The City Who Fought Part 15

He paused and examined the defiant, angry faces. "The station is expecting to be under attack shortly."

Another roar, this time of fear.

"SHUT UP." A second's pause. "Thank you very much. We're all in this together. Except that you gentlebeings are going to get away safely, which is more than the rest of us can look forward to. Please keep that in mind.

"Now," he went on, "we're going to evacuate everyone we can; children under twelve and pregnant women first, of course. They number eight hundred, give or take a few." Not all that many, but pa.s.senger facilities on freighters were generally nonexistent or cramped cubicles. Adding any more bodies would make a voyage of weeks uncomfortable, but would at least keep life in those bodies. "I want to reduce all the edible supplies on the station, so commissary is advised to stock you up to your comtowers." There was a murmur of appreciation. "However, at this moment in time, I cannot guarantee full compensation for cargo or non-delivery fines. I'd like to and you'll probably get it, but I can't guarantee it."

*Just a d.a.m.n minute!" a stocky captain with a bulldog face roared. "Who's attacking the station? We're three month's transit time fr&n any trouble, and that's minor."

"Pirates," Simeon said succinctly and that one word was sufficient to cause st.u.r.dy captains, and even one nonhuman, to pale. He waited as accusations and counter-accusations bounced about the hall, noticing hands going to belts that were, by station regulation, empty of accustomed defensive implements. This time it was Channa who brought them back to order.

Adjusting the volume on her microphone to the highest notch, she bellowed, "SIT DOWN!"

"As you were," Simeon said sweedy. "Could we consider any further riots as done and noted, and not waste valuable escape time? As I started to explain, a complement of four, heavily armed, pirate ships were in pursuit of the colony ship that... ah... docked here yesterday. Having ascertained details from the survivors of that vessel, we are reliably informed that these pirates were in hot pursuit We are given the distinct impression that these pirates will either destroy the station immediately, or strip it of everything valuable and then destroy it We have to evacuate as many as possible, which isn't that many, even if you are generous in your a.s.sistance. But you're all we have to save as many as we can. Sorry."

"You're sorry?" the bulldog was on his feet again. "You're sorry! I'm supposed to leave my cargo behind for pirates and you're sorry? Well, Fm sorry, too, cause 'sorry* don't pay no bills!"

"Captain ... Bolist," Channa said smoothly, checking the list on her notescreen, "you're telling me that a cargo of,.. chemical salts is more important to you than saving the lives of forty children, which is the umber that can be accommodated on the size of vessel you command?"

The man lowered his head, like a bull considering a charge. "Ms. Hap, me and mine worked for forty years to get the Gunf /fo.T*(e're still paying off our loans. Losing a major cargo-well pay forfeits if we don't get the load to Kobawasltfet Filles-could break us. Then we'll be on the beach. h.e.l.l, I like kids s'much as the next guy, but a man's gotta live."

"Well, then, Captain, you'll be pleased to know that children are much lighter than chemical salts. Exchanging one for the other should get you well out of the danger zone in excellent time." Channa gave him a pleasant smile, and held his gaze until the man's eyes dropped. "Yes, you have a question?" And she pointed to the shaven, tattooed captain who had leaped to her feet, waving both hands to be heard.

When the question of how to deal with pregnant women giving birth on her ship was satisfactorily setded by a.s.suring her of a trained medic in her consignment, she subsided.

In the end, all capitulated, but nine begged a few hours' leeway to ditch and buoy-mark such cargoes that a period in s.p.a.ce wouldn't damage beyond use.

"Phew," Simeon said as the captains walked out. "That was unpleasant."

"Not by comparison," Channa said grimly.

"Comparison to what?"

"Announcing it to the station," she said.

"Oh."

"You are s.h.i.tting me, Joat," Seld Chaundra said scornfully. "Pirates! What do you think I am? A playschool kid?"

Ks, Joat thought. "I am not lying, s.h.i.t-for-brains," she said.

They were in Seld's quarters, which were comprised of a bedroom and study, off his father's suite near the main sickbay in North Sphere. The study was crammed with ship models and holoposters, most of them from travel catalogues but a few from adventure serials. Joat particularly liked the ofee of the bug-eyed man screaming in the jaws of one fanged head of a three-headed monster which waved him above the rubble of a burning building. Curiously enough, the man resembled the captain who had won her from her uncle.

"Gimme another bar," she added. Seld flipped it over from the sofa w^here he sprawled. Joat caught it out of midair and discarded the wrapper on the floor. Seld winced but said nothing.

"How can you eat so many of those things?" he asked as she gobbled it "Gotta eat 'em while the getting's good," she replied, chewing with her mouth open. He winced again. He's a wuss, she thought. "Anyway, they're supposed to be here soon." "Suuuuure."

Suddenly Seld was tumbled backward against the back of the sofa. He gave a strangled squawk as Joat's thin strong hands, crossed at the wrist, gripped his jacket below the throat. Her bony knuckles dug painfully into his windpipe. He couldn't breathe at all, as she was also kneeling on his stomach. "Look, you wuss -" "I am not a wuss!" he wheezed. "- and I am not s.h.i.tting you! Here." She let him up, marched over to his work table and slapped a chip on the receiver plate of his screen. It lit, showing the control lounge and Simeon's pillar, the shouting captains surging around it Seld listened open-mouthed. "Pirates," he concurred weakly. "Hey! That's private, you stole that chip!"

"Did not, just jacked the feed and copied it"

"Unauthorized copying is stealing, Joat. And eavesdropping on official meetings is..." Seld trailed off, unable to identify the offense though he knew it must be one. fordting wuss, shethbilght He sounds just like fas father *when he says things lifo 'that. Yet his father was a lot nicer than hers had been.,Her memories of paternal care were the kind you woke up at night sweating from. Hopefully he was dead from Jeleb nightmare-smoke by now. Her uncle had been worse, after he took her over, but at least she knew her uncle was dead. She pushed such thoughts aside as time wasters.

"Okay, I'm a Sondee mud-puppy eavesdropper and data-bandit-so listen to what they're saying, will you?"

Seld blinked and did so. "Holy s.h.i.t," he whispered. "We are going to be attacked by pirates." His eyes lit. "Hey, Joat, this is like a holo."

Joat kicked him.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded, outraged.

"Because I like you, fool," she said.

"You do?" he said, straightening up and then wincing. "h.e.l.l of a way to show it, ferdler."

"Fardler yourself. This ain't no holo, Seld. Those pirates, those Kolnari, are for real. Half the outies on that ship that nearly dipped the station were dead, osco. That's d-e-a-d, dead, finished, off to the big tax-haven in the afterglow, dead. This is major criminal we're talking, Seld. Like, we could get seriously fardled up - you, me, Simeon, Channa, your dad."

"Yeah," Seld said, in a small voice, looking totally scared. "But what can we do?" That word came wobbling out as Seld tried not to show Joat how tightened he really was.

"Come close and listen to momma," she said. "Simeon has some ideas. I got more."

Rachel bint Damscus sat and shivered on the edge of the bed. There was nothing under it. Not even legs to hold it up, just some sort of field mechanism, yet it did not move. She shivered again, looking down at the pill in her hand. The strange dark man1 they called Doctor Chaundra had given it to her, saving that it would make her feel better. She didn't want to feel better. She wanted to feel pain, because pain told her she was still alive.

Her eyes flicked around the little cubicle. There was a sink in the corner. She darted to it and threw the pill down the drain, scrabbling at the unfamiliar controls until a gush of water followed it. Then she scrambled back to the bed, humiliatingly conscious of how the thin hospital gown revealed her body. Conscious also of the emotions roiling beneath the surface of her mind, like great boulders grinding and moving in the dark.... / wish I was home, she thought desolately. But home was gone, further than all the light-years between this accursed place and the sun Saffron. Home had been in Keriss... Keriss was poisoned dust floating in Bethel's skies. Mother, she thought, father. Little sister Delilah.

Most of the other Bethelites who escaped had been from the Sierra Nueva lands. Amos' family had been direct descendants of the Prophet, members of the Synod of Patriarchs for twenty generations. They had owned the city of Elkbre outright and tens of thousands of square kilometers around it. And they had always been an enlightened family, as much as any, more than most. Hence, the Second Revelation had spread widely there. Rachel had come to it late. After I heard Amos speak, she thought, burying her face in her hands. He was like the Prophet come again. A new voice, sweeping away the intolerable stuffy load of convention. And he is so beautiftd....

The part.i.tion door opened. Joseph came through first, one hand under the flap of his jacket as was his custom Amos followed, and Rachel flung herself forward into his arms, gripping him fiercely. It was a moment before she felt the awkwardness with which he patted her back. Site withdrew, clutching at the gown. That only emphasized its skimpiness, and she flushed deeply, looking down at the floor.

"Pardon, excellent sir," she said.

He made a dismissive gesture. "No need to be formal, Rachel," hesaid. "You are well?"

"Relieved," she said. "They would only say that you would return, but not where you had been taken or why. Where have you been?" She raised her eyes anxiously to his fece.

He hesitated for a moment 'Joseph and I have been meeting with the station managers. We have arranged a funeral service for those who died on our journey here.** She turned aside to spare his embarra.s.sment. "They are not to be trusted."

"What do you mean, Rachel?" His tone was apprehensive but also stern.

"Nothing, yet," she said sullenly, hanging her head. Then she grasped his wrist painfully tight, meeting his eyes earnestly. "But who knows? They are mezamerin." Strangers. In the ancient liturgical language, infidel.

"Rachel, do not start parroting the Elders at this late date," Joseph said in exasperation. More gently, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Did you take the medication?"

"Yes," she said brusquely, shrugging off bis hand. Then she turned to Amos with a sigh. "I am sorry, Excell...Amos."

The memory swept over her again: the crowded chamber and the sickly-sweet taste at the back of her mouth as the coldsleep injection took effect "I... thought I had died, when I woke here," she said. "My father... did I tell you?"

Anru McCa/jrey fc? 5M. Stiriing "No," Amos said, taking her hand. His large darkblue eyes held a sudden compa.s.sion. "He cursed you?"

"Yes. When I left home to follow you, he put the Patriarch's curse upon me: h.e.l.l, and miserable rebirth, and d.a.m.nation again, forever."

Amos blanched slighdy for, though his father had been disappointed in his son, even appalled by his son's apostasy, he had not uttered th^-curse. Perhaps that would have come about had his father not died during Amos' early teens. If I had been cursed? Perhaps that was why I, fatherless, could become the leader of the Second Revelation, he thought. What courage my followers had, to dare the curse for me!

"I thought I was d.a.m.ned indeed," she whispered. "Since I awoke ... I... I really do not feel myself, Amos."

"It is to be expected," he said, patting her cheek. "You will feel better soon."

"And did you tell them of what follows us?" she asked, blurting out the words since his touch had given her the courage to speak them. "Have they defenses?"

Joseph had been brooding, facing slightly away. Now he laughed bitterly. "Defenses? These people are as open as a ca.n.a.l-side harlot"

Rachel drew a shocked breath.

"You forget yourself, Joseph," Amos said as Rachel drew closer to his side, an instinctive move toward his protection. "There is a lady present."

The shorter man bowed. "Apologies, Excellent Sir," he replied stiffly. A deeper bow." My lady."

"I cast your own words back, my brother - do not imitate the Elders," Amos said. Unnoticed, Rachel stiffened.

"Is it true?" she said. "They have no defenses?"

Amos nodded, his mouth drawn into a line. "Yes. These are peaceful people, as we were. Fortunately, they are in communication with the Navy of the Central Worlds. Unfortunately, the Kolnari will be here before that help arrives."

Rachel gasped. "How can we flee Scorn here?"

"We cannot," Amos replied, shrugging away the chance of flight. "There are ships, but they are small and have no facilities f&r pa.s.sengers. Children, those with child, and the infirm are to be evacuated. The rest of us must remain here and seek to delay the enemy."

They will know us!" she said in a trembling voice.

Joseph shook his head. "I think not, Lady bint Damscus," he said formally. "Not in this place, and among such as inhabit it. Already we have seen more races of men than I knew existed outside legend. Some very different customs," he pulled his mouth down in disapproval, "and non-men as well."

Rachel's eyes went wide. The most cogent incentive for the Exodus to Bethel had been the Prophet's determination not to pollute the pure blood by congress with non-humans. Nonhuman intelligence was the creation of Shaithen, whether flesh or machine.

Joseph made a soothing gesture. "They are not rulers here. Still, among so many and so various, our handful will disappear and not be remarked by the Kolnari for what we are. The fiends must believe that they strike without warning, that no help will be called to this station. So they will wait, thinking to feast at their ease. Then the warships will come, to rescue us - and return us to our poor Bethel."

"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "I had not thought of ... returning."

"In a sense," Amos began, and her eyes snapped back to him with a fixed attention, "we have won the war. Now we must try to survive it Please, Rachel my sister, would you go among the other women and children? They are awakening, and will be lost and frightened. Prepare those who are eligible to leave here."

MI obey, Amos." She looked around, realizing that she could not go even among women and children of her own people in what she wore.

Joseph opened one of the closets and handed her a large, shapeless robe. Rachel nodded a distant thanks before she donned it and left, thej ull folds sweeping behind her.

"We have something we shares-she and I," Joseph said bitterly, throwing himself down in his float chair. Even his solid bulk did not make it bob on its supporting field. Amos noted the feet and filed it must make a quick review he thought. Find what technologies have arisen during our isolation on Bethel. Whatever supports the chaircould be altered to support otherheavyweights.

"What do you share?" he asked the other man.

"We both aspire above our stations, she and I," Joseph replied.

Amos blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said after a moment. "Sits the wind so? I had thought her merely devoted to the cause."

"So she is, but that is not the whole story."

"Even if we followed the old customs, I would not take her even as a second wife," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Since I have not even a first, speculation is useless." Then he raised one eyebrow. "You have not pressed your suit?"

"Was there time?" Joseph asked rhetorically. Then he sighed. "Amos, could you see me going to her father for permission? b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of a wh.o.r.e and a docksidepimp he would have called me, whether he had disowned her or no - and it would be no more than the truth."

Amos laughed grimly and thumped his follower on the shoulder. "Joseph, my brother, you are a bold man who has saved my life more than once. But there are times when you allow your birth to blind you as much as any hidebound Elder."

At Joseph's puzzled look, he continued. "Joseph, where did Rachel's father live?"

"Keriss-ah! I see."

"Where did the Elders live, for the most part?"

"Keriss - and those that did not, they were in the city for the council meeting," Joseph said. "You have had rime to think,_eh?"

"It is necessary tfiat*someone do so," Amos said. "We of the Second Revelation were planning to leave, to escape the bonds-of customs gone sterile in their changelessness, Joseph. When - if- we return to Bethel with the s.p.a.ce Navy at our backs, very litde will remain unchanged after what the Kolnari have done. G.o.d has given us a sharp lesson. If we ignore the universe, the universe will not necessarily ignore us. And on Bethel... the last shall be first, and the first, last; that at the very least.

"Furthermore," he went on, with a man-to-man grin, "I now stand in her father's place, in law. I hereby formally give you leave to press your suit, and for the marriage portion, I will dower her with the Gazelle Rancho at Twin Springs."

Joseph's laughter matched his leader's. "I may press, but I doubt she notices my existence," he said. "Consent may be as far away as the Rancho." A pause. "Although that is where I would take her to live, if we were wed and our cause victorious. She is stronger than she suspects, I think - but her liking for the new ways you preach is of the head, not here." He touched his heart. "As lady of an estate, there would she be happy. She would not thrive among strangers."

TJN "Detection. Ship track."

Belazir t'Marid looked up from his crash couch wjiere he had been rerunning a tactical manual on the screen.

"What signature?" he said.

"Ion track, very feint," Baila said. "Could have been weeks ago."

Belazir ran his hand through the long blond mane of his hair and cursed inwardly. The second m two days, he thought They were getting into well-traveled s.p.a.ce, despite the feet that their data showed little or no setdement in this area. The centuries-old Grand Survey reports listed no inhabitable planets, although there was a nebula with potentially valuable minerals. There must be a regular traffic now, perhaps habitats or small s.p.a.ce colonies. Dangerous, very dangerous.

A time would come when the Kolnari would not have to skulk around the fringes of known s.p.a.ce, hiding like scavengers. But that time was not yet "Reduce speed," he said. "Pulse message to the consort ships. Keep formation on new vector." Trjat form of communication was so short-range that it was undetectable. "Anything more on the subs.p.a.ce monitors?"

"Plenty of nearby traffic, but mostly encrypted," the intelligence officer said. Belazir nodded. Perfect codes were an old phenomenon, available to anyone with decent computers.

"And the prey?" he asked.

Baila shrugged. As she was almost as well-born as Belazir, he decided to let the informality pa.s.s unreprimanded. Also, she was daughter to a staff officer of Chalki/s.

"The track is firm'and hot," the woman said. "We gain, at an increasing rate. Signs of deterioration, as one would exjSerffrom old engines heavily stressed - sublimated particles from exterior drive-coils and cooling vanes. She cannot survive much longer."

"Much longer, much longer! You've been saying that for days!" Belazir snarled, starting half-erect. The junior officer's eyes dropped before the captain's lion stare. Belazir sank back, satisfied that deference had been restored.

"Transmit to all vessels," he went on. "Maximum alertness. We strike hard and then we run. Plasma tells no tales."