Fever Season

by C. J. Cherryh

  "It does now," the officer muttered. "That's the number. This is your number. What's your mail pickup?"

  There was an ominous muttering in the line.

  "We ain't got no numbers," Singh yelled.

  "Throw 'at there bastard in the canal!" someone else yelled.

  The officer looked up, clench-jawed and worried. "Look, I ain't got no more choice than you! This is the governor's law!"

  "Then damn the governor!" Libby Singh yelled. "You write on there that that's a license number, ain't no numbers on the boats!"

  "I can't do that!"

  "You c'n write 'er right there," Jones said helpfully, pointing to the place on the card, and turned her head so she could see rightwise up as she indicated the blank. "See, ye just cross that there boat out and write in license."

  "I've got a thousand of these damn cards to do!"

  "Ye ain't going to get done any this way."

  The officer glowered. "I'll remember you."

  "Yey. An' canalers remember faces real good too, m'ser blackleg."

  "Right," a dozen voices said, at her back.

  "So ye write license. Ain't no boat got a number."

  She came early to Mondragon's that night—Denny let her in, Denny still vastly satisfied with himself these days. The boys were back at work at Gallandry despite their two-week-long absence (ser Gallandry owed Mondragon in some way powerful enough that he would have hired old Min herself if Mondragon asked it) but Mondragon still worried enough about the pair that he insisted they stay another week or so—ever since Raj had gone missing one evening and had had them damned near dragging the canals for him. Un-Raj-like, he had not told Denny where he had been, he had not been straight with Mondragon, or with her—

  In fact it was, she reckoned, one of the prime reasons Mondragon had laid down the law with the boys: You show up here by dark, he had said, seizing Raj by both arms and glaring at him in a way that had Raj frozen stiff. You and Denny both, you go to Gallandry in the morning, you check in at Moghi's on your way home, and if it so happens I'm not here, you go straight back to Moghi's and you sit there, you hear me, till I come or Jones or Del or somebody you know damn well for sure Jones or I sent, and if you've got any doubts, you have one of Moghi's men go with you and them and put it on my bill. Do you understand me?

  Whereafter Raj had nodded emphatically that he did, indeed, understand. Denny had sulked, Raj had hit him, and, Jones reckoned, Raj had enough to occupy him just making sure Denny stayed in sight.

  But Mondragon was taking no chances with another of the Boregys' windows. And more worrisome, something that had occurred to Jones and something she was certain was in Mondragon's mind, it was clear that something had scared Raj and upset him badly.

  " 'Lo." she said, meeting Mondragon in the hall that led back to the kitchen. She gave him a hug. "I got Min down there watching." Meaning the boat. It was safe enough, she reckoned. Min was content to tie up early and earn a copper, these chilly nights, and all Min had to do was bang on a pot with a spoon and raise hell, defense enough against the usual kind of pilferage, if somebody bothered her skip.

  "Good," Mondragon said. "I'm doing soup."

  It smelled like it. It smelled good. Mondragon's cooking had damn well improved in his staying in the apartment so much. "Going to wash," she said, and headed back around the stairs and up again to drop her little bag of personal stuff (like the gun and the ammunition, which she did not leave on the skip, along with clean clothes for the morning) up in Mondragon's bedroom upstairs.

  Raj was not what she expected to find up there, Raj sitting there in the chair with the lamp lit and a book he snapped shut right fast and stuck into his pants as he scrambled up and tried to leave.

  But she was standing in the door and she did not oblige him by moving.

  He just stood there with a very un-Raj-like sullenness and finally got the presence of mind to step aside and wave her in.

  "Thanks," she said dryly, and went to set her things by the bed.

  Except she thought then about the gun, and the ammunition, and the money in that kit, and turned around and looked at Raj, who was standing there looking at her as if he had fishbones in his throat.

  Damn, she had trusted the kid. Until he had gone secretive and peculiar.

  "Close the door," she said, suddenly figuring that something had to get worked out. And Raj went from looking like he was going to say something to looking like he was going to run. "Shut it!"

  Raj shut it, pressed it closed at his back and stood there with a cornered look. "What in hell're ye doing here?" she asked then. "Raj, you answer me. You answer me real plain. Ye got some trouble ye ain't told Mondragon?"

  There was absolute hell in the boy's eyes. Panic. "I haven't done anything. I wish he'd just quit worrying about me."

  "Something t' do with that brother of yours?"

  "No."

  "You sure? You real sure? I tell you, if you don't sit on that kid hard, there'll be something you can't pull him out of. Mondragon took the blame with Boregy, you know that. You know why. You know damn well why. Denny's enough to try the Angel Hisself. And here you stay out all damn night, you take to skulking round and sulking when ye're spoke to— I'm telling you, Mondragon's got enough on his mind! He don't need this! Now ye tell me, ye tell me what ye're into."

  "It wasn't all damn night! I was fine! I don't need somebody hovering over me all the time!"

  "Oh, sure, sure, ye don't. You got a hand all cut up, you got Denny to watch, you got some bully lads who seen your face right well—"

  "They saw yours. And his. Same as mine."

  "Well, I got a boat, don't I? I'm on the water, I'm in the Trade, and there ain't no way they cross the Trade in this town, friend. And if you ain't noticed, Mondragon's in by dark and watching his back all the time till this blows over. What in hell's the matter with you? What're you doing up here anyway?"

  "Maybe I want a little time to myself."

  "Ain't no law. Go on. Git! Ain't nothing t' me ye're an ingrate."

  He turned then, jaw set, and opened the door.

  "But I'd've thought," she said before it was halfway, "you owed Mondragon better."

  Raj froze. Just stopped, with his hand on the doorknob, his head down.

  "Ye want to say?" she asked. "You think we're stupid? Think we couldn't help you?"

  "It's nothing to do with anything." "Sure."

  He walked out, and went on downstairs.

  "Dinner," Denny said, putting his head into the sitting room where Raj had withdrawn to the farthest corner and tucked up in a chair, not interested in being bothered. Something in him pricked up an interest at food; his stomach said no and rolled over in queasy protest.

  Denny had given him the news, Denny dived back into the hall and headed for the company of Mondragon and Jones in the kitchen.

  Raj opened his book, on the folded note that he knew by heart. That said, in Marina's fine, beautiful handwriting:

  My dear Angel:

  I send this by your messenger—wishing I could see you face to face.…

  I am so touched by the poems from your hand. I would not try to equal them.…

  He hurt all over again. He traced the letters her pen had made, and knew that he was a fool. Knew that he had made a mess of things.

  Even halfway through the letter, the first time he had read it, he had been blind to the cues. Then they had added up. Mondragon. Mondragon.

  Everything had gotten twisted up. He had traced and retraced every mistaken move, everything he had said and Marina Kamat had said to him that he had taken and confused and believed in.

  She had taken the poems for Mondragon's. She had taken him for an errand-boy. Boy— Just that. It was Mondragon, it had to be, Mondragon who looked like the Angel Himself, like Retribution who stood on Hanging Bridge. And he was a fool.

  Oh, God, he was a fool, who had to tell the truth—to Marina, to Mondragon, all the way around. It was so damned hard. It hurt so much.
>
  He loved her, dammit. For a little while he had believed she loved him.

  And the man he owed everything to—he loved Mondragon, in a confused tangle of debt and need; and he had been so proud of what he had done, so overwhelmed by his failure to get the papers through, but proud all the same that he had worked everything out—and Mondragon had treated him like a grown man. Now Mondragon was mad at him, Jones was mad at him, Denny was too young to understand him and no little mad at him too. And Marina—

  Marina was going to be more than mad at him. Marina was going to be his enemy, forever. And he still loved her.

  House Kamat would despise him. Marina's brother might come looking for him—or for Mondragon. Who was a duelist, who would have to defend himself—

  No. Mondragon was too smart. Mondragon would only break Marina's heart and apologize and maybe be polite to her, because Mondragon always knew how to smooth over a situation.

  Then Mondragon would come home and grab hold of him and kill him. He had seen that look on Mondragon's face, that made him remember what Mondragon really was; and Mondragon was involved in things in hightown, a whole tangled mess on which everyone's life depended—dangerous, dangerous things, which meant Marina Kamat would be involved with him, and that mess, and he was—

  Jones came padding in, barefoot and quiet, just the creak of the board floor to give her away. Raj shut the book with a lurch of his heart and hoped his face was not as pale as he thought it was.

  Jones came over and leaned an arm on his chair. "Raj. What in hell's the matter?"

  "It's a girl," he said. Choked out.

  "Oh, Lord and my Ancestors!" Jones jerked back and stood up and set her hands on hips. "Is that it?"

  In that way of someone Older and beyond understanding the knife twisting in his heart.

  "Come on," she said, and took him by the arm and dragged him up. "That ain't a cause to miss a good supper." And when she had gotten him to the kitchen. "He says it's a girl," she said to Mondragon, with Denny right there to hear.

  "Hoooo," Denny said.

  Mondragon just gave him a bewildered look, a totally astonished look, that was far and away the most unguarded expression he had gotten out of Mondragon in a week.

  "Who?" Mondragon asked.

  "Oh," Raj said, thinking wildly, realizing he would be a fool to claim someone who was anyone, and unprepared to deal with the truth, "I saw her on this boat."

  "Whose?" Jones asked, sitting down at table.

  "I dunno." Raj found himself a way to go, a little lie that would give him time, and room to think, a little breath in a situation that had gotten narrower and narrower. "I didn't see them real clear."

  Jones snorted. Mondragon laughed softly. Denny gave him a look that looked halfway mad and halfway betrayed, as if he saw something ahead that he did not want to happen.

  The knot came back to his stomach. He sat down with the book in his lap, and ate the stew, spinning out the details they asked.

  Lies, every one.

  And that night in bed, in Mondragon's downstairs, while Mondragon and Jones were in bed upstairs, doing things that Raj imagined with all too much tormenting detail, Denny said:

  "You going to go all stupid on me?"

  "Happens," Raj said, staring at the ceiling. Thinking now he had to find new places to hide the letter, because now they might suspect about the book. Nothing seemed safe.

  There was just a little more time, that was all.

  INSTANT KARMA

  Janet Morris

  Magruder wasn't quite sure when the idea had come to him. Maybe as early as last week, when he'd said to a distraught Sword named Chamoun, "We're here to win the hearts and minds of these Merovingians, and we're going to do it if we have to put the fear of sharrh in heaven into 'em." Or maybe later that evening, when Tatiana was so obviously hiding something worrisome during dinner—and after.

  But Magruder never let a good plan go unimplemented, so here he was, knocking on the slavers' door with Megary Cut behind him, and a killer named al-Banna guarding his back and the launch they'd brought.

  Chance Magruder was in disguise, his face hooded, his Sword credentials hung at his waist—armed to the teeth, like you ought to be when you walked into a den of lions.

  "Whaddayawant?" came a voice through a rusty grate once the peep was open.

  "Heaven on earth," Magruder said dryly. Then, having given the recognition sign, set the plan in motion. "Brought Baritz's boat. Him an' Ruin al-Banna, back there, 'll wanna invite y'all to their party." Keep the accent heavy, keep talking while the alert code that had followed the recognition signal sank in.

  It must have, because Magruder was told to wait while someone else was fetched to talk to him.

  Which he didn't. He got into his own rented boat and left Ruin al-Banna to do the rest. The ride back from Megary seemed to take forever, in the small skiff whose pilot had taken a rich bribe to make the run to Megary and back to the Grand at Foundry, where Magruder had hired the boat. Chance could feel the pilot's nervousness, with the slavers' enclave still close behind and Magruder closer; he could nearly see the man's back twitch in anticipation of foul play.

  Like Magruder's own muscles were twitching. Ruin al-Banna had done his part like clockwork; the gunpowder and the other necessities—ceramics, metals, saltpeter-soaked cord and instructions—were now safely in the hands of the Sword operatives based out of Megary. Not that there was anything safe about giving that much explosive to the kind of men that served the Sword here in Merovingen.

  Magruder could only hope that Ruin al-Banna got the job done. The plan was… one of Magruder's better ones; if not brilliant, then at least serviceable. There was going to be one hell of a show tomorrow night, climaxing in the sky over the Signeury, if Magruder had done the math right and al-Banna followed his instructions to the letter. Instant Karma, you bet.

  It was risky, but so was reaction, or inaction. Magruder needed to take the initiative, the upper hand. If this worked, Iosef Kalugin would have his wrist slapped for decreeing the census. If it didn't, at least some of the traitors who'd wormed their way in among the Sword would be flushed.

  Magruder needed, as much as anything else, to find out whom he could trust among the riffraff he'd inherited from Romanov. What was going on out at Megary? If the plan aborted, or word leaked, Magruder would have a lead on Romanov's killer.

  It wasn't that he minded Romanov being murdered, but he minded like hell not having time to give the damned order. And he minded more not knowing from what quarter the assassin had come. He knew the Sword didn't have a comer on violence, much less assassination, in Merovingen, but he didn't know much more than that about Romanov's death. And since he was living with the opposition under deep cover, he needed to know who his enemies were; whether he was in bed with any of them.

  Figuratively speaking, of course. Since he knew one of his enemies, and was in bed with that one, literally: Tatiana Kalugin.

  Come on, son; you've been over all of that a dozen times, he told himself as the launch headed sluggishly toward the Grand. Tatiana couldn't have been responsible for Romanov's death. Not the way she'd almost bought the farm at the 24th Eve Ball—would have, maybe, if Magruder hadn't saved her.

  So that left only the rest of her family, the Boregys to boot, and half of ambulatory Merovingen. For all anyone could prove, Michael Chamoun was seeing warnings where none existed. For all Magruder knew, Romanov's death was just a nasty coincidence—a robbery attempt that got out of hand, random violence. Any of the Detfish's crew had plenty of reason to dislike Romanov; there were factions among the Sword, here as well as at home in Nev Hettek.

  And now Magruder was without Romanov's guidance, such as it had shown itself to be. Whatever else Romanov was, he'd been an expert on Merovingen. Without him, Magruder was having to play everything by ear—to improvise, to operate in a theater of the unknown.

  And like this trip to Megary, made in person because there wasn't anyone Chance could
trust, the unknown was becoming increasingly dangerous. Therefore, the plan. If you don't know the rules, Magruder always said, then change the game.

  Cardinal Ito was a man who cleaned up his own messes. It wasn't like him to tell tales out of school, or to go outside his own power structure for help. But this was an unusual circumstance, and permission, of a sort, must be sought outside the College for the executive action Ito wished to order.

  So he went straight to the top. It was the only way. And Iosef Kalugin was the only authority Ito Tremaine Boregy was answerable to—beyond the ultimate authority of karma.

  In Iosef Kalugin's Signeury offices, the flick of his cardinal's ring at a worried secretary gained him instant admission to Iosef's presence.

  The Kalugin patriarch took one look at his Collegiate visitor, checked his appointment book to make sure the meeting hadn't been scheduled, and told his secretary that he wasn't to be disturbed until further notice.

  Then Kalugin opened the doors to the balcony, letting in the rising mists of night, and stepped outside without a word, motioning Ito to follow.

  "What brings you here, Cardinal, in person?" said the wolfish old ruler of Merovingen, with a show of yellow teeth.

  "I felt the need to… consult with you, Your Excellency," said Ito mildly, knowing that his presence here spoke urgently enough.

  "Yes. About what?" asked the Revenantist patriarch carefully.

  "The College has a student whom it wishes to expel… permanently."

  "So? Is this all?" Iosef Kalugin's voice sounded in no way relieved. His guard was up; he was looking for the catastrophe; or, if there was none, for the trap. "Who is this student? Or should I not ask?"

  "Cassiopeia Boregy's new husband. And when I say expel, I mean from more than just the College. He is an evil influence. In his heart he carries seeds of destruction—as you well know."

  "Ah, I see. You mean permanently." Kalugin turned from Ito and leaned his hands on the guardrail, looking out over the Signuery and the mists beyond, rising so thick that they nearly masked the Justiciary and the bridge connecting it to the Signeury itself.