TEN
On the ground
Faldaiza Port
THE ALCOVES was closed, the door opaque, the menu over it dark.
“They never close,” Jela said, and Cantra felt a shiver start at the back of her neck.
“Maybe repairs?” she asked, but not like she believed it herself, nor did the other pilot bother to answer.
What he did do was step up to the door, put his big blunt fingers against it and push. Nothing happened. Cantra could see the strain in his shoulders as he exerted more force. She looked up the street and down—empty. So far, so lucky.
The door gave a small groan and began moving back on its track. Jela continued to exert pressure until he had opened a small gap. The foyer was dark, which fact slowed Jela not at all: He squeezed through the gap and became one with the darkness beyond.
Cantra sighed, tried to think generator failure, but her heart wasn’t in it.
She followed Jela, and sometime between passing over the threshold and coming to rest inside the dark foyer, her gun slid out of its quiet pocket and into her hand. The dark was too thick for her to decipher much more than a blacker blot on the blackness to her left, which might have been Pilot Jela, breathing so quiet she couldn’t hear it, which irritated her for some reason. Frowning, she touched another seal pocket and slipped one of the several lightsticks out, snapping it inside her fist. Feeble bluish light leaked between her fingers, enough for her to see the empty console and Jela approaching on sneak-feet, his far arm held down against his side.
At the edge of the console he paused, looked—and moved on, his near hand rising to wave her along behind.
She followed, not liking it, but not inclined to let him go on alone. He’d put himself out for her, coming into the alley and taking care of the second hunter, for which act of lunatic generosity she owed him. Even though she’d had the situation under control.
She paused, looked around the edge of the console—and wished she hadn’t. The master of the dining room was crumpled into an improbably small ball on the floor, his formal tunic dyed with blood, a wide ragged gash in his throat.
Swallowing, she moved on, past the wadded up curtain, which had been ripped down from its hanging over the doorway, and caught up with Jela just inside the hall.
The third room down was nasty—eight identical corpses displaying the remains of various unsavory forms of persuasion. Two wore formals, while the rest, by their clothes, had been kitchen workers. It was well-lit, unfortunately, and Cantra slipped the lightstick into her public pocket.
Jela swore, quietly and neatly. Cantra held her peace, not thinking immediately of anything she could usefully add to the motion.
“All Batchers,” she said after he’d prowled a bit and had a chance to work off some of his bad mood. “No guests.”
“There are other rooms,” he answered, and she sighed, jerking her head at the curtain.
“So we’ll check ‘em out,” she said and after a heartbeat or two, he brought his chin down, which she took for ‘will do.’ She swept the curtain back.
Most of the other rooms were found to be empty and intact, saving the one that held what had once been a woman of some substance. A neat hole had been made in the center of her forehead; the skin ‘round the hole was just a little burnt, which you’ll get with your pin lasers.
This time, Jela didn’t say anything, just went down to a knee and started going through pockets, quick and efficient. Seeing that he had the way of it and didn’t need her help, Cantra set herself to guard the hallway, the curtain hooked back just a bit, so he’d be able to hear if she shouted.
The hallway was dim and quiet—not much different than it had been earlier in the day. If you didn’t know that one of the rooms held eight Batcher bodies, and the one behind her was occupied by—
There was a noise—a very small and stealthy noise—from the left, where the hall ended at a flat white wall, barely two dozen paces from Cantra’s position. She frowned, staring at the area and finding nothing to see, save the hall and the wall.
She’d almost convinced herself that the noise had come from behind, inside the room where Jela was relieving the woman’s body of care, when the sound came again, slightly louder this time, and from the same area.
Carefully, she moved forward, slipping the still-glowing lightstick out of her pocket, holding it high in the hand not occupied by her weapon.
The section of hall she went through was certifiably vacant. The wall at the end was white and blank. She went over to the left, where end wall met side wall, lifted the lightstick high and began to scrutinize the situation.
She hadn’t got far along in the scrutiny when the noise made itself heard again—well over to the right and sounding a shade impatient. Cantra moved down-wall, light still high and illuminating nothing but wall, flat, white, seamless, and—
Not entirely seamless.
It took a professional’s eye to see it, but there it was—a thin line along the blank face of the wall, shimmering a little in the lightstick’s blue glow.
The noise came again, just beyond the tip of her nose, a scratching sound—fingernails against plazboard, maybe. Mice.
She marked the position of the line, slipped the ‘stick away, unsealed another hidden pocket and pulled out a ring of utility zippers. Frowning, she fingered through the various options. The ring was a portable, o’course, armed with the most common polarizers. If this particular hidey hole were sealed with anything out of the way, she’d need the full kit from her ship. Still, it was worth a—
“Pilot Cantra?” His voice was barely louder than his breath, warm against her ear. “What do you have?”
“Stashroom,” she said, keeping her eyes on the line, fingers considering the merits of this zipper, the next, a third . . .
“Think I’ve got a way in,” she said, weighing the third zipper in her hand. “Somebody inside, is what I think.” Her fingers decided in favor; and she nodded to herself.
“Cover me.” She slipped her gun into its pocket and activated her chosen tool, reaching up to run the needle-nose down along the line in the wall. The zipper’s path was marked by a gentle peel, as if the skin of the wall were rolling back from an incision.
Cantra knelt on the tile floor, brought the tool down until its nose caught on the second line, followed that one along parallel to the floor, snagged on the third and went up again, the skin of the wall rolling up in earnest now, almost as high as her waist. Big enough for someone to come out of, if they were so minded. Big enough, absolutely, to shoot through. Big enough—
A body leapt through the opening, curling as it hit the floor and going immediately into a somersault, showing a flash of green among a blur of pale arms, pale hair, pale tunic.
Jela extended an improbably long arm, caught the Batcher by the back of the tunic and hauled her—for it happened to be ‘her’, Cantra saw—up, feet not quite making contact with the floor, which didn’t stop her from squirming and twisting.
Cantra slid her weapon free and pointed it. The Batcher stopped struggling and hung limp as a drowned kitten in Jela’s grasp.
“Pilots,” she gasped. “This humble person is grateful for your aid.”
“Right,” Cantra said, and looked to Jela, giving him leave to ask what he would with the quirk of an eyebrow.
He was silent for a moment, then spoke to the Batcher. “You gave us warning earlier in the evening, eh?”
“Yes, Pilot,” the Batcher said submissively, which could as easily be truth or a lie told in order to placate him.
“Tell me,” Jela said, inexorably calm. “What you said, to warn us.”
The Batcher hesitated, then raised her face, though she stopped short of actually meeting Jela’s eyes.
“Walk safely,” she whispered.
“Why?” Cantra asked, which might not’ve been the question Jela wanted the answer to next, but which had damnall bugged her since it happened.
The Batcher licked her lips. “There were those who had taken the other pilot,” she whispered, “as he was about to enter our establishment. I saw this. They were many, he was one. I thought to warn pilots that there was danger in the streets. The master—”Her voice caught. She took a hard breath and hung her head again. “The master did not forbid this. The master said, hoodlums in the streets are bad for business.”
There was a short silence, then Jela said. “I’m going to put you on your feet. I expect you to stand and answer the questions this pilot and I ask you. Try to run away and I’ll shoot you in the leg. Am I understood?”
“Pilot, you are.”
“Good.” He set her down. She stayed put, head hanging, gloved hands limp at her sides.
“Tell us what happened here,” Jela said.
She swallowed. “They came here during the slow hour. Uno, at the desk—he had time to hit the emergency bell. Many of us ran, but in the kitchen, they were prepping for the busy hours upcoming and were caught. Also, the master—the master had been in the wine cellar and did not hear the bell. When we came to this floor, they had already killed Uno and captured the kitchen staff. The master told me to run for aid, and I did try—but they were at all exits, even those not generally known. I came back and they were—they had killed the master and left her. I—I hid myself in the wall, but I could not open the secret door from the inside. And then you came.”
“I see,” Jela said in a tone that conveyed that he might not actually believe everything he’d just been told. “Do you know—”
Back toward the front of the building, there was a sound—a large, unfriendly, sound.
“You know a way out?” Cantra snapped, not being in any way wishful of meeting the people who had killed a pilot, eight Batchers and their owner—For what gain? she asked herself, then put away that wondering for another and less fraught moment.
“Pilot,” the Batcher said, “I do, if they are not deployed as before.”
“Go, then,” Cantra snapped, over a second noise, louder and less friendly than the first. “We’ll follow.”
The Batcher looked at Jela.
“You can move now,” he told her. “Lead us out of here.”
THE STARLIGHT HOTEL sat on its corner, dark walls showing glitters and swirls of silver and pale blue deep inside, like looking out an observation port and seeing the starfield spread from one end of night to the other. Cantra was standing in the dim, recessed doorway of a closed dream shop. She’d been there for some time, just one shadow among many, watching the entrance to her lodgings. Jela and the Batcher were watching the back door, the Batcher having refused to be parted from the pair of them after they’d shaken the dust of The Alcoves off their boots.
It was beginning to look like prudence was its own reward. Whoever had her linked with Pilot Jela only had a face, not a name. And certainly not the location of the lodgings, rented only hours ago with such high hopes. She gave herself a couple heartbeats for wistful consideration of those hopes, then shrugged it all away. Staying alive was more important, as Garen used to say, than staying sane. Not that Garen had been anything like sane, as far as Cantra had been able to observe. There was something about the Rim that was unproductive of sanity. It was the weird seeping in from the Deeps that did it—that’d been Garen’s theory. Cantra’s was simpler: Rimmers made Rimmers crazy.
The past, again. Like she didn’t have enough present to occupy her.
Shaking her head, she slid out of the doorway and ambled down the walk, one eye on the Starlight. People continued to enter and exit, and there were no signs at all of anybody waiting at stealth.
Directly across from the front entrance, she paused, then quick-walked across the street when the traffic thinned, and jogged up the wide steps. The door slid open and she stepped jauntily into the lobby, heading for the lift bank just beyond the desk.
Abruptly, she swung to the side and approached the desk, fingering a flan out of her public pocket.
“Change this for me?” she asked, slipping the coin across the counter.
“Surely,” the clerk said, and counted out a certain number of qwint and carolis. “Will there be anything else?”
The guard on the lift bank was looking at her. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she swept the coins into her palm, and saw his lips move slightly, as if he was talking into an implanted talkie.
“That’s all, I thank you,” she said to the desk clerk. She dropped the coins into her public pocket, turned and walked back toward the front door, not running, not hurrying, though she could feel the guard’s eyes boring into her back.
Out the door, walking calm, down the front stairs, with a little jog in the step, finally slipping into the crowd moving along the public way. At the corner of the building, she left the crowd and dodged into the shadows, heading for the back entrance.
Very shortly thereafter, she was behind the generator shed, in concealment that was a bit thin for three.
“Got it?” Jela asked, though he must’ve seen she didn’t.
“Abort,” she said. “Watcher on the lift bank. He saw me and reported in. Nothing in the kit that can’t be replaced.” For a price. “Now what?”
A small silence, then.
“My lodgings,” Jela said. “Then a strategic retreat.”
“If they’re on me, they’re on you,” she argued. “Time to cut your losses.”
“There’s something at my lodgings that can’t be lost,” he answered, and there was a note in his calm voice that she didn’t find herself able to argue with. “Cover me?”
“I can do that.” Had to do it, he having performed that same service for her. She looked over to the Batcher woman, silent and attentive by the edge of the shed.
“Time to go home,” Cantra told her. “This is more trouble’n you want.”
“This humble person will remain in the company of the pilots,” the Batcher said—a repeat of her earlier communication on the subject.
“This humble person,” Cantra said, sharp, “belongs to whoever’s come into being master. Which ain’t neither of us.”
The Batcher crossed her arms over her breast. “This humble person will remain in the company of the pilots,” she said, making three on the evening.
“It’s her life,” Jela said, rising up onto his feet.
Technically not true. On the other hand, as long as neither of them damaged, killed, or moved her, the law had nothing to say to them.
“Makes no matter to me,” Cantra said. “We better go, though, before unwelcome company finds us here.”
“Right,” said Jela and faded into the dark. “Follow me.”
JELA’S LODGINGS WERE back toward the shipyards, in a plain boxy building formed out of cermacrete. The surface showed cracks and a few craters, which gave witness to its age. Inside, Cantra thought, it was probably more of the same—clean and spare. The showers would work, the beds would be sleepable; service and questions both minimal. Transient housing, that was all. She’d stayed in places just like it herself, more than once. She owned some surprise to find Jela quartered here, though. She had him pegged a couple notches higher up the food chain.
In addition to the front door, the back door, and two side doors, there were a good many giving windows, all rigged out with safety nets. Three bridges connected the hostel at varying levels to a larger building next door, which on closer inspection proved to be Flight Central, where those pilots who found themselves to be respectable went to register the news of their being on-port, and whether they was wishful of taking berth, or had a berth on offer. There’d be eatables and a local info office; scribes, brokers, moneychangers, shipwright, and honest folk of all stripe. She’d been in two or three like establishments, over the course of her career.
Could be it made sense for Pilot Jela to bide close to work and news of work. She hadn’t asked him where he was next-bound—and there was still that vexed question of what sort of pilot he might be—having somehow received the impression that the answer would’ve been an uninformative shrug of those wide shoulders.
Which line of thought did produce an interesting question: Where was Pilot Jela going, once he had recovered his unlosable? She had the Dancer, the Batcher had her master’s home, which she’d see sooner or later. But Jela? If he didn’t have a berth, it was going to be hard going for him on Faldaiza Port.
Which concern was none of hers. She was well out of it just as soon as the good pilot picked up his kit and was away. Which event she hoped would come about quickly.
“So,” she said to Jela, who had been quietly and intently regarding the building from his place next to her at the mouth of a convenient alley, the Batcher hovering behind them both. “How do you want to play it?”
“I’d like you and our friend to wait here,” he said slowly, like he was just now working out his moves. “I’ll go by the Central’s bar and see if any of my acquaintance can bear me company. Company or solo, I’ll go in by one of the bridges, and by-pass any left to guard the lift bank, the desk or the call-clerk. Bridge access is limited to those who have a key.”
“They’ll have set guards on the bridges, too,” she pointed out.
“Likely, but not proven. I’m counting on the guard at the bridge being less able than those at the more likely places.”
“Could get messy.”
He grinned, not without humor. “It could, couldn’t it?”
She gave him his grin back, and jerked her head at the building. “Coming out the same way?”
“Depends on how many they are and how they’re deployed. Might have to go out a window, though I’d prefer not to. There are a couple of interior routes that would serve me better, and I’ll aim for one of them. What I want you to do is give me cover when you see me. If you don’t see me in an hour, then it’s probable you won’t and you’re free to strike for your ship.”
That was cool and professional. She tipped an eyebrow at him. “You got an idea who’s responsible for all this, I think.”
This time the grin was thinner. “I have too many ideas of who might be responsible. What I don’t have is a reasonable way to filter them, and I’d rather not be used for target practice in the meantime.”
He sounded seriously put-out by recent events, for which she blamed him not at all, being just a little annoyed herself.
“We got a problem of scope,” she said, nonetheless. “Whoever’s after having a chat with us thought enough of themselves to kill eight Batchers and a freewoman back at The Alcoves, not to say your piloting brother. The reason they’re after me is because of you, not the other way around. If one of your ideas is more likely than another, I’d appreciate hearing it.”
He sighed and pushed away from the wall. “If anything comes to me, I’ll let you know,” he said. “An hour. If I’m not out, jet.”
He faded out of the alley. Cantra put a cautious eye around the edge of the concealing wall and saw him already well up the walk, one of a group of law-abiders moving purposefully toward Flight Central.
She thought about swearing, and then didn’t bother. Her curiosity bump was unrelieved, but she’d live. Once this business here was settled and she was back on Dancer, the game, whatever it was, ceased to be important. Faldaiza wasn’t a regular stop, though it wasn’t unknown, either. Whatever ruckus she was currently enjoying the fruits of would die out completely between tomorrow’s lift and the next time she hit port.
She hoped.
Behind her, she was aware of the Batcher’s quiet breathing.
“You,” she said, not gently.
“Pilot?” The Batcher stepped forward to take Jela’s place next to her.
“You got a name?”
“Yes, Pilot. This humble person is called Dulsey.”
“You heard what Pilot Jela said, Dulsey? He’s figuring it to get dangerous hereabouts within the hour. Now’s your best moment to scoot along home and make a bow to the new master.”
“This worthless one heard what Pilot Jela said, and what you yourself said,” Dulsey answered in her inflectionless voice, “and understands that danger may soon walk among us. The new master will not easily forgive one who had been favored by the previous master and then allowed her to be slain.”
“Huh.” Cantra considered that, one eye on the street. Jela was going up the stairs to Central, his shoulders silhouetted against the building’s glow.
“If you get yourself killed,” she said to Dulsey. “It’s nobody’s fault but your own.”
“This humble person is aware of that, Pilot.”
HE BEGAN TO WORRY about the time they stepped off the bridge into the third floor hall of the Guard Shack, so called because it had been a garrison back in the First Phase, before the sheriekas had retired to regroup.
He’d crossed the bridge in company with three pilots known to him from the Central’s bar. Two were port security, on rotation, the third a gambler who spent most of her time dicing with new arrivals at a discreet back table. She was on easy terms with the cops, as she wasn’t technically operating on-port, and found Jela a challenge, since he would neither dice with her nor bed her.
“There was a lady asking for you at the bar today,” she said as they approached the bridge. “Shall I be jealous?”
Jela grinned. “More than enough of me to go around.”
She’d laughed, and the two cops, too. They all mounted the steps and started across to the Guard Shack, the lighted deck throwing weird shadows ahead of them.
“What did she look like,” Jela wondered, “this lady?”
“Do you not know?” asked the gambler playfully. “Surely, she would not have come without invitation. It was a sorrowful woman, indeed, who heard that you had not been seen so far this day.”
“There are so many, it’s hard to keep track,” Jela apologized, to the loud appreciation of the cops. “Let me see . . .” He feigned considering thoughtfulness, then snapped his fingers. “It was the bald lady with the long-eye and the demi-claws, I’ll warrant.” He sighed wistfully. “It’s too bad I missed her. She’ll punish me proper, the next time we meet.”
“I am certain that she will,” the gambler said cordially. “And the moreso when she finds you’ve been seeing another on the side, and she a mere port tough, with a gun on her hip and no more finesse than to bellow your name in a public place, as if she were calling a hound to heel.”
Jela eyed her. “She did that? Not one of mine, then. My ladies are always polite.”
“Even when they’re punishing him,” one cop told the other, to the loud delight of both.
“Did she leave a name?” Jela asked the gambler under the cover of the cops’ laughter.
“She did not,” the gambler answered, looking as serious as he’d ever seen her. “She did however state that she was the envoy of one Pilot Muran.” She looked up into his face, her being a tiny thing. “This is bad news, I see. Should I have given it earlier?”
He shrugged and manufactured a rueful grin. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Ah,” she said wisely, and then said nothing more.
By that time, they’d reached the end of the bridge. One port cop stepped forward and used his key, he and his partner ducking beneath the gate as it started up. Jela and the gambler passed through next; he had to bend his head to clear the spiked ends, she walked, head high, beside him.
He was sure of his weapon, and of his companions. The one who had been set to watch for him was about to have some trouble.
Except—there wasn’t a guard. No one overt or covert watched the end of the bridge or the hallway stretching away into the inhabited regions of the Guard Shack. His ‘skins likewise failed to warn of any mechanical snoopers.
“You were expecting someone?” the gambler asked, with the fine perception that assured her success in her chosen field.
“I thought there might be someone here,” he said slowly, and added, “ . . . related to the lady who missed me at the bar.”
“That would have been unfortunate,” the gambler said seriously, and one of the cops looked over her shoulder at them and paused, putting a hand out to stop her partner. “But perhaps not as unfortunate as it could be. Where else might they seek you?”
“His room,” said the first cop, and looked to the gambler. “How ugly was that particular customer?”
She considered, head tipped to one side. “She was indelicate,” she said at last, “in the extreme.”
The cop slapped her partner on the arm. “I’m going down and collect that money the pilot owes me,” she said. “He says he’s got it in his room and I believe him.”
Her partner pursed his lips. “I don’t like you going with him alone,” he said. “What if it’s a set-up? I’ll come along and keep an eye on you.”
“Think you’re my mother?” the first cop asked.
“Think I’m your partner,” the second answered, which seemed to clinch the argument, for the first cop shrugged and looked over to the gambler, who smiled brightly.
“As this may be the only opportunity I have to behold the good pilot’s bed, I will of course accompany you,” she said gaily, and skipped forward, Jela trailing behind, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stirring.
“I met some of the lady’s relatives earlier today, and seen their work more recently still,” he said, as the four of them continued down the hall toward his quarters. “They’re nasty, they’re sloppy and they seem to be numerous.”
“In which case,” the gambler said. “We hold the advantages of pure heart, neatness and quality.”
“Our duty,” said the second cop, who might have been talking to his partner or to himself. “Our duty is to enforce the peace.”
They followed the curve of the hall and Jela stretched his legs, taking the lead as they came closer to his rooms. He wasn’t really surprised to find the gambler keeping pace with him.
“This could get bad,” he said to her, softly. “Or it could be nothing.”
“Let us then hope for nothing,” she murmured in return, “and carry loaded weapons.”
THERE WAS NO ONE watching the door. His ‘skins noted an anomaly as he approached the door, key out. He paused, but no warning solidified. Sighing, he slipped his key out and went forward, the first cop at his side. The gambler continued down the hall and took up a position near the lifts. The second cop moved back the way they had come, slipping into the convenient shadow of a drinks dispenser.
Jela used his key, pushed the door open and went with it, moving fast and low, gun out and aimed—
At the tree in its pot next to the open window, precisely where he had left it that morning.
“Everything fine?” the cop asked from behind him, and he straightened up slowly, letting the rest of the room seep into his awareness. It looked all right—his kit rolled and ready where he had left it, the book he’d been reading last night on the table under the lamp, the bed as tight and as shipshape as he had made it that very—
“Someone’s been in,” he told the cop, frowning at the rumple on corner of the aggressively smooth coverlet.
“They take anything?” she asked.
“Appears not.” If they’d been after info, he had it on him. He didn’t touch the sealed leg pocket where his log book rode, and frowned again at the rumpled cover. His ‘skins were still insisting on that anomaly. He moved across the room, stood to one side and yanked the privacy curtain back.
The ‘fresher was empty. He sighed, crossed the room, picked up the book, slid it into the kit, slung the kit over his shoulder and went to the tree.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m feeling exposed.” He hefted the tree—bowl and all. The tree had found its new life good; it was full of leaves and the girth of its trunk had increased. These things filled Jela with a sort of wondering joy, except when he had to carry it.
“Not conspicuous or anything,” the cop commented. “Back slide?”
“I’m thinking that’s best.”
“We’ll escort,” the cop said. “Let me alert—”
From the hall came the sound of a bell, and then the gambler’s light, clear hail—followed by a single shot. Jela stumbled, fighting a lifetime of training that would have him dropping the tree and running forward. His duty—
His duty.
“Go!” snarled the cop. “I’ll cover you!”
Kit over shoulder, arms circling pot, trunk pressed against his cheek, leaves rustling in his ear, Jela moved.
Out the door he ran, spared a glance down the hall toward the lifts and saw the gambler still in her watching place. She gave him a jaunty salute. Something huddled on the floor beyond her—
The lift bell rang.
“Go!” shouted the cop coming into the hall behind him, weapon at ready.
Jela went.
AT THE MOUTH of the alley, Cantra straightened out of her lean, eyes suddenly sharp on the pattern of people moving along the walkway between the Guard Shack and Flight Central.
“Here it comes,” she said to Dulsey. She turned her head and met a pair of determined gray eyes. “Last chance to shrug out of this and make your peace with the new master.”
“This humble person,” the Batcher said, like Cantra should’ve known she would, “will remain in the company of the pilots.”
“Have it your own way.” Cantra sighed and asked the next question anyway, though she was pretty sure she knew what the answer was going to be. “You got a weapon?”
“The master found this one to be worthy,” Dulsey said.
Cantra looked at her. “That mean yes?”
“Yes, pilot,” came the stolid reply. “I have a weapon.”
“Good. Keep it handy and you might live through this after all.”
‘Course, then she’d still have to face the new master, which Cantra understood dying to be preferable to, and which Dulsey should’ve thought of before she went and hid in the stashroom instead of getting her brain toasted alongside the old master, like a faithful Batcher ought to have.
Across the street, more people were moving against pattern, taking up this and that spot of cover; some others stopping in the shadow of the Guard Shack, small knots of friends, pausing to talk.
Cantra counted maybe fifteen, and chewed her lip. ‘Cover’ was what the man had said he’d wanted—if and only when she saw him. Fifteen on the job, though—he might not’ve expected so many. She considered the numbers excessive, herself—and that was only the front door. Who knew how many they had watching the back and the sides?
She slid her gun out of its pocket and checked the charge. Good to go, not that she’d expected elsewise. Always paid to check, though.
From across the street, ‘round toward the back of the Guard Shack, there came a flash of red light, followed by a low and drawn-out bo-oo-oo-o-m. The clusters and knots of chatting friends turned and ran toward the sound, and the intermittent red flickering. The concealed watchers stayed concealed, but the attention of most seemed to be on the commotion.
“Let’s go,” Cantra said to the Batcher and strolled out of the alley and down the street. When they were across from Flight Central, she paused, waiting ‘til traffic allowed, then ambled across the street.
Once across, she turned up toward the Guard Shack, then left the walk and angled between the two buildings, her pace increasing. Overhead, the three bridges glowed with a golden light, illuminating the empty passway.
As they neared the back of the building, sounds other than respectable street noise could be heard. Some sounded remarkably like shots, others like people yelling. Cantra stretched her legs until she was running lightly toward the commotion, gun in hand.
Just before she reached the corner of the Guard Shack, another low explosion disturbed the peace, a simultaneous flare dying the walls and the passway red. More yelling made up for a sudden pause in the shooting.
Cantra dodged close in to the wall, crouched and kept on. At the corner, she paused, and keeping low, carefully eased out to have a look.
The back lot was full of smoky red light. Far down toward the other side of the building, the illumination was eye-burning bright; a solid bar of flame from the edge of the building to the utility shed, from the surface of the walk to the windows three levels up. Nearer to hand, trash bins and runabouts loomed, their shapes wavering in the smoke.
And in the mid-distance, moving at speed, came a short wide-shouldered figure, massive arms wrapped around a bowl clutched ‘gainst his middle and over it all, something long and vegetative.
Cantra swore, briefly, and brought her gun up, acquiring the range behind the running figure, about midway to the wall of flame. Anything longer was shooting at shadows, and pursuit was sure to materialize just the instant the fastflame burned low enough to jump. Already, she could see figures through the flames, though they still reached high enough to discourage gymnastics.
The bulky runner came briskly on, despite the handicap of his burden; whether he was running faster than the flames were dying, though—
“Here!” she shouted, and he heard her—she knew he had because, incredibly, he picked up speed, skidding ‘round the corner so fast the plant he carried snapped like a whip and lost a couple leaves.
“All this for a vegetable?” she yelled at him.
“We’ll talk about it later!” he yelled back. “Go!”
He took his own advice, leaves blowing in his wake. Cantra waved Dulsey after.
“Cover him,” she snapped, and the Batcher flung herself down the gold-lit passway.
At the corner, Cantra dropped to one knee and turned her attention to the back trail.
The flames had thinned, though they were still more than she’d care to jump through, lacking a compelling reason. Could be that the pursuit considered Pilot Jela just that, for as she watched, three of them came through the flames, arms folded over their faces, and hit the ground running.
Cantra dropped them—one, two, three—as soon as they came into range, and by that time, four more were through and the flames weren’t looking so threatening any more.
She repeated the first exercise, with similar results, glanced over her shoulder and saw that the passway behind her was clear. Duty done. Debt paid.
A peek ‘round the corner showed that the fire had grown low enough to jump over. Time for her to start moving on her own behalf.
She got her feet under her—and ran.