A Covenant of Justice (28 page)

Now M'bele spoke up. “And we don't have a lot of time left. We have to ship out tonight. I've booked a charter. Don't worry—I'll add it to your bill.”

“I thought the Dragon Lord sealed the StarPort.”

“He did. But I found a freebooter with a reputation for breaking blockades. Additionally, the Dragon Lord went up last night, and without him here, the security net has begun to unravel. The Dragons have spent the day gorging themselves on anything that moves. By morning, most of them will have gone torpid. We may never have a better opportunity.”

“We can't go—” said Three Dollar. “Not yet. We need a new TimeBinder—”

“We can't wait—” replied M'bele, his anger rising.

“Daddy?” a childish voice interrupted the discussion. “I can't get it off.”

All eyes in the room went to the door—to M'bele's nine year old daughter, Nyota. And to the shining band she wore around her forehead.

“Daddy?” she said, her expression crumpling into tears. “I can't get it off!
And it hurts
!”

M'bele reached her just as she collapsed into his arms.

“Oh, shit,” said Lee.

M'bele reached for the TimeBand. Three-Dollar stopped him—the two men glared at each other across the whimpering girl. “If you try to remove it,” Three-Dollar said, “
you'll kill her
!”

“I can't leave her in pain!”

“It won't last. In a moment, she'll stop crying. Just hold her. Wait.” The two men stayed like that while Nyota wept between them. Three-Dollar looked stricken. “She always wanted to touch my ‘Band. She kept asking if she could wear it. I didn't realize how attractive she found it. I didn't think. Oh, God. What have I done? How can I beg your forgiveness?”

“What the hell do mean?” M'bele said. “Explain yourself. As soon as she stops crying, you'll tell me how to take the band off. No harm done—”

“You don't understand, do you? She can't take the TimeBand off.
Ever
. If she does, she dies. I thought I made that clear when I told you what happened to the TimeBinder of Burihatin. Your daughter has taken her place.” Three-Dollar stroked her head compassionately. The girl's crying had begun to ease. His eyes met M'bele's again. “At least, she's solved part of our problem. Your world has a new TimeBinder. We can go to the Gathering now.”

Rage came to M'bele first.

But before he could speak, before he could express it, Nyota opened her eyes and looked up at her father with a new understanding. “Father,” she said, putting her hand on his cheek. Her voice had suddenly taken on an ageless quality. Whoever lay there in his arms, she no longer existed as the Nyota he had tended so carefully for nine precious years. Now she spoke as if from a mountain six thousand years high.

“Father, please don't fill yourself with anger. My pain has ended. I have gained the . . . wisdom to appreciate the love that you've given me all your life. This TimeBand has given me a greater gift than I ever dreamed possible. Please share my joy at this moment?”

M'bele's eyes filled with tears. He did not know what to say. He let go of his daughter as if she had suddenly turned into a monstrous thing. The child remained in Three-Dollar's arms as her father cast about the room, looking for something, anything, on which to focus his anguish.

Awakened by the noise, Azra came into the room, looking first dazed, then surprised, and finally joyous. She dropped to her knees before the child. “I prayed for this,” she said. She looked around to the others. “Not
this
,” she explained, pointing to Nyota, “—but
this
.” She pointed to the TimeBand. “I serve the TimeBand. Without a wearer, I have no life. I prayed that the TimeBand would find a new wearer, one who would need me as much as I need her.” To M'bele, she said, “Your child speaks the truth, doctor. Destiny has blessed both of your lives.”

M'bele shook his head in denial. “No, no—I cannot have this. This—this
thing
has a monstrous quality. I knew my child. I tended her. I kept her safe from fear and harm. I've spent nine years paying the price for my mistake. I'll spend my whole life if I have to.” To their puzzled looks, he explained, “Her . . . handicap. It occurred at birth. I delivered her. I made a mistake. I thought I knew everything. I didn't know enough. I hurt her. She lost her ability to . . . think like others. She became
simple
. But at least, with her simpleness, she had
peace
. It seemed almost a fair enough trade. But, now—this thing has stolen even that from her. She'll never know peace again.”

“Father—” Nyota sat up. Her eyes had become focused and clear. “I don't want peace. Now that I can see farther than ever before, now that I can see the alternative, I
choose
this destiny. Please don't rage. Please accept it. Please realize that you have gained the daughter you have always wished for. I've seen the look in your eyes. I know how deeply you've hated yourself for your long-ago mistake. Father, I forgive you. Please forgive me now for choosing this blessing and give me back your love!” She held out her arms imploringly.

M'bele tried to resist. He could not. He fell to his knees in front of her and grabbed her tightly and held her close; great weeping sobs racked his body. “I've lost my little baby,” he said. “I don't know who or what I've gained in return. Please forgive me for feeling this way, but—I can't help it.”

Nyota pulled back and met her father's gaze. “This will give us both greater happiness and greater pride. I promise you.”

M'bele's eyes shrouded. “I hear you. I hear your noble words. But I don't know if these words come from my little girl or from the TimeBand. Nyota waited like an empty cup. This
thing
has not only filled her up with strange new words and manners, it has replaced the simple part that spoke to me as a daughter.”

“No,” said Nyota. “I know it looks that way to you. I know you cannot help but feel a great loss. But please believe me, father—two separate parts have now become one. Neither has replaced the other. Each has taken on the flavor of the other. Please give me the chance to show you.”

“I have no choice,” said M'bele. “You've done something I thought would never happen. You've become greater than me. I don't know how to live with this, but I've become unnecessary.”

Nyota didn't answer that. She couldn't deny the fact. They both knew that a TimeBinder existed independently of her family. Despite all her protestations of love and devotion, they both knew that a childish curiosity had irrevocably transformed both their lives.

M'bele let go of his daughter, and again the anger grew in him. He turned away from her and his gaze fell on Sawyer and Finn. “Why did you two have to come back into my life? Haven't you done enough damage?” He looked beaten and weary. “I want you off my planet and out of my life. I never want to see the two of you again as long as I live.”

Sawyer and Finn exchanged a troubled glance. “We never meant to bring you sorrow,” said Finn. “You've given me back my life, and we've taken away a large part of yours. We'll go. . . .” He made as if to rise.

Three-Dollar stepped over and pushed him back down onto the bench. “All of you, shut up!” he said, with as much anger as Sawyer had ever seen him express. “Not a one of you has any understanding at all about what has happened here!” He turned to M'bele. “Speaking of empty cups, your pain has filled yours. Would you rather have your daughter a simpleton again? Would you condemn her to that when she finally has a chance to make a difference for her people? You wallow in your own pain when you should celebrate the fact that your daughter has the strength of soul to wear a TimeBand without dying. Yes, she could have
died
! I've seen that happen too. I carry the memories of seventy deaths that this TimeBand has experienced.”

The TimeBinder towered over the doctor. “We have a job to do. We have to go to the Gathering and we have to leave now. The First Officer of the freebooter vessel waits for us, even while we stand here yammering at each other. Now, do you want to argue? Or do you want to save your world from further ravages by the Dragons?”

M'bele hung his head. Not in shame. Not in resignation. He accepted the TimeBinder's words and he held his fury. Somehow he would bank the fires, leaving the resolution of this moment for another moment yet to come.

“Good,” said Three-Dollar. “Everybody get your things and let's go.” He stepped into the other room and returned with a LIX-class bioform following him. Sawyer, Finn, and Lee looked up in surprise as Three-Dollar said, “Ota will give us instructions on how to get to the hiding place of the landing boat that will take us up to
The Lady MacBeth
.”

Sawyer looked to Lee. “I seem to remember you had something to say about coincidence?”

Lee just shook his head in disbelief.

M'bele led them to another room, this one with darkened windows. One by one he led them down a hallway, through a narrow door and out into a dark alley where a large covered sled waited. Sawyer brought Finn out in a wheelchair and secured him carefully. Lee came out to help. The two of them looked up at the open sky above and exchanged embarrassed grins.

“I thought we still lurked safe underground.”

“I share your embarrassment. Me too.”

Lee took the wheelchair back in and brought a bound, gagged, and blindfolded Zillabar out next. They placed her next to Finn, who grinned at the Vampire broadly. She couldn't see him, but her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. Finn leaned close to her and whispered, “How nice to see you again, Lady.” He patted her on the leg with undue familiarity—just to see her stiffen in anger.

Azra brought Nyota out next. Three-Dollar and M'bele followed. Ota climbed into the front of the sled, next to the robot driver and said, “Take us away, Jen.”

The sled pulled away from the back of the House of the Charitable Sisters, and out into the street. Sawyer looked out the back of the truck just long enough to see that for all of their traveling underground, they had ended up exactly across the street from their starting point, the Inn of the Red Flower. He wondered about the size of the nest of tunnels underneath Pig Town and made a mental note to ask M'bele someday—assuming that M'bele would ever speak to him again.

Shariba-Jen steered the van carefully, always avoiding the main highways. As soon as possible, he struck out overland, lifting the vehicle westward over the Crumble and into the broken fissures of Short Rock Canyon. They traveled without lights, but the lack did not bother the robot. Jen expanded the range of its sensors and navigated across the dark landscape by the heat evaporating off the rocks. That, plus his inertial guidance system, gave him all the information he needed to keep the van from splattering up against a sudden upthrust of stone.

Abruptly, Shariba-Jen turned the van northward and accelerated rapidly. “Now what?” said Sawyer. He climbed forward to peer between Jen and Ota's shoulders. The forward window remained impenetrably dark, but the readouts showed the robot taking the van uncomfortably high.

“I believe a Dragon-boat has caught our scent,” said Jen, politely.

“Robots don't believe anything,” Sawyer grunted. “Either we have pursuit or we don't.”

“We do.”

“Great.”

“Don't worry,” said Jen. “I've already contacted the landing boat—”

“We've got lights behind us!” Lee called forward.

Sawyer glanced back. Three sets of beams came slicing up through the air. “Aww, shit.” To Jen, he said, “I thought you said
one
Dragon-boat.”

“It looked like one, until they split apart. One—three—does it make a difference?”

“Yes!”

“Stand by,” said Jen.

“They've started firing at us!” shouted Lee.

“Warning shots,” said Jen. “They don't dare—”

Abruptly, the van shuddered violently as a disruptor beam splattered off the bottom of its antigrav field. Sawyer swore as his head bounced against the roof. “Will you start taking this seriously?”

“Stand by,” repeated Jen.

Before he had even finished speaking the words, a flash of light illuminated the night behind them. Sawyer caught a quick glimpse of something coming apart in fast flying fragments.

“How did you do that?” he demanded.

“I have friends in high places,” Jen said. The robot struggled to keep the van steady in the air. “Stand by—”

The second Dragon-boat disintegrated in a fiery blast, this one closer than before. The van bounced in the air as the shockwave overtook them. From behind, Lee started swearing furiously. “Why do you hate me so much, Sawyer? What have I ever done to you?”

“You forgot my birthday,” Sawyer replied. To Jen, he said, “Can't you evade the third boat?”

“I have to hold a steady course to give our friends a chance to target him. Uh-oh, it looks like he figured it out. He turned off. Well, we can't win them all. But he'll probably tell all his friends about us. Stand by—” he said.

“For what?”

“For immediate pickup—”

Suddenly, the whole front window of the van lit up. Close above them, Sawyer saw the underside of
The Lady MacBeth
's largest landing craft. The van rocked in the downpush of the shuttle's powerful levitators. Then, as it pulled forward, Sawyer saw the open hatch of the aft cargo bay looming directly ahead.

“Oh, no—” he said. “You don't really think—”

But before he finished the sentence, something large and hard clanged against the van's roof. “Gotcha!” Jen said triumphantly. The van swung up inside the shuttle, the cargo doors came swinging up beneath it, and the sudden rush of acceleration pushed them all back in their seats—all except for Sawyer, who tumbled backward onto the floor as the shuttle climbed up into the sky.