A blow to Grayson's chest sent him staggering back against the ruined console, where the warleader held him with the muzzle of his pistol held steady and level one meter from Grayson's left eye. "Singh! You animal!"
The shout had come from Grayson's right. Grayson turned, saw horror and anger and a death's-edge determination burned into Griffith's face five meters away. The Weapons Master was supporting himself on one blood-smeared arm, was holding a small automatic pistol in the other.
The warleader's gun fired first, three quick shots that split Griffith's straining face and opened new rivers of blood from the Weapons Master's throat and gaping mouth.
Grayson screamed mindlessly and threw himself forward. The warleader swung back to cover him, the machine pistol centimeters from his head. Grayson lurched to the right as the weapon struck him with a hammerblow of thunder and white pain. His body hit the floor an instant later.
5
Grayson was aware of sound before he felt the pain. There was a low and steady roaring in his ears, like surf against a rocky coast, but with a steady, rhythmic pulse that was maddening until he recognized it as the beat of his own heart. Somehow, though, the pain had lost its knife's edge. He hurt, but not as much. Not as much as what? He struggled with the idea, a vague sense of passing time, of horror and wrenching loss, but could not remember.
The pain receded somewhat. Encouraged, Grayson opened his eyes. He winced at the sudden glare, but managed to get them open and carefully survey his surroundings. He did not recognize the room. Bare plaster walls with chipped patches high up by the wood-beamed ceiling were close around his bed. A table, a clothes chest, chairs, and a mirror completed the list of furnishings. A narrow window let him see a patch of orange sky beyond dust motes dancing in a shaft of bloody light.
Light. It must be... daylight! The long night was over!
He sat up suddenly, then sagged back onto the bed, hands clasping his dizzy, pain-wraeked head. His head was wrapped in bandages, he found. Someone had carefully tended what was obviously a fairly serious head wound.
A door opened somewhere behind him, and Grayson sensed someone enter the room. "So, awake at last! I thought I heard you yell."
Grayson didn't remember yelling, but decided anything was possible with his head feeling as it did. He turned slightly, and focused on the speaker.
The man was a young Trell, somewhat shorter than Grayson's lanky stature, and stockier, with wide, stubby-fingered hands that were stained with grease. He had the pale skin of a native Trell, which looked even paler next to the unruly black hair and deep, dark eyes. He wore a casual, knee-length tunic, white except for a triangular shoulder panel that caught the red light in shifting patterns of warm color.
Grayson's eyes went back to the Trell's face. Recognition clicked somewhere behind the ache in his skull. "I know you! Ah... Claydon, isn't it? Right! Senior Astech Claydon. You were on Riviera's team!"
Claydon inclined his head with a wry smile. "At your service, Lord, though I can hardly admit to the title anymore. That's not exactly healthy now."
"Not... what? Why?"
Claydon jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the window. "It's not safe to admit to being one of the offworlders' pets. Not any longer."
Grayson wrestled with that concept for a while, then let it go. He decided to concentrate on more immediate questions. "Where am I?"
"My father's house, of course. I brought you here after the attack."
"Your... father?"
"Yes. Berenir is his name. He's a merchant. He's done business with you folks. Doesn't share the local prejudice against you offworlders. He's the one who got a doctor to come in and tend your wound."
Grayson touched his bandaged head. "Then I have you and your father to thank for saving me."
Claydon grimaced. "You'll be able to show your thanks by getting well and out of this house and away from here. If the neighbors knew we had YOU here.
"What makes me so unpopular all of a sudden?"
"All of a sudden? What have you been using for eyes, Lord?"
Grayson ignored the bitterness in Claydon's voice. "Is it because of the Pact?"
"You ought to know that most Trells think Captain Carlyle was betraying them to Oberon. When word of the Pact got out, offworlders stopped being welcome around here."
Claydon's casual mention of Durant Carlyle brought tears to Grayson's eyes. Memories flooded back unbidden, memories of the battle with running, black-clad figures in the smoke-filled Vehicle Bay, of the horror of that instant as an enemy Marauderpainted with the slit-eyed emblem descended toward his father's 'Mech.
Emotions clamored within him, a mix of grief, shock, and loss. "My father is dead," he mumbled.
"I know. I think they all know... now."
"It wasn't his idea... the Pact, I mean."
Claydon shrugged. "It's all the same. He was the leader up there in the Castle. The people looked to him, and when word came that we were being given over to those filthy bandits..."
"Who told you about that, anyway?"
Claydon shrugged again, and said nothing. Grayson couldn't tell if he didn't know or wasn't telling.
Betrayal. And more betrayal. There had been enemies among the Castle workers, that much was certain. Grayson remembered the astech Stefan standing at the black-garbed warleader's side, pointing him out to the enemy. Perhaps Stefan had been the one who had leaked word of the Trellwan Pact to the people of Sarghad. Grayson remembered now that the first anti-Commonwealth student riots had begun shortly after the last batch of astech recruits had arrived at the Castle, and Stefan had been among them. Grayson had been one of those assigned to guide them through their physicals and indoctrination lectures.
Grayson felt a cold, growing resolve. That was ONE traitor he would find before he left this dustbowl planet And after he found the man, he would kill him. If the Trell had set up the attack on the Castle, he must be involved with Durant Carlyle's ambush and death as well. It begged too much of coincidence to think that the pirate landing at the spaceport and the assault on the Castle were unrelated.
There were still so many unanswered questions. Who had laid this extensive plot? If it had been Hendrik of Oberon, then why? His thoughts circled back to a groove in his memory. Who was responsible for killing his father?
Grayson held his voice rigidly in control. "So? Why'd you save me?"
Claydon went to the window and leaned against the sill, his face and tunic catching the red-hued sunlight. He spoke quietly. "I went up there looking for Sergeant Riviera. He was... a friend. A good friend. He taught me everything I know about teching."
"I know he spoke highly of you," Grayson lied. Master Tech Sergeant Riviera had been a hard man to know, and Grayson had never been very close to him. Certainly, the Lance's senior Tech would not have discussed the performance of a member of his staff with anyone but the Captain, not even the Lance Captain's son. Grayson did remember a scene he had happened to witness one day in the Repair Bay. The dark-skinned Riviera stood with his hand on Claydon's shoulder, an expression of complete and relaxed patience on his face as he explained some arcane twist of 'Mech circuitry to his protege. Most of the unit's staff Techs relied on the astechs as raw muscle power and little more, acting the part of overseers more than mentors.
Evidently, Sergeant Riviera had subscribed to a markedly different philosophy.
The astech paused, then turned to face Grayson. "I wasn't in the base when the attack took place. That's what saved me. I was here, at home, on a 60-hour pass. But we could see the battle at the port even from down here, and pretty soon we could tell the Castle was under attack too.