Hellflower (v1.1) (14 page)

I heard the sound of servomotors as Paladin manipulated internal sensors to look-see. I looked myself.

I’d seen worse, but not alive.

"Where’s the god-damned medkit?" Please let Paladin have found one, and let it have been delivered, and not stolen.

"The medical supplies you requested are at the foot of the ramp. Valijon Starbringer is very badly hurt, Butterfly. Even a hellflower may not be able to survive such injury. Call the Guildhouse now and turn him over to them." The RTS tickled, but neither of us had any intention of running Class One High Book through external speakers.

"No."

"It was what you were going to do this morning. If he dies before—"

"Who sent the Ghadri?" The oricalchun proved they’d been hired. They’d been after Tiggy, and warned me off. But no one knew Tiggy would be on Kiffit. Even Gibberfur didn’t know that.

Paladin got all set to argue some more and then changed his mind. "Find their ID and I will tell you who they are, Butterfly."

###

I went down the ramp and brought up the older brother of the kit I’d bought at the Starcastle. It was a field-medic’s kit, and it held enough stuff to stock my own surgery. I slugged back a quart of glucose out of it to give the enhancers in my system something to chew on, then I gave Tiggy everything I could find to get him. right. He’d lived this long, he’d have to live a little longer on his lonesome: I didn’t have time to work on him right now. When I’d done all the quick things I could do for him I went back outside.

I found the kiddy I’d knifed and the one I’d blasted. I took their ID and brought the bodies back to
Firecat
and piled them on top of the one that Tiggy’d iced. My clothes were soaked like I’d been standing in the rain, and it was all blood. The docking ring looked like a butcher shop. For one long minute I seriously considered just walking away. No one could stop me. Even if they caught me they couldn’t make me do what I was going to do next. I’d made a lot of stupid promises about how I wasn’t never going to do things like this again. I’m a darktrader. It’s clean honest work.

And if I jibbed now it wouldn’t be just my neck, but Paladin and Tiggy’s.

I got out my vibro and set it on the nearest crate.

Then I uncoupled the waste hose from
Firecat
and fed all three Ghadri down it. In pieces.

I had some damfool idea it’d buy me something not to have them found. If these three disappeared their replacements’d come a little slower next time.

I made my right hand do the work, barely. And when I’d finished the cutting I spent several dekaliters of Kiffit water sluicing down the docking ring. The stains left looked old.

And three Ghadri was gone without a trace. I hooked the hoses hack to
Firecat
and went inside.

Tiggy was awake again. He’d got ahold of his sidearm and was pointing it at me.

"Go ahead," I said. "Make my day."

"I had to be sure it was you, she-captain," he said with the ghost of a grin. He let go his blaster and lay back, panting.

"If I wasn’t me, we’d both be dead. Ship goes when I do, remember?"

I stripped off my clothes and threw them down the disposal. The boots and blaster-harness I’d been wearing was salvageable, just. There was blood all around my nails.

"The Ghadri," Tiggy said.

I took the ID I’d scavenged and put them where Paladin could get to work on them.

"You got one, babby, I got two. Leaves two unaccounted for."

"Dead." Tiggy was real sure about that.

"The Ghadri are registered out the of ab-Ghidr School of Ghadri Main," Paladin said. "Licensed as mercenaries, specialized as assassins. I am now checking records for Kiffit Immigration Control to see when they arrived here, and what their purpose was in coming to Kiffit." And who hired them, Pally, don’t forget that.

"You have no idea what a load off my mind that is, hellflower," I said to Tiggy. "Now look, che-bai, you’re hurt bad. Got stuff here for to fetch-kitchen-for to medical you. People with Ghadri Abri-che-bai after them shouldn’t go to legit bodysnatchers, je?"

"No doctors," said Tiggy faintly. "Assassins." His skin looked shiny and tight.

"Butterfly, what will you do if he dies?" I shook my head. He wasn’t going to die.

I unfolded and unfolded and unfolded the Imperial fetch-kitchen and got out the field medic manual. "Help us both to stay breathing awhiles longer if maybe you answer some questions, Tiggy-bai." And more, it’d distract him. He’d be needing that with what I was about to do to him.

"If honor allows." He was breathing like there wasn’t any air, with all Kiffit out there free for the lungs.

"The Ghadri tactical group for which I have partial ID arrived on Kiffit from Tangervel fifty days ago. The three killed here were Abric, Abwehr, and Abaris. It is logical to assume that Abihu and Abriel were killed by Valijon Starbringer in Borderline as he has indicated. The group’s passage to Kiffit was paid by Alaric Dragonflame, the alMayne who is the head of the combined alMayne Embassy and Guildhouse here. Once here, the Ghadri tactical group took up residence in the alMayne Guildhouse, a circumstance which suggests they were in the employ of someone there; an unusual probability if true. Alaric Dragonflame’s father, Morido Dragonflame, is next in line to represent alMayne in the Azarine Coalition," Paladin finished off, sounding surprised. I’m sure he meant it to mean something, but I couldn’t just now ask what.

I started peeling Tiggy out of his clothes. He looked like he’d been thrown off of every roof in Borderline, and that was just the small stuff. "Remind me not to accept any invites to your parties, ‘flower. You play rough." Tiggy looked pleased. Poor lost kinchin-bai. His skin was gray under the bronze-gold, cold and clammy to touch. I might be wrong about saving him.

But if the Ghadri had come from the Guildhouse that was the last place I could send him.

"From Imperial social notes available in the Borderline Main Banks, LessHouse Dragonflame seems to be a fairly influential member of one of the Chernbereth-Molkath GreatHouses. It is nonetheless anomalous for the head of a LessHouse to rise to as high a position in Imperial government as Morido Dragonflame has done. alMayne LessHouses roughly correspond to planet-linked realholders, as opposed to—" If it was the end of civilization as we know it, Paladin’d want to tell me why and what.

I started with Tiggy’s head wound and went down from the top, cleaning and stitching as I went. Saved the leg for last. Maybe he’d pass out by then.

The painease started to take hold and his color got a little better. The manual said no metabolic enhancers before you finished cutting, hut it didn’t say why.

Was it better to cut live bodies or dead ones? The Ghadri hadn’t Ic It anything. Tiggy would. There wasn’t enough stuff in this kit to make him not.

"-Which makes it particularly odd that his son, Alaric Dragonflame, would be in such a comparatively minor post, and off-planet in addition," said Paladin, finishing up.

But if I hurt him enough, I might be able to save his life. He was watching me. I smiled.

"As we last left thrilling wonderstory, hellflower glitterborn-that’s you, Tiggy Stardust-had pulled heat on motherly High Jump captain me-who took serious cop to spring him from Wanderweb gig." Tiggy unraveled that without too much trouble-guilty conscience.

"I had no choice. I-it was an honor matter. But you would not know of that."

"Ne, not me. Am honorless
chaudatu
.
Higna
, even," I said, finally remembering what the other hellflower’d called me back at Moke Rahone’s. "Been stiffed outta my feoff, delivering farced kick to official dead person, but—"

"
Higna
? You are not
higna
,
alarthme
. Two Ghadri are dead." Tiggy found that funny until I touched a sore spot and he winced.

"
Higna
: prey.
Alarthme
: knifeless one.
Chaudatu
: nonperson. All words are alMayne Common Tongue.
Alarthme
is a term of respect applied to those who do not possess an
arthame
but are nonetheless conditionally people," Paladin said.

Chaudatu, higna, alarthme
-alMayne had lots of names for idiot. "Yeah, only it’s three Ghadri dead, and maybe two more in Borderline, and we was just about to get to how honor mixed you in with them, wonderchild."

Mostly Tiggy looked like he’d been through a standard-issue brawl. Somebody’d got close enough to bite him once, and one place he looked like he’d been dragged over something rough. Nothing broken, but hellflower bones don’t break easy.

"I killed the others. Two in the city. I have to see my cousin!" He was starting to wander a little bit in the head. He tried to get up.

"It’s a long walk from here, dammit. Lay down, che-bai, or I’ll clock you. Now we’re up to where honor left you no choice so’s you did a fade soon as
Firecat
made downfall. Where did you go?"

Tiggy tossed his head back and forth against the blankets I’d put under him. His hair was rusty-pink with blood I hadn’t tried to wash out.

"The House of Walls; the sacred enclosure. Where is my
arthame
?" He started feeling around for it and some of the cuts I’d closed started oozing again.

"Stop it. I’ll get it. Lie still, dammit."

"Butterfly, you cannot possibly intend to arm a delirious alMayne. He will kill you!" Pally sounded so indignant it was funny.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I muttered under my breath. I got the knife out of his pile of bloody rags and put it in his hand. That quieted him down, but not Paladin.

"So I gave you the knife. So now you hold still and shut up and let me cut you. Je?" Maybe he’d pass out soon.

"Dzain’domere
." I started in on his feet.

He’d been barefoot all day and it showed. I was sweating from the battledrugs and Paladin turned down the humidity in
Firecat
again. It helped some. Looked at Tiggy and he was still conscious.

"So you went to House of Walls," I prompted him. Whatever that was. "And then?"

"Alaric Dragonflame. He said I must go to the TwiceBorn
chaudatu
. I went away, and in the street called Sharp I was attacked by the Wolves-Without-Honor. Ghadri are no match for the Gentle People," Tiggy finished with shaky satisfaction.

Gentle People. Figures that’s what hellflowers’d call themselves when they was to home.

"Butterfly, Sharp Street is in the Azarine district near the Grand Bazaar. You passed it earlier this evening, as you were going from the Elephant and Starcastle to the Danbourg Strail. The House of Walls is the alMayne Embassy and Guildhouse. The ‘TwiceBorn
chaudatu’
Valijon Starbringer mentions may be the Imperial Court officials in Borderline New City. If Valijon was attacked in Sharp Street after leaving the alMayne Guildhouse, he was heading away from New City." Paladin’s voice had his very best "this is not an expression" expression.

Away from New City. On foot, in rags. Even I knew you didn’t let relatives of the high-heat go wandering roundaround alone. They’d know who he was. alMayne Embassy’d be able to do a Verify on Tiggy sooner than instantly.

Dammit.

I put it all out of my mind for laters. "You awake, Tiggy-che-bai?"

"I am awake,
alarthme
," Tiggy whispered. His eyes had the glitter of pure exhaustion. I gave him some water and the last of the painease I dared give him and made sure the extra pad under his head was straight.

Damn hellflower constitution. A normal person’d be unconscious already for what I was going to do next.

"Look. You got tagged in the leg. You already know how bad. Have to open it out and clean it before I can wrap it, or you just going to get the Rot and die. It’s going to hurt. Can use nerve-blocks, but if I give you any more painease, you might not wake up. Compre? Understand?"

"Do what you must,
alarthme
; I will not disgrace my House. If I die, you will take my
arthame
to my father? You will not let me die without walls? Please?" He tried to get up again. It was too easy to shove him flat and his skin was cold and wet under my hand.

"I’ll take your knife to your da, Tiggy-bai, now shut up. Nobody’s going to die." My free hand was shaking, and the other one in the biopak was pretty useless. I pulled the sterile drape off the burn. Tiggy was watching me to see what my face’d do, but I knew that dodge. "Piece of cake," I said, and looked sincere about it. He relaxed some.

I set up the manual from the field kit to show me where to sink the nerve-blocks. They went deep and held, but there wasn’t a spinal block. Not in a field kit. What idiot’d do major surgery with only a field kit? I picked up the scalpel and started cutting.

###

Most of the combat medicine in the Empire is alMayne-derived, Paladin told me once. alMayne fixers have this idea you don’t want to live forever, just a while longer. The field-medic battle-aid kit Paladin’d got would damn near let me rebuild Tiggy from scratch, and the manual had Intersign glyphs for everything from conservation amputation to delivering a breech-birth from a merc in full powered armor, but what the manual said for an energy-weapon burn this size and color was coke and wrap and evac to outside body-shop for stabilization and repair soon as maybe.

Only I couldn’t do that. I had to do what I could here, with what they’d gave me.

Stabilizing a blaster-burn meant cutting out the radioactive charcoal from the burn site. I tried to forget Tiggy was alive.

There was a timer in the manual for a simple conservation amputation procedure, and I set it. It ticked away, measuring percentages and the likelihood of termination from surgical shock.

I cut down to blood, and sprayed to seal the veins, and cut and scraped and sprayed and cut. The timer redlined, and I ignored it. The kit had a biopak that was big enough. I pulled one out, and spread the stuff on Tiggy that the book said to, and dragged the biopak on and triggered it. The biopak huffed closed, sealing him from groin to knee.