Revolution's Shore (27 page)

“They have returned fire,” said Jenny from scan. “I'm tracking it—damn, I lost it.”

“I've got it,” said Finch.

On the screen above, Lily could see a faint, magnified image of
Heart of Lion
; between them—only the void of space, and the drifting bulk of an asteroid. The sight of it, rough-hewn, tumbling like a mote in a vast, unseeing eye, reminded her to her surprise of the asteroid miner who had been her lover for one season. He had not been unlike Yehoshua, burly and cheerful and a little short of temper, a quality she had mistaken at the time for unpredictability—and to her disappointment he had proved as predictable as the other men she knew. What had his name been? Evan something? She could not now remember.

A distant flare, an explosion.

“Number two engine disabled,” said Nguyen.

“We are receiving fire—now,” said Finch, sounding nervous.

“Evasive,” ordered Lily. She felt a shudder through the hull, but it was slight.

“Number four engine disabled. Number three engine—”

“We are receiving on comm,” said Finch. “
Heart of Lion
wishes to surrender unconditionally.”

“Tell them they have one fleet hour to evacuate their vessel. Unconditionally.” Lily pushed herself up to stand. “Yehoshua.”

He stood also, nodded at her, and left the bridge.

“I still think,” began Jenny, “that at least one more person ought to go with him.”

“I can't afford to risk more than one. I already had to argue down Blue when he wanted us to carry the boat intact to Jehane. And anyway, this was Yehoshua's idea. Something to do with an old Filistia House custom.”

Jenny looked skeptical. “For what? So he can revenge himself personally for Alsayid's death? I've always thought revenge a ridiculously impractical notion. Or maybe I've just been too busy surviving all these years to have the leisure to indulge myself in it.”

“
Heart of Lion
is complying with the evacuation order,” said Finch. “They request that their shuttles be allowed to set a course for Unruli Station.”

Lily walked across to the console Yehoshua had vacated and sat down in the chair. “Tell them affirmative. Give them the coordinates Bach plotted. That should give us plenty of time.”

“I don't understand,” said Finch darkly, “why we have to stop at Station. Or why you want to go downside.”

“Unfinished business,” she replied, short, concentrating on the information flowing across the three screens controlled by steering that she only imperfectly understood. “Are you
sure
you don't want to go downside with me to see your father?”

“No.” Finch's voice was hard and unforgiving. “I don't want to see my father. Why should I?”

“But I'm—”

“Your father didn't betray you. Don't expect me to be generous. Not after Grandmam. And—Swann.”

Figures tracked on across the screens. She waited a silent, pensive moment before turning to Nguyen. “Fix on those two asteroids in quince quadrant. I need a better feel for this. Let's do some target practice.”

The first proved a sloppy job, but the second they pulverized neatly just as the signal came in from Yehoshua that he had gained
Heart of Lion
in the two-man short-hop bus whose controls he and Blue and Bach had figured out between them.

“
Heart of Lion
is fully evacuated,” he said across the delay of space. His voice faded in and out, caught in a loop of static. “I have dismantled their nav bank and loaded it into the bus, together with three duplicates copied onto wire for backup. Detonators are set for point three two.”

Lily rose from steering and returned to the captain's chair. “You are cleared to return, comrade. End transmission. Jenny, what about
Heart of Lion
's shuttles?”

“They're in pattern and heading sunward at the specified course. They should arrive in, let me see—damn, I'm no good with this stuff.”

“One fleet week, I believe, comrade Heredes,” the Mule interposed in a soft hiss. “Do you need more specific figures?”

“No. Let's intercept Yehoshua and head in ourselves.”

They picked up Yehoshua's bus just as
Heart of Lion
blossomed, a brief, brilliant star among untold others.

Unruli Station had adopted a practical course of stoic neutrality. Some of the malcontents from Remote had made their way here and been exiled to the Ridani sectors of Station, but none had been arrested. Faced with a large and clearly destructive vessel bearing uncounted numbers of Jehanish partisans, Station officials prudently reminded its commander of system policy: all downside shuttle trips must be cleared through their offices, or else activate automatic defense systems. They assured her that opinions on planet were not nearly as sympathetic to Jehane's cause as they were in the out-system mines and on Station.

“They're lying,” said Finch harshly. “At least about that automatic defense system. Bootleggers went back and forth all the time.”

“Unless they set up a system after you left,” replied Lily. “Maybe Central forced them to. In any case, Finch, don't you think it behooves us to make the best possible impression on them? As Jehane's representatives? To at least attempt to sway the downsiders? The House miners?”

Yehoshua looked at her curiously. “Do I scent a conversion to messianic Jehanism in you, comrade?”

“Do you know, Yehoshua, that I find that after all this time, and despite the circumstances under which I left, I would still like to protect my parents' House from the worst of the fallout should Jehane triumph and they're left still supporting the old government. Perhaps this is my way of helping them—try at least to make them see their way to professing neutrality.”

“What,” asked Jenny, “if Station is lying and they're just sitting in wait to throw you in prison?”

“That's why you're coming with me, both of us fully armed, and we leave everyone on board except a shuttle pilot and one other soldier, so that if they do arrest us you can run for Jehane's fleet.”

“But we need Pinto—”

“We have another
shuttle
pilot.” Lily tapped the com on her console. “Medical? Rainbow? I want you to meet comrade Seria in bay one, in full rig, in one half hour. Tell comrade Hawk that we need his services as well.”

The corridors of Unruli Station, rather inevitably, seemed less impressive to Lily than they had during her previous visit. An escort met them at their berth. She left Rainbow and Kyosti on the shuttle, and she and Jenny walked along the familiar corridors to Portmaster's office.

They waited almost one hour before the Assistant Portmaster could see them, and after a long and pointless discussion, were sent on to a nicer chamber to wait for the Portmaster herself. After another hour, and just before Lily guessed they were to be shown into Portmaster's office, Lily demanded they be given dinner.

Portmaster's aides obligingly ushered them off to a nearby plush bar, and Portmaster arrived at the same time their food did. Jenny looked tolerably amused, but said nothing.

Lily kept the talk politely neutral until they had finished their meal. By its end she felt that she and the Portmaster understood each other fairly well. The Portmaster suggested they move to a private room in the back of the bar, and it was as they were crossing to this refuge that Lily happened to glance at the vid screen superimposed above the flask rail.

A familiar face. It took her a moment to place it, and as she paused, the voice-over and her recollection hit her at the same moment.

“—the victim was strangled and mutilated, and found less than one hour ago in corridor Q7, a little-used warehouse sector adjoining Q8, where the victim was said to habituate the string of bars well known to that sector. Security has no current leads, but all traffic in Station is now subject to search and screening. According to the latest report, the victim was last seen engaged in a fight in QuaNon's with an unidentified assailant. The two men were pulled apart by on-lookers, and both left the establishment separately. Security is now searching for a man answering to the description of—”

Jenny had turned back and tapped a quick, unobtrusive warning touch on Lily's elbow. “Portmaster's waiting.”

The picture on the vid had changed, to an exterior of QuaNon's, but Lily knew who the victim was: the asteroid miner who had, some five years ago, been her lover for however brief and insignificant a time.

S
HE IGNORED JENNY. IT
took her a moment to trigger her wrist-com; she had not meant to use it while in Station. Another moment to sort out the voice replying from the general hubbub of the bar.

“Rainbow? Is that you?”

“Rainbow reporting, min Heredes. I be at ya com.”

“Where's Hawk?”

A pause. “I bain't ya certain, min.” Even over the com-link, Lily could hear the apprehension in Rainbow's voice. “I told him we were meant to stay on ya boat, but he were certain sure he meant just tae stretch his legs, so he said, min. Nay, he said he meant tae take ya flavor of ya air. And ya sudden come he back again and tells me tae stay on com, and off he goes again. I knew it be ya wrong, but what could I do tae stop him?”

“Nothing, Rainbow,” said Lily dully. “You've done fine. Stay at your post.”

“I reckon he were ya tired o' shipboard, min. It sure be true that—” Rainbow broke off. “Wait. That be min Hawk at ya lock now, min. Be you wishing tae talk to him?”

“No.” Through the sharpness of her voice, Lily became aware for the first time that Jenny, the Portmaster, and her aide were watching her speculatively. “No, Rainbow. That's what I wanted to know. We should be done fairly soon. Heredes out.”

“What was that all about?” asked Jenny in a carefully loud voice. “I couldn't hear the crewman.”

“Just checking the shuttle's status. They relayed that the
Forlorn Hope
is maintaining orbit.” Lily spoke as she walked up beside Portmaster, knowing that the elderly woman would be listening.

“The
Forlorn Hope
? But surely that's the name of the old ghost ship of legend—”

Lily changed the details but not the essentials of the story, and with a ruthlessness she had not previously realized she possessed, she altered the course and tone of the conversation so that it took fifteen minutes and not one hour. She and Jenny left with full clearance from a bemused Portmaster for shuttle access downside.

“Damn my eyes,” said Jenny as she and Lily outdistanced the cautious escort. “You made minced cable out of her, Lily-hae. What brought that on—”

“Jenny,” interrupted Lily sharply. “Let's just get out of here.”

She keyed into their berth, locked and sealed it behind them. In the cabin, she at first saw only Rainbow, seated forward.

“Where is—” But now she saw him, stretched out on a row of seats, asleep. She simply stared at him for a moment. He was deeply asleep, relaxed, breathing evenly. There was no evidence on his clothing, his hands, anywhere on his person.

“Did I believe there would be?” she said aloud.

“That there would be what?” asked Jenny, trying to make sense of Lily's humor and only growing more bewildered.

“How long?” Lily asked Rainbow.

The Ridani soldier shrugged. “He came in when I be talking to you, min. He be in ya sleep sure as soon as he come in.” She looked perplexed.

“Wait a minute,” began Jenny. “I thought you were both on board the entire time.”

“What the Hells am I going to do?” cried Lily in horrified frustration.

Kyosti opened his eyes. He found Lily immediately, but he did not immediately sit up. When he did, into a sudden and lengthening silence, he did so slowly, as if he was not so much tired as aching and ill.

“I'm sorry, Lily,” he mumbled. “I'm sorry.” His tongue seemed to trip over the words. He got to his feet cautiously and stumbled forward to the pilot's seat, sank into it unsteadily, fumbled at the straps. Rainbow, looking shocked, had to help him fasten the straps; he shrank from her touch as she did so.

“Damn my eyes,” breathed Jenny in an undertone that only Lily could hear. “Is he a secret ambergloss addict? Hawk? I just can't believe it.”

“That's right.” Lily flung herself at this fiction as at a safety line—the only one in sight in a void of empty space. Even were she inclined to prove his guilt, she knew that hanging proof on the Hawk who had once saved Master Heredes from death, whose name was evidently still a minor legend among those folk who ran the highroad in regions remote from the Reft, in League space and wherever else privateers of La Belle's and Yi's ilk roamed, would be virtually impossible, no matter how impulsively he had acted. And were it proved, and he imprisoned: she did not doubt that it would be the work of a moment to escape whatever prison the Reft might devise for him.

“That's right,” she echoed weakly. “It happens sometimes.” She sank down onto a seat, belted herself in automatically, and let Jenny take her astonishment and her questions elsewhere.

It was a rough ride back to the
Forlorn Hope
. Hawk managed to dock them, barely, and more by force of will than by skill. Lily let Jenny and Rainbow leave the shuttle before she unbelted and rose. And took one step toward the silent, slumped figure still strapped into the pilot's seat.

“Leave me alone,” he said harshly.

“Did you?” she asked, sick to be asking. “I didn't really believe—I didn't want to believe—that you would
kill
someone. Tell me the truth, Kyosti.”

“You know the truth,” he replied in a low, bitter voice. He rested his head in the cradle of his hands, a gesture so typically human that for a moment she thought it strange, in him.

“If I turned you in?”