Epiphany of the Long Sun (81 page)

Shale asked, "How's Pas supposed to get his part back if he's dead?"

Without answering, Auk carried the body into the chapel of Hierax and laid it on the altar there.

Slate inquired, "You goin' back to sleep?"

"Shag, I don't know." Auk discovered that he was wiping his hands again and made himself stop. "I think maybe I'll fetch my boots and walk around outside a little."

"I thought maybe you could wake the rest of 'em up." Slate waited longer for his reply than a bio would have, then asked, "What you lookin' at over there? Must be shaggy interesting."

"Him."

Slowly, Slate clambered to his feet. "Who?"

"Him." Auk turned away impatiendy, striding toward the Sacred Window. "This soldier. He got it in the autofunction coprocessor, see?" Auk knelt beside Sergeant Sand. "Only his central could handle that stuff if it had to. There's lots of redundancy there. His voluntary coprocessor could, even."

He fumbled for his boot knife, discovered that he was not wearing his boots, and got it. "Look alive, Patera!" He shook Incus's shoulder. "I need that gadget you got."

"Up!" A boot prodded the captive Flier's ribs. "Reveille an hour ago. Didn't you hear it?"

Blinking and shivering, Sciathan sat up.

"You speak the Common Tongue well," the uniformed woman looming over him said. "Answer me!"

"Better than most of us, yes." Sciathan paused, struggling to clear his brain of sleep. "I did not hear it, that word you used. I know I did not since I heard nothing. But if I heard it, I would not know what it was."

The woman nodded. "I did that to establish a point. Any question I ask, you are to answer. If you do, and I like your answer, you may get clothes or something to eat. If you don't, or I don't, you'll wish you'd been killed, too." She clapped. "Sentry!"

A younger and even taller woman ducked through the door of the tent and stood stiffly erect, her gun held vertically before her left shoulder. "Sir!"

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 cannot do it. Mechanisms have been proposed, but would increase weight."

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 announced the younger woman's return. When Abanja turned toward her, she held up a scrap of cotton sheeting that had been used to clean something greasy. "Will this do, sir?"

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 grinning, it's making your lip bleed. You came here looking for a Vironese, a man. That's what Sirka told us. You gave his name, and it was one I think I heard last night. Say it again for me."

"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 connection and leaned back, easing aching muscles. "Think you could fetch one of those holy lamps over here, Patera? I'm going to need more light."

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.

"I will not ride quicker than you," he promised.

For a moment it appeared he would not ride at all. Then one of the bearded men shouted,
"Hup!"
and struck the horse with something that made a popping sound, and he felt that he was being blown about by the wildest gale in the
Whorl
.

Abanja pulled up and looked back at him. "Another thing. This is a good horse. Yours isn't. Yours is old, a common remount nobody wants. Your horse couldn't gallop as fast as mine if a lion were after it."

Shaken too hard to nod, he clutched his blanket.

"If you're fooling me-if you really can ride, and you gallop off when you see your chance-I'll shoot your horse. It's not easy to bring down an animal as big as a horse with a needler, but half a dozen ought to do it. I'll try not to hit you, but I can't promise."

He gasped, "You are a kind woman."

"Don't count on it." After a moment she laughed. "It's just that you may be useful. Certainly it will be useful for you to show Siyuf what you showed me. I take it women aren't kind among your people."

"Oh, no!" He hoped his shock showed in his face. "Our women are very kind."

"That Aer who screamed, wasn't that a woman? You said,
her.
Stand in the stirrups if you're getting bounced."

He tried. "Yes, a woman. A kind woman."

"You loved her." There was a note in Abanja's voice he had not heard before.

"Very much. If I may say this, Mear loved Sumaire also. In the tent last night I thought about them. How stupid I was! I did not know they loved until they died."

"Mear, was that the woman who killed the troopers?"

For the first time since his capture, Sciathan felt like laughing. "Mear is a man's name. It was Sumaire who killed the women with guns, and they killed her."

"Just trying to take away their weapons."

Aer had been shot before Sumaire killed the troopers, but arguing would be worse than useless. Sciathan remained silent.

"She was your leader?" Abanja slowed her horse.

"Thank you." He was genuinely grateful. "We do not fly like that. Each flies for himself. Sumaire was the best at
gleacaiocht,
the best at fighting with hands and feet. I do not know your word."

"I saw her body," Abanja told him, "but I didn't measure it. I wish I had. The blonde?"

By now Sciathan was able to shake his head. "Dark hair. Like yours."

"The little one?"

He nodded, recalling how cheerful Sumaire had always been, most cheerful when storms roared up and down the hold. When Mainframe had needed information and not excuses, it had sent Sumaire.

It would send her no more.

"Answer me!"

"I am sorry. I did not intend to be rude." Unconsciously, Sciathan looked down the unpaved track and over the wind-scoured fields, seeking something that would render his loss bearable. "The small one, yes. Smaller than Aer."

"But taller than you."

He looked at Abanja in some astonishment.

"Was she smaller?"

"Yes, much." He considered. "The top of Aer's head came to my eyes. I think the top of Sumaire's head would have come to Aer's eyes, or lower. To my mouth or chin."

"Yet she killed troopers a long cubit taller."

"She was a fine fighter, one who taught others when she was not flying."

Abanja looked thoughtful. "What about you? Do you know this kind of fighting? I forget the word you used?"

"Gleacaiocht.
I know something, but I am not as quick and skillful as Sumaire was. Few are."

When Abanja said nothing, he added. "We all learn it. We cannot carry weapons as you do. Even a small knife would be too heavy." Now that he was no longer being shaken so much, he had begun to feel the cold. He shook out the rough blanket he had held onto so desperately and wrapped himself in it as she had suggested, contriving a hood for his head and neck.

"In that case you can't carry food or water, can you?"

"No, only our instruments-" He had been on the point of saying "and our PMs." He substituted, "and ourselves."

"Have you seen our pterotroopers? Troopers with wings who fly out of the airship?"