Revolution's Shore Page 9

  The Boukephalos proved to be one of Central’s own class 4 military cruisers, impressed into Jehane’s service by some unknown means.

  Lily left Pinto in the shuttle, which was docked in the vast fighter squadron bay, and met a group of ten crisp-stepping soldiers in crackling white uniforms who escorted her through the gleaming corridors of Jehane’s flagship to the upper decks. She was forcibly reminded of La Belle and her ship, the Sans Merci, although the utilitarian lines of the Boukephalos could scarcely measure up to such competition.

  They showed her into a large, plain office: a desk and single molded plastine chair in front of a wall screen, facing a single plush chair that looked out of place in the middle of the expanse of marbled floor.

  She sat in the plush chair and waited.

  Enough time passed that she suspected the wait was meant to impress the extent of their power—his power—over her. She did kata in her head, concentrating, and was thus almost surprised by the abrupt slip and sigh of an opening door.

  She stood up, not hasty, but in order to meet on the same level.

  Jehane entered and paused as the door sighed shut behind him to examine her.

  In one year he seemed to have changed not at all. The office, nondescript, gained sudden life at his entrance, as if its space needed only his presence to illuminate it. His hair still shone like a vein of gold, dazzling and attractive. His eyes, richly green, bored into her as if with his gaze alone he could penetrate to her inmost secrets.

  He walked to the desk, lengthening his path by keeping to the wall, saying nothing, but all the while his attention remained clasped to her like an ornament, or a need, something she could merely reach out and, taking, be utterly satisfied with. She resisted the temptation to lose herself in his scrutiny. The sheer weight of his charisma sank onto her, although this time she did not feel the stark fear she had felt the first time she had met him—and she recognized the fear for what it was: he would be easy to lose one’s self in.

  He sat down, graceful and poised, and lifted a hand. “Please.” His voice was gracious. “Please sit down, Lilyaka Hae Ransome.”

  “Heredes,” she said.

  “Heredes,” he agreed, munificent.

  She sat down.

  He had the gift of being able to keep his gaze fixed on her, as if she were the most important person in his existence, and yet remain all the time aware of the room and the flashing play of the intercom and the slow circle of lights on the wall screen behind him, tracing star fields and solar systems like an echo of his vast concerns.

  “You wish to join my cause,” he said at last. It was neither a question nor a statement, but rather a reflection of some casual thought, intrigued but undecided.

  “Yes. Together with twelve others who have let me speak for them.”

  “Twelve.” He mused over this figure. “Most of those who come to believe in my goals join me as common soldiers and earn a more intimate place in our revolution by effort and blood and loyalty.”

  “Exactly,” Lily agreed. “But you would be wasting me in the army, in the usual forces.”

  “Would I, indeed?” He considered her thoughtfully.

  In any other person, man or woman, his features would have been too perfect, a little false, a little stilted. But Alexander Jehane had such force of personality, such radiant personal power, that his beauty seemed almost a secondary consideration, an accidental flaw conferred on him by unsuspecting parents.

  “Would I, indeed?” he repeated, no longer a question. “Are you prepared to give me the coordinates of your voyage here from the old worlds—from Terra?”

  Lily was startled into a brief laugh at this sally. “You don’t really want to confront the Terran League, do you?” she asked. “You can’t hope to defeat them in any military fashion, I don’t think, and in any case, for what reason would you be rebelling against them?”

  “Indeed,” he replied smoothly, “what need for our revolution if we are reunited with our elders who will bring reform and unity to Reft space. You understand my need.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Lily, meaning it. “And you’re right—” Abruptly she wondered what Kyosti’s compatriots, Anjahar and Maria, would think of Central’s abuses—what would they, as law-enforcement officials, report back to the League? Had they been faster, perhaps Heredes could have been saved. “The League wouldn’t condone Central’s government, I don’t think. But I don’t know the way back, or how long it runs, or how complicated the calculations are. I told you that once before. I can’t help you with that.”

  “Then what do you propose to help me with?”

  “I believe,” said Lily slowly, “that you already know.”

  He drew an index finger across the fine grain of the plastine desktop. “I have monitored with great interest the events on Harsh, and the liberation of the thirties dig. I am sure you are aware that I am not militarily as strong as Central—not yet. Central is aware of it, thus they are only now beginning to see the true threat I pose to them. Therefore, I must still rely on surprise and speed and subtlety for my victories, and on the careful mining of what information I can glean, and on the precise use of what forces I command, and on the constant recruitment of the oppressed and discontent who have just and good cause to rally to my aid. Thus—”

  He paused, and she waited, expectant, even eager, to hear him finish. Realized abruptly that he had paused just to test the extent of her attention on him.

  He smiled. For an instant she caught a glimpse of another Jehane, a man who was not so engrossed in leading a revolution that he could not briefly be amused by the very tactics he used to manipulate people, and share that amusement with her, seeing that she recognized them for what they were. Then that window vanished, collapsed back into the gravity of the task at hand. “Thus I build a special force, trained in the more arcane disciplines: espionage, commando, saboteurs …” He trailed off.

  “Terrorist,” she finished. “Yes, I know a bit about such disciplines.”

  “But you must prove to me that your skills, your people, if you mean to carry so many with you, are equal to the task. That you are, indeed, worth the effort to train and draw so close into our plans, be equal to the risk of using you in missions that must meet with success on the slimmest of odds.”

  “Like the thirties dig.”

  He shrugged. “Simple force is not always the most expedient method, and many times will fail utterly despite the mastery of surprise.”

  “Do you know that I worked with Pero on Arcadia?”

  Now he paused without obvious deliberation. He tapped a few commands into a screen set into the desktop, and called up information that evidently satisfied him. “‘They executed a man they claimed was Pero but who was not,’” he quoted, reading from the screen. “I just received information from my best and fastest source that Pero was executed and that there is riot on Arcadia and martial law.”

  “That information is false—well, not entirely. It’s true, but it wasn’t the real Pero, Robert Malcolm, who was executed. He is still alive.”

  “You sound certain.”

  “I am certain.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said with conviction. He tapped more keys. “‘Five adults, one child, one robot.’ Yet you tell me now, twelve people will join with you.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “I gained five people, more or less accidently.”

  “You gained?”

  “No, comrade Jehane,” said Lily with a diplomacy that, it occurred to her, she must have learned from Sar Ransome. “You gained them. But some people feel safer in smaller groups.”

  “Indeed.” The comment was utterly noncommittal, but even as the word died into the still air, his entire posture changed, tensing. “How did you know you could find me at Harsh?” he asked coldly.

  “What is my assignment?”

  He smiled again, and relaxed. “You wish a bargain. Very well. I know perfectly well you will be valuable to our cause, Lily Heredes. An
d I have no current reason to distrust your motives or your zeal.” He let the unspoken threat linger a moment on silence, then went on. “Those who betray the revolution are dealt with swiftly and without mercy. Those who give of themselves for the cause of reform are rewarded each day with the liberation of new recruits, of Stations yoked under Central’s bitter regime, and they will be rewarded with the restoration of a government meant for all citizens.”

  Lily smiled. “You sound like Pero.”

  “No,” he said softly, not without menace, not without compassion. “Pero is my voice. He speaks in the prison of Arcadia, where my voice most begs to be heard. How did you know you could find me at Harsh?”

  She took in a deep breath to steady herself while she chose words. Let it out. “I possess the distilled contents of Central’s entire Intelligence network, on disk.”

  His hissed breath, stalike, revealed for an instant that she had caught him completely by surprise.

  “Central’s records of your movements were analyzed by the same expert who liberated the information from Central’s com-net in the first place—the same man who was executed as Pero. That led me to Harsh.”

  “His name will be a monument to our cause,” said Jehane with feeling. He stood up. “You will be under the command of Comrade Officer Callioux.”

  “Callioux!”

  “Officer Callioux is in charge of the special forces, which were, when you met them, in the final stages of planning an assault on the thirties dig.”

  The revelation caught her openmouthed. “Callioux told me—you let me run the whole operation, risk it, when you intended to free the thirties dig all along!”

  Jehane regarded her without amusement or irony. “You wished to prove yourself. The test came to hand serendipitously. Comrade Officer Callioux will assign you, and your, people, an appropriate berth on one of the special forces ships. Callioux’s own, I believe.”

  Lily, still collecting herself, could not find words to reply.

  “But first,” and Jehane placed a single, precise finger on the intercom, “I will provide you with an escort to fetch this information you have brought me. After it is in my hands, you and your party will be released to Callioux.”

  Lily stood up. The door slipped open, and without surprise she saw the remembered figure of Kuan-yin, looking brash and vehement and not at all merciful. Kuan-yin’s gaze was locked on Jehane, but at his gesture, she marched her ten soldiers across to Lily, waiting behind them with the tense readiness of a chained predator. Her glance, raking Lily, held promises of unspeakable pain should Lily not succor Jehane in every way he saw fit.

  “For your protection,” he said gently.

  She looked at the ten soldiers and at Kuan-yin. “Who are you protecting me from?” she asked.

  Jehane only smiled, softly apologetic.

  9 Bleak House

  “HOY.” LILY TOOK THE glass of ambergloss that Jenny offered her and watched as the mercenary sat down with controlled grace on the chair next to her. “Pinto got into another fight? That’s what—the eighth he’s been in in the six months we’ve been on this boat? Callioux will deny him Station leave now, no question. I don’t see why he can’t just learn to ignore the slurs like Rainbow does.”

  “Or ask innocent questions that make the comments sound stupid, like Paisley?” Jenny chuckled. “You have to remember, Lily-hae, that he’s not really used to it, still not. He and Lia used to play together as kids. He was rich and privileged. And now—now he’s just any other tattoo. Maybe he feels it’s the only way he has left to distinguish himself.”

  “Wise Jenny,” murmured Lily, sipping her drink and studying the bar they sat in with casual interest. Like all bars across the vast spectrum of human existence, this one was poorly lit and noisy. The bitter scent of spilled ambergloss permeated the air, and the floors were unswept, but otherwise the place was clean, uncluttered, and totally without character, a standard station bar servicing merchanters and soldiers. “Although I don’t think Callioux is going to be so understanding.”

  Jenny shrugged. “It wasn’t Pinto started the fight anyway. He got involved later. It was Paisley.”

  “Paisley!”

  Jenny grinned. “We all went down there to watch Pinto play three-di—and to win a little money betting on him. And they had a bissterlas table going in one corner, so the Mule sat down. At first the sta already there refused to let it—him—play, as usual, but two had to go on shift, and Paisley was the only other person in the entire bar who knew the game. And she refused to play unless they let the Mule factor in as well. So.” She shrugged. “You know how the sta are about bissterlas. They let the Mule in. And damn my eyes if I’ve ever seen a faster calculator. I don’t think Bach could run those numbers as fast as the Mule did.”

  Lily raised her eyebrows, skeptical but not disbelieving, and crossed her legs to sit more comfortably. “And?”

  “And of course some sta made a comment about perversions—it’s funny how we humans make obscene jokes about sta and humans having sex, because I think sta think it’s far more disgusting than we do. A real insult: your mother tupped out-species, that kind of thing. And Paisley jumped up and hit the esstavi right on the muzzle.” A new gleam of amusement tipped Jenny’s eyes. “Used her training, too: centered and focused. Knocked the honorable right out of his chair—of course he wasn’t expecting it. Anyway, some greasy merchanter called her an ugly whore of a painted bastard, something on that line, and that sent Pinto off.” A pause. “You know they’re sleeping together.”

  Lily met Jenny’s speculative gaze with a shrug. “They’re Ridanis. If you believe everything that’s said about Ridanis, then they must be sleeping together. And with Rainbow too.”

  “Frankly,” Jenny replied, “that’s one rumour about Ridanis I have reason to believe is true.” She halted, grinning at Lily’s expression. “Jealous, Lily-hae?”

  “What? About Pinto?” Lily set down her glass with exasperation. “I will admit he has a handsome face, and a—what’s the phrase—pleasing form, countered, of course, by a hot-tempered, but not unsympathetic, disposition, but frankly I have enough trouble arranging shift schedules so that I know Kyosti and Finch will never be in the same place at the same time. Not to mention assigning Bach to medical duty with Kyosti so that he can monitor Hawk all the time.” She gave a glance at her wrist-com, but its letters and numbers gleamed a reassuring green on the tiny screen.

  “I wonder,” Jenny mused, “if that’s what that strange phrase refers to. ‘Forbidden fruit.’”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Where do you think? Hawk and I were talking one day—well, you know the way we talk. It’s more arguing, really. I don’t even remember what we were talking about.” She looked as if she was about to say something more, changed her mind, and took a swallow of ambergloss instead. The amber liquid swayed smoothly in its glass as she set it down again. “Lily.” Both her tone and expression betrayed her resolve to continue on an unpopular subject no matter Lily’s preference.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You don’t want to deal with it,” retorted Jenny. “I think you keep hoping the problem will go away by itself. The strongest team breaks at the weakest link.”

  “He’s not a weak link! He’s a brilliant physician,” Lily exclaimed, then glanced self-consciously around the bar, aware of the heat in her voice. She met Jenny’s gaze and smiled ruefully. “Maybe I’m the weak link for being afraid to—let him go.”

  “Let him go? To make him go. He won’t leave you. I can understand that you might be afraid to force him to leave. I don’t know how he would react. Like he did toward Finch?”

  “No.” Lily shook her head, sure enough of this point that she could respond calmly. “He won’t hurt me.”

  Jenny considered this. ‘Are you afraid of him?” she asked softly.

  Lily watched the still pool of her drink in the well of her glass. “I don’t know,” she replied, sca
rcely audible. “Jenny, is it”—she hesitated—“is it—queer to be attracted to that kind of wildness, that—unpredictability?”

  “Sweetens it, doesn’t it?” said Jenny as if she knew quite well that it was true. “You remember Mendi Mun, the Immortal who got Lia and I pregnant and escaped Central with us, and then squirreled off leaving us to get off Arcadia ourselves? He had something in him, right at his heart—if he had a heart—that you couldn’t quite get at. It made him more interesting. I sometimes think Lia would have gone with him, not me, if she could have. But she didn’t get the chance.”

  “Oh, Jenny. Surely not.”

  Jenny shrugged. “I’m not saying Lia doesn’t love me in her own way—” She stopped, clearly unwilling to unburden herself further. “It’s not going to come to the test anyway, Lily-hae. It’s just the kind of thought a person has when she’s in bed alone on a cold night.”

  “I’ve had my share of those.” Lily’s comment generated nothing further from Jenny. “So what did the Mule do after Paisley knocked over the sta?” Lily asked, determined now to change the subject.

  Jenny shifted in her chair, looking, for the briefest space, relieved to be returning to this neutral topic. “Kept playing, cool as you please, until Paisley got in over her head, and then he rearranged a few people’s positions to stop her from getting badly hurt. Pinto and Rainbow were halfway across the bar by that time—a person couldn’t really sort out who was with ’em and who against.”

  “What were you doing all this time?”

  “Letting them have their fun. When it started getting too rough I waded in and cleared things out. Even got the owner to thank me for it. I suppose,” she added, “that he didn’t suspect that I was with the ones who started it, being as they were all Ridanis.”

  Lily watched Jenny consider this and smiled as she imagined the sight of a single Immortal-trained fighter taking on an entire room of brawling soldiers and drunks and subduing them. “Interesting,” she said finally, “about the Mule, though. Defending Paisley. He never shows her any preference on ship.”