Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (18 page)

"Where the hells do we sell phenno, anyway?" Duaal asked. "I have no idea where to start on this."

"I do," said Logan.

"You do?" Gripper asked. "But you are… were a bounty hunter. Phenno is pretty illegal. Weren't you sort of on the other side of the black market?"

Logan nodded. "I was. But I've hunted smugglers by letting them think that I had phenno or other illegal items to sell. The only difference this time is that I actually have some."

"Xyn sells it, too," Xia pointed out.

"Let's make sure we're not going to be competing with him," Duaal said. "This stuff was a gift and I don't want to get on his bad side."

Logan spent the next few hours on the mainstream. Eventually, he gave Duaal a list of names and com frequencies. Duaal scanned the datadex and whistled. "Head out to dinner," he told the rest of his crew. "I'm probably going to be on this until late."

"You've grown into a captain far better than I have any kind of queen," Maeve said.

Duaal blushed. It had not been so long since they were petty enemies that compliments came easily to either of them yet. But Maeve would have been lost without Duaal, she had to admit to herself.

"Maybe," Duaal said dismissively. "Just save me some food, all right?"

Maeve, Logan, Gripper and Xia garbed themselves in hoods and scarves and set out toward Gharib. They passed several more Arcadians, the fairies on their way back to the Blue Phoenix. Those that saw Maeve sang out a respectful greeting to their queen but did not ask her business.

At the edge of the landing crescent, they made their way through a neat line of huge Starwind haulers and into the city. Taxis lined the crescent's edge with drivers leaning out of their doors and hawked their rides to the passing travelers, but Maeve and her friends did not have money enough to rent one. So they walked through the shadow-steeped sandstone of Gharib to the address that Kessa had given them.

Two hours after they were originally supposed to have arrived, they finally stood on the low concrete porch of a small brown house. Gripper knocked on the door. In a shocking display of impish humor, Kessa had not told her mate about the visit. When Vyron saw Logan outside, the Dailon man shouted in terror and tried to slam the door shut. But Gripper's hand was in the way and the door only bounced off his thick knuckles. The Arboran leapt back, groaning and cradling his injured hand. Vyron had fallen to the floor and stared up at the rest of them.

"Maeve?" he asked, black eyes wide. "Xia? What are you doing here? Why is Coldhand with you?"

Logan stepped into the door and extended his hand to Vyron. "That's a long story. But I'm not here for you or your family."

The Dailon did not look at all certain about this sudden and confounding change to the universe. He stood on his own and invited them inside. Vyron had cut off his glossy black ponytail – probably uncomfortable in the Stray heat, Maeve guessed – and wore his hair cut close to his head. But when Gripper asked Vyron about it, the Dailon grimaced and touched his temple.

"Baliend is a bit of a hair puller," he said. "You'll want to watch out, Maeve."

His house was small and inexpensive, but bright-lit and cheerful. Kessa was waiting for them in the kitchen, giggling girlishly as she cut up a loaf of bread. Vyron scowled at his wife. "Very funny, dear," he said sourly. "At least I know why we needed so many eggs."

Kessa hugged Xia and thanked the Ixthian for coming. "Where's Duaal?" she asked.

"Just finishing up some business," Xia told her. "We're selling off the phenno."

"Selling phennomethylln?" Vyron asked. He took over the bread slicing so Kessa could pour glasses of pink-tinged lemonade for everyone. "Xyn won't like that."

"We've already called him about it," Gripper said. "Mix knows it's just a one-time thing."

"We just need the money," Maeve told them dismissively. She had been quite patient, she thought, and now she wanted to see the baby she had fought so hard to protect. "Where is Baliend?"

"Oh, he's asleep in his room," Kessa said.

The disappointment must have shown on Maeve's face. Vyron shared a look with Kessa and then turned to the Arcadian. "It's about time for him to eat again. Do you want to get him?" he asked. "He'll probably need a diaper change, though."

"It would be my honor," Maeve said sincerely.

Xia and Kessa giggled, but Maeve did not think there was anything disapproving in their laughter. Vyron pointed down a narrow hallway to a closed door painted in blue and yellow stars.

"Can I help?"

The question came from Logan. Xia's eyes turned a surprised orange and Gripper's mouth hung open in surprise. Vyron did not look at all certain about this, but Kessa smiled at the Prian.

"Sure," she said. "Baliend's kind of a handful when he wakes up. I'm sure Maeve could use the help."

Logan nodded. He and Maeve made their way down the hall to the star-spangled door and stepped quietly inside. The bedroom on the other side was barely lit by a small nightlight shaped like a seashell that was out of place on dry, sandy Stray. Baliend lay asleep in a tiny bed, tightly swaddled in a blanket to keep him from falling out. His fine hair had darkened from its snowy white to a dark jet color, just like his parents.

"He has grown," Maeve whispered. She crouched and stroked the baby's soft, fine hair. "I wonder if he is talking yet."

Quiet and gentle though she tried to be, Baliend's obsidian eyes popped open. He yawned impressively, displaying lavender gums with just a couple of small white teeth winking in the nightlight. Baliend burbled at Maeve so adorably that it took her several moments to realize that she was holding her breath against the smell. The infant Dailon squirmed in his blanket. Maeve was not sure what to do next. She squinted around the nursery for something that looked like diapers. Were those them, the cinched up bundles of… paper?

But Logan had already unwound Baliend from his blankets and carried him to a changing table. The boy's tiny blue face screwed up in indignant infant fury and he began to cry. Logan placed an illonium fingertip very carefully between Baliend's lips. The baby bit once on the cold metal and continued to cry.

"Do you–?" Maeve began to ask if Logan wanted her to try, but her hunter's expression was intent and Maeve's heart skipped. She knew that look. Logan was planning, weighing the tactics of his next move.

"Tumble down, baby," he sang. The words came haltingly, but his voice was strong and smooth. There was something bright and sweet there, too. Logan sang like no Arcadian man. His voice was thicker and deeper and had some tone, somehow, of the stone and ice of his homeworld.

"Tumble down, baby

From the cold clouds

Finding your wings

Is what falling is for…"

By the middle of the second verse, Baliend had stopped crying. He regarded Logan with large, serious black eyes but made no more fuss over his diaper change. Logan cleaned his hands with a clear gel that smelled sharply of chemicals and picked up the now-clean Baliend.

"Where did you learn so much about children? I thought that you had no siblings," Maeve said as she took Baliend. She cradled him against her chest. The baby was heavier than she expected. "Your song sounded almost Arcadian."

"It's Prian," Logan said. He smoothed Baliend's hair, which had been ruffled during the change. "My mother used to sing it. My parents had two daughters before me. I'm the only one who lived past my first year. Infant mortality is high on Prianus. But there were a lot of children in our building and I needed to make some colour."

"So you… cared for them?" Maeve asked breathlessly. The idea was insanity. Logan Coldhand had been a babysitter.

"No. I rented them out as cheap labor," said Logan.

Maeve looked up from Baliend's round blue face just in time to catch the last of her hunter's quick smile. She laughed and stood up on her toes to kiss him. The baby was warm and slightly squirming between them.

Kessa and Vyron were just outside the door when they emerged, hovering protectively. Maeve handed Baliend back to his mother and assured her that he had behaved perfectly. They returned to the kitchen and Logan helped Kessa wrestle Baliend into a high chair at the dinner table.

Duaal arrived just in time to eat, stamping the dust out of his boots and grinning happily at Vyron and Kessa. The Blue Phoenix's young captain swept into the dining room and sat with a flourish. "Smells delicious," he said, winking at Vyron. "I can't wait to eat. Maeve, Ferris called in after you left. He's planning your first speech here in three days. There's something else he wants to talk to you about, but he wouldn't tell me what is was."

"Speech?" Vyron asked.

"Gripper and Xia told us some of what's been going on while you were taking care of Baliend," said Kessa. The baby cooed at the sound of his own name and threw his milk cup on the floor. Kessa jumped to her feet with a sigh and gave chase as it rolled away.

"They said that you're making yourself queen of the fairies?" Vyron said skeptically, as though he did not quite trust his understanding of the situation.

Duaal nodded. "To compete with Xartasia and keep the Arcadians out of her Devourers' claws."

"Devourers?" Kessa exclaimed. She returned the bottle to Baliend, who took one drink and dropped it again. "What?"

Xia sighed. "Of course you didn't hear about that. It was on Prianus."

Vyron and Kessa were full of questions. Maeve and the rest took turns answering while the rest filled their plates with ham and potatoes and leafy green jouk. They told Vyron and Kessa about the events of Prianus, the Waygate and Gavriel's death, arguing with the Alliance on Tynerion and again on Mir, then the final decision to take on the problem of Xartasia themselves.

"So you've got a ship full of fairies?" Kessa asked. "Did you have any trouble getting to Stray with that many people and no weapons?"

"No," said Gripper. "Is that strange?"

Vyron shrugged. "I don't know. The galaxy is a big place."

"But there have been attacks in extra system space," Kessa told them. "Pirates, they're saying on the mainstream."

"Pirates," Xia hissed with shocking anger. "My shiny silver ass."

Gripper choked on a sip of purple wine at that and blushed furiously. Maeve was more than a little surprised to hear such language from the gentle and cultured doctor. She blinked at Xia and was not the only one. The Ixthian put a hand over her mouth.

"Sorry," she said. "Not in front of the baby."

"That's all right," Kessa assured her. "It's not like he can understand you yet."

Baliend was not paying attention to the adults at all. Instead, he intently smeared mashed potatoes on his face, making starchy white war paint on his round blue cheeks. He stuck out his tongue at Duaal, who did the same.

"It's the Devourers out there," Xia said. "I'd bet my license on it."

"I would bet mine – if I still had it – that Arcadians are vanishing nearby with each attack," Logan added. "But that won't make it onto the mainstream."

Vyron rubbed his jaw and looked at the Prian. The news that Logan Coldhand was no longer a bounty hunter seemed to have changed his fundamental understanding of the world. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.

"Now we need to build a kingdom," Duaal said. "How many Arcadians are there on Stray?"

"Nine thousand?" Vyron answered. "Maybe ten?"

"That's enough to get started," said Logan. He turned in his chair to look at Maeve sitting beside him. "There's another Arcadian that I think we should bring here. His name is Ballad."

"The one you met on Prianus? We just got to Stray!" Duaal objected. "We can't just pack everyone up again and head to the other side of the Alliance. It's a five-week flight from here!"

"No," agreed Logan. "We need to stay on Stray. I'll send word to Prianus. And money to make the flight, if we can get it. Ballad will want to bring his gang and his family with him."

"We can loan it to you," Kessa offered quickly.

"Kes, are you sure?" asked Vyron.

"We wouldn't be here without him and Maeve and Tiberius." Kessa enfolded one of Vyron's hands in hers. "Come on. It's just money. We can always make more."

"You're right, Kes," Vyron said slowly. He kissed his wife and then stood up to get Baliend some more milk.

Gripper cleared his throat and tentatively held up one brown hand. "Um, Talon–"

"Is that what you're calling me now?" Logan asked.

"I'm trying it out."

"That's the model name of my gun."

"Yeah," Gripper admitted. "That's where I got it."

"You can't call me that. Coldhand is an assumed name. Use that."

"Nah," said the Arboran. "It just isn't really
you
."

"It isn't?" Logan arched an eyebrow at Gripper.

"I'll figure something out. How are we going to get a message to your friend? I don't think I saw a single mainstream terminal in that whole part of Pylos."

"Not many Arcadians even know how to use your computers," Maeve said.