The Agent Gambit (27 page)

"Further reflect," he continued, "that the tenor of his message indicates that my brother was in danger of his life. Appreciate now that he paused in doing that which was necessary to preserve himself and his companion to make known to me his death desire, as is fitting between brothers, and to assure me of his honor and affection. I fail to find in this action discourtesy or aught less than what might be expected of an honorable and great-hearted person of any race. I am ashamed that one of my Clan should be so far lost to propriety that he could fail to see and understand this."

Watcher bowed his head. "I will think much on what you have said, T'carais."

"Do so. For the moment, however, continue with your accounting. How came it to pass that Herbert Alan Costello has been maimed by a member of my Clan?"

"After your brother dismissed me, T'carais, I passed down the tunnel at a rapid rate, sealed the inner door, and signaled that I was without. I felt the vibration of the vessel entering drive and at the same moment heard a person shouting in Trade. The words were 'Hey, you!' I did not understand that they were addressed to me until this person who is Herbert Alan Costello laid his hand upon my arm." Watcher could not quite control his blink of revulsion at the memory. Edger motioned for him to continue.

"He asked where your brother and his companion had gone and, when I did not answer, he spoke words which I feel were threatening, stating that, should I not say where these two had gone, that there were ways to make me do so. I was at that present upset by my inability to appreciate your exalted brother and when Herbert Alan Costello said these words and pushed his fingers at my face, I bit him." Watcher bowed his head. "That is what transpired, T'carais. I am ashamed."

"As is proper. You will now present yourself to your kinsman Selector and make known to him my desire that you serve him as he requires. Also, think on what I have said to you, as I will think upon what you have said to me. We will speak of your punishment at another time."

"Yes, T'carais."

HE WAS IN
the atrium, lying on his stomach on a patch of springy blue grass, chin resting on his folded arms. If he heard her approach, he gave no sign.

Looking down at him, she considered slitting her own throat, but rejected that as a coward's answer and sat cross-legged at his side, where he might see her if he chose to turn his head.

He did not so choose.

Miri pinched herself to make sure she was really there, and wet her lips. "It is my sorrow to have caused you sorrow," she began in stumbling High Liaden, "and my pain to have incurred your displeasure. In my need to say that which I felt to be of importance, I wounded you. That my motives were of the highest does not excuse me." She took a deep breath and concluded in rapid Terran, "I'm a rude bitch."

His shoulders jerked and he turned his head to look at her. "Miri. . . ."

"Hey, I'm sorry! But you could cut me some slack, y'know? I didn't expect you to fall for it! Could've knocked me over with a snowflake-"

He was laughing. "Miri, how can you be so absurd?"

"I practice," she told him earnestly. "Every day. Even when I don't feel good." She held out the mug. "Here's your wine."

He made no move to take it, though he rolled into a cross-legged seat facing her, arms resting on his thighs. "Liz
did
say that you were less than wary of beauty."

"Yeah, well, at least she didn't tell you I was good," she said, frowning down at the mug.

"Most likely she felt I would see that for myself."

She snapped her eyes to his face, unsure of the expression there. "Now you
are
laughing at me."

"Am I? Terran is a hard language in which to make a compliment."

"Not like Liaden," she agreed, "which it's impossible to make sentences in."

"The High Tongue can be inflexible," he conceded thoughtfully. "But that is because it's very like Terran in its purposes: imparting information, dealing with technical and trade concerns, keeping people at a polite arm's length. The Low Tongue is for expressing feelings, relationships-human things. Much of the meaning is in the inflection-something like working the sound stops on a 'chora, to get more mileage out of the words."

"Sounds hard to learn."

"Easier to learn than to explain, I think. Anne found that. I believe that is the reason she never finished her second grammar."

Miri shifted, irritably conscious of the mug she held. "Edger has her book on High Liaden in his collection. Thought I'd learn the language right, since I got almost three weeks to kill."

He looked at her closely. "Will you go to your family, then?"

"I ain't got-Oh. You mean Clan Whoever-they-are." She shook her head. "They ain't family."

"Erob is your Clan, Miri. I am certain they'd be honored to learn of a child such as you."

"Well, I don't know why they should be," she said, puzzled. "They don't know me from Old Dan Tucker."

He lifted a brow. "From who?"

"See? And we were even introduced."

He shook his head, frowning. "You are a daughter of the Clan, one who is courageous and strong, quick in perception and thought. I know of no House so wealthy in its members that it would shun you. You would be an asset to Erob. They would welcome you and provide you your birthright."

"It don't figure," she told him. "I don't know them and they don't know me. I sure wouldn't go to them if I was in trouble. I'd go to Edger before them."

There was a small silence. "Perhaps it would be best," he said softly, "to go to Edger, were you in trouble."

Miri set the mug carefully on the grass between them. He did not appear to see.

"How'd you get to be Edger's brother?" she asked, more because she was uncomfortable with the lengthening silence than because she had planned to ask the question.

He lifted a brow. "By right of the dragon we slew between us."

"Dragon?"

"Grant me some knowledge of the species; a dragon figures prominently in Korval's shield."

"And it breathed fire and everything?"

"It is possible," he admitted, "that we struck it down before it had completed its graduate work. Indisputably, however, a dragon. I believe it compensated for any handicap attendant to an inability to breathe flame by growing at least three times more teeth than were necessary, and growing them three times longer than I feel was strictly required. Quite terrifying."

She studied his face, sensing a joke of some kind; she caught the barest gleam of what might have been-mischief? "So you and Edger killed it between you," she guessed, "with just a crystal knife and a handful of pebbles."

"No, Edger had a lance. I had a pellet gun, of course, but the thing was so large that it was simply a waste of time to shoot it." He shook his head. "I was stupid with fear and reached for my belt, feeling for a bigger gun. The best thing I had was a flare gun, so I fired at its face. That distracted it long enough for Edger to make the kill. Luck."

"Some people got it all," she agreed, unconvinced. "You sure you're not leaving something out? Or making something up?"

"It happened exactly that way," he said, eyes wide. "Why should I invent it? Edger will tell you the same tale."

"Why do I doubt that?" she wondered and held up a hand. "Never mind. I'd hate for you to perjure yourself." She pointed. "You want that wine or don't you?"

"I would very much like to have the wine," he said, making no move to take it or, indeed, even looking at it. His face was completely sober now, and he kept his eyes on hers. "Miri. Why?"

Ah, hell, she thought. "Why which?"

Val Con pushed the hair off his forehead, brows up. "Shall I determine the order of the explanation, then?" He waited, but she waited longer, and his mouth twitched slightly.

"Very well. Why did you push, not to say entrap me?"

She hesitated, hearing his voice in memory: "It is my intention to tell you the truth . . . ." So many debts, she thought suddenly, all to be paid in kind.

She licked her lips, and tried to explain.

"I wanted to make the point-to make sure you understood-that it might be true that you ain't the person you used to be. But I don't think you're the person you
think
you are, either." She paused, fighting for clarity. "Everybody who
does
things, sometimes does things they ain't proud of. It's just that you gotta-gotta learn from it and get on with things and try not to make that mistake again." She took a breath and resisted the temptation to close her eyes.

"And it ain't-
right
-for you to take the whole blame for the things you did 'cause somebody else forced you. 'Specially not," she concluded in a rush, "when it's clear they've been walking inside your head with combat boots on and screwing around mightily with the wiring!"

His smile flickered. "Why take the burden of proving this point upon yourself? When, whether you choose to believe it or not, I am dangerous and unpredictable?"

"I don't-I don't want you to die . . . Being made over to somebody else's specs-that's dying, ain't it?"

There was a small pause. "Perhaps. But why do you care?"

She moved her head, not quite a shake, not quite breaking eye contact. "You said you'd been a Scout-
First-In
Scout. . . ."

"Yes."

She felt herself tensing and tried to ignore it. "You remember what it was like-being a Scout?"

His brows pulled sharply together. "How could I not?"

"Just checkin'." She kept her voice matter-of-fact. "Scouts ain't the same as spies."

"True," he said calmly. "A Scout must complete quite a bit of training in order to become a spy." He paused, then continued gently, "I have completed
all
of that training. Miri."

"So you said. But you remember what it was like when you were a Scout and that's more'n I expected-" She cut herself off and began again, on what seemed a tangent.

"You know about friends-there's Edger-and about partners . . . okay," she said, apparently now having it sorted to her satisfaction. "I care because you're trying to be my friend. Maybe you don't even know why-that's okay, 'cause I'm your friend and I'm damned if I know why I should be. And we're partners-though it don't look like either one of us is very good at it.

"People," she continued, as one spelling out basic truths, "help their friends. That's what holds it all together. If people didn't help their friends, then everything would fall apart. I'm in favor of holding things together, so I help my friends." She looked at him closely, wondering at the unease she saw in his face. "You understand all that, Tough Guy?"

He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

"Do I lose?" she asked after what her stretched nerves insisted was a very long time.

His shoulders jerked and he looked up. "I hope not," he murmured. He straightened abruptly, smiling into her eyes.

"It is good to have a friend." Picking up the mug, he drank deeply and offered it to her.

She paused with her hand half-extended to take it, searching his face. His smile deepened, lighting the depths of his eyes, and he nodded slightly.

Stomach fluttering, she took the mug and drank what was left, returning his smile.

He grinned and snapped to his feet, bending to offer her his hand. She slid her hand into his.

"Do you think dinner is ready by now?" he asked as they went down the garden pathway toward the flower-shrouded doorway.

"I think dinner's ruined by now," she said. "I never was a very good cook."

THE DRIVE HAD
kicked in half an hour before. Val Con paused as he reached for his mug, his attention captured by a movement behind Miri's shoulder.

The floor was beginning to ripple, shading from brown toward purple. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

"Starting up already? Didn't it take closer to an hour last time?"

His eyes flicked open. "You, too?"

"Think you're special? Though I'm not getting any-oh-oh, here we go." The wall directly behind his head flared orange. "Ugly. Orange never was one of my favorite colors." She sighed. "Damned silly way to make a space drive, anyway."

Val Con sipped wine. "It seems I should have paid more attention in school." He gestured with the mug, encompassing the room at her back. "This is an effect of the drive, you think?"

"Have it on the best authority," she assured him.
"Space Drives for Dummies
says that the Electron Substitution Drive works on a principle that involves the ability of an electron to arrive in a new orbit before it leaves the old one. So the ship and everything in it-that includes us-must be in two places at once all during the time we're in drive." She took a drink and ignored the fact that the table was beginning to pulse and shimmer.

Val Con was staring, a look of stark disbelief on his face. "Correct me if I'm in error. That means that every electron in the ship and everything in it-including, as I am reminded, us-is firing
twice
for each individual firing in normal space?"

"Sounds right to me, but I'm a soldier, not a physicist."

He looked over her shoulder at the control room. The floor was flashing wildly now, torn by dark lightnings, while the board oozed violet and magenta vapors, and the pilot's bench glowed blue with serpentine streaks.

Taking a deep breath, he expelled it and said something softly in a language that sounded like glass breaking around a steel maul.

"Come again?" Miri asked, interested.

"Never mind. It is not fitting that the youngest of Edger's siblings hear his brother speak of him so."

"I was thinking about that," she said, finishing off her wine setting the mug on the shimmering table with care. "How different is Edger from us in how he-thinks about-things? Maybe all this stuff happens too fast for him to notice. Or maybe he can't see it at all." She frowned slightly. "Do
we
see it?"

He moved his shoulders. "If the mind processes something as experience, then it is experience. Reality is perhaps more difficult to define than truth . . . ."

"The visuals ain't so tough," Miri offered after a minute. "Best thing seems to be to concentrate on something else and let 'em fade into the background. Or we could sleep for the next three weeks-maybe not. Had some real weird dreams last sleep. How 'bout you?"