Accepting the Lance Read online

  Miri shook her head.

  Of all the things she’d never figured to have to care for in her life was a lifemate and a baby, never mind the whole rest of a small, but trouble-prone Liaden clan, which had been Val Con’s marriage portion. Her own portion…well, she’d never had anything precious, really, though she had been a master sergeant of mercenary soldiers, so she did have some experience in taking care of her people.

  And, given the particular sort of trouble the clan, the husband, and—depend on it, any day now—the daughter were prone to, her skills in that area were kept fresh.

  Across the room, father and daughter were laughing uproariously as he rolled them across the floor, toward the reading rug. She grinned, despite her throat tightening—which happened whenever she thought about losing one of them, a thought that had paradoxically been occurring more frequently, now that they were peacefully settled.

  ’Course, when Val Con and her’d been returning live fire, running for their lives, and covering each other’s backs, there hadn’t been time to worry was she going to lose him. Now, there was time for all kinds of thoughts to move through a person’s head, and not all of them welcome.

  Plus, she thought, watching Val Con’s rolling progress and hearing their daughter’s laughter, there was the fact that they weren’t, exactly, peacefully settled. They were still hunted by a dedicated and well-equipped enemy who knew exactly where they were, and who could, in theory, pick them off whenever they felt like it.

  Well, that was a theory. Clan Korval wasn’t without resources, or allies. Their enemy had taken losses.

  And so had Clan Korval.

  Val Con reached the edge of the rug, kicked and rolled—once, twice, thrice—coming to rest against her knees, right-side up and smiling into her face.

  “Cha’trez,” he murmured under Lizzie’s shouting.

  “Couple of howling monkeys,” she said. “Thought you was going to teach her how to be upright and polite.”

  “It is important to build from a position of strength,” he told her solemnly.

  Lizzie added to this, unintelligibly for the most part, though a couple bits of babble sounded Liaden-like, and a few more had a definite Terran flavor.

  “What concerns you, Miri?” Val Con asked her, and she looked down at him with a sigh.

  He’d know she was having a case of what on Surebleak was called the “chills.” No big deal, really, everybody chilled now and then.

  Except, looking at him just now, their daughter cradled in his arms, the lean, strong body, green eyes, and the brown hair that tumbled over his forehead nearly into those bright eyes—and that Lizzie was beginning to reach toward—

  Miri leaned forward and caught the questing hand. “That’s a foul.”

  Lizzie frowned, every bit as willful as her father. Not the only thing she’d caught from her father either—the green eyes were particularly nice with the burnished copper hair, as bright as Miri’s own.

  Their child.

  Miri felt her throat tighten again, which was just—

  “Jeeves,” Val Con said. “Please ask Mrs. pel’Esla to come and take Talizea to the nursery.”

  “Yes, Master Val Con,” said a mellifluous male voice from the ceiling. A moment later, it spoke again.

  “Mrs. pel’Esla is on her way. She should arrive at the door to the rumpus room in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves,” Val Con said, and looked to her.

  “Talizea, bid your mother a proper and decorous good-night, please.”

  He opened his arms, and Miri leaned forward to lift the compact body into her lap.

  “Good-night, Lizzie,” she said, brushing the hair from her daughter’s damp forehead. “Don’t let the snowflakes bite.”

  It didn’t make much sense, that good-night, but it had been what her mother had said to her when she’d been a kid here on Surebleak. Couldn’t hurt, she guessed, to go with tradition.

  Miri kissed Lizzie’s cheek as Val Con rolled to his feet.

  He bent down as the door chime sounded, and took the child from her arms.

  “Chiat’a bei kruzon, Talizea,” he said, settling her on his hip and kissing her forehead. “Here is your nurse now, come to take you to your bed.”

  He crossed the room, the door opened, there was a brief murmur from Mrs. pel’Esla, and the door closed again.

  Miri looked up as he returned and dropped to the rug, stretching out to put his head on her lap.

  “Comfortable?” she asked him.

  “Extremely,” he replied cordially. “Miri. What troubles you?”

  “Well, I just watched my baby daughter set up a search grid to find a runaway. I’m thinking that should worry me.”

  “Should it? It was the most basic pattern, after all. I might be inclined to worry if she had quartered the room and called in allies.”

  She puffed a laugh.

  “I didn’t realize the bar was so high—no worries there, then.”

  “And yet,” he said, “you are worried. May I know why?”

  She sighed and brushed his hair off his forehead.

  “It’s been something of a while,” she said slowly. “We haven’t heard anything from Rys, or any of his team members. So…how will we know that they’ve done the job?”

  “Possibly, when the Department of the Interior surrenders to the Scouts,” Val Con murmured. “Possibly, when an army of Old Tech is found dismantling what remains of a planet, or a moon…”

  He paused, and reached up to touch her cheek.

  “There is else?”

  “Else…” she rubbed her cheek against his fingertips. “Are we ever going to hear from them again?”

  He sighed. “It seems unlikely.”

  Six agents had been recruited by Clan Korval to subvert, if not outright destroy, the Department of the Interior, Korval’s great enemy. Each of the six was a former DOI agent, ranging from technician-grade, to the deadliest of all—Agent of Change. Four of the six had been reclaimed, and immediately dedicated themselves to the destruction of the DOI. Two had rebuilt their lives…somewhat before the call to service came to them.

  One of those two was Rys Lin pen’Chala, who had found a place as a son of the Bedel, a wandering group living more or less hidden under the old warehouses in Surebleak City. Rys had become a trusted person in that community that trusted few outsiders, an acknowledged grandson of the group’s wise woman; he had a lover, and a child on the way.

  The second of the two was—

  “Miri?”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  He lowered his hand, capturing hers, bringing it to his chest and pressing her palm over his heart.

  “I am the decoy—the one who stands in the enemy’s sight.”

  “Ain’t likely to let that just go by, are they?” she said. “When do you expect they’ll bring out the live weapons?”

  “Ah. Well. One might argue that they have already engaged. After all, the four were captured attempting to do Korval real and lasting harm. Now that they have been removed from the board, the Department will become more bold. They must become more bold; they are at the end of their resources. If its last purpose is, as it seems to be, to destroy Korval entire, then it must strike—now—heavy and true. Everything they have left will be in that blow. There can be no more feints.

  “My part is to oblige them with a visible target and take most of their attention to myself. Korval has set down new roots, accepted new obligations. We cannot simply flee before them.”

  No, Miri admitted to herself; they couldn’t just run away. On the other hand, the DOI might be single-minded to the point of insanity, but that didn’t stop them from being competent as mischief-makers and murderers.

  Val Con had been an Agent of Change, trained by the DOI to be one of its elite and most deadly operatives. He had already beaten the odds—breaking training, and staying alive this long. Which was to say that he had a better chance than most of surviving a
DOI attempt on his life.

  Which didn’t mean his odds were good.

  “Cha’trez…they will not stop. They must be stopped.”

  “Right.”

  They’d talked about this, put plans in place, as much planning as could be done and put into place. Nothing was guaranteed in this life, safety least of all. She knew that as well as anybody—better’n most maybe, having lived to grow up on Surebleak.

  “The longer I have you,” she said now, looking down into Val Con’s eyes, “the longer I want to have you.”

  He pressed her hand where he held it over his heart.

  “I understand,” he said. “To think that I might lose you…frightens me.”

  She took a hard breath against the tightness in her chest and managed to produce a smile.

  “Guess I wish it would get done,” she said. “Nerve-wracking, being the ones who have to wait.”

  “I agree.”

  He rolled up to sit beside her.

  “How many are we for Prime?” he asked.

  “Just you and me,” she said. “Everybody else has meetings.”

  “Then I suggest we celebrate both our good fortune and each other, with a meal and wine, in our rooms.”

  “I like it.”

  “Good.”

  He came to his feet and bent down to offer her his hands.

  She took them and let him help her to her feet, as if she wasn’t just as light on her feet as he was, then slipped her arm around his waist, leaning into him as they walked slowly toward the door.

  Two

  • • • • •

  They were two, at a shielded location, the coords of which had been provided by the sixth member of the team.

  They having established that their location was secure, Sye Mon opened the case which held his equipment, unfolded it carefully, and began to adjust the various tiles and wires.

  Though he had seen it before, Bon Vit eyed the device with deep misgivings. It had no natural seeming, no form from which one might predict its function or utility. Merely a wire framework, and tiles slotted in, seemingly at random.

  “Can you not simply call them on comm?” Bon Vit asked, only half meaning it as a joke.

  Sye Mon glanced up, a smile glinting at the edge of his face.

  “They reject our technology, deeming their own superior,” he murmured, reaching again to the case and withdrawing a second folded wire frame.

  “In truth, the Department could not retrofit all, so they are formed in groups of six and linked together by their native protocols. One is also fitted with a modern comm, by which orders are received. It then transmits those orders to the others in its pod.”

  Bon Vit moved his eyes from the confusion of tile and wire to Sye Mon’s face.

  “But you do not speak to the leader.”

  The other man met his eyes.

  “You understand, it was the Department’s decision, which of a pod of six was leader. A determination made for the convenience of the Department and its operatives. Orders are…often obeyed, but not always. Pods tend to remain together, but they do not wholly tend to remain within the Department’s care.”

  This was, so Sye Mon had told the others of the strike team, the reason why he believed he had a credible chance of recalling the Old Tech war machines the Department had gathered together, and denying the Commander use of them.

  Something moved in the framework nearest to Bon Vit; perhaps a spark had jumped from one tile to another. A heartbeat later, there was a similar—exact?—reaction inside the other framework.

  “Ah,” breathed Sye Mon. “Now, let us see.”

  * * *

  There had been much moving and resetting of tiles in the first framework, Sye Mon’s fingers nimble amid the wires. The second framework, he touched not at all, but frowned as if the shifting patterns conveyed sense—bitter sense, at that.

  At long last, he sat back, face a grim mask, and turned to Bon Vit. He made as if to speak, then merely closed his eyes, one hand rising, fingers forming the pilot-sign for abort lift.

  “What’s amiss?” Bon Vit demanded. “Will they not be recalled?”

  Sye Mon opened his eyes.

  “Cannot be recalled,” he said. “The Commander is before us, and has a mission locked in.”

  “You said that not all obey,” Bon Vit said after a moment.

  Sye Mon opened his eyes.

  “That is true. Finding those who are not inclined will take time, but…”

  “But?” Bon Vit repeated, when Sye Mon said nothing else.

  “But the effort will have to be made. My correspondent—” He waved a hand in the direction of the two wire frames. “My correspondent did not feel able to share the coordinates of the target with me, but I believe we may make an educated guess.”

  “Indeed,” Bon Vit said grimly. “Indeed.”

  • • • ✴ • • •

  Sye Mon sat back on his heels, shaking his head. He’d been in intense negotiation, via the tile racks, for close to two hours. His face was pale, lined and drawn, his hair stuck in sweat-soaked strands to his forehead.

  Bon Vit, who had been watching over him this while, leaned forward and put a glass of cold water into his partner’s hand.

  “Drink this,” he murmured. “I’ll make you a mug of the yeast.”

  The yeast was a Terran concoction, called by them ’mite—and provided nutrition in a concentrated form. It was unparalleled as a restorative, and tasted the very devil, but Sye Mon made no protest, as he had on a previous occasion, nor asked instead for tea. Rather, Bon Vit received a worryingly subdued “Yes,” as a reply, and nothing more.

  He returned bare moments later to find Sye Mon still sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, legs stretched before him, the empty glass at his side. His color was somewhat improved, and his hair was sticking up in spikes where he had apparently run his fingers through it.

  He received the mug with a careful inclination of the head, and a pale smile that grew somewhat wider when Bon Vit took a place on the floor facing him.

  “No need for that, is there?” he asked.

  Bon Vit looked up from considering his mug and its contents. “If we’re to be on the same level, I prefer the floor than picking you up into a chair.”

  “That’s fair,” Sye Mon conceded, and raised his mug with a feeble flourish. “To saving the universe!”

  Bon Vit raised his mug in answer. “I will drink to that, since drink we must, though I thought it was Korval we were saving.”

  They drank, draining the mugs in one go, which was the only sane way to consume the yeast.

  “Gods, that’s awful,” Bon Vit said with a shudder.

  Sye Mon drew a hard breath, and put the mug aside.

  “I had thought it was ourselves we were saving,” he said, “which is universe enough for me.”

  “I concede. Are we very likely to? Save the universe, that is.”

  “Well. There hangs a tale. My contact outright refuses the coordinates for Secondary Headquarters as a legitimate strike zone.”

  Bon Vit’s stomach clenched.

  “I thought it was eager for a fight of its own.”

  “Indeed, indeed. However, the new Commander of Agents has apparently learned somewhat from the mistakes of her predecessor. She took the precaution of setting safe zones, which the Department’s devices may not attack. One of those is Secondary Headquarters.”

  “Can the programming not be overridden?”

  “Possibly, with time, and patience, and the cooperation of the subject. None of which we have, alas. In the meanwhile, it is an article of faith with my contact that any of them who attempt to ignore the directive and move against a safe zone, will immediately be decommissioned. This would appear to be an internal preset.”

  “Then we have failed,” Bon Vit said grimly. “What now, to save the universe?”

  Sye Mon settled his shoulders against the wall, looking suddenly weary.

  “
We vary,” he said. “There is an avenue we might pursue, to some good. My contact is, as the Terrans have it, spoiling for a fight. It feels its restrictions keenly, nor is it alone in this. I am promised a force to amaze, do I but provide a target outside of the safe zone.”

  “Old Tech promises you this,” Bon Vit said. “Do we believe it?”

  Sye Mon sighed.

  “We had been prepared to believe it when we wished for them to go against Secondary Headquarters,” he pointed out.

  “If we vary,” Bon Vit continued, “we will leave the strike at the Commander and Headquarters solely in the care of our teammates, who are expecting a two-pronged attack.”

  “And yet we have all known from the start that any one of us might fail. The essential parts of the plan are that one of us at least does not fail, and that the Department is rendered moot.”

  This, Bon Vit conceded, was true. It only mattered that the Department was destroyed; how or by whom were meaningless details. None of the Six had expected to survive this mission—no, not even the one of them seemingly safe on Surebleak.

  “I agree,” he said. “To deny the Commander a victory, to deprive her of her devices—that is a blow worth striking. When do we move?”

  Sye Mon smiled wryly.

  “As soon as my contact and I agree upon a rendezvous point, and the appropriate command lines.”

  Carefully, using the wall for support, he got to his feet. Bon Vit rose with less effort, and stood ready to catch him, should it be needful.

  “My contact has been told to await my call, in four hours. Thus, I will shower, and nap, eat, and be as able as I may, when I make contact.”

  “It is well,” Bon Vit said, with a side glance at the tiles and racks strewn around the floor.

  “Leave them,” said Sye Mon; “they will be needed soon enough. If I may, Comrade—rest you, also. I feel that when we do move, it will be suddenly, and at full speed.”

  Three

  • • • • •

  “Before we embark, you will please provide me with a call-back phrase.”

  The request was spoken soft, in Comrade mode, which was proper between them, the inclusion of the word please oddly Terran—precisely the style of communication Claidyne had come to expect from Rys Lin pen’Chala, her partner in this mission.