The Knights of the Black Earth (57 page)

“But we’d have to
turn ourselves in, go on trial.” Xris grimaced again, gingerly shifted his
wounded arm to a more comfortable position. “A highly publicized trial.” He
looked over at Rowan.

“We need to talk,”
she repeated.

The Bear looked at
the two of them, stroked his beard. “Two are company. Three is a rotten egg, as
our friend the chameleon would say. I will take a walk.”

He did, managing
to nearly garrote himself on a hammock in the process.

Xris looked over
at Rowan. “Yeah? What?”

“Don’t do what you’re
thinking of doing for my sake, Xris,” she said quietly. “I don’t deserve it.
You see, it was my fault.”

For a moment he
didn’t understand what she’d said. Then it sunk in. “You’re talking about the
factory explosion, aren’t you?” His voice hardened.
“Your
fault?
According to what you told me, Armstrong was the one responsible—”

“He was. That’s
not what I mean. Or rather, in a way it is. Don’t you see? If we’d been able to
talk about...
me
—all that was going wrong with me, inside me—then we
could have gone past that. But I couldn’t talk about myself. I didn’t know how
to say what I had to say.”

The drug must be
affecting him, though he felt wide awake now. Xris shook his head. “I still don’t
get it.”

Rowan sighed. “If
I had talked to you that day before we left. Gone with you to the bar that
night. If I had told you. Trusted you enough. Tried to explain.” She spread her
hands helplessly. “But how could I, when I really didn’t understand myself? How
could I, when I can’t even do it now?”

She brushed a tear
from her cheek with a quick jerking motion.

He knew then,
realized he’d known ever since he’d first seen her, hadn’t wanted to believe
it. He didn’t want to even now.

“So don’t. Let’s
leave it, okay?”

“There,” she
returned bitterly. “You see? This is exactly what you would have done seven
years ago. This is we!” She made a sweeping downward gesture with her hands, a
gesture that included her breasts, her small waist, her hips. “Me! As I was
meant to be!”

He said nothing,
just shook his head again.

Reaching over, she
gripped his hand, his good hand. “I didn’t know back then, though I think I
suspected. Or maybe I knew and I just didn’t have the courage to admit it. Much
less go through with it. All the signs were there. My disastrous relationships
with women. How I thought I could buy love like fake diamonds. Pay enough for
them and no one will ever know they’re phony. No one except me.

“To make up for
it, I put myself into a machine. My work was my refuge. My hiding place. In the
excitement, the tension, I could forget. It was only when all that was over,
when the undercover work was finished and I was alone and scared—then I understood.
I looked in a mirror and I saw myself and I knew myself. And that was the day
Dalin Rowan died. I wept for him, Xris. I cried for him as I cried for you and
for Ito. I’d lost someone very close to me. But that’s all he ever was. Someone
close. And that’s why it was my fault.”

“And if it’s your
fault, then that makes it my fault, too,” Xris said harshly. He pulled his hand
away from hers. “Because I let you down. Because I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t
sensitive enough. You’re saying that if we’d sat down in the bar that night and
you said to me, ‘Hey, Xris, old buddy, I’ve decided to get my wienie whacked
off and grow boobs,’ that this would have helped us nail Armstrong?”

He thought she’d
be angry, maybe hoped she’d be angry. But she only regarded him sadly.

“You don’t
understand,” she said in a dull, hopeless tone.

“Damn right I don’t.
Why don’t you try to explain it?”

She was silent,
wouldn’t look at him. He was about to give up, go to sleep, let her sulk on her
own, if that’s what she wanted, when suddenly she began to talk.

“I was so hung up
on myself I didn’t recognize the warning signs about Armstrong. All kinds of
red lights were going off in my brain, but I ignored them. I should have
spotted that bastard, Xris. I should have nailed Armstrong from the beginning.”

“And I shouldn’t
have gone into that factory when I knew in my gut it was all wrong,” he said
quietly. “I beat myself up with that stick every day for a year. It didn’t
help. It didn’t bring back my leg and my arm. It didn’t bring back Ito.”

She was staring
bleakly at him.

He looked up at
her. “So where does this leave us?”

“Different from
what we were. Changed.” Rowan sighed. “You’re right, we can’t go back.”

“Maybe, from what
you’ve said, that’s a good thing. Give me a twist, will you?” The mechanical
taste was unusually, horribly strong.

Rowan opened his
pocket, removed the case, took out a twist, and put it between Xris’s lips.

“And that’s why,”
she said steadily, “you have to turn yourself in, Xris. Clear yourself and the
others.”

Xris grunted. “And
the moment the Hung find out who you are, where you are, you can kiss your ass
good-bye.”

Rowan’s smile
twisted, but remained. She shrugged. “I fought the Hung before. I’ll fight them
again. Who knows? This time I might finish them off for good.”

Xris raised his
voice angrily. “You’d never even live through the trial. You know it. So do I.
So just shut up about it.”

Rowan said
nothing. She stared down at her hands, which were clasped together in her lap.

The others were
awake now.

Jamil sat up
stiffly, cradling his injured arm.

Harry said loudly,
“I can’t hear a damn thing. What’re they saying?”

Quong was up, came
over to attend to his patient.

“How do you feel,
Xris?”

“Great. Switch me
back on, will you, Doc?”

Quong frowned, but—seeing
Xris’s dark expression—the Doc did as he was asked.

His mechanical
side working again, Xris sat up weakly on the cot, looked around. He chewed on
the twist.

“Did you all hear
what we’re up against?”

“No, thanks!”
Harry boomed. “I don’t smoke.”

“Doc, find a
notepad, take this down, and show it to Harry. I want everyone in on this. I’ll
explain the situation.”

When he was
finished, Xris looked around at each member of the team. “I’ve reached my
decision. I can’t give myself up.”

Rowan, beside him,
made a small sound of protest. Xris stretched out his hand to her, his good
hand.

She hesitated,
then clasped his hand in hers.

Xris continued, “Not
without leaving Rowan here wide open. But the rest of you can. That would be my
advice, in fact. Dixter’ll see to it that you’re treated fairly. You might even
end up being heroes.”

The others
exchanged glances, with the exception of Harry, who was puzzling over Quong’s
handwriting.

“Turn ourselves
in? Is that what this scrawl says?” Harry was suddenly on his feet, indignant. “You
can’t do that, Xris, goddammit! You can’t let them get hold of Darlene!”

“I’m not going to,
Harry.”

“What?”

“Doc, write down—
Never mind.”

“I’m not doing it,
Xris,” Harry continued belligerently. “I’ll stay with Darlene, if you won’t.”

Quong was writing
furiously. He shoved the notepad under Harry’s nose.

Harry read, looked
at Xris, blushed. “Oh, sorry, Xris. I’m with you, you know.” He sat back down.

“Me, too,” said
Jamil gloomily. “I don’t much like the idea of publicity, either.”

Xris stared at
him. “Why not? What have you got to lose?”

Jamil didn’t
immediately answer. He tugged irritably on his bandage. “Damn thing’s too
tight, Doc.”

“Count yourself
fortunate,” Quong returned. “You could be wearing Raoul’s petticoat. And do not
loosen it! You will start the bleeding again.”

Jamil scratched at
the bandage, saw them all staring at him now. He gave an exasperated snort. “All
right, if you must know, there’s a couple of women on a couple of different
planets who both think that, well, I’m married to each of them. It’s all
perfectly legal. Well, it’s sort of legal. I do right by them both, mind you,
but if one ever found out about the other .. .” He shook his head gloomily.

“I am with you
also,” Tycho announced. “It has occurred to me that if I am a hunted criminal,
I will not have to pay income taxes.”

“That’s because
you won’t have any income,” Xris said dryly. “Things are going to be tough. We’ll
be spending most of our time dodging bounty hunters, the bureau, military
police. With that kind of action, it’s going to be difficult finding work.”

“Nevertheless,”
said Tycho, “it would not do to break up the team. One for all, and damn the
torpedoes.”

By now Xris was
smiling. Rowan was gazing at them all in wonder. Maybe he wouldn’t have to explain
things to her, after all.

“You will need a
doctor,” Quong said stiffly. “As well as a mechanic. Besides, I want to make a
thorough study of the Tongan. I will be the first human doctor to notate their
physiology.”

“They might even
reinstate you,” Jamil muttered, but he took care to keep his voice low and
Quong, fortunately, did not hear.

“We’ll need a
computer expert,” Xris said offhandedly. “A code breaker might come in handy,
too.”

“Are you sure,
Xris?” she asked softly, so softly only his augmented hearing enabled him to
hear her.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Rowan squeezed his
hand. She looked up at the others. “Thanks. All of you. I know you’re really
doing this for me and I ... I—” She choked, covered her face.

Xris lay back
down, shut his eyes. The drug was dragging him under.

Where do you
want to go, laddie?

Olefsky’s question
drifted to the cyborg through a thick, pleasant mist.

Xris shook his
head. It didn’t matter. From now on, one place would be as good—or as bad—as
another. He shut off his hearing, shut down his battery.

Rowan, seeing him
drifting off to sleep, tried to gently withdraw her hand.

Xris tightened his
grip, held fast to her.

To Rowan. To his
old friend.

He held fast to
every one of them. All seven.

His team.

One for all, and
damn the torpedoes.