The Crystal Variation (44 page)

“Whatever,” she said, deliberately discourteous, but he merely smiled as if she’d given him proper word and mode, and turned his attention back to Jela.

“Regarding your mission, M. Jela. You are aware that the consolidated commanders are effectively defeated, are you not? They have been routed in most of their bases, and are hunted—with more fervor than the proper enemy! Or do you believe the late contretemps in the alley a mere coincidence?”

Beside her, Jela seemed to loose some breadth of shoulder. He sighed.

“I had hopes that my commander . . .” he murmured, and let the words trail away into nothing.

Rool Tiazan lifted his head, pointing his eyes toward—
beyond
, Cantra thought—the roof of the cab.

“Your commander is at liberty,” he said, in a distant voice. “She has eluded those the High Command sent against her, and commands a small force of specialists. Their apparent course is for the Out-Rim, vectoring the area of increased
sheriekas
attacks.” He blinked and lowered his gaze to Jela’s face.

“I do not find a probability or a possibility, not a likelihood at all, in which she survives beyond the turning of the Common Year.”

Thirty Common Days, as Cantra did the math.

“If it does not offend,” Rool Tiazan said quietly, “my lady and I offer our condolences, M. Jela.”

Silence. Jela’s eyes were closed. He took a breath—another. Sighed and opened his eyes.

“I thank you and your lady,” he said softly and with no irony that Cantra could detect. “My commander would wish to die in battle, doing proper duty.”

“So she shall,” the
dramliza
assured him. “That she extends the fight acts to disguise event wonderfully. Your commanders may lose, but
your
mission . . . continues.”

Another small moment of silence passed before Jela straightened, visibly throwing off grief.

“Where are you taking us?” he asked Rool Tiazan.

“Ah. To your ship, where my lady will meet us.”

“What?” Cantra demanded, but Jela only nodded.

“Good. I want another opinion of the two of you.”

Rool Tiazan smiled. “We will be delighted to accommodate you, sir.”

“If you will excuse me
once more, my attention is wanted elsewhere,” the
dramliz
Rool Tiazan murmured.

He apparently took their permission for granted. No sooner had he spoken, then he was slumped on the jump-seat again, in a trance so deep he hardly seemed to breathe.

Jela took a moment to consider the extreme vulnerability of the man’s situation, then shook the thought away. He
looked
vulnerable, did Rool Tiazan, but it would be beyond foolish to assume that he allowed himself to be at the mercy of his enemies.

Or of his allies.

Jela sighed to himself, and put thoughts of mayhem on hold, pending the tree’s judgment.

He glanced over and saw Cantra watching him. Her fingers moved against her knee, flicking out—
Condition is
?

Now there was the question, he thought—wasn’t it? Trust Cantra to ask it, and he’d better be accurate in his assessment, because only she knew what course she’d plot from the data.

Condition is
, he signed slowly—
double usual rules
.

She gave a slight nod, indicating receipt of the message, and settled herself silently into her corner of the bench. Apparently neither one of them wanted to start a conversation that their host could retroactively snatch out of the air when he came to.

What thoughts might occupy Cantra, he didn’t know, though he might guess it had to do with the prospect of allowing strangers possessed of peculiar talents onto her ship, and strategies for holding them harmless.

For himself—well, for the first time in his Generalist’s life, he had too much to think about—and on subjects he’d rather not consider.

That the consolidated commanders had been discovered and were in the process of being destroyed—he’d suspected the worst when his usual contacts had failed him.

The situation of his commander—if he believed the report of Rool Tiazan—and he had no reason, given his own direst fears, to doubt it . . .

The report that Commander Ro Gayda would soon be dead in action grieved him more than he could quite assimilate. He had lost comrades before—countless numbers of comrades—and commanding officers, as well. And yet this death, despite that he believed it to be one that she herself would embrace with a soldier’s fierce joy—this death pained him in places so deep and private he hardly knew how to deal with it.

Had his arm been caught in a man-trap, he might have hacked it off and kept on fighting; had his ship been breeched, he might have rushed the enemy and with his last breath made the pain meaningful.

But this—there was no getting at the wound; no assessing the level of function disturbed . . .

A flicker out of the corner of his eye—Cantra’s fingers, asking—

Condition is
?

He sighed, and watched his fingers spell out—
Old soldier hit bad
, which might’ve been more truth than he would have willingly given, but a pilot learns to trust his fingers—and besides, it was too late to unsay it.

Cantra reached out and put her near hand on his knee, then leaned her head back against the bench. She didn’t say anything else, or even look at him, really, but the pressure of her hand eased the tightness inside his chest. His commander might be dead, her unit destroyed, but he had his duty, his mission—and a comrade. It wasn’t much—maybe, maybe. But when had a soldier needed more than his kit and his orders?

The cab was slowing. He glanced at the map before he recalled that it was off-line, then at the
dramliza
.

Rool Tiazan opened his eyes and straightened in his seat, the rich color returning to his face.

“We will be leaving the cab very shortly and joining my lady,” he said in his smooth voice.

Jela felt Cantra’s fingers tighten on his knee, but she unexpectedly held her peace, leaving him to ask—

“I thought we were returning to our ship?”

“Indeed we are, M. Jela. But not directly to your ship, I think? Four people walking across the yard may—no, I must say,
will be
—unremarked. We have not the same assurance of anonymity, riding at leisure in a cab.” He paused, head tipped to one side.

“If your wounds pain you, sir, my lady will be pleased to assist you.”

He meant the arm, and the various other scratches from the late action, Jela thought, to keep the hairs that wanted to rise up on the back of his neck where they belonged.

“Thank you for your concern,” he said politely. “They are hardly noticeable; I’ve fought long days of battle with worse and not faltered.”

“Surely, surely.” The
dramliza
smiled and moved his slender hand, stroking the common air of the cab as if it were a live creature. “I meant no insult, sir. The prowess of the M Series is legend even among the
sheriekas
, whom we must thank for the original design.”

The hairs did stand up then.

“Explain that,” he said, and heard the snarl in his voice. Cantra’s fingers, still resting on his knee, tightened briefly, then relaxed.

“Don’t tease him,” she told the
dramliza
in the lazy voice that meant mayhem wasn’t too far distant. “He’s had a trying day.”

Rool Tiazan inclined his head in her direction, his face smooth and urbane.

“Lady. It was not my intention to tease, but to inform.” He paused.

“The prototype of the M Series,” he said, with, Jela thought, care, “was developed at the end of the last war by those who now call themselves
sheriekas
. The design was captured, modifications were made, and when the
sheriekas
returned to exercise their dominion over the Spiral Arm, the M Series was waiting to deny them the pleasure.”

Jela grinned. “I hope they were surprised.”

“By accounts, they were just that,” said Rool Tiazan. “They had abandoned the design as flawed, you see.” He smiled, as sudden and as feral as any soldier about to face an enemy.

“Over and over,” he murmured, “they make the same error.”

“The
dramliz
are flawed too, I take it,” Cantra said, still in her lazy, could-be-trouble voice.

“The
dramliz
,” Rool Tiazan said softly, “are multiply flawed, as the
sheriekas
had no wish to create those with abilities sufficient unto the task of destroying
sheriekas
without—appropriate safeguards.”

A chime sounded inside the compartment, and the sense of motion ceased entirely.

“Ah! We are arrived!” Rool Tiazan moved a hand as the door began to lift.

“Please, after you, Lady and Sir.”

THEY WERE ON A narrow
and sparsely populated street in the upper port. The show windows of the stores lining the blue cermacrete walkway were uniformly opaque, the sell-scents and light-banners quiet.

“Ah, excellent,” Rool Tiazan murmured, as he stepped out of the cab. “Our timing holds.” Behind him, the cab’s door descended, the window darkened, and it sped off up the street.

“Come,” the
dramliza
said, moving down the walk toward the cross-street “my lady awaits us.”

They turned right at the corner, Rool Tiazan walking with something like a soldier’s proper stride, for all he looked so fragile. The few people they passed spared them no glance, though surely the three of them were a sight worth—

Four of them, Jela corrected himself, catching the flutter of grey robes from the edge of his eye as a lady stepped from the doorway of a closed bookshop and fell in silently beside Rool Tiazan, placing her hand lightly on his arm.

The lady was—diminutive, a fact that had not been readily noticeable in the alley. The top of her cropped red head barely reached her mate’s shoulder.

Her gray robe was embroidered in gray thread. Jela squinted after the design—and found himself looking instead at the shop windows, the traffic, and the few pedestrians they passed.

“Interesting robe,” Cantra murmured from beside him. “I wouldn’t look too close, though.”

“I
can’t
look too close,” he complained, and heard her throaty chuckle.

They came to another street, turned right and were abruptly in day port, the walk busy with people, the banners and signs in full attraction mode, the street filled with cabs and lorries and cargo carriers.

And still no eyes turned their way, even in idle curiosity.

“Invisibility has its uses,” Cantra muttered.

“But we are not invisible, Lady Cantra.” Rool Tiazan’s voice drifted lightly over his shoulder to them. “We are merely—of no interest.”

They crossed the busy mainway carefully, and were soon among the ships. Jela felt Cantra growing tense beside him.

“Pilot?” He murmured.

She sighed. “This visit really necessary?”

“Yes,” he told her regretfully. “Pilot, it is.”

“Right.”

Dancer
was coming up on the next row and Cantra stretched her legs to come even with Rool Tiazan.

“I’m captain of yon ship,” she said. “It’s mine to go up first and open her.”

“Of course,” he said with an inclination of his bright head.

His lady lifted her hand from his arm and fell back beside Jela. He looked down into her sharp, solemn face.

“The configuration carries the suggestion,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked.

“So if we walked down the street four abreast, people would notice us?” he asked.

“Not necessarily,” she replied. “But such a configuration might require Rool to somewhat exert his will, which might in turn catch the attention of those with whom we would rather not deal.”

“The
sheriekas
are looking for you, then?”

The lady turned her head away. “What do you suppose, M. Jela?”

“That, if the
sheriekas
were hunting me, I’d think very hard about where I led them.”

“We have thought—very hard,” she returned, giving him a haughty look from amber eyes. “We and those who are like us. The consensus is that, while success is not assured, we must nonetheless act. It is true that we may fail and all the galaxy—indeed, all the galaxies!—go down into the empty perfection of the
sheriekas
eternity. But if we do not try, we shall certainly embrace that doom.”

They were at the base of
Dancer’s
ramp. Cantra went up, light-footed as always, Rool Tiazan pacing silently at her side.

Jela would have waited a moment on the cermacrete, to avoid a crowd at the hatch, but his walking companion placed her tiny hand on his wounded arm and urged him forward.

“I regret that you have taken hurt,” she murmured, as they moved up the ramp.

“I’ve been wounded before,” he told her shortly, and was surprised by a stern glance from those amber eyes.

“We have all of us been wounded, M. Jela. It is still possible to regret the occasion.”

He bowed his head. “You’re correct, Lady. It was a rude reply.”

“It is not the rudeness which is dangerous,” the lady said, as they hit the top of the ramp. “But the assumption that pain may be discounted.”

Ahead of them, the hatch rose, and Cantra ducked inside, Rool Tiazan her faithful shadow. Jela and the lady followed them into the narrow lock, the hatch reversing itself the instant they stepped within.

Cantra turned away from the control panel, waited until the hatch was sealed, then slithered past the crushed three of them to lead the way down the corridor to the piloting chamber.

Rool Tiazan extended a hand and his lady moved forward to take it. So linked, they followed Cantra.

Jela took a step—and paused, lifting his wounded arm. It felt—odd. He snapped the seal on the dressing Cantra had so painstakingly applied, pulled it off—

The wound had been—non-trivial. He’d done what he could, and Cantra had done what she’d been able. Still, it would have—should have—taken time and a medic’s care to fully heal.

And now—there was no wound, no sign that he’d been wounded. His tough brown hide didn’t even show a scar.

Neck hairs prickling, he threw the dressing into the recycler and moved after the others.