A Passage of Stars (27 page)

“Lily!” Kyosti’s voice, close by.

“I’ve got you.” She shoved a person aside and came up next to him.

“Lead.” Kyosti spoke in a low voice, but already shouts and cries filled the warehouse, covering his words. “I’ve got him. Let’s go.”

Lily created a ruthless path through the crowd that was converging on the stage. “Where is he?” voices cried. Others swore. “Damn Central!!!” yelled others. “They ordered this!” “Kill Senator Isaiah—Senator Feng—Senator—” the names went on. Lily shut the door behind them just as the lights went back on. On the street, browned-out lamps lit dim circles of light across the sidewalks. Two trucks sat along the curb.

“Gun in my pocket,” gasped Kyosti. Robbie lay in his arms. Blood spread through the cloth of his shirt, spreading a red stain over his abdomen. He was unconscious. “Hijack a truck.”

But Lily was already at the door to the first truck. It opened, and the surprised driver was thrown unceremoniously from his seat onto the ground. “Get in,” she called to Kyosti, and she helped him pull Robbie onto the seat between them. She got the truck started just as the door from the warehouse opened and the first stream of people poured out. The vehicle jerked forward, and she floored the gas. She took the first corner at forty, the second at sixty, but deemed it prudent to slow down after that.

“Hold on, Robbie. Damn you, hold on,” Kyosti was muttering next to her.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Roanoak. I can use the clinic.”

“I don’t know how to get there.”

“Don’t you read maps, Lily?” Suddenly he sounded amused. “Mother help us. I always study my ground.”

“I don’t expect people to get assassinated. Damn it, where do I turn?”

He laughed. “Ah, the good old days. Left here. Five blocks, then the Glacier Expressway for twenty miles.”

“Will he live that long?” she cried. She could not take her eyes from the road to look.

“I don’t lose patients,” said Kyosti in a hard voice. Cloth ripped, and a bloody rag fell at her feet. “Primitive,” he said. “Not even a laser. A damned slug. I’ll have to get it out. Yes, this right, my love.”

Traffic on the expressway was light. After all, only transport and cargo vehicles used it, and the occasional private vehicle of a Senatorial family. “I hope every single transport worker on Arcadia strikes,” muttered Lily. “Bring the whole damn planet to a stop.” Signs she had never seen before flashed past her. She slowed to five kilometers over the speed limit, tried to drive between the white lines and raised dots. Kyosti worked in silence beside her. She heard Robbie’s breathing, as ragged as the bloody cloth draped over her shoes.

“This exit,” said Kyosti suddenly. “And here. And—” They passed the white neon identifying Roanoak station.

“I know from here,” interrupted Lily. Within minutes they pulled up before Roanoak clinic.

It was dark. Kyosti followed her, Robbie in his arms, as she went up the steps. Lily had been here once before, had seen the Ridanis Kyosti cared for treat him with a trust astonishing for tattoos used to nothing but scorn and hatred from their unmarked brethren. Had heard it in their embarrassed thanks, seen it in the shy lift of their eyes to meet his.

Their footsteps echoed along the empty corridor. Not even a janitor here to question them or to greet them. Malnutrition, eye and respiratory diseases, together with gynecological problems in the women—Kyosti had told her once that was what he treated, mostly. She thought of that, because she did not want to look at Robbie. She was afraid to look at Robbie. At all that blood, draining out of him. And she remembered what Kyosti had said, as they were leaving Zanta: “The only cure for perfection is death.”

“Damn it,” she said, feeling sick with it, heavy with fear, “don’t die. Don’t die.”

“Open that door for me.” Kyosti’s voice was perfectly level. “We’ll go into the back room.”

They walked through the common room, where Kyosti examined most of his patients, through to the back, where he treated the delicate cases. He laid Robbie gently down on the examination table, began rummaging in a cabinet.

“I need—” He paused. Robbie’s eyes fluttered, opened. One hand twitched limply. Lily grabbed it, squeezed.

“Maitreyi,” Robbie whispered, like a gasp, or a prayer. His face was clear of pain, but his eyes were distant.

“Keep him talking,” said Kyosti. “He’s in shock. I don’t want him going out again until I’ve got that bullet out.” He drew on gloves, pulled one onto Lily’s free hand, picked up instruments, lifted aside the makeshift bandage he had wrapped around Robbie’s abdomen.

Lily gagged, forced herself to focus on Robbie’s face.

“Hand me these when I ask for them, Lily.” Kyosti transferred several instruments into her gloved hand. He gave Robbie a shot, waited a few moments, and then began to ease tissue aside.

“What’s Maitreyi?” asked Lily, bending down closer to Robbie’s face. The scent of blood sifted into the air, overpowering.

Robbie sighed, caught his breath as if at Kyosti’s careful cutting. “Maitreyi,” he murmured.

“‘Then what need have I of wealth?’” said Kyosti, almost wistful. “‘Please, my lord, tell me what you know about the way to immortality.’” And he laughed.

Lily glared at him, tightened her hand around Robbie’s. “Who is Maitreyi?” she asked again.

“As fair as the dawn.” Robbie’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. “My beloved.”

“Give me the blue one,” demanded Kyosti, and she handed him an instrument. The one he set down was red, trailing red onto the plastic sheet that covered the table.

“I didn’t know you have a beloved, Robbie,” Lily said. “Where did you meet her?”

Robbie’s eyes seemed to gain focus. “Veritas,” he breathed. “Where I grew up. The Finegal Revolt.”

“Oh, yes,” said Lily. “You lost your whole family—” She faltered, cursed herself for bringing up death.

“All but my sister Mathilda,” said Robbie. He gasped again, but the sound was stronger. “I would have died, too. Fallen-in, burning building. But she came. She pulled me out.”

“Give me the—ah—the one with the yellow tag on it,” said Kyosti. “Ah, better and better. Almost there.”

“Was Maitreyi one of the revolutionaries?” Lily asked.

Robbie’s mouth twisted up into a smile both sweet and detached. “Troop,” he said. “Government trooper.” His eyes faded out of focus; Lily pressed his hand until he came back, a little way. “She came to the hospital, later—curious, I suppose, to see the burnt rebel she had saved. I loved her.”

“Did she love you” Lily asked softly.

“Who can tell?” He gasped, hard and pained. “I felt that.”

“Good,” said Kyosti. “Keep talking.”

He spoke between gasps. “We made plans—two comrades and—and I. To escape. It was a prison hospital, you know. She—she found out about it. Turned us in.”

“But that’s terrible!” said Lily, forgetting her fear for him in righteous anger.

“Is it? Each day the sun betrays us, going down to night. But do we blame it? She did her duty.”

“Got it!” said Kyosti. “Nasty beast. Give me the—thank you. Don’t move, I’m sewing.”

“But the night has stars,” said Lily, still caught in Robbie’s betrayal. “The night has its own beauty.”

“Just so,” said Pero.

“How poetic of you, my love,” said Kyosti.

“But Robbie, what happened then?”

“Life separated us.” Pero’s eyes, filling with pain now as he rose out of shock, focused clear and strong on Lily, and he smiled, out of hurt and out of a curious equanimity. “We have no weapons against that.”

“I’m sorry, Robbie,” she said, her throat tight with sadness.

“Sorry? Never be sorry for love, Lily. That is what sustains us.”

“My dear Robert,” said Kyosti, “if you can philosophize, then you are certainly going to live.”

Lily turned away from both of them, disengaged her hand, and stood with her face pressed up against the wall.

Kyosti examined Robbie’s eyes, his pulse, gave him a shot, watched him relax. Lily still had not moved. “Lily,” Kyosti said, soft.

“I’m all right,” she said into the wall. “I’m just not used to having someone I care about almost die on me.”

Only Robbie saw Kyosti’s face, bitterness compounded with an agony that was quickly suppressed. “I hope you never get used to it,” he replied. “Believe me. Let’s clean up here, love, and then we’ll move Robbie into one of the wards in the next building. He’ll be safe there until he’s well enough to move.”

There was a pause. Lily turned. Her face was as pale as if she were the one brushed by death. “All right.” Her voice gained strength as she talked. “Where do I start?”

He handed her a sponge. “Scrub. By the way, I didn’t know you’d driven on Arcadia before.”

She gave a hiccuping laugh. “I hadn’t. I’ve never driven on a road, or in traffic. But I know how to switch gears and steer well enough to avoid avalanches.”

“Mother bless us,” said Kyosti with some feeling. “I’m amazed we made it here alive.”

“So am I,” said Lily.

Robbie smiled weakly at both of them.

“H
ALF OF THE TRANSPORT
workers walked off the job the first day. By yesterday half of those left behind had joined them. All sorts of people stood in the picket lines at the stations, not just the transport workers. Sensei Jones called me and told me she is closing the Academy temporarily until the strike is over. Central issued their ultimatum after five days: end the strike or they’d call out the troops. And yesterday they called out the troops.”

Robbie regarded her over a spoonful of soup. “And?”

“Poor Robbie,” Lily answered. “Stuck in that ward seeing Kyosti once a day for five minutes, painted red and orange so you’d blend in, and never hearing a bit of news until they got you home today. You missed your triumph. I watched down at Zanta Station. Every single picketer had to be dragged away, but none of them resisted. No arrests. No injuries, except one man got his hand stepped on in Ruana, and a woman trooper got her cheek scratched. I can’t remember where that was. The whole coast, all the strikers, it was the same thing. They stood their ground until Central called out their guns, and then they didn’t fight, but they didn’t retreat.”

Robbie sighed. “The Ridanis were unnaturally quiet, I thought.”

“They were hiding you.”

“They know,” he said. “I fear they are in for hard times, Lily. They know that eventually there will be violence, and that the worst will hit them.”

She frowned. “There’s one thing I’ve always wondered about the Ridanis. If they just didn’t tattoo their children, they could break the cycle of prejudice, couldn’t they? So why do they keep tattooing?”

Robbie laughed, surprised. “Have you ever asked a Ridani that question?”

“No,” Lily admitted. “I’d be too embarrassed.”

“As well you should be. The patterns they wear on their bodies—proudly, despite everything—are at the very heart and soul of their religion, their culture—the culture they brought with them when they came to the Reft with the rest of humanity. It would be like asking you to …” He hesitated.

“To repudiate martial arts and Master Heredes? Of course I wouldn’t, and I’d cling to it more fiercely, and with more pride, the more I was pressured to give it up. I know that well enough.” She paused, thinking of how she had left Ransome House, and they sat a moment in companionable silence.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked finally.

“Call a second strike for the first day of next month,” he said. “In commemoration of the first. Speak again on the eve of it, in public. Central must get the message we are not simply a nuisance. That we mean to change our lives.”

“Hoy,” she said. “You’re making my life difficult. Only this time let Kyosti and me organize the speech. Please?”

Robbie smiled. “I’ll trade with you. Three courier runs, and it’s in your hands.”

“Throw in how I can get ahold of Heredes, and it’s a deal,” countered Lily.

With a quick phrase, Bach rose from his place in front of the computer.
Patroness,
he sang.
I beg of thee, do not jeopardize thy master’s masquerade. When he beeth free of encumbrance, he will with certainty summon thee.

“Bach! How can I bargain when you’re working against me?”

Forgive me, patroness. There is, perhaps, other currency in which thou mayest deal

She whistled her approval, and Bach sank happily back to the terminal. “Very well, Pero,” she said. “We organize the speech, you don’t go out without me as your bodyguard, and you tell me where all the information you’re getting from Heredes is going. I haven’t seen anything to account for all the hours Bach sits at that damn machine.”

Robbie laughed and drank the rest of his soup straight from the bowl. “Done. You don’t see anything because it doesn’t come in here,” he said. “I don’t quite understand it, but Bach and Heredes send out the information in a spiral, so it comes in at differing locations on a random cycle. Then I collect it and send it back out in bits to various repositories, where it can be transferred, by courier run or otherwise, either to cells on Arcadia or out onto the road where merchanters pass it along to those folk who otherwise wouldn’t hear any news of Jehane at all.”

“Like Unruli,” said Lily. “We’d never heard of him. That’s why it struck me so when you said Central had arrested a bunch of Jehanists there. Although, Paisley …” She trailed off, remembering how quickly her interrogators on Remote had accused Paisley of that particular sin. “Meanwhile, you’ve collected information about how Central works. How long until you can sabotage it from within? Or is that what Heredes is planning?”

Robbie shook his head. “You’re ahead of me, Lily. I don’t know what else Heredes is planning. But I don’t work that way. I work with people, I educate them, I tell them the truth. They join me because Jehane’s cause is just. A coup will just give us a new Central to replace the old one.”

“What will Jehane give us?” she asked, but she took his bowl and spoon and carried it to the sink before he could answer.

Pero dictated the second strike from his couch, although the millions who heard and heeded his voice did not know that. Lily ran courier runs for him, more than three, once had to knock out two Security officers when the secrecy of a cell was breached. She missed more days at the Academy. Kyosti organized the speech, which took place in a warehouse in Wara District; this time Pero spoke and no shot interrupted him. Ten thousand heard him in person, uncounted others heard the broadcast. On the first day of the second month of spring, the entire north coast metropolis came to a halt.