By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (22 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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The object of that intent was still a trifle pale and subdued, most likely from trauma and loss of blood. Her bearing, though, had none of the earlier desperation that had impelled her toward death on his rapier’s blade. Gil sat down in the visitor’s chair by the side of her bed.
“Hello,” he said. “After the way we met yesterday, I suppose it’s time we got acquainted. I am Baronet D’Rugier. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”
The woman looked at him for a moment. Her eyes were pale grey, with a dark ring around the iris. Seen at close range she was somewhat younger than the silver in her hair had at first implied—about Gil’s own age, as far as he could tell, and certainly no older. Was it worry and hardship that had marked her thus, he wondered, or merely some quirk of heredity? When she spoke, her Galcenian had the heavy accent Gil had noted before, but the words come out fluently enough—he’d heard worse on some of the Republic worlds.
“I am called Inesi syn-Tavaite, my lord.” She paused, as if searching her mind for something. “In your language, I think I am Doctor Inesi syn-Tavaite.”
“Doctor syn-Tavaite,” Gil said. “I offer you a place in my crew.”
When she heard the words, the prisoner’s grey eyes seemed to widen and grow lighter. Gil wondered briefly at the change in the woman’s expression—had she found the thought of being placeless so bad that even a niche among the enemy was better than nowhere at all?
“You’ll take me on?” she asked.
“I will,” he said. “Where I’ll assign you depends on your skills, of course.”
She nodded. She had more control of her features now; the flash of gratitude was gone. “Of course.”
Gil looked at her for a few seconds, assessing her. “You mentioned that you might be called ‘Doctor.’ Does this make you a medical practitioner, or an academician?”
“Both,” the woman said. “I know something of diseases and of the body’s functions, but my work has been theoretical for some years.”
“I understand,” Gil said. He rose. “When you’re back on your feet, I’ll give you an assignment where your talents will be best utilized. Good day to you, Doctor syn-Tavaite.”
He left the sickbay, and went out into the narrow corridor where Lieutenant Jhunnei was waiting.
“Any luck with the prisoner, sir?”
Gil shrugged. “Well, we know that she’s some kind of medical theoretician … at least, she says she is, and that’s the sort of thing we should be able to check out. For what it’s worth, I don’t think she was lying.”
“Did you get anything beyond that, though?”
“A name,” he said. “It might even be her real one. Nothing else just yet.”
“Maybe you should have leaned on her a little.”
“No,” said Gil. “I don’t want to scare her back into a suicidal fit. Slowly does it, I think.”
“I suppose so, Commodore.”
Gil laughed under his breath. “You don’t think it’s worth the effort of cultivating her, I take it.”
“Well, sir … she
is
a Mageworlder.”
“She is that,” Gil said. “But I think I can trust her, now that I’ve caught her. And I’ll remind you that I did so on your advice and with your suggestions.”
“That’s not—”
“I keep my bargains,” he said. “I’ll let Doctor syn-Tavaite have a chance to keep hers.”
“What exactly has she agreed to, Commodore?”
“Nothing yet. But I think that she will, given time.”
Jhunnei frowned a little. “Yes, sir. And speaking of time … I’ve heard that some of the other ships’ crews are wondering when pay and prize money will be handed around.”
“Merro’s been dropping hints, you mean.”
“That’s about the shape of it, yes.”
“I can’t say that I blame her.” Gil considered his options. “We’ve had slim pickings on this run so far. Nobody’s ever gotten rich or won a war off a single prisoner and a hold full of engine parts. But we haven’t taken any losses either, and I think we’ve pulled in enough loot to tease people’s appetites.”
“Back to Waycross, then, for a payout?”
“Looks like,” said Gil. He smiled slightly. “And if anybody on Innish-Kyl was betting against us making it back to port in one piece, this should give them a healthy surprise.”
 
As soon as the ’
Hammer
was securely down, Yevil stood and walked back to the common room. The holovid set was still in place. She switched it on and started a recording sequence—when the war was over, if the Space Force won, she was morally certain that she’d have to write up a report on whatever happened today on Suivi Point.
The special program had already begun. Yevil glanced from the holovid—an excellent three-dimensional representation with beautiful color—to the array of ship’s chronometers on the bulkhead. One displayed Suivi local time: straight up on ten. Another showed elapsed minutes and seconds since the ’
Hammer
’s outer airlock door had opened.
Not long enough
, Yevil thought.
Hurry
,
LeSoit
.
The holovid tank showed the same bare metal cubicle that the advertisement had featured earlier. A fanfare sounded as a door in one wall slid open to admit four figures robed and hooded in scarlet, and a tall, thin woman in a pale green gown: Beka Rosselin-Metadi. A ConSec guard followed close behind her.
“Here she is,” said the voice of an off-camera announcer. “The Domina of Entibor, tried and found guilty of treason! Last call for bets in the Dead Domina Pool!”
Yevil moved to the other side of the holovid tank. Yes, the ConSec had a blaster pressed against the Domina’s back, and her hands were caught in binders. The room’s glassy, mirror-polished walls repeated the image all around—probably so that watchers who had to pick up the vid flat would be able to see all the details.
A metal ringbolt was fastened in the center of the room’s polished floor, with a set of ankle binders attached to it by a short chain. The guard’s mouth started to move. Yevil turned up the sound to hear what he was saying:
“Don’t even think about it. Or this will get a whole lot worse.”
Two more guards entered the room and snapped the binders around the Domina’s ankles, chaining her to the floor. The binders on her wrists were removed, and the guards left. Another fanfare sounded over the speakers in the holovid tank.
“That’s it!” called the announcer. “No more bets! And here he is, with a final offer of mercy—Tarveet of Pleyver!”
In the holovid, the metal wall ahead of the Domina wavered and went transparent. Yevil had never seen the councillor from Pleyver, except in current-events stillpix and occasional clips on the holovid news, but the man on the other side of the wall matched the public images well enough. The Domina was looking at him with a disgusted expression, as if he were something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe.
“You really should have accepted my offer,” he said.
Beka didn’t change expression. “Maybe. Would it make any difference now if I said I wished I had?”
Tarveet looked regretful. “I’m afraid not, my dear. Matters have proceeded much too far for that.”
“Just as well. I’d be lying anyway.”
“Charming as always,” Tarveet said. “So be it.”
He gestured, and the clear glass wall in front of him wavered again, changing back into a mirrored surface. The creatures in scarlet threw off their robes. The claws on their hands and halfway up their arms shone golden in the light, making dazzles of reflection in the mirrored walls. They chittered back and forth in their own language and began to circle Beka where she stood chained to the bolt in the floor.
“Those are Rotis,” the announcer said. “Fast, strong, sapient; some of Last Exits’ most popular technicians. And they only eat living meat!”
“There’s just the four of them, though,” came the voice of a second announcer, unctuous with false concern. “Do you suppose they’ll be sated before she’s dead?”
“I doubt it. They look pretty hungry to me—and if they get careless and nip an artery, she’ll die before they’re done eating. That won’t make them happy.”
The sound switched again to the pickup from the execution chamber: chittering Rotis; the Domina’s heartbeat, specially amplified for the people with money riding on it; and then, cutting through all those, the whine of a blaster and a man’s cry of pain. An instant later the mirrored wall shattered inward with a tremendous explosion of sound.
Collapsor grenade
, thought Yevil, as the Domina wavered and fell forward, the binders around her ankles pitching her facedown onto the floor.
Ignac’ must have gotten himself one from the weapons locker
. Blaster bolts lanced in over the Domina’s head as she fell, taking down the Rotis. Then a tall, fair-haired man stepped in through the wreckage of the mirrored wall.
Wait a minute
, Yevil thought,
that isn’t Ignac’!
The man bent to lift the Domina onto her feet.
“Nyls Jessan,” the Domina said. “You took your own sweet time about getting here.”
Jessan raised her to her feet and kissed her quickly on the forehead. Then, using what Yevil noticed was a very good form and stance indeed, he began shooting out the holovid cameras one by one. The tank in
Warhammer
’s common room went dark, then lit up again with a TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES notice.
Yevil looked back up at the chronometers. Only four minutes after ten. But where the hell was Ignaceu LeSoit?
 
Beka let herself rest against Jessan’s shoulder for a moment longer. The smoke and dust in the execution studio had begun to settle, and she saw the Rotis lying motionless on the metal floor, as well as more bodies—dead or unconscious holovid technicians—lying in the larger room outside the mirrored cube. She didn’t see Tarveet anywhere.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
Jessan set her carefully back onto her feet again, and bent down to wrap cutting charges around the ankle binders. The charges flashed, scorching the cheap fabric of her skirt, and the manacles fell away. He straightened.
“Dahl&Dahl,” he said. “They couldn’t help you in the committee—or wouldn’t; they might not have wanted to push a political fight they were bound to lose—but they stuck by us just the same.”
“You mean they bought off the guards for you?”
“And gave us maps and schedules.”
“Good for Dahl&Dahl. Where’s Tarveet?”
“He’s still breathing. Your brother’s got him.”
Beka took one careful step, then another. Her knees were still shaky, and the binders had scraped her flesh. “Ari?”
“No—the other one.”
“Owen’s here?”
She caught sight of her brother as the last of the smoke dissipated. He wore spacer’s coveralls as usual; these were cleaner than the ones he’d been wearing the last time they met, with a vaguely familiar ship’s ID patch on the breast pocket. He carried Tarveet’s gangling body draped over his shoulders. A young woman, also in plain coveralls, followed close after him. Both of them carried Adepts’ staves.
“Owen!” Beka called the name aloud. “What do you need Tarveet for? We have to get out of here!”
“He’s a souvenir,” said the girl. She spoke Galcenian with an accent that Beka didn’t recognize. “High trade-in value.”
“Well,
I’m
not going to take a turn lugging him out to—to wherever we’re going.”
Jessan handed Beka his blaster and unslung an energy lance from across his back. “Shuttle bay two. I’ve bought us passage the hell out of here and up to
Claw Hard
.”
“Osa’s here too?” Beka closed her hand around the cool plastic of the blaster’s grip. Automatically, she checked the setting and the charge—both showed up full. “What’s the son of a bitch charging you?”
“Nothing. He’s a volunteer.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“You’ll be dead if you don’t come on,” her brother Owen called from the main studio. He shifted Tarveet’s weight on his shoulders long enough to produce a blaster of his own from somewhere about his person. Beka had never seen him carrying a blaster before, but she didn’t doubt for a second that he could use one. “Not even Dahl&Dahl can buy every ConSec on Suivi Point for more than a few minutes.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” Beka said. “I’ve been dirtside too damned long—I want ship’s metal under my feet.”
They left the execution studio and ventured out into the corridors beyond: Jessan in the lead with his energy lance; then Beka, moving awkwardly in her long skirt and soft-soled prison slippers; then the strange girl in spacer’s clothing, holding her staff at the ready; and last of all her brother Owen, with his staff slung across his back by a cord, Councillor Tarveet draped over his shoulders, and a blaster in his hand.

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