Divine Right

by C. J. Cherryh

  He froze, unsure what to say, as behind him he could hear her mother's muffled sobs, and the comforting murmur of her maid.

  He stood that way for an eternity. Marina reached out toward his face, as if to touch his swelling nose, then stopped herself. She seemed at as much of a loss as he was.

  "Rigel-"

  He turned, grateful for the chance to look away.

  "Rigel, whatever you did, it was right," Doctor Jonathon said, getting painfully to his feet, while the maid held Andromeda against her shoulder, letting her cry herself into calmness. "You broke her out of her hallucination—"

  "I—she thought I was someone she knew," Raj said carefully, not sure how much of his background the House had been told. "My mother; her schoolmate back in Nev Hettek, and she knew that my mother is dead. I guess she never got a good look at me before this. I think I might have thrown her into the hallucination in the first place. I—I'm sorry. I certainly didn't mean it."

  "Of course you didn't," the doctor said soothingly, one eye on Andromeda as her maid helped her to rise. Andromeda turned a tear-streaked face toward the sound of their voices, and blinked.

  "Who—are you?" she asked, voice hoarse with strain.

  "This is Rigel Takahashi, Andromeda," Doctor Jonathon interposed smoothly. "You remember; Richard told you. He's going to the College under Kamat sponsorship, and Elder Takahashi made some trade agreements with us in return."

  She pulled away from her maid, and looked at him With wondering eyes. "Rigel Takahashi—you must be Angela's boy--"

  He bowed to her. "Yes, m'sera."

  "It's uncanny," she said, "You look just like her."

  "So I've been told, m'sera."

  "I—" her eyes clouded for a moment, then cleared, and she drew herself up, taking on a dignity and poise that reminded him sharply of his grandfather, and a beauty that had nothing to do with tear-swollen eyes, blanched cheeks, and trembling hands. "I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude, at least—''

  He interrupted her, gently. "M'sera, you owe me nothing. You were ill, I simply stayed with you until Marina could bring the doctor. That is, or will be, my duty—I'm studying medicine, after all." He was amazed at himself; he sounded years older, and he wondered where the words were coming from.

  They were evidently the right ones. She flushed a little, and lowered her gaze.

  "Andromeda, you should go rest," the doctor prompted.

  "Yes," she replied vaguely. "Yes, I should. Forgive

  me—''

  As the corridor door opened and closed behind them, Doctor Jonathon cursed savagely. "I'll have Guptal's head for this—he swore the antitoxin would prevent—Marina, where is she getting it?" He stopped, then, as if only now realizing that there was an outsider not of Kamat standing awkwardly at his elbow, privy to every word he said.

  Raj cleared his throat. "It's none of my business, Doctor Jonathon, but—that looked like deathangel flashback to me."

  The doctor pivoted, face blank with surprise. "Deathangel flashback? What in the name of the Ancestors is that?"

  Raj flushed, and stammered. "I-if you take enough deathangel, it changes your head. Even if you never t-take it again, you can get thrown into hallucinations by any s-strong stimulus." He shrugged. "Th-that's why a l-lot of swampies are c-crazy. S-stuck in deathangel dreams."

  Doctor Jonathon closed his eyes, and cursed again. "So that's why—thank you, Rigel. Again. I trust we can rely on your discretion?"

  Raj managed a feeble smile. "What discrection, m'ser? M'sera Andromeda had a dizzy spell, and I just stayed with her until you could come. Nothing terrible, and she certainly didn't say anything to me except to thank me."

  "Good boy." The doctor clapped him on the shoulder, and he staggered a little. "I'll go see what needs to be done."

  That left him alone in the corridor with Marina.

  Now she wouldn't look at him.

  "You've heard enough that you might as well know all of it," she said, bitterly, staring at the polished wooden floor, twisting the hem of her sweater in white hands. "When Father died, she took it badly—she'd been in love with him, really in love, and she couldn't bear to be without him. She started taking deathangel so she could see him—" Marina looked up finally, and gestured her helplessness. "Where was she getting it?" Raj asked. Marina's eyes blazed. "Thomas Mondragon," she spat—and burst into tears.

  Once again Raj wound up sitting on the floor of the corridor with a lady of Kamat in his arms—this one crying out onto his shoulder all the things she didn't dare tell mother or brother. About how she still loved Mondragon—and hated him. About how her mother's valet, Kidd, had been the go-between. About how she'd put two and two together when she realized that Kidd had known exactly where to take her the first time she'd met with Tom—which could only mean he'd been there many times before. And that she was pregnant with Tom's baby. None of this—except the business with Andromeda and the deathangel—was any surprise to Raj. It was pretty obvious from her intermittent hysterics that Marina was "not herself," and adding those frequent visits to Tom gave anybody a good cause. But that she thought Mondragon was the source of the drug-Lord and Ancestors.

  He didn't know quite what to say or do, so he just let her cry herself out—something she evidently needed—then helped her to tidy herself, and helped her to her feet.

  "Thank you, Raj," she said, shyly, a little ashamed. "I didn't mean—"

  "That's what friends are for," he told her. "We are friends, aren't we?"

  "I'd hoped so—but after—"

  He shrugged. "I learned things from that whole mess—and it got me here, didn't it?" He delicately declined to mention how much that fiasco had placed him in Mondragon's debt.

  "Then we are friends." She offered him her hand with a sweet smile that could still make his heart jump a little, even if he wasn't in love with her anymore. He took it, squeezed it—and they parted.

  The summons to Richard Kamat's office at sunset could only be tied to the near-disaster in the private corridor this afternoon. This time Raj followed the servant to the top of the house with only a little trepidation. He had, he thought, handled the whole mess fairly well.

  The east windows framed a sky that was First-Bath blue, spangled with tiny crystal star-beads. The west held the sun dying a bloody death. Richard was a dark silhouette against the red, unconsciously like the crane in the picture in the sword shrine.

  Raj cleared his throat. "You sent for me, m'ser Kamat?"

  Richard did not turn around. "It seems," he said dryly, "that you have fallen into a muck pit of Kamat secrets. Doctor Jonathon told me a bit—Ree told me more.''

  He seemed to be waiting for a response.

  "Every House has secrets," he replied carefully. "You know more'n—more than a few of Takahashi's."

  Now Richard turned, though he was still nothing more than a sable shape to Raj. "Well. I will admit I had been toying with this notion for a while, but—I didn't quite know how to phrase this delicately, yet I also did not want you to have any deceptions about what I was going to offer. Ree told you, she says, that she's-"

  "Expecting," Raj supplied.

  "And who the father is." Richard coughed. "We are in something of a dilemma. It just isn't done for a House daughter to have an—unacknowledged child. Yet we can hardly look to Thomas Mondragon to do so. It would seem best for Ree to make a contract marriage, but frankly, there wasn't anyone she wanted to confide in—really, no one she truly didn't find repugnant even for a short-term contract." He paused, significantly. "Until today."

  Raj was considerably less a fool than he had been a half-year ago, but this was still something of a shock. "You mean—" he gulped. "You mean me."

  "It would be of great benefit to Kamat," Richard admitted frankly. "A contract marriage with Takahashi would get us out of an awkward situation—and not incidentally, give us a chance to negotiate for a longer lease on those mines." His voice was wry. "I do have to think first of Kamat as a whole befor
e I think of Ree—but if I can benefit both. ..."

  "Was this Marina's idea, or yours?"

  "I suggested it after she told me about this afternoon; she seemed to welcome the idea. She does like you, Rigel—so, I think, do I. I'd be quite pleased to have you further tied to my House."

  He could have Marina—and if he just kept his mouth shut, she'd continue to blame Tom for her mother's addiction. That would, eventually, break the hold he had on her heart. Which would please Jones, and maybe Tom, too.

  Takahashi honor.

  "M'ser—two things," he said, carefully choosing his words. "The first is—I'd like to think about this. I'd like—to get out of the House for a while. I'll suggest a few things that I know of to Doctor Jonathon, but while he's trying them, it might be a good idea if m'sera Andromeda wouldn't be in a position to see me."

  Richard nodded, as the scarlet behind him faded. "Did you have anything in mind?"

  "Well—my friend, Justus Lee, was talking about there being a suite open in Hilda's. He was kind of wishing he knew somebody he could trust to split it with him. I think he was hinting, me. He's Father Rhajmurti's protege, in art."

  Richard nodded again. "A good choice. I think we can arrange that. What's the second thing?"

  This was daring, but— "Thomas Mondragon isn't where m'sera got her drugs. There isn't much he hasn't done, but that's not one of them." He coughed a little, shamed, but offered the confession to balance the secrets he'd stumbled on. "Couple of months ago, during all the—fuss—I had reckoned on maybe doing some drug-selling myself. Lord knows I know the swamp, what's out there. I wanted the money to pay for the College, and I figured, if fools are going to spend their money, I might as well get it and do something decent with it." He coughed again, and flushed. "So I wasn't thinking real clear, well—I know better now. Thing is, Tom got wind of what I'd figured, and he just about beat me bloody for even thinking about it. I couldn't sit for a week. I can't prove it, not yet, but—it wasn't him."

  "So?" Richard's voice was neutral.

  "Before I say anything to m'sera Marina, I want to be able to prove to her that it wasn't Tom. I want everything clean between us."

  Takahashi honor.

  He sighed. "I want her making her choices without any lies. I messed her up with lies before; I don't want to do it again. If she knows the truth—she might make different choices. And that's her right."

  Richard folded his arms across his chest; the sky behind him deepened to blue, and the first stars sprinkled across it. "I can respect that," he said, a certain warmth coming into his voice. "I can respect that, and I can understand that. Very well. You seek your proofs, and I'll see about getting you moved out of Kamat so that you can have your time to think."

  "Thank you, m'ser," Raj replied quietly, and turned to go.

  "Rigel-"

  He stopped, and turned back. He could just see Richard's grim smile in the blue dusk.

  "Welcome to Kamat, Rigel."

  SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION (REPRISED)

  C.J. Cherryh

  "Ho! Yoss!" Jones yelled, and eased her skip forward as gentle as she could feather the throttle. It was still a hell of a jolt on the cleat when the slack took up and the rope came taut between her and the old river-runner: but you couldn't muscle anything in a tow that big, you just eased into it and hauled, and you might not think you were going to budge it for a minute, and you might be tempted to put the power on, but you were likely to pop a cleat or snap a rope if you got hasty. You just took it slow, because that old hulk once it did gather way was something to stop.

  Which was what Del and Mira were doing back there, close in with another rope on the 'runner's bow as she came away from dock.

  "She holds!" she yelled at Mondragon, on the 'runner's stern. "Port ye, port all!"

  Mondragon put the 'runner's tiller over, fast, soon as she said it, because the current was tricky here, and crowded with other boats, and it was a real dicey piece of work backing her out and getting her squared away.

  She let the speed fall off then and gritted her teeth while Del Suleiman nosed his skip through the needle's eye of the 'runner's bow and a river-barge's mooring cable, got himself through and just timed it to take up the pull without too much jolt, though sure as was, he and Mira and Tommy were hanging on tight when the pull hit.

  "Hard yer starb'd!" she yelled at Mondragon. "Yoss, now! Yoss! —Del, ye're out o' room!"

  As the old 'runner came within a spit of crossing that barge-cable, and an easy pitch of drifting into the moored boats. She had her hand on her throttle, holding her breath and finally seeing Del's pull win out. A cheer went up from skips that had come to watch the show. Bottles passed. Bets got paid.

  They'd had a little misgiving about Mondragon being at the tiller—but it was a matter of pride, that was the way she saw it and that was why she talked Del into it—

  If you were going to own the biggest laughingstock on the Water, if you were Thomas Mondragon and Altair Jones, and you knew canalers from one end of town to the other were talking about Mondragon's Fancy-boat, and laying bets whether it was going to founder in the Grand before it ever got to its berth up by Kamat's Pardee warehouse, why, hell if you didn't do it with all the style you had—

  Damn right he's going to take 'er! she'd said to Del. He c'n do 'er. Man's got a right, don't 'e?

  Del understood that. Any canaler would understand that—would understand it too, if Mondragon had asked for somebody else to manage that tiller, because it was a real dicey thing, a boat that size, with other traffic and bridges and the currents and all, and no engine— wasn't anybody on the water didn't know that was a tricky job in itself.

  But the Trade accepted Mondragon: most landers, if they ever laid hand to a pole or tried their hand at a skip, Lord! somebody'd do 'em a dirty trick: they'd find their path crossed or their pole fouled and maybe, if they got into some canals, find out canalers didn't like landers getting beyond themselves—lucky if they only got dunked in the Det, and not something worse. Mondragon, though—

  'Ware! she'd yell, when he'd foul somebody, and she'd wince and beg pardon for him; but the Trade'd allow for him—like they allowed for kids learning to pole: Hey, they'd yell. And he'd blush—few things could make him do that, but banging into somebody's boat would do it every time—and yell out, Sorry! Beg pardon, Lewis! because he knew the names, and no lander did; and more than that the Trade owed him blood.

  So Del knew why he took the tiller himself, even if it scared hell out of her.

  And there was a real groan from the spectators on the water when he came close to that barge, and so many other people shouting advice she'd shouted herself hoarse, afraid he wouldn't hear her over the rest; and people were laughing and collecting bets when he made it-Most famous thing to happen on the Water all summer, Jones and Suleiman doing some tricky maneuvering and Jones' man steering that old boat right into the Grand and right through a cheering lot of spectators.

  It was a damn parade all the way up the Grand: Hoooo—ooo! canalers yelled, and raised bottles to them and yelled that that was the biggest damn pole-boat anybody ever saw—it having no engine, and no poler alive being strong enough to move a 'runner against the Det's current.

  Parking it drew a crowd too, Lord! hightowners too, come to see what was going on, and canalers piling up on the bridges and walkways so heavy on Pardee North to get a good look at where it was going to park, it was scary. Fools were so thick up there they were straining the second tier braces.

  But parking was why she was back here: it was in some ways trickier than the harbor, getting slowed down and fighting the Port Canal current to coax that big boat up against the side of Pardee.

  There was Mintaka Fahd, drunk and standing up in her skip-well to cheer them on.

  "There's me handsome lad!" she yelled. " 'E done it, didn't 'e?"

  "Move 'er, Min!" Jones screamed at her. "Ye're complicatin' us!"

  Blacklegs were out, conspicuous on the lower walkway,
worried about the crowd.

  But they had their permit to tie up a big boat there, cleared, stamped and sealed: a five day permit, For overhaul and repair, it said.

  They missed Min by half a foot. They missed fool Rama Pardee by inches, when he came up on the walkway to supervise and didn't realize a 'runner was going to overhang the walkway a foot with its beam.

  But they did it. Mondragon was white as a ghost when he jumped down off his boat, and canalers were offering him and Del and Mira and Tommy drinks from one bottle and the other before he ever got to show his Permit to the officers—bottles came her way too, Min's being one of them, and she was tolerably feeling it when the crowd just sort of carried them down to Moghi's.

  Much more noise than Mondragon liked. He looked downright scared—the same as the blackleg had, who'd had to ask him for that tie-up permit. Mondragon even when they got to Moghi's didn't seem real sure how it had all gotten this far out of hand, or why people were slapping him on the back and buying him drinks and getting drunk and dancing, but she knew—

  It was because it was hot and the canals were clogged up and people were feuding and there was so damn little to laugh about this summer—and because all the hightowners who came to watch had no idea in the world why canalers all over town were falling down laughing.

  DRAW ME A PICTURE

  Nancy Asire

  "You aren't listening, Alfonso," the voice accused.

  Rhajmurti turned away from the open window where he had been standing in a vain attempt to catch a breeze. His apartment was stifling, but none of the other priests, except the most exalted, fared much better these muggy summer days. The stench coming up from the canals was at its worst: summer had dropped the water level to the stage that he wondered how the canalsiders could endure the smell.

  To say nothing of the stench raised by the new floating greenery choking the backwaters of the canals, dead and scummy in the shadows.

  "I'm listening," he protested, turning to face his slender visitor. "I'm paying attention to every word you say."