The Bright Black Sea (39 page)

I lowered my sword and leaning on it, looked to the
Honor Judge and the seconds.

All three had dropped their handkerchiefs, ending the
duel. I took a few steps, stopped and was sick. Not so very
gallant, I thought, I wiped my lips, and not so dead either... And
with that thought, I realized what she'd been up to with her play
acting before the duel. I started and stared about me, searching
for her amongst the gallery, now either streaming on to the field
to get a better look at poor Max's blood, or turning away for their
homes or hotel and their breakfasts.

She was already a mere ten meters away. On her lips,
a wild, triumphant smile, in her dark grey eyes, my necessary death
– with just a hint of sadness. I made a stumbling leap backwards
and raised the sword before me.

'Not a step nearer,' I croaked, still gasping for
air.

Neither my words nor my sword gave her pause. I had
to die in her arms, and quickly while everyone was paying attention
to poor Max. She deftly blocked my sword down and out of line with
her right arm, careless of the consequences and closed to embrace
me. In that fleeting instant, I caught sight of a long thin white
blade suddenly appearing in her left fist.

With what little energy, concentration, and training
I had left to call on, plus a great deal of fear and panic, I
leaped backwards, and in the low grav, far enough back to twist and
bring the sword, in my unaccustomed left hand, into a position to
stop the thrust of her blade.

As quickly as it began, this duel was over as
well.

She simply froze, her whole attack snapped off just
that quickly. A quick glance showed the sword was embedded in in
her fist. I'd felt a faint click, so the point had likely
penetrated through her hand to strike the blade handle she
held.

We stood facing each other, less than a meter apart,
her arms at her side. Her left arm, held close at her side was half
hidden in the folds of her dress. My sword, held high at my side
and in my left hand, was between us, its point was buried in her
left hand. We both glanced about, no one seemed to be paying us any
attention, at least from any position that they could see what had
happened between us. We were not committed to any given action. Her
cold, dark eyes, held mine as she calculated her chances, her next
move. Looks may not kill, but hers came very close. Still, I held
her gaze, shaking and panting for perhaps six long seconds. It was,
after all, her decision. She always had it in her power to kill me.
That was never the issue, nor was it now. It had always been – did
she want to be sent to Felon's Riff to accomplish it?

'Madam! This is not proper! He needs my attention,'
gasped Doc Hans in a shaken voice, as he pulled up beside us, medic
bag in hand. And , 'Oh!' as he took in our situation. After several
seconds he glanced at me and asked, 'Should I summon the Civil
Guard?'

'No Doctor, I said slowly, watching her closely. 'I
believe we've reached an understanding. Neither of us wants to
bother the authorities.' I said, more a hope than a certainty.

She nodded ever so slightly. An understanding that
defied definition. But an understanding.

'Right. Would you be so kind, Doc, to prepare to
treat the lady's wounded hand when I withdraw the blade,' I panted,
adding with my next breath, 'It must be quite painful,'

'You should be treated first, you've lost a fair
amount of blood already,' he protested.

I shook my head, 'It won't take you long, and I don't
want to keep the lady in pain any longer than necessary,' I said as
I watched her blood seep around the blade and drip to the ground. I
simply wanted her gone but I couldn't have her wandering about with
a bloody hand. It was essential to keep this our secret. And to
her, I added, 'While the Doc is getting ready, I must ask you to
drop your blade.'

'Why?' she asked softly, unhurried, seemingly
impervious to pain.

'Because I respect you too much, and trust you too
little,' I said.

'Why?' she asked, more of herself than to me, and
almost too soft for me to hear.

'Luck runs out, eventually. I'd like half a chance,'
I said with a faint smile. It was a little act of kindness,
perhaps. A little comfort in failure, but perhaps some, and a way
out. My life depended on her having a way out of failure.

Still watching me, she opened her fist and the blade
dropped, by the time it reached the ground, it had shape shifted
into a white hollow tube with the two ends slightly notched inwards
to make it easier to hold crosswise with two fingers. Her red blood
beaded up and rolled off the shinny surface.

'I'm ready, Captain,' said Doc Hans, having set down
and opened his bag and now holding two small circles of the sealing
material to temporarily patch the wounds.

'You or I?' I asked.

'I,' she said simply, and slipped her hand off of the
sword's blade with a gush of blood. Doc slapped the patches on her
palm and on back of her hand, to keep the bleeding to a
minimum.

I stuck the bloody tip of the sword in the ground,
and using it for support, bent and picked up her coiled blade with
the blood from my wound running down my arm.

'I'll wait by my gear for you to finish treating her
hand,' I said, adding, 'How's your arm? Does it need to be attended
to?'

She was watching the doctor who held her hand as he
reached for his medic kit in the bag. She shook her head No. The
jacket was likely an armored one.

'Right,' I said, made a sketchy bow, turned my back
on them to make my way back to where the balance of my wardrobe was
piled on the grass. It felt like a thousand cold spiders were
crawling up my back as I turned away. I wasn't exactly sure what
we'd agreed to – a truce of some sort, but for how long, or even if
she'd keep it, I couldn't say. I made it to my gear and turned to
see the Doc working on her hand. I sat down – collapsed, really –
into the cool damp grass and sank back to lay flat on my back. The
rush of adrenalin which had kept most of the pain at bay, receded
and the wounds were pulsing with pain. I closed my eyes and thought
of growing cha on Belbania, high on an old volcanic peak surrounded
by a turquoise sea – mentally dialing down the date from twenty to
ten, to maybe five years in the future, if I had one, until the Doc
arrived at my side. I sat painfully up and he began to work.

He slapped on the quick seals and hooked up the medic
kit, which quickly dampened the pain after which he began to probe
my wounds with a hand held sensor.

'Just flesh wounds, Captain,' he said with an ironic
smile. 'He missed everything critical. I'll have you patched up in
a few minutes,' he assured me, adding after a pause while he
worked, 'I must say it was gallant, if a bit foolish to let the
lady off, as you did. I saw enough to make a case against her.'

'Thanks Doc, but it was neither gallant or foolish.
It was essential if I – or we – wanted to live.'

'We?'

'The first time she shot to kill me, I was merely a
witness, but that may've been a different type of situation. But
she'd not hesitate to kill you if she thought it necessary. The
thing is, Doc, she's a professional and likely an expert in the
martial arts. You saw how indifferent she was to the pain of a
sword through her hand. I'm certain she could've killed me with her
bare hands in the blink of an eye, and you in a second later. But
she couldn't have done it undetected, or escaped eventual capture.
Killing me has never been her problem, killing me and avoiding
Felon's Rift has been.

'That lover's act before the duel now makes sense.
She was setting up this fall back plan on the off chance Max
couldn't manage to kill me outright during the duel. She'd play the
distraught lover, hold me close and put one more hole in me in just
the right place.'

'I'd like to think I could recognize such a wound,'
said Doc Hans. 'Both the shape of the wound and the angle of entry
would likely be off...'

'But would you've risked making the accusation, on
the basis of your field exam? I'm not questioning your bravery, but
I'd imagine you'd not want to put your professional reputation on
the line without making absolutely certain, which would likely take
enough time for her to escape and disappear.'

'Perhaps, but she can be traced...'

'Right, either off world or deep into the criminal
underground, but I'd bet this blade would have likely ended up in
one of your pockets or bag,' I added, opened my palm where I still
held the blade. 'It'd be a mind-probe interrogation for you...'

He shrugged, 'What if, Captain, what ifs... That's an
interesting blade...' he added as he watched me attempt to find out
how it worked.

It appeared to be made of some D-matter plastic or
ceramics, smooth, featureless white and hard. After some playing
about with it, I stumbled upon the method used to extend the blade.
Squeezing the ends of the tube bent it at a crease around the
middle of the tube and squeezing it further forced the tube into an
inverted
V
shape which caused it to uncoil in two
directions. The trailing edge on the outside was wider and unrolled
to form a handle of sorts, as the forward facing strip unrolled
into a narrow, 20 cm long inverted
V
blade. The crease that
created the inverted
V
made the blade extend and stay stiff
as long as it was squeezed – its razor-sharp edges and needle-like
point making it a deadly stiletto for as long as you squeezed the
tube.

'Ever seen anything like this?' I asked, as the blade
rolled back up when I stopped squeezing it and handing the tube
over to Doc.

'No, but I believe I know what it is. It's made of
D-matter called phantom-glass,' he said after playing with it a
bit. 'I know it from the crime fiction I read and the vids I watch.
It's said to be undetectable under normal security scans, and any
bio evidence, finger prints, blood, tissue and such, will not
adhere to its surface. This is hardly a useful knife for anything
except killing... Which makes it a damning piece of evidence, to be
sure,' he added handing back to me. 'It's likely illegal in the
Unity, still, you might want to keep it anyway,' he added with a
significant look.

I shrugged and slipped it painfully into a pocket.
'Well it'll be some time, years probably, before I'm back in the
Unity again. It may come in handy in the drifts. Anyway, as I was
saying, having managed to stop her thrust and foil her plan without
making a scene, it gave her a chance to consider her options. With
the odds of killing me undetected and escaping a life in exile in
Felon's Rift very low, she decided to bide her time and await
another opportunity. It was up to her, but as long as I didn't make
a scene, it was likely her best choice. I wasn't her prime target,
anyway.

'However, if you'd called in the Civil Guard, that
choice would have been made and since there'd be no reasonable
explanation of the blade in her hand short of something like the
truth and a mind-probe interrogation would certainly send her to
Felon's Rift. So she'd have nothing to lose by killing me, and
perhaps you as well. So you see, Doc, there was nothing gallant
about my actions, only necessity.'

'But if she knows you're sailing in hours for the
drifts, she'll certainly try again...'

I shrugged. 'I'll take precautions. Still, we know
she's not absolutely desperate or I'd be dead...' I said as he
finished cleaning the blood from my arm and chest and began to
repack his bag.

'As you said, Captain, all luck runs out sooner or
later. You've been pretty lucky, I'd not press it too hard. And
with that sage advice, I'm done patching you up. You can get
dressed and we can see if we can get you safely to your ship.'

'Thanks Doc.' I said, reaching for my gear.

Doc Hans helped me to my feet, when I made to rise. I
was still a bit light headed, but I'd things to do...

'I've only cleaned and sealed your wounds. The wounds
on your arm and rib cage, especially the deeper ones, should be
treated with accelerated healing to avoid infection.'

'Thank you Doctor, I'll see to it as soon as I get
aboard ship. I assume the patches will hold for a few hours.'

'Oh yes, the patches will hold, though you should
avoid any more duels in the meanwhile. The wounds will get much
more painful, however, without further treatment. They should be
healed under treatment as soon as you can. They'll heal without a
scar if you go for the full treatment, but you don't have to take
it quite so far. Dueling scars are something to be proud of,
Captain,' he said, half seriously.

'I'll keep that in mind, Doc, when I'm able to look
after them.'

As we turned to go, we stopped to watch the medics
emerge from the circle of onlookers and take Max off on a stretcher
to a waiting carriage. After we returned the weapons to the Honor
Judge, I consulted my “memory” of local customs. 'I believe,
Doctor, I owe you an honorarium for acting as my second, as well as
a fee for your professional services. I'm afraid I've no local
currency, I came here terribly unprepared. But if I could have your
account, I'll transfer the necessary credits when I reach my
ship.'

'Totally unnecessary. You're a guest here, however
unwillingly. It was my pleasure to offer my services. It has proven
very interesting. I should dine out on the experience for years,'
he assured me.

'Be that as it may, doing the right thing is a matter
of honor for me, and a matter of luck as well. I wouldn't want to
appear ungrateful to have survived.'

He smiled, 'We must not take luck for granted,' he
admitted and wrote up a bill and gave his address.

As we walked slowly back towards the hotel, I asked,
'What's the fastest way out of here?'

'As I said, Captain. You shouldn't press your luck.
You're looking for the safest way, not the fastest.'