WARP world (35 page)

Seg looked up at Geras’s hovering frame, “You have to leave this room.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Go upstairs, cousin,” Brin said, riffling through a small chest of herbs.

“My sister…” Geras protested.

“Exactly,” Brin said. “This is difficult enough as it is without your eyes on my every move. Unless you’d like to be the one to cut her open?”

Convinced, Brin led Geras away and returned with the rest of the items. “What now?” Brin asked.

Seg took the slivee, a natural topical anesthetic, and rubbed it around the wound. Ama stirred, he grimaced and settled himself on her legs. “Hold her down.” As Brin complied, he continued the vigorous rubbing–according to the auto-med, the more saturated the area was with the slivee, the more effective the ‘freezing’.

“Now,” he said, eyes on the readout. “This is going to be tricky. First order of business is to remove the projectile. I will pin her down. You will make the cut. I would have it the other way around but…” he gestured to his wounded arm. “Tie her good arm to the bed; I’ll hold the legs and the other arm.”

Seg’s eyes flicked to the auto-med again. Removing the projectile wouldn’t be so bad, as long as they avoided the artery, and the vein, and, well, Brin had best have very steady hands

Once Ama was immobilized, Seg guided Brin through the preparation. He was no coward and had obviously done similar rough-and-ready first aid, though nothing of this sophistication. There was a moment of hesitation, however, this being his precious cousin and not one of his fellow resistors. Brin soaked the blade in the alcohol as ordered, then readied himself.

“When we go in, you can’t hold back,” Seg informed him. “Your movements must be deft and sure. I will direct you.”

Brin made the first cut. Unfortunately, they had nothing to generate suction, which made for a mess and slowed their work. Ama squirmed unconsciously but thankfully was still weakened by her ordeal. Seg grunted, as she jarred his bad arm, but maintained the pressure on her limbs. “Keep moving!”

Brin had some difficulty grasping the projectile but, once he did, it came out with relative ease. It was a round, silvery ball. A primitive construct. Seg had Brin continue to poke at the wound and pick out any obvious scraps of clothing or other foreign debris.

The auto-med had enough antiseptic for a few days and would direct treatment to that region so long as it was attached. Seg would make sure it stayed attached as long as needed. Also, it would direct her immune system to aggressively attack any signs of infection and stimulate rapid tissue regeneration.

Seg sat back and mopped the sweat from his brow with his good hand. She would survive and, with proper care, regain full use of her arm.

Now to get his arm properly immobilized, and then talk to Brin further. The idea that had come to him only that morning, during his run-in with Geras, had taken hold in his latest dealings with Brin and even the scoundrel Viren.

Then something struck him, “Parentless son of a—” he swore, cutting himself off before finishing. Brin looked at him quizzically. “Never mind,” Seg said. He had forgotten his damn razor on the boat. “I need a razor. For shaving.”

Brin’s mouth fell open and then, for the first time since finding Seg on the riverbank, he laughed.

Amazingly enough, Seg found himself chuckling along with Brin, then actually laughing. It was a release from the stress, a reaction to the pressure. But also, there was something infectious about Brin, a sort of easy-going affability.

He could see how the man could easily attract followers. Furthermore, he had seen some evidence that he could competently manage them as well. The two skills were often far enough apart to seem mutually exclusive.

“I thought I’d met every person there is to know; you’ve proven me wrong. You will have a razor,” Brin said. He eyed Seg for a long moment, then pointed to the auto-med sleeve on his cousin’s arm, “But you also promised me an explanation.”

“I should ask, first, which secrets of mine did Ama not share with you? And I’ll assume she drugged me before we arrived in port, despite her assurance to the contrary?” Seg asked.

“Would you have done any differently?” Brin asked but didn’t wait for a response before he recounted all Ama had told him.

When Brin finished, Seg cast his eyes to the floor. He had known from the moment he made the arrangement with Ama that it was treasonous, but hearing it verbalized for the first time, from the lips of another, brought forward the implications of his action. Even so, he was about to take that treason a step further.

He raised the cup of grint Perla had left for him and took a long drink before speaking. “What you already know, regarding my arrangement with Ama, could easily have me killed were it to go wrong. Or worse. Much worse.” Seg looked aside, staring at the jumping shadows on the wall, “But I’ve faced death here. I know where I stand on the concept.”

“As do I,” Brin said. “What passes between these walls, friend, is only for the people in this room. You have my solemn oath on that. My oath on the lives of my family.”

He swallowed, stood up, and checked once to ensure the trap door was closed and all was quiet, then he turned back to Seg. The lantern light cast harsh shadows on Brin’s bearded face.

“Ama’s brother Stevan was a member of the Kenda resistance. I am the leader of that resistance. I will tell you more but that alone is enough to see me hanging from a rope, or worse. That is your insurance.”

One corner of Seg’s mouth tweaked up and he let out a short, forceful breath. “Your petty overlords are nothing. Pretentious, ignorant fools who use pageantry and fakery to deceive those willing to accept their pomposity, and terror to subdue those who will not.” He finished the grint with a hearty swallow. “They have no idea just how ripe they are for a fall. A regime such as theirs typically succumbs completely within two to four generations at this stage, and sooner if an inspirational leader comes along to rally the fighters to their side. Their functional bulwarks are the Welf and Damiar. The Welf are ruled through sham and superstition; a proper rediversion of Welf belief can undermine the entire structure. The Damiar represent a larger problem, but their loyalty to the Shasir is not so blind and thus they can be turned, with the proper motivation.”

He slammed the cup down and immediately winced as the shock transmitted to his bad arm. “Brin of the Kenda, I am extending to you a courtesy that is normally reserved for the—for those of my blood, as it were. I will treat you as an equal.”

Whatever Brin was feeling at that moment was not revealed on his face and he gestured for Seg to continue.

“My People will come here, take what I have identified, leave and never return. My arrangement, with Ama, was that I would ensure the attacks were directed away from the Kenda.”

He drummed his fingers on the table and took a deep breath. He glanced at Ama and the line of his mouth spread outward and around.

“Were any of this to come to light with my People, I would be, well…” Seg paused, his wince a product of both real and imagined pain, “the consequences would be beyond any penalties your self-proclaimed overlords could devise. We are not, as you might have gathered, a merciful or gentle People.”

Brin nodded, then wordlessly gestured for him to continue.

“I would expand this arrangement,” Seg said, “and extend it to you.”

“You might find it more difficult to pass me off as your wife,” Brin said, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Again, Seg felt compelled to share the mirth. His lips twisted wryly. “Indeed. But…” He rose to his feet, moved instinctively to clasp his hands behind his back and winced again as the effort jarred his shoulder. “But I am one man, one of my People. I am not a soldier. If anything, I’m a scholar.”

He stared at his hand–his mind slid back to the skirmish on the
Naida.

“A scholar with a certain amount of training but no warrior.” He flexed his fingers. “What comes after I return the information to my people, what comes then will be the warriors. And there isn’t an army on your world that can stand against them. I do not exaggerate when I say that ten soldiers of my People could stand against a thousand of yours, given the right circumstances. We are experienced, well trained, and we will have complete and total surprise.”

Brin glanced up at the trap door. “So long as you don’t go burning any more boats or fighting your way out of temples.”

“Aberrational,” Seg said, stopping his hand before the instinctual, dismissive wave. “The Shasir’s tension will rise somewhat, but they won’t be expecting a full military assault. And when it comes—”

“You’ll burn anything that’s in your way,” Brin finished for him.

Seg glanced at him sharply. It was his own habit to impatiently finish sentences, and he wasn’t delighted to have that turned back toward him. “As you say. And so I offer you a bargain. An addition to the planned raid, separate from that of my People’s forces, organized and financed by me, solely designed to shatter the Shasir. If you provide me with targets, I can destroy their air fleets, dislocate their Welf defenders, and clear a path for your people to rise up and take power.”

Brin folded his arms across his chest. “At what price?”

“I need fifty of your men. Warriors,” even as the words left his mouth, Seg could hardly believe he was saying them, “to accompany me back to my World.”

“But you’ve just told me that ten of yours could handle a thousand of ours.”

“Not ten of
mine
,” Seg said, putting a hard emphasis on the final word. “Ten of ours.Ten warriors of my People.”

Brin rubbed his hand over his jaw, “You want your own army.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“You can’t find soldiers on your world?”

“The soldiers on my World are loyal to the Houses or organizations they serve, and those bodies are loyal, above all, to orthodoxy, rules, protocol. Tell me, would you rather captain a vessel crewed by men loyal to the Shasir or loyal to you?”

“You know the answer to that already,” Brin said, as he looked around the hidden room.

“The next world I cross to, I will have my own crew, loyal to me. I want dedicated, creative men, willing and capable of shedding blood, able to improvise, and who know how to follow orders.
My
orders. I want no deception in this, Brin of the Kenda. I want fifty men who understand that I will burn the Shasir to the ground and so thoroughly weaken them that your people can rise, successfully this time, and supplant them. And, in exchange for their people’s liberty, I will take them to my land, and others, and they will live under my command.”

He turned toward Brin and rested his hand on the back of a chair. “Those I take with me will never return home. They will live the harsh life of soldiers, and all I offer them is the freedom of their people and my pledge to see that their service will be rewarded as it is due.”

“I won’t send you slaves,” Brin said, his voice low.

“They will not be slaves. I will only take men willing to give and stand by their oaths.”

Brin shook his head and rose to his feet. “I’ll need to think about this, Segkel of the people whose name I don’t even know.”

“We are the People,” Seg said. “We need no names.”

Brin looked aside for a moment, his eyes drifting over the knives lying on the table before returning to Seg.

“I’ll need to think about this,” he said again.

U
pon waking, Ama found the world half-blurred. As consciousness crept toward her, she realized that her second eyelids were still partially up, which meant she was either very sick or…

“Uhhhg,” she groaned when she tried to move her head.

Seriously injured.

She blinked her eyelids back into position and licked her lips. “Seg?” she called, her voice raspy and weak.

Where am I?
The room was dark, illuminated only by the low flicker of a lantern. Her shoulder throbbed painfully. She remembered the riverbank and then…nothing.

“Seg?” she called again, this time with more urgency.

“Shhh,” a familiar face came into view, “he’s resting, as you should be.”

“Brin,” Ama smiled and then coughed. “Help me up a little.”

With a gentleness not in keeping with his appearance, Brin helped Ama shift in the bed, mindful of her shoulder, until she was almost sitting. He passed her a cup of water and she sipped gratefully. Then he motioned to Seg, sleeping in the corner, on top of a mound of rags and linen. His forehead was covered with a sheen of sweat, his face was locked in a grimace, and Ama saw one of his arms was bound with a bandage.

“What…?”

“It is a long, strange tale but the end is happy–you are alive,” Brin brushed away the hair that was matted to her face. “Geras had business to finish but he will be by later to visit with you.”

He looked strangely older since she had last seen her cousin. How many hours had she been asleep?

Brin related the events of her arrival right up to the surgery on her shoulder, with breaks to offer her water and make sure she was comfortable. When he was done, Ama was silent for a long spell.