The City Who Fought (34 page)

"Weapon?" he said, turning it over briefly. "Do not strike without thinking, Joat. And rarely from anger.

That causes problems, always," He handed her back the gadget. "Wait."

Rachel's face had turned an ugly mottled color, partly from fright and partly from being humiliated. Her complexion went brick-red as Joseph grabbed her by the upper arm and began to pull her further down the corridor.

"Take your hands from my arm, peasant," she shouted. Joseph ignored her stolidly, as he did her attempts to halt their movement. "Let go of me!" she shrieked.

Passersby turned at the sound of her voice. Joseph cast a look up and down the corridor. There was little privacy here and none within easy reach. He released her arm and spoke in a firm low voice.

"My lady, you are not yourself. The coldsleep medications have affected your . . . balance. Please, accompany me to the sickbay and—"

"Yes! Back to the infidel doctor, so he can drug me,
poison
me, leave so-wonderful Amos to wallow between the thighs of that
slut
, that
whore
—"

He reached out a hand, a pleading gesture. Rachel struck it away with the contempt she would have dealt a spider.

"Don't touch me, you peasant whore's-get! You make me
sick.
Don't
touch
me!"

She struck again, a hard ringing slap across his face, backhanding him again and again. Joseph's head moved only a little on his thick muscular neck, although a trickle of blood started from his nose and the corner of his mouth. On the fourth slap, he caught her hand. She began to thrash, trying to free herself from that implacable grip. He turned her hand, exposing bleeding cuts where her knuckles had smashed against teeth and bone.

"My lady," he said, cutting through her shrill cries. "Strike me if you will, but you will hurt your hand using it so. Here, take this."

His free right hand made a small flip, and a knife appeared in it: a short leaf-bladed dagger with a plain leather-wrapped hilt, looking sharp enough to cut light. Rachel shrieked and pulled back again, but Joseph's hand made another movement, holding out the hilt. He waited, his eyes on hers. Silence fell broken only by Rachel's rapid, gasping breath. The bystanders were crowding away, their voices sunk to a murmur. Then Rachel pulled loose and ran, blundering into a corner as she scrambled out of sight down a side aisle.

Joseph clicked the knife into its wrist-sheath, his eyes thoughtful. Wiping his face on a kerchief, he returned to the two adolescents.

"I don't think I like her," Joat said laconically.

"I apologize," he said quietly. "Lady Rachel was gently reared. She is suffering from stress and adverse reactions to medication."

"She's bughouse," Joat said bluntly.
He's gone on her,
she thought.
Geh! What a fardlin' waste.
People should reproduce the way bacteria did, splitting cells. That was cleaner. Even ungrudlies like Joe got strange when they had the hots.

Joseph frowned at her. "Negative reaction, as I said."

"Yeah, bughouse, like I said. . . . Okay, forget it. How did you do that thing with the knife?"

"Spring-loaded sheath," Joseph said, obviously relieved to change the subject. He bent back his wrist and showed them.

Joat glanced at Seld, caught his eye. He shook his head in silent agreement.
Adults! They're nuts.

* * *

"Hah!" was Simeon's mocking comment. "Call that commuting? Why, in my grandfathers' day . . ."

"In your grandfathers' day," she said pulling herself into a sitting position, "they probably commuted by ox-cart through subspace and drifts of snow fourteen feet high, and that was in high summer, being dive bombed by stinging insects the size of ore-freighters, just to borrow a cup of sugar from their next-door neighbor three light years away. I," she said, indicating herself with a delicate hand and a raised eyebrow,

"am not as hardy. And I hate to commute."

"Not a problem I'm likely to have," he commented.

"No!" she agreed.

"So I should just offer sympathy and understanding," he suggested.

"Absolutely, and I, of course, will accept this with gratitude as the very balm my bruised and battered spirit craves."

"Poor baby."

"Ah," she sighed. "Well! I feel better. What's new on the home front?"

"Apparently Joat's gotten Seld grounded until he turns twenty-one."

"How'd she manage that?"

"Chaundra disciplined him for staying behind and she talked him into exploring the station with her and Joseph."

"Poor Seld. What's Joat's reaction?"

"Oh, it's all her fault, she's got the kiss of death or something—"

"Seld staying behind is her fault?"

"No, no. It's
all
her fault. The minute we decided to adopt her, Bethel was attacked, so that Amos escaped, the pirates chased him and the station is now endangered. You see the logical sequence of events. One of her depressed moods."

Those tended to be temporary but of unpredictable duration.

"I can't deny," she said, fighting a laugh, "that the logic's inescapable when the data is structured in that fashion."

They were still laughing when Amos came in.

"What causes such merriment?" he asked, grinning.

Channa looked at his handsome face, and it seemed to her that for a moment the station stood still.

"Oh," Simeon told him, "the horrors of being twelve."

Amos shuddered. "Indeed," he said, rolling his eyes. "Would that all horrors were both so transient and so amusing in retrospect. I fell in love with the cook. When that was over, I decided I was religiously inspired—and never recovered from
that.
"

Channa gave an involuntary snort of laughter, glanced over at him to be sure, then dissolved in whooping gales of laughter.

"At least," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, "you don't take yourself too seriously."

"I cannot afford to," Amos said, bowing with hand on breast. "Far too many others do. If their prophet cannot laugh at himself now and then, they are lost as well."

"My adolescence was worse," Simeon said. They turned and looked at the pillar. "Imagine my pure, unsullied, young self thrust among hardened asteroid miners."

"It certainly left its mark," Channa said dryly.

"No one escapes without being marked," Amos said wisely.

"And no one gets out alive," they all said together.

"Are you talking about the station?" Joat asked in horror, emerging from her room.

"No, no," Channa said. "Life." Teenage life, actually, but let's not be specific right now.

* * *

"It's so stupid!" she said, clattering a note organizer screen down.

"What is?" Simeon said, soothingly. Sometimes that tone annoyed Joat so much she forgot what was troubling her. This time she was too focused.

"Seld," she said. "I mean, this could be the last week of our lives and Seld is locked in his room! What a great way to go! Y'know?"

No one answered her. Channa and Amos wouldn't meet her eyes. A look of mild exasperation crossed her features and she tried another tack.

"Look, I
need
him," she said earnestly. "He's really pretty good, in a junior-grudly way, hey? I want to help. Y'know? So, I thought we, Seld and me, could . . ." She stopped, tapped her fingertips together and stared upward, biting her lip. "I thought we could maybe make up some of those signal disrupters I use," she said in a rush.

"You mean the ones that keep me from seeing or hearing you?"

"Yeah," Joat appeared fascinated by her fingernails. "Those."

"Joat, you could do that in the engineering lab. Anyone there will be happy to help you. If we get enough people assembling the elements, we could make quite a few in the time we have left."

"No," Joat said and sat down, looking right at Simeon's column. "I mean, I like the idea of working in the engineering lab, don't get me wrong on that. But the signal disrupter is
my
idea, and I'm not going to just give it away. I know I'm just a kid, but I know you don't do
that.
"

"I'm not going to let anybody steal the credit for your invention, Joat. I fully intend to watch out for your interests. I give you my word on that."

"Thank you," she said simply. A silence fell, oddly solemn. After a moment, Joat continued, "Y'know, it's probably not a good idea to have too many of them around. I mean, the more there are, the more likely some jerk will lose one and the pirates will find it and figure it out, then where'll we be?"

"A valid point," Channa said judiciously.

"So," Joat slapped her legs, then rubbed her palms up and down her thighs, "what I thought was, Seld and me could make up enough for you guys," she turned to point at Amos and then at Channa, "and as many of the council reps or team leaders as we can." She looked at the adults' faces, checking their expressions, then turned to Simeon's column. "Whaddaya say?"

"I'd say you're a heartless hard-bargainer, a blackmailer, and a techno-witch. That said, I'll talk to Chaundra, and I think he'll allow Seld to assist on an authorized project. But use more sense next time, Joat. When I adopt you, you're going to have limits, too. Oh, and don't work him too hard. He's just not . . ." Simeon tried to finish the caution diplomatically " . . . the hardy type."

"I know," she said softly, nodding solemnly. "I'll take care of him, I promise." Then she smiled a tight, professional-looking little smile, and rose. "Well, goodnight, everybody."

"Goodnight," they wished her in return.

When the door had closed behind her, Amos looked warmly at Channa, then dropped his eyes. "I, too, am weary, and there is still so much to learn."

"Do what you can," Channa advised, "and play the rest by ear."

"And don't forget," Simeon told him, "all you have to do is ask and I'll try to help. Channa, why don't you give him that contact button now?"

"Yes." From a desk drawer, she took a small box, which she presented to Amos.

"We should probably give one to both Joat and Seld," Simeon suggested.

Channa nodded.

Amos took out the small button curiously.

"That gadget will let me see what you see, hear what you hear, and respond in relative privacy," Simeon told him.

"It is so small," Amos said, examining the tiny device.

"But so effective," Simeon answered through the button.

Startled, Amos dropped it.

"I can see that it could be very useful," he said, laughing as he retrieved it. "Thank you, Simeon."

Channa hesitated. "See you in the morning."

"Yes, altogether too briefly," he replied, giving her a rueful bow.

* * *

Hopefully it would be more cheerful than breakfast, which had been subdued in the extreme. "Gods, another day gone? Where
is
everyone?"

"Amos is on his way back home and should be here any second," Simeon said. "Joat is committing illegalities in the engineering lab, chortling madly with Seld, when I can pick them up at all. She'll be back here to eat, or so I believe her plan to be."

Channa stretched. "I need a break." She flopped into an easy chair and said, "Would you put on the

'Hebrides Suite,' please?"

He listened to it for a moment and said, "This is nice."

"One of my favorites. My great-grandmother once told me that this music held the soul of Earth's oceans in its phrases. I've loved it ever since."

"Your great-grandmother was
from
Earth, Channa?"

"No, but she'd been there. Oh, this is my favorite part—a little louder, Sim."

She raised her hand, palm up to show that he should raise the volume again, and again. The door opened on Amos, who stepped backward as though the magnificent swell of sound had washed him out on a wave of music.

Channa laughed at his startled expression and signaled Simeon to lower the sound. "Sorry," she called.

Amos poked his head in cautiously, "Whew!" he said. "Channa, it is dangerous to play music at such volume. Your hearing will be impaired."

She made a face at him. "Don't be a priss, Simeon-Amos. No one ever lost their hearing on classical music."

"Beethoven?" Simeon suggested.

"Hah!" she said. "You men all stick together," and stumbled to the galley for coffee. When she had doctored it with cream liqueur and whipped Jersey floating on the surface, she took an appreciative sip.

"Ah! That's good!"
Although when I learned where Jersey originally came from, I nearly lost my
lunch,
she added to herself. Simeon had picked up on her tastes quickly.

"Now,
that
is something I feel I've missed out on," Simeon said.

"Mmmh?"

"Coffee, food, everyone who sits down to dinner at the Perimeter says, 'Wow! That smells good!'

closely followed by 'Mmm! This is delicious!' and I haven't got an analogue for either of those sensations.

Smell and taste—you'd think they could have given me one of 'em. Oh, I can
taste
when something's off in the chemo-synthesis plants, and I can
smell
an ion-trail, but it's not the same thing. Sometimes the people at Medic Central are downright inhumanly utilitarian."

"Why don't you put Joat on it?" Channa suggested.

"Put me on what?" Joat asked, arriving at that point.

"I was just saying that I've missed out on tasting coffee, or smelling it even, everyone says it smells so good. I don't even know what that means. I just can't get my mind around the concept. I don't like the feeling that I'm being denied one of life's greatest pleasures. However, the thought of anyone poking about with my neural interfaces is enough to keep the thought merely wistful."

Channa and Amos locked eyes a moment, then flicked away. Not before Simeon had caught the look.