Voices of Chaos (38 page)

Then he could rest.

He could see the women coming now, Magdalena struggling with Alexis, An-Lieye pressed against her other side, the pale blue hood fluttering behind her, and her ears utterly flat. Alexis limped on the twisted foot, eyes closed.

It took both females--human and Asha--to get Alexis over the lip of the hatch.

Magdalena talked nonstop, soothing the

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interrelator, urging her to hurry at the same time. Somehow the other woman revived enough to struggle into the flyer on her hands and knees before she collapsed onto her side. Magdalena hauled the hatch down and knelt beside her as Zhik began maneuvering the flyer backward into the open.

The translator touched her companion's arm anxiously, patted her fingers.

"Alexis? Alexis, talk to me! Please?"

"Perez? I feel... damned odd." The interrelator sighed very faintly and went limp.

"Oh,
God!"
Magdalena whispered. She felt frantically for the other woman's wrist. "I can't--damnit!" She drew a deep breath and held it, laid her fingers against the interrelator's throat. Alexis fetched another small sigh; Magdalena sagged beside her. "She's alive," she whispered. An-Lieye stared down at them both, then flung herself up the long, open cabin.

Zhik held up a trembling hand and she froze, eartufts quivering. Blood dripped from his nails. "No, An-Lieye, I am not very hurt. I swear it. Small cuts from the stones, painful but not dangerous. Sit close to me, please. I need you here." She gestured assent, still visibly upset, and drew one of the narrow benches nearer the pilot's shell. He finally got the flyer turned and leveled, set it moving as fast as he dared, and latched down direction and speed keys before he eased himself painfully around. "Magdalena, how is Alexis?"

"She's ... I don't know," Magdalena confessed. She almost had to shout to be heard above the noise of the racing flyer. "Where are you taking us, Zhik?"

"To Khyriz. Apologies, Magdalena, I have nearly ruined everything, I learned only this morning--"

The translator made certain the unconscious woman was as comfortable as anyone could make her, then got stiffly to her feet and walked forward. "This morning? No, tell me later. You're obviously hurting, and frankly, I don't think I'd understand anything you told me right now."

"This is nothing, bruises and cuts from the fallen rock. I have felt much worse. Bruises and cuts heal quickly."

"Good." He didn't think she looked convinced, and her eyes flicked sideways, toward An-Lieye; she understood the

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reasons for his lies, then. Good, he thought. But her next act surprised even him. The translator went to one knee and met An-Lieye's eyes, holding out both hands in an Arekkhi gesture of greeting between friends and equals.

"An-Lieye, I know Fahara introduced us that first day in her apartments, when you wore 'Fringe of Dancer.' But I knew nothing then. I am honored to properly meet you. Apologies for any rudeness on my part. Ignorance is a poor excuse." She hesitated, then added, "You look as exhausted as I feel.

We will converse later, you and I. When there is a quiet place and time." An-Lieye gazed at her for a long moment, then drew out her small writepad and stylo, and scribbled words as quickly as she could. She handed the pad to the translator, who smiled as she took the device and read aloud, as if to herself, " 'No apologies. You were not permitted the truth. You both were always kind and polite.' Thank you, An-Lieye.
You
are more gracious than we deserve. Zhik, how far to--I don't even know where we
are!"

"We are in the high country of my father's mainland-Akkherif holdings, and we go as straight as possible toward the sea, and my cousin's estate." He studied the controls for some moments, then shrugged--and hissed as stiff muscles protested. An-Lieye leaned toward him anxiously. "Apologies, An-Lieye, it is nothing, this young noble is too soft. Magdalena, we should arrive a standard hour before the sun goes and darkness sets in."

"Thank you." She swallowed. "How ... is Khyriz?"

"Apologies, I do not know. An-Lieye and I left Ebba the night of the ball. I only heard of your capture during a chance encounter in my father's holdings."

The translator considered this a moment, then shook her head. "Apologies of my own, Zhik. Nothing makes sense to me just now. I'd better watch over Alexis, even if I can't do anything for her except be there." But she hesitated again and finally asked, "But if we're on your father's lands--is that League his?" He nodded, human-fashion, eyes moving between the controls and the view outside. "I knew it! But that means they'll have access to his resources!"

"They do not know Zhenu is behind them," Zhik said. "So 263

they have only a single plain flyer--and it is halfway across Zhenu's holdings just now. And because they destroyed the way up that ledge, they could not follow us. They may eventually discover that a flyer came for you; they may not."

Magdalena shook her head. "If theirs is gone, it won't matter, anyway. But--

you're certain it was gone?"

"I overheard them saying it," Zhik replied. Magdalena touched his arm very gently with the back of her hand, and returned to sit next to Alexis.

Time crawled; Zhik keyed all the flyer's controls to automatic once he was certain they'd passed the last of the rock-strewn areas. He was taking something of a chance on wrecking the flyer by avoiding the meandering tracks and paths of his father's lands. But heading straight across open ground would save considerable time and might let them avoid accidental detection.
My wretched luck, and we would pass my father.

It was tempting that same luck, flying cross-country. These flyers were unstable at much height aboveground, which was the best reason to follow the ground-vehicle tracks. One good-sized boulder could rip off the undercarriage and bring them down in the midst of Zhenu's lands.

But if he could avoid hitting anything, he'd save hours. Even minutes counted now. The possibility of a good com back in that guards' cave was beginning to haunt him.
My father may already have learned of the rescue
from those guards, he may already have seen my slippers and know I am
responsible!

Logic told him that wasn't possible: The League guards were not supposed to know who paid them, and even if they did--or if their captain had received their information already--what guard of Zhenu's would call in an alarm before all possible hiding places in those rocks had been thoroughly checked?

Still, he couldn't trust that; young guards, an impossible situation, how would anyone react?

Plan for the worst, his father often said.
I am learning, Zhik
thought grimly.

He still had to watch the controls, and the landscape hurtling

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past them, but it helped not having to touch anything. An-Lieye went back to the storage behind the document box, and dug through it until she found the safety box. She came back with packets of cleaning pads and several bulbs of sealing liquid, and, ignoring his protests, began to clean and seal the cuts on his hands and forearms. Most were as shallow as he'd thought, but one swollen finger still seeped blood and he couldn't move it at all. She gently wrapped one of the cleaning pads around the finger with sealant, then looked at him anxiously. "Better," he assured her, and it was true, though the cleaning itself had hurt worse than getting the cuts had. She touched his face, then moved around him before he could protest again. So she could deal with his back.

To his relief, nothing seemed to be broken, other than possibly the one finger. But his legs ached. Not surprising: He could not recall any time in all his life when he had moved so fast. An-Lieye mouthed an offer to massage them, but he gestured a negative, then laid his hand on her face and drew her close so he could draw his whiskers through hers. "Thank you, my An-Lieye," he murmured. "The hurt is much less." He was aware of Magdalena at the far end of the cabin; her eyes were wide as a kit's. To his astonishment, she suddenly smiled warmly, then turned her back on them.

She sees, and she does not judge.

He forgot her, then; An-Lieye moved the seat closer so she could lean her face against his narrow shoulder, her fingers gently brushing his throat-fur.

"My An-Lieye," he murmured again. "I have ruined your blue." The pale fabric was smudged everywhere with dirt, and now his blood; a small tuft of his back hair lodged in the hood. He removed it. "I almost fear to ask: How much hair did I lose?"

Only that, and three more like it,
she mouthed, then took the hairs back from him and shoved them into the pocket with her writepad, curving her whiskers.
My payment.

He smiled tiredly. "A good joke. We will somehow retrieve your other clothing--"

No. Unimportant.
She smoothed the blue against her legs, brushing lightly at the dusty sleeves as he turned his gaze to the open land before them. They passed over vast grain plantations

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, and crossed a flat, shallow river not long after that.

Zhik stirred. "Magdalena, we are near. This is the Uyokkh, the border of Zhenu's lands. Twenty
parths
now that belong to the smallholder who separates Khyriz and Zhenu, and another ten
parths,
I think, to the coastline." he said.

The translator scrambled to her knees. "Is ... that close?" Magdalena asked.

Her voice was too high.

"Close. Fifteen standard minutes--"

She made an odd little sound. "I don't.... Forget it, it's much better than the last time I heard that phrase. Is ... if you don't know he's there, though..." She sounded so uncertain, very unlike the translator he knew.
Frightened.
She had cause.

"If my cousin is not, someone who knows me will be. We can then learn where he is, and use his equipment to make a safe call--''

"Oh. I see. Good." She lapsed into silence once more.

"How is Alexis?" he asked finally.

"She's breathing too loudly and she won't wake up. I'm afraid to touch her."

"We are close, Magdalena," he assured her. "I see the orange line of Khyriz's distort; the protect-field around his flitter-storage and manor." He saw something else, too: another flying machine, high above his. Its pilot must have seen the bulky flyer; by direction as well as appearance, it would be known for Zhenu's. His mouth went dry. If Khyriz thought the flyer his father's...
Almost as bad: That might not be Khyriz's machine. My father has
bragged of his own flyers crossing above my cousin's lands.
He couldn't even tell what kind of machine it was, not with the late sun reflecting off it.

He couldn't decide this problem himself; it wasn't just his life. "Magdalena, I do not wish to use the flyer's com to call ahead to Khyriz, because such a call can be overheard and traced."

She looked up. "I understand."

"But there is a flyer above us. It could be my father's, and he may know that I pilot this craft, with you aboard. Or if it is Khyriz's, and the pilot thinks this some move of Zhenu's ... in either case, we may have trouble."

"Trouble? You mean... they'll fire on us? But--surely

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they'd try to send you a message first, wouldn't they? Whoever it is?"

Magdalena eased gently away from the unconscious woman and worked her way forward, clutching at supports along the way; she was walking stiffly, and the flyer was reacting to the late-afternoon wind. She gazed up through the clear plas, eyes shaded against the near-level sun. "After all, the
zhez
is a high-ranked noble; no one would risk offending him--or killing him--if he was on this vessel. Would they?"

"Before now, no. But if the Emperor has some proof my father ordered the attack on your apartments, and Zhenu is named traitor..."

"I understand. What do you think we should do?"

His head ached; it was increasingly hard to think. "It could be anyone.

Zhenu's spies, the Emperor's, Khyriz's. At some moment soon, I must call ahead to Khyriz's flitter-pad techs, to identify us and be certain we are welcome to land."

"I..." Magdalena nodded once, sharply. "Call. It would be foolish of us to get this far, only to die at Khyriz's gates."

"Yes." He let An-Lieye hand him the com, talked her through setting the controls he couldn't reach without stretching for them, and keyed the send and receive buttons.

Unfortunately, the flyer's com was as basic as the flyer itself, and he'd grown used to his own flitter with its full voice-activation and precoded call and ident numbers. Finally the signal went through, and after several delays--he nearly forgot the private ID code used only between himself and the Prince--

a rough voice patched in to confirm the code. Less than a breath later, Khyriz's anxious voice boomed out at him. An-Lieye keyed the volume down at his gesture.

"Zhik! Where are you, and where is An-Lieye? I need to--"

"Listen, Cousin," Zhik broke in sharply, "I am approaching your lands in an older plain-flyer, one of Zhenu's--"

"Yes, I am picking you up, Cousin. The system here picked your craft up crossing the Uyokkh. As things are now, we thought it might be some move on Zhenu's part."

"I heard today how things are," Zhik replied cautiously. "That is your flitter, up there?"

"Our flitter, yes."

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"Good. Because I have An-Lieye, and the CLS women. They are ..."

"Magdalena?"
Khyriz's voice rose abruptly. "They-- never mind. I will have the tech here send you a coordinate, we'll drop security at that point on the perimeter, you can bring the flyer across, and--"

"No." Zhik sighed very faintly. "I am injured--a little," he added quickly as An-Lieye's ears went down. "But enough that I am beyond such thinking--either programming coordinates or keying the auto-sys for them. Your main gates are not far; half a parth or less."

"We will meet you there," Khyriz said, and cut the connection, but moments later, he sent a return-pulse. This time An-Lieye held the com for him, buttons depressed, so he could concentrate on getting the flyer to safety.