Empire & Ecolitan (9 page)

T
HE STOCKY MAN
who was in fact a muscular thin man puffed up the ramp into the shuttle.

The embarking officer glanced at the checker, who batted her eyelashes and turned to address the boarding passenger.

“Ser Blanko…so glad you enjoyed your stay on Accord.”

“Who said I enjoyed it? Business is business is business. That's my motto.” He swung his case around.

“If you wouldn't mind, Ser Blanko…”

“Mind what?” grumbled the stocky man with a touch of a whine to his response.

“Just being careful with the case until you get home. That's all. After your partner, we wouldn't want you to have any problems…”

Barely an instant's stiffness froze the man. “You got the wrong person, officer. Never had a partner, never will. Business is business, like I say. No time to educate someone else. Just enough time to get the sale made.”

“So sorry, Ser Blanko. We hope you have a pleasant trip back to Alphane.”

The man did not correct the embarking officer.

Although his destination was Alphane, his card indicated Frostbreak.

“T
HELINA
…” H
E ROLLED
the sound of her name out into the whispers of the night, his voice scarcely more than a murmur.

As he walked toward the experimental orchard, he wondered why he had spoken the woman's name. After all, she had scarcely said more than a handful of words to him, and he was certainly no more attractive than a score of senior Ecolitans, all intelligent, well muscled, and tanned. Most important, in her brief words to him, Thelina Andruz had made it perfectly clear that she was less than thrilled with his success at wholesale and individual murder and civil disruption.

He frowned in the darkness, not that darkness had concealed anything in the centuries since the development of night vision scanners and snooperscopes. He concentrated on stretching his legs, trying to make each stride perfectly even, perfectly balanced, trying to feel his way across the uneven ground without looking.

Training his body to operate as independently of conscious perceptions as possible, he had practiced the technique for years. While he still had to scan the terrain, he did not have to spend time consciously plotting his route or progress.

Jimjoy paused to listen, catching again the sound of someone trying to match his stops. The unseen watcher continued to miss the irregular pauses on a continuing basis.

The Imperial Major grinned. Obviously, some poor apprentice or student had been assigned the task, probably either as penalty or to improve clearly deficient skills.

Jimjoy suddenly broke into a full sprint toward the orchard, still at least a half kilometer away.

A faint gasp whispered across the high grasses from his left, and he grinned as he concentrated on breaking away—at least momentarily.

Within three steps he was close to full speed. Tempted as he was to come to a full stop and listen to the chaos that might result from his tracker's lack of ability, he did not. Jimjoy was a sprinter by build and should have been doing more distance running, far more distance running, than he had been doing recently.

Training was boring, inanely boring. This time, with someone trailing him, he could make it into a game. If the tracker were a good distance runner with a lighter build, by the time that Jimjoy reached the orchard, the odds would be that his pursuer would be catching up, no matter how hard Jimjoy pressed.

He tried to keep his breathing deep and even, matching breath to strides, once the early exhilaration passed and his legs began to feel heavier.

Listening as he ran, he tried to pick up the sounds of his shadow but could hear nothing beyond the sounds of his own footsteps, his own breath rasping in his throat and chest.

As the low stone wall separating the meadow from the road drew closer, he darted a glance back over his shoulder down the gentle incline up which he had run. No sign of the other person.

Looking across the wall and to the left and right, he hurdled the waist-high barrier, landing relatively lightly, for him, on the pavement. Two more steps, and another hurdle, and he was running between the rows of the orange/trilia trees. With the level ground underfoot, the effort was not quite as great, although he was becoming more aware of the fractionally higher Accord gravity with each step.

The trees were past the blossom stage, and in the daylight only green buds would show where the full fruits would be by autumn. In the starlight, Jimjoy could not see those buds, only know that they were there, only smell in passing the faintest hint of the bittersweet odor of trilia.

The more he thought about it, step after hard step, the more he wondered about the sound of the gasp he had heard as he had sprinted away.

With a shake of his head, he slowed and made a circuit around a tree and headed back toward the walled road and the meadow beyond.

As he passed the trees closest to the road, he checked for traffic on the road, even though he saw no lights, before hurdling the first wall. He landed heavily, his feet thudding down one after the other. The pavement felt hard, much harder than on the way uphill. He forced the second hurdle, which became half jump/half hurdle, and stumbled as he landed on the softer meadow ground.

His breathing was close to gasping. His steps were shortening, and his feet were hitting the ground with almost no spring. The knee-to-waist-high meadow grass seemed more of a drag than on even the uphill sprint, but he forced the pace and adjusted his direction toward the spot where he thought he would find his would-be pursuer.

Short of the area, he slowed his stride into little more than a jog and began to look, listening for any sign.

He stopped, then began to inch forward, drinking in the sounds around him, trying to pinpoint any area of silence where the night insects did not chitter or whisper, where only the sighing of the grass occurred.

A faint crackle from the left caught his attention.

Wondering how much he should play the role, he decided, with a grin, to overplay it to the hilt.

With that, he eased down into the grass and began to edge silently toward his unseen target.

Something promptly bit him on the neck, not once but three times. He tightened his lips and continued his inching along. The silence ahead was perceptible.

Several sharp stones jabbed into his legs, but Jimjoy ignored them, still easing himself forward.

A warbling call echoed across the night.

In spite of himself, Jimjoy nodded. Almost perfect, but not quite.

So the person in the grass before him had a partner.

A froglike sound chirruped perhaps five meters ahead, to his left.

The warbling call repeated.

So did the chirrup.

Neither changed position, and Jimjoy edged forward, listening as he moved.

In time, he could sense a figure stretched out in the grass, could hear the lightly ragged breathing of someone trying to use breath exercises to control pain. Less than two meters from the youngster now, he suspected the youth was male.

“Twisted your ankle…or do you think it's broken?” he asked conversationally.

A sharp intake of breath was the only response.

“Look, young man. This isn't war…it's training. Besides, if I'd been after you, you'd have been out of the way long before I started running.”

Jimjoy stood and, with two quick steps, knocked the truncheon/short staff from the young man's hands with a quick blow.

Even in the darkness, Jimjoy could see that his would-be tracker was in a great deal of pain from trying to sit up.

“Damned fool…” mumbled Jimjoy. “Never attack when you're wounded, especially in training. Not unless you're dead anyway. Now lie back and let me look at that leg.

“And signal your partner that you need help,” he added. “I assume that bird call was from her.”

The student's body posture answered both questions, but he still refused to answer.

“Idiot…” Jimjoy cupped his hand to his mouth and rendered a credible imitation of the imitation bird call.

“Major…I wish you hadn't done that. That will only get us both in trouble.”

“Not in any more trouble than you're in already.” He gently edged the youth's leg from its doubled position. “Hades if I can figure out how you did it, but looks like you've got at least one broken bone there. Not to mention some severely torn muscles.”

“Can't. Need the credit.”

“So I was an extra-credit assignment. Wish I'd known. What course? Field training?”

“Stet.”

“Ecolitan Andruz?”

“No. Sabatini.”

“I'll have to talk to him.”

“Her. I really prefer that you didn't, Major.”

Jimjoy ignored the comment.

“Is there anything…hovercraft…that can track out over this soft ground?”

“Never seen anything here. Maybe nearer Harmony.” Even in the dimness, he was ghost-white.

The Major studied the meadow, concentrating on the section from which he had originally come, where it sloped upward toward the trees that separated the meadow proper from the low quarters buildings.

He warbled again, more urgently.

“That about right?”

“Nightcaller is a little higher-pitched. Two short and a trail-off.”

Jimjoy tried again.

“Pretty good, Major.”

Jimjoy could see a figure at the edge of the trees.

“Come on down. Your partner's broken his leg!”

The figure disappeared into the trees.

“Hades! Now she's convinced that I destroy students. Hang on.”

Jimjoy picked up the youngster, who was bigger than he looked, perhaps as much as eighty percent of Jimjoy's own mass.

“Major, you can't carry me.”

“Don't sell me short.”

Jimjoy took one step, then another, concentrating on maintaining his footing as he made his way up the hillside toward the footpath that wound through the trees.

The young man wore blacks, he observed absently, which were really too dark for night work.

“How's the leg?”

“It hurts.”

“Any more than before I lifted you?”

“A little less, except when you sway.”

By now they were approaching the trees. Jimjoy heard several sets of footsteps.

Three people emerged from the shadows as he neared the path—one in blacks and two in greens.

All dark-haired. That disappointed him.

“Suspect your student will be laid up for a while, Ecolitan Sabatini.”

“Practicing your night combat skills, Major?” The woman's voice was low. The sarcasm was undisguised.

“No. Did try some night running. Didn't think any real Ecolitan would put so much pressure on a student that he'd lie silently in the grass with a broken and twisted leg.”

“Excuses, now?”

“Sabatini, you want a fight…I'll give it to you. You want an apology…we'll talk about it. After you point me to the infirmary. Or the hospital or whatever.”

Jimjoy could see the pallor on the older woman's face, even in the dimness of the starlight. The two standing beside her were students, one female and one male. The female wore black coveralls.

“And by the way, black doesn't work that well in a night wilderness setting. Not natural out here.”

Sabatini said nothing, but he could see the tenseness in her body posture.

“You two…it's been a long night already. Where's the infirmary?”

The woman student nodded to the right, where the path meandered back toward the instructional buildings.

Jimjoy shrugged his shoulders gently. The one arm, where he had taken the hit on Haversol, was beginning to tighten up. He walked around the three without a word and marched forward, using his anger as fuel for his quick strides.

A single set of steps followed his along the smooth stones.

“What's your partner's name?”

“Mariabeth.”

“Mariabeth? Come on up here and lead the way.”

She said nothing, but darted around him and his burden and briskly set the pace. At the first fork, she followed the left-hand branch.

So did Jimjoy, hoping that the health care facilities were not too much farther, since both arms were beginning to ache. But Hades would freeze over before he would let any of the stiff-necked Ecolitans know that.

Ahead, one of the doors in a long and low building showed a faint glow.

Mariabeth took the stone walk that led there.

Jimjoy followed, breathing deeply, wondering if he'd been a damned fool or merely an idiot for dressing down Sabatini before students.

Mariabeth held the door. In the glow of the shaded lamp, she turned out to be a muscular girl with black hair and black eyes, a mouth that could probably scowl, pout, or smile with equal facility and expressiveness, and shoulders that could bear the weight of the Institute's regime without too much trouble.

Jimjoy squinted hard as he stepped inside. Even though the interior light was still dim, his night vision was scarcely ready for the abrupt change.

The waiting area was empty, but a wheeled stretcher stood vacant on the far side of the room.

After taking the last three steps with his burden, Jimjoy laid the young man on the white cover of the stretcher trying not to express too much relief as he eased the youngster down.

Taking a deep breath instead of sighing, he glanced around.

Mariabeth pushed the “Emergency Call” plate as he watched, and Jimjoy squinted even more as the light level in the room rose again. He could feel the involuntary tears as his eyes adjusted once more.

“Thank you, Major.”

“No problem. Some ways, I caused your injury. Not that I meant to.”

“I understand.”

Mariabeth stood waiting by the interior door.

“What's the problem?”

Jimjoy's eyes turned toward the newcomer, another Ecolitan, male, and about his own age.

“I'd guess that the young man has at least one broken bone in the right leg, if not a compound fracture. Probably some ripped muscle tissue when he tried to stand on it and hadn't realized how badly he was hurt.”

The newcomer took in Jimjoy, then moved to the stretcher.

“How did it happen?”

“Running in the dark,” answered Jimjoy.

“How did it happen?” repeated the medical man.

“The Major happens to be right…oooohhhh…”

“Sorry. Looks like the Major was right about several things…First, who are you, just for the record?”

“Oh…Elting, Elias Winden, Student Third, Fifth Wing.”

“Been here recently…any other injuries…any drug allergies…”

Jimjoy waited to see if the medical type needed anything else from him.

“…well…the Major was apparently right about several things…but why did you try to run on this leg?”

“Sabatini—”

“That was my fault, Doctor. He was trying to keep up, and I didn't realize he was hurt that badly when he fell.”

“He came back for me as soon as he knew…”

“He carried Elias all the way from the meadow.” Mariabeth's soft voice cut off both Jimjoy and Elias.