Warp World (75 page)

“So the Council should simply endorse your destabilizing rhetoric?” Marsetto asked.

Seg spun to meet his gaze. “My forces are in the process of seizing Julewa Keep.” A ripple of shock passed through the Council.

He glanced at Jarin and saw the briefest moment of open surprise on the old man’s face before it faded back into the usual penetrating impassiveness. Seg’s hand, at his side, clenched into a fist of triumph. That moment alone was a victory to take to the grave.

“Once it has been consolidated and secured, Julewa will provide a treasure trove of salvage, enough to clear my debts and provide enterprise moving forward. Julewa will be a beacon to our People, a signal that the retreat is over. That we no longer hide from our own World.”

“So, what then? You abandon the cloak of the Theorist to become a businessman? A warlord?” Marsetto asked. His words were venomous, but enough doubt had been sown among the Council that he no longer had the voices of affirmation backing him.

Seg jabbed his thumb into the Guild pin on his chest. “I stand as a Theorist of the Guild, so long as this body deigns to retain me as such. The Guild holds the power to save the World, if it is willing to become transformative and proactive instead of seeking only to keep the sands of power from slipping through our fingers.”

Maryel spoke up. “And you would lead this transformation?”

Seg stopped, his face slipped into a shocked stare before he gathered himself again. “No. The Council leads. I have Julewa, and this.” He rapped the pin again.

He stepped back from the dais.

“I don’t have time to sit for this debate and I’ve said what I had to say. You can determine my status among yourselves and what place we will all hold in this future.”

He nodded to the Council, an earnestly respectful gesture.

“I have to see to my people.”

“Your
Outers
, you mean?” Marsetto said, to his back.

Seg stopped and turned. In the faces of the Council members, he saw anger, confusion, but also, possibly, understanding.

“No. My people,” he said.

Two more dead, five more wounded. Sweat stung Cerd’s eyes behind his visor. Between Wyan’s squad and his own, they were down to nine men. He had shifted his tac display to track Tirnich and his squad, but now Cerd had a feeling that by the time he made it down to the next level, Tirnich would be reinforcing him instead of the other way around.

Fismar had been correct: the Etiphars had not been as numerous as they had seemed, howling in the darkness. Nevertheless, their surprise assault, in these close quarters, had made for a short, bloody fight that had nearly crippled Cerd’s detachment.

Elarn shouldered past him and jabbed a finger to one of the wounded men. “You. You can still hold a chack. You’re going to cover us while we start moving people back up.”

“Yes, Sagio,” the trooper answered.

Elarn looked up at Cerd. “I’ve got the wounded.” He tapped the chack lying next to him. “The Etis have to come through me to get them.”

Cerd nodded and waved for Wyan. “Let’s go.”

Lissil walked the perimeter of the small courtyard—the first empty place she had seen in the city since her arrival. Manatu had babbled something about displacements and renovations abandoned because of the riots, but all she needed to know was that it was an ideal place for the moment to come.

Manatu had hired a rental trans to take them both to this place in the heart of the city. She had to admit that it was refreshing to be out of the boxy confines of Seg’s residence. Manatu had little information about their new home, only that it would require a long shuttle ride to get there. Once more, she was surprised to feel a flicker of excitement at the thought of a reunion with her employer.

There was a
klup, klup, klup
of measured footsteps at the entrance to the courtyard. Lissil abandoned her musings to concentrate on the present moment.

She lowered into the customary bow—head tilted to one side, neck exposed—at Processor Merz Gressam’s approach. Even in that position, she could see him look left and right, confused at the absence of House Master Soumer Haffset, who had called the private meeting.

“He’s not coming,” Lissil said. She shook her hair over her shoulders and arched her back slightly.

Gressam paused his question when Lissil raised her head. “You—You are Theorist Eraranat’s trophy caj. From the Victory Commemoration. What is this?”

“I have a message for you.” Lissil swayed closer.

“A message? From House Master Haffset?”

“From Theorist Eraranat.”

Gressam looked around once more, then raised a hand to adjust his coat collar, which was already perfectly straight. “My time is not to be trifled with, caj. Theorist Eraranat is dead or lost to the wastes. If this is someone’s idea of a joke—”

“You defiled the sacred gift of the mother.” Before Gressam could react, Lissil snapped out a question. “Theorist Eraranat wants to know: What is the Seventeenth Virtue of a Citizen?”

Again, confusion, but not for long. Gressam’s blue eyes shot open a moment before Manatu’s knife pierced his throat.

“Vengeance.” Lissil answered the question as Gressam dropped to his knees. Blood surged between the fingers of the hand he tried to use to close the gaping wound. Air bubbled from his throat in choking rasps.

“It’s actually
Vengeance for the righteous
,” Manatu told Lissil, matter-of-factly. He wiped the blood from his knife on Gressam’s spotless coat.

“No one is righteous.” Lissil watched Gressam’s dying twitches. Silently, she made the Welf prayer of blood sacrifice as appeasement to the all-seeing mother for Gressam’s transgressions.

When she was done, she looked over at Manatu with a half smile. He was little more than a bag of walking meat most of the time but he had done a perfect job of hiding and had dispatched Gressam with the ease of a child plucking the leaves off a flower. Now, watching Gressam bleed out—a shocking lake of color on the gray stone—Manatu
’s
face remained unmoved. Impressive.

She would have preferred more suffering before death but they were on a schedule and it was imperative, Manatu had explained, that they not risk discovery.

“Work’s done. Gotta meet the Theorist at the shuttle.” Manatu had paused just long enough to ensure Gressam was dead.

“We’re not finished,” Lissil said.

“But—”

“I told you, Theorist Eraranat’s orders to me were specific.” Those words would work magic on Seg’s faithful dog. She had her own job to do, one more offering of appeasement for the mother god—to the body of the O’scuri who had taken the sacred gift of promised-life from Ama’s body. Besides, she was sure Seg wouldn’t mind.

Manatu shrugged and sheathed his knife. “Doesn’t bother you?” He nodded to the dead man and the blood.

“As a child, I was chosen to serve in a Shasir temple. One of my sacred duties was preparing the dead for ascension. I grew up in the temple; I’ve seen hundreds of corpses.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen a few, too.”

Lissil flashed Manatu a conspiratorial smile and directed him to Gressam’s feet. “Now, we have to give the demon a proper send off.”

Shan and Ama sat in silence. Occasional
pops
could be heard in the distance. Beyond that, there was no evidence of the battle being fought so close by.

Shan, helmet off and leaning back in her seat, kept her eyes on the security monitors directed around the perimeter of the rider. Ama followed her lead but felt uneasy about this casualness. Fismar and the Kenda were deep in the heart of combat; it was wrong to just sit.

Shan yawned. “This reminds me of the time we were extrans and we lost communications while we were waiting for a scheduled turnaround. Anyway, the karg for brains that …”

Ama lost the thread of Shan’s story before it had even begun. She trailed her fingers over the book she had tucked safely beside her seat—Seg’s gift and her only connection to him at this moment. No matter how many times Shan had told her to quit it, she kept glancing out the window, hoping. For what? She wasn’t sure but the waiting was killing her.

“I wish there was something we could do,” she said.

“There is something we can do, and we’re doing it. Now where was I?”

“But we’re just sitting.”

“Sitting is good. Sitting means they don’t need us. Sitting means they might be winning this crazy private war of the boss’s. When we stop sitting, you can worry, ’cause that means we’re in a world of ugly.”

Ama frowned. She understood what Shan was saying but it still felt like inaction.

Shan cleared her throat. “Now, as I was saying, the cliff was right over the kargin’ distillery.”

Seg was happy to be out of the Council chambers, and anxious to return to the Keep. Gelad walked him and Arel down to the trans park at a fast pace, which was not brisk enough for Seg at this moment. Arel had a rifle slung over his shoulder, one more piece of luck for which Seg was thankful.

Their destination was a scrapyard owned by Arel’s uncle, where a rental shuttle waited. There had been some resistance—the CWA had caused some problems for Bon Trant in the wake of Shan’s escape—but Arel had explained that his uncle only hated one thing more than Wellies and that was Wellies who interfered with his business. He had approved the hasty rental solely on principle.

“They were a debt collection bunch that came after you,” Gelad said. “Their rider’s under coverage at the skypad, and the survivors are being interrogated.” He stopped and thumbed the authorization for a trans, then nodded his head toward the vehicle. “Guild security model, armored up like that ride Haffset sent you out in. It won’t stop a sniper with a high-velocity rifle or heavy weapons, but it’ll laugh at chacks.”

“You’re authorized to give these away?” Seg asked.

“GID asset and it’s been cleared for your use,” Gelad said. “Can’t authorize a rider for you, though. Not where you’re headed.”

“This is enough,” Seg said.

“I’ve arranged a rider,” Arel explained to Gelad. “It’ll be a far cry from a Guild shuttle, but it will get him to the Keep in one piece.”

“There’s Storm sign, but your path is clear,” Gelad said. “Good luck, Theorist. Wish I was going in with you.”