Consorts of Heaven (40 page)

‘What is it?’ asked Kerin. She’d been silent since leaving the Sidhe’s bedroom.

Sais wondered how she was dealing with having just murdered a complete stranger. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it himself, though he understood her anger.

‘I’m just thinking,’ he said. ‘The Sidhe will have a smaller ship, which will have the cure for the falling fire on board. Someone needs to take the small ship down to your world and . . . let the cure out. Maybe I could do that, leaving you to get Damaru and the others back into the comaboxes before they go back down.’

‘A good plan.’ Kerin sounded relieved. Sais didn’t blame her: in her position he’d want to be safely locked up in a nice secure box waiting to go home too.

‘In theory, yes. Except, there’s a couple of problems. Firstly, I don’t know whether or not the process that sends the boxes back down is automated.’

‘Automated?’

‘Whether it happens by itself, rather than because the Sidhe make it happen. If they usually send it back, I’ll need to work out how.’

‘I am sure you will be able to do that.’

He admired her optimism, but he wasn’t so sure. ‘The other problem is the pilot - the man who controls this ship. He’s probably on the bridge - that’s behind the door in the next corridor - but he may come out when he realises something’s wrong. Even if he stays put, he’s likely to stop any ship that tries to leave - and that includes the one with the cure on board.’
Or mine.

‘Then we will have to deal with him.’ Kerin made it sound so simple.

Leaving Kerin at the junction, Sais crept up towards the bridge door. He was surprised to find it had a lock. It looked like an iris-scanner: always a spacer’s favourite, as they were designed to work with a suit on. He motioned for Kerin to stay back while he went in for a closer look.

As Sais sidled up, the door opened. He froze. It was possible it was set to open automatically when someone approached, but then, why the lock? No, someone had opened it - the pilot, presumably.

Staying to the side of the door, Sais pulled out a crossbow bolt and tossed it through.

The soft and deadly
phhhhssst
of a needle-pistol confirmed his suspicions.

From inside, a contemptuous male voice said, ‘Gone native, Sirrah Reen?’

The pilot must have a camera covering the corridor. ‘I’ve made the best of my situation, as you’ll no doubt know if you’re monitoring the ship,’ he said. The pilot didn’t rise to the bait and Sais continued, ‘I don’t think we were ever introduced.’

Laughter, almost a snigger. ‘Oh, I know all about you. They share
everything
with me.’

Sais didn’t have to ask who he meant by
they
. ‘Lucky you. No, I meant I don’t know your name.’

‘You’re assuming I have one.’ That threw Sais, and the pilot, apparently beginning to enjoy himself, continued, ‘I’ve used a few for convenience, but I don’t need a name with my sweethearts. They know me and love me, and I provide indispensable services for them. I have the life I want. How many men can say that, Sirrah Reen? Or do you mind if I call you Jarek? I feel I know you so well.’

Sais knew he was being wound up, but he still found himself considering the
indispensable services
this man provided to his Sidhe
sweethearts
. ‘Call me whatever you want; I’ll just call you pilot. Well, pilot, I’ve got some bad news for you. Your services are no longer required.’

The sound of an indrawn breath told Sais that the pilot didn’t know his Sidhe
sweethearts
were dead.

‘You’re lying,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s no way one man could defeat a Sidhe.’

Kerin was where he’d left her - outside the range of the camera - watching him carefully. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I had help. Your surveillance isn’t up to much, is it? You don’t know your girl-friends are dead and you haven’t spotted my friends.’

If the man did have cameras, he might check them now, but Sais heard no movement. When the pilot answered he sounded uncertain. ‘Friends? I’d say that’s extremely unlikely. I’ve no idea how you got up the beanstalk, but I do know you’d have no chance of persuading any of those pious pricks down there to come up with you.’

So he couldn’t see Kerin. Good. ‘Then you really should be a lot more frightened of me than you appear to be, given I just took out two Sidhe by myself.’

No reply. Sais wished he could see the man’s face. Then he heard a sigh.
A relieved sigh
.

He’d been wrong in assuming there were only two Sidhe. Trying to keep his voice casual, he said, ‘You still in there, pilot?’

‘Yep, and I’ll stay in here and you can stay out there, and we’ll see how long your luck holds.’

Sais said evenly, ‘Is there anything you’d like to share at this point?’

The pilot snorted a laugh. ‘There is, actually: a bit of advice. Rather than staying out there, why don’t you come in here, and I’ll do you the favour of killing you cleanly. Or you can turn that wooden toy weapon round and shoot yourself in the head.’

‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘Because if you’ve really killed two of the sisters, then when the third one finds you, she’ll take your fucking mind apart - and this time she won’t leave anything behind except the pain.’

Sais pushed himself off from the wall and sprinted back down the corridor. The pilot shouted after him, ‘Or you can run, for all the good it’ll do you.’

When he reached Kerin he motioned her to go back down the corridor ahead of him until they were out of earshot.

‘So there is another one?’ whispered Kerin, her face pale.

‘Looks like it.’

‘What is your plan?’

Good question. ‘We still have to take out the pilot and get control of the bridge. We got lucky with the first two Sidhe, largely because we surprised them. We have to assume the third one knows there’s a problem, even if she doesn’t know the extent of it. Once we’re on the bridge, we can lock her out and keep watch using the cameras - Sidhe powers are limited without line-of-sight. And the pilot’s got a weapon that’s way more effective than a crossbow or knife.’

‘Is he alone on the bridge?’

‘Reckon so. I suspect he doesn’t play well with others. So at least we outnumber him.’

Sais had meant it as a joke, but Kerin took him seriously. ‘Then I could act as a diversion!’

‘What?’

‘I could rush in there to distract him, then you come in with the crossbow and . . .
incapacitate
him.’

‘Kerin, this weapon I referred to, it’s called a needle-pistol, and it fires a stream of metal slivers extremely fast. You won’t have seen anything like it. It slices people up.’

‘Then I must try not to get hit,’ she said simply. ‘What is the alternative? You said it yourself: we have been lucky; the only chance we have of killing the third Sidhe is to be in a position of strength, with a closed door and the best weapon. Either that or we keep skulking around until she finds us.’

‘When you put it like that - all right. Let’s do it.’

‘Can I have one of your spare crossbow bolts?’

Sais handed a bolt over. Kerin took it, grasped her knife firmly, then nodded to show she was ready.

‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he said.

Kerin turned and ran back round the corner into the command corridor. When she reached the door she flung the crossbow bolt in, then charged through after it, head down. Sais followed hard on her heels.

The pilot was standing to the side of the door, just as Sais expected. He was swivelling round, his gun tracking Kerin. Before Sais could react, Kerin cried out.

Sais made himself focus on his target. He fired.

The pilot looked surprised, and dropped his weapon. His mouth opened, but any sound he might have made was drowned out by Kerin’s scream. He pressed his hands to his side and fell over.

Sais, still standing in the doorway, punched the door closed. He passed the pilot, writhing on the floor, kicked the needle-pistol out of reach, then carried on to Kerin. She was down too, and she wasn’t screaming any more.

She held her arms tight across her chest. There was a lot of blood, but her eyes were open and they tracked him as he approached.

He crouched next to her. ‘Kerin, Kerin, can you hear me?’

She nodded, her eyes wide, her lips pressed into a hard line.

‘I need to see - where did he hit you?’

‘Arm,’ she croaked.

A survivable wound, thank God. ‘Hold on there, Kerin. I’m going to get something to deal with it.’

‘Help me . . . up,’ she whispered

Sais hesitated, but she was the healer, even if she was the patient too. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Raise the wound . . . Need to slow the blood.’

As he lifted her into a sitting position he could see the extent of the wound. She had taken the flechette round in her right arm, and the needles had sliced the flesh to the bone along most of the length of the forearm. Though the wound was nasty and was bleeding freely, the damage was limited to that one area. Her face was pale and waxy-looking, but her eyes were bright. She cupped her elbow in her other hand and looked at him, around the room; anywhere except at the meaty mess of her arm.

Sais straightened and looked up. The place was more like the den of an oversexed adolescent than the bridge of a ship. Two or more cabins had been knocked into one, and the long room was softly lit. Space art, holos of glam-models and music posters covered most of the walls. The sleeping area sported an enormous round bed piled with black satin-covered pillows. There were stacks of entertainment and game units, and luxury foodstuffs were piled on a sideboard, some of them open and partially eaten. A drinks cabinet sat next to a sumptuous massage chair. One corner was more brightly lit and relatively free of decadence: the chair there faced screens and instruments, with the largest viewscreen showing an uninteresting if familiar stretch of corridor. Sais got Kerin to her feet and half-guided, half-carried her to the seat in front of the pilot’s control console. The pilot watched them from the floor, breathing heavily through his mouth.

‘Where’s your med-kit?’ Sais asked him.

For a moment he thought the man wouldn’t answer, but he needed patching up as much as Kerin did, from the look of the blood seeping through his fingers. ‘Under the console,’ he muttered.

By the time Sais had found it Kerin’s eyes were closed to slits and she had given up trying to support her wounded arm.

Sais gave her a shot to kill the shock and mask the pain. After a few seconds, her eyes opened.

‘Are we safe?’ she asked, looking around her.

‘For now,’ he said, rooting through the med-kit. ‘But if you see anything change on that screen overhead you just let me know.’

‘Screen? I am sorry, I do not know what you mean.’

‘No, of course you wouldn’t. It’s—Do you see that picture there, of the corridor? It’s showing what’s outside the door here.’

‘A picture?’ Kerin frowned. ‘Why would a picture change?’

‘It’s not so much a picture, more like a window - except it doesn’t show what’s directly behind it, but a scene from elsewhere; in this case, the corridor outside.’

‘Aha! Is that how the man knew you were there?’

‘Got it. I’m going to do something about your arm now. The wound’s messy but you haven’t lost too much blood.’

Kerin nodded, her eyes focused on the screen.

‘Right, this, well, bag, goes over your arm. It’s meant for fractures but it’ll keep everything in place. Your arm will go numb once I pull the tab, so we’ll need to rig up a sling. How are you feeling?’

‘A little odd, but my arm no longer hurts.’

‘Welcome to the miracle of modern medicine.’

‘When you’ve finished there . . .’ the pilot sounded uncertain. And in pain.

‘I’ll get to you when I’m ready,’ said Sais unsympathetically.

First, he needed to get the bridge locked down. Though they had nominal control of the ship now, there was still another Sidhe on the loose. They’d been lucky twice but he’d be willing to bet the last one - presumably the one scheduled to become the next Cariad and carry on centuries of corrupt theocracy - wouldn’t be so easy to deal with.

While Sais worked at the panel in front of her chair, Kerin made herself watch the screen as he had asked. Now he had explained it, the idea of a window to elsewhere made sense, even if she had no idea how it worked. If anything, the chair was more disconcerting: it swivelled and, if she leant back too far, tipped. Damaru would love it, she thought.

Sais finished making his adjustments and went over to the pilot. Kerin heard the man mutter, ‘Even if you somehow manage to kill her, you’re still fucked, you know.’

‘How so?’ said Sais.

‘The
Setting Sun
won’t work without their touch.’

Kerin thought the medicine must have addled her mind, as this made no sense. Sais said, ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s their ship. To start the engines, to shift, for any major function, it needs one of them.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not.’ The pilot shrugged. He sounded as though he did not care whether Sais believed him or not.

Sais swore under his breath, then said bitterly, ‘So what do they let you do? Or are you just a driver and sex-toy?’

‘Wouldn’t expect you to understand . . .’ he muttered.

‘No, because you know me so well, don’t you? You know I’m not the most patient person, and you know I can be expedient.’

The pilot laughed. ‘And I know you wouldn’t torture a wounded man.’

Movement on the screen - had she imagined it? Best be sure. Kerin called out, ‘Sais!’

He looked over and she pointed to the screen. ‘I think I saw something, just there.’

As they watched, a figure appeared in the picture: Einon. He looked puzzled.