The Scorpion Rules (27 page)

“And I can't let them kill you, Elián.”

“Why not?” Suddenly Elián's carefully tended anger slid into bitterness. He changed in that instant, and I did not like the change. He was polished as a Precepture Child; he was sharp as horseradish.

He was terrified.

“So they're going to kill me. There's a war, Greta. I'm the hostage.” And in an echo of my accent: “It's the way things are done.”

He was right. Somewhere in the last few weeks, I had rejected a lifetime of training, half a millennium of high purpose.

I had not even noticed.

“It's too late now, anyway.” Elián shrugged like the Abbot, turning his palm up and spreading his fingers. I wished he would laugh. I think I was half in love with him, just for his impossible laugh. He didn't laugh, though. In a clipped and precise Precepture accent, he said, “It's out of your hands.”

Below us, from the field of tents, came shouting.

G
oats—the shapers of history.

Da-Xia filled me in. Thandi and Atta had been sent to free the nanny goats. Meanwhile slight and quiet Han, one of the world's overlooked people—Han's job had been to take the tiny glass tubes of male goat pheromones from their rack in the cold cellar. He had scattered them in the grass around the Cumberland tents like micro-mines. As the Cumberlanders stirred themselves to see what was happening, they stepped on the tubes. The nannies, of course, went mad. They started knocking down the soldiers and doing rude things to their knees.

And then, from above us on the ridge, came an unearthly wailing, a series of shattering crashes. If one had not known it was a sexually excited billy goat crashing horn-first into a wood-and-wire gate, one would have thought it was a demon forcing its way into the world.

In fairness, there's not a big difference.

The gate gave a twang and crunch; Bonnie Prince Charlie gave an eldritch
Grah
of triumph and broke loose. I saw the white-and-tawny body bound by, heading downslope, bellowing.

“Han,” said Elián, softly. “You are a magnificent bastard.”

“Truly he is,” Grego whispered back. “You have no notion.”

Below us the first Cumberland tent collapsed. There was shouting, and someone fired a shot into the darkness.

I think technically we were in violation of Talis's decree banning biological warfare. If he had failed to mention goat pheromones specifically, it was pure oversight. But in this particular case, I was confident he wouldn't mind.

“Let's go,” said Xie.

“You will have to stay here,” Grego told me. “The white will give you away.” He was pulling something from his pocket—something liquid and silver in the moonlight. It wasn't until Da-Xia took it from him and started fastening it like an armband that I recognized it as fabric. It was UN blue, the mark of a noncombatant—a chaplain, a medic. And the color of our bedding. Elián was passing around big squares of—bandages? Kitchen towels? No, it was cotton gauze from the dairy. Da-Xia and Gregori tied the cloth squares round their necks.

“This is your plan?” I said. “You have cheesecloth and bedsheets.”

There was another shot from below. The Cumberland voices were getting louder, and there was the frankly terrifying sound of goats in goat love.

“Behold our assembled genius,” said Da-Xia, softly.

“I've always hated those damn symbolic blankets,” said Elián. “'Bout time they were useful.” He was knotting the cheesecloth behind his neck. “Remember,” he said to his fellow masqueraders, “it's all about attitude. You're on an urgent and righteous mission to save lives. The guards wouldn't even dream about stopping you.” He gave them a pair of thumbs-up. “
Channel
that royal entitlement, right? Greta, try to stay low. If we don't come back—”

“No,” I said. “Wait.”

Elián blanched. I saw again the flicker of his fear, and remembered again that if everything went perfectly, he'd end up in the grey room. He pulled the mask up over his face.

I could still stop them. I
should
still stop them. The plan was unfolding, and it was too late to call it off without consequence, but I should still stop them from going there—the guns, the guards, the ship.

“I don't—” I said. Would Burr strap down my hands again? Would it be the feet? Where would it stop?

“Don't,” I said. “I need to stay with you.”

“Greta,” said Xie. Tears sprang into her eyes.

“But you're in white,” said Grego.

“I should stop you,” I said. “I should but I can't. So let me—let me help you. It's my life. Let me help you.”

“We—” Gregori began.

“But you're being medics, right? You could . . .”

“Yeah, we could,” said Elián. “And you're right. It's your life.” And he scooped me up, and held me in his arms as Talis had, but Elián—taller, stronger—was better at it. It was like something in a tale. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

I lay limp in Elián's arms while he ran. The pounding of the stones under his feet seemed to go straight into my shoulders: it was like being hit with mallets.

An unfamiliar voice hailed.

“Out of the way,” Elián shouted, “out of the way!”

I decided it was theatrically acceptable to moan, and I moaned.

“Break out the decontam gear,” Elián said. “Get your gas masks! Hurry!”

“What's happening?” The stranger's voice was tight with confusion and fear.

“Some kind of chemical—” said Da-Xia, and dissolved into a fit of gagging.

But for all the commotion, we were slowing, stopping. Not good. Elián staggered to a halt, jarring me and making the red darkness behind my closed eyes flash.

“Isn't that the princess?” A different guard. At least two, then.

“And if she dies the whole game's up.” Elián had let the Kentucky mountains into his voice; it was rolling and strong, a granite boulder. “Talis will kill us all, right sure.”

“Out of the way, out of the way,” said Grego, and his attempt at a Cumberland accent was
terrible
.

Elián hoisted my weight and resettled me in his arms. A little cry broke from me, without regard for the theater of the moment.

“She's dying,” cried Elián. “Get the hell out of the way!”

The airlock went
chunk
.

And then we moved.

Elián's footsteps rang against metal, and the jostling of the rough ground changed to something harder but smoother. I could cope with it, time it to my breaths. Echoes from the metal walls, the sound of us running. The eyelid darkness was strobing. We rounded a corner, another, and then Elián staggered to a stop. He tilted, leaning against a wall. “Okay,” he panted. “Okay. Wake up, Princess.”

“Don't call me that.” I opened my eyes, blinking.

“Sorry.” Elián let me slide to the ground. His voice was low.

We were in a . . . a corridor, I suppose, a step or two from a junction with another. The space was so narrow that I was surprised that Elián could carry me through it. It was square as a duct, metal, unadorned but for the traction plating on the floor. There were pinpoint lights in the ceiling, making a rhythm of dimness and dazzle. “Where to, Grego?” asked Elián.

Grego answered. “A shock ship, for short-range transport. Troops above, troops below. This is the central level—command, communications, storage, medical.”

“So we're on the right level, but we've gotta find the communications room before the panic dies down,” said Elián. “Since the panic is being caused by goats, that's probably not going to take too long.” Da-Xia had already moved off down the corridor and was checking doors. Grego moved off in the opposite direction.

“You okay if I leave you here?” Elián asked me. I nodded, still shaken, and he stepped down the intersecting corridor, leaving me standing in the junction, swaying in the center of the world. He palmed a pressure strip and a door slid open. “Hey, it's food! Man, I could really go for something highly processed.” He did not raid the pantry but moved on, rapid and capable.

I swallowed twice, and then I took the fourth way, opposite from Elián. It took a few seconds to work out how to activate the pressure strip with my hip. The door opened. The room behind it was dark.

And in it, folded up around a glowing smartplex tablet like a spider wrapped around a fly, was Tolliver Burr.

I staggered backward and fell against the corridor wall. It should have hurt but it didn't. I felt only shock. A physical jolt, as if I'd jumped into cold water.

Burr looked up. At first he looked blankly surprised. Then he looked afraid. Then he smiled. “Hello, Greta.” His leather-tight face was lit from below by the tablet screen; the smile looked like a leer. “Did you want to see the rough cut?”

He flipped the tablet around, and I could see a still shot of my own hands, strapped down and stark against the blue-grey stone. There was a streak of blood at the edge of the plastic strap, and the knuckles were white knots.

I made some kind of noise, then.

It may have been that noise that drew my friends, or perhaps Elián had seen me fall. He was there in an instant, and the others were close behind.

“Tolliver Burr,” said Da-Xia.

“Hey, look, everybody.” Elián's voice was light but his body was shaking. “It's plan B.” And I did not know where it had come from, but there was a knife in his hand.

I could hear Talis say it:
Try murdering Tolliver Burr
.

The knife was a kitchen knife, a hand-span long, with a curved edge—a knife for chopping vegetables. The wood handle was so worn that it was nearly grey. Elián's knuckles were yellow-pale around it.

“I'll scream,” said Burr.

“Oh,” drawled Elián. “I hope so.”

The tablet clicked to life, and the recorded hands began to move, clenching and jerking. Then a smash-cut to the face. The eyes were blown wide, the mouth as open as a camera. Elián struck out and knocked the thing from Burr's grip. It skittered into the dark room behind him, where it continued to play, glowing like a small hatch in the floor. I could hear it, too: Tick. Tock. Clock . . .

Da-Xia took me under the shoulder—she had forgotten how that hurt me—and hauled me up. “We are here to shut off the snowstorm,” she said. “Do that for us.”

“Yes,” said Grego, fumbling after bravado. “Or else—”

Tolliver Burr had taken control of his fear. He smiled at Grego, indulgent. “Okay.” He stepped backward, deeper into the shadows of the low-ceilinged room. It was like a cobra slipping back into a cave. “Come in.”

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

T
he communications room was low and dim. From the hall I could see only the white of Burr's shirt and the rectangle of smartplex on the floor that was still playing the scene of me being tortured. “We can't go in there,” I said. “We can't.”

But of course we had to.

It was Grego—I think compensating for the wavering note of his “or else”—who went in first.

Tolliver Burr shot him in the neck.

The bullet clipped the side of Grego's throat. He half turned, as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder, then folded up. It was quiet, without the least fuss.

“Gregori!” shouted Da-Xia, diving for him.

Elián leapt into the darkness, toward Burr. There was a muzzle flash, and a noise as loud as if Elián had been hit by lightning. Da-Xia screamed. My knees gave way and I sat down on the deckplate.

Inches away Xie was leaning over Grego. Blood was bubbling up from his neck as if from a hot spring. He had raised a hand to it, but was not clutching at it, or not anymore. His iris implants were wide and black, and he was squinting as if curious. Da-Xia hesitated, fingers splayed and stiff. Then she pressed her hands in over his, over the wound. Dark blood welled between her fingers. Grego looked up at Da-Xia and blinked. “It's all right, Gregori,” she said. “It's all right.”