To Hold Infinity (31 page)

“Why, yes,” said Yoshiko, astounded.

“Small universe.” The man chuckled. “Can you wait a moment?”

“Yes, of course.”

Hunched on a stool behind his counter, looking like a wise and energetic gnome, he rapidly folded a sheet of grey paper into the shape of a bird, which he held out on his palm to Yoshiko.

“Could you give that to Jana, please? With my compliments.”

“I'd be delighted.”

She placed the small bird carefully in her bag. She waved as she left the shop. When she looked back, the storekeeper was sucking an ancient pipe into life, and poring over one of his books.

Yoshiko smiled, and turned away.

 

The skimmer voyage was a loud, bumpy ride through an ochre dust-storm. Afterwards, things grew worse. Abandoning the skimmer on a valley floor, the party of seven, protected by clumsy environment suits and linked by smartrope, trudged through knee-deep dust and sand, leaning against the wind.

Kerrigan led them up a slope and into a system of caverns, where the storm was reduced to a distant howl.

While they shucked the env-suits, one of the Agrazzi bumped into Tetsuo.

“Watch it, Terran.” Hand going automatically to his belt.

“Save it, Avern.” Kerrigan's voice was level, accepting no argument.

Roped together again, they left the env-suits, and began the steady climb upwards through caverns and tunnels, sliding on scree slopes and struggling up underground waterfalls.

Tetsuo thought he was going to die.

Nothing had prepared him for this sort of physical effort. Thighs weak, lungs giving out. He was only vaguely aware that he was slowing down the others; the pace was still incredible.

Dhana encouraged him, whenever she was close.

At the base of a subterranean cliff, they split into three teams: Kerrigan and Brevan, Dhana and Avern and another Agrazzus, the last Agrazzus and Tetsuo.

Kerrigan and Brevan led the climb. When they were halfway up, Dhana's team ascended, reaching the midpoint just as Kerrigan and Brevan reached the distant top.

“I don't think I can do this.”

“You have to.”

The teams were linked by rope: both teams above helped to haul Tetsuo up, keeping him as much as possible in a chimneylike fracture where he could brace against both sides. His companion, like an agile spider, moved around him, helping him.

The weight of Tetsuo's small pack was like an invisible hand tugging his back, trying to pull him off the rock.

After a while, firmly anchoring himself in a sharp twist of the chimney, he gestured for another rest.

“Why—?” His breath was a gasp. “Why climb…without tech?” They had even run out of smartrope: most of the links between them were dumb fibre.

The Agrazzus with him leaned casually from a handhold. “No microwaves to be detected. And we're used to it. We weren't expecting you to—”

“Look out!” An urgent shout from above.

A dark shape dropped past them. A body.

“I can't hold him!” Dhana's voice, shrill with strain.

The rope from Dhana to the fallen man was a trembling line just centimetres from Tetsuo's face. Without thinking he grabbed it with both hands, wedged his feet more firmly into their holds, and held on.

The smartgel on his hands increased its friction coefficient. Then, hand over hand, finally with a use for his bulk and strength, Tetsuo hauled, while his companion unroped and climbed down to help the unconscious man's body up and over obstacles.

Once they were belayed, all the others descended, roped the fallen man up, and ascended in stages to the top.

Later, while they sipped daistral around a portable autofact, the injured man came unsteadily over to Tetsuo.

“Thanks, man.” His voice was awkward. “Heard what you did.”

“No problem.” Tetsuo kept the satisfaction from his voice, and clapped the man's shoulder. “Any time, Avern.”

 

It was the man from the fountain.

Yoshiko stepped into a doorway, then slowly looked out. Down the long arcade, with looping ceramic arches to one side, small groups of people walked with tourists' lack of haste.

There, dressed in grey. She was sure it was him. He moved slowly, hands in pockets, turning every now and then to admire one of the little gargoyles which protruded from the walls: an unobtrusive way to keep checking behind him.

A smartatom miasma would be easier, but perhaps that would set off the stores' own security systems.

She waited for him to turn away again, then left the cover of her doorway and ran with silent steps to an archway, jumped on an elevator disk, and felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as it descended too rapidly.

Sure he had not seen her. Yoshiko walked quickly nonetheless, heading through a stone-paved rest area, down a flight of iron steps that were purely for decoration, into a wide disused hall.

Water dripped from a moss-strewn colonnade onto dank black puddles, and a cold draught whipped a ragged sheet of dead smartfilm across broken paving-stones.

Which way?

Clutching her bright bag of gifts—suddenly incongruous, here—she strode rapidly across the hall, footsteps echoing sharply back, and took a short grimy tunnel. She stopped, heard no one following, and carried on.

She was in a cheerless grey quadrangle, flanked by a block of red-brick apartments, the walls ravaged by femtovirus graffiti. There was no one in sight.

Through a gap, high above, she could see a gold cupola above a white minaret. A landmark. If she kept going left and down, she should end up close to the Sanctuary.

This was hardly the route the storekeeper had recommended.

She plodded on, feeling a strange sense of dislocation: not quite lost, not quite knowing where she was going, sure only that she was in desperate need of rest.

It felt as though she had not slept for a week.

The path was tiled, and led along an underpass. To her left, a dark grey dome rose, scarred here and there with burn marks.

She followed the broken tiles. Overhead, beneath a canopy, a lone glowglobe buzzed, trying to escape upwards. Damaged somehow, desperate to obey the dawn's recall signal, unable to fly back to its eyrie for recharging. Eventually, depleted, it would drop.

Stopping by the grey dome, Yoshiko crouched a little, sighting between gaps. There. The minaret was more or less where she expected it to—

Toecap.

Dizziness overcame her. The toecap of a boot appeared to be protruding straight out of the wall. Impossible.

A hand grabbed her throat, and something hard smashed against the back of her knee and her leg buckled.

A section of wall disappeared: a holo illusion.

When attacked, the warrior steps forwards.

Dazed, down on one knee, she looked around her.

Burning, against her temple.

“Don't move, bitch.”

Lattice-blade
. Her nostrils flared at the ozone smell.

There were three of them, and she had already lost the moment. Should have moved as soon as she saw the toecap.

The lattice-blade's cutting-field hummed and crackled.

Don't risk your life for a handful of credits
. One streetwise instructor.
Run if you can. Tackle a weapon only if they mean to kill you.

Another had said:
Retaliate first
.

Didn't matter.

Too late.

Just as with Vin. Always too late…

The stink of burning hair, but she kept her head still. The latticeblade field could blossom in nanoseconds, expanding a hundred times faster than a fighter's reflex-speed.

“Yo, bitch.” A tall narrow boy in front of her. Sleeveless jerkin, cut open to the waist, a graser bulging in its pocket. A glistening blue dragon-tattoo coiled around his pale hairless chest. The dragon turned its bulbous eyes on Yoshiko, and hissed.

The one behind her had not moved.

If the lattice-blade was configured for constant size, she could go for the wrist…but if the field was set to expand at her movement, it would slice through her head before she could turn.

This is not a training session.

“Let's do her.”

One of them tugged the bag from her grasp. She let it go.

A wave of violent shuddering passed through the third street-fighter—fast, muscles almost flickering—and then the fit dissipated, was gone.

Storm Crystal addict.

Leering, he reached for her tu-rings.

Don't move.

Should have reacted as soon as she saw the foot, before he primed the cutting-field…

A hand removed the bracelet—the wrist terminal from Xanthia—from her wrist.

“Bloody tight.”

The tu-rings—still glowing dull, useless orange—were what he wanted now.

“You can't get the rings off the fingers—” The third one waved his blade, and the air itself burned and crackled. “You take the fingers off the hand.”

The first ring came off, and Yoshiko closed her eyes.

Don't—

Half dead on her feet, quite at the end of her tether, and her spirit was gone.

Another ring. One left, plus her wedding-band.

The lattice-blade field could expand faster than she could blink.

Please don't take the wedding-band.

“Ain't worth nothin', bitch.”

Had she spoken aloud?

“Damn tight. Won't come off.”

Not her wedding-band: the last tu-ring.

She was conscious of the splint around her left forearm.

“I say we do—”

“Shuddup.”

The crystal addict was beginning to tremble.

She could see the pulse in his carotid artery. A vulnerable point: but the lattice-blade had not moved from her temple.

Her strength was gone.

“
Hey!
” A distant shout.

The three thugs froze, and looked over Yoshiko's shoulder. The one with the graser raised it, as though to aim.

“Forget it, Braz.”

“I say we—”

“No way. They're real bad asses. Haven't you heard?”

“I—Ah, shit. Let's go.”

Strike the wrist—

The pressure came off, and Yoshiko almost swooned at the release.

“No, Braz!”

She sank down.

“Come on!”

Their boots clattered loudly as they ran.

 

Black boot and trouser leg. A swirl of black cape, edged with silver.

Yoshiko was sitting on the cold ground, hugging her knees, trembling uncontrollably. Shock, she knew. The aftereffect of adrenaline-dump.

It made no difference; her mind was rational but her body still shook.

Silver trim, not gold: a Pilot Noviciate.

A strong hand helped Yoshiko to her feet.

She could not speak.

“Let's get you indoors.” The young Pilot held her tightly around her shoulders, supporting her, and with his free hand used a square of silk to dab at Yoshiko's face.

Tears, too. Embarrassing.

“Thank—” She cleared her throat. “Thank you, Edralix.”

Remembered his name, at least. The young man she had spoken to from Lori's house.

“Just a moment.”

When he was sure Yoshiko could stand unassisted, Edralix bent and picked something up.

It was the small folded paper bird.

“From Roger?” He smiled when Yoshiko nodded. “Jana will like that.”

They started along the broken tiled path. As the tiles gave way to cobbles, they passed a building which might have been a church, and crossed a small arched bridge spanning a stream. On a wide green, tables were set out for picnics, and small groups of children were flying kites.

Amazing, how the city could change character in such a short distance.

“How did you know I was there?” asked Yoshiko, as they walked through the grass.

Beyond, a gravelled track led to ornate black iron gates set in a grey stone wall.

“Roger called, asking if you'd arrived safely.”

“The storekeeper. Kind of him.”

The gates rolled open at their approach.

“He's a little more than a shopkeeper.”