Eyes of the Calculor (62 page)

"How else?"

"But it is needed here."

"I have given four super-regals, to you."

"But we are desperate for wings."

"Teaching super-regals flying, I can. Without lessons, how many are crashing, to learn?"

I he adjunct conveyed Samondel's request to both the overhand and mayor. They did not take long to decide that they were of the same mind on the subject.

"The sailwing is worth its weight in diamonds to Avian," the overhand decided. "She wants to use it to take on perhaps dozens of her own warriors, with no more than a reaction pistol and her own authority. After that, she wants to fly on to North America."

"I agree, we might as well light a fire under the sailwing and stand back to watch, for all the good it will do," agreed the mayor.

"Yet I would point out one minor but important detail," said the adjunct. "Airlord Samondel alone has had experience with flying both advanced sailwings and the super-regals. Speaking as a flyer, I would dearly prefer a short training course from a qualified instructor rather than an extremely short course in self-instruction."

"This is true," said the overhand, "but Frelle Samondel may prove less than cooperative."

"We shall tell her she can have the sailwing, but she must show us how to fly the super-regals first. After that, what can she do if we break our promise?"

"We must certainly keep her safely away from the wingfield once the lessons are over," said the overhand. "Fras Adjunct, have the wings especially well guarded tonight, and tell all flyers that she must not approach any wing while alone."

IVIartyne was no longer required for any of the hearings. As the sun was setting he made his way to his accommodation hut, lit a fire, and removed his boots. He took off his shirt, contemplating the slight chill on his skin from the midautumn air. I am alive to feel the chill, he thought, stooping over and rubbing his hands before the flames in his stone grate. His left arm was still stiff and tender, and

blood had seeped and dried from a torn stitch in the wound in his chest, but he could raise his hand to his face, he could see his fingers. Serjon certainly could not.

Everything manufactured was in short supply in Launceston, and Martyne had arrived in just the clothes he was wearing. Following his nightly ritual, he removed his socks and underclothes, washed them in a bowl of rainwater, then hung them to dry by the fire. Lastly he washed himself, then hunched shivering beside the fire to dry. There was unlimited firewood and water, but cloth for underclothes was unobtainable. The cloth that did not go into aircraft fabric went to clothe children. Even his blankets were roughweave dry grass; they were scratchy, but nevertheless warm. Presently he was lying on his back, his eyes closed and his arm draped over his face, trying to think of nothing, but thoughts kept slipping past his guard.

Red Death, even the other Avianese flyers were now calling Sa-mondel that. At last Martyne began to descend into a haze of dark, contented stillness, more through sheer exhaustion than his skills with meditation and relaxation control, but time and again Samon-del's image took his hands, drew him close, and pressed her lips against his.

"Martyne," she would say as she drew back a little.

He could say nothing, but he smiled.

"Martyne, I love you."

Still he could only smile, and now she looked sad. Can't say anything, she might get the wrong idea, some imbecile voice kept warning him. What wrong idea? That he loved her, that he desired her, that he wanted to flout all aviad conventions and marry her? Still he could not reply. Yes he loved her, but she might think he desired her as a great and powerful noble from the distant, glittering, magnificent mayorates and cities of North America. Samondel began to fade.

"Martyne?"

Yet again the voice dragged Martyne back from the balmy blackness.

"Yes?" he slurred, on the verge of sinking again.

"Room for me, yes?"

Martyne removed his arm from his eyes—and found himself looking up at the unbuttoned flight jacket, liner, blouse, and bare breasts of Highland Bartolica's monarch.

"There is always room for you," tumbled unbidden from his lips.

Samondel stripped in the dim light from the grate's coals, never once taking her eyes from Martyne.

"Have seen your chest at training," she said as she sat naked on the edge of his narrow slat-mortice bunk. "Longing for to show you mine."

"We shall be packed very close," said Martyne, lifting the woven grass blanket for her.

"Whole idea," she replied, drawing the blanket back over and settling carefully on top of him. "Not hurting scar, I hope?"

"Those are unlikely to hurt anyone," replied Martyne, hugging her down against him, "but is this a safe thing for you to do?"

She looked down into his eyes and caressed his hair.

"Chivalrous to the end," she purred admiringly. "Is time of the safe moon, for me. Is need for nothing. For me, is new thing."

IVIartyne was still drowsy in the early morning as Samondel lay with a leg across him, looking at the scar that her bullet had torn across his chest.

"Can never be apologizing enough," she said, running her fingers delicately along the scar below his pectorals.

"Once is sufficient."

"With you, have dispensed with, ah, devices. Serjon, to use, always had to."

"Leave him alone, he's dead."

"Had to give you what he never had. Even if myself not in the time of safe moon, would do all again. Understand?"

"Time of the safe moon, what a charming and beautiful expression," said Martyne, reaching up to caress her face. "And I am truly flattered."

"Today I train Avianese to fly super-regals. They will be a great help for refugees."

"Will you stay here?"

"Wish to stay with you, but. . . wherever I go, always is you only. Forever. Love you only, never have another."

"But I see nothing that could come between us."

Samondel frowned and shook her head.

"Must go home, shout 'Attack on Launceston' from tops of palace towers. Guilty airlords deny everything, they will, but not possible they can make new conspiracy, if revealed. All others then watching. Closely."

A pang of sorrow burned through Martyne as the implications of her words unfolded.

"Would you really leave me for that?"

"Are preferring a new war with Mounthaven, yes?"

"No, but—"

"Need to save your people, enough damage and suffering, has been. Am airlord. Airlord means sacrifice for greater good."

Martyne shivered and drew her close. "All of us flyers have been told not to let you near a wing while alone, especially after the training is over. You must realize what that means. Those in charge need you, but they want to keep every wing they can get."

"They agreed, letting me have sailwing."

"Do you believe them?"

"No, I suppose."

"We could steal the sailwing together, though, and go to Mount-haven."

"No. As aviad, in Mounthaven, you soon are being shot."

"So I stay here, even if I help you steal a wing?"

"Please."

"Well... I seem rather short on options."

Samondel closed her eyes and lay against him for a while, savoring the moment.

"What you are doing without me?" she asked.

"Being very sad."

"I mean, without me, pastime?"

"Oh, dine with Velesti in taverns, then wander the streets looking for bully boys to beat up. Climb onto hostelry roofs and hang upside

down at windows watching couples at dalliance and calling out suggestions. Then sleep alone and remember you."

"Sounding more merriment than reigning over Highland Barto-lica, then sleep alone, thinking of you. So you will helping me leave, really?"

Martyne thought for a moment, but only to think of the most suitable words.

"Would I keep a bird in a cage?"

They washed in the chilly waters from the cistern, rubbed each other dry with grass brushes, then built a fire and boiled up a soupy mixture of dried meat, nuts, and potatoes, and toasted each other with rainwater. The wreckage on the wingfield had been cleaned up by the time they arrived there, not particularly well rested but very happy. Samondel was wearing an embroidered flight jacket from one of the dead Yarronese, and a dozen Australican flyers were already waiting for instruction at the adjunct's pennant pole.

Each of the super-regals was in turn ascended, and Samondel spent the entire morning teaching the Avianese flyers to control them. All through the lunch break she taught the artisans what she knew of the new engines and mechanisms. The adjunct was reluctant to let Samondel ascend in the captured sailwing, given her plea the night before to fly it to Lake Taupo, but when Martyne volunteered to ascend with her he relented.

It was in the late afternoon that they finally did ascend, with Martyne at the controls and Samondel lying in the navigator's bunk. The aircraft was in good condition, and Martyne noted that it was very easy to fly.

"There will be times, when apart, we are living," said Samondel as they made a wide, leisurely circle of the capital of Avian.

"If you return early, you will find me alone," said Martyne.

Samondel pressed the stud that lowered the headrest, pulled herself forward, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Myself also. Sleep alone, it is incentive, for to keep trying, ah, to return. But. . ."

"But?"

"But one promise."

"Yes?"

"You will promise?"

"Promise what?"

"Promise first. Then hear. Is possible, for you."

Martyne sighed.

"Very well. Now, what have I promised?"

"Is never, never, setting foot in rocketwing again."

"What?" Martyne laughed.

"Rather surprise you with whoopsicle girl than have to bury you."

"Frelle, I've survived fourteen Skyfire flights, two of them in combat. I'm currently Avian's greatest gunwing ace. How can I—"

"Please Martyne! Damn, bloody things climb faster than gun-wings can dive. Not natural. Dangerous."

"Samondel—"

"Highly unstable below two hundred miles per hour. Flies like brick at stall speed. All this, told by you! In bed. Last night."

"Well, perhaps I was exaggerating a little."

"Think of you with other woman, annoying. Think of you in rocketwing, terrifying! Not to be tolerated. I—"

"Yes, yes, yes, all right. No more rocketwings, I promise. No other women either, for what it's worth."

She squeezed him, then rested her head against his.

"Then forever I am yours."

Martyne reached down and drew his reaction pistol. He handed it to Samondel, along with three clips of ammunition.

There was a small access hatch just behind the headrest. It was cramped in the cockpit, too cramped for a rapid exchange of positions between flyer and navigator in an emergency. Thus another set of controls had been provided, rudimentary but adequate. Samondel pushed the emergency throttle forward, then steered for the east. The Skyfire rocketwings were much faster, but they were not now on standby and had an extremely short range. By the time they could be armed and fitted with rockets she would be well outside their operational circle.

Martyne slid the hatch open. After giving Samondel one final, lingering kiss, he jumped.

Samondel locked the emergency controls in a shallow climb heading southeast, then crawled into the cockpit. She began a careful examination of the compression spirit floats. The tanks had been neither drained nor added to since the sailwing had been captured, and it had a little under half of its compression spirit remaining. With the prevailing winds behind her, this would probably be more than enough to reach Lake Taupo.

After adjusting her heading with the float compass and solarac, Samondel waited until she was out of sight of Tasmania Island, then turned due east and brought the sailwing to its optimal cruising altitude. Finally she throttled back the compression engines and locked the controls. The sun was on the sea's horizon for her, but at ground level it had been night for some time. Samondel now began to weep, and had not ceased weeping by the time dusk had faded completely from the sky and Mirrorsun was well above the eastern horizon. She checked the sailwing's course, made a minor correction, then lay back in the seat again with her hands over her eyes.

Lake Taupo, New Zealand

■\ed-eyed from the fifteen-hour flight from Australica and from almost as many hours of mourning the loss of Martyne for a second time, Samondel did a slow circuit of the Lake Taupo wingfield before coming in for her descent. There were bodies visible beside the ascent strip, and all of the shelters had been burned. Nothing was moving.

No sign of any burned-out wings, observed Samondel grimly to herself as she wound down the flaps. But no bodies actually on the ascent strip, no damage to the surface, and nothing rolled across it to hamper any wings coming in. Very significant.

Samondel began winding the wheels down, and there was an emphatic clack of the lock pins snapping into place. The wheels

screeched briefly, then she was rumbling along the surface toward the burned-out shelters. Samondel taxied off into the staging bay, then stopped the compression engines. There had been nine bodies visible in and around the ruins, but she treated the carnage as if it had been as normal a thing as a pre-ascent inspection. Three men appeared from beside the compression spirit shelter as Samondel slid back the canopy hatch. They were armed, but looked to be at ease as they walked over. She jumped to the ground.

"So, how did it go?" asked one of them in Yarronese.

"Seventeen kills, no losses," replied Samondel through the scarf shrouding her face, raising both thumbs into the air.

"Good hunting! And what do you think of all this?"

"Impressive," said Samondel as she began to untie the scarf.

"All our own work, I think we made things look like quite a convincing Avianese attack. When the others arrive we must go over our story. How far behind are they?"

"Twenty minutes."

"That's not Warden Hareak, that's a girl!" shouted one of the men.