”