Authors: C. J. Cherryh
The rock fall and its earthshaking thunder played over and over in memory. He felt an unaccustomed fear, and thought that, on this occasion, Ian could have been right about the rocket, but Ian was 2 4 6 • C . J . C h e r r y h
not right now. Ian and his trucks or an arriving column of riders could not be fast enough to rescue them.
And knowing that Ian and Auguste were likely engaged in debate on his case, he did what he rarely did: he tapped into the dialogue.
“Marak,”
Ian said, recognizing his arrival.
“Where are you now?”
“I thought you knew.”
“In general, yes, well down off the ridge, not taking advice from anyone. Give up this chase, Marak, in all friendship. Your position is growing far too precarious.”
“Once the sea arrives, very much too precarious. This whole expanse of cliffs is fissured and apt to give passage to water going toward the gorge, Ian. A section of the cliffs just gave way in the last quake. All our arguments aside, we are not safe here. We need the beshti now to get ourselves and the boys out of here, back toward the Plateau.”
A small silence. Ian was considering his argument.
“If it’s that
dire, go down now, do you hear me? I can send a plane to the basin.”
“I have young men waiting up on the rim.”
“If you need rescue that badly, Marak, you and Hati. I can save you. If
it comes to that. Don’t refuse the thought. I can get you out, if you don’t
wait too long . . . or divert yourselves in a useless chase. Go straight down
now. I’ll send a caravan after the others. But get yourself and Hati out.”
Hati’s danger was, Ian knew damned well, the thought hardest for him to bear. He was hardly subtle.
“Save your plane, Ian. We shall find the beshti and get us all off the ridge, quite handily. Auguste has promised us a safe trail along the terrace. It saved us being in the path of a landslide just now.”
“A rocket is going out within the next hour to deliver our reserve relay
to Halfmoon.”
Doing what they had failed to do. What he had argued against, months ago. “I truly wish it luck.”
Luck, which a soft-landing in that place certainly needed. They had as well drop it from a height.
“It’s a spectacle out there, Marak, a long, long waterfall that ends in a
plume of spray. I have the transmissions from Concord and the satellite. I
hate to say, if you had stayed here and gone by plane in the first place, you
might have both seen it and gotten pictures.”
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 4 7
Ian tormented him. Ian had to make his point, even now, while he had empty space beneath his left foot and little sand-slips sliding down from every step the beshti made.
“Send out your rocket,” Marak retorted, and let fly his own annoyance. “Send your plane to the Wall and get your pictures. You were right, Ian, I entirely admit it. We shall not be there to see it.
We are here, on the face of this cliff, which is our just reward. But we deserve more help than we have gotten from the heavens in the last two days, do you hear me, Ian-omi? Now Brazis is saying Hati’s watchers will give Drusus relief tonight. By noon, tell Brazis so, I wish all my watchers back as they were. This is not a moment to indulge some foreign lord’s whims, and the threat to our camp does not take the night off because two men are tired. I ask you make this clear to him, Ian.”
“Marak, be patient.”
“Is there reward for us in patience? We had little warning of this event. Where was my warning, Ian? Was all-seeing heaven perhaps distracted from watching us, while it was watching this foreign lord?”
“You know the difficulties of prediction. Your position is between us
and the epicenter.”
“Excuses, Ian.”
“You cannot argue with physics.”
“I
can
argue with distraction and delay of information.” He grew angry much more slowly than Hati. He took far longer to let it build, but here, on this slope, after the ruin that had cascaded down to the basin, and with the gnawing thought that if he had managed better, and used Ian’s damnable wire-cored rope, he would not be chasing the beshti, his temper was very near the boiling point. “I find it remarkable that when we should have had some slight warning, Brazis was busy reassigning my watcher to this foreign lord, and he either has not explained to Drusus why this is, or has told Drusus to lie to me, promising me Procyon’s return soon, soon, soon, which has not happened yet.—Are you listening, Auguste? Ask Brazis when we will have his full attention.”
“Sir,”
Auguste protested.
“Do you wonder the same, Ian? Or do you by any chance
know
what Brazis is up to?”
2 4 8 • C . J . C h e r r y h
“This is a major event at Halfmoon. A great many people have been
distracted from routine. A great many people have changed shift.”
“Give me no excuses. I have every confidence in Drusus and Auguste and Procyon. But less now in Brazis, who seems to believe earthquake and flood will not happen once the sun goes down. Tell him what I say, Ian. Ask him why the heavens were sleeping when the quake came. Five seconds’ warning would have averted this.
Heaven has eyes and ears to see an event as it happens, anywhere in the world. The beshti foreknew it. Where were the watchers?
Why were we caught by surprise?”
“Because they have no ground sensors at Halfmoon. They relied on us
to get them there.”
That stung. It was even possibly right. But he was not willing to back off his argument. “They have their lasers. They measure the earth. They keep their watch. I want better information.”
“They will have better information soon. Our warning margin has
greatly improved with the new relay. It will become much better with
the next.”
“Granted your rocket survives.”
“I have a greater concern for your survival, Marak. You and Hati are
far too valuable to risk. Give up this folly. The beasts may come up to the
camp on their own once they see the water advance.”
“The forecast, have you heard, is fog and rain. The terraces are a maze. The water is coming, the cliffs are apt to give way, and if the beshti have any sense, they will take out running, away from the flood and away from us, across the pans. They may even make it, but we may not, without them. I do not choose to go up to camp without trying and hope for the cliffs not to fall down, Ian. I do not, to be honest, trust your planes. Sometimes they fail to take off, once they land in that much dust. And never suggest to me that we abandon those boys in camp and get ourselves to safety.”
“As a last resort, Marak. If you should be trapped. I shall send a plane
out, when the flood comes nearer, as a last resort.”
“We are not that far from the beshti.” This was not quite admitting that their fugitives were well down on the next series of terraces and out of sight. “Another day, Ian. No need of your airplane or the risk to the pilot. The water is coming, but it is not coming that fast.”
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 4 9
“Not coming that fast
yet,
Marak-omi.”
“Only give me heaven’s undivided attention and all my watchers, Ian!”
“I promise you, I promise you I shall talk to Brazis about the situation.
Do what you can.”
“Do this. Call my camp. Advise the boys leave the other relay, pack up only essentials and short canvas, and move back down the ridge. Tell them move day and night, by what stages they can, and stay in touch by hand radio. If we have to overtake them well to the east, so much the better.”
“You agree you will not attempt to continue this mission to the Wall.”
“I admit it. I admit it, Ian. I know it pleases you greatly. I shall gather the boys and retreat to the Plateau.”
“I’ll call them with that instruction. Meanwhile, Marak, in all good regard—take care. Don’t take chances. And remember the airplane.”
“I hear.” Broken sandstone from the edge rolled down the sandy face below him. But the footing looked solid, and led out onto un-fissured rock. His temper improved, the ledge proving solid. He had made provision to get the boys to safety. He had admitted to himself and to Ian that they were not going on from here, no matter if he recovered the beshti in the next hour. “Keep me advised, Ian. And, mind, tell Brazis, in the strongest terms, better warning, and no more excuses.”
H A I R , N A I L S —Mignette wanted a makeup tattoo, but she couldn’t make up her mind about the style or the shade, so she tried out a look instead, glowy green cat-eyes—she’d gotten cosmetic contacts—and a slinky black bareback blouse with fringe that sparkled. Soft boots that matched the blouse. Deep red hair with blazing coppery highlights.
And she felt good. She felt
good
and alive for the first time in her whole life. Noble liked what he saw, no question, and they linked hands and walked down the Trend, part of the scene.
They were quiet, compared to some. She studied the nodding plumes she saw, wondering how much, and where, and if she dared be that extravagant immediately. The Trend could be cruel.
Though there was something to be said for daring.
2 5 0 • C . J . C h e r r y h
But they passed for Fashionables, now, she and Noble, and she was really, truly, classy Mignette, who didn’t overdress, who, if anything, kept it understated and dark, except the dramatic eyes, the shagged hair with the V-cut bangs. She’d tentatively begun a Look of her own, and she was increasingly sure it would be black, with green eyes. Maybe she’d do the hair deepest black, then. She hadn’t decided. She was Mignette, but when she became a Stylist she might become Minuit,
midnight,
with pale skin—she’d change her complexion—and deep black dress, because most of the Trend didn’t have her looks, and simple was best. Her face was pretty enough not to need the shapers that turned so many people just too pretty and too regular to really carry a Style. Black was inexpensive, compared to matching colors. She’d learned that from the education she’d gotten. So she could have quality on not too extravagant a budget. She’d be Minuit. As for Noble, he was trying to afford a treatment to get rid of all his freckles.
He’d be far different without them, and maybe not better. She couldn’t imagine Noble without freckles, but that was what he wanted most, aside from fixing his nose and his chin and getting a fancy tap. He’d be creamy-pale, kind of an interesting face, if he got what he wanted, because his forehead was low, and his natural eyes were pale blue. That meant he could wear all kinds of contacts, down to dark, which he had on at the moment. He had on sexy black pants that showed off really good legs. A good silk shirt. He had nice, high cheekbones, from the start. If he went on, he wouldn’t be just Noble. He’d become Somebody, if he could maintain a good, clear imagination of what the shapers could do, and stuck to it, with real quality, no matter how he had to piece-meal the work.
Meanwhile they walked to the same music and watched the traffic where they walked, awed by the occasional Stylist, amused by those who tried to manage a Look, not that successfully.
A gang of juvvie sessions-dodgers watched them pass, wide-eyed. “Look at that,” one said. And, in awe: “Look at the
eyes.
”
They talked about
her,
not about Noble, who’d had far more practice down here, shaping a Look. Her first venture, and they talked about her, as if they might want to go buy the same item, even if it would be a disaster on their scrawny pale faces. They’d Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 5 1
do better to buy mods to fix their blotchy complexions and give up greasy snacks.
But she was
born
with good genes. She could get away with things. Her mother always said so.
And people down here who didn’t know she was her father’s daughter and important for who she was born to be—they just liked what they saw of Mignette, who was all on her own, with Noble, who was looking for Random, who was Mark, who’d phoned that he’d dodged out again, Tink, who was Denny, still being with the youth authorities, Random supposed, though in-correctly—they’d had one contact with Denny, who was lying low.
But at the moment Random was living up to his name, and they hadn’t found him, constantly just missing him, so the phone calls indicated. They were afraid to stay on too long. She was sure her parents were having the phones traced, so they used Noble’s card, but they didn’t press their luck.
They turned up Blunt Street, which they’d searched before on their intermittent quest. When they found Random, Noble said he would know him, being pretty sure at least what his Look would be, and Random could recognize Noble and probably even recognize her, expecting at least something different.
So they just walked the street, still flush with finance. She had her card, and, just the way she’d figured her father, he’d gone all softhearted and extended credit bit by bit to his one and only daughter, worrying how she’d get along. He’d go on extending it.
He’d hope she’d call. She would, tomorrow.
Papa needn’t worry. Noble said he had a friend who’d let them sleep over in a safe place, upstairs of Michaelangelo’s.
She was going to do it with Noble tonight, if they didn’t find Random. With Noble, who was older than she was. She really was going to do it, if they turned up alone in a room in Michaelangelo’s, and she thought maybe Noble wasn’t
that
anxious to find Random, having ideas of his own. She knew just how it would play out. She’d made a few decisions for herself. Finally. And her mother couldn’t stop her.
8
B L O O DY H E L L , was Brazis’s opinion of the entire damnable situation. He sat at his desk and punched physical keys on one of two secure consoles that could direct and redirect the taps. He more than canceled the security hold on Procyon’s tap code: he keyed through a general permission, any relay, any contact, anybody that could possibly get hold of him, all over the station, was open to Procyon’s code.