The Summer Queen (51 page)

He put his arms out and pulled her to him, held her close,
cradling her head against his chest, so that she could no longer see his
expression, and he couldn’t see hers. She felt a tremor of anger run through
him. But this time he did not answer her

Tammis stopped in the quiet alley in front of Merovy’s townhouse,
glancing toward the alley-end, where the smoldering night waited beyond the
storm wall’ forever held at bay. Merovy followed his gaze; looked back at him
uncertainly. “P° you want to come in and ... and talk?” He had not spoken more
than two words to her on the way to her door.

He kissed her suddenly instead of answering her, pulling her
against him with gentle insistence. She kissed him back, with no uncertainty
now, wanning him with her warmth. They had kissed before, often enough,
experimenting. But it had never made him feel the way it suddenly did now, her
closeness somehow caught in the treacherous tangle of his emotions—the feel of
her mouth on his, willing but uncertain, her body against him, the memory of
the feel of Elco Teel’s mouth and body, all too knowing; the images of his
father and his mother, naked with strangers. He had always imagined that the
way he was with Merovy, loving her almost since he could remember, had been the
way it was for them; but now he wasn’t sure, wasn’t even sure ...

He broke off his kiss, letting go of Merovy almost roughly,
pushing her back against the wall in the shadow of an overhanging balcony. She
blinked her eyes, looking startled and then almost relieved. “Good night,
Tammis ...”she whispered, groping for the door handle behind her. She opened
the door, and went inside. Tammis stood staring at the closed door for a long
moment. Then he turned and headed back down the alley, pressing his fingers to
his mouth.

He walked the whole distance home, needing time to gather
his thoughts, needing to walk off the emotions that filled him with a dark
heat, like poison. He had tried once to ask his father about the new feelings
stirring so urgently inside him; about his confusion, when they were stirred as
easily by the sight of a boy’s body as by a girl’s But when he had tried to
talk about his sexual feelings openly and honestly, his father had lectured him
on the ways of the Summer islands, giving him definitions of what was
acceptable that he knew from watching his city friends were impossibly rigid.
When he had tried to ask if there couldn’t be something more, his father had become
furious, and ended the conversation.

He had brooded over it, sure that he had failed to
understand something his parents had always found obvious. He had told himself
that the casual, indiscriminate sex he saw occurring more and more among his
Winter acquaintances only mirrored the emptiness of their minds and the
aimlessness of their spoiled existence.

He still believed that, in his heart. And yet, tonight
Kirard Set Wayaways had told him that everything he knew was wrong ....

He reached the palace at last, and went directly to his
father’s study. He looked in at the door and saw his father alone, sitting on
the edge of the silver-gray couch, with his head in his hands, his face buried—sitting
as still as stone. Tammis watched him silently for a long moment; and then he
turned away and went on down the hall.

He found his mother at work with Jerusha PalaThion in
another room. They looked up together as he hesitated in the doorway. “Tammis—”
she said, with surprise plain on her face. He saw her glance away at the time,
and back at him; saw Jerusha’s gaze measure his expression.

Jerusha finished the mug of whatever she had been drinking,
and got to her feet. “Ididn’t realize it was so late. We can try this again
tomorrow. Maybe something will come to me in my dreams ....” She smiled, weary
and wry.

His mother nodded, and looked back at him. Tammis could see
the dark fatigue-circles under her eyes, as vivid as bruises against her pale
skin. Jerusha went past him, still smiling as she looked at him and said, “Good
night.” But he knew why she was leaving so abruptly—giving him privacy, for
whatever he had to say.

“Tammis—?” Moon said again, her own face growing concerned.
She held out her hands to him.

He crossed the room and took them, felt her warm fingers squeeze
his, the feel of her touch, somehow still as calm and soothing as her kiss on
his forehead when he was a child. He sat on the table-edge beside her, careful
not to dislodge a pile of anything.

“What have you been doing tonight?” she asked him, her voice
mild; but he thought he saw a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. He had not
disturbed her while she was working in years.

He shrugged. “We were at Elco Teel’s after the Shop closed
....”

“Did you see what happened to Capella Goodventure today?”
Moon asked, half curious, half as though she wondered whether that was what was
bothering him.

Tammis nodded. “Elco Teel said it couldn’t have happened to
a better choice of victims.” He smiled, a little guiltily; saw his mother’s
smile mirror his, equally guilty.

“I’ll never hear the end of it. But thank the Lady Tor saved
her, or I’d never hear the end of that.” She shook her head and rubbed her
eyes.

“I want to learn how to do that,” he said, “what Tor did, I
mean Everyone thought it was like doing magic.” His mother’s smile widened, and
she nodded.

He pushed up off the edge of the table again, feeling his
resolution falter. “I just wanted to say good night ....” He glanced away as he
said it, not able to face her as he spoke the words.

“Nothing else?” His mother’s voice caught at him like an outstretched
hand, making him turn back.

He looked at her, seeing her doubled in his mind: his mother
... the Snow Queen. “We were at Elco Teel’s, and ...” And he told her, all of
it, even about the offworlder Police inspector; unable to make himself meet her
eyes when he repeated it ... afraid of what he might find there. She listened,
holding herself as tightly as if she held something that wanted to run away;
scarcely interrupting. He saw her whitening with anger, but knew, from her hand
on his and the cold distance in her eyes, that her anger was not directed at
him. “Why do you think Kirard Set told you all this?” she asked at last, her
voice strained.

Tammis looked away, shrugged. “I don’t know .... Merovy said
he’d cut off his own ear to hurt somebody else.”

“Yes,” Moon murmured. “I think he would. He did it to hurt
you, Tammis, and to hurt us all. I can’t tell you why, exactly ...” although
something in her voice told him that she could have. “But I can tell you, keep
away from people like that It doesn’t matter why they do what they do; it only
matters that you know they will.”

She took her hand away from his; looked down at both her
hands together on the tabletop. Her one hand touched the other, almost
questioningly. “I am Arienrhod’s clone, Tammis. But I’m not Arienrhod .... The
woman who gave birth to me was Lelark Dawntreader Summer. Sparks—your father—”
she said insistently, “and I grew up together on Neith, in the Windward
Islands. Gran and my mother were our family. Maybe I was Arienrhod’s clone ...
but Arienrhod didn’t raise me or feed me or sew my clothes or teach me right
from wrong. Arienrhod didn’t love me .... That’s what makes someone your
mother, or your father. That’s what family is.” She looked up at him, blinking
too much. “And as for the rest of it ... the Change took care of that, at the
last Festival. We all cast our sins into the sea, and the sea washed them away.
That’s what forgiveness is.”

He nodded, glancing down.

“Do you think you can forgive me?” she asked softly. “And
your father?”

He lifted his head, blinking hard himself; but he did not answer.
He hugged her, feeling safe and certain for the brief moment that she held him,
before he said, “Good night” again, and meant it this time.

“Boss, I think we’ve got trouble.” Kedalion Niburu called
the words over his shoulder without looking back, not able to take his eyes off
the screen in front of him. It showed him the unmistakable expanding diamond of
a pursuit pattern forming in their wake—at least half a dozen craft, still
beyond sight but closing rapidly with their own.

“Who is it?” Reede dropped into the seat next to him,
peering out with bloodshot eyes across the living-death landscape. Tuo Ne’el
had been sliding past below them for several hours now; gradually lightening
into the visible as they caught up second by second with the day. Kedalion had
never thought he would be glad to see that view again; but, until he had done
this last scan, it had almost seemed like he was coming home. They had been in
flight for nearly twelve hours straight, coming directly off their landing at
an obscure shipping field halfway around the planet, flightlagged and exhausted
to begin with. But Reede had ordered it, Reede had not explained why, Reede had
simply wanted it done, that way, in secrecy with faked codes and no rest at all
....

And Reede was swearing now, as Kedalion pointed at the displays,
letting him see trouble for himself. “Whose are they?” His own hand moved over
the control boards, querying, reconfirming, as if he thought he could somehow
find a better answer

But it was an impossible question. “I don’t know,” Kedalion
said, “except they’re not Humbaba’s welcoming committee. They don’t respond to
any of the codes, and they aren’t talking. I’ve tried all the usual
frequencies.”

“Shit. Shit!” Reede hit the panel with his fist, making some
system bleat in protest “We covered our tracks coming in. How could the Blues
have figured it—?” He shook his head. “It can’t be the Blues. They’d just nail
us from upstairs.” He frowned, rubbing his face. “How far are we from Humbaba’s?”

“About ten minutes.”

“Can we get there first?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Are we transmitting a distress code?”

Kedalion looked up again, facing Reede’s expression with an
effort of will. His own face felt paralyzed. “No one’s answering it, boss,” he
said. “Seems like nobody’s home.”

“That’s insane,” Reede snapped, reaching for the comm. He
stuffed a remote into his ear, sent out the same call, without even looking
down. He got the same results: No answer. Nothing at all. Dead silence. His
hand fisted on the panel, Kedalion felt his own hands beginning to sweat.

“You think they’re jamming us?” Reede touched the images on
the screen.

“No. We’d get a reading off their beam.”

“By the Render—” Reede tugged at his ear, his eyes searching
the featureless horizon for a sign of their pursuit, a sign of salvation. “Get
me remote visual on the citadel, as soon as you can.”

“Boss ...” Kedalion hesitated, remembering the mysterious
meeting he had stumbled on before their departure for Number Four; remembering
that Reede had told him to forget it. “Is there anybody else who can help us?”

Reede looked sharply at him; but then he sat back in his
seat, actually seeming to consider the question. “Not close enough. Not that I
trust. Not with what we’re carrying. Try the citadel again.”

Kedalion tried it. No results.

“Try our tail again.”

He ran a call all up and down the open frequencies. No
answer. “You think they want our cargo?” He glanced into the rear of the
hovercraft, where Ananke lay slumped across a seat in blissful ignorance, sound
asleep. Concealed beneath the seat there was a heavy, unlabeled container—with
the key to the universe locked inside it.

“That’s my bet.” Reede nodded. “But why—? The only ones who
could possibly know I’m here and what we’ve got know I’m bringing it home for
them.” He shook his hair back from his eyes; a muscle in his cheek was
twitching.

“I thought Humbaba sent us—”

“No.” Reede looked at him suddenly, with cold disgust. “Humbaba
did not send us. Humbaba doesn’t know shit .... I don’t like this, gods, I don’t
.... Get the citadel on visual.” He pointed straight ahead.

Kedalion could see nothing. Wondering whether Reede actually
could, he upped the resolution factor on the forward visual. A segment of their
view appeared in abrupt magnification, showing him the distant spire of Humbaba’s
fortress, rising like a beacon from the gray sea of impenetrable scrub. He
heard Reede suck in a long harsh breath of relief, let it out again as he saw
the citadel still intact. “Why don’t the) answer?” he murmured. “Unless someone’scut
their entire power system ... and that means no protection.” His knuckles
showed white on the panel. “Try them again!” he said. Kedalion repeated the
callcode automatically.

As he input the final digit a gout of flame rose from the
image on the screen. ^ ball of white light expanded outward, filling the
magnification segment, spilling over into their realtime view, blinding them
even through the protected shield of the dome

Kedalion swore, shutting his eyes. Reede cried out, a sound
that was more like despair than pain, as his hands flew up to his face.

An explosion. As his own vision cleared, it let him see that
the white light *& fading ... let him see what it had done. Where there had
been an impregnable, shining tower on the sullen plain, there was now twisted
wreckage, a splinter of rum glowing cherry-red, flickering with the starpoint
flares of secondary explosions.

“What ... what ... ?” Ananke groaned, stumbling forward from
the back seat. “What happened—Hallowed Calavre!” He stopped, clinging to the
seatbacks, gaping in disbelief at what showed ahead. A black shroud of smoke
had begun to conceal the ruin, as the thorn forest ignited like a funeral pyre.
Kedalion could see the forest blazing up now in explosions of its own as
petrochemicals caught fire in bark and leaves, setting off a holocaust that
would torch the plain for thousands of hectares in all directions. Beside him
Reede stared, motionless, his face devoid of any expression, as if his mind had
gone completely somewhere else. He twisted the ring he wore on his thumb. Kedalion
looked away from the emptiness of his eyes.