by Sharon Lee
“I fear,” she said, “that you will find this uncomfortable.”
She smiled and bent to him, the words flowing warmly into his ear on the soft exhalation of her breath.
“Son eber donz, Rys Lin pen’Chala.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“My mother wants to come to the first day of school,” said Delia. “Ms. Taylor, can she?”
“My gran wantsa come, too!” Jeff said excitedly.
“My ma and my little sister wanna see me get settled in,” Tansy added.
“My gran’d like to come, but it’s a far bit from Gough Street,” Rodale offered. “’Less she can ride the taxi on my chit?”
Ms. Taylor clapped her hands.
“OK, everybody, sit down and let’s talk about it!”
They obeyed, chairs clattering as young bodies flung into them, then silence of sort.
“Now, there’s going to be a welcoming committee at the school,” Ms. Taylor said. She paused and looked hard, first at Luce, then at Peter.
“Not the old style welcoming committee. The Bosses’ll be there, some of them, and their ’hands, but there won’t be any retiring or promoting.” She gave them both another hard stare, then smiled out over the rest of the class.
“The first plan was to have all the students from each school go to the new school in their group on the first day. But, this morning I heard from Mr. Sanamayer, who’s the principal—call him the Boss Teacher. He’s already heard from other core teachers about parents and sibs and friends coming along to see everybody settled, maybe take a tour, have some cake and coffee—like a party! I should get a call a little later today to find out how we’re going to deal with that. What Mr. Sanamayer suggested was that we all go to the school with our families, then join up with our class when we get there.”
She smiled. “I’m thinking that’s what will likely happen, but we have to wait for confirmation from Boss Conrad’s office, and from the Consolidated School’s security.”
She looked around the room.
“Any other questions?”
There were none.
“Good! Now, I’ve got some boxes here. What we’re going to do is count off by fours, then quarter the room. Each quarter-team will be responsible for packing what’s in their section of the classroom into boxes. All right! Vanette, you start!”
* * *
Rys was content.
More, he was at peace, fully engaged in the mission; entirely cognizant of his past actions and his place in future action, with neither doubt nor uncertainty disrupting the process of his thought. How fortunate it was, he thought, reviewing the steps of the plan and the map, for the third and final time, that Agent bar’Obin had found him, and restored him to himself.
He had been called into service to assist the Agent in an oblique strike at Korval. It must, of course, be an oblique strike, as the failed attempt by Otts Clark had the expected result of the Dragon guarding itself even more closely—but it was worthy for all of that.
It was imperative that Korval be prevented from sinking its roots into Surebleak, as it had into Liad. The more unstable the Dragon’s situation, the better for the Department. If the population of the planet were to rise against Korval, so very much the better.
The plan in hand, which targeted the work of Korval and of Boss Conrad, Korval-kin and the delm’s hand-puppet—this plan would explode across the world, rendering the political base and Korval, anathema. Given the local tradition of retiring with extreme prejudice those leaders who failed to please, and it was not too much to hope, said Agent bar’Obin, that Surebleak would do most of the Department’s work for it.
After all, even Terrans valued their children.
“Korval has taken up eight Field Agents—so much is certain,” Agent bar’Obin said now. “We must assume that all the supply caches, the locations of which were common field knowledge, are being watched. This means that we must depend upon local materials, which will make the operation more arduous. However, with two of us, it should go well.”
She looked at him, bowed slightly.
“The last part of the plan will be yours, Field Agent. You are something of a marksman, I believe, and will enjoy the opportunity to practice your skill.”
He did not recall that he was a marksman of any note. However, it was the Agent’s business to know such things, and as she had made that skill a cornerstone of the plan, it must be true.
What he did recall at this very moment, in a soft overlay of the room in which he sat, listening to Agent bar’Obin speak, was Silain’s hearth, with the child sitting just behind the old woman, her dog asleep with his head on her knee. He had been part of that hearth-gather on many occasions, and he found himself wondering how they went on, and if anyone had missed him, yet.
“Have you any questions, Field Agent?”
He blinked, and brought the room into sharper relief. This was what he had been fashioned for. Only in the successful execution of the mission could he find fulfillment. He had nothing else. He was nothing else. The mission was his all and everything.
“Field Agent. Have you questions?”
“No, Agent,” he said, respectfully, and then, surprising himself, said, “Yes. If you please.”
She inclined her head.
“Ask.”
“I wonder,” he heard himself say, “what became of the Momma Liberty? I cannot completely recall…”
Agent bar’Obin inclined her head.
“Ah. I had told you that what repairs I might make for you here would necessarily be incomplete. It is what we must accept, though I am dismayed that this memory of all has escaped you. It was of course the defining action of your life, in which you sealed your loyalty to the Department.
“To say it quickly: When you had completed your training, your mentor gave you leave to bring your skill against those who had sullied your honor and used you against your will. It is not uncommon that such actions are approved, if the trainee has made the request.”
She paused and bowed in full honor
“You made the request. You made the attempt. That ship no longer exists.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I will go with my young sister to the new school,” the luthia said calmly, continuing to drape the seven shawls of her office about herself.
Udari looked to Kezzi, who had suffered to have her hair braided and tied with a purple ribbon. She wore a purple sweater that Udari remembered Droi had found in the City Above, and a pair of black pants, rather than her usual utility pants. Her expression was one of mild amazement, but he saw no reflection of his own horror.
“Many of the other students are bringing their mothers and grandmothers today,” Kezzi explained. “There’ll be a party, the Ms. Taylor said. The Bosses will also be there, and their ’hands.”
“Yes,” Udari said carefully, “but for the luthia to go into such a thing…”
Silain laughed. “As if I hadn’t gone among gadje just as Droi does, and told out the cards for coin!” She shook the last shawl into place, and touched the knot of her hair. “But, I will not go unprotected. Rys will accompany us.”
Udari shook his head, his voice gone to dust in his throat.”
“Does Udari speak for Rys?” Silain asked, rather tartly. “A brother’s care may go too far, my son.”
“Luthia, well I know it, and with all my heart I wish that my brother were by, that he might speak for himself. But—he is gone, luthia.”
“Gone?” cried Kezzi. “He has…left the kompani?”
“Little sister, I only know that he hasn’t returned.”
“Which is not the same as left,” said Silain. “Is there more to this tale of your brother, Udari of the Bedel?”
“Luthia. Rys came with me into the City Above the day before yesterday. Fool that I am, I left him behind while I went on to meet my sister. He promised that he would return that evening, but as of this rising his promise is unredeemed.”
He cleared his thr
oat. “I had meant to bring this to you yesterday, luthia. Rafin’s counsel was that he was safe enough and…celebrating his strength regained. It seemed not…unlikely, and so I left it.”
He bowed his head, ready to accept her censure, but what he heard was a sigh.
“I hear this,” Silain said heavily. “It may be found, my son, that you are not so much a fool as I am, and that, indeed, your brother may have left us. I thought his heart was bolder.”
Udari raised his head. “He said that you would take him to the Dragon.”
“So I would have, and stood at his side through whatever came, as I promised I would do. The thought in my mind today was that he would be invisible at my side, in the press of this party, and might study those Dragons present. I had hoped proximity might revive his memory of the trouble that lies between them.” She sighed again.
“Well! All and everything now lies with Rys. Udari, you will accompany us.”
“Luthia,” he murmured, accepting this.
Silain reached for her cloak.
“Grandmother,” Kezzi said. “I agreed to meet my brother outside our mother’s house and ride the taxi with him.”
“Then he must be told that your grandmother has called you to escort her, and that he’ll find you at the school.” She raised her head, looking past the hearth to a shape that moved down the common way.
“Is that Isart?”
“Yes, luthia!”
“Come here, my son. Your sister would ask you to bear a message to another of her brothers.”
Silain nodded to Kezzi, who went forward to meet him, and looked again to Udari.
“I think you will see your brother again, Udari.”
“Is that a Seeing, luthia?”
She shook her head.
“It is a grandmother’s wish.”
There came a pounding of feet, which was Isart, bounding off. Kezzi returned to them.
“Can Malda come to the party?” she asked.
Silain blinked, looking for just that moment, so Udari thought, as if she had seen through the door between the World that Was, and the World that Might Be.
She blinked again, and looked down at the small creature standing by Kezzi’s knee.
“Yes,” said the luthia. “Malda must come with us.”
* * *
The work was almost done.
Using local materials, this part of the mission had taken longer even than the Agent had anticipated, and, in truth, his part had been made more difficult by…memories.
Random action triggered them, ambushing his real-world senses, oversetting his concentration on the mission.
Setting the first cap, he remembered in vivid serial flashback a score of thefts, and half-a-dozen fires set. Unfolding his knife triggered a memory of how it had felt, the precise and peculiar pressure exerted against the blade, as he severed a man’s finger—so very different from the smooth stroke that parted a woman’s throat…
For fully three minutes, he crouched by a pile of broken bricks and furring strips bristling with staples, images flipping before his eyes like cards—mayhem, death, and misery. He had been efficient. He had been deadly. He had been cruel. His deaths weighed him to the ground; he could not rise. All this, he had done, because…
…because…
Because, a voice said coolly, you have a mission. You must not fail.
He jerked and stared about him for the owner of the voice, but he was alone beside the mound of discards and trash. Alone and once again able to see, the tide of recall for the moment, at least, stalled.
Rys pulled the cap out of his pocket and set it, his fingers only trembling a little. After all, he had a mission. And he must not fail.
- - - - -
He positioned his last explosive cap on the far side of a small shed. He inserted the activation plug, and pressed down, being sure it was seated properly.
Seven small-duty caps had been set among the rocks and debris in this open area to the side of the main building.
Inside the building, the Agent would be setting two larger explosives in the equipment room. She of course held the detonators. Additionally, there were timers on both, in the event that the detonator—or the hand—failed of its duty.
The mission, straightforward as it was, called for the caps he had set to be detonated first. The resulting noise would cause confusion and dismay among those gathered. It was not expected that the initial detonation would produce fatalities, though he would certainly do so, by immediately firing into the crowd, seeking to herd them toward the school building, or in any case to keep them within the boundary of the second, extremely powerful explosion.
There would, Rys thought, surveying his handiwork, be little chance of surviving that.
He stood away from the shed—and paused, for it seemed he saw his grandmother before him—or…not his grandmother, but Silain, and with her the child, and the dog, ranged behind them his brothers and his sisters of the Bedel. Silain extended her hand—but no. That was not for him.
For him, there was the mission.
And an aching sense of relief, painful as a knife between the ribs, that none of the Bedel would be in the crowd of gadje soon to gather outside.
Well. He shook himself, deliberately casting off all memories.
There was the long-rifle awaiting him. And the mission, to be brought to fruition.
He must not—he would not—fail.
* * *
Syl Vor shuffled his feet, stuck his hands in his pockets, took his hands out of his pockets, and stared up the street, squinting.
“Take it easy,” Gavit told him, for the third time since they’d arrived, early, at the corner. “She’ll be along in a minute and we can get goin’.”
The get goin’ part was true enough because they had waved down the first taxi that had cruised past their spot on the sidewalk, and asked the cabbie to wait for a minute, until the rest of the passengers arrived.
It had been much longer than a minute, and Syl Vor thought that the driver was starting to look bored.
Where was Kezzi?
“Now, here comes somebody,” Gavit said.
Syl Vor spun, expecting to see Kezzi coming down the street, Malda at her heels and Nathan beside her. What he saw instead was a lanky boy about Quin’s age, with untidy black hair in a snarl over one shoulder, and insolent black eyes.
“Are one of you Anna’s brother?” he asked, stopping twelve steps away, both hands in his pockets and his feet poised to run away.
“I am,” Syl Vor said, going quickly forward.
The boy immediately stepped back.
Syl Vor stopped, feeling a flicker of anger.
“Where is Anna?” he demanded, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and almost added her favorite epitaph, you stupid boy.
“I’m to tell you: Your sister’s grandmother decided to go to the party at the new school. Your sister travels with her. She’ll see you soon, at school.”
Syl Vor blinked, and glared. The boy returned the glare for a long moment before turning on his heel and walking back the way he had come.
“Guess we’ll grab that taxi, now, Silver,” Gavit said from behind him.
“He was rude,” Syl Vor said.
“Noticed that,” Gavit said, jerking his head meaningfully toward the cab. “Last I heard, that wasn’t a killin’ offense.” He sighed. “Sooner you’re in that cab, sooner you’ll see your sister, right?”
Syl Vor took a breath, nodded, and headed for the cab.
* * *
The taxi drew into a long, crescent shaped drive, and stopped at the apex, discharging them amid a small gathering of children and adults, heads bare and coats open in appreciation of the early morning warmth.
Behind their taxi came another, and another after it.
They moved a little away from the curb, to make room for those who were coming after. Udari went first, opening a path for them to an untenanted piece of sidewalk. There, they stopped, forming a knot like m
any of the other knotted humans up and down the walkway.
The child crouched down to speak to her dog, murmuring love words and instructions to stay by her into his high-pointed ears. Udari kept a lookout over the crowd, his mouth a little tight.
“Is your brother here?” Silain asked as Kezzi stood up.
“I don’t see him,” the child answered, rising on her toes and looking about them. She shook her head. “I think we’re very early. I don’t see anybody from school.”
Silain nodded and looked about her. A stout gadje woman with her hair hidden under a red kerchief smiled as she walked by, and gave a friendly nod. Silain smiled and nodded in return, striving to seem both calm and collected.
In truth, she felt off-center, troubled by fragments half-seen from the World That Might Be. What she saw distressed her—Rys, a flare of fire, a running dog, a splash of blood. She saw the fine building they stood before expand, then crumple in on itself. She saw Nova yos’Galan Clan Korval with blood on her face, her violet eyes staring blindly.
There was no sense to any of it. Perhaps her Sight was failing her. Perhaps the World that Might Be was melting, overheated by the couplings of opportunity, choice, and luck. Perhaps—but there. She closed all of her eyes, deliberately, and bowed her head.
“Let the road be easy,” she murmured, the very first prayer a child of the Bedel is taught. “Let the gleanings be good. Let there be brothers and sisters ’round the hearth at the beginning of the day, and at the end.”
“Grandmother?” asked Udari, looking up at her with a frown. “Are you well? There’s a wall over there you could sit on, and rest.”
She smiled for him, and shook her head.
“I’m fine,” she said; “and the sun is pleasant here.”
A flash of light caught the edge of her eye; she turned her head to watch a cab enter the crescent, even as Kezzi ran a few steps toward the curb, Malda at heel.
