Bright of the Sky (41 page)

“Yes,” he whispered. He wanted to believe. He wanted to know if she believed, and why. He knew she wasn’t dumb. She was average-smart, a right-down-the-middle engineering graduate. But in some ways she had a wisdom about her. An ability to sit with the CEO of the fourth-largest company in the world and tell him with all grace,
I’m a busy woman.

“Why does it matter what I think?”

Because you’re the goddamn cheerleader for Titus Quinn, he thought. Because you actually like the man, and have some reason to think that he’s not a mental runaway. Because you still hope to see him come home from high adventures.

He said, “Because I’m losing ships, Caitlin. If Quinn doesn’t help us, we won’t have any other options.”

“You mean
you
won’t,” she said, an edge coming into her voice. “Some of us don’t care about interstellar travel, Mr. Polich. Some of us are trying real hard just to deal with the world we’ve got.”

That stung. She was on
his
dole. Implying it wasn’t enough.

“But I’m still asking you. I’m asking for your frank opinion.” She knew Quinn at a level no one else did. If she could believe, maybe he could, too. Maybe he could sleep at night.

She rose from her chair and went to the window. Her voice came small and lost. “I don’t know.”

He felt the weight of those words, few and soft as they were.

Caitlin faced him across the living room. “I want to believe him. I’ve chosen to believe him.”

“Chosen?”

“Yes.”

He saw what she was driving at: that faith was something you decided on. But she hadn’t soothed his troubled brow. She hadn’t given him the answer he wanted. He’d expected that Caitlin Quinn would have that simple middie susceptibility to faith. And that some of it might rub off on him.

“You don’t get to, though,” she added, and her voice had turned hard, along with her eyes.

“I don’t?” He didn’t get to choose?

“I believe him because of how much we all love him.”

Love. Well, if
that
was the prerequisite . . . “Not a very objective position,” he said, with some bitterness.

She shook her head, looking as though she actually pitied him. Here she was in her crappy little apartment, standing like the Statue of Liberty, Miss Holier-than-thou. Like a lot of people, she thought love solved everything: just smear it over the problem, and it’ll all work out. Then they had the arrogance to pity you if you saw things more rationally. He wished he hadn’t come; wished he hadn’t exposed himself like this to her. He was at the top of the food chain, and she was a bottom feeder; and now she stood there on her high moral ground. . . . He had an urge to put her in her place.

“Caitlin,” he said, rising to leave. “If Quinn does come back, there’s something you can do for me. He’ll give us a full report; we’ll make sure of that. But if he holds anything back—any little side deals he’s made over there—we want to know about it.” They should have sent Booth Waller along, damn Titus’s conniving heart, anyway.

She looked at him with incredulous eyes. “Why on Earth should I tell you?”

“The Standard Test is coming up soon, isn’t it?” He flicked a glance at the closed bedroom door.

She followed his glance. “What about it?”

Stefan was now stomping in Helice’s realm. The youngest member of the board had started the whole idea, and now Stefan would finish it. He let his voice convey how little Caitlin knew: “Did you think the Standard Test was really standard?”

Now the statuelike quality of her hardened. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

“Just keep us in mind,” he said. “In case you hear things. Things he’d only tell you. You will have my gratitude, I assure you.”

“Get out of here.”

Stefan didn’t move, and for a moment Caitlin wondered if there was more. If he had more bodies in the closet. If he was going to throw acid in her face, repossess the furniture, put up on the newsTides pictures of her in her underwear. . . . She was furious, and afraid. But she also was flying high above this conversation, seeing something clearly from that birds-eye view: that Stefan Polich would never let them go. He’d never be satisfied with what her family could give him. Like a man on a drug, once he ruled the Quinn family, he’d control them to their graves. It came like an awful and freeing truth: she was doomed no matter what she did. So she might as well stop the whole thing right here and now.

“Think about it, Caitlin. Don’t make up your mind right now.” He handed her his card. “Call me. Anytime.”

“No,” she said, making no move to take it. “I won’t be calling.”

“That’s a mistake.”

She nodded. “I know.” Of course it was a mistake. He’d have to prove that he was serious; a man like that couldn’t be crossed and not retaliate. But everything she could do would be a mistake. So goddamn it, let him come at me. Oh, Titus, she thought. We all should have gone with you. That’s where your heart is, anyway. Maybe we’d find ours, too. Maybe Rob and I could start over. Maybe Mateo . . .

She fought tears, and won. Not in front of
him
.

She led the way to the door and opened it, standing aside for him.

There, he turned to say good-bye, and seemed to soften for a moment. “If he doesn’t come back, there’s twenty million for you—for the family.”

“He’s coming back,” she said.

The door closed. She had dismissed him.

Stefan took the elevator down. The chill of the lobby air was welcome, but couldn’t match the chill in his gut. She’d turned him out without giving him even a crumb of hope.

He opened his umbrella and pushed back into the rainy city. In her eyes, he didn’t deserve to believe. But though she despised him, she was wrong if she thought it was all about money and empire. People were dying. The
Appolonia
had sunk, all hands on board.

Jesus could have saved them. If he’d chosen to.

Stefan guessed he didn’t get to believe
that
, either.

He found the crumpled tract in his pocket and tossed it away.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

                      
As one being my mount and I went to war.

                      
As half a being, I came home.

                      
I turn my face upward. Does the bright still shine?

—lament of an Inyx rider

T
O THE SURPRISE OF THE ENCAMPMENT
—and the fury of her enemies— Sydney had acquired a bodyguard: the giant Mo Ti. Although he spoke little, and made no threats, her fellow riders feared the man. He had a reputation as a fighter of Ahnenhoon, and several days ago had effortlessly tossed a Laroo half the length of the barracks for scratching Sydney. Even the camp’s sole Jout—the only sentient Mo Ti’s size—kept a distance from the man.

Sydney didn’t know why the man attached himself to her, but he now had a free bond with his mount, so he had already prospered from her friendship. So far, the concept of free bond had a loyal following of two riders.

Feng considered free bond a heresy, relentlessly agitating against Sydney. But with Mo Ti near, Sydney could brazenly promote her idea, countering the arguments from the riders that free bond—a term she’d made up—would make the herd weak. On the contrary, she and Riod had developed a strangely fierce devotion, one that knitted rider to mount, opening the gates of emotion and loyalty until it was a clean, swift river passing between them, one that at times overtook its banks and spread to the herd.

Most often, though, Sydney and Mo Ti rode out alone, keeping apart from others. She enjoyed his quiet presence, and took from him the lesson that strength could be gentle. He never blustered or picked fights, and in stark contrast to the obsequious Akay-Wat, gave Sydney subdued respect. In imitation, Sydney began to modify her behavior, carrying herself with more dignity, a change that Mo Ti seemed to approve. Even so, in nearly two arcs of days together, Sydney had never felt one reflected emotion from him.

Thus the days passed, and Sydney knew a measure of happiness that surprised her. Riod, too, was less apt to go off raiding, and day by day grew more certain of free bond.

Lurking in the background, and now so cowed that she seldom spoke, was Akay-Wat, watching with limpid brown eyes as Sydney transferred her interest to Mo Ti, allowing him to serve her and utterly supplant the duties that Akay-Wat had enjoyed, such as keeping Puss from soiling Sydney’s bed and watching over her book of pinpricks—moot in any case, because now Sydney carried it with her in a pack wherever she went.

Sydney had developed a habit of signaling Riod with a tap on his neck when she wished him to convey her thoughts to others. Such as when she passed Akay-Wat, thinking,
Miserable coward.
Or when she passed Feng, thinking,
Slave. Afraid of free bond.
In this way she and Riod kept the appearance of her thoughts leaking out, a necessary precaution lest they tackle too many taboos at once.

However, these peaceful days were at an end, as they were soon to learn.

The four of them rode back to the encampment after a long ride, with Riod shedding restive thoughts, and then alarming ones. Instinctively, Sydney and Mo Ti hunkered down for a fast ride, and at last thundered into a strangely quiet yard.

Silent riders stood in clumps in the yard, watching them approach.

Riod was picking up the news that someone in the camp had died.

“Who?” Sydney asked.

In the barracks
, Riod sent.
Akay-Wat.

They dismounted, and the group parted for Sydney and Mo Ti as they approached the barracks. Riod broke custom and entered the rider quarters with Sydney. Two sentients occupied the room, one of them unconscious.

Adikar, the Ysli healer, turned at their approach. “Akay-Wat,” he said. “Her mount has killed her.”

Through Riod’s sending, Sydney saw the Hirrin lying in a mass of bloody bandages. Eyes closed, Akay-Wat softly bleated.

“Dies,” the Ysli said. “Her foreleg. A pulp.”

Sydney caught a glimpse through Riod’s eyes of Akay-Wat’s grievous injury, her shattered right foreleg. “Skofke did this?” Sydney asked, stunned to think that a mount would maim his own rider.

Adikar said, “Free bond, she wanted. This was the answer.”

A clumping sound announced that Feng was approaching the bunk. Her tone was grim. “We got to remove the leg, and we would if any of us had the eyes for it.” She paused. “Ever seen somebody die pus-filled and raving? Put her down, I say.”

The Ysli healer muttered, “Against the vows, a kill like that.”

We do not tell the lords
, Riod sent.

Feng offered, “We could send for a Tarig surgeon.”

“Won’t last till then,” the Ysli muttered.

Put the Hirrin down
, came Riod’s command.

Sydney turned to him, putting her hand on his broad face, “My friend, not yours.”

It shamed her to call Akay-Wat a friend now, as the Hirrin lay dying, when Sydney had given her hardly a thought before. Akay-Wat had pleaded for scraps of friendship, scraps that Sydney withheld out of annoyance—and worse, a kind of involuntary dislike. Her careless words of insult had driven the Hirrin to a rash demonstration of bravery, and now she would die for it.

Sydney was thinking hard. “Maybe we could take the leg using Riod’s sight to guide us.”

Feng snorted. “Ya. And a beku can pilot the Nigh.” She thunked her cane on the floor. “Take the creature to my cabin. No one wants to hear her screaming.”

Mo Ti bent down and gathered up the Hirrin. He carried her easily, as though she was made of straw.

In the yard, Priov cantered forward, his emotions cold.
She angered her
mount
, he sent.
But he did not kill her.

“Go to hell,” Sydney said, in English.

The bright dimmed, and Akay-Wat ceased her bleating. Her wound, though washed, was putrefying. Sydney crouched by the cot, holding the unconscious Akay-Wat’s other foreleg, stroking it, while Mo Ti stood watch nearby. The vigil wouldn’t last long.

The Ysli healer brought candles to the room, lighting them for good luck. But Akay-Wat needed more than luck. She needed an amputation.

With the fragrance of candles burning, the smells of Akay-Wat’s wound subsided a little. But nothing could ease Sydney’s dismay at her part in all this. Worse, she was aware that wanting Akay-Wat to survive was partially to forestall the self-recrimination she would go through after the Hirrin’s death. It was hypocritical to hope for Akay-Wat’s life. But it was not all selfish. The Hirrin had indeed been a friend, or had tried to be.

When Adikar left, Mo Ti drank from a water jar. His throat opened, and down went a jarful of water. Sydney heard him wipe his mouth against his sleeve.

Then he crouched down to Sydney’s level. “I fought the Long War,” he said.

She knew he had been a soldier, but since coming to the encampment he had said nothing further about himself. Sydney was surprised he did now, in these circumstances.

“How did you end up here? You must have made enemies.”

“Mo Ti killed a man in a fight. A fellow soldier.”

She hoped her silence would encourage him to elaborate, and he did.

“They let me live, because of good service. They said I would come here. Five soldiers took me aside for my blinding. All had fought with me. They shackled me and sent me on the long journey. There was the great forest, the veldt, the storm wall, and the River Nigh. Then I came to a new primacy. I had no friends. Most sentients were afraid of me, all except you.”

Akay-Wat twisted on her pallet, but remained silent.

“On my journey,” Mo Ti said in his soft voice, “I saw all the wonders.” After a pause, he continued, “I am not blind.”

Sydney considered this stunning pronouncement. “But you have to be. Everyone would know.”

His voice went to a whisper. “Mo Ti hides thoughts.”

“Touch my hand.” Sydney stretched her arm out to the side. She felt his large hand grasp hers with assurance. Then she believed him, partly from this demonstration, and partly from a conviction that he wouldn’t lie to her. “Your fellow soldiers never carried out the blinding.”