The City Who Fought (22 page)

The man lowered his head, like a bull considering a charge. "Ms. Hap, me and mine worked for forty years to get the
Gung Ho.
We're still paying off our loans. Losing a major cargo—we'll pay forfeits if we don't get the load to Kobawaslo et Filles—could break us. Then we'll be on the beach. Hell, I like kids s'much as the next guy, but a man's gotta live."

"Well, then, Captain, you'll be pleased to know that children are much lighter than chemical salts.

Exchanging one for the other should get you well out of the danger zone in excellent time." Channa gave him a pleasant smile, and held his gaze until the man's eyes dropped. "Yes, you have a question?" And she pointed to the shaven, tattooed captain who had leaped to her feet, waving both hands to be heard.

When the question of how to deal with pregnant women giving birth on her ship was satisfactorily settled by assuring her of a trained medic in her consignment, she subsided.

In the end, all capitulated, but nine begged a few hours' leeway to ditch and buoy-mark such cargoes that a period in space wouldn't damage beyond use.

"Phew," Simeon said as the captains walked out. "That was unpleasant."

"Not by comparison," Channa said grimly.

"Comparison to what?"

"Announcing it to the station," she said.

"Oh."

* * *

"You are shitting me, Joat," Seld Chaundra said scornfully. "Pirates! What do you think I am? A playschool kid?"

Yes
, Joat thought. "I am not lying, shit-for-brains," she said.

They were in Seld's quarters, which were comprised of a bedroom and study, off his father's suite near the main sickbay in North Sphere. The study was crammed with ship models and holoposters, most of them from travel catalogues but a few from adventure serials. Joat particularly liked the one of the bug-eyed man screaming in the jaws of one fanged head of a three-headed monster which waved him above the rubble of a burning building. Curiously enough, the man resembled the captain who had won her from her uncle.

"Gimme another bar," she added. Seld flipped it over from the sofa where he sprawled. Joat caught it out of midair and discarded the wrapper on the floor. Seld winced but said nothing.

"How can you
eat
so many of those things?" he asked as she gobbled it.

"Gotta eat 'em while the getting's good," she replied, chewing with her mouth open. He winced again.

He's a wuss,
she thought. "Anyway, they're supposed to be here soon."

"Suuuuure."

Suddenly Seld was tumbled backward against the back of the sofa. He gave a strangled squawk as Joat's thin strong hands, crossed at the wrist, gripped his jacket below the throat. Her bony knuckles dug painfully into his windpipe. He couldn't breathe at all, as she was also kneeling on his stomach.

"Look, you wuss—"

"I am not a wuss!" he wheezed.

"—and I am not shitting you!
Here
." She let him up, marched over to his work table and slapped a chip on the receiver plate of his screen. It lit, showing the control lounge and Simeon's pillar, the shouting captains surging around it.

Seld listened open-mouthed. "Pirates," he concurred weakly. "Hey! That's private, you stole that chip!"

"Did not, just jacked the feed and
copied
it."

"Unauthorized copying is stealing, Joat. And eavesdropping on official meetings is . . ." Seld trailed off, unable to identify the offense though he knew it must be one.

Fardling wuss,
she thought.
He sounds just like his father when he says things like that.
Yet his father was a lot nicer than hers had been. Her memories of paternal care were the kind you woke up at night sweating from. Hopefully he was dead from Jeleb nightmare-smoke by now. Her uncle had been worse, after he took her over, but at least she
knew
her uncle was dead. She pushed such thoughts aside as time wasters.

"Okay, I'm a Sendee mud-puppy eavesdropper and data-bandit—so
listen to what they're saying,
will you?"

Seld blinked and did so. "Holy shit," he whispered. "We
are
going to be attacked by pirates." His eyes lit. "Hey, Joat, this is like a holo."

Joat kicked him.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded, outraged.

"Because I like you, fool," she said.

"You do?" he said, straightening up and then wincing. "Hell of a way to show it, fardler."

"Fardler yourself. This
ain't
no holo, Seld. Those pirates, those Kolnari, are for
real.
Half the outies on that ship that nearly clipped the station were
dead,
osco. That's d-e-a-d, dead, finished, off to the big tax-haven in the afterglow,
dead.
This is major criminal we're talking, Seld. Like, we could get seriously fardled up—you, me, Simeon, Channa, your dad."

"Yeah," Seld said, in a small voice, looking totally scared. "But what can we
do?
" That word came wobbling out as Seld tried not to show Joat how frightened he really was.

"Come close and listen to momma," she said. "Simeon has some ideas. I got more."

* * *

Rachel bint Damscus sat and shivered on the edge of the bed. There was nothing under it. Not even legs to hold it up, just some sort of field mechanism, yet it did not move. She shivered again, looking down at the pill in her hand. The strange dark man they called Doctor Chaundra had given it to her, saying that it would make her feel better. She didn't want to feel better. She wanted to feel pain, because pain told her she was still alive.

Her eyes flicked around the little cubicle. There was a sink in the corner. She darted to it and threw the pill down the drain, scrabbling at the unfamiliar controls until a gush of water followed it. Then she scrambled back to the bed, humiliatingly conscious of how the thin hospital gown revealed her body.

Conscious also of the emotions roiling beneath the surface of her mind, like great boulders grinding and moving in the dark. . . .

I wish I was home,
she thought desolately. But home was gone, further than all the light-years between this accursed place and the sun Saffron. Home had been in Keriss . . . Keriss was poisoned dust floating in Bethel's skies.
Mother,
she thought,
father. Little sister Delilah.

Most of the other Bethelites who escaped had been from the Sierra Nueva lands. Amos' family had been direct descendants of the Prophet, members of the Synod of Patriarchs for twenty generations.

They had owned the city of Elkbre outright and tens of thousands of square kilometers around it. And they had always been an enlightened family, as much as any, more than most. Hence, the Second Revelation had spread widely there. Rachel had come to it late.
After I heard Amos speak,
she thought, burying her face in her hands.
He was like the Prophet come again.
A new voice, sweeping away the intolerable stuffy load of convention.
And he is so beautiful. . . .

The partition door opened. Joseph came through first, one hand tinder the flap of his jacket as was his custom. Amos followed, and Rachel flung herself forward into his arms, gripping him fiercely. It was a moment before she felt the awkwardness with which he patted her back. She withdrew, clutching at the gown. That only emphasized its skimpiness, and she flushed deeply, looking down at the floor.

"Pardon, excellent sir," she said.

He made a dismissive gesture. "No need to be formal, Rachel," he said. "You are well?"

"Relieved," she said. "They would only say that you would return, but not where you had been taken or why. Where have you been?" She raised her eyes anxiously to his face.

He hesitated for a moment. "Joseph and I have been meeting with the station managers. We have arranged a funeral service for those who died on our journey here."

She turned aside to spare his embarrassment. "They are not to be trusted."

"What do you mean, Rachel?" His tone was apprehensive but also stern.

"Nothing, yet," she said sullenly, hanging her head. Then she grasped his wrist painfully tight, meeting his eyes earnestly. "But who knows? They are
mezamerin.
"
Strangers.
In the ancient liturgical language,
infidel.

"Rachel, do not start parroting the Elders at this late date," Joseph said in exasperation. More gently, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Did you take the medication?"

"Yes," she said brusquely, shrugging off his hand. Then she turned to Amos with a sigh. "I am sorry, Excell . . . Amos."

The memory swept over her again: the crowded chamber and the sickly-sweet taste at the back of her mouth as the coldsleep injection took effect.

"I . . . thought I had died, when I woke here," she said. "My father . . . did I tell you?"

"No," Amos said, taking her hand. His large dark-blue eyes held a sudden compassion. "He cursed you?"

"Yes. When I left home to follow you, he put the Patriarch's curse upon me: hell, and miserable rebirth, and damnation again, forever."

Amos blanched slightly for, though his father had been disappointed in his son, even appalled by his son's apostasy, he had not uttered the curse. Perhaps that would have come about had his father not died during Amos' early teens.
If I
had
been cursed? Perhaps that was why I, fatherless, could become the
leader of the Second Revelation,
he thought.
What courage my followers had, to dare the curse for
me!

"I thought I was damned indeed," she whispered. "Since I awoke . . . I . . . I really do not feel myself, Amos."

"It is to be expected," he said, patting her cheek. "You will feel better soon."

"And did you tell them of what follows us?" she asked, blurting out the words since his touch had given her the courage to speak them. "Have they defenses?"

Joseph had been brooding, facing slightly away. Now he laughed bitterly. "Defenses? These people are as open as a canal-side harlot."

Rachel drew a shocked breath.

"You forget yourself, Joseph," Amos said as Rachel drew closer to his side, an instinctive move toward his protection. "There is a lady present."

The shorter man bowed. "Apologies, Excellent Sir," he replied stiffly. A deeper bow. "My lady."

"I cast your own words back, my brother—do not imitate the Elders," Amos said. Unnoticed, Rachel stiffened.

"Is it true?" she said. "They have no defenses?"

Amos nodded, his mouth drawn into a line. "Yes. These are peaceful people, as we were. Fortunately, they are in communication with the Navy of the Central Worlds. Unfortunately, the Kolnari will be here before that help arrives."

Rachel gasped. "How can we flee from here?"

"We cannot," Amos replied, shrugging away the chance of flight. "There are ships, but they are small and have no facilities for passengers. Children, those with child, and the infirm are to be evacuated. The rest of us must remain here and seek to delay the enemy."

"They will know us!" she said in a trembling voice.

Joseph shook his head. "I think not, Lady bint Damscus," he said formally. "Not in this place, and among such as inhabit it. Already we have seen more races of men than I knew existed outside legend. Some very different customs," he pulled his mouth down in disapproval, "and non-men as well."

Rachel's eyes went wide. The most cogent incentive for the Exodus to Bethel had been the Prophet's determination not to pollute the pure blood by congress with non-humans. Nonhuman intelligence was the creation of Shaithen, whether flesh or machine.

Joseph made a soothing gesture. "They are not rulers here. Still, among so many and so various, our handful will disappear and not be remarked by the Kolnari for what we are. The fiends must believe that they strike without warning, that no help will be called to this station. So they will wait, thinking to feast at their ease. Then the warships will come, to rescue us—and return us to our poor Bethel."

"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "I had not thought of . . . returning."

"In a sense," Amos began, and her eyes snapped back to him with a fixed attention, "we have won the war. Now we must try to survive it. Please, Rachel my sister, would you go among the other women and children? They are awakening, and will be lost and frightened. Prepare those who are eligible to leave here."

"I obey, Amos." She looked around, realizing that she could not go even among women and children of her own people in what she wore.

Joseph opened one of the closets and handed her a large, shapeless robe. Rachel nodded a distant thanks before she donned it and left, the full folds sweeping behind her.

"We have something we share, she and I," Joseph said bitterly, throwing himself down in his float chair.

Even his solid bulk did not make it bob on its supporting field. Amos noted the fact and filed it.

I must make a quick review, he thought. Find what technologies have arisen during our isolation on Bethel. Whatever supports the chair could be altered to support other heavy weights.

"What do you share?" he asked the other man.

"We both aspire above our stations, she and I," Joseph replied.

Amos blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said after a moment. "Sits the wind so? I had thought her merely devoted to the cause."

"So she is, but that is not the whole story."

"Even if we followed the old customs, I would not take her even as a second wife," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Since I have not even a first, speculation is useless." Then he raised one eyebrow.

"You have not pressed your suit?"

"Was there time?" Joseph asked rhetorically. Then he sighed. "Amos, could you see me going to her father for permission?
Bastard son of a whore and a dockside pimp
he would have called me, whether he had disowned her or no—and it would be no more than the truth."

Amos laughed grimly and thumped his follower on the shoulder. "Joseph, my brother, you are a bold man who has saved my life more than once. But there are times when you allow your birth to blind you as much as any hidebound Elder."

At Joseph's puzzled look, he continued. "Joseph, where did Rachel's father live?"