“Yes. She is that one.”
Timbruk swallowed. His eyes widened. He looked spooked. He stared at Marika till she became uncomfortable. Twice his gaze seemed pulled toward a group of buildings at the north end of the field. Each time he jerked it back to her with sudden ferocity. Then he said, “Relax, brothers. Relax. Weapons on safety.”
Marika said, “Grauel, Barlog, stand easy. Put your weapons on safe.”
Grauel did not want to do it. Her every muscle was tense with a rigidly controlled fight-flight response. But she did as she was told, though her eyes continued to smolder.
Barlog merely heaved a sigh of relief.
Bagnel did likewise. “Good. Now, shall we talk? Marika, what in the name of the All did you think you were doing, coming in here like that? You cannot just walk in like you own the place. This is convention ground. Have they not taught you anything over there?
“I know. It was stupid.” She stepped closer, spoke more softly. “I was just wandering around, exploring. When I saw the airships I got so excited I lost my head. I forgot everything else. I just had to look. Then these males…” She broke off, realizing she was about to make accusations that would be unreasonable and provocative.
Bagnel was amused. But he said, “Did you have to be so… I see. They have taught you—taught you to be silth. I mean, the way silth here understand being silth. Cold. Arrogant. Insensitive. Never mind. As they say, silth will be silth. Timbruk. It is over. There is no need for you here now. This is to be forgotten. No record. No formal protest. Understand?”
“Bagnel…”
Bagnel ignored him. “I owe you a life, Marika. But for you I would have become meat in a nomad’s belly more than once. I repay a fraction of the debt here. I forgive the trespass.” In soft humor, he added, “I am sure your seniors would have a good deal to say to you if they heard about this.”
“I am sure they would. Thank you.”
Timbruk and his males were stalking away, some occasionally glancing back. Except for the male who had tried to use the box. Despite his wound, he was crouched over the remains, prodding them with a finger, shaking his head. He seemed both baffled and disturbed.
“Come,” Bagnel said. He started toward the buildings through which Marika had made her dash.
She asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I am assigned here now. As assistant security chief for the enclave. Since I did such a wonderful job as security officer at Critza, they awarded me a much more important post.” His sarcasm was thick enough to cut. Marika could not determine its thrust, though. Was he his own target? Or were the seniors who had given him the job?
“That was what you were doing up there? I always had a feeling you were not a regular wander-the forests-with-a-pack-on-your-back kind of tradermale.”
“My job was to protect the fortress and manage any armed operations undertaken in the region of its license.”
“Then you were in charge of that hunting party you were with the first time we met.”
“I was.”
“I thought old Khronen was in charge.”
“I know. We allowed you think so. He was just our guide, though. He had been in the upper Ponath all his life. I think he knew every rock and bush by name.”
“He was a friend of my dam. At least as near a friend as she ever had among males.”
Bagnel, daring beyond belief, reached out and touched her lightly. “The memories do haunt, do they not? We all lost so much. And those who were never there just shrug it off.”
Marika stiffened her back. “Can we look at the small aircraft on the way to the gate?”
Bagnel rewarded her with a questioning look.
“The crime is committed,” she replied. “Can I compound it?”
“Of course.” He altered course toward a rank of five propeller-driven aircraft.
“Stings,” Marika said as they approached. “Driven by a single bank nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine that develops eighteen hundred meth power. Top speed two hundred ten. Normal cruising speed one sixty. Not fast, but capable of carrying a very large payload. A fighting aircraft. Who do tradermales fight, Bagnel?”
“You amaze me. How did you find out? We fight anyone who attacks us. There are a lot of wild places left in the world. Even here in the higher Tech Zones. There is always a demand for the application of force.”
“Are these ones here for the push against the nomads?”
“No. We may reoccupy our outposts if the Reugge manage to push the nomads out, but we will not help push.”
“Why not? The Brown Paw Bond suffered more than we did, if you do not count the packs. Posts all along the Hainlin…”
“Orders, Marika. I do not pretend to understand. Politics, I guess. Little one, you picked the wrong sisterhood at the wrong time. Strong forces are ranged against the Reugge.”
“The Serke?”
“Among others. They are the most obvious, but they do not stand alone. That is off the record, though. You did not hear it from me.”
“You did not tell me anything I did not know. I do wonder why, though. No one has bothered the Reugge since they split from the Serke. Why start now?”
“The Reugge are not strong, Marika, but they are rich. The Hainlin basin produces a disproportionate amount of wealth. Emeralds out of the Zhotak—those alone might be reason enough. We Brown Paw Bond traders have done very well trading junk for emeralds.”
Marika harkened to younger days, when tradermales had come into the upper Ponath afoot or leading a single rheum-greater, exchanging a few iron tools, books, beads, flashy pieces of cloth, and such, for the clear green stones or otec furs. Every year Dam’s friend Khronen had come to the Degnan packstead, bringing precious tools and his easy manner with pups, and had walked away with a fortune.
The Degnan had been satisfied with the trades. Emeralds were of little value on a frontier. Otec fur was of more use, being the best there was, but what it would bring in trade outweighed its margin of value over lesser furs.
Junk, Bagnel called the trade goods. And he was right from his perspective. Arrowheads, axe heads, hoes, hammers, rakes, all could be manufactured in bulk at little cost in Maksche’s factories. One emerald would purchase several wagonloads here. And books, for which a pack might save for seasons, were produced in mass in the city’s printshops.
“Is that why the Ponath is kept savage?”
Meth, with the exceptions of tradermales and silth, seldom moved far from their places of birth. Information did not travel well in the mouths of those with an interest in keeping it close. How angry Skiljan would have been had she known the treasures she acquired for the pack cost the traders next to nothing. She would have believed it robbery. Just another example of innate male perfidy.
“Partly. Partly because the silth are afraid of an informed populace, of free movement of technology. Your Communities could not survive in a world where wealth, information, and technology traveled freely. We brethren would have our troubles. We are few and the silth are fewer still. Between us we run everything because for ages we have shaped the law and tradition to that end.”
They walked around the fighting aircraft. Marika found its presence disturbing. For that matter, the presence of Dawnstrider was unsettling. Trade in and out of Maksche did not require a vessel so huge. There was more here than met the eye. Maybe that explained Timbruk’s hostility.
“The Sting’s main disadvantage is its limited range when fully fight-loaded,” Marika said, continuing with the data she had given earlier.
“You are right. But where did you learn all that, Marika? I would bet only those of us who actually fly the beasts know all you have told me.”
“I learned in tapestudy. I am going to be a darkship flyer. So I have been learning everything about flying. I know everything about airships, too.”
“I doubt that.” Bagnel glanced back at Dawnstrider.
“But those craft…” Marika indicated several low, long, ovoid
shapes in the shadow of a building on the side away from the city. “I do not recognize those.”
“Ground-effect vehicles. Not strictly legal in a Tech Four Zone, but all right as long as we keep them inside convention ground. You came close to catching us using them that time you first met me.”
“The noise and the smell. And Arhdwehr getting so angry. Engines and exhaust. Of course.”
“Every brethren station has a few for emergency use. Mainly for hurried getaways. You remember the odd tracks going away from Critza? Where I said some of our brethren got out? Ground-effect vehicles made those. They leave a pretty obvious trail in the snow.” He went on to explain how the machines worked. Marika had no trouble grasping the concept.
“There is much I do not yet know, then,” she said.
“No doubt. There is much we all do not know. Let me give you some advice. Try to consider the broader picture before you let impulse carry you away again.”
“What?”
“There is a great deal of tension between the Brown Paw Bond and the Reugge right now. Our factors not only refused to help reclaim the provinces overrun by the nomad, they would not lease the fighting aircraft the Reugge wanted. I do not pretend to understand why. It was a chance for us to sweep up a huge profit.”
“I see.” Marika considered the fighting aircraft once more. It was a two-seat, open-cockpit biplane with two guns that fired through the airscrew, four wing-mounted guns, and a single gimbal-mounted weapon which could be fired rearward by the occupant of the second seat. “I would love to fly one of those,” she said. The tapes mentioned capabilities that could be matched by no darkship.
“It is an experience,” Bagnel agreed.
“You fly?”
“Yes. If there was trouble and the aircraft had to be employed, I would be a backup flyer.”
“Take me up.”
“Marika!” Grauel snapped.
Bagnel was amused. “There is no limit to her audacity, is there?”
“Marika,” Grauel repeated, “you exceed yourself. You may be silth, but even so we will drag you back to the cloister.”
“Not today, Marika,” Bagnel said. “I cannot. Maybe some other time. Come back later. Be polite at the gate, ask for me, and maybe you will be permitted entrance—without all this fuss. Right now I think you had better leave before Timbruk goes over my head and gets permission to shoot you anyhow.” Bagnel strode toward the gateway buildings. Marika followed. She was nervous now. There would be trouble when she got home.
Bagnel said, “I do not think your sisters would be upset if Timbruk did you in either. You still have that smoky look. Of the fated outsider.”
“I have problems with the silth,” Marika admitted. “But the most senior has given me her protection.”
“Oh? Lucky for you.”
They parted at the gate, Bagnel with a well-wish and repeated invitation to return under more auspicious circumstances.
Outside, Marika paused to scan the field, watched Bagnel stride purposefully toward distant buildings. Her gaze drifted to those structures in the north. Cold crept down her spine. She shivered.
“Come. We are returning to the cloister right now,” Grauel said. Her tone brooked no argument. Marika did not protest, though she did not want to go back. She did have to cling to the goodwill of Grauel and Barlog. They were her only trustworthy allies.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I
Marika went from the gate to her tower, where she sat staring toward the tradermale compound. Several dots soared above the enclave, roaming the sky nearby.
Grauel came to her there. She looked grim. “Trouble,” she said.
“They have registered their protest already? That was fast.”
“Not that kind of trouble. Home trouble. Somebody got into our quarters.”
“Oh?”
“After we turned in the weapons they gave us, we went up to clean up. My rifle was gone.”
“Anything else?”
“No. The Degnan Chronicle had been opened and moved slightly. That is all.”
“The most senior should spend more time here instead of talking about spending more time here.”
Marika had noted that in Gradwohl’s absence she was treated far more coolly. She wished that most senior would move into Maksche in fact as well as name. Despite declarations of intent, she just visited occasionally, usually without warning.
“I will not tolerate invasions of my private space, Grauel. No one else in the entire Community has to suffer such intrusions. Back off and give me a few minutes of quiet.”
She slipped down through her loophole and cast about till she found a ghost she thought sufficiently strong. She took control and began roaming the cloister, beginning in places she thought were most likely to reveal the missing weapon.
Finding it took only minutes. It was in the cloister arsenal, where some sisters argued it belonged anyway. A pair of silth were dismantling it.
Marika returned to flesh. “Come.”
“You found it? That quickly?”
“It is not hidden, actually. It is in the arsenal. We will take it back.”
“And I was right there a few minutes ago.”
The arsenal door was closed and locked now. Marika had no patience. Rather than scratch, wait, ask permission to enter, and argue, she recalled her ghost and squeezed it down as she had done when she had destroyed the electronic box belonging to the tradermale. She shoved the ghost into the lock and destroyed the metal there.
That made enough noise to alert the silth inside. They peered at her with fear and guilt when she stalked into the room where the parts of Grauel’s weapon were scattered upon a table. One started to say something. Marika brushed her soul lightly with the ghost. “Grauel. Put it back together. You. Where is the ammunition? I want it here. Now.”
The sister to whom she spoke thought of arguing, eyed Marika’s bare teeth, thought better of it. She collected the ammunition from a storage box. After placing it upon the table, she retreated as far as the walls would allow. She choked out, “The orders came from Paustch. You will be in grave—”
“Ask me how much I care,” Marika snapped. “This is for you to remember. And perhaps even share. The next meth who enters my quarters without my invitation will discover just how vicious a savage I really am. We invented some truly fascinating tortures to get nomads to tell us things we wanted to know.”
Grauel cursed under her breath.
“Is it all there?”
“Yes. But they have mixed things up. It will take me a few minutes.”
Marika used the time to glare at the two sisters till they cringed.
She heard Grauel slam the magazine home and feed a round to the chamber. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Grauel said, sweeping the weapon’s aim across the silth. Her lips pulled back in a snarl that set them on the edge of panic. “I do suppose I should thank them for cleaning it. They did that much good.”
“Thank them, then. And let us be gone.”
Gradwohl might not have been present in Maksche, but her paw was firmly felt. Darkships began arriving, bearing Reugge whose accents seemed exotic. They paused only to rest and eat and further burden their flying crosses. Some of the darkships lifted so burdened with meth and gear they looked like something from the worst quarters of the city.
“Everyone that can be spared,” Barlog said as she and Marika and Grauel watched one darkship lift and another slide in under it. “That is the word now. The cloister is to be stripped. They have begun soliciting workers from the city, offering special pay. I would say the most senior is serious.”
There had been some silth, at the evening meetings Marika attended, who had thought Gradwohl’s plans just talk meant to form the basis for rumors that would reach the Serke. Rumors that would make that Community chary of too bold interference. But the lie had been given that view. The stream of darkships was never ending. The might of the Reugge was on the move, and impressive might
it was.
Mistresses of the Ship could be seen in the meal halls almost all the time. Bath—the sisters who helped fly the darkships from their secondary positions at the tips of the shorter arms—sometimes crowded Maksche silth out of the meal lines. Scores seemed to be around all the time. Marika spent all her free time trying to get acquainted with those bath and Mistresses. But they would have little to do with her. They were an order within the order, silent, separate beings with little interest in socializing and none in illuminating a pup.
Three small dirigibles, contracted to the Reugge before the Brown Paw Bond elected not to support the offensive, appeared over the cloister and took aboard workers and silth and construction equipment. The cloister began to have a hollow feel, a deserted air. A shout would echo down long, empty halls. No one was there to answer.
The dirigibles would all make for Akard, which the most senior wanted rebuilt and reoccupied. It would become the focal point of a network of satellite fastnesses meant to interdict any nomad movements southward.
“I do not think she realizes how many nomads there are,” Marika told Grauel. “Or really how vast her northern provinces are. All that might is not a tenth enough.”
“She knows. I believe she is counting on the nomads having spent the best they had in the past few years. I think she expects it to be a job of tracking down remnants of the real fighting bands, then letting next winter finish the rest.”
“I think she would be wrong if that is the basis of her strategy.”
“So do I.”
“We shall see, of course. Let us hope the answer is not savages in the cloister.”
The early reports from the north told of a big harvest of nomads, of kills far more numerous than anyone expected. The numbers caused a good deal of uneasiness. They implied other numbers that might prove troublesome. For everyone agreed that there would be a dozen live and concealed nomads for every one dead.
II
The dream was a nightmare Marika had not known for several years, but it was old and familiar.
She was trapped in a cold, dark, damp place, badly hurt, unable to call for help, unable to climb out.