CHAPTER NINE
* * * * *
Vivulonj Prosperu
Something had woken him: the movement of air against his cheek, the whisper of fabric against skin, a…chime?
Perhaps a chime, he thought, though he did not find it in recent memory.
The dream of a chime?
That was very possible. He had all his life been attended by chimes, buzzes, clicks, and bells. The comfortable chiming of the study clock, counting the hours. The warning bell as a ship broke from Jump into real space. The click of a comm switch being depressed. The sharp buzz denoting the end of a class period.
Perhaps he was late abed, and his dream-mind had produced a chime to rouse him.
He took a breath, tasting mint; felt a cool breeze kiss his cheek.
Well, best he rise, then, if he were slugabed, and see to the order of the day.
He opened his eyes to a dim and featureless chamber. The walls were smooth, the floor was smooth, both dark; reflective enough that they seemed to glow somewhat in the meager light.
There appeared to be no door in the wall, nor hatch in the floor, nor aught else in the chamber, save himself and the piloting couch upon which he lay.
A careful breath before he rolled lightly to his feet. Again, he tasted mint, and…something else, familiar, but borne away in the chill rush of memory.
Doors.
There had been doors. He remembered the old wooden door, the main door into Jelaza Kazone, the Tree-and-Dragon worn smooth by the palms of countless homecoming Korval pilots.
But that door had been…locked? No. Korval’s door had been…beyond him. He remembered lying prone on the chilly plain, dry grasses scratching his face. Stripped of everything but thought, he accepted that he would never again put his palm against that door, or feel the latch work under his hand.
He remembered, next, her voice, rousing him, questioning him, prodding him to attend her; to pay attention; to live.
I have found us a different door, van’chela. You must trust me.
Of course he trusted her; how else? She was his pilot, his lifemate, his love.
It was only after she had bullied him to his feet, and taken his hand firmly in hers…it was only when he had seen it—them—those different doors she had found, that he began to fear that she had bargained poorly for their lives.
They were not doors, the portals she had found for them, but tunnels; as dire a pair as ever he’d seen, each filled with a horrifying blare of light. He had tried to stop their advance, to turn, to avert…but he had been weak with dying, and the wind that had sprung up to harry him—to harry them—had overpowered him, even in his horror.
The wind pushed harder. Her hand gripped his, strong and sure, and her voice came to him over the roar, steady and clear.
You will not lose me! Daav, I swear it!
The last thing he remembered, as the light burned out his vision, and the wind filled up his ears, was her hand slipping out of his grasp.
And now, this place, and him awake, perhaps not dying, not now; or alone in some solitary afterlife.
She had sworn that he would not lose her. He remembered that and chose to believe, in this moment, at least, that she had the power to guarantee such a thing.
He drew a breath. The air was drier, he thought. Warmer.
“Aelliana?” he called.
His voice vanished into the dimness, swallowed by smooth walls.
There was no answer.
Well.
She was not always immediately present, after all. Sharing one body as they had, these last twenty Standards and more, yet still she had the ability to go…elsewhere, beyond his conscious touch. If he insisted, she would answer; irritable, perhaps, or a little sharp—which he surmised meant that he had interrupted her at work.
But, she answered, had always answered, after he had learnt that, despite the evidence of his eyes, she was not dead, but…transferred, somehow—the her of her—into, but apart from, his own personality and thought processes.
The how of that transfer, and her survival—well, it had been the Tree, of course, meddling, as it did, and in the case, to good cause.
“Aelliana?”
His voice was sharper this time; it cut some little way into the silence around him.
The air was growing decidedly warm, and worrisomely thin. He accessed a pilot’s mental exercise to calm himself and walked forward, striking boot heels deliberately against the floor.
…and heard nothing. He might as well have walked Scout-silent, for all the sound his steps gave up.
He reached the far wall and leaned forward, placing his hands flat against the dull surface. For an instant, his palms were warmed by ungiving metal. He was panting now; the air was hot, and she did not answer him.
He knew, then, that she would not answer; that she was gone, not merely absent. At the last, she had not been able to keep her word, which meant he was…
…alone.
He sagged against the wall, which vanished under his hands, sending him tumbling headlong into some other place that was bright, and cool, though his lungs still labored, and she was gone…gone…away from him and he would die, now, of being alone…
“Look at me!” a voice snapped. “Daav yos’Phelium Clan Korval!”
The voice belonged to someone who was not Aelliana, but—the voice knew his name. An ally, perhaps a friend.
He made the effort to open his eyes, shuddering, gasping, though there was air here, only his muscles had locked, and he remembered…remembered the terrible time immediately after…after he had seen her fall, shattered by the fragging pellet, blood like crimson rain, and he screaming for both of them…after…
…after, his brain had struggled to accommodate the violence done to it, had he only known it at the time. He had seizures that had taken his breath, leaving him unable even to sob. Pain would slice through his head like so many lightning bolts, until there came an excruciating black explosion, and he would lose knowledge of…everything…
Gasping, he looked up into a man’s face, twisted with anger, or fear.
“What ails you?” the stranger demanded.
He tried to get air, enough air to speak, but all he could manage was the single word—the word that told his doom.
“…gone…”
A shudder wracked him. He couldn’t breathe. A hard hand fell onto his shoulder, pressing him flat, even as he caught the scent familiar to him since childhood.
“Here, Pilot,” the other said. “Take this.”
He saw it before another shudder forced him to close his eyes.
Somewhere, close at hand, a bell screamed a warning.
“Daav, eat the pod.”
Eat the pod?
If he had breath to spare, he might have laughed. As it was, he turned his head away, and forced the words out, for the other was not clan; he did not know that the aid he offered was…
“…not ripe…” he choked.
And knew nothing else.
* * * * *
They had been brought to the magistrate’s office, which was long and thin. Four rows of three chairs each faced a desk upon a dais. Behind the desk was a wall with a plain door in it. The door was shut.
Padi and Dil Nem Tiazan and Sally Triloff…they were sitting in the first row of three chairs. Three guards stood between them and the raised desk.
Three guards, Padi thought, was respectful, but not very efficient. In addition to carrying a large weapon, each wore an armored vest and hard boots. Two guards outfitted in such a manner would have been a more efficient use of personnel. Had they wished to bind the prisoners, one would have been more than enough.
However, they had not been bound, though the chairs they had been forced to occupy were so ill-formed that Padi could scarcely conceive of anyone being comfortable in them. They were Terran-sized, of course, which meant that her feet, and Dil Nem’s, swung above the floor. Sally’s feet did meet the floor, but the armrests were at a bad height for her, and the seat was too deep; she’d tried to sit on the edge, but her guard had leaned closer, forcing her to sit awkwardly back, her legs bent in the most uncomfortable-looking way imaginable.
Padi’s guard didn’t care that she sat on the edge of the chair; he loomed over her so closely that she could smell his perfume. He had laughed loudly when the leader of the team had asked, back on the street, which of them was Trader yos’Galan. Far from reprimanding him for discourtesy, the leader had given Padi into his particular care. Perhaps he had a specialty in guarding traders.
Now, while the other two guards maintained a seemly silence, her guard talked, loudly. His topic of choice was the proper disposition of pirates, especially those who preyed upon—his choice of phrase—the innocent population of an unprotected world.
Which was simply absurd. Most civilized worlds had protections in place. Liad, more advanced than some, had the planetary defense net…which hadn’t actually protected the planet, now she recalled, because Jeeves, utilizing the Captain’s access, had shut it down. But the concept…
“You ever see anybody hang?” her guard asked now, shouting as if she were on the shuttle, lifting for the Passage, where she very much wanted to be.
“Hey!” he said when she didn’t answer, his voice even louder. “You ever seen anybody hang?”
“No,” she answered shortly.
He leaned closer, so that she had to tilt her head far back to meet his eyes, and smiled, showing his teeth.
“I have,” he said.
“Oh, you have not!” Dil Nem’s guard exclaimed. “There’s not been any hangings here for fifty years! More, maybe!”
“Did! Saw a tape they made of the last one—thirty years ago, not fifty.” He looked from his mate back to Padi.
“What they do, see, is they tie a cord around the neck of the pirate they’re gonna hang, and they tie the other end to a steel grid. The pirate stands on a platform, right in the middle of a trap door. When the knots’ve been tested, the trap door springs open, the pirate falls, and—snap!—the rope catches, the neck breaks, and she’s swinging there, by the rope around her neck, her feet kicking a little bit until they get the message that she’s dead.” He nodded and looked over to his mate, whose pale face seemed paler than it had been a moment before. Not that Padi blamed her; her own stomach felt decidedly unsettled, and she couldn’t rid her mind of the picture of a woman, head lolling, the rope biting cruelly into the delicate skin of her throat, swinging gently…
“That’s what’s done with pirates and murderers,” her guard finished, and suddenly leaned very close, staring down into her face.
“That’s what they’re gonna do to you, probably. You’re one of ’em, yos’Galan; that’s your name, isn’t it?”
The picture of the woman swinging by her neck changed. Padi saw pale brown hair, disordered in the fall and its abrupt ending, tangled over her own face; her own feet in the very boots she wore today kicking feebly against death…
“Scared?” he asked then.
“Well, sure she’s scared!” That was the other guard, grabbing Padi’s guard by the shoulder and hauling him back. “Comes to that, I’m scared—and you’re scaring me! I’m putting you on notice, right now: I’m talking to Cap about you and Riley. Judging’s for the magistrate to do. Our job is to make sure they stay here for it, not to scare ’em, or intimidate ’em either.”
“Bruller likes to scare little girls,” commented the third guard. “Makes him feel big.”
“Hey!”
He spun toward this new attack, the movement leaving his side completely open.
Padi took a breath, put her hands flat on the arms of the stupid chair. She’d have to lift and leap, because her feet were so far above the floor, but that was fine; she had energy and trajectory; she could launch herself upward, break his neck with one blow, and—
Dil Nem’s hand clamped hard around her wrist; a shadow slipped between her and her target—the second guard. She was shaking her head, looking pointedly at Padi’s hands.
“Just stay peaceful, Trader,” she said softly. “Magistrate’s on her way. Bruller don’t have anything to do with her judging.”
Dil Nem’s fingers were going to leave a bruise, Padi thought with a faraway feeling of calm. She met the guard’s eyes and nodded. She could feel the adrenaline singing in her blood, mixing badly with her upset stomach. Deliberately, she focused, and brought up a pilot’s breathing sequence. Calm, calm at the board…
* * * * *
The man called Uncle stood with his hand on the hood of the birthing unit, staring up at the status board, reading the battle of wills described in the lights and gauges there.
For the moment, his will, expressed through the equipment, was the stronger; he could keep Daav yos’Phelium alive—insist that the other man not die, despite his obvious wishes. That circumstance would maintain for precisely so long as the Uncle kept his patient imprisoned in the birthing unit.
“…gone…”
Uncle frowned after that ghostly word, uttered as if it explained all.
And perhaps, he thought, it did explain…much.
If the man had noticed the absence of his lifemate, utilizing whatever sense he had developed over the years of sharing his essence with her, he may have assumed her dead. Whether, then, he had of his own will turned his face from life in order to follow her, or his body had simply obeyed some Tree-made, cell-level imperative, mattered not at all.
Then, there was the thrice-damned pod. Still not ripe?
The Uncle was inclined to think badly of Korval’s Tree.
Then, he was inclined to think again.
In order to live, Daav yos’Phelium required the presence of his lifemate. The pilot had himself intimated as much; supporting evidence was provided by the stubbornly unripe pod.
It was therefore necessary to place Aelliana Caylon into a slightly accelerated birthing cycle. She must be present the next time Daav was brought to consciousness. If he died then, within the circle of his lifemate’s arms, then the Uncle could consider that he had done all that he might, as one who operated in ignorance of the Tree’s intent.
There was some risk in accelerating Aelliana Caylon’s rebirth, but not, the Uncle thought, again considering what the status lights told him—perhaps not as much risk as holding Daav yos’Phelium long to life against his will.
The Uncle nodded once before turning from the birthing unit to replace the pod in its container, putting it back into the locker that also held all of the man’s clothes and those possessions that he had on him when he had been savagely attacked by his enemies.
Closing the locker, the Uncle quit the cubicle, bound for the place where Aelliana Caylon labored toward birth.
* * * * *
The door behind the desk opened.
“All stand for Magistrate Tinerest!” called the third guard.
All three guards fell back then, giving them room to stand. Padi slid off the chair to her feet, Dil Nem’s hand still tight ’round her wrist, as he came off of his chair.
“Step forward now,” the second guard said. “Stop on the red line.”
The three of them stood side by side on the red line, and looked up at the magistrate sitting behind a dark metal desk on a slightly raised dais. She was an old woman, her face lined with experience and cunning. Her eyes were pale blue, and very sharp. She looked the three of them over slowly, as if she were committing their faces to memory, then glanced down at the screen on her desk.
“Trader Padi yos’Galan, Third Mate Dil Nem Tiazan, Communications Technician Sally Triloff,” she read, and looked at them again. “Which of you is Trader yos’Galan?”
Padi straightened and met the sharp gaze.
“I am, Magistrate.”
“I see.” She sighed, and again glanced down at her screen.
“I apologize for keeping you waiting; I was on comm with Captain Mendoza of Dutiful Passage. She provided documentation pertinent to the case, which I reviewed in preparation for our discussion here.”
The magistrate raised her head and met Padi’s eyes.
“Trader yos’Galan,” she said briskly, “the profits from your trade are forfeit. This is a matter of both law and pragmatics. Specifically, the law as it is now in force was properly applied; it is the policy of the magistrates to reward the proper application of the law, in order to promote an environment where the law is more often followed than circumvented.”
Padi bit the inside of her cheek to remind herself to keep silent.
The magistrate nodded.
“You would like to say that pragmatism favors the port—and so it does. However, pragmatism also favors your ship. If I were to order that your funds be released, in opposition to the law which is now in force, you and your ship would become objects of interest. I place before you the notion that your ship is already of interest to far too many people, no few of them, as I learn from Captain Mendoza, unsavory in the extreme.
“Now. As the information provided by Captain Mendoza casts reasonable doubt upon the contention that Dutiful Passage is an ongoing criminal enterprise, I will absolve you of one small, but very important, detail of law. You will not be required to sign the affidavit which implicates your ship in criminal activity. Do you understand everything I have said?”
“Ma’am.” Padi took a breath, and met the magistrate’s eyes straightly. “I don’t understand why Dutiful Passage still bears the burden of possible dishonor. In light of the information provided by the captain.”
The magistrate nodded again.
“That’s a reasonable question. The answer is that I am not the only magistrate on Chesselport, but one of a court of seven. I must convene a full meeting of my sisters so that we may review this new information together and come to a consensus. Obviously, we have not had time to meet, and I do not wish to inconvenience you further by insisting that you wait upon our deliberations, which might easily consume several days. What I am able to do, within my own court, is let the record show that, in light of evidence produced and verified as genuine, I—in this instance only—have set the matter of an ongoing criminal enterprise aside as irrelevant to the case.
“Having done this, I find that there is no case. There is no reason to fine you, or to incarcerate you. Therefore, you are free to go directly to your shuttle and lift to your ship, as the port allows. In order to ensure that you will, indeed, go by the most direct route possible, my own car will take you to the yard.”
She looked down to her screen, and said, “Dismissed.”