Liaden Universe 18: Dragon in Exile Read online

  “Yes, Lady,” said Esil, and performed one of the small, respectful bows that the house staff had adopted. She shooed Amiz out ahead and closed the door firmly after her.

  “You were speaking of the past,” Silain said to Kamele.

  She laughed and moved her shoulders, as Jen Sar used to do when he had judged he’d shown too much enthusiasm for a topic.

  “No, I am interested,” Silain pressed, taking up one of the filled cakes. “It is the role of the luthia, you know, to bring the past to the present. It is said that the past has much to teach us, which I do not dispute. But sometimes I wonder, Sisters, have I learned rightly from the past?”

  “Exactly!” Kamele leaned forward, elbows on the table, teacup cradled in her hands. “We build from the past, but do we learn from it? And, if we have learned, have we taken the correct lessons? We bring assumptions to the task of learning, while the history we seek to learn proceeds from the assumptions of another time, to which we may not be privy.

  “That’s what makes this portfolio—this history—so important to Kareen’s work—”

  “Your work, also,” Kareen murmured.

  “—for not only do we have a list of proper behaviors, but the reasons those behaviors were considered proper, and how those behaviors—those social mores—had changed during the lifetime of our historians. The assumptions of the authors are very clearly laid out, and we can see where we and they intersect, where our—our necessities have diverged, or march together . . . Really, it’s priceless.”

  “I see that it is,” Silain said. She raised her cup and looked to Kareen.

  “Our sister puts me in mind of a thing—you would say, an archive—for which I am responsible, and which may have some bearing on your work here.”

  “You interest me,” Kareen said. “Do you mean to say that you have records of Surebleak before its . . . collapse?”

  Silain sipped tea, her eyes frowning at—and through—the plate of sweet things: the very picture of a scholar in a brown study.

  “It may be so,” she said eventually. “You will understand that I have not dreamed every dream in my keeping. The kompani . . . has been on this world for . . . an amount of time, I will say. At first, we wandered. It may be that the earliest dreams of this place may bring knowledge to my sisters.”

  “This dreaming,” Kareen said. “I understand it to be time-consuming, and—forgive me—opaque to those not trained in the method.”

  “Anyone can dream. The difficult part is in bringing the dream to the waking world in such a way that it can be understood.” Silain smiled at Kamele. “This is what my sister Kamele has said. The points of reference, the assumptions of the dreaming mind . . . they are not always clear.”

  “Yes. And as none of us here are trained dreamers . . .”

  Silain moved a hand.

  “No, I think I have the answer to that, too: a skilled researcher with a strong memory. She was my apprentice and would be luthia if our kompani had birthed daughters. Droi is her name. She is pregnant and forbidden some of the work she is used to doing. Time hangs heavy on her hands. I will send her. You, my Sisters, will explain to her what you look for, what hints she ought to seek. She will dream from the first dream of Surebleak until—”

  She looked ’round the table, spreading her hands wide in a question.

  Kareen tapped her finger thoughtfully on the tabletop.

  “We have identified a few cusp points,” she said slowly, looked to Kamele, brows lifted.

  “By all means, send Droi to us,” Kamele said warmly. “We have the date that the Gilmour Agency shut down operations here, and the date that the last company ship lifted. We have dates for some of the Bosses . . .”

  She glanced at Kareen, who bowed her head, and said, “We have the date that Boss Conrad . . . retired . . . former Boss Moran and broke the culture a second time . . . Yes, send us Droi. We will try and see what she can find for us, and if we can be useful to each other.”

  Silain nodded, and plucked another sweet from the plate.

  “I will speak with Droi,” she said and smiled. “Truly it is said that when sisters talk together, mountains move.”

  “How did you know,” Val Con said, as they walked across the lawns, “that any of our former colleagues had chosen well—and survived the choice?”

  “I did not,” Rys said. His steps were soft on the dry grass, but not quite silent. “My grandmother, however, tells me that she has seen five shadows against a conflagration. As she had previously predicted a long and perilous journey on my behalf, my understanding is that four survived the choice.”

  “Your understanding is . . . good. But there is no need for you to endanger yourself.”

  “No? Who, then, will lead them? Yourself?”

  “My . . . let us say, my hope was that, among us six we might come up with a course of action to be carried out by four. My best part is to stay in the Department’s eye, and demonstrate that Korval defends itself nearly—and nothing more.”

  “I agree,” Rys said promptly. “Misdirection is vital. Draw their eyes, and give us time to close.”

  “Close upon what, I wonder? The Commander?”

  “That I will know better when we five have laid our plans.”

  “Not six?”

  “No . . .” A flash of black eyes. “Consider that you are the final hope. If we all five should fall, then must Korval act, and completely. The reasoning that drove the strike upon Liad was firmly based upon necessity. The Department must be stopped—not for us who have already been captured, and tortured, and escaped as something other than ever we were meant to be.

  “But it is not too late for your daughter, or for mine. Our care must be for them.”

  “I concur,” Val Con said and, after a moment, “Have you a daughter, Rys?”

  “She will be born soon. The kompani wants her and will care for her, but—should there be need, Brother, I solicit your kindness for her and for her mother. My daughter’s name is Maysl. Her mother is Droi.”

  “I will care for them as if they were my own.”

  He felt a pressure on his arm and looked down to find Rys gripping him lightly with the metal hand.

  “I could hope for nothing better.”

  They had come to the crack in the world, and Rys knelt to place his natural hand along the rift.

  “This needs fill,” he said.

  “So we have done. The soil continues to settle, as does the House.”

  “Both will come even, eventually,” Rys said, and rose, dusting his hand off against his thigh, his gaze moving over the tidy garden patch along.

  “That’s well-placed. However, I do not see vines.”

  “Patience. Perhaps they are around the other side of the house. Or behind the barn. Mr. Shaper is not . . . always tolerant of visitors, and I do not have free run of his land.”

  “How do we proceed, then?”

  “We will follow the path—you see it?—and we will keep our hands at all times in sight. We do not molest the cats, though doubtless we shall achieve an escort. If we come so far as the house without a hail, I will mount the doorstone and state our business. If that fails to elicit a response, we will return exactly in the style in which we arrived.”

  “I understand,” said Rys, and followed him as he stepped over the line onto Yulie Shaper’s land.

  They followed the path ’round the garden patch, and Val Con had just bent his head to go under the laden tree limb when the first shot rang out.

  “Captain, we have a personnel issue.”

  Miri looked up at Nelirikk, thought about Lizzie up in the nursery. The quiet peaceful nursery where she could rest her head and not think about anything more complicated than did Lizzie need her belly rubbed.

  “Continue,” she said.

  “Yes, Captain. Jeeves reports that Hazenthull Explorer killed a civilian in the port today, in protection of her partner, who then ran away from the scene, after giving Hazenthull his service gun
with explicit instructions to return it to Commander Lizardi, with his resignation. Instead of following these instructions, she chose instead to cover her now-ex-partner’s back as he made good his escape, killing one more civilian, and in the process sustaining wounds which, unless treated immediately, are thought to be life-threatening.”

  Miri blinked, took a breath and ran the Scout’s Rainbow, which helped, a little, with her headache.

  “Where is Hazenthull now, and in what condition?”

  “She is aboard Tarigan, in the autodoc. Jeeves confirms that her former partner is the same Tollance Berik-Jones he vouched for as a suitable pilot and backup for his daughter, Tocohl. The pilots intend to lift on time, as they consider their mission urgent. Pilot Tocohl offers to put Hazenthull Explorer off at a safe port, once she is fully healed of her injuries, and a Korval ship may then pick her up.”

  Miri sighed.

  Despite her mass, and her attitude, Hazenthull was the most fragile of Korval’s three former Yxtrang corps. Diglon Rifle had taken to Surebleak with a wide delight in everything. He was a sponge for learning things—any and everything—and it was beginning to look like he’d never met a stranger.

  Nelirikk was secure in his position as captain’s aide, and he’d managed to stretch out into other areas, including road construction, as needed. Of course Nelirikk was an Explorer—close enough to being a Scout, except a little less prone, in Miri’s observation, to getting into trouble.

  Hazenthull, though—she’d been an Explorer, but junior. And she’d screwed up bad, ultimately costing her team leader his life. She had a session or two with Anthora, which had helped some, but she hadn’t made any connections outside of Korval, and specifically, Korval’s little troop of former Yxtrang . . .

  . . . until Tollance Berik-Jones, whose back she’d covered even after he’d officially resigned as her partner.

  “Do the experts think that Hazenthull will impede their mission?” she asked.

  Nelirikk didn’t answer, but Jeeves did, his voice emanating from the ceiling.

  “Mr. Berik-Jones gives it as his opinion that Haz is a good one to have on your side in a fight. Tocohl gives it as her opinion that, since they are bound for regions where fights seem more, rather than less, likely, Hazenthull could be a welcome addition to the mission.”

  Right.

  Miri nodded.

  “Let her go, then. Keep me updated regarding her condition. I wanna hear real soon that she’s outta the ’doc and healed. If there are complications, then the mission will allow itself to be diverted to a hospital.”

  “Yes, Miri,” Jeeves said. “Transmitting now . . . Tocohl agrees to these terms.”

  “Great. Anything else?”

  “No, Miri.”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Then, if you please, gentlemen, I’m going upstairs to visit my daughter.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Shaper’s Freehold

  Surebleak

  They went to ground as one being, diving for cover beneath the tree.

  Another shot came, some distance away, followed by a string of Surebleakean curses.

  Rys shifted beside Val Con, as if he were preparing to move in that direction. Val Con put a hand on Rys’s arm and shook his head slightly.

  It had not been Yulie Shaper’s voice, cursing; thinking back on it, he was fairly certain that it had not been Yulie Shaper’s gun.

  He squeezed Rys’s arm and tipped his head to the right, toward the house. Rys nodded, and Val Con moved off, not on the path, but near it; Rys, soundless now, followed.

  Val Con paused before they came within sight of the house. Crouching among the shadows and the green things, he listened closely, but all he heard was the wind in the leaves and among the grasses, and then a rough whisper in his ear.

  “C’mon back from there, the both of you.”

  His arm shot out to grab Rys—not an instant too soon. His brother did not know Yulie Shaper’s voice, and he had begun to turn, metal arm rising.

  “Come,” Val Con breathed. “This is Mr. Shaper.”

  He eased back, deeper into the leaves, until his foot struck a wooden curb, which he climbed over, and dropped a little distance into a dirt pit. An instant later Rys had joined him on the ground, facing Yulie Shaper, who was sitting with his back against a large rock, a rifle across his knees.

  “You with them?” he hissed. “Sleet, no; you can’t be with them. You’re with the New Boss. You are a New Boss . . .”

  Yulie’s eyes were wide, and his whisper ragged, but he was steady; no shaking, no hiding his face or his eyes. If anything, Val Con thought, he was a little too firm in making eye contact.

  “I am not with them, whoever they are,” Val Con said softly. “I had brought my brother Rys over to meet you. We heard gunfire, and curses, and feared for your safety.”

  “That’s neighborly.” Yulie gave Rys a hard stare and a short nod. Rys gave him the nod back, and said nothing.

  “What has happened here?” Val Con asked.

  “Well, I come back from taking them grapes up to Mrs. ana’Tak, an’ there was cars in front the house, an’ a crew in my dooryard. Was on my way to tell ’em to get the sleet offa my land, an’ one of ’em kicks in the door, and starts yelling m’name and tellin’ me to come on out, so I ducked back and got my spare from where I keep it, an’ settled here to see what else they’d do. Ain’t nothin’ much t’steal, an’ I was willin’ to let ’em have what they took, s’long’s they didn’t hurt the cats . . .”

  He shook his head, sharp, as if recalling himself to the topic.

  “Anyways, I hear ’em talk, and they’re here deliberate, looking for the growin’ rooms, down under. They got a machine tells ’em what’s down under in general ways. I don’t think they know about the rooms. If they did, they’d’ve used the control board, ’steada just followin’ the beeps on their machine, round to main door.”

  He grinned suddenly, and unnervingly. “Same door they busted before. Won’t be so easy this time; that Tan Ort, he fixed ’er up good.”

  “Still, we would not wish Tan Ort’s work to go to waste,” Val Con said. “Perhaps we can stop them, now.”

  Yulie Shaper shook his head. “There’s six, eight of ’em. I can shoot that many, but then I’d hafta bury ’em. ’S’why I was thinkin’ to get to the controls, inside, an’ throw on the defenses. Left somebody in the house, though, an’ they’re sure to hear if I shoot.” He tipped his head, as another round of gunfire and cursing reached them.

  “The defenses,” Rys said, speaking for the first time. “They will harm the grapes?”

  “Liked them, did you? No, what’ll hurt the grapes, an’ the coffee, an’ the whole rest of it is if that crew busts through the outside locks and upset the microclimes.”

  “The grapes must not be harmed,” Rys said. “I will engage to disable the watcher in the house so that you may turn on the defenses. Val Con will go around the back and ensure that the locks do not take harm while we do our part.”

  Yulie looked doubtful.

  “You’re a likely lookin’ boy, but that’s a big fella they left. You sure you can take him?”

  Rys glanced down at the ground, and picked up a rock by his knee. He held out his gleaming golden hand, the rock resting in the palm, closed his fingers, and opened them.

  Dust sullied his palm. He wiped it clean on his trousers.

  “That’ll do,” Yulie said, as another shot echoed. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

  Derik had set Rista to guarding the perimeter, which meant he was getting her outta the way of the real bidness. That was all right by her; she was only on the team on account of she could read the machine. She could shoot, but she didn’t like to, so she wasn’t any kind of use at all when it come down to cases, which, when Derik was running the gig, it usually did.

  So, Rista went out back, with her gun that she wouldn’t use, anyway, and watched while first Jorner, and then Rosy, and then Derik himsel
f banged themselfs against the sealed door, then took to shooting at it.

  That made her extra glad to be guarding everything from way over there, ’cause there was ricochets—Rosy got his hair parted for ’im, and Jorner got his arm grazed, none o’which put them in better humor, and there started to be talk about just goin’ back up the house and waitin’ ’til that old farmer showed up.

  Rista had a little niggling worry about where the farmer was. Farmers farmed, right? Stood to reason. So, where was he, exactly? Hard to tell, with all this green; you couldn’t see things clear. Not like down the city, where you could get a good long look at something four blocks away.

  Point was, he—the farmer—could be standing anywhere, hidden by the leaves, and none of them, with their city eyes, would ever even see ’im. Sleet, he could just stand there, hidden, and pick ’em all off one by one.

  All right, that made her shiver.

  “I say we use Rance’s toy,” Rosy said. “Ain’t no door built gonna stand up to that.”

  “Might break whatever’s on the other side,” Derik said, which you might s’pose to be some pretty clear thinkin’ on Derik’s part ’less you knew that Mr. Neuhaus had told him specific not to break anything that was inside the underneath place. Derik paid close attention to Mr. Neuhaus.

  “Ain’t nothing on t’other side,” Rosy said, which he couldn’t know, and Mort stuck in that if there weren’t nothin’ on the other side, what was it locked up so tight for?

  It was right then that Rista saw something move in the green across the way. The tall leaves kinda shivered, and there was a man there, when there hadn’t been one.

  He was wearing a green and silver coat that shimmered, sort of, in the torchlight, and there was a big ring on his hand, which is how Rista knew who it was.

  The Road Boss.

  “I believe you would be best served,” he said, in a soft voice that didn’t have no problem carrying to all of them, judging by the way they spun and cussed. “I believe you would be best served by standing away from the door, and putting your guns and . . . other equipment on the ground.”