Hellflower (v1.1) (34 page)

I took a deep breath and thought about being calm. It’s funny how you get in the habit of wanting to live.

"We don’t got time to go back and try another way, che-bai-do something!"

Never say "do something" to a blast-happy hellflower.

Tiggy pumped grenades at the hatch until he was satisfied. Then he shinnied up and pulled me through the slagged orifice. It had used to been an outbuilding; the roof was gone now and most of the walls too, courtesy of the Tiggy Stardust interior decorating service.

"Last time I saw Eloi he was kyting a land-yacht and we’re going to need it. That way!" I pointed toward the main house and remembered too late that I shouldn’t of known where the dashing Captain Flashheart was. Fortunately Tiggy hadn’t noticed.

The info I got from Archive still held. Vannet’s compound looked like ground zero of a meteor strike. Everything that wasn’t burning glowed in the dark. Eloi was standing in the mercy seat of a fancy bus yowling for Tiggy. He looked battered but serene and there wasn’t another living thing in sight.

"Chaudatu,
the
Kore-alarthme
has killed the Library!" caroled Tiggy.

"Eloi, is proton grenade on real short timer sitting top of the Library in computer core!" I said, right on top of him. "Can we go now?" Eloi grabbed me and hauled me into the yacht.

"I always knew you’d grow a soul some day, sweeting!" he said. "How long?"

"Five minutes. Ten-maybe." I didn’t notice the land-yacht moving. "Look, che-bai, can we have this sparkling chat somewhere else?"

"Lalage and Alcatote are still inside." Lalage was Silver Dagger’s front name, I remembered after a second.

"Well we’re outside, and they’re probably dead. It’s a military proton grenade, Eloi-we can maybe get out of range if we go now." I reached for the control stick.

Eloi knocked my hand away. "I’m not leaving them."

I looked at Tiggy. Eloi moved fast but not fast enough and Tiggy bashed him and dragged him into the back. I slid over into the mercy seat and grabbed the stick.

The roof of the hardsite went up in a radiant blaze. I was halfway through a sincere prayer to the Fifty Patriarchs of Granola before I realized it wasn’t the grenade going off early. Alcatote’d been carrying a military-rated plasma cannon. He was using it to chop his way out of the house. Rimini was probably with him.

They’d never get clear in time.

"Kore-alarthme,
do we abandon them?" Tiggy didn’t sound happy.

"Hellwithit!" I said. "Let’s go buy some of your godlost honor, ‘flower!" I gunned the engine and headed for the house.

Tiggy blew out the front wall with his 50.80 and I coasted through the smoking remains. The inside of Vannet’s pretty house looked like somebody’d already dropped a bomb there. I could sec Alcatote and some things in armor that I couldn’t tell what they was. I pointed the yacht at Alcatote and hoped Rimini was with him.

Tiggy was standing up in the side seat, shooting and singing. Dead rocks could of heard him coming. I swerved past Alcatote and there was a thump on the tail deck and I got a lap full of Silver Dagger. I didn’t bother to point the yacht after that; just redlined it and hoped we wouldn’t hit anything.

It was a good idea but too late. About halfway to the front gate the shock wave picked us up and punched us through. I heard metal tear and then the Roaq desert went whiter than white.

The last thing I remembered is a real clear picture of the symbols Archive showed me, a long time never. This time they almost made sense.

Woebegone
was a big flashy thing. It crewed thirty-many and I could of parked
Firecat
-as-was on the bridge without disturbing anyone. There was a mercy seat, places for the songbird and number-cruncher, and two gunners. I didn’t know how six people could decide where to have lunch, much less pilot a starship together, but that was their problem. Rimini sat in the worry seat.

I’d woke up in the back of the land-yacht with Tiggy pumping battledrugs into me and my head still ringing from the blast. Rimini was driving, and behind us was a smoking dayglo pit where there used to be a private stardock and lots of expensive downside real estate. I heard Rimini say something to Eloi about how she’d evacuated the area beforehand, but I hadn’t known that when I set the bomb. I don’t know whether what she said made it worse or better. When we got to the ship Eloi wanted to shuffle us off to somewheres, but I got pushy and with Tiggy along he didn’t quite dare push back. Now Eloi sat in the mercy seat, ignoring us and talking to the port.

I looked at Tiggy, alive despite the odds. He looked pretty awful, and the biopak on his leg was leaking.

Eloi said something else to the Port.

"Kinchin-bai, why don’t you go down to
Woebegone’s
fetch-kitchen let them medical you, forbye? Nothing’s happening here." Which was true and too bad. RoaqPort Authority’d closed MhonePort early. Terrorists, they said. Big dustup at Rialla exurb; solid citizen Kroon’Vannet iced by suspected Tortugan political action committee in protest of the Governor-General’s policies. Archangel’d declared martial law for the entire Roaq.

"It is the honor of the Gentle People to suffer for justice," Tiggy said primly, which I guess meant no.

Eloi jumped up and stalked up and down in front of the mercy scat, bellowing into
Woebegone’s
remote pickups.

"Don’t give me no ‘suffer and honor’ cop, Tiggy Stardust. Want you to go."

"Then go with me. And cease suffering for your honor as well," I looked at him. He grinned, tired.

"Later."

Paladin was gone, and it felt like somebody’d ripped out my lungs. I wanted to call him but he wouldn’t answer. I didn’t even know for sure if he’d gotten out of Rialla. Didn’t give a damn about why he said he left. I knew the reason. A Library’s just a person in a box and people ain’t no damn good.

Eloi was now reminding Port what he paid in taxes, how he was hyper-legit and had more clearances and permits than Brightlaw Corporation had choplogics. None of this did him any good at all. Martial law. Closed Port.

We was back where we started.

"And if they don’t find it in their hearts to give you clearance dear Captain Flashheart?" Rimini didn’t bother to look up from her copilot boards. I could see the "ready/not ready" status lights flickering from here. "I didn’t agree to this insane jaunt to spend the rest of my life in an imperial hellhouse."

"You must remember to inform the Governor-General of that when you sec him-dear Silver Dagger," snarled Eloi right back. Tiggy looked at me and smirked. Alcatote caught him at it and woofed.

"We-" Tiggy stopped. "We will go to my father now, will we not? We have come here to fulfill your
devoir
and now we will rejoin my father. Did you not say this,
Kore-alarthme
?" There was a faint edge of doubt in his voice I didn’t like.

"I said it. Eloi said it." I made it convincing. "
Woebegone
take us there. Iced Eloi’s damn Library for him, now he’s got to come across."

"And I’m grateful, sweeting," said Eloi, eavesdropping, "but-" He interrupted himself as RoaqPort came back on line.

"
Silverdagger Legacy
, you have special clearance exemption to lift."

"What the hell is a ‘
Silverdagger Legacy
’?" demanded Rimini, but I knew.

Eloi vaulted into the mercy seat and gave the crew the office to lift.

Woebegone
kicked back into the up-an-out. Twenty seconds up her bridge screens went to the lightless black of realspace. Rimini and the number-cruncher started singing back and forth about degrees to Transfer Point. Eloi leaned back and grabbed the angelstick, ready for the Drop.

"Kore,
you are weeping," Tiggy said.

"Get shagged, hellflower." Paladin had made it out onto the net. We were the only two people who knew the callname he’d gave
Light Lady.

Tiggy put his arm around my shoulders and said something in helltongue that I didn’t have nobody to translate now.

"Am free, alive, and over the age of consent. I got no problems but you, Tiggy-bai."

Eloi pulled the stick, and suddenly we was everywhere and nowhere at once.
Woebegone
rode angels, safe in endless light, and what I wanted was as far wayaway as the stars I used to watch from my back porch at home.