Wings of Retribution (41 page)

Athenais chortled.  “You can be Dallas when you own
Retribution.
  Until then, you’re still a Fairy.”

Fairy’s pert face scrunched into an angry mask.  “I’d rather work in a whorehouse than work for you.”

“I’m sure Rabbit can arrange that.”  Athenais stood, the exhaustion of the last weeks finally setting in.  “Until then, drive.  If I’m feeling in a generous mood when I wake up, I might forget to mention it to him.”

At her back, she heard Dallas mutter, “No wonder your crew abandoned you on Rinel.”

Athenais paused, the words striking like a dagger.  “Who told you that?”

Fairy, obviously sensing a weakness, flashed her teeth like a predator.  “Talked to Rabbit on the way here.  Lost your second
Beetle
to mutiny, along with several mil in cargo, from what he told me.”

“They were space-rats,” Athenais growled, furious that Rabbit would disclose her personal life to this snoopy little wretch, “But since you never piloted your own civilian ship, you wouldn’t have much experience with them.  Smallfoot, for instance, was a space-rat.”

Fairy’s face showed her surprise and Athenais laughed.

“Yeah.  The burly little oaf was after my ship, but he never could cajole me out of the codes.  Was constantly trying to get the others to mutiny on me, but they always blew him off.  You’re the only one who ever listened to him.  Probably wanted to get him in bed, didn’t you, you horny little toad?  He played you like a fiddle.”

Fairy reddened until her head looked purple.  “He wasn’t my type.”

“Sure he wasn’t,” Athenais snorted, enjoying the way the little twerp was getting her hackles up.  “That’s why you told him about the shifters.”

Stiffening, Fairy said, “If you knew Smallfoot was a space-rat, why didn’t you kill him?”

Athenais shrugged.  “He was the best surgeon I ever seen.  Had him under control as long as he didn’t stand to benefit from turning us in.  I just never counted on you blabbin’ to him about shifters like some know-nothing boot straight outta the Academy.”

“I may not have had my own command for very long,” Fairy growled, “But I know you don’t keep an enemy on board your ship.  That’s crazy.”

Athenais shrugged.  “For someone who’s walking around with a
suzait
in her skull, you’re one to talk.”

Fairy opened her mouth, then shut it again. 

Athenais grinned at the girl’s naïveté, finding it almost cute.  “And s’pose he gets it in his head he doesn’t wanna sit in the navigator’s seat any longer?” Athenais continued, stroking a hand down the navigator’s console thoughtfully.  “What’ll you do when he decides to take up the controls for himself?”

“He won’t do that,” Fairy blurted, but Athenais detected the fear behind her words.

“So you say.”  Athenais shrugged.  “It’s your head, I s’pose.  But I’ve got a history with
suzait.
  Got nineteen years to get to know ‘em.  He makes one wrong move, and I’m shooting you in the head.  No questions asked.”

Fairy looked shocked.  “You can’t do that!  I told him he could take me on a spin if he wanted to.”

Athenais froze, staring at the girl in disgust, then shuddered.  “Well, I’m telling him he can’t.  I know he can hear me, and if I so much as suspect he’s taken over in there, he’s gonna have a very personal and very brief introduction to the contents of my pistol.”

Fairy’s expression instantly flickered to a smooth, mountainous calm that reminded her of Rabbit, and a soft, much less flippant voice replied, “You won’t have to worry about me, Captain.  Dallas and I have an understanding.”

Fairy’s face returned to normal and she scowled at nothing.  “You just proved her right, stupid.”  Then she cocked her head just a little, as if listening to a response.

Athenais watched Fairy argue with herself with mixed feelings.  If the
suzait
was willing to argue, it meant Fairy had a good chance of him holding up his side of the bargain and keeping his tentacles off the controls.

She watched Fairy continue the argument for a few moments, then left the cockpit, shaking her head.  Even a fool knew that the
suzait
wouldn’t be satisfied with backseat driving.  Sooner or later, the girl was toast.  Athenais just hoped she managed to eke a few more of those fancy flights out of her before the worm decided to take over.

“If it would please you to stand up, master.”  The young man’s voice was accompanied by an uncomfortable prodding sensation in Ragnar’s side, and together they nagged him out of unconsciousness.  Ragnar groaned, remembering little of the last few days—or
weeks
??—aside from the fact that he’d been carted around, bartered, and sold like a prized exotic beast.  Most of it, he had been either drugged or in a sealed compartment, which had lent to lots of sleeping.

The prodding continued.  “The Emperor’s Will is to view you now.”

Ragnar opened his eyes and realized that one of the half-naked servants was standing nearby, eyes downcast, hands quietly folded in front of him.  The man’s face was tattooed in an angry red and black mask of what looked like a horned demon.

Ragnar glanced at Morgan and Paul, who each had a half-clothed, tattooed servant waking them.  The servants, he noticed, made absolutely sure not to touch any of them, using a two-pronged stick to prod Paul out of slumber when he refused to wake.

Glancing at his brethren, Ragnar noticed that each wore a flowing white robe—and a constricting metal collar around his neck.  Vaguely, he remembered that it was programmed to shock them into unconsciousness if it sensed the electrical impulses created when they tried to shift. 

…Which was why they had all been sleeping when the servants came to wake them.  The L’kota did not wear collars.  It was against their nature.

And, now that Ragnar could once more feel the metal cinched around his neck, he felt the base instinct to shift, to flee, start surging upwards…

“Leave it alone, Ragnar,” Morgan growled, eying the three tattooed humans.  “We’ll hear them out.”

Even at his father’s command, it was difficult to control himself.

Unlike their multitudes of captors before this, the demon-faced humans made no attempts to prevent them from speaking with each other.  Instead, eyes still on the floor, the one closest to Ragnar said, “It is the Emperor’s Will that the Strangers treat you as Nobles of the Second House, but we do have permission to beat you if you do not comply with his wishes.”

Beat them? 
Ragnar gingerly got to his feet and frowned at the demon-faced man, somewhat surprised to see that they were not in cages.  “Nobles of the Second House?”

Instead of replying, the man kept his face downcast.  “If it would please you to follow me, master, I will take you to the Emperor.”  His words sounded…ancient.  Almost like a vid left over from millennia past.

Then he prodded him again with the stick and the spell was broken.

Grunting, Ragnar stumbled to allow the man to direct him from the room, waiting just long enough to make sure Paul and Morgan would follow.

“What’s with the sticks?” Paul muttered in L’kota, as he and his handler caught up with Ragnar in the stone hallway.  “They’re going out of their way to avoid touching us.”  Ahead, there were three more men with forked poles standing at the end of the hall, waiting for them.

“Almost like they think we’re contagious,” Morgan said softly, also using the old tongue.

It was true, Ragnar noted, and the fact left a knot of foreboding in his gut.  Yet, on the whole of their experiences since their capture, their treatment from the demon-faced stickbearers was rather gentle in comparison.  Further, their latest set of handlers were easily the most interesting of their long list of captors.  Used to the cold utility of hardened criminals or the casual brutality of sleazy flesh-traders, Ragnar was rather impressed that, despite the sticks, they bore an attitude of humility and respect.

Their demon-faced guides stepped wide to usher them through a door with the pronged sticks.

Though they made no efforts to stop Ragnar and his kin’s conversation, their captors said nothing during the walk.  They led them from the iron-barred cell out into a glorious Old-Earth-styled palace whose tall open windows allowed light to stream onto the warm white marble, making the gauzy blue curtains flutter in the breeze. 

Ragnar noticed that the deeper they went into the palace, the more guards stood in the corners, where they watched the three of them pass with bold, suspicious glances.  These were not dressed in loincloths like the other three, but wore glittering suits of armor bedecked with bright feathers and gold.  From the way the three servants avoided their glares, Ragnar guessed the warriors were much higher in the palatial pecking order than their guides.

They paused at the entrance to an outdoor rose garden.  A young man with billowing white robes and a long, embroidered silver cape stood with his back to them, inspecting a flower.  Four glittering warriors stood at attention, each stationed at a leg of a sun-tent spread above the caped man’s head, their golden armor so bright in the sun that Ragnar found it hard to look at them. 

Kneeling beside the figure in white, two scarlet-robed women clashed with the calming ambiance of the place, burning Ragnar’s eyes with the intensity of their garments.  Each held a jet-black bowl, their eyes cast downward.  Standing a few paces behind the man under the pavilion, another woman in a brocaded white tunic and flowing white pants stood watching them with undisguised interest.

Ragnar’s guide slapped him in the chest with the stick, halting his forward progress.  “If it pleases you to wait here, master,” the man said to the floor, “I will see if it is the Emperor’s Will to see you now.”

Frowning at the paradox of the man’s behavior, Ragnar just nodded.  His guide immediately stepped away from the group and promptly got down on his belly and began to crawl towards the robed figure, his nose touching the cobblestones.  He wiggled right up to the edge of the sun-tent’s shadow and lay there staring at the ground in silence.

After long minutes, the Emperor turned.

Ragnar was stunned.  The tall, thin man turned out to be a boy of barely twelve years old, if that.  His eyes flickered over the man on the ground, but they alighted with interest on Ragnar and his family.

“It is Our will to see those men,” the boy said in an archaic version of Standard Utopian.  “Bring them to us.”

The man on the ground began crawling backwards and the other five servants jabbed Ragnar and his kin in the backs with their sticks, forcing them forward.  Thankfully, the rules of this place did not seem to require that the three shifters approach the young man on their bellies.  Their guards stopped them at the edge of the shade, which Ragnar guessed was reserved for the Emperor only.  When the Emperor nodded, the servants dropped to the ground and crawled away.

What is going on here?
Ragnar wondered.  He couldn’t remember hearing of a society like this before.  And surely, with these massive stone buildings and obviously unique, yet well-established culture, he would have heard
something
.  It was…rare…that Marceau allowed an emperor to exist within his domain.  Hell, it was unheard of.