CHAPTER TWELVE
Tantara Floor Coverings
Surebleak Port
“Did you intend the shot to disable?” Father asked Skene.
“Yessir.”
“And your reasoning?”
Quin, sitting beside Skene in the back of the shop, took a quiet breath. Father was being rigidly courteous, which meant that he was . . . very angry, indeed. He might be angrier at this moment than Quin had ever seen him, and he could only be glad that fury was directed elsewhere.
“Didn’t seem a killin’ matter,” Skene said, her voice so calm as to be almost expressionless. Sensibly, she wished not to draw fire upon her, but she did not make the mistake of either averting her eyes, or of abasing herself. That, Quin thought approvingly, was the way to deal with Father in a temper.
He moved his hand now, brusquely, signaling Skene to continue.
“Yessir. What I saw was a woman keyed up—I’m thinking she’d maybe had a beer or two before finding us—and her backup wasn’t on the same page. I had the range, so I took ’er down. If I’d waited for her to commit, Quin woulda had to deal, and he was so close, he’d’ve had to kill her. I hit the panic button to make sure Security got here fast as could be, because any way it sliced, we was gonna need Security in it.”
“Thank you, Skene,” Father said, cold, but courteous. “Well reasoned, and well done. Quin.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You delayed calling me?”
“No more than necessary, sir,” he said stoutly, ignoring what sounded like a chuckle from Cheever McFarland, who was on the front door. He met his father’s eyes.
“First, it was necessary to deal with Security, and clearing the shop of the wounded. There were questions. After—the trader had unfortunately fallen onto a rug, which required attention.”
Father frowned. “Which rug?”
“The pale green Pairute occasional with the cream fringe.”
“Ah. I hope that the fringe escaped damage?”
“The angle of the fall was fortunate,” Quin assured him. “The fringe was quite untouched, and the Pairute of course gave up the stain.”
“Excellent.”
“Yes, sir. After I had seen to the rug, I called you. Natesa had been on port, and heard of the incident from Chief Lizardi.” He nodded to his father’s lifemate, who stood behind his chair, one slim hand on his shoulder. “She arrived in time to share the meal Skene had called in from the Emerald.”
Father sighed, and looked up into Natesa’s face.
“So, it ended not nearly so badly as it could have done.”
She nodded.
“Liz remanded the case to the portmaster,” she said. “We should hear her ruling—soon. In the meanwhile . . .”
“In the meanwhile,” Father said sharply, “this is a matter for the delm.”
“The delm!” Quin repeated, aghast. “But—why?”
“The trader called Balance upon me, did she not?”
“Yes, sir. She said, as you had deprived her of her heir, she would serve you the same.”
“Is that what that was about!” Skene interrupted. “No wonder her ’hand looked sick.”
“It is a legitimate Balance,” Quin said, sure of his footing on this point as only Kareen yos’Phelium’s grandson could be.
“What’s it fix?” Skene demanded. “’Stead of one dead kid, we got two. How’s that better?”
“The theory is that the two identical losses will cancel each other out,” Natesa said in her cool voice. “And thus the universe will be returned to Balance.”
Skene took a breath, and Natesa spoke again, quickly.
“It is a social geometry that is very important to Liadens. Universal Balance is at the heart of their culture. If you have questions, Quin’s grandmother is an expert on such matters. Your best course is to apply to her.”
Skene subsided, and Quin saw her decide not to bother Grandmother with questions. He leaned close to her ear.
“Later, I can try to answer. I’m not an expert, but Grandmother taught me the Code.”
“Quite right,” Father said. “To return to your question, my son—when the Council united to exile Korval from Liad, and struck our name from the Book of Clans, they also guaranteed that these actions put paid to all and any Balances arising from the insult to the homeworld. We are no longer a Liaden clan, and thus we are beyond Balance.”
Quin stared at him, and suddenly regretted even the small meal he had eaten. They were beyond Balance? How was that possible?
Natesa’s belt comm chimed. She brought it to her ear, murmuring her name, listened and said, “Thank you, Portmaster,” and pressed the off switch.
She looked to Father. “The portmaster has confined Trader vin’Tenzing to her ship until it may lift. That will be at the portmaster’s discretion, and soon. Habista, out of Solcintra, has been listed as a known violent ship. That rating will follow it until it has seen a dozen ports without another incident. She has also reported the trader to the guild.”
Father took a hard breath, and nodded.
“It is a portmaster’s decision, and it is not out of the way. The larger matter—that goes before the delm, who will, I very much fear, be required to carry it to Liad. Quin—”
The front door chimed.
Quin was out of his chair before he had taken thought, and found himself between his father and the door, which was quite idiotic on at least three counts.
Not the least of which was that the person entering the showroom, with Cheever McFarland’s sizable permission, was no greater threat than Villy Butler.
He paused just inside the shop, glanced up into Mr. McFarland’s face, then at each of them in turn.
“Evenin’,” he said courteously. “Boss. Ms. Natesa.”
He turned back to the large man beside him.
“Cheever? Should I be goin’ now?”
“Depends on your comfort level. You come by for a reason, right?”
“Sure I did. Me and Quin got a date.”
He glanced over his shoulder, blond brows pulled slightly together.
“You okay, hon? You’re lookin’ a little peaky.”
“Somebody tried to kill him a couple hours ago,” Cheever said before Quin could answer. “I’m guessing he’s still a little tense.”
“No wonder there. Quin? You wanna reschedule?”
“I would rather not,” Quin said. “But you may not get much use from me. I fear Mr. McFarland is correct; I am stupid this evening, else I would not have jumped into Natesa’s line of fire.”
“No harm,” Natesa said from behind him. “Pat Rin, do you go to the delm tonight?”
“Yes,” Father said. “Best done at once.”
“Does Quin also need to be present, or may you, as his father, conduct all necessary business?”
Quin turned slightly, so he could see the pair of them: Natesa in profile with her head bent, and Father looking up at her.
“You have a plan?”
“I do. Habista may be scheduled for short-lift, and Trader vin’Tenzing forbidden the port, but there remains the possibility that she has friends on-world who may be . . . sympathetic to her case. I would prefer that the townhouse be free of targets this evening. A precaution only. If Audrey will take Quin and Luken behind her security, while you and I accept the delm’s protection . . .”
She looked up. “Cheever?”
He nodded. “No sense making it easy. We don’t expect another attempt, but—we didn’t exactly anticipate Trader vin’Tenzing, either.”
“We could all three accept the delm’s protection,” Father said. “Quin? Have you a preference?”
He took a deep breath, weighing choices: face Delm Korval in full formal mode, before he had a chance to think about being beyond Balance . . . or spend a pleasant evening with Villy?
“If you please, I would prefer to honor our date, if Villy will have me.”
“No worries, there,” Villy said. “You come home with me, sweetie; we’ll get you smart again in record time.”
“Very well,” Father said, rising. “The delm may well wish to speak to you, later.”
“Yes, sir. But . . . not tonight.”
“I understand entirely. Skene—”
Quin straightened his shoulders.
“Father, I would like Skene . . .” He didn’t quite sigh. After all, it was better—for him and for Skene—to ask for the inevitable, rather than have it thrust upon them.
“I would like Skene to be assigned permanently to my security,” he said, meeting his father’s eyes.
Father inclined slightly from the waist, allowing a certain amount of irony to be seen.
“I believe that the necessary adjustments in schedule may be made. Skene, is this assignment acceptable?”
“Yessir,” she said.
“I am pleased,” he said. “You will tomorrow work with Mr. McFarland to identify your backup. In the meanwhile, please continue as you have begun.”
“Yessir,” she said again.
Father stepped forward, and put his hands on Quin’s shoulders, and looked closely into his eyes. Quin tried to keep his face open, noting that Father’s anger seemed to have burned out. Now, he only looked tired.
“It might have been a legitimate Balance, my son, but it would not have been an acceptable Balance. Stay safe.” He kissed Quin on the cheek, squeezed his shoulders, and then he was gone, Natesa at his side, nodding to Cheever McFarland as they went through the door and out onto the port.
“Okay,” Cheever said, looking around at the three of them. “Let’s get this place locked down, so Skene an’ me can get you young fellas down to Audrey’s for your date. Sound firm?”
Quin looked at Villy, who nodded, and at Skene, who gave him a thumb’s-up.
“Sounds firm,” he said.
It came to Rys, as he browsed the offerings at the media center, that—as the delm’s brother, and in pursuit of a task for his brother—he had call on the library and other resources of the house. It was, of course, some distance to the house at the end of the Port Road, but he had paid for one taxi ride, and he supposed he could pay for another without doing violence to the Bedel ethos regarding money.
The delm’s brother, he thought, a little dizzy with his presumption, might encompass a melant’i sufficient to request that Nova yos’Galan—or Boss Conrad himself!—lend him a car; though his courage might be . . . less than sufficient.
And, truly, he could walk to the house under Tree, if required; it was scarcely on the other side of the world.
So it was that he came away from the media center with two readers tucked into an inside pocket of his coat, and a half-dozen books. One reader and most of the books would go to Kezzi. The other was, for now, his, and he had found for himself a volume of Liaden children’s stories. Surely, the Bedel had their own stories—a multitude, even in his limited experience—but he did not wish his child—his daughter!—to be wholly ignorant of those tales his grandmother had given to him, as a child.
He would, he thought, read the book first, to refresh his memory. He had time. At first, he might tell her the stories, but later, he would show her the words in the book, and teach her how to read. He remembered learning to read, just so, following along with Ifry, his next-eldest sibling, as she found old friends on the page, and discovered new ones.
The night wind woke him from these pleasant digressions, as he rounded the corner toward the nearer gate. Summer it might be, but this late into the evening, the wind was sharp and chill.
He bent his head to protect his face from the cold caress—and heard, behind him, the sound of stealthy footsteps.
Rys slowed, as if the wind pushed him, and listened closely.
He heard three . . . four? . . . sets of footsteps: slow-moving and achingly light. So much for his fleeting hope that he was by chance preceding a number of his brothers to the gate. Those of the kompani walked firm upon the world, unless they wished to pass unnoticed; then vanish they did and none could mark their passing.
The gate was scarcely a block distant. He would, he thought, walk past, and lead those following up the hill to Boss Conrad’s tiny shipyard—Korval’s first on Surebleak. Once there, he would elude the security guards, while ensuring that those who followed . . . did not.
Plan formed, he walked on, passing the gate to the kompani’s keeping with neither a glance nor an alteration in pace.
Not so, his followers.
They began to run, feet pounding, as if they had some notion of what they wanted—and where it was located.
Rys struck the heel of his leg brace hard against the roadway, activating the pneumatics, and—jumped.
He dared not jump too boldly, for only one leg was augmented. If he were a fool, he would spin in a circle; or leap, and break his whole leg on landing.
His jump, though not everything it might have been, gave him a lead on his pursuers. Best, perhaps, to simply outrun them, and circle around to another of the gates. But if those following had been looking for a way into the Bedel’s world below . . .
A subtle sound disturbed the air behind him, followed by a spinning hiss.
Rys jumped again, not high enough, unless the thrower had meant the cords to kill. As it was, they wrapped his legs, rather than his throat, and he went down, hard, and rolled.
Footsteps pounded. He grabbed the cord and yanked it free, snapping to his feet with the thing already spinning in his natural hand, turning to face the four pursuing shadows. He loosed it at random, and spun to run on, but the fall had cost him precious seconds. Three steps only he managed before the leader jumped, and knocked him down.
Rys kicked with his augmented leg, felt something give, heard his opponent grunt—and he was on his feet again, knife out, facing three tall Terrans. He took a deep breath, recalling all too clearly the last time he had been outnumbered and cornered—and thrust the memory from him.
There was a wall at his back, a blessing and a curse. It would prevent an attacker from getting behind him, but they could box him in. Indeed, they were moving into position now.
He danced forward, feinting with the knife. The bearded man took the bait, leaned in, staff spinning—and Rys slapped him lightly with his metal hand.
His opponent shouted in pain, staff falling from senseless fingers, but Rys had moved on to the next target, leg flashing out, bootheel catching a knee, and that was one down who would stay down, though if he had a gun or a throwing blade . . .
The next backed away, in a knife-fighter’s crouch, blade weaving, eyes wary.
Rys slid closer, seeking an opening in the other’s defense, and spun as the hiss warned him, thrusting his metal hand up to entangle the bola, ducking as the weights flashed past his head.
The kick landed well, in the center of Rys’s back. The knife flew from his fingers as strong arms went around him and held him open for the knife-fighter’s thrust.
He brought his heel down hard on his captor’s foot, and again, not minding the screams, taking all the thrust the brace could give him, the spin breaking the other’s hold, momentum sending him hard against the wall. Rys continued spinning, taking the edge of the knife on the metal arm.
The knife-fighter dropped the blade, and swung a fist, catching Rys in the side of his head.
Light flared, ears rang; he dropped back a step; the other pressed his advantage, and there was the wall against Rys’s back.
He raised his metal arm, hand fisted, cocked back and ready to—
“No!”
The voice was familiar, especially at volume, and it was Udari who grabbed the knife-fighter and snatched him close, holding him with a blade laid across his throat, and Rafin who thrust forward, grabbing the metal arm above the elbow, and pinning it to the wall.
“Stop!” Rafin bellowed. “Tell me that you will stop!”
“I will,” Rys panted, “but they—”
“They are held by your brothers. You are safe, now, little one. Struggle no longer. So. I release you, yes?”
“Yes,” Rys agreed, and Rafin let him go, patting him on the shoulder in a way that was perhaps meant to be soothing, and turning him to face his four erstwhile pursuers, now each in the care of one of his brothers.
“These,” Garat said, “we have seen these several times. Why do you come to this district, gadje?” he snapped, shaking the man he held by the back of the neck.
“There’s—there’s a city down there, under the warehouses,” the man gasped. “We figured prolly you wanted to share.”
“Pah!” Rafin said. “We do not share with thieves.”
“So,” said the man with the crushed kneecap, “there is a city down there.”
“We are down there,” Rafin said. “And others much like us, only more fierce.”
“The Bosses have given us the place, which is our place,” Udari added. “Should we come to your place and sit down at your table? Will your wife share her bed with us?”
“We can find you,” Garat said. “We will find you. And we will watch you.”
“We will do these things,” Rafin said, sounding almost cheerful. “And maybe your food will taste a little strange, sometimes, only sometimes. And maybe your head will hurt—but not always. We will think on these matters, among brothers. But, I get ahead of myself! First, there is something you must know.” He put his hand on Rys’s shoulder.
“You think that I stopped my brother from striking you because I was afraid for him, eh?”
The knife-fighter swallowed, Udari’s blade lying sweet against his throat.
“Yes,” he croaked.
Rafin slapped his knee.
“I knew you for a fool! No! I stopped him because I did not want him to kill you. Not because I love you—I do not think I could love you, though you have some little skill with a knife—but because I love him, and I would not have him mourn your death.”
“Death,” one of the others muttered.
“You doubt?” Rafin asked. “Here, we will show you!”
He released Rys and stepped aside, reappearing in a moment with the staff one of the attackers had dropped.
“Ironwood,” Rafin said, hefting it. “Good. Now, you will see why I stopped this, my brother, from striking you with his fist.”
He placed his feet firmly, flexed his knees, and held the ironwood staff between his two gloved hands, across his body.
“Brother, I ask that you strike this staff as you had been about to strike the fool your brother embraces.”
Rys took a breath, looked ’round at the men who had been trying to kill him, and then into Udari’s face.
His most-loved brother smiled, and nodded slightly.
Rys folded his metal hand into a fist, cocked his arm back, snapped forward one step—and struck the staff.
Splinters flew as the ironwood shattered. Braced as he was, Rafin rocked back. One of his attackers cursed in the local dialect.
Rafin turned slowly about, empty hands held high, slivers of ironwood caught in the palms of his gloves.
“That is what you must remember from this encounter,” Rafin said. “Now, we will return you to your places, and you will tell the tale of this night among your brothers. You will warn them that we will not be preyed upon. And that even the smallest of us is deadlier than you can know. Brothers, please.”
Shadows shifted. The man with the broken kneecap was flung, not gently, onto the back of the knife-fighter, who staggered under his weight.
“Brothers,” Udari said, and they turned with their captives, leaving Rys and Rafin alone.
“How are your hands, Brother?” Rys asked.
Rafin shrugged.
“They sting. Without the gloves, I would have broken fingers.”
Rys swallowed, thinking about the force of that blow, and what he might have done to the knife-fighter’s face.
“If you had not run, we would have come to your side sooner,” Rafin said.
“I did not want them to find the gate.”
“So said Pulka, and Udari, too.”
Rafin dropped a heavy arm around his shoulder, and pulled him into a rough hug.
“Come, now, Brother. Let us go home.”
“What do you want to try first?”
Quin was lying on his side across the wide bed, his head propped on his hand; Villy sat beside him, cross-legged, one hand on Quin’s knee.
“Do I need to go at them one at a time?” he asked. “I was thinking of a—” he frowned, fair brows pulling together, then smiled.
“I was thinking of a multistrand approach.”
“Excellent,” Quin said. “A multistrand approach lends itself well to the Trigrace curriculum. If we choose well, the strands will reinforce each other. So”—he smiled—“what do you want to try first?”
“Well, if you put it that way . . . protocol lessons is important. We’re getting more Liadens and not-Surebleak folk coming in. My job’s to make them feel good, but if I stand too close, or not close enough, or if I touch what I shouldn’t, then the customer won’t be happy. And . . . if I can do or say some added little thing that makes them feel warm and homey—that’ll go a good way toward making them feel happy, already.”
Quin nodded.
“So, basic kinesics, with a concentration on Liaden protocols. What else?”
Villy looked aside, and it seemed to Quin that his pale skin had taken on a rosy tinge. He held his breath, wondering if he should notice the blush, or ignore it.
Finally, he said, softly, something he’d heard among Father’s staff when one was shy of offering an . . . unsophisticated notion.
“I promise not to laugh.”
Villy turned his head so fast, his hair fell into his eyes. He shook it back with a soft chuckle.
“That’s fair. I wanna go forward with my math, see?”
Well, of course he did. In Quin’s experience, everyone wished to go forward with their math.
“You will have to take a placement test,” he said, “so that your course of study will begin at the proper level. What else?”
“Is there something—broad? Something that’ll give me an overview, at the same time letting me figure out what else I’d like to know?”
“General studies, basic,” Quin said promptly. “That is a good choice.”
He rolled over onto his stomach, and reached down to the floor, where the portable computer sat.
“I will set up the basic curriculum,” he said. “It will take a few minutes. You may begin general studies and kinesics immediately. You must complete the tests before you may begin math.”
“Right,” Villy said, his hand on Quin’s shoulder now as he peered down at the computer screen. Quin set up Villy’s student account, with himself as tutor, moved the necessary modules, and showed Villy how to access the learning space.
“You may begin at will,” he said, rolling over onto his back. “I had notified Director Faro that I will be tutoring, so all the necessary files will be available to us.”
“That’s good,” Villy said, and then, “Quin?”
He looked up. “Yes.”
“Do you need a hug, sweetie? You’re still lookin’ peaky.”
He took stock, but all that came to him was that he was tired. However, Villy was a hetaera, and therefore sensitive to the needs of others.
“Do I need a hug?” Quin asked.
Villy frowned. “I’m asking,” he said.
“And I am asking,” Quin answered. “You are the expert on pleasure and comfort in the room.”
Another frown, this one thoughtful, followed by a decisive nod.
“Okay, then. The expert says, yeah, you could use a hug. Come on up here to the pillows.”
He obeyed, coming to rest on his side, his head on a pillow lightly scented with something agreeably sweet. The bed shifted, and he felt a long body press gently against his back. Villy settled one arm over Quin’s waist and gave a deep sigh. Without meaning to, Quin echoed it, feeling his muscles loosen.
“There we go,” Villy murmured. “You comfy, hon?”
“Yes,” Quin answered softly.
“Me, too. You don’t have to worry ’bout anything, right? Just relax, and let all that trouble go.”
There came another deep, satisfied sigh, that Quin repeated, following it into sleep.