Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (9 page)

The amber liquid in Valdees' glass shook almost imperceptibly. He said, "I will do that, Lord Protector."

In the background, from a direction Thomas could not pinpoint, someone muttered, "Nester lover."

He looked around. No one hated nesters worse than he did—miserable curs who refused to cooperate and accept responsibility for mutual survival. But as long as they lived, there was a possibility they could change, could come back. They were not like animals who went feral and remained unreclaimable. And, there had been Clancy's warning. "I would like to remind anyone within earshot that the nester clans would be of considerable size if they decided to form a nation."

"What's the matter, Thomas—inventing new enemies now that we've got a truce with the lizards?"

Before Thomas could retort to the man who had spoken out, Art Bartholomew interrupted. "Who says we've got a truce," he yelled back. "We've been at war with Denethan since he came to power. I say we've all been duped into doing nothing while he regroups. Just because we had a common enemy does not make him our ally."

A hiss came from the shadowy corner of the room, by the kitchen doors. Thomas looked and saw Shankar, the Mojavan ambassador, draw his sinewy body to his full height.

"I take offense at your remarks, Mr. Bartholomew."

Art looked at the ambassador. His lip curled. "Take whatever you what, Mr, Ambassador. Just tell your raiders to stop stealing chickens from my farmers."

"You have no proof!" The scaled man drew close, the teeth he bared a little too sharp for comfort.

"No proof?" Bartholomew bulled his way out of his rank of listeners. "I've got shed skins—you name it, I can prove a lizard was there!"

Shankar fairly shook with rage. He turned to Thomas. "Lord Protector!"

Thomas put up one hand. "This is not a dictatorship like the Mojave, Mr. Ambassador. Mr. Bartholomew is allowed to think as he wishes. He's only in trouble if he decides to act upon it." He smiled at Bartholomew. "He has to weigh his actions against reactions to decide if it's worth it or not."

Art Bartholomew's warty face turned livid. "Don't threaten me," he said softly, "Lord Protector or not."

"It's not me you have to worry about. It's those untrustworthy Mojavans," Thomas returned. He drew

Shankar aside. "As for your assumption of their guilt, I wouldn't dare suggest you look in other directions. Never mind that the nester recipe for chicken reads: first, steal a chicken." Looking beyond Bartholomew, he could see and hear the laughter, and the audience they had gathered began to turn away as the tension was defused.

He brought Shankar with him as he stepped close to Bartholomew. He pitched his voice for their ears alone. "Art, you've been breathing down Shankar's neck ever since he arrived here. This may not be an alliance you approve of, but the Board of Mayors and Governors voted for it by a majority. I know you want to be DWP, but I suggest to you strongly that you not run on a platform of action or prejudice against those we must survive alongside."

"Well spoken, Sir Thomas," Shankar began, but Thomas shook him to silence.

"As for you, you fork-tongued old rogue, you quit needling those short of temper whose support we both depend on. Bartholomew has opened wells in his southern and easternmost reaches for you, and you need them. So may I suggest,
gentlemen,
a little compromise in temperament?"

Bartholomew's mouth twitched. He leaned close as well and his brows narrowed to a vee. "No more chickens," he said.

Shankar spread webbed hands. "I am sure I know not of what you speak."

"Right. There are probably feathers all over your quarters. All right, all right." Art put his hands up. "Pax." He rocked back on his heels. "I'd like to speak with you privately, Sir Thomas, later."

Thomas felt his eyebrow go up. "All right. If not today, then tomorrow. I've told Lady Nolan I'll help with the last of the candidate testing."

The man with skin like a pebbled streambed nodded and stalked away. On Thomas' right, the Mojavan ambassador said, "With skin like that, he's probably one of my cousins and doesn't even know it!"

That possibility would explain a lot of Bartholomew's bad attitude, Thomas thought, but he said only, "Oh, I think he knows it all right. A little rape between enemies doesn't help truces."

"All the same," and Shankar put his webbed hand on Thomas' shoulder, "I cannot prove it now and all you have is my word, but the day of the massacre, I was one of my chieftain's trackers. Those who killed here and left met with a small party upon the trail leading from the peninsula. Then those trails went in far different directions. I am told that Bartholomew was conveniently not here for the massacre. Too bad, eh? And I wonder if it was he who doubled back to meet with the killers." Shankar took his hand from Blade's shoulder and moved across the room to where French doors stood open and a wet bar was doing brisk business on the patio and veranda beyond.

Thomas stood in cold silence, unaware of Lady still with him until she said, "There's no proof and I'm not at all certain I trust Shankar."

"Perhaps not," he got out, finally. "He's shrewd enough to play on my suspicions. I would trust him more if he'd been Denethan's original choice for the post—but when Micah fell ill, Shankar was sent instead. The Mo-javan treaty is no more popular with some of them than it is with some of us. If I knew Shankar's game, I would know whether I could trust him."

Lady drew him away. "I'd say we've made our appearance. And while I'm talking to you about fulfilling social obligations, I'd like to ask you if you've ever heard of 'small talk.' Or if you ever indulge in it?"

He gave a soft laugh. "Sorry."

"Sorry nothing. I thought you were going to immerse us in World War V—or however many we're up to now." She smiled at someone who waved at them. "I presume this all has to do with what you found when you took the body back."

"Not all of it," he began, but she interrupted to tell another woman, "Molly, we're late now for our candidates, but I'll see you later," as the woman accosted them. The woman gave way gracefully as Lady steered him out the French doors. He snagged up what looked to be a tumbler of lemonade as they passed the refreshment table. Shankar had found an empty patio chair in the sun and lay curled up on it despite his diplomatic suit and ruffled shirt, his eyes closed in oblivion.

"Don't you believe it," Lady muttered. She found a tumbler of iced tea before guiding Thomas to the barracks where the wards lived.

It was called a barracks, but it was actually another full-sized two-story house which had been gutted to make it all bedrooms. The number of children living there varied, as did the fortunes of all the counties. When Thomas had been young, the blistering plague had filled the house, parents dropping like flies. Today the barracks held seventeen youngsters, as he recalled, or it had before he'd embarked last spring on his judicial circuit for Orange County. Two lower bedrooms were for the fostered youths, and they would be empty now.

As they walked the well-worn pathway to the barracks, he told her about his decision to take Kurt's body back and what he'd met on the trail. She listened silently, then made him repeat what his ghostly visitor had said.

Her eyes mirrored concern as she looked up at him. "He's right. You've got a Talent, an effect, that you can't control and yet one that can be very beneficial."

"It's deadly, Lady. It leeches on me, you, anyone who uses it."

"But to circumvent time ... to be able to travel in two or three days what would take two or three weeks. Think of the communication possibilities. No more rumors—we'd have facts. Think of the healing possibilities, to be able to have someone right there when an outbreak of diphtheria or cholera occurs. Of all the things I've seen of the old world, that's what I miss most. The ability to take action."

"It's not teleportation."

"I know that. But it's something you can do and it's something you owe it to the rest of us to learn about."

He stopped in his tracks. "I don't know what the ghost road is, but I do know it can kill you almost as quickly as bad water. I don't owe that to you or anybody else."

"But, Thomas, it's got other possibilities, I know it-"

"Then you map out this psychic wonder."

Her eyes flashed and pink colored her rounded cheekbones. "You're the only one who can call it up."

"You did—once."

"That was different. I couldn't do it again, and it only worked because you'd already begun the process. I just . . . substituted for you."

He remembered a mountain fortress, its only entrance a stainless steel doorway into an elevator shaft, the bodies of Mojavans and humans alike beginning to bury the doorway as they fought to break the Vaults open to save their own, even as the mountain rumbled its explosive ending and smoke and dirt rose to obliterate his vision. Thomas took a deep breath.

His heart had been thumping in his chest. He projected calmness for both of them. His beat began to slow. He reached out and smoothed a stray bit of hair from her forehead. "I never want to lose you to the road again. I didn't think you were coming back, let alone with Alma."

"That's where you were wrong," Lady said. "And once the precedent has been set. ..." her voice trailed off.

Pounding footsteps on the path interrupted what he would have said next, and it was just as well, he thought ruefully as he drew away. A slim and pretty young woman ran toward them, her brunette hair on the fly. She wore a rose and brown print dress that accented her youth and freshness. He stopped what he was saying to appreciate what he saw.

Lady put an elbow in his rib cage. "That's Alma,

Thomas."

"My God," he murmured. "I've only been gone five months."

"She's at that age," the woman said, "when we all change tremendously."

"Sir Thomas! Lady!" the girl cried breathlessly. "You're late."

Lady caught Alma up as she careened heedlessly into them. A ribbon was supposed to be holding the fall of her hair back—it had come loose and only an accidental tangle kept her from losing it altogether. Lady gave Thomas an amused look over Alma's head. "How can we be late," she said, "when you can't start without us?"

The girl gave a little giggle in response and answered by tugging on both their hands. "You know what I mean. Come on, come on!"

They let her pull them down the pathway.

"Greta is soooo nervous and Stanhope is very cool, just like ice, and the others—I don't know why they don't all have hiccups—" Halfway to the barracks, Thomas interrupted her chatter.

"Where's Stefan?"

She came to a halt. The prettiness and color fled her face abruptly. The gleam in her almond brown eyes went out. "He's out somewhere." She turned then, but he'd already seen what he'd already seen.

He traded glances with Lady. She shook her head slightly, so he said nothing further. It was just as well, because the barracks doors split open then and a wave of children rushed out.

The gaiety he'd come to expect did not greet him. Instead, their voices were shrill and worried. Lady pushed forward and grasped two boys by their shoulders. Thomas knew Stanhope, his dusky skin and dark eyes marking him.

"What is it?" asked Lady sharply, trying to make sense out of the chaos.

"It's Roanne," Stanhope got out. "She's started the trial without you."

"That's impossible," the healer snapped. "Where's Franklin?"

"Gone to the well for water. She went into a convulsion—"

Lady pushed Stanhope into Thomas' arms. "Only one Protector to watch them, and he's gone?"

Thomas caught up with her as she passed into the house. "Lady, come on, the well's maybe fifty yards away, if that. They're hardly abandoned—" but the woman ignored him as she vaulted the stairway. He pressed Stanhope into a standstill position.

"Stay here with the others. When Franklin gets back, send him up. All right?" He sent out confidence. Stanhope would know a projection when he received it, but that would not dull its effect, not at this age.

Stanhope was sixteen, nearly a man. He nodded solemnly, "All right."

Thomas mounted the stairs at a dead run. He and Lady reached the bedroom at nearly the same time.

Lady knelt beside the twisting body on the modest navy blanketed cot. The girl was not pretty—older than Alma by a year or two, her face blotchy with acne, perspiration pouring out of her like water out of a rain cloud. Her good dress was stained and soaked already. Someone had removed her ankle boots, tucked her stockings inside of them, and left them waiting beside the cot. A washbasin sat next to them.

"Breakout fever?" The stress of crossing the thresholds of both puberty and psychic powers sometimes put a terrible strain on the body's immune system. Promising Talents had died in breakout fever.

"Hardly," Lady said, wringing out a rag and placing it on the girl's pasty forehead. She knelt beside the cot "Roanne's talent is barely existent. We're testing her today only out of kindness and necessity." Lady took the rag off and rinsed it again. "No wonder Franklin went for water."

Alma gained the doorway behind them. "Lady?"

"Yes?"