The Summer Queen (139 page)

“Sorry, boss,” Niburu said, looking back/down/up at him. “I
move faster this way.”

Reede grunted. He had commented, complained, and finally
ordered Niburu to get the interior of the ship refitted so that it was more
comfortable to a man his own height. Niburu had ignored him, stalled, and
finally, standing eye to eye with him from the height of a raised access in the
systems center, told him to fuck off. “This is my ship,” Niburu had said. “It
has to be my way.” And to his own surprise as much as Niburu’s, Reede had let
it go.

He looked down/in as they passed the empty room that was the
ship’s real heart, where Niburu navigated and they all endured the brutal
passage through Black Gate transits. Its passenger cocoons gave them some
protection against the stresses of hyperlight as well, now that the ship was
outfitted with a jury-rigged stardrive unit, and the past and the future were
fused into one imperfect present.

He went on without stopping through the cramped maze of
dayroom, commons, and private sleeping cubicles, with nothing worse than
bruises and curses. They arrived in the systems center just as the access at
the other end filled with a cluster of armed troopers in spacesuits.

Niburu and Ananke raised their hands, drifting free, at the
sight of the guns trained on them. Reede did the same, reflexively, kept his
hands up reluctantly.

“Who are you? Why are you on my ship?” Niburu demanded, the
indignation in his voice belying the submission gesture. “We had clearance when
we left. You’ve got no reason to board us, let alone threaten us. I’m going to
report this—”

“You can report it to me.” The front man in the group of intruders
pushed toward them; banged his head on a piece of suspended equipment and
pulled himself up short. He swore under his breath, his eyes threatening death
to anyone who cracked a smile. “Lieutenant Rimonne, Hegemonic Navy. Tiamat is
under martial law, and we are investigating the arrival of all unscheduled
ships.”

“Martial law?” Niburu said blankly. “Look, I’m a free
trader. I get shipments where I can; I don’t run on a schedule.”

“Our records show you claim to be arriving with the same
cargo you were carrying when you left Tiamat. Would you like to explain that?”

Niburu shrugged. “A deal fell through. It’s a hard life.”

“Nice try.” The lieutenant gestured at his men. “We’re
taking you aboard our vessel for questioning, and probably detention.”

“Wait a minute,” Reede said, moving forward cautiously, his
hands still high. “I’m their return cargo. They brought me here to see
Gundhalinu. I have to see Gundhalinu, as soon as possible.”

Rimonne raised his eyebrows, taking in Reede’s bandaged head
and torn, bloodied clothing. “The Chief Justice? That’s going to be difficult.”

Reede glanced down at himself, realizing that his appearance
didn’t help his credibility any. “Take me down to the surface. Contact him,
tell him I’m here, he’ll see me. My name is Reede Kullervo.”

The lieutenant looked unimpressed. “It doesn’t matter—”

“Maybe you’ve heard of me. They call me the Smith.”

Everyone’s eyes were on him suddenly, staring. “The Smith?”
Rimonne laughed. “There’s no such person. The Smith is a legend; he doesn’t
exist.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Reede said, staring back at him.

Rimonne hesitated. His face pulled into a frown. “What kind
of business would the Smith have with the Chief Justice of Tiamat—if the Smith
existed?” He held his gun aimed more precisely at Reede’s chest.

“It’s about the water of life,” Reede said steadily. “He
needs what I know. I have to see him.”

“That’s unfortunate, because he’s gone,” the lieutenant
said. He smiled sourly. “And you’re under arrest.”

“Gone? What do you mean he’s gone?” Reede said, feeling his
mind stop itiomng. llmarinen, you can’t abandon me again.

“He was sent back to Kharemough, charged with treason. Police
Commander Vhanu has declared martial law; he’s in charge now.”

“No,” Reede said fiercely. “He can’t be, that goddamn son of
a bitch—” He looked at the guns trained on his heart, as the full realization
of what he had done to himself hit him. He turned suddenly, shoving Ananke
aside as he pushed toward the doorway.

Someone fired; the stunshock caught him full in the back,
deadening his entire body. He drifted, helpless, as they hauled him ignominiously
into the systems center again. They locked his hands together behind him; did
the same to Ananke and Niburu. They searched him; he watched in numb despair,
unable even to protest as they took the vial containing the water of death from
his belt pouch.

“He’s sick,” Niburu protested, as the marines confiscated
the drug. “He needs that. It’s medicine, let him keep it.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “That’s not what it looks
like to me.” He glanced at the man holding the vial. “Send it down with them. Have
the Police check it out.” Reede shut his eyes, unable to make any sound at all;
feeling as if the frustration and rage inside his brain would explode his skull
like shrapnel.

The lieutenant pointed toward the access behind him. “Take
them out. Contact the Police.” He looked back at Reede. “Too bad the Chief
Justice can’t see you, Kullervo. But Commander Vhanu’s going to be overjoyed.”

By the time they reached dirtside his voluntary nervous
system had come alive again, letting him stand and walk on his own feet as the
marines turned them over, with the water of death, to the waiting squad of
Blues.

The Blues took them back through the umbilical tunnel that
connected the starport to Carbuncle. Reede slumped in his seat, saying nothing,
staring straight ahead into the blackness shot with light.

They did not take the usual lift ride, up through the hollow
core of one of the city’s pylons to an exit somewhere along the Street.
Instead, the Blues forced them on into the twilit docks below the city, toward
the main access ramp the Tiamatans used to get to and from their ships.

“Why are we going this way?” Reede snapped, breaking his silence
at last, irritable with tension and fear.

One of the Blues glanced at him. “Lift’s not functioning,”
he said.

Reede looked at him in disbelief. He looked away again, already
too aware of the crawling itch beneath his skin, the bum of his soles as the
ground pressed against them, the separate exquisite pain of every cut and
laceration on his battered body, as his nerve endings became hypersensitized.
He tried not to think about how much longer their journey would take this way,
how much more effort it would take, how much less time and strength he would
have at the end of it.

The Blues halted him at the foot of the ramp, as another
cluster of patrolmen came toward them, carrying what looked like a corpse in a
body bag.

The sergeant in charge of his squad moved forward, his face
tight. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Not one of ours,” the woman leading the other detail said. “Some
local.”

The sergeant’s expression eased. “One of those Motherloving
Summers fall overboard again?” His mouth turned up in a hopeful smile.

She shook her head. “A Winter. One Kirard Set Wayaways. We’re
turning him over to the city constables.”

Reede stiffened. “What happened to him?” he demanded

The female Blue looked toward him, surprised. “The Queen’s
justice,” she said sourly. “Guess he wasn’t much of a swimmer.”

Reede felt his own face form a smile more like a rictus. “Out
of his depth ...” he murmured. His guards urged him forward again, and he began
to climb.

As they ascended the ramp he realized that something else
was wrong with the city: it was growing darker instead of lighter as they
climbed. Carbuncle had always been filled with light, day and night—he had
never even thought about it, taking it for granted, like the automatic climate
control of the city’s self-contained system. It had existed that way since
before the Hegemony’s recorded time, a product, a relic, of the Old Empire. He
had been told that Carbuncle ran on tidal power, that there were immense
turbines in caves somewhere deep in the rock below the city. He had been told
that it always ran perfectly, self-maintaining, self-perpetuating.

But there was no such thing as perpetual motion. The city’s
darkness, waiting above to swallow him, filled him with a strange emotion, that
was as much urgency as it was fear. “What the hell happened?” he asked. But he
knew what had happened; he knew, these signs were important, he had to act now.
If he could only remember what he had to do—

“The lights went out,” the Blue walking beside him said. “Everything
went out. The city’s stopped working.”

“Why?” Reede asked.

“I don’t know.” The Blue shrugged, frowning.

“How long ago?”

“Two days,” the Blue said.

“Three days,” Reede murmured. “Two gone ...”

“What?” The Blue stopped him.

“I have to see the Summer Queen,” Reede said. “I have to see
the Queen.”

“You know something about this?” the Blue asked. His hand
struck Reede’s shoulder, when Reede did not answer. “Do you—?”

“He doesn’t know anything, for gods’ sakes,” another man
said. “He’s trying to jerk us around. Get moving—” A hand caught Reede between
the shoulder blades, propelling him forward.

Reede went on without protest, stupefied by the seething mental
energy that the darkened city had set loose inside his brain. Yes, he thought,
looking left and right at the batteries of portable lights, at the flickering
dance of candles being carried along the night-filled alleys of the Lower City,
where mostly Summers lived. Yes. I’ve come home .... But he did not know why he
thought it, and the thought only filled him with desolation.

They went on, circling slowly, ever upward, the helmet
lights of the Police ounding him like glowflies, showing him the way ahead. The
few other lights he aw passed them by like the motion of strange creatures in
the black depths of the sea. ‘Most of the citizens seemed to be staying at
home, by choice or otherwise. The air sit stagnant to him, although the
transparent storm shutters at the ends of every eyway stood open now, letting
Carbuncle’s human hive breathe on its own. His |face ran with sweat; he could
not wipe it away, with his hands locked behind him. They went on, through the
Maze, although he had difficulty even recognizing it with so much of it in
darkness. Even Persipone’s Hell was closed down and dark, find him Kedalion
swore, breathless from trying to keep up. He had not realized he was slowing
down too, until someone shoved him again from behind. He umbled into Ananke,
who was ahead of him now. Ananke lurched sideways, with i clumsiness Reede only
recognized as intentional when Ananke collided with the |Blue shadowing his own
steps. The Blue went down with a grunt of surprise, in a pudden lightstorm of
intersecting headlamp beams.

“Reede, run—!” Ananke’s voice shouted, as Reede dodged
groping arms and iling legs. Reede broke away from their struggling bodies,
looking back as he Ananke cry out in pain behind him. Run—He ran, with no
choice but to ndon them. He had to make it to Street’s End, to the palace—A
random stunshot ^grazed his arm; he felt it go numb and tingling.

He ran faster up the black, nearly empty street, knowing
that he still had a third Bof the city to go, all of it uphill through the darkness.
He wondered if the Blues were able to call for reinforcements. The darkness
must be crawling with Police, out doing their job, harassing potential thieves
and troublemakers. Thieves and troublemakers; gods—

The way ahead was still a tunnel with no light at its end;
but as he passed one more alley entrance, light flooded around him suddenly,
and voices shouted at him to stop.

He jerked to a halt; trapped in the sudden crisscross of
beams like an insect, as dark figures swarmed around him.

“We’ve got him! Commander!” someone called behind him,
catching hold of the binders that still trapped his wrists. He jerked free, but
there was nowhere left for him to go. He stood still, his exhausted body
trembling, humiliating him. Someone stepped in front of him; he was blinded as
another helmet light shone directly into his face. He swore, squinting; opened
his eyes again as the light unexpectedly dimmed to a bearable level. Blinking
his sight back, he tried to make out the face of Vhanu, BZ Gundhalinu’s
right-hand man, the ass-kissing martinet Gundhalinu had stupidly made Commander
of Police.

But it was a woman’s face he saw—middle-aged,
cinnamon-skinned; New havenese, not even Kharemoughi. The Chief Inspector ...
PalaThion, that was her name. But they’d called her Commander. He peered at
her, seeing that she was not wearing a Police uniform; realizing that the
people surrounding her, and him, were all Tiamatan—the local constabulary, not
the Blues. “Huh—” he said, half in confusion and half in disbelief. And then,
like a mindless recording, he said, “I have to see the Queen.”

PalaThion’s eyes narrowed as she looked at his face, until
she was almost frowning. “Who are you?”

“Reede Kullervo. 1 need to see the Queen.”

“Yes—” she whispered, but for a moment she wasn’t seeing
him. “Thank you, gods!” she murmured. Uncertainty filled him as she looked at
him again, at his pinioned hands. She turned away as the sound of running feet
closed with them, and more lights joined their pool of illumination.

“You got him?” a voice demanded. He saw blue uniforms
gathering in the light of the constables’ lanterns; recognized the voice of the
sergeant who had been in charge of him.

“Don’t let them take me back,” he muttered, holding
PalaThion’s gaze. “Don’t.”

She nodded, a barely perceptible movement of her head, before
she stepped past him to face the Blues. Reede turned, squinting again as their
lights picked him out inside the ring of constables. “This man is in our
custody now. We have a prior claim on him.”