Revolution's Shore (15 page)

She remained silent for the rest of the brief flight across, wishing she could see the great ship they approached, and increasingly troubled by the frequency with which Kyosti reached up to touch his hair. It seemed to her a gesture either superstitious or self-conscious, and she was not sure which explanation made her more nervous.

At last they ferried in to docking. She and Kyosti were escorted by Yehoshua and Alsayid rather than an entire complement of ten—Callioux's one concession. Bach floated behind Lily as they waited in the lock, nudging up against her back.

The lock opened into the ship to reveal a party of ten men and women clad in dullest grey. This escort showed them courteously, but without smiles, up a series of corridors to the bridge elevator. Compared to La Belle's ship, this vessel had no color at all, although in many places Lily thought she saw some sort of textured ridging at shoulder height, panels as much tactile as luminescent. The ten guards left them to ride in the elevator alone, a journey horizontal and diagonal as well as vertical. When the doors opened, Lily gasped.

The bridge was huge.

She could not hear the speech of the figures at the opposite end. Only a slight undertone in the air suggested to her that they were indeed speaking. At intervals along the expanse of wall, separate stations had been built, peopled now by a few individuals whose uniforms were black. It struck her then that everything on this ship was gray or black or white, lacking color entirely. Without stronger contrasts it was hard to measure the distance between her and the far wall, but she guessed it to be some hundred meters.

She leaned close to Kyosti. “Why would someone build a bridge so big?” she whispered. “The captain can't even see who we are from so far.”

“But he can hear you,” replied a voice that Lily recognized instantly as Yi's. It echoed in the vast space. “Come closer.”

Kyosti walked forward immediately, so Lily followed, Yehoshua and Alsayid close at her heels staring about themselves. Bach rose to drift forward just above Lily's head.

She felt dwarfed and alone on their walk, felt intimidated. Looking behind, she saw that two doors opened onto the bridge on either side of the elevator's terminus. The undertone of speech stilled as they neared the far wall, dissolving into silence as they came to a halt in front of a simple console at which sat a dark man.

Behind him, the walls held a long, curving bank of instruments manned by more black-clad individuals. Only the man directly in front of them examined them, however; the rest continued with their work.

Yi—for surely it was he—did not speak for some moments. His tongue touched his lips several times as he surveyed the four visitors, as if he was tasting the air. Although he did not rise, Lily could tell by the fold of his body in the chair that he was quite tall. At last an expression of interested surprise crossed his face.

“You are the one called Hawk, are you not? I knew—a familiarity.”

Kyosti inclined his head briefly. “You are astute.”

“Yes.” Yi considered the others in a further silence.

Lily realized with a start that he had no irises: he was blind.

He lifted a hand to a small tray attached on the left arm of his chair, picking up a selection of small sticks. Casting them down, he let his left hand trace their pattern while he surveyed Lily intently. Surveyed her somehow without sight.

“The virtue of brightness,” he said in his deep voice. “Although one sees also tears flowing in torrents. But tread reverently, and there will be no error.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Lily.

He laughed, amused perhaps at her expense. “You are of interest to the Changes. Your passing stirs the stream.” His tone sharpened. “You have with you a rare model. I was not aware that such technology, however dated, was available in this backwater.” And his gaze, however sightless, drifted up to fix on Bach.

“Perhaps,” replied Lily, not without a hint of irritation, “we aren't as backward as you would like to believe. Why did you want us on your ship?”

“Curiosity,” he said, not without smugness. “But now I know that it was the legendary Hawk who spoke so cleverly to me earlier.”

“Then why did you take evasive action as you entered this system?” she countered.

Yi sighed, as might a teacher when asked a foolish question for the tenth time by the same student. “I took evasive action because it is always prudent to take evasive action. Furthermore, I have met with several vessels claiming to be official military ships in the course of my—shall we say—wanderings in this benighted region, and all were inclined to be hostile.”

“Can you blame them?” Lily asked. “We don't even know why you're here.”

Kyosti brushed a hand against her arm, warning, as Yi's expression tightened.

His dark hands fingered a small keyboard on the chair's arm, and after that he seemed to wait, content not to speak but merely to observe them with whatever senses he used. Yehoshua and Alsayid continued to stare around themselves, amazed. Bach whirred quietly above Lily's head.

She only knew something happened because Kyosti suddenly stiffened beside her. Glancing at his face, she saw him shut his eyes, clenching them tight as if to prevent them from opening. His shoulders made the beginning of a movement to turn, a gesture he cut off with a jerk into immobility. Yi's face remained impassive, but his awareness had subtly shifted past her.

She turned.

Across the vast room she saw three people enter the bridge and stop by the elevator. Two of them had blue hair.

Of a different hue than Kyosti's, certainly tinged with green, perhaps—but without a doubt blue. They were tall, seemed pale, but beyond that, at such distance, she could not tell.

“You see,” said Yi quietly. “I am indeed called to course on a hunt for some of my employees. I have reason to believe you can give me information.” His gaze rested on Kyosti.

Kyosti stood so still he might as well have been paralyzed. He did not respond.

By the elevator, the shortest of the three figures detached itself from the others and began to cross the floor. Yi made a brief, almost undetectable gesture with one hand, and the two blue-haired people left the bridge.

Kyosti shuddered and opened his eyes. He stared at Yi with a look close to hatred. “Why did you do that?” He sounded near gone to rage.

“Is it not allowed?” Yi's tone might have been mocking.

“Don't play your damned games with me,” snarled Kyosti, transformed with an anger that seemed to emanate off him.

“I remind you that this is
my
ship.
My
ground.”

“Do you think I care?” Kyosti fairly shook with rage. “I repeat. Don't play your games with me. I'm no longer a piece on this board.”

“Of course you are still a piece,” replied Yi coldly. “You have merely been transformed into the wild card.” He extended a hand, and a grey-clad man passed beside Lily and handed Yi a stoppered vial. “I am called to the hunt, Hawk. What is it worth to you to help me?” He lifted the vial.

Kyosti recoiled from the movement. “Nothing. It's worth nothing to me. Leave me alone with what little I have managed to build out of the wreckage.” His voice was hard.

“Ah, I see.” Yi examined Kyosti, his face alive with curiosity. His tongue touched his lips three times. “You seek to escape your past by denying it.” His left hand brushed at the sticks on the tray, gathered them into his palm, tossed them, traced them.

Kyosti took another step back, almost stepping into Yehoshua.

“I see the abyss.” The grim surety of his voice did not change the expression of lively curiosity on his face. “‘His endeavors will lead him into the cavern of the pit.' You had do better to strive for wholeness.”

“Leave me alone.” Kyosti's voice was so soft that Lily could barely hear him.

Yi smiled, ironic and pitiless. “I think it likely that I had far better fear you than you fear me, since you do not. It is the truth you fear.” He lifted the vial again. “I will pay you whatever is in my power to pay. Once the hunt is blooded, we will return to League space. Clearly there is no booty worth our while here.” He paused, gauging Kyosti's reaction. “Passage back?”

Kyosti shook his head emphatically. “You don't have the entire equation, Yi. That doesn't tempt me.”

Yi considered this thoughtfully. “It may indeed be true that I lack certain bits of vital information. It is a small enough thing to ask of
you
, Hawk. I need only to know if you have come across the quarry in your wanderings.”

Kyosti hesitated, and Lily could see some debate warring inside him that manifested itself by no larger gesture than the clenching and unclenching of his right hand.

“Your honor,” chided Yi. “
Abai'is-ssa
. For your mother's memory, at least.”

Kyosti reached out and grabbed the vial. Unstoppered it and, in a movement made stranger by the complete lack of self-consciousness with which he did it, he lifted it to his lips and then simply breathed carefully and deeply, as if he were intent on its smell.

After some moments he lowered it, stoppered it, and handed it back to Yi. His face was now clear of expression. “Yes. On La Belle's ship.”

Yi did not reply for a moment. “Difficult,” he said finally, musing, “but even La Belle must honor a hunt. Where did you meet her?”

Kyosti reeled off a string of numbers that Lily could not follow. “But that was over two League years ago,” he added.

Yi smiled again. He looked pleased. “If it was simple, it would not be a challenge, would it? Why do you think I allowed my vessel to be called out?”

“I can't imagine,” Kyosti said sarcastically. “Your magnanimous nature, undoubtedly. I think we may as well go now. You have what you want.”

“But you have neglected your payment. I cannot”—Yi paused, repeated the word emphatically—“
cannot
let a debt go unpaid.”

Kyosti shook his head impatiently. “I said I don't want anything—” As he began to turn away, he caught sight of Yehoshua, standing perplexed but alert behind him. Kyosti smiled abruptly, a brief chuckle. “Look at that thing,” he continued, pointing to the artificial arm strapped to Yehoshua's left shoulder. “That is the most obscene excuse for medical rehabilitation I have ever seen.”

Yi raised his winged eyebrows. “Come here, man,” he said in a voice Yehoshua did not choose to disobey. Yi reached out and felt the arm from the hooks at its tip to the straps at its base. “Inept and primitive, certainly,” he agreed without expression.

“How can you tell from that kind of examination?” Lily demanded.

“It is true that I lack sight, but do not, therefore, underestimate my other senses. Or your own, indeed. As Hawk knows.” He waved Yehoshua back and turned to regard Kyosti with his uncanny, sightless gaze. “You wish?”

“Replace it,” said Kyosti. “With your best prosthetic.”

“If
I
may speak—” began Yehoshua, exchanging a startled glance with his cousin.

“Yehoshua,” cut in Lily, “if I were you, I'd take it.” The clear decisiveness in her voice convinced him, and he subsided into a watchful silence.

Yi tapped on the console keyboard, waited, seeming to listen to some voice no one else could hear.

“It would take a watch week, at minimum,” he said at last. “That covers only fitting and grafting and the elementary fitness testing. Any further care and rehabilitation would have to be completed under your care.”

Yehoshua chuckled. “Well, I certainly trust comrade Hawk's care. But we would have to talk to the Commander.”

“
I'll
talk to Callioux,” said Lily, forestalling Kyosti's reply.

Yi frowned. “It will mean delay …”

“But it is my price,” finished Kyosti sweetly. He lifted a hand to touch his hair. An almost furtive expression marked his face for a moment. “And I'll need some specialized equipment,” he added, like an afterthought.

Yi's eyebrows arced, a question. “Will you, indeed?”

“For monitoring his condition, of course,” Kyosti continued a bit too quickly. He glanced at Lily, measuring something in his own mind, then carefully returned his gaze to Yi.

“As you say,” agreed Yi, and smiled a curiously premonitory smile.

T
HE
CAIRN
REMAINED IN
contiguous orbit with Bleak House Station for three full fleet weeks. Callioux agreed, after a brief but obligatory, and scathing, denunciation of Lily's presumption in giving orders without permission, to Yehoshua's surgery, and sent on two of his six ships to a further post, expecting to follow them once Yehoshua returned.

But before full preparations could be made to depart, a small merchanter arrived ostensibly for trade and abruptly Callioux announced a delay. Yehoshua came back and was immediately sequestered in Medical, seeing only Kyosti, Callioux, his cousin, and the duty techs, all of whom refused to elaborate. Kyosti told Lily only that he was pleased, if a bit unprepared to deal with a prosthetic of such sophistication. Rumors of all sorts swept the crew deck. None could be substantiated.

“What do you think?” Lily asked Jenny at the end of the third week. They sat in the corridor common room on one of the uncomfortable benches that lined the walls.

Jenny did not answer for a moment, and Lily followed the line of her gaze. At one of the near tables her son Gregori stood at Paisley's shoulder, peering with a seven-year-old's intense concentration at the Ridani game of colored sticks and dice that she was playing with Pinto, Kyosti, and Rainbow. At the table next to them, the Mule painstakingly taught the intermediate elements of
bissterlas
to Aliasing; although it treated Lily with reserved respect, the Mule remained aloof toward everyone else except Paisley, whom it treated with a restrained tolerance that it had only recently begun to extend tentatively toward Lia.