Through it all, though, Laneff zlinned something familiar. Gen. She ran, augmenting, leaving Jarmi far behind.
She came even with Azevedo as he breasted the double row of Simes across the alley mouth. Cutting through the cordon, she zlinned the Gen nager. Not Shanlun. Yuan!
Azevedo, too, had made that identification. "Desha!" he called over his shoulder, running down the alley. The close, damp stone walls framed Yuan, cloaked from hair to boot tops in a forest-green and chocolate Householding cape, woven with heavy insulating fabric. He was swaying on his feet, facing the two Simes who'd jumped down to challenge him.
Unable to muster the strength to speak, he crumpled to the ground —unconscious. Laneff arrived at his side just as Azevedo did, opening the cloak to find a bloody mess of a shoulder wound, pluming selyn– and roaring pain through Laneff’s raw nerves. The thrill of that washed the shock away, and she went hyperconscious, soaring into high intil and lusting after killbliss as she never had before.
The next thing she knew, with a rending shock, she was in Jarmi's arms, two channels shielding her from Yuan's pain. She barely had time to catch her breath when two more Simes arrived with a stretcher, and they bundled Yuan off into Thiritees, leaving only two Simes behind to explain to the gypsies.
Several anxious hours later, Laneff and Jarmi were called to the Thiritees infirmary. Laneff thought she had her reactions under control, more worried now about Yuan—and Shanlun—than about her own peaking need.
The infirmary was located on the top floor of a two-story addition to the building that stuck out at an odd angle to the bathhouse wing. It was painted inside in dozens of colors, with filtered lighting adding more color—like living inside Shanlun's nager. Speakers provided soft music and potted plants hung everywhere, flowering in many colors.
Azevedo came out of one of the rooms. He seemed tired but triumphant. "It wasn't as bad as it looked. The bullet went cleanly through his shoulder, nicked a tendon. But it should all heal very nicely now. He's lost a lot of blood. This must have happened three, four days ago. Laneff—you should take transfer before you try to talk to him."
She shook her head. "The longer I can delay, the better chance my baby has of being viable—when I die. It's not bad, now." She nodded to the two channels who'd worked to stabilize her. "They're good. Thank them for me."
Azevedo said something in the Rathor dialect, and the two channels responded politely. But he was zlinning Laneff the whole time. "All right," he agreed, "but they have to come in, too. I can't do it all." He seemed like a weary old man. Need is eating him up, too. He's waiting for Shanlun.
As they entered the sickroom, Azevedo muttered instructions to the two channels escorting Laneff. A sort of misty cocoon formed around her in the ambient nager. Jarmi was like the sun, hidden in a fog just tattered enough to show a glowing disk. Yuan was another diffuse center, like the moon.
Two channels flanked by their Donors attended Yuan, one on each side of the high wicker-frame bed. A wicker nightstand held a lamp, lit because the drapes were pulled shut. There was a pitcher of a dark fluid by the bed. The whole room was done in shades of orange and cream. Yuan was propped up against a huge pile of pillows. "Laneff!" His eyes slowly refocused. "Jarmi!"
"Yuan!" they said in unison, then Laneff asked, "What happened?"
Azevedo added, "We all want to know everything, but now isn't the time for details. Is there anything we must know now?"
Yuan swallowed, thinking. "I don't know how to say this. I think– I'm not sure, understand—but I think Shanlun is dead."
The silence in the room broke as someone translated for those who hadn't understood Yuan's Simelan dialect. And then the shock echoed even through the damping nageric fog.
Gradually, the story came out, amid many halts. Shanlun had found Yuan in the small depot which he'd chosen to go to if the first had been hit by the Diet. He'd gathered his lieutenants for a conference, taking stock of the losses which were still going on. His Distect forces, however, had given as severely as they'd gotten.
Even handicapped by their Sime contingent's being unable to operate out-Territory, the Distect organization had been able to cripple the nerve center of the Diet. Nevertheless, the Distect was in ruins. Top executives had been assassinated, funds were choked off, communications broken down.
"I told Shanlun to tell Mairis that the Distect was gone. I told him to tell Mairis that if they wanted me to, I'd come out in the open and repudiate our alliance with him in person. But I also told him I didn't think this would be a good idea. Given time, I can rebuild."
"There's been remarkably little of this in the news," said Azevedo. "The assassinations were attributed to organized-crime syndicates."
Yuan nodded, obviously hurting, but Laneff felt none of the pain. "And the rest of the violence has been reported as mysterious fires, explosions due to sewer gas, and they're calling my headquarters labs a sinkhole!" He frowned. "I've assumed Mairis has been requesting the media to downplay it. He is winning in the polls now."
"That depends on which poll you read," said Azevedo.
Laneff hadn't read any papers, and the building had no radio or television. "Yuan, what about Shanlun?"
"The Diet—I believe it was the Diet—hit us just before dawn, when he was about to leave. Everything went up in fire and smoke– one of my Simes killed, and I was too slow to stop one of our newest recruits from shooting him down. I pulled a burning timber off Shanlun, and we dragged each other away from the building. I'm not sure when I got shot. Somewhere, I passed out. When I woke up, I was alone. Some branches had been piled over me, and I was half buried in earth—though I expect my nager was plain enough to zlin. I hurt! All but three of my Simes were dead, and the others burned or suffocated in the basement of the farmhouse we were using. We were out-Territory, you understand; I shouldn't have had Simes there, but we really had no place else to go. Most of my Gens were dead, too. We took a lot of those shendi-fleckin' Diet lorshes with us, but we're effectively dead now. That was all the rest of my leadership! I should have died with them!"
Denial rung in Azevedo's nager, but he said nothing until Yuan looked up at him. "Shanlun wasn't among your dead?"
"Not that I could identify. He's the crazy hero type. He might have gone back into that building. Burned like that, there's no way we could have identified his body. He wasn't even wearing his House-holding jewelry!"
"I don't believe he's dead," said Azevedo thoughtfully.
"We have to face facts," said Laneff, gritting her teeth. "He's probably dead—or, worse, prisoner of the Diet!"
"I didn't think Shanlun would have just left me like that. So when I
couldn't find him, I hiked on down the road, across the border. Found some picnickers and stole the cloak—House of Gabriel, I think. Got to return it . . ." He trailed off into sleep.
One of the Gens took the glass from his hand, and silently they all left the room. "I imagine," said Azevedo out in the hallway, "Shanlun told Yuan how to find us here without realizing how badly Yuan was wounded, and then went on with his mission."
He's in need and wants Shanlun. It's wishful thinking. But everything in her cried out for it to be true. She couldn't bear to lose Shanlun after everything else. Yet another side of her, a self that seemed a stranger, said, It's better this way. Now, when you die, he won't suffer this. And the baby would live on after both of them.