The Dark Reaches (15 page)

“If we might still learn something that gives us an advantage against the Cold Minds,” Hiso said, “I will take that chance.”

“You’d be a fool, then,” Linnea said coldly. “If our technology gave us any such advantage, we would have driven them from the Hidden Worlds. We didn’t—we couldn’t.” She let those words sink in, then said, “It’s you who seem to have an advantage we do not. After six centuries, you’re still alive.”

He gave an angry shrug. “We have nothing that the Cold Minds want.”

“But you do,” Linnea said. “You’re human. They need human pilots.”

“And they take them,” Hiso said, his voice tight. “In raids. . . . They take children, babies. Kill the rest.”

“Have they raided here on Triton?”

He looked away, out the window at the pale “sunlight.” “They choose lonely outposts. Deepsiders—our own space outposts are military or industrial, we do not risk our children in such exposed places.” He met her gaze. “Pilot Kiaho. Will you grant us access to your ship?”

She lifted her chin. “I need to consult with Pilot sen Paolo. And I’m inclined at this point to refuse. But it would be of some help if you would answer a question—plainly.”

Hiso inclined his head in an attitude of listening polite-ness.

“Are you certain that you don’t know who was sending those images through otherspace?”

His answer was firm. “I’ve looked into it. It had nothing to do with my pilots. You know that we stopped hoping for help from your people long ago.” He shook his head. “We’ve learned to be strong, to make hard choices. We do not dream like deepsiders, dream of places beyond this one. We only fight—to survive, to keep our children safe. We do—what humans do.”

Linnea closed her eyes. The man’s pain was obvious; but she knew she did not dare trust his emotion. Or him.

Yet he had her ship, whether or not he could enter it; if he kept it locked up, it was as far from her reach as from his.

She stood up and faced him. “I’ll speak to Pilot sen Paolo, then decide,” she said. “I can’t promise anything more than that.”

His voice was warm as he said, “I’m grateful, Pilot Kiaho. Please send me word of your decision. Telling Perrin Tereu will be sufficient.”

She nodded silently and left. As she walked, she slid her fingertips into a pocket, touched the scrap of paper that Cleopa had pressed into her hand when they parted.

Deepsiders.
. . . They were part of this puzzle. A step toward the answer she needed. . . .

Soon, maybe, she would know.

 

 

 

In their quarters, Iain listened with disbelief to Linnea’s story of her conversation with Kimura Hiso. “No,” he said at once when she had finished. “I would no more let him touch your ship than I would let him—”

“Touch me,” she said with a sour smile. “I know the feeling.” She stood looking down at the carpeted floor, one hand in the pocket of her black dress, a frown creasing her brow. “It’s almost time for me to go. But I wanted you to know that this was up, that Hiso might be sniffing around my ship. I think I persuaded him not to try to break in, but you might have a word with Tereu. She seems a little more able to see reason than he is.”

“I still think you should stay,” Iain said, knowing it would do no good.

“It’s only a couple of hours,” she said, with a tight smile. “Talk to Tereu. Then I won’t worry.”

“Come back quickly,” Iain said, his voice rough, “and
I
won’t.”

She came to him, took his hands, kissed him lightly, a quick warm brush of her lips. At the door she turned and looked back at him for a moment, upright, strong, her eyes dark and serious. Iain smiled at her, and she was gone.

He bent his head, stood with his hands clenched into fists, disciplined his breathing. But still, he was afraid.

At the center of the deepsiders’ market, Linnea looked around with impatience and disappointment. Maybe it was the guard in green looming at her elbow. Or maybe it was her fine silk dress, which, today had made clear, marked her as a high-status Tritoner. For whatever reason, no one had tried to speak to her or even met her eyes.

The market, such as it was, stood in a bare, square, high-ceilinged metal space a hundred meters across and ten high, at the junction of four main corridors served by slideways. The chilly air echoed with the hum of voices, sometimes shouting numbers, sometimes words that meant nothing to her. Temporary tables with commscreens set up on them stood scattered throughout the space. From what Linnea could see and hear, what was being bought and sold at this market was contracts for commodities. She saw no blue flowers; there were no flowers at all, just a few of the wan little trees in metal tubs poking up here and there. She should have realized what kind of market it had to be.

Deepsiders were everywhere, easily recognizable in bright, warm clothing made of loose knits or warm napped cloth, bound tight at wrists and ankles. Most of them, oddly, had bare feet. Bright tattoos marked their hands, feet, even some faces: flowers, geometric designs. She knew those. She’d seen their like before—in the Cold Minds ships on Nexus. . . . At the memory of those maimed, comatose bodies, revulsion squirmed in her belly.

The deepsiders clustered around the commscreens carrying on muttered conversations with Tritoners, men mostly—making deals. So much of this grade of short-chain hydrocarbon, she overheard, for so much of this prime ore, or this vacuum-refined metal. She saw a couple of twenty-kilo bags of lentils change hands; that was about the closest this came to the markets she remembered on Terranova, in their home city of Port Marie—markets spilling over with food and flowers and handmade goods, bright with laughter and music. Festival places.

Here the tone was serious, almost grim, aside from the bright colors the deepsiders wore. All trades seemed to be barter, or sometimes slips of bright metal that must be markers. There was no credit system, she guessed—not with people scattered so widely, life so dangerous.

She wished Cleopa had been able to come; the young, blandly handsome guard Tereu had dispatched with her was of no use in answering questions. He wore a comm in his ear and kept his eyes on the crowd; he’d made it clear that she was not to distract him.

She caught a whiff of charcoal smoke and seared meat, and wandered farther down the row, the guard at her heels. Here was a booth staffed by Tritoner women in uniform gray. They were selling strips of meat seared over a flame—chicken, she guessed, fragrant with black pepper and garlic and some green herb. The deepsiders were lined up to buy it; meat cooked over open flame must be a treat. Linnea glanced at the guard, but from his wooden expression she guessed he would not permit her to try something as risky as street food. And she had no way to pay for it anyway.

Odd, though, that she could not catch anyone’s eye. The Tritoners looked deferentially away from her, with her fine clothes and her attendant; but she did not sense that it was deference with the deepsiders. They talked to each other eagerly enough, laughing and joking as they waited to be served. But Linnea might have been invisible.

Which of them was waiting for the signal she had been told to give? There was no way to tell. She studied their clothing, the tables, the commscreens for any sign of a blue flower, but there was nothing.

She wandered on along the neatly laid-out aisles, accompanied only by the guard. He served, no doubt, to keep her from veering off schedule or off course as much as to protect her. She could think of no way to get rid of him.

She might as well start setting up the possibilities. As they passed a metal support column, she stopped and leaned against it for a moment, holding her hand to her head. The guard rumbled something solicitous.

“Dizzy for a moment,” she said, waving him away. “I’m all right. Let’s go on.”

But he was guiding her now, in a clear direction through the crowd. They entered a side corridor, and the clamor of the main market receded. Ahead, to the right, an alcove opened off the corridor. A dozen people waited there—all Tritoners, judging from their clothes, perched on high benches or leaning against the wall. A young deepsider man sitting in back, at yet another commscreen, looked up as they came in. The white wall at the back of the alcove was painted with the familiar red cross.
Medics.
“I’m fine,” she said to the guard, in irritation. Stuck away in here, she might miss her opportunity.

But here came another of the medical personnel—another deepsider, judging from the soft, loose maroon belted coverall she wore, judging by her bare feet, judging by—

The softly faded tattoo on the back of her right hand.

A blue, trumpet-shaped flower, delicately inked, pale. . . .

Linnea gave the woman—small, dark, older—one startled glance, and slid gently to the deck.

Warm fingers pressed softly against the side of her neck. Then careful hands lifted her, carried her—she felt a curtain brush past her, sensed increased warmth and quiet, felt herself being set carefully down on a padded surface. Keeping herself limp, her eyes closed, she listened as a woman’s voice—the doctor’s?—told the guard to wait outside. “No,
outside
—as you see, there is no other door to this room. Wait in the outer clinic, and I’ll fetch you in when she needs you.”

Then silence, until a warm hand brushed her forehead, settled on her shoulder. “You really do look worn-out,” the woman said softly.

Linnea opened her eyes, looked up into the calm, hooded eyes of the older woman. Her hair, deep black, was partly covered by a maroon-and-black headscarf, her wide face lit only by the light from the door of this back room. “Who are you?” Linnea asked.

“Pilang is my name,” the woman said. “I’m the doctor here.”

“A deepsider doctor?”

Pilang chuckled. “Most certainly. We’re the best, you know. Tritoners save up their complaints until we come through.”

“Then I’m glad you’re here,” Linnea said. “I need to know—”

Pilang’s hand tightened on Linnea’s shoulder. “Not now. Rest.” A warning. Of course—there would be monitors even here, listening ears and watching eyes.

Linnea settled back in frustration. When would she be free to ask the questions that burned in her mind?
Why am I here? Why did you call me?
She blinked at Pilang, who was turning away to a high table next to the examination bed. “Forgive me,” Pilang said, turning back with her hand folded shut. “It isn’t always easy to understand treatment.”

Startled, uneasy, Linnea took a breath to speak, to protest, and Pilang’s hand tightened still more on her shoulder. Then her other hand slid along the side of Linnea’s neck—touched it with something cool and moist.

Nausea, immediate and total, wrenched Linnea. Pilang deftly tended to her, so the mess was more or less contained. When the spasms eased for a moment, Linnea could see Tereu’s guard standing in the doorway, looking uncertain, outraged, and rather green.

“I’m afraid she needs emergency treatment,” Pilang said. “Supplies I don’t have here. Pick her up, and let’s go.”

Linnea saw the guard glance at the stains on her dress, saw him flinch. “I—need to keep my hands free.”

“And clean,” Pilang muttered, and Linnea heard the dry contempt in her voice. Then a sigh. “Hana and I will carry her. You follow if you must. Oh,
merde—
”

Another spasm of retching racked Linnea. When it was over, she opened her eyes and saw that the guard had vanished—she heard gagging sounds from outside the door. And another woman—young, with strange pale skin and white-yellow hair—had come in and was handing a wad of cloth to Pilang, who unfolded it and began to fit it to Linnea’s face. A mask, some kind of mask. With a bag attached, to contain—Clammy with nausea, Linnea cut off the thought. The mask smelled faintly of some piney herb, and after a moment the sickness seemed to ease a bit.

Pilang and the other woman lifted Linnea easily in the light gee, Pilang at her shoulders and the other woman at her knees; then, with one hand, the younger woman slid a stiff stretcher under Linnea and strapped her lightly in place. The two women carried her out through the waiting area, then sharp left into a small side corridor. Through the fog of nausea and a strange increasing fuzziness, Linnea heard the voice of her guard, protesting the direction. “Her vital signs are unstable,” Pilang’s voice said sharply. “The emergency equipment on our ship is closer than any of your clinics. If you want her to live, you’ll let us take her there.”

In a queasy fog of fear, Linnea struggled to understand. A ship? No, this wasn’t right, what were they doing, where were they taking her? Fear choked her, and the sickness returned. She could say nothing, think of nothing. The light headlong glide through curving corridors made the queasiness worse, much worse.

Dimness and height, the smell of oiled metal—this was a familiar kind of place, strangely easing Linnea’s fear. A docking bay. She heard the guard’s voice again, protesting. Then another voice, a man’s, old and dry. “No need for your help, friend,” the voice said. “We have her safe.” Linnea heard a surprised grunt, caught a glimpse of the guard falling forward with eerie slowness, slack-limbed, his eyes rolled up until the whites showed; and Pilang turning from him with something in her hand.