A Passage of Stars (23 page)

Wingtuck frowned. Lily watched her. She was a small-boned woman, tiny; Lily could give her a good fifteen centimeters in height and at least ten kilos in weight. But despite her size she had none of that suggestion of delicacy that Kyosti, by design or by accident, appeared at times to possess. She was hard as the metal-sheathed walls of Ransome House, impervious to the storms outside, utterly self-contained. “Why, Joshua?” she said at last. “Convince me.”

Heredes smiled and settled with a pleased sigh into the deep padding of his chair. “Sweet Wing,” he began. “We’re in terrible trouble.”

“Hawk, for one thing,” said Wingtuck. “What else?”

“I beg your pardon,” protested Kyosti.

“Yes,” said Heredes. “Hawk for one thing.” His smile disappeared as he examined Kyosti where he reclined in a sybaritic pose at Lily’s feet. “Most important, my dear,” his tone was grave now, “the Illustrious is dead.”

Wingtuck’s gamine face hosted a quick series of expressions: disbelief, sorrow, fear, resolving into determination. She crossed herself. “So they’ve come after us at last.”

“Oh, yes,” said Heredes. “Just about everyone, now that the Duke is no longer alive to—ah—cast his mantle of protection over us.”

“I see.” Wingtuck fixed a look of acute suspicion on Kyosti. “And what brings you here, Hawk? Where have you been all these years?”

“In prison,” he replied in a most agreeable tone. “A foolish mistake, but it only takes one.”

“And how, may I ask, did you get out of prison?”

He smiled with great sweetness. “I recanted. I was accounted a classic figure of rehabilitation and sent along with the expedition the League sent out here to round the last of us up, but, do you know, when my eyes fell on our Joshua, I realized how dreadfully bored I had become, so I absented myself with him and his beautiful daughter.”

“Joshua! Have you lost your mind?” Wingtuck stood up. “Do you trust him?”

“Of course I don’t trust him,” said Heredes. Kyosti offered him a brief, if ironic, salute. “But what choice did I have? I couldn’t leave him.”

“Ah,” interposed Kyosti, “but you wish you had.”

“I certainly do,” said Heredes. “I certainly do.” He looked at Wingtuck. “He won’t betray us.”

“If he hasn’t already?” She turned icy eyes on Kyosti. “How much did you tell them?”

Kyosti lifted a hand in careless dismissal. “You know how terribly weak my memory is,” he drawled.

“I expect that it improves under drugs.”

“My dear Wingtuck.” Lily saw, by his face, that he was annoyed. “You know quite well that those kinds of drugs do not work on me.”

“That’s true,” she muttered, unmollified. “But then why in Heaven’s name did they bring you out here with them?”

He stood with abrupt swiftness. Anger emanated from him. “Because with all their fine philosophies of conflict resolution and nonviolence and rehabilitation for criminals”—a definite, heavy sarcastic emphasis here—“they’d rather not admit that they created us, you and me and
Master
Heredes and the rest of our kind, that they created terrorists, saboteurs whose creed had to be violence and murder and destruction. They’d rather not admit to the ways we won that war for them, calling us heroes and hating us and shunning us and fearing us at the same time.” He spun away, so furious, and yet so contained, that Lily feared for his control, feared this hidden depth of rage in him. “Still,
still
, Wingtuck, they can’t believe that our kind still exist among them, our kind, who choose violence first, not caring if we kill our enemies or ourselves, mouthing these sick, weak phrases of rehabilitation and then casting them off without a second’s regret. They expected us to stop, as if all that training could be negated by a second’s wish. Of course they brought me out here with them. They’ve forgotten that we can lie as easy as we can kill.”

Wingtuck came out from behind her desk and walked up to Kyosti. He did not move, as if his words, sloughing his anger off him, had left him frozen without any further emotion to direct his actions. She laid her hand with surprising tenderness on his bronzed cheek.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said in an undertone. “My poor boy. What did they do to you?”

He turned his face away from her hand and, with a movement more like collapse than rejection, sank to the floor beside Lily, resting his head against her leg. Lily blushed under Wingtuck’s keen eye, but she put one hand, nevertheless, to rest lightly on Kyosti’s pale hair. Against her, she felt his shallow, quick breaths slow and deepen.

Wingtuck went back to her chair. The plain white walls of the office framed her as she examined her three visitors. A large poster advertising the Abagail Street Academy hung by the door; behind the desk, a painting depicted a pair of round-hatted farmers knee-deep in a rice paddy.

“Vietnamese,” said Wingtuck suddenly.

“I’m sorry?” asked Heredes.

“Your Lily. She must have Vietnamese blood in her.”

Heredes turned his head to gaze at Lily, who, under such scrutiny, looked down at Kyosti.

“Don’t look at me,” disclaimed that man. “I’m not up on old Earth cultures.”

“So she must,” said Heredes. “It had never occurred to me.”

“It wouldn’t, round-eye,” replied Wingtuck, almost insulting.

“What is Vietnamese?” asked Lily; as both Heredes and Wingtuck opened their mouths, she raised a hand. “No, don’t tell me. It’s a long story, right?”

Heredes only smiled.

“So the League rousted you out?” said Wingtuck to Heredes.

“No. The chameleons rousted me out.”

“Good Lord!” She put her hands over her face, lowered them after a moment to lie clasped in front of her. “I thought I would never have to see another one of them. We
are
busy.”

“Yes,” said Heredes. “I let them capture me so I could get a look at what they had. Just one cruiser so far, I believe. Out for blood, of course. But they don’t know that the League is out here, too. I didn’t know the League was here until I tracked down Lily, who had come after me, believing that I had been kidnapped. But she, as well as Hawk and two colleagues, were in Jehanish custody at Nevermore.”

“Jehanish?” The light, on Wingtuck’s hair, had a way of catching on the darkest strands as she turned her head, as if swallowed up by their blackness. “Ah, yes. I know who they are. There’s a well-known writer here, name of Pero, publishes underground, causes all sorts of agitation.”

“Lily even met Jehane, lucky girl.” Heredes shot Lily a dryly mocking smile. “We had to exit in some haste. Talking with Hawk on our way here, I discovered that the League is in contact with the government of the Reft.”

“And what does Hawk know about this?” asked Wingtuck acidly.

“Nothing,” said Hawk, not moving, his voice partially muffled against Lily’s trousers. His eyes were shut. “They just brought me along for the ride.”

“I’m satisfied that is true,” said Heredes. “But we haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”

“Do tell.” Wingtuck smiled caustically.

“Who should we meet but La Belle Dame, following the trail of the chameleons.”

Wingtuck laughed. “Happy tidings for the Reft, for where La Belle leads the rest of the privateers shall soon follow. But Joshua, all this being true, why didn’t you just go with La Belle? Why come here?”

“Because I want to know what the League is saying to the government at Central and for how long they’ve been in contact. We can’t run forever, Wing, and damned if I’m going to live the rest of my very long life cooped up on a pirate’s tub, no matter how luxurious.”

“Groundhog,” said Wingtuck. “All right.” She leaned back in her chair. “I accept that our interests demand we link up for a bit. How do you plan to find out all this pertinent information?”

“I’ll go into Central.”

“Good luck. Security’s tight as a bull’s ass in fly time.”

“Fetching phrase, Wing.”

“Oh, I’m just a peasant at heart.”

Heredes laughed. “No wonder you’ve survived so long. But really, Wing, getting into Central is not what I’m worried about.”

“No, you wouldn’t be,” replied Wingtuck, but her gaze followed Heredes’s—to Kyosti.

Kyosti’s eyes were still closed. Lily ascertained that with a quick glance and was astonished by the look exchanged by Wingtuck and Heredes. It could have been spoken, it was so blatant: “What,
he
won’t be going in with you?” And Heredes’s look in reply, negative and sad.

“What are you planning to do, Kyosti?” Lily asked to cover that revealing silence.

“I’d like to practice medicine again.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “But I don’t have a license for this region.”

Wingtuck considered this. “I don’t know, Hawk. You can hardly hand them your Columbia diploma as verification. And it would take years to go back through school.”

“No school,” said Kyosti.

She shook her head, pensive, “But they’re desperate for help in the community clinics—most poor people never see anyone higher than a medical technologist anyway. If you passed the med-tech exams, they might
offer
you a visa extension. Even with the massive unemployment here, they still can’t fill those positions—”

“Long hours, bad conditions, poor patients.” Kyosti smiled. “How much actual supervision by physicians is there? In the worst clinics?”

“I don’t know. I don’t imagine there’s much. You’d probably have pretty free rein—and as close to conditions of battlefield medicine that you can get on a peaceful planet. But it doesn’t pay well. Certainly not enough to dress as you were accustomed to, believe me.”

“I sew,” said Kyosti stiffly. “It’s my one creative outlet.” He lifted his head and surveyed, with his usual self-collected mockery, the surprised looks on Wingtuck’s and Heredes’s faces. “And in any case, any real occupation would be paradise for me.”

“How long were you in prison, Hawk?” Heredes asked gently.

Kyosti’s penetrating blue stare focused on the other man. “Sixteen years, seven months, three days. I can continue to the millisecond.”

“I believe you,” murmured Wingtuck, but her gaze was almost pitying. “What about Lily?”

“Haven’t I convinced you?” said Heredes. “She can apprentice here.”

“She can take her chances, like Hawk. There must be other work she can do.”

“There isn’t,” said Lily. To Heredes: “Sorry.”

“Just consider, Joshua,” continued Wingtuck. “To give her instructional duties, to pay her any credit at all, she has to go on the employment rolls. To get on those, she has to have an extended worker’s visa. Legalities, you see. She’d never get a visa extension for this work—I have to hire from legal Arcadian citizens. You don’t understand the magnitude of the problem on this planet. Why do you think Jehane is so popular here?”

“If we don’t help each other, Wingtuck, then we’re all lost.”

Wingtuck said nothing.

“Wing,” said Heredes slowly. “Is there no other way to make Lily legal?”

Wingtuck gave a short, hard laugh. “Bond her to a permanent resident.”

“Of course!” Heredes stood up. “I should have thought of that.”

“No!” cried Kyosti, and he also stood up, and Wingtuck, perceiving trouble, rose as well.

“Kyosti.” Lily’s voice sounded quite reasonable. “Sit down.” All three regarded her with astonishment. Kyosti sat. “Obviously,” Lily continued, “a long-term economic bond is out of the question. But a child-directed pair-bond—after one year, when I hadn’t yet conceived, it would automatically be dissolved.” She looked at Heredes. “Is one year enough time for what you need to do?”

“Yes,” he said meekly.

Lily turned her gaze to Wingtuck, but, seeing a smile caught just below the older woman’s expression, she favored her with a quick wink. “So where can I find a partner?”

“That depends on how many credits you have to spend, or what political beliefs you’re willing to—ah—embrace.”

“Hoy,” said Lily. “I had no idea it was so easy. But the only other person I’ve heard of on this planet is that writer, Pero.” She grinned. “And if he’s a Jehanist, he’s hardly likely to want to bond the woman who shot his leader.”

But Heredes merely looked thoughtful. “An agitator,” he said, as if to himself. “That might be just the thing.” He cut off Lily’s question with a wave of one hand. “So, sensei Jones, you’ll take her?”

“You make my life difficult, Joshua,” said Wingtuck with an exasperated sigh. “I’ll see her through her paces first.”

“Where would you like me to warm up?” said Lily.

“Gym Three.” Wingtuck turned and removed two garments from a cabinet. “Here’s a gi.”

“Thank you,” said Lily. “Are you coming with me, Kyosti?” He followed her without a word out of the room.

“Well,” said Wingtuck expansively. “She does you credit.”

Heredes smiled. “You haven’t seen her do her forms yet. She’s much better than I deserve. But thank you.”

“Taliesin.” She sat on the edge of her desk, one leg dangling, and regarded him seriously. “How many of us are left?”

“I don’t know. Fewer than you imagine, I fear.” He sighed, pacing a slow circuit around the small office. “La Belle had some information. They say Sibaia, Haggerty, Annet, and Hovas are still at large.”

“Robin?”

He shook his head. “Dead. And Collobrieres as well.”

“May the Lord bless and keep them,” she murmured, crossing herself. “Senegambia?”

“I don’t know.”

“Katajarenta?”

This surprised a laugh from him. “Mother’s Breasts, Wing, they’ll never catch her.”

“Foucart?”

Heredes halted, turning to face her. “Now there’s an interesting case. According to Bella, both he and Korrigan have turned bounty hunter, and are existing on the edge of the law, but legally.”

“Huh,” said Wingtuck. “I’d hate to have one of them contracted out on me. Insharish? Keng? Buru? Hyacinth?”

He shook his head. “Dead, captured, or broken. It’s been a sad toll. And I only know what I heard from Bella.”

“The bastards. Hawk was right about their gratitude. Good Lord, how
did
he get out of prison?”

“He recanted. Evidently they believed him.”

“Hawk could charm his way out of a snake pit. Jesus—” She gave her hard, unhumorous laugh again. “He did, more than once, Taliesin.” She rose and went to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. They stood close and easy together. Physically, they appeared to have little in common except perhaps a similarity in their shade of skin. But their eyes, in expression, the set of their faces, their posture, the musculature of their lean bodies, revealed some bond, some long, difficult road of shared experience that bound them as tightly as any blood tie. “Why isn’t Hawk going into Central with you? What did they do to him in that prison?”