Korval's Game (23 page)

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cut your stupid throat!”

He stared up at her, and it was terror, now, and she kept the knife snug, wanting to be sure he was going to remember today’s lesson for the rest of his life. No matter how short it was.

“If the captain pleases.” The recruit’s voice was near and respectful.

Now what
? “Permission to speak.”

“Thank you, Captain. This fighter shows potential of becoming a skilled soldier, with training.”

Mithras, give me strength
.

“You offering to take him on, Beautiful? Whip him into shape?”

“If the captain pleases. For the good of the troop.”

jin’Bardi’s eyes were showing a lot of white. His face was an interesting sort of greenish-gold color and wet with sweat. Miri leaned close, talking real quiet.

“I’m going to move the knife, jin’Bardi, and then I’m going to stand up and back away three paces. Then you’re going to stand up and present yourself to Beautiful. Vary, and you’re meat. Are we clear?”

“Clear, Captain,” he managed, sounding pretty hoarse. He swallowed. “I yield,” he added. High Liaden.

“You bet,” she returned in Terran, and took the knife away.

She rose, backed away and stood holding the knife while he climbed painfully to his feet and walked over to where the big man stood between Winston and Reynolds, his face impassive.

jin’Bardi was shaking and he must’ve been hurting, but give him credit, he walked right up to Nelirikk and saluted.

Nelirikk didn’t move. “It is proper discipline to thank the captain for a valuable lesson.”

There was a moment of utter stillness from jin’Bardi. The circle waited. In her head, Val Con’s pattern was cold, watchful, and stringently calm.

Slowly, jin’Bardi turned and bowed. “Thank you, Captain, for a valuable lesson.”

“No problem,” she said and looked up at Beautiful. “Take this guy to the medics and have them check him out, then report back here. Give my stuff to Winston.”

“Yes, Captain.” A salute. Her belt and jacket changed hands and Beautiful moved back from the circle. jin’Bardi, shoulders slumping, began to follow, was stopped by a raised palm.

“It is proper discipline,” Beautiful stated, remorselessly unemotional, “to take leave of the captain.”

Once again, jin’Bardi turned, made the effort and straightened his shoulders, snapped a salute. “Captain.”

She nodded. The two of them moved away and the circle began to come apart. Miri walked forward.

As he came even with the situation board, jin’Bardi abruptly spun. “I want my knife back!”

Nelirikk stopped. “If the captain pleases,” he coached, “may I have my weapon.”

Miri stopped, feeling the weight of the thing in her hand, and something tickling at the edge of her mind. The balance was good . . .

“You want this?” she snapped.

“Yes,” jin’Bardi snapped back and that quick the knife reversed itself and she threw.

The knife tumbled in the air, traveling fast, much too fast for jin’Bardi to have time to move. The blade passed so close to his cheek it seemed to glide over the skin, then buried itself deep in the situation board, a lock of his hair pinned tight.

“Say ‘thank you, Captain,’” Nelirikk directed into the absolute stillness that followed the knife’s
thunk
, “‘for returning my weapon.’”

jin’Bardi licked his lips. “Thank you, Captain,” he said faintly, “for returning my weapon.”

After a moment, Nelirikk reached over and pulled the knife from the board. He offered it, hilt first, to the shaking Liaden.

“Soldier, your weapon. Inspect it for damage as we walk to the medical center.”

Around her, she started to hear buzzes as the Irregulars shook themselves back into normal mode. Miri turned, caught Val Con’s eye and decided she’d worry about where she’d learned how to throw a knife like that later.

“All right!” she shouted, over the growing noise. “Squads count off by three for hand-to-hand drill! Double-time!”

LIAD:
Department of Interior
Command Headquarters

The operative
commissioned to discover what nature of mishap had destroyed Tyl Von sig’Alda’s ship, innocently in orbit about the busy world of Waymart, had filed her report.

Despite that this document directly contravened several apparently known facts, Commander of Agents readily accepted the operative’s assertion that no such ship had been in orbit about Waymart during the span of days designated in the search grid, nor had such a ship exploded upon the day, hour, and nanosecond also named. The operative expressed herself quite certain of these things.

Commander of Agents ordered the operative to her immediate superior for deep questioning under the drug, but it was a formality. He believed her report, utterly. Oh, certainly, he had the raw data received from the hidden transmitter upon sig’Alda’s ship, as well as his own excellent memory of event. Mere facts.

And facts, as any Agent knows well, are open to manipulation.

Seated behind his desk in the room of chronometers, Commander of Agents indulged in fantasy.

Tyl Von sig’Alda, the fairy tale went, had not departed the world of Vandar. Indeed, let it be that he had died there, during that brief period in which his ship had rested on world.

Val Con yos’Phelium, rogue Agent, having overpowered the man sent to return himself or his severed head to Headquarters, used the ship’s key and lifted to orbit. There, he had not after all dawdled, but engaged himself in a fever of busyness, first seeking and then subverting the hidden beacon, the existence of which he would have easily deduced. That done, he had Jumped, but never, so Commander of Agents was willing to wager, for Waymart.

Or perhaps he had, as he was both subtle and intelligent.

In short, Commander of Agents concluded his fantasy, Val Con yos’Phelium could be anywhere in the galaxy, not excluding the hallway outside his Commander’s door.

A peculiarly unnerving conceit, that.

It would all, of course, need to be checked.

With a feeling not unlike dread, Commander of Agents leaned forward and touched the switch that would summon his second to him.

A team of Agents, so he considered, in the few moments before that efficient person appeared. Certainly, a team of Agents to Vandar, to discover the whereabouts of Tyl Von sig’Alda, or the manner of his death. What else? How might they now discover a hint to Val Con yos’Phelium’s thought, a clue that might point to his ultimate destination?

“You summoned me, Commander?” His second bowed and then stood silent.

Commander of Agents stirred, issued his orders regarding the team and the maximum priority mission they were to undertake. His second bowed. “There is something else?”

Where? Where might he go, whose clan, save one, was scattered to the Prime Points? What cause might move him more strongly? Balance? Or the safety of his kin? What reason might be read into random action? Which actions were deliberately random? Which only mimed chaos, with cold reason as the lodestone?

Where would he go, with all the galaxy to choose from?

“Dispatch a team to Jelaza Kazone,” Commander of Agents said to his second. “I do not wish Anthora yos’Galan to depart her clanhouse just now. Contain her, first. If necessary, detain her.”

His second bowed. It would be done.

“Also,” Commander of Agents said, hearing himself with something akin to astonishment. “The raw data regarding the Terran female. Robertson. Have that sent to me here, Commander’s Priority.”

Again, his second bowed. “At once, Commander.”

LIAD:
Jelaza Kazone

It was late
when she closed the old book and returned it to its place among its fellows. That done, she stretched, hands high over her head, feet above the floor, chair tipped nearly horizontal. For the count of ten, she held the position, taut, every muscle straining. On eleven, she went abruptly limp, breath exploding outward in a “hah!” that echoed along the metal walls.

The chair snapped back to vertical and she laughed, using one hand to push the wild tumble of dark hair up out of her face. The other hand she held negligently downward, palm out, fingers curled in silent summons at the comb that had deserted its duty and now lay on the floor three feet beyond her languid grasp.

Thus summoned, the comb flew to her hand. She used it to anchor the hastily twisted knot of her hair, fingers lingering along the satiny wood. This was a precious object—carved by Daav yos’Phelium, Val Con’s true-father, to adorn the hair of his own dear lady. It had come to Anthora on her halfling nameday, given by Val Con. Thus, the gift was thrice precious and it was the ornament she wore most often.

She stretched again, somewhat less heroically and accompanied by a yawn, then gently came erect. Youngest of the yos’Galans, she had inherited the full body of their Terran mother without the height necessary to satisfactorily complete the effect. Still, she was of Korval, and a pilot of the line, light on her feet and elegant in her bearing.

She turned now, spinning a graceful circle, and called aloud, “Lord Merlin? Come, sir. We walk and then we sleep.”

Her voice came back from the metal walls, deep and nappy as velvet, with a ring that glittered off the edge of the ear and might, after all, have been the walls.

From somewhere down within the books came a “Mmerwef!” and the thump of something solid striking carpet. A moment later, a rather large gray cat sauntered ’round the edge of a shelf and looked up at her out of round golden eyes.

Anthora smiled and moved toward the door, the cat flowing along at her ankle. He waited patiently while she worked the pressure-latch and followed her into the paneled hallway, then waited again while she canceled the lighting and sealed the library tight.

Duty done, the cat and the woman walked down the hallway and out into the inner garden.

***

The garden
was lit by star-shine—well enough for one who knew the way. Anthora walked slowly, savoring the night air, cool with the scent of growing things. Down and ’round the path she walked, til she came to the center, the heartplace, of the garden, and here she left the path, and moved across the moss to lay her hand against Jelaza Kazone, Jela’s Fulfillment, known to the World as Korval’s Tree.

“Good evening, Elder,” she murmured, and felt her palm grow warm, where it lay against the bark. She breathed deeply of the cool, minty scent and leaned back, settling her shoulders comfortably. At her feet, in a vee made by two shallow roots, Merlin tucked himself, front feet under his chest, golden eyes slits of satisfaction.

In the minty dark, Anthora closed her eyes. Purposefully, she filled her lungs with the scented air, Jelaza Kazone warming her back through the house tunic she wore. Slowly, as if of their own volition, her hands rose, palms vulnerable to the stars.

Anthora opened her Inner Eyes across the dazzle of the galaxy and in nightly ritual, began to count.

There, the cool flame that was Nova, blurred by the veiling of hyperspace. And, there—Shan, warm as a hug. Through him, less Seen than extrapolated, Anthora found Priscilla. And there—there was Cousin Pat Rin, aloof, as ever.

It was a foolish ritual in its way, there being no aid she might send to those so distant, should she find them in distress. She lived in no little dread, who was considered the heedless one, of the night she might count one frail candle missing and nothing she could do to recover the flame.

Still, she persisted, taking comfort where it was offered—and so far tonight she had counted four—Nova, Shan, Priscilla, Pat Rin—safe, for now, and treasured.

So, onward. She took another deliberately deep breath and cast her mind out once more. Val Con . . . She found him, his flame brilliant as before the Wrongness, which Anthora now knew was named the Department of Interior, and at his shoulder a bonfire, which was Miri—his lifemate, whom Anthora had yet to embrace in a sister’s welcome.

Well enough, six, and herself made seven. She brought her thought toward an easier goal, touched the children—Quin, Padi, Syl Vor, Mik and Shindi—and Great-aunt Kareen yos’Phelium, and Cousin Luken bel’Tarda, bright, all bright, in their safeplaces, then took deeper breath and flung her mind wider still.

She had first noted this one during her pregnancy with the twins. In that heightened state of power, it had been as plain to her as a comet on the horizon. Now, it was the glitter of a jeweled pinhead, sometimes sensed, sometimes seen, and sometimes lost entirely in the clamor of the worlds intervening. Tonight, she thought she would miss it, then caught a flash of its unique glitter, at the extreme edge of her ability to read.

There was no name to put to this tiny gem of flame, yet she welcomed it as she welcomed the flames of her named and known kin and dreaded its loss as nearly.

So then, of adults, counted and known, nine. Of children, the full complement of five. Clan Korval, numbering precisely fourteen, from the eldest to the youngest. The warmth at her back grew briefly warmer and Anthora smiled as she lowered her hands.

Fifteen, of course. One did not discount the Tree.

But even with the Tree, it did seem few—very few, indeed. No skill that lay to her hand would reveal the number of those who hunted them—but she guessed them to be far in excess of—fifteen.

She opened her eyes and stepped away from the Tree, but without the spring of joy the counting of her kin most usually gave her. Instead, she bade the Tree good evening in a tone that was nearly somber, and went softly across the mossy carpet to the paved path, where she paused and glanced back.

“Lord Merlin?”

The cat opened his eyes, stood, stretched and sauntered to her, stropping once against her leg before preceding her down the path, to the house and bed.

EROB’S HOLD:
Practice Grounds

Quickly,
he discovered the joy of having too much to do.

It was made quite clear that he was to be the captain’s shadow and bodyguard, and to perhaps carry extra communication equipment if required. He was then a specialist attached to the captain by her order, outside the ordinary line of command.