Stardogs (26 page)

Jarian burst into angry, frustrated tears. “There. That sorted him out,” said Martin Brettan with a disdainful twist of the lip. “We really cannot afford to bicker about things now.”

“As for you Yak, if you call me ‘Lady Lock-Tickler’ again, I’ll sit on
you
, never mind call for help,” said Tanzo in a grim undervoice to the surviving hi-jacker.

Sam grinned his crooked grin at her. “Anytime, Lady Lock tickler. It could be fun. And I reckon I won’t need no help.”

The dumpy woman retreated in confusion, not knowing how to reply. First having to be grateful to that blond complete airhead she’d always despised, and now picking up, what, unless she was very much mistaken, were definite sexual signals from that wiry little Yak. Well, she reflected, in an economy of scarcity you couldn’t choose your friends, and it did wonders for making one attractive to the opposite sex. It was something she had never found herself being before. Unconsciously she straightened her shoulders, and pushed her chest out a bit. The make-up she’d always turned into a disaster area was lost somewhere in the debris. She’d made no effort to find it, but now she wondered… Well, it was probably buried by now. And she’d always hated the muck. She’d just have to do without. She couldn’t see her own face so she didn’t realize what a wise decision this was.

Concussion, the medical texts will tell you, can have many strange subsequent side-effects. Things like amnesia, black-outs, delirium, chronological distortion and character shifts have been widely reported. The blow to Deo’s head had been more serious than those who worried about him realized. His bio-control training had helped to make the severity of the injury less serious… in appearance. He should have been in a hospital, under observation, on strict bed-rest. As it was, his own powers of observation were most obviously diminished. His normally preternatural sensitivity to sounds or movements, even when he was apparently asleep, just weren’t at home tonight. He slept the deep, heavy sleep of the injured and exhausted. He didn’t even hear the tiny clink of glass on glass, which would normally have stirred him instantly to watchful wakefulness.

Otto did. He growled softly. In the wan light of the two sinking moons shining into the cave he could see a person drawing the cork from the wine-bottle with his teeth. The growl did not even make his mistress stir. The dog stood up as water, their precious water gurgled down a throat. Otto barked loudly and angrily. The bottle was dropped with a terrible crash, and the sound of more breaking glass.

A headlight snapped on.

Prince Jarian was trapped in midflight. The light reflected off his wet mouth, face and shirt. Then the torch swung to focus on the pile of bottles. At least five were broken, the precious water trickling down into the sandy cave floor.

The dynamics of a society are governed not by politics or even power but by belief. And if you believe, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. And faith isn’t the only thing that moves mountains.

From the collected sayings of Saint Sugahata the Reviled

An amazing number of people buy bridges

Scrawled in pencil in the margin of the original manuscript, attributed to the sister of Sugahata, the self-made multi-billionaire Dugra Schmitt.

It was a scene of angry barking and ugly recriminations.

“It’s that damned dog’s fault! He gave me a fright!”

“It was the dog’s fault that you were stealing water?” said Tanzo.

“I just needed a tiny drink, that’s all. I wasn’t stealing. I would’ve told you in the morning! Really!” Jarian whined.

“I will kill him.” Had anyone looked in Deo’s eyes they would have seen that his pupils were unevenly dilated. The man who normally moved with catlike grace lumbered clumsily to his feet. Jarian squealed in terror. Mark Albeer, himself still groggy from sleep, saw the scion of the Empire retreat whimpering towards his bedding. Deo advanced, hands slightly outstretched, his long fingers bent like claws, twitching convulsively. The bodyguard scrambled to defend the Prince. He didn’t like the boy, but he was raised loyal. It wasn’t his place to like or dislike. He believed in the boy’s right to command, to take… even their precious water. He raised his hands, watchful. He didn’t want to have to kill the Princess’s servant. He should be able to incapacitate the fellow.

Deo came closer. Then he stepped right with blurring speed. He was so unsteady he nearly fell over, before beginning to strangle an unoffending piece of air, with brutal efficiency. When it was done he stared at the corpse he plainly saw at his feet. “An’tchai. It is done.” He knelt and began to sing in a strange, keening fashion. The song was in Ghurkali, and would have been incomprehensible even if the singing was not so appalling. It was just as well the others couldn’t understand. The re-enactment of the Dagger of the Goddess’s first killing was unpleasant enough without the psalm from the Mass of blood. Tears trickled down the man’s agonized face.

“What…?” Martin Brettan still held his pistol ready, as well as the light he had trapped Jarian in.

Mark Albeer shook his head. “The concussion, maybe? Back in basic we had a fellow who had a pole fall on him. Cracked his skull. He lost his memory. Also had fits as I remember. They had to bandage his hands and tie him to his bed.”

“Shoot him!” said Jarian, his voice quavery. “He’s not safe! He might strangle us all!”

Shari got up. “Well, I wish he’d started with you, you little toad. I’m putting him back to bed.”

“Be careful. Leave him,” said Brettan, watchfully.

She ignored this piece of sound advice. “Deo has been my loyal servant since the last Emperor died. I’m damned if I’ll leave him like this.” She walked over to him, and gently took the sobbing, singing man by the shoulder.

He looked up at her with unnaturally wide eyes. “Dewa. You will is done. Will his rebirth be closer to you?”

“At my right hand.” She quoted from the words she had heard him use when forced to deal with her enemies.

A kind of peace came across the face of man in torment. “He was dearer to me than a brother. Why must I follow this path, Goddess? Surely Sugahata was no servant of the Denaar’ Demons?” The voice was querulous, and struggling between the tenor of a boy and the deep voice of the man who had served her.

She wondered how to answer this. Again she quoted one of his favourite sayings. “Like wanton flies are we to the Gods.”

He laughed. It was a strange, melancholy sound. “It is written. It will remain no matter what the priests say and do. They can wash the land with blood. It will remain.”

He allowed her to lead her to his blankets. He lay down, and his eyes closed. His breathing, ragged a few minutes before, gradually slowed and became regular.

Shari stood up. “He’s asleep, I hope,” she said quietly. She looked across at Prince Jarian, who had carefully climbed back into his blankets and was faking sleep with poor skill. “As for water
thieves
, I think we’ll discuss that in the morning. I don’t want to disturb Deo. If he should be woken up again…. He might not throttle ghosts. Otto.”

The small dog looked up from her heels, and cocked his head. She led him to the pile of bottles, took off her cloak and put it on the ground beside them. She scooped the dog up and put it on the cloak, first administering a kiss. She patted the bottle-pile. “Guard.” Then she went back to her own bedding. Otto, who always slept beside her, made no move from where he sat, watching, listening.

Under his bed-clothes Jarian fingered the small black case he had secreted there, and thought of death. That dog first. He tucked the case into his waistband, despite the discomfort.

Martin Brettan lay in his bedding and thought of his childhood and the perimeter patrol of the palatial estate where he had grown up. He remembered the Dobermans, and watching with his father a display put on by their handlers. “Guard!?” Who would have thought that the princess’s lap-dog was anything but a lap-dog? Yet the animal had plainly been trained, and trained well. Well, it was no Doberman. A little dog like that surely wouldn’t be nearly as alert. The Viscount didn’t know much about dogs.

The sun burned down from the pale sky. Juan was already up, gathering cirrith seeds. He wore the mnemonic-crown again. It balanced at a rather rakish angle on his odd-for-a-Denaari shaped head. It would not have occurred to a living Denaari to take off the crown while the crown still lived. It would have made the creature, which the Denaari had shaped into a memory repository, unhappy. The crown-beasts used body-heat as a source of energy. Juan didn’t know that it was finding him a trifle too hot, and finding his thought output difficult to codify. All Juan knew, with the Denaari nest-minder part of his memories, was that the crown of the dead one must go back to the memory-vaults.

His new memories could picture the planet from space. He now had some idea of where he was. This was probably the edge of the Repapaa-clan’s sheeter-herd grounds. The dune-fields would be the sand-fungus lands from which the Repapaa’s justly famed delicacies were produced. Not more than twenty-five zefts flight across the dunes was the tall Roost-Repapaa. The equatorial lands were still sparely populated. The wing of fortune had surely sheltered him in landing him in such close proximity to help.