Revolution's Shore (19 page)

Looking at them, Lily wished desperately that Master Heredes was here, because he would know what to say, and how to say it. She gave her tunic a self-conscious tug and banished such pointless thoughts. After all,
she
was Heredes now, and sooner or later she would have to truly assimilate that fact. She smiled slightly, thinking of the disparity in experience between her and Master Heredes, and was surprised to see the answering gleam of a smile on Blumoris's face. His sympathy gave her confidence.

“I suppose,” she began, “that the easiest way to prove we are from Jehane's forces is to see how quickly the troops here would come running if we gave up our position. But we're not ready to do
that
yet.”

She adjusted a sleeve as she got a muffled chuckle from one of the elders, stopped herself from toying with the other sleeve, and lifted her chin a little. “The only proof I can give you is to show you to our shuttle and let you look it over. Otherwise, you'll have to take us on trust. I don't have any credentials, and they wouldn't mean anything if I did have them. As to how we can help you, I'm not sure—” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “If you'll excuse me a moment.” She raised one arm and, coding in the tightest possible channel, called up Kyosti's identification code on her wrist-com, hoping he was within range. After a moment, he replied.

“I need you,” she said. “Have Lia return to base. And bring your kit. I'll send Paisley back to base to show you where I am.”

“That won't be necessary.” His voice sounded detached and almost alien over the tiny receiver clipped to her ear. “I'll find you. Out.”

She looked across at Blumoris. “Elder, I've sent for one of my people. Perhaps you can set someone outside to watch for him.”

“Inocencio.” Elder Blumoris nodded curtly at his son. “Go on.”

Blue did not respond for a moment, as if judging whether or not this was a fit moment for rebellion. Finally, looking put-upon, he let out a prolonged sigh of adolescent disgust and rose with sullen lethargy to drag himself out of the room.

“I'm not sure what help we can do you,” said Lily as the door shut behind Blue. “We need your help if we're to carry on Jehane's fight. But turn comes turnabout—our success helps Jehane, and his will bring the reforms that will lift you out of”—she gestured with one hand—“out of this.”

“So Jehane says,” muttered one of the Elders.

“Well, Hoang,” said Elder Blumoris, “I reckon it's a sight better promise than any Central's given us these past twenty years.” He had a slow, almost ponderous way of speaking, but perhaps it was conscious, for he used it to let his words carry weight. “Not like in Rooce's time, when she made jobs for them as hadn't any, and helped those as couldn't work through no fault of their own.” He nodded at the Elder who had limped in.

“It's true there was more help, food and decent shelter, and medicine,” said Red's mother, stopping after these words for a spasm of coughing to pass. “But Rooce governed here on Landfall, even if she was appointed by Central. Who's to say how much reform will reach us even if this Jehane business does reform Central?”

“Surely it can't get any worse?” muttered Hoang. “Vajratti always said—”

“Vajratti hasn't any nav left to vector from—”

“I hear it's a tattoo religion, this Jehane. Would you trust any tattoo superstition?”

“Central isn't going to help us. They've made that clear. I
still
say we're better off supporting them as at least cares for our troubles.”

“Elders! Elders!” Blumoris lifted both of his thick hands in the universal plea for silence. “Let us not
trouble
our visitor with our quarrels. Please continue”—he hesitated—“Comrade.”

Lily glanced toward the door, but it remained closed. She looked back at her audience. “Here and now, I can't promise that I can make your life better. But I have faith that Jehane's people believe in this cause, that they have dedicated their lives to bring reform to all of the Reft's citizens. I don't suppose you've heard of a speaker called Pero.” But as soon as she said the name, she saw recognition light their faces. “You have?” She could not keep the surprise from her voice. “All the way out here? Although I suppose it's not so unlikely.” She shrugged, a little embarrassed.

“We may be a small place,” said Blumoris proudly, “but we're not so very far out as all that.”

“But I thought,” said Red suddenly and loudly from her cross-legged seat on the floor, “that you rigged up that console specially to receive illicit channels and scrambled broadcasts.”

“Absinthe!”

“Do you know comm-consoles well?” asked Lily swiftly, caught by this confession.

Blumoris hedged by going to the counter to pour more of the discolored aris into his cup, and then offered it around to everyone else. “I've a bit of interest in that line.”

“He's being modest,” muttered Hoang. “And if that son of his weren't hells-bent on getting thrown into detention, he'd be sight-certain to get accepted into tech school.”

“Do you think so?” Blumoris for the first time sounded angry. “After twice Council let rents be raised on my shop so that I had to leave two decent locations downtown, and then they used the excuse that my premises were both unsightly and unsafe to drive me out of the third and force me to move
here
? My son will have no truck with
their
schools, not while I still breathe.”

Before this tender subject could be enlarged upon, the door opened and Blue ushered Kyosti in. The boy's gaze was fastened on Kyosti's hair with the rapt attention of an acolyte; in this light, in the drab surroundings, the finger's-length of blue roots coming in showed up as glaringly as any painted-on tattoos.

“This is Comrade Hawk,” said Lily. “He's a physician.”

As if on cue, Red's mother coughed. Kyosti took in the situation at a glance and within moments set up his medical kit on the only clean space on the counter and got to work. Within half an hour, as first Red and then Blumoris left to spread word of this bounty through the neighborhood, a good dozen more people arrived, yawning with sleep yet clearly ill or injured. Two were carried in, too sick to move themselves.

By morning, Lily had Blumoris's assurances that Shanty would support them in every way they could, and that he and his son would do what they could toward the shuttle's repair.

L
ILY STOOD ON THE
dilapidated roof of the Blumoris shop and watched the sun set beyond a range of red-hued hills. Both evenings she had done so. The sight, even after her year on Arcadia, still astonished her in its beauty. She had traded her white tunic for grubby overalls borrowed from Blue; they fit her reasonably well, although she had to roll up the legs to avoid tripping and the sleeves to keep her hands free.

A scrape of shoe sounded from the ladder. She turned her head to see a crown of blue-tinged hair appear, and after it the rest of Kyosti. He smiled when he saw her and pushed himself easily up to the roof and walked across to stand by her, letting one hand stray to caress her neck. Two days of constant work running a makeshift clinic had left him looking rested and cheerful.

“I was thinking about Ransome House,” she said softly, returning her gaze to the sunset, “Paisley once said that sometimes you have to lose your home before you can find it. I had to leave Ransome House to discover what Heredes meant to me. And yet, there are many things at Ransome House that are worthwhile. I just didn't see them at the time, because I was too busy rebelling, trying to get out. I didn't realize how much I learned there that's served me well these past months. So I wonder if what Paisley said can't mean both of those things at once.”

“Waxing philosophical, my love?” He sounded both amused and pleased. “‘The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble Sheep a threat'ning horn; While the Lilly white shall in Love delight, Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.'”

She sighed suddenly, a vocal sound, and rested her head against his shoulder. He did not react for a moment, as if this tiny act of tenderness surprised him, but abruptly he turned into her and embraced her tightly against him. He kissed her hair. When she lifted her head to look at him, equally surprised by his burst of feeling, she found herself caught by the maelstrom of emotions in his face.

“Lilyaka,” he murmured, a strange echo of Master Heredes, who alone besides her father ever used her full name. Except the very nature of the address was utterly different here: the Sar had used it casually and frequently, like any parent, and she had never bothered to attempt to trace his feelings any deeper than that; Heredes had spoken it with that stern affection she had come to love. But the music Kyosti made of her name left her dizzy with a longing she had never been able to explain to herself, much less understand.

How long they stayed that way, clasped, close, lips a finger's breadth from the other's as they gazed, she was not sure. The sun's rim touched the hills; its glimmering disk sank and hid behind the darkening heights.

As suddenly as his embrace, Kyosti brushed her mouth with a brief, almost mocking kiss, and released her.

“Is the sullen Inocencio making any progress with the engines?” he asked in his usual languid voice. “Or has he thrown another tantrum over having to work with Paisley? One wonders how deep his commitment to rebellion really is when he paints his face to mimic tattooing and thus shock his elders on the one hand, and on the other shows the same boring prejudice that most of these socially backward peoples exhibit.”

“Actually,” said Lily slowly, “I
was
wondering about rebellions. Mine—and Blue's, which I think is a lot like what I went through at Ransome House. Even Jehane's. What kind of change is the Reft going to see? It's hard to imagine.” She paused. The last glow of daylight still limned the hills. “Do you know, it's still hard for me to imagine that you came from across the way—from Terra, from the League. I know a little what Terra must look like. It can't be so different from Arcadia, I suppose. But I think it's easier to keep it in mind as an abstraction, a place that only has life like Paisley's Tirra-li: A paradise, a memory, not a place that really exists.”

She hesitated, reached out to brush a finger over the back of his hand. His was a smooth, supple, long-fingered hand, with that rich, lightly bronzed skin tone that she sometimes suspected was artificially enhanced, although she could not guess how or why. “You once confessed to me that you were sixty-four years old, that Master Heredes was twice that. But that's like Terra: I want to believe it, but it can't possibly be true. And yet, it has to be.”

“Just give me more time,” he said, not looking at her. Watching him, she knew he looked no older than Jenny. “I was making progress with the equipment I got from Yi, but now that's all gone, with
Franklin's Cairn
. The Formula is simple enough, but without the facilities. …” He shrugged.

“What formula?”

He blinked, turning to look at her as if he were amazed to see her there. “The Hierakis Formula. I suppose you would call it life enhancement. Extension. Most people just call it the Formula. The medical term is more complex.”

“Kyosti, we have the drug Lipro, but it doesn't make you live any longer, it just holds off the effects of aging for a while.”

He made an expressive face. “I got to look at its formula on Arcadia. It's not worth the cost to make it. And long-term use breaks down the bonding—never mind that. That serum is just as primitive as the Reft's outmoded hierarchical political structure.”

“I beg your pardon!” Lily jerked her hand away from his. “And Terra, and the League, has something so much better? I remember your bitter words to Wingtuck even if you don't.”

He laughed. “Lily, my love, a more advanced culture has never made the individuals within it any less hypocritical, or less prone to exaggerated fears and unreasonable hopes and simple greed.
That's
human nature.”

“Are you waxing philosophical?” Lily asked sarcastically. “Life may not be perfect in the Reft, but that doesn't mean you have to denigrate it.”

Kyosti dropped to one knee and, availing himself of one of her hands, brought her palm to his lips and kissed it. “Forgive me, my sweet. I perceive I have offended you.”

Lily rolled her eyes, although she did not remove her hand from his grasp. “You look ridiculous. Would you get up?”

“Only if you forgive me.”

“Hoy. All right. I forgive you.”

He rose with dignity and kissed her firmly. “We have time,” he said obscurely. “I'll show you the League soon enough.”

She glanced at her wrist-com, pushed away from him. “We'd better go. Bach is going to run that new set of signals that Blumoris devised—it's our last chance to raise Yehoshua. If he's still alive.” She walked across to the ladder, paused as Kyosti came up behind her. “Is it real, the Hierakas Formula?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“How long does it make people live?”

“About one hundred fifty to one hundred eighty years of relative youth. Then a fast decline of about twenty years.”

“Hoy. People will kill for it, you know.”

He considered her a moment thoughtfully. “I suppose they would. It hadn't occurred to me. But in any case, the base is the most difficult part of the manufacture, and I'm back to scratch without equipment. We won't be having any wars over it yet.”

“Don't we have wars enough now?” she asked, and expecting no reply she turned to climb down the ladder. Stopped, staring at him. “
That's
what you got the equipment from Yi for.”

“Isn't that what I just said?”