Ian’s eyes widened with fear. A murrain, a dread disease, spreading over all the whole duchy! Cattle wasting away and dropping dead in the fields—perhaps people, too! He bowed his head, and squeezed his eyes shut against tears as the feeling of guilt within him grew, gaining strength. “One of the Sacred Places of the Old Ones”—was that the strange “Safety Base” into which he had strayed? And how, then, did Milord Murthren know of it?
But the voices faded away. When Ian could no longer hear them, he started to get up—but Gar’s hand fell on his shoulder, holding him in place. Ian froze, then looked questioningly at Gar. The freelance laid a finger across his lips again, head cocked to listen.
Perhaps ten minutes longer they stayed in their places. Then Gar rose slowly, and Ian, with a sigh of thanks rose with him. His legs tingled as the blood flowed back into them. He stretched sore, stiff muscles, then looked up to find Gar gazing down at him quizzically. “So that was your crime! ‘One of the Sacred Places of the Old Ones’! That great stone egg in the center of the meadow—was that it?”
Ian nodded, unable to speak.
Gar chuckled, shaking his head. “What superstitious fools, to fear such places!” he said. “Though I’m sure the lords cultivate the rumor. I know someone who sheltered in an Old Ones’ place himself once, when his side lost the battle and the enemy was searching for him. He told me that the guardian spirits the Old Ones left are gentle to those who claim their protection—and if they laid a curse upon him, it was a strange one, for he lived well, and longer than many soldiers I have known.”
He looked about him, sniffing. “I smell dawn coming.” He turned away. “Come, Ian! We must be out of this forest before the sun rises.”
Ian looked after him, then stumbled into a run until he caught up with Gar. His legs seemed leaden with exhaustion, but if the freelance could push on, so could he. And within him, there was relief—if Gar had said it, it must be true. He need not fear the curse, nor the murrain upon Milord Murthren’s domain.
They came out onto the roadway as the sun peeked over the hills, and the sky was streaked with rose and gold. Gar looked around him, breathing deeply of the scents of the morning, then looked down at Ian. “We are nearly to the end of our journey,” he said. “Half a mile down this road is a town, and I know a man there who will shelter us and ask no questions.” He smiled, warm and friendly. “Let your head lie easy, my lad. Once you are dressed in my livery, no man will question you. You are twelve good miles from the edge of Lord Carnot Murthren’s domains. In fact”—he chuckled—“they are apt to think you are still hiding in the forest, not far from wherever you entered it.” He cocked his head to the side. “How long has it been since you ran away from your home?”
Ian started to answer, then stopped to think back. So much had happened… “Two days, sir. Two days, and two nights.”
Gar nodded. “Yes, they will still think you are very close to home. Lord Murthren must have been searching beyond his own borders, out of sheer frustration. Whoever would believe a boy of twelve … Ten? Very well, ten … could forge his way through the whole of the forest, alone and at night?” He turned away, chuckling again and shaking his head. “Come, lad. Beds and hot porridge await us—nowhere nearly such excellent fare as you had in the Sacred Place of the Old Ones, no doubt, but nonetheless most welcome after a long night of walking.”
Ian stumbled after him, sodden with fatigue, but with his heart lightened. Gar had proved that he had indeed spoken with a man who had been inside an Old Ones’ place—for how else could he have known what lordly meals the guardian spirits prepared there?
Indeed, Magnus had spoken only the truth, though the man he had spoken of had been a merchant, not a soldier—Oswald Majorca. It had been one of the many anecdotes Master Oswald had related, to break the ice with his new agents while giving them some idea of the culture that had grown up on this outpost of inhumanity. But he had heard of the Safety Bases before that, from Allouene. She had finished up the briefing aboard ship—even in H-space, it took two weeks to reach Taxhaven.
That was two weeks together, with no one else to buffer personality clashes, and the cracks in the unit began to show. Ragnar was growing impatient with Allouene’s occasional flirtations, especially since she never let him follow up, but always kept a wall of formality between them. Magnus kept the same kind of wall up from his side, too, so she spent larger portions of allure on him, the more so since, to all appearances, he wasn’t responding—at least, not as much as she wanted.
Inside, though, he was, and it was driving him crazy, and by that, he knew her for a flawed leader. She was trying to bind her male agents to her by sexual attraction, not stopping to realize that she was creating rivalries that must sooner or later tear the group apart.
She was certainly tearing Magnus apart. He had to get away from the woman for a while—either that, or become very much closer; but whenever he thought about that last, something would slam shut within him, leaving him distanced from all emotions.
Lancorn was alert to every flirtation, every nuance, and resented it more and more with every day. Relations with her commander became very strained; they started being coldly polite to one another.
In short, Magnus expected them to be at each other’s throats by the time they reached Taxhaven—as they probably would have, if it hadn’t been for Siflot.
He always had a kind word for everyone, a comment that would make them all suddenly feel absurd to have been resentful, some quip or antic that would make tension explode in a burst of laughter. Siflot was the buffer, Siflot was the peacemaker—but by the time they dropped back into normal space and Taxhaven showed a discernible disk, even he was beginning to look frazzled. Magnus wasn’t surprised—the chafing of others’ emotions must have left him seriously abraded.
Siflot took refuge in playing his flute—a slender stalk that he carried hidden somewhere in his clothing. He hid himself away, either because it was a very private thing or because he knew that the lilting notes, sometimes shrill, could grate on others’ nerves. Presumably he played in the privacy of his own cabin—no one would have known; the walls were soundproofed—but their cubicles were claustrophobic, so Magnus wasn’t surprised, in his rambles through the bowels of the ship, to hear flute music drifting out of a darkened corridor now and again.
He rambled for the same reason that Siflot played music—to release tension, and to get away from the others for a little. He was sure Siflot felt the same needs, so whenever he heard the skipping notes coming out of the dark, he turned aside.
But as the disk that was Taxhaven swelled in their viewscreens, the thought of taking on a whole world began to make their personal conflicts seem unimportant, and they settled down for the last of the briefing.
“Why hasn’t the D.D.T. done something about this place before now?” Lancorn demanded. “They’ve had more than a hundred years since they killed off PEST!”
“The Taxhaveners got to liking their life as petty tyrants,” Allouene explained, “and as the economy of PEST ground down under its reactionary, isolationist policies, the lords sold off all their Terran Sphere assets and moved everything to Taxhaven. The last few out did a very thorough job of burying the records—not hard to do, considering that there had been no official communication for five hundred years. The Interplanetary Police Force knew there was some kind of smuggling going on, but they were very firmly discouraged from pursuing it, so Taxhaven stayed buried in their files. The only trace of it was a standing joke that you’ve all probably heard growing up—‘I’ll get so rich that I’ll move to Taxhaven!’ ”