Zenn Scarlett (26 page)

“Novice Zenn,” he said, bending low. “You are damaged there.”

She looked down at her hands; the knuckles on both had been skinned badly. Blood oozed from the crushed flesh.

“I’m alright, Hamish,” she said, her voice as shaky as her trembling body. She moved gingerly into a sitting position, flexed her fingers. Nothing broken. “Looks worse than it is.”

“Scarlett…” Liam said softly. He was squinting at her with one eye, the other now totally closed and bruising rapidly. She turned her face away.

“Tell me… it’s not true,” was all she could manage.

“I never wanted this. I never wanted anybody hurt.”

She felt her body going strangely numb. Post-adrenal crash? Or the fact that Liam had been lying, quite spectacularly, to her all this time? Liam, the person she’d let in, the person she’d allowed herself to trust.

“It was you,” she said, still unwilling to look at him. “The one letting the animals out. The one trying to… destroy the cloister.” Then the numb, dead feeling was gone. She raised her eyes to confront him. “Why?” She almost spat the word at him. “How could you… hate us that much? What did we… Was it your father? The sandhogs? Did you blame us and our animals for that?”

Liam’s face contorted.

“Yes! I did blame you for that. All of you. But that’s not why…” His voice cracked, and he had to pause for several quick, deep breaths. “I didn’t blame you later, I don’t blame you now. Did you see? I tried to stop Dokes, keep that thing from getting loose. I knew what it could do. I tried to stop him.”

“But the other times, that was you?” The anger began to mix with disbelief. “The whalehound, the sloo… Gil’s sandhog? You?”

Liam just shook his head, as if that could change the past.

“Novice Zenn,” Hamish said, leaning down. “We must see to your wounded-skin fingers. Let me assist you in standing, and we will go request assistance from the director-abbot and our Sister Hild.”

“Scarlett, Hamish, no,” Liam protested. “Please, you can’t tell Otha.”

“We can’t? Why not?” Zenn said, getting to her feet. “You could’ve killed somebody! We could lose the cloister. Lose all the animals, see them all put down. You…” She had to stop talking, and only her rage kept her from breaking down in tears.

“Otha will tell Ren,” Liam said, moving nearer to her and Hamish. “Ren will turn me in and they’ll send me to prison in Tharsis for sure.”

“So?”

“They’ll put Dokes away too. I’d be in Tharsis with him. And I’ll be the reason he’s there.” Liam’s face went a more sickly shade of white. “You don’t know him like I do. He’ll kill me, Scarlett. Graad Dokes isn’t the kind to forget, ever… and he will kill me.”

Zenn knew with absolute certainty that what Liam said about Graad was true. She tried to think.

“Well… what? What do you want me to do? Not say anything? Forget this happened? I can’t.”

“I understand that, Scarlett. But… there’s more going on here than you know. I didn’t want to do the things I did. You’ve got to believe me. They forced me.”

“They? Who?”

“There’s others involved in this. They’ll keep trying to shut down the cloister, even if I’m gone.”

“Who, Liam? What others?”

“I can expose them, we can stop them. But I need to get the proof. Give me an hour, a couple of hours and I can bring proof.”

“Liam, I don’t understand. And even if I did, why should I trust you after… after what you’ve done?”

“I know. You’re right. I don’t blame you. But if you can just give me time to get back to the ranch, I can get the proof. And we can put an end to it. Scarlett, I promise you.” He reached out then and took both Zenn’s bleeding hands in his. Pain snaked up her arms, but she didn’t pull away. “Zenn,” he said, speaking her first name for the first time she could recall. “I
promise
.” He said the word with such intensity, his face suddenly childlike…

“Alright,” she said quietly. “I’ll wait for you. At the dorm.” She could imagine any number of ways this could go very badly, but she couldn’t think clearly enough to see an alternative. How could she send Liam into the same prison with Graad? It would be a death sentence.

“And you won’t tell Otha?” His one blue eye staring… pleading.

“No. Not until you get there.”

“Right. Then we’ll
both
tell Otha. And he’ll see that I’m trying to help. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said.

Then he put both hands on her shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her, his lips warm on her lips and there was the heat of his face, the press of his arms and the scent of sweet hay. Then it was over. He leaned back to look down at her.

“You won’t regret this, Scarlett. See you in an hour. Two hours tops.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Later, after she and Hamish had returned to the calefactory hall, Zenn made several foolish mistakes. The first was her decision to wait for Liam’s return up in her dorm room. The second was sitting down on her bed, and then lying back, to rest her aching, bleeding, exhausted body, just for a moment.

She woke the next morning to the sound of Hild’s voice calling her name from down the hall. She instantly realized her third error: letting Liam Tucker out of her sight.

“Zenn. Are you up, child?” She heard the sister’s footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. “Otha is waiting for you at the infirmary. The Kiran emissary will be at the south gate soon. I’ve sent Hamish to let her in. I’m going now to meet her. Zenn!”

“I’m awake,” Zenn yelled, her voice hoarse. She sat up, unleashing a cascade of pain from her lacerated hands. She slid off the bed and reached the top of the landing in time to see the door in the hall below slam shut behind Hild.

She stood in the hall, gathering her thoughts.

Liam. Where are you? How could you…
 

There was no time to dwell on the fact he’d betrayed her yet again. And this time, she’d allowed him to do it.

You won’t regret this, Scarlett…
 

She strained to force her gyrating thoughts into some sort of meaningful pattern.

Otha, infirmary, waiting… for what? Kiran emissary…

The sunkiller! This was the morning for the sunkiller’s bandages to come off. Otha had made a point of inviting the Kiran emissary to come down from the
Helen of Troy
to witness the procedure. Otha had also stressed that he was trusting Zenn to remove the sutures. She couldn’t let him down, not in front of the emissary.

I’ll just do my part, get it over with. Soon as it’s done, I’ll tell him about Liam and Graad
.

But it wasn’t just the prospect of performing a tricky surgical procedure on the priceless royal sunkiller that made Zenn’s stomach twist like a wrung-out rag. This was also the day the town council would vote on the cloister’s lease.

Not bothering to change out of the clothes she’d fallen asleep in last night, she bounded down the stairs and grabbed her tool belt from its hook on the wall. Fortunately, she’d prepped the belt yesterday morning, knowing she’d need it today. It now held a maser-scalpel, a mini protein stitchgun and a few assorted hand-tools.

Outside, Zenn strapped the belt around her as she jogged down the rock path. The morning air was fresh and cold, and helped to clear her head as she ran. She licked the dried blood off her knuckles as she went, then wiped them on her pants.

Zenn shuddered at the thought of the bloodcarn freed from his cage. Certainly, she, Hamish and Liam would have all died within the first few seconds. She still couldn’t take in the idea… that it was Liam behind all that had happened. And she’d been blind to it. How? How had she closed her mind to what was so painfully, obviously clear? He’d been nearby for every incident. Every single one. And she’d missed it, missed the signs… no. Not true. She’d made herself ignore the signs, willfully shut out any possibility of Liam’s involvement. Because, she knew know with bitter certainty, she’d thought she could safely disregard the Rule. And now, she was paying the Price.

Reaching the infirmary, she hurried directly into the huge main room, telling herself to put Liam Tucker out of her mind. Permanently, if possible. She looked up at the tethered sunkiller and stopped dead in her tracks, thoughts of Liam and his multiple betrayals no longer a priority.

She couldn’t believe her eyes. But there they were. Towners! A teeming mass of them. At least ten or eleven men and women, arranged around the catwalk.

“Ah.” Otha turned to her from where he stood in the center of the room. “Here’s our novice now.” Ten or eleven pairs of eyes turned to stare down at her. The majority of the towners wore white, surgical masks over their lower faces. “Zenn, I think you know most of the folks on the town council.”

Her mouth was hanging open. She shut it.

“Yes… um… hello.” She could feel her face glowing red.

“The novice will be handling the dressing removal and post-op exam of our Kiran sunkiller,” Otha said. As he spoke, he went to the rusting old scissor-lift that squatted on the floor beneath the wide canopy of the sunkiller’s wings. Zenn would ride up on this until she was in position. From there, she could reach the bandages swathing the repaired methane plexus at the point where the tail joined the animal’s back. Despite the activity in the room, for now the sunkiller appeared to be sleeping soundly, the two huge heads tucked up under its wings.

Otha opened the gate bar on the lift and gestured for Zenn to step onto the lift’s small platform.

“I can also now reveal to you and the novice,” Otha said loudly, holding the bar open for her, “that this procedure constitutes the third and final phase in Zenn’s end of term testing.”

This is it? The mystery test
? Zenn’s initial shock quickly shifted to bewilderment, then gratitude.

“Otha,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I knew this was coming up. I was able to study for it… you weren’t supposed to tell.”

He bent down to speak in her ear.

“I just told you it was on the schedule,” he said. “I never told you it would be the third test. Entirely by the book.”

“Otha,” Vic LeClerc called down to them. She was one of the few who’d opted not to put on a mask. “Are you telling us this girl has never done this before? Is that prudent?”

“She’ll be under my direct supervision the entire time, Vic. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Vic didn’t look satisfied, but said nothing else.

“Why are they here?” Zenn whispered as she went by him and climbed onto the lift platform. He ignored her. “Otha,” she said insistently. “We need to talk.”

He bent close, pretending to help her secure the gate bar.

“Can it
wait
?” His tone said he thought it should wait.

“It’s about the animals, getting out, everything that’s happened. It was Graad. Graad and Liam, they…”

“Zenn, not this again.” His whisper was razor-edged, but he kept his smile visible for those on the catwalk.

“Otha, they were…”

“Not. Now. We’ll talk later, novice.”

He stepped back from her, and raised his voice:

“I’d like to thank you all once more for coming out to the cloister this morning. As I’m sure you understand, all of us here at the clinic are passionate about the work we do. But we know this work can be something of an enigma for those of you unfamiliar with exoveterinarian practices. Well, we’re very excited to be able to share our enthusiasm with you today. It’s our hope that this demonstration will be the first of many. And that it will open a new chapter of greater understanding between the Ciscan cloister and the people of Arsia City.”

He gave Zenn a piercing look, as if to say “
That’s
why they’re here. Now do your job.” She had no choice. She would just have to bear down, and, somehow, get through this.

The councilors gave Otha a polite smattering of applause as Vic stepped away from the crowd and put her hands on the catwalk railing.

“Well now, Otha, most of us know all we need to know about you and your creatures. But, I’m sure everyone…” she gestured at the others, “…is eager to see for themselves exactly how you’re utilizing the land out here.” She smiled a cold smile down at Zenn and Otha. “And all of us are keenly aware that it’s our responsibility, our duty, to decide if that use… is the best use. Best for everyone. That’s what our vote today will determine.”

Zenn saw that Ren was also among the faces on the catwalk, his left wrist encased in a bright, white plaster cast. He had also opted not to wear a mask.

“Well, I hope your visit today will help you arrive at the right decision,” Otha said.

“I’m sure it will,” Vic told him, still smiling, sounding very certain.

“So,” Otha gestured at the sunkiller, “I’ve explained the surgical procedure we employed to correct the defect in the sunkiller’s gas-mixing organ, the methane plexus. As soon as our Kiran envoy from the starship arrives, we’ll be able to…” The sound of a door opening came from the opposite wall, and everyone in the room turned toward it. “This must be her now.”

Sister Hild stepped into the infirmary and held the door open. A second later a very tall figure entered, bowing low in order to pass through. The Kiran was cloaked from head to foot in long, flowing robes of mustard-yellow and vermillion. The face was hidden behind the customary layers of veils, revealing only a small patch of gray-brown spotted facial fur and a pair of slanting, wolfish eyes blue as polished turquoise.

Just behind the emissary came a human in a tunic and boots, hair worn long on one side. It was Fane Fanesson.

“Welcome to the Ciscan cloister, Emissary Luruk,” Otha said, raising one hand to the Kiran. “Ladies and gentleman, this is Consan Luruk, aid to the Kire’s princeling Sool. And I believe this is the ship’s under-sacrist with her.” The Kiran inclined her head to the crowd on the catwalk. Fane just crossed his arms and, Zenn thought, tried to look disinterested in the proceedings. “The emissary will be taking the sunkiller back up to the
Helen of Troy
when we’re finished here. Emissary Luruk,” he raised his other hand up to indicate the crowd on the catwalk, “May I present the members of our Arsia City town council?”