The Summer Queen (117 page)

“Lifting crates?” he said incredulously.

“I like to work alongside my own people sometimes, when I
can, to remind myself of who I am and where I came from, Commander. And what
their problems really are.” She touched her arm briefly with her good hand. “Perhaps
you should try it some time.”

His mouth pulled taut. “It sounds too dangerous for my
taste.” He turned away again, without any kind of farewell, and left the room.

Moon watched him go, and then moved quietly to close the
door. She came back to the bed and settled carefully onto it, her good hand
touching BZ’s face, his hair, with infinite tenderness. His own hand rose
unsteadily to cover hers, as she leaned to kiss the hollows of his temples and
murmured something that Jerusha couldn’t hear.

Moon straightened up again, shrugging back her cloak with an
awkward motion, her uninjured hand still closed inside his. “Now you know,” she
said, looking at Jerusha.

Jerusha nodded, seeing the same light, the same darkness in
both their faces Slowly she got to her feet, stood looking down at them with an
odd longing. “And now I’ve forgotten it,” she said, with a fleeting smile. “Rest
well, my friends.” She shook her head, looking away from them as they began to
smile. She crossed the room, and went out without looking back.

Ariele Dawntreader stopped in the hallway, looking toward
the hospital room door where uniformed offworlders stood guard; feeling herself
pushed forward by anger, held back by doubt. At Police headquarters they had
told her she would find Jerusha PalaThion here, with the Chief Justice, who had
barely survived an assassination attempt. Some part of her mind tried to tell
her that she wished Capella Goodventure had been successful. She found that the
thought sickened her.

She pushed it out of her mind, feeling guilty, as if the
guards standing watch down the hall from her could hear her thoughts. The Chief
Justice was alive; then let him listen to what she had come to say to Jerusha
PalaThion. She started to walk again, seeing the Police turn their heads like
twins to watch her approach. Their wariness decreased slightly as they
recognized her.

“I need to speak with Commander PalaThion,” she said.

One of the guards murmured something half-audible, as if he
were talking to himself. He hesitated a moment, and nodded at her. “You can go
in.”

She moved past them, trying to enter the room as though she
were perfectly confident of what she would do next.

Jerusha stood waiting for her in the middle of the room, in
the stranger’s gray-blue uniform that Ariele had finally come to accept as a
normal part of the other woman’s appearance. Behind her, sitting up in the
hospital bed, was the Chief Justice. It was the first time she could remember
that she had not seen him in uniform.

She looked at him for a long moment, feeling as if she saw
his face for the first time; seeing a human being, and not an arrogant
Kharemoughi martinet. She thought of her brother suddenly, as she looked into
his eyes; suddenly imagining the face of a much younger man, who was
passionately in love with her mother, willing to give up his career, even his
life, for her mother’s sake. She remembered the look he had given her once,
meeting her in the Street, and how she had responded.

“Ariele,” Jerusha said, and there was something in her voice
that was both surprise and wariness. “What is it?”

“I came to ...” She broke off. “I came to wish the Chief
Justice a swift recovery,” she said, glancing down.

“Thank you, Ariele Dawntreader,” Gundhalinu said. “Please
tell your mother that I’m doing well—”

“My mother didn’t send me here, Justice,” she said sharply. “I
haven’t even spoken to her in over a week. I moved out of the palace months
ago.”

“In that case, thank you for coming at all.” He smiled, uncertainly.

“Actually,” she said, her hands rubbing the silken cloth of
her shirtsleeves, “actually I came here because I wanted to talk to—Aunt
Jerusha about something. But it has to do with you too, Justice. Your people.
And ... what happened to you.” She glanced up at him again, trying to read his
reaction. “Do you blame the Summers for what happened?” she asked, baldly. “And
... do you believe what Capella Goodventure said your hunters did?”

“No, I don’t blame your people,” he said, and she was surprised
to find that she believed him. “And no. I don’t believe what she said.”

“Ariele,” Jerusha said, “she must have heard distorted
rumors. There’s no evidence.”

Ariele closed her mouth over the angry response lying ready
on her tongue. “Capella Goodventure was right about what happened with the
Summer ships. I saw it.” She had spent two days waiting for a summons, for the
Blues to come after her, as Reede had sworn they would. But it hadn’t happened,
until finally she had been forced to come here herself like this. And now,
suddenly, she knew why.

“You saw it?” Jerusha repeated. Her face changed. “How?”

Ariele looked down again, watching the memory replay across
the polished surface of the floor. “I was there. I tracked Silky up the coast—”

“Silky?” Jerusha interrupted. “Is she all right?”

Ariele nodded, seeing relief in the other woman’s eyes; seeing
the woman she had always known, the woman she had loved once like her own kin,
suddenly looking back at her. She told that woman everything, calling up every
detail; but editing every word in her mind before she spoke it, to keep from
mentioning Reede.

“What was Silky doing, so far from the colony’s territory?
Were any of the others with her?” Jerusha asked, half frowning.

Ariele nodded. “There were hundreds of mers on the beach. It
was as if they’re all gathering for something.”

Jerusha shook her head, glancing at Gundhalinu. “What the
hell could make them do that—after all the time Miroe and I spent trying to
show them that they had to stay clear of humans. Was it all useless?”

“I think maybe they’re coming to a kind of Festival—”

Jerusha looked back at her, and for a moment she saw the
other woman’s mind try to dismiss the idea. But then Jerusha’s face changed.
She looked at Gundhalinu again. “What do you think, BZ? Would there be any
record of something like this ever happening before?”

He shrugged, his eyes thoughtful. “If it only happens during
Summer, probably not, unless it was preserved somewhere in their folk
tradition.”

“Maybe it is ...” Jerusha murmured. “Maybe that’s exactly
what the Festival is.”

“Then they’re coming to Carbuncle,” Gundhalinu said, and his
voice was as sure as if he suddenly knew, the way that Reede seemed to know
things about the mers.

Jerusha looked at him oddly, but she did not question him either.
“Ye gods, BZ—if that’s true, they’ll be sitting targets for the hunters.”

“If it’s true, then the hunts will stop,” he said, and his
hand made a fist on the bedding. “I want observation data on the mers’
movements.”

Jerusha nodded, turning to Ariele. “And you saw the hunters
attack the Summers who were trying to interfere?”

Ariele nodded again. “We saw them ram two ships—”

“We?” Jerusha asked.

“Silky and I. I was with Silky.” She glanced down, cursing
herself silently, but Jerusha did not ask her about it.

“Did you see anyone go into the sea?”

She shook her head. “It was too far away. But they
deliberately sank at least one.”

“Capella Goodventure believed someone died,” Gundhalinu
said, frowning, but not at her. “Enough to want to kill me in revenge.
Something stinks, Jerusha.”

“Smells like a cover-up to me,” she said.

He swore softly; his body jerked with agitation under the
blankets. “Start an investigation. See what you can find out, if all the
evidence isn’t sunk already.”

“Do you think Vhanu knows about this?” she asked.

He looked up abruptly. “No. Of course not.” He leaned forward,
holding himself in place with his arms locked around his knees. “Ariele, you
say there were hundreds of mers on the beach ... but according to the report I
was given, the hunt was relatively poor. How did the mers get away? Did you
warn them off?”

She stiffened, uncertain; glanced at Jerusha, who nodded.
She told them, carefully, the truth but not the whole truth. “They fired at me
too—at my mother’s hovercraft. I had to get away before ... before all the mers
were off the beach.” Her face burned with remembered frustration and rage.

“And you’re sure that Silky was gone?” Jerusha repeated, coming
across the room.

She nodded.

Jerusha rested warm hands on her shoulders. “Thank you, Ari.
Silky doesn’t belong to me anymore—any more than you belong to your mother. But
the gods help anybody that ever hurt either one of you.” Her hands tightened
gently, in a fond gesture that they had not made for many years, and then
released her.

Ariele smiled, hesitating, wanting suddenly to say more; to
tell her everything. But she only turned away toward the door.

“Anele—” Gundhalinu called.

She turned back, reluctantly, compelled by the fragility of
his voice, and not the sudden command.

“Who was there with you?” he asked quietly.

She half frowned. “I told you—” She broke off, seeing the expression
on his face. Certainty. He knew she’d been lying to them, as surely as if he
had been reading her emotions from some offworlder machine. She looked at
Jerusha, and saw the same certainty in her eyes; knew that it was their experience
that had betrayed her, and her own inexperience. “I don’t have to tell you,”
she said. “I didn’t even have to come here. Your own people are afraid to tell
you what I was doing there, because they know I saw what they did.”

“What’s this other person afraid of?” Gundhalinu asked.

“You,” she answered. “The Police. He’s an offworlder. If the
Police know he saw, and tried to stop it, he’s afraid they’ll deport him.”

“What was he doing there?”

She tossed her head. “He was with me. He works for my
mother, studying the mers.”

“Your mother doesn’t have any offworlders working for her,
studying the mers,” Jerusha said.

Ariele felt her frown deepen. “Yes, she does. She has Reede,
and he’s brilliant No one knows the mers like—”

Gundhalinu’s face froze. “Reede?” he said. “Reede Kullervo?”

She looked back at him. “Yes.”

“I know him,” Gundhalinu murmured. “He is brilliant. But he
doesn’t work for your mother.”

Jerusha was staring at him. “That one?” she said softly.

He nodded. His eyes, still on Ariele, were suddenly dark
with understanding “He isn’t what you think he is, Ariele .... But he can trust
me. You tell him that He wants to save the mers. We can do it, together. I can
protect him, I can help him, if he’ll trust me. Will you tell him that?”

She went on looking at him for a long moment, at the intentness
and the desperate weariness in his face. She nodded, at last. “I’ll tell him,”
she said.

“Reede Kullervo!” The voice that called his name seemed to
come at him from everywhere at once, out of the shadowed doorways of the
midnight-quiet alley. The streets of Carbuncle were never completely dark, but
the nights grew shadows in places where none survived by day.

Reede stopped in his tracks, his hand reaching for his gun
as shadow-forms detached from the larger darkness of doorways and passageways.

“Son of a bitch—” Niburu muttered in disbelief, reaching for
his own weapon as Ananke spun around behind him. Suddenly they were surrounded
by half a dozen Blues, in the middle of an alley that had gone from sparsely
inhabited to a no-man’s-land in less than a heartbeat.

“Drop the weapons,” the voice said, behind him now, and he
saw that the Blues already had their own weapons out, trained on him. They wore
the flash shields of their helmets down, making them all into faceless,
unidentifiable clones. He let his gun drop, slowly and deliberately stripping
himself of weapons, as his men did the same.

“The knife in your boot too,” the voice directed mildly, and
he realized they were being scanned. He tossed out the knife, and held his
hands high. “What do you want with me?” he said, feeling more disbelief than
fear. Vigilantism wasn’t the Blues’ style. “I haven’t done anything.” Gods, he
hadn’t had his fix; he needed the water of death. What if they locked him up,
how long would he last—? And suddenly he was afraid. He clenched his teeth.

Beside him Niburu was muttering, “Holy hands of Edhu, holy
hands of Edhu ...” like an incantation. Ananke was as silent as a wall, staring
at the shielded faces all around him. Two minutes ago the pair of them had been
bitching about waiting at the bar in Starhiker’s for hours, because he didn’t
show up on time. He figured he knew where they wished they were right now. He
thought about where he’d been. Between a rock and a hard place. “Fuck—” he
whispered; repeated it over and over under his breath, like Niburu, like an
adhani.

“You’re a stranger far from home, Kullervo,” somebody said. “Another
stranger far from home wants to talk to you about old times.”

“No—” he said, starting to turn around. But something
brushed the back of his neck like a wet mouth, and then there was only
blackness.

He came to again, what seemed to be a moment later, although
it probably wasn’t. He sat up slowly, cautiously, on a perfectly ordinary couch
in a neat, austerely furnished sitting room. It was not so different from his
own, could almost have been his own. He shook what might have been a dream of
somebody else’s life out of his head, like a dog shaking off water. He looked
down at himself—recognized his own clothing, his tattooed arms ... realized
that the dream was reality, and felt a kind of hopeless fatalism settle over
him.

“Hello, Ku\\ervo-eshkrad,” a familiar voice said.