The Summer Queen (136 page)

Gundhalinu froze, stared at him, trying to make the guard’s
face into the face of someone he knew, one of the men who had once served under
him. But the man was a stranger ..4 stranger far from home.

The guard grinned, and turned back to the transport. The
hatch gaping in its underbelly took him in and sealed. The ship rose into the
purple twilight with the heavy throbbing of a heartbeat, and rapidly dwindled
in the distance.

Gundhalinu dropped the sack he was somehow still holding,
feeling the stares of the small knot of strangers around him penetrate his
flesh like needles. He said nothing, not acknowledging them, as he looked
toward the men on the perimeter who had been waiting for the transport’s
departure as patiently as hungry carnivores.

The work gangs came forward, each one a coherent unit, the
solidarity of their members a show of strength, an act of defiance intended to
keep the other gangs at bay as they came in to collect their supplies.

The men around Gundhalinu pressed closer together, instinctively,
as the gangs approached and began to go through the supplies. They picked out
their own shipments until the ground around the new convicts was completely
empty. And then one man broke away from each pack, coming in from their
territory to study the newcomers. Gundhalinu guessed that they were the gang
leaders, coming to choose recruits.

He held his breath, his tension a physical pain in his
stomach as he waited for someone to denounce him. But no one around him said
anything, all of them suddenly preoccupied with their own fates. He realized
what it would mean to be left on your own in this wasteland. At least as part
of a work gang there was some chance of survival.

The gang bosses who came to pick and choose among the new
arrivals were ragged and bitter; pale-skinned, dark-skinned, and everything in
between. He endured, with the other new men, being inspected like an animal or
a slave. The three«or four biggest, strongest-looking men went first; he began
to smell desperation among the ones who remained.

“Show me your hands.” The words were in Trade, the bastard
tongue that was probably the only language most of them had in common.

He glanced up into the hard, emotionless stare of one more
set of eyes. He held out his hands; the other man’s heavy, callused fingers
touched his smooth palms. The man snorted and shook his head. “Bureaucrat.”

“I can fix things,” Gundhalinu said, in Trade. “I’m good at
fixing things.”

“Got nothing to fix,” the man said, “and you’re not pretty
enough.” He moved on.

Someone else stepped into his place. “You say you can fix
things?” Gundhalinu nodded, studying the other man, as he was being studied.
The gang boss was about his own height, gaunt and raw-boned, not an imposing
figure. His face was dark, layered with grime; his eyes were gray and deep-set.
Gundhalinu couldn’t guess his homeworld, but he recognized the measuring
intelligence that looked him over, still holding back judgment. “Kharemoughi?”
the man said.

Gundhalinu nodded.

“Tech?”

Gundhalinu nodded again, reluctantly; sensing that the other
man would know when he was being lied to.

“What was your crime?”

Surprised, he said, “Treason.”

The man grimaced, and shook his head. “I think you’re too
smart,” he said. “Politicals aren’t worth the trouble.”

Gundhalinu moved suddenly, as the other man started to turn
away; used a Police move to pull him off-balance. The other man went down flat
on his back, taken totally off-guard. Gundhalinu stood looking down at him. “I
can take care of myself,” he said.

The man got slowly to his feet, his expression a mix of
self-disgust and grudging amusement. “Okay,” he said, and shrugged. “I’m
Piracy. Come on, Treason.” He turned, starting away.

“But he’s a Blue!”

Piracy spun back as the prisoner still standing unclaimed beside
Gundhalinu shouted out the words. There were razors in his stare. “Is that
right, Treason?” Piracy asked softly. “Is it?”

“The guard called him ‘Commander.’

‘Good luck, Commander,’ he said, ‘you’re going to need it.’ ...”

“Oh, yeah?” The gang boss who had rejected Gundhalinu first
pushed toward him again. At the perimeters of his vision, Gundhalinu saw heads
turning, the sudden v ripple of bodies starting into motion, starting
inexorably in his direction, as if he had suddenly developed a magnetic field.
The big man shoved him, hitting him hard m the center of his chest, so that he
staggered back into the waiting arms of half a dozen other men behind him. He
struggled free, kicking and elbowing, as their hands tried to get a hold on
him.

He stood in the center of the small open space that was suddenly
all that was left to him; ringed in now by a wall of convicts. “I’m a sibyl!”
he said, hearing his voice break. “Keep away from me—!” He lifted a hand to his
throat, to bare the tattoo that was also a warning sign, that meant biohazard
to anyone who saw it. His fingers brushed the cold metal of the block; he
remembered suddenly that the collar completely covered his tattoo.

“Where’s your proof?” somebody called.

“He’s got no proof. He’s lying.”

“Come any closer, and I’ll prove it on you!” Gundhalinu
shouted.

“You want to bite me, Blue?” Someone else laughed. “You can
bite my big one, you Kharemoughi cocksucker.”

“I never believed that ‘death to kill a sibyl’ shit, anyhow—”

Gundhalinu heard the catcalls starting, the muttered threats
and curses in half a dozen languages—the hungry sounds of a mob starved for
entertainment, for release, for a victim. He turned, slowly, balancing on the
balls of his feet as the trap of human flesh closed on him.

They came at him first in ones and twos, and he held them
off, sent them back into the mob again, crippled, or laid them out on the
cinder field. At first his mind barely registered the blows his own body took;
he had not fought, even in practice, for a long time, but the adrenaline rush
of his fear honed his reflexes and deadened his pain.

And then they began to come at him in twos and threes,
threes and fours, pinioning his arms, tripping him, falling on top of his
struggling limbs and body Someone’s hands were at his neck, crushing the metal
collar into his throat, choking him into submission. He twisted his head,
opening his mouth, and used the only weapon left to him. He sank his teeth into
the man’s wrist. The strangler bellowed, the pressure on his throat eased, and
then came back doubled, sent the universe of stars reeling across his sight.

And then, as suddenly, the crushing pressure was gone again;
the weight slid from his chest. He lifted his head, as his vision came back, to
see the convict who had been trying to strangle him sprawled on the ground
beside him, twitching and white-eyed, as if he were having a seizure. And then
the maddened eyes closed, and the body beside his own lay still.

Gundhalinu pushed himself up onto his elbows, gasping, every
breath like acid going down his ruined throat. He heard the shouts and laughter
fade away into murmurs of disbelief, questions, angry demands: “What happened?”

“What did he do to him—?”

“I’m a sibyl.” He spat the words out, with the taste of a
stranger’s blood. “I warned you.”

For a long moment there was near-silence. He got to his feet
somehow, stood swaying. He saw Piracy, at the edge of the crowd, shaking his
head. “Too much trouble,” Piracy mouthed silently. No one moved around him.

The ground shuddered suddenly; Gundhalinu lost his balance
and fell. And then the inner wall closed in on him in a rush, like one creature
with a dozen heads, half a hundred arms and legs, a thousand hands, knees, feet
and fists. They stuffed his mouth with ash and gagged him with a strip of
cloth, bound his hands and feet. He was pulled up, beaten, kicked, and dragged;
passed from hand to hand, buried alive inside a moving mass of bodies until at
last he came down hard on the blackened rim of a crater he had glimpsed from
the landing field. He only had time to realize what he saw before he was
forced, face down, into it. Black, reeking ooze covered his head, filled his eyes,
his nostrils, his ears. He held his breath, praying to all the gods of his
ancestors and the Eight Worlds as he felt himself sink deeper, as they did not pull
him up and did not let him breathe and did not stop and did nothing at all but
let him die .... come on, now, come on, come on you ungrateful shit, come back.
Come on ..

Gundhalinu felt a tremor run through him, and was aware,
with a kind of dreamer’s perversity, that he still existed inside the mass of
bleeding, helpless flesh the mob had made of what had once been his body. He
could not see, it was still as black as the foul drowning pool that was his
final memory, and yet he heard someone speaking to him, a vaguely familiar
voice reciting a kind of abusive singsong chant. It went on and on, as if the
chanter believed he had the power to bring souls back from the Other Side.
Gundhalinu moaned, realizing with the sound that he could, that he was no
longer gagged or—he lifted trembling hands to his face—bound.

“Hey—” Hands closed over his as he would have touched his
eyes. He fought, cursing, flailing blindly, until they forced his own hands
back to his sides and held them there, strengthless. “You’re all right,” the
voice said. “It’s safe now. Nobody’s going to hurt you—”

Gundhalinu went limp, lying as still as death again when the
hands released him. He felt them move inward along his arms, setting off more
pain at every touch; down his body, along the length of his legs. He was beyond
caring whether it was meant as torture or molestation, or even a primitive
medical exam; only caring that all he saw was blackness. “My eyes,” he
whispered at last, when he found the courage to speak.

The hands moved abruptly to his head in response, lifting it
slightly; fingers brushed his cheeks, his forehead, like birdwings. And
suddenly there was light, dim and gray, more light, orange, white, agonizing
light. He put up his hands again, with a cry; no one interfered with his
movement this time as he covered his eyes with his hands, letting the light
back in a millimeter at a time. Still the pain grew with the light, but he
forced his eyes open, flooded with tears, to confront whoever held him now.

Piracy’s face swam into focus above him. Recognizing the
face, he realized that he had recognized the voice too, all along, with some
random fragment of his consciousness. He wiped his eyes, swearing in
frustration as the tears went on streaming down his face.

“Let ’em come,” Piracy said. “Helps clean that shit out of
your eyes. They’ll heal up in two, three days, if no infection sets in.”

Gundhalinu let his hands fall again. He moved his head, the
only voluntary motion he had the strength for; able to make out his own body,
lying on a pallet bed, stripped of clothing, half covered by a rough blanket,
covered with tar and bruises and cuts. His body was one continuous throbbing
ache; he was glad that he could not see more clearly what they had done to him.

“You’re fucking lucky,” Piracy said; Gundhalmu gave a grunt
of disbelief “You look like death warmed over, but you got no broken bones,
nothing that won’t heal. They were gentle with you, considering what you are.
Guess the blood virus scared them just enough, after all .... Not that they
didn’t intend to kill you—”

“You saved me?” Gundhalinu asked. Every word seemed to take the
effort of an entire sentence.

“Not me, Treason.” Piracy shook his head, his mouth curving
up in a sardonic smile. “I told you you were too much trouble. It was him.” He
gestured over his shoulder.

Gundhalinu blinked his eyes clear, forcing them to see beyond
Piracy’s face, to make a second human shape take form in the shadows behind
him. He realized that they were inside some sort of shelter, its walls
reflecting the incandescent glow of a small radiant heater somewhere on the
other side of where he lay. The second man moved forward, his massive bulk
looming over Piracy until he seemed to fill the entire space of Gundhalinu’s
vision. “This is Bluekiller. He saved you.”

Gundhalinu stared at the man. Bluekiller’s enormous,
black-bearded face smiled, revealing yellow teeth. His eyes were like small jet
beads, almost lost in the narrow space between the filthy snarls of his beard
and hair. Gundhalinu could tell nothing at all about his expression. “Why?”
Gundhalinu whispered.

A guttural mumbling emerged from the lips hidden inside the
beard.

Gundhalinu shook his head, closing his eyes, unable to understand
the man’s speech. He was not even certain what language the man was speaking.

“Because you’re a sibyl,” Piracy said.

Gundhalinu felt a sudden pang of gratitude, honed sharper by
the brutal memory of the mob’s hatred. “Tell him I—”

“He can understand you.” Piracy cut him off. “He’s hard to
make out because he’s only got half a tongue. It doesn’t mean he’s stupid. Don’t
make that mistake.”

Gundhalinu opened his eyes, looking at Piracy, back at
Bluekiller. “I learned ... not to make that mistake ... a long time ago.” He
smiled warily, wearily.

Bluekiller muttered something, with an unpleasant laugh.

“That makes you unusual, for a Tech,” Piracy said. “Or for a
Blue. I figured you’d have certain blind spots that don’t stop with your eyes
.... But he doesn’t want your gratitude. He wants you to answer a question.”

Gundhalinu met Bluekiller’s inscrutable stare again, still
reading nothing in it But the man leaned forward, catching his jaw in the
vise-grip of a hand nearly as large as his face, making him cry out
involuntarily. Bluekiller held his face immobile; more unintelligible speech
poured out of the other man’s mouth.

“He wants to know about his family,” Piracy said,
tonelessly. “He left two wives and eleven kids behind in Rishon City, over on
the day side, when they sent him here. He wants to know what happened to his
family. He wants to know now.”