by Clayton, Jo;
Then she jerked the door open and slid inside, energy gun levelled, the sensor under a quivering finger poised ready to fire. The kipu lay in a narrow bed in the narrow austere room, still sunk deep in sleep, her slow steady respirations the only sound. And it was no pretense. Aleytys felt the lowered life-beat, the placid steady throb of the sleep state. She slid her hand over the switch plate, filling the room with a sudden glare of light.
The kipu woke, jerked upright, stared open-mouthed at Aleytys standing beside the door. Aleytys saw her throat work, intelligence return to the narrow face.
“Don’t bother,” she said in a soft silky whisper. “They can’t hear you, not the shape they’re in.”
The kipu looked at the gun held steady in Aleytys’ hand. “If you kill me, you won’t get out of the mahazh.”
Aleytys chuckled. She felt almost light-headed. “Not even a good try, kipu.”
The kipu plucked at the blanket, pulling it closer about her nude body, making her uneasy in her nakedness, feeling vulnerable and frightened in a way she’d never allowed herself to feel since her chilhood. Aleytys sensed this and laughed again, her bright blue-green eyes traveling derisively over the nayid’s narrow upper body.
The kipu blushed, the red blood rising across her shoulders and face. She reached for the tunic folded neatly over the back of a chair placed with finicky precision exactly parallel to the bed.
Aleytys stiffened. “No.”
The round black eyes fixed on her unblinking. The thin body arm halted for a minute then the kipu calmly continued the movement, reaching for the tunic. “Don’t be stupid, woman.”
A hot tight anger flared in Aleytys’ chest For a moment she aimed the gun at the kipu’s body then turned it aside. The flare crisped the tunic to ash, seared the kipu’s hand and arm, burning it off halfway to the elbow, went on, ate away a deep bite out of the thick stone outer wall. “Now!” she hissed to Aamunkoitta.
Eyes glittering, a tight fierce smile on her small brown face, Aamunkoitta took a step forward and snapped the sheet open, flipping the dead embryo onto the moaning nayid’s lap.
“Your queen,” Aleytys said softly. “Good bye, kipu.” She leveled the gun. “Good-bye.” The red flare licked out. Like Burash the kipu’s straining body was a sudden black silhouette against the fire cone then nothing but a scattering of gray ash while the wall behind her let in air through a roundish jagged hole, air that stirred the ashes briefly and brought a flash of heat back into Aleytys’ face.
She rubbed a shaking hand across her face, not feeling the fierce pleasure she expected, just a quiet sickness, a chill loneliness, a vast tiredness.
“Kunniakas.” Aamunkoitta tugged at her sleeve.
“Yes. I know.” Hitching up the fringed tunic, she tucked the energy gun into the belt holding up the leggings.
The lift took them to the barracks level. Cautiously they crept through a short length of corridor, meeting no one, then went up the coiling stairs to the green level of the armory.
Aleytys leaned against the whitewashed wall and closed her eyes. “Kitten, stay here. Keep an eye on those.” She touched the jewel box with her foot. “That’s my way off this world.”
“Kunniakas, can’t we leave?” The hiiri spread out her small hands, the three short fingers starred in a warding gesture. “You push your gods too hard, they go away. Gods are like that.”
“Gods.” Aleytys laughed bitterly. “Madar, I’m tired.” She held out her own hands and looked at them, rough, torn, ragged nails, hangnails. “These are my gods. Not so pretty, but strong.” She closed the hands into fists. “They do what I ask, not like the gods my people called on. Gods!” She turned around and stepped to the arch leading into the corridor. In the opening she looked back over her shoulder. “You hear trouble, I don’t come back soon, get out of here. Take the jewels.”
“Kunniakas, let me come with you.” The hiiri clutched at her arm. “I can fight well as any man.”
“I believe you, Kitten.” She smiled affectionately into the small brown face, reached out and touched the firm lips tenderly. “The kitten has claws.” She shook her head. “No. I need someone I can trust here with these.”
Aamunkoitta sank disgustedly onto the box. She sniffed. But as Aleytys sped out of sight around the curve of the corridor, she breathed, “Henkiolenta maan carry you safe, Kunniakas.”
Aleytys got the armory door open, her talent working almost automatically now, smooth as breathing. She pulled it open and leaped inside, the single watchnayid crisping in the beam from the energy gun before she made a sound. Breathing shallowly, carefully not thinking of what she was doing, she swung the weapon full on over the sleeping guards, then left the piles of ash and pushed into the main storeroom of the arsenal.
Standing in the middle of the room she looked around at the heavy weapons neatly stacked and stored in niches in the wall. She knew what she wanted to do, but how to do it … Madar, she thought, I don’t understand weapons more complicated than a knife.…
A vibration started in the back of her mind, a purple glow spread over the room, startling her, reminding her of the thing she found disturbing, the thing that avoided her memory, but there was so much pain in trying to search out what it was that she shied away from trying. The purple glow intensified and suddenly the knowledge she needed was there in her mind, clear and whole, like a page in a book.
Without questioning this, afraid to question it, determined not to question it, she sped to one of the larger niches filled with an ugly metal egg. Hands moving without needing direction from her mind, working with a knowledge in her fingertips, she armed the bomb. set a delay fuse, then moved to the next And the next And the next By the time she finished she had armed five bombs, left them alive quietly humming their songs of waiting power.…
Back at the stairwell, she saw Aamunkoitta’s tense face relax, saw her make the blessing motion with her right hand. She laughed. “Gods! Come on, Kitten. To the roof.”
“The roof?” Aamunkoitta touched her arm hesitantly. “But.…”
“A skimmer, Kitten. How else.”
Aamunkoitta slipped the carrying ropes of the Jewel box over her shoulder. “You can fly one of those?”
“If I can’t, we’ll have one hell of funeral pyre, Kitten.”
Stair. Around and around. Unlock the massive double-locked door that led to the roof. Aleytys leaned against the metal, breathing hard. “I’m tired,” she said slowly. “Tired.”
“Can’t you.…”
“The gods again?”
“No. Heal. Like when we rode from her the first time.”
“I really must be wiped out.” Aleytys closed her eyes and bathed in her river until her body tingled with life, her spirit soared high into a new excitement. Once, just once, the elation faltered, she heard Burash’s light amused voice saying … up and down … up and down … moderation, Leyta, a little moderation.… She pushed the memory aside and laid her hands on Aamunkoitta’s temples, sharing her power with her small friend. “That help?”
“Yes, Kunniakas.”
“Right When I go on the roof, wait in shelter behind the door.”
“Kunniakas!” The hiiri sounded indignant, her eyes flashed.
“Don’t argue, Kitten. Those guards will have energy weapons, too. We don’t need to give them lots of targets.”
Aamunkoitta looked stubborn.
“You’ll just distract me, Kitten. I’ll be worrying about you when I should be concentrating on the guards.” She held up the gun. “After all, we only have one weapon. And we haven’t time to argue.”
Aamunkoitta caught hold of her arm. “What did you do, Kunniakas?”
Aleytys shrugged. “Set bombs to go in half an hour. About twenty minutes now.”
“Ah.” The hiiri’s eyes glowed fiercely. “Burn the nest out. Good!”
“I’m sorry about your people here and in the city, Kitten.” Aleytys frowned, sliding down from her high. She shivered. “I didn’t think
of them till now.”
Aamunkoitta shrugged. “To kill the city they’d gladly die. Living here their lives were forfeit sooner or later anyway.” She put the jewel box down and settled herself on it. “But I’d rather not join them unless I have to. Hadn’t you better stop talking and get busy?”
Amusement bubbling up in her again, washing out the depression, soaring on her way up again, Aleytys chuckled and ran out of the thick-walled tunnel, crouched low, keeping in the shadow next the parapet.
The guards were careless, too certain of the security behind them. There were only two of them and both stood backs to the entry, caught in a desultory conversation, alert in their way to danger from the sky but half their sense deadened by their casual words. Coolly Aleytys leveled the weapon and touched the sensor. The guards died in mid-word, not knowing where their death came from.
Aleytys grimaced. That too was getting easier, the killing, and it frightened her a little. But she didn’t have the time to chew over philosophical problems and tucked the worry away to join all those other things she had no time or inclination to think about. “Kitten.”
The hiiri came from the tunnel, clumsy because of the one-sided weight of the jewel box. “That was fast.”
“They were dreaming.”
“Nakivas would have had their skins.” She looked around at the skimmers parked beside the jutting entry ramps. “What now?”
Aleytys shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.” She stepped quickly to the nearest skimmer and ran up the ramp with the hiiri close behind.
With Aamunkoitta sitting uneasily beside her Aleytys settled into the pilot’s seat. She ran her fingers over the varying textures of the metal and glass, all cool and mysterious to her touch. Then the purple glow came back and after a minute she grunted; hands danced over the controls so that the skimmer rose smoothly and darted away until the city was a dark blotch nestling against the paler stone of the butte. She swung the skimmer around and held it hovering. “Any minute now, Kitten.”
The minutes ticked by, slowly building tension in both of them, especially in Aleytys as Aamunkoitta’s nervousness echoed and reechoed in her. Then the darkness erupted in a vast searing white light, a fireball bigger than the sun, blinding even at this distance. Aamunkoitta cried out and ground her fists into her eyes. Aleytys whipped around, her motion sending the skimmer wobbling uneasily. She covered her face with shaking hands and wept silently.
“A clean death. And a quick one.” Aamunkoitta’s voice sounded hoarse in her ears, comforting, like the hiiri’s small hands patting her shoulders with helpless light touches.
Aleytys sighed. “Thanks.” Lifting her head she slid her eyes cautiously around to the city. The fireball was gone, its place marked by a hard red glow.
“Where now?” The hiiri’s voice broke through her lingering horror at the destruction she had caused.
“You said six months.”
“What?”
“I was drugged six months.”
“Yes.”
“The smuggler said he was coming back in six months. You think you could find the place where he lands?”
“I’ve been there a number of times.”
“You think Nakivas will come again?”
“Of course. He must.”
“That’s where we’re going.” As the purple glowed around her once again, without knowing exactly why, Aleytys took the skimmer down low until it was scarcely two meters off the earth and sent it as fast as she could toward the southeast where the flat and fertile plain broke up into low hills thickly furred with trees and rocky ravines.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Aleytys watched the camouflaged smuggler slide down the curve of the night and settle with a minimum of fuss onto the floor of the canyon. “There he is,” she said quietly. “Wake up, Kitten.”
“I’m awake.” The hiiri sat up.
“I haven’t changed my mind, you know.”
Aamunkoitta spread her hands on her thighs. “My people are dead. You are my clan now.”
“Nakivas?”
“Has many women panting after him. I’d be lost in the crowd besides. You know how it is with me.” Her eyes closed, her face drew in with the pain inside her. “I’m not fit for.…”
“Kitten, don’t.”
She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. “I don’t run from the truth, Kunniakas. I couldn’t live the life of a clan woman now, too many things have happened to me, changed me.” She shook her head. “Besides.…” A sudden smile chased the gloom from her face. “You’ve shown me that a woman can be more than a drudge for men. There’s no place I want to fit on this world now. Let me come with you.”
“Kitten.…”
“You’re a holder of power, Kunniakas. You need someone to serve you. Let me do it.”
Aleytys shook her head. “Even with the mahazh gone, the nayids still hold the land, but your people have a chance now. Make friends with them or drive them out, take your own land back. You’ve still got work here, Kitten. Besides that, teach the other women what you’ve learned.” Aleytys chuckled. “You might start another whole revolution on this chancy world.”
“You don’t want me.”
With a weary sigh Aleytys pulled her legs under her and stood up. “I don’t want to see you hurt. Or killed. I’m not stupid enough to think you’re going to have an easy life here. But at least you’ll be among your own kind with important work to do. You may be miserable but you’ll be alive.”
“Alive.”
“Don’t knock it.”
Aamunkoitta shrugged. “You better get ready. The ship. Someone comes.”
“Wait here with the box.”
“Henkiolento maan strengthen you, Kunniakas.”
Aleytys laughed and walked to meet the long-haired smuggler, a smile illuminating her face. She met her surprised stare and murmured, “Aspash, phorea.”
“Aspash, despina. So you speak interlingue.” He examined her, his amused sardonic gaze traveling from feet to head. Then he looked past her at the jumble of rock on the far side of the stream. “Where are your friends?”
“They’ll be along.” She waved a hand at the ship. “And your companions?”
“Busy. You’re early.”
“I want passage off world.”
“Oh?” His mobile mouth spread into a smile, white teeth glinting against his dark-tanned skin. “Why should I bother?” He nodded at the ship. “That’s no passenger liner.”
“Profit.” She answered his smile. “The best ointment for discomfort.”
“They going to pay your way?”
“The hiiri?” She shook her head. “No, I’ve a few baubles you might find interesting.”
“Let’s see them and I’ll let you know.”
Aleytys looked at him silently. “You’re a reasonably honest man,” she said after a while. “But no friend of mine. I learned a while past that trusting doesn’t pay if you haven’t the strength to enforce the bargain.”
“Well.” He folded his arms across his chest. “How do you get over that little problem?”
“If I had a weapon.…” She lifted the energy gun and handed it to him butt first. “Let that be part payment. I don’t need it. Besides you could take it from me most any time you wanted.”
He raised his eyebrows then turned the weapon over in his long strong fingers. “Ffynch Company work. Nice. But you don’t expect that to cover cost?”
“No.” She twisted her head back over her shoulder. “Kitten, come here. Bring the jewels.”
“Jewels?”
She faced him. “Some of them for you. Some.”
The hiiri came trotting up, the heavy box bumping against her thigh. “He will take you?”
“He hasn’t decided yet Open the box.”
The hiiri knelt beside Aleytys and lifted back the lid. As the moonlight glittered on the jewels Aleytys felt the leap of interest in the smuggler. The sudden clutch of greed.
“How many layers to
that thing? Are they all like that?” He dropped to his knees and touched the glimmering gems with fingers that trembled in appreciation of their beauty and worth, surprising Aleytys with the sensitivity behind his facade.
She nodded and when he didn’t look up, said, “Yes. Those on top are yours to take us off world to a place I want. They’re enough, I think.”
He stood, disciplining his eagerness to a bland mask. “Two levels.”
“No. What you see.” She chuckled. “Before you try further, phorea, I’m empath. I read your feelings as soon as you have them.”
“Very unfair.” He shrugged. “Then you know I’ll take these. Where do you want to go?”
“You know a world called Ibex?”
He frowned. “No, it’s nowhere around this sector. You have the coordinates?”
“89-066 Dhube-Thrall 64 Aurex Corvi 100.47.” The numbers were burned deep in her mind and tripped swiftly off the end of her tongue, carrying with them sad memories of her life before this world. She shook off the pall of memory and waited for the smuggler’s answer.
Though his face was still bland and unrevealing, she felt the surprise in his mind. “That’s halfway across the galactic lens. No way I go that far.”
“That’s true.” She sighed. “Damn. I was afraid it wouldn’t be that easy. Looks like I’ve a long weary time ahead of me. Take me as far as you can. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Give him the top tray, Kitten.”
Aamunkoitta nodded. She lifted out the tray and placed it in the smuggler’s hands. Then she closed the lid of the box and slid the ropes over her shoulder again.
“I want to board ship before the others come. They shouldn’t see me.” Aleytys closed her eyes a minute, searching the hills with her mind. “The other hiiris are less than half an hour from here,” she said when she opened her eyes again. Meeting his startled gaze she smiled, then chuckled. “Another talent.”
“Well then, follow me.”
“One minute. What I said before.”
