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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: A Working of Stars
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“A face and a body. Suitable for identification.”
“How did—?”
“Blood can tell you all sorts of things, if you take the time to ask it politely.”
He thought she sounded amused, though he couldn’t imagine why. Isa’s sense of humor had always been a little strange, just as Arekhon’s had been. No, not quite like Arekhon‘s—with ’Rekhe, part of the joke would have been knowing that his older brother was missing some of it.
That didn’t matter, though. Not anymore.
“Send me everything you’ve got, Isa. As soon as possible, if not sooner.”
“You’ve already got it—ask the house-mind.”
He was querying the main node as she spoke, bringing up a nonverbal display, a three-dimensional image of a man, hovering in the empty space above the desk: Antipodean; somewhere in the indefinite span between youngish and middle-aged; thin face; long bony blade of a nose; yellow-brown eyes. A table of data floated in the air next to the image: probable height, probable weight, numbers and yet more numbers to describe and identify a single living man.
“I knew I could count on you,” he said. He closed down the display and set to work with the files, getting them moving to the right places, to people who could put names to faces, put out the word, find out who had dared—“Tell the staff that under the circumstances, we’ll be staying here in Hanilat for some time to come.”
“I’ll make sure they know. And Na’e—don’t worry if I’m not back home right away. I have some cleanup to take care of first.”
Natelth keyed off the voice comm and went on to summon his chief of security—a man currently not so secure in his position as he had been this morning. Inside a few minutes, Grif Egelt was standing before Natelth’s desk, looking as if he would prefer to be in any other place in Hanilat.
“My lord?” Egelt said.
“Why haven’t I received a report yet?” Natelth demanded.
“An investigation like this moves slowly during the first few hours, my lord. The kidnappers have all the advantages. One interesting development—”
“Yes?” Natelth said. He crossed over to the copper
uffa
pot on the side table and poured himself a cup of the sharp, red liquid. He didn’t offer one to Egelt.
“We got word through informants of a woman who could be Lady Zeri going into an apartment building in the northern suburbs of Hanilat. The house was raided.”
“And? Why wasn’t I informed of this beforehand?”
“The information could have turned out to be a false lead—we’ve seen hundreds of those so far already, and I expect we’ll be seeing more of them. In any case, the house was raided, and while the woman was not found, we have reason to believe that she was there. And that she was there with at least two other individuals.”
“Did one of those individuals look like this?” Natelth snapped a switch on his desk, so that the image that Isayana had sent to the house-mind appeared full-sized and floating in the air above them, rotating slowly—
like a hanged man,
Natelth thought.
“I don’t know, my lord,” Egelt said.
“Then find out,” Natelth said. “And find out who this man is, in any case. I need him. I want him. I shall have him. Is this as clear as I can make it?”
“Yes, my lord.”
And bowing, the security chief departed.
 
ENTIBOR: STANDARD ORBIT GG-12 ERAASI: HANILAT
 
N
ight’s-Beautiful-Daughter
was built of good steel and stout aluminum. Llannat Hyfid—
Maraganha,
she reminded herself yet again;
I have to be Maraganha
—was the first of Arekhon’s Mages to abandon her pressure-suit, as soon as the airlock had cycled and the ship was safe. Her sturdy leather boots rang on the metal deckplates as she left the entrance bay for the narrow, curving passageway beyond. For these first few minutes, she didn’t want the members of Arekhon’s Circle to see her face.
I never thought I’d board this ship again. And I certainly never thought that I’d find her waiting for me at the other end of time.
She knew the layout of the
Daughter
by memory; she could have followed the ship’s corridors all the way from the cockpit in one direction to the engine room in the other. She thought for a while of going to the cockpit, where a much-younger Llannat Hyfid had found—would someday find—two long-dead crew members strapped into their seats, with their throats slit and a message written on the forward viewscreen in their blood: “Adept from the forest world: Take this message to the Domina. Tell her what you have seen.”
But they wouldn’t be there now. In this time,
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
was still a living ship, and whatever had happened to set her adrift on her course through the interstellar gap was yet to come.
Llannat returned to the entrance bay instead. The two Mages already waiting in there—intense young Ty, who carried an Adept’s staff in spite of his Circle training; and Narin, whom they had pulled by main strength out of salt water and the Void—gave her odd looks when she entered the compartment.
Llannat shook her head ruefully. They all thought of her as something not quite human, even ’Rekhe, who certainly ought to know better; a wonderworker, perhaps, or their own private oracle. She wished that they would stop. Not a sensible wish, since she was in this position of her own will, but good sense never stopped anyone from wishing yet.
The airlock cycled one last time, and Karil and Arekhon came aboard through the sliding doors. The starpilot turned to Arekhon and said, “Where to next, Captain?”
“Eraasi,” he said. “Ty, find us food supplies if you can. The ship should be fully stocked, but if it isn’t we’ll have to stop somewhere before the interstellar gap to replenish our larder.”
“We have to be on our way before any of the in-system ships get antsy and fire on us, or we may be permanently delayed,” Karil said. “I’m going to move off a ways before I calculate the run we need.”
“All we need,” said Arekhon, “is to find the other side of the Gap.”
“Easier said than done, maybe,” the pilot said. “But we won’t know until we give it a try.”
“Let’s go, then,” he said. “Maraganha
etaze
—if you would like to come along as well?”
Llannat gave in to the inevitable. “I’d be honored,” she said.
When they reached the cockpit, Arekhon took his place in the right-hand seat and gave a deep sigh. “At least I can see out. A proper spaceship.”
Karil shook her head. “Eyes won’t replace electronics. There’s so much more I can do with viewscreens.”
“If you say so,” Arekhon said. “Meanwhile, let’s see if we can still move. I don’t trust vessels that have been sitting unused for this long.”
“I don’t either,” Llannat said. At least neither Arekhon nor Karil Estisk were the crew members whose blood had stained—would someday stain—the floor and seats and console, and provide the ink for somebody’s cryptic message. Neither of them fit the pattern of the
eiran
as she would see it on that future day when the civilized galaxy stood on the edge of war and at the end of the great working. She looked at the thick armored glass of the cockpit windows and thought about the nature of time and memory before adding, “During the transit to Eraasi, we’ll need to put together a good do-it-yourself hardcopy manual on starting from a cold ship.”
“I like that idea,” Karil said. “In fact, I like it a lot. Given all the fancy stuff ’Rekhe’s people added to a perfectly good design, the whole thing’s likely to explode if you don’t do everything right.”
“My people didn’t build the
Daughter,”
protested Arekhon. “It was the sus-Radal. And what do we want a hardcopy manual for? Do you have any idea how bulky—”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Llannat told him. “And eventually somebody is going to need it. Besides—it’s always good to have a hobby to keep you busy on a long transit.”
 
 
“Tell me something,” Zeri said to Len. “If you weren’t playing bodyguard to a runaway bride, what would you be doing right now?”
The two of them were sitting together at a dim corner table in an eating establishment a few blocks outside the Hanilat starport—close enough in to attract a rougher crowd than the downtown places. In their current state, rougher was good; even if they were recognized, the clientele at Red’s Fishhouse wasn’t the sort to report anybody to the city watch. Len had a platter of sliced bread and meat, and Zeri was working her way through a large serving of the local deep-fried seafood—she’d always loved it, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that she could cook for herself in a city apartment.
“I’d be down at the port,” Len said. “Sweating the next cargo, getting the fuel and stores, worrying about port fees and about whether I counted as a sus-Dariv contract holder if most of the sus-Dariv were gone.”
She dipped another strip of fried silverling into the pot of spicy green sauce that had accompanied the meal. “And if the port were closed?”
“Well, then I’d be at close-operations, raising murder about it, pointing at the clock on the wall, and shouting that time is money.”
“Then maybe we should be doing something like that ourselves,” she said. “Since we don’t know if Syr Vai is helping us or not.”
“Maybe,” he said. He put together another bread-and-meat sandwich, and bit into it. A moment’s chewing and swallowing, and he went on, “First you tell me something.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why are you going along with this crazy plan your cousin and Syr Vai dragged me into? Lord Natelth may be a murdering bastard—ask anybody who was on Ildaon when it got space-bombed by the sus-Peledaen fleet—but I haven’t heard anybody say that he treats his lovers badly. And talk like that always gets around.”
They’d ordered a pitcher of summer-ale for sharing between them, because the night was warm. Zeri took the time to refill both her mug and his before she answered.
“I made the marriage-deal with Natelth because it was the only way I could think of to take care of the sus-Dariv. But I don’t think Herin would have offered me a chance to get out of the bargain if he didn’t have another idea in mind. I want to find out what it is.”
“A little while ago you were almost accusing me and Syr Vai of doing away with Cousin Herin,” Len pointed out.
“For all I knew, you could have stolen his ideas—whatever they were—and then killed him. I want to find out where he is and what he was thinking of.” She ate another strip of fish and green sauce, then licked her fingers clean. “So. If you had a female companion, who would she be, and what would she be doing?”
“Supercargo, most likely,” Len said. “And since you don’t have a couple of free years to learn it in, I doubt that I could teach you the job.”
“Then I’ll just have to pretend,” she said. “If you’re coming with me, let’s go.”
Outside on the street again, they caught the public-transit bus that made a circuit of the portside streets. The darklit back of the public accommodation gave them more time to speak.
“Am I overdressed for the port?” she asked.
“You’ll do,” Len said, “and so will I. The folks know me there, and they’ll know that anyone who’s with me is supposed to be with me.”
“So I shouldn’t worry.”
“Not about the clothes,” he said. “But with your accent, nobody’s going to take you for anything less than a fleet-apprentice out on a spree.”
“Then I’ll need to become a fleet-apprentice,” she said. “At least for the purposes of conversation.”
 
 
A bit after that, in the line of bars that surrounded portside, Len and Zeri stood on the sidewalk. The humming of the glowlights punctuated the night. The air was thick and close, and Zeri smelled rotting things on the air. Streetwashers ran every day in some parts of Hanilat, but this part wasn’t one of them.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked.
“If you’re going to play at being a fleet-apprentice in front of the port officials, you’re going to need the livery. And that’s not something you can buy at a costume shop.”
“I suppose not,” she said. “Let me get this bit straight. We’re going to wander from one drinking establishment to the next, and I’m going to go inside each establishment and look around for somebody my size in apprentice livery. When I find one, I’ll persuade that person to accompany me outside, where you will relieve them of their finery. Right?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“I thought so.” She looked at the bright lights in the windows of the drinking places along the portside strip. “Tell me again why you can’t be the one doing this part.”
“Because nobody impressionable is going to follow me,” Len said reasonably. “So if you want that livery—”
“I want it. Don’t go away.”
She left him and walked into the bar. The lights were red inside, and the burly individual by the door—
the bouncer?
she wondered—asked her for five
ahlei
to be allowed farther in.
“You freelance?” he asked.
It took her a couple of seconds to work out what he was asking. She thought for a couple of seconds longer, and said, “Yes.”
“Ten percent to Syr Risa, and don’t forget,” the bouncer said, his bald head gleaming with sweat or oil in the flashing lights from inside.
“I won’t,” she said. And then she was in, and the lights were flashing around a long stage, a runway, behind the bar, where a young lady dressed mostly in long hair was doing amazingly athletic things, while the bartenders in front scurried about with glasses in their hands.
She stood for a while with her back to the rear wall, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the low light level, before looking around for a suit of fleet-apprentice livery. None presented itself immediately to view. The bar formed the opening of a horseshoe shape extending from the back wall. She walked to the far end, waited, then circled the room, keeping her eyes open for an apprentice.
She didn’t find me. Near the end of her transit an older fellow, white hairs showing amid the dark of his close-cropped beard, grasped her by the arm and said, “I’m looking for a good time.”
“How wonderful for you,” Zeri said before she remembered herself and said, “I’m hired already.”
“No need to be snarky about it,” the man said, but he let her go. Then she was all the way around, and wondering if she should move on to the next place already. The music here was very loud, and everyone present was elaborately trying not to see the other people around them.
“This is impossible,” she said to herself, and went out past the sweating man by the door, into what was suddenly a cool evening. She didn’t see Len anywhere, but she supposed he was somewhere out of sight, lurking. She hoped he was lurking, anyway. Things might get—difficult—if he wasn’t.
To her right, one door closer to the port, was another establishment similar to the one she’d left. She entered through the heavy outer door, then passed through an inner door of hanging beads, and found another man at a high table, looking down at her. A sign beside him said, FIVE
AHLEI
COVER CHARGE, LADIES FREE.
“Hello,” he said, as she tried to push through his turnstile. “You freelance?”
“I’m a lady,” she said. “Your sign says ‘Free.’”
“That’s with an escort, love,” the gent said. He was perfumed, and wore a very nice waistcoat. “You freelance?”
Again she flipped a mental coin. “No.”
“Who you working for?”
“Syr Risa,” she said.
“You’re a bit out of your range,” he said, “But that’s all right. Five
ahlei,
and it’s in you go. I hope Syr Risa remembers, if he ever needs a favor.”
“Or if you do,” Zeri said, and pushed across her five
ahlei.
 
 
Isayana’s summons came sooner than Kief expected, and he was glad that he’d had the foresight to put both his prime Circle and the Hanilat Institute Circle into a state of readiness the day before. A quick head count when he reached her laboratory building showed him all of his own Mages waiting in the upstairs hall except one, and she arrived flushed and breathless a few minutes later—“I had to hand over all my case files to my backup, just in case, and there’s a new rule in the office that every single one of them has to be signed for in triplicate … .” Giesye was a good Second, strong and reliable in the Circle, but there was no denying the fact that outside the silence of a working she babbled like water running over stones.

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