Wings of Retribution (60 page)

Keep in mind she’s got a few thousand years on each of us.  Give the woman a break.

Why should I?  She basically kidnapped me, after the Corps fired me.  She’s only gotten me into trouble ever since, and to top it all off, she fired me for deciding to stay with her instead of getting my old job back.  She got her whole crew killed back on T-9 and we’ve had nothing but bad luck since then.  She actually tried to take my ship away from me after I spent eight hours fighting the urge to throw up because I was dodging missiles from Erriat’s war fleet at zero gravity to save her ass.  I just want to punch her buckteeth in.

Don’t forget who started this whole mess, Dallas.  We’d be well on our way to Millennium with Squirrel and Goat and Dune if you hadn’t ratted us out.

Dallas recoiled, shocked that Stuart could even think it.

When he did not apologize, she withdrew, hurt.  If
Stuart
thought she was responsible, what did the others think? 

Even more important, what if it was true?

Athenais was lying on the sand, watching the interesting string of penis-shaped clouds to the west, when Taal slipped out of the ocean and dragged himself up the bank.  He wound was red and raw, but no longer bleeding.  He flopped toward her and, before she knew what he was doing, he crawled on top of her and pressed his lips to hers.  Athenais accepted the water he offered, but broke into hysterical laughter after he was done.

“Reduced to mouth-to-mouth with a fish,” she laughed.

“Here,” Taal said, and tossed her what looked like an octopus.

Athenais looked at the sandy lump at her feet and laughed harder.

“It’s food,” he said.

“Why are you keeping me on this island?” she asked.

Taal looked away.

“That’s not fair.  If you can read my mind, I deserve to have a few answers.”

He glanced at her, fishy eyes inhumanly wide.  “You’re a space captain.  I could feel it.”

“So?”

He hesitated.  “Can you take me into space with you?”

Athenais stared at him.  Her gaze fell on his tail, then back on his face.  “You’re kidding.”

“It’s been done,” he said quickly.  “Sometimes they ship youngsters to another planet to breed them there.”

“In an aquarium,” Athenais said.  “I’ve shipped stuff like that myself.”

“So why can’t you take me?  I could help you.”

Athenais glanced over at the sandy octopus and started laughing again.  “You want to go into
space?
  With
fins
?  Are you nuts?”

Without another word, Taal rolled back into the ocean.  Too late, Athenais realized she had made a mistake.

Taal didn’t return for three days except to give her water and food.  Every time she tried to talk to him, he ignored her.  Finally, she could take it no longer.  As he was turning away, she grabbed his muzzle and twisted his head around until he was facing her.

“Look,” she said, “Maybe we can work something out.”

Taal could have jerked away and cut up her hand, but he didn’t.

“After all,” Athenais said, “You did save my life.”  She released him.  “But I gotta tell you, the tough part will be getting my ship back.  Juno confiscated it.”

Taal looked up at her with silver eyes that betrayed his excitement.  Suddenly, he looked like a five-year-old child that had been told he could go to the zoo, and Athenais realized with sudden certainty that, to the alien community, that’s exactly what he was.  A toddler.  A baby.  Probably of the same breed as the massive leviathan that had muddled her thoughts back on the deserted island.

“You promise?” Taal babbled.  “Swear on your father’s name.”

“I’ll swear on my own name,” Athenais said, mouth twisting in disgust.  “And my honor.  You get me back to my ship and I’ll take you off this planet with me.  At least until you get too big.  We’ll buy a nice tank for you to ride in and everything.  As Athenais Owlbourne, I swear it.”

“Then I’ll take you to land.”  Taal slid back into the ocean and waited for her amidst the waves.

When Ragnar opened his eyes, he was once again fitted with a shock collar.  Groggily, he looked around.  He was in the same spartan bedroom, but the morning sunlight was easing its way through the seaward window in the wall.  Below, he could hear the pounding of waves against the rock foundation.

He went to the door and tried to open it.  It was locked from the outside.

Ragnar pounded on the seaweed matting.  “Hello?  Hey, why am I still here?”

From the other side, he heard muffled footsteps hurry away.

Ragnar stepped back and glanced at the window.  He climbed onto the bed and stuck his head out the opening.  From there, it was a fifty foot drop directly into the wave-thrashed rocks.  He pulled his head back inside and began to pace.

Why hadn’t he been moved?  Was the Emperor punishing him?  Was he to spend the next few days in solitary confinement?  What had happened to the Merchant he had displaced?  Had the man found a different bedroom?

He went back to the door and pushed on it.  The weave of fiber and leather still smelled of the sea.  When he pressed on it, however, it did not budge. 

“Hey!” Ragnar shouted.  “Anybody out there?”

He was about ready to lay back down and go to sleep when the intercom crackled.

Ragnar Reeve of the Second House, you have five minutes to show yourself before we are forced to execute one of your kind. 

Ragnar froze.  Five minutes?  But he had already shown himself.

What if it had taken the Merchant too long to find the right authorities?  What if the chain of communication had broken down?

He glanced up at the tiny speaker in the corner of the room.  If these people had the technology to create an island-wide intercom system, they had the ability to make a two-way call network.  It should be as easy as picking up a comset.

Which meant the Merchant had never told them.

“Hey!” Ragnar shouted, pounding on the door.  “Tell someone I’m here!  Don’t let them kill anyone!”

The guard on the other side was silent.

Ragnar slammed his shoulder into the door, but the material merely bowed against his weight and threw him backwards.  Ragnar tried again.

From the other side, the guard began to fret.  It was a young man, one Ragnar had never heard before.

“Please, Ragnar Reeve, stay calm.  You are in no danger.”

“Tell them I turned myself in!  Tell them!”

“Of course, Ragnar Reeve.  It was a simple mistake.”

“Fix it!” Ragnar shouted.  “Before somebody dies!”

“Of course.”  The footsteps hurried away and Ragnar relaxed.

The intercom blared again, shattering his calm. 
Dawn has come and passed, Ragnar Reeve.  The body of your fellow will be hung from the wall above the gardens so you may see the result of your disobedience.  If you fail to show yourself by tomorrow, another will die.

At that, the transmission ended.

Saying Goodbye to Stuey

“I can’t take you beyond this point, human.”  Taal hovered in the water beneath Athenais, keeping her adrift.

“Why not?”  Athenais glanced at the last five hundred feet of waves beyond the buoy and swallowed.  It was getting dark.

“See those beacons?  Underneath each flashing light, they have detectors for my kind aimed toward land.  Anything that gets beyond the nets raises an alarm.  I shouldn’t have come this far.  It’s dangerous.”

“But I can’t
swim.”

“You can’t die, either.”

“Yes, but…”  Athenais imagined what it would be like to wake up on the bottom of the ocean and felt her bowls loosen.  “Please.  I need you to take me to the other side.  I’ll never get there on my own.”

Taal hesitated.  “I can’t.  The Intruders will kill me.”

“I don’t take cowards on my ship.”

The serpentine body under her stiffened.  She felt him hesitate, felt his eyes scan the little blinking lights.  “If I get you to land…you promise to come back for me?”

“I already said yes,” Athenais said, getting frustrated.  “Now all you have to do is swim another hundred and fifty yards.”

“But…”  She was a bit startled to realize she could feel the indecision rolling off of him.  The fear.

“I can handle Juno,” Athenais interrupted, knowing she was about to lose him.  “My magic is stronger.”

Taal hesitated a moment longer, then, tentatively, he said, “You will take me up into the stars?”

“I already told you I would,” Athenais said.  “But only if you fulfill your end of the bargain.  I’m a land-dweller, not a swimmer.”

After a long moment to think about that, Taal shot forward.  He slipped over the net and rushed the last few hundred feet, plowing through the water like a missile.  He pushed Athenais up onto the nearest rock and turned, scanning the water behind him.

“I will stay nearby, for when you come for me.”

“Fine.”  Athenais crawled onto the rocky beach, utterly thankful for the cold, hard stone beneath her.  As many times as she’d looked down at them from above, she’d never really realized how much she hated oceans.  She guessed it was just one of those things a person had to experience to appreciate, from to the cold black nothingness dropping away beneath your feet to the sharks nibbling at your toes in the night.