Dragons Dawn

“Kenjo, yes. Ongola will pull through.”

“Old soldiers don’t die easy. Look, Ezra, what I’m sending for Dieter are some notations I made on available fuel. Ongola will know what I mean. And I’ve sent down Avril’s course. She went off in the right direction, but I saw a very odd-looking crystal in that guidance system, one I never saw on the Mariposa when I was driving her. Am I right? She won’t go anywhere?”

“Once Bitra hits the engine button, she goes in a straight line.”

“Very good,” Sallah said with a feeling of immense satisfaction. “The straight and narrow for our dear departed friend. Now, I’m activating the big scope. I’ll program it to report through the interface to you. All right?”

“Give me the readings yourself, Mister Telgar,” Ezra ordered gruffly.

“I don’t think so, Captain,” she said, glad to rely on the impersonal address. She visualized Ezra Keroon’s thin frame hunched over the interface. “I don’t have that much time. Only the oxygen in my tanks. They were full when Avril let me put them on, but she told me she was switching off the bridge’s independent system. I have no reason to doubt her. That’s another reason why I’m switching the scope’s readings to you. Space gloves are good, but they don’t allow for fine tunings. I just about managed some repairs to the mess Avril made of the console. Jury rig at least, so . . . when someone gets a chance to get up here, most everything will work.”

“How much time do you have, Sallah?”

“I don’t know.” She could feel the blood reaching to her calf in the big boot, and her left glove was full. How much blood did a person have? She felt weak, too, and she was aware that it was getting harder to breathe. It was all of a piece. She would miss knowing Cara better.

“Sallah?” Ezra’s voice was very kind. “Sallah, talk to Tarvi. We can’t keep him out of here. He’s like a madman. He just wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure, fine. I want to talk to him,” she said, her voice sounding fu

“Sallah!” Tarvi had managed to get his voice under control. “Get out of here, all of you! She’s mine now. Sallah, jewel in my night, my golden girl, my emerald-eyed ranee, why did I never tell you before how much you mean to me? I was too proud. I was too vain. But you taught me to love, taught me by your sacrifice when I was too engrossed in my other love – my work love – to see the inestimable gift of your affection and kindness. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have failed to see that you were more than just a body to receive my seed, more than an ear to hear my ambitions, more than hands to – Sallah? Sallah? Answer me, Sallah!”

“You – loved – me?”

“I do love you, Sallah. I do! Sallah? Sallah! Salllllaaaaah!”

“What do you think, Dieter?” Paul asked the programmer as he consulted the figures Ezra had given them.

“Well, this first lot of figures gives us over two thousand liters of fuel. The second is a guesstimate of how much Kenjo used on the four missions he flew and what was used by the Mariposa today. There’s a substantial quantity unused somewhere down here on the surface. The third set is evidently what was left in the Yoko’s tanks and is now in the Mariposa’s. But, I do point out, as Sallah does, that there’s enough in the Yoko’s sump tank for centuries of minor orbital corrections.”

Paul nodded brusquely. “Go on.”

“Now this section is the course Bitra tried to set. The first course correction should have been initiated about now.” Dieter frowned at the equations on his monitor. “In fact, she should be plunging straight toward our eccentric planet. Maybe we’ll find out sooner than we knew what the surface is like.”

“Not that Avril is likely to stand by and give us any useful information as – as Sallah did.” Dieter looked up at the savage tone of the admiral’s voice. “Sorry. C’mon. You’ve the right. And if something goes wrong . . .” Paul left the sentence dangling as he led Dieter down the corridor to the interface room.

Emily had gone with Tarvi to give him what comfort she could, and Ezra was ma

“Any word?”

“None of it for polite company,” Ezra said with a snort. “She’s just discovered that the first course correction hasn’t occurred.” He turned the dial so that the low snarl of vindictive curses was plainly audible.

Paul gri

“Avril, can you hear me?”

“Benden! What the hell did that bitch of yours do?” How did she do it? The override is locked. I can’t even maneuver. I knew I should have sawn her foot off.”

Ezra blanched and Dieter looked ill, but Paul’s smile was vindictive. So Avril had underestimated Sallah. He took a deep breath of pride in the valiant woman.

“You’re going to explore the plutonic planet, Avril darling. Why can’t you be a decent thing and give us a ru

“Shove it, Benden. You know where! You’ll get nothing out of me. Oh, shit! Oh, shit! it’s not the – oh, shiiiitt.”

The sound of her final expletive was drowned by a sizzling roar that made Ezra grab for the volume dial.

“Shit!” Paul echoed very softly. “It’s not the . . .” – the what? Damn you, Avril, to eternity! It’s not the what?”

Emily and Pierre, along with Chio-Chio Yoritomo, who had been Kenjo’s wife’s cabinmate on the Buenos Aires and her housemate on Irish Square, took the fast sled to Kenjo’s Honshu Stake. While most of Landing knew about Kenjo’s death and Ongola’s serious illness. There had been no public a

When Emily returned that night, she brought a sealed message to the admiral.

“She told us,” Emily said dryly, “that she would prefer to stay on at Honshu to work the stake herself for her four children. She has few needs and would not trouble us.”

“She is very traditional,” Chio-Chio told the admiral breathlessly. “She would not show grief, for that belittles the dead.” She shrugged. eyes down her hands clenching and unclenching. Then she looked up, almost defiant in her anger. “She was like that. Kenjo married her because she would not question what he did. He asked me first, but I had more sense, even if he was a war ace. Oh!” She brought her arm up to hide her face. “But to die like that! Struck from behind. An ignominious death for one who had cheated it so often!” Then she turned and fled from the room, her sobbing audible as she ran out into the night.

Emily gestured for Paul to open the small note, which was sealed by wax and stamped with some kind of marking. He broke it open and unfolded the thick, beautiful, handmade paper. Then, mystified, he handed it to Emily and Pierre.

“There were two caves cut, to judge by the amount of fuel used and rubble spilled. One cave housed the plane. ‘I do not know where the other was,’ ” Emily read. “So he did manage to remove some of the fuel? How much?”

“We’ll see if Ezra can figure it out – or Ongola, when he recovers. “Pierre?” Paul asked the chef for a pledge of silence.

“Of course. Discretion was bred in my family for generations, Admiral.”

“Paul,” the admiral corrected him.

“For something like this, old friend, you are the admiral!” Pierre clicked his heels together and inclined his body slightly from the waist, smiling with a brief reassurance. “Emily, you are tired. You should rest now. Paul, tell her!”

Paul laid one hand on Pierre de Courci’s shoulder and took Emily’s arm with the other. “There is one more duty for the day, Pierre, and you’d best be with us.”

“The bonfire! “ Emily pulled back against Paul’s arm. “I’m not sure I – ”

“Who can?” Paul broke in when she faltered. “Tarvi has asked it.” All three walked with reluctant steps, joining the trickle of others going in the same direction, down to the dark Bonfire Square. Each house had left one light burning. The thinly scattered stars were brilliant, and the first moon, Timor, was barely a crescent on the eastern skyline.