Heart Thief (40 page)

The projected trajectory on the screen arced over a quarter of the planet. Ruis winced. “Abort flight immediately, minimum flight and maximum security.”

“We were only protecting you,” Ship sulked.

“You have contact with the pod, correct?” Ruis had never felt more determined.

“Correct,” Ship answered at its lowest audible volume.

“Then you will ensure that the lifepod will land at the soonest possible moment. You will instruct the pod to provide the maximum amount of assistance to the Hollys. This is not negotiable. If my orders are not carried out now, I will leave this Ship within the septhour and never come back.”

“Aborting the pod at this moment would cause it to land in the Arctic Sea. Recommend that the pod finish an orbit.”

“Yes, ensure their safety!” Ruis ordered.

“Commands are being sent to the lifepod with a program for automatic start up and translation of pertinent data for the Celtans. Calculating new landing,” Ship grumbled, adding clanking sound effects.

A bar graph flickered on at the bottom of the holo, showing the progress of the systems Ship was sending to the lifepod.

“Flight being aborted. Landing program engaged. Set down at the northeastern edge of this subcontinent will be in ten Celtan minutes.”

“Maps!” Ailim shouted.

“Transmit maps,” Ruis confirmed.

“Our maps have not been updated in two centuries,” Ship gloated.

Ailim muttered under her breath. Her phrases sounded like real swearing.

“Can you establish a scry—a visual and/or audio link to the pod?” asked Ruis

“The pod is not responding,” Ship said.

“Tell the Hollys to prepare for landing. Broadcast instructions and repeat until the pod sets down.”

More clanking. “Done,” said the Ship.

Ailim licked her lips. “This lifepod, what does it have in it?”

Silence. Ruis rolled his eyes. “Answer GrandLady D'SilverFir's questions now and in the future.”

A rattle.

“The pod is fully stocked with Earth medical supplies, space and atmosphere suits, emergency rations, and water,” stated the Ship.

The minutes as the orb circled Celta passed in agonizing slowness. Finally the pod's arc passed Druida again and began to flatten. The little orange icon with two twinkling stars inside plummeted. Ruis held his breath for the final minute of the pod's dive. Ailim grabbed his biceps and squeezed. “Is it going too fast? Will they be hurt?” Her voice rose in near panic.

“Landing will be acceptable for strong Celtan men,” Ship said. That didn't reassure Ruis. Ailim's nails bit into his arm. “Death probability is two percent, major injuries is five percent, minor injuries ten percent, bruising fifteen percent—”

“Enough!” Ruis said

“The Celtans are strapped in and ready for landing,” Ship said.

“Lady and Lord,” Ailim whispered as she wriggled under Ruis's arm so that he held her. The closeness comforted him.

With fifteen seconds to spare, the orb slowed.

“Final descent initiated,” Ship said.

“Show us where in Celta they are!” Ruis commanded.

The view angled. Ruis blinked, trying to understand the geographic details from a unique viewpoint. When he comprehended the land markers, he wondered if he could hustle Ailim from the room before she deciphered them. The escape pod carrying the Holly brothers streaked down to the most inhospitable part of the continent. He looked at her. Her eyes had widened in horror.

“Oh, no,” Ailim gasped.

“I think it'll miss the 271 mountain range.” The peaks rose rugged and proud.

“It's going to land in the Great Washington Boghole! We're all doomed. They'll be dead and we'll be murderers,” Ailim said.

“If the boghole doesn't get them, the mellyck will,” Ruis said, giving in to momentary pessimism. Ailim shuddered. A fierce and unpredictable screaming wind scoured the landscape on a daily basis.

The orb met the ground.

“Touchdown,” Ship said.

Ailim's panting rasped. “They're still there. The little starbursts in the orb.”

“Vital statistics of the Holly brothers, Ship,” Ruis ordered.

“The pod's transmitter was damaged in the landing,” Ship said. “We cannot send nor receive.”

“But we can see them!” Ailim poked a finger through the hologram at the lifepod icon.

“The holoview is a result of distant satellite transfer.”

Ailim blinked. “What?”

Ruis patted her hand. “A satellite is a large scry orbiting the planet. I believe Ship is linked to three.”

“Oh.”

Two little blinking white lights wobbled from the orange orb.

“They're all right!”

“For now,” Ruis said, thinking again of the vicious landscape the Hollys faced.

The room doors whooshed open. Samba flew loop-de-loops, glee quivering her whiskers.
The Holly brothers on great adventure
, she said.
No longer in Druida City. They are gone, gone, gone.

Ailim shut her eyes. “And we are doomed.”

“Doomed?” Ruis said. “Not necessarily. If the Holly brothers survive the boghole, they can rest at Lake Meraj. The way to Ragge Town isn't bad from there.”

“In Ragge Town they should be able to hire guides to help them teleport in stages back to Druida.” She sounded hopeful.

Ruis frowned. “I don't think they have much gilt. The pod is full of valuable ancient Earth relics, but there's not much of a market in Ragge Town.”

“They both wear jeweled daggers.”

“Tinne has a smoky quartz in his main gauche, and his scabbard is plain with cloisonné ivy leaves set in black. They both carry plain swords, but—” Ruis sighed in relief. “They both have Celtan silverstones inset in their blasers! And the sheath of Holm's main gauche alternates silverstones, emeralds, and pearls.”

Ailim raised her brows. Ruis lifted a shoulder and smiled at her. “I'm an
ex
-thief.”

“If the Hollys make it back, they'll know you're living in Druida despite your banishment. They'll know you're restoring the Ship.” She stepped back from his arms and grabbed handfuls of his shirt and tugged, as if trying to shake him. Her stark face held eyes dilated in near terror. “You have to go, now. Leave. I'll give you gilt. You can go to—”

He kissed her. “No.”

“No!” she shrilled.

He winced. “No. You're here in Druida. Ship's here. Shade's here and I can't give up on him—”

“Take him with you!”

He sent her a sardonic glance. “He's a man, he doesn't trail after me when I say ‘come.' If you think I'm going to leave you at the mercies of your crazy aunt and my uncle Bucus, you're wrong.” Summoning his gentlest touch, he surrounded her hands in his own and warmed the chill from them.

His brows lowered. Her fine trembling worried him. He lifted her and took a stride to the Captain's Chair behind the desk, then settled in it with her on his lap.

“Lady and Lord,” Ailim repeated, resting her head against his chest.

Samba amused herself flying through the holo screen where the two silver starbursts had reentered the orb. Probably stripping the pod of anything that might help them on their journey. They'd know immediately where they were. No mistaking the jagged peak of Mount ZWZ or the rest of the 271 Range and the black, sucking boghole.

Ruis smoothed a hand up and down Ailim's back. The tension marring her suppleness gradually diminished. “Everyone knows the Hollys are tough and smart. Tough enough and smart enough to make it through whatever nature throws at them.” He prayed it was true. “We'll see if we can help. Ship, listen!”

“We are attending,” Ship grumbled.

“Can we launch another pod or some unit with supplies?”

“No. Nothing bigger than a peeper can be repaired and sent.”

“A peeper?” Ruis asked.

“You would call it a ‘scry,' a distant camera that can show the Celtan's progress. With several man-hours by you, a peeper can be repaired, readied, launched and set into a tracking pattern.”

Ruis let out a breath. “Good.”

“I need to go,” Ailim said.

Ruis kept his face expressionless. “Yes. It's better if you disassociate yourself from me. You can think up a good reason for being here by the time they return—”

She stopped his mouth with her palm. “I'll walk to the north end of the Ship. There I'll try and contact the Hollys telepathically.”

He kissed her palm and kept it. “You can do that?”

Ailim returned the caress of his fingers. “Distance doesn't matter, whether I can link with them is—doubtful. I've only been connected with Holm Holly in a formal ritual and a blending of many minds.” Her mouth turned down. “If I were in their position, I'd have my mindshields up. The mellyck is known for screaming nasty things—undermining confidence and morale.”

He tipped her face up and kissed her. She tasted sweeter than anything ever had. Every single time it was better, just as with their loving. Every time the bond between them strengthened, she reached inside him with her caring and stirred his life into a new shape.

He broke the kiss to speak. “We now have a deadline. It won't take more than a week for the Hollys to return.”

“No,” she said, her gaze unwavering. “We'll need to be prepared to demand a new trial for you, and set in motion retrieving your estate, and request a panel of judges—”

“We need to plan the upset of Bucus T'Elder, Captain of the Council. Quick and final. As Ship says, consider several options.”

Her hands curled over his shoulders and squeezed. “Legally and publicly and right.” She searched his face. From the shadow that crossed her own, he guessed she hadn't found what she'd wanted. She stood. “Samba, you will come with me. I want to talk to you.”

Samba growled and whizzed her saucer a centimeter over Ailim's head. Ailim didn't flicker an eyelash at the angry cat, but turned elegantly on her heel and began lecturing. “There are reasons for rules—and laws. . . .” Her voice was cut off by the thick outer doors of his quarters.

She was dedicated to Celtan law. Ruis's heart stumbled and he wiped his palms on his trous. He should feel triumphant that she intended to stay with him, wouldn't deny him to others as her lover. But they hadn't spoken of many things. They hadn't talked of her danger, his rising fear for her and his equally burgeoning emotional demand for vengeance against his uncle—preferably with his own hands. His heart picked up beat. Somehow there must be a way he could have it all.

“Ship,” he said, “show me the brig.”

 
 
Ailim convinced Ruis to stay safe in the Ship and work on
the “peeper” while she walked home. As she had anticipated, her attempt to reach either of the Holly brothers mentally had been futile. The last she'd seen of them on Ship's holo, they plodded along the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the boghole.

She shivered in the cold autumn dawn and sped her pace until she passed through the greeniron gates and down the drive to her home.

D'SilverFir Residence's round red towers picked up the rosy light of dawn and seemed to glow with peace and solidity. Ailim let out a quivering sigh. The castle was safe, ruddy towers capped with copper aged green, sitting whole on the small island, with the blue lake waters lapping around it.

She blinked away sudden tears. She'd never wanted to give the estate up, but at the time it seemed the only way out of the Family's gilt problems. If she kept the Family in line for six months, the loan would be permanent and the estate forever safe.

The wind nipped color into her cheeks, and she strode across the drawbridge, probing the inhabitants with her mind. Everyone was asleep, while the Residence initiated the daily housekeeping spells. Far too few to maintain the estate properly.

If Bucus Elder had been encouraging Menzie to be a spendthrift for years, no wonder the Family lacked gilt. Ailim's mother and Mother Sire would never have questioned the propriety of Menzie's expenditures, or her loyalty. Ailim's boot heels snapped against the stone drawbridge, the great doors burst open at the push of her mind. When she entered the Greathall, a swirl of autumn leaves joined her.

She swept up the stairs and to Menzie's rooms. The door was unlocked. Ailim knocked perfunctorily and entered. Fetid air hit her. With a snap of her fingers and a Word, the drapes before the paned window clicked aside and the windows opened to fresh air. Another gesture sucked the odor from the room.

Menzie sat up and squealed. “You have no right, Ailim D'SilverFir, none, to—”

“Menzie SilverFir Cohosh. Your disloyal actions have brought shame upon this GrandHouse and have endangered the Family and the Residence. You have three minutes to defend yourself before I order your belongings packed and your transfer to the D'SilverFir Farm on the Ruby Ananda River.” Ailim folded her hands at her waist and donned her judge's impassivity.

“You can't—”

“I will. What I can't do is afford any more actions on your part that could ruin the Family.”

Menzie gaped. “I don't know what you're talking about!”

“Look at yourself, your torn clothes, the lack of your evil amulet! Residence?”

“Here, D'SilverFir.”

“Replay any scrys you have of Menzie SilverFir last night.”

A holo scry flickered on, showing Menzie clutching her amulet and slipping into the twilight. Unlike the holo screen of the Ship, the scry projected sound. “Throw the amulet into the earth fault. Throw the amulet into the earth fault. Return to the Residence,” Menzie muttered.