The City Who Fought (80 page)

Bros sat down beside him and studied his young charge, one finger stroking his upper lip.

"I didn't realize I was being smug," he said quietly.

Seg slumped in his chair again.

"You don't want me here."

Bros nodded. "You're right, I don't. But not because I look down on you. It's because I'm fully aware of what a valuable citizen you really are, Seg." His eyes narrowed "Even though I checked it myself, I still can't believe Clenst would put you in the line of fire like this."

"I insisted," Seg said quickly. "I felt responsible for the loss of our work. I made them see that I should go."

"I still don't like it," Bros said. "It divides my attention. You may be brilliant . . . no, I'll be honest, you
are
brilliant, but this isn't your line of work. How would you feel if somebody forced themselves on you as an assistant during a crucial experiment, without training?"

Seg wilted with guilt.

"You've been useful so far," Bros conceded. "But I don't believe in tempting the gods of luck. We've had too much good luck so far, and I'm afraid you may be the straw that broke the camel's back."

Seg looked interested.

"What camel?" he asked. "Like the ones with silver bells?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Clan-Lord?"

"Speak," Belazir didn't raise his eyes from the screen he studied.

"Your contact on Rohan has confirmed that he has found shipping for us and has given us an ETA for a vessel named
Wyal.
"

Belazir nodded thoughtfully. "How long?" he asked.

"Two hours, Clan-Lord," the young Kolnari hesitated.

Belazir noted it and said again, "Speak."

"The . . . captains name . . . is Joat Simeon-Hap."

Belazir's blazing eyes rose from the screen like some merciless sun. The crewman's pupils expanded in fear and he visibly shuddered, but held his place. Belazir bared his teeth in a parody of a grin. His body began to quiver slightly in arousal.

No.
It is a joke. That scumvermin dares!
Ciety had been arrogant from the first, confident that he was irreplaceable. Even the Yoered Family would draw the line at the sort of dealings Ciety had agreed to, and he thought that made him the master. He dared to taunt Belazir with unsatisfiable desires.

"Simeon?" he breathed. "Ciety dares to taunt me with that name?"

"Get him," he said, glaring into the other's eyes. "Ciety and his doxy, and bring them to me."

The young crewman stared at him like a bird fascinated by a snake.

"Go!" Belazir roared, and the crewman fled with a clatter of boots.

Belazir sat down slowly, his golden eyes wide, staring at scenes that never had taken place. Scenes that soothed and pleasured him. In his mind he saw Channa Hap kneeling, her spirit broken, offering up to him the male child she'd borne him. He sat in a thronelike chair looking coldly down upon her bent head and gently informed her that as a male it must be castrated and made a slave. Licking his lips, he imagined Channa flat on her belly, clasping his ankle and kissing his feet, her tears leaving streaks on the polished ebony of his skin as she begged for mercy for her child.

Next, he imagined Simeon's voice, begging to be allowed to serve the Kolnar, pleading with him not to be left in the dark. And then there was Amos.

He grinned. Yes. There was Amos.

"Zerach, take some troops and prepare our guest, the Benisur, for departure."

Behind him a brawny scarred woman smiled and rose, beckoning to two troopers in powered armor to follow her. They genuflected to the ship's joss behind the command seat and left with a tread that shook the deck.

Karak cleared his throat and his father's eyes fell on him like an accusation.

"You wish to speak, my son?"

"What of the Benisur's scumvermin companions?" Karak asked.

Belazir made a little moue and shrugged, his eyes wandered back to his screen. He gestured idly with two fingers.

"See to them," he said.

Karak rose and bowed to his father, then forced himself to leave the bridge calmly.

Belazir smiled like a man suppressing laughter. Then he too rose.

"Kiriss."

"Clan-Lord?"

"You have the bridge. I will be in my quarters if I am needed."

"Yes, Clan-Lord."

* * *

As soon as he was clear of the bridge Karak lengthened his stride. By the time he was near Soamosa's prison he was running. He stopped just before the turning to the brig to calm his breathing. Then he approached the guards outside her door at a measured walk.

"I am to take the scumvermin girl to the Clan-Lord," he said coldly. "She will not be coming back, so you are to report to your unit commander for reassignment."

"No one has informed us of this, Petite-Heir." The woman guard stared at him, obliquely contemptuous.

He gritted his teeth at the title; officially he should be Magna-Heir, as his fathers only living son, although Belazir had never found the "time" for the ceremony.
Enough, I renounce him.

"
I
am informing you. Just as
I
shall inform your unit commander that you are desperately in need of a punishment drill." He paused long enough to watch her struggle through her resentment.

"Does the Petite-Heir require an escort?" the other guard asked.

Karak narrowed his eyes as he studied the man, not certain whether the trooper was sincere or joking.

"Fearsome as she is," he drawled sarcastically, "I doubt the prisoner will try to overwhelm me. We have her beloved Benisur in our clutches, you must remember, to insure her good behavior." He looked at the door and waved his hand in one of his father's casual, dismissive gestures. "Go," he said, bored with them.

They saluted and moved crisply off, contempt and resentment leaving an almost visible wake behind them.

Karak watched them until they disappeared around the corner, and waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he keyed open the lock on Soamosa's door and entered her cell.

She rose with a startled gasp, then frowned when she saw it was him.

"You frightened me," she said a bit crossly. Then she rushed to him and threw her arms around his massive chest. "But I am glad to see you." She smiled up at him, waiting for his kiss.

He looked down at her, tenderly cradling her blond head in his big hand, and sighed for sheer delight in her sweet innocence; leaning down to award the kiss she expected. Then he held her against him, gently stroking her bright, soft hair.

"I have come to take you away," he said.

With a sharp intake of breath Soamosa pulled away from him, looking up into his face excitedly.

"We are going to rescue the Benisur Amos?" Her blue eyes shone with a fierce joy.

Karak closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"That is impossible," he said in a toneless voice. "My father has ordered him to be taken to the technicians who will prepare him for his journey."

He watched her brow darken and her eyes begin to sparkle with outrage. Grasping her upper arms, he gave her a little shake.

"He will be safe, little one. It is your people that are in danger, and they are in danger from him. We must get away to warn them."

He watched, and saw her face harden with resolve. His back relaxed in relief; this arguing was more trying than just giving orders.

"You are right," she said reluctantly. "It is what the Benisur himself would say to me." Then another idea took hold and she started as though struck. "The Captain! If we cannot bring the Benisur Amos away with us, then we
must
save Captain Sung."

"The Captain is . . ." he trailed off. He felt a queasy sensation in his stomach, something unfamiliar, that grew worse when he thought of what had been done to the man.

"You told me that he was still alive!" Soamosa protested. Her face showed her puzzlement and her eyes regarded him uncertainly. As though she had just realized that this could easily be one of the famous cruel jokes the Kolnari loved to play.

"He
is
alive. But not in any way that he would wish to be. It would be a mercy to leave him to be killed, Soamosa. No one should have to live as he is now."

She backed away from him, frightened and furious.

"What have you done to him?"

"
I
have done nothing to him. This I swear by my love for you. My father put him in with the Benisur to be sure that his plan would work. In just a few hours, the Captain took infection through simple contact with the Benisur, and now he is mindless. He is incontinent, Soamosa, he drools and weeps like a baby. And he is terrified of the Kolnar. If I go near him he will scream and howl and run away."

Karak threw up his hands in exasperation at the mulish look on her face. "How are we to escape while we are hauling around a man who is screaming and trying to escape?"

She bit her lower lip and looked down, her brow furrowed in thought. Then she sighed shortly and looked at him with confidence.

"You can knock him out and we will carry him," she said.

The unfamiliar sensation in his gut turned to one he recognized easily: fear. Not quite the same sort of fear that his father's whip or a siblings knife would cause, but similar.
Because I am going to do it for
her.
It would be much easier to knock Soamosa out and carry her off to Bethel. But she would never forgive him and he couldn't bear that.

In all of his life no one had befriended him but his brother, and even he had never understood Karak.

"In all my life," he said, looking into her blue eyes with his brass-yellow eyes, "only with you have I felt at home. Therefore I will do this thing for you, even though it is dangerous and makes no sense."

Losing her was inconceivable, death far preferable. He closed his eyes.

"All right," he said. "We will take Captain Sung with us."

"Oh!" She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly enough to surprise an "Oof!" from him.

"Let us go," she said brightly.

* * *

Belazir took a sip of the zirse he'd prepared for himself and sat down before the screens in his quarters.

He stretched out with a contented sigh; his strength and speed had not fallen off—not much, or he would be dead at a rival's hands—but his bones ached. He dug his hand into a bowl of raw meat chunks and threw one to a plant. Spined leaves gripped home around the morsel and a thin humming filled the air.

Tendrils groped towards him, and he threw another piece; it was doubly satisfying, a remembrance of lost Kolnar and a fitting end for the man who'd annoyed him so; the fingerbones were in a necklace around the shoulders of his personal joss, over in the corner.

His eyes stayed on the screen. From here as on the bridge he could view any place on the ship, and a few selected places on the other ships as well. Hoping that he hadn't missed any good comedy, Belazir called up Soamosa's cell.

And found it empty.

A little thrill of something like alarm flashed through his middle. He gave an irritated grunt. He'd missed a great deal obviously. Where were the young lovers?

He instructed the monitors to show random scenes throughout the brig area and waited impatiently as he watched various Kolnari at their daily tasks. Then he came upon a scene from a farce.

Captain Sung ran around the small cell he'd shared with Amos with incredible speed and agility; hopping from bunk to commode to the floor, screaming all the while like a lost soul.

Or like a pig in torment,
Belazir thought. He had seen pigs on several of the planets the High Clan had sacked, back before the attack on Bethel.

After him, looking eager to do murder, came Karak, muscular arms outstretched, long-fingered hands curled to grab. Following him came Soamosa, her bright hair flowing in the wind of her own passage, speaking breathlessly, but softly, urging gentleness and restraint. Her little hands reached for Karak, ready to restrain him.

Belazir laughed out loud. The damned pursued by a devil, pursued by an angel, he thought. It just keeps getting better.

At last, with a desperate lunge, Karak got hold of the Captain. The man tried to fight him off, batting ineffectually at Karak's hands and keening in a high-pitched wail.

"Be gentle!" Soamosa insisted.

Through gritted teeth Karak told her, "Little one, it is impossible to knock someone out gently."

"Captain," Soamosa said, "Captain listen to me."

"He no longer knows what a captain is, Soa; call him by his name." He just wanted to hit the man, but Soamosa obviously wanted to calm him down first. Though what purpose that would serve he couldn't see.

"His name? Uh . . . , James, no no, J-J-J, Joe, no, Joshua?
Josiah!
Is that your name, Josiah?" she looked hopefully at the Captain. The man calmed slightly at the sound of her voice, stopping his futile jerking at the iron grip. "You must be very brave, Josiah. We will take care of you, but you must help us."

Sung watched her fascinated, he reached out and took a lock of her hair. Then he tried to put it in his mouth. That's when Karak punched him, and Sung dropped like a rock.

"Oh!" Soamosa said. "You did not have to do that! He would have come quietly."

"Perhaps. But he would not have stayed that way. Think of him as an infant, Soa; he will react emotionally and loudly to whatever frightens him. I frighten him. We can not take the risk that he will suddenly decide to mention that at the top of his lungs." He hoisted Sung over his shoulder

"Stay by my side," he told her, "act frightened, pretend to weep."

Soamosa glared at him and opened her mouth to speak.

"My people will expect it," he said through gritted teeth. "If you walk by my side like a queen consenting to be escorted they will wonder what is going on. And we do not want them to start thinking.
I
know how brave you are, surely that is all that matters." He leaned over to kiss her lightly on the lips. "And after all, we have Bethel to consider. Do we not?"

She managed to look both chagrined and flattered.

"Yes," she muttered resentfully. "But I do not like it."