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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

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BOOK: A Working of Stars
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“He can’t afford to notice it. So he doesn’t.”
“I see,” said Narin. “Tell me one more thing: Do you mean Arekhon sus-Khalgath any harm?”
“Believe me,” Llannat told her, “I wouldn’t have traveled across time and the Void for the sake of something as essentially petty as all that. Which means you can stop thinking about the knife in your boot and enjoy the trip.”
 
 
Egelt headed south in the private sus-Peledaen flyer that his rank as chief of security allowed him to requisition. Along the way he radioed back to the sus-Peledaen ground office and spoke with Hussav. “I’m en route to Serpent Station—I’m going to see if I can persuade them to tell me what’s going on down there. If we can manage this without getting rough, in the long run everyone will be happier.”
“Right,” said Hussav. “Want me to start checking that picture against anything?”
“We’ll know when I get there. Put a team together to escort our missing friends back home, but do it quietly. We don’t need the boss to get any maybe-mistaken ideas about how close we are.”
“No disappointment for the boss. Check.”
Egelt broke the transmission, and settled back in his seat. Off to his left, the sky was going grey. He’d had a long night after a long day, and if he called ahead he’d alarm a number of people whose loyalties, in all likelihood, remained uncertain. No sense in telling them how close pursuit was—assuming that it was close. But if the mysterious kidnapper had fled to Serpent Station, there was always a chance that he’d needed the extra time on the ground to pick up fuel and supplies outside the Hanilat surveillance net, and hadn’t yet left Eraasi.
Egelt called Hussav again. “Do we have any guardships orbiting over or close to Serpent?” He’d long ago committed to memory those portions of the family’s defense and security structure that fell into his formal area of responsibility—but he hadn’t needed to know about the family’s space defenses until now. He felt his ignorance keenly, and promised himself that he would take steps to rectify it as soon as the current problem had resolved itself one way or the other.
“You want me to call up the Fleet-Captain?” Hussav asked. “Do you know what time it is?”
“I’m painfully aware of what time it is. Consider that closing the ports may not be one hundred percent effective, and that we’re dealing with people who may not ask permission to leave.”
“I’ll see what I can do. What message do you want me to pass along?”
“Tell Fleet-Captain sus-Mevyan I consider flight from the southern zone to be a possibility, and that she should be prepared to block, board, and capture anyone who makes the attempt.”
“Right.”
Egelt sat back again, and tried to close his eyes. There was nothing else to do right now, so he might as well sleep. The red plush of the seat was inviting, even if the hum and whistle of the atmospheric passage wasn’t especially conducive to sleep or anything else. Just the same, no sooner had he had stretched his back and composed his mind than the flyer’s pilot came on over the intercom.
“We’re on approach to sus-Dariv control. They’re asking us what we want.”
“Tell them we want to land and inspect their field,” Egelt said. “Since the marriage we have the right to do so, and I’m exercising that right.”
“I’ll relay,” the pilot said. A moment later he was back. “The sus-Dariv want to know if you know what time it is.”
“Doesn’t anyone on this planet own a pocket watch?” Egelt demanded “Tell them yes, I know what time it is, that this is a matter of some urgency, and that I want someone with decision-making power awake and ready to talk with me on my arrival.”
“They won’t like that.”
“Our likes and theirs aren’t of much concern to the ones who cut our paychecks,” Egelt said. “How long until we land?”
“Couple of minutes. Strap in if you aren’t already.”
“No rest, and no help for it. I’m wrapped and strapped.”
The landing was no more bumpy than usual, and the air when the door was opened no more breathable than he expected. It was hot and bone-dry, like stepping face-first into a brick oven, and it smelled of smoke and burnt clay. A young man in sus-Dariv colors with his tunic misbuttoned stood outside the safety perimeter.
“I’m here because a ship arrived here from Hanilat a few hours ago,” Egelt began before he was fully down the ramp. “I want to visit that ship, if I may.”
“This is most irregular,” the young man said. “From Hanilat, you say?”
“Yes. Did a ship arrive?”
“Perhaps before I came on duty? Come with me to Control,” the young man said. His nametag read YERRIS, and he’d pinned it on upside down. “We can look at the logs and see where it is, if there is one.”
Control was a one-story building at the edge of the field with no windows on the field side, and it was locked. Yerris opened it with a keycard. The lights came on as they entered.
“Isn’t there anyone on duty in here?” Egelt asked. “Who did my pilot talk to on approach?”
“Oh, that’s the surface side,” Yerris said. “This is ships’ operations. You asked about a ship?”
“Yes, I did. But the one I’m looking for would have come point-to-point surface. Maybe we should ask at surface control.”
“Of course, sir, you’re quite right. Let me call them.” Yerris left the room, and the door swung shut behind him.
Egelt waited. A few seconds later, the air around him and the floor beneath him rumbled and vibrated, and the windows on the side of the building away from the port lit up with the glaring orange of reflected light. Someone out there was lifting ship—Egelt turned, and pushed on the door. Locked.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and Yerris stood there, still looking frowsy and misbuttoned and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, sir; no ship arrived from Hanilat last night.”
“You know that we’ll be able to track the arrivals and departures,” Egelt said. “What was that launch just now?”
Yerris blinked. “Launch, sir? An engine test over in the yards.”
“Really?” Egelt had decided when he saw the orange flare of liftoff that Yerris couldn’t possibly be as stupid as he was acting, not and remain in a fleet-family’s employ. “If what you’ve said isn’t true, things will go hard with you people now that you’re sus-Peledaen.”
“We aren’t sus-Peledaen until after the wedding night,” Yerris said. “That hasn’t happened yet, has it? We’d have had word.”
Definitely not as stupid as he’s acting
, Egelt thought.
And he knows entirely too much.
But all he said was “Thank you for your time. I suppose it wouldn’t be helpful for me to show you some pictures and ask if you’d seen certain people?”
“My time is yours. I’d be happy to look at the pictures.”
“At some future point,” Egelt said, feeling certain that if Yerris was that willing to look at his pictures, the pictures weren’t likely to do any good. “Right now it’s time for me to leave.”
“You won’t be staying for breakfast? Port-Captain Winceyt will be disappointed. We so seldom get visitors from Hanilat.”
“My compliments to the captain,” Egelt said. “And please inform him that he’ll certainly be my guest in Hanilat, soon.”
Yerris gave no sign of noticing the veiled threat. “Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?”
“Nothing, for now,” Egelt said. “I’ll find my own way back to my flyer.”
As soon as he was in the air, he contacted Hussav again at the Hanilat office. “Anything happen while I was out of range?”
“I got in contact with the fleet. No guardships in place around the south. But listen to this: I’ve gotten a report from the orbiters that there was a launch from down there, a few minutes ago.”
“I know. I saw it. Has he headed for a jump point?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out. Get the fleet to board him if they can. And while you’re doing that, get a guardship assigned to us, and get us an unlimited letter of credit, and pack a bag. We’re going traveling.”
“Traveling?”
“When Lord Natelth finds out that we’ve let his bride slip off to space, I want to be a long way away and already on the job of tracking her down. Pack a bag for me, too, and be at the spaceport when I get there.”
Egelt settled back into his seat again, while the sky to his right went pink, then bright and blue. Try as he might, he still couldn’t get to sleep.
 
 
Kief attracted little notice as he made his way home from Isayana’s workplace. Mages were no oddity in Hanilat, even Mages robed for a working, and masks were all the fashion these days. His own building always had Mages coming and going at odd hours, since his Circle did most of its ordinary workings there; the neighbors were used to it, and one more Mage, as they might see it, wouldn’t matter.
His new body, now that he had dressed it properly in street clothes, robes, and a hardmask, felt much less alien. The world still looked odd; this body was slightly taller than the old one, and the angles on things were different. Sounds were different also, sharper and more distinct, and he realized that this body had better hearing as well.
The door to his apartment had a cipher lock. He laughed under his breath as he entered the keycode. It was a good thing he hadn’t wasted money on one of the new blood-and-thumbprint high-security models. He could force one of those, if he had to, but he preferred not to do it for his own apartment. If he did, he’d probably break the lock anyway.
Inside the apartment, everything was bare and dusty as always. He’d never been a man to care about personal possessions, not since the Old Hall burned, and having none to speak of gave him less to worry about.
He hung up his robe and hardmask on their customary peg, and went into the kitchen. He knew that he should be hungry after such a working, but he wasn’t, and a sudden flash of insight told him why: His new body had been nourished until scarcely two hours ago in Isayana’s gel-vat, needing nothing.
The image and the realization together sickened him. He gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles white—
breathe in; breathe out
—willing down the unexpected nausea. After what felt like a long time, the ringing in his ears subsided and the dots that swirled in his field of vision like angry insects faded and went away.
With the waning of the sickness, however, came knowledge: If he didn’t eat something right now, and force himself to become accustomed to taking ordinary nourishment, he would keep on avoiding the very thought of it. And this body—
his
body—would waste and die.
Lady Isayana needs to know that there is a chance of this, he
thought;
that it must be guarded against.
The preserving-cupboard in the kitchen held bread and sliced meat. He took out a quarter-portion of each, and forced himself to eat them slowly. He found no pleasure in the meal; eating it was like chewing and swallowing pulped paper. At least he was able to finish the bread and meat without his body turning against him, and the next time would be easier.
With the unwanted food lying heavy in his stomach, he went to bed. He stretched out fully clothed on top of the covers and lay staring up at the ceiling. Mind and spirit were both exhausted, but his body refused to take the offered rest. Too tired to meditate, too spent to put his intention behind anything at all, he drifted.
The silver cords of the
eiran
shifted and changed against the shadows above him, and he made no effort to touch them. He only watched. He saw his own working, and Garrod’s working, and all the myriad lesser workings of a galaxy filled with Circles. They shifted and spun and connected and parted again, and he felt himself being pulled inexorably from his place of rest into the dance of the patterns.
Somebody’s out there,
he thought. Somebody was working the luck, and something about the working had called to him, had drawn him out of even this strange exhausted stupor. He could almost believe that the Mage was someone from the old days at Demaizen—no other Circle had ever held him as strongly, for good or ill, not even his own—except that all of Demaizen’s Mages were dead or exiled. He would have to investigate—so strong a tie was dangerous—but not now, he was too tired—and the voice comm was shrilling on the bedstand by his ear.
Coming fully back to consciousness was like surfacing from deep water. He fumbled for the handset. “Diasul.”
“Kiefen
etaze.”
It was Isayana’s voice. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour—”
Late?
he thought groggily, and looked over at the windows. It was dark outside; he must have slept after all. “It’s all right.”
“That’s good. I need you to come back here for a little while,
etaze,
to make a proper report on the filling process while it’s fresh in your mind. I should have thought of it earlier and asked you to stay—but frankly, I was so head-in-the-clouds over the fact that everything had actually worked that I simply forgot.”
BOOK: A Working of Stars
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