The City Who Fought

Chapter Twenty-One

Another point of light flared in the holo tank.

"You have destroyed my dreadnought," Belazir said, surprise and amusement in his voice. He looked up at Channa. She was sweating heavily, strings of black hair plastered to her forehead. The Kolnari was calm as ever as he took another draught of the sparkling water flavored with metal salts.

"That makes…" He paused to recollect. "Seventy-five wins for me and three for you. Ah, well." He dapped his hands, and attendants brought his equipment. "Enough pleasure; there is work to be done."

"Okay, people," Simeon said. The voices died down. "We've got a little time. You-know-who's sleeping the sleep of the wicked."

The screens went silent, and so did the little clutch of men and women seated around the lounge table.

"They're going to be more or less finished in one more day-cycle," he went on.

"One?" Amos said. "They have more items marked for shipping than they could handle in one day."

"Trust me. I've been eavesdropping. They're doing that to fool us. Nearly fooled me! Only their top people know."

"How long has it been?" Patsy whispered.

"Sixteen days," Simeon said.

Doctor Chaundra swallowed. "A hundred dead. Many times that are… injured, in various ways. We cannot endure more of this."

"We won't have to. One more day, and we're saved or we're all dead."

"The Navy?" Joseph said.

"They dropped a scout into the system today," Simeon replied. His image raised a hand to stem the babble. "It's heavily stealthed. I have the recognition codes, or I'd never have detected it. Yes, the flotilla is coming.

"They should be here, and soon. However, we've got to have a plan for the worst case." He paused before he could go on. "The worst case is the Navy doesn't get here quite in time. We've got to give it our best shot. The Kolnari've got a lot of their people spread out, and their ships docked. They're planning on keeping it that way until the last minute. I've figured out a few indicators that'll tell me right down to the minute."

Channa swallowed and nodded. One of them would be Belazir coming to take her off to the Dreadful Bride.

"The battle platform will undock first. When they start that, we've got to begin our uprising! If we can cut enough of them off from their ships and keep the ships from undocking-I've got some plans on that tactic-then they can't blow the station."

Amos nodded somberly. "The cost… the cost in lives will be very high. But there is no alternative."

"We cannot fight for long," Joseph said. "A delaying action at best. They have the weapons, armor, organization. And they need not fear damage to the station. They will use their onwatch ships to force-dock through the hull, outflank us. We have no real weapons."

"How many times have we gamed the uprising?" Amos said, rubbing his hand across his face. "Forty, fifty? Not once have we won, no matter if you or I command."

Simeon nodded. "Better to die on your feet than die on your knees," he said. Grim smiles greeted the sally. Most of them had seen his tapes of the Warsaw Ghetto. "I can disorganize them a lot more than they expect," he went on. "We've got some weapons, too."

They all looked at the column.

"Mikesun?" he said.

The section rep was haggard and drawn, as you would expect from someone who had been working in cramped quarters for more than two weeks.

"I've got them unpacked and ready," he said. His hands moved into the light. "'Bout a thousand. Plus the explosives you told us to get ready."

Suddenly he had a needler in his hands. A huge chunky-looking thing, of no make any of them recognized.

"Where on… where did you get those, Simeon?" Channa asked.

"Ah, um." Simeon sounded slightly embarrassed, she thought. "Well, you know how I like to collect stuff. They were cheap-a ship needed some fuel bad and didn't have credit. And I just liked the thought of having my own arsenal. 'Someday we might need this kind of stuff.' I was right, wasn't I?"

"Yes, bless you," she said simply, because the relief she felt at seeing honest-to-God weapons was so intense.

Somebody swore. "Why haven't we had those before now? I've had my people attacking Kolnari patrols with their bare hands-"

"Because we couldn't let them take us seriously too soon!" Channa said sharply. "Any sort of formal weaponry would have alerted them. We had to do as much damage as we could without such assists, until the last moment. They won't be expecting us to have needlers. We'll have surprise and shock on our side."

Amos leaned forward, more warmth in his tone than was usual when he spoke to the brain. "How are they to be distributed?"

"Remember when I said I'd put some other stuff that might be useful in the sealed-off sections? And Patsy and Joat've been mixing stuff around, too, through the passageways."

"With a thousand needlers-" Amos began, and then shrugged, oddly hopeless. Joseph nodded.

"Hmm. What make are those?" Patsy said, with a spark of her old interest.

"Ursinar manufacture," Simeon said. "Obscure race, big and hairy, always insisted that it was their right to arm bears."

"This may only prolong the agony and delay the inevitable," Amos said. "So little against so much." Then he shook himself. "Still, it is better to die fighting."

"Hell, better to win and live," Simeon said.

"In the meantime," Amos said, standing and sweeping his eyes from screen to screen, "push them hard. They are incapable of resisting a territorial challenge from a weaker opponent-even when it would be logical to pull back. Take more risks."

Well, he takes as many as the rest of us do, Channa thought. Quite the little commander all the same. Wry amusement colored her exhaustion.

"Security monitor's locked," Joat said. "Now, your bit."

Seld went to the electronics access panel and began fiddling with its innards. Then he inserted the hedron he had prepared. The resulting picture would be distorted in the way the security computers had been since the pirate worm program went in. But they would distort the images of Joat and Seld in selective ways. Making them appear taller, much darker…

Joat went in the opposite direction, placing herself at the end of the corridor in the lookout's position.

When he had finished he joined her and tapped her shoulder. "Time," he whispered.

"Just a sec." She opened her pack and withdrew a monocrystal filament dispenser. The thread was a molecule in diameter but incredibly strong. Dangerous to handle, too. Thinner than the thinnest knife-blade could ever be.

"What are you gonna do with that?" he asked puzzled. "I thought you were planting something."

"Stick around and you'll see," she said, waggling her eyebrows.

She knelt beside the wall and attached an end of the beryllium monocrystal filament to the corridor panel at about knee height. Using the tiny laser that was part of the dispenser, the end was soldered into place, leaving a slight stickiness when she touched the wall. She reeled out the invisible fiber and tacked the other end to the opposite wall, keeping a careful mental image of where it was.

Seld turned pale. "You can't… you know what that stuff does!"

"Sure do," she said smugly. "Ol' Jack-of-All-Trades is gonna give new meaning to 'cut off at the knees.' "

"You can't," he said, and grabbed her arm. "They're bastards, but they're… they're sentients. You can't be maiming them like that." His voice had taken on a tinge of his father's accent again, but he was shaking with tension. Drops of sweat broke out at the edge of his reddish-brown hair. "It's evil! What are you thinking about?"

She snatched her arm from his grip. "I'm thinking about what they did. Tortured people. What they did to Patsy, and your friend Juke. I'm thinking about payback."

He licked his lips. "Not like this, I won't have anything to do with it. Couldn't you just… kill them clean? C'mon, Joat?"

She pushed him back with her shoulder and tacked another line through at about waist height for a tall adult.

"Sim says," she went on, drawing three more lines about shin-height, "that cutting the enemy up is better than killin' 'em. Shakes them up more, and they gotta take care of them."

"If we do stuff like this, how are we different from them?"

She turned on him, snarling. "'Cause we live here and we're not doing this for fun! Or to make a nardy credit off it!"

Seld sat down abruptly against the corridor wall.

"Seld?" she said, her face smoothing out abruptly and her voice changing. "Seld, you okay? You need your meds?"

"I'm okay. I just… I just don't like you as much when you're like this, Joat. And I really like you. You know?"

Sometimes I don't like me much, Joat thought. She turned away and blew out her lips in exasperation. "Don't go buckawbuckaw on me now, Seld, 'cause it's gonna get worse around here before it gets better. If it gets better." Everything always gets worse.

He raised his head from his knees. "If I'm going to die soon I want to die clean," he said. "Gimme your V-pills."

"Why?"

"Lost mine."

"Okay." They were supposed to take the pill if they came into contact with a Kolnari. Joat didn't intend to, or to live if she did. Seld pocketed the pills and stalked off toward his own escape route.

She pursed her lips and tacked a new line to the wall at the opening of the connecting corridor, at what she estimated as head-height for a Kolnari.

Then she ducked under it by a wide margin, tip-toed back toward the first line. She stopped well short of it and listened.

Come on, you gruntfudders, she thought. Fardling move. They should be amazed that it was taking the first patrol so long to respond. She went to stand by the sabotaged panel and listened, hearing only the pounding of her own heart, which felt as if it wanted to tear free of her thin chest. Then at last, her quick ears caught the sound of movement. She counted to five and began to retreat toward the second line. She entered the corridor just as she heard a shouted "Halt!" in Kolnari.

Perfect, she thought, all they saw was the coverall! They hadn't said halt, scumvermin, either.

A couple of shots were fired; light weapons, needles spanging off metal. The squad leader barked an order for cease fire and pursuit. Feet tapped the mesh covering of the corridor, in the distinctive long strides of the pirates.

Screams rang down the corridor, clanging and echoing in the close space. Joat leaned forward from where she crouched and looked out around the corner. There was a malicious grin on her face, but it died at what she saw. Two of the Kolnari soldiers lay on the floor in a small pond of blood, hanging over the ultrastrong invisible wire that had sawn through their legs and opened them up from navel to backbone like a butterflied shrimp. As she watched, a body fell to the ground in two pieces, and there was so much, so much blood and guts and all the colors, and a pink-purple lung…

One Kolnari trooper reached toward her severed legs and cut her hand in half to the wrist. Two fingers flopped uselessly as she clutched her arm and screamed and screamed, not in pain or fear but sheer terror of the invisible something that had killed her.

"Oh, multi grudly," Joat whispered to herself. The sound of the words against what she saw was so out of place that she felt hysterical giggles bubbling up. Something warned her that that sort of giggling would be very difficult to stop once it started, so she backed away. Her eyes were huge saucers in her thin pale face.

At the other end of Joat's corridor was one of Simeon's hidden elevators. She tossed the wire spool out into the corridor before she entered it. Behind her there were shouts: the next enemy squad. From the ringing sounds, they tested to find the wires with the barrels of their weapons. There was a double thud as one unwary Kolnari turned too fast into the corridor and decapitated himself on the final trap.

Moving briskly, Joat exited the elevator three levels up and entered an access corridor meant for electrical repairs. She transferred to one of the small ventilation shafts and dragged herself quickly and efficiently to a larger open area where an array of the shafts met. She was safe here: it was one of her bases, with a pallet and some ration boxes as well as tools pilfered from Engineering, if you could call it pilfering when they handed them to you willingly. They were calling Joat the "Spirit of SSS-900-C," or Simeon's Gremlin.

Then she was violently sick to her stomach. Servos arrived, clicking and cheeping to themselves, and cleaned up the mess.

Joat lay down, cradling her face on her arms, and wept bitterly. Long wracking sobs, like nothing she could remember.

"Joat… honey, have you been hurt?" Simeon's voice was soft and warm, like a vaguely remembered something that once held her.

She lifted a face flushed with weeping, but her lips were white.

"I'm not as tough as I thought," she said through her sobs. "I didn't think… Shit, no! I've gotta heart like a rock. That's me, Joat the killer! Did you hear me snancing Seld for a wuss?" A cough racked her, and she wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. "He'll hate me! I hate myself! It was so-" And she threw herself down and bit the mattress. An eerie crooning wail echoed through the corridor.

"Shhh, it's all right, it's all right."

"I wanna go home!"

"Joat. Joat, honey. I'm with you. You are home. You'll always have a home with me. I don't hate you, Joat. You're not bad, honey. But sometimes things get through to the good part of you that doesn't like the tough part of you, and that's what just happened."

The servos rolled forward and tucked a blanket around her. Simeon began to croon, directing it at her ears where she hugged the blanket about her head and only tufts of hair escaped.

"I want Channa."

I can't hold her, Simeon thought. But I can sing…

"Do you call me liar to my face, Aragiz?" Belazir said.

"My people were killed," Aragiz t'Varak replied. "Security recorded Kolnari setting the trap, perhaps thinking to throw the blame on scumvermin. I knew scumvermin could not-"

"Do you give me the lie, t'Varak?"

The other captain stopped, torn between unwillingness to retract and inability to attack. Belazir was under no such constraints.

"Did it never occur to you, oh so straightforward cousin, that it might be scumvermin posing as Clan? That they are as capable of playing on our divisions as we are on theirs?"

"You call me dupe of scumvermin?"

"I say that you bore me, Lord Captain Aragiz t'Varak. You bore me beyond words, beyond bearing. Your existence makes the universe a place of tedium beyond belief!"

Aragiz's face relaxed, into a soft, welcoming smile. "When?"

"When Lord Captain Pol t'Veng's judgement is fulfilled. To the fist." A death-duel in the old manner, with spiked steel gloves.

"And now," Belazir went on, "get your household and all else to your ship." Quick suspicion marked the other captain's face. "Yes, I know you were massing your groundfighters. There is no time for feud here, t'Varak. Believe me."

The screen blanked. Serig took a step forward, an eyebrow raised.

"Lord, he is the dolt you named him. There is nothing wrong with his reflexes, though."

"As it may be," Belazir said. "I spoke the truth. It drives me to fury to have to call that one cousin, it truly does." He shook his head. "Today, we triumph, Serig. By running, yes: but triumph nonetheless. So, we-"

The dockside guards' chimes rang through the bridge. "Great Lord, we have a scumvermin female, claiming to have information for you."

Serig chuckled. There had been a fair number of scumvermin females coming to the dock and asking for Belazir. Some few he had taken himself, and passed the others on to Serig or the crew.

"No, wait," Belazir said. "Information of what?"

"A conspiracy, involving the scumvermin leaders-that-were and the prey-ship, lord."

"Send her up." Belazir looked at Serig and shrugged. "Why not?"

Waiting was swift. "I would speak with you alone, Master," the woman said, looking meaningfully at Serig.

"I am generous to women," Belazir declared. Quite true, or she would never have reached him. "So generous I did not hear you, scumvermin."

She blinked and swallowed hard, looking from one to the other.

"Why have you come?"

"The… they held me prisoner, Master and Gggg-" Even then, she could not quite bring herself to utter the blasphemy. Then Belazir looked up at her, and she felt herself huddle down behind the barrier of her skull, knowing it was not enough. So a sicatooth looked at a lamb.

"-God," she completed, uncertain if it was the obscene honorific they demanded or a prayer. "I… I have information." She stammered, put a hand to her face. I escaped, she thought. They must be really conspiring against her-against Amos, as well. Holding her from him. She whimpered slightly. She could remember his words of love, the promises-and nightmares of rejection, of failure. The brass-colored eyes were waiting.

"I am Rachel bint Damscus. I am from Bethel. I was on the ship that you were chasing. Forty of us survived the journey and took refuge on this station."

Neither of the Kolnari moved or spoke.

"So… you are from Bethel?" Belazir leaned his head on his fist. One finger caressed his lower lip. "Turn your head. Stand. Bend. Sit once more."

Belazir turned to Serig. "Possible," he said meditatively. "Similar scumvermin race, but there are many varieties here."

"Unlikely, lord."

Belazir nodded. And in any case academic. They were nearly ready to go. If they have deceived us, what matter? The memory of his slap in the face of the Bride's joss came back to him. Perhaps the old customs had some real strength after all…

She stared at him. There was something odd about her eyes, Belazir decided. Her lips trembled, and her fingers, but not in terror; he could always identify that. Some nerve disorder, perhaps? He leaned forward and snuffed. Not a healthy scent.

"Yes." She nodded once, sharply. "Master and God."

"Why do you tell me this? Surely you know that it is dangerous?

The woman began to tremble with rage, and tears filled her eyes.

"She… that black-haired, black-hearted whore seduced my betrothed! She promised him power! But she lied. He plays the fool for her, does what she tells him, sleeps in her bed…" Her voice broke and she stopped, swallowed a few times before she could speak again. "The one you have been told is Simeon-Amos is truly Amos, the leader who brought us here from Bethel. The real Simeon is a shellperson, a thing they call a brain, and he is still running this station."

"A… shellperson?" Belazir t'Marid closed his eyes for a moment. "Ah! We have heard, but never seen."

Serig leaned down to him. "Lord, a sort of protein computer, no? But our worm subverted their system and holds it in our fist. Would we not have known?"

"It would explain anomalies," Belazir said, chasing the elements that made him believe the impossible "And-ah! I am as great a fool as Aragiz t'Varak!"

"Surely not, lord," Serig said, surprised. "Not on your worst day. Not on my worst day. Not on the worst day of this scumvermin womb here."

"I was about to dismiss this, time being short. Dismiss potentially the richest single piece of loot on the station!"

"A shellperson is so much?"

"A strategic asset," Belazir said. "Come, we will look into this. It is time, in any case."

He turned his eyes back to the scumvermin. From all he could see, she was manic-depressive, swinging from healthy, normal terror to an exalted state where she had complete confidence in his interest, in his support. As if he were a player in her play…

"Mad," he said. "Yet… My vanity, perhaps, but little Channahap plays the war game far too well. An encysted brain, tied to great computers and their data banks, though?" He cocked an eyebrow at Rachel.

"I can only tell you what I have heard," the woman said, babbling in her desire to be believed. "I have been told that they are people who have been put into a casing as infants and that they then become like a computer." She wrung her hands and looked desperately from one to the other. "I'm telling you the truth. They are plotting against you, Master and God!"

Belazir smiled in polite agreement. "Of course they are." On that, at least, they were agreed. He rose. "Come, we will go and talk to them." He turned to Serig. "Have Baila tell Channahap that I will see her in her office. Tell her to have Simeon-Amos there as well."

Simeon spoke, interrupting Channa at her work station. "Channa, Belazir t'Bastard is heading this way with Rachel in tow. I don't know what's up, but he's looking both grim and pleased."

Before Channa could speak, the comm chimed and Baila's face appeared.

"Channahap," she said. "The Lord Captain t'Marid is on his way to your office. You will await him there. He commands the presence of Simeon-Amos. Obey." The screen went dark.

"Shit," Channa said, and tapped her fingers thoughtfully. "You're right, Simeon, this does not look good. I am so sick of that girl. She's driving me… crazy. Simeon?"

"You're right on the button about her state of mind, Channa. Our Rachel's crazy, not just going crazy but absolutely nuts, gonzo, a sandwich shy of a picnic, packin' a short seabag…"

"Sim!"

"Right, I'll have Chaundra draw up a case history about some kind of dementia. You brief Simeon-Amos, I'll spread the word."

"You got it. Simeon-Amos," she said over the intercom, "get in here."

"And Channa?"

"Yes?"

"I think this is it. The battle platform just started severing its stationside power leads. We've got a real opportunity to hurt them hard if we can get Belazir out of comm with his people. It could make the difference."

Channa nodded. She had been prepared to try an assassination on the Bride, but that, at best, was unlikely. Fear was remote: no time for it.

"Simeon-Amos," she began, when he entered the lounge. "Belazir's coming, with Rachel." His face froze. "Here's what we're going to do-no time for an argument."

The crates made gentle plopping noises as they slid out of the meter-deep green water of the algae pools and stood dripping on the slotted metal of the walkways. Ships had a closed system of tubing and enclosed tanks, but this arrangement-open metal rectangles stacked like trays-was more efficient for a station. The environment systems workers moved quickly, without wasted effort or much talking. This had not been a cheerful section since their chief returned to them, but there was a stolid satisfaction as the vac-covers were peeled back and the weapons went from hand to hand among the hundred or so technicians, office workers, and laborers.

Patsy Sue Coburn watched the needlers emerge, brutal and compact. She slung one over her shoulder. Ursinid weapons were submachinegun size for humans. Then she reached into the pool and retrieved her arc pistol, stripping off the plastic film.

"Wait for it," she whispered. If the Kolnari made one last swing through on their usual routes, they'd be by in half an hour or so.

The crew were crowding around the supervisors, getting a quick lesson on how to use a needler to best effect. Luckily, the weapons had simple controls: set the dial on the side to the full clockwise position and take up the trigger slack. Look down the barrel at the target and pull the trigger. Line of sight weapons with little recoil at short ranges, they should do well enough.

And they're all we've got, she reminded herself. She felt completely calm. In a way, she had been calm since she woke and saw Joat's face floating before her, like a ghost's in its pool of light. There was a feeling under that, a feeling that when she wasn't calm anymore, it was going to be very, very bad.

"Reckon I kin wait fer it," she told herself.

The others were looking at her.

"Just wait 'n till they come around," she said patiently for the hundredth time. "Simeon'll keep us all in touch." I hope, I purely do. "Now, when they git here, you burn 'em down. Then go down axial G-8 an' hit the bunch of 'em there. Amos'll be by about then. If not him, then me."

She nodded curtly and slung the needler further around to her back, freeing her hands for the climb up the interval ladder. The entrance to the venting system was where she would rendezvous with Joat. Not a difficult climb at first, since these were the biggest vents on the station. The circle of faces fell away below her, growing tiny amid the rectangular Escher shapes of the ponds and the huge color-coded maze of pipes for nutrient and water and waste.

Amos stood impassively behind Channa, hands clasped at his back. They dropped to a knee as Belazir entered. He took the seat before her desk, gestured to Channa to sit. The squad of soldiers began to crowd into the small office. The t'Marid snapped out an order in his own language and all but two of them withdrew.

Rachel stood beside his chair. She glared at Channa and then turned away, her fists clenched by her sides. To Amos she smiled tremulously.

Definitely, as Sim would say, a few cans short of a sixpack, Channa decided. She looks as if she's rescuing him.

Channa folded her hands in her lap. "Master and God, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

Belazir smiled and indicated Rachel with his hand. "I have been given some interesting information."

"I have told him everything!" Rachel said spitefully.

Channa and Amos regarded her blankly, then shook their heads and turned to Belazir.

"Everything?" Channa asked.

"She has told me that she and forty others survived the trip from Bethel, and that this man," he flicked his chin at Amos, "is her betrothed. She tells me that he is pretending to be Simeon and that the real Simeon is in fact a brain in a container or some such thing, who is running this station and the resistance to the High Clan."

He folded his hands and regarded her calmly. "This truth would solve certain difficulties."

Channa fought not to smile, making her eyes wide with disbelief. Belazir studied her closely. Amusement was not what he had anticipated.

"Simeon-Amos," she said at last, "please inform Doctor Chaundra that Rachel has been found and ask him to come and fetch her. Advise him that he may need some form of chemical restraint."

Belazir raised an eyebrow.

Channa looked to the t'Marid for permission for Amos to comply. Belazir flicked his fingers. Amos nodded and went into his own office to make the call.

"She lies yet again, lord," Rachel said, but she fell silent at a second flick of Belazir's hand.

Channa assumed an understanding expression. "This young woman is deranged. We don't restrain her because usually she is harmless and so are her fantasies. A tragic case, very resistant to psychotherapy."

"Foul whore-" Rachel began, urgently stepping forward.

Belazir made a chopping motion with his hand. A guard stepped forward and Rachel shut her mouth with an audible snap.

"Who is she, then?" he asked.

"We don't actually know," Channa said. "She was abandoned here, apparently by some transient merchanter. She had no I.D. No one came forward with any information about her. The doctor isn't sure if her insanity is the result of drugs or trauma. He says the only way to be one hundred percent sure is to do an autopsy, which obviously is out of the question. She's usually very sweet, at worst a mild nuisance. Perhaps the conditions…" and Channa made a vague motion with her hand to suggest that the occupation might have added to her instability. Channa made herself lean back casually in her chair, appearing at ease. "Perhaps it's a sign of progress that she is this aware of, ah, current events, Master and God. She must have concocted this fantasy about Bethel from the newstapes, for example."

Rachel exploded. "She lies!" She lunged for Channa, coming up with a jerk when the guard pulled her back by her long hair. Her gorgon's mask of rage did not even register the pain. She struggled briefly and then subsided as Amos came back into the room. "Amos," she pleaded, weeping, "help me!"

He looked at her with sympathy.

"Of course, I will help you, Rachel," he said. His mellow voice rang with sincerity. "We all wish to help you." He leaned close to Channa. "The doctor is on his way, Ms. Hap."

"No!" Rachel screamed. "No! How can you do this to me? She is using you, my love! Do not betray me! Please…" Tears began to leak down her long nose. "Please… please."

Channa's stomach twisted. She is crazy. Probably curably crazy-most were. Irritation faded before pity, and pity faded before the threat of the Kolnari putting any weight into Rachel's tale.

Amos' sympathy was achingly real.

"There, there," he said soothingly. "You are ill, Rachel. Daddy will call the doctor to make it right." He offered the rag doll he was carrying. "You can have Siminta with you." He pressed it into her hands.

For a moment Rachel's sobs stopped and she stared at him in confusion. "What?" she said. "You are my betrothed, not my father!" She looked down at the doll, then dashed it to the floor and stamped her foot. "Stop mocking me!"

Amos shifted uneasily. "I cannot keep up with this. May I be excused until Doctor Chaundra comes?"

"It might be best," Channa said, addressing Belazir.

The t'Marid's eyes flicked over the three of them. "Daddy?" he said dubiously, then quirked an involuntary smile.

Channa sighed. "Last week, she thought she was five years old and Simeon-Amos was her father. She would start to cry if he left the room. For some reason, she's totally fixated on him. Chaundra supposes that he resembles whoever dropped her on us. We don't know."

"Lies!" Rachel shrieked. "lies."

"The doctor should be here by now," Amos said, clearly uncomfortable. He picked up the doll and placed it carefully on a chair. "Ah… she will grieve later if it isn't there."

"You may go," Belazir said to him. His eyes never left Channa's.

Chaundra strode in. He walked over to the weeping girl and touched her shoulder gently. "Poor Rachel," he said soothingly, "poor little girl."

"Doctor," t'Marid said sharply. Chaundra turned and stood very straight, looking down. "This is your patient?"

"Yes, Master and God."

"I do not appreciate having my time wasted on the daydreams of this madwoman. If she is so much as seen again-no, no point. You may go. Wait. You have records of her illness? I want to see them."

"Yes, Master and God, but I can't access them from this computer. Medical records are on a closed system to protect the privacy of the patient."

Belazir made an impatient, dismissive gesture. "Serig," he said. "See to it, then back to the Bride, continue on the matter we were planning. I will join you shortly." Serig bowed deeply.

"At your command, lord," he said, his teeth showing slightly in cold amusement. "The doll, too?"

Belazir snorted. "Go, insolence."

Rachel took a deep breath and seemed to fight for dignity; the twitching lessened in her face. "They are lying, Master and God, you will see. I am telling the truth."

That ended in a squawk as Serig turned her about and pushed between her shoulderblades. She ran to avoid falling, and the door hissed open before her.

"Now," Belazir snarled. Chaundra followed.

In the strained silence that followed, Belazir and Channa studied each other.

At last Belazir spoke. "Have your man return."

Channa pressed the intercom button, "Simeon-Amos, would you come in here, please?"

"This Rachel is in love with you," t'Marid observed, a hint of laughter in the yellow eyes.

"I confess," Amos said bitterly, "that I am beginning to despise the very sight of her."

The Kolnari raised an eyebrow.

"One day," Channa informed him, "she became convinced that Simeon-Amos was God and went around the station trying to convert people to worshipping him. She's been a very difficult experience for all of us, but she's been a particular strain on Simeon-Amos."

"Simeon-Amos," Belazir said, "is rather obviously the victim of a similar fixation on you, Channahap. A strong reason to believe your tale."

"Yes, Master and God," Channa said. She closed her eyes. Simeon? she asked.

"He's halfway convinced, but still wondering. Impatient. Channa, it's starting. No more than twenty minutes until the pirates' sound alarm."

She opened her eyes again. "Simeon-Amos," she said. "Why don't you go see to the primary warehousing?"

He hesitated for a long second. "As you wish."

Now, Simeon commanded.

The worm raised its head from the ruins of the castle, looking out across a plain of volcanic fumaroles and blue-glowing lava. Flights of tongue-wasps patrolled there and arcs of lightning jagged over crater and canyon in patterned displays.

Thunder rumbled. A barking broke loose, louder than the thunder, and the vault of heaven split. The worm reared up, endless, longer than time, glutted with its feeding.

Simeon burst through and new skies sprang above the blasted landscape. The light changed from a pitiless white to the softer yellow of sunshine. The wasps fell, twitched, died. Three-headed and elephant-sized, the dog paced beside him. He raised the bat, struck.

The Grinder lunged and the concentric mouths damped on the end of the weapon. Then it recoiled, as the wood turned to a hoop and expanded, thrusting the rows of teeth back. It tried to shake loose, but the dog's three heads pinned its body to the earth. Wider and wider the glowing green circle swelled, until the mouths were a doorway.

A scalpel and icepick appeared in Simeon's hands. He walked into the worm's mouths and raised the tools.

"Heeeeeeere's Sim!" he shouted. "Open wide."

On the auxiliary command deck of the SSS-900-C, the Kolnari tech was reaching for the rear casing of the battle computer when he noticed the telltales.

"Lord!" he cried. "The-"

At that instant, the self-destruct charge built into the base of the computer detonated. It was not much in the way of an explosion, but much more than was required to destroy the sensitive inner workings. The designer had intended that to foil tampering. However, the flattened disk of jagged housing was more than enough to decapitate the pirate.

His companion reacted with tiger precision, scooping up his weapon and leaping for the doors. They clashed shut with a snap, and the warrior rebounded into the control chamber. It was empty save for him and there was no other exit. He pivoted, holding down the trigger of his plasma rifle and firing from the hip into the consoles.

"Naughty," a voice from the air said. The vents began to hiss. The Kolnari staggered at the first touch of the gas. His last act was to strip a grenade from his belt and trigger it, carefully held next to his own head.

"Damn," Simeon muttered. The mess was considerable and the equipment wasn't going to be much use for a while. Then he took the equivalent of a deep breath and concentrated. Several dozen things must be done at once.

"Let me up," Channa said, stroking Belazir's back.

"Not for a while yet," Belazir said lazily. "I have hastened as it is. There is another five minutes available." His body was dry against her sweat-slick one, but much warmer, with the higher metabolism of his breed.

"Are we staying, then?" she breathed against his ear.

"No," he replied. "You suspected?"

"That you'd take me with you, or that today would be the day to go? Both." She wiggled. "Now, please. I have to get some stuff."

"I shall keep you well," Belazir said, then rolled away off her. "Be swift."

He lay idly on the sofa, watching her disappear into the bedroom. Memorable, he decided. Starting with her skinning out of her clothes the moment they were alone. Anticipation is the best garnish. The Kolnari consulted his interior timesense: twenty minutes, unusually swift. Well within the day's schedule, too. He grinned to himself, stretching and tossing back strands of white-blond hair. Tomorrow stretched out before him in a road of fire and blood and gold.

"We are close to Channa's quarters?" Joseph asked.

They were leopard-crawling down the ductway; an action that was hard for one of his shoulder-breadth. Behind them Patsy was having less of a problem, since much of her volume was compressible.

"Yeah…" Joat paused. "I haven't actually been this way, y'know. I was trying to hide from Simeon." A pause. "We're right over the main corridor to the elevator shaft. I think."

"I think I had better check," Joseph said, with a tight smile. "Are you all right, Joat-my-friend?"

"Yeah." She threw a smile back at him. "Just… I got a little shook, is all. I'm fine."

She touched the junction node and her jacker. The membrane beneath them turned transparent. Chaundra did not look up. Instead, he glanced behind him, shook his head, moved on.

Joat crawled past, then froze as two more figures came beneath. Rachel was running, but Serig caught her easily in one hand, pushed her against the corridor wall. She screamed, breathy and catching in her throat, like someone awakening from one nightmare into another.

"Don't do it, Joe, he'll kill you!" Joat cried sotto voce, lunging for the Bethelite's belt. She missed and knew it would have done no good. Her hand could never have deflected the solid charging weight of the man. He was through the space and dropping to the deck before she could finish the sentence. His knives were in his hands: one long and thin, the other short and curved.

The Kolnari had his hand back to cuff Rachel again as she screamed a second time, hopelessly.

"Pirate," a voice behind them said.

The warrior threw her aside as easily as he might a sack of wool, and she thudded into the corridor wall. The same motion turned into a whirling slash with one bladed palm, a blow that would have cracked solid teakwood. Joseph was not in its path, but the long knife in his right hand was. The yellow eyes slitted in pain and a broad streak of blood arched out to spatter against the cream of the sidewall and flow sluggishly down. The Clan fighter leaped back half a dozen paces, out of reach of the blades, but also farther from the discarded equipment belt. He was naked and unarmed, and the slash in his forearm was bone-deep. He dared not even squeeze it shut with his other hand. The raw salt-copper smell of blood was strong as the wound began to ooze more sluggishly. Superfast clotting would save him… if he did not exert himself

"Come to me, pirate," Joseph said softly. "Come, see how we fought in Keriss, on the docks."

The Kolnari snarled and leaped to one side, flipped in midair and bounced off the upper wall. He was a hundred-kilo blur of muscle and bone snapping at Joseph behind a clenched fist. Huddled against the wall, Rachel gave a whimper of despair, but Joseph was not there anymore. Anticipating such a tactic, he had thrown himself down on his back. Both knives were up. The pirate jackknifed in midair, but when he rolled erect, there were two more long slashes across his chest.

His grin was a snarl of pain as he slid forward. The long wounds were orange, the runneling blood a shocking deep umber against his raven-black skin. He held his arms up: one in a knuckled fist, the other open in a stiffened blade.

"Come," Joseph whispered. Rachel blinked back to full consciousness and the sight of his face chilled her. "Come to me, yes, come."

The knives glinted in either hand, splashed orangey-red now, the edges glinting in the soft glowlight as they moved in small, precise circles.

What followed was a whirling blur. It ended with one knife flying loose and Joseph crumpling back, curled around his side. The other knife still shone in defiance. The Kolnari warrior staggered and shivered for a moment, then drew back his foot for the final blow. Rachel flung herself forward, grasping blindly. Her arms closed around the poised leg. It was like gripping a tree, no, a piece of steel machinery that hammered her aside like some giant piston-rod. But blood loss and the unexpected weight threw the pirate off-balance. He staggered forward into Joseph. For a moment they stood chest-to-chest, like embracing brothers. Long-fingered black hands damped down on Joseph's shoulders, ready to tear the muscles of his bull-neck free by main force.

Then she saw the Bethelite's left arm moving. The right hung limp, but the left was pressed against the Kolnari's side. There was something in it. A knife-hilt, and the blade was buried up to the guard; the curved blade of the sica, whose density-enhanced edge would carve steel. It slid through ribs as the pirate's killing grip turned to a frantic push that arched him like a bow.

The two men had fought in silence, save for the panting rasp of their breath. Now the Kolnari screamed, as much in frustration as in final agony. The cry dissolved in a spray of blood as the diamond-hard sica's edge sawed open his ribcage and ground to a halt halfway through his breastbone. He flopped to the ground, voided, and died. Joseph wrenched his knife free and stooped. He forced his right hand to action, gripped the dead pirate's genitals, severed them with a slash. Then he stuffed them into the gaping mouth of the corpse and spat in the dead eyes, still open like fading amber jewels.

Blood. Rachel wiped at her mouth, suddenly conscious of the blood: in her mouth, her hair, over her body, spattered on corridor walls and ceiling, dimming the glowstrips, more blood than she had ever imagined could be. Joseph was coated with it, his eyes staring out of a mask of blood, his teeth red.

She stared at the mutilated corpse. "Serig," she said. "His name was Serig."

"A dead dog's name dies on the dungheap," Joseph said in a snarl. Then he turned to her and his eyes were alive once more. He bowed, checked himself with a sharp gasp, then completed the gesture. "My lady, are you hurt?" he inquired solicitously.

His face, for once, was naked. Rachel gasped and swayed, looking down at the body and then at the man she had despised.

"Joseph!" she cried, clutching at his arm. "I…" Reality whirled, splintered, as if a glass surface between her and her thoughts had shattered. "Joseph," she said more softly, wonderingly. "Something has happened to me. I… I remember things that cannot be. I-" she blushed "-I remember being so cruel to you, so vicious. And, and I-" she looked up at him, shaking her head in denial even as she whispered in growing horror "-betrayed Amos to the Kolnari?"

He touched her cheek, a feather soft caress. "Lady, you have been ill. You were poisoned by the coldsleep drugs that we took. It is not your fault."

"Oh," she said, "oh," and threw herself into his arms, weeping. "Please forgive me," she pleaded, "I am unworthy, I am foul, but I beg you, Joseph, do not despise me. Do not leave me."

"I could never despise my lady," he said simply. He extended a hand which she grasped, though the fingers were slippery with death.

"Come, we have little time," he said. "We must get you to a place of safety, and I have much work to do this day."

"Then let us hasten, Joseph," she replied.

Joat and Patsy dropped down, halting at the sight of the body. They scanned the hall tensely, then edged nearer. Joat looked at it out of the corner of her eyes, but the older woman stared hungrily.

The arc pistol rose, then fell helplessly.

"It's him," she whispered. "It's him. And it's been done!" Her tone was aggrieved, indignant.

Joat moved up beside her. Boy, is he ever done, she thought with her newfound squeamishness, and tried to ignore the smell. This skudgesucker worked up an awful lot of mad against himself. It was not that she regretted his death, just…

"Sorry it wasn't you?" she said, looking up at her companion.

For the first time since her rape, Patsy Sue Coburn was weeping.

"No," she said, her voice thick. "No, I'm not sorry. Not sorry he's dead, not sorry it wasn't me. Jist glad this dawg will never hurt nobody agin. I… won't have to remember doing it, now."

"Yeah, that's right," Joat said desolately, slamming the doors of memory firmly shut. "C'mon, we got work to do."

They turned to Joseph and Rachel. "Let's boost her up," Joat continued. "Axial up one ought to be safe enough to stash her. Then we can get on with it."

"Simeon?" Channa said softly. "You back?"

"Part of me." His voice sounded dim, although the implant's volume was always the same. "I'm dancing on a sawblade, keeping their communications down and fighting off their ships' computers. Can't keep them out of touch forever." More sharply. "You all right?"

"You want to know?" she said, dressing with calm haste.

"Yeah."

"It was annoying as hell… and sort of strenuous." A moment's urchin grin. "And to tell the truth, I'd have been forever curious if I hadn't. What I'd like," she said as she finished sealing her overall to the neck, "is to see his face when he realizes I'm not coming back through that door."

"I'll record it."

"And don't tell Amos."

A section of the ceiling paneling turned translucent and slid back. Joat's face showed through and then her body somersaulted down.

"There's a crawlspace we c'n get into now that leads to a bunch of air-ducts and electric-conduits. Come on."

Channa examined the hatch in the ceiling and smiled wryly. "Just like in a holovid," she murmured.

Joat grinned. "Yeah, only a lot smaller." She looked anxiously at Channa's lean length. "You may find it a squeeze. Had to leave the others back a ways. Do you nurdly when you're cramped?"

"Is there a choice?" Channa said.

"Then you don't. Push yourself along with your hands and toes. Don't try to use your knees or you'll eventually black out from the pain."

"Do you speak as one who knows?"

"Uh-huh, I've seen it happen. Give me a boost?"

Channa braced, cupped her hands, lifted Joat towards the ceiling hatch.

"Ready." Joat's voice came down, sounding a little hollow.

"Stand back." Channa crouched down and sprang upwards, catching the sides of the hole and pulling herself straight up, arms trembling with the strain.

The crawlspace was narrow and cramped and confining. She had to breathe and move in different motions. It was wonderful.