Bitter Angels

by C. L. Anderson

  “I expect you want debt clearance?”

  “No, Sentinel,” she answered softly.

  Torian lifted his eyebrows. Now he was surprised, and perhaps a little impressed. “What do you want, then?”

  Emiliya laced her fingers tightly together around the cup. “I still have family on Dazzle.”

  “Ah.” Torian nodded, comprehending. “And how many family?”

  “Four.” She tried to picture her mother on her knees by the light of one flickering bulb. Don’t do this, Emiliya. It’s too dangerous. We’ll find another way.

  But Mother would never say that.

  “Four.” Torian touched the wall, opening another pane. Bright squares of video and charts crowded the blackness. “So many?”

  “You said ‘invaluable,’” she reminded him, and her empty stomach clenched at her daring.

  But the Grand Sentinel just chuckled. “So I did.” He gazed thoughtfully at her. “Do you know, I argued against publicly clearing Brahm Rajandur. It set too high a standard. But then, I’ve been against a system built on debt slavery from the beginning,” he added softly, as if he had forgotten he was still speaking aloud. “It was never the way to true, long-term stability.”

  “So why don’t you end it?” whispered Emiliya.

  He cocked his head toward her. “What would you say, Emiliya Varus, if I told you that was my plan?”

  I don’t believe you. Her hands clenched so tightly around the cup she feared for a moment she would shatter the stone. “I don’t know how you could.”

  “Yes. There are many…issues. Not the least of which is that my family must be taken care of. That is primary, and for them to be truly cared for, we must have that long-term stability.” Torian touched the pane to close it. “Very well, debt clearance for your relatives. I will need their names and IDs.”

  Emiliya stood to make a deep bow. “Thank you, Sentinel.” That’s all that matters. Nothing else.

  “You have not heard the terms yet.”

  Startled, she looked up without straightening. “Terms?”

  “Four free lives requires more than telling tales on your fellow Hospitallars.”

  Emiliya bit her lips. I should have known.

  “What do you want?”

  “The saint will be kidnapped and rescued, much as your friend Piata planned. But afterward, she’ll need a doctor.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded. “And you will give her a painkiller.”

  “I see.” And she did see. Hospital, meaning the Blood Family, had some specific use for this saint. Whatever was riding on this, it had been thought out long before. Piata’s plan never had a hope of working. “What if she doesn’t want it?”

  Torian shrugged. “That’s your job, and that’s the price. Four lives for one dosed saint.”

  “They won’t trust me.” Suspicion rolled off those soldiers in waves. Suspicion and condescension.

  “They will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Captain Jireu trusts you, and they already trust Captain Jireu.”

  Emiliya sucked in a deep breath. “What…”

  “No,” Torian cut her off. “You either do this thing and free your family, or you go home and keep this encounter to yourself, because if you let slip one word, I will make it known who was responsible for spoiling the chance of debt clearance for a set of Hospitallars. Choose.”

  There was no real choice, and they both knew it.

  “I assume I will be given the dose in time.” Emiliya was surprised at how easily she dropped into a tone of brisk professionalism.

  “You will be given it immediately.”

  “Then I suppose I should go to the dorms and wait for my instructions.”

  “Very good, Doctor.” Torian nodded again, a professorial gesture to a struggling student who has finally understood the question. “We will talk again soon.” He touched the wall, and the doors swung open, letting in the squadron of servants and footmen.

  “Thank you, Grand Sentinel.” Emiliya bowed, stiff and correct, and let the servants and a pair of Clerks lead her away.

  THIRTEEN

  AMERAND

  As soon as I had transferred my saints to the tender care of the Chairs and their people, I went looking for Emiliya.

  There were multiple Security houses around Fortress. The Family liked to have us salted through their domain, just in case we were needed. They had never completely relaxed since the Breakout. Despite what ultimately happened to Oblivion, they never stopped thinking that another fleet might rise up and come at them. So the missiles were all armed, the doors all had triple security, and every palace had its watch houses—relatively spartan places with screens instead of windows, barracks for the noncommissioned and private rooms for the officers. Clerks had desks beside the secops’ monitoring stations, watching the watchers and making sure the defenders stayed in the prescribed bounds.

  At Security Station No. 23, I checked in with the Clerk on duty at the door, then walked into the front monitoring room. The battered old lieutenant at the desk glanced away from the shifting images on the screen walls and gave me a brief wave.

  “How’s it holding on, Iver?” I slid into the seat next to him and entered all four of my security codes on the keypad.

  “Pretty tight.” Iver was white-haired, scarred, and crooked, with a permanently hunched back and wry neck. He’d been on frontline duty during the riots, only pulled off when Hospital said his bones couldn’t take being broken anymore.

  I don’t know why he’d never risen above lieutenant. I suppose, sometimes, if you’re smart, you find your level and stay there.

  Iver watched the screens for a while. Long lists of routing privileges and protocols scrolled in from Flight. Other screens watched over the rooms in our quadrant of the palace. Servants passed back and forth between members of the Blood Family. We ignored the Blood, unless we were specifically assigned to them. Even on Fortress—especially on Fortress—our business was not with the Blood but with the indentured, the OBs and lawbreakers. The Erasmus Blood took care of its own.

  Iver’s gaze slid over to my hands as they worked the keys, and from there to the corner of the screen I commandeered.

  “What’s doin’?” he asked.

  “Just looking for my cargo.” I frowned at the arrival lists and tracking prints. Emiliya seemed to have gone off the map.

  “You hauling something besides saints?”

  “Hospitallar.”

  Iver grunted and hit a few keys to clear a new space on the wall. “Got a name?”

  I didn’t like sharing my business, but Iver had always been all right, at least with me. “Emiliya Varus.”

  Iver hit the keys. A new tracking map came up with a new set of IDs and codes, none of which had shown up on my screen. Behind us, I heard keys clicking from the Clerk’s station.

  “Mmmm…precious cargo.” Iver swiveled his chair to face me. “She’s in Room 36. That’s the Family section.”

  It took everything I had to keep my face still. “Who’s she with?”

  Iver cocked his head toward me, eyes narrow and dangerously curious. “Couldn’t say. That’s on privacy.”

  Which meant she was in there not just with any Family Member, but with one who was fairly high-level, second-degree Blood or better. It could, in fact, be Grand Sentinel Torian.

  “Was she called in?” I was spying. I was spying on Emiliya. I should have felt guilt, but I didn’t. What I felt was fear, cold and hard in the pit of my stomach.

  Iver sucked on his cheek, making a loud smacking sound before he turned toward the board again.

  Before he could lay his fingers on the keys, the door opened behind us and another pair of Clerks entered. I jerked around to stare at Iver, but he just watched the screens, stone-faced and silent.

  The new pair of Clerks passed us by like shadows and stood beside their colleague’s desk. He looked up at them, and for the first time in my life, I saw a Clerk look nervous. On
e of the two newcomers—a dusky-skinned woman with her curling hair cropped short—put her hand on his shoulder, whether in comfort or to hold him in place I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t read their faces at all. The Clerk bowed his head, clacked a few keys, then stood and squared his shoulders. The woman nodded and walked him out the door. The remaining Clerk, a soft, plump, pale man with a shock of yellow hair, slipped into the desk, poised his hands over the keys, and looked at the screens with shining eyes. He began to type.

  I glanced at Iver. What was that?

  Iver moved his head back and forth, a minute gesture I would have missed if I hadn’t been right next to him. Then his eyes flickered toward the Clerk, who hadn’t even looked up from his keyboard.

  “Got no record on whether your Hospitallar got called in,” Iver said. Then he leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his belly and looking at me, almost daring me to ask another question.

  I mustered thought and nerve. Whatever that changing of the Clerks meant, I couldn’t worry about it just now. I’d drive myself insane. Worse, I’d drive myself to take risks trying to find out. I was looking for Emiliya, who had actively sought out one of the highest up of the Blood Family, and hadn’t told me why.

  “Problem?” asked Iver.

  What could I possibly say to that, especially with this new yellow-headed Clerk in the room? “No. Just trying to get a bead on how long she’s going to be. I’d hate to strand her, but if the saints need to leave…” I shrugged, and Iver shrugged in answer. We all had our orders, and those set our priorities.

  Iver and I talked a while longer. I don’t remember about what. I wandered over to the canteen and had a meal. I exchanged some gossip and took some messages for some of the other OBs in the ranks. I heard a lot of grumbles about a new smuggling rig, and plenty of wishing that the attendant ship would come in and get its load so it could be sweetly and simply blown out of the black sky and the Clerks would get off everybody’s backs.

  Whenever a new smuggling rig was spotted, the Clerks went into overdrive trying to ferret out the corrupt officers who had looked the other way while the pump ship had landed. They always found someone.

  What never failed to amaze me was how they would let several loads of water be carried off while they concentrated on rooting out the corruption. It practically guaranteed that the smugglers and pirates would keep trying.

  None of us ever speculated out loud how well plumped the Clerks’ pockets were, or how frequently they got laid. It wasn’t worth it.

  Neither Emiliya nor further orders came by the time the lights were dimmed for night shift. I bunked down in the guardhouse barracks instead of taking one of the officers’ rooms. I did not like to sleep alone. I never have. In the barracks, I could lie on my back in the darkness, hearing the sounds of sleep all around me. This to me, no matter where I lived, was the feeling of home.

  Eventually, I slept.

  “Captain Jireu?”

  Light shattered sleep. I cracked my eyes and squinted up at a Clerk who looked barely old enough to shave.

  “You are to get your ship ready to leave,” he said.

  I swore at the universe as I hauled myself out of bed. The rest of the secops in the room swore at me as I sent the Clerk running off to find Leda and Ceshame.

  I pulled on my clothes and boots and headed back to the port yard, punching in my codes over and over as I passed through the various security gates. Over and over, I waited for clearance, and fumed and wondered what my saints were thinking of.

  Terese Drajeske stood in the elaborately tiled waiting area looking grim and disheveled. Whatever she’d been doing, it wasn’t exchanging pleasant gossip with colleagues. Beside her, Coordinator Baijahn had her hands folded behind her back. Her eyes darted all around the room, as if looking for some way out.

  “My apologies, Captain Jireu,” the Field Commander said, with that reflexive Solaran politeness. “I would have waited until morning, but…” She shrugged irritably.

  “We can sleep aboard ship,” I replied by way of letting her know it was all right, even if it wasn’t. “We should be stocked and ready?” I turned to Ceshame, who glowered at me from the gangway threshold. I should not be asking those kinds of questions in front of cargo.

  “Yes, Captain,” he said with hollow briskness.

  “Then if you’ll board and get strapped down”—I bowed to the saints—“I’ll get the permissions and coordinates from Flight.”

  Terese nodded grimly to her second and they climbed into the passenger pod. I tried not to wonder what had dragged them so far down. I had more than enough homegrown worries.

  I climbed into the cockpit, but instead of punching in for Flight, I tapped the Security network. This time I found Emiliya easily. She was in one of the medical hostels. The Families liked to sort us—separate and isolated—according to world and job.

  Against my better judgment, I checked the times on the tracking map. According to this, Emiliya had been in the hostel since ten minutes after we arrived.

  I closed the tracking map.

  I pinged the room. There was no answer. I pinged it again.

  The screen stayed black and dark, but Emiliya’s weary voice answered. “What is it, Amerand?”

  “We’re about to launch for Dazzle, Emiliya. I wanted to make sure you’re all right before we fall away.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Don’t you have to go back to Hospital?”

  “Not yet. They want new scans of all the Dazzle saints. Apparently…apparently we didn’t do it right the first time. I’m due over there, and I’d rather go with you.”

  “Okay, then,” I said softly. “But make it five for sure. I think our saints are not feeling patient right now.”

  “Five.” Emiliya shut the connection down, leaving me staring at the console.

  If she needed to rework the scans, she shouldn’t be going to Dazzle, she should be going to the habitat, where her rig was. What she had said made no sense. It was a lie, and a clumsy one.

  The chill returned to my blood. I could not brush it aside. Whether she wanted to or not, Emiliya was on assignment for the Blood Family. I had no idea what her orders were or how she intended to carry them out.

  More than likely they had nothing to do with me. What was I? I was an extra pair of eyes, a kind of backup for the Clerks and all the other systems watching the saints. Why should I worry about what Emiliya’s orders were with regard to them?

  I’d have to find a way to talk with Emiliya. When we got to Dazzle, I’d get her into a blind spot and make her tell me what she could. And then…

  And then what? When I knew what she was doing, what would I do? I couldn’t possibly be thinking of warning the saints.

  Could I? Could I really?

  Leda and Ceshame were coming up the ladder, growling and swearing. I had to move my hands across the console, give the ship’s ID and priorities up to Flight, and try to get our permissions back. They were slow in coming. It was the midnight shift, because the habitats set their clocks by Fortress, and no one was happy to be here.

  The cameras showed Emiliya stepping on board and palming the plate to register that she was aboard a ship authorized to carry her. She looked into the lens for a split second before clambering into the passenger cabin. I couldn’t help myself. I switched the camera over to follow her.

  Terese Drajeske and Siri Baijahn were already in their couches. Terese nodded to Emiliya, who nodded back and took her place in the third couch. While I watched, Captain Baijahn’s gloved fingers moved restlessly across the back of her other hand. Something was being activated down there and nothing on the screen could tell me what it was.

  I sent the launch signals down to our passengers and out to the port. The thrusters lifted us smoothly and the automatic systems cut in to start us on the long, sweeping fall toward Dazzle.

  “Whoever takes first shift gets a full day off when we get home,” I said to Leda and
Ceshame.

  They eyed each other and held up their fists. The finger-pointing game of odds and evens went the traditional three rounds. Leda won, and Ceshame and I climbed down into the crew compartment.

  I stared at the hatch to the passenger compartment.

  “You wanna go in and get her out, I’m not saying anything,” he remarked.

  It took me a moment to realize he thought I was itching after Emiliya.

  “We’re on duty,” I growled, and pulled myself up into the middle bunk. I shut the door on the world.

  I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. I felt like I was standing on the edge of an empty shaft. Tomorrow I would fall, I was certain of it.

  Maybe I could put tomorrow off for a little while longer.

  But I could not get away from the fact that the last person to sleep in here was Emiliya. I hated myself for not trusting her, and I hated myself for caring at all about the saints, because that was what was making me distrust the girl I’d held in my arms when we’d heard that the last light had gone out on Oblivion.

  I had to remember that. I couldn’t forget that she was one of Oblivion’s children and that we had to hold it together for ourselves. We had no one else, not really. In the end, we would always turn to each other, whatever else it looked like we were doing.

  A furious buzzing shot through my head. My eyes snapped open.

  “What is it?” I demanded, my hand groping for the bunk capsule’s light panel.

  “Captain,” came back Leda’s voice. “We’ve got an unauthorized ship in view.”

  I swore and slammed the door open. I didn’t bother getting my boots back on, I just climbed barefoot up into the cockpit.

  As soon as I got there, Leda gave over the central seat, dropping into the copilot’s spot. I sat down without looking. Ceshame swung up the ladder behind me and dropped into the number three station.

  The window was almost filled by the gas giant turning below us. The riotous stripes and swirls slid silently around its perfect curves. A ship—a bundle of blobs and lights made indistinct by distance—flashed past, finishing its burn to drop into a transfer orbit. I looked up and down, and up and down again, comparing the data I saw on the screen against the reality I saw out the window.