Heris Serrano (96 page)

On the gravelled road, or drive, beyond the gates, Driw slowed down a little and grinned at Heris. "You didn't squeak once—most outsiders do. That girl Brun, for instance."

"Were you testing me, or just being efficient?" Heris asked.

"A little of both," Driw said. "We're very fond of Lady Cecelia. Wanted to know if her friends were tough enough to do her any good. There's the place." The place: brick house and brick-and-stone stable yard. Heris recognized it from the holo in Cecelia's study aboard the yacht. Here, the horses were real, black and bay and chestnut and gray . . . here the stable cat lounged on a pile of saddle pads waiting to be washed; a dog sprawled in the sun. Someone waved to the truck and pointed. Driw swung away from the stable gate to follow a track around one side. "They want the feed in the old barn," she explained. "Won't take but a few minutes. You can walk through to the house."

Heris felt scared, and angry with herself for that. She did not want to see the ruin of the woman she had come to respect and even love. She reminded herself that Cecelia, locked in the dark in a helpless body, must have been more terrified, with more reason.

She felt her hands cramping and tried to unclench them. Cecelia was better; she'd been told Cecelia was better. But that single image she'd seen, of the motionless body, the expressionless face, stayed in her mind's eye. She could imagine nothing between that and Cecelia well . . . and Cecelia was a long way from well.

She walked through the stable yard, the forecourt, up to the graceful little porch on the big house. She felt she knew it; Cecelia had talked about it enough. But inside, it looked more like a medical center. Parallel bars and weight machines surrounded by colored mats to the right. Massive gray cabinets that might house anything at all to the left. Ahead were the stairs—and coming down, step by careful step, the tall, lean figure she had been afraid to see lying flat, helpless.

Over and under her loose shirt and slacks, Heris could see tubes and wires, the structure and electronic connections that let her walk. One hand clamped to the rail, and the other lay atop a boxlike machine attached to the wide belt around her waist. Her eyes looked odd . . . some kind of contact lenses, Heris decided, though they looked opaque. A headband flickered, red and green. What was that? Beside her, but not touching her, was a competent-looking woman with dark hair in a thick braid. She looked up and smiled at Heris.

"You must be Captain Serrano—we heard Driw's truck go by."

"Yes—I am." For an instant, she didn't know whether to speak to Cecelia or not; manners won out. "I'm glad to see you up again, milady," Heris said. Cecelia smiled. Clearly it was a struggle to smile; the movement of her face was deliberate. Her left hand moved over the top of the box at her waist.

"I'm glad to see you." A synthesized voice, only vaguely like Cecelia's, came from the box. "I heard you driving in."

Heris couldn't think what to say. She wanted to stare, to figure out what each blinking light, tube, and cable was for, but she didn't want to embarrass Cecelia.

"How . . . is . . . my . . . ship?" asked Cecelia. The voice still didn't sound like her, but Heris accepted it as her speech.

"She's . . . a mess, frankly." Heris shook herself. She could certainly talk about the ship. "I don't know how much you've heard . . . we had to yank her out of the decorators, bare naked, and make a run for it." How much to explain? "The king—asked a favor of me. It was hinted that my taking it would ensure your safety."

"And . . . you . . . did . . . it?"

"I'm working on it. Perhaps you'd like to sit down?" That ungainly figure poised on the stairs made her nervous.

"I . . . want . . . to . . . go." Go? Heris scowled, uncertain what Cecelia meant and unwilling to ask. The other woman on the stairs touched Cecelia's arm lightly.

"May I explain? You said it was urgent."

"Yes." Cecelia continued her slow, difficult progress on down the stairs. The other woman moved with her, but spoke to Heris.

"Lady Cecelia's competency hearing ended yesterday. She has recovered her memory of the incident that started all this some weeks ago, including who administered the drug, but she hasn't told the court yet. She didn't want that person to know she had the memory, because it imperiled her family."

"Back on Rockhouse," said Heris. "Where's Brun?"

"She sent Brun, as soon as she recovered the memory, to warn her family—discreetly—against the individual. Anyway, because of the competency hearing, the person who injured her now knows where she is, and because the magistrates ruled in her favor, her ID is now flagged active on the universal datanets. She has to presume the individual knows that, and will take action. None of us feel that Rotterdam is safe for her anymore. Passenger service is infrequent, and in her condition she still needs medical attendants. We had thought of sending her off on the same ship that carried her lawyers, but that ship is known—"

"That's easy," Heris said. "The yacht looks terrible right now, but it's roomy and safe—and we're not using its original ID beacon. How many people will she need along?"

"But if they've seen you—at the spaceport—"

"The Stationmaster saw to it that no one did. The only one of my crew who has permission to leave the ship is a woman who joined us the day we left Rockhouse—they won't associate her with me or Lady Cecelia. Let's get things packed and on the way."

"Lady Cecelia," the other woman said. Cecelia had made it to the bottom stair, and the chair beside it. "How soon could you be ready to leave?"

"Now." The synthesized voice had no tone for humor, but Heris was sure Cecelia intended it. "Go . . . pack. Let . . . me . . . talk . . . to . . . Heris."

"We'll need comfort items," Heris said, as the other woman started away. "We have only minimal bedding—you might want to load that sort of thing."

"She told me her yacht had had a swimming pool—is that operational?"

"Yes, though again the walls in the gym are bare. We had the pool filled in the Golan Republic—and that's what I wanted to tell you, milady. The doctors believe that the neurochemical assault you suffered is very similar to what was done to the prince. If so, it may be reversible. However, they will need a detailed history, and your own tissues to work on. I can take you there, if you want to risk it."

"Yes. I . . . trust . . . you . . ." Cecelia said.

The big sprawling house that had seemed to be dozing in the afternoon sun erupted like a kicked anthill. Heris crouched on the bottom step of the stairs, holding Cecelia's hands in hers, until someone fetched another chair for her. Four or five women in blue tunics bustled in and out, up and down stairs. Boxes and suitcases began to accumulate in the front hall, as the sun slanted farther and farther through the windows into the room.

"I . . . knew . . . you . . . would . . . come . . ." Cecelia said. Her hand squeezed Heris's. "Brun . . . knew . . . you . . . had . . . to . . . leave . . ."

"I'm sorry I couldn't get you out right away," Heris said. "Your family blamed me—and I didn't even know about the bequest."

"No. It's . . . all . . . right . . ."

The lift whirred, and out came two women, a hoverchair, and another stack of boxes. Two men came in from outside and began carrying the growing pile out to the driveway. Heris heard a truck motor grinding up from the stable, and winced at the thought of Cecelia at the mercy of Driw's driving. The lift came down again, this time with what looked like a hospital bed folded up. A woman in a big apron appeared at their side with trays.

"Milady—time for your snack." Heris watched as Cecelia managed to find the food on her plate and get it into her mouth without incident.

"Milady, I'm sorry, but . . . are those artificial eyes?"

"No . . . not . . . exactly. Ask . . . medical." Cecelia went on eating; Heris was suddenly ravenous and found herself engulfing one thick sandwich after another. Where, and how, had Cecelia found another great cook?

"I should see about the shuttle schedule," Heris said finally, around a last bite of fresh bread stuffed with something delicious. She was sure it had celery and herbs and cheese in it, but what else?

"Don't worry about that," said the cheerful woman she had first met on the stairs. "I called Annie, and she'll make sure we've got one. She thinks we should wait until the opposition lawyers have left."

Shadows chased the sun across the driveway, and up the front of the house, leaving the windows clear to a distant blaze of sunset behind trees. Heris stood up to stretch, and walked outside. Fine brushes of cloud high overhead; the sound of buckets and boots and water faucets from the stable yard. A shaggy dog stood up to look at her, then shook itself and wandered away, tail wagging gently. So peaceful here—she wanted to stretch out and sleep the night away.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said someone behind her, and she shifted aside. The folded bed was coming down the front steps, a mattress balanced atop and almost hiding the men carrying it.

* * *

The caravan started for the shuttleport well after dark. Heris, breathing in the fresh damp air, found herself wishing she could stay longer. She rode with Cecelia, two of her medical team, and a lawyer, in a real car; Driw drove the truck with supplies and equipment; another car carried the rest of the medical team. And the cook.

The lawyer had kept Cecelia busy all evening. They could not risk alienating the magistrates with her disappearance; calls and letters had been necessary. Now he was taking notes on her orders for the next few months—who could vote which stock in which company, what to do if Berenice and Gustav tried to interfere further in the recovery of her competent status.

Heris marveled at Cecelia's energy. She looked . . . old, sick, exhausted. But she pushed herself, kept going, stayed alert. Heris dozed, half ashamed of that, but knowing she had a long watch ahead when she must be alert.

Although it was nighttime, the shuttleport looked dark and almost deserted. Heris wondered what had gone wrong. Then someone came out of the dimly lit terminal and leaned into the driver's side of their car. "Ah—it's you. Just go on out to the runway . . . follow the yellow lights."

In this way, the caravan trundled down a long runway to a dark shape bulked at the end of it. Heris felt she'd fallen into some surrealistic action-adventure. She had never, even in dreams, imagined herself sneaking along a darkened runway toward a clandestine shuttle. And she had a burning curiosity about what Cecelia could possibly have done to generate this level of loyalty on the planet.

She had no time to ask while the truckload of gear was put aboard the shuttle's cargo bay, while she and the medical team carefully eased Cecelia and her attachments into the shuttle's shabby passenger compartment. They were not the only passengers, either. After Cecelia and her party were aboard, half a dozen others climbed up and settled themselves at the back of the passenger space. Perfectly ordinary, the sort of people you'd expect to find taking a shuttle flight up from the surface of any planet . . . except, Heris noticed, they all had remarkably similar bulges in their clothes.

At the Station, Heris noticed that one of the chartered passenger ships had gone, and the corridors were almost deserted. Everyone—including the shuttle's other passengers—helped unload the shuttle and move its cargo to the yacht. There Heris found Annie—offduty, as she explained—and Oblo lounging in the loading area.

"I thought I told you to stay aboard," Heris said to Oblo. He gave her his innocent look, and she winced inwardly. What had he been up to?

"I am aboard," he said. "Legally—there's the line." He stretched. "I was chatting with Annie here on the Station com, and we discovered some mutual interests, so when she got offshift, she came over . . ."

"Right. Fine. Now let's get our owner aboard, and her gear installed." Oblo looked hurt, another of his certified expressions, and vanished up the access tube. Annie gave Heris a cheerful grin, intended to disarm.

"Thought you wouldn't mind if I came around and made sure your lady's ship was secure. Just in case those lawyers snooped, although since all our exterior videos seem to be on the blink right now . . ."

Heris found herself smiling in spite of her annoyance. "Amazing how equipment around here seems to behave," she said. "For instance, the shuttle tonight—"

"Had a block in the hydraulic line to the steering of the nosewheel," Annie said promptly. "They couldn't seem to get it to roll into the usual parking slot, and decided it was safer to keep it on the straight runway."

"And yet they felt it was safe enough to fly . . . ?"

Annie shrugged. "It got you here, didn't it? And if any nosy person was looking for unusual activity, all they saw was a dark field." Heris nodded, not bothering to mention that any decent surveillance gear would pierce the darkness like a needle into wax . . . but Annie must know that.

"It was most convenient," Heris said instead. Annie chuckled.

"We hoped so." Then her expression sobered. "By the way, that tech you had running errands for the ship—Skoterin, isn't it?" Heris nodded. "One of those lawyers stopped her and talked to her a few minutes. I'd given her warning they might be coming through, but I guess she was curious or something—"