Dragon in Exile - eARC (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Surebleak

There’d been an early meeting called of all committee and sub-committee heads, of which Lionel Smealy was one. Seemed like the Syndicate had decided to make an example of Baker Quill—who, in Smealy’s opinion, was head-and-shoulders above the next most deserving candidate. Busybody, fuss-budget woman, hangin’ up her signs and givin’ out cards. Didn’t want to pay no insurance, that was it, right? Fine. The Syndicate would make it so she didn’t have anything worth insuring.

Shoulda been an easy job. Shoulda drawn a crowd—which it did—to remind people what happened, when you didn’t pay your insurance. According to Rance Joiler, who’d been part of the example-makin’ crew, everything’d been going more or less like you’d expect, until—

“The Road Boss showed up—him
and
her—and they…” Rance looked around him, up there in front of the room, like he was maybe sorry to be quite so visible.

“Well, they broke up the zample, is the short tellin’ of it. Tough little bastids come out of nowhere, like they’d just been waiting for a shot at us! Yelled at us to stop. He broke a nose, she busted a kneecap. Whittin landed a good smack on
her
then, with his gun!—then
him
—he broke Whit’s wrist like he does it everyday. Took Whit’s piece away from him…

“Still, I’d say we was pulling it back together, when the Watch come in on it. Some of us run—I did. Most of us that was there is still being held by the Watch. We had to move offices and shift people.” He shook his head.

“It’s been busy, and not the best of it is that the streeters are putting the bakery back, and it’s the Watch now handing out them signs and cards and splaining how selling insurance is against the law.”

Rance leaned over and spat.

“So, what’re we going to do?” somebody called from the floor. “Stop zample-making?”

“No,” said Seldin Neuhaus, who was one of the Syndicate Bosses, and who’d been sitting by himself at the front of the room, facing the rest of them, instead of watching Rance.

“No,” he said again. “Me and the other Bosses’re thinking that the answer is to make a
lot
of examples. The Watch can’t be everywhere, and when the streeters see it ain’t no sense hoping for help, they’ll come back into line.”

“The Bosses are asking all the committees and sub-committees to tighten up operations—you got outstanding payments,
get ’em
—and to tell their committees to stand ready to pitch in with example-making.

“We’ll be putting together a schedule and getting it out to folks.”

He stood up.

“That’s all, people. Thanks for comin’. Now go do some bidness.”

Smealy stood up and made for the door—not quick enough, though. Girt Hammond caught him.

“So, Lionel; I hear the Road Boss turned the deal down.”

“
He
did. Turns out him and his wife share out the job between ’em.
She’s
local; she’ll come in. Just gotta talk to ’er, is all. Went down to the Port day before yesterday, but they was doing the shift together. Today’s her on again, so that’s where I’ll be this afternoon, after I finish up some other bidness.”

“You sure she’ll come in? Rance says she was right there fighting ’gainst the zample.”

“Well, stands to reason, don’t it? Married to Conrad’s little brother? Gotta support the laws, don’t she? No sayin’ but what she’d’ve turned a blind eye, if she’d been by herself.”

“That’s so, that’s so. Well.” Girt smacked him on the shoulder. “You bring ’er in, then, boy. Time and past that we was getting those trucks on the road.”

“It’ll all be done by this evening,” promised Smealy, and heaved a sigh of relief as Girt walked away.

* * *

“Looking good,” Miri said, stepping up behind him, so he could see the reflection of her grin in the mirror.

He raised an eyebrow, and
his
reflection showed the haughty lordling, his face smoothly formal, his eyes cool, and his mouth firm. There was lace at his throat, and lace at his wrists, covering his hands to the knuckle. His coat was green, and there were silver dragons worked around the cuffs. Formal black trousers and shiny black boots completed his toilette.

“I was once told that I looked too Liaden in such dress.”

“Guess I got used to Liadens,” Miri said.
She
was dressed for a day as Road Boss on the Port—dark slacks and a dark high-neck sweater, with a heavier sweater, bright blue, over. Her hair was in a single braid, a gleam of copper snaking over her shoulder.

“I do wonder how come you got invited to a party, but I didn’t.”

He smiled, at least as much for Miri’s
party clothes
as for the irony.

“The High Judge of the Juntavas is calling upon Boss Conrad this morning.”

“Right. And he wanted to talk to the
delm genetic
.”

“And that stipulation is exactly why I am wearing
party clothes
instead of something more along the lines of your own costume, or even Liaden day-clothes—My uncle taught me that one ought always to dress above one’s station when going into a hostile negotiation.”

Miri’s grin briefly widened.

“I’m sorry I missed him—your uncle.”

“He was sometimes a burden to his children, but it must be said that he was sorely tried. You would perhaps have found him a little stiff, at first, and not apt to stint himself when an opinion was called for.” He paused, breathing carefully against a sudden, and wholly unexpected, stab of loss.

Miri tipped her head, catching, perhaps—no,
certainly
—the edge of his distress.

“Like Daav, then.”

“Mother—my foster-mother—would have it that Father was even less apt to stint himself. She once said that she believed he used a whetstone on his tongue.”

She laughed.

“Seemed to me like he kept the habit.” She sobered. “Shouldn’t we be getting him and Aelliana back soon? If nothing else, Uncle’s gotta be getting tired of buying whetstones.”

“I think the Uncle is a patient man, when it suits his purpose. Nor would it surprise me to learn that he has to hand a sufficiently large supply of whetstones. I am inclined to think that he is finding the present currents as difficult to navigate as we, though he is not a primary target. He did speak of strikes against his enterprises, in his last correspondence.”

“So you’re willing to give him more time?”

“Yes. Father was badly wounded, and may yet be so weak that a careful man—and there are few men more careful than the Uncle—would not wish to send him off to fend for himself. Also, if the Uncle is involved in straightening out his own affairs, he may not be able to turn aside at this juncture. And, you know, Father may be of some use to him.”

“For values of use,” Miri muttered, “including mayhem.”

“Almost certainly mayhem,” Val Con assured her, as they moved into the main room of their apartment. “My uncle made a point of assuring me that my father’s skills were in no way inadequate.”

He opened the door, and they stepped out into the hall.

“What does the Road Boss have on her schedule today?”

“Not one thing. I figure I’ll be reading reports and drinking coffee all day. When that gets boring, maybe I’ll play cards with Nelirikk.”

“Teach him picket,” Val Con suggested.

“Prolly better’n letting him skin me at poker.”

They descended the stairs, and Miri turned left, toward the side door where Nelirikk would be waiting for her with the car.

“Miri,” Val Con said, his voice sharp.

She turned, thinking it was a kiss he wanted; thinking that his voice had been a little too urgent for that, alone.

“What?”

“Be careful today,” he said, still sharp voiced. “I—” He took a breath, and shook his head. “Something—I think that something may happen.”

Well, that was nice and vague, wasn’t it? On the other hand, it wasn’t a good idea to ignore Val Con’s hunches, vague or otherwise.

She gave him a smile.

“I’ll do my level best to make sure nothing at all happens. Deal?”

His smile was wry.

“It isn’t much, is it? Take care,
cha’trez
.” He stepped forward, and bent, his kiss everything that wasn’t vague.

“I’m gonna be taking you up that, later,” she said, when she could talk again.

“That’s a deal,” he answered, and turned up the hall, toward the office.

Miri watched him for a minute, sighed, and headed for the side door.

* * *

“Need to tell you, Haz, this is my last shift with Security.”

They were standing at Nelsin’s counter sipping their mid-shift coffees. Hazenthull looked down, but Tolly had his face turned aside.

“Will you allow this person who hunts you—this man without honor—to take the field unchallenged?”

“He can do what he wants, ’s’long as he does it far away from me. See, my colleague came through with a job offer; and I’m going off-world. The contract and pre-pay came through this morning, all right and tight. So, after this shift is done with, I’m gonna go see Commander Liz, turn in my service gun, sign the separation papers and—go. Ship lifts this evening, and I aim to be on it.”

Hazenthull raised her cup and drank coffee she no longer wanted.

“I will miss you,” she said, when she had put the cup down.

“If it comes to that, I’ll miss you, too, Haz. You’re a good partner; one of the best partners I’ve had. Always know you got my back.”

A silence fell between them, which was not unusual, but this one felt…strained, as if the troop had been divided, already.

“This job—you will be a pilot?”

“Some piloting; some consulting. It sounds like a rare knot, if you want the truth. Something I can really get my teeth into. So, I’m excited. And it’s the work I was trained to do—my specialty, see? Gonna be good to get back to it.”

“Yes,” she said, and wondered if she could ask him, now, what his specialty was.

“So,” he thumped his cup on the counter, and called a
hey, thanks
! to Nelsin, who was at the back grill.

“Let’s swing over to Mack’s then up by the Portmaster’s Office. Sound good to you?”

Hazenthull checked her sidearm, and nodded.

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

* * *

Pat Rin rose from behind his desk, eyebrows lifting.

“Do you intend to seduce the High Judge?” he asked.

“Merely to dazzle him with my magnificence. Do you think me too bold?”

“Not in the least, though, after this meeting is done, I beg you will come with me to Audrey. She cannot miss this.”

“I will, in fact,” Val Con said, flipping the lace back from his hand with a practiced snap of the wrist, “set a fashion.”

“You may well do so. One would have supposed you satisfied with the skimmer.”

“That has been years ago. One wishes, from time to time, to test whether one’s powers have faded.”

Pat Rin laughed.

“Well, I shall look a dull dog, indeed. I cannot recall the last time I saw so much lace before Prime.” He nodded at the chair beside his desk. “Come sit down, do. Will you have tea? Coffee? Wine?”

“Am I so far in advance of the judge? I mean no discourtesy, but my feeling is that we may soon find ourselves in a three-pot meeting.”

“I hope for two pots, myself,” Pat Rin said, sighing. “But, I concur. The judge is only moments behind you, if so much, and the kitchen has already taken a notion to produce refreshments calculated to amaze a palate accustomed to the thin pap available, outworld.”

“They guard your
melant’i
well,” Val Con murmured.

“I believe they have a certain pride in the household,” Pat Rin countered—and turned his head toward the door as it opened to admit a wiry woman with strong-looking yellow hair and a broad, pleasant face.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. Cook asks if you or your brother would be wanting a cup of tea.”

“We shall wait for our third, thank you, Gwince,” Pat Rin said.

“I’ll pass the message,” she said, and gave Val Con a sociable nod. “Mornin’, Mr. Falcon.”

“Good morning, Gwince. What do you think of my coat?”

“Real fine looking,” she said without the flicker of an eyelash. “I’ll just pass that message back to Cook.”

She withdrew, the door closing behind her.

Pat Rin sighed.

“There’s to be a shooting competition, have you heard?” he asked. He plucked a paper from the stack on his desk, and passed it to Val Con, who ran an eye down the page.

“A Boss Round? Is that wise?”

Pat Rin turned his hands palm up.

“Mr. Golden and Ms. Jazdak seem to think it can do no harm, and might, indeed, serve as fair warning. Mr. McFarland is taking counsel from the other Head ’hands. I agree with Mr. Golden’s central point, which is that it ought to be made plain that the bosses are not, shall we say, wholly dependent upon the skill of their oathsworn. On the other hand, one dislikes showing one’s cards.”

“I agree. Perhaps, rather than a competition, the Bosses might provide a variety of demonstrations?”

“To avoid comparisons being made? That might answer. I will put it to Mr. McFarland. In any case—”

The door opened to Gwince again.

“’Scuse me, Boss. High Judge Falish Meron is here to see you.”

Pat Rin looked at Val Con. Val Con raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed. Please show the High Judge in, Gwince.”

* * *

“I’ve done what?”

Ren Zel sank into the chair next to the Master Healer’s desk, swallowing against a rising feeling of illness.

“How…long?”

Master Healer Pel Tyr moved his hands in the pilot’s sign for
uncertain
.

“Years,” he said. “How many years? More than twelve. One of my colleagues believes that it may be as many as thirty.”

Thirty years. Gods, gods, he had stripped half a man’s lifetime away with a single small pinch of his will. Who was he to have done such a thing? And to a man who had so desperately chosen for life?

“I—” he shook his head, horror outflowing. He tried to calm himself, out of respect for Healer’s sensibilities. He could at least be courteous.

Even as he struggled to master his emotions, he felt a subtle warming of his blood, and calmness descend upon his disordered thoughts.