Pawn’s Gambit (31 page)

A lump rose into Aimee's throat. “I loved my husband, Patrolman Clay,” she said. “I really did. I didn't want him dead. I didn't want Aunt Ruth dead, either. Doesn't anyone believe me?”

“I believe you,” Clay said quietly. “But I don't believe what happened today is just an unexplained accident, either.
Something
happened to cause that Stryder to attack.”

“But what?” Aimee asked. “I didn't do anything. I
know
I didn't.”

“Maybe it was something subtle,” Clay suggested. “Something so small that you didn't even notice it. Or maybe it's something else, some new layer in the protocol that we haven't figured out yet.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Clay said. “Maybe it's something having to do with you personally. You were, what, twelve years old when your aunt was killed?”

“That's right.”

“And it's been another twelve years since then,” Clay continued. “Maybe the Stryders are celebrating an anniversary or something.”

Aimee winced. “That's a horrible thought.”

“I agree,” Clay said. “And personally, I don't believe it for a second. But until we figure out what happened, we can't afford to dismiss any of the possibilities.”

“Including the possibility that I deliberately murdered them?”

Clay started to speak, but apparently thought better of it. “Look, it's going to be dark soon. Why don't you stay in the Sanctuary tonight where you'll be safe, and we can talk more in the morning.”

Aimee's first reaction was to insist that she wasn't afraid of the dark, and that she was perfectly capable of traveling. But the reaction was pure pride, and her pride had already caused enough damage for one day. Besides, she really didn't feel like a walk all alone in the dark. “All right,” she said.

“Good.” Almost shyly, he smiled at her. “I've got to get back to work—I'm on evening patrol tonight. I'll leave you my coat, though, in case you get cold.”

She looked down, noticing for the first time that his jacket was neatly folded right where her head had been lying on the bench. Apparently, it had already served duty as her pillow. “Thank you,” she said.

“No problem,” he said, moving toward one of the gaps in the hedge. “I'll look in on you a little later.” He paused at the gap, glanced around for any signs of Stryders, then strode out into the gathering dusk.

For a long time, Aimee sat on the bench, watching the sky fade into purple and then into starlit black. The businesses around the square were long since closed, but there were enough lights from nearby residences to throw a faint glow over the area.

And with the ghostly light washing over her, she gazed at the stars and listened to the night breezes whispering through the trees.

And tried to think.

What had she done? Because she
had
done something. Everyone agreed on that, even those like Patrolman Clay who didn't think she'd done anything on purpose. Somehow, something she'd done had caused a Stryder to kill her husband.

But how? And why? Could she have been angrier at him than she'd realized? Some kind of deep or lingering anger that she didn't even know was there?

No. She'd loved her husband. Hadn't she? Of course she had. And she'd loved Aunt Ruth, too. The older woman had irritated her sometimes, but
everyone
had irritated her sometimes back then. Part of being twelve, she supposed.

But if somehow her subconscious had latched onto that irritation and figured out a way to break protocol for someone else …

She shook her head decisively. No. Aunt Ruth had sneezed. That sneeze, and the resulting rearrangement of head and torso and arms, was what had broken protocol and gotten her killed. These were two entirely different cases, despite Sergeant Royce's efforts to link them.

What about Patrolman Clay's theory? Could it be a matter of who she was, rather than something she'd done? Had the Stryders somehow gotten it into their heads that every twelve years someone standing or kneeling or crouching beside her should die?

But no. That didn't make any sense.

But then, what sense did the protocol make in the first place? Why impose such arbitrary rules of conduct on helpless people, with death as the punishment for every single infraction?

And not just on human beings. Whoever had set up the Pyramid with its five languages had clearly been trying to make sure that at least five different species would be able to learn and follow the protocol. Apparently, the Stryders played this same vicious game with everyone who happened by.

Except that this particular group of playmates weren't going to simply play the Stryders' game for awhile and then move on. If Earth hadn't sent a follow-up ship by now, they never would. The colonists were trapped here. Trapped on this otherwise lovely and bountiful world with the Stryders and their protocol.

And if there was something new happening with that protocol, they weren't going to be living here much longer.

So what in heaven's name had she
done
?

Her plate was lying on the bench near Patrolman Clay's folded jacket. Slowly, reluctantly, she reached over and picked it up. The record of Ted's death was in there, recorded in all its horrifying detail. The thought of watching it …

It's been another twelve years since then,
Patrolman Clay had suggested.
Maybe the Stryders are celebrating an anniversary.

She took a deep breath. The thought of living through Ted's death again made her feel violently ill. But she had to know. Bracing herself, she keyed for the record.

It was as bad as she'd expected. Worse. With the position the plate had been in, she could only see Ted's left side, but that was enough to send her stomach into a fresh knot. She watched and listened as she and Ted went into the protocol positions; watched and listened as the Stryder clumped toward them; watched and listened at that horrible moment when the razordisk whipped past overhead, cutting into Ted's side with a splash of red and then returning like a deadly yo-yo to its owner. She heard herself give a strangled gasp as Ted fell to the ground; saw the image turn half red as a stray drop of blood landed on the recording lens, partially obscuring it.

And she saw the Stryder pass by, looming overhead like a giant tree as he made his unconcerned way past his victim. The footsteps faded into the distance, and she heard herself begin to moan …

With a stabbing jerk of her finger, she shut off the record, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as if cutting off the images would somehow destroy the memory.

But at the same time, she knew she couldn't afford to lose any bit of that memory. Not yet. Sergeant Royce had said Ted's plate didn't show exactly what had happened, either. If they were going to figure out how he had broken protocol, it was going to be up to her to figure it out.

Slowly, tiredly, she opened her eyes.

To find a Stryder standing directly across the Sanctuary ring, just outside the hedge.

Staring at her.

Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. No one knew how exactly the hedge protected them against the Stryders. One theory was that they liked the orange flowers so much they didn't want to risk damaging them. Another was that the delicate aroma somehow obscured their vision, so that they literally couldn't see what was happening inside the hedge.

But all anyone really knew was that, up to now, the hedge had kept the Stryders away from you.

But then, up to now, following the protocol had done the same thing.

Up to now.

The Stryder was still standing there. Still staring at her. Aimee stared back, holding as still as she could, Ted's image of a rabbit facing a doggerelle flashing through her mind. No Stryder had ever stared at her that way before. For that matter, she couldn't recall ever seeing a Stryder even standing still before. Even when they killed, they never so much as broke stride.

And yet, this one was standing.
And
staring.

Was it the same Stryder who had killed Ted? There were supposed to be subtle differences between them, but Aimee had never been able to tell one Stryder from another. Could Sergeant Royce have been right about her somehow instigating the attack? Had the Stryder later realized that, and decided that Aimee deserved to die, too?

She realized she had stopped breathing. Slowly, carefully, she inhaled, feeling terribly alone. If only someone was here with her; Patrolman Clay, or even Sergeant Royce. If the Stryder wanted her, of course, there was nothing either of them could do. But suddenly she was terrified at the thought of dying without another human present to say good-bye to.

The Stryder still hadn't moved, and she found herself wondering bleakly what he was waiting for. The hedge itself was certainly no physical barrier, and his razordisk probably had enough range to get her here at the far side anyway. What was he waiting for?

And then, suddenly, something inside her snapped. If this was her night to die, she wasn't going to take it hiding beneath the flowers in a corner like a frightened rabbit. Standing up, stuffing her facplate back into its pouch, she started across the Sanctuary ring toward the Stryder.

With every step, she expected him to raise his right arm and send the razordisk nestled beneath it flashing toward her, to cut through her heart and lungs and to quiet forever the agonizing memory of Ted's death. But still he stood there, unmoving, as she approached.

Until finally she stood just inside the hedge from him.

For a long moment she gazed silently at him, staring up into his face. Every variation of the protocol she'd ever heard made you bow down before a Stryder ever got this close; and though she'd seen plenty of telephoto pictures of them, she realized suddenly that no picture or video had ever really done them justice.

It was an old face. A face that had seen many things; a face that somehow reflected deep wanderings in secret thoughts and paths. Even in the darkness his eyes were bright as he stared down at her, and Aimee could feel a sense of eminence and mystery and serenity hovering around him. Like a Greek god, she'd often thought, or the wise mentor to humanity that so many people had longed for over the centuries.

Only these mentors killed on a whim.

She took a deep breath. If this was indeed her night to die, then nothing she could do could stop it. But perhaps she could at least voice her objections to this insanity before that happened. “Why?” she asked, her voice sounding harsh and crowlike against the Stryder's innate grandeur. “Why did you kill him?”

The Stryder seemed to consider that. Or maybe he was just ignoring her. The first colonists had tried to talk to the Stryders too, she remembered. All it had gotten them was killed.

And then, abruptly yet smoothly, he lifted his arm.

Aimee flinched back, her eyes dropping to the razordisk against his forearm. But the arm stopped, and there was no wolfbat moan, and the weapon didn't move. Slowly, she let her gaze travel down the arm to the huge hand reaching over the hedge toward her. The hand was cupped, palm up, as if he wanted something.

Aimee swallowed. What did he want? In another human, the gesture might have indicated that she was to take his hand, as if he was preparing to lead her somewhere. But somehow, she sensed that wasn't it.

And then she noticed that not all the fingers were cupped. One of them was stretched out straight—almost curved under, in fact—pointing at her belt pouch.

At her facplate.

“My plate?” she asked, reaching carefully toward it. “Is that what you want?”

The Stryder didn't move or speak. Carefully, wondering if she was in fact reading him correctly, she began working the plate free. Was he trying to tell her there was a protocol for this kind of face-to-face meeting? She couldn't imagine there being such a thing; and even if there was, no Stryder ever gave out hints like that, even in mime. Their entire range of responses was either to ignore or to kill.

Still, this one was already doing things she'd never heard of from a Stryder. Maybe, for once, one was actually giving a human the benefit of the doubt. She got the plate out and lifted it to her lips—

And with a smooth motion, the Stryder turned his cupped hand over and plucked it from her grasp. Turning, he strode away across the square and disappeared around a shop.

Aimee watched him go, her body seeming to sag inside her skin. So that was it. No benefit of the doubt; no communication; no nothing. The Stryder had indeed realized he'd made a mistake earlier, and this was his way of rectifying it.

Because without a plate, she was as good as dead. Her mind flicked back to that day with Aunt Ruth, and how she'd had to use her plate to pull up the protocol three more times before she was able to make it home. By taking her plate, the Stryder was effectively condemning her to death the minute she left the safety of the Sanctuary.

Slowly, she turned and headed back across the circle.
Relax,
she tried to tell herself.
Just stay here until Patrolman Clay gets back, and he'll get you a new plate.

But that would be at best a temporary fix. If the Stryders could take one plate away from her, they could take the next one away, and the next one, and the next, until at some point she would be caught out in the open with a Stryder and no idea what the protocol was to keep him away.

And even in her despair, she could see the irony in it. Sergeant Royce had all but accused her of getting a Stryder to kill her husband for her. Now, by taking her plate, this Stryder was doing that exact same thing to her.

She reached the bench where Patrolman Clay's jacket lay and sat down beside it. All sorts of desperate plans and ideas had chased each other through her mind on the short walk across the circle, but she knew there was no point in trying any of them tonight. In the morning, perhaps, she would be able to think more clearly.