Allies (5 page)

"Soon," he answered, and came around the
table, quick and light. "Keep safe," he murmured, and surprised her
by slipping an arm around her shoulder. He gave her a quick hug,
putting his cheek against hers briefly.

Then he was gone, walking light and rapid
across the kitchen. He took his coat down from the peg and shrugged
into it, bent to tug on Borrill's ears – "Good Borrill. You know
me, eh?"

Zhena Trelu cleared her throat.

"Cory."

His hand on Borrill's head, he sighed, then
straightened, slowly, and turned to face her.

"Zhena Trelu?"

"What's the sense of telling me to keep
those guards close when you got 'round 'em like they were sound
asleep? If these folks are as dangerous as you say, then they'll
get in just as easy."

He drifted a step closer, bright green gaze
focused on her face. "You make leaps and bounds, Zhena Trelu," he
murmured. "It sits on my head, that you must learn these
things."

Whatever that was about, she thought, and
sent him as sharp a look as she knew how.

"That doesn't go one step toward answering
my question," she pointed out.

Cory's eyebrow slipped up a notch. "No, it
does not," he said seriously. "The answer is that I think these
people will be gone . . . one day, two days. You will get a letter,
when they are no longer a . . . threat."

"Is that so? And who's going to take them
away, exactly?" She frowned, an idea striking her. "Cory, there's a
whole mess of the King's Guard right out there. Why not point these
folks out, and let 'em clean house? They're bored here, poor boys.
It'll be good for them to have something more exciting to do than
watch over an old woman and her dog."

Cory tipped his head. "I would do this," he
said slowly. "Were these people already . . . breaking things. They
are . . . polite, for now. Better that they are asked, politely, to
leave."

The boy wasn't making sense, she thought. Or
he was and she was too tired and too old to follow. She shook her
head. "Have it your way."

"Thank you, Zhena Trelu." He paused. "It
would be better, maybe, not to tell your guards that I have been
here."

She snorted; he inclined his head.

"Yes. Zhena Trelu, I ask your
forgiveness."

She blinked. "My forgiveness? For what?"

"For bringing change to Gylles–and to
Vandar. I should not have come here, and put a whole world into
danger. Choices have consequences. I know this–and still I chose
life over death, for my zhena and for me."

The smooth golden face was somber; his
shoulders not quite level.

Tears started; she blinked them back, and
held her hand out. He came forward and took it, his fingers
warm.

"You made a good choice, Cory. This world's
been changing for a long time. Would you believe I remember a time
when the nearest telephone was right downtown at Brillit's?"

He smiled, faintly. "I believe that, Zhena
Trelu."

"Well, good, because it's true." She gave
his fingers a squeeze and let him go.

He went light and quiet across the room,
opened the door–and looked at her.

"Sleep well, Zhena Trelu. We will bring our
child to see you–soon."

The door clicked shut behind him.

*

He'd never gotten near enough to talk to the
zhena with the quick golden hands, though he had learned her name
from another in the ring of her admirers: Karsin Pelnara. The
zhena, according to Hakan's informant, was newly arrived in Laxaco;
her precise field something of mystery, though she appeared
well-informed in a broad range of scientific topics. The
forward-coming zamir wasn't able to tell Hakan where the zhena had
arrived from, precisely, though he did know that she had been
sponsored in to the Club by Zamir Tang.

Seeing that he had little chance of
approaching the zhena herself, Hakan had gone off in search of
Zamir Tang, finding him in his usual place beside the punchbowl,
engaged in a heated debate with two students Hakan recognized as
seniors in the aeronautics college.

He'd hung on the edge of that conversation
for a time, first waiting for Zamir Tang's attention, and then
because he found himself caught up in the description of the
challenges of building a proposed supersonic wind-tunnel, until a
random remark recalled him to the hour.

Which was . . . late.

And later, still, by the time he had walked
across the dark campus, only to find that the trolley to the
married students' housing had stopped running hours before.

By the time he'd walked home, it was no
longer late, but very early.

Kem
, he thought, using his key on the street door,
is not going to like this
.

*

Nelirikk was not at his post

This was . . . worrisome.

Val Con stood very, very still,
listening.

Breeze rattled branches overhead, and combed
the moist grass with chilly fingers. Somewhere to the left, and not
immediately nearby, a night bird muttered and subsided. From
further away came the sound of measured steps along pavement–the
garrison guard, pursuing his duty. Beyond that, there was
silence.

"Ain't like him to just run off," Miri said
quietly from just behind his right shoulder.

"Nor is it." His murmured agreement had been
shredded by the chilly breeze before he remembered that Miri was
not covering his offside, but minding the Clan's business on
Surebleak.

He took a careful breath, and brought his
attention back to the night around him.

From the right–a soft moan.

Cautiously he moved in that direction,
slipping noiselessly through a scrubby hedge. He dropped to one
knee and peered about. To the left a drift of last year's leaves,
crackling slightly in the breeze.

To his right a shadow leaned over another,
and then straightened to an impressive height.

"Scout?" Nelirikk said, softly. "Is it well
with the old woman?"

"Well," Val Con said, exiting the shrubbery
and moving toward the second shadow, which remained unmoving on the
ground.

"A watcher," Nelirikk said, as Val Con knelt
down. "And an uncommonly poor one."

Val Con slipped a dimlight from his inner
pocket and thumbed it on. The unconscious watcher was unmistakably
Liaden; a red welt marred the smooth, golden brow. His hat had
fallen off, freeing static-filled golden hair badly cut in
imitation of the local style.

"How hard," Val Con asked Nelirikk, thumbing
the dim off and slipping it away, "did you hit him?"

"Scout, I only spoke to him."

"Oh?" He sent a glance in Nelirikk's
direction, but the big man's face was shadowed. "What did you say
to him, I wonder?"

"Dog of a Liaden, prepare to die," Nelirikk
said calmly.

Val Con bit his lip. Inside his head, he
heard the music of Miri's laughter.

"I see. And then?"

"And then he most foolishly tried to escape
me, tangled his feet in a root and fell, striking his head. The
guard was at the far end of his patrol, or he could not have missed
hearing it."

"Ah." Val Con sat back on his heels. "And
his pockets?"

"Empty now. According to those protocols the
Old Scout taught me, this person is a criminal many times
over."

"As we are. However, our hearts are
pure."

The Captain's aide felt no need to reply to
this truth, instead stuffing the downed man's contraband into a
capacious rucksack.

Val Con reached again into his inner pocket,
fingered out an ampule and snapped it under the unconscious man's
nose.

A gasp, a frenzied fit of coughing. The
blond man jackknifed into a sitting position, eyes snapping open.
He blinked at Val Con, flicked a look beyond–and froze, his face a
study in horrified disbelief.

"Galandaria," he whispered hoarsely, his
eyes still riveted on Nelirikk. ". . . an Yxtrang . . ."

"Yes, I know," Val Con said calmly. "He is
sworn to my service, which may be fortunate for you, for he will
not undertake to pull your arms off without an order from me."

The Liaden swallowed, painfully.

"What is your name and mission?" Val Con
asked.

The man closed his eyes. Val Con waited.

"Technician Ilbar ten'Ornold," the Liaden
said at last. "We are attached to the Uplift Team, dispatched to
the area in order to ascertain if Rogue Agent Val Con yos'Phelium .
. ." He opened his eyes with a knowing start.

Gravely, Val Con inclined his head.

"Val Con yos'Phelium, Clan Korval," he
murmured. "Pray forgive my omission of the courtesies."

Ilban ten'Ornold sighed.

"Field Agent san'Doval and yourself were
sent to ascertain whether or not I had left anything of interest to
the Department in Gylles," Val Con said, softly, in deference to
the guard still walking his line.

"Yes."

Val Con paused, head to one side, studying
the man's face.

"You will perhaps not have received recent
news of the home world," he said. "The Department–"

"We had heard that headquarters had been
destroyed. That does not mean the Department has been
eliminated."

"Of course not," Val Con said politely, and
stood, taking care to brush the leaves off the knees of his pants.
"Nelirikk."

The Yxtrang stepped forward, flexing his
fingers and shrugging the chill out of his shoulders.

Tech ten'Ornold jerked backward, feet
scrambling for purchase in the dead leaves.

Val Con turned, as if to leave.

"No! For the– You cannot leave me to this!
I–"

Val Con turned back.

"Lead us, quietly, to your base in Gylles,"
he said. "Or I will indeed leave you alone with this man."

Nelirikk paused, and gave the poor fellow a
toothy predator's grin, perfectly discernable in the dark.

Ilbar ten'Ornold stared, as if he would keep
him at bay with the force of his terror alone.

"I agree," he said hoarsely. "Now, for the
love of the gods put me under your protection!"

Val Con looked to Nelirikk, who dropped back
a step, with a wholly convincing show of reluctance.

"I accept your parole," Val Con told the
tech. "Now, fulfill your part."

*

"The Explorers Club," Kem repeated, her
voice calm and cold. Inwardly, Hakan cringed. He'd thought that
telling the truth was the best thing to do, though the truth came
perilously close to . . . the thing they didn't talk about. The
very thing that Kem didn't want to talk about.

Now he thought that he should have lied;
invented an impromptu jam session or something else more-or-less
plausible that she could have pretended to believe.

"What," Kem asked coldly, "is the Explorers
Club?"

He cleared his throat, looking around their
cluttered parlor, brightly lit at this unhappy hour of the morning,
and Kem sitting stiff and straight in the rocking chair they'd
bought together at the campus jumble shop. She still wore the
exercise clothes she favored when she practiced dance, and he
wondered if she had worked at it all the time he was away,
again.

"Would you like some tea, Kemmy?" he asked,
which was cowardly, unworthy, and wouldn't work, anyway.

"I'm not thirsty, thank you."

Well, he'd known better.

"The Explorers Club, Hakan," she prompted,
voice cold, eyes sparkling. She was, Hakan realized, on the edge of
crying, and it was his fault. His fault, and Cory Robersun's.

He was, he thought, committed to the truth
now. It seemed unfair that telling it was more likely to make her
cry than the comfortable lie he'd been too stupid to tell.

"The Explorers Club," he said slowly, "is a
group of people interested in technology and the . . . future. Of
flight, mostly. But other things, too."

"Other things," came her over-composed
voice, almost sweetly. "Like brewed tea coming out of a flat wall?
Or a doctor machine?"

The things she hadn't
believed, when he'd told her. The things Cory'd told him nobody
would believe. He'd thought Kem would be different; that she'd
believe him because she believed
in
him.

"Like those," he said calmly, his hands
opening almost as if he gifted her with the information. "Tonight's
presentation was on jet-assisted flight. We don't have it yet, but
the zhena thought we will, in ten years or less, traveling at
speeds three or four times faster than the aircraft we have
today–do you see what that means, Kemmy? At those speeds, Basil
would only be a day away; Porlint, maybe two. The world would get
smaller, but in a good way, we could–"

He stopped because her tears had spilled
over.

"Kem–" Hakan dropped to his knees next to
the rocker, and put his arms around her, half-afraid she would pull
away. To his relief, she bent into him, putting her forehead
against his shoulder.

"Kem, I'm so sorry," he whispered, stroking
her hair. "I–the time got away from me. I was waiting for a chance
to speak with the new zhena–"

In his arms, Kem stiffened, and Hakan
mentally kicked himself.

Why couldn't you just
stick with guitar, Hakan Meltz
? he asked
himself bitterly.

"Which zhena was that, Hakan?" Kem's voice
wasn't cold any longer; it sounded small and tired.

He closed his eyes, and put
his check against her hair.
Get this
right
, he advised himself.
Or you'll regret it every day for the rest of
your life
.

"A new member of the club. . . " he said
carefully. "She's from . . . away. Nobody seems to know where,
exactly. I'm told she's very knowledgeable, and has a number of . .
. creative ideas." Kem shivered, and he went on hastily. "I saw her
tonight, and–Kem, she looks like Cory."