Jaydium (15 page)

“Jaydium, where.”

She knew that voice, although it seemed curiously distant, like something at the end of a long, twisted tunnel. It was a voice that brought pain, that demanded something she had no power to give.

Kithri winced involuntarily, anticipating the next blow. But it never came, although she heard the
slap!
of flesh against flesh.

“Not going to tell us,” said someone else.

Kithri's vision steadied enough to show her Quick, Teeg and Red-hair clustered around Eril. The front of his shirt glistened red, but she couldn't tell how badly hurt he really was. She knew from her own broken nose how freely even trivial face and scalp wounds could bleed. She'd kept right on punching that damned claim-jumper, bloody nose and all. The smells and sounds of the Port Ludlow bar rose in her memory, the jeers of the miners dying into grudging respect as she alone heaved herself to her feet. “Just your bloody luck,” they'd said, and it stuck for all these years, her brush name, so much her identity that Eril had apparently not known she had any other.

Okay, namesake, where are you now? We're going to need a little bloody luck to get out of this one alive.

Kithri's head hurt past hurting. She felt nauseous and disoriented as she struggled to assess the situation. Brianna huddled whimpering on an aquamarine bench in the shadow of a fourth pirate. Lennart stood nearby, his hands bound behind him. The sixth pirate covered him with one of the orange blasters. Lennart seemed uninjured, although dazed, maybe in shock. His eyes stretched wide and white, like those of a man on the verge of an abyss.

Eril bent over between his captors, his ribs heaving. If he could breathe that well, Kithri told herself, he couldn't be in all that bad shape.

“Not break for self, that fellow,” said Quick, gesturing at Eril. “Maybe for this one.” He turned and stared at Brianna with deliberate intent.

Red-hair strode over to her and caressed the misty gold of her hair with a lover's touch. Suddenly he sank his fingers into her hair and twisted it hard. Brianna gasped. He smiled and forced her face up and back. His look of anticipation shook Kithri far deeper than Eril's beating had.

Brianna's face paled as Red-hair bent closer, his lips puckered in an obscene parody of a kiss. Kithri could hear her labored breathing.

“You — you c-c-can't do this to m-m-me,” Brianna said, but there was only desperation, not strength, behind her words. “I'm a
s-s-scient-t-tist...”

“Hostage worth nothing,” said Teeg, his face bland. “Jaydium.”

“It wasn't m-m-mine, it was theirs!”

Teeg gave her a look of utter disgust. “Fellow!” He lashed out at Eril with one heavy black boot. The toe caught Eril in mid-chest and threw him backwards. A pirate caught his shoulders and dragged him upright.

“You tough fellow,” Teeg said to Eril. He nodded towards Kithri, “That one also. But
this?”

Red-hair ran his fingers along Brianna's cheek and down her neck. He paused one finger at the hollow between her collarbones, forcing her head backwards so that she opened her throat to him as if in surrender. He made a quick movement, a jab so short and swift as to be barely noticeable except for the shriek that rang through the courtyard. Smiling tenderly, his hand still twisted in her hair so that he controlled every movement of her head, he changed to another target, approaching slowly, languorously, then striking like a sand-viper.

Brianna convulsed upwards. Her breath came in ragged cries. She twisted frantically, bucking and heaving when he flung her down across the slab. Her skull made a sodden sound as she slammed against the unyielding stone. She kept struggling, even when Red-hair threw his body across hers.

It couldn't go on for long, Kithri realized. Even adrenalin-fueled, Brianna would tire. She couldn't breathe with that monster across her ribs. Kithri jerked against her own bonds, only to have a massive hand clench her throat and drag her back.

Red-hair moved his body on Brianna's, and Kithri recoiled at the triumphant, almost orgasmic expression on his face. He moved his hands down along the sides of Brianna's body. This time her screams came as raw, unfocused sound, no longer human.

“Stop it! For god's sake, stop it!” shouted Lennart. His words spilled out, hot and broken. “Can't you see she doesn't know anything?”

Kithri forced herself to remain still. It wasn't Lennart's words that shook her to her core, but the desperation behind them. In the brush, she reminded herself savagely, you never
ever
gave a claim-jumper something to hold over you. Eril, with his sand-leopard reflexes, he understood that. If Lennart did not, it was too bad.

Teeg grunted. “More.”

“No, please!” begged Lennart. “No more! I'll do anything — I'll give you whatever you want, just so you stop!”

“You
know nothing,” Teeg said contemptuously.

Tears mingled with the dried blood on Lennart's face. It had been years since Kithri had seen a man's unhidden weeping, not since her father died. Those final months he'd been like a child, laughing, crying, whimpering in pain. His skin had grown more and more translucent until it seemed his heart had turned to glass and every emotion shone out from it. Now Lennart with his damnable softness had somehow stolen past the barriers she'd built in all her years on Stayman. She felt the unmoving ice in her own heart, and was ashamed.

Lennart's eyes locked on hers, pleading.
It's only a goddamned chunk of rock,
his voice rang through her mind.
Not a living person.

That's easy for you to say,
another part of her raged.
You had the stars and all I had was one beat-up scrubjet!

And besides, she had no choice. There was no jaydium site in the mountains to trade for Brianna's life.

Red-hair towered over Brianna, anchoring her shoulders to the stone. He released her hair, and her head fell back, her mouth opened in wordless anguish. Looking down at her with a lover's gratitude, he moved one hand into the periphery of her vision and her whole body shuddered soundlessly.

Kithri could not look away. Her determination felt brittle as glass, ready to shatter into a thousand pieces. If not the jaydium, then what? Would anything I do save her?

You can't know that. You can only know what you'll live with if you don't try...

Any moment now she would explode like an Albionese fairybird egg and then there would be no hope for any of them.

Oh Eril, hold on for me...

“Enough...”

It took Kithri a long moment to realize she had heard rather than thought it. The word, barely more than a whisper, came from Eril.

“Enough,” he repeated. “I'll tell you.”

Teeg, with the first sign of genuine interest yet, lurched stiff-legged to Eril.

“The jaydium...ore...” Eril paused and ran his tongue over his ragged lips. “Is from a site...in the mountains...across...forest plain.”

Teeg's expression of satisfaction evaporated. “Fellow, fool us not. This be rough-sealed jaydium, but not long dead. Flight across forest takes too long.”

“Special...equipment...faster than...manual pilot.”

Teeg nodded to Red-hair. “More.”

Brianna began gently sobbing, and the sound shook Kithri, even more than the screaming had. It curled around her heart like a dust-viper and sank its poisoned fangs deep.

“You bastards,” she hissed. “You're so dense — you don't believe — the truth — when you — hear it.”

“Knows nothing, either,” Teeg said.

“By the bloody balls of hell, who do you think runs this operation?” she screamed. “Some nincompoop of a glory-boy? Of course he thinks I got the jaydium in the mountains! I told him so. If you had him for a partner, would
you
tell him where you found the jaydium?”

The corners of Teeg's mouth twitched. Kithri stormed on, barely pausing for breath.

“If you want the jaydium so much, you give me a good reason to tell you. And I don't mean turning loose crazies on children.”

“Do the same. To you.”

Kithri prayed her swollen face hid her instant panic at the suggestion. She summoned up the image of every lewd-mouthed sodden-drunk claim jumper she'd ever known. She saw herself putting a fist through Teeg's bloated face and then spitting on the bloody splinters. Fury raced like quicksilver through her veins.

“You already tried that with me and it didn't work,” she sneered. “Do better.”

“Share jaydium. You take part.”

The pain of her body lessened with her soaring adrenalin.
He's making a fool's offer. Maybe I've bought us a little time.

Teeg folded his arms across his barrel chest, waiting. Brianna stopped sobbing, and no one else made a sound. Lennart's face had gone flat white. Kithri dared not meet his eyes.

You've done enough damage to me, Lennart, making me go all soft like this.

Kithri lifted her chin. “Let's not play trader games. You let my friends go, give them a fair start, then I'll take you there. You'll still have
me
for insurance. It's that or nothing.”

For the next few moments Teeg stood like a statue, completely unresponsive. Maybe he found her proposal so absurd that he refused to even consider it. Then his face showed a fleeting shadow of a smile and he uncrossed his arms. He nodded to Red-hair.

“Loose.”

He thinks he's pulling one over on me. He'll send his men after them the moment my back's turned, and he thinks they can't get far on foot.

Brianna lay across the stone, breathing hoarsely. Released, Lennart went to her. He touched her face. “She's out cold.”

Teeg lifted one eyebrow. “Deal.”

“Get her out of here, any way you can!” Kithri said.
If you don't make it, then my devil's bargain is for nothing.

“I never want to see your dustbug faces again!” she continued. “Eril, after what happened to us when we
first landed,
I hope you'll take proper care of
brushwackers.”

Eril stood up, rubbing his wrists with swollen fingers. Under the bruises and swelling, his expression was unreadable. Lennart hoisted Brianna's inert body across his shoulders, grunting with the effort.

Kithri watched them disappear past the opalescent columns. Eril must have understood her, he
must.
With any luck, they'd get far enough in the scrubjet to stay hidden, either in the forest or the Manitou tunnels, until either the pirates gave up or Brianna's Dominion sent that probe to investigate.

Kithri waited until she thought a chase would not catch them before they reached the scrubjet.

“All right,” she said, praying that her memory of Brianna's maps was accurate. “Now I'll take you to the jaydium.”

Red-hair gripped Kithri's elbow as she led them past archways of splintered topaz and amber. Sunlight fractured against the ruined lacework and spilled ribbons of color over the pirates' pale skins. They made no comment as they marched along, grinding the shards under their heavy space boots.

She guided them around another corner, three turns and then back down the long avenue where free-standing walls made a maze of light and shadow. The tension in Red-hair's hands increased as they went along, the group bunching closer together. Spacebred, they relied heavily on their navigational instruments, while Kithri's years in the brush had developed both her directional sense and a keen memory for landmarks. Now she prayed to all the powers of luck and space they were truly as disoriented as they seemed.

I must pretend I've been here before.

Kithri kept her features impassive as she identified her goal, a truncated green pyramid located diagonally across a plaza bordered by hedges of intricate braided crystals. She squelched any temptation to pause and stare at its perfect balance and grace.

She stepped through the doorway and into the spacious central chamber. The opaque, mint-colored threshold muffled the tread of the men's boots.

The interior was surprisingly bright, considering the thickness of the deep-hued emerald walls and the absence of windows. A shallow, unrailed balcony ringed the central chamber. Kithri's eyes raced across the shadowed doorways as she searched for the entrance Brianna had described.

I've been here before, I know where I'm going...

As she drew closer to the far wall, Kithri noticed the intricate patterns that alternated with narrow openings. She wished she had the time to examine them more closely. The entrance could be any one of them, but which? She couldn't afford to show any hesitation, not with Red-hair's hands on her. He'd catch the smallest lapse in her concentration. There was a limit to what she could improvise, and so far she'd already used up more than her share of bloody luck.

The first slit was narrower than the others, barely wide enough for her shoulders, let alone the men's bulk. Brianna would have been able to slip though it without too much trouble, but would she have described it as a
passageway?
Kithri felt a gust of cool air on her face. It was nothing more than an air vent. She went on to the next one.

She had narrowed her choices to three possibilities when Red-hair pulled her around to face Teeg.

“Jaydium.”

She hesitated, not understanding.

“Building empty. Where jaydium?”

Kithri seized the small pulse of anger that flared up at his demand. “Not
here
, you dustbug. You don't find
jaydium
in
buildings.
” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the remaining three openings. “Below.”

“Under building?”

“That's the story. Now are you going to let me get on with it, or are we going to stand here all day jabbering?” She jerked her elbow away from Red-hair and put both hands on her hips in an aggressive stance.