Hellflower (v1.1) (15 page)

"Is—"

"Valijon is still alive, Butterfly," Paladin said.

I crawled along my deck to Tiggy’s top end and looked. He was breathing. He was out cold. He’d bitten through his lower lip but he hadn’t made a sound.

I wiped the blood off his face, gentle like he could feel it. He’d have a limp when he woke up. If he woke up. If he lived. Adrenaline and enhancers made everything sing for me, white and cold. I pulled out the nerve-blocks and mopped up more blood and then packed up what was left. I gave him glucose and enhancers and everything like the manual said to. Then I covered him up and tried to stop shaking.

"You did a good job, Butterfly. He should live."

"You wish he was dead." I wanted something to hit.

"No. I wish no harm to Valijon Starbringer. The fact that House Dragonflame is seeking to execute him changes matters. But that can wait. You should rest now."

"No. Load and lift. Have to kyte, need supplies. I’m good for it." I pulled the next to last enhancer and ate it. I wondered if I’d feel it when the tendons in my shoulders tore loose. Knew I wouldn’t feel it when my liver quit. It’s a little known fact that you can actually kill yourself totally dead if you run on battledrugs till you field-strip your endocrine system. Paladin knew it. I knew he knew it. And he didn’t try to argue me out of taking more.

Without what I’d ordered I couldn’t lift: no food, no water, no air. Prices are lower on Kiffit than Wanderweb; I’d been running on empty to get here and Tiggy’d wiped out my reserves. I had to get this stuff into
Firecat
if it killed me. I fetched and carried and dumped everything in a which-way heap on
Firecat’s
deck. Mother Night her own self couldn’t save me from holing the hull if I had to lift before this load was stowed and dogged.

My right arm was numb from the elbow down and throbbed like a broken tooth, even through the battledrugs. There was Ghadri teeth marks in the biopak. One of these days I’d have to pop the seal on that and see what was under there. But right now I was busy.

I stopped halfway along to pop a meal-pak but I couldn’t finish it. I remembered the burntwine I’d brought from Starcastle. The box was crushed flat but I had more in my supplies. The alcohol burned off as fast as I drank it. I didn’t feel anything. The world was all about loading the same supplies I’d loaded a hundred times, and up and down and up
Firecat’s
ramp with Paladin prodding me every time I stopped. And each time I brought a load up Tiggy was still alive, and every time I wondered if Dragonflame’s
legitimates
was coming and I’d held us up too long, but I had to have this stuff or we couldn’t fly.

Paladin told me over and over that Borderline was quiet and nobody was looking for us, but I kept forgetting.

All that blood.

Without remembering what came between I was standing back by the fire wall running Kiffit water over me. I couldn’t see any crates.

"Butterfly." From the sound of it, Paladin’d been trying to get my attention for a long time.

"Je?"

"The supplies are loaded. You still have to stow them before you lift. You will injure Valijon if you do not. You need more medical supplies. You don’t have clearance. I will have to order additional supplies and call for clearance and I cannot do that for five hours."

I didn’t like it. I think if it had just been the clearance and more supplies I would have gone anyway-which shows how coked I was-but I couldn’t lift without shifting cargo all over my deck. So I stayed.

It was early. Paladin gave me local time and Hours Since Downfall both. I got a box of glucose and a box of overproof neurotoxin and mixed them and went and sat starclad on
Firecat’s
landing strut.

The breeze that comes before horizonfall dried me off and I sat and drank. I was beyond tired, and the glucose made the enhancers sit up and sing again.

Everything was quiet. The lights from Borderline washed the sky out gray. Wayaway you could hear the keen and thud of cranes loading some Company highliner with whatever Kiffit had to offer. Peaceful. Normal.

"I got real problem, Pally-che-bai. Somebody don’t like hellflowers," I said. "Don’t like me too, seemingly."

"Alaric Dragonflame, in the parlance, ‘set Valijon up.’ He convinced him to go to Borderline New City on foot and alone, misdirected him, and sent Ghadri assassins, which he had previously hired and was holding in reserve, to kill him. The same mercenaries, aware of the connection between you and Valijon Starbringer, attempted to warn you against aiding him."

"Por’ke?" But why?

"Por’ke Wanderweb hot seat go hellflower for to chop-an-channel, jillybai?" said Paladin in patwa, sounding miffed. I shook my head a couple of times to see if maybe some brain cells’d jarred loose.

"Wanderweb Justiciary wanted to ice Tiggy because he dusted some heat, Pally, that’s why. Nothing to do with Dragonflame." "Granting Valijon did indeed kill the Guardsmen involved, and reserving the question of what caused the City Guard to accost him in the first place, why did not the Justiciary then notify the
Pledge Of Honor
as soon as it had identified Valijon Starbringer?"

"Paladin, what t’hell had this got to do with Ghadri after Tiggy and glitterflowers after me severalmany lightyears away? Or with Dominich Fenrir?" I added for good measure. "Wanderweb Justiciary didn’t ID Tiggy. Was in banks as Unknown alMayne ###01. I saw." I tossed the empty box back inside
Firecat
and rested my chin on my arms.

"It was not an accident that brought Valijon Starbringer to the surface of Wanderweb," Paladin said flat out. "Someone was attempting to kill him there. Someone still is."

If Valijon Starbringer had been identifiable on Wanderweb his life would have been in no danger. A fine would have been paid-if necessary, a scapegoat executed in his place. Free Ports operate on the profit motive. There could be no conceivable profit in allowing the death of ,in Ambassadorial delegate for any reason whatever.

Therefore he was not identifiable, and he could plausibly be expected to withhold the information of his identity. While standing heroic-ally mute against all questioners palls after a few years, it is a beguiling pastime at fourteen.

The life of an honest citizen requires a mass of documentation breathtaking in scope, yet Valijon carried none. The person who deprived him of his identification before sending him to the surface of Wanderweb was attempting to kill him.

Someone-either aboard the
Pledge Of Honor
or on Wanderweb separated Valijon from his ID and waited for the inevitable (given the psychology of the alMayne) to happen. But this entity did not reckon with the possibility of interference from a captain-owner who had both n ship in port and the capability of suborning both the city computers and the Justiciary computers to effect Valijon’s release from prison. If Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere had not intervened, Valijon Starbringer would now be dead on Wanderweb.

I was originally mildly gratified to see Valijon return to
Firecat
. The matter of setting Butterfly free of me was not a simple one. For my plan to be practicable, she must be better off without me than with me. If Butterfly could take Valijon to his father, Kennor Starbringer would be indebted for his son’s return. He would grant any boon, even to an Interdicted Barbarian. All that I know of the Empire indicates that citizenship is available even to a dicty for a price. Citizenship pays for all; if Butterfly acquired it there would be no warrants against her.

And I would be gone.

No Library is safe in the Phoenix Empire, nor any Librarian. For this plan to work, I must force Butterfly to seek out the
Pledge Of Honor
without me.

Deciding how to do this was the least of my problems. Deciding whether it should be done at all had become, with the discovery of the Ghadri complicity, more than academic.

Who would benefit from the death of Valijon Starbringer-and how? From material available even in the undernourished Borderline bibliotek, I had the answer to that question.

When the son of Kennor Starbringer, Second Person of House Starborn and President of the Azarine Coalition, is murdered, there are certain things Kennor must do to remain an alMayne.

All of them are illegal under the Pax Imperador.

If Kennor does them, he will be arrested by the Imperial Court, tried, and executed. There will follow disaffection and upheaval on alMayne-and the appointment of a new Azarine Coalition delegate Morido Dragonflame, whose son is Grandmaster on Kiffit.

If Kennor does not do them, he will no longer be considered alMayne. He will be hunted down by House Starbringer and executed and the appointment of the new Azarine Coalition delegate follows.

It is possible that Dragonflame is innocent. He may have sent for the Ghadri as a reflection of market conditions on Kiffit. Butterfly and I had not yet reached Kiffit when they were sent for; the individual who could predict and chart the collection of random factors that brought Valijon to Kiffit would be far more efficient than Dragonflame has proved himself to be.

On the other hand, it would be possible, though not simple, for Wanderweb Free Port to identify Butterfly from her ship, and from security tapes made on the detention levels of Wanderweb Free Port Justici ary. It would be equally possible, though staggeringly difficult, to find who had most recently hired her and what her destination was.

It is at this point that a logical pattern grounded firmly on random chance begins to break down. Granted Butterfly’s original involvement with Valijon and her subsequent rescue of him as pure accident and totally human coincidence-what happens next should follow logically from the factors involved.

Scenario #1: Persons who wish to secretly murder the Third Person of House Starborn, failing in their attempt on Wanderweb, track him and his rescuer to the Imperial Port of Kiffit, gambling that the smuggler-captain will head there next to deliver the cargo they know she carries. Alerting their agents on Kiffit-Dominich Fenrir and Alaric Dragonflame-they await the arrival of Butterfly and Valijon. Fenrir warns Butterfly not to involve herself, Dragonflame sends assassins after Valijon.

Why does no one feel it necessary to murder Butterfly, a witness to the plot, who may have been told any number of things by Valijon Starbringer and could at any moment attempt to contact Kennor Starbringer and tell him what she knows?

If the alMayne that Butterfly killed and who attempted to kill her are assumed to be members of Dragonflame’s household, the complexities of the matter become even more farcical. Why were they not sent after Valijon instead? Surely alMayne would have been better equipped to deal with or defeat Valijon Starbringer. Was Dragonflame engaged in acts so honorless that the members of his own household would refuse to participate?

I would give much to have been present on the occasion that Alaric Dragonflame, lord of an alMayne LessHouse, told his alMayne
comites
that they must declare high ritual vendetta upon an independent freighter captain for no disclosed reason. I do not believe it ever occurred.

To explain the vendetta we must therefore abandon Alaric Dragonflame and turn to House Starborn.

Scenario #2: alMayne aristocrats from House Starborn, attempting to save the Third Person of House Starborn, track him and his abductrix to Kiffit. Determined to expunge the slight to the honor of their House, they ritually murder her client (uncovered through diligent searching on Wanderweb), declare vendetta, and pursue her with lethal intentions. Yet no one feels it necessary to find and save Valijon Starbringer, at large in Borderline.

I hardly need to mention that neither scenario makes any sense. In Scenario One, Butterfly should have been killed-by Ghadri assassins, by Fenrir, by any number of persons. In Scenario Two, the members of House Starborn should have secured Valijon Starbringer before doing anything further. If they thought him dead, they should have attempted to verify it-by questioning Butterfly, not by sending a killer against her who did not speak Interphon.

Of course this is real life and not a talkingbook morality play. The facts that remain are these:

An attempt was made to murder Valijon Starbringer on Wanderweb by sending him alone and without ID to its surface.

An attempt was made to murder Valijon Starbringer on Kiffit by Ghadri assassins in the employ of Alaric Dragonflame.

Ritual vendetta was declared against Butterfly on Kiffit by unknown alMayne.

Dominich Fenrir, a corrupt customs official with close ties to the local nightworld, received advance notice of Butterfly’s arrival on Kiffit and attempted to solicit her cooperation in an undisclosed enterprise. It is worth noting in connection with this last that the Ghadri assassins also attempted to solicit her cooperation. One must assume her connection with Valijon is known.

But again we have an answer that is no answer. Assume for a moment that this one out of all the myriad possibilities is the truth. Is it simply an attempt by Morido Dragonflame to gain power in a highly dishonorable and non-alMayne fashion? It requires members of LessHouse Dragonflame to construct a trap relying on an enemy’s adherence to the same code of honor which they themselves flout. Given the racial psychology of the alMayne, this is almost beyond belief.

Still, we must believe in the trap and the assault, for we have proof of them. Thus the question becomes not "Could House Dragonflame act in this fashion?" since we know that it can, and has, but, "Could someone else-someone non-alMayne-also benefit from the replacement of the delegate to the Azarine Coalition and have constructed a scenario for House Dragonflame in which the actions it has so far undertaken would be consistent with alMayne honor?"

There are many who might feel themselves benefited, but let us for the moment restrict ourselves to those capable of suborning members of GreatHouse Starborn, deceiving LessHouse Dragonflame, and then bribing a Free Port into complicity. A Free Port is run purely for profit. Closing the landing facilities costs the owner a staggering amount of money for every ship turned away or inconvenienced. To do so is not reasonable behavior in the face of the tiny likelihood of the hunted felons using the facilities to escape. But knowing Valijon Starbringer’s true identity, the unknown assassin would know the landing facilities were a danger area, and would act to close them.