“Oh, this is so wonderful,” she said. “I stink of the pens, of Ayam, of the potions the philterers filled me with before we boarded the boat.” She scooped up handfuls of silvery sand from the pool’s bottom and began to scrub vigorously.
Ruiz watched for a while, filling his eyes with her, which she didn’t seem to mind — in fact, her movements took on something of that flirtatious languor that he had found so compelling when she had bathed for the first time in the slave pen, the day they had become lovers. But now the circumstances were different, and while her body delighted his eyes as much as it had on that other day, he was too taut with anxiety to respond as he had then.
After a bit, he knelt by the outlet and scrubbed her clothes clean in the flow, as best he could, and then wrung them out and spread them on low-growing bushes to dry.
She smiled as though he had committed an entertaining eccentricity. “Thank you, Ruiz.”
He shrugged. “You’re welcome. Perhaps you’d do the same for me when I bathe.”
For a moment she seemed to regard his remark as an insult. Her nostrils flared, and she opened her mouth as though to utter some stern reproof. But then she saw that he was smiling, and her annoyance seemed to evaporate, and she laughed. “Why not? I must have a new trade in this new world, since I’m no longer a princess. Maybe I’ll be a washerwoman.”
“You’ll be the most beautiful washerwoman on Sook,” he said.
“Do you think so? Yet you don’t join me.”
“I wish I could, but what if a barge appeared at an awkward moment? If I were forced to suddenly choose between salvation and consummation, I fear I might be indecisive.”
“Oh,” she said, but her eyes were shining. “Well, at least I’ll be sweeter tonight than I was last night.”
“You were sweet enough for me last night,” he said.
When she was done, he stripped and scrubbed off as quickly as he could. From the corner of his eye, he watched her slosh his clothes about inexpertly in the little brook. When he put them on, they were soaking wet and not much cleaner than before, but he thanked her solemnly.
The Pharaohan men scurried toward the fountain as Ruiz and Nisa left the bower. Ruiz admonished them to be ready for swift action, and left them to their ablutions.
Ruiz spent the rest of the afternoon on the bank, listening for a barge, but giving most of his attention to Nisa, who sat beside him, leaning against his shoulder. She spoke of her former life on Pharaoh, as she had done during the days they spent imprisoned in Corean’s apartments, but Ruiz detected a difference in her attitudes. Before, she had recounted the wonders of her father’s palace with great pride. Now her recollections were apparently diminished by the new knowledge she had acquired — it was as if she looked back through the wrong end of a telescope, so that everything she remembered was smaller and grubbier, compared to the things she’d seen since her capture. And yet… her wistful affection for the things she had lost was more obvious than ever, as though she no longer took for granted those familiar pleasures.
As the time passed and the sun dropped lower in the sky and no barges appeared, Ruiz became increasingly tense. Finally he decided he must prepare for the worst. If Corean had made the best possible time, she might well arrive within the hour.
He called the others over. “Listen,” he said. “There’s a chance that Corean may get here before the sun goes down. If not, we’ll be safe for the night — remember, the Shards permit no high-speed night travel on Sook. But… if she does arrive, we’ll have to be ready.
“I’m going to hide on top of the gate. I may get a clear shot. In any case, if Corean comes you’ll be on your own — run into the woods and try to get away.”
He sent Dolmaero and Flomel to the south side of the clearing. “You watch and listen — if you see or hear anything coming, shout. If Flomel gives trouble, pitch him in the canal.”
He gathered Nisa to him, held her tight, kissed her. “You and Molnekh watch from the north.”
She hugged him with all her strength, then went off without another word.
When the others were in place, he climbed the gate. He had some difficulty with the smooth granite, but the carving was sufficiently deep to provide a few handholds and footholds. He reached the lintel, then eased himself into the crevice between the reptile’s body and folded wing. He was high enough to see over most of the treetops; perhaps he would spot Corean’s airboat in time to give the others enough warning to scatter into the woods.
Ruiz Aw tried to find a comfortable perch, but was only partly successful. He was as ready as he could be. He tried not to think of anything but the satisfaction he would take in killing Corean.
Chapter 5
Ruiz Aw’s emotions ran along a steep curve. At first they plummeted into fatalistic despair, as he waited for Corean’s airboat. But as the sun dropped toward the horizon and she did not come, his hopes flared up brightly. One more night; was that too ambitious a favor to ask of his luck? He began to believe it might not be.
He was so involved in this fantasy of delayed destruction that he didn’t react for a moment when Molnekh shouted.
“What?” he yelled back.
“Something’s coming!” The tone of Molnekh’s shout wasn’t entirely joyful, however.
Ruiz took one last look up toward the pass. No sign of Corean. He crawled out of his hiding spot, to discover that his legs had gone a bit numb from his uncomfortable perch.
He reached the ground without falling and hobbled toward Molnekh and Nisa at his best speed.
Corean paced the control blister of the survey sled she’d borrowed from her starboat. “Can you push this thing no faster?” she demanded of the creature who sat at the controls.
The pilot turned to her, opened his catlike mouth in a parody of a smile. “Yess, misstresss. We can go fasster. If the Shardss are watching, as they alwayss are, we can become a lovely flaming comet for about, oh, ssix hundred meterss. But then I fear we’ll sstop.” His eyes glittered with appreciation for his own wit.
She made no answer — she had learned to accept Lensh’s sarcasm as the price of his service to her. Apparently such insolence was a hard-wired part of his enhanced feline-based brain — not even the Gencha could root it out, without impairing Lensh’s intelligence and effectiveness.
Of course she knew that the Shards were watching. Sook’s alien owners enforced their peculiar rules with astonishing rigor. They prohibited certain modes of travel, large warships, large military units, nuclear weaponry, and many other useful elements of modern warfare. From their orbital platforms, they punished transgressors instantly and severely.
Occasionally this was inconvenient. On the other hand, were it not for the Shards and their unreasonable proscriptions, the pangalac worlds would long ago have exterminated the criminal enterprises that now flourished so vigorously on Sook.
“Patience,” Corean said to herself.
Beneath the sled, the pink veldt flowed past. The blue mountains where Ruiz Aw had wrecked her airboat were still only a smudge against the horizon — and the sun was very low. They would never get there by dark, and the survey sled was unequipped for the slow ground-level travel the Shards allowed after dark. She would be forced to land, and so Ruiz Aw would have to wait until the morning for his reward.
For a while Corean lost herself in pleasant visions of what she might do to that troublesome person. Ruiz had stolen her boat and several of her most valuable slaves, had killed two of her most useful henchmen, had almost murdered poor Marmo. Marmo was in the cargo bay now, being attended by Lensh’s littermate, Fensh. A medical limpet was busy healing the scraps of flesh that remained to him, and Fensh was directing a repair mech in the replacement of Marino’s damaged mechanisms. Corean cursed herself for a sentimental fool. If she hadn’t stopped to pick up Marmo’s wrecked chassis, and then had to backtrack to find his missing power cell, she’d have reached the wreck well before dark.