Revolution's Shore (3 page)

“—sealed tunnel thirty-six from further incursions, but left five cells without—”

“—regroup to point Alpha. Their resistance may prove too difficult to—”

“We have complete control of Portmaster's functions. I repeat. Portmaster's is now under Jehanist control. Supply and transport ships may now commence landing sequence. Acknowledge.”

Lily toggled the “static” switch. At the back of her mind nagged some reference, forgotten but familiar.

“Accepted. This is Vanov, on the
Boukephalos
. We will be sending an initial track of two supply boats and three transports to land at point two rev intervals. Acknowledge.”

“Accepted. Block is not equipped to deal with landings at higher than point four frequency. Acknowledge.”

“Accepted. Will alter the schedule. First boat in close orbit. Will enter Block instrument range in point three.”

“Accepted. And out.”

“Finch.” Lily sat frozen in astonishment, static crackling from the speaker at her fingertips, as the voice of the Main Block's comm suddenly fell into place in her memory. “Finch!”

Pinto glanced at her, curious, but returned his attention to the controls.

“Who's Finch?” asked Jenny, alert to the tone in Lily's voice.

“How the Void did he get here?” Lily asked of no one.

In the back of the shuttle, Kyosti had been resting, eyes closed, relaxed, but now his posture changed abruptly. He sat up, not stiff, but poised on some brink, and opened his eyes to examine with tight intensity Lily's profile as she reached for a new control on her banks. She opened her stations for broadcast.

“Lily,” began Jenny, “are you sure—”

“Main Block. Main Block, acknowledge.”

“This is Main Block. Identify yourself. All unidentified ships will be considered hostile. We are under Jehanish authority. Acknowledge.”

“Finch.”

“Who is—Lily!”

“How did you—”

“How did you—”

There was a slight delay as their signals bounced and returned off each other, and a second as they each waited for the other to speak. At last Lily spoke.

“Where can we land?”

A pause.

“Field Blue. There'll be tight security measures. Troops. But I'll meet you, Lily. I'll leave now. And out.”

A different voice guided Pinto down to the flat plain where a series of low domes rose like slowly emerging boils from the ground. He landed the shuttle smoothly on a strip lined by blue lights and taxied in to the nearby blue-lit dome. Around them, the air sat free of wind but permeated by a constant downward sifting of some heavy white element, drifting constantly to meld into the sandy surface of the planet. The shuttle's wheels barely stirred this dust, but its falling made a soft drumming noise on the metal above them.

The sound of the lock change rang through the hull, and then Pinto rolled back the layer of protective sheeting and they could see the huge cargo hold they now entered.

The harsh gleam of fluorescent tubing cast unpleasant shadows onto the cluster of white-uniformed troops that had assembled by the loading dock. All of them had guns out.

Pinto coasted into the berth and turned to Lily. “Should I open the hatch?”

“Yes.” She unstrapped herself. “I'll go out first. Find Finch, and explain.”

“Who are they?” asked Aliasing as Lily passed her.

“Jehane's people. Bach, see if you can get any fix from communications on where Jehane himself might be. But do it surreptitiously.”

Bach whistled his assent. Aliasing settled back into her chair, looking more thoughtful than apprehensive.

As Lily waited at the lock, Kyosti rose decisively to stand directly behind her. Jenny, alert as any trained mercenary must be, unbelted quickly and followed him out through the lock, loosening a strap on one of her guns as she went.

Lily descended the hatch stairs as the doors slowly lowered before her. With a sense almost of disorientation, she saw Finch standing, out alone in front of Jehane's troops, in what might have been the same posture that she had last seen him in, watching as she left Unruli.

The hatch rang on metal as it hit the floor of the hold, and she and Finch started forward together. He now had a slight grin on his face, bemusement mixed with real happiness, but tempered by some sorrow behind it all.

“Lily!” He put out his hands as he neared her. Without thinking she stretched hers out as well, so that their hands were closing, almost touching now—

She did not reach him.

The attack took her so completely by surprise, with half her attention on Finch and the other half, wary by experience, on the white-uniformed soldiers, that Kyosti was already on top of Finch, choking him with the kind of quiet conviction that is most dangerous, before Lily registered the fact that he had broken past her and thrown himself on her old friend.

For an instant, the only sounds were of Finch's struggling, growing weaker. Kyosti said not a word.

The soldiers had frozen in much the same disbelief as Lily had, their mirror opposite. Kyosti's hands, long fingered and very pale, fitted neatly about the dark turn of Finch's neck. Finch's black hair was longer than it had been; its black ends brushed Kyosti's taut wrists.

Lily's knees gave out, and she threw herself forward. There was a hissing bolt. She sensed in her peripheral vision that Jenny had stepped to one side and shot.

Kyosti shuddered, stiffened, and fell on top of Finch.

The soldiers broke forward in a wave.

Eyes wide with panic, Finch threw Kyosti's body off him and scrambled gasping away to one side. As Lily rushed up to him, he leapt up to his feet and jerked away from her, leaving her caught in between the two men.

She stopped, and turned abruptly around to kneel by Kyosti. White uniforms surrounded them, guns trained on them, and Jenny was shoved through the crowd to stand with arms raised high, away from her weapons, beside Lily's kneeling form.

“Just remember,” said Jenny laconically. “I'm the one who shot him. Just stun, Lily-hae.”

Lily put her hand on Kyosti's neck and felt his pulse, then rose slowly, hearing the question implicit in Jenny's tone. A few of the soldiers had lowered their guns, relaxing. Lily quickly picked out the officer.

“Let me speak with you and Finch,” she said.

The officer did not take his eyes off of Kyosti's prostrate form. “He'll have to go in custody. What is he? A maniac?”

Behind, Lily could hear Finch's gasping chokes as he fought to regain his breathing. “I don't know,” she replied, suddenly cold with a memory of Kyosti breaking a chair that no one of human strength should have been able to break. “But I do ask that you leave Jenny”—she nodded toward the dark mercenary—“with him.”

“Agreed. Who else do you have in the shuttle?”

“Three more people and a 'bot. We're here to join Jehane.”

“Right.” The officer examined her skeptically and motioned to his soldiers. “Alsayid's ten take control of the ship—full custody of the vessel and contents and crew until I personally give other orders. Inonu, your ten to escort these two to a holding cell. Strict security. You four accompany me, and the rest—stay with Alsayid.” With his pistol, he waved Lily forward. “We'll go to the command center, you and I and comrade Caenna.”

Lily turned to see Finch's gaze fixed on her with mournful accusation. He rubbed his throat with his left hand.

“You'll understand that I take an escort with us,” added the officer.

“Yes,” agreed Lily. “I understand.” She studied Kyosti a moment more, glanced at Jenny, at the shuttle, and then followed the officer. Finch, walking alongside, kept two soldiers between him and her the entire way to the command center.

C
OMRADE OFFICER YEHOSHUA WAS
a stocky man with old, white, finger-length scars on his arms that Lily recognized as the legacy of years of cable stripping on asteroid mines. Against the dusky bronze of his complexion, the lines showed doubly strong. His face had an unexpectedly lean cast, punctuated by his shrewd scrutiny of her as they settled into seats in a small room behind com-central. He had left his pistol outside, after she had been thoroughly searched.

Finch sat beside him, still shaking. Lily slumped back in her hard chair with a sigh. Yehoshua pointedly said nothing. Through the closed door, Lily could hear the desultory conversation of their four escorts. Farther, a low hum of machinery shut on and off at intervals.

“Who is that man?” Finch stood up, as if startled by his own outburst. He glared at Lily. “Who is he?”

Lily stood also and put out her hands. “Finch.”

“Stay away from me.” Finch retreated behind Yehoshua, who did not shift except to keep his gaze leveled on Lily's face.

“I didn't know it would happen,” she pleaded. “I swear to you, Finch. I didn't know. It took me as much by surprise—Hoy. Do you think I'd have let him out of the shuttle if I'd known?”

He shook his head, infinitesimally. “Then who is he? Why did he try to kill me?”

She sat down, covering her eyes with one hand. “I don't know. I don't know who he is.” Removed her hand to look at Yehoshua, who regarded her without expression. “That's not what I mean. I know who he is. Void help me, Finch, I don't know why he did it.”

She halted, brought to two realizations at once. “Hoy,” she said in an undertone. “That can't be. But he said—” Her gaze had drifted to the wall, but abruptly she sat up straight and looked first at Finch, then at Yehoshua.

Finch watched her warily, but with hope. Yehoshua examined her with the intent gaze of a well-trained and acute observer. She kept her expression passive as she considered Kyosti's behavior: she knew quite well that she had never mentioned Finch by name to him—and yet she knew with equal conviction that Kyosti had tried to murder Finch now because Finch had once been her lover.

Yehoshua still did not speak.

“All right,” she said decisively, returning her gaze to Finch. “He's my lover, Finch. I just never realized how jealous he is. It won't happen again.” I hope, her thoughts amended.

Finch blanched. “
He's
your lover. Hoy, Lily. It's easy for you to say it won't happen again. And where have you been all this time?”

“Yes, comrade,” said Yehoshua quietly. “Where
have
you been? And why do you want to join Jehane?”

Lily smiled, shifting her hands to her lap to give herself a more demure, less threatening posture. “I haven't made a very auspicious beginning, have I?” she asked. The barest smile touched the line of Yehoshua's lips. As she expected, he did not reply. She returned her gaze to Finch. “But I don't understand why
you're
here, Finch. When I left Unruli …” she trailed off.

“Blame Central for that.” His expression twisted into one akin to hatred: the Finch she had known, easygoing almost beyond belief, seemed lost in that face, as if a stranger now stood before her. “They arrested us—for helping the booters. Came down hard all across Unruli. I don't know why. Dad they let go, since he never was in on any of our system. But Mom and Grand'mam and Swann and I they shipped here—without a hearing, with nothing! An Grand'mam was sick.” His voice cracked. “She's dead, Lily. They stuck her in the twenties dig with a bunch of filthy tattoos. They knew the dig was unsafe, unstable, but they had a rich lode in the twenty-eight tunnel, so they sent tattoos, and anyone else they considered worth as little as
that
, down there. And it blew. They hit a pocket of explosive gas. The whole twenties dig had to be shut down. Almost three hundred people were killed.”

“And some two thousand Ridanis as well, I believe,” added Yehoshua as if in afterthought.

Finch shrugged. “If you count tattoos, I guess. But Grand'mam was down there. They never even got the bodies out.” His lips twisted down with bitter anger. “They didn't want to risk any of their personnel down there. They could at least have sent some tattoos to check the—”

Yehoshua lifted a hand, a deceptively casual gesture that cut Finch off. “Comrade, I understand your grief. But it is not you who are being questioned.”

“We know each other,” said Lily quietly. “We grew up together. What about Swann and your mother, Finch?”

He glanced at Yehoshua, sat down, like a sigh. “Mom's in hospital. She got shot in the first fighting, but she'll live. Swann's still out in the thirties dig—the last of the old guard sealed it off and now they're waiting it out, hoping to hold off until reinforcements come. But I don't think any message has gone out, so it's just a matter of time.” He grimaced. “All we know is that casualties in the thirties, prisoner and guard alike, have been high. They destroyed the access trains and tubes, just outside the peripheral living blocks. No one knows who's left.”

Yehoshua frowned. “I think that is enough, comrade Caenna.” He reached into his jacket and removed Lily's com-clip from a pocket and inserted the clip into a viewer on the stand to his right. “Lilyaka Ash Heredes. That
is
your name?”

Because he was looking at Lily, he missed Finch's reaction: a slight start, subsiding quickly into a neutral mask.

Lily, seeing this, merely shrugged. “Yes.”

“You are registered here as an instructor at the Abagail Street Academy on Arcadia. Is that also correct?”

“I did work there, but I resigned. I worked for Pero the last months I spent on Arcadia. He's why I had to leave. Martial law was declared by Central, and they executed a man they claimed was Pero but who was not. Pero is still alive. This news I
know
is not yet known to Jehane, because only a military cruiser traveling the direct route here could have gotten here faster than we did.” And they would not have had Pinto piloting, she added to herself.