Price of Ransom (35 page)

“
You
trust him?”

“Yes.”

“And anyway, Lily,” added Deucalion, “what other means do you have to get Yehoshua and Pinto back? Or were you planning to leave without them?”

The gaze she turned on him was searing. “Don’t even suggest it. But if Windsor can break Hawk out of the highest security prison the League has, then I by the Void can get them back from that woman.”

“No!” exclaimed Deucalion and Windsor at the same moment.”

“It’d be a big mistake, Cap’n,” added Fred from where he stood to one side of Windsor.

“Why?”

“You would consider use of force?” Deucalion demanded.

Lily laughed. “Why shouldn’t I? After this?”

Windsor shook his head. “Don’t do it. Not in Concord system. You and your crew will end up in Concord prison with no one to spring you. It wouldn’t be fair to them, at the least.”

“Yes,” agreed Deucalion mendaciously. “Think of your crew.”

“I
am
thinking of my crew. And my ship, which I don’t doubt Concord will find some excuse to remove from our stewardship. We’re getting Yehoshua and Pinto and we’re heading off to see if this Pale I’ve heard mentioned is more welcoming than the League.”

“Lily! You can’t do that. That place is lawless—every kind of troublemaker and social misfit drifts there—”

“Sounds like we’ll fit right in.”

“Say,” put in Windsor. “Can you take the boys and me with you?”

“There’s been a terrible misunderstanding,” protested Deucalion. “You’ve seen the very worst side of—I’m sure there’s an explanation. For all I know this has all been some plot devised by Maria Leung that we’ve been thrown into without our knowing it. Things don’t normally work this way.” He was beginning to look desperate. “Why do you think I choose to live in the League, chose this position?”

“Because you’re the bad twin,” Lily replied caustically.

Jenny stepped out onto the top of the ramp. “We’ve got incoming, Captain. Four ships. Some debate as to whether they’re the same as any we’ve seen before.”

“Stanford,” said Windsor. “Take a look.”

Stanford loped up the ramp.

“Do I let him on?” Jenny asked, blocking the entrance.

“Yes,” Lily replied. “I’m coming aboard.”

Jenny shrugged and let him pass, disappearing inside with him.

“Any of you coming on with me, or do you care to take your chances here?”

There was a pause. Deucalion looked at Windsor, an appeal for support, but Windsor just crossed his arms and looked up the ramp, waiting for Stanford’s assessment. It came quickly enough. “Yes?” Windsor said to the air. “All right.” He looked at Lily. “Stan says it’s official Intelligence flyers, running under authority code, with Basham himself aboard. I think we should wait. If we don’t wait, they’ll just chase and bring you in anyway. That ancient tub you’ve got doesn’t have a chance against a flyer.”

“Just how are you communicating?” Lily asked.

“With the flyers? By your comm.”

“No, with Stanford.” She lifted her wrist reflexively and glanced down at her wrist-com.

“Implant, of course.” Windsor shook his head again, sighing, and exchanged a look with Deucalion. “And as good of a ship as the
Forlorn Hope
is, the fact is, Ransome, that Stanford tells me it’s two centuries out of date. You can’t out-run anything in the League, not even to get out of the system.”

“And Basham will see that Yehoshua and Pinto are returned immediately,” added Deucalion persuasively. “I
know
him, Lily.”

“Don’t matter now,” interposed Fred. “While you been talking, they got here.” He waved his hand at the sky.

Four ships banked in. Two circled. Two landed close to the position where La Belle’s ships had put down.

“This better work,” muttered Lily.

“Patience,” replied Deucalion.

“My best virtue.”

The hatch unsealed and a ramp opened out. Several figures emerged, headed by a white-haired man of indeterminate years. They crossed briskly and halted in front of the
Hope
’s shuttle.

“Deucalion!” The white-haired man looked surprised. “What on earth are you doing here? We’ve gotten a flood of calls about unsanctioned landings and unauthorized fire in this area.”

“Yevgeny. May I introduce Lily Ransome? I believe you know—” Deucalion gestured toward Windsor.

Yevgeny Basham smiled a gently wry smile. “Min Windsor and I are acquainted, in a fashion. I see you delivered your bounty, min Windsor.”

“No, I don’t,” said Windsor roughly. “I waive all rights to it. And I won’t cooperate if you try to bring her in now.”

“Indeed.” Yevgeny raised his eyebrows, looking thoughtful. “Deucalion? You realize, of course, that as well as the original charges of aiding and abetting a fugitive who is a known threat to the lawful peace, min Ransome has accumulated charges since her arrival in League space of resisting arrest, illegal possession of historic property, reckless endangerment, and now, this afternoon, failure to appear at an arranged hearing as well as aiding and abetting escape from a maximum security facility, and now this disturbance here on the surface.”

“There is an explanation,” Deucalion began.

“Yes,” said Lily, speaking directly at Basham. “There is an explanation, min Basham. I can give it to you now.”

He turned his attention to her. His eyes were shrewd, and measuring. If he did not trust her, she thought, he did not yet distrust her either. “I think you would be better served, min Ransome, to give it before a convened hearing. I have been told that you claim salvage of what is believed to be the original
Forlorn Hope
.”

“Yes.”

“Incredible.” He studied the shuttle behind her for a few moments in silence. “That vessel certainly lends credence to your claim. I haven’t seen its like since my days in history class. Well, min Ransome—”

“
Captain
Ransome,” said Jenny in a loud voice from the ramp above.

“Captain.” He blinked, weighing this information, and Jenny’s weapons, as well. “I think it would be best if you would travel on my ship. And let some of my people escort yours.”

“If I won’t?” she asked, trying to temper the belligerence she felt. “If I choose just to leave? After one of your own officers attempted to kill me, you might understand that I hesitate to trust you.”

“One of my officers attempted to kill you?” His surprise did not looked feigned—or he was a very good actor. “This grows more serious. Deucalion?”

“It’s quite true. She tried to kill me as well. Threatened everyone here. Maria Rashmi Leung.”

Yevgeny frowned. “I would be sorry to discover that she had. In truth, Captain, I would not blame you for choosing to simply run. You wouldn’t get far. Your vessel is out of date. Now. I can reconvene the hearing in two hours. Will you travel with me, Captain?”

Everyone waited, as if this decision on Lily’s part was of vital importance. Even Deucalion did not intrude with his opinion. Lily realized suddenly who Yevgeny reminded her of, with his keen eye and mellow, but sharp, demeanor. He reminded her of Master Heredes. She wondered if he would be aghast at being compared to one of the infamous saboteurs—to the master of the art himself.

“I will,” she replied, because she knew she really had no choice. “I would request that my robot Bach be allowed to come with me, as well as my Special Officer min Seria, and min Windsor and his two companions.”

Yevgeny merely nodded. “That seems reasonable.”

Windsor grinned. “Insurance,” he muttered so softly that only Lily could hear him. “Wise move.”

Lily reached to lay a hand on Kyosti’s arm. “Hawk as well.”

Now Yevgeny looked briefly startled, but he controlled it very well. “He would be coming with us in any case, as an escaped prisoner. He belongs—”

“He belongs with me.”

“Lily—” began Deucalion, warning.

“You know it’s true. But,” and she kept her gaze focused on Yevgeny Basham, “I’ll save that story for the hearing.” Then, because it gave her an illusion of control over a situation she knew now, and finally, controlled her, a situation that she would have to completely resolve before she could ever make a new life for herself and her crew—wherever they ended up—she removed her hand from Kyosti’s arm and waved toward Yevgeny’s ship. “Shall we go?”

“Y
OU’RE CRAZY,” MUTTERED JENNY.
“We should have just run for it and blasted through anyone who got in our way.”

Lily tilted back her chair and stared at the clear dome above. Stars and the void of space and filaments of Concord’s vast superstructure showed through the clear material that made up the huge semicircle. When they had been shown into this chamber, the dome above had been opaque; then some switch had been thrown and the surface had cleared and screens had rolled back to reveal the stars. “I don’t think we could make it. Their technology is more advanced than anything we have. They may not choose to use weapons, but they’ve got them. Sometimes it’s better to negotiate.”

Bach, floating just behind her chair, sang.

Geduld, Geduld!

Wenn mich falsche Zungen stechen.

Leid’ ich wider meine Schuld

Schimpf und Spott,

Ei! so mag der liebe Gott

Meines Herzens Unschuld rächen.

“Patience, patience!

even when false tongues sting me.

Contrary to my guilt I suffer

abuse and mockery.

Ah, then, may dear God

avenge my heart’s innocence.”

Lily chuckled. “Yes. Especially when you’re outnumbered and outgunned.”

“After everything that’s happened, you still trust them? It’s all talk, Lily. Deucalion claims to be so shocked by our civil war, all of the Reft’s old-fashioned—he calls them—customs, but I don’t see that they’ve treated you much differently.”

“I don’t know.” As she considered, Lily let one hand drop down to rest lightly on Kyosti’s hair. Its blue strands snaked around her fingers. He was reclined at her feet, perfectly still, not so much reposing as waiting with a predator’s anticipation of its prey. “Think about the people we’ve run into. Most helped us. And Windsor was just doing his job. I think that Maria Leung is the exception.”

“Yes.” Jenny grinned suddenly. “We ought to introduce her to Kuan-yin. Don’t you suppose they’d get along?”

But Lily simply smiled. “They already were introduced some time ago. They didn’t get on well at all. As I remember, Kuan-yin called her a bitch.”

Jenny laughed. In the great domed chamber, the sound was swallowed immediately. The pair of attendants who had shown them into the chamber—they did not quite have the demeanor of guards—glanced at them from their stance by one of the doors, looked away again, returning to their conversation. The acoustics in the room were exceptionally sensitive. Lily and Jenny, lapsing into a brief silence, could hear the attendants’ words.

“… and the shift manager said, ‘Sure, Nazik, I’ll believe that the
Sans Merci
just hailed into system. Maybe you’d like to offer to lease me some cryo berths, too.’ And Nazik said, ‘No, really,’ and by this time about four of the other people on shift had come over to stare at her screen and someone called up the specs on the overhead, and the shift manager turned around to swear at the person who’d done it and looked up …”

The door opposite the attendants opened. First the low harmony of voices speaking casually together spilled into the chamber, then a number of people who quickly sorted themselves out as they took seats in the circle of chairs in which Lily and Jenny were already sitting. Arranged in such a manner—rather as if they were seated at a large table and the table had been removed—it was hard for Lily to think of the occasion as a tribunal. It seemed more like a social meeting, everyone comfortable in padded chairs with consoles embedded in each arm and no furniture or levels to set off those judging from those being judged.

Of the six people now seated in the circle, she recognized only Yevgeny Basham. The other five were strangers, three women, one a Ridani—like Diomede’s coordinator Scallop, she was only half-tattooed—and two men. One of the men had very pale skin and red hair; Lily could not help staring at him, and she wondered if he dyed it or if, like Kyosti, that was its natural color. Then she flushed when he smiled at her, and she looked instead at Yevgeny.

He nodded, acknowledging her gaze. “Let me introduce the board,” he said, and he went around the chairs. Qaetana, from Administration; Maphuna, from Environment; Chao, Services; Chapman, from Medical—the red-haired man; and Isfa’han, from Parliament—the Ridani woman. Evidently Yevgeny was the only representative from Intelligence. He paused, after the introductions, and looked expectantly at the Ridani woman, who settled her hands in her lap and looked at each member of the circle. “I will be moderating,” said Isfa’han. “I would like to begin by asking min Ransome to explain a bit about her background.”

So she told them, about Reft space, about growing up on Unruli, about Heredes’s academy and his kidnapping by the Kapellans and her subsequent search for him—a pause here while they all looked at Kyosti and looked away. How she had lived on Arcadia and aided Pero, and how she had joined Jehane’s revolution and followed it to its end, for her at least, in Pero’s death. And finally, the decision to take the
Forlorn Hope
and its crew to find the lost route back to League space.

The tale took longer to tell than she expected. As she watched her audience, she saw signs that some of what they heard shocked them—minute signs, certainly, because all six were clearly trained to listen without judging, but signs nonetheless: an averting of eyes here, a slight flush there, a hand covering a mouth. Chapman, the red-haired man, even grimaced once, when she told of Pero’s murder. She did not mention Hawk’s activities at all, except that he had traveled with her.

Silence followed her story. Isfa’han took notes on her console and, after an interval, coughed slightly to alert the others that she was about to proceed. “That brings us to the captain’s activities in League space. I show in my records that Intelligence brought a bounty hunter in on min Ransome, on the charge of aiding and abetting a dangerous fugitive.” All six looked at Kyosti. He did not look back at them, but rather beyond them, as if they did not really exist for him or were too unimportant to register. “From the record I have here of min Hakoni’s arrest on Zeya Depot, it does appear that he is unstable and potentially violent.”