Part 9 (2/2)
”You going to warn the Families?”
”Not me. How can I? Someone will, I'll see to that.”
”Going after Herk?”
She sat rubbing her hands back and forth along the chairarms, her eyes fixed on his face. ”Yes,” she said finally. ”You in?”
”Yes.”
She nodded. ”It's time to do something.”
”He'll be expecting it.”
”Herky Jerky? Never, who'd dare.”
”What'd you do with the guards? Dead? Thought so. Then he's got a pile of dead men inside his Palace and a htter of footprints in his veggies, might be enough to shake some sense into him.”
”Doesn't matter. We'll just have to be cleverer.”
”You know what worries me most?”
”I've a suspicion. The Sech?”
”Yeh. We all better keep our heads down while he's nosing around. Your brother being in it, he'll be after the Indiz. And the families of the other boys. Um.Sorry I didn't think about this before, your footprints, they'll be too small for men, the Grouch, he'll probably bounce the Dallisses around. All the divers.”
She smiled. ”We've been doing this a while, Karrel Goza. Things being the way they are, it doesn't matter that much about me, the Sech will have more than a suspicion who ran the raid; still, no use presenting him with proof so he can make trouble for the others. We took care of that little problem before we called you back.”
”Sorry about that.”
”We appreciate the thought.”
”Dance Ground coming up, a couple minutes.”
She looked at the clock. ”We made better time than I thought”
”Tailwind.”
She smiled at him, it felt good to smile again, the tight thing in her chest was beginning to open up: ”Good pilot is more like it.”
”Could be.” He grinned back at her.
”You can give us a little extra time?”
”Sure.”
”Put Windskimmer to bed for us.”
”Windskimmer?”
”Her name.”
”Nice.”
”Sssaa, you!”
”Nah, I mean it. Things I was flying had names like Fud 40 and Kek 10, you can't do much with Fud.” He reached for the panel.
”Wait. We usually don't land where we took off. There's an old wharf out east of Inci, no one uses it any more. Let the isyas down there.”
”Gotcha. I'd better make a wide sweep round, don't want to wake the night.w.a.tch.”
”Yes.” She swung the chair around. In the dim gray light she saw her isyas sitting with their knees drawn up, arms crossed on them, looking very different now. They'd changed from their blacks and were back in blouses and skirts and sandals, there was nothing on them to show where they'd been or what they'd been doing. ”Tomorrow evening,” she said. ”Those of you who can come to Yuryur Beach. Unless there's trouble, I'll meet you. We need to say Awedas for our boys. Say them in your soul if you can't be with us. As I might have to do. If I can't be with you, I will be thinking of you all, my blessings, my sisters. Forget Herk until the Awedas are said, then, my sisters, my loves, think how we can pay him without destroying our Families.
My blood is cold, my sisters, my blood is ice. He will not live to boast what he has done. There is no hurry to it, there is no urgency in it, there is certainty beyond all question. Herk will pay. It may take years, but Herk will pay.”
Three months std. after the meeting on Telffer. Helvetia.
It took the usual day and a half to work through the Helvetian perimeter fortifications and stash Slartcy Orza in the parking grid; there was also the usual argument over leaving Kinok and the current Kahat on board, but everyone knew the idiosyncracies of the Sikkul Paems, so the objections were perfunctory; I bought an exception permit and that was the end of that.
Getting onto Helvetia's surface is tedious, tiring and at times humiliating, but n.o.body complains; in a chaotic universe where currencies are wildly various and often of dubious value, Helvetia offers a means of a.s.sessing and balancing values plus the register circuit for contracts and other services no single government or group of governments can provide. Access to Helvetia is sometimes vital and at all times useful to anyone trying to trade beyond the borders of his/her local hegemony. If you want Helvetian services, you play by Helvetian rules.
Whistling s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs I'd picked up here and there (a habit of mine that k.u.mari never appreciated, but she wasn't there at the moment) I ran through Slancy's defenses, making sure she was thoroughly b.u.t.toned up before I lefther. Even with Helvetian security watching the grid and Kinok nesting down in the driveroom, I wasn't going to underestimate the talents of the types Bolodo could afford to hire. Especially after watching Adelaar work over those defenses on the way here. Like most of us she found insplitting a complete bore and preferred to have something to occupy her, so she was paying part of her fee ahead of time. What I was getting at, after watching her I wasn't as happy as I wanted to be, anybody with her talent could peel my poor Slancy like an overripe orange. Given time. Which I hoped Security wouldn't give them. So, having gone completely round the circle, there I was playing with what I'd got. I was finis.h.i.+ng up when Adelaar came onto the bridge. I looked over my shoulder and smiled when I saw the rapier she'd buckled on; no fancy ornament, it had a used and useful look. ”You're well prepared,” I said.
”I've been here before.” She touched the bone hilt of the sword. ”And had to use this before.”
Helvetian rules. No weapons except knives or swords allowed downsurface, they catch you with a gun, a lightlance, whatever, you're fined and it's no fleabite, they catch you again and you go to work on one of the farms or in the mines. Never heard they caught anyone three times. Result of all this is it's a dueling society, the little daytime clerks become nighttime rogues and swaggerers living out byzantine fantasies with an edge of real danger to them.
Outside the trucegrounds you'd better hire a bodyguard or be able to defend yourself. The Faceless Seven who run the place refuse responsibility for anything that happens to idiots who should know better. Colorful place.
I rather enjoy my visits here. They take me back to my first body when I was earning my living with a two-handed broadsword my daddy gave me. Actually he made it for the local lord's braindead whelp, but when I had to hit the hills to keep my neck in one piece, he booted my backside for old time's sake and gave me the sword to remember him by. Which is by way of explaining that the sword I take downsurface is a two-handed broadsword with a pora-ini stressed crystal edge bonded onto the lightweight byttersteel alloy. Not that I'm challenged much these days. After I acquired this body and Slancy and had been trading in this and that for a year or so, time came I had business on Helvetia. I knew how things worked there so I went to an acquaintance who was a metalsmith in his spare time (with highly irregular access to some very special alloys), and had him make most of Harska (I named her Harska after an old old sometime friend); I did the bonding myself, a little trick I picked up from the RMoahl. And I fixed up a sheath that could hold her so I wouldn't slice my b.u.t.t off if I had to do some dodging. That was k.u.mari's first trip with me and we went out celebrating after we finished business. When she's dressed for playtime, she's beautiful in her eerie way, she's got no more figure than a teener boy, but what there is of her is elegant. Some local hotshot decided he was the answer to her dreams and wouldn't back off when she informed him she wasn't interested. So she told him in a voice that cut like Harska's edge that he had the intelligence of a sea slug, that she wouldn't be interested in him or any other man since she belonged to another species and was neuter besides and even if she weren't, he smelled bad. I wasn't going to interfere; I'd seen her in action a couple of times with the dozen or more small knives she has tucked away here and there about her body; she was willing and more than able to handle that character herself though she looked fragile as thistledown, but he wouldn't have it that way, probably didn't suit his self-image; he challenged me instead. I took his arm off and an ear with it in the first thirty seconds of that duel; one of his friends tried to cry foul, but there was nothing in the rules about fancy touches like that edge. It said sword and sword she was.
And sword she is.
k.u.mari came in. She raised her brows. ”Not dressed yet?”
She meant Harska. I grinned. ”Just making a last go-through. Got us on a shuttle?”
”Twenty minutes on, so don't waste time primping. The next opening is sixhours from now. There's a bubble in the lock, ready for the transfer. I've booked us into an ottotel trucehouse and set up a tentative appointment with O-nioni tomorrow to get the contract working and settle the escrow. Ti Vnok wants to talk to you tonight. If possible. He says a s.h.i.+elded room at the Treehouse and come blanks.h.i.+eld. Which means Pels and I will be there ahead of you working the house. If you think it's worth the trouble.”
”Let's see what's waiting first. We might have to do some tailcleaning.”
”Right. If Pels' nose is as sharp as he thinks.”
Adelaar clicked her tongue, a sharp impatient sound. ”What are you two talking about?”
”Pels thinks we have ticks on our tail. Followed us in after we surfaced out beyond the Limit.”
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