Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (17 page)

“You have to stay for as long as it takes. So – let’s part company for the time being. I have to go ahead with the plan, because I am the only thing that will stop those two children from being executed, but there is no reason why we should both go. I will ask Arcan to send you a bracelet of orthogel so that you can join us if we need you on Pictoria, but in the meantime you should stay here on Coriolis, talk with your mother, get changes put into place, and make sure that Tartalus – or any others of his ilk – cannot get their hands on the running of the planet.”

They stood for a moment together in the middle of the road, then Six hugged her quickly before stepping deliberately back.

“Bennel!” he called.

“
Valhai
Six.” The man was immediately in front of him.

“I want you to guard
Valhai
Diva with your life. You will never allow any harm to come to her, do you understand?” Six ignored Diva’s movement of discomfort.

The man puffed out his chest with huge pride. “Thank you,
Valhai
Six. You will not regret the trust you have placed in me. I will keep her safe, from whatever foes might appear.” The man’s eyes tracked over to Tartalus, in no doubt which category to put the Coriolan meritocrat in.

“Then it is time for me to go.” He smiled down into Diva’s face.

“Make sure you get that bracelet to me. I won’t be left out of anything that happens on Pic—you know where.”

“I promise. Be good!”

“You too.”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” With that, he turned away, and began to march quickly along the road, towards the prison. He hoped he had not been mistaken – it seemed to him that he had seen signs of weakening on Diva’s side. He began to whistle. He would have to take care to build up as extensive an entourage of girls as possible while on Kwaide. He grinned. Life was hard.

GRACE LOOKED UP as Vion came into the hospital room on Kwaide. It seemed so long ago that she had met him at the orthogel lift in the skyrise back on Valhai. Now he was a respected doctor on Coriolis and Kwaide, a trendsetter amongst the Sellites, and happily married. It felt strange to be seeing him in such a setting, to have lost the closeness they had at one time felt. She breathed out slowly. She hoped he was happy.

Vion smiled down at Grace. He had bitter-sweet memories of when they met back on Valhai. He wouldn’t change any part of his life now, but there would always be a very special place in his heart for this uncertain Sellite girl. He hoped she was happy. She deserved it, if anybody did. His eyes tracked down to her hands, and his smile turned into a frown. That was a terrible thing to have happened.

Ledin saw the direction Vion’s eyes had taken, and covered Grace’s hands with his own immediately. He hated to see the sympathy in people’s eyes; he loved her with such a fierce feeling that he wanted to protect her even from that.

“What is the verdict?” he asked the doctor.

“We can discharge you tomorrow. There would seem to be no lung or other internal damage due to the blast, and your heart is as sturdy as it ever was. The deafness is already passing, and those intermittent headaches you have been getting should be a thing of the past within a couple of weeks—”

“Thank Sacras! I was getting stir crazy in here.”

“—Though you should still take things easy at first. No going directly into battle. Not this time. You really need to let your body heal on its own.” Vion turned to Grace. “Will you be staying here for long?”

She nodded. “At least a couple of weeks, I think. My mother has persuaded us to give a few lectures at the university. Ledin is to talk about astronavigation, and I am to talk about Valhai and the Sellites. We tried to get out of it, but you know what Magestra is like – nothing if not persistent!”

“I certainly do know. She has me roped in to teach a semester of basic medicine, and another of surgical procedures. That’s partly why I come over so often.”

“How is Mercy? How does she like Coriolis?”

Vion pulled a face. “It has taken her a long while to acclimatize, and I think she would rather be back on Valhai, but she is managing. I … that is
we
… are expecting our first fiftieth generation in a few months.”

“Vion! That is terrific news. Please give her our congratulations.”

“Thank you. And are you two planning to marry soon?”

Grace looked down at Ledin, and they exchanged grins. “Not yet. We’re not quite sure that we believe in all the paperwork, and we definitely don’t need the ceremonial part of it. We’re leaving all that for the time being.”

“Of course. I understand. Well, I wish you both well in your relationship.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“By the way, Six came over with me this trip. He seems to have emptied one of the Coriolan jails, and brought a batch of its inmates over to Kwaide.”

Grace giggled. “That sounds just like Six. Is Diva with him?”

“Strangely, not. I gather she has decided to stay on Coriolis for the time being.”

Both Grace and Ledin looked up sharply at that. “On her own?” asked Grace.

“Yes. Six didn’t seem too keen to talk about it. But you can ask him yourself. He said he would be up here as soon as he had found a suitable place for the Coriolan immigrants to stay.”

SIX SETTLED THE fugitives into the uncomfortable wooden shacks which were now their assigned homes. He had been able to save a total of fifteen Coriolans, including the two children he had seen in the Widowmaker. When it was their turn, the children stared around the bare cabin on Kwaide with widened eyes.

“All this space is just for us?” asked the boy.

“Yes. This will be home for you and your sister.”

The boy stared around him, while his sister walked over to touch the rough wooden planks with one finger. “Forever?” he said suspiciously.

“For as long as you wish, yes.”

“And we will be given food?”

“Certainly. Though you will be expected to form a part of the society – they will ask you both either to work or to study.”

“Nobody needs to steal here?”

Six shook his head. “Nobody on New Kwaide has to steal. We all look after each other. You will like it here.”

“We will repay you. You saved our lives.”

Six grinned. “I want no repayment, I assure you. Just enjoy being here … that is more than enough.”

“I owe you my life, and so does my sister. We will defend you and yours to the death.”

“Anybody would have saved you from the rexelene blocks.”

“No. They wouldn’t. You have saved my life and I must therefore swear a binding oath to protect you.” The boy whipped out a small knife, cut a nick into the palm of his hand, and raised it towards Six. His sister followed suit, repeating the same words with a solemn expression.

Six was completely taken aback. “Err … Thank you. I hope you will never have to. Well, I will leave you to get settled in – I have to visit someone in hospital up at the black peak.”

As he walked away, he shook his head. He would have to talk to Cimma about that young pair. Perhaps she could get them into some classes. They needed to lose some of the intensity. Then he thought of himself back at that age, and couldn’t help but smile. He felt the full weight of all his nineteen years.

He found Grace and Ledin still up at the hospital, but they were making plans to move down to the base camp. Grace was worried because Diva had been left on her own on Coriolis.

“You should have stayed with her.”

Six explained about the Widowmaker, the children, and the Lublank prison. Grace nodded, but she was still not completely convinced. “Couldn’t you have done it some other way?”

He shook his head. “I don’t see how, Grace. Just imagine – if both of us had been repudiated it would have been impossible to get Indomita to change anything at all. No – it is much better that Diva stays there on Coriolis. She should be able to get some changes pushed through in a few months, and she can soak her cutis to her heart’s content in one of her favourite Mesteta wine baths.”

“Rumour has it that you have been seen around Kwaide with a couple of girls …”

Six grinned. “And? Since when has that been any of your business, Grace?”

She went red. “It isn’t, of course. It’s just that … I thought …”

“You must let me do this my way, Grace. I’m not going to sit around all my life waiting for Diva, you know.”

Ledin gave Six a strange look, but held his tongue.

Grace wasn’t so reticent. “But Six, I thought that … well, that you and Diva … you know.”

“Diva and I are in a relationship? Well, we are. But our relationship is limited to the children. That’s the way we both want it to be.”

Grace frowned. “Is it? Are you sure? Only … Oh, never mind, I expect you know what you are doing.”

Six gave her a hug. “I wish I could be so sure,” he told her rather cryptically.

As he walked away. Grace stared after him. At some stage he had changed from a boy to a man, and she hadn’t even noticed.

CIMMA LOOKED AT the two young Coriolan immigrants standing in front of her. Reports said that the other Coriolan felons had settled in very well at the base camp, eager to wipe the slate clean and start a new life in this young country. They had all taken on jobs which accorded well with their few skills, and seemed to be enjoying life at the camp, despite Kwaide’s bitter weather.

Not so these two youngsters, apparently. They had been sent to her as a last resort. They refused to take part in any of the community events, refused to study, refused to work, and were clearly pining for something.

“Why do you keep on refusing to participate in anything?” Cimma asked.

The boy gave a ferocious scowl. “We are indentured to
Valhai
Six,” he informed her loftily. “We already have a job – to look after him. Why would we take another?”

“What is this indenture?”

The boy looked pityingly at her. “When somebody saves your life, you must repay them. We will protect
Valhai
Six with our lives. That is now our purpose.”

“I see. But Six does not live on New Kwaide. He is only here temporarily. Will that not stop you from carrying out your plan?”

That earned her another sharp look. “We are available. That is all we can do. He must use our services or not – that is a decision only he can take. But we are here, and willing. We shall never let him down.”

Cimma thought back to an earlier period of her own life, when it could be said that she had become rather fixated on protection too. She felt a deep sympathy for these two youngsters. They were, in their own way, only trying to live up to an ethical code. A picture of herself, dressed in a grubby dressing gown and waving a knife came into her mind. She gave a faint smile. She was the last person in the world to judge these two lost souls.

“Then we will call Six up here, and see if we can come up with some sort of solution,” she told them. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to wait in the practice area.”

The two siblings looked suddenly alert. “Practice area? For weapons practice?” asked the boy.

Cimma nodded. “I am nominally in charge of all hand-to-hand combat here on New Kwaide.”

A spark of new respect showed in two pairs of eyes. “That will be acceptable,” said the girl, speaking for the first time, in an assured voice. “We will join the practice.”

Cimma showed them into one of the lower-level training classes and then hurried to find Six.

“Well, I don’t want any bodyguards,” he said, after listening to her.

“We have to do something with them, Six. They can’t just sit in their cabin day in day out, can they?”

“You say they showed some interest in the combat training?”

Cimma nodded.

“—Then they should stay with you. That way they can get a solid background as fighters. It sounds to me as if that is all they want to be.”

“Yes, but Six, they want to fight protecting
you
.”

“All right. I will come and talk to them. They will have to stay with you for the time being. We can see about them coming with me when they grow up a little. I promise I won’t rule it out – but there are reasons why I would have to look very carefully at anyone who wanted to travel with me all the time. Arcan, and … well, stuff like that.”

“They can stay with me for the time being – if you can convince them, that is.”

Six nodded and they made their way over to the training class. Both brother and sister dropped their arms instantly and ran over to his side. He gave a sigh. “You can’t come with me now.”

They both started to chatter at him at the same time, and he held up one hand for silence. “We can discuss the possibility in the future, but for the time being you need training, here on New Kwaide – and I shall not be staying here for very long. It is my wish that you attach yourselves to Magestra Cimma here, study combat until you graduate the highest level, and keep her safe.”

The boy screwed up his eyes. “You wish us to transfer our loyalty to Maestra Cimma?”

“Temporarily, yes. Is that possible?”

The young boy considered carefully. “If that is your desire, then I think it would be acceptable. We would be seconded to Maestra Cimma as bodyguards?”

Six stifled back a grin. “Trainee bodyguards.”

“But we would accompany her everywhere she goes?” The boy was very much on his dignity.

Six turned to Cimma and raised an eyebrow. She pursed her lips. She did want to help these two children, after all.

“When I am here, at the base camp, you must dedicate all your time to bettering your skills,” she said finally. “But when I travel – to the black peak camp, to the middle camp, or anywhere outside the base camp, then you may accompany me, and I will make sure that you are armed.”