The Dragon Circle (19 page)

Kat prowled
Jupiter
. Each long stride only fueled her frustration. The ship's passageways were too small for her. The half-mile circumference and the one-mile length of the torpedo-shaped vessel were too short. There was not enough space to burn off the energy that pulsed through her system. She headed for the outer areas of heavier gravity. The constant hum of the king stone at the exact center of the ship quieted just a little. She breathed easier.

Good thing
Jupiter
possessed only one king stone. If each of the three arrays of twelve drivers and one hundred forty-four directionals—equally spaced along the length of the ship—fed into a separate king stone, she'd probably go crazy.

Or was that crazier?

Despite Commander Leonard's orders, she still sought a way to get aboard the next lander to the surface. She needed to confront the O'Hara brothers face-to-face.
She
needed to be the one to bring them to justice.

Her path led past the Marine ready room. Twenty men and women strapped on spider silk armor, cleaned and charged weapons, checked EVA suits, and excitedly traded insults. Kat itched to share in the precombat camaraderie. She'd done her share of combat training. But since going into space, all of her preparations had been with ship's weapons and shielding, space tactics, and flight plans. Her dirtside skills must be getting as stale as unscrubbed air.

Could she use that as an excuse to get a Marine officer to request her presence in the landing crew?

“Balinakis is going soft. He's afraid of a tough criminal recovery,” a female corporal muttered. Her short, squarish figure suggested civil lineage. But her speech patterns and diction had a lisping whistle that came from a bush planet on the outskirts of GTE space.

Kat paused outside the ready room's open hatch to listen.

“I heard that the judge actually ordered Capt'n Leonard not to follow the marking beacon attached to
Sirius
,” a tall, blond sergeant, decisively bushie in his size and speech, replied. “Clear violation of judicial protocol, if you ask me.”

Kat knew that gossip and rumor flew through the ship at faster-than-light speed. Eavesdropping on enlisted personnel often provided her with more accurate information than official notifications. She pressed herself against the bulkhead, willing herself to remain unnoticed by the Marines.

“I'd like to see us strand the judge on a Bush planet and let Captain Leonard take his place. She's fairer and just as knowledgeable about the law,” Sergeant Kent Brewster grumbled. That tall, dark-haired noncom had beaten her three times in poker, the only person aboard who could.

“We're Marines, not SBs,” a young private protested. “We owe our loyalty to the judiciary, not the ship's crew.”

“We owe our loyalty to justice,” the female corporal sneered. “Fat lot of justice anywhere in the GTE.” Her last statement was so quiet Kat had to strain to hear it.

A rumble of agreement rippled around the ready room followed by silence.

If she were leading this squad, she'd be hesitant to have so many bushies in the group. They sounded angry enough to find excuses to strand themselves dirtside. If this lot of combat veterans sided with the natives and mounted a defense against the rest of the crew, they'd have a full-blown mutiny aboard.

It had happened before. Three times in the last decade. Bushie crews had deserted ship en masse and sided with Free Market merchants. One crew surrendered to the Kree rather than serve under a particularly harsh civil captain.

Kat hastened back toward Captain Leonard's office. Now she had a reason to join the landing crew. Someone had to keep the Marines in line and fighting for the right side.

She ran right into Lieutenant Commander M'Berra.

“Excuse me, sir. I wasn't looking where I was going.”

“Stand down, Lieutenant,” M'Berra smiled. His large white teeth bit at his lip.

“I have serious breaches of loyalty to report, sir. I need to get to Captain Leonard.” Kat tried edging around the big black man.

“I heard the talk as well, Kat.” He looked back toward the Marine ready room. Still he did not budge from the narrow passageway.

“Then you know, sir, that I must report . . .”

“Consider your report given, Lieutenant.” He stared at her with a stern expression Kat could not read. She was too far away from a crystal array for her senses to open and look beyond the surface of the man.

“Sir, in
Jupiter
's best interest I believe I should accompany the next landing mission.” Kat squared her shoulders and stared the man in the eye. They were nearly of a height. She could match him stubborn for stubborn.

“In
Jupiter
's best interest, I am leading the next landing mission. You stay here and keep an eye on the rest of the Marines.”

“But . . . sir.”

“Stand down, Lieutenant. You have your orders. And not a word of this to anyone else.”

“Yes, sir.” Her words lacked her usual enthusiasm.

Konner ran his hands lovingly over the control interface of the IMP lander that had carried him far away from his enemies. Such an efficient machine, well maintained, responsive, and fast. It leaped to obey his slightest touch on the control screens. He didn't even need an electronic pencil to trigger the ignition.

But it had no personality. The ship's voice had no expression, no quirks, just the bland computer-generated tones, neither male nor female. Obedient and unthinking.

“Sorry to do this to you,” he said to the colorless voice embedded in the computer.

No response. He hadn't asked for one. That blind obedience of a machine made his task so much easier. He'd never be able to consign
Rover
to the same fate.
Rover
, like
Sirius
, was nearly a member of the family.

“Autopilot on,” Konner said firmly.

“Autopilot on,” the computer confirmed. The sound irritated Konner with its artificiality.

He punched in the coordinates he wanted.

At the last moment he remembered to program in a thirty-second delay. Then he dove for the exit hatch, quite convenient to the pilot's seat rather than halfway back in the vessel as on
Rover
. The hatch closed automatically as soon as he cleared it.

With a roar that set Konner's teeth on edge and sent a flock of birds into squawking flight, the lander lifted straight up. Beach sand, small rocks, and bits of shell blasted his face. He had to turn and cover his eyes until the debris settled. He risked a look at the vessel as it reached an elevation of thirty meters. At that moment it shot forward. A nice arcing flight up to thirty-five hundred meters, then a straight plunge down into the watery depths at about the center of the ocean.

He watched it fall. “It's just a machine,” he reminded himself. “The thing needed a bath anyway, to get rid of that green plant stuff in the outer atmosphere that eats metal.” He needed to wash
Rover
. His mission to destroy the beacon had consumed his thoughts for the last full day to the point where he'd forgotten that little idiosyncrasy of this planet. If he left that chore another full day, the plant would begin to compromise the outer hull of his shuttle.

From orbit this world looked green because of a layer of diatomaceous plant life in the upper atmosphere. Passage through the layer left a coating of the metal-eating substance on the vessel. A quick dunk in the bay seemed to take care of it.

“I've got to go back to the volcano,” he muttered. Exhaustion suddenly weighed him down. He had to sit a moment. The thought of a return journey to the crater, with twenty IMPs waiting for him with charged weapons did not entice him in the least.

Letting his mind go blank, Konner wrapped his arms around his knees and contemplated the waves lapping at the shore. Low tide. He guessed the sun was well past the zenith by now. He'd been moving every minute since he arose before dawn from a restless night. He'd been running nearly all of his life. Running from the law, running from Melinda, from Mum.

Running from himself.

Who was
he
when not running? A man more comfortable with machines than with people. And he'd just destroyed a magnificent machine.

The hairs on his right arm and at his nape tingled with another presence. He looked, expecting Dalleena. He'd only met the woman yesterday. But after today's adventures, he had grown used to having her at his side.

Disappointment sat heavily in his belly.

“Hello, Irythros.”

The dragon sighed as it settled its haunches into the sand beside him. No words. He just sat beside Konner in companionable silence.

Konner felt like he should say something more, but the words lumped in his throat, along with his fatigue and his questions about himself and his life and what he needed to do next.

After many long moments, when the lander was out of sight and its distant roar but a memory, Irythros spoke. (
Your sense of duty is strong. Almost as strong as among dragons.
)

“Is that a compliment?”

(
If you wish.
)

“Right now duty and responsibility are not very attractive to me.”

(
They seldom are.
)

Another long silence.

“I'm just so tired, Irythros. I want to stop running. I want . . . I don't know what I want.”

The dragon let him think in silence.

(
I do not understand. You are an honorable man. Yet you flee the enforcers of the law. How can you violate law and remain honorable?
)

“Not all law is honorable.”

(
Law is law.
)

“Not among humans. You saw how Hanassa perverted law when he was priest to the Coros. He created laws at his own whim and called it religion.”

(
Hanassa did not create law. He dictated rules for his own convenience.
)

“Among my people that happens as well. They call it law. They have lawyers, people who do nothing but debate the law and make it more contradictory.” Konner let that thought stand between them for a while.

The sun crawled toward the west, changing the angle of light. Shadows grew.

”When I was about ten years old, my father flew away on business. He promised to come back. We never saw him again. The planetary governor, a man appointed by our previous emperor, decided Mum made too much money from a small shipping business. He wanted that money. So he made up a lie and called it law. He sent armed men to arrest Mum. But a friend warned her. She managed to gather her children and flee. The governor's men arrived sooner than we expected. They set fire to the house. In the confusion, my sister Katie got separated and lost.

“Because we fled rather than allow ourselves be arrested, the governor convicted Mum of imaginary crimes
in absentia
. We lost citizenship. We lost our home. We lost our family. We lost everything.”

(
And what of your lost sister?
)

“Mum is obsessed with finding her. Without citizenship, we don't have access to resources that will pinpoint her. Without citizenship, we can do nothing legally. So we operate outside the law, always in the hope of one day regaining what was stolen from us.”

(
Your lawmakers act much as Hanassa acted.
)

“And so honorable men like me and my brothers must run from the law. And now the law has found us. I am tired of running.”

(
Then you must stay.
)

“I have duties and obligations.” To his son. To his mother. To the Coros. “And a finite amount of time before I must leave.”

(
Then you must allow your enemies to find what you hold dear and make it dear to them.
)