Hellflower (v1.1) (21 page)

"It is very simple, Butterfly. You will go to Manticore, pick up the chobosh, go on to RoaqMhone and deliver it. Doing those things will alleviate Rimini’s suspicion to some extent. Neither you nor I believe that a simple Transit to Roaq-space is the limit of Silver Dagger’s requirements, but once we are there, Lalage Rimini’s desires will no longer matter. RoaqMheri is a major outlands shipping crossroads in the same system as RoaqMhone. I will arrange things with the computers on RoaqMheri so that
Firecat
and I vanish. You and Valijon will rendezvous with the
Pledge Of Honor
in a thoroughly innocent ship that contains no Library. When you have returned Valijon to his father, you must ask to be adopted as a member of his household. I believe the request will be granted, which will mean that you will obtain Imperial citizenship. When Rimini makes good her threat, and you are arrested in connection with the Chapter 5 investigation of Kroon’Vannet, it will not matter. The Empire will not prosecute on the illegal emigration charge when you are-under law-an alMayne, and there will be no hard evidence of my existence to betray us. Kennor Starbringer’s protection of you as a member of his Household will see to it that you are not subjected to invasive personality-reformatting techniques by the Office of the Question."

"And what the hell you going to be doing while I’m doing all that, bai?" Ditch Pally and steal a new ship from one of the busiest ports in the never-never? It might not be the stupidest idea that I had ever heard in my whole entire life, but it came real close. And it didn’t even address the main point. What was I supposed to say to Tiggy between here and RoaqMheri? "We going back to your da as soon as my Library and me make a detour?"

"There is absolutely no cause for concern. It will work, Butterfly. You’ll be safe, cleared of all suspicion. You can land at any port you wish."

If I was innocent in the first place, I could of promised Rimini the stars in their courses then beat it to wherever Tiggy’s ship
Pledge Of Honor
was as soon as I lifted. If Tiggy had any brains, that’s what he expected.

Only I couldn’t, because Rimini had me-because there
was
a Library for the Office of the Question to find.

"You see that, don’t you? Butterfly?"

Too bad Tiggy couldn’t take that into account. "Oh, sure, bai." Liar.

I went back up into
Firecat’s
hold. Tiggy was sitting on the deck with his bad leg stretched out in front of him. If it hurt, he didn’t say. "We are not following the
Pledge Of Honor
as you said. We are going to a place called Manticore." He looked old, and weary to the bone.

"Silver Dagger’ll kill me if I don’t, and I don’t want to die." I wondered if that was even true, or if I just didn’t want to die owing. Tiggy thought about it. "You wish to break your pledged word merely to preserve your life?" he said, scornful.

"Give me a break, ‘flower! You ever been topped for High Book? Office of Question don’t stop digging. By time the hellhounds figure I’m clean of Librarian rap I’ll be dead, and very sorry to next of kin. Only they won’t be sorry, and I don’t have any kin."

Tiggy thought some more.

"You are a criminal. A thief. Silver Dagger is also a criminal."

"Rimini’s a nightbroker and I’m a dicty and you’re hurt. Now, do you mind if I coke and wrap you? We both been up lots of hours; it’s time to hit the rack."

"A . . . ‘dicty’? Is that also criminal?" Maybe I could talk him to death.

"To be one out here is. You know about how it is when somebody buys someplace for a closed colony-an Interdicted World? I’m from one of them. If the
legitimates
catch me off Granola, they’ll kill me. Simple. Any good gene-scan’ll ID me. And that’s the first thing the Office of Question runs in High Book."

"So you do
think only of your own life, thief. How did you get off-world?"

"I was slaved off by a Fenshee human resources manager named Errol Lightfoot when I was your age. Now can we rack out?"

Tiggy thought real hard.

"The criminal Lalage Rimini will honorlessly bear false witness against you, and say that you possess a Library. You do not possess a Library, but because you are dicty, you dare not be arrested by the Empire, because they will discover your identity and kill you."

"Now look, bai-" I saw where this was going.

"But you do not need to fear,
Kore-alarthme."
Tiggy was all lit up, like he had answers to all the problems of Creation. "I swear to you, on my Knife and my honor, that you need not fear the Empire’s law. Take me to my father now. He will rejoice to know of the enemies we have discovered within his walls, and the shelter of his, House will be yours." For about a nanosecond-five, until they found Paladin.

"No. We go to the Roaq first."

He looked away from me and didn’t say much for about five minutes. I could tell he was hurting to ask why, and couldn’t, because of honor-nonsense.

"Are you an honest thief, San’Cyr?" he said finally.

Whatever was coming next I didn’t want to hear it. "I’m not a thief. I’m a darktrader—that’s smuggler to you, I guess. I do what I get paid to-or what I got to. And I got to go to the Roaq."

Tiggy gestured that away. "You do what you are paid to, San’Cyr? Who paid you to save my life three times? Once in Wanderweb Free Port, though it was unnecessary, once in the Justiciary of Wanderweb, and once at the place you call ‘wondertown’ on Kiffit. You have said that Alaric Dragonflame sought my life in Borderline with assassins. Could he not have paid you to let me die?"

Yes.

"I’m not for sale, hellflower." Liar.

"The woman called Silver Dagger has bought you. With lies." With truth. With a High Book accusation I couldn’t face down. "Bai, you shut your yap. Saved your bones on Wanderweb cause I didn’t like the odds and topped you out of gig to crottle your chitlins. You got no right to come farcing me roundabout bought and sold." Paladin’s life for Tiggy’s. Anywhere, any time. All a person had to do was ask.

"You swore to me that you would take my service and use it to return me to my House. But now you choose, freely, to bend to the will of a
chaudatu
criminal. How can I, in honor, serve you still? I do not wish to die either,
Kore
San’Cyr-but I must die now, if you are not worthy to bind me. ‘Swear, hellflower,’ you say to me, as if mine were empty words, written on the wind.
Chaudatu
words. ‘Swear to stay by me, to trust me, to protect me, not to leave until I release you’-and then you treat my sworn words as stones flung into water, and I as a wing-clipped raptor that must stay where it is set. My words are not empty words, woman-not-of-the-Gentle-People, and I have sworn to cover you with my shadow. I have a right to know the truth of the life I am trusting my life to. You owe me my answers."

I kept the hold dark when I was down in the cockpit and Pally hadn’t brought up the lights. I couldn’t see Tiggy’s face; just the shine of white-gold hair by the light of angeltown coming through the hullports.

I hoped he couldn’t see me either. I sat down on the deck and put my head on my knees.

Anywhere, any time. And Paladin’s only bright idea was to have me leave him somewhere alone while I went and delivered Tiggy.

"Don’t care what you believe, Tiggy Stardust. I promise whatever you want me to swear by that I’m trying to keep you alive, and I’m taking you back to Daddy Starbringer as fast as may be. But we got to go to the Roaq first."

"You saved me once for pity and twice for spite," Tiggy said implacable-like. "The third time, on Kiffit, when I came back to your ship-why did you succor me then? You knew of the Ghadri. You could have told them you would give me to them. I had left you at gunpoint. You owed me nothing. What are your
chaudatu
reasons to save my life and trap me in honor?"

Because I’d thought I was human. That was the joke, and maybe even a hellflower’d laugh. I hadn’t known I was just a Librarian waiting to start running from a High Book charge.

"You came to me for help, remember. And the odds you was up against stank."

"You did not help Eloi Flashheart. He wanted your help."

Just a Librarian. With no call to say what I would and wouldn’t do. Because I’d do anything. For Paladin.

Damn him.

"Eloi’s no good to me. You are. Need you to lift kidnap-rap off me."

"You are lying to me,
Kore
San’Cyr."

This wasn’t an acceptable risk anymore. I knew that Tiggy had to go, and I knew that if we both sat here until the goforths decayed I wasn’t going to do it.

He was talking again. "That is not why you rescued me. I know that much."

"I am not one teeny damn bit interested in your hallucinations, you gibbering glitterborn."

"Do you think no oath cuts two ways? If I am to trust you, you must be worthy of it. Why did you save my life the third time?"

I stared off into the dark until my jaws hurt. I wanted to tell him the whole truth. Then he’d kill me and I wouldn’t have any more problems. But then he’d find Paladin and take him apart-and without Paladin,
Firecat
would be a powerless hulk, drifting until it docked at the Ghost Capital of the Old Federation, with nothing but corpses inboard. "You was fourteen years old and been sold down the river. Didn’t matter to me who wanted you dead. Wasn’t going to let it happen."

"Again," said Paladin, and for just one second I wanted to answer him. Out loud-where Tiggy’d hear.

"For honor," said Tiggy with quiet satisfaction.

I was fed up with both of them. "You and your damn honor can go tip dice cups in hell, you godlost highjumping barbarian. What gives you the right to go asking answers till you find something that suits you?"

"Not answers that suit me. The truth. You know nothing of the Gentle People, and call us with your vulgar names as if we were plants, and say honor and honor as if you understood what the honor of the Gentle People is. You cannot understand it-the honor that is better than bread, that lights the long night and will go down with us into death. How can I give that into the keeping of beasts? But if you will die for such honor as
chaudatu
can possess, I . ."

I don’t have to die today. And neither did I.

"Fortunately you seem to have convinced Valijon Starbringer that you are a suitable overlord," Paladin said dryly.

"Shut up, damn you!" My fingers were clenched in the biopak hard enough to hurt. "Shut up just shut up!"

The words weren’t for Tiggy but he didn’t know that. I dragged the biopak up over my jaw where the transponder was locked up in a plug of fake bone-with Paladin inside me, listening all the time. "Shut up," I said, and ground my teeth before I said anything else.

I looked out the port. Wrapped up in hyperspace out there was all the stars I ever wanted as a kid. Wrapped around me was enough tech to make all Fifty Patriarchs of Granola rotate in the glorious afterlife. And Paladin. I wished I remembered how to cry.

"Kore-alarthme?"
Tiggy said in a half-whisper.

"What?"

"I will go with you where you say."

"Fine. Go to bed."

All I gave him was painease, but it could have been poison. It could have been.

###

After I was done with Tiggy I slid back into the mercy seat and looked out at angeltown. I hurt, and there wasn’t enough coking in the world to cover it. The edge was gone. I was easy meat. Prey.

It’s funny. You hear all those stories about somebody’s luck running out, and you always think it must of been a surprise. I’d been on borrowed time since I left Granola, but I guess I knew my luck was over from the moment I stepped into that streetfight back on Wanderweb. Because Paladin’s plan wasn’t going to work. Tiggy was too close now-to me and what I did and how I lived. He’d twig to the real truth about me and my Library before
Firecat
ever got to the Roaq. And even if he didn’t, Paladin wanted me to bet my life on the mercy of Tiggy’s da the high-heat hellflower to save me from the Office of the Question when I took him home.

"Butterfly? Will you talk to me?" Paladin said through the transponder.

"Sure, bai." I was betting my life now that Tiggy was drugged enough not to hear, but I didn’t care. The transponder didn’t itch anymore when taking transmission. Beofox’d been right, for a wonder.

"Promise me you’ll ask to be adopted into House Starborn when you rendezvous with the
Pledge Of Honor,"
Paladin said.

Was he nuts? Or trying to set me up? Or had Pally just run out to the end of the good numbers too? Did Libraries get old?

"I want you to live, Butterfly. You need Valijon Starbringer. Kennor Starbringer will give you anything you ask for keeping him alive. As an alMayne citizen you will no longer be subject to arrest and execution either as an escaped slave or as an illegal emigrant. Kennor Starbringer will pay any minor fines-"

"-and have me shot for clashing with his drapes. Sure. Whatever you say. I don’t care."

After that he stopped bothering me. Eventually I crawled in with Tiggy.

It’s funny going to sleep listening to someone else breathe.

The organic drive to protect the young is nearly as strong as the drive to seek the society of one’s own kind. Offered the choice, Butterfly must inevitably choose organic society over mine, or lose what organics refer to as their humanity. Against her will, without her knowledge, Butterfly had chosen. Now it was my responsibility to activate her choice.

I am told that the humans of the Old Federation once had a similar choice to make. I wonder now if they had any more choice than Butterfly in their loyalties?

It had always been obvious to both Butterfly and myself that the prejudice against Old Federation technology was a blind one that bore no relationship to the material it banned. That Libraries were illegal was a truism too obvious to debate. That we were the genocidal monsters of the talkingbooks was supremely unlikely. A convenient and unattainable scapegoat, perhaps, but in so much as we attained creaturehood Libraries were creatures of intellect. Intelligent beings do not wage war.