by Kate Elliott
Everyone looked at everyone else, and then back at her.
“I don’t know, my love,” said Kyosti. “What are we waiting for?”
“You don’t think Jehane isn’t going to track us down the moment he has a free hand to spare? We need this ship.”
“Mutiny,” breathed Jenny. Her eyes lit with sudden glee.
“Yes,” said Lily. “We’ve got no choice. Will you follow me?”
This time the silence was twice as deep and twice as long.
“You know I’m with you,” said Jenny finally, breaking the paralysis that had evidently gripped everyone else. Kyosti had the barest grin on his face.
“Min Ransome!” said Paisley fiercely, unable to restrain herself any longer. “It be wrong o’ you to even think I wouldna’ follow you, down ya haunted way if need be.”
“Need might be,” said Lily. “Because I don’t intend spending the rest of what is evidently going to prove a very long life running from Jehane, even in a fine ship like the Forlorn Hope.” She paused to catch her breath, finding even such a short speech more taxing than she expected, but she had enough energy to find and meet each pair of eyes and, meeting them, read their assent.
“But what else is there to do?” asked Jenny. “Besides turn bootlegger and run?”
Lily looked at Kyosti. He merely looked up at the ceiling, leaving Lily to sigh and regard her ragtag collection of conspirators.
“We’re taking this boat back where she came from.” She grinned, seeing, by their expressions, that it was the last possible alternative they would have thought of.
“Sure,” breathed Paisley, “and glory.”
“But no one has been that way for centuries. No one even knows—” began Yehoshua, and then he faltered. Everyone looked at Kyosti.
“Exactly,” replied Lily, gathering a burst of strength from the sense of anticipation that abruptly charged the air. “Don’t worry. Master Heredes always used to tell me that when you’ve tried every other attack, the one you’re left with, however unlikely, must be the right one.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Jenny, evidently giving up hard on her bootlegging dreams.
Lily smiled. “It has to work. Otherwise you’re dead. And I’m not dead yet, am I?”
“Not for lack of trying,” muttered Pinto.
“Pinto,” she began, suddenly sober. “Your father—”
“Is dead. I know.” He turned and left the room.
“All right,” said Lily decisively, before his departure could cloud anyone’s resolve. “Get back to your posts. Jenny. Yehoshua. Stay.”
They dispersed quickly.
Kyosti went back to a careful examination of her readings. “You’re going to need to rest soon,” he warned.
Lily ignored him. “Jenny. How many people on board can we count on?”
She frowned. “Captain Machiko has rubbed more than our people the wrong way. All the Ridanis on board. Some few others”—she paused to count—“I’d say twenty-three.” Glanced at Yehoshua, as if for confirmation. He nodded.
“Which leaves?”
“Thirty-six supporting the captain. That leaves us with the advantage, I’d say.”
“With a large advantage. Good. Now, to begin with—”
“Lily.” Kyosti laid a hand on her wrist, a soft pressure that seemed far away to her. “You must rest.”
“But Jenny—”
“If Jenny and Yehoshua can’t manage a simple mutiny with these odds, and surprise, on our side, then you’re better off not commandeering this vessel in the first place. I’d estimate that in two hours this boat will be ours.”
Yehoshua chuckled. “Somehow, life never gets dull around you, Lily Heredes.”
“No.” The name no longer fit—and not just because La Belle Dame, and Jehane, and even Paisley, had named her differently in recent days. “Not Heredes. Master Heredes is dead. Any purpose his name had in living on died with Central, and with Jehane’s triumph.” She failed to keep the bitterness from her voice, but her anger was being slowly washed away by a spreading lassitude that methodically engulfed her body as she spoke. “I don’t think he would have wanted me to disinherit my own family forever. Not when they gave me as much as they did. And not when I’ll always be in his.”
Yehoshua looked surprised. “Heredes isn’t your real name?”
She smiled, fighting against her fatigue. “It’s Ransome. Lily Ransome.”
“Lily,” said Kyosti, beginning to sound impatient.
Jenny laughed and rose and snapped a smart, jaunty salute at her recumbent commander. “We’ll wake you up, captain,” she said, half-laughing still, “when the ship is fully at your disposal.”
“Not that soon,” said Kyosti.
Jenny grinned. “Come on, Yehoshua.” She tugged him by one arm from the room.
“There’s too much to do,” insisted Lily, looking up at Kyosti. “You can’t make me sleep.” But even as she said it, she yawned.
“Yes, I can,” replied Hawk coolly from away down a deepening well of distance.
Somewhere, echoing up from the depths, Bach was singing:
Ich will dir mein Herze schenken,
Senke dich, mein Heil, hinein.
Ich will mich in dir versenken,
Ist dir gleich die Welt zu klein,
Ei, so sollst du mir allein
Mehr als Welt und Himmel sein.
I will give my heart to Thee;
sink Thyself in it, my Salvation.
I will submerge myself in Thee.
And if the world is too small for Thee,
ah, then for me alone shalt Thou
be more than world and Heaven.
Lily went to sleep and dreamed of Robbie’s body washing up on a white shore, whole and untouched by the ills of the world.
Acknowledgments
Special thank-yous to Brandon Chamberlain, Jay Silverstein, and Chris Kinney for military and technical suggestions: don’t blame them if you don’t believe it; to Sonja Rasmussen for help fixing the worst translations; to Ruth, Milt, and Judi Silverstein for baby-sitting (again); and Carol Wolf Holtzman, Raven Gildea, Jane Butler, and Judith Tarr for their valuable feedback on this ongoing project.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Highroad Trilogy
Will ye gang tae the Hielands, my bonnie, bonnie lass?
Will ye gang tae the Hielands wi’ Geordie?
And I’ll tak’ the high road, and ye’ll tak’ the low,
And I’ll be in the Hielands afore ye.
—Traditional
1 In Another Part of the Forest
THE POISONED ATMOSPHERE SWIRLED past Korey’s clear face mask. As he topped the rise, stumbling on loose rocks, he saw through a gap in the mist the writhing form of the alien.
No way to sneak up on it. The bastard had chosen this terrain for its lack of cover—if it could even think tactically. And without Fred and Stanford—but he couldn’t bear thinking about what had happened to them. Just kill it, before it killed him and consummated its horrible rite, and be done. Revenge could come later.
The woman, tied to a stake well within reach of the aliens lashing tentacles, had lost most of her clothing, and the tatters left revealed the rich curves of her pale flesh. Seeing him emerge out of the fog, she began to fight frantically against the cord binding her to the stake, trying to free herself. Her struggling caused the last remnants of her clothes to rip and, shredding, be torn off of her in the rough wind, leaving her naked. The alien slithered closer.
He drew his knife and charged.
The first tentacle he dodged, but the second whipped across his chest, throwing him down. He stabbed at it, gouging a rent across the putrid skin. Gouts of acidic fluid spattered his face. It burned, eating into his skin, slowing him. A second tentacle wrapped around his leg. He slashed at it, but another grabbed him, and another, until at last even his knife arm was pinned to his side. All he could hear were the woman’s cries as the alien�
�s maw, rimmed with red, gaping suckers, lowered toward him and attached itself with viscous strength to his blistering face.
“I lost again!” Korey screamed, but the shudder that ran through him as he woke from the dream was not part of his nightmare.
A blow cracked the door to his hostel unit. Before he could even swing his legs off of the liquor-stained couch, the plasboard splintered and separated and two constables broke through the opening. Both had their power-spiked batons out and at the ready.
“Korrigan Tel Windsor?” An electronic shield masked the man’s real voice.
Still muzzy from the aftereffects of the dream, Korey could only press the heel of one palm to his forehead and grunt an affirmative. His other hand reached to grope under the pillows of the couch.
“Both hands where we can see them,” snapped the second constable, a woman.
Both constables tensed and crouched as Korey pulled out a cylindrical vessel, but he merely flipped off the top and took a deep draught of whiskey from a grimy glass bottle.
“That’s disgusting,” muttered the woman.
“Korrigan Tel Windsor,” began the man again, ignoring his colleague’s comment, “you are under arrest for illegal possession of the drug Asperia chronofoam. Dream crystal. You have the right to remain silent—”
“I would suggest,” broke in a low, gravelly—and distinctly nonhuman—voice from the third door, “that you switch off those enhanced batons of yours and we discuss this like civilized beings.”
“Oh, piss it, Berto,” swore the woman, turning to see a squat, simianlike creature appear in the doorway. “Xiao swore top to bottom that the Pongos were gone. I’ll have his ass for this.”
Berto swung slowly around.
“Drop the rods.” This was a second voice, lower and rougher than the first.
Faced with a primitive, but clearly operative, doublebarreled shotgun held in the powerful hands of the second simian, both constables carefully set down their batons, the only weapons they were armed with.
Hands shaking, Korey took another slug of whiskey. “Fred,” he said after a moment to the one holding the shotgun. His voice was still hoarse from dream crystal. “Let’s not have any trouble. I can’t afford to lose my license.”
Fred hesitated, regarding the constables with deep suspicion.
“Really, Frederick,” said the first simian. He was as alike in build as a twin, but leaner in his hairy face. “I cannot understand why you continue to prefer that outmoded piece of hardware when we have sufficiently modern weapons available.”
“Yeah, Stan,” agreed Fred, “but they ain’t got the kick this one’s got.” He set down the shotgun and shoved it away with a hairy three-toed, one-thumbed foot.
The constables retrieved their batons.
“According to our warrant,” said Berto, unclipping a thin computer slate from his vest, “your bounty license is suspended until such time as you appear before the tribunal at League headquarters on Concord.”
“Son of a bitch.” Korey took another drink from the bottle.
“Frederick,” interposed Stanford as Fred reached for the shotgun. “Korrigan, I will call your advocate.”
“Sure, sure,” mumbled Korey, but Stanford had already disappeared into the back room. He glanced up at the masks that disguised the features of the two constables. “So what’s the real charge, or are you chumps just the errand kids?”
At a nod from Berto, the woman picked up the shotgun and followed Stanford into the back room. Fred lingered, undecided and a little confused, on the threshold.
Berto peeled aside the mask to reveal dark features and unexpectedly cheerful eyes. “Buddy,” he said, his voice abruptly normal now that it was removed from the electronic overlay, “some people hold it against you for what you did in the war, but I say we couldn’t have won without your kind.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway,” Berto continued, evidently missing Korey’s sarcasm, “I just bring in the warrants, and I’ve got six constables outside in case you give us any trouble. But I will tell you this. There’s a one-way ticket for you and the Pongos down at precinct, and it’s for Concord, so I guess that’s where you’re going, whether you want to or not.”
“Don’t call them ‘Pongos,’” said Korey wearily. He ran a hand through his brown hair. It looked like it needed to be washed.
“Yeah,” agreed Fred belligerently. “It ain’t nice, calling us names.”
“Which reminds me,” added Berto, unfazed by this rejoinder, “their visas are up to date, aren’t they?”
Korey lifted the whiskey to his lips, hesitated, and with a sigh lowered the bottle and capped it. He rose. He was not a particularly tall man, but he was compact with a strength that the seediness of his surroundings and the general air of dissipation and odor of alcohol and drugs could not completely mask. The constable kept his baton raised.
“Just going to pack a carry,” said Korey, mocking the man’s caution. Fred pulled back his lips in a parody of a human grin. “Get on, Fred. Get your stuff together.”
Berto pulled his mask back over his face, hiding his features.
Stanford emerged from the back room, followed by the other constable. “Unfortunately, Korrigan, your advocate has already been contacted by Concord Intelligence about the matter. She says her hands are tied.”
“Am I surprised,” murmured Korey cynically, without making it a question. “Hustle up. Let’s get it over with.”
It was the matter of a few minutes to pack three carrys, and then the two constables ushered them outside. With the other six officers added on, they made a procession that enlivened the interest of all the residents of the rundown hostel. When the party paused in the lobby for Berto to clear Korey’s bill with the manager, a small crowd of disreputable-looking folk gathered to stare and comment.
“Izzat the bountyman?”
“Yeh. Pretty brave of them connies to bring him in.”
“Who do ya s’pose he were hunting?”
“Dunno.”
“Clean’s the place up, though, don’t it? Getting rid of him, and those Pongos. I don’t like bounty men.”
“What, you afraid one’s looking for you, Ferni?”
A general swell of raucous laughter greeted this sally, made bolder by Korey’s lack of response.
“Nah. Ferni ain’t dangerous enough to be passed over to the bounty list by the connies.”
“Am so.”
“Shut up,” snapped Berto as he stepped back from the desk. “Or we’ll do a proper raid here one of these days. I can smell dream crystal on every one of you. Now piss off.”
The crowd dissipated abruptly. “Thanks,” murmured Korey laconically. Looking disgusted, Berto motioned, and the constables led their charges down the entry stairs.
“I dislike this,” said Stanford, subvocalizing to Fred as they marched down and then were settled in the back compartment of the secure wagon that would ferry them to the precinct office. Korey sat at the opposite end of the compartment, eyes shut, face pale under several days’ growth of beard.
“Yeah,” agreed Fred, tapping his stubby foot claws against the floor. “It sucks.”
“No, Frederick. I mean that I am deeply disturbed by Korrigan’s meekness. It is simply too much at odds with his character. I fear that this current binge of drug taking masks some severe form of depression that has overtaken him recently. I advised him before that bounty work was not suited to his talents.”
They both turned to gaze at their companion, concern clear on their apelike features. Fred wrinkled up his nose, taking in the unpleasant antiseptic stench of the compartment, their own pleasant and familiar scent, and the stronger smell—to him, at least—of Korey’s unwashed clothing and skin.
“Yeah.” Fred shrugged his powerful shoulders, his equivalent of a nod.
Korey opened his eyes, looking directly at them, and with the barest grin, he winked.
It took a ship’s week to reach Concord, t
he web of interlinked stations in orbit around a nondescript star whose only claim to importance was its position in the approximate center of League space.
Stanford and Fred hogged the bubble viewport in the transport bringing them into docking with Intelligence’s hub. Behind them Korey slept, snoring softly. If he looked better than the day he was arrested it was probably because the drugs and whiskey he had tried to smuggle along in his carry had been confiscated at the precinct office.
Fred simply gaped at the view: a complex net of stations and connecting tubes and solar arrays and ships in various stages of repair, manufacture, or loading that, in the reflected light of its sun, presented an astonishingly intricate and beautiful pattern against the deep night of space.
Stanford had his computer slate out and was busy calculating stresses, area to volume, and mass while on a second window he sketched out as complete a diagram of the web as possible, labeling it as he went.
The light chime warned them just as the door to their cell slipped aside. Fred whirled into an aggressive stance: hind legs bent, he leaned heavily on his thick, long arms, ready to propel himself forward. Because he was just about as thick as he was tall, the effect was intimidating.
Korey opened his eyes, although he did not move from his pallet, and glanced at the two guards who had just taken three steps back from the threshold.
“Fred,” he said quietly. “Lighten up.”
Fred rocked back onto his haunches, grinning again; Stanford had already taken the opportunity to surreptitiously tuck his slate back into the sling on his chest in which he usually carried his weapons.
“Get up, Windsor,” snapped the foremost guard. “We’re taking you off the ship in a flyer. The two Pongos stay on board.”
Korey laughed, short, and settled his hands behind his head, looking comfortable. “Someone afraid we’ll go on a rampage if we set foot in the happy zones?”
“You must be aware,” replied the guard stiffly, “that your record of the past fifty years does not give the common run of humanity any reason to trust you.”
