By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (15 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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“Did you like it?”
“‘Like’ isn’t the right word. But I was good at my work, and it gave me satisfaction to do it well.”
“Don’t you like it anymore?”
“Times have changed,” he said, “and not just because the Mages took Galcen. But don’t worry about it. You’re a free-spacer on port leave. Lean back, enjoy yourself, and listen for two things: what’s happening on Pleyver, and what ship is leaving next for Suivi Point.”
Klea leaned back obediently, and tried to open her ears, but in spite of its cleanliness and good order the bar reminded her too much of Freling’s place for her to relax. Instead, she found herself growing fearful that if she let down her guard she’d once again start seeing and hearing other people’s thoughts. That way was madness, and she’d barely escaped falling into it back on Nammerin.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I’m not going to be any good at listening for stuff in here.”
He didn’t look surprised. “Go walk around for a while, then, and pick up what news you can that way.”
“Is it safe?”
“This is High Station,” he said. “As long as you stick to the docking bays and the main concourse you’ll do fine. I’ll meet you at the free-spacers’ hostel on this level.”
Klea left the Web-Runners’ Grill and walked for a while through the big portside concourse—only one of many, if the holomaps in the information kiosks could be believed. It was a new experience, looking at the licensed establishments as an off-worlder and a possible customer, instead of as part of the merchandise. After a while, though, exploration palled—even with the holomaps she didn’t dare to go very far—and she headed back toward the docking bay.
Another ship had come in while she was with Owen, a much-battered freighter that lay in the next cradle to
Lady LeRoi
. The massive doors of the ship’s cargo hold stood open, and crew members and dockside workers were loading cargo on nullgrav pallets.
Klea felt a sudden intense interest in the freighter’s comings and goings, a sensation like the thoughts of others impinging on her own, but without the associations of pain and fear. She wandered closer to the new arrival, trying to imitate Owen’s trick of looking like someone who always belonged wherever he happened to be.
“What ship?” she asked the nearest crew member.
“
Claw Hard
, out of Kiin-Aloq,” said the spacer. “Just in, and going to be out again as soon as we get her unloaded.” He looked at Klea speculatively. “All we need’s a couple of hands for the engineering watches. You ever stood realspace control?”
“My partner has,” Klea said truthfully. “I’m training.” She made haste to divert the conversation before she had to tell an outright lie. “Where are you going from here?”
“The outplanets, probably—as far from the fighting as we can get. Accardi is where the cargo’s bound.”
“Thanks,” she said. She’d never heard of Accardi—didn’t know whether it was a sector, a planet, or just a port—but the same inner prompting that had pulled her over to the ship was urging her to action again. “Listen, my partner and I are looking for a ship out of here ourselves. I’ve got to go tell him.”
“Don’t let the deckplates rust under your boots,” the spacer advised. “If we’re still here when you get back, talk to Captain Osa about a berth—you can say that Ragen sent you.”
Klea headed for the free-spacer’s hostel almost at a run. Owen was there as he’d said he would be, sitting on one of the lobby couches and paging through the flatscreen newsreader that a trusting management had bolted to the end table. He looked up as she hurried in.
“There’s a ship about to depart,” she said. “For Accardi. And they need a couple of hands in the engine room.”
“Accardi. Damn. That’s a long way from anywhere. But we can’t stay.” He tapped the screen of the newsreader with one finger. “The Pleyveran Senate declared for the Mageworlds at 3200 yesterday, Flatlands local time. At 0425 Standard, which is 3251 Flatlands local, High Station proclaimed itself a separate—and loyal—member of the Republic. Qualified oddsmakers are giving the standoff a fifty-fifty chance of turning into open warfare before the Magefleet even shows up.”
 
Ochemet was no longer certain how much time had passed since he had entered the lifepod with Errec Ransome.
There was no viewscreen in the tiny survival craft, only what looked like a rudimentary monitor of some sort, and a few equally rudimentary controls, all labeled in what Ochemet presumed was the Mageworlds alphabet. Ransome wasn’t touching any of them. The Master of the Guild—the
former
Master of the Guild, Ochemet reminded himself—sat with his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the padding of the acceleration couch. His face was pale under the streaks of dried blood.
Finally, Ochemet broke the silence. “I hope you’re expecting somebody to retrieve us.”
“No,” said Ransome.
“I see.” Ochemet looked at the control panel. Its handful of buttons and readouts meant nothing to him. He was Planetary Infantry, not a starpilot; he’d only worked in atmosphere, and never with anything more complicated than a scoutcar. Ransome, though, had flown with General Metadi in the ’
Hammer
, during times almost as bad as these. “If that’s the case, hadn’t you better start trying to figure out the instrumentation on this thing?”
Ransome didn’t open his eyes. “No. Be silent.”
Ochemet gritted his teeth to keep from demanding a better answer. The Adept—Ochemet supposed Ransome was still an Adept, even if he was no longer the Master—was clearly doing something that required intense concentration, even if he wasn’t ready to explain what it was.
More time went by; Ochemet didn’t know how much more. The Mages had taken his chronometer from him when they captured him, and in the tiny lifepod there was nothing that could be used to measure the passage of hours, or even of days. Finally Ransome gave a long, shuddering sigh and opened his eyes.
“There,” he said. “It’s done.”
“What’s done?”
“Making us safe,” Ransome said. “Hiding us from the eyes of the Magelords and the prying of their Circles.”
Ochemet took a deep breath. “That’s very good,” he said carefully. “But where, exactly, are we going?”
Ransome gave another of his unsettling smiles. “Nowhere.”
“I thought you were planning on escape,” Ochemet said.
“If I’d known it was suicide you had in mind, I’d have stayed put and let the Mages waste their energy on keeping me.”
“An admirable devotion to duty,” said the Adept. “But unnecessary. We have not, in fact, left the ship—though it pleases our former captors to believe that we have done so.”
Ochemet stared at him. “I saw you launch the pods!”
“The launch was a necessary diversion. Actually entering one was never a requirement. Nor are we in one now.”
“But we’re in a pod right now. I felt this one cutting loose. I’ve got a bruise coming on my ribs from not getting strapped down in time.”
“A simple illusion,” said Ransome. He made a waving-away gesture with one hand. “If Lord sus-Airaalin or any of his minions probed your mind during our escape, they saw as truth what you believed to be true. By now, they count us as long gone, drifting somewhere in Galcenian space and waiting in vain for a rescue.”
“I see,” Ochemet said. He was angry again. If Ransome hadn’t been the only other citizen of the Republic within range of lightspeed comms, he would have struck the older man. “I suppose you have a plan ready for what we do next?”
“We wait. And when it’s time for us to leave, we go.”
“In a lifepod?”
“No,” said Ransome. “That’s why we’re waiting: we’re going to need a ship. Sooner or later the Mages will give us one.”
 
Captain Gretza Yevil had been through worse months than the one just past—there’d been a few weeks during her thirteenth year that could still reduce her to bloody-minded despair if she dwelt on them for too long at a stretch—but nothing lately.
Interplanetary war … Mageworlders holding Galcen Prime … the Domina under arrest and Suivi Point a millimeter away from switching sides … and now this. Stuck on board a crippled ship bound for an unknown destination. I might as well have been kidnapped for all the say I had in anything.
And I hate playing cards.
Nevertheless, the games of kingnote and double tammani she’d played with Ignac’ LeSoit had been the only distractions available during the time that
Warhammer
spent in hyperspace. LeSoit had resisted all her efforts to find out where they were going—when, in desperation, she’d made that information the kingnote forfeit, he had responded by cheating so blatantly that she gave up in disgust. They went back to playing double tammani for pocket change instead.
Finally there came a ship’s-morning when LeSoit told her to strap down on one of the common-room couches and get ready for hyperspace dropout.
“Time for us to meet your mysterious buddies?” she asked.
“If we’re lucky. But trust me, Captain—you don’t want to take official cognizance of these people.”
“So you keep telling me.”
LeSoit just shrugged and headed for the ’
Hammer
’s cockpit. Yevil found a place on one of the couches and strapped the safety webbing in place.
The dropout wasn’t as smooth as it could have been; the queasy sense of dislocation lasted for several seconds. But for an old ship with bad structural damage it wasn’t bad, and Yevil had to give Ignac’ LeSoit several grudging points for his skill at shiphandling.
The ’
Hammer
continued its run in realspace, but not for long. Soon Captain Yevil felt the vessel settling down into a landing—beam—assisted, which usually meant a small enclosed bay like the one they’d broken out of on Suivi.
Not an orbital yard, then, she thought, and probably not a major field like Prime or Telabryk.
Ship’s gravity went off a few minutes later, confirming her guess. Wherever this place was, it had a pull only about half of the Galcen-based Space Force standard.
A moon of some kind, or an asteroid.
She unstrapped from the safety webbing, but didn’t bother going in search of LeSoit. The Domina’s number-two gunner was certain to show up with new instructions before long. When he did, his expression was an odd mix of relief and worry; relief that the place was still here, Yevil guessed, mixed with worry about his reception.
“Captain Yevil,” he said. “We’ve reached our destination. The repairs won’t be a problem, but I have to leave the ship for a while, and I have to request that you not leave the ship or enter the cockpit. It wouldn’t be safe for either of us.”
“Understood. Where are we, anyway?”
LeSoit shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Yevil. She tried again. “Is this some kind of criminals’ haven, or a pirate base?”
“You know I can’t answer that either.”
Yevil shrugged. “It was worth a try. But there’s one thing I have to know before I put on the blinders. Will what you’re doing here touch either the Domina’s honor or mine?”
“No,” said LeSoit. “My word on it. I’d never harm Beka—the Domina; and if you stay where I told you to, nothing’s going to compromise you either.”
“I won’t lie,” Yevil said. “There’s a funny smell to all this stuff about secrecy and looking the other way. But not so funny I can’t live with it.”
LeSoit went off on his mysterious errand. Yevil played a game and a half of solitaire kingnote during his absence. Then the Domina’s gunner returned, still looking nervous. They spent another week or so playing double tammani while
Warhammer
’s hull and deckplates resounded with the noise of heavy repairs.
The clanging and the vibrations finally stopped, but LeSoit made no preparations for getting underway. Instead he grew steadily more restless and uneasy—almost, Yevil thought, as if he were waiting for someone—until after several more days there came a ship’s-morning when she woke up and found the door to her berthing space sealed from the outside.
 
The air in the docking bay was thin and cold. Ignaceu LeSoit shivered a little where he stood at the top of
Warhammer
’s ramp. He had already sealed the cockpit doors and locked Captain Yevil into her cabin; now he toggled on the entry force field behind him and looked about.
The size of the bay continued to impress him, even after the weeks the ’
Hammer
had already spent there undergoing repairs. Off in the shadowy distance, low-power glows illuminated arched doorways in the bay’s metal walls; closer by, the worklights cast harsh white circles on the blast-scarred deckplates. Away to the right, amid a fountain of blue and pink electric sparks, a welder was working on a battered scoutcraft.

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