Serpent's Reach (36 page)

It was a wretched sight, the covered vehicle laden with injured, with men bleeding through their bandages or, deep in shock, trying to protect unset bones. Warrior danced about anxiously, scenting life-fluids: “Go, out of the way,” Raen bade it. Merry climbed down, and the three he had taken to help him climbed out of the back, exhausted and staggering themselves from the heat. Raen ordered cold water for them, ordered the others to work while Merry and his companions slumped in the shade of the truck.

Willing hands off-loaded the injured into the air-conditioned house, to the bedrooms, the carpeted floors, everywhere there was room. They gave them water, and what medicines they could find in the house. Some were likely dying. All were in great pain, quiet as azi were always quiet, so long as they retained any consciousness of what they were doing. Some moaned, beyond that awareness.

Raen walked back into the living room, where her sunsuit lay over the back of a chair. She looked at the kitchen door, where Merry stood, shadow-eyed and bruised and bloody. “There’s no taking them farther,” she said hoarsely. “It’s too cruel. Some, maybe. Some.” She looked at Ny and Berden. “You tell me, seri. What would happen to those men here, in your care? I can terminate the worst or I can leave them—but not for you to do it. You tell me.”

“We can manage for them,” Ny said. “Want to.” He pressed Berden’s hand. “Never killed anybody. Don’t want anybody killed in this house.”

She believed that, by means having nothing to do with logic.

“Are you,” Berden asked, “leaving us our own azi?”

She had intended otherwise until that moment. She looked at the beta woman and nodded. “Keep them. Likely you’ll need their help yourselves, and probably they’re no use in a fight.”

The youth stood up, provoking a nervous reaction of his wife and of the armed azi. “I’m coming with,” he said. “You’re going to the City; you’re going to fight. I’m coming with. There’s others too. From other farms.”

She was bewildered by that, saw his parents and wife almost protest, and not; saw ser Ny nod his head in slow agreement.

“I have the place to hold,” Ny said sorrowfully. “But Nes’d go if he wants. Take some of the guard-azi with him, ours. We can spare. Settle with those citymen, and ’bove-worlders.”

“You don’t understand,” Raen protested. “You can’t help. It’s not ISPAK; it’s not ITAK either.”

“What, then?” asked the younger Ny, his brow wrinkling. “What are you going to fight, Kontrin?”

It was a good question, better than he might know. Raen looked about her at their refuge, the farm, that might survive the chaos to come…looked back at him and shrugged. “Hive-matter. Things that have wanted settling for a long time.”

“There’s men would go,” the young beta insisted. “Farms like ours and big estates too, belly-full with the way ITAK’s run us. There’s men all over would go to settle this once for all, would go with you, Kontrin.”

“No.”

“Sera,” Merry objected. “This is sense he offers.”

“This is the tapes,” she said, looked about at all their faces, azi and beta. “
Tapes
…you understand that? You owe me nothing. We taped it into your ancestors seven hundred years ago. All your loyalty, all your fear of us, your desire to obey. It’s ail psych-set. Your azi know where their ideas come from. I’m telling you about yours. You’re following a program. Stop, before it ruins you.”

There was silence, stark silence, and the young man stood stricken and the young woman held her child close.

“Be free,” Raen said. “You’ve your farm. Let the cities go. I doubt there’ll be more azi. These are the last. They’ll go at their forty-year. Have children. Never mind the quotas. Have children, and be done with azi and with us.”

“It’s treason,” the older Ny said.

“We created you; is that a reason to die with us? Outsiders have left the Reach, for a time long in
your
terms. The old woman who rules on Cerdin will fall soon, if not already; that they’ve come for me openly says something of that; and there’ll be chaos after. Save what you can. Depend on no one.”

“You stay, then,” said Berden. “You stay with us, sera.”

She looked at the beta in affront, and the gentleness in that woman’s face and voice minded her of old Lia; it hurt. “Tapes,” she said. “Come on, Merry. Load the truck.” She glanced again at the Ny-Berdens. “I’m sorry about taking from you; all I can give you in return is advice. You’ve the lifetime of these azi to prepare yourselves for years without them, for a time when there’ll only be your children to farm the land. And never—
never
meddle with the hives.”

The azi gathered themselves, packed up food and water, headed for the waiting truck. Raen turned her back on the betas, pulled on the sunsuit, took up her rifle again, went out down the steps. Warrior hovered there, clicking with anxiety. Merry was tying on containers of extra fuel, a can and a half. “All we have?” she asked; Merry shrugged. “All, sera. I drained it.”

Already the azi were boarding, all who could come and many who should not, insisting they were guard-azi and not farmers.

For them she felt most grief, for men who could imagine nothing more than to come with her. Even some of the farm azi rose and started forward, as if they thought that they were supposed to come, but she ordered them back, and they did not.

Then Merry climbed aboard, waiting on her. She saw two more waiting…long-faced, and the back of the truck was jammed; she motioned them into the cab, two more that they could manage, for in the back, men sat three deep, rifles leaned where they could; or stood, leaning on the frame. Heat went up from the ground and the truck in waves.

She squeezed herself in with Merry and the two others, pulled the door shut: no air-conditioning…they needed the fuel. There was a last scurrying and scrabbling atop the truck. Warrior was minded to ride for a space, boarded even as Merry put the vehicle in motion and it laboured out, swaying and groaning, toward the dirt road.

“Left,” Raen said when they reached the branching, directing them toward the River, and abandoned depots and the City.

She had the map, on her knee, and the hope that the vehicle would hold together long enough. She looked at Merry, past the two azi who shared the cab with them. Merry’s face was solid and stolid as ever, no sign of dread for what they faced.

How could there be, she wondered, for the likes of them, who knew their own limits, that they were designed and bred for what they did, and did it well?

They had not even the luxury of doubt.

We are outmoded, they and I,
she thought, closing her hands about the smooth stock of the rifle.
Appropriate, that we go together
.

There was a presence at the door, beyond the sealed steel. Moth did not let it hasten her, carefully poured wine into the crystal with a steady left hand. The right hung useless. It throbbed, and the fingers were too swollen to bend. She did not look at it. The bandages sufficed; the robes covered it; and she deliberately forced herself to move about, ignoring it.

Something hissed at the door. She caught a flicker from the consoles about the room, a sudden shriek of alarm after. She set the wine down quickly and keyed broadcast to the hall outside.

“Stop it,” she snapped. “If you want these systems intact, don’t try it.”

“She’s alive,” she heard in the background.

“Eldest,” an old voice overrode it, a familiar voice. She tried through the haze of pain to place it. Thon. That was Nel Thon. “Eldest, only your friends are here. Open the doors. Please open the doors.”

She said nothing to that.

“Crazy,” someone said farther away. “Her mind has gone.” Someone hissed that voice to silence.

“No,” she answered it. “Quite sane. That you, Nel?”

“Eldest!” the voice overflowed with relief. “Please, open the doors. It’s settled, over with. The forces loyal to you have won. Use the intercomp channels and confirm it for yourself.”

“Loyal to
me?
” Pain made her voice harsh and she fought to make it even again. “Go back to the hives, Thon. Tell
them
your loyalty.”

“Everything is stable, Eldest. Unlock the doors.”

“Go your way, Nel Thon. Lord it in Council without me. Try your own terminals to intercomp. They’ll work…so far.” She drew a deep breath and cared little now how her voice sounded. “That door opens from the inside, cousins. Force it and you’ll trigger a wipe.”

There was a burst of voices from outside. She could not distinguish words.

“Please,” said Nel Thon. “Is there some condition you want? Is there any assurance you want?”

“The same goes,” she continued, “for trying to gain access to the banks, dear cousins. My key is fed in with a destruct order. When I go, it goes. Figure your way around
that
, cousins.”

There was profound silence outside.

In time a whispering of anguished voices retreated from the area. She left the set on broadcast and settled back again, picked up the goblet and drank, sipped at it slowly, for the wine had to last.

The ship was there, on the field, a sleek, familiar shape too graceful for the ground. Morn took time for a glance, attended to the necessary business of landing: the shuttle was not made for fine manoeuvres.

Touchdown. He ignored the field patterns; tower was dead, and there were no lights to relieve the evening haze. He used the moving gear to take the shuttle up to the rear of the star. ship, out of the track of its armament.

“They answer,” the azi at com told him quietly. “They’re Hald azi and they’re upset.”

“Time they responded,” Morn said. He began shutdown, closed off systems. “Standard procedures.” He looked back through the ship, to the dozen who were with him, armoured and armed. Chatter crackled in his left ear: no port control, but the Istra shuttle coming in with thirty more of his men, hard behind him. “Ask where Pol is.”

“They say,” the com-azi reported back slowly, “that he’s gone into the City some time ago, hunting the Meth-maren face to face. They weren’t told how he’s proceeding, or where.”

“Is Sam with him?” Morn asked, for that one of Pol’s azi was his most reliable.

“No. It’s Sam I’m talking to.”

“Tell him to open that ship” Morn rose, ducking the overhead, felt for his gun and gathered up his sun-kit and his rifle. One-unit readied itself to accompany him.

“Sam says,” the com-azi called after him, “that he doesn’t want to open. He says he’s not sure he should.”

Morn looked at the com-azi, his breath shortened by temper. “Tell Sam he has no choice,” he said, and opened the hatch.

There was a thunder of engines outside, the Istra shuttle coming in. “Have them form up beside this ship,” he directed two-unit leader, and rode the extending ladder down: one-unit was quickly at his heels.

He had a prickling at his nape, being in the open, near the terminal building. Betas might occupy that point, that flat roof, ITAK betas, who were likely
hers
to a man, and dangerous. He darted glances to all likely points for snipers, and half-ran the space to Pol’s sleek
Moriah
, careless of dignity. Sam was capitulating, lowering the ramp, having come to his senses.

He climbed it with half hid escort, stood inside, breathing the cold air of the hatchway. Pol’s whole staff gathered there, Sam prominent among them, a sandy-haired azi with a scar at his brow.

“Out of my way,” Morn said, and elbowed Sam aside; the others moved, pushed aside by his armoured escort. He walked into controls with Sam anxiously struggling his way through after—sat down and read through what there was to read.

There was nothing. He turned around, a frown gathered on his face. “Sam. What kind of operation has he out there? What force is with him?”

The azi ducked his head in distress. “Alone, ser. He went alone.”

Morn drew in his breath, eyes flicking over the staff of
Moriah
, finding them far too many: it was likely truth. Guard-azi. Dark-haired Hana, a female azi who was Pol’s eccentricity, not even particularly beautiful. Tim, like Sam, Pol’s accustomed shadow.

“Where,” Morn asked, “is the Meth-maren based? City? ITAK Central?”

“We don’t know.”

It was truth. Sam was distressed; the whole staff was distraught.

“Stay and hold this ship,” Morn directed his own men. “If Pol shows up, tell him to stay here.”

A stiffing feeling of things wrong assailed him. He thrust his way past them, out, down the ramp again where the other half of one-unit waited. The second shuttle had disgorged its occupants. Thirty more men waited orders.

A long partnership, his with Pol: forty years. They had shared much, had hunted together—and not only in sport. He tolerated Pol’s humour and Pol supported his grimmer amusements.

Pol’s humour. He looked about him, at dead buildings, at a sky void of traffic, the only sound that of the wind tugging at cloth and the popping of cooling metal. It was not a time or place for an exercise of whim, not even Pol’s.

He had sent Pol, in advance of the order which sent him: Pol’s humour, to ask this of him.

Pol…who avoided Cerdin of late; who avoided many old connections, and the hold at Ahlvillon—and, avowing her tedious… Moth.

He paused, hard-breathing, looking back at
Moriah
, Pol avowed he had no sense of humour. Pol contrived, finally, to disturb his self-possession.

He shouted an order to the azi, stalked off toward the buildings of the terminal. Azi hastened to cluster themselves about him, shielding him with their armour and their bodies; he took this for granted, it being their function, and himself conspicuous for the Colour that he wore.

Sun’s glare still reflected off windows, but there was more than one window missing, betokening more than a quiet power shutdown here. That drew him, promising some insight into what had happened in the City.

And in the terminal, scattered over the polished floors, there were dead, male and female, young and old.

With live majat.

“Don’t fire!” Morn snapped. One stepped lightly toward them, in the doorway. He saw the badges on it: it was a red, that had never been trouble for Hald.