Allies (2 page)

"She's thirteen," Robertson said, and Torbin
nodded.

"That'll do. Let 'er go, Chock."

"M'money," her father said again, and her
arm was gonna pop right outta the shoulder, if–

"Right." Torbin pulled his other hand out of
its pocket, a fan of greasy bills between his fingers. "Twenty
cash, like we agreed on."

Her father reached out a shaky hand and
crumbled the notes in his fist.

"Good," said Torbin. "Miri, you 'member what
I told you. Be a good girl and we'll get on. Let 'er go,
Chock."

He pushed her hard and let go her arm.
Expected her to fall, prolly, and truth to tell, she expected it
herself, but she managed to stay up and keep moving, head down,
straight at Torbin.

She rammed her head hard into his crotch,
heard a high squeak. Torbin went down to his knees, got one arm
around her; she twisted, dodged, was past, felt the grip on her
shirt, and had time to yell before she was slammed into the side of
the garbage bin. Her sight grayed, and out of the mist she saw a
fist coming toward her. She dropped to the mud and rolled, sobbing,
heard another shout and a hoarse cough, and above it all a third
and unfamiliar voice, yelling–

"Put the gun down and stand where you are or
by the gods I'll shoot your balls off, if you got any!"

Miri froze where she was, belly flat to the
ground, and turned her face a little to see–

Chock Robertson standing still, hands up at
belt level, fingers wide and empty.

Torbin standing kinda half-bent, hands
hanging empty, his gun on the ground next to his shoe.

A rangy woman in neat gray shirt and neat
gray trousers tucked tight into shiny black boots. She was holding
a gun as shiny as the boots easy and business-like in her right
hand. Her hair was brown and her eyes were hard and the expression
on her face was of a woman who'd just found rats in the larder.

"Kick that over here," she said to
Torbin.

He grunted, but gave the gun a kick that put
it next to the woman's foot. She put her shiny boot on it and
nodded slightly. "Obliged."

"You all right, girl?" she asked then, but
not like it mattered much.

Miri swallowed. Her arm hurt, and her head
did, and her back where she'd caught the metal side of the
container. Near's she could tell, though, everything that ought to
moved. And she was breathing.

"I'm OK," she said.

"Then let's see you stand up and walk over
here," the woman said.

She pushed herself up onto her knees,
keeping a wary eye on Robertson and Torbin, got her feet under her
and walked up to the woman, making sure she kept outta the stare of
her weapon.

The brown eyes flicked to her face, the hard
mouth frowning.

"I know you?"

"Don't think so," Miri answered.
"Ma'am."

One side of the mouth twisted up a little,
then the eyes moved and the gun, too.

"Stay right there until I tell you
otherwise," she snapped, and her father sank back flat on his feet,
hands held away from his sides.

"Get behind me, girl," the woman said, and
Miri ducked around and stood facing that straight, gray-clad
back.

She oughta run, she thought; get to one of
her hiding places before Torbin and her father figured out that the
two of them together could take a single woman, but curiosity and
some stupid idea that if it came down to it, she oughta help the
person who'd helped her kept her there and watching.

"Now," the woman said briskly. "You gents
can take yourselves peaceably off, or I can shoot the pair of you.
It really don't matter to me which it is."

"The girl belongs to me!" Torbin said. "Her
daddy pledged her for twenty cash."

"Nice of him," the woman with the gun
said.

"Girl," she snapped over her shoulder. "If
you're keen on going for whore, you go ahead with him. I won't stop
you."

"I ain't," Miri said, and was ashamed to
hear her voice shake.

"That's settled then." The woman moved her
gun in a easy nod at Torbin. "Seems to me you oughta get your money
back from her daddy and buy yourself another girl."

"She's mine to see settled!" roared
Robertson, leaning forward–and then leaning back as the gun turned
its stare on him.

"Girl says she ain't going for whore," the
woman said lazily. "Girl's got a say in what she will and won't do
to feed herself. Girl!"

Miri's shoulders jerked. "Ma'am?"

"You find yourself some work to do, you make
sure your daddy gets his piece, hear?"

"No'm," Miri said, hotly. "When I find work
I'll make sure my mother gets her piece. She threw him out and
denied him. He's no lookout of ours."

There was a small pause, and Miri thought
she saw a twitch along one level shoulder.

"That a fact?" the woman murmured, but
didn't wait for any answer before rapping out, "You gents got
places to be. Go there."

Amazingly, they went, Torbin not even askin'
for his gun back.

"You still there, girl?"

Miri blinked at the straight back.
"Yes'm."

The woman turned and looked down her.

"Now the question is, why?" she said. "You
coulda been next turf over by now."

"Thought I might could help," Miri said,
feeling stupid now for thinking it. "If things got ugly."

The hard eyes didn't change and the mouth
didn't smile. "Ready to wade right in, were you?" she murmured, and
just like before didn't wait for an answer.

"What's your name, girl?"

"Miri Robertson."

"Huh. What's your momma's name?"

Miri looked up into the woman's face, but
there wasn't no reading it, one way or the other.

"Katy Tayzin," she said.

The face did change then, though Miri
couldn't've said exactly how, and the level shoulders looked to
lose a little of their starch.

"You're the spit of her," the woman said,
and put her fingers against her neat gray chest. "Name's Lizardi.
You call me Liz."

Miri blinked up at her. "You know my
mother?"

"Used to," Liz said, sliding her gun away
neat into its belt-holder. "Years ago that'd be. How's she
fare?"

"She's sick," Miri said, and hesitated, then
blurted. "You know anybody's got work–steady work? I can do some
mechanical repair, and duct work and chimney clearing and–"

Liz held up a broad hand. Miri stopped,
swallowing, and met the brown eyes steady as she could.

"Happens I have work," Liz said slowly.
"It's hard and it's dangerous, but I'm proof it can be good to you.
If you want to hear more, come on inside and take a sup with me.
Grover does a decent stew, still."

Miri hesitated. "I don't–"

Liz shook her head. "Tradition. Recruiting
officer always buys."

Whatever that meant, Miri thought, and then
thought again about Torbin and her father being on the loose.

"Your momma all right where she is?" Liz
asked and Miri nodded.

"Staying with Braken and Kale," she said.
"Won't nobody get through Kale."

"Good. You come with me."

*

"Grew up here," Liz said in her lazy way,
while Miri worked through her second bowl of stew. "Boss Peterman's
territory it was then. Wasn't much by way of work then, neither.
Me, I was little bit older'n you, workin' pick-up and on the side.
Your momma, she was baker over–well, it ain't here now, but there
used to be a big bake shop over on Light Street. It was that kept
us, but we was looking to do better. One day, come Commander
Feriola, recruitin', just like I'm doin' now. I signed up for to be
a soldier. Your momma . . ." She paused, and took a couple minutes
to kinda look around the room. Miri finished her stew and
regretfully pushed the bowl away.

"Your momma," Liz said, "she wouldn't go
off-world. Her momma had told her there was bad things waitin' for
her if she did, and there wasn't nothin' I could say would move
her. So I went myself, and learned my trade, and rose up through
the rank, and now here I'm back, looking for a few bold ones to
fill in my own command."

Miri bit her lip. "What's the pay?"

Liz shook her head. "That was my first
question, too. It don't pay enough, some ways. It pays better'n
whorin', pays better'n odd jobs. You stand a good chance of gettin'
dead from it, but you'll have a fightin' chance. And if you come
out on the livin' side of that chance, and you're smart, you'll
have some money to retire on and not have to come back to Surebleak
never again."

"And my pay," Miri persisted, thinking about
the drug Braken thought might be had, over to Boss Abram's turf,
that might stop the blood and heal her mother's lungs. "I can send
that home?"

Liz's mouth tightened. "You can, if that's
what you want. It's your pay, girl. And believe me, you'll earn
it."

Braken and Kale, they'd look after her
mother while she was gone. 'Specially if she was to promise them a
piece. And it couldn't be no worse, off-world than here, she
thought–could it?

"I'll do it," she said, sounded maybe too
eager, because the woman laughed. Miri frowned.

"No, don't you spit at me," Liz said,
raising a hand. "I seen temper."

"I thought–"

"No, you didn't," Liz snapped. "All you saw
was the money. Happens I got some questions of my own. I ain't
looking to take you off-world and get you killed for sure. If I
want to see you dead, I can shoot you right here and now and save
us both the fare.

"And that's my first question, a soldier's
work being what it is. You think you can kill somebody?"

Miri blinked, remembering the feel of the
gun in her hand–and blinked again, pushing the memory back
away.

"I can," she said, slow, "because I
have."

Liz pursed her lips, like she tasted
something sour. "Have, huh? Mind sharing the particulars?"

Miri shrugged. "'Bout a year ago. They was
kid slavers an' thought they'd take me. I got hold of one of their
guns and–" she swallowed, remembering the smell and the woman's
voice, not steady: Easy kid . . .

". . . and I shot both of 'em," she finished
up, meeting Liz's eyes.

"Yeah? You like it?"

Like it? Miri shook her head. "Threw
up."

"Huh. Would you do it again?"

"If I had to," Miri said, and meant it.

"Huh," Liz said again. "Your momma know
about it?"

"No." She hesitated, then added. "I took
their money. Told her I found the purse out behind the bar."

Liz nodded.

"I heard two different ages out there on the
street. You want to own one of 'em?"

Miri opened her mouth – Liz held up her
hand.

"It'd be good if it was your real age. I can
see you're small. Remember I knew your momma. I seen what small can
do."

Like whaling a man half again as tall as her
and twice as heavy across a room and out into the hall . . .

"Almost fourteen."

"How close an almost?"

"Just shy a Standard Month."

Liz closed her eyes, and Miri froze.

"I can read," she said.

Liz laughed, soft and ghosty. "Can you,
now?" she murmured, and opened her eyes, all business again.

"There's a signing bonus of fifty cash. You
being on the light side of what the mercs consider legal age, we'll
need your momma's hand on the papers."

*

Braken eyed Miri's tall companion, and
stepped back from the door.

"She's in her chair," she said.

Miri nodded and led the way.

Braken's room had a window, and Katy
Tayzin's chair was set square in front of it, so she'd get whatever
sun could find its way through the grime.

She was sewing–mending a tear in one of
Kale's shirts, Miri thought, and looked up slowly, gray eyes black
with the 'juice.

"Ma–" Miri began, but Katy's eyes went past
her, and she put her hands and the mending down flat on her
lap.

"Angela," she said, and it was nothing like
the tone she'd used to deny Robertson, but it gave Miri chills
anyway.

"Katy," Liz said, in her lazy way, and
stepped forward, 'til she stood lookin' down into the chair.

"I'm hoping that denial's wore off by now,"
she said, soft-like.

Katy Tayzin smiled faintly. "I think it
has," she murmured. "You look fine, Angela. The soldiering treated
you well."

"Just registered my own command with merc
headquarters," Liz answered. "I'm recruiting."

"And my daughter brings you here." She moved
her languid gaze. "Are you for a soldier, Miri?"

"Yes'm," she said and stood forward,
marshalling her arguments: the money she'd send home, the signing
cash, the–

"Good," her mother said, and smiled, slowly.
"You'll do well."

Liz cleared her throat. "There's a paper
you'll need to sign."

"Of course."

There was a pause then. Liz's shoulders
rose–and fell.

"Katy. There's medics and drugs and
transplants–off world. For old times–"

"My reasons remain," Katy said, and extended
a frail, translucent hand. "Sit with me, Angela. Tell me
everything. Miri–Kale needs you to help him in the boiler
room."

Miri blinked, then nodded. "Yes'm," she
said, and turned to go. She looked back before she got to the door,
and saw Liz sitting on the floor next to her mother's chair, both
broad, tan hands cupping one of her mother's thin hands, brown head
bent above red.

*

Miri'd spent half her recruitment bonus on
vacked coffee and tea, dry beans and vegetables for her mother, and
some quality smokes for Braken and Kale. Half what was left after
that went with Milt Boraneti into Boss Abram's territory, with a
paper spelling out the name of the drug Braken'd thought would help
Katy's lungs.

She'd gone 'round to Kalhoon's Repair, to
say good-bye to Penn, and drop him off her hoard of paper and
books, but he wasn't there. Using one of the smaller pieces of
paper, she wrote him a laborious note, borrowed a piece of twine
and left the tied-together package with his dad.