Revolution's Shore (12 page)

“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. And 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.

“H
OY.” 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, scarcely 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.”

“But I bet she still sneaks into his—its—cabin some nights.”

Lily shuddered, suppressed it. “I don't have that much compassion.”

Jenny raised her glass, tipped and turned it so that the amber liquid caught shadow and light in its flow. “Not many do. I certainly don't. But that doesn't change the fact that the Mule's the fastest calculator I've ever seen play
bissterlas
, and I've seen lots of sta play in Stations all over the Reft.”

“I wonder what it's like,” said Lily slowly, “to be so cynical about life—and so very alone.”

They considered the Mule's fate in companionable silence while music and images blared from the vid screen that backed the bar, and a new swell of white-uniformed soldiers filtered in to sit at tables and counters in the big room.

“Shift change.” Jenny checked her wrist-com. “I'd better go. I've got a class to teach.”

Lily stood also, but paused, hand still on her glass. “It's hard to believe we've been with Callioux almost half an Arcadian year. I can't decide whether the time has gone fast, or slow.”

“I can't decide what in hell Jehane thinks he's up to,” said Jenny. “A great initiative at Harsh, and now he's retreated back to Tollgate and sent half his fleet into these Hells-forsaken backwaters to achieve Void knows what. All I can say is that this sad excuse for a Station is aptly named Bleak House.”

“Training?” Lily suggested. “He had all the new people from Harsh to incorporate into his forces. That takes time. And a lot of information from Bach to incorporate and sort through—most of Central's Intelligence files.”