Pohaku's expression told me he shared my viewpoint. He spared the time to shoot me a nasty sneer, then turned to my "troops" and snapped, "E hele!" The fire-team took off at double-time, with Pohaku picking up the rear. Kono was there, too, and she gave me what could have been a smile of sympathy. But then she was double-timing it after the combat troops as well.
Akaku'akanene was still hanging back, waiting for me. The shaman hadn't slapped on any armor or picked up any weaponry; apparently, she was content with her shapeless sack of a dress. She turned to me and gave me a gap-toothed smile.
Wonderful. Moral support from someone who talked to geese. I turned and jogged after the receding backs of me military types.
Out onto the apron we went, and I saw my contingent piling aboard a Merlin, a tilt-winged VTOL built along the same lines as a Federated-Boeing Commuter, but much smaller. I glanced back over my shoulder. Akaku'akanene was bringing up the rear, but at her own casual pace. The Merlin was already spooling up its engines, and I considered yelling something to hurry the old scag up…
And that's when I froze in my tracks. Not my idea-every goddamn muscle in my body seized up on me at once. I teetered for a moment on one foot, then started to overbalance as the vulcanized composite of the apron began to swing up toward my face.
In that instant my muscles unlocked again, and I did the kind of broad, lurching recovery that you expect from circus clowns. Cursing under my breath, I looked around me, knowing what I'd see.
There he was, just as I expected. Quinn Harlech, or whatever the frag his name was. He was cloaked in shadow… even though the section of the apron he stood on was well lit. He was wearing some kind of military uniform, but a couple of decades out of date. If his grin had been any broader he'd have swallowed his pointy ears as he swaggered up to me.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Akaku'akanene was a few meters behind me, looking madder than a wet cat. She was frozen in midstride, precariously balanced on the toe of one foot and the heel of another. She could still breathe, but she didn't have any fine muscular control of her throat or mouth-I knew that because her attempts to curse and bitch came out like, "Aaaaargh, aaaargh!"
Quinn Harlech took a step toward me, and instinctively I tried to bring my shiny spanking new Ares HVAR to bear. No luck. I could still breathe-thank the spirits for major favors-and I could still keep my balance, but I couldn't zero the assault rifle on the elf's chest. Momentarily, I considered butt-stroking him across the face with the rifle stock… and instantly the muscles I'd need for that move seized up on me, too.
"All right, already." I snarled. "What?"
Harlech smiled, but it wasn't the self-confident expression I remembered from our last encounter. If anything, he looked like some teenager trying to explain to his dad how he'd "creased" the family 3220 ZX. "Gerelan-o ti-makkalos-ha, goro," he said. "Forgive my stupidity, Mr. Montgomery." He shook his head. "I misunderstood. It's been long"-he frowned-"very long, since I mistook matters so badly."
Again I tried to bring my rifle into line. Not so much because I wanted to cut him down, but just to see if I could.
I couldn't.
"What the frag are you talking about, you slot?" I demanded.
Harlech shrugged uncomfortably. "I misjudged you, Mr. Montgomery," he said. "I thought you were a destabilizing influence. Instead, you were striving to stabilize the situation. I misinterpreted your place in the zarien. Do you understand?"
"Actually… no," I told him.
"I was striving to eliminate a force that supported the se-curo ja-rine" he said earnestly. "The Chaos. That's what I thought you were. In fact, my actions might well have precipitated the se-curo ja I was trying to prevent. Will you forgive me, goro?"
I shook my head slowly. "Maybe," I said. "If I ever understand what the fragging hell you're talking about."
"Let me help put things right." Harlech reached out toward me, a gesture of pleading. "I can, you know. Let me come with you."
And that's when I laughed. "You've got to be farcing me."
His monoblade-sharp blue eyes flashed. "I know things you'll never know, Mr. Montgomery," he said softly, insinuatingly. "Do things you'll never be able to do. Things you can't succeed without."
"Then I'm fragged, aren't I?" I shot back, my voice harsh. "I'd rather French-kiss a fragging juggernaut than trust you, slot."
I could feel the elf's sudden anger, like a static charge in the air around me. But then I felt him willfully suppress it. "At least let me accompany you," he said reasonably, gesturing toward the Merlin.
"Frag you," I told him. "You try to get on that bird, I'll have you cut down in your tracks."
Harlech lowered his head, glaring up at me from beneath his dark brows. In that moment I felt real fear. "Do you really think you can do that?" he whispered.
From the corner of my eye I saw Akaku'akanene, still struggling against the magical control immobilizing her. "Maybe not, Quinn," I said conversationally. "But what do you want to bet? Are you willing to bet your life that you can control me and the soldier-boys on that bird… and keep her from tearing your liver out?" I gestured with my chin toward the Nene shaman. "Do you want to bet on that, Quinn?"
I watched as the elf's eyes narrowed, and my gut churned with the conviction mat he could manage it. But men his frown eased, and he shrugged lightly. "A point to you, my friend," he said. "But you will find it difficult to keep me away from Haleakala, you know. I will be seeing you again."
Harlech turned away, his old-style camouflage coat flaring behind him like an abbreviated cloak. Again-out of a sense of completion, if nothing else-I tried to bring my assault rifle to bear.
My muscles worked this time, for a wonder. My finger touched the trigger, the sighting laser burned, a ruby firefly tracked across to rest on Harlech's spine…
And in that instant he changed, momentarily shifting into an extended prismatic after-image. An instant later, he was gone as if he'd never been.
With an effort I backed off on me trigger, a gram or two before it broke. Something told me that hosing down a Hawai'i National Guard base in the middle of the night wouldn't be the smartest thing I'd ever done.
24
Pohaku, Kono, and the military team were looking a tad edgy by the time I climbed aboard the Merlin, but I wasn't about to explain to them what had kept me. For that matter, Akaku'akanene was acting a mite testy, too, but I wasn't really in the mood to talk to her either.
The Merlin was set up as your standard troop carrier, with basic sling seats bolted to the fuselage on both sides, facing inward. Clambering up the ladder, I saw one empty seat, up forward-beside Alana Kono, as a bonus-so I excused my way past the troops and slumped down into the kevlar fabric. I buckled up the four-point harness and then stashed the assault rifle under my feet, hooking its sling onto a retention bolt. In my peripheral vision I saw Akaku'akanene giving me a solid dose of stink-eye as she buckled in toward the tail of the plane, but I made sure not to make eye contact.
Someone outside folded up the ladder, before slamming and locking the hatch. The engines ran up, a howling turbine shriek that came right through the fuselage and drove into my ears like icepicks. The Merlin bobbled and shook, and men lifted up, up and away.