Killashandra Part 29

"It should," Lars replied, grinning at her for her change of subject and the facile solution.

"We shall see." Trag added, rising to refill his gla.s.s.

"I need a bath," Killashandra said, rising. "After a morning spent with Ampris, I feel unclean!"

"Now that you mention it," Lars murmured and followed her.

A stolid security man drove the small ground vehicle that evening.

Its plasglas canopy gave her an un.o.bstructed view of the City in its tortured sprawl as she was driven sedately down from the Conservatory prominence. The spring evening was mild and the sky cloudless. Quite likely, Killashandra thought, she was seeing the City at its best, for spring growth hazed most of the vegetation with a delicate green, gold, or fawn brown, providing some charm to the otherwise sterile buildings. The residential dwellings often sported vines, now sprouting a bright orange leaf or blossom.

Most of the traffic was pedestrian, though a few larger goods-carrying vehicles intersected their route through the winding streets of the City. There seemed to be no visible roadway controls but her driver slowed to a complete halt at several cross streets. At one, she received incurious glances from the several pedestrians halted on the footpaths.

Doubtless all good Optherians were at home with their families at that hour, and the few people that Killashandra did pa.s.s looked glum, anxious, or determined. It occurred to Killashandra that she missed the light-hearted islanders with their ready smiles and generally pleasant behavior. She'd seen very few genuine or lasting smiles in the Conservatory: a perfunctory movement of the lips, a show of teeth but no genuine delight, pleasure, or enthusiasm. Well, what else could she expect in such a climate?

She spotted the Piper Facility before the driver turned up the broader thoroughfare to it. It hung, block-square and utilitarian, like hostels anywhere, even Fuerte. She had once thought the native orangy-red sandstone of Fuerte garish and common but she could feel almost nostalgic for its hominess. Certainly the relaxed and random designs of Fuertan architecture were a patch above Optheria's contorted constructions.

The timepiece above the entrance of the Piper Facility flashed a big 1930 as the driver reduced the forward speed of the vehicle. Precisely then, the main door slid aside and Corish, looking tanned and expectant, emerged. Immediately he saw Killashandra, he smiled a warm and enthusiastic welcome.

"Right on the dot, Killashandra, you've improved!" he said, giving her an unnecessary a.s.sist out of the vehicle.

"Thank you, driver," Killashandra said. "I really need to stretch my legs, Corish. Let's walk to the restaurant if it isn't far. I felt awfully conspicuous where so few people use ground transport."

"Have you paid him?" Corish asked, reaching into his belt pouch.

"I told you I could," she began in a sulky voice and made shooing gestures at the driver. The man reengaged the drive and the vehicle slid slowly away. "I'm being monitored, Corish, and we need to talk," she said, c.o.c.king her head up at him with an apologetic expression on her face.

"I thought so. I'm told to try the Berry Bush so I expect it's got monitors in the utensils. This way." Corish cupped his hand under her elbow, guiding her in the right direction. "It's not far. I'm only just back from Ironwood."

"Lars is in a swivet about Nahia and Hauness."

"They're all right . . ." and Corish's tone of voice added so far, "but the search and seize continues! Hauness is convinced that the Elders mean to rouse a punitive expedition against the islands. In spite of your safe return."

"Torkes doesn't believe in coincidence. More important . . ." and Killashandra broke off, stunned by the look of pure hatred on the face of a woman pa.s.sing by. Killashandra glanced around but the woman had not paused or accelerated her pace.

"More important?" Corish prompted, his hand impelling her to keep pace with him.

With an effort, Killashandra redirected her attention, but an afterimage of the intensity of that expression burned in her mind.

"The Elders use subliminal conditioning."

"My dear Killashandra Ree, that is a dangerous allegation." Corish tightened his fingers on her arm, shocked by her statement. He looked about, to see if any of the few pa.s.sers-by could have overheard.

"Allegation, fardles! Corish. They blasted last night's audience with it," she said, only barely able to keep her intense indignation at the conversation level. "Security, pride, and s.e.x was the dose. Didn't Olav mention subliminals to you? He knows about them."

Corish wet his mouth in a grim line. "He mentioned them but he could provide me with no proof."

"Well, I can swear to it, and so can Trag. He disconnected the processor on the Festival Organ yesterday -- while we had the chance -- and the Conservatory instrument today." She cast him a snide sideways glance.

"Or should we have waited until tomorrow night so you'd have firsthand experience?"

"Of course I trust Trag's evidence . . . and yours." He added the last in an afterthought. "How were you able to find the equipment? Wasn't it well hidden?"

"It was. Shall we say a joint effort -- the murdered Comgail, Lars, and Trag. It wasn't crystal that killed Comgail, and I never could see how it had, but a desparate man. Probably Ampris. There'll be enough witnesses to testify before the Federation Council. Nahia and Hauness too, if we can get them out."

"You'll never get Nahia to leave Optheria," Corish said, shaking his head sadly. He gestured for them to make a right turn at the next junction. The smell of roasting meats and frying foods greeted their nostrils, not all of it appetizing. But this was clearly a catering area.

Open-front stalls served beverages and a pastry-covered roll -- with a hot filling to judge by the expression of a man cautiously munching one.

"If we could get anyone out," Corish said gloomily. "They're all in jeopardy now."

"Which is why we want you to contact Olav and get him and . . ."

A change in air pressure against her back gave Killashandra only a second's warning but she had turned just enough to deflect the long knife descending to her back. Then a second knife caught her shoulder and she tried to roll away from her a.s.sailants, hearing Corish's hoa.r.s.e cry.

"Lars!" she shouted as she fell, trying to roll away from her attackers. "Lars!" She had become too used to his presence. And where was he when she really needed him? The thought flitted even as she tried to protect herself from the boots kicking her. She tried to curl up, but hard rough hands grabbed at arms and legs. Someone was really attempting to kidnap her, even with Corish beside her. He was no b.l.o.o.d.y use! She heard him yelling above the unintelligible and malevolent growls of the people beating her. There were so many, men and women, and she knew none of them, their faces disguised by their hatred and the insanity of violence. She saw someone haul back a man with a knife raised to plunge into her, saw a face she knew -- that woman from the street. She heard Corish howling with fury and then a boot connected with her temple and she heard nothing else.

Chapter 24.

Of the next few days, Killashandra had only disconnected memories. She heard Corish arguing fiercely, then Lars, and under both voices, the rumble of Trag who was, she thought even in her confusion and welter of physical pain, laying down laws. She was aware of someone's holding her hand so tight it hurt, as if she didn't have enough wounds, but the grasp was obscurely comforting and she resisted its attempt to release hers. Pain came in waves, her chest hurt viciously with every shallow breath. Her back echoed the discomfort, her head seemed to be vibrating like a drum, having swollen under the skull.

Pain was something not even her symbiont could immediately suppress but she kept urging it to help her. She chanted at it, calling it up from the recesses of her body to restore the cells with its healing miracle, especially the pain. Why didn't they think about thc pain? There wasn't a spot on her body that didn't ache, pound, throb, profest the abuse that she had suffered. Who had attacked her and why?

She cried out in her extremity, called out for Lars, for Trag who would know what to do, wouldn't he? He'd helped Lanzecki with crystal thrall. Surely he knew what to do now? And where had Lars been when she really needed him? Fine bodyguard he was! Who had it been? Who was the woman who hated her enough to recruit an army to kill her? Why? What had she done to any Optherians?

Someone touched her temples and she cried out -- the right one was immeasurably sore. The pain flowed away, like water from a broken vessel, flowed out and down and away, and Killashandra sank into the gorgeous oblivion which swiftly followed painlessness.

"If she had been anyone else, Trag, I wouldn't permit her to be moved for several weeks, and then only in a protective coc.o.o.n," said a vaguely familiar voice. "In all my years as a physician, I have never seen such healing."

"Where am I going? I'd prefer the islands," Killashandra said, rousing enough to have a say in her disposition. She opened her eyes, half-expecting to be in the wretched Conservatory Infirmary and very well satisfied to find that she was in the s.p.a.cious bed of her quarters.

"Lars!" Hauness called jubilantly. His had been the familiar voice.

The door burst inward as an anxious Lars Dahl rushed to her bedside, followed by his father.

"Killa, if . . . you knew . . ." Tears welling from his eyes, Lars could find no more words and buried his face against the hand she raised to greet him. She stroked his crisp hair with her other hand, soothing, his release from uncertainty.

"Lousy bodyguard, you are . . ." She was unable to say what crowded her throat, hoping that her loving hand conveyed something of her deep feeling for him. "Corish was no use, after all." Then she frowned. "Was he hurt?"

"Security says," Hauness replied with a chuckle, "he lifted half a dozen of your a.s.sailants and broke three arms, a leg, and two skulls."

"Who was it? A woman . . ."

Trag moved into her vision, registering with a stolid blink that her hands were busy comforting Lars Dahl. "The search and seize stirred up a great deal of hatred and resentment, Killashandra Ree, and as you were the object of that search, your likeness was well circulated. "Your appearance on the streets made you an obvious target for revenge."

"We never thought of that, did we?" she said ruefully.

The movement to her right caused her to flinch away and then offer profuse apologies, for Nahia was moving to comfort the distraught Lars.

"So you took the pain away, Nahia? My profound thanks,"

Killashandra said. "Even crystal singer's nerve ends don't heal as quickly as flesh."

"So Trag told us. And that crystal singers cannot a.s.similate many of the pain-relieving drugs. Are you in any pain now?" Nahia's hands gently rested on Lar's head in a brief benison, but her beautiful eyes searched Killashandra's face.

"Not in the flesh," Killashandra said, dropping her gaze to Lars's shuddering body.

"It is relief," Nahia said, "and best expressed."

Then Killashandra began to chuckle, "Well, we achieved what I set out to do in meeting Corish. Got you all here!"

"Far more than that," Trag said as the others smiled. "A third attack on you gave me the excuse to call a scout ship to get us off this planet. The Guild contract has been fulfilled and, as I informed the Elder's Council, we have no wish to cause domestic unrest if the public objects so strongly to the presence of crystal singers."

"How very tactful of you." Belatedly remembering caution, Killashandra looked up at the nearest monitor, relieved to find it was a black hole. "Did the jammer survive?"

"No," Trag said, "but white crystal, in dissonance, distorts sufficiently. They've stopped wasting expensive units."

"And . . ." Killashandra prompted, encouraging Trag since he was being uncharacteristically informative.

He nodded, Olav's grin broadened, and even Hauness looked pleased.

"Those shards provide enough white crystal to get the most vulnerable people past the security curtain. Nahia and Hauness will organize a controlled exodus until the Federated Council can move. Lars and Olav come with us on the scout ship. Bra.s.sner, Theach, and Erutown are to be picked up by Tanny in the Pearl Fisher and leave with Corish on the liner -- "

"Corish?" Killashandra looked about expectantly.

"He's searching most thoroughly for his uncle," Hauness said, "and attending the public concerts which have been hastily inaugurated, to soothe a disturbed public."

"What's the diet?"

"Security, pride, rea.s.surance, no s.e.x," Hauness replied.

"Then you didn't get to the other organs, Trag?"

"Corish suggested that some should be left in, shall we say, normal operating condition as evidence, to be seen by the Federal Investigators."

"What Trag doesn't say, Killashandra," replied Nahia, a luminous smile gently rebuking the other crystal singer, "is that he refused to leave you."

"As the only way to prevent the Infirmary from interfering with the symbiont," Trag said, bluntly, disclaiming any hint of sentiment. "Lars thought to send for Nahia to relieve pain."

"For which I am truly grateful. I've only a tolerable ache left.

How long have I been out?"

"Five days," Hauness replied, scrutinizing her professionally. He placed the end of a hand-diagnostic unit lightly against her neck, nodding in a brief approval of its readings. "Much better. Incredible in fact.

Anyone else would have died of any one of several of the wounds you received. Or that cracked skull."

"Am I dead or alive?"

"To Optheria?" Trag asked. "No official acknowledgment of the attack has been broadcast. The whole episode has been extremely embarra.s.sing for the government."

"I should b.l.o.o.d.y hope so! Wait till I see Ampris!"

"Not in that frame of mind, you won't," Trag a.s.sured her, repressively stern.

"No more of us for the time being," Hauness said, nodding significantly to the others. "Unless Nahia . . . ."

Killashandra closed her eyes for a moment, since moving her head seemed inadvisable. But she opened them to warn Hauness from disturbing Lars, who was still kneeling by the bed. He no longer wept but pressed her hand against his cheek as if he would never release it. The door closed quietly behind the others.

"So you and Olav can just walk into the scout ship?" she asked softly, trying to lighten his penitence.

"Not quite," he said with a weak chuckle, but, still holding her hand, he straightened up, leaning forward, toward her, on his elbows. His face looked bleached of tan, lines of anxiety and fear aging him. "Trag and my father have combined their wits -- and I'm to he arrested by the warrant Trag has. Don't worry," and he patted her hands as she reacted apprehensively, remembering Trag's remarks about using the warrant.

"Carefully worded, the warrant will charge me with a lot of heinous crimes that weren't actually committed by me, but which will keep Ampris and Torkes happy in antic.i.p.ation of the dire punishment which the Federated Courts dispense for crimes of such magnitude."

Killashandra grabbed tightly at his hands, ignoring the spasm of pain across her chest in her fear for him. "I don't like the idea, Lars, not one little bit."

"Neither my father nor Trag are likely to put me in jeopardy, Killa. We've managed a lot while you were sleeping it off. When we're sure that the scout ship is about to arrive, Trag will confer with Ampris and Torkes, confronting them with his suspicions about me -- in your delirium you inadvertently blew the gaff. Trag is not about to let such a desperate person as me escape unpunished. He has held his counsel to prevent my escaping justice."

"There's something about this plan that alarms me."

"I'd be more alarmed if I had to stay behind," Lars said with a droll grin. "Trag won't give the Elders time to interfere, and they'll be unable to protest a Federal Warrant when a Federation scout ship is collecting me and you and Trag. The beauty part is that thc scout's the wrong shape to use the shuttle port facility. Its security arrangements require open-s.p.a.ce landing anyhow. That way my father has a chance of boarding her."

"I see." The scheme did sound well-planned, and yet some maggot of doubt niggled at Killashandra -- but her unease could well arise from her poor state of health. "How did Olav get invited here?"

"He'd been called in by the Elders on an administrative detail. Why so few islanders attend concerts" Lars had regained considerable equilibrium and he rose from his knees, still holding her hand, to sit beside her on the bed.

"Who did attack me, Lars?"

"Some desperate people whose families and friends had been scooped up by that search and seize. If only I'd been free to get into the marketplace, Olver would have warned me of the climate of the City. We'd have known not to let you walk about."

"As Corish and I left the Facility, a woman who gave me such a look of hatred -- "