“You can’t do that!” Ngenet straightened away from the hovercraft’s door, towering over her. “I’m a citizen of the Hegemony—”
“And required to obey me.” She lifted her head to glare back at him. “You’re a citizen of Tiamat, by your own choice. If that’s what you want, then you can live like one.”
“How am I supposed to run my plantation?”
“Just like any other Winter. Use a ship, deal with traders. You’ll get along fine, if that’s all you really need it for… Or would you rather take the trip to Carbuncle with us, and have your plantation electronically searched for contraband?” She watched him struggle against speech, and was gratified.
“All right. Take the vehicle. Just let me get my things.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
He looked back at her.
“I’ll drop you off at your plantation before I take the craft to Carbuncle… BZ, you’ll pilot the patroller home.”
Gundhalinu nodded; she saw some of his disappointment shaken loose in the motion. “You want me to tandem you, Inspector?”
“No. I don’t think Citizen Ngenet is going to do anything stupid. He doesn’t strike me as a stupid man.”
Ngenet made a sound that was not really a laugh.
“We might as well get started.” She bent her head grimly at the patrol craft It’s going to be a long trip.
“Yes, ma’am. See you in Carbuncle, Inspector.” Gundhalinu saluted and walked away.
She watched him get into the patrol craft watched it rise from the stone terrace of the quay. The sky was clouding over again; she shivered more violently. At least Carbuncle has central heating… suddenly longing for the touch of a warm wind fragrant with sillipha, the endless summer afternoon of her childhood on Newhaven. “Well, Citizen Ngenet—”
Ngenet reached out, his hand closed gently but firmly over her aching arm. She gasped, stiffening with surprise and sudden alarm.
“Ah,” as he held up his other hand in a cautionary gesture. He let her go. “I just wanted to be sure. The Summer girl hurt you, Inspector. Maybe you better let me see how badly.”
“It’s nothing. Get in.” She looked away from him, jaw tight.
He shrugged. “Feel free to be a martyr if you like. But it doesn’t impress me. As you say, I’m not a stupid man.”
She looked back. “I prefer to wait until I can see a medic at the star port
“I am a qualified medic.” He turned, pressed his hand against a seal on the side of the hovercraft. A storage compartment opened, but in the poor light she could not see what was inside. He removed a dark satchel, set it on the ground and pulled it open. “Of course,” he glanced up with a sardonic smile, “you’d probably consider me to be a vet. But the diagnostic tools are the same.”
She frowned slightly, not understanding, but let him take her hand and run the scanner along her arm.
“Hm.” He released her hand again. “Fractured radius. I’ll splint it temporarily, and give you something for the pain.”
She stood silently while he tightened and sealed the rigid tube of the splint around her arm. He pressed a small, spongy pad into the palm of her ungloved hand; she felt blissful nothingness begin to extinguish the fires up her arm, and sighed. “Thank you.” She watched him put the bag away, wondered suddenly whether he saw her as a gullible female. “You know this isn’t going to change my mind about anything, Ngenet.”
He reseated the compartment, said brusquely. “I didn’t expect it to. I was indirectly responsible for your getting hurt; I don’t like that. Besides” — he faced her again—”I expect I owe you something.”
“What do you mean?”
“For offering me a choice of the lesser of two evils. If that overeager sergeant of yours had his way, I expect I’d end up a deportee.”
She smiled faintly. “Not if you have nothing to hide.”
“Who among us really has nothing to hide, Inspector PalaThion?” He unsealed the hovercraft’s door, watching her with a faint smile of his own. “Do you?”
She circled the craft, waited until he unlatched the far door and settled in carefully. “You’ll be the last to know, Ngenet, either way.” She fastened the straps one-handed.
He said nothing, but went on smiling as he started the power unit. And all at once she was not so certain that he would be the last one.
13
“…So his presence there gives us reason to think the man may be involved in the interference with the mer hunts. I personally confiscated his hovercraft, though; I don’t think he’ll give your hunters much trouble without it.”
Arienrhod rested her head against the flower-fragrant pillow that protected her from the cold back of the throne; listened to the inspector give her tight-lipped report with much more interest than she allowed herself to show. She read the look the woman gave Starbuck as she finished speaking, and sensed more than saw his reaction to it. He had driven off the arrogant boot who was PalaThion’s assistant some time back, much to his amusement; she had enjoyed his graphic fantasies of what he would do to the woman if he had the chance. She had no particular interest in Starbuck’s past, but it intruded into the present in ways that sometimes surprised her… though he rarely surprised her in any way at all any more. “Who is this man, Inspector? Why didn’t you arrest him, if you knew he was guilty?” Her voice was sharp with the need to uncover a deeper mystery that shrouded Shotover Bay .
“I didn’t have sufficient evidence,” PalaThion said ritually, as though it was something she had repeated over and over. “Since he is an off worlder he’s under Hegemony jurisdiction in any case, Your Majesty, so his identity wouldn’t be of use to you.” Her expression became a shade more stubborn.
“Of course, Inspector.” And I can find it out easily enough, off worlder She glanced down at the foot of the dais, at the bright, burnished head of Sparks Dawntreader where he sat uneasily on the steps. She had sent the crowd of jabbering nobles away on the inspector’s arrival, and for the same private reasons had ordered the boy to stay. PalaThion had stared at him with astonishment showing. And Arienrhod had seen Sparks ’s body stiffen with what might have been pride as PalaThion bent her head in a brief acknowledgement of his new station. “Did you also see the Summer girl to whom this off worlder of yours gave a ride?”
PalaThion started visibly; she had not mentioned the girl. “Yes I did, Your Majesty.” Her left hand moved unconsciously to press the thin sheath of cast on her right arm. “But she didn’t stay to be questioned. She ran off with the smugglers when they made their break. They — got away from us, as you know,” she glanced down, “and they took her off-planet with them.”
“No!” Arienrhod pushed forward, the one word escaped between her teeth before she could trap it. Gone, gone… ? She loosened her fists, sat back again fluidly as she felt three sets of eyes move to her face. The inspector’s brown, deep-set ones narrowed with calculation; Arienrhod realized that she must have noticed the remarkable resemblance. But PalaThion only looked down again, as though she were unable to follow the suspicions through to any logical end.
“Do you know the girl’s name? I have reason to believe that she may have been a — kinswoman.” Let PalaThion make of that what she wished.
“Her name was Moon Dawntreader, Your Majesty.”
Expecting it, she kept her reaction under control this time, felt the surge of emotion sing inside her body. But below her the boy, hearing the name and understanding at last, dropped his flute. It rolled down from the step onto the carpet at PalaThion’s feet, soundlessly, leaving the silence of the hall perfect. PalaThion looked at the boy for a long moment before she looked up.
“I’m sorry this happened, Your Majesty.” She glanced at the boy again as she said it, as though she had realized there was some tie between them. “I — don’t think anybody meant it to happen that way.”