The Crystal Variation (43 page)

He sighed and appeared to do some quick math.

“Not well,” he growled after a heartbeat. “But I think we’d better take the kind ser’s offer.”

“All right, then.” She eased back and he stood away from the wall, moving with something like his accustomed certainty.

Good enough.

She strolled out to the cab, and bowed to the red-haired man.

“My co-pilot and I are grateful,” she murmured, and stood back to let Jela get in first, then went after him.

Behind her, the door began to descend. The red-haired man ducked inside, slipping onto the half-bench facing them, his back to the forward screens.

“Pilots,” he murmured, as the cab hurtled into motion. “I beg you acquit me of poor manners, if I am short of conversation this next while. I am called to aid my lady. There is a field kit under your seat.” He closed his eyes and settled his back against the opaque plas shielding.

Cantra blinked and rummaged under the bench, locating the field kit and pulling it onto her lap.

“Do you know who these people are?” she asked, as she sorted out dressings and lotions.

“No,” Jela said tiredly, holding his arm out so she could get at the worst of the blood. “I don’t know who they are, but I know what they are.”

“What’s that, then?” Cantra asked, breaking out an antiseptic swab.

“They’re
sheriekas
.”

Thirty-One

THIRTY-ONE

On Port Gimlins

THE ARM WAS PATCHED
as good as she could make it, which wasn’t near as good as it needed.

She said as much to Jela, now apparently recovered from the woozies, but he only shrugged and asked her to cut off the remains of the bloody sleeve.

That done, the kit repacked and returned to its spot beneath the seat, she joined him in staring at the cab’s on-board map.

“Don’t seem to be working,” she said after a moment, and heard him sigh.

“That it doesn’t.”

She considered their rescuer, slumped, to all appearances unconscious, on the jump-seat.

He was a pretty little man, his bright red hair artfully cut and arranged in loose ringlets. He wore it long and carelessly caught over one shoulder with a twist of jeweled wire. The tunic’s long sleeves were cross-laced with black ribbons, and the elegant slippers were heavily embroidered with black silk.

He looked, Cantra thought, like a high-caste member of a High House on one of the Inmost worlds—a supposition borne out by his accent, bearing, and bow. His face was a shade too pale for proper high-caste, but she thought that might be an effect of whatever induced state he was presently in. Awake, she thought he’d be as golden-skinned as any pure-blood or deliberate copy.

“You’re sure this guy is
sheriekas
?” she asked Jela.

“Yes,” he answered shortly, his attention still on the non-functional map.

“Hm,” she said, eyeing him. “How’re you doing mostwise?”

He looked up from the map, black eyes speculative.

“I’m up for some action, if you are.”

“Fine,” Cantra said firmly. “Then there’s no reason to stick around until the ser finishes his nap.”

She reached into her vest, slipped a length of smartwire from the inside pocket, and shifted around on the bench to face the hatch.

“Get ready to jump,” she said over her shoulder. “The door likely won’t go up all the way, and it might be something of a tumble, but we should be out of here—”

The red-haired man on the jump-seat took a sudden deep breath, straightened, and opened his eyes. They were, Cantra saw, a deep and vivid blue, initially focused on something on the far side of the next sector, sharpening quickly on matters closer to hand.

“That’s done then,” he murmured, and his voice was light and cultured. He sent a glance to Jela.

“Indeed, sir,” he said, as if they had been engaged in cordial conversation. “It is my very great pleasure to correct you. Neither I nor my lady are
sheriekas
.”

Jela snorted. “Tell me you’ve never destroyed a star system.”

The little man smiled with gentle reproach. “But I am not such a fool, dear sir. Of course I have destroyed star systems. I hope you won’t think me boastful if I admit to being uniquely equipped for such work. Much as you, yourself, are uniquely equipped for fighting. Will you tell me, M. Jela, whose mandate is to protect life, that you have never killed?”

Jela smiled—one of his real ones, Cantra saw.

“No,” he said softly. “I’m not such a fool.”

The little man inclined his head, acknowledging the point. “Well answered, sir. We stand on terms.” He turned his eyes to Cantra.

“Lady,” he murmured. She held up a hand.

“Hate to disappoint you,” she said, watching his eyes, “but I’m no lady, just a Rimmer pilot.”

A flicker of amusement showed in the eyes, nothing else.

“Lady,” he repeated, courteously. “Please allow me to be at your feet—your most humble and willing servant in all things. Your well-being is more important to me than my life. There is no need to resort to such things as pick-locks while you are in my care.”

She considered him, admiring the way he blended irony with sincerity. Whoever had the training of this one had drilled him well.

Unless of course he was the genuine article, in which case she wasn’t wholly certain that she wouldn’t rather have fallen into the so-called care of Jela’s
sheriekas
.

“If my well-being means so much to you,” she said, bringing the Rim accent up so hard it rang against the ear. “Open the door and let us out.”

“In time,” he said, lifting a slim forefinger. A ring covered the finger from knuckle to first joint—an oval black stone in a black setting, carved with—

“In time,” their host-or-captor said again. “I would be careless indeed of your well-being, not to say that of the most excellent Jela, if I released you now, with enemies on the watch and information yet to be shared.”

She sighed, and slipped the smartwire back into the inside pocket. “You got a name?”

He inclined his head. “Indeed, Lady, I have a name. It is Rool Tiazan.”

“And you can blow up star systems,” she pursued, since Jela wasn’t saying anything.

“I can destroy star systems,” Rool Tiazan corrected gently. “Yes.”

“Right—destroy,” she said, amiably. “And you ain’t
sheriekas
.”

“Also correct.”

“If you’re not
sheriekas
,” Jela said, finally joining the fun, “what are you?”

“Excellent.” He placed one elegant hand flat against his chest. “I, my lady, and all those like unto us, are
sheriekas
-made, M. Jela. We were created on purpose that we should do their bidding and hasten the day when eternity belongs only to
sheriekas
; the lesser-born and the flawed merely distasteful memories to be forgot as quickly as might be.”

“If you’re
sheriekas
-made, in order to do the bidding of your makers—” Jela began and Rool Tiazan held up his hand, the carved black stone glinting.

“Forgive me, M. Jela,” he murmured, and his pretty, ageless face was no longer smiling. “You—and also you, Lady—are surely aware that choice exists. We no longer choose to perform these certain tasks on behalf of those who caused us to be as we are. We are alive, and life is sweet. There is no place nor plan for us in the eternity toward which we were bade to labor.”

He moved his hand in a snap, as if throwing dice across a cosmic cloth.

“We of the
dramliz
cast our lot in with those who are also alive, and who find life sweet.”

“That’s a fine-sounding statement,” Jela said calmly, “and you deliver it well. But I don’t believe it.”

“Alas.” Rool Tiazan tipped his head to one side. “I sympathize with your wariness, M. Jela—indeed, I applaud it. However, I would ask you to consider these things—that my lady and I have preserved your lives, and now assist you to evade those who wish you ill.”

Jela held out his hand, palm up. “The first is probably true,” he said, and turned his palm down. “For the second, we have only your word, which I’m afraid is insufficient.”

“You do not trust me, in a word,” Rool Tiazan murmured. “May I know why?”

“You do,” Jela said, mildly, “destroy star systems, as and when ordered by the
sheriekas
.”

“The correct verb is ‘did.’ I have absented myself from the work for some number of years. However, I understand you to say that there is no ground upon which we might meet in trust because I have done terrible things during the course of my training and my duty. Do I have this correctly, M. Jela? I would not wish to misunderstand you.”

“You have it correctly,” Jela said.

“Ah.” He turned his head, and Cantra felt the dark blue gaze hit her like a blow.

“Lady—a question, if you will.”

She held up a hand. “Why bother? Can’t you just grab what you want out of my mind?”

He smiled—genuinely amused, as far as she could read him.

“Legend proceeds us, I see. Unfortunately, legend is both accurate and misleading. Under certain conditions, I can indeed siphon information from the minds of others. It is not difficult, it does no harm to those so read, and may provide some good for myself and my lady. However.” He raised his jeweled forefinger.

“However, there are some individuals whom it is very difficult to read—yourself, for an instance, and M. Jela for another. And even if I could siphon the answer out of your mind, M. Jela cannot, and it is for him that I would ask the question.”

He was good, Cantra thought. And she was intrigued.

“Ask.”

“You are, I believe, full-trained as an
aelantaza
, to deceive and destroy at the word of those who caused you to be as you are. I would ask if, in the course of those exercises necessary for you to gain competence in your art, you ever took a blameless life.”

“For Jela, is this?” She faced her co-pilot. “We had—rabbits, they were called. We practiced all our kills on live targets.”

“Rabbits that ran on two feet,” Rool Tiazan murmured.

“Batch-bred?” Jela asked.

She inclined her head. “What else?”

There was a short silence, then Rool Tiazan spoke again.

“M. Jela, do you trust this lady, whose training and acts run parallel to my own?”

“I do. She’s proved herself trustworthy.”

Accidents all, but it warmed her to hear him say it, anyway, praise from Jela being coin worth having—and keeping, if she was being honest.

“Ah,” Rool Tiazan murmured. “Then I see I shall need to continue upon my path of candidness. So—”

He gestured gracefully toward the roof of the cab—or perhaps beyond it.

“While it is true that I have destroyed star systems, I must confess that those which fell to my thought were chaotic and incapable of supporting life. The more life-force—shall we call it
will
?” He paused, apparently awaiting their agreement.

“All right,” Jela said, with a shrug of wide shoulders.

“Will, then. The more will that exists within a system, the more difficult it is to bend the lines of probability into a conformation in which the extinction of the system is inevitable.

“Similarly, though I may alter probability on a less epic scale, the subsequent ripple of unanticipated changes make the practice somewhat less than perfectly useful.”

Cantra raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to say that the
sheriekas
made a design error and that you’re really not worth their trouble?”

“Not entirely, Lady. Not entirely. There is, after all, some benefit to be had from the mere reading of the lines, and by observing the congruencies of various energies. Indeed, observation of an anomaly in the forces of what we shall, I fear, have to call ‘luck’ is what brought my lady and I here to pleasant Gimlins.”

“Just in time to save our necks,” Jela commented. “I’d call that lucky—or planned.”

“You misunderstand me, M. Jela. It is neither I nor my lady who are lucky. It is you—” the slim, be-ringed forefinger pointed for a moment at Jela’s chest, then swung toward Cantra—

“And most especially
you
, Lady—about whom the luck swirls and gathers.”

“Lucky!” Cantra laughed.

Rool Tiazan smiled sweetly. “Doubt it not. Between the two of you, the luck moves so swiftly that the effect—to those such as my lady and myself—is nothing short of gravitational. We were pulled quite off of our intended course.”

“I’d be interested to hear how you’d rectify our being lucky with coming within two heartbeats of getting killed back there,” Cantra said.

“The luck is a natural force, Lady Cantra. It is neither positive nor negative; it obeys the laws binding its existence and cares not how its courses alter the lives through which it flows.”

“So you—and your lady—” Jela said slowly, “were pulled here against your will.”

“Ah.” Rool Tiazan moved his hand as if he would hand Jela a coin. “Not quite against
our
wills, M. Jela. The
dramliz
have long been aware that if we are to win free to life, we will require allies. We have further understood, through an intense study of probability and possibility, that the best allies life has against the
sheriekas
is random action. It is
our will
to take part in the chaos resulting from your necessities, from your . . .”

“Luck, in a word,” said Jela.

Rool Tiazan inclined his head. “Precisely.”

“And you think, do you and your comrades,” pursued Jela, “that the
sheriekas
can be defeated.”

The little man gazed at him reproachfully.

“No, M. Jela. The
dramliz
have come to the conclusion—as you have—that the
sheriekas
may not be defeated.”

“Then what use are allies?”

Rool Tiazan smiled.

“Because, though the
sheriekas
may not be defeated, they can be resisted, they may be confounded, they might be
escaped
,” he said softly. “Life may go on, and the
sheriekas
may have their eternity, each separate from the other.”

“Escaped how?” Cantra asked, and the blue gaze again grazed her face.

“There are several possibilities, Lady, of which we most certainly must speak. I would ask, however, that we put the discussion of how and may be into the near future, when my lady may also take part.” He paused, his head inclined courteously.