Страница 63 из 104
The first woman gestured. “Get him off that pole and lock the chain again. I’m taking him to the city.” As the younger woman slung her gun to fumble for the key, the older asked, “Do you know my name? What is it?”
He shook his head; a smlle might have helped, but he could not summon one. “My name is Sciathan. I am a Flier.”
“Who questioned you yesterday, Sciathan?”
“First Sirka.” His hands were free. He held them out so that the younger woman could refasten his manacles.
“After that.”
“Generalissimo.”
“Generalissimo Siyuf,” the older woman corrected him. “I was there. Do you remember me?”
He nodded. “You did not speak to me. Sometimes to her.”
“Why did your people attack Major Sirka’s troopers?”
Here it was again. “We did not.”
She struck his ear with her fist. “You tried to take their weapons. One escaped, three were killed, and you were captured. Why did you break your wings?”
“It is what we do.”
“How did you disable your propulsion module?”
He shrugged, and she struck him on the mouth. He said, “We ca
She smiled, surprising him. “Aren’t you going to lick that? My rings tore your lip.”
He shrugged again. “If you want me to.”
“Get him a rag he can tie around his waist,” she ordered the taller, younger woman. Turning back to him, she said, “I’m Colonel Abanja. Why did you attack Sirka’s troopers?”
“Because they were shooting at us.” He could not actually remember that, but it seemed plausible. “I made a face. I do not know why.”
“Did you now?” For a fraction of a second Abanja’s eyes widened. “What kind of face?”
He was able to smile when he reflected that this was vastly preferable to talking about the propulsion modules. “With lips back.”
“You don’t know why you did that. Perhaps I do. Are you saying we shot your people because you grimaced? You yourself weren’t shot at all.”
“Aer saw it and screamed. They shot her then. We tried to take their guns so they could not shoot.”
Abanja stepped closer, peering down at him. “She screamed because you made a face? Most people wouldn’t believe that, but I might, and perhaps Generalissimo Siyuf might. Let’s see you make a face like that for me.”
“I will try,” he said, and did.
The click of booted heels a
Abanja shook her head. “Get the coveralls he was wearing. Bring a winter undershirt and a blanket, and tell the cooks to give you something he can eat on horseback.”
She returned to Sciathan. “Stop gri
“Auk,” Sciathan said. “His name is Auk.”
Sergeant Sand’s arm stirred, then struck the floor of the Grand Manteion hard enough to crack it. Chenille shouted a warning. “Don’t worry,” Auk told her, “just a little static, like. I got it fixed already.”
Behind him, a voice he did not recognize said, “I only wish Patera Shell could watch. He’ll be so disheartened when we tell him what he missed.”
“So will His Eminence,” Maytera Mint murmured. “But it’s his fault for going back to the Palace, if that can be called a fault. We’re certainly not going to wait to carry out Pas’s instructions, nor would His Eminence want us to. You didn’t see Pas, Auk? Are you certain?”
“No, Maytera, I ain’t.” Auk squinted, still bent over his work. “Cause he must’ve showed me this stuff some way, after I talked to you, probably.” Inspiration struck. “Want to know what I think, Maytera?”
“Yes! Very much!”
“I think it was you keeping your promise the way you did that swung it. I think he was asking himself if we were worth all the trouble he was taking, till then. Wait a minute, I got to tie in his voluntary.”
Auk made the last co
Incus scurried away.
“Patera Shell is hoping to engage a deadcoach to return Patera’s body to our manteion.” The owner of the unknown voice proved to be a young and pretty sibyl. “Maytera said nothing would be open, but he said they would be by the time he got there, or if they weren’t he’d wait. It was a great temptation, Maytera admitted this to me, to ask His Cognizance to permit Patera’s final sacrifice to take place right here in the Grand Manteion, since he ascended to Mainframe from here. But the faithful of our quarter would never—”
Incus, returning, knelt beside Auk. “Is this sufficient? I can pull up the wick, should more light be needed.” He held up a flame-topped globe of cut crystal.
“That’s dimber,” Auk told him. “I can see the place and the register, and that’s all I got to see.” Delicately, he eased the point of his knife into Sand’s cranium. “Muzzle it, everybody. I got to think.” He counted under his breath.
And Sand spoke, making Maytera Mint start. “V-fifty-eight, zero. V-fifty-eight, one. V-fifty-nine, zero. V-fifty-nine, one.
“Those are voluntary coprocessor inputs,” Incus explained in an awed whisper. “He’s enabling them.”
When Auk showed no sign of having heard, the young sibyl from Brick Street whispered, “I simply can’t believe that your Maytera — she was, I mean. That Molybdenum and that soldier are going to do all this, and where are they going to buy these coprocessor things?”
“They must make them, Maytera,” Incus explained, “and I shall assist them.” Maytera Mint shushed him.
Auk returned his knife to his boot. “Don’t froth, Maytera. He’s all right. He just don’t know it yet.”
As if on cue, Sand raised his head and stared around him.
“Hold that right there,” Auk told him. “I got to put your skull plate back. How was Mainframe?”
The crack-crack-crack of a needler was followed by a savage snarl, more shots, and the boom of a slug gun. In the choir high above them, a nephrite image of Tartaros fell with a crash.
“Is that warm?” Abanja asked as she watched Sciathan pull on his flight suit.
Smiling was easy now. “Not as warm as I wish, sometimes.”
“Then you better put the undershirt over it. It’s wool and should be a lot warmer than that thing. Once you’re on your horse you can wrap the blanket around you.” She fingered the needler in her holster. “Can you ride?”
“I never have.”
“That’s good,” Abanja told him. “It may save your life.”
In the cutting wind outside, two bearded men held a pair of restive horses. Abanja said, “That’s mine,” and to Sciathan’s relief pointed to the larger. “The other one’s yours. Let’s see you mount.”
She watched him for five minutes while the bearded men struggled to contain their mirth. At last she said, “You really can’t ride, or you’re a marvelous actor,” and ordered them to help him. As they lifted him into the seat, she swung herself up and onto her own tall horse with a practiced motion that seemed almost miraculous. “Now let me explain something.” She leveled her index finger. “It’s two leagues to the city, and when we’re halfway you’re liable to think that all you’ve got to do to get away is clap your heels to that horse.”
He shook his head. “I will not.”
“I could chain you to your saddle, like you were chained to that pole. But if you fell, you’d probably be dragged to death, and I don’t want to lose you. So listen. If you start that horse galloping, you’re going to fall and you could be killed. If you’re not I’ll catch you, and I’ll make you wish you’d died. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She slapped her horse with its own control straps, and it stalked away a great deal faster than Sciathan had ever wanted a horse to go.