Hellflower (v1.1) (6 page)

"Is emergency," I commented to world at large.

"But that shuttle is FirstLeader Starborn’s property!" Tiggy yelped. "I cannot abandon it!"

I jabbed him hard in the nearest bit I could reach. "Will you get us t’hell out of here before I die of old age? Worry about it later!" "Cover your eyes,
chaudatu. "

I took a deep breath and did, and felt the back-blast as Tiggy blew the grille. Then the grenades went, and Tiggy slithered forward picked up and followed.

###

The
legitimates
never knew what hit them. Gas burned on my skin I threw grenades like firecrackers and shot tronics. The hardware shot back, and so did the software, and I had to open my eyes to see but least I hadn’t breathed. Didn’t worry about ducking because there weren’t no place to duck to. Bumped into Tiggy and knocked him in the lift just as it opened. He shoved me behind him and blew away a couple of Guardsmen just as the doors closed.

Nice to see a hellflower happy in his work.

I mopped at my leaking eyes, pulled off a glove to do it mo efficiently, and noticed my jacket was on fire. I batted out the spar and explored the burn. Tender, but the skin hadn’t been cooked op( and that made me luckier than I deserved.

"You all right?" I said to the boy wonder.

He was staring at my sleeve. "You have shed blood for me," I said, reverent-like.

"Huh?" I said, real bright. "Don’t be silly, bai, burns don’t—" Then the lift doors opened again and we charged out full-t boogie and blasters blazing right over the barricade set up in front the door. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tiggy pick up and throw tronic just like it was a cuddly toy and then whip out that knife of I — and slice open a Guardsman while firing his rifle lefthanded.

That made a total of nine Guardsmen he’d dusted, if anyone w counting.

I chased after Tiggy as he ran by and whipped the last of the grenades off my neck and tossed them behind me just for luck as we ran down the steps.

The speeder was right where I left it, bless all the good numbers, I jumped in and keyed up the ignition while Tiggy swarmed in over the back. We took off at top speed into oncoming traffic just as the CityGuard in force came charging down the steps of the Justiciary. Paladin gave me a running commentary about where the bar cades in the city was. There wasn’t much traffic on the flybys this late Third Shift, so we took some scenic shortcuts and got around all f security checkpoints except the one at the Port.

That one we ran over.

###

By the time we reached it, Wanderweb heat hadn’t been able to track us for the longest time, owing to a unfortunate spasm in the City Central Computer traffic monitors. Paladin said they was sure we was somewhere on the other side of the city. So the shellycoats at the Port found a moment to be real surprised when Tiggy and me drove my rented speeder over their shiny purple-and-yellow barricade, then into the freight lift that serviced
Firecat’s
wing of the Port. I lost the comlink somewhere along the way. Big deal.

Paladin overrode the lockups that the Port Computer was trying to put on the lift. We drove out of the lift into the docking ring before PortSec could figure out which ship we was trying to reach, and jumped out of the speeder into the ship. Simple.

Then we took off.

I was never so glad to have a invisible co— as I was then.
Firecat
started taking off before I had her lock sealed, and by the time I was strapped into the mercy seat we was oriented toward the bay opening. I let Paladin Thread the Needle for me while I finished strapping in, and then I grabbed a handful of lifters and firewalled her.

I heard Tiggy go thump amongst the rokeach and then stopped thinking about him. The air show I had to put on to get out of range of Wanderweb’s stratospheric interceptors impressed even me, but Wanderweb jurisdiction extends only as far as its atmosphere. It wasn’t worth them getting into deep heat with Grand Central to chase us out into Imperial space, so eventually they got tired of shooting and left me alone. I’d better make up my mind to never coming back here for my next sixty incarnations or so, but unless Wanderweb Free Port wanted to hire a bounty hunter to chase me around the Outfar Pally and me was safe now.

When all the ground-to-orbit wartoys was back in their boxes on downside scenic Wanderweb, I put
Firecat
into a nice high orbit over Wanderweb City.

We’d won.

"What are you going to do with the alMayne mercenary now, Butterfly?" Paladin asked in a voice that only I could hear.

Real interesting question.

I had a cargo for Kiffit under my deck plates that I’d meant to lift with thirty hours ago. If
Firecat
wasn’t to Kiffit in reasonable time, there’d be questions I’d hate to answer and penalty fees that’d seriously compromise my old age pension. No matter how decorative Tiggy was, he was going to have to take second place to business.

So Tiggy had to go, and without showing me his gratitude or anything else. The question was-where?

I levered myself up out of the mercy seat and raised the cockpit up into the hold.

Right now I wanted everything I’d done myself out of on Wanderweb with my little jailbreak-wet bath, fresh meal, clean clothes, and something done about my burns and bruises. It’s a sad fact of hypership ecology that very few of these things was to be had now this side of Kiffit.

I headed for my emergency medical supplies and got out my box of Fenshee burntwine. Toxins is toxins, but this was a emergency.

My pet hellflower was sitting on the deck looking at me. His cutlery was tucked through the waistband of his Wanderweb Detention Issue pants and in his lap he was holding the blaster he’d picked up in Dead Storage. He was sweaty and grimy from the night’s occupations, and his hair was hanging down around his face in your basic tousled mop.

I wondered who he was when he was to home. He hadn’t chatted much to the Justiciary computer. Despite all we’d meant to each other, I still didn’t even know his name. On the plus side, he didn’t look any toodamn bent out of shape with me. It’d be a real shame if something that decorative bought real estate, and Paladin would sign Tiggy’s lease for sure if he iced me.

Try breathing sometime in a ship with the lock jammed open and the atmosphere venting. It’s nice to have friends.

"Hey, hellflower," I said, breaking the seal on the box. "You got a name? T’name-je, bai? Namaste’amo?"

Tiggy stood up. You got the impression he’d just been waiting to be asked. "I am the Honorable Puer Walks-by-Night Kennor’s-son Starbringer Amrath Valijon of Chernbereth-Molkath."

"Butterfly, we are in very deep trouble." Paladin could see and hear Tiggy now the same way he could me-through the pickups in
Firecat’s
hull.

"Fung wa?" I said. "Would you mind repeating that?" I said carefully to the hellflower in my best Interphon. He did. It came out the same way it had before: Honorable walks by night and the whole rest of it. My little hole card was more than just a problem. He was more than just any old poor little rich killer.

"Valijon Starbringer is cousin to the alMayne king, Amrath Starborn, and son of the alMayne delegate to the Court of the TwiceBorn, Kennor Starbringer. Kennor Starbringer is also the president of the Azarine Coalition."

Thank you, Paladin. That pedigree made Tiggy bad news. Daddy Starbringer was the law west of the Chullite Stars, the heat, the fuzz, the
legitimates,
the galactic agent of His Imperial Majesty (Entropy bless and keep him far away from me). In short, Tiggy was nobody and the son of nobody this simple ‘legger, dicty-barb, and companion to Libraries wanted to have to do with.

"Not?" I said hopefully.

"I am the Third Person of House Starborn. My father is the Delegate to the Imperium. His sister’s bond-sister’s son is Amrath Starborn, FirstLeader of the Gentle People. The alMayne consular ship
Pledge Of Honor,"
Tiggy went on in mildly conversational tones, "is currently orbiting the
chaudatu
-planet. I am a member of the Delegate-my-father’s staff. And my people are looking for me,
chaudatu-Captain."

Tiggy Stardust
nee
Valijon Starbringer looked at me. I looked at him. He showed me his teeth, and I remembered for how many human races a smile wasn’t a smile.

So I had a drink. Then I had another drink. Tiggy had a drink too, and said I should call him "Honored One."

I wondered why t’hell he hadn’t mentioned his interesting family to Wanderweb Justiciary when they’d brought him in, and said so. He said it was a matter of honor.

Honor. Hah. I knew for damn sure the alMayne would of fried Wanderweb to bare rock once they found Tiggy dead and I bet Tiggy would of thought the joke was worth it.

I took another hit off the box of burntwine and left it with him, since he seemed to appreciate the bennies of a fine vintage neurotoxin, and tottered back up to the mercy seat. When I lowered the cockpit through the hull again Wanderweb was still down there, looking peaceful.

I could tell Pally was just waiting to have words with me, which was damn considerate since he could have any words he wanted and I couldn’t say no never-you-mind. I put my Best Girl’s extra ears on and started listening for ID beacons. Tiggy’d been downside in a shuttle, and it had to come from somewhere. Maybe somewhere’d be glad to have him back.

"The authorities will call it kidnapping, you know," Paladin said in my ear. Considerate of him not to use the bulkhead speakers. I looked around. Tiggy was sitting in the back of the hold with burntwine and blaster looking as stubborn and patient as a cat I’d used to have. "What authorities?" I finally said. "Hellflowers?"

I didn’t find anything orbiting Wanderweb on my first pass and set up to try again. It was a damn shame I couldn’t ask Wanderweb Central what they had in their sky, but didn’t think they’d be real responsive somehow.

"Not kidnapping when you give it back, Pally."

"And what do you expect the Port Authority to say when questioned? Someone will have to be culpable in the matter of what has happened to Valijon Starbringer. The alMayne will insist. And the penalty for interfering with a member of an Ambassadorial Delegation is . . . extreme, Butterfly."

"So we send babby-bai across to
Pledge
in lifepak soon as we get near it. He’ll square his folks-or not. Hell, Pally, what’s one more warrant going to matter?"

"Kidnapping one of the TwiceBorn is a class-A offense. How many more can you afford? You have, as you are fully aware, three already: illegal emigration from an Interdicted World, nonpayment of chattel indenture, and . . . me."

Paladin must be really torqued to mention the last bit. Usually we just pretend there ain’t no such thing as Class One High Book. "Already know I’m dicty-barb, runaway slave, and . . . you know," I pointed out. "Tell me new things, che-bai."

"I will tell you that you cannot afford to attract attention. That you cannot afford another class-A warrant, especially one that will be so actively prosecuted. That if I had known who Valijon Starbringer was in the first place, I would—"

"You’d what?"

"I would have told you this earlier," Paladin finished primly. I went back to my sensor-sweeps.

If Pally said the penalty was extreme, I didn’t want to know what it was. Even if Tiggy did true-tell his da, I didn’t know what hellflower logic’d turn his story into.

"Then we just better hurry up and find
Pledge
so’s we can get t’hell out of here, j’keyn?"

"Ideally," said Paladin. I groaned. All I needed was for my best buddy to have a case of the more-ascetic-than-thous the whole way to Kiffit.

Besides which, it was getting to be obvious there wasn’t any consular ship highbinding my ex-favorite Free Port.

"Oh, Paladin. Where is
Pledge Of Honor
?"

"If you had not decided to meddle in the merciful and reasonable justice of the Empire," Paladin said, sounding cross, "we would not be in this situation now, Butterfly."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, trying to keep my voice low. "Never mind it’s Free Port profit, not Imp justice, and Tiggy wouldn’t of been up for the chop if he hadn’t saved my bones."

"If you had not interfered in the first place, your alMayne nobleman would have murdered K’Jarn and been taken into custody over an offense less extortionately overpriced."

So now Tiggy was my hellflower glitterborn, was he? I could think of only one real good reason for Pally to be that torqued.

"Bai, where’s
Pledge Of Honor
?"

There was a real long silence if you consider how fast Paladin chopped logic.

"I cannot find it, Butterfly. It isn’t here."

I didn’t ask him if he was sure. If anyone wanted to find the hellflower garden more than me, my silent partner did.

###

I pulled the heads-up console farther down over my face and thought about Life, hellflowers, and scenic Wanderweb.

One, if I didn’t hit angeltown pretty soon, I’d miss my meet on Kiffit, which could be trouble.

Two, if my antisocial lovestar’s ticket out of my life wasn’t where he said it was, either it never had been there or it’d left. I didn’t think Tiggy knew how to farce, but if he was true-telling why wasn’t
Pledge
here?

Three, I had one sincere headache. It was composed of equal parts class-A warrants, Libraries, and the laws of physics. As follows:

A-I couldn’t take Tiggy back downside in
Firecat
. One, they’d cut off his head, two, I couldn’t get down and back alive, and three, it would make me even later to Kiffit if I tried.

B-I couldn’t take Tiggy with me.
Firecat
was a little ship, all engines, marginal life-support, and an Old Federation Library under the mercy seat. Even if I wanted to chance Tiggy twigging Paladin, I couldn’t ship him all over the Empire in a ship the size of a Teaser’s conscience. For one thing, I wasn’t sure we’d both be alive when we got to Kiffit, air being what it was. Not to mention the fact that he was all tangled up in his honor by now and was probably going to try to purify the whirling fusion out of me soon as he figured out the best way.