By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (19 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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Jhunnei shook her head. “Not likely. Whoever’s running the war from their side feels like a gambler and a real hard bastard. He’s opted for the all-or-nothing win, and I don’t think anything we can do is going to make him split his forces.”
The comm link beeped. Gil set aside the clipboard with the spoils inventory and picked up the link. “Gil here.”
“Communications, sir. We’ve just picked up a hi-comms message from
Luck of the Draw
.”
“Good,” said Gil. This sounded like promising news at last—a few days ago, Merrolakk had taken several of the privateers off on a hunting foray. Maybe her efforts had paid off where Gil’s hadn’t. “Where’s the
Luck
now? And what’s her message?”
“She’s just entered the local system,” reported the comms tech. “Captain Merrolakk requests permission to rendezvous with
Karipavo
for a direct conference. It seems that her latest raid netted her some important-looking papers—and a prisoner.”
 
In the half-empty bachelor officers’ quarters at the Space Force installation on Telabryk Field, Llannat Hyfid woke from an uneasy sleep. The conversation over dinner at the LDF officers’ club had been disturbing; she’d said more than she’d intended, and far more than she should have. If she’d been talking to anyone besides Ari Rosselin-Metadi, and if the Mageworlders hadn’t already broken up the civilized galaxy into convenient pieces, she would have been in serious trouble.
The Guild hunts down Mages wherever it can find them—“for the common safety,” Master Ransome always told us, and under the circumstances I can’t really say he was wrong.
She turned over on the narrow bunk. A bar of light came in through the high window. Not moonlight, but the reflected skyglow off the port; so strong, even almost deserted as the Field was, that it made a pale streak slanting down across the darkness.
Face it, I don’t look all that much like an Adept anymore. A Magelord’s ship, a Magelord’s staff … even my thoughts are turning strange.
When she looked at the night through half-closed eyes, she had to acknowledge the change. Her Adept-trained awareness of the flowing Power in the universe was still there; but these days, if she tried, she could dimly perceive something else as well: the silver cords that brought together the past and the future, weaving their patterns across the present.
That’s what the masks are for
. The knowledge slipped into the forefront of her mind like an old memory. It was one of the things the Professor had known, that had come to her somehow during her visionary trance back on the Deathwing.
They shut out the distractions of flesh and blood, and let you see.
She couldn’t sleep now; her thoughts had left her too restless for that. With a sigh she rose from her bed and dressed herself again in Adept’s blacks. Then she picked up the Professor’s ebony staff and clipped it onto her belt before slipping out into the night.
The few small buildings that made up the Space Force installation on Telabryk Field were dark. A light shone through the window of the main office—Vinhalyn, she supposed, working late, or whoever had the duty tonight. She went around back to the open area by the loading platform, where she had practiced the ShadowDance and Ari had come to watch.
When she got to the place, she wasn’t really surprised to find him there before her. He stood leaning back against the side of the platform, looking up at the night sky. As always, the quietness of his posture would have let normal eyes pass over him without noticing. He turned his head at her approach—he had keen ears by any human standard, and the Selvaurs on Maraghai had trained him well enough to let him earn clan status among the Forest Lords.
“What brings you out walking at this hour?” he asked. His voice was a soft rumble.
Llannat took a place leaning against the platform next to him. “I couldn’t sleep.” She paused. “What’s your excuse?”
He shrugged. In the dark, with his massive height and his broad shoulders, it was like watching a mountain shift position. “Same thing, more or less.”
They stood for a while in companionable silence. Far off on the LDF side of the field, a returning scoutship settled onto the concrete in a streak of light and a roar of engines.
“That’s another one back,” she said. “So far, so good.”
“The good luck can’t last forever. Which do you think it’s going to be, the Magefleet or Valiant?”
“We’d better hope it’s Vallant,” Llannat said. “The most he’s got is going to be a sector fleet. Whatever the Mages have put together, it was big enough to break through the Net and take out the Home Fleet at Galcen.”
. She frowned upward at where the stars would have been, if she could have seen them through the skyglow. “If you’re really looking for an answer, it’s that I don’t know which of them is going to get here first. But it’s going to be soon, and it’s going to be bad.”
He nodded. “I thought so … . I wish that I could wish you were someplace else. But I’m too selfish for that. I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.” She was silent for a few moments, remembering the silver cords the Professor had seen and drawn together five hundred years before—the work that she herself had finished, or had begun to finish, on board
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
. “I think … I believe … that I came here because of you. Because I had to find you.”
“Me?” He turned his head to look directly down at her, though she couldn’t make out his expression in the dark. “What good would I be to an Adept? Owen always did say I was thicker than a two-meter stack of plast-block bricks.”
“Your brother doesn’t know everything.”
Ari snorted. “Try telling
him
that.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll learn.” The words came unprompted, with the flat echo of certainty, and she shivered in spite of herself. “Oh, damn. I wish I could quit doing that.”
“I can’t help you there, either. I wish I could.”
“You do help,” she said. “By being here, and being you. I don’t need another Adept—we’re all crazy, you know; it comes from spending too much time looking at the inside of things—I need someone who doesn’t have trouble remembering what’s real.”
Llannat heard his breath catch a little. “If you aren’t telling me lies in order to be kind …”
“No.”
“Then I’ll stay. For as long as the Magelords and the Space Force let me. Longer, if you ask.”
She laughed unsteadily. “Coming from you, Ari Rosselin-Metadi, that’s practically a proposal of marriage.”
“If you’d like to take it that way.”
“Yes,” she said. “And yes.”
 
Klea had never impersonated a bodyguard before. The trick, she decided after watching Owen for a few minutes, was not to impersonate anything at all.
If I am one of Gentlesir Jessan’s off-planet bodyguards, then what an off-planet bodyguard looks like … is me.
In the office of Dahl&Dahl’s executive vice-president for public affairs, she stood against the wall on one side of the door while Owen stood on the other. Jessan and the man from Dahl&Dahl ignored them both.
“I’m gratified,” said Jessan, “that you were able to provide me with an answer so expeditiously.”
The man from Dahl&Dahl pursed his lips and looked mournful. “Unfortunately, Gentlesir Jessan, the only answer that I’m able to give you is a negative one.”
“Ah.” If Jessan was angry, it didn’t show. “I take it your superiors were unwilling to accommodate us in the matter.”
“No, no. The firm of Dahl&Dahl still has the most earnest support for your cause, and for the cause of the Republic. However—”
“Yes?”
“—by our best projections, a counterpetition to block the Domina’s termination could not muster enough votes in committee to override the original. Under the current circumstances, Dahl&Dahl can’t possibly risk putting it forward.”
Jessan nodded. “Understandable. You are, after all, men and women of business … but is there something new about the current circumstances of which I ought to be aware?”
“Yes,” said the man from Dahl&Dahl. “At its next meeting, the Steering Committee will declare Suivi Point to be an open port, not allied to either side in the present conflict.”
Not even a little bit like High Station
, thought Klea.
And High Station has a lot more to worry about if they lose
.
“I see.” Jessan rose and bowed. “In that case, gentlesir, it’s time I took my leave.”
The man from Dahl&Dahl rose and bowed also. “Believe me, we do regret our inability to help you in the way you desired.”
He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and took out a slim folder—the printed cover carried a full-color reproduction of the mosaic out front. “A listing of our available banking and investment services,” he explained. “In case you’re interested in patronizing us again someday.”
Jessan took the folder. “I shall certainly keep your firm in mind,” he said. “In the meantime—good day, gentlesir, and please accept my best wishes for your future prosperity.”
He bowed again and turned to leave. Klea wondered for a moment if bodyguards were supposed to bow or anything, and decided that somebody who wasn’t officially there couldn’t be expected to say goodbye. She and Owen followed Jessan out of the building without speaking.
Nobody said anything until they were back out in the middle of the main concourse. Jessan paused to look up at a statue made of welded metal augmented by shifting holovid displays; like good bodyguards, Klea and Owen paused also, a foot or so behind him.
“Mixed media,” the Khesatan said appreciatively. “Quite good, actually—I wonder if the artist’s local?”
Klea heard Owen sigh. “I don’t know. It shouldn’t be difficult to find out, though, if you think it’s important.”
Jessan looked surprised that anyone should have needed to ask. “The only halfway-decent piece of public statuary on Suivi Point? Of course it’s important … but not urgent. What I had in mind for the next few minutes, in fact, was a thorough perusal of the fascinating piece of informational literature our friend back there pressed upon on me at parting.”
“So you noticed that.”
“I could hardly miss it. Let’s see, now …” Jessan took the folder out of his pocket and opened it. Several narrow sheets of stiff paper tried to fall out; he caught them, and riffled through them. His expression of mild interest never changed, but Klea could feel his excitement building as he read through the close-printed pages. “Yes. Yes, indeed. I shall
certainly
make it a point to invest with Dahl&Dahl.”
 
Merrolakk the Selvaur hadn’t changed her style when she brought
Luck of the Draw
to join Gil’s fleet. She’d added a Space Force standard-issue comm link to the collection of weapons and small tools attached to, or stowed in, her gunbelt and vest; but that was all.
Karipavo
’s briefing room, already small and cramped, seemed even smaller after she’d entered.
She greeted Commodore Gil with a casual nod.
*D’Rugier,* she said—using his civilian name, probably to underscore the voluntary nature of their current association. After the manner of Maraghai, she’d left off the title. Taking orders wasn’t something that the Forest Lords were particularly good at, and neither was working inside anybody’s hierarchical system except their own.
“Merrolakk,” Gil said. “I hear you’ve been lucky.”
*Not a whole lot going on out here. But I got a ship.* “We’ve been getting ships too,” said Jhunnei. “All of them loaded with things like roots, berries, and cheap engine parts. Was yours any different?”
*Hard to say. This one had shields and guns, and then the damned thing blew itself up on me.* “Warship,” Gil said. No wonder Merro was looking so pleased with herself. “You said something about a prisoner?”
*There was a lifepod. I grabbed it with a tractor beam—and look what I found inside.*
The Selvaur unfastened one of the bulging pockets of her vest, and pulled out a paperbound notebook and a handful of what looked like some kind of datachips. *Files and hardcopy. The prisoner was carrying them.*
“Let’s have a look,” said Gil. He took the notebook and opened it on the briefing-room table. “Hold on to the files; we can’t read ’em without the right comps anyhow. The hardcopy, though … we’re in luck. Flatpix.”
“Maybe not so lucky,” Jhunnei said quietly. “I don’t like what I’m seeing here.”
Gil didn’t like it either. Interleaved with the pages of small neat handwriting in an unfamiliar script were pictures of a young woman in Space Force uniform, a commander by the insignia, shown full face and profile. The flatpix had more handwriting on the backs and in the margins, and some of this text was done in careful Galcenian lettering.

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