Gates of Hell (41 page)

Now, Roxanne.

He wanted to close his eyes as he stepped into the deadly green light, but he couldn’t afford to indulge the wish. The last time he had walked through this fire it had been set at a low level. This time it was cranked to kill. This time he didn’t walk, he ran as fast as he could. The pain seared into him and through him and—

Ouch! Shit! What the hell do you think you’re doing?

He would apologize to Roxanne later, if they lived that long.

You live through this and I’ll kill you myself.

Pyr had the briefest image of Linch holding her as she absorbed the agony and smiled through his own pain as she shielded him from the worst the energy web could do. Moving up the stairs and through the security field took a few excruciating, eternity-long seconds, then Pyr stepped out of the pain and remembered how to breathe.

Sorry
, he thought to his wife. Then he stepped around to the front of the dais and smiled at Idel. “Did you miss me?”

The young man screeched in surprise and fury. It was the most satisfying sound Pyr had ever heard. Idel lunged for the security web controls on the throne arm and started to call for his guards. Pyr grabbed him by the throat and lifted the high priest from his seat before Idel could complete either gesture. He held Idel aloft one-handed, fingers pressing hard into the priest’s neck.

“Let’s talk,” he said. He dragged the young man to the edge of the dais, and loosened his hold enough so that Idel could breathe.

“Why aren’t you dead?” was the first thing Idel got out.

Pyr couldn’t help but smile proudly as he answered. “Because my goddess is cuter than your goddess.”

And is currently on her way upstairs to kick your
shalsae
-bonded butt
!

“And more beautiful and powerful,” he added quickly. Roxanne’s laughter echoed in his mind, but he concentrated on Idel. He looked into the young man’s eyes. There was no arrogance there now, only terror—and fascinated curiosity that bordered on religious awe. “Yes,” Pyr told Idel after a moment. “I am death. Worshipping me might be a good idea.” What Pyr wanted were answers, not adoration. He wanted to know how many Meek missionaries Idel had sneaked across the border to infect the Outsiders, as the Orlinians called the People. He wanted to know where each death-loving parasite was now. He wanted to know how the high priest had made his bargain with the Trin and every other detail of the conspiracy, but he would take all that from Idel’s head soon enough.

He asked, “Was the girl’s biting me an accident? A whim on her part, or did you order it?” Pyr looked forward to shaking the boy like a rag doll if he didn’t answer fast enough. The sound of weapons fire grew louder and more intense in the background. Pyr became aware that Mik, Axylel, and Martin had arrived to help Pilsane, that Roxanne and Linch would be in the sanctuary in moments.

“No death is an accident on my world,” Idel answered without any urging. “The plan the Bucon and Trin agreed to was to get you off world, draw you to Halfor. It was thought you would die deep in the Empire and take some of our other enemies with you along the way. I didn’t trust that the Bucons could finish you off. I commanded Lita to poison you and tell you she killed you as a festival present. It was my own private diversion. It amused me to know you were already dying when I set you on the scent.” Idel laughed, a low, fatalistic sound. The slight movement he made might have been a shrug.

They looked at each other with the understanding that nothing further needed to be said.

Pyr took a few efficient moments to strip the death goddess’s high priest of every thought in his mind. The process was brutal by its very nature, but over quickly. When he was done, Pyr knew what he needed to know and Idel of Orlin no longer existed as an intelligent being. Pyr did Idel a favor and quickly broke his neck. Then he shook off the despondency brought on by such an act, switched off the security web, and turned to face the triumphant crew of the
Raptor
.

They were all there, everyone he loved, standing at the base of the dais, unhurt, and radiating satisfaction. His bondmate, his son, his friends—covered in pride, glowing with the triumph of the moment. All of them had been in enough fights to appreciate how transitory the sensation was, but right now they didn’t care. They were all looking at him and grinning. There was much left to do, but he smiled as he started down the stairs. The universe wasn’t saved, it never was, but a little part of it was going to be all right. They’d killed enough people for one day. They could rest now.

And party
, Roxanne thought as she rushed up the shallow steps to meet him. “We need to party. And have lunch.”

He held her close and kissed her. “Of course,” he said. “Acting omnipotent always makes you hungry.” Then he put his arm around Roxanne’s shoulder, she put her arm around his waist, and they went down to join the others.

———

“It’s been—eventful,” Martin said. “And that’s probably the least incriminating thing I can say about the last couple of weeks.”

“Incriminating?” Roxy laughed. “Okay, so there’s the thing with the cloak, but you’ve behaved in exemplary fashion otherwise. If anybody’s going to get court-martialed…”She shrugged. “I think I’ve got a way around that.”

Martin leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I’ll be interested in hearing it.”

It had been four days since they’d walked through the Door back to the ship from the temple with their arms full of the dead Trin’s data. Martin wasn’t actually sure how much time had passed since the day he and Glover arrived on Bonadem, but for all practical purposes, a couple of weeks would do. Besides, he’d lost over a decade in those two weeks. He wasn’t sure if Reine could adjust his age back to normal. Roxy had told him she didn’t know how to age someone, but she’d looked so teasing when she made the claim he wasn’t sure he believed her. Girl was downright giddy with love at the moment. He decided not to worry about it until he got home. Home. Damn, but he was homesick. And he thought the most surprising thing about this whole long, strange trip was that Pyr was letting him go home. In fact, he wasn’t the only one Pyr was letting return to the United Systems.

There were several reasons, and Martin wasn’t sure which Pyr found the most compelling. There was all the disease data he was allowing Martin to take back with him. Then there was Pyr’s little problem with the Pirate League. Pyr’s heroics might make him the darling of the galaxy, but wouldn’t impress the League loan sharks who’d helped finance his pirate operation one little bit. The League was ancient and evil and insidious, its influence so well hidden that its existence was frequently disputed. Even heroes didn’t want the League mad at them.

But the League had underestimated the United Systems’ determination to exterminate the Trin and those who helped them. Taking in the surviving Trin warlords had been a very bad policy for the League. And a good excuse for the United Systems to eat into the League’s huge power base. The Systems might not be able to destroy the League—it was ancient, powerful and insidious, after all. But it wasn’t omnipotent. Every little piece of intelligence that the Systems could gather on the League’s operations and weaknesses was being compiled. MilService and the SysSec were carefully plotting out a secretive and insidious offensive of their own. Pyr’s datarat son had a nice collection of useful information on the Pirate League. This information would contribute to keeping the League too busy fighting the United Systems to go after Pyr.

Of course, Martin felt half-sorry for anybody who was suicidal enough to go after someone as tough as Pyr. He chuckled, thinking,
and God help anyone fool enough to disturb the domestic bliss of one of the Shirah girls
.

Martin looked around the central common-room table where they all sat. Axylel was beside him, glad of the company of those he loved, yet itching to be away as well. Mik slouched in his chair, tinkering with something as usual. Pilsane had a stack of datacubes in front of him, and held a cup of hot chocolate in one hand. Pyr was sipping a glass of wine. Everyone else had coffee. Pilsane pushed the datacubes across to Martin when Martin looked his way. Linch was playing his ligret, his head bent forward so that his blade-sharp features were obscured. Roxy and Pyr sat opposite Martin. They held hands.

Martin still wasn’t sure how he felt about their being bonded, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He did have this vague feeling he should take Pyr aside and give him a stern, fatherly lecture about looking after his little girl. Martin also had the feeling that Pyr was a lot older than he was, a whole lot older than he was, even without Martin’s current teenage status. Pyr didn’t look much over thirty, but Axylel was around twenty, and had told Martin that he was twelve years younger than his sister. It looked like the aliens on the other side of the Rose had long lifespans. Reine would be interested to know that. She’d always been curious about who lived beyond the Rose, had written a song about it and—

And Racqel had always known that Roxy would bond with a great warrior. Martin stroked his jaw. Hmm. Maybe the Shirah sisters weren’t going to be at all surprised at the news he was bringing home. Maybe the koltiri had always known where their little sister was destined to end up. And maybe this had something to do with what Roxy had to say about her status with the rules and regs of MilService.

“How
do
you plan to avoid being court-martialed, Physician?”

Roxy sat back in her chair and looked smug. “By resigning my field commission and accepting a different position, of course.”

“Mrs. Kaddani is now an official position? Or are you becoming Roxy the Pirate Queen?”

Pyr smirked.

Roxy said, “I’m being appointed the United Systems ambassador to the People. Not exactly officially,” she added. The People at the table looked at her, expressions ranging from mild surprise to mild indignation. “I am of the People now,” she said, looking at each member of the clan in turn and bringing her gaze back to Martin when she was certain they’d been mollified. “But I am also koltiri of Koltir Prime; my duty is to continue the Genesis. My genetic gift now belongs to the People. The koltiri will communicate my mission to the Council, and the Council will put up with it for the chance to finally have a communications link to the Borderers. Besides, you and I saved the Systems’ ass from the plague and took out two Trin, with a great deal of Borderer help,” she said. “They owe us and the Borderers and know it. You always know how to collect your debts.”

“That I do.” Martin sorted through the datacubes in front of him. He was taking a great deal of information home with him. There was certainly enough here for Roxy to get away with just about anything. Well, there was one person who wouldn’t forgive her her trespasses in exchange for what she’d accomplished. After a few minutes of considering how to approach the subject, Martin looked at his sister-in-law and settled on bluntness. “What about Eamon?”

Roxy was neither surprised nor indignant. She pushed a sealed message disk across the table. The small square of black landed amid the multi-colored stack of datacubes, looking ominous but unimportant. “I wrote him a letter,” she said. She laughed, a soft sound with no humor in it. A discordant sound from the ligret added more punctuation to her words than her laughter.

Martin glanced at Pyr, but had no clue to what the alien was thinking. This was disturbing, because he rarely had trouble figuring out what anyone was thinking. He tried to accept that what went on between Pyr, Roxy, and Eamon was none of his business, but he wasn’t much good at accepting that anything wasn’t his business. “What’s the letter say, Sting?”

“Viper!”

“That a
shalsae
bond rescinds a contracted marriage,” Pyr answered for the indignant Roxy. “She also gave the name of her family’s lawyer, should Captain Merkrates wish to pursue legal action. I added the place where I would be happy to fight a duel to the death should he choose a more permanent form of divorce.” Pyr’s laugh was relaxed, and had a great deal of humor in it. It was also punctuated by Linch on ligret. “Satisfied, almost-father-of-my-mate?”

“More or less,” Martin answered.

Axylel reached over and touched Martin on the arm. “Everything’s settled. Can we go now?” He rose and made a formal gesture. “Bye, Dad. Farewell, Second-Mother. Good fortune to my clan and friends to my clan.” He looked impatiently at Martin and jerked his head toward the door.

They had stolen a Bucon cutter from the spaceport on Orlin and modified it with a small-scale version of the Shireny cloak. With the modifications complete and all the Trin data sorted, Martin was taking the cutter home. Axylel was coming along. The idea had been Martin’s, but Axylel thought it was his. The kid’s head still needed a lot of work, and Dr. Braithwaithe didn’t fancy leaving a patient if he didn’t have to.

On an unspoken level, Axylel knew full well what Martin was up to but, on the conscious level, he accepted that his natural curiosity was leading him to find out what life was like on a sector ship. There were always thousands of civilians on board sector ships, for education or doing research or simply being transported to colony worlds. It would be easy enough for the chief of security of the
Odyssey
to sponsor a young man from one of the Bucon border worlds who had helped save the United Systems from the Sagouran plague for as long a stay as he liked.

Pyr wasn’t keen on letting his son out of his sight after so recently getting him back, but he also knew Martin’s reasons—and how valuable having the clan datarat on board the same ship as Betheny and Reine Shirah might prove to be. Martin had assured Pyr that the challenge of trying to find ways around the security screen that protected the secrets of the Shireny team would be a therapeutic challenge for Axylel. And Martin assured himself that Axylel would learn exactly what Martin thought might come in handy for the defense of the Rose border for both the Systems and the People.

“Time to say good-bye,” Martin agreed, and got up from his chair.