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Shit. Lioe froze for a second, frantically weighing her options. If she screamed, the leader would shoot–she had no doubt about it, and at this distance, he could hardly miss. He was too far away to try to jump him, get the gun away from him, and even if he weren’t, there were the others to consider–probably armed, too. That left the canal, her only–and not very good–choice. Unless I want to go with them. She rejected that thought even before it was fully formed. I don’t even know why they want me, who this mysterious someone could be–unless this is Ransome’s doing, his weird intrigue rebounding on me? She pushed that thought aside as irrelevant, said carefully, “Wait a minute, now.”
The leader relaxed slightly, the palmgun’s muzzle wavering just a little. It was all the chance she was going to get. Lioe flung herself blindly backward, into the canal’s murky water. Fleetingly she heard one of the men shout, and she hit the water hard, shoulder and hip, throwing a great plume of spray. She righted herself under the cold surface, risked opening her eyes for just an instant. The water, salt and oil and chemicals, stung miserably, but she saw light above her, and oriented herself against it. The current was strong, as she’d hoped and feared, and she let it take her, sweeping her down toward the junction where the canal turned south, away from the street. Already her lungs hurt her; she let out a little of her air, exerting herself only to keep herself parallel with the surface, and risked another glance into the dirty water. The surface glimmered just above her, tempting her with air and light, but she made herself stay down, trying to put a meter or so of water between her and the palmgun’s projectiles. She let out a little more air, darkness gathering at the edge of her vision, and could hold her breath no longer. Gasping, she broke the surface, flinging her hair out of her eyes, and heard the flat crack of the palmgun from the nearer bank. Someone shouted, but she dove again, striking out strongly across the canal. The current clutched at her, rolling her sideways and down, then back in toward the canal bank. She floundered in momentary panic, eyes opening in spite of the pain, and clawed her way back to the surface. She was at the corner, where the canal narrowed and the water ran the fastest, rolling and folding over itself. She forgot about the gunmen in her struggle to free herself from the current’s pull. For a terrified moment she thought she’d failed, that she would be pulled under and drowned, and then the water flung her with bruising force against the first of a set of pilings. She cried out in spite of herself, choked on a mouthful of the salty water, and struck the pilings again. This time, she grabbed for them, her hands sliding in the slimy mess of waterweeds, and then she worked her fingers into the dripping mat and clung, head above water, the current still dragging at her clothes and body. Her face burned where she had struck the piling, pain like long lines of fire ru
She looked back down the canalside, saw the four men huddled together, staring along the canal in her direction. She froze for a second, new fear shooting through her, and realized that they couldn’t see her after all. The bend in the bank protected her, at least a little bit, and at this distance she would be no more than a dark dot against the dark water. That was reassuring; she tightened her grip on the piling, and began to look for a way out of the water. This was a one‑bank canal, with a single pedestrian embankment on the opposite side. Above her stretched blank formestone walls, banded with darker blocks of stone; the nearest window was a good ten meters above her head. The current swept past her, tugging her body away from the piling: not a place to try and swim, she thought, and turned her attention to the wall. The pilings stretched the length of the house row, and there seemed to be a break in the walls beyond that. Maybe if I can work my way down to that break, I can just climb out, Lioe thought, or even just get out of the worst of the current, and swim to the embankment. If it weren’t for the current, I could do it, no problem.
She looked back down the canal, ready to duck out of sight if the would‑be kidnappers were looking in her direction, but they were standing close together, one of them with his hand cupped to his head as though he held a portable com‑unit. They seemed to be distracted, or as distracted as they were likely to get, looking back toward the stage. Lioe leaned out cautiously into the current, reached for the coat of waterweed that fringed the next piling. There wasn’t much above the water, and she leaned out a little farther, reaching beneath the surface to grope for the matted weeds. She found them, dug her hand into the slimy surface, the individual strands slipping slack between her fingers. They were covered with a gelatinous coating that made her shiver even as she tightened her grip, pulling back as hard as she could. The weeds stayed fast to the piling. She took a deep breath and released her grip on the first piling, reaching for the second, letting the current toss her against it. She tightened her hold, breathing hard, ignored the new pain where her knee had scraped the formestone wall, and reached for the next piling to try again.
She inched her way down the canal wall, groping from piling to piling, her hands slimed and green from clutching the weeds. Their air sacs burst and oozed a sticky ichor, staining her hands despite the ru
The space she had been aiming for turned out to be one of the tiny canalside parks, neatly paved, with low umbrella‑shaped trees growing in tubs and a wide strip of open ground filled with extravagant white flowers. There was a gonda landing as well, three steps leading up out of the water, and a mooring ring on the wall, and Lioe clung to that for a moment, grateful to feel solid land under her feet, before she dragged herself up onto the bank.
A woman was sitting under the nearest umbrella‑tree, on the edge of the tub, a paper parcel open beside her, the remains of a meat pie strewn on the ground for the local cats. Her head came up sharply as Lioe staggered up onto the bank, and Lioe hastily lifted her hands to show them empty of weapons.
“It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. Somebody tried to mug me.”
The woman swallowed whatever she was going to say, swept the last crumbs off her lap. She was a big woman, tall and heavyset, dressed in the dark robe that belonged to the Four Judges. Lioe saw the tall headdress and mask of the Prospering Judge set aside on the tub’s edge beside her. “Are you hurt?” the woman asked, and came forward briskly.