Ghost Legion (71 page)

"He's thinking all wrong," she said to the wall. "He
isn't thinking at all. He's acting out of emotion. When he's free
from danger, away from Flaim—away from Derek Sagan," she
added grimly, "Dion will see everything clearly. He may be mad
at me at first." she admitted, "but he ll eventually come
to see that I've done the right thing."

She would save Dion from himself ... if only she could get out her
door.

Lying on her bed, she made plan after plan, only to discard them all.
At last, tired from running frantically around and around on the
wheel that never seemed to take her away, Kamil closed her eyes. She
couldn't remember when she'd slept last ... or eaten anything. The
wheel began to turn slower and slower. Now it was rocking back and
forth, back and forth. She had the impression someone was in the room
with her, though the door hadn't opened.

Kamil wasn't frightened. She'd seen this person before.

"Where have you been?" Kamil demanded accusingly.

"Here, all the time," was the mild response.

"Then why haven't you helped us? A godmother has a sacred duty
to her godchild. Why don't you help me?"

Kamil was fretting, whining like a sick child. But she felt like a
sick child, frightened and alone. Two tears crept out from beneath
her eyelids. "Don't just stand there and look at me, Lady. I
need you! I have to save Dion ..."

"You won't save him by crying," she said.

Kamil started, was suddenly wide awake, thinking she'd heard a voice.

"If you're determined to do this, get up," the voice
commanded, and it was clear and cool as the lake near Kamil's home.
"You haven't much time."

Slowly, Kamil sat up. Slowly, she opened her eyes. A woman clad in
shining silver stood beside the bed. Long, pale hair fell over silver
armor. Gray eyes were cool and clear as the voice; a scar marred the
right side of her face.

Kamil blinked, rubbed her hands into her eyes. When she opened them
again, the woman was still there.

"Lady Maigrey," Kamil whispered.

The woman inclined her head in acknowledgment.

"You .. . you've come to help me?"

"Advise you," Maigrey corrected. "I am prohibited from
direct interference or involvement. However"—she smiled
slightly; the smile twisted the scar on her face—"since
you
are
my godchild and since, as you say, the duty is a
sacred one, I am allowed a certain amount of mice and pumpkins."

"Mice and pumpkins . . ." Kamil echoed, confused, not
understanding. If this was a dream, she should insist on it making
more sense.

"Never mind." Maigrey went on briskly, "What is it
exactly you are trying to do?"

Kamil found herself explaining her plan. "Am I doing the right
thing?" she asked, in conclusion. "Will this work?"

Lady Maigrey shook her head. "I cannot say. I do not see the
future, nor would I be allowed to tell you if I did. Free will and
all that," she added, with a rueful smile. "You must decide
for yourself whether or not to take this risk. For, child, the risk
is very great, the danger very real."

"I know," said Kamil somberly, staring down at her clenched
hands. She looked back up at the lady. "But it will be worth it.
I have to save him. If I can do that, whatever happens to me doesn't
matter.
You
know, Lady," she urged persuasively. "You
understand. You were in love like this when you were alive. Or so my
father told me."

"
When
I was alive? ..." Maigrey repeated softly.
"Love is the one part of us death cannot kill."

"I'm sorry, Lady." Kamil was touched by the woman's sorrow.
"Derek Sagan's betrayed you, as well as Dion. If he—"

"Are you going to try to escape?" Maigrey interrupted
coldly. "Or perhaps you'd prefer to sit and chat?"

"No, I'm ready." Kamil left her bed. But now she was
feeling nervous. Her stomach fluttered; her hands began to sweat. She
glanced uneasily at the door. "What . . . what do I do?"
She wiped her hands on the white gown she still wore.

"Scream," Maigrey instructed. "Scream loudly and like
you mean it. The guard will enter, his gun drawn. I don't suppose you
happened to notice if he was right- or left-handed?"

"N-no," Kamil stammered, trying to think back. "I
believe .. . right-handed."

"If you had never seen him, knew he was human, you would assume
he was right-handed and trust in the odds. As it turns out, this man
is left-handed, so you would have lost. Get into the habit of
looking, observing," Maigrey admonished her pupil. "You
never know when such information could mean the difference between
life and death. Stand over there. By the door."

Kamil did as she was told. Her heart was racing; her stomach had gone
from flutters to upheavals. She was afraid she might be sick. She
couldn't disgrace herself in front of this gray-eyed woman, however.
She clenched her fists, dug her nails into her flesh, and looked at
Maigrey attentively.

"When you scream, he will enter with his weapon drawn.

You will have a split second to react. You are on his left-hand side.
Grab his gun, yank it from his hand, and shoot him."

"Shoot him," Kamil repeated through numb lips.

"Shoot him," Maigrey said firmly. "He will probably
have the weapon set on stun, but you can't count on it, so make up
your mind right now that you are going to kill him. That way, if you
do, it won't come as a shock."

"Kill him," said Kamil. She thought of him, of that hard
face, and she banished the memory quickly. "Kill. Yes, I'm going
to shoot, kill."

"Good. You've fired a lasgun before?"

Kamil nodded, thinking back to Xris. She grew calmer, glad to be
reminded of that time. She'd come through that action all right. He'd
praised her, in fact. "Yes, I've fired a lasgun before. Xris
said—"

"Good," Maigrey cut in crisply. "Ready?"

Kamil nodded, unable to speak. Her throat was so dry, she wondered
how she would manage to force any sound out. She was faint, shaking,
but it was now or never. Drawing a deep breath, she screamed.

Her voice cracked; she choked. Desperate, aware of the gray eyes
regarding her with detached speculation, Kamil drew another breath,
screamed again. Her pent-up fear and frustration found an outlet. The
sound was astonishing, almost frightened her.

The door burst open. The guard entered, his weapon drawn, as Maigrey
had predicted. He was bigger than Kamil had first thought. She was
tall, but he towered over her by a head. The hand that held the gun
was massive and strong. He wasn't looking at her, didn't see her, but
was searching swiftly and expertly around the small room. It wouldn't
be long before he found her, crouched, frightened, unable to move,
hiding behind the door....

Suddenly the man's mouth gaped open. His eyes bulged; he fell back a
pace.

Lady Maigrey stood in front of him, silver armor gleaming, pale hair
stirring, as if in an ethereal wind. She gazed at the man without a
word.

Kamil flung herself on the guard with a strength born of desperation.
She grabbed his hand, wrenched the gun from it with an ease she
hadn't expected, turned the weapon on him .. . and froze.

It was one thing to shoot in the heat of battle, fire at targets you
couldn't see. It was quite another to shoot an unarmed man who was
only an arm's length away, staring straight at you.

If the man had remained standing still, Kamil probably couldn't have
gone through with it. But the guard—angry and
embarrassed—reacted instinctively to his danger. He lunged at
Kamil.

Terrified, Kamil fired.

The blast knocked the man backward. He fell against the partially
opened door, slid to the floor, and lay there.

Kamil began to shake.

"Stop that!" Maigrey snapped. "Shut the door!"

Kamil did as she was told, stepping gingerly over the body to do so.
She knew he was dead.

"Take off his uniform," Maigrey ordered. "And put it
on. Quickly, child! Quickly! Don't think about it," she added.
"Just do it."

Kamil did as she was told. "Dion," she repeated over and
over. "I have to get to Dion. He's all that matters."

Kneeling down beside the man, she rolled the body over, face up, and
started to divest him of his uniform. She noticed then that he was
alive. Sighing in relief, she worked swiftly.

Soon his uniform was off him and on her. The uniform was a jumpsuit,
stretchy, made to fit a variety of sizes, and so Kamil didn't look as
odd in it as she had expected.

"The helmet," Maigrey reminded her.

Kamil grabbed it, jammed it on her head. It smelled of sweat and some
sort of disinfectant shampoo. She started for the door.

"Wait a minute. You're not finished here. Bind his wrists behind
his back. Rip up that gown of yours. Wrap his head in the pillowcase
to muffle his voice when he comes to. Don't worry. He won't smother."

Kamil had to wrestle the inert and almost naked heavy body.
Fortunately, she was accustomed to roughhousing with her brothers,
and so that part, while distasteful, wasn't anything she couldn't
handle. She made a neat job of the knots; stood up, sweating.

"Now?"

"Now," said Maigrey.

Kamil started to open the door, hesitated. "Will you be with
me?"

"You won't see me," Maigrey said. "But I will be with
you."

Nodding, Kamil yanked open the door. She started to look up and down
the corridor, then remembered that—in her uniform—she had
a perfect right to be here. She sauntered casually out of the room,
locked and sealed the door behind her. She set off down the corridor.

"When do they change guards?" a voice in her ear asked.

"At 2400," Kamil answered. "If they keep to their
usual schedule. I
did
find that out," she added, rather
defensively.

"Good for you. Hopefully, no one will miss him until then. Which
gives you time. Do you know where Tusk's quarters are?"

"No, but I figured I could ask. That wouldn't look strange,
would it? I mean, with all the confusion of coming on board ..."

"Perfectly normal. You have a talent for this."

Kamil flushed, pleased. Then she shook her head. "But I froze
back there. When he came in with the gun. If he hadn't seen you ..."
She paused. "You did that on purpose, to save me. .. ."

"Mice and pumpkins," Maigrey told her. "But the ball
ends at midnight, child, so you had better hurry."

"Cynthia, it's like this," Tusk was saying. "This
prince that you admire so much is nothing more than a
double-crossing, cold-blooded murderer. He's sending every one of us
to his or her respective graves. No, I take that back. There won't be
enough left of us to put in a grave. Not enough to put in an
eyedropper. You've heard of the space-rotation bomb? Well, the prince
has it and it's on board ship right now and he's planning to blow it
up tomorrow morning after breakfast ... Fuck it."

Tusk tromped around his tiny room, kicked a chair in passing for good
measure.

"She'll never buy it," he told his reflection in the small
steelglass porthole, out of which he could see Vallombrosa, looking
like one of young John's rubber balls. "And I've got 'til
morning to convince her? Shit!" He kicked the chair again. "I
wonder what the hell went wrong? Why didn't Sagan tell me?

" Course that woulda been a first," Tusk went on bitterly.
"He hasn't told me one goddam thing from start to finish. And
this just might be the finish. Go out with a great big bang. 'Do it
by morning,' " he mimicked.

Tusk glanced at the time. "Well, I'm not getting anywhere here.
Wonder where good ol' Cynthia'll be this time of night? Her quarters,
probably. Maybe something brilliant'll come to me on the way there—"

He was just about to open the door when the door opened on its own.

One of the prince's guards stood there, his gun leveled at Tusk's
breast.

Tusk raised his hands in the air. "What the—"

The door slid shut. The guard removed his helmet.

"It's me, Tusk. I want you to take me to Dion."

"Kamil!" Tusk collapsed back against the bulkhead,
clutching his chest. "Jeez! I wish people'd quit doing this to
me! My heart can't take much more of this. And just what the hell are
you doing?" he demanded irritably. "Why don't you go back—"

Tusk lunged, made a swift and expert grab for the lasgun, intending
to snatch it away before she knew what hit her. Unfortunately, he was
the one who got hit. She brought the gun down hard on his hand,
cracked his knuckles.

Tusk yelped. "Where'd you learn that?"

"Never mind. Now take me to Dion."

"Oh, for the love of—" Tusk sighed, exasperated.
"Look, Kamil, I got things to do. Important things. You don't
understand what's going on. And I can't explain now. Just take my
word for it, everything's under control."

He couldn't believe he'd just said that with a straight face. "Okay?
Okay. I'll take you back to your room and—"

"You'll take me to Dion," she repeated for the third time,
pointing the gun at him. "I've shot one man already."

"What the hell do you think you're going to do once you get
there?" Tusk demanded. "He won't go with you. He's already
told you that once. Yeah, I heard that conversation you two had. You
plan to knock him out cold and haul him off while he's unconscious?"

"If I have to," Kamil said, her jaw setting. She gestured
with the gun toward his leather flight jacket, lying over a chair.
"Put that on. And get your gear. We're leaving."

Tusk, shrugging, did as he was told. Kamil put her helmet back on,
gestured with the gun at the door. "Go on. Open it. Keep your
hands in the air. You're my prisoner. A traitor. You're to be locked
up with the king."

"You say so, sweetheart." Tusk shook his head. Slinging his
pack over his shoulder, he walked out of the room and into the
corridor. Kamil followed, the gun jammed into his back.