by Timothy Zahn
Daulo licked his lips. This one, unfortunately, was obvious. "So it wasn't a car that crashed. It was an aircraft."
"It's beginning to look that way," Kruin agreed heavily.
Which meant she'd lied to them. Pure and simple; no conceivable misinterpretation about it. Anger and shame welled up within Daulo's stomach, the emotions fighting each other for supremacy. The Sammon family had saved her life and taken her in, and she'd repaid their hospitality by lying to them . . . and by playing him for a fool.
Kruin's voice cut into his private turmoil. "There are many reasons why she might lie about that," he said gently. "Not all of them having anything to do with you or our family. So my question for you, my son, is this: is she, in your judgment, an enemy of ours?"
"My judgment doesn't seem to be worth a great deal at this point," Daulo retorted, tasting bitterness.
"Do you question my judgment in asking for yours?" Kruin asked, his tone suddenly cold. "You will answer my question, Daulo Sammon."
Daulo swallowed hard. "Forgive me, my father—I didn't mean impertinence. It was just that—"
"Don't make excuses, Daulo Sammon. I wish an answer to my question."
"Yes, my father." Daulo took a deep breath, trying desperately to sort it all out. Facts, emotions, impressions . . . "No," he said at last. "No, I don't believe she came here for the purpose of harming us. I don't know why I think that, but I do."
"It's as I said," Kruin said, his cold manner giving way again to a gentler tone. "The Sammon family survives because we have the ability to read others' purposes. I've tried since childhood to nurture that talent in you; the future will show whether I've succeeded." Moving with grace, he got to his feet. "At the meal tonight Jasmine Alventin announced that it was her belief she'd recovered sufficiently from her injuries to return to her home. She'll be leaving tomorrow morning."
Daulo stared up at him. "She's leaving tomorrow? Then why all this fuss about whether or not we can trust her?"
Kruin gazed down at him. "The fuss," he said coolly, "was over whether or not it would be wise to let her out of our sight and control."
Daulo clenched his teeth. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry."
A faint smile touched Kruin's lips. "I told her we would give her transportation as far as Azras. If you'd like, you may accompany her there."
"Thank you, my father," Daulo said steadily. "It would also give me the opportunity to discuss future purchases with some of our buyers there."
"Of course," Kruin nodded, and Daulo thought he saw approval on the elder Sammon's face. "I'll leave you to your sleep, then. Goodnight, my son."
"Goodnight, my father."
And that's that, Daulo thought when he was once again alone. Tomorrow she'll be gone, and that'll be the end of it. She'll return to whatever mysterious village she really comes from, and I'll never see her again. There was some hurt in that; perhaps even a little bit of anger. But he had to admit his primary reaction was relief.
If a Gordian Knot couldn't be unraveled, after all, the next best thing was to send it out of sight.
Chapter 20
An hour, Daulo had thought as he and Jasmine drove off down the winding forest road toward Azras. We'll have one more hour together, and then I'll never see her again.
But he was wrong. They were on the road together considerably less than an hour.
"This is insane," he fumed as the gatekeepers swung the heavy north gate of Shaga village closed behind them and he let the car coast to a halt at the side of the road. "There's nothing here you can possibly want."
"How do you know?" she countered, fumbling for a moment before she was able to get the door open. "I thank you for the ride, Daulo Sammon—"
"Would you for one minute listen to me?" he snarled, getting out on his side to glare at her across the car roof. "You're a stranger in this part of Qasama, Jasmine Alventin—you've admitted that yourself. I assure you that Shaga is no closer to your home than Milika was."
"Sure it is—ten kilometers closer," she retorted.
It was a long time since anyone had talked to Daulo like that, and for a moment he was speechless. Jasmine took advantage of the pause to retrieve from the back seat the small shoulder bag Daulo's mother had given her. "All right, fine," Daulo managed at last as she closed the door and slipped the bag's strap over her shoulder. "So you're ten kilometers closer to Azras. What does that gain you?—especially since no one here is likely to offer you a free ride even as far as Azras? So enough of this nonsense. Get back in the car."
She gazed across the roof at him . . . and again, it wasn't the kind of look he was accustomed to receiving from a woman. "Look, Daulo Sammon," she said in a quiet voice. "There's something I have to do—by myself—and I have to do it here. Please don't ask me any more. Just believe me when I tell you that the less you have to do with me, the better."
Daulo gritted his teeth. "All right, then," he bit out. "If that's how you want it. Goodbye." Feeling his face burning, he got back in the car and started off, continuing on toward the center of the village.
But only for a short way. Unlike Milika, Shaga had been haphazardly constructed, its roads curving and twisting all over the place, and Daulo hadn't gone more than a hundred meters before the woman's image in his mirror disappeared behind a turn in the road. Another hundred meters brought him to a cross road, which he took; and less than two minutes later he'd circled his way back to where he'd dropped her off.
There was no reason why she should suddenly decide to stay in Shaga; which could only mean that it was what she'd intended all along. Either she was planning to double back to Milika by unknown means—and for equally unknown purposes—or else she was meeting someone here. Whichever it turned out to be, he had every intention of keeping track of her while she did it.
But whatever her purpose, it didn't seem to involve the center of town. Even as he drove cautiously to within sight of the north gate he spotted her walking briskly away from him, paralleling the wall. He eased the car forward a bit, taking care to stay well back of her. There were few buildings in this part of Shaga, and while that meant he could keep watch on her from a reasonable distance away, it also meant he would be easier for her to spot.
But she apparently had no inkling that anyone might be watching. She never once looked over her shoulder . . . and as she continued on, Daulo noticed she was angling toward the wall.
Was she going to try and climb out? Ridiculous. It would get her out of Shaga without being seen, perhaps, but then where would she be? Out on a forest road, that's where, he thought sourly, with razorarms and krisjaws all around her. And ten solid kilometers to anywhere safe.
And yet she clearly was headed for the wall. Daulo gnawed at his lip, wondering if perhaps his original assessment had been right, after all. Perhaps she was simply a feeblebrained scatterhead.
Right by the wall, now, she paused and glanced around her. Looking for a ladder, probably. Daulo tensed, wondering if she would notice him sitting in this parked car—
And an instant later she was standing on top of the wall.
Daulo gasped. God above! No climbing, no running start, no leaping up to grab hold of the top with fingers—she'd simply bent her knees and jumped.
To the top of a wall over a meter taller than she was.
She took the anti-razorarm mesh just as casually, grabbing the top with one hand as she jumped to deflect her body into a tight-moving arc that dropped her onto her feet on the other side. An instant later she was gone.
For another five heartbeats Daulo just sat there, dumbfounded. She was insane, all right . . . insane, but with an athletic ability that was totally unheard of.
And she's getting away.
With a jerk, Daulo broke his paralysis and swung the car back toward the gate.
She was already out of sight by the time he was back on the road, but with forest hemming them in on both sides there were only two directions she could have gone. And since she'd already turned down a free ride
on to Azras . . . Trying to keep an eye on both sides of the road at once, Daulo started back toward Milika.
For several painful minutes he wondered if he'd guessed wrong. With no more than a three-minute head start, there was simply no way she could have gotten this far ahead of him, even at the deliberately slow speed he was making. He was just wondering if he should turn around when he caught a glimpse of someone just around a curve ahead.
It took another few minutes of experimentation to find the speed that would let him get a glimpse of her every couple of minutes but yet not get him too close. It turned out she was every bit as phenomenal a runner as she was a high jumper.
Hang with her, he told himself grimly, teeth clenched with tension at this unaccustomed trick driving. She can't keep up this kind of pace for very long. Just hang with her.
* * *
She did hold the pace, though, and for considerably longer than he would have guessed possible. It was only as they passed the halfway point back to Milika that she began to slow down; and it was pure luck on his part that he happened to get a glimpse of her heading off toward the tree line paralleling the road a dozen meters to the west.
He pulled over quickly, wincing at the sounds of crunching vegetation beneath his wheels as he eased off the road and stopped. But presumably she was making at least as much noise wading through the undergrowth of the forest. At any rate, she didn't turn around, but merely dropped her shoulder bag behind a large thaurnni bush and kept going.
Straight into the forest.
No, was his immediate thought. She's not really going into the forest. She's cutting through a bit to throw me off her track. Or—
But even as a part of his brain tried to think up safer alternatives he was digging under the seat for the quickfire pistol holstered there and climbing quietly out of the car. There was only one thing out there that could possibly be worth risking the razorarms and krisjaws for.
Her wrecked aircraft. The aircraft whose existence she'd taken great pains to conceal . . . and which therefore was very probably worth seeing.
Besides which—he was honest enough to admit—his pride wouldn't let him lose track of her now. Taking a deep breath, he cradled the barrel of his gun with his left hand and stepped in under the tree canopy.
* * *
Daulo had been out in the raw Qasaman forest before, of course, but never under conditions like this; and it only gradually dawned on him just how different this was. Always before he'd been part of a squad of village hunters, shielded from danger by their guns and experience. Now, however, he was alone. Worse, he was trying to follow another person without being spotted in turn, a chore that took far more concentration than he liked.
And no one knew he was here. Or would even miss him for several hours.
If he was killed, would they ever even find his body?
He fought the growing fear for nearly fifteen minutes . . . and then, all at once, something seemed to snap within him. The sounds of animals and insects buzzing and scurrying all around him mingled with the rapid thud of his heartbeat in his ears, and suddenly it didn't seem quite so important anymore that he, personally, find out what Jasmine Alventin was up to. This is crazy, he told himself, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of a trembling hand. She wants something from her aircraft?—fine. She can have it. Whatever it was, it was no longer worth risking his life over—especially when he could have a squad of armed men waiting for her by the time she came back to retrieve her bag. Checking one last time to make sure she wasn't looking back, he turned around—
The purring growl came from off to his left, and his heart skipped a beat as he nearly tripped over his feet spinning around to face it. A razorarm stood there, crouched ready to spring.
It was one thing to face a razorarm caught in a village wall's upper mesh; it was something else entirely to encounter one on its own home ground. Daulo didn't even realize he'd pulled the trigger until the gun abruptly jerked in his hand and a stutter of thunderclaps shattered the quiet of the forest. Dimly, through the gun's roar, he heard the razorarm's purr become a scream—saw the clawed front paws coming at him like twin missiles—
And with a flash like a lightning bolt from God, the razorarm blazed with light and flame.
It slammed into him, flooding his nostrils with the nauseating stench of seared meat and fur. He staggered back, gagging, trying to shove the dead weight off his shoulders and chest—
"Daulo—duck!"
The warning did no good. Daulo's horror-numbed muscles had no chance to react before a flash of silver-blue exploded in his face—
And to the stench was added pain.
Pain like nothing he'd ever felt before—a dozen nails jabbing and twisting and ripping through his flesh. He was aware in a distant way that he was screaming; aware that his efforts to tear his tormentor away merely made the pain worse. One eye was closed against something slapping at it; with the other he saw Jasmine running toward him, the look of an avenging angel on her face. Her hands reached out—no, he tried to scream, don't try to tear it off—
And then her hands seemed to flicker with light . . . and the claws digging into his face were suddenly stilled.
"Daulo!" Jasmine said tautly, her hands gently yet firmly pulling the tormentor off him. "Oh, my God—are you all right?"
"I'm—yes, I think so," he managed, struggling to regain his dignity in front of this woman. "It—what happened?"
"You tried to shoot a razorarm," she said grimly, holding his hands firmly away from the throbbing in his cheek as she examined the wounds with eyes and fingertips. "It wasn't a complete success."
"It—?" Turning away from her probing fingers, he looked down at the carcass lying limply beside him.
Its head was gone. Burned away.
"God be praised," he sighed. "That lightning bolt was . . ." He paused, an eerie feeling crawling up his back. The second attacker . . . his eyes found where Jasmine had tossed it. The razorarm's mojo, of course. Also burned.
Slowly, he looked back at Jasmine Alventin. Jasmine Alventin, the uncultured woman who'd appeared from nowhere . . . and who'd made it through raw forest alone . . . and whose hands had spat fire deadly enough to kill.
And it all finally fell together.
"God above," he groaned.
And to his everlasting shame, he fainted.
Chapter 21
Daulo wasn't unconscious for more than about ten minutes. It was still plenty of time for Jin to dress his injuries as best she could, move the spine leopard and mojo carcasses away before they could attract scavengers, and call herself every synonym for idiot that she could think of.
The worst part was the knowledge that her detractors had been right. Totally. She simply didn't have what it took to be a Cobra; not the emotional toughness, not even the ability to keep her focus on her mission. Certainly not the basic intelligence.
She looked down at Daulo for a moment, gritting her teeth hard enough to hurt. That was it, then—the mission was scrubbed. An hour after he got home half the planet would be out here looking for her. Nothing left to do now but to strike out into deep forest and wait in the vain hope that she might somehow connect up with the next team the Cobra Worlds sent. Whenever in the distant future that might be.
Not that it mattered. At this point it would be better for everyone concerned if she died here, anyway.
Daub groaned, and his hands twitched against his chest. Another minute and he'd be fully conscious, and for a moment Jin debated whether or not it would be safe for her to leave him here alone. The road wasn't more than fifteen minutes away, and his injuries wouldn't slow him down all that much. And he did have a gun.
Sighing, Jin stayed where she was, giving the area a quick visual sweep. There wasn't much point, after all, in shooting spine leopards and mojos off a man and then turning him loose for the forest to take another crack at.
When she looked down again, his eyes were open. Staring up at her.
For sever
al heartbeats neither spoke. Then Daulo took a shuddering breath. "You're a demon warrior," he croaked. There was no question in his voice.
Nor anything that required a verbal answer. Jin merely nodded once and waited. Daulo's hand went to his cheek, gingerly touched the handkerchief Jin had tied there with a strip of cloth. "How . . . badly am I hurt?"
He was clearly fighting to sound and act natural. "It's not too bad," Jin assured him. "Deep gouges in places, but I don't think there's any major muscle or nerve damage. Probably hurts like blazes, though."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips for a second. "That's for sure," he admitted. "I don't suppose you'd happen to have any painkillers with you."
She shook her head. "There are some near here, though. If you feel up to a little travel we could go get them."
"Where are they?—at your wrecked spacecraft?"
Jin hissed between her teeth. So they had found the shuttle, after all. "You're a good actor," she said bitterly. "I would have sworn that none of you knew about the crash. No, the painkiller's in my pack, hidden near the road. Unless your people have grabbed that by now, of course."
She took his arm, preparing to lift him upright, but he stopped her. "Why?" he asked.
"Why what?" she growled. "Why am I here?"
"Why did you save my life?"
"That's a stupid question. Come on—I've got to retrieve those packs before the rest of your army starts beating the bushes for me. You at least owe me a little head start."
Again she started to lift him; again he stopped her. "You don't need a head start," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "No one else knows about you. I followed you in alone."
She stared at him. Truth? Or some kind of test?
Or a ploy to keep her in one place while they encircled her?
It doesn't really matter, she realized wearily. As long as Daulo was alive, the clock was already ticking down. "Well . . ." she said at last. "We still need to go and get you that painkiller. Come on."
