The Alliance (3 page)

“How far are we from the sea?”

“At least two days travel, more if we have to move secretly.” The question didn’t surprise Anneke. “It’s the opposite direction to your landing ground.”

“They won’t come back there.” Rachael bit back the urge to add more. She mustn’t compromise Federation procedures.

“How soon must you be there?”

“If I can leave a signal visible from the sky we have as much time as we need. Are there any large fields of grain nearby?” The simplest signal was to flatten the grain in the middle of a large field in the standard landing grid with the longest arm pointing in their direction of travel. Done at night it should mean nothing to a local.

“Nothing close.” Anneke looked thoughtful. “Nor anything on our direct line of travel. They’re all small holdings, predominately grazing. How big does your signal need to be?”

“The bigger the better, but a twenty foot square would suffice.”

“How about a number of fires lit at night?”

“It sounds risky.” Rachael didn’t like the sound of this, even if it was a near perfect way of signaling, combining visual and infrared to ensure success.

“We’d have help.” Anneke was grinning. “Draw the pattern you want on the ground. There’s a charcoal burners camp a dozen miles away. We’ll go there and persuade them where to set their next mounds. The vents at the top should show clearly.”

“You are a genius. Will they help us?”

“They’re men and lonely.” Anneke’s smile turned wicked, becoming a dare.

Rachael laughed to hide her lack of confidence. She couldn’t imagine any man resisting Anneke, but felt less certain of the effect of her charms on a local.

“First things first.” Anneke changed the subject. “These are cooked. We’d better eat now.”

Rachael joined her at the fire and ate, the first mouthful delicious and the second even better. There was no conversation until she finished her share and eyed what remained on the makeshift skillet.

“Go ahead.” Anneke chuckled. “There’s a wild apple tree behind the hut and I had a couple when I first woke.”

Rachael didn’t wait for a second invitation. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before. She finished off the hot food and accepted two wild apples as well, eating even the cores.

“That was good,” she said. “Your father taught you well.”

Her comment made Anneke smile, before she put her memories aside and became businesslike. “There are local clothes at the foot of the bed. Yours are too distinctive. We’ll use a shawl to hide the color of your hair until I can find something to dye it black temporarily. For the moment, put it into a braid.” She produced a large plastic comb.

Rachael took it, about to free her hair of it tangles, when the significance of its manufacture sank in. Thanatos had not produced this.

“You’re not the first spacers to land here.” Anneke had read her expression. “The Lord High Sheriff knew about the Federation before you arrived. That’s why he reacted so forcibly. He recognized the threat you were.”

“We came to negotiate a treaty.”

“He knew too much about your treaties to trust them. All out war might send you elsewhere.”

Rachael bit her lip. The Federation had blundered badly in believing Thanatos virgin territory. They needed an informant like Anneke, but she’d already indicated her opinion of the Federation and was unlikely to cooperate. The best Rachael could do was to listen carefully and note everything of interest for her debriefing.

* * * *

Kamran came to accept certain elements of his life as immutable. He was condemned to serve idiots and his current master was a prime example of the genus. It was his father’s fault. Too fond of the bottle to remain a spacer, he’d settled on Thanatos, married a local girl, and declined disgracefully over the years, amusing himself by educating his only son so he’d have one person he could talk to as an equal. Twenty years dead, he left Kamran to survive as best he could in a world he understood too well to believe he could change unaided.

The expansionist period on Thanatos was long gone; the ruling bloodlines fixed and guarded zealously, movement between the peasantry and the High Borns impossible. As sergeant-at-arms, Kamran was at the pinnacle of his achievable goals, barred by the Guilds from any commercial or artesian ambitions and by his bloodline from further promotion. The arrival of the Federation provided a slither of hope.

He’d been present when the news came, understanding immediately both its importance, and the need to ensure the transition was not peaceful. He needed the chaos of war to grasp his opportunity to provide a viable alternative to the current hierarchy. Goading the High Sheriff into over-reacting took only a questioning look and the fool jumped into precipitate action. Kamran had no qualms about hanging a dozen off-worlders, and would have done so, were it not for the damned redhead. She’d delayed the proceedings until the others had arrived and now cooler heads might prevail. His scouts swore she hadn’t returned to the shuttle with the others, so he had to find her and humiliate the Federation by executing her publicly, laying the blame for the act on the idiot he served.

His scouts, every one personally recruited from the mountain tribes, were combing the area, sniffing out every secret hideaway. It was only a matter of time before they flushed her from hiding. Then some form of atrocity, blamable on the High Sheriff, followed by a public execution with the trimmings.

Kamran’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. He admired the girl’s courage and the skill she’d shown in evading the searchers, but her death served his needs and pity was an emotion he couldn’t afford.

He heard a knock at the door of his tiny cubicle. “Sergeant, the companies are assembled for inspection.”

“Coming.” He rose to his feet, a little weary from forty-eight hours of continuous effort, but the poor fools must be made to fear him more than they feared the enemy if he were to preserve their lives.

One of his scouts stood at the top of the steps down to the parade ground. A dark-skinned man, small and lithe, the scalp locks of his kills festooned around his upper arms. “Fisherman talked,” he said. “Found hair caught in bottom of boat. Two women hide in forest. My brothers go before.”

Kamran nodded. He knew the scout’s methods of interrogation and the information could be trusted. This would be a good exercise for his raw troops, even if they were already dozing on their feet.

“Companies!” His parade ground voice startled them into life. “Prepare to march.”

* * * *

Anneke was dreaming.

She’d given Rachael a full day’s rest to recover from her ordeal, but they must be on their way in the morning. To the charcoal burner’s camp first to send the signal to the mother ship and then they’d go to the beach. It would be hard traveling and the girl wasn’t fit. She might have to help her.

Their destination had mixed into her dream and she was at the beach camp with Peter, Dael, and the others, but something was wrong. Peter was giving her one of his disappointed looks. Accompanied with a sigh, they signaled she’d done something stupid, but she couldn’t think what it could be.

Karrel was doing it now. Sighing loudly and shaking his head. All she needed was for Jack to get in on the act. Then all three of them were running through the woods toward her. Their faces changed, darkening as she watched, the three tribal scars on each cheek filled with red ochre.

Anneke woke and felt the fisherman’s death in their minds. Anger took charge and she gathered herself for a killing stroke.

Stop.
,”
Peter interrupted. “
Go. Take the girl. I’ll deal with them. Remember Lot’s wife and don’t look back.”
She felt his cold rage and was afraid. These small brown men had roused the whirlwind and now must ride it.

Twenty hours later, Kamran swore feelingly. Working without scouts at night was impossible. Reduced to sending sweeps of men to search areas, he’d have to take them back before the idea of desertion took hold and he lost men.

“Trumpeter, sound the Assembly. We’re going back to the barracks.”

Failure had a bitter taste. He’d lost his four scouts and the word would spread in the hill tribes, making recruitment of replacements impossible. The first combined exercise of his conscripts had degenerated into a shambles, weakening both morale and control. The redhead had gained a powerful ally—one strong enough to terrify men he’d have sworn impervious to fear.

They’d come to him trembling, their faces ashen beneath the dark pigment. “We go. No come back. Our Great Spirit has spoken.” He’d let them leave, for their terror was contagious, but couldn’t help wondering what trick reduced them to this.

The redhead had slipped through his fingers for a second time, but her luck couldn’t hold. Now she’d bear the blame for the fisherman as well. He smiled.
Poor girl, life wasn’t fair
.

* * * *

Rachael, had she known his thoughts, would have agreed with him wholeheartedly. Fortunately, she’d lain down fully clothed. Anneke roused her from a deep sleep, harried her out of the hut, and then chivied her into running blindly down a narrow trail in the growing darkness. “Hurry, we must be outside the search perimeter when his troops arrive,” Anneke instructed, adding, “Keep going,” every time Rachael slowed.

The comfortable Federation coverall was gone, replaced by a misogynist designed skirt and top in scratchy wool, last worn by somebody with a serious body odor problem. On her feet, she wore open sandals made from semi-cured leather and designed to cripple rather than protect. She felt the blisters forming with every step.

She could last five minutes more, not a second longer.

Thirty minutes later, when Anneke slowed their flight to a rapid walk, Rachael amended her limit downward to four minutes, and, an hour later when she was allowed her first rest, she decided she could have gone three minutes more without collapsing.

“Put your feet in the water,” Anneke instructed. “They’ll feel better and it will soften the leather a bit more. We’ve curved away from our route and have miles to go.”

Rachael groaned as the chilled water of the small creek stung her poor feet. She didn’t want to look at them; certain they’d be covered in blood. They felt bad enough without seeing the damage. She gathered her skirt to prevent it falling in the water and sat gingerly on a large rock, the loose folds bunched on her knees to cushion her arms.

She felt beat.

“Cheer up. We’ll be at the charcoal burner’s camp in another hour. They’ll be awake tending their mounds and will hide us till morning.” Anneke still stood and Rachael looked up to find her fingering her chin in thought. “When we get there, don’t speak unless you have to. Act shy and simper when asked a question. A touch of fear would be good. The local headman has taken advantage of you and his wife has accused you of witchcraft because rumor has it your mother slept with a Traveler before you were born. I’m another daughter of the Traveler and we’re heading to Kordobah where you’ll have relatives to protect you. We’ll tell them burning the charcoal in the pattern we want will ensure all Travelers treat them fairly. They’ll guess the signal is only part of the pattern but won’t know which part it is. I’ll mark a tree with the right recognition pattern before we leave so they will receive the treatment they expect.”

Rachael, the trained covert agent, was impressed as Anneke created a story to explain everything, get the results they wanted and memorize easily.
This Traveler girl was good
. She should have expected no less. Anneke’s race had gulled the peasants out of their hard-earned goods for centuries.

“You approve.” Anneke’s words sounded less a question than a statement. She was very adept at reading expressions, another understandable trait, but it would seem like mind reading to the average peasant.

Rachael smiled. She knew telepathy was impossible. They’d tested her extensively after she’d scored unusually high in ESP tests and found nothing. Her results dropped to average when the tests grew unpleasantly rigorous.

They sat there, Anneke gazing into the middle distance as if pondering something, and Rachael enjoying the flow of chilled water over her feet. She could feel it doing her good, the pain receding by the minute. She thought herself done, but the prospect of another hour’s walk no longer daunted her.

“We’ll move on.” Anneke had returned from her thoughts. “I want to be there before dawn.”

Rachael rose gingerly, expecting a protest from her feet, and was surprised. They felt tender, sore in places, but no real pain. Looking down at them in the dim light, she could see only paler blobs beneath the surface of the water, but the rest and the cold water had worked wonders.

“Come on.” Anneke waited at the beginning of the path. “We need to move.”

Rachael shrugged and stepped up onto the bank. “Yes. Lead on, MacDuff.” Shakespeare was still part of the school curriculum. No one had yet surpassed his skill in capturing the human condition; for all that he was an unashamed apologist for his Tudor patrons.

“Lay on, MacDuff.” Anneke corrected absent-mindedly, proving the universal attraction of the Bard.

She turned and set off down the path. Rachael shrugged and fell in behind her, keeping pace without difficulty.