A Passage of Stars Page 11

  “What does that mean?” demanded Kuan-yin.

  “We must inform you first of all that our ship is not hooked to this station but is in free orbit, and that by itself our ship has enough firepower to—shall we say—render this station inoperable and uninhabitable. Much as we must admire your military prowess in so swiftly and comprehensively taking control of—what do they call it?”—a chuckle—“Nevermore—really, how droll—you have no chance against superior weaponry.”

  “This may be true,” said Kuan-yin, “but you would die as well.”

  “Ah, death.” Kyosti examined the ceiling. “Sweet bedfellow. But we are simple pawns. And the shuttle docked here is a mere trifle. But after all”—he smiled warmly at the grim-faced Kuan-yin—“we are not enemies. We seek a handful of individuals who have committed a few violent crimes. When we have them all, we will go, quite quietly, I assure you.”

  “Where will you go?” asked Kuan-yin.

  Into the silence made by Kyosti adjusting his sleeves, Lily lifted her head to find Jehane staring at her with intense interest. It was utterly unnerving, and overwhelming. “Back,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “They’ll go back, over the way.”

  “To the lost home worlds,” he murmured. His eyes had the cold, enticing glitter of emeralds. “You are one of those they came to find.”

  “No,” said Lily quickly. “I’m not. They just think I am. It was a mistake.”

  “No need to fear me.” His voice was soft. “We can help each other.”

  But she did fear him, feared his power to usurp her volition. With great effort, she forced herself to turn away and look down again.

  “Well,” said Kuan-yin in the room below. “You’ve had enough time to think.”

  “My bane,” replied Kyosti with an exaggerated sigh. “Too much time to think.” Anjahar stifled a noise suspiciously like a laugh. The angry rush of red had subsided from his cheeks; he looked as if he were enjoying himself. Maria’s face remained impassive. “But!” Kyosti raised one hand in a patrician’s gesture. “Do not be hasty. You call your regions of space the Reft, I believe. We are from beyond it. We are”—he stood and made a gracefully florid bow to Kuan-yin—“your ancestors.”

  “As I thought,” said Jehane in an astonishingly hard voice. He lifted his wrist band to his mouth, spoke into it.

  Kuan-yin turned and walked to the door. “These men will escort you back to your cell,” she said.

  Kyosti blinked and turned to address the black wall. “Have I miscalculated?” he asked.

  “Not entirely,” said Jehane in a low voice, as if in answer. “But close enough.” He watched as the entire party left the room.

  “A handful of individuals for a few violent crimes.” It rang in Lily’s head, that phrase. Heredes, a criminal? Had they already killed him? Were they just cleaning up his associates? Herself among them? Bach drifted down and nudged gently at her back, like a reassurance. She laid a hand on his gleaming surface.

  “Lilyaka Hae Ransome.” Jehane’s voice, not at all loud, permeated the atmosphere of the little room. He was regarding her with the same expression the Sar had when examining the first fruits of a new vein: Will this be worthwhile to mine? Will it prove valuable? “An interesting choice of name.”

  “How did you take Nevermore?” she asked abruptly.

  “Never reveal your deepest secrets, my child,” he said, “except to your heir when you are on your deathbed.” He sat, a slow curling of his body. His uniform, for it was a close copy of the others she had seen below, was not white but a deep brown that set off his golden hair and green eyes, suggesting that agricultural world, that paradise, that a child like Paisley must ever yearn for. “But,” he added, “with the entire Ridani population behind me, as well as the many, many discontent who have at last chosen to act, at an isolated station it proves easy enough to dismantle Central’s authority and create a true people’s government.

  “What do the pygmies say about this?”

  “They have their own business, and in any case live so very separate from us. As long as their tasks continue uninterrupted, they have no quarrel with me.”

  “And the sta?”

  “The sta have reason to be in their own way displeased about the encroachments Central has made on their traditions and freedoms and territories. As Central has on all of ours. You must know this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lily, but she thought of Finch, and his surprising tirade against the new trade laws.

  “But of course,” Jehane rose. “What would you know of it?”

  She saw that he had misunderstood her ignorance for that of a foreigner rather than the privileged. “What are you going to do,” she asked quickly, to forestall his questions, “with your rebellion if you reach Central?”

  He paused. “Institute the people’s government,” he said. “Return to the citizens of the Reft their freedom and their rights.” He smiled. It was like the flash of a beacon light to one lost in Unruli’s storms, inviting one to its shelter. “Of course.”

  She wanted simply to believe, but some instinct honed by the years of martial arts kept her sparring. “How can you possibly take Central?”

  “There are already comrades working there for us. Workers of all persuasions, ready to act. A talented young writer, full of truth and passion, who even now prepares the ground with his sermons.”

  “If you win, you’ll take the Ridanis back, over the way?”

  He laughed, a charming sound. “You have heard ya story as well, I see. But of course the Ridani must be reintegrated as citizens, as equal citizens, of the Reft before such a course can be taken. But, Lilyaka Ransome, you yourself also know why, for that very reason, you can be of such great help to me.” He took two steps toward her.

  “Is it really your name—Jehane?”

  “It is my essence.” Another step. Lily retreated, pushing Bach with her. “You know what I need—referents, navigation charts, vectors. I must know that route.” Two steps toward her.

  She would have told him if she had known. Instead, she took two more steps back, maintaining the distance that separated them, as if his touch alone might put her completely under his control. “Ask your prisoners. They even have a ship. I can’t help you. I don’t know.”

  His voice, his expression, held only pained bewilderment. “Why do you not wish to cooperate with me? I can assist you. They only hunt you. You will be safe with me.” Two steps more.

  No I won’t, she thought desperately, even as she lifted a hand toward him, to accept his bounty. Bach stopped abruptly, come up against the wall. She was cornered. His benevolence terrified her. “I don’t know anything!”

  “Do not attempt to make me believe that. We did run you. You do not exist in government records. You control a completely foreign robot. This masquerade is useless.”

  “But I was wiped from the computers. Your people rescued me from prison.”

  He smiled slightly, clearly disbelieving her, and took another step toward her. “Will you cooperate?” Gracious, but the “or,” although unspoken, was clearly said.

  Lily bent, fumbling at her trouser leg, and came up with Calico’s gun. “No closer, or I shoot.” It was her last defense.

  Jehane’s smile broadened. “A challenge,” he said lightly. “But will you?” With utter confidence he walked straight for her.

  Lily shot him.

  It was more a concussion in the air than a noise or a report, more instinct than volition. Jehane staggered backward, regained his balance and, slowly, lifted his right hand to his left shoulder. Blood filtered through the brown cloth, a damp, spreading patch.

  “I’m sorry,” said Lily in a much calmer voice, holding the gun steady. The act had somehow freed her of the overwhelming power of his will. “But I said I would.”

  Jehane tasted the blood on his right hand, as if considering its flavor. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side. “You keep your word,” he said at last. “And I see that
I underestimated you. But you will understand that this interview must continue at a later time, as you still possess information that I require. You will remain in custody until then.” He smiled, as if to temper the effect of such a harsh judgment.

  Lily said nothing.

  He murmured into his wrist band. The door slid open with the gasp that Jehane had not uttered. Calico appeared.

  “Missy!” he cried, much betrayed, when he saw the wound.

  Kuan-yin rushed into the room, followed by guards,

  “You little animal!” The soldier charged forward, disregarding completely Lily’s gun, and shoved Lily into the wall. Lily’s head struck the hard surface with a flash of blinding pain, and she dropped her gun. A white form picked it up. Kuan-yin gripped Lily’s throat and squeezed.

  “Gently, Joan.” Jehane’s voice came from the doorway. Kuan-yin released Lily as though she were infectious. Lily, gasping, could scarcely see, but she felt abruptly that Jehane had left the room. Her head ached.

  Someone yelped.

  “It bit me!”

  Lily’s vision focused enough to see Bach, a faint glow cloaking him like a nimbus, a guard rubbing her hand against her hip.

  “March it up, female!” Kuan-yin’s command cut into the air, daring Lily to resist.

  But Lily merely whistled a short phrase to Bach and marched. Guards formed up around her. Calico’s face peeped at her through the bodies, mournful.

  “Missy,” he said with a sigh, and he shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. Calico,” she said, hoping it reached him as they prodded her through the doorway.

  They took her into the blank hallway. Kuan-yin’s desire for revenge crowded like yet another presence beside her. But Lily, marched along, thrust through one of the seamless doorways, left alone in a cell, felt paralyzed. She could no more understand the power Jehane had had over her, or the instinct that had compelled her to shoot him in order to free herself than she understood with any concrete knowledge the whole course of events that had left her in this tiny cell. Bach, with that instinct he had for her, began to sing a soft chorale:

  Ich will hier bei dir stehen,

  Verachte mich doch nicht!

  Von dir will ich nicht gehen,

  Wenn dir dein Herze bricht.

  Wann dein Herz wird erblassen

  Im letzten Todesstoss,

  Alsdenn will ich dich fassen

  Im meinem Arm und Schoss.

  “I will stand here beside Thee,

  do not then scorn me!

  From Thee I will not depart

  even if Thy heart is breaking.

  When Thy heart shall grow pale

  in the last pang of death,

  then I will grasp Thee

  in my arms and lap.”

  Lulled, she fell asleep on the floor.

  She woke when a beep shattered the silence of the cell; a slot appeared above the floor and produced a tray of food and drink. She ate. To have such a tenuous understanding of herself was frightening; to be so quickly pushed into panic was embarrassing as well as dangerous. How often had Heredes told her, “Rashness will not save you, Lily. Only confidence and skill.” But she smiled slightly as she found the washing cubicle and disposed of the tray down the recycle hatch. At least it had delayed the interview with Jehane. She laughed a little, thinking of his reaction to being shot: he had been more concerned with his miscalculation of her strength than with his wound. What plans might such a man have? How, indeed, could people resist him? Abruptly, she wondered how the blue-haired Kyosti would fare against him. Or Heredes? If he were still alive.

  She began to pace, did what basic forms and kata she could in the restricted space. Pausing for breath, she happened to look up at Bach where he hovered high in one corner, out of her way. Some of his lights winked, and he began to sing.

  Patroness, thou art concerned for the master Heredes, art thou not?

  “Bach!” Bach, she whistled. Do you know anything about him? Did the foreigners tell you anything?

  He sank toward her. Negative, patroness. But I do not believe this group has him. They are human and doubtless from my ancient home, and if it is Heredes that they seek, they have not yet found him.

  As if he could have escaped from those others.

  Pardon, patroness, but thou perhaps needest a reminder that we and the girl did indeed escape.

  Around them, the light diffused out equally from all surfaces. Lily smiled. “That we did.” She gave the robot a playful buffet at his equator.

  She renewed her exercises with much more energy. Cleaned herself and her clothes when she had finished. There was no terminal in the room, so she sat with Bach and traded songs and games. After a time, the beep sounded again and another meal tray came through.

  Only the juice, in its plastine cup, had any real flavor. She savored it. The cup itself had a few rough scrapes around its bottom edge. Her finger, tracing absently along them, began to form fanciful letters of them. B there, then an E. A smooth gap, more of the roughness, almost like little carvings: this could be an R, E?, surely an A next. An O. Well, perhaps a D. It was novel to one accustomed to seeing letters on a screen and to punching keys to create them to see how they might actually be formed manually. A double branch—a Y, of course.

  She stopped. Drained the last of the juice in a single gulp and lifted the cup up to eye level. On the white surface the letters proved hard to see, but they clearly had been carved there. “BE READY.” She turned the cup. “SOON.” Turned it again. “JLH.” That was all.

  “He’s alive.” She breathed, holding the cup before her as if it were a holy relic.

  She quickly took the tray and cup and shoved them into the recycle hatch, returned to kneel in the cell exactly opposite the door, hands open on her knees. Bach drifted down behind her.

  When a low sequence of tones sounded from the air, she came instantly alert and to her feet. Bach sang a barely audible question. She put her hands out, flat, on either side of her: “stay back.” A seam traced out a door, and with an inhalation it slid open.

  He wore the familiar loose, white trousers and waist-belted tunic and in one hand he carried a metal box. For an instant, she compared him to Jehane, who also had green eyes, but Heredes’s hair and skin were much darker, and for all the mastery, of life and art and fighting, inherent in every motion he made, he carried himself unobtrusively.

  Without a word, she ran to hug him. With that part of the mind that detaches under high emotion, she realized that he was only the fifth man she had ever hugged this closely: her favorite brother, her karate partner on reaching shodan together; that sleet miner from the Belts whose one season at Ransome House had included time in Lily’s bed, and Finch, under rather different circumstances.

  This was different. She loved him, a very pure, very simple emotion that had no expectations, no desires, no demands. It was new.

  She broke off and stepped back from him. “I thought you were dead.” Tears shone gloriously in her eyes.

  Heredes laughed and came fully into the cell. The doorway seamed shut behind him. “Haven’t I told you, Lily? It’s terribly boring being dead. I stay that way for as short a time as possible.” His eyes, examining her, seemed to come to some conclusion, and he relaxed.

  “But how did you get away from those aliens? And how did you find me? You couldn’t have known I was following you.” As he walked past her, toward Bach, she turned with him as a plant turns, catching the sun.

  He raised one hand in a dismissive gesture—one much like Kyosti’s, she thought suddenly, but far more energetic. “As a species, Kapellans are careless. Their Darwinian flaw seems to be overconfidence. As for the other—” He walked a slow circle around Bach, studying the robot’s entire circumference. “It was a process too complicated to explicate here, although I did return to Unruli briefly. But why did you think I was dead?”

  “The aliens aren’t the only ones after you.”

  “Ah,” he said.

&n
bsp; “There are also humans, like us, except they’re not from the Reft.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “They’re trying to find you, I think to arrest you.” Still he regarded her without surprise. “Maybe they’re connected with those bounty hunters who tried to take you in at Apron Port.”

  “That could be.”

  “They had a picture of you. And all these names I’d never heard.” He nodded. She frowned. “And one of them, later, I overheard him say, ‘the old man is dead.’”

  Whatever she had wanted, some reaction, she got it in full now.

  “Dead!” His face changed utterly. He turned away from her, hiding his grief. Lily hung her head. There was a long silence. She heard him murmur, “May the Mother bless his spirit,” and she looked up in time to see him trace in the air a series of movements, a final benediction. “He was a friend,” he said quietly. “More than that. He was the one who laid our path.”

  “How can you know it’s the same person—this ‘old man’ and your friend?”

  “It’s a very long story, Lily. We don’t have time for it now. But I must ask you—” He walked back around Bach and up to her. The clean lines of his face gave not the least indication of a life that had endured long stories. “Where did you get a composer?”

  “A what?”

  Heredes began to whistle. Snatches of phrases, really, but the fifth bit was Bach’s signature phrase, and Bach responded with a delighted full cadence. “Ah,” said Heredes. “A sixteen eighty-five.”

  “He’s a sixteen eighty-nine.”

  “The fourth of his line.” Heredes sounded either impressed or skeptical. “The series number is sixteen eighty-five, and each individual unit was numbered from there.”

  “Can you communicate with him?” She felt to her embarrassment a swell of jealousy.

  “Unfortunately, no, except with speech. I just know the basic codes in music. Where did it come from?”

  “I found him in my father’s warehouse about ten years ago. It was an accident, really, that I got him to work.” She flushed. “He was the one who took the computer prelim test—that’s why it was so high.”

  He chuckled. “I see.”