by Timothy Zahn
She'd expected to have to support him most of the way back, and was mildly surprised that he made it the whole way under his own power. Either the physical shock to his system wasn't as bad as she'd feared or else the boneheaded male arrogance she'd already seen too much of on Qasama did have its useful side. They made it back to the road in just over fifteen minutes . . . and there was indeed no army waiting for them.
"So," Daulo said with elaborate casualness after she'd treated his cuts with a disinfectant/analgesic spray and replaced the handkerchief with a proper heal-quick bandage. "I suppose the next question is where we go from here."
"I don't see much of a question," Jin growled. "I'd guess you're going back to Milika to sound the alarm, and I'm going to start running."
He stared silently at her . . . and, oddly enough, behind the tight mask she could see there was a genuine battle of emotions underway. "I see you don't know very much about Qasama, Demon Warrior," he said after a moment.
It was a second before she realized he expected a response. "No, not really," she told him. "Not much more than I learned from you over the past couple of days. That's one of the reasons we came, to find out more."
He licked his lips. "We put a high premium on honor here, Demon Warrior. Honor and the repayment of debts."
And she'd just saved his life . . . Slowly, it dawned on Jin that it might not yet be over. "I see your dilemma," she nodded. "Would it help to tell you I'm not here to make war on Qasama?"
"It might—if I could believe you." He took a deep breath. "Is your spacecraft really wrecked?"
Jin shivered at the memory. "Totally."
"Why were you going back there, then?"
And there was no longer any way out of it. She was going to have to admit, in public, just what an emotional idiot she was being. "I had to leave the wreck in a hurry," she said, the words tearing at her gut. "I thought it would be found right away, and that there would be a manhunt started—" She broke off, blinking angrily at a tear that had appeared in one eye. "Anyway, I left . . . but it seemed to me that if you'd found it the authorities would certainly have checked all nearby villages for strangers. Wouldn't they?"
Daulo nodded silently.
"Well, don't you see?" she snapped suddenly. "You haven't found it . . . and I ran off and left my friends there. I can't just . . . I have to—"
"I understand," Daulo said softly, getting to his feet. "Come. We'll go together to bury them."
* * *
It took them only a few minutes to get the car off the road and into concealment behind a pair of trees. Then, together, they headed back into the forest.
"How far will we need to go, Demon Warrior?" Daulo asked, peering up at the leafy canopy overhead and trying not to feel like he'd just made a bad mistake.
"Five or six kilometers, I think," the woman told him. "We should be able to get through it a lot faster than I did the first time. Thanks to your people's medical skill."
"It's the kind of skill that comes from living on a hostile world," he ground out. "Of course, it's been considerably more hostile lately—say, in the past twenty or thirty years?"
She didn't answer. "Did you hear me, Demon Warrior?" he demanded. "I said—"
"Stop calling me that," she snapped. "You know my name—use it."
"Do I?" he countered. "Know your name, I mean?"
She sighed. "No, not really. My name is Jasmine Moreau, of the world Aventine. You can also call me Jin."
"Djinn?" he said, startled. All the childhood scare-stories of djinns came flooding back in a rush . . . "Given to you when you became a demon warrior, I assume?"
She glanced a frown over at him. "No. Why?—oh, I see. Huh. You know, I never noticed that before. No, it has nothing to do with the djinns of folklore—it's just pronounced the same. It's a name my father gave me when I was very young."
"Um. Well, then, Jin Moreau, I'd still like an answer to my question—"
"Freeze!"
For a single, awful second he thought he'd pushed her too far and that she'd decided to kill him after all. She dropped onto her side, left leg hooking up beneath her skirt—
There was a brilliant thunderbolt flash, and a smoking krisjaw slammed into the dead leaves.
"You okay?" she asked, rolling to her feet and peering around them.
Daulo found his tongue. "Yes. That's . . . quite a weapon," he managed, blinking at the purple afterimage.
"It comes in handy sometimes. Let's get moving—and if I yell, you hit the ground fast, understand? If there are as many animals out here today as there were my first time through it could be a busy trip."
"There shouldn't be," he shook his head. "You came in right after a major bololin herd went through, and that always stirs up lots of animal activity."
It pleased him to see that that knowledge was completely new to her. "Well, that's a relief. In that case it should only take us a couple of hours to get to the shuttle."
"Good," he nodded. "And maybe to pass the time you could explain to me just why your world declared war on ours."
Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grimace. "We didn't declare war on you," she said quietly. "We were told by others that Qasama was a potential threat. We came to see if that was true."
"What threat?" he scoffed. "A world without even primitive spaceflight capability? How could we possibly be a threat to a world light-years away?—especially one protected by demon warriors?"
She was silent for a moment. "You won't remember it, Daulo, but for much of Qasama's history all of you lived together in a state of extreme noncompetition."
"I know that," he growled. "We aren't ignorant savages who don't keep records, you know."
She actually blushed. "I know. Sorry. Anyway, it seemed odd to us that a human society could be so—well, so cooperative. We tried to find a reason—"
"And while you were looking you became jealous?" Daulo bit out. "Is that it? You envied us the society we'd created, and so you sent these razorarm killing machines in to kill and destroy—"
"Did you know that mojos can control the actions of their owners?"
He stopped in mid-sentence. "What?"
She sighed. "They affect the way their owners think. Cause them to make decisions that benefit the mojo first and the owner only second."
Daulo opened his mouth, closed it again. "That's absurd," he said at last. "They're bodyguards, that's all."
"Really? Does your father have a mojo? I never saw him with one."
"No—"
"How about the head of the Yithtra family? Or any of the major leaders of Milika or Azras."
"Cities like Azras have hardly any mojos at all," he said mechanically, brain spinning. No; it had to be a lie. A lie spun by Aventine's rulers to justify what they'd done to Qasama.
And yet . . . he had to admit that he had always sensed a difference in the few mojo owners he knew well. A sort of . . . placidity, perhaps. "It doesn't make sense, though," he said at last.
"Sure it does," she said. "Out in the wild mojos pair up with krisjaws for hunting purposes—hunting and, for the mojos, access to embryo hosts."
"Yes, I know about the native reproduction cycle," Daulo said hastily, obscurely embarrassed at discussing such things with a woman. "That's why cities were designed to let bololin herds charge on through, so that the mojos there could get to the tarbines riding the bololins."
"Right," she nodded. "You could have walled the cities like you did the villages, you know, and kept the bololins out completely. It would have saved a lot of grief all around . . . except that it was in the mojo's best interest to keep the bololins nearby, so that's how you built them. And because they didn't want to risk their own feathers with any more bodyguarding than they could get away with, they made sure you cooperated with each other in every facet of life."
"And so we had no warfare, and no village-city rivalry," Daulo growled. He understood, now . . . and the cold-bloodedness of Aventine's scheme turned his
stomach. "So you decided to interfere . . . and with krisjaws all but gone from the Great Arc, you had to give the mojos somewhere else to go. So you gave them razorarms."
"Daulo—"
"Have you seen enough of what Qasama has become since then?" he cut her off harshly. "Okay, fine—so perhaps we used to bend our own lives a little to accommodate other creatures. Was that too high a price to pay for peace?"
"Was it?" she countered softly.
The obvious answer came to his lips . . . and faded away unsaid. If what she said was the truth, had it really been worth the price? "I don't know," he said at last.
"Neither do I," she whispered.
Chapter 22
They made the trip in just under two hours . . . and for Jin, the whole thing was in sharp contrast with the ordeal a week earlier.
There was no way to tell, of course, how much of the difference was due to the abatement of the bololin coattail effect Daulo had described and how much was due to her own recovery. Certainly there was less fighting; only one other predator besides the krisjaw tried its luck with them, compared with the half-dozen single and multiple attacks she'd had to fight off on her last trip through. On the other hand, with her alertness and concentration again at full capability, it could have been simply that she was spotting potential trouble early enough for evasive methods to be effective.
Ultimately, though, the real reason didn't matter. She'd brought both herself and an untrained civilian safely through some of the most dangerous territory Qasama had to offer . . . and it brought a welcome measure of self-confidence back to her bruised ego.
"Here we are," she said, gesturing to the battered hulk of the shuttle as they finally cleared the edge of the interweaving-fern patch and stepped out from the trees into view of the crash site.
Daulo muttered something under his breath, gazing first at the shuttle and then at the long death-scar it had torn into the landscape. "I was never truly sure . . ." His voice trailed off into silence, and he shook his head. "And you survived this?"
"I was lucky," she said quietly.
"God was with you," he corrected. He took a deep breath. "Forgive me for doubting your story. Your companions . . . ?"
Jin gritted her teeth. "Inside. This way."
The hatch door was as she'd left it, stuck a couple of centimeters open, and she had to put one foot against the hull to get the necessary leverage to pull it open. At least, she thought grimly, that means none of the larger scavengers have gotten to them. Grateful for small favors, I suppose. Taking one last clean breath, she braced herself and stepped inside.
The smell wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared it would be. The bodies themselves looked perhaps a bit worse.
"The door wouldn't have kept out insects," Daulo commented from right behind her. His voice sounded only slightly less strained than she felt, and it was clear he was breathing through his mouth. "Are there any shovels on board?"
"There's supposed to be at least one. Let's try back here."
They found it almost at once, in with the emergency shelter equipment. It was sturdy but small, clearly designed for only minor entrenchment work. But Jin had had no intention of digging very deeply anyway, and the extra strength her Cobra servos provided more than made up for the awkwardness of the short handle. Half an hour later, the five graves near the edge of the crash site were ready.
Daulo was waiting for her near the shuttle, and she found that while she'd been digging he'd improvised a stretcher from some piping and seat cushions and had hacked loose five of the expended crashbags to use as body bags. They might as well be useful for something, she thought bitterly at the thick plastic as she and Daulo worked the bodies into them. They sure didn't do much good while we were all alive.
And a few minutes later she and Daulo stood side by side in front of the graves. "I . . . don't really know a proper burial service," Jin confessed, partly to Daulo, partly to the bodies in their graves before her. "But if its purpose is to remember and mourn . . . that much I can do."
She didn't remember afterward just what she said or how long she spoke; only that her cheeks were wet when she was finished. A quiet goodbye to each in turn; and she was picking up the shovel when Daulo touched her arm. "They were your friends, not mine," he said in a quiet voice. "But if you will permit me . . . ?"
She nodded, and he took a step forward. "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful . . ."
He spoke only a few minutes; and yet, in that short time Jin found herself touched deeply. Though the phrasing of the words showed them to be a standard recitation, there was at the same time something in Daulo's delivery that struck her as being intensely personal. Whatever his feelings toward Jin or the Cobra Worlds generally, he clearly felt no animosity toward her dead teammates.
" . . . We belong to God, and to Him we return. May your souls find peace."
The litany came to an end, and for a moment they stood together in silence. "Thank you," Jin said softly.
"The dead are enemies of no one," he replied. "Only God can approve or condemn their actions now." He took a deep breath, threw Jin a hesitant glance. "One of them—you called him Mander?"
"Mander Sun, yes," she nodded. "One of my fellow . . . demon warriors."
"Was he truly your brother, as you named him in the story you told my family?"
Jin licked her lips. "In all except blood he was truly my brother. Perhaps the only one I will ever have."
"I understand." Daulo looked back at the graves, then glanced up at the sun. "We'd best be leaving soon. I'll be missed eventually, and if a search finds my car it'll probably find your packs, too."
Jin nodded and again picked up the shovel.
Filling in the graves took only a few more minutes, and when she was done she took the shovel back to the shuttle. "No point in letting it lie around out here and rust," she commented.
"No."
Something in his voice made her turn and look at him. "Something?"
He was frowning at the blast damage in the shuttle's side. "You're certain it couldn't have been an internal malfunction that made this?"
"Reasonably certain," she nodded. "Why?"
"When you expressed your surprise earlier that it hadn't been discovered, I assumed the crash had somehow concealed it. But this—" he waved at the shattered trees "—couldn't possibly be missed by any aircraft looking for it."
"I agree. It's your world—any ideas why no one's shown up yet?"
He shook his head slowly. "This area is well off normal air routes, which would explain why it hasn't been found by accident. But I don't understand why our defense forces wouldn't follow up on a successful hit."
Jin took a deep breath. She'd wondered long and hard about that same question . . . and had come up with only one reasonable answer. "Unless it wasn't your defense forces that did it in the first place."
Daulo frowned at her. "Who else could it have been?"
"I don't know. But there've been some odd things happening here, Daulo. That's why we came, looking for some answers."
"And to change any of them you didn't like?" he said pointedly.
She felt her face warming. "I don't know. I hope not."
He stared at her for several seconds more. "I think," he said at last, "that the rest of this conversation ought to wait until my father can be included."
Jin's mouth went dry. "Wait a minute, Daulo—"
"You have a choice of three paths before you now, Jasmine Moreau." Daulo's face had again become an emotionless mask, his voice hard and almost cold. "You can come with me and accept the decision of my family as to what we should do with you. Or you can refuse to confess your true identity and purpose before my father and leave right now, in which case the alarm will be out all over Qasama by nightfall."
"Assuming you can make it back through the forest alone," Jin pointed out softly.
"Assuming that, yes." A muscle in Daulo's cheek twitched, but otherwise his face didn't change. "Which is of co
urse your third choice: to allow the forest to kill me. Or even to do that job yourself."
Jin let her breath out in a hiss of defeat. "If your father elects to turn me over to the authorities, I won't go passively," she told him. "And if I'm forced to fight, many people will be hurt or killed. Given that, do you still want me to come back to your household?"
"Yes," he said promptly.
And at that, Jin realized, the choice was indeed clear. She could take it or leave it. "All right," she sighed. "Let's get going."
Chapter 23
"My son knew from the beginning that you were different," Kruin Sammon said, staring unblinkingly at Jin as he fingered an emergency ration stick from her pack, spread open on the low table beside him. "I see he erred only in degree."
Jin forced herself to meet the elder Sammon's gaze. There was no point now in continuing to pretend she was a good little submissive Qasaman woman. Her only chance was to persuade them that she was an equal, one with whom bargains could be struck.
Persuading them to make any such bargains, of course, would be something else entirely.
"I'm sorry it was necessary to lie to you," she told him. "You have to realize that at the time I was helpless and feared for my life."
"A demon warrior, helpless?" Kruin snorted. "The history of your attacks on Qasama doesn't mention such failings."
"I've explained our side of all that—"
"Yes—your side," Kruin cut her off harshly. "You hear from these—these—"
"Trofts," Daulo supplied quietly from his place beside his father's cushions.
"Thank you. You hear from these Troft monsters—who also visited us professing peace, I'll point out—you hear from them that we're dangerous, and without even considering the possibility that they may be wrong you prepare to make war on us. And don't claim it was the fault of others—if my son hasn't yet recognized your name, I do."
"Her name?" Daulo frowned.
Jin licked her lips. "My father's name is Justin Moreau," she said evenly. "His brother's name is Joshua."
