Darkship Renegades (36 page)

I jumped to block the laser, but Doc got there before me and brought the seat and Kit down onto the floor of the stage with him. Then he pulled out a burner, shot the man who’d shot at Kit, and loudly started naming names and the reasons he had to associate them with the plot. I knew how he had got the names. He’d spent the month tracing people who were doing favors for and covering for Castaneda. He’d also taken some names from Kath who had traced them the other way, from the people she was sure, from circumstantial evidence, had been the ones to attempt against Kit’s life.

As the named were caught in various stages of attempting against us, or of trying to escape, the confusion in the hall resolved itself. Edenites finally realized what had almost happened to their vaunted liberty, and reacted—at last—as we hoped they would.

When calm was restored, Kit had stopped shaking and no longer looked sick.

And Castaneda was gone.

PAYING THE PIPER

Tracing Castaneda wasn’t hard. Finding someone in Eden was never that hard. There were plenty of people who knew of several places he could be, and from there, there were enough of his associates who had been along for the ride, in either the full assumption of his innocence, or because they’d thought he’d win and wanted to be on the side of the winners.

Now that it looked as though public opinion had turned against him, and everyone loyal to him could end up at the wrong end of a set of challenges, a lot of people had suddenly become positively chatty.

How on Earth Sam and Zed, Jan and Damon, Kit and I and Doc, ended up in a loose group, outside Castaneda’s office, I can’t explain. It seemed like people went off in different groups, in flyers, to find him, and we hit the jackpot.

Of course, at the time we didn’t know that it was the jackpot, just that it was one of the possible locations where he might be.

We stood around the door, which was, in Eden fashion, on the ground. Kit had the battle light in his eyes, and stomped hard on the door twice, calling out, “Come out, Castaneda. Now. Come out or we break in.”

Doc, who knew Kit and his temper, cleared his throat. “Christopher,” he said. “He’s likely to have rigged the whole thing to go up in flames if we break in.”

“Fine, so we go up in flames, too, but it takes him with us,” Kit said, because when he’s like that, there’s no reasoning with him.

Doc knew there was no arguing with Kit in that mood, so he gave him a patient look and a slightly less patient sigh, then moved to the side of the door, where there was the button you could press with your foot, which would allow him to talk to those inside. If there was anyone inside, though our source had sworn there would be.

Pushing the button, Doc spoke in his best diction and his calmest manner. “Mr. Castaneda,” he said, “for attempts against my life and the life of my friends Christopher Sinistra and—”

I realized what Doc was doing. He was challenging Castaneda to a duel. If Castaneda did not accept, then we’d have the option of striking him down anywhere, because public opinion would be against him. But I thought that Doc was not the person to do it. Yes, Doc was a Mule and almost as fast as Kit, certainly as fast or faster than I was. But Castaneda, whether he knew that or not, could claim not to know it. He could claim to be attempting to spare a doddering old man and that was why he’d refused the duel. It might not turn public opinion completely in his favor, but there would always be those who thought that he was less guilty than claimed. There would be a seed of future problems.

Kit couldn’t challenge him, either. Castaneda wasn’t a Cat, and Cats were forbidden from challenging non-Cats.

I edged Doc aside, gently. “Fergus Castaneda,” I said, “for attempts against me, against my family, against the integrity of Eden, I challenge you to a duel to the death.”

“Thena!” Kit said, and I didn’t know if he was afraid or upset at my conditions.

And for a moment there was no reply, but then the com crackled. “I accept.”

After some time the door opened. We stepped back away from the door, onto a patch of ground in front of it—a recently dug patch planted with rose bushes, one of which was poking me intrusively on the behind. I didn’t like that it had taken this long for the door to open. I could hear my friends ranging themselves behind me. Three of Castaneda’s five friends—or perhaps relatives, as they all looked like him—walked behind him.

Castaneda looked dour. He looked at me from under lowered eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice sounded like each word had been rehearsed in advance. “I accepted under protest. I have reason to think that you have been bioengineered for higher speed. Not as high, perhaps, as a Cat’s, but significantly above that of normal humans. I’m registering my protest and the right for my family to collect blood geld, should you kill me.” He thinned his lips and glared at me.

Doc Bartolomeu counted off.

“This is absurd,” I said. “This is utterly insane. You have used your assassins to kill anyone who opposed you while you manipulated the Energy Board to ration power and thus give power to only the favored few. You have tried to obtain power over the lives of everyone in Eden. You’ve constituted yourself a tyrant over the free citizens of—”

“Careful there, Nav Sinistra. None of these charges are proven.” Castaneda looked at his finger, as though something about it held his attention as he spoke. Some people had time-telling devices embedded into the index fingertip, but what could he be looking at the time for? “I would demand you substantiate your charges or pay for damage to my reputation.”

I frowned at him. If I killed him, and I was fairly sure I could kill him with minimal effort, would Kit and I have increased our debt to the point we would be indentured for life? Could anything ever be proven about Castaneda’s actions?

Kit had accused him under hypnotics. We’d proven he’d lied about our deserting, but did that prove his intentions towards Eden? Sure, the crowd had reacted emotionally to the revelation of his lie, but what could be proven, calmly and in discussion? Could we prove he’d killed or tried to kill anyone? Could we make any of his crimes stick? Could we make it in any way obvious he’d been behind disappearances and deaths and pseudoaccidental losses of power and failures to let darkships back into Eden? There was no positive material proof of any of this. Deaths had been dismissed as self-defense. Even Kit’s accusations were just Kit’s belief.

Standing there, blood rushing past my ears, I realized that even with the fight in the Judicial Center, unless one or more of his minions confessed and implicated him, Castaneda could rebuild his reputation.

This meant that I had to kill him in duel. But Kit and I might very well end up economically enslaved for the rest of our lives.

He was still looking at his finger. “Well,” he said again, urbanely. “Nav Sinistra?”

His finger must be fascinating. I felt angry, but realized all too well he wanted me angry. He wanted me to lash out without thinking. Clearly my husband was thinking also, because he said in my mind,
Don’t do anything rash.

I cleared my throat. “Given that I have a certain superiority of speed, but not to the level of a Cat, how about we equalize the odds by having me face any three of you.”

Thena,
Kit said.
They might have enhancements, too. You’re not as fast as I am.

I heard flyers land on the road behind us, but I didn’t turn, because I was afraid of taking my eyes off Castaneda for any time. Instead, I snapped at Kit, mentally:
I’m fast enough.

As the doors of flyers slammed shut, and I wondered for whom the reinforcements had come, us or Castaneda, whose expression gave nothing away, a familiar voice shouted, “Thena,
move
! Move, all of you!” I relaxed because it was Waldron, then tensed as I wondered what he meant.

Castaneda and his friends turned and ran away from us. I started to run. Someone hit me and pushed me, mid-body, stopping me from following, then shoved Kit into me, shouting, “Get her out of here. All of you run.” Someone—Waldron?—a Cat, moving very fast, was picking up our friends and shoving them backwards, towards the parked flyers—throwing the smaller people out of the area.

Kit grabbed me under one arm, and Waldron put his arm around me from the other side, and they jumped. We hit the ground next to the flyers and—with Waldron shoving us and screaming “Don’t stand up”—Kit and I crawled forward to the side of the flyers. I had no idea why, but I got the idea we should get behind them—or in them?—but before we could, there was a roar.

And then we were pummeled with hot…fragments. Hard. It felt like fist-sized lumps of something hot and hard, and Waldron took a leap, and landed half on top of me, and Kit tried to protect me from the other side.

“What—What—” I said, as the bombardment stopped.

“They had it set to explode. The chamber beneath the place just in front of you. They kept you talking, because they figured when they ran, on time, you would chase and then—Oh, shit.”

The “oh, shit”
was because Castaneda and his friends had come back. Perhaps they’d figured they couldn’t run. Or perhaps they hoped we were disoriented enough. I saw one of his friends shoot at Jan, who fired back. I tried to sit up but I felt bruised, and Kit was patting himself down and seemed to have lost his burner.

Waldron bent to pull his burner from the holster, but he must have been winded because he never hit Cat speed. He just had his hand on his burner’s hilt, when the ray hit him through the heart.

I thought
no. Never. Not Waldron.
Even as I saw him fall. I heard the same disbelief in Kit’s thoughts. I felt as if I’d gone frozen. Waldron was the oldest of the grandchildren in Kit’s family, and both a source of pride and amusement to everyone older. He was recently married. He—

My hand was not frozen. As Waldron fell, I grabbed the burner from his suddenly lax hand, and shot in the direction from which the killing ray had come.

I didn’t know if I’d hit anyone, until the ray came that told me I hadn’t. I felt the ray hit my shoulder before I could sidestep. It didn’t hurt. It just felt cold.

I must have gone into my speeded-up mode, because everyone and everything around me went very slow.

Suddenly I was aware of everyone else around me being engaged in firefights. There were more than five of Castaneda’s people shooting at us. Either Castaneda had sent his allies out earlier, or he’d also got reinforcements. But I felt like I was in a dream, and I couldn’t focus on anything but Castaneda standing in the middle of the group, aiming at Kit, who was trying to get Waldron’s other burner from its sheath.

I jumped into the line of Castaneda’s fire, and let a laser ray fly at him. He ducked. I saw what Kit meant, that Castaneda might be enhanced. He moved as fast as I could. Of course in Eden, anyone could be enhanced if their parents paid enough, and I suspected there were retroactive enhancements, too.

I fired again and ducked. He retreated, interposing his friends between us. I pursued. My entire vision, almost my entire thought was bent on him.

He was destroying Eden. If I let him escape, he’d find a way to exonerate himself and finish the job. He’d killed Waldron, and if he got half a chance he would kill Kit and my entire family. He would at least try to indenture Kit. And our only choice would be to run away, to give up Eden forever.

I had to kill him.

I realized three of Castaneda’s friends were arranging themselves around him, shooting at me, protecting him. But they mustn’t be hitting me because it didn’t hurt. Kit was involved in a single fight with someone who had gone after him. I could see through the corner of my eye as the two wove and shot around the flyers.

I aimed carefully and picked off Castaneda’s right-side bodyguard.

Doc stepped in beside me and said, “You can’t go it alone, Sinistra.” I wondered if he was talking to me, or the wraith of Daddy Dearest.

He relieved me by distracting Castaneda’s remaining bodyguards and allowing me to aim at Castaneda. I hit him over the heads of his friends, on the small slide of hair and forehead I could see between the two still-standing bodyguards.

For a moment it looked like I hadn’t hit him. Then blood and brains erupted in an explosion, and Doc hit Castaneda’s left-side bodyguard.

When it all cleared, Castanedas were on the ground, dead or wounded. On our own side, only Waldron was down, and Jennie was kneeling by him, holding his hand. When she looked up, she seemed to have aged a hundred years. Her eyes looked immensely sad. “We found out,” she said, “about the trap Castaneda had set to blow up anyone coming after him. His second cousin told us. He thought—” She seemed unable to continue and sat on her ankles, rocking back and forth.

Kit limped from behind the flyers, looking cut and bruised. Jan came from the other side, limping.

Doc, standing beside me, whimpered. It was such an uncharacteristic sound for him, I turned to look him fully on.

And Doc was very pale. Standing, but very pale.

I noticed the sleeve of his arm was dripping blood.

“Doc,” I said. And then I realized that he’d been hit twice. The shoulder shot was just the one bleeding the most. He’d also taken a shot through the stomach. “You’re wounded.”

Doc Bartolomeu turned to me, his face so pale that he looked like an animated wax doll, and contorted in a rictus of pain that lent itself ill to the smile he superimposed on it. “Hush, child. It’s all right. It’s time. I won’t make Jarl’s mistake. My time is all in the past. And perhaps…” He smiled a little and seemed to look behind my shoulder. “Why…perhaps a few hundred years of separation is expiation enough,” he said softly. At least it sounded like that was what he said. “Do you believe in ghosts, Thena?”

“No,” I said.

“Pity. Ghosts would work, as an explanation.”

“No. We need you.”

“No. You and Christopher and…and your children will be fine.”

And then he died.

I started to kneel down beside him, to try to…I don’t know what I wanted to try to do, but there must be something, there must. I couldn’t take losing both Waldron and Doc.

But I couldn’t see him clearly; it was as if everything had gone foggy and dark. I put my hand up to rub my eyes, but I fell forward, across Doc.

Thena,
Kit said in my mind.
Thena. Light. That
is
all your blood. Thena, don’t die.