Allies (7 page)

"Who's there?" Kem said sharply.

"I hear nothing," Agent pel'Nara said
soothingly, but Val Con, at least, knew she was lying.

The watcher was moving, stealthy and almost
silent. Moving toward the threesome on the walkway.

Almost unbidden, Val Con found himself
falling back into agent training and called up the decision matrix
he knew as The Loop. Yes, there it was, the question of what an
agent should do in this situation . . . and the probability that
the watcher was going into an attack mode was close to unity.

Val Con's reaction was just as certain.
Necessity existed.

Carefully, he bent and slipped the knife out
of his boot, pausing to listen to the watcher's progress. Then,
moving with considerably less noise, he charted an interception
course.

*

The zhena's face had gone frighteningly,
familiarly blank, as if she read some inner dialog.

It seemed to Hakan as if time suddenly
speeded up. He felt a surge of adrenalin.

There was a crashing, a shout, from the
small dark park beyond them. Zhena Pelnara reacted by reaching out
and grabbing Kem's arm, simultaneously reaching inside her
coat.

Kem twisted, broke free, and Hakan leapt,
spinning behind the zhena, and his left arm was around her upper
arms, pinning them, while his right hand held the sharp point of
the slick horn zamzorn firmly against her throat.

The zhena relaxed slightly, as if
recognizing and submitting to peril, and Kem dodged in, snatching
something from the zhena's hand, and dodged back, holding the
odd-shaped object uncertainly.

"That is not a toy, zhena," Karsin Pelnara
said, her voice perfectly matter-of-fact. "Please have your zamir
release me."

Hakan saw Kem adjust what she held, as if
determining what it was, how to use it . . . and then she held it,
surely, as if it were a tiny gun.

"Kem," a familiar voice, slightly breathless
said from the suddenly silent park. "Please be very careful. The
zhena is correct; that thing is not a toy. Hakan–"

Cory stepped out onto the walk, hair rumpled
and coat torn, the knife he used against the invasion force–or its
twin–in his left hand. It looked quite as it had during the
invasion, too, with its shine mottled with fresh blood.

"Hakan, I will ask you also to be very
careful. You have not finished your training with that . . ."

The woman in his grip twisted suddenly, a
move Hakan reacted to with his guardsman training. She redoubled
her efforts, snarled, and bit at his hand holding the the
instrument to her neck. He tried to pull away and the zamzorn
slipped and clattered on the cobbles as it fell. Zhena Pelnara
kicked, as the move required, but he'd moved and she missed, and
spun her attention on Cory, who had dropped into a crouch, knife
ready.

"Stop!" Kem shouted, and simultaneously
there was a strange coughing sound, followed by the ring of metal
on stone.

Zhena Pelnara stumbled–and collapsed to the
cobbles at Cory's feet. He knelt down and turned her over, fingers
against her throat a hands-breadth above a small stain on her
blouse front.

"Did I kill her?" Kem asked, her voice
unnaturally calm.

"No," Cory said shortly. "It is a . . .
hypnotic . . . a sleep dose. She will rise eventually." He sighed
then and said "The man in the woods, he was not armed with such a
benign device, I think, and is not so lucky."

"Hakan, we will need something –a rope, a
scarf, to tie her before–"

Very close, someone cleared his throat.
Hakan jumped, and then relaxed as the pudgy man in a well-worn
jacket smiled at him.

"Peace," he said, his words barely
intelligible. "A friend of Cory, me."

Cory sat back on his heels and looked at the
man over his shoulder. "You took your time," he said, crankily, to
Hakan's ear. "Binders?"

"Right here," the pudgy man with the wispy
mustache said, and knelt down beside him, adding, "Had you come
inside, you might have found me an hour ago, you know, before I had
to sip any of that treacly punch they expected us to drink . . .
."

*

Hakan was wide-eyed, and Kem no less so. Val
Con leaned back in his chair and let them think it through. At the
far end of the table, Clonak fiddled with his note taker, though
Val Con was willing to bet there was nothing in the least wrong
with it.

"Let me understand this,"
Hakan said finally. "You, and Clonak, and Zhena Pelnara, and–you're
all from
another world
. And Zhena Pelnara broke some kind of law about leaving . . .
worlds . . . like Vandar alone, and now there will be . . .
mentors
here to guide us
. . . into the
next
phase
. And you want
me
to be the go-between– between the
mentors and the King, or the assembly or–whoever."

"That's right." Val Con smiled
encouragingly. "I know we give you a lot of information, very
quickly. If you agree, we can teach you–and you can teach us."

Hakan took a breath, eyes bright.

"He wants it," Miri commented.

"I–" Hakan started, glanced at Kem, then
back to Val Con. "Why me?"

"Good question. Because already you have
seen the impossible, already you . . . stretch and accept new
ideas. Also, you act quick and with decision. Not many people could
have surprised that zhena, or held her for so long." He, too,
glanced at Kem, noting the tightness of her shoulders, the forcibly
calm expression and the eyes bright with tears.

"Kem, you also make a quick decision–to take
that weapon, to use it. It is well. This will not be so strange for
you–already you are a teacher."

Her face relaxed slightly, though her eyes
still swam.

"We'll have to talk it over," she said,
sending a look to Hakan. He nodded.

"Yes," Val Con said. "But not too long. I am
sorry, but work must start–soon." He rose, gathering Clonak with a
glance. "We leave you for an hour. Then we come back and you tell
us what you decide."

"Lunch," Clonak added, "comes to help
thought." He left the room, presumably to order lunch, and Val Con
turned to follow him.

"Cory."

He stopped, and turned toward her.
"Kem?"

"That aircraft Hakan told me about, with the
tea that's brewed inside the wall, and the doctor machine you slide
people into?"

"Yes."

"Is that really true?"

"Yes," Val Con said gently. "It is really
true. And if Hakan wishes it, he may be taught to fly–not that
craft, but one like it. You both might, if you wish."

"Wants that, too," Miri observed.

Val Con smiled. "That is for the future. For
now, you decide the future."

As Val Con turned, Hakan said something
quiet to Kem that sounded like, "We may wish to be two things, I
think . . ."

*

He paused outside the door to the suite he
shared with his lifemate, took a breath, and put his palm firmly
against the plate.

The door slid aside; he stepped into their
private parlor–and stopped.

Across the room, the curtains had been drawn
back from the wide window, admitting Surebleak's uncertain dawn.
The rocking chair placed at an angle to the window moved quietly,
back and forth, back and forth, its occupant silhouetted against
the light.

"Took your time," Miri said.

He smiled and moved across the room,
dropping to his knees by her chair and putting his head in her
lap.

"I am glad to be home, too, cha'trez."

She laughed, her hand falling onto the back
of his neck, fingers massaging gently.

"Emerging world, huh? Pretty slick way of
doing things, Scout Commander."

"It was the only possible solution," Val Con
murmured. "Hakan and Kem will do well, I think, as planetary
liaisons."

"I think so, too."

"Also, we are to take our child to make her
bow to Zhena Trelu, when she is old enough to travel safely."

"Be glad of the vacation," she said. "You
don't mind my saying so, you could use some sleep. No need to rush
back so fast."

"I did not wish to miss the birth of our
daughter," he said, drowsy under her fingers.

"Not a worry. Priscilla says day after
tomorrow."

"So soon?"

She laughed, and pushed him off her lap. He
made a show of sprawling on the rug, and she laughed again, pushing
against the arms of the chair.

Val Con leapt to his feet and helped her
rise.

"I believe I will have a nap," he said.
"Will you join me?"

"Wouldn't miss it for anything."

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are the
celebrated co-authors of the best-selling Liaden Universe® series
and have been writing together since the first "Kinzel" stories hit
Fantasy Book in the early 1980s. They started the first Liaden
story in 1984 and have published a dozen novels and several dozen
short works in that series alone. Along the way they've become fan
favorites at SF conventions from California, USA to Fredericton,
Canada, with Guest of Honor and Special Guest appearances at
PenguiCon, COSine, AlbaCon, Trinoc*con, ConDuit, MarsCon, ShevaCon,
BaltiCon, PortConMaine,SiliCon, Second Life Library, and
elsewhere.

They count Meisha Merlin,
Ace Books, Phobos, and Buzzy Multimedia among their English
language publishers and have several foreign language publishers as
well. Their short fiction, written both jointly and singly, has
appeared in
Absolute Magnitude,
Catfantastic, Dreams of Decadence, Fantasy Book, Such a Pretty
Face, 3SF
, and
Amazing

Their work has enjoyed a
number of award nominations, with
Scout's
Progress
being selected for the Prism Award
for Best Futuristic Romance of 2001 and
Local Custom
finishing second for the
same award.
Local Custom
was published by Buzzy Multimedia as an audio book
read by Michael Shanks - StarGate's Daniel.
Balance of Trade
, appeared in
hardcover in February 2004 and hit Amazon.com genre bestseller
lists before going on to win the Hal Clement Award as Best YA
Science fiction for the year. Their most recent Liaden novels
are
Crystal Soldier
and
Crystal Dragon
-- and as usual they have a book due out in the
spring.

More: Steve was Vice Chair of the Baltimore
in 80 WorldCon bid as well as Founding Curator of Science Fiction
for the University of Maryland's SF Research Collection, while
Sharon has been Executive Director, Vice President, and President
of the Science Fiction Writers of America; together they were BPLAN
Virtuals, an ebook publisher in the late 1980s. These backgrounds
give them a unique perspective on the science fiction field.