The Snow Queen (18 page)

“I know we
won’t. You didn’t have time to make the deal. But you were seen in the presence
of one of the off worlders who escaped us.”

“What are
you talking about?”

She could
almost believe that he didn’t know. “Female, age roughly seventeen standard
years, pale hair and skin.”

“She’s no
smuggler!” Ngenet pushed away from his craft, glaring.

“She was
with them when we went to make the arrest,” Gundhalinu said. “She struck the
inspector, she ran with the rest.”

“She’s a
Summer from the Windwards, her name is Moon Dawntreader. I gave her a ride, and
I left her at the inn because—” He broke off, Jerusha wondered what he was
afraid to say. “She wouldn’t know anything about it.”

“Then why
did she help them escape?”

“What the
hell would you do, if you were fresh from Summer and two off worlders burst in
on you with guns?” He paced two agitated steps between them. “What in the names
of a thousand gods would you think, if you were her? You didn’t hurt her—?”

Jerusha
grimaced again, twisted it into a smile. “Ask it the other way around.” She
wondered with more interest why he was trying to protect the girl. His
mistress?

“You said
they all escaped?”

Gundhalinu
laughed sourly. “For a man who doesn’t know anything, you’re damned concerned
about what happened tonight.”

Ngenet
ignored him, waiting.

“They all escaped.
Their craft cleared Tiamat space without damage.” Jerusha saw the expression on
his face turn into something that was not relief.

“All? You
mean she went with them?” The words came out as though each one was alien on
his tongue.

“That’s
right.” She nodded, tightening her good hand over her other elbow, pinching off
the nerve paths. “They took her off. You mean to tell me she really was an
innocent bystander, a local?”

Ngenet
turned away, struck the frost-rimed windshield of the hovercraft with a gloved
fist. “My fault—”

“And mine.
If we’d held onto them she would have been all right.”
And that’s what happens when you start trying to change the rules.

“What was
she to you, Citizen Ngenet?” Gundhalinu asked. “More than a passing stranger.”
Not a question.

“She’s a
sibyl.” He looked back at them. “It doesn’t matter if you know that now.”

Jerusha
raised her eyebrows. “A sibyl?” The wind off the bay clutched her in icy
talons. “Why—would that make a difference to us?”

“Come now,
Inspector.” His voice turned bitter, like the wind.

“We’re law
officers. We enforce the law”—liar—”and the law protects sibyls, even on
Tiamat.”

“Like it
protects the mers? Like it protects this world from progress?”

She saw
Gundhalinu stiffen like a hunter scenting his prey. “How long have you been
living in the outback, Citizen Ngenet?”

“All my
life,” with a kind of pride. “And my father before me, and his father ... This
is my homeworld.”

“And you
don’t like the way we’re running it?” Gundhalinu made it a challenge.

“Damn right
I don’t! You try to choke the life out of this world’s future, you let a maggot
like Starbuck wipe his boots on you while he slaughters innocent beings for the
gratification of a few filthy-rich bastards who want to live forever. You make
a mockery of ‘law’ and ‘justice’—”

“And so do
you, Citizen.” Gundhalinu stepped forward; Jerusha could see everything that
had locked into place inside his head. “Inspector, it seems likely to me that
this man is involved in more serious criminal activities than just smuggling. I
think we ought to take him back to the city—”

“And charge
him with what? Behaving like an arrogant fool?” She shook her head. “We have no
evidence that would justify that.”

“But he—”
Gundhalinu gestured, accidentally struck her arm.

“Damn it,
Sergeant, I said we’re letting him go!” She lost his startled face in a burst
of pain stars Blinking, she refocused on Ngenet instead. “But that doesn’t mean
I’m letting you off completely, Ngenet. Your presence here and your attitude
are questionable enough to warrant my revoking your permit to operate this
hovercraft. I’m impounding it. We’re taking it back to the city.” A trickle of
perspiration crept down the side of her face, burning cold.

“You can’t
do that!” Ngenet straightened away from the hovercraft’s door, towering over
her. “I’m a citizen of the Hegemony—”

“And
required to obey me.” She lifted her head to glare back at him. “You’re a
citizen of Tiamat, by your own choice. If that’s what you want, then you can
live like one.”

“How am I
supposed to run my plantation?”

“Just like
any other Winter. Use a ship, deal with traders. You’ll get along fine, if
that’s all you really need it for .... Or would you rather take the trip to
Carbuncle with us, and have your plantation electronically searched for contraband?”
She watched him struggle against speech, and was gratified.

“All right.
Take the vehicle. Just let me get my things.”

“That won’t
be necessary.”

He looked
back at her.

“I’ll drop
you off at your plantation before I take the craft to Carbuncle.. BZ, you’ll
pilot the patroller home.”

Gundhalinu
nodded; she saw some of his disappointment shaken loose in the motion. “You
want me to tandem you, Inspector?”

“No. I
don’t think Citizen Ngenet is going to do anything stupid. He doesn’t strike me
as a stupid man.”

Ngenet made
a sound that was not really a laugh.

“We might
as well get started.” She bent her head grimly at the patrol craft
It’s going to be a long trip
.

“Yes,
ma’am. See you in Carbuncle, Inspector.” Gundhalinu saluted and walked away.

She watched
him get into the patrol craft watched it rise from the stone terrace of the
quay. The sky was clouding over again; she shivered more violently. At
least Carbuncle has central heating ...
suddenly longing for the touch of a warm wind fragrant with sillipha, the
endless summer afternoon of her childhood on Newhaven. “Well, Citizen Ngenet—”

Ngenet
reached out, his hand closed gently but firmly over her aching arm. She gasped,
stiffening with surprise and sudden alarm.

“Ah,” as he
held up his other hand in a cautionary gesture. He let her go. “I just wanted
to be sure. The Summer girl hurt you, Inspector. Maybe you better let me see
how badly.”

“It’s
nothing. Get in.” She looked away from him, jaw tight.

He
shrugged. “Feel free to be a martyr if you like. But it doesn’t impress me. As
you say, I’m not a stupid man.”

She looked
back. “I prefer to wait until I can see a medic at the star port

“I am a
qualified medic.” He turned, pressed his hand against a seal on the side of the
hovercraft. A storage compartment opened, but in the poor light she could not
see what was inside. He removed a dark satchel, set it on the ground and pulled
it open. “Of course,” he glanced up with a sardonic smile, “you’d probably
consider me to be a vet. But the diagnostic tools are the same.”

She frowned
slightly, not understanding, but let him take her hand and run the scanner
along her arm.

“Hm.” He
released her hand again. “Fractured radius. I’ll splint it temporarily, and
give you something for the pain.”

She stood
silently while he tightened and sealed the rigid tube of the splint around her
arm. He pressed a small, spongy pad into the palm of her ungloved hand; she
felt blissful nothingness begin to extinguish the fires up her arm, and sighed.
“Thank you.” She watched him put the bag away, wondered suddenly whether he saw
her as a gullible female. “You know this isn’t going to change my mind about
anything, Ngenet.”

He reseated
the compartment, said brusquely. “I didn’t expect it to. I was indirectly
responsible for your getting hurt; I don’t like that. Besides”—he faced her
again—”I expect I owe you something.”

“What do
you mean?”

“For
offering me a choice of the lesser of two evils. If that overeager sergeant of
yours had his way, I expect I’d end up a deportee.”

She smiled
faintly. “Not if you have nothing to hide.”

“Who among
us really has nothing to hide, Inspector PalaThion?” He unsealed the
hovercraft’s door, watching her with a faint smile of his own. “Do you?”

She circled
the craft, waited until he unlatched the far door and settled in carefully.
“You’ll be the last to know, Ngenet, either way.” She fastened the straps
one-handed.

He said
nothing, but went on smiling as he started the power unit. And all at once she
was not so certain that he would be the last one.

“... So his
presence there gives us reason to think the man may be involved in the
interference with the mer hunts. I personally confiscated his hovercraft,
though; I don’t think he’ll give your hunters much trouble without it.”

Arienrhod
rested her head against the flower-fragrant pillow that protected her from the
cold back of the throne; listened to the inspector give her tight-lipped report
with much more interest than she allowed herself to show. She read the look the
woman gave Starbuck as she finished speaking, and sensed more than saw his
reaction to it. He had driven off the arrogant boot who was PalaThion’s
assistant some time back, much to his amusement; she had enjoyed his graphic
fantasies of what he would do to the woman if he had the chance. She had no
particular interest in Starbuck’s past, but it intruded into the present in
ways that sometimes surprised her ... though he rarely surprised her in any way
at all any more. “Who is this man, Inspector? Why didn’t you arrest him, if you
knew he was guilty?” Her voice was sharp with the need to uncover a deeper
mystery that shrouded
Shotover
Bay
.

“I didn’t
have sufficient evidence,” PalaThion said ritually, as though it was something
she had repeated over and over. “Since he is an off worlder he’s under Hegemony
jurisdiction in any case, Your Majesty, so his identity wouldn’t be of use to
you.” Her expression became a shade more stubborn.

“Of course,
Inspector.” And I can find it out easily enough, off worlder She glanced down
at the foot of the dais, at the bright, burnished head of Sparks Dawntreader
where he sat uneasily on the steps. She had sent the crowd of jabbering nobles
away on the inspector’s arrival, and for the same private reasons had ordered
the boy to stay. PalaThion had stared at him with astonishment showing. And
Arienrhod had seen
Sparks
’s
body stiffen with what might have been pride as PalaThion bent her head in a
brief acknowledgement of his new station. “Did you also see the Summer girl to
whom this off worlder of yours gave a ride?”

PalaThion
started visibly; she had not mentioned the girl. “Yes I did, Your Majesty.” Her
left hand moved unconsciously to press the thin sheath of cast on her right
arm. “But she didn’t stay to be questioned. She ran off with the smugglers when
they made their break. They—got away from us, as you know,” she glanced down,
“and they took her off-planet with them.”

“No!”
Arienrhod pushed forward, the one word escaped between her teeth before she
could trap it.
Gone,
gone
...
?
She loosened her fists, sat back again fluidly as she felt
three sets of eyes move to her face. The inspector’s brown, deep-set ones
narrowed with calculation; Arienrhod realized that she must have noticed the
remarkable resemblance. But PalaThion only looked down again, as though she
were unable to follow the suspicions through to any logical end.

“Do you
know the girl’s name? I have reason to believe that she may have been
a—kinswoman.” Let PalaThion make of that what she wished.

“Her name
was Moon Dawntreader, Your Majesty.”

Expecting
it, she kept her reaction under control this time, felt the surge of emotion
sing inside her body. But below her the boy, hearing the name and understanding
at last, dropped his flute. It rolled down from the step onto the carpet at
PalaThion’s feet, soundlessly, leaving the silence of the hall perfect.
PalaThion looked at the boy for a long moment before she looked up.

“I’m sorry
this happened, Your Majesty.” She glanced at the boy again as she said it, as
though she had realized there was some tie between them. “I—don’t think anybody
meant it to happen that way.”

Not half as sorry as I am
.
Arienrhod twisted a ring with her thumb.
And not half as sorry as you will be, off
worlder
“You are dismissed, Inspector.”

PalaThion
saluted and walked quickly away toward the Hall of the Winds, her red cape
flaring behind her. Arienrhod’s hands tightened again, trembling.
Sparks
stood, picked up
his flute, struggling with grief and bewilderment. “Your Majesty, I—may I go
... ?” He kept his leaf-green eyes downcast; his voice was barely a whisper.