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212
JANET MORRIS
saw nothing, forced down with his nose in the dirt and
Bitsy's struggling form shuddering beneath him so that the sobs which wracked
Mistral seemed as loud as the whine of the approaching multidrive defying
gravity.
Thome's knee was in the small of his back, but he thought only that Chaeron
had not dealt fairly with him.
Gagging on dust, he felt his arms wrestled behind him.
The flares of lightning become a steady, blinding glare.
He wished that he had not betrayed the man he loved above any other, then he
wished only for whatever punishment was going to be immediately forthcoming.
He had never meant, or thought, to be part of the cap-
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ture of Jesse Thorne.
Thome sat calmly on the rumps of the two boys, watching the haughty Kerrion
descend the ramp of his multidrive. Below, beyond the boulder atop the sharp
slope. Hooker's encampment was silent save for the soft crackling of
cookfires. The horses' screams had ceased as abruptly as the men's
shouting when the vehicle swept over their heads, spraying its beam of sleep.
Jesse had learned a great deal from watching Kerrions.
He learned more from seeing Orrefors routed by tech-
nologies mightier than their own. He had learned that there was nowhere to run
where the magic of science could not find him. Hooker wanted to run to the
stars, but even that would not be far enough. ... He waved companionably to
the unarmed, enchanter-clad Kerrion potentate, saying in Consulese: "I hope
you will take no offense that I do not rise." Under him, two young rumps
twitched.
The sibyl's consort smiled in their shared circle of daybright light, came
abreast of the boulder, put a leg up there and surveyed what his magic had
wrought below.
"I could have done this three months ago, if not for you.
You and I need to talk. Let the children go. If we cannot find some common
ground for negotiation, you can walk away to whatever cave you choose. I can't
use you against your will."
Jesse shrugged, stood. The boys scrambled up spitting dust and smearing muddy
tears on pale cheeks. "Wait in
213
EARTH DREAMS
the transport," Chaeron snapped, quelling Bitsy's ex-
cuses and Pope's taciturn disclaimer of responsibility.
"He is telling the truth," the proconsul remarked ab-
sently, watching the boys stumble toward the multidrive's open maw. "I used
him to decoy you long enough to get a clear shot at Hooker. Popi* would die
for you."
"As Tempest did for you? I want nothing like that on my conscience. I just
want to be left alone."
"If you wish ... but hear me out, Commander, for just a few moments?" Courtly,
confident, calmly murderous.
Thome's heart beat fast, watching Shebat's husband perch on the boulder. One
rush, a push, and he would be rid of this particular harpy. But others, many
others, would come. The light from the multidrive illuminated him in sharp
relief, falling over his face at an angle that made him more than humanly
beautiful. "Go on, then.
Talk."
Tempest died for this man, purposely, purposefully, Thorne had no doubt that
in some obscure fashion the one person among the skyfolk whom he had been able
to understand had had good reasons. If he could not see them, that was a blind
spot in his own mental vision, come from staring at the brilliant face, in the
same way afterimages persist once a man has looked at the sun.
"Thome, I want to use you to bring about peace be-
tween the ground-dwellers and the 'skyfolk.' I'll let you tell me how you
think we can do it. Everything I have tried has not availed. You are an expert
in this area. I
can call on no one who understands Earth more fully. I
cannot spend the kind of time on this that I might wish.
It is simply a matter of benefit to your people: who could help them better
than you? Shebat assures me you are the man to do it. You are an Orrefors
heir, so 1 will bet on your innate abilities to adjust and improvise. I will
not cede you any ground or mandated holdings: your family lost this empire in
fair commercial battle. If Hooker has been filling you full of dreams of
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empires restored and bondkin reinstated, let me disabuse you of dangerous
fantasies at the outset."
"I'll be leaving, just as you said I might. . . ." Thome rose.
214 JANET MORRIS
Chaeron shrugged. "I cannot say I expected any dif-
ferent." He quit the boulder, started for his ship.
". . . Wait."
"As long as it takes. I know you are in your element, and you know I'm out of
mine."
"I want no talk of 'bondkin' or 'empires'. My alle-
giance is not for sale, or forgotten. I wish to rid the Earth of foreign
dominion by enchanters. If you let me go, I
will fight you until I die fighting you. You must know that."
"I have considered it. But since you waste only your own life, it is not up to
me to stop you. Surely you realize you cannot win, or even draw. You can only
lose. My society guarantees any man that right. I'd like to give you more, but
only my wife will be destitute if you refuse to be reasonable."
"That is a problem between us I regret. If not for my sins with her, we might
have "
"Easy there, big fellow. I was a trifle hurt when you two did not see fit to
include me in your fun, but I would hardly call a few nights "
"Is it nothing to you to be made a cuckold?"
"My wife and I have an alliance, a marriage, a profit-
sharing arrangement, and some stock majorities in com-
mon. Free will is another item. Although I would dearly like to know how you
renamed her, who considers pas-
sion an evil to which she merely succumbs . . . ?" He trailed off, snapped his
fingers, shaded his eyes and peered hard at Thorne, who could make little of
what was meant. "Now, you have done me a great favor, and I
feel obliged to return it. Ask one favor, any favor, for you have shown me
what it is my wife sees in you. . . ."
He chuckled aloud. "And I assure you, I hold no grudges. She is free to sleep
where she will, as am I. H
that drove you to Hooker, it was unnecessary. And as foi your imprisonment and
escape, I have reviewed the slates, and see for myself that you shot Rizk, who
would have corrected the false impression that / had died, mak-
ing Tempest's sacrifice useless and perhaps ending my own life, to which I am
very attached, as it were. Are you not tired of running? Let me exonerate and
enlist you, man, and you can do a lot of good for the people
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EARTH DREAMS
you say you have dedicated your life to helping. Other-
wise, they lose their best chance with yours. . . ."
"A favor, any favor? Give back what has been lost to
Cluny, to every ruined farmer whose faith is rent. Make the false oracles tell
true, and the world right with the gods."
Chaeron-sighed. "No one can give you back your gods, I am afraid. Shebat's the
best we've got. As for Pope, I
cannot abrogate his rights of citizenship, even in order to prove to you that
I mean what I say. He is free to do whatever he wants, and as far as I know,
he wants to become an intelligencer like Tempest. He thinks he can help bring [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]