Guardsmen of Tomorrow (21 page)

Great.

“Do you know them?” I whispered to the Silver Flame.

“They are of those who stole me!”

Even better. For a moment I thought of screaming and hoping that some of those officials going over the fire-charred ruins would come running.

Not a chance.

“Get behind me,” I snapped. When the Silver Flame hesitated, I tried to push her.

“Don’t touch me!” Her voice was suddenly that of an insulted aristocrat.

Oh, joy
. “Just do it!” To the beings, I asked as coolly as though I wasn’t looking at all those weapons, “You want her?”

Unfortunately, they didn’t speak the local language. They also weren’t giving my implant enough of a sample for me to understand theirs. But most kidnappers don’t look so angry-that emotion, at least, I could understand on those furry faces-or so willing to shoot their own hostage.

I pointed my own weapon at the one who, judging from the glittery stuff about his (I assumed) neck, seemed to be their leader. Since they couldn’t understand me either, I quoted from some ancient Human vid in the archaic Earth language and said, “Go ahead. Make my day.”

The bluff worked. He held back the others, and in their moment of angry confusion I hissed to the Silver Flame, “Run!”

She avoided my shoving hand and darted away. Those ridiculously narrow alleys were almost too narrow for me. But as I squeezed my way through, following the slight figure of the Silver Flame, who had shed her bedraggled cloak to reveal a formfitting white sheath, I thought they at least served one purpose: They were too narrow for our hairy pursuers. One of those folks got off a blue-white shot of blazing force that sent stony splinters raining down on me, but I managed to return a shot of my own, and heard what was unmistakably a swear word from back there.

Yes, that smarted, didn’t it? Too bad I don’t have it set on killing force.

You didn’t do that, not and risk killing a local by mistake.

The hairy guys weren’t worried about public relations. They continued shooting blindly, bringing down more stones. Swearing, head down, stung by splinters and pelted by pebbles, I forced my way on.

Lunging out into the open again, I nearly crashed into the Silver Flame, who had stopped short.

“Don’t
touch
me!” she insisted.

The being was beginning to get on my already tightly strung nerves.
Payment
, I reminded myself.
You’ve got the contract
.

We’d come onto a street fronted by closed warehouses. By sheer wild fortune, I commandeered a groundcar. Feeding it credits till it agreed to take us at top speed to the spaceport, I collapsed back on the thinly padded seat, struggling to catch my breath and staring at the seemingly self-possessed Silver Flame. “What the hell was that all about?”

She stared at me with those enormous blue eyes. “They wanted me back.”

“Sure they did. That’s why they were trying to kill us.”

Her gaze never wavered. “That, I know not why.”

“Of course not,” I said dryly.

“I know not why,” she repeated stubbornly, and turned away from me, falling resolutely silent, a white statue. And I, I thought,
Her people really are going to pay
for this, they are, indeed
Still… maybe she was just scared? That wouldn’t be surprising. Maybe she just didn’t know how to-

‘This car reeks,“ the Silver Flame said coldly, and killed my sympathy in that instant.

The car’s AI couldn’t be insulted, of course. “Kartaka, Spaceport,” it announced.

No furry beings anywhere to be seen. Maybe we were going to get out of here in one piece…

Yes, and surprise, surprise, the ground crew had been honorable in their bribe-taking.
The Dart
sat ready, looking sleek and narrow as its namesake, glinting in the sunlight. Beautiful, I thought with a surge of pride.

“Small,” the Silver Flame summed up.

Oh, no, she wasn’t going to anger me so easily! “After you, Your Saintliness,” I said and ushered her inside with-out touching her. I didn’t even attempt to help her strap herself in.

Our furry foes were still nowhere to be seen, but I asked for immediate takeoff clearance just in case. No problem there; another ship was already waiting for the berth. I sent
The Dart
soaring up through the atmosphere and the maze of air traffic, back out into the freedom of space.

Setting the ship’s computer for Kuuraet’s coordinates, I also sent off a quick, private, just-in-case message to the Alliance outpost nearest to that world. The Alliance is, of course, basically a trading organization, but it does have its defense branch. Granted, space is big and messages take time to arrive, but even so, I felt a little better for the sending-And only then stopped to think that I had a Kuurae with me-a member of a race who couldn’t endure space travel. If she went into shock-worse, I thought in sudden fastidious alarm, if she got spacesick in these close quarters-But the Silver Flame… merely sat, her white face unreadable once more.

All right, so at least one Kuurae could manage space travel. I wasn’t so sure about her reaction to hyperspace. I’m a rarity among Humans, one of the few who can travel through that nowhere noplace without needing to be drugged. But that utter lack of anything recognizable has been known to drive many beings insane.

Did I have anything that would safely drug a Kuurae? “What do your people take to get through hyperspace?”

Those great blue eyes gave me a sharp sideways glance. “My people do not go through hyperspace.”

“Your, uh, kidnappers couldn’t have come all this way by sublight speed.”

“No. But I do not know what was done.”

“Great.” As I rummaged through my medkit, wishing I had just a little more medical data about her race in the computer than a standard “biped, warm-blooded,” and the basics of pulse and respiration rates, I asked, “Are you going to tell me what was going on back there?”

“You do not question me.” It was that autocratic tone again.

“Hell I don’t. This is my ship, and that pretty much gives me sovereignty rights.”

“You do not question me!”

“You know, I could really start not to like-” No. Wait. She really had been through a lot lately, enough to drive a weaker person into shock. I couldn’t tell how old she was, either. For all I knew, the Silver Flame might have been nothing more than a child.

In a much gentler tone, I said, “It’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid.
The Dart’s
a swift ship, and I’ll have you home before-”

“This is not a ship, but a
toy
! And I was not afraid.”

“Have it your way. But I need to know if we’re going to run into any more trouble.”

“I am not a prophet.”

No. You’re a pain in the
- “Who were they? At least tell me that!”

“You do not question me!”

“Look, I have no intention of meddling in Kuurae affairs-”

“You do not question me!”

A spark flared where her hand clenched the armrest, a wisp of smoke began to rise, and with it, the first hint of a flame--

I acted in pure instinct, practically tearing her from the seat, not even knowing how I’d unfastened the harness, and tossed her aside so hard that she went crashing to the cabin floor, stunned with shock. Of course I have a fire extinguisher in the cabin, and had the tiny flame out in about three seconds. But I lingered over the work for a few minutes more, trying to get my heartbeat back down to normal.

A pyrokinetic. The Silver Flame was a pyrokinetic. Rare, any type of psionic gifts, rarer still this sort.

I was still too angry and, yes, too scared, to care. Dragging her back up, I plopped her back into the seat, aware only now of how downright hot her skin felt.

“You
idiot
!” I shouted. “God of Worlds, you utter
idiot
! Starting a fire in a spaceship, a closed environment surrounded by space-what were you trying to do?

Kill us both?”

She blinked up at me. “I did not think-

“That seems pretty clear! Damn it, I could, by every law, throw you out of
The Dart
into space here and now!”

“Yes.” It was the merest whisper.

A pyrokinetic.

God of Worlds, yes, I was on this ship with a-a psionic fire-starter.

Something clicked into place in my mind. “The fire,” I said. “Sei Sisar’s office… the whole building. That was your doing.”

Her head drooped like that of a scolded child. “Was.”

“But… why? And, damn it, don’t give me that ‘You must not question’ nonsense!”

“It was not meant…” Her voice trembled. “I thought only of… escape. I had escaped. Sei Sisar… he has dealt with the Kuurae, so to him I fled. He helped. Sei Sisar contacted Kuuraet. And you.”

She looked up at me. For the first time I saw genuine emotion clear in those big eyes, and was pretty sure it was sorrow. Of a sort, anyhow. And I thought, /
was
right. Wasn’t I
?

“How old are you?” I asked her suddenly. “By your people’s standards, I mean.”

Reluctantly, she confessed, “In years, not yet of the Grown. But I am the Silver Flame!”

An adolescent. No, an adolescent pyrokinetic. “No one’s denying that. Please. What else happened, back on Stataka?”

“It was not a true escape, not for me. They are the Uwar-tai. And they found me.

And I… they… I… did not mean to harm Sei Sisar. But I feared. So greatly I feared.”

“And you panicked.”

Her head drooped again. “Did.”

Was she regretting what had happened? Or, I wondered uneasily, merely regretting her lack of control? I would almost have been willing to give her the proverbial benefit of the doubt… if only I hadn’t seen that flame spark into life under her hand.

What happened if she panicked again, here, aboard my ship?

But some more pieces were clicking into place. “They, the, uh, Uwar-tai kidnapped you to be a weapon, didn’t they?”

“It was so. They wanted a storm of fire to sweep away their foes. But I-I cannot do that, not so wide a fire! They… they would not believe me.”

“Hell,” I said softly. “And they still don’t.”

A ship was forming on the view screen. From its coordinates, it could only have come from Stataka. And from its size and downright predatory shape, it could only be a warship.

Fight or flight? “First,” I said, “let’s see what they have to say.”

“But you don’t speak their language!”

I grinned. “Don’t worry. I will.”

“But-no! They are not truth-sayers! They will be false!”

Ignoring her, I opened a communications channel, stan-dard Alliance frequency.

Would they know it? Or were they really just the “shoot first” type?

Not quite.

The first words their glittery-necklaced leader said were, of course, unintelligible to me. Those were the most dangerous moments, when I didn’t answer and they might lose patience.

Then the implant went to work, and after a dizzy moment, I was able to identify myself and my ship in reasonably smooth Uwar-taik. “Why do you follow us?”

“You know why! We are not at war with you-yet. Surrender that… thing and go your way.”

I glanced at the Silver Flame, who had gone into her rigid statue-mode. “Sorry.

Can’t do that without a really good reason.”

“She has killed!”

“So, I don’t doubt, have you. So, for that matter, have I. In her case, it was self-defense.”

“No!” That was a teeth-baring roar. “No! Never that! That
thing
you harbor is a foulness! She has
killed
!”

The full meaning of the word suddenly translated. With a shock, I realized that what he really meant was: Murder.

“Not!” the Silver Flame protested, but very softly. “Not.”

“I don’t deny she killed,” I countered the Uwar-tai leader. “But only after you…”

There didn’t seem to be a word in Uwar-taik for “kidnapped.”

“After you stole her away from her, uh, pack.”

“She murdered!” he roared. “Not honorably, not battle-red-she murdered my pack-brother!”

“Wait. Wait! I’m, uh, honor-tied to return her to her people. Then we can bring the whole matter before an Alliance court-”

“No courts! Blood!”

With that melodramatic howl, he broke contact.

“Hang on,” I told the Silver Flame. “We’ll shake them in hyper-”

But I didn’t dare go into hyperspace! I hadn’t a clue as to what would happen to a Kuurae-and the thought of a Kuurae pyrokinetic going berserk-

“Never mind,” I amended. “
The Dart’s
fast enough in sublight.”

Manual controls now… send
The Dart
zooming straight for a moon, slingshot around it and come back toward the enemy. Bank aside, slip past them, more agile than they. Damn, but their pilot turned almost at once, following me.

All right, my friend, try this!

I hurled my swift
Dart
around another moon, then onward through a maze of asteroids, banking this way, that, never quite in danger, never quite out of it. We were pulling away from the enemy, and I felt my lips peel back from my teeth in a sharp grin. We were going to-

“No!” the Silver Flame shrieked suddenly. “No, no, can’t-can’t stand-no!”

I gave her a quick, sideways glance and saw wild hysteria in her eyes. There was a limit to even this Kuurae space-endurance.

And where her hands clenched the armrests of her seat, smoke was beginning to rise…

“Land,” she screamed at me, “please, please! Land!”

Or go up in flames. Not exactly a choice. I did a quick, frantic scan: We were much too far from Stataka by now to return there, I didn’t dare risk pushing the Silver Flame all the way over the edge by going into hyperspace, and nothing safe was near enough…

Ha, yes. Maybe. That wasn’t much of a planet, barely more than a moon, but it had rudimentary vegetation, atmosphere, and gravity. Enough to allow an emergency land-ing. Once the Silver Flame calmed down a little, I’d try whatever tranquilizers wouldn’t kill her-

“Land!” she shrieked in my ear, and I jumped so violently I almost sent
The Dart
into a nose-dive.

“Shut up!” I shouted back at her, and won enough startled silence to let me concentrate on bringing my ship down safely. Popping the hatch, I said, “See? Solid land.”