A Working of Stars (30 page)
Read A Working of Stars Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
“You’ve got it,
etaze,”
said Maraganha, and after that there was nothing for it but to go.
etaze,”
said Maraganha, and after that there was nothing for it but to go.
They crossed the intervening stretch of mist—the door was farther away than it looked—and stepped through.
Now there was darkness all around them, behind them as well as before, and the smell of stone. Arekhon remembered Councillor Demazze’s cavernous underground base, where he had lost Elaeli for so long to the great working and to the wars on Entibor. He hadn’t liked caves much since that time; in fact, he hadn’t liked caves after that at all.
He kept his voice calm with an effort. “Which way do we go now?”
“Ahead.”
Maraganha’s staff was glowing with a bright green light; belatedly, Arekhon did the same for his own. The glow revealed that they were in a stone tunnel, its walls and overhead fairly rough, the surface underfoot smooth.
Constructed, then,
thought Arekhon,
wherever we are.
thought Arekhon,
wherever we are.
They began moving forward—or at least, moving in the direction they had been facing when the door shut behind them and the dark closed in.
“What exactly are we looking for?” he asked. This place wasn’t the grey mist; he didn’t think that the point-and-summon method was going to work here very well.
“Doors.” Maraganha was frowning slightly, looking not so much distressed as thoughtful. “This place has a lot of them. The trouble is picking the right one.”
ERAASI: HANILAT AULWIKH ORBIT:
FIRE-ON-THE-HILLTOPS;
SUS-PELEDAEN GUARDSHIP
COLD-HEART-OF-MORNING
OPHEL: SOMBRELÍR THE VOID
FIRE-ON-THE-HILLTOPS;
SUS-PELEDAEN GUARDSHIP
COLD-HEART-OF-MORNING
OPHEL: SOMBRELÍR THE VOID
A
yil syn-Arvedan woke up to the vague awareness, even before rational thought returned, that something strange had happened during the night. Half-drowsing, she cast her mind back over the events of the evening before, looking for the nagging worry that had drawn her out of sleep.
yil syn-Arvedan woke up to the vague awareness, even before rational thought returned, that something strange had happened during the night. Half-drowsing, she cast her mind back over the events of the evening before, looking for the nagging worry that had drawn her out of sleep.
I made dinner, I worked on that paper for the conference, I went to bed … I was asleep and the door woke me up again … Kief was here; he needed a place to sleep … .
The rest of her memories snapped into place, and she sat bolt upright in bed. Kief would still be here, sleeping on her couch, wearing somebody else’s face.
That
was what she had forgotten while she slept, and then remembered.
That
was what she had forgotten while she slept, and then remembered.
She dressed quickly and quietly, and went out into the main room of the apartment. The morning wasn’t as early as she’d thought; streaks of sunlight reached into the dimness through the slats in the window-blinds. She saw Kief kneeling on the floor, his staff lying in front of him and his eyes closed. The sheets and pillow on the couch behind him weren’t even rumpled; if her sleep last night had been uneasy, Kief had clearly never slept at all.
Looking at him, she found the whole thing strange and hard to believe. She’d found it beyond strange, last night—hearing the familiar speech patterns and the familiar accent in a voice pitched several notes deeper than Kiefen Diasul’s had ever been, seeing his familiar gestures and attitudes and expressions displayed by a body nothing at all like the one she’d known.
She wondered how it had been done, and knew that she didn’t dare ask. Something he’d said yesterday implied that the body was a true double, not some kind of Magework-impelled takeover. The creation of a new body implied groundbreaking accomplishment on the part of a physician or a savant or both, in addition to the help of his Circle. Ayil knew that Kief worked for the sus-Peledaen, who were dangerous to entire planets when they were crossed; but after her voice-comm talk with Inadal last night, she suspected that Kief was also working for somebody else—somebody who, if her brother was involved in it, wasn’t on the sus-Peledaen side at all.
It looks like he’s decided to go on the run from all of them, for reasons of his own … .
Mages were like that, she knew. Her brother Del had been the same way after he’d found the Demaizen Circle. He’d come home from his summer hiking trip, and he’d unpacked and cleaned himself up and taken his place at the family dinner table as if everything were normal. Then he’d told their parents to take his name off the family tablets because he was going to the Mages. The yelling and the arguments had gone on past midnight—Inadal and their father shouting, mostly, while their mother cried—but Del hadn’t budged, and he’d never explained his reasons.
She didn’t think Kief was going to explain much, either. He hadn’t bothered to turn off the frozen image of the masked woman in black, hovering above Ayil’s desktop, and she had the unnerving impression he was still looking at it, even though his eyes were closed.
She left him to his meditations, or whatever they were, and went into the kitchen nook, where she found refuge from strangeness in the mundane necessity of providing a breakfast for her unexpected guest.
Fresh
uffa, she thought.
And flatbread, and a platter of baked eggs.
uffa, she thought.
And flatbread, and a platter of baked eggs.
She pulled out the ingredients from the pantry shelves and the preserving-cupboard, started the oven heating, and turned on the cook-top, while trying not to think about whatever Kief was doing in the other room. The flatbread came from a mix packet. She added tap water, patted out the the thin rounds, and set the first ones to toasting on a hot griddle. Maybe the smell of fresh bread would bring him back.
She didn’t want to rouse him; was half-afraid to, if she was honest with herself. On the other hand, she didn’t want him staying here past morning, either. If her brother took it in mind to leave Arvedan and come up to the city, he might decide to visit the sister who’d warned him once already that Kiefen Diasul was doing something strange with the Institute Circle. Kief needed to be long gone by then—she didn’t know where to. But somewhere.
Finally, sounds of movement were coming from the other room. Ayil broke the eggs into the cooking platter and slid it into the oven. She closed the oven door and set the timer, then turned to see the stranger-who-was-Kief standing there in his rumpled clothes.
“Good morning,” she said.
He seemed to think about it for a few seconds before replying. “Yes.”
“Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I see that. Thank you.”
She’d forgotten—over the years since her brother’s death—exactly how exasperating conversations with Mages could sometimes get, but this one was starting out even worse than usual. Making an extraordinary effort, she said brightly, “Have you decided yet what you’re going to do? Next, I mean?”
“Yes,” he said. When she didn’t say anything this time in reply, he added, “I need a starship and a pilot.”
Mages,
she thought.
she thought.
She put a cup of
uffa
and a plate of flatbread on the table, and gestured him into a chair. “Sit. Have food.” She watched him put tangleberry butter on a piece of warm flatbread and roll it up to take a bite. Then she said, “I can see how leaving town for a while might be a good idea—but just buying a ticket at the station isn’t going to work?”
uffa
and a plate of flatbread on the table, and gestured him into a chair. “Sit. Have food.” She watched him put tangleberry butter on a piece of warm flatbread and roll it up to take a bite. Then she said, “I can see how leaving town for a while might be a good idea—but just buying a ticket at the station isn’t going to work?”
“No. I have to go off-world. And I can’t risk taking a fleet-family courier.”
“Then what else is there?”
She had to wait while he rolled up and ate another piece of flatbread before answering her question. “A contract carrier,” he said finally. “Those are fleet-family on paper only, and they shift contracts whenever a new arrangement looks better than the old.”
The oven timer went
bing,
and Ayil took out the baked eggs. “Only one problem with that,” she said, setting the platter down on the table. “Hiring a contract carrier is going to cost you a lot of money. And I mean the kind of money that fleet-families and mercantile associations have—not the kind that people have.”
bing,
and Ayil took out the baked eggs. “Only one problem with that,” she said, setting the platter down on the table. “Hiring a contract carrier is going to cost you a lot of money. And I mean the kind of money that fleet-families and mercantile associations have—not the kind that people have.”
Kief paused in the act of spooning himself out a serving of eggs. “The money doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying to get rid of it for years.”
Saying it, he smiled—Kief’s smile on a stranger’s face, even more disturbing in the light of morning than it had been the night before—and Ayil knew suddenly that she would be relieved to have him gone.
I won’t tell anybody where he went
, she thought.
I owe him that much for old times’ sake. But if he comes back here again, I’m not going to let him in.
, she thought.
I owe him that much for old times’ sake. But if he comes back here again, I’m not going to let him in.
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
had a crowded passage through the Void to Aulwikh. The former sus-Radal courier ship had never been intended to carry passengers on a long transit—especially not three of them, and none of them friendly enough to share rack space.
had a crowded passage through the Void to Aulwikh. The former sus-Radal courier ship had never been intended to carry passengers on a long transit—especially not three of them, and none of them friendly enough to share rack space.
Len settled for bedding down Zeri sus-Dariv in the pilot’s cabin, on the grounds that she had the most rank and the least experience at sleeping in bad conditions, and telling the Mages to make do with the acceleration couches in the passenger pod. He made his own bed for the duration in the pilot’s seat on the bridge, where the swirling grey pseudosubstance of the Void pressed against the armored glass windows and the
Fire
’s ancient, cranky ship-mind clicked and whirred in the instrument consoles and the interfaces.
Fire
’s ancient, cranky ship-mind clicked and whirred in the instrument consoles and the interfaces.
The journey was nevertheless strangely restful, as Void-transits so often were.
“Ships can’t attack in the Void,” Len explained to Lady Zeri on the first ship’s-night in transit, over a dinner of spiced meat-paste and crunchy wafers. The food was basic Antipodean quick-meal fare. Zeri took to it at once, while her cousin Herin and Iulan Vai ate their dinner with varying degrees of resignation. Too bad; Len had stocked the
Fire
’s galley for his taste, not theirs. “If you can make it in, you’re safe until you have to come out.”
Fire
’s galley for his taste, not theirs. “If you can make it in, you’re safe until you have to come out.”
“So they can’t follow us now?”
Len decided it was time to hedge a bit. Lady Zeri didn’t need to know about blind transits and other risky business, not unless they had to do it.
“You can make a guess about where somebody’s going to drop out,” he said. “You base it on what they may have told the spaceport, and on what other planets are on the arc of their approach to the Void—but there’s nothing that says a ship has to tell the truth about where they’re going, or that they have to go all the way there.”
Zeri licked the last of the meat-paste off her fingers. “I don’t remember us telling Eraasi inspace control anything at all.”
“We didn’t,” said Iulan Vai. “Anyone tracking us is going to have to take a look at the arc and guess.”
“Do we have a plan for dealing with that?”
“What we can’t hide, we disguise,” Vai said. “Get new paperwork for the ship, take new names all around, and make ourselves anonymous as fast as possible. Your husband’s family has more resources than we can fight directly.”
“Prospective husband,” Zeri said. “The contracts aren’t in force until after the wedding night.”
Vai snorted. “Tell
him
that.”
him
that.”
Zeri’s cousin Herin said, “He knows. If he’s going to have a shred of legal right to take over the sus-Dariv resources, he has to get Zeri back. Otherwise, it’s theft. Once he gets angry enough, he won’t care about that any longer, but he’s going to try doing things the more-or-less legal way first.”
“Sounds like the farther we get from Eraasi, the better,” Zeri said.
“In part,” Herin said. “On the other hand, the farther we get from Eraasi, the more willing he’ll be to use force.”
“So.” Zeri turned to Len. “You’re the pilot here—when do we stop running and head for that rendezvous point Syr Vai talked about back at Serpent Station?”
“Not yet. We drop out at Aulwikh and dally there long enough to let them see us leaving on a projected course for Ildaon, then drop out again at Ninglin and wait there a few days to see if anyone’s tracking us. After that, if we turn up clean, then we can see about making the rendezvous.”
Egelt and Hussav stood in the pilothouse of the sus-Peledaen guardship
Cold-Heart-of Morning,
in high orbit over Aulwikh. Patience and forethought, it appeared, were about to be rewarded.
Cold-Heart-of Morning,
in high orbit over Aulwikh. Patience and forethought, it appeared, were about to be rewarded.
At Egelt’s urging, the pilot of the courier
Summerday
had pushed the fast-runner at max speed all the way from Hanilat. The
Fire
’s official specs made out the sus-Dariv contract-courier to be an older-generation craft bought as surplus from the sus-Radal—and therefore no match for a sus-Peledaen ship in a transit through the Void. If Zeri sus-Dariv and her renegade captain had done as Egelt predicted and headed for Aulwikh after lifting from Serpent Station, the security chief wanted to be in position and waiting for them before they arrived.
Summerday
had pushed the fast-runner at max speed all the way from Hanilat. The
Fire
’s official specs made out the sus-Dariv contract-courier to be an older-generation craft bought as surplus from the sus-Radal—and therefore no match for a sus-Peledaen ship in a transit through the Void. If Zeri sus-Dariv and her renegade captain had done as Egelt predicted and headed for Aulwikh after lifting from Serpent Station, the security chief wanted to be in position and waiting for them before they arrived.
And so he had been, safely anonymous behind a misleading identifier beacon and assured of the full cooperation of Aulwikh’s local defense force—as it happened, a flotilla of four guardships on semipermanent loan from the sus-Peledaen fleet. The contract-courier had emerged from the Void a full two ship’s-days later, but hadn’t bothered to land. As Egelt had suspected, Aulwikh was only serving as a misleading dropout in a longer course.
A light on the
Cold-Heart
’s main console flashed. The guardship’s captain plugged in the earpiece for the comm set, and listened briefly.
Cold-Heart
’s main console flashed. The guardship’s captain plugged in the earpiece for the comm set, and listened briefly.
“Report from Aulwikh surface control,” he said to Egelt. “The
Fire
’s given notice they’re leaving orbit and heading for Ildaon.”
Fire
’s given notice they’re leaving orbit and heading for Ildaon.”
“Good, good,” Egelt said. “Put the flotilla in position for a block and board. We’re bigger than him, we’re faster than him, and we know where he’s heading. We’ve got him.”
“Where do you want to put the
Cold-Heart?”
Cold-Heart?”
“Out beyond the jump point,” Egelt said. “So that when we have him, we’ll be in position to board at once. I won’t be happy until that sus-Dariv female is safely back in my possession.”
“You and everyone else,” Hussav told him. “So far she’s been more trouble for her size than anybody else I’ve ever met.”
“Three around the path to jump,” the
Cold-Heart
’s captain said, ignoring the byplay. “We’ll be in the point out spaceward. We have it logged in and running.”
Cold-Heart
’s captain said, ignoring the byplay. “We’ll be in the point out spaceward. We have it logged in and running.”
Egelt smiled. “Good job. This time, for certain.”
“Careful,” Hussav warned. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Don’t we have a Circle to take care of things like that?”
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